Plain barmy

[redtoon1892]

How much dafter can this country get ?.



http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... beria.html

[giner]

To answer your question, redtoon, not much. When you think of the high regard by the old GWR for the steaming qualities of Welsh coal, this current situation is worth a medal for stupidity.

[chaz harrison]

I wonder if I could inject a note of caution. This story appeared in the Daily Mail.

[redtoon1892]

Not only the Mail.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/ ... -coal.html

[Bill Bedford]

Not only the Mail.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/ ... -coal.html

Mmm, but the output figure just don't add up.

[52A]

NIMBYs rule, that is the problem with this country, the few dictate the rules to the detriment of the many.

Just wait until they get their hands on the new high speed line!

[Bill Bedford]

NIMBYs rule, that is the problem with this country, the few dictate the rules to the detriment of the many.

Just wait until they get their hands on the new high speed line!

This is a story about a large company trying to bend the rules to suit itself. The railway is just a hook to get the sort of reaction you have just shown.

The mine output is said to be 20,000 tons a week. The company wants to be allowed to send out 5% of this by road, leaving aside just how this will be policed, that is 1000 tons or 50 lorry loads a week, or 20 lorry journeys a day (out and back) through hilly villages with narrow winding streets.

How much coal will this railway use? I doubt if it was 20 tons, or one lorry load, a month. So where are the other 199 lorry loads going to go each month? I don't know, but I do know that coal for power stations is crushed to fines and is not suitable for firing locos.

The whole exercise looks like the thin end of a wedge to get the mining company out of its contract with the railway.

[52A]

So what are the underlying reasons for this perceived desire to get out of railway contracts, you seem to know everything about the case? It is still daft to haul coal thousands of miles when an adequate supply is on the doorstep. I do know the difference between loco coal and power station coal having handled thousands of tons of both.

[hq1hitchin]

There seems something odd about this story - just why does the coal, if it cannot come from the local source, have to come from Siberia? Where I work, we use coal from Daw Mill (near Coventry), quite good enough for our needs, and it comes in 20 ton lorry loads. Is there nowhere else in the UK producing coal suitable for their engines?

[richard]

I don't know the details of the case, but I'll have to admit that I read the news item with the same cynical view as Bill did.

If it was really about local customers, they'd ask for something like "road delivery allowed for local customers of upto 20 tons a week, within X miles".

Also the article doesn't explore the views of the local residents who didn't want the road shipments in the first place. If it was road only, the article would be complaining that they can't deliver by rail!
(Sound unlikely? When I was over in July, the TV news was trying to make out that Junior Doctors were complaining because they weren't working 80 hour weeks! I think it must have been a slow news week)


Richard

[chaz harrison]

...then again we might do well to remember the Fleet Street hack's motto...

"Never let the truth get in the way of a good story."

Chaz

[redtoon1892]

There are several GBf trains a day leave Tyne Dock with imported eastern bloc coal, and this is from a port which not so long ago was the biggest exporter of coal in the UK

[Ferrybridge Flyer]

It's unbelivable how daft this country has got.R.I.P. common sense.

[Nibelungen]

Yes I was walking on the seafront with the dog in the summer and stopped at the Leisure Centre Station on the Cleethorpes Coast Light Railway ( which is steam operated) and was chatting to one of the drivers and I asked where they got the coal from and he told me it came from Poland. It looked like slack to me and was rather dull and shaley. It doesn't have the same smell as Welsh Steam Coal or Good old Yorkshire Hard coal either

[Justyn Keeble]

I wonder if I could inject a note of caution. This story appeared in the Daily Mail.

I was going to say the same thing, the Daily Hate Mail is not exactly a reliable source of information! In this case though, I think they may be on the right track for a change.