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Why do clever people think railway engineers are purblind fools?
No doubt many readers had a quiet smile at newspaper reports of the latest policy proposals to Conservative Leader David Cameron. In his report on making Britain more competitive John Redwood proposed fitting trains with rubber tyres to improve braking and acceleration.
Getting a gripWe need to look to best practice abroad, in order to improve the technology for the commuter railway. Currently, the industry reckons it is only safe to run twenty-four trains per hour on a typical commuter track, because of the lack of grip that running steel wheels on steel tracks provides. However, the Paris Metro has overcome this very problem by introducing rubber wheels that give trains extra grip, enabling them to accelerate more smoothly and brake more quickly. The Montreal metro runs on rubber tyres, with the same advantages; and some metro vehicles can also be driven onto roads. It has been suggested that, if we introduced these to British commuter trains, the railway could run a much more effective service of forty trains per hour, an increase in capacity of about 65%. Rubber could be introduced either in the form of additional wheels on a special running strip, or on the steel wheels. Whilst there would be costs in adapting the trains, these would be quite modest compared to the costs of the alternative solutions on offer. Extract from document Freeing Britain to Compete: Equipping the UK for Globalisation Submission to the Shadow Cabinet |
I've reproduced his proposals in the box for some light relief. For further amusement here's a personal anecdote to explain why rubber isn't the solution to adhesion.
Once upon a time, I was poodling through a German city on my Norton, with Mrs F to be on the pillion, and thought it would be fun to play trams. So I steered the front wheel into one track.
But when the game palled, and it was a damp day, I found there was not enough friction for even the grooved Avon front tyre to lift itself out of the rail. I had to stop, off-load my passenger (not popular) and manhandle the front wheel back onto the tarmac.
Thus I learned what a DPhil from All Souls, Oxford hasn't grasped, that while rubber tyres may work underground, the coefficient of friction of rubber on steel vanishes in the wet.
All very risible, but there is a darker side to the railway section of the paper, headed ‘More trains not faster trains is the priority'. The document helpfully lists Mr Redwood's Technical Team for Transport. It is
Richard Currie, Director, UPS
Gurmaj Dhillon
Jon Pritchard, Director of Policy, ICE
Graham Smith, Planning Director, EWS
Colin Sewell-Rutter, Former MD, UK Airports Ltd
And Graham has done a great job for freight. The conclusion of the section on rail is that increasing commuter capacity and expanding freight should get priority.
According to the report ‘we have looked at high speed train options for the UK, and have concluded that an incoming Conservative government should explore the feasibility and costs of implementing the new Maglev technology, which offers the opportunity of far faster inter-city travel, and hence a more effective challenge to the aeroplane'. This, claims the report ‘ should surely be preferred to spending further large sums of money on attempts to create a limited number of express facilities on our already congested and overburdened track at the expense of other rail services'.
A classic example of Vertical Disorientation Syndrome. And a parallel report by another ex-minister is expected to recommnend transferring domnestic air passengers to rail to free up slots at congested airporta and avoid the need for extra runways.
Does it matter? Well, the final version must have been shown to the Technical Team for Transport. Did they endorse it? Will we see EWS fitting Dublo-style traction tyres to its Class 66s? As an industry we need to engage with all the political parties, but you need to sup with a very long spoon to avoid being seen as endorsing the wilder flights of fancy.