The diesel controversy

[Bob Brown 1Participant @bobbrown1]

There are also other things from cars that pollute, like brakes, tyres and the road surface it's self.

[not done it yetParticipant @notdoneityet]

Here is post#100

Wait and see.

Only real answer to this silly thread

[Antony PowellParticipant @antonypowell28169]

"There are also other things from cars that pollute, like brakes, tyres and the road surface it's self."

And the Idiots who drive them that are too lazy to put rubbish in a dustbin !!

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Posted by Antony Powell on 07/05/2017 12:33:09:

"The pollution situation is now causing the Gobment to come up with the lowering of Mway speeds in areas of high pollution from 70 to 60 mph"

Have you driven around Birmingham or on the M62 lately you be lucky to get 40mph and then its constant stop start due to these managed motorways with imaginary "congestion ahead" – Yes caused by your bloody signs and badly managed motorway

I spent 17 years commuting to Birmingham by bus, train and car. The delays while they put in the managed flow were awful, but now it's there the delays are far, far lower. Travelling around the M42 in the morning rush hour is a good 15-20 minutes faster.

Funnily enough though, the biggest change was when they got rid of the bus lanes on the A38 past Castle Vale. Journey times were more than halved, because traffic could move easier.

Most motorway congestion is caused by junctions that have limited capacity, the extra managed lanes help stop delays at junctions feeding back to the bulk movement, and the reduced speed limits stop traffic bunching up at junctions. Obviously nothing is perfect, but from genuine experience I can say the managed flows do make it much better on the whole.

My biggest wait in a jam was over four hours when the IRA put abomb on spaghetti junction. I had Lord of the Rings in the back of the car and read a large chunk of it…

Neil

[Clive HartlandParticipant @clivehartland94829]

Ethanol is now the fuel, a prog. on TV showed it being brewed and that it gave hardly any pollution.

Clive

[steamdaveParticipant @steamdave]

Posted by Clive Hartland on 07/05/2017 15:00:01:

Ethanol is now the fuel, a prog. on TV showed it being brewed and that it gave hardly any pollution.

Clive

There is always a counter argument to anything. Have a read of the following to see if all is sweetness and light:

http://rense.com/general85/eth.htm

True, it comes from across the pond so things may be somewhat biased.

Dave
The Emerald Isle

[Bob RodgersonParticipant @bobrodgerson97362]

Ethanol is horrible stuff. It dissolves older paint like Nitromors used to, rots plastic and draws in water which settles in the bottom of steel tanks and causes untold damage to fuel systems.

Millions of people are starving all over the world and the US farming lobby to grow more and more Petro crops to put the stuff into fuel as an additive.

Russia also grows millions of acres of wheat for the same purpose.

It must cost a fortune to brew and probably generates more greenhouse gasses than would be generated by burning straight mineral petroleum.

[Antony PowellParticipant @antonypowell28169]

Hi Neil

I've been driving up and down the country on a professional basis for the last 34 years, I find since the introduction of managed motorways delays around the likes of Birmingham have gone from either side of rush rush hour to constantly all day long.

You used to be able to get on the M1 and run at a constant 60 mph (truck) and not take your foot off until you got to London, these days you are lucky to get 10 miles without having to slow dramatically only to speed up and slow down again repeating the process all the way down the country

As you say bad junctions don't help but "Managed Motorways " give me a break

Tony

[JAParticipant @ja]

Posted by Bob Rodgerson on 07/05/2017 17:34:10:

Ethanol is horrible stuff.

Which reminds me, I must bottle the sloe gin.

JA

[KWILParticipant @kwil]

Bio ethanol added to petrol (now 5% heading for 10%) screws up the mpg, so you get less milage for the same price and tax paid.

[Mike PooleParticipant @mikepoole82104]

Surely the best thing to do with ethanol is drink it and run engines on methanol.

Mike

[VicParticipant @vic]

Posted by Mike Poole on 07/05/2017 20:52:37:

Surely the best thing to do with ethanol is drink it and run engines on methanol.

Mike

One year the French produced such dreadful red wine that they couldn't sell it until it was converted to pure ethanol to be added to petrol.

Apparently Henry Ford originally intended for his cars to be run on Ethanol.

Aren't some high performance racing engines run on Ethanol?

[Mike PooleParticipant @mikepoole82104]

Speedway and grass track bikes run on methanol and I think some classes of drag racer do. Fuel consumption is massive and the engines run very cool. The joke about jetting an Amal for speedway was just put a 1/8th drill through the main jet. Fires are nasty as they are not visible.

Mike

[JAParticipant @ja]

Posted by Mike Poole on 07/05/2017 22:30:50:

Speedway and grass track bikes run on methanol and I think some classes of drag racer do. Fuel consumption is massive and the engines run very cool. The joke about jetting an Amal for speedway was just put a 1/8th drill through the main jet. Fires are nasty as they are not visible.

Mike

The 1.5 litre supercharged Alfa Romeo Grand Prix cars of about 1951 ran on methanol and had a fuel consumption of 0.75mpg. Mind you the engine had a large valve overlap that allowed the blown through methanol to contribute significantly to the cooling.

I remember seeing a Triumph 500cc twin bike at a hill climb in the very early 80s with no finning at all. It was a methanol burner and it would not start properly. It was just too cold but when it did go it was very quick.

JA

[ChrisHParticipant @chrish]

I think, like Neil, that Motorway Management does keep the traffic flowing, if a little slower, rather than stopping and starting. The real trouble is that the volume of traffic has risen to a huge amount and continues to do so as the months and years roll on. Not really surprising as the population of the country is rising so steeply. Everyman and his dog wants a car these days naturally, can't blame them for that, and with immigration soaring naturally traffic is getting denser and denser. So with ever more vehicles on the road and only a limited amount of road space as we are a small island traffic is always going to go slower and slower and so motorway management to keep traffic flowing is bound to increase. Traffic may not flow as quickly as one would like with Motorway Management, or even as fast as Motorway Management would suggest with their signs, but generally it does flow. The only solution is a drastic population reduction to reduce the volume of traffic, so if everybody else leaves the country pronto, right now, we few can drive about in peace and quiet at the speed we want! Simples!

Chris

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by Neil Wyatt on 07/05/2017 14:52:19:

Funnily enough though, the biggest change was when they got rid of the bus lanes on the A38 past Castle Vale. Journey times were more than halved, because traffic could move easier.

.

Excellent observation, Neil

Bus lanes are a cynical piece of 'social engineering' : They appear to succeed [in making it quicker to travel by 'bus than by car] simply by crippling the opposition. … Green politics at its worst.

MichaelG.

.

P.S. There is, of course, an alternative:

 http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/transport-bosses-say-theyve-proved-12812463 … but the infrastrucure costs are high.

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 08/05/2017 07:34:16

[Clive IndiaParticipant @cliveindia]

Not forgetting the one at St. Ives. **LINK**

**LINK** This is what the "Younger End" think of Leigh.

This system aside, what advantage does a tram system have to offer – very expensive and restricted? Why is two bendy buses bolted together, running on the road, with a reserved part of a road, route-restricted by road markings, not as effective as a tram? Easy to change when needed, cheap to install. Trams get support here because of rail enthusiasts – but are they just an expensive nonsense?

Edited By Clive India on 08/05/2017 09:15:23

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by Clive India on 08/05/2017 09:14:14:

[…]

This system aside, what advantage does a tram system have to offer – very expensive and restricted? Why is two bendy buses bolted together, running on the road, with a reserved part of a road, route-restricted by road markings, not as effective as a tram? Easy to change when needed, cheap to install. Trams get support here because of rail enthusiasts – but are they just an expensive nonsense?

.

I've not done any analysis, but: I would assume that the main benefit of trams is that the 'fuel supply' is distributed … so each vehicle does not need to transport the weight of its fuel.

MichaelG.

[CirclipParticipant @circlip]

Yep, got a guided bus lane Bradford, what a total waste of £7million. Bendy busses, had them and managed to sell them on and latest by the village idiots is bus lanes which manage to choke ingress and egress routes into the city twice a day and a 24/7 bus lane as part of a "Get motorists off the road" and onto non existent public transport. Perhaps the newly built Railway "Station" (Originally closed in the 60's and demolished by the Beeching cuts) will tempt the great unwashed to dump their cars, which you need to get to it, and travel by train.

And don't forget, we were the first city in the UK to put traffic lights on a roundabout.

Regards Ian

[Antony PowellParticipant @antonypowell28169]

This morning I’m on the M42 south of birmingham, been stationary for 20 minutes an just got to the front of the closed lane….nothing here…whats the point another well managed motorway. Not an accident miles of cones and no workers in site.
!!

Edited By Antony Powell on 08/05/2017 10:00:37

[Martin 100Participant @martin100]

Posted by Circlip on 08/05/2017 09:53:13:.

And don't forget, we were the first city in the UK to put traffic lights on a roundabout.

Other than at very quiet times there are many roundabouts that simply would not function without traffic lights.

On some roundabouts without lights you have to rely on breaks in the traffic caused by traffic lights often many hundreds of metres away to give you any reasonable chance of crossing.

[roy entwistleParticipant @royentwistle24699]

What was wrong with trolley buses? No need to lay track,only needed overhead wires same as tram

Roy

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

I just remember trolley busses. Silent and simply flew up hills compared with the lumbering diesels. That is of course until someone parked at the side of the road, the bus driver decided he could get past and couldn't, the trolley camne adrift and all traffic stopped whilst the conductor (remember them) got a very long pole and re-engaged the trolley.

Also, trams have much higher seating capacity, you can couple them together and still ony have one driver. The only advantages of guided busses and trolley busses is the lower capital cost, once you've actually got them trams can shift a lot more people a lot more cheaply.

[Martin KyteParticipant @martinkyte99762]

Modern Tramways do offer major advantages and seem to be making a comeback in many parts of the world. The principle advantage is the ability of the system to place the primary power source far away from the moving vehicle.

regards Martin

[VicParticipant @vic]

I read many years ago that Trams were done away with by the British Government in order to build up the Car industry. It seems Trams never went away in some European countries.

[Author]

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