Flightshaming to London from Dublin

PhilOssophy · 30-01-2020 03:17PM

magicbastarder wrote: »

are you adding the 0.13 for ferry car passenger to the 0.03 of coach, to get the same value as 0.16 of a short haul flight?

No. I just noticed the error in how I read it, I thought it was over the entire journey rather than per km.

bk · 30-01-2020 03:49PM

That is interesting that the coach is cleaner per km then rail. It certainly puts a dent in the argument for WRC or that we should be doing intercity rail on an environmental basis.

easypazz · 30-01-2020 03:52PM

bk wrote: »

That is interesting that the coach is cleaner per km then rail. It certainly puts a dent in the argument for WRC or that we should be doing intercity rail on an environmental basis.

I assume that figure is for diesel locomotives and obviously electric is the way to go.

Rowley Birkin QC · 30-01-2020 03:54PM

easypazz wrote: »

While I get of what you are saying it does not take 1 hour to fly to London. I make it about 5 or 6

.

So you're completely ignoring the real life example I gave where I can be from my house in Dublin to hotel room in London in about 4 hours?

bk · 30-01-2020 04:07PM

easypazz wrote: »

I assume that figure is for diesel locomotives and obviously electric is the way to go.

I'd assume so, though even the generation of Electricity outputs C02. Actually they have London Underground down as .03 and light rail tram at .034, compared to .027 for Coach. So it seems to also include some electric too.

Interestingly a Diesel VW Golf sized car comes it at .14 and a BMW 3 Series sized car at .16, much the same as flying.

So if you are worried about the environment, it is probably better to focus on your car and your daily commute, then flying. Consider an EV car for your next car or walking/cycling/public transport if that is an option.

Of course fly less often if you can too would help.

magicbastarder · 30-01-2020 04:49PM

bk wrote: »

So if you are worried about the environment, it is probably better to focus on your car and your daily commute, then flying.

or your house insulation/home heating.
there are plenty of people who think it's just a fact of life that they burn one and a half tanks of kerosene - or more - per year heating their house.

it's the equivalent of a decent fill of petrol or diesel in your car every two weeks (and that's averaged out over the year)

crisco10 · 30-01-2020 04:55PM

bk wrote: »

I'd assume so, though even the generation of Electricity outputs C02. Actually they have London Underground down as .03 and light rail tram at .034, compared to .027 for Coach. So it seems to also include some electric too.

Interestingly a Diesel VW Golf sized car comes it at .14 and a BMW 3 Series sized car at .16, much the same as flying.

So if you are worried about the environment, it is probably better to focus on your car and your daily commute, then flying. Consider an EV car for your next car or walking/cycling/public transport if that is an option.

Of course fly less often if you can too would help.

Yeah, the reason I had those figures to hand was I had done an exercise only last week. For a trip to South of France, near Bordeaux, would it be better to fly/drive or ferry/drive?

Outcome was that there is a significant dependence on your car choice for the drive from Cherbourg to Bordeaux. If you did it in an Xtrail or similar SUV, your carbon footprint was worse than fly/drive. But if you did it in more reasonable "compact" family car, then the boat was better.

And yes, the national rail figure was based on Diesel locomotives. If you were using electric rail, the number is different (smaller) again.

loyatemu · 30-01-2020 05:28PM

magicbastarder wrote: »

or your house insulation/home heating.
there are plenty of people who think it's just a fact of life that they burn one and a half tanks of kerosene - or more - per year heating their house.

it's the equivalent of a decent fill of petrol or diesel in your car every two weeks (and that's averaged out over the year)

I think most people are aware of how badly insulated old Irish houses are, but don't have the money to fix it. It's one thing to find 2k a year to heat your house, another to find 20k up front to fully insulate it.

easypazz · 30-01-2020 05:44PM

Rowley Birkin QC wrote: »

So you're completely ignoring the real life example I gave where I can be from my house in Dublin to hotel room in London in about 4 hours?

Sorry I missed that post, 4 hours, as you said "all going well", I assume you do that route regular so know how to cut down on any potential delays / hiccups along the way and have everything optimised. I also assume you are not bringing a suitcase.

I would still estimate 5-6 hours to be about average, versus 9-10 on sail rail, with potentially less stress taking the sail - rail route.

Exact start and end points will be a factor too, Dublin port is closer for some for sure.

rivegauche · 30-01-2020 05:50PM

crisco10 wrote: »

The British government have a fairly comprehensive dataset of emission factors for various types of transport titled "UK Government GHG Conversion Factors for Company Reporting"

Here's a few highlights:

Emission Factor (kgCO2 e) per km Comment
Short Haul Flight 0.16 Accounts for CO2 being emitted at altitude
Ferry - Foot Passenger 0.02
Ferry - Car Passenger 0.13
Coach 0.03
National Rail 0.04

Cruise ships aren't listed, but are significantly worse than ferries because they carry around all the facilities that are unnecessary. E.g. multiple swimming pools!

I'm not sure these figures are correct for Ryanair and to a lesser extent Aer Lingus.
Even if their claimed figures .069kg per passenger don't include Radiative forcing the multiplier is 1.9 so they are considerably below the .16 mentioned in the table and radiative forcing should be reduced as they would never reach FL41 or stay at high altitudes for any long period of time.

cdaly_ · 30-01-2020 06:22PM

easypazz wrote: »

Sorry I missed that post, 4 hours, as you said "all going well", I assume you do that route regular so know how to cut down on any potential delays / hiccups along the way and have everything optimised. I also assume you are not bringing a suitcase.

I would still estimate 5-6 hours to be about average, versus 9-10 on sail rail, with potentially less stress taking the sail - rail route.

Exact start and end points will be a factor too, Dublin port is closer for some for sure.

The other consideration is that the current sail-rail scheduling has large waiting times between sectors. Coordinated scheduling would cut that further.

easypazz · 30-01-2020 06:32PM

cdaly_ wrote: »

The other consideration is that the current sail-rail scheduling has large waiting times between sectors. Coordinated scheduling would cut that further.

The service is not at all sail rail focused.

If they wanted they could strip time out and have seemless transfer ship onto waiting train.

For example security and ticket checks could be done on the ship prior to arrival, so you walk straight onto the train and off you go.

Sam Russell · 30-01-2020 09:04PM

easypazz wrote: »

The service is not at all sail rail focused.

If they wanted they could strip time out and have seemless transfer ship onto waiting train.

For example security and ticket checks could be done on the ship prior to arrival, so you walk straight onto the train and off you go.

I believe they used to do that before flights got cheap. London Euston to Holyhead non-stop with the boat waiting for the train. Boat to DL with train waiting for the boat. Then the train was right up to the boat, so no long walk.

All the tracks at DL are long gone.

All before my time though.

Breezer · 30-01-2020 09:52PM

I did the sail rail thing years ago when I went Interrailing. I went from Dublin to London, stayed overnight, then went as far as Frankfurt the next day, and proceeded to do a lap of Europe on trains, ending up sail railing back to Dublin. I absolutely loved it!

I’m planning on doing it to Spain this year for holidays, via London and Paris.

Now I’m a self-employed solo traveller, so I have the luxury of being able to do things like that. It’s not going to work for a family with 3 young kids trying to squeeze in a week’s holidays. It could definitely be improved though, if the timetables were tweaked, like people said.

A late ferry from Dublin and then overnight train to London, getting in for 7ish with plenty of time to get an early Eurostar if necessary, would be a great option. I can see it happening if air travel starts being taxed properly.

crisco10 · 30-01-2020 10:09PM

rivegauche wrote: »

I'm not sure these figures are correct for Ryanair and to a lesser extent Aer Lingus.
Even if their claimed figures .069kg per passenger don't include Radiative forcing the multiplier is 1.9 so they are considerably below the .16 mentioned in the table and radiative forcing should be reduced as they would never reach FL41 or stay at high altitudes for any long period of time.

I don't follow, I would assume aer lingus and Ryanair would quote without RF as it's the lower number and is somewhat valid.

Not sure where the airlines quote the .069 figure, but that multiplied by 1.9 is ~0.14 which is certainly not considerably below. There are a lot of factors at play, they actually quite 3 types of flight' short haul, domestic and long haul.
So there are definitely variances at its all rough estimates. Not least because it's hard to know the distance flown on a given day due to air traffic routing, hold patterns etc.

Oh and this comparison only deals with 1 pollutant - CO2!

30-01-2020 10:14PM

you are rounding up .1311 to .14

Allinall · 30-01-2020 10:16PM

Sam Russell wrote: »

I believe they used to do that before flights got cheap. London Euston to Holyhead non-stop with the boat waiting for the train. Boat to DL with train waiting for the boat. Then the train was right up to the boat, so no long walk.

All the tracks at DL are long gone.

All before my time though.

Go back a bit further, and the train rolled on to the boat. The boats had rails built into the deck, so trains went all the way.

easypazz · 30-01-2020 10:24PM

Allinall wrote: »

Go back a bit further, and the train rolled on to the boat. The boats had rails built into the deck, so trains went all the way.

I dont think they did.

Different track gauge.

Sam Russell · 30-01-2020 10:33PM

easypazz wrote: »

I dont think they did.

Different track gauge.

London to Paris - but not Dublin to London.

Strumms · 30-01-2020 10:39PM

nuckeythompson wrote: »

The coach is an absolute nightmare. Very hard to sleep on it

I have taken the train and sail but sometimes the change the train it it has 3 stops so no sleeping either. To be honest I find the coach easier to sleep on than the train

I have done it loads of times and wil hopefully never do it again. Not to mention being stuck ion Holyhead because of delays. Holyhead is a complete dump too

1000%, anyone ever stuck in Holyhead for any fûcking duration of time, well, you’ll eventually leave it but it will never leave you, grim place.

There was one direct train from Holyhead to London (unsure about now) but if you missed it, there were a myriad of changes needed and with luggage cases, zero fun... Crewe, Chester, etc...

Del.Monte · 30-01-2020 10:46PM

Allinall wrote: »

Go back a bit further, and the train rolled on to the boat. The boats had rails built into the deck, so trains went all the way.

Never happened between the UK and Ireland. Places like Denmark you still have train ferries.

iguana · 30-01-2020 11:27PM

I used to do Rail and Sail quite a bit when I lived in London. I could catch the train from Euston directly from work in central London, take the ferry to Dun Laoghaire and be at my in laws house in Stillorgan a little over 7 hours after walking out the door of work. Door to door when flying through Stanstead or Gatwick was maybe about 30 minutes shorter. I found doing it by rail and sail was just more convenient as I could literally just buy my ticket at the machine when I arrived at Euston and it was always £29. And I found it to be more relaxing and physically comfortable. And I had no worries about carry on the weight of my bags etc. Admittedly I also dislike flying, so I had a strong preference for travelling that way.

Thisonedone · 30-01-2020 11:30PM

Del.Monte wrote: »

Never happened between the UK and Ireland. Places like Denmark you still have train ferries.

Surely it’s only a matter of time before ferry companies and rail companies realise what sort of an opportunity they have right now, and bring in rail ferries between Uk and Ireland? How great would it be to get on a train at Galway at night and wake up in Paris without ever having to get off, avoiding the stress and hassle of airports. Or has brexit fcuked up that idea?

bk · 30-01-2020 11:50PM

Thisonedone wrote: »

Surely it’s only a matter of time before ferry companies and rail companies realise what sort of an opportunity they have right now, and bring in rail ferries between Uk and Ireland? How great would it be to get on a train at Galway at night and wake up in Paris without ever having to get off, avoiding the stress and hassle of airports. Or has brexit fcuked up that idea?

Different rail gauge, a train from Ireland can't run on British tracks.

Thisonedone · 31-01-2020 12:05AM

bk wrote: »

Different rail gauge, a train from Ireland can't run on British tracks.

How much would it be to convert our one to theirs? 50 million? A billion?

Sam Russell · 31-01-2020 12:14AM

Thisonedone wrote: »

Does France have same rail gauge as uk? If so how much would it be to convert our one to theirs? 50 million? A billion?

Yes, the British built the French Railway sytem.

We would be nuts to change gauge. Would we change trains at Newry or Dundalk?

magicbastarder · 31-01-2020 12:22AM

Thisonedone wrote: »

How much would it be to convert our one to theirs? 50 million? A billion?

keep going.
how much to lift and replace all the rail in ireland, and buy new rolling stock too?

the *additional* carriages announced a couple of months ago are going to cost €150m.

Thisonedone · 31-01-2020 12:30AM

Sam Russell wrote: »

Yes, the British built the French Railway sytem.

We would be nuts to change gauge. Would we change trains at Newry or Dundalk?

Would obviously need to be done on an all Ireland basis but im sure the unionists won’t complain about being on the same system as Britain and being able to travel from Derry to Italy by train if they wished

Thisonedone · 31-01-2020 12:31AM

magicbastarder wrote: »

keep going.
how much to lift and replace all the rail in ireland, and buy new rolling stock too?

the *additional* carriages announced a couple of months ago are going to cost €150m.

Well even if it was 5 billion it would be worth it, just tax flights properly reflecting their true cost to the environment to pay for it

Sam Russell · 31-01-2020 12:34AM

Thisonedone wrote: »

Would obviously need to be done on an all Ireland basis but im sure the unionists won’t complain about being on the same system as Britain and being able to travel from Derry to Italy by train if they wished

But unlikely.

Flightshaming to London from Dublin

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