Interesting Links for 21-03-2017

[andrewducker]

As an Ally I Only Masturbate to Pornography Featuring POC (tags: race porn satire funny ) A 48-hour sexual afterglow helps to bond partners over time (tags: sex relationships psychology ) Running Delivery Trucks on Trolley Wires Isn’t as Crazy as It Sounds (tags: transport electricity ) "Sorry for the Delayed Response" (tags: email apology

Comments

[momentsmusicaux]

Trolley wires for trucks... it's like maybe they've forgotten that railways exist...

[a_pawson]

Except these have an advantage over trains - they can leave the wires and do the last part of the delivery journey on their own using battery or diesel power. This makes an awful lot of sense. Build some long trunk routes up and down the country where the lorries can do the majority of their journey using electric power. Then when they get near their destination, the lorries exit and do the last few miles under their own power.

[danieldwilliam]

My guess is that by the time we've built the trunk routes we'll have self-driving delivery trucks and roboticised loading and unloading faciities so the goods could move by train and then seemlessly on to local delivery trucks.

[andrewducker]

If you can containerise train goods transport to that extent, then yeah. But that's a lot of extra trains you're probably putting onto the lines, and I'd want to be sure that they could handle the right kinds of load without disrupting passenger services.

[danieldwilliam]

Aye.

And to move more freight on to the trains I think we need in the UK some more trainlines.

Although IIRC one of the problems with freight is that because of the use and sizing of intermodal ISO containers there are lots of partial loads moving about.

A robotisiced intermediate breaking facility might allow freight to be more efficiently packed and shipped. Rather than having partial loads from all over the south of England make their own way to different destinations in Scotland by truck you could group all the north bound freight from Kent and then unbundle it in Newcastle to bundle it again with partial loads from the north of England for onward delivery to separate locations in Scotland.

That logic applies equally to train as to truck or indeed ship.

It's nifty idea, though, the electric trolley trucks. Especially in the areas the article highlights of big transport corridors between a port and a nearby city.

[a_pawson]

I do wonder if trains were automated whether we could have them travelling closer together. As I understand it, the minimum distance between trains is currently calculated by a formula that involves the max speed of the line, the stopping distance, sighting distance and a good bit built in for safety. A calculation that on the west coast main line works out to be about 4 minutes. But if their location was known at all times and if they were in communication with some sort of central hub, surely they could run closer together and you could then increase capacity.

[danieldwilliam]

As I understand it one of the benefits of high speed lines like HS2 is that it allows intercity express traffic to move off the existing lines. This in turns lowers the track speed and lets the line accomondate more slower moving communter and freight traffic.

[andrewducker]

The thing with ships is that they can be moored for long periods of time. In order to move all the containers around efficiently and get out the ones that are being disembarked you're going to need a substantial period of time, and thus yards, rather than just being able to stop, get the goods off, and leave three minutes later.

All totally solvable, of course. With enough time, money, and interest.

[danieldwilliam]

There is some plan to expand Kirkwall harbour to take large container ships from China once the North-West Passage opens up properly and to use the harbour as a breaking facility for freight for the rest of Europe.

[andrewducker]

Good move. If we're going to lose a lot of ice then let's at least take advantage of that.

[danieldwilliam]

I for one have been looking at real estate in northern Canada...