No more Choo Choo ?
- Subscribe to RSS Feed
- Mark Topic as New
- Mark Topic as Read
- Float this Topic for Current User
- Bookmark
- Subscribe
- Printer Friendly Page
- Plusnet Community
- :
- Forum
- :
- Other forums
- :
- General Chat
- :
- No more Choo Choo ?

No more Choo Choo ?
03-08-2019 10:58 AM
- Mark as New
- Bookmark
- Subscribe
- Subscribe to RSS Feed
- Highlight
- Report to Moderator
Could steam trains become collateral damage in our battle against climate change?
https://twitter.com/hashtag/steamtrains?src=hashtag_click
I enjoyed The Yorkshire Steam Railway: All Aboard - Channel 5 recently
Re: No more Choo Choo ?
03-08-2019 11:15 AM
- Mark as New
- Bookmark
- Subscribe
- Subscribe to RSS Feed
- Highlight
- Report to Moderator
Given the tiny amount of poillution they put out compared to airliners I think it would be utterly stupid to even try to pin climate change on steam engines.
It's like Prince Harry and his recent claim that he won't have more than 2 kids due to his carbon footprint... while using a private jet to get around the world.
The vast majority of output from a steamy is just that - STEAM. Yes there is some smoke too from the fire but unless you're going to ban every house in the country from having an open fire then stopping the steam engines being used is just another way of proving this country despises itself.
Re: No more Choo Choo ?
03-08-2019 11:53 AM
- Mark as New
- Bookmark
- Subscribe
- Subscribe to RSS Feed
- Highlight
- Report to Moderator
As the guy in the video says, they could be punished because they're so visible.
The heritage railways are an economic and social asset. Wouldn't it be more logical to target private planes?
ADSL2+ Billion 8800NL
Re: No more Choo Choo ?
03-08-2019 12:18 PM
- Mark as New
- Bookmark
- Subscribe
- Subscribe to RSS Feed
- Highlight
- Report to Moderator
For one horrible moment I thought we had lost Michael 'choo choo' Portillo.
Don't limit the friends you haven't met with arguments you'll never have.
Re: No more Choo Choo ?
03-08-2019 12:28 PM
- Mark as New
- Bookmark
- Subscribe
- Subscribe to RSS Feed
- Highlight
- Report to Moderator
Like Brexit climate change gets the blame.
Reading earlier that although electric scooters are zero emission, the production of them contribute to global warming.
Just can't win.
Don't limit the friends you haven't met with arguments you'll never have.
Re: No more Choo Choo ?
03-08-2019 12:54 PM
- Mark as New
- Bookmark
- Subscribe
- Subscribe to RSS Feed
- Highlight
- Report to Moderator
As a youngster I had to walk to work on a footpath crossing an open, sunken railway station.
Unfortunate timing meant i’d often have to return home to get changed. This didn’t dampen my enthusiasm for the wonderful steam engines. So, yes, I believe they should be preserved, not as museum pieces but as working exhibits of a bygone age.
Re: No more Choo Choo ?
03-08-2019 1:07 PM - edited 03-08-2019 1:11 PM
- Mark as New
- Bookmark
- Subscribe
- Subscribe to RSS Feed
- Highlight
- Report to Moderator
Just on the news this morning about celebs and the great and good turning up to yet another climate change conference in private and hired jets, it seems to be a case of do as we say, not as we do..
Don't start me about the latest fad for virtue signalling......
Re: No more Choo Choo ?
03-08-2019 1:22 PM
- Mark as New
- Bookmark
- Subscribe
- Subscribe to RSS Feed
- Highlight
- Report to Moderator
Don't worry folks. the great and good will be OK whatever happens!
Stopping people running steam engines is just fiddling at the edges while ignoring the real issues.
Re: No more Choo Choo ?
03-08-2019 1:29 PM
- Mark as New
- Bookmark
- Subscribe
- Subscribe to RSS Feed
- Highlight
- Report to Moderator
@7up wrote:
Given the tiny amount of poillution they put out compared to airliners I think it would be utterly stupid to even try to pin climate change on steam engines.
It's like Prince Harry and his recent claim that he won't have more than 2 kids due to his carbon footprint... while using a private jet to get around the world.
The vast majority of output from a steamy is just that - STEAM. Yes there is some smoke too from the fire but unless you're going to ban every house in the country from having an open fire then stopping the steam engines being used is just another way of proving this country despises itself.
@7up Climate change from all the evidence we have is a hard problem, but see in your post personally directed criticism of a personage for believing something, but because actions in a particular situation. Without full details that lacks fairness. Put aside personalities. How are people involved in attempting to solve such problems without using airliners; a non polluting rowing boat?
I hesitate to tarbrush you, but all too often, when someone is added as a target for criticism, it is because of dislike or disapproval for unrelated reasons. Those reasons frequently appear to have been swallowed without mastication from a red top.
Re: No more Choo Choo ?
03-08-2019 10:10 PM
- Mark as New
- Bookmark
- Subscribe
- Subscribe to RSS Feed
- Highlight
- Report to Moderator
A shame there is all the "cleaner" better quality coal underground in the UK that is somehow uneconomical to mine and it is cheaper to buy "dirtier" fuel from Poland and the USA! I remember they shut down Kellingly colliery due to the economics of better burning fuel against more polluting alternatives.
Re: No more Choo Choo ?
03-08-2019 10:48 PM
- Mark as New
- Bookmark
- Subscribe
- Subscribe to RSS Feed
- Highlight
- Report to Moderator
@Marksfish I sem to remember that the railways used to use Anthracite coal from wales as this was the cleanest and produced the most heat.Could be wrong tho
Re: No more Choo Choo ?
05-08-2019 9:01 PM - edited 05-08-2019 9:02 PM
- Mark as New
- Bookmark
- Subscribe
- Subscribe to RSS Feed
- Highlight
- Report to Moderator
@TTman wrote:
@Marksfish I sem to remember that the railways used to use Anthracite coal from wales as this was the cleanest and produced the most heat.Could be wrong tho
A few years ago we went on the Jacobite steam train from Fort William to Mallaig on Scottish west coast, stunning scenery but the journey was marred by the train having to stop about four times to get steam pressure back.. The reason was instead of Welsh anthracite they were having to use low grade Polish coal .... either because no longer financially viable to mine the Welsh coal, ( I believe the harder cleaner burning more energy dense coal comes from deeper mines, the softer brown 'dirty' coal from opencast mines or at shallower depth where it did not get compressed as much.
- Subscribe to RSS Feed
- Mark Topic as New
- Mark Topic as Read
- Float this Topic for Current User
- Bookmark
- Subscribe
- Printer Friendly Page