Philip Haigh
The Department for Transport is handing out grants to companies to develop schemes that aim to make the railway more environmentally friendly. PHILIP HAIGH examines some of the aspects that require special focus
Energy solutions.
TALK in late January of solar-powered trains conjured images of trains covered in panels. The reality, if it happens, is more likely to be lineside solar panels feeding into Network Rail’s overhead lines and third-rails.
Solar is the subject of one of ten research projects sharing a £3.5 million grant from the Department for Transport that aims to make the railway greener or improve stations. Of course, rail travel is already one of the most environmentally friendly ways to travel, according to a report into reducing rail’s carbon emissions published at the same time as the grants.
Under a team led by former Angel Trains chief Malcolm Brown, the rail decarbonisation report said there was no silver bullet to reducing rail’s emissions. But it emphasised making maximum use of the existing electrified network, noting that where it is costeffective, electrification is the most carbon-efficient power source. However, the process of erecting wires does delay and disrupt passengers, as those trying to use London Overground’s Gospel Oak-Barking line have recently found.
More detail comes from an RSSB report - Options for Traction Energy Decarbonisation.
Particularly useful to set context is a graph showing how different fuels produced different amounts of carbon (see below). Measured in kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalent per kilowatt hour, diesel weighs in at 0.83 with overhead electrification on 0.33 based on today’s mix of generating sources, falling to 0.16 if the mix expected in 2040 is reached. Diesel hybrid trains might reach 0.62 and advanced hybrids 0.5.
Brown hydrogen from reformation of natural gas gives a figure of 0.63, while brown hydrogen produced by electrolysis using today’s electricity mix is 0.8 - little different to diesel. Using 2040’s mix, this figure halves to 0.4. Using zero-carbon electricity (from renewable sources) brings ‘green’ hydrogen with no emissions.
With today’s technology, RSSB’s report reckons that only 75mph shorter-distance trains are suitable for conversion to hydrogen operation. For speeds above 100mph electrification is the only way to achieve zero emissions, it says.
For freight, there’s a prospect of green biodiesel that could be counted as zero-emission if suitable supply chains can be created where none exist today. Bio-diesel, argues RSSB, is the only practical answer for self-powered freight, but using bi-mode electro-diesel locomotives gives the option of only using diesel where there are no overhead wires.
I can’t see batteries being a realistic option for freight, judging by the RSSB report’s calculations. It estimates the weight of engine and fuel in a diesel locomotive as 36 tons. To get the equivalent from batteries, you’d tip the scales at 250 tons! And the 6.5m3 of diesel storage space would become 150m3 with batteries.
Meanwhile, the International Energy Agency suggests that aggressive rail expansion around the world could reduce emissions from transport, particularly if it takes advantage of renewable energy to run electric trains. It cautions that emissions from building new lines - particularly if they consume large amounts of steel and concrete from extensive tunnels, viaducts and bridges - must be taken into account.
Malcolm Brown’s team acknowledges rail’s overall ‘greenness’, but notes that down in the weeds of running trains and stations and of moving people and goods, there’s less emphasis on carbon management - which I’d translate into saying that rail companies are not being canny with their gas and electric.
Yet there is work going on to replace lights with LEDs that consume less electricity. Blackfriars station won plaudits a few years ago, when it was rebuilt to extend over the River Thames in London and had its roof equipped with solar panels. That’s a great step forward, but there’s more to do to cut waste and improve efficiency in stations and depots. Everyone appreciates a warm waiting room, but I’ve witnessed some that could double as saunas.
Of those ten DfT grant winners, a couple are looking to translate techniques used in road vehicles to rail, several look at using technology to improve passengers’ journeys through stations, and there’s the solar panels.
Porterbrook and South Western Railway are working to fit Eminox’s exhaust treatment systems, which they say are widely and successfully used on trucks and buses, to a Class 158 diesel multiple unit. They don’t expect the transition to be necessarily easy because exhaust temperatures from rail engines are higher than those found on road
vehicles, but the trio appear confident they can overcome this challenge.
Sticking with exhausts, Vortex plans an eightmonth trial (to start in March) to cut fuel consumption and reduce particulate emissions for a DB Class 66 locomotive, having developed similar systems for Class 156 diesel units.
The two are very different, with the EMD 710 engine in a ‘66’ being larger and running slower than the Cummins NT855 under a ‘156’ as well as being two rather than four-stroke. But anyone who has seen a Class 66 accelerating hard with a heavy load on its drawbar will testify to the smoke they can produce, so there’s surely scope for improvement.
Another grant recipient is Steamology Motion, a small company that plans to generate superheated steam from tanks of hydrogen and oxygen and then use the steam to drive a turbine to generate electricity. Quite what advantage there is inserting steam between the hydrogen and electricity isn’t clear when fuel cells can directly generate current from hydrogen, as Alstom and Eversholt plan with Class 321 conversions or Vivarail with its Class 230s.
Several of the station projects aim to make them easier to navigate. You don’t need to spend much time at major stations such as Birmingham New Street to realise how confusing they can be for travellers unfamiliar with them. Clearer signs would make a big difference, in my view. British Rail developed a very clear, bold typeface for signs, but Network Rail prefers lettering that I find harder to read.
Even at newly redeveloped stations, there’s evidence that wayfinding is not as good as it could be. I passed through London Bridge in early February and saw a family pushing a child in a wheelchair onto one of the station’s long escalators from concourse to platform. It was clearly difficult to hold the chair horizontal.
Meanwhile, the adjacent lift stood idle. The family had clearly not noticed it, or the sign above the escalator that said the lift was behind them. Perhaps if there’d been a queue of people at the lift’s doors, they might have noticed, but instead all they saw was people heading towards the escalator.
Would an app help? I suspect not. Would one of the grant recipients’ plans help?
One plans to “develop and integrate dynamic lighting technology with a vision system to create a new autonomous solution for improving customer experience at stations”.
DW Windsor, Digital Rail Ltd, Urban Control and the University of Nottingham call their proposed system PAWS, and plan to install it at Slough station on Great Western Railway’s network.
“PAWS will use lighting to help customers who need to use a lift, as they have a bike, pushchair or heavy luggage, by showing the route through the station using intuitive, temporary light projection,” according to its developers.
I’ll confess to being a bit sceptical. Would this help the family I saw at London Bridge? It’s clear that the station’s layout and signage misled them into using an escalator rather than a lift. But is the answer clearer signs, or some other technique? Then again, the point of DfT’s competition and grants is to see what works.
So, I’ll reserve my scepticism and wait to see what comes from the different trials. And I’m going to wait for the Rail Industry Association’s report into electrification costs in the hope that the railway can restore sanity to wiring project bills.
“That’s a great step forward, but there’s more to do to cut waste and improve efficiency in stations and depots. Everyone appreciates a warm waiting room, but I’ve witnessed some that could double as saunas.”