Rain in the northeast UK

The west coast main line and the lines connecting to it are out of use after serious rains in the northwest of England and parts of the Scottish Borders. A serious of storms of heavy rain has flooded the whole area. Many houses have been flooded, some bridges destroyed and roads and rail lines under water. There are no trains north of Carlisle.

It may be connected with the very intense El Nino phenomena in the Pacific - yes that is what scientists are suggesting. There are said to be trains on the East Coast main line to connect with Scotland. But none from Carlisle to north.

(What causes El Nino intensity? Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere - stop burning coal and oil).

Sounds terrible , George. I am struggling to imagine that much water in those areas , but the pictures on TV are very real.
El Nino is a natural phenomom, something that hits New Zealand every few years . This years is forecast to be equal to the worst. alot of the country is already in drought, El nino conditions on top of that are disastrous. However , it is raining here today. Typical El nino conditions , It poured down out at the farm for 4 hours , and didn't get a drop in town, 5 kilometres.
I am sure Global warming is making the El Nino conditions worst , but it is not directly causing it .

David Benton wrote:Sounds terrible , George. I am struggling to imagine that much water in those areas , but the pictures on TV are very real.
El Nino is a natural phenomom, something that hits New Zealand every few years . This years is forecast to be equal to the worst. alot of the country is already in drought, El nino conditions on top of that are disastrous. However , it is raining here today. Typical El nino conditions , It poured down out at the farm for 4 hours , and didn't get a drop in town, 5 kilometres.
I am sure Global warming is making the El Nino conditions worst , but it is not directly causing it .

It's Natural in the sense that El Nino is part of the energy systems of the oceans. However, it is affected by the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere - which is still rising at what ought to be a frightening rate. Examining past signs of temperatures shows that El Nino became very weak indeed during the Ice Age and only revived when the ice melted.

There has been a pause for the past few days with the water not increasing but the weather continues with the same patterns. I think there is a danger that the floods will continue. Near where I am on the south coast of England the rain is fairly normal, though the temperatures are higher than usual - no frost for weeks.

The right response is a worldwide campaign to stop burning coal and oil. I have contributed to that by introducing biogas to Kenya - an energy source that does not increase CO2 in the atmosphere. The latest reports from Kenya show that thousands of people have adopted the process. I also tried it in Nigeria but I don't think people have taken it up there.

I find the endless reports here of steam locomotives rather depressing. There can be no future for burning coal and oil. It was the steam locomotives that started the current climate catastrophe.

george matthews wrote:I find the endless reports here of steam locomotives rather depressing. There can be no future for burning coal and oil. It was the steam locomotives that started the current climate catastrophe.

George, that really sounds rather curmudgeonly. There are a very small number of steam locomotives in the world which run comparatively rarely. I doubt whether they are currently making any significant contribution to global warming, particularly compared to road vehicles, aircraft, electricity generation and factories.

We all pretty much agree that there is no future for burning coal and oil. But steam locomotives are not the future; they are historical artefacts which run only as museum pieces recalling our heritage.

While steam locomotives certainly contributed to CO2 production in their heyday, I'm not sure you can demonstrate that they "started the current climate catastrophe". I would suggest that the industrial revolution in general "started" it, not one single facet of the industrial revolution. And I think it could be argued that the rise of road transport in the mid-20th century was probably a bigger tipping point than steam locomotives in their heyday.

George says "I find the endless reports here of steam locomotives rather depressing." Sorry George, we are not going to pretend that steam engines don't exist. This forum is about railroading, not global warming.
If I sound harsh, I apologize, I think we are all friends here.
Here's a video on Singles, which I hope you won't find depressing. The movies of these singles working has quite the opposite effect on me. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5reFpqKqAo" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I've been listening today to the song The Glory Days by Dr Busker. He sings about operational heritage steam road locomotives, not railway locomotives, but the principle is the same. George's comments about steam came to mind!

"For we live in a time when it ain't no crime driving slow moving steam on the road... We can all get drunk and do daft stunts, we can take old machines for a blast, but mark my words that the day will come and it all will be part of the past. So raise your glass or kiss my arse for we're all going down in a blaze, and thank your stars that we're here right now, 'cos these are the Glory Days!"

David Benton wrote:Sounds terrible , George. I am struggling to imagine that much water in those areas , but the pictures on TV are very real.
El Nino is a natural phenomom, something that hits New Zealand every few years . This years is forecast to be equal to the worst. alot of the country is already in drought, El nino conditions on top of that are disastrous. However , it is raining here today. Typical El nino conditions , It poured down out at the farm for 4 hours , and didn't get a drop in town, 5 kilometres.
I am sure Global warming is making the El Nino conditions worst , but it is not directly causing it .

The main problem is damage to a viaduct. It has made the mainline from Carlisle to Glasgow unusable. I expect repairs will take a long time. They imply the cause is the floods but I don't know the details.

philipmartin wrote:George says "I find the endless reports here of steam locomotives rather depressing." Sorry George, we are not going to pretend that steam engines don't exist. This forum is about railroading, not global warming.
If I sound harsh, I apologize, I think we are all friends here.
Here's a video on Singles, which I hope you won't find depressing. The movies of these singles working has quite the opposite effect on me. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5reFpqKqAo" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

If you can run a steam locomotive without emitting carbon dioxide feel free to do so. If you are burning coal or oil it should be avoided. Timber perhaps would be allowable.

george matthews wrote:If you can run a steam locomotive without emitting carbon dioxide feel free to do so. If you are burning coal or oil it should be avoided. Timber perhaps would be allowable.

I think you're missing the point that there are so few steam locomotives being run now on such short journeys so infrequently that it has a negligible effect on global CO2 emission. Compare it, say, with tens of millions of cars, thousands of aircraft, coal- and oil-fired power stations, and all the other mainstream regular commercial large-scale everyday CO2 emitters.

50 years ago, that most certainly wasn't the case ... prior to diesels and electrics, there were tens of thousands of steam locomotives world wide. Today, I bet there's less than 50, and 99.9% of those run only sporadically.

(and probably 99.9% of those run off wood or oil, not coal)

Thanks, litz, for reinforcing the point I've been trying to make. None of us can deny that steam locomotives were massive polluters in their day, but that's all in the past and that situation no longer exists. The handful of steam locomotives which are running sporadically in the 21st century as heritage artefacts can no longer be considered as a significant source of CO2.

I agree that heritage steam operation is a relatively small small co2 producer overall. However perception counts for a lot. especially among young people.
I think heritage operations would do well to address the issue, perhaps by buying carbon credits, or better still by planting trees to soak the carbon up . Most of them would have land to do this. i do feel heritage operations have to reach out to young people in order to survive into the future, with the number of people who remember steam trains in daily operation fading away.
One thing they seem to have in the states but not Europe is Christmas tree trains , quite a nice little earner as well.

David Benton wrote:I agree that heritage steam operation is a relatively small small co2 producer overall. However perception counts for a lot. especially among young people.
I think heritage operations would do well to address the issue, perhaps by buying carbon credits, or better still by planting trees to soak the carbon up . Most of them would have land to do this. i do feel heritage operations have to reach out to young people in order to survive into the future, with the number of people who remember steam trains in daily operation fading away.
One thing they seem to have in the states but not Europe is Christmas tree trains , quite a nice little earner as well.

More wood burning would diminish CO2 emissions, in the sense that no extra CO2 would be emitted. It's coal and oil that cause the emissions and the rise in atmospheric CO2. I wonder if the Saudis and the Iranians are about to have a war. With any luck the oil industries of both countries might be severely damaged.