. The BBC is a prime cheerleader for those who seek to use “climate change” as a convenient excuse for limiting our freedoms. I notice it carries a glowing report this evening suggesting that the UK needs a “modal shift” from road to rail if greenhouse gas emissions from transport are to be curbed. The Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE) says changes are needed to government policies on transport pricing, energy and town planning. A train journey can produce about one tenth of the carbon emissions generated if the same trip is made by air. The report’s authors say substantial investment in the railways is needed. And as part of the war on motorists, we read Cliff Perry, vice president of IMechE’s Railway Division and a former head of Thameslink under British Rail declare “Eighty-five percent of transport emissions come from roads, so if we are serious about doing something, we must hit road transport.” I bet.
But since when did AGW become a fact rather than a theory? Why does the BBC continually imply that AGW is undisputed science? Government is determined to tax us for using our cars and this report, given all due prominence by the BBC, is just one of many designed to create the right mood music to help support what will be further strident impositions on the motorist who dares to travel without government approval. Doing Brown’s dirty work seems all they are good for!
Gog | 05.03.08 – 2:07 pm |
That multi-choice thingy is quite funny, but you evade completly the central point made by Vance, namely the IMechE’s statement assertion that “we must hit road transport”, and the BBCs obsession that AGW is all down to Greenhouse emissions.
Exactly. It’s a smokescreen to misdirect. Actually hillhunt doesn’t think that’s what it is, because he drank the Kool-Aid long ago. With Hillhunt we witness Groupthink in action.
Gog, David P:
That multi-choice thingy is quite funny, but you evade completly the central point made by Vance, namely the IMechE’s statement assertion that “we must hit road transport”, and the BBCs obsession that AGW is all down to Greenhouse emissions.
Either Mr IMechE said that or he didn’t… Wouldn’t you rather know he said that? Or should the BBC keep it from you?
Can you find a single place in the BBC piece which illustrates the BBC’s obsession that AGW is all down to Greenhouse emissions?
Or are you arguing that simply reporting a policy statement from the nation’s Mechanical Engineers is in some devious sense doing so?
.
Long distance travel on TGV is very, very good, however, short distance travel with SNCF French railway)and with RATP (French Subway) is abysmal.
In Germany DB is also very good with long distance journeys, again if you travel short distances it is hit and miss.
The Netherlands is rubbish for both short and long distance journeys.
France, Germany and Holland spend billion of Euro tax money on their railways, however once you get away from the high speed long distance routes, the train services are not punctual or cheap and are at the same level of service as the UK….BAD!.
I work for a multinational organisation and can honestly say that usage of the railways is a last resort for the large majority of my colleagues, indeed the first choice is normally a plane as it works out cheaper and a lot more realiable than the train.
For me the main issue is a little different:
BBC journalism test –
The Institution of Mechanical Engineers proposes “substantial investment in railways” because:
a) their members will receive lucrative research contracts and projects.
b) they love the environment and really wanted to study environmental sciences. But didn’t.
The Institution of Mechanical Engineers should not be questioned by responsible journalists because:
a) it is completely fair and unbiased.
b) it would never suggest anything to enrich its membership at the general public’s expense.
c) it has a press release which shares the view of the average BBC employee.
d) all of the above.
When it issues a major policy report, it should be:
a) examined carefully, presented fairly, and if a possible bias exists, a balanced view should be given of the alternatives.
b) cut ‘n’ paste direct from the press release to the BBC website.
Joe (The Netherlands) | 05.03.08 – 6:06 pm |
France, Germany and Holland spend billion of Euro tax money on their railways, however once you get away from the high speed long distance routes, the train services are not punctual or cheap and are at the same level of service as the UK….BAD!.
I work for a multinational organisation and can honestly say that usage of the railways is a last resort for the large majority of my colleagues, indeed the first choice is normally a plane as it works out cheaper and a lot more realiable than the train.
Yes, this matches my experience almost exactly. I no longer work for an international corporation, but I actually like taking trains, as it’s a bit easier. Also, I like looking out the window, no matter how many times I’ve been through a given area.
But I have sat immobile for four hours on a train from Brussels to Amsterdam because storm winds had once again knocked a tree onto a track or a power line or something. I took the cheaper local because somebody else was paying, and I didn’t mind. Meanwhile, two or three Thalys express trains flew past us, and the only info I got for the first two hours was one announcement in Dutch informing us that the train was not currently moving. Going from town to town in Belgium is usually hassle free, but forget going elsewhere unless it’s one of the big international deals.
Similar nonsense sitting immobile on the train to Colchester waiting for a freight train to get unstuck.
And don’t get me started on the Eurostar. I would still rather take it instead of planes because it’s easier (and because the airlines won’t let me take a couple cases of Grimbergen Optimo Bruno on board with me), but it seems like half the time an action technical has prevented the train from Paris coming in. That sort of nonsense will still happen even if the IMechE report is just innocently calling for more funds for the trains as some would have us believe.
Almost everybody else I know would rather fly, and laugh at me when I mention trains.
Hillhunt
“Either Mr IMechE said that or he didn’t… Wouldn’t you rather know he said that? ”
I’d rather this prick stuck to his supposed area of expertise, mechanical engineering, and didn’t pretend to be an expert on climate change, or try to clobber road users. So I’m really not bothered what Mr IMechE says.
“Or are you arguing that simply reporting a policy statement from the nation’s Mechanical Engineers is in some devious sense doing so?”
Not devious no, just a bit daft.
Since when has Mr IMechE, a mechanical engineer, been any more an authority on AGM than you or I?
Membership of institutions like the IMechE doesn’t really mean that much. Often it’s just a case of acquiring an accredited degree qualification and paying your subscription fee. In no way does it guarantee competence, so don’t expect any great wisdom from them in areas they nothing about, like climate change.
I’d also rather the BBC do not shove the climate change / AGM thing down unwanting throats at every opportunity.
Cliff Perry is one of a long line of AGM movement windbags that want to coerce others into believing in it, and there’s always going to be people that want to believe in it, so they go along with it.
Eventually such movements fall apart. The people that believed in this shit turn out to be fools, the people leading the movement turn out to be assholes and fools, so yet another movement comes along (this time renamed as climate change), yet more fools keep on following them… and on it keeps going.
Movements suck.
“Biased BBC: A test of our honesty
Hillhunt | 05.03.08 – 8:06 am | # ”
You failed it Hillhunt.
It is a myth that the rail network can accept a vast increase in traffic particularly of freight.It is already overloaded and is getting worse as the number of trains increases.The frequency of today’s intercity services would have seemed unimaginable in the steam era.Nostalgia for the Beeching era closed lines is mostly absurd.Nearly all of them were lightly used and built for dubious commercial reasons even at the time.The current network is almost exactly that built by the 1870s i.e lines that served a real need.The US railroads,particularly in the West are booming but freight only-passenger trains would just get in the way.We have the opposite situation and to pretend that freight can shift back to rail would mean drastically curtailing passenger trains or building brand new lines at vast cost.The modern truck is efficient and does the job.Take them away and the country seizes up and third world here we come.I know the green lobby dreams of a truckless future but it is just a dream.
The high command of the IMechE is as remote from its membership as Parliament is from the voting (and increasingly non-voting) public. Moreover, there may be a bit of inter-disciplinary rivalry here in that the beneficiaries of road-building are civil engineers whilst railway expenditure will require much more rolling stock and more work for mechanical engineers.
I am a former member of the IMechE.
Well there are a few things the Government could do to ease congestion and get people off the roads, here are a couple thoughts;
1. Complete the M1 so it runs all the way up to Leeds and beyond.
2. Increase the frequency and reduce the cost of public transport (not forgetting to police those new services so people will feel safe and want to use them!).
3. Get bloody trucks off the main trunks! I was driving up to Birminghom on Monday morning and for the love of allah, the amount of heavy trucks on the roads was absolutely amazing!
Use rail to move the bulk between main centres and use smaller, lighter trucks to ferry cargo around the local area!
Also, get those damned european trucks off our roads!
But yeah, gotta get those damned trucks off the roads!
Mailman
There was a study in the US some time ago that compared diesel trains with cars and concluded that the former was actually slightly less efficient.
The primary reason for this is weight. A train carriage must be built strong enough to be able to tow a large number of carriages behind it, each of which is also built strong enough to tow a similar number of carriages. Therefore, if you look at the subframe of a madoern carriage you will see it consists of long steel beams which are extremely heavy.
Another issue is cornering. When the locomotive corners it tries to pull the carriages directly across the apex of the turn, but can’t due to the tracks following a different route. Therefore there is a lot of friction from the wheels of all the heavy carriages being pulled against the side of the track.
The space alloted to each person in a carriage is actually much greater than the space allotted in a car.
The study found that the train was slightly more efficient than a car with one occupant, but as soon as you had more occupants in the car the efficiency was lower. However, the study pointed out that when you consider that a train takes you from C to D rather than from A to B, and heating of waiting rooms and so on, it was the case that on any one journey by diesel train was likely to be less efficient than a petrol car with a single occupant.
Electric trains are, of course, less efficient again, due to losses in generation and distribution.
Trains will only dissipate less CO2 if they are electric powered and the bulk of the electricity comes from nuclear power or green energy. In the meantime the diesel powered bus is easily the most CO2 efficient (which is probably why it is cheaper, even without government subsidy). So road beats rail whichever way you look at it.
Ryan, you really can’t go around saying things like that. Never confuse a BBC journalist by giving them facts, it only confuses them.
The BBC is convinced, like many NGOs, that rail is more effcient than road and has a lower carbon footprint. They don’t need facts they have seen ‘The Truth’