welshhighland

NiFe and NiZn are being investigated for use in hybrid power road vehicles, but both (currently) have some serious drawbacks. The biggest of which is that they have a low charge cycle count. Both are better than Lead/acid in terms of energy/kg, and similar in terms of energy/cubic meter, and both ha...

Current production is now at the 40Ahr/cell, which I have to admit is a bit bigger than a AA cell, but still a long way short of that required for a traction application where the target is around 150AHr/cell. The other drawback is that the predicted cell life is 500 cycles which compares badly with...

They've been around for years, but until recently have not had much development work done on them. There's a short Wikipedia article about their development and history: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nickel-zinc_battery Might be of use if they can be developed into "serious" sizes rather th...

Given the technologies being employed I'm not surprised at the costs. The "charging" system alone must come under the "technical nightmare" category, having to work with such different types of supply, from the really nice smooth output from the PV cells to the noisy output from ...

Sadly the steady development in battery technology is still bounded by the laws of physics. The current hurdle to overcome is that of heat, when you charge/discharge batteries they produce heat, as anyone with a laptop will know, and with the increasing output of batteries this is getting towards th...

Benefits from Tony's foot power would be that passengers would be less likely to suffer from posture induced deep vein thrombosis, have an enhanced exercise regime and as a result be generally fitter.

Hasn't anyone notice the key hole in the nose cone of Pendolinos?????

The problems of zips jamming tend to be dominated by distortion of the fabric, obviously if the things you are trying to join are well anchored there is less potential for distortion. Also in my experience tend to jam less often than the tidily little ones used on dresses. What happens to the train ...

OK some questions asked I realise that the pipe is too big to sit under the axle (or indeed many other bits of a WHR/FR train, so thought about integrating the pipe into the track structure. Very much more complex civil and structural engineering, but do-able (if expensive). If we consider vacuum on...

Martin, you got it in four (easy) points

Wait, but please don't hold your breath, we don't want you to go blue round the edges.......

Hey, I've just done the sums - it looks "interesting" - a 12" bore pipe, running at a 100psi pressure difference gives a draw bar pull of about 11,000lbs., the sort of pull needed for a banker.

I think Pedr was thinking more along the lines of the "atmospheric railways" that were tried in various place in the "Victorian era". Most of these were a "qualified success", until the rodents came a long and devoured the leather flaps sealing the pipes. I dare say tha...

I have a plan, a cunning plan......... For a low duty low pollution loco such as a banker air might be a solution, and has a few attractions. First, and by no means least, is the "tourist value". I very much doubt if there are any other air locos in service on UK narrow gauge railways, so ...

Following from my last note. It would have been a very interesting debate if the FR/WHR had already got a couple of electric powered units/locos along with a "modern" signalling system, and that they were all in operation before the installation of ERTMS (or what ever its going to be calle...

As you might guess the certification and approvals cost money, lots of money. To give you an idea, the EMC testing of a new design of electric loco takes between 6 months and two years, and keeps about 5 men (consultants) "gainfully" employed. Wave goodbye to a million quid or more. Then ...