New battery tech?

[tim...]

but when they are 10 million?

tim

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Still quite common round here.

[GB]

There'll be lots of charging points. That's a pre-requisite for 10m people to buy the cars. Obviously, people won't buy them unless they can charge them.

[GB]

I have no idea how much these will cost of there are millions of them.

[Clive George]

That's splitting train, not yer actual slip coach.

[damduck-egg]

Depends on what terminology you mean by drop off, lots of trains are divided after the entire train has come to a full stop which means the total passenger compliment has to wait till the sections start to progress to their destinations or often part to a depot. As the link I provided mentions the last UK drop off from a train where the main portion carried on its way without stopping so the passengers in that section were not delayed by the many having to wait for a few took place in 1960. It is that style of operation I could see a "Train" of driverless cars mimicking as they progress on their virtual "tracks" of a motorway. It might happen to an extent already as adaptive cruise control and lane keeping assist becomes more popular, there must be some occasions where a half a dozen or so of such cars fitted with these devices have already followed each other for some miles till one turned off or another one joined in. That can only increase as more vehicles get equipped with it.

G.Harman

[Huge]

[19 lines snipped]

I believe the industry term is "platoon".

[damduck-egg]

Ta, I was trying to remember what the term was, convoy did not sound right but gave me an earworm of that dammed CB record. Now it's the flaming Dads Army theme. G.Harman

[Huge]

You're welcome.

Tee-hee. IME it (the earworming) gets worse as you get older.

[Roger Hayter]

Don't know where that is, but it used to be common on Southern Region. And they still do it on the Cambrian line. But it involves a stop and a

10 minute delay for one half.

[Tim Streater]

That's not "dropping off a few carriages". The St Panc - Ashford HS service routinely splits at Ashford, half goes on to Dover and half to Margate. Trains from Kings X to Cambridge often picked up the other half that had come down from King's Lynn and then back to Kings X.

But that's not what's being talked about.

Hmmm, I could just see the train splitting at Ashford *without* stopping - but they'd have to be bloody nippy switching the points. Then the second train would need a driver - perhaps pick him up on the fly too, like they used to do with mail on the expresses.

[Capitol]

How many GW of nuclear will we need?

[The Natural Philosopher]

Up to 300GW foir a totally fossil free nation.

More likely 150-200GW is

- we stop immigration and population rise.

- we get good at energy efficiency.

[Johnny B Good]

====snip====

Nor can they match the efficiency per ton/mile's worth of freight and passenger transport energy costs of an electrified railway (probably not even in the case of diesel traction based rail transport).

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Still takes time. Even with the conductor helping out. Something those wanting driver only trains like to ignore.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Not quite sure how slipping off a couple of coaches could work in practice?

Fine on a very lightly used service - but how are they moved out of the way? And how are they retrieved? You could hardly slip them back on to a fast moving train. Would seem to date from the days of steam, rather than present day local services with usually more than one driven car.

[Clive George]

Yes, it's an old thing, last done in 1960.

A local shunter picked them up to get them out of the way.

One of the problems was indeed that you can't reverse the operation - so it was good and fast for people leaving London, but the return journey had to stop to pick people up. (and possibly coaches).

[Tim Streater]

That's what the platform staff are for.

[Tim Streater]

[harry]

Mine is water cooled with an automotive radiator. Water never gets more than lukewarm. So no good for cab heating.