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If you will excuse the pun … with a few very specialised exceptions ( Lightly used rural branch lines ) “Hydrogen” is simply vapourware.
V. low energy-density & a real pain to contain & control, simply because it’s molecules are so small & escape easily.
Why should lightly-used rural branch lines be any more suitable for this inefficient dead end than other lines? The only justification I can see is that the usage would be so small that it would make little difference to anything, as logical as “I know I’m spilling oil/chemicals/pollutants into this watercourse, but it’s only a litre a day”.
Lightly used rural branches are subject to the same carbon zero targets and this could be cheaper than battery recharging with wiring off the table.
Urban pollution lines would be better served.
This 799 heath-robinson affair has a carriage full of kit in a 3 car unit?
Have these issues not already been sorted in Germany, Sweden & Canada with a string of roof-top cylinders and underbody generators?
Idea being pushed by Andy Byford, the former head of the NYC subway and bus system, would have NJ Transit, the Long Island Railroad and possibly even Metro North coordinate their schedules so trains from all the railroad giants could run through Penn Station to other destinations. Right now, trains from the three suburban railroads end at Penn Station, with no “through running” trains beyond that destination. A “golden opportunity” to expand commuter rail service while at the same time saving the block south of Penn Station from demolition to make way for a new terminal for New Jersey Transit.
(Byford, who was head of the London Transit system and introduced through running from the east to west of London via the new Victoria line. MURKANS!)
Andy says he’s going to be an American in a few year’s time. He now works for AMTRAK.
The Fourth Regional Plan proposes combining the LIRR, NJT, and Metro North into a single system called the Trans-Regional Express (T-REX). The T-REX system would offer more frequent service, shorter travel times, and increased rail capacity.
EU x-border rail. As the national carriers have been woeful the EU could encourage a leasing company to provide the rolling stock for private ventures to trial operations.
@Alek, Garry Brown
I’m finishing up a Part 3 on hydrogen fuel cell public transport technology (the first being on London’s hydrogen bus experiments, and Part 2 being hydrail (portmanteau of hydrogen propelled rail). Part 3 will look at current hydrail developments; clean, cleanish, and downright dirty sources of hydrogen; and numerous other factors, that shouldst answer your questions. LBM
Returning to the discussion about the LNER being “shy” of electrification ….
They also had to pay attention to the doubts of their directors … who were { always, not just the LNER } usually chary of high-first-cost expenditure.
This still applies: Last week I attended a lecture by a high-profile TOC “General Manager” whose main line is “Not electrified enough” according to him, & he said that it was obvious to the operating staff that more “knitting” would be the best answer, but that the current equivalent of his board – the Treasury – are still not convinced of this, so he is stuck with either the present part-electric units, carrying “surplus” diesel engines & fuel around, whilst under the wires. That, or going for the other heavy dual-mode option, i.e. batteries + OHLE
It would seem that the problems of 1935* are still with us, 89 years later.
*1935: Government assistance for major rail projects, both as unemployment relief & long-term infrastructure investment.
It’s worth noting that the Manchester – Sheffield/Wath electrification, also on the LNER was part of this government-assisted scheme. Like Shenfield, progress was, um “interrupted” by a certain Mr Hitler & finished after Nationalisation.
@Alek I think you meant the new Elizabeth Line. Thameslink is another cross-London route that has been improved dramatically in recent years.
@GregT does sound like the Government’s position on an ‘electrified’ E-W Rail
@MarkT from the local paper for the Upper W Side (Hudson Yards LIRR) so I left it in brackets with a pithy Merika.
Andy has a profile and has been prominent in NYC with a new role at the Federal Government agency that owns the ‘Terminus’ under MSG. As an individual he has been maintaining his rail transport interests and attending meetings of the regional transport campaigning group.
ReThink NYC, whose leader, Samuel Turvey, has been lobbying for an independent review of through running, perhaps even lead by Byford. “I do stress that’s my personal opinion,” said Byford of his comments on through running, “I’m not speaking on behalf of Amtrak. I don’t know all the facts.”
An Amtrak spokesman said the railroad and its partners, The MTA and NJ Transit, “are studying a range of options to add capacity at Penn Station while minimizing impacts on existing Northeast Corridor service.” This study will be incorporated into an environmental review and the best plan will then be adopted, said the Amtrak spokesman, Jason C. Abrams. “This project is not part of, or affiliated with, any of Andy’s responsibilities,” Abrams said. “Amtrak’s teams working on Penn Station NY projects will lead on this issue.”
An MTA spokesman referred questions on Byford’s comments to Amtrak because he works there.
The current impetus has arisen because the original East Side Hudson North River Tunnel that brought the Pennsylvania into Manhattan (& VanderBilt’s turf) is over 120 years old. It is overstretched and in need of reconstruction. It has been too important to close so a new relief tunnel is planned and a $16bn remodelling Penn Station is required for the additional tracks to terminate NJT services. This Hudson Gateway Tunnel alone will cost $35bn and planned for 2035. MSG was asked by the City Council to relocate in 2014, this is their 4th site. They were granted a 10 year lease extension and are now requesting another. The situation is a hangover from the 1960s with bankruptcies and surplus railroad assets.
It has taken RRs decades to be taken seriously again as an economic contributor. Just fixing the NE Corridor through Manhattan will be a major undertaking with a frighteningly high cost. There is a danger of project creep questioning the funding so I understand the turf wars.
A unique opportunity for regional rail also raises all the obstacles that have kept NYC silos apart for a century. A fascinating history suitable for an LR series. Through-running would require widening and lengthening of platforms in Penn Station and the collaboration of The MTA’s Long Island Railroad, and possibly Metro North as well, on the compatibility of trains and of fare collection with NJ Transit. Converting Penn Station would require new vertical circulation elements (i.e. stairs and escalators) at the track level, and other major infrastructure improvements throughout the regional rail network to accommodate NJ Transit trains on LIRR infrastructure and vice versa,” Abrams said. “These improvements would cause a significant amount of disruption to existing Amtrak, NJT and LIRR service, as well as service up and down the NEC, which supports some 20% of the nation’s GDP.”
Currently platform heights are lower on LI, the LIRR uses bi-level cars that are too tall for the original Hudson tunnel, they are powered DC 3rd rail, whereas NJ has catenary.
NYC is not short of talking ideas or precedents from around the world. It is hard to suggest for a bureaucratic mess that a supra level oversight could better manage a regional project than leaving it to AMTRAK overriding NJT, LIRR, MTA. There are Federal, and Tri-State agencies as well as the Boroughs involved.
@Aleks et al
Andy Byford will be speaking at a free online webinar this Friday about Amtrak’s high speed rail initiatives. There’s also another US high speed rail webinar in a couple hours. The descriptions and links to them are in LR’s (newly renamed) Webinar (& Online Conference) Reads.
@Greg, Gary, Alek:
For lightly used branch lines, the Perry People Mover is superior to any hydrogen gadget-vehicles.
I don’t know who can and would be able to lobby re this, but I think it would be great if some green / environment activists do what they can to ensure that hydrogen isn’t counted as an emissions free fuel unless every gram of hydrogen in the tanks come from emissions free production. (Hint: It won’t, unless you pay stupid high prices).
It makes me glad that the majority of the comments on Geoffs video points out how bad hydrogen is.
To all of you in UK: please try to lobby for starting an electrification program where a given amount of staff and equipment is used continuously for electrifying various parts of the network at the pace that’s possible with the staff and equipment available, rather than deciding on individual projects in parliament or similar. Sure, each government only has a few years to do their thing, but they could sign contracts with private companies to do electrification during many many years, with a hefty fee to cancel the contract. That way it might not happen over night, but eventually way more of the network would be electrified.
@Alek: I admit that I haven’t kept track on what’s going on here in Sweden, but as a rule of thumb we aren’t really capable of running any other types of passenger trains than overhead electrified trains.
I did a quick google, “vätgaståg” = hydrogen trains, and the results seem to indicate that Alstom Corradia iLint were on display in late august 2021, and that seems to be about it.
Almost 20 years ago a class Y1 DMU from the 1980’s was converted to biogas, renamed to class Y1G, and it ran for a while on one of the few non-electrified lines with passenger trains, and I think it eventually got scrapped or sits rotting away somewhere. Sure, hydrogen with fuel cells and bio gas with a regular internal combustion engine are two very different things, but it kind of shows what happens to “odd” trial vehicles.
@Alek:
If the project is called T-REX, then Andy Byford has to change name to Mark Bolan 😀 😀
Re connecting NJT with LIRR, and also possibly Metro North/MTA:
A major problem is that the FRA requires “FRA crash worthiness” for trains that runs on tracks that are also used by cargo trains, and other trains that comply with “FRA crash worthiness”, which in practice means that all LIRR trains have to be replaced by heavier trains.
My personal opinion is that the FRA should rethink their stance, and focus more on preventing accidents than mitigating the outcome of an accident. Looking at crashes and derailments that’s happened in various parts of Europe during the last decades, they for one are really rare when it comes to anything more serious than a road-rail vehicle collision at an at-grade crossing (and those have speed limits that more or less ensures the safety of the rail passengers and usually also the staff – a possible exception would be dangerous cargo road transports, but I assume that those who do that type of transport have extra education ensuring that they for example don’t drive a vehicle over a level crossing where there is a risk of them getting stuck due to slopes, and if there is a risk they would coordinate it with the railway or whatnot).
I doubt that FRA crash worthiness would had helped much at the Eschede derailment disaster.
It’s obvious that the derailment disaster at Santiago de Compostela in northwestern Spain a decade or so ago would had been avoided if they had had a suitable signalling system / train protection system.
The cargo train derailments that happens every now and then in USA seems to not really be worse for possible passenger trains on adjacent tracks than they are for nearby buildings. And in particular way more detectors for faulty wagons would likely reduce those derailments, which seems like a better solution than requirements on having sturdier passenger wagons than in most parts of the world.
A work-around for the FRA regulations could be if the run “FRA crash worthy” trains in one pair of tunnels, and LIRR style “light” trains in the other set, if they eventually build an additional pair. I doubt that this will happen, but still. I also don’t know if any of the NJT routes could be “reclassified” as “light” in any shape or form. In the end the LIRR will likely end up having FRA crash worthiness compliant cars.
It seems like a better idea to run as many of the Metro North / MTA trains as possible to central station in order to free up capacity at Penn Station.
Side track: It’s a bit weird that MTA run trains in Connecticut, while there is a sharp divide between MTA in NY + Connecticut and NJT in New Jersey
@MiaM Metro-North was a rescue of commuter service out of the PennCentral crash.
The Connecticut Department of Transportation (CTDOT) owns the tracks and stations within Connecticut, and finances and performs capital improvements.
The Connecticut situation is not that straightforward, with CTDOT, Metro-North and Amtrak all involved with infrastructure and rolling stock – see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shore_Line_East and https://www.trains.com/trn/news-reviews/news-wire/connecticut-replaces-diesel-shore-line-east-trains-with-electric-multiple-unit-equipment/ for more information.
A further complication in New York is that the MTA’s two third-rail systems are both 750V but incompatible, LIRR being top contact, M-N bottom contact.
It would be great if New Jersey and New York would be better at cooperating. Is this an issue of different political majority in the states that makes it hard for them to cooperate?
Like if Connecticut and New York are able to cooperate then it seems reasonable to also combine NJT with the heavy rail parts of MTA. Or for that sake cooperate on more things. It’s for example somewhat weird that PATH is operated independent of the NYC subway.
Those wrestling over the costs of terminating HS2 at Euston would do well to consider the NYC Penn Station conversation and Zach Howe’s observations about using extremely high value land for space-consuming activities that could be undertaken elsewhere.
The driver for terminating trains in city centres is that that’s where people want to go. But the counter-drivers are that terminating trains requires considerably more expensive land take, actually people want to get to city centres from different directions, and often to different parts of city centres as well.
On the continent, Amsterdam, Berlin and Warsaw have long embraced through stations, whilst Vienna and Stuttgart have recently spent considerable sums creating through stations to replace termini.
All this experience from elsewhere should tell us that there are better ways to spend £8bn on HS2 and Euston than build a massive terminus.
MiaM, Connecticut’s Shore Line West is a reasonably simple extension to a single Metro-North line, using the same technology. Linking NJT with MTA, or PATH with anything (not sure what that would achieve, anyway), would be much, much more complex, in technical, operational and political respects. Chalk and cheese, I’m afraid.
@Paul:
The tiniest nit pick in the history of everything: Arguably it’s relatively recently that Berlin has embraced through stations for long distance trains. Sure, Ostbahnhof and the stations along the Stadtbahn are through running, but it was only after the reunification (and of course before the wall) that more than a minimal amount of trains ran through, and after the reunification the capacity wasn’t really enough for all the regional and long distance trans they wanted to run through, and thus they built the current main station as late as in the 00’s.
Berlin is a great example though as the through running stations have about two platform tracks per connecting line track, and that is way fewer than the large terminus stations in for example London.
Going off on a tangent, I have to repeat what I’ve already written in comments here a while ago: For London I think it would be worth considering connecting the railway to Waterloo East to Waterloo, with say four platform tracks for through running, and have that act as a “budget Crossrail”. Sure, travelers on Southeastern want to go to Charing Cross and not Waterloo, but by doing thins the line capacity can be fully utilized for a Crossrail style service, and in particular for the Southeastern travelers to have to find other means to go from Waterloo to Charing Cross is less of a negative than the positive aspect of Southwestern travelers being able to go to London Bridge (and for that sake various other interchanges, like the DLR and whatnot).
@Betterbee:
I’m sure it has already been studied over and over, and considered not a good idea, but connecting PATH to the NYC subway seems like something at least worth considering. (I admit that I don’t know if the loading gauge are even remotely similar. if PATH is larger then maybe connect it to LIRR?)
Re NJT, LIRR and MTA: Sure, they run different types of trains and whatnot, but long term for example connecting LIRR to NJT would be a good goal, mostly to avoid needing to terminate trains in the city core, but also it would make some trips easier.
@MiaM
I aways wondered why, when I moved there in 1989, why Brighton (two) bus system worked so well.
I spent far more of my childhood in the dank and windy Bus Stations in West Yorkshire. Dewsbury and Leeds, for example
I think the Brighton and Hove bus system both were based on their preceding tram networks. So the buses would have far-flung turning around bays in the Marina, Mile Oak, Steyning, Rottingdean, Hagleton, Patcham, Hallingbury , Portslade, East Moulsecoomb
So, despite there being a huge inheritance in the Old Steine where there used to be a tram holding area, the buses in Brighton and Hove don’t force you to change buses because someone decided a “bus station” was a vital piece of infrastructure.
The buses in B&H used to run like a dream because you’re never forced into a Bus Station.
So, the idea of making HS2 at Euston a copy of HS1 at Stratford International and then budling a tunnel to Gatwick Airport (for interchange to air, rail and M25) seems both a reasonable and cost effective use the B&H Buses model.