Travelling by train on Britain’s busiest business routes generates less than half the carbon emissions of a battery electric car, according to detailed analysis from the rail industry.
Certain journeys on the greenest, fullest electric trains produce as little as one-fifteenth of the CO2 per person compared with the footprint of a sole occupancy petrol or diesel car, the data shows.
The Rail Delivery Group (RDG) claimed the data is the industry’s most accurate and granular yet, incorporating train types and occupancy, and said it hopes it will allow businesses to make the greenest travel choices.
The train system is an integrated whole. Emissions have to be counted over the whole. After all, sure, we can say that the full train going into Liverpool St at 8 am hsa low per passenger emissions. But that last train out at 11 pm is also necessary to reposition the carriages to come back in the next morning.
For intercity journeys, why don’t the trains set up a system like the Channel Tunnel where you can drive your car onto a carriage, then off at the other end.
That way the customer gets the benefit of both – door to door convenient travelling, fast and boring bit by train, and I’m sure there would be fuel savings for the hippies.
We used to have this. Now we don’t. Probably because driving the car is now cheaper than putting it on the train.
Remember proles, EVs aren’t for the likes of you. Buses*, bikes and shanks’s pony for your local travel. Train for that once a year holiday to Blackpool, if you can afford it.
Now, fuck off out of the way of my Tesla! (it does 0-60 in 2 seconds you know)
*if you are lucky
So if I fill the four seats in the hypothetical car that will produce half the emissions of the train? Or four times a fifteenth?
Is this reflected in the fare? No? Fuck off then.
More likely that one final journey to the camp, in a cattle truck, to save Gaia.
Ah autotrains….
The missus and I used to use them a lot.
It was very civilised. We’d cross the Channel, tootle over to Clogland and have tea with my bro and his family. Then we’d drive the hour and a bit to Duesseldorf, put the motor on the Autozug, board our sleeper at 8pm and get off at 8am in Vienna. We took sarnies and wine and the guard came round with coffee and breakfast. Lovely
The only downside was that Vienna Westbahnhof had a terrifying ramp to board the train.
Certain journeys on the greenest, fullest electric trains produce as little as one-fifteenth of the CO2 per person compared with
What if you don’t give even the tiniest quantum of a fuck about “emissions”? What then?
A train is great for going from one station to another.
Can’t remember the last time (not that I use them very often) I took a train and that was it. I always have to get to a station at one end and then onto where I actually want to go at the other.
It really is that simple, and for freight – particularly in a relatively small country like this – even more so.
I wonder if the reason that the herd of white elephants euphemistically known as HS2 is taking so long (the obscene waste of money is irrelevant as that is just printed debt for the scum to pay off) is the knowledge of how utterly, completely and comprehensively useless it will prove to be when (if?) it is ever actually finished.
Need a couple of decades so that hose who instigated the obscenity will be beyond censure if it actually opens. What is it now, 2040?!
A grumble about Park&Rides – Durham:
You can’t leave a hack bike in the barn shaped thing there overnight, so the option of driving to the edge of the city and then pedalling in the last 4km to your actual destination and not the centre is out.
You can’t arrive by bike and take the bus in to avoid the congested bits and that bastard hill on the way back.
You pay a price per bus passenger, not per car arriving, mmm ok, but if there’s 4 of you you might as well drive all the way in to the city and pay the centre parking prices.
And then the council has the cheek to declare a climate emergency.
Does the climate emergency consist of a chance Durham might get warmer? What’s the problem in that?
Regarding HS2. Maybe they should have got the Amish in to build it.
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqENhuArWhGKI7Gbuo-HQf5LLPeP0JS9ADcO8b-Fq4Xo5UIBig0PLuyIKecd5oX1eEVdUFV-K01PrLL78oWMOWjRt_sVNx7cYlp7_9yhUvm6EhUsU6i5hAEwEkrJafTve0Yn-2FZ6TifcTEyYciLQ9pyS8dT_8zjhQSuCmzELIHh0v0DShPzqQakOSxlOE/s360/daily_gifdump_4610_06.gif
What if you don’t give even the tiniest quantum of a fuck about “emissions”?
TPTB don’t give even that much of a fuck about you & what you care about. You remember being consulted about this? Did you spot that option to vote for a political party opposed to this bullshit? Me neither.
Bearing in mind the focus on the “fullest, greenest” trains, I wouldn’t hold out much chance for emptier, less green trains being allowed to run in the bright* green future.
*not that bright obviously, due to low energy bulbs and power cuts**
**not actual power cuts as such, just times when you are forced to shiver by candlelight because your electricity provider is running out of watts and has ramped up the price 50-fold….
Been spending most our lives living in an Amish Paradise.
More likely that one final journey to the camp, in a cattle truck, to save Gaia.
Applies equally to Gaza if ROPers are allowed to ethnically cleanse Jews out of Israel from the river to the sea.
What if you don’t give even the tiniest quantum of a fuck about “emissions”?
As this mornings lead bbc story shows TPTB don’t actually give a shit about emissions either:-
Its owner, Drax, receives money from energy bill payers because the electricity produced from burning pellets is classified as renewable and treated as emission free.
In fact, the power station emits about 12 million tonnes of carbon a year, but under international rules the UK doesn’t have to count these emissions.
So, if I’ve got it right:-
Power stations burning wood pellets good (until today at least).
Wood burning stoves bad (despite the fact that the wood doesn’t come from threatened forests and isn’t shipped 4,000 miles round the world – presumably on magic zero-emission container vessels).
Could we fuel Drax with Tory MPs?
They’re a bit oily, and we might need an electric fence to stop Gove escaping, but they’re chock full of combustible biomass (shite).
Its owner, Drax, receives money from energy bill payers because the electricity produced from burning pellets is classified as renewable and treated as emission free.
Groovy. So can we cover Scotland with trees and then burn them for electricity?
@Steve – I am all in favour of burning Tory MPs, especially Gove as I fear conventional methods would have no effect. However, I would like reassurance that any noxious gases or other by-products will be dealt with safely.
It’s important to remember that although Warbal Gloming is an existential threat which will wipe out life on earth and all unnecessary travel must cease, if it’s more comfortable to fly to the Channel Islands, that’s OK.
Same with driving to a nature reserve to take a picture of a duck.
CO2 is not “carbon”
Emil – Given this is from the BBC and they later say “while it tries to install carbon capture technology to reduce emissions” i think they are using CO2 and carbon as one and the same…
“In fact, the power station emits about 12 million tonnes of carbon a year, but under international rules the UK doesn’t have to count these emissions.”
Is there actually an international agreement on this? Does anyone think the USA and Canada count these emmisions in their totals?
“After all, sure, we can say that the full train going into Liverpool St at 8 am hsa low per passenger emissions. But that last train out at 11 pm is also necessary to reposition the carriages to come back in the next morning.”
It’s actually worse than that. I’m not sure about in the North, but around the Great Western line, the only full trains are from around Didcot Parkway into London, during commuter hours, Tuesday to Thursday. Monday and Friday, the hybrid workers aren’t commuting so much. From Swindon to Bristol or Cardiff at peak, it’s not even half full, never has been. Daytime trains are generally about a quarter full. And that’s before we get into all the daft services like Westbury to Chippenham where in the middle of the afternoon there’s 2 blokes and a dog to a carriage.
The greenest form of transport is coach travel. National Express, Megabus etc. Because they run services that make a profit, which means they run services that carry lots of people. And you can run an efficient coach for a lot less people. Beeching was right.
“Emissions have to be counted over the whole”
Same with buses – they spend most of their days largely empty.
@ Ottokring – There was a time when you could drive your car into a converted WW2 freighter aircraft and fly across the channel. God knows what the “Carbon Emissions” of 2 or 4 damn great piston engines was, compared to catching a ferry or train…
Could we fuel Drax with Tory MPs?
Why leave out the rest of the useless sods?
“ Could we fuel Drax with Tory MPs?”
He is a Tory MP:
https://www.richarddrax.com/
It’s amazing that so called climate deniers ie even those that think CO2 is a greenhouse gas and that is responsible for some effect on the climate, having been banging on about the idiocy of burning wood as a renewable energy for year now it’s the had left that pointing it out it’s all over the BBC.
Asiaseen – second batchers
Marius – I can’t guarantee that Michael Gove won’t curse us unto the seventh generation, but that’s why we used to do This Sort of Thing at the crossroads.
(Crossroads are liminal spaces connected to the Black Lodge whence came the Slithy Gove.)
PS – Also Bone Thugs n Harmony
Buses and trains (and trams and trolley buses) have the same issue – they’re very efficient ways of moving people when they’re full, and incredibly wasteful and inefficient when they’re not. An unladen double decker bus weighs about 12 tonnes and has to be accelerated and decelerated just as much as a car weighing ten times less.
@Steve – “Could we fuel Drax with Tory MPs?”
No, of course not. They’re an endangered species. From the next election there will be a new reason to deny planning permission which is that a Tory MP is believed to live on the site.
Charles – that’s a great idea. NIMBYs trying to stop Barratt Homes building their identikit shoeboxes on the green belt should report rare sightings of Liz Truss nesting in the trees.
What if you don’t give even the tiniest quantum of a fuck about “emissions”? What then?
MrsBud and I have seen our carbon footprint grow considerably over the last 20 years as we’ve seen the fruits of much hard work. It doesn’t bother us one little bit, it shows that we’ve been successful and we’re enjoying life, and long may it continue.
Our planet destroying four offspring are also growing their carbon footprints. The one who used to be the greenest flys the most of any of us thanks to living in Hong Kong on a very healthy salary.
“An unladen double decker bus weighs about 12 tonnes”
I must try and read the ULW figure on one of the new EV double deckers running (but not yet exploding) round here. Considering that longer range cars can be carting around nearly half a ton of battery pack, I expect a bus will need one closer to 2 tons, to have any hope of completing a day’s work. Yes, I know they don’t have a diesel engine, but a big motor and reduction gearbox, plus the inverter drive unit & cabling aren’t going to be feather weight…