Energy for Railways
Within the context of overall energy use for transport, the railways offer the easiest path to low carbon through electrification and its generation through low- or zero-carbon sources. The railways also generally claim to be a “greener” form of transport
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Abstract Within the context of overall energy use for transport, the railways offer the easiest path to low carbon through electrification and its generation through low- or zero-carbon sources. The railways also generally claim to be a ‘‘greener’’ form of transport, although this claim depends critically on the passenger occupancy achieved. For freight movements there are clear energy advantages, but issues exist related to the transfer and final delivery of goods. The freight areas in which rail excels, in its traditional markets of coal and heavy goods, have declined in developed economies, the most common cargo now being the freight container. This chapter will flesh out the above issues and discuss some suggested routes to low energy, low emissions such as lightweighting, hybrid trains, fuel cells and bio-diesel and driving style.
1 Background The writer of a letter to The Times, 4 April 1912, said he was between 1845 and 1850 a junior partner in a Newcastle Glass Manufacturing firm, in which R Stephenson and G Hudson were also partners. G Stephenson came to see the firm in 1847, and said, ‘‘I have credit of being the inventor of the locomotive, and it is true I have done something to improve the action of steam for that purpose. But I tell you, young man, I shall not live to see it, but you may, when electricity will be the great motive power of the world.’’ R. A. Smith (&) Future Rail Research Centre, The Department of Mechanical Engineering, Imperial College, London Exhibition Road, South Kensington, London SW7 2AZ, UK e-mail: [email protected]
O. Inderwildi and Sir David King (eds.), Energy, Transport, & the Environment, DOI: 10.1007/978-1-4471-2717-8_31, Springer-Verlag London 2012
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Fig. 1 Length of railway (thousands of km) in major regions of the world Asia & Oceania, 222, 22% Europe, 349, 35%
America, 385, 38%
Africa, 52, 5%
Railways have been with us since the early nineteenth century. Their introduction was primarily to move freight, mostly coal, but passengers rapidly became an important market. The railways caused a step change in the distance over which it was possible to make a return journey in a day. They enabled travel to take place more cheaply, in greater comfort and with greater reliability than the horse drawn coaches they replaced. Our cities rapidly expanded as the industrial revolution blossomed, aided by our mastery of the energy obtained from coal and contained in steam. Energy and coal consumption grew in an exponential manner. That railways were a major contributor to this revolution is not in doubt. They were responsible for, inter alia, the standardisation of time, the expansion of the electric telegraph system, the definition of a nation state (based on a days journey) and were a huge contributor to the quality of life experienced by the common man. They spread rapidly, through Europe, west across America and east to Asia and the Far East. Their supremacy as a mode of transport was unchallenged up to their Edwardian zenith, but the depre
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