Friday Reads – 29 January 2021

On By In COVID, Electric Vehicles (EVs), Eurostar, Freight, Friday Reads, Logistics, Trams/Streetcars/LRT

• Eurostar bailout & the effects on Channel Tunnel freight (RailTech)

• All the (UK) Funiculars (JosephBrennan)

• Travel restrictions one of most effective pandemic responses – if they’re strict (NYTimes)

• President Biden will make entire 645,000 Federal vehicle fleet electric (Electrek)

• State using $4M from VW Dieselgate fine for EV charging stations (Boston.com)

• Requiem for the super commuter (CityLab)

• China opens 18 metro & two LRT lines in 11 cities (IntlRailJ)

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5 comments

  1. The funiculars piece is brilliant. Well observed and written, capturing our heritage from a visitor’s perspective. Great pictures as well. Thank you as always for posting, Long Branch Mike.

  2. The “Channel Tunnel” article only mentions “real” freight – long-distance freight – in passing. Which is a pity, because the tunnel should be carrying much more of it. The reasons for this are both complicated & “Financial”, as in charges levied on said freight. And probably too far off-topic to be discussed here.

    Again, the principal immediate effect of Pres. Biden’s announcement will be financial, but I would have thought it should really kick-start a more general move to electric traction.

    “All the funiculars”
    There is an annual publication by The Branch Line Society, which lists all the “Minor Railways” of the British Isles. This includes all the funiculars & “Cliff Railways”
    If memory serves me correctly, there are two more in Southend & Bridgnorth, for instance.

  3. A second recommendation of Funicular article (travelogue?). Half way through and already have a long mental list of places to visit.

  4. @GREG T
    @The “Channel Tunnel” article only mentions “real” freight – long-distance freight – in passing. Which is a pity, because the tunnel should be carrying much more of it. The reasons for this are both complicated & “Financial”, as in charges levied on said freight. And probably too far off-topic to be discussed here.

    China Clay from Belgium to Scotland is a decent distance, could go by sea though.
    The article is about the finances of Eurostar in peril, Chunnel is healthy and wins a lot of freight.

    “Again, the principal immediate effect of Pres. Biden’s announcement will be financial, but I would have thought it should really kick-start a more general move to electric traction.”
    Regime change – GM has announced all electrified by 2030.

    “All the funiculars”
    If memory serves me correctly, there are two more in Southend & Bridgnorth, for instance.

    http://www.columbia.edu/~brennan/fun/11_SOUTHEND.html

    special note mention for pedants

    Q: Why is the Southend Cliff Lift not a funicular?
    A: A funicular has two cars at the ends of the same rope that counterbalance each other. This has just one car. It’s an inclined elevator.
    Q: But the car is counterbalanced by a weight car running on another track directly under it, isn’t it?
    A: Yes but it is just a weight, like what an elevator has.
    Q: What if the weight car ran on a track parallel to the track with the passenger car, alongside it?
    A: That doesn’t matter; it is still not a funicular.
    Q: What if the weight car ran on a track parallel to the track with the passenger car, and it had a dummy mockup of a passenger car built on top of it?
    A: It would be a very elaborate inclined elevator, not a funicular.
    Q: What if there were two identical cars, on track of the same gauge, side by side, but one car was always loaded with sandbags and scrap metal and no one was allowed to ride in it?
    A: (sigh) Then there is still only one car that can be used. Besides why would anyone do that?
    Q: At the Pier Hill Lifts, what if the two elevator cars were connected at the top to the ends of the same rope, instead of being connected to weights, so when one car went up the other went down, and they passed in the middle?
    A. It would not be a funicular railway. I have never heard of a funicular elevator.
    Q: Elevator cars have guide rails in the shaft. How far would we have to tilt an elevator to make it a railway?
    A: (sigh) Enough to make it rest on the rails, but an elevator usually has one rail on each side, so if you tip it sideways it would be the kind of monorail that rests on one rail but has another rail above it to hold it in place, making it not really a monorail, but let’s not start in about that.
    Q: Did you observe whether the other Pier Hill Lift car went up when yours went down? If it did, if the rise is, say, 30 feet and the run is zero because it is vertical, what per cent slope is that?
    A: No to the first question, and I am glad.

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