http://citycyclingedinburgh.info/bbpress/ CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Topic: length of old tram line never dug up??? en Sun, 17 May 2026 10:35:20 +0000 http://citycyclingedinburgh.info/bbpress/topic.php?id=3060#post-32416 Mon, 30 May 2011 11:19:16 +0000 wee folding bike 32416@http://citycyclingedinburgh.info/bbpress/ <p>i like looking at wind farms. On a clear day I can see Whitelee from the upstairs front windows.</p> <p>They seem to think the cycle paths on the wind farm are extreme but I haven't found anything you can't do on a Brompton (with mudguards and lights). </p> http://citycyclingedinburgh.info/bbpress/topic.php?id=3060#post-32414 Mon, 30 May 2011 11:12:44 +0000 chdot 32414@http://citycyclingedinburgh.info/bbpress/ <p>"Just in case any one is interested"</p> <p>I think everyone should be! </p> <p>There's usually plenty in the news about 'energy', 'renewables', 'price of petrol', 'energy gaps' etc. </p> <p>I think most people are just confused (not least those who have to take major decisions). </p> <p>Some people think electric cars are 'the answer', perhaps with the electricity coming from nuclear which is 'low carbon'</p> <p>Today's news -</p> <p><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/may/29/carbon-emissions-nuclearpower" rel="nofollow">http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/may/29/carbon-emissions-nuclearpower</a> </p> http://citycyclingedinburgh.info/bbpress/topic.php?id=3060#post-32412 Mon, 30 May 2011 11:03:56 +0000 steveo 32412@http://citycyclingedinburgh.info/bbpress/ <p>Lucky you, i'm eyeing up a bivvy fo my next trip later in the year. When the rain gets stuck in...</p> <p>Probably be better with another thread buuuut, what you using for charging your phone? </p> http://citycyclingedinburgh.info/bbpress/topic.php?id=3060#post-32411 Mon, 30 May 2011 10:57:42 +0000 Smudge 32411@http://citycyclingedinburgh.info/bbpress/ <p>But hopefully solar will provide 100% of my phone's battery power next week...<br /> Cycle touring time! Whoo-hoo! B-) </p> http://citycyclingedinburgh.info/bbpress/topic.php?id=3060#post-32409 Mon, 30 May 2011 10:52:28 +0000 steveo 32409@http://citycyclingedinburgh.info/bbpress/ <p>Just in case any one is interested Coal, Natural gas and Nuclear provide nearly exactly 90% of the UK's electrical power. Either Wind or Hydro provides almost double the power of Oil which is a nat's wing over 1%. </p> <p>On a (even greater) tangent in 2009 Solar provided less than 0.01% of the uk's electrical power out put </p> http://citycyclingedinburgh.info/bbpress/topic.php?id=3060#post-32399 Sun, 29 May 2011 22:45:21 +0000 Cyclingmollie 32399@http://citycyclingedinburgh.info/bbpress/ <p>God, I sound like a right old fart. </p> http://citycyclingedinburgh.info/bbpress/topic.php?id=3060#post-32398 Sun, 29 May 2011 22:44:29 +0000 Cyclingmollie 32398@http://citycyclingedinburgh.info/bbpress/ <p>@kaputnik: I didn't know the Methil power station had been demolished. It was a prominent landmark from the Leven bus station. The Kirkcaldy bus used to arrive just as the hourly 95 to St Andrews was leaving. Why they didn't make it a connecting service I have no idea. I used to sit for an hour in the little pub in the High Street or read about restoring MGBs in the library. </p> http://citycyclingedinburgh.info/bbpress/topic.php?id=3060#post-32396 Sun, 29 May 2011 21:56:38 +0000 chdot 32396@http://citycyclingedinburgh.info/bbpress/ <p>"Electricity generation and local distribution was almost entirely municipally and industrially owned"</p> <p>And it wasn't just coal -</p> <p><a href="http://www.salisburyjournal.co.uk/letters/8887029.Water_has_the_power_to_play_a_vital_role" rel="nofollow">http://www.salisburyjournal.co.uk/letters/8887029.Water_has_the_power_to_play_a_vital_role</a></p> <p>Anyone ever calculated the electicity potential of the Water of Leith??</p> <p>There used to be about 80 mills for a variety of industrial processes. </p> http://citycyclingedinburgh.info/bbpress/topic.php?id=3060#post-32395 Sun, 29 May 2011 21:38:37 +0000 kaputnik 32395@http://citycyclingedinburgh.info/bbpress/ <p><em>Now that I come to think of it, wasn't the electricity network also owned by the state back then? As were most of the power stations and the coal industry which supplied the fuel for most of them.</em></p> <p>Electricity generation and local distribution was almost entirely municipally and industrially owned and run at various levels. The North of Scotland Hydro Board was a bit of an exception being a nationalised electicity generation and distribution board for northern Scotland. National distribution was by the Central Electricity Board (fore-runner of the National Grid)</p> <p>With the excention of the Hydro, it was nationalised in 1948 into regional generation, supply and distribution boards under the British Electricity Authority.</p> <p>There was re-organisation in 1954 with the Hydro being formally incorporated into the nationalised sructure, and the South West and South East Scottish boards combined into the South of Scotland Electricity Board (SSEB. You can still see those letters on old bits of electricity infrastructure). The BEA dissapeared at this time and was replaced by the Central Electricity Authority (CEA.)</p> <p>It was reogranised again in 1957 with generation in England and Wales being combined into the Central Electricity Generation Board (CEGB) under the Electricity Council (strategy / policy / governance body). Local supply and distribution in England and Wales was by area boards. In Scotland, it remained integrated with the North (Hydro) and South boards doing the generation, supply and distribution. The CEGB ran the National Grid.</p> <p>This structure lasted almost 40 years until the CEGB was broken up and sold off in bits and pieces right throughout the 1990s. The North of Scotland Hydro became Scottish Hydro Electric (now part of SSE after merging with the former Southern Board) and SSEB became Scottish Power, who took over the Merseyside and Wales Board (MANWEB) and are now owned by the Spanish. SSEB didn't get to keep its nuclear plants. Perhaps they weren't trusted.</p> <p>In a while somebody will get bored of the current set up and we'll have another one.</p> <p>Coal was nationalised from 1947 for 40 years as the National Coal Board, then becoming the British Coal Corporation in 1987 in the run-up to privatisation. Its limited remains were sold off. The state-owned bit that remains is a quango called The Coal Authority that deals with subsidence and old mine shafts and clearing up spoil heaps and that sort of thing.</p> <p>On the topic of oil and electricity, SSEB built an enormous oil-fired power station at <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverkip_Power_Station">Inverkip</a>. The chimney is the tallest free-standing structure in Scotland. It started being built in the early 70s and the oil crisis intervened, meaning when it was complete it was too expensive to run, so 2/3 of its units were promptly mothballed. It only ever got to run as intended during the Miners Strike in 1984, after which it spent another 20 or so years in strategic reserve. I think they're taking it apart now.</p> <p>The little power station at Methil was designed to run off the washings of the Fife coal field. It lost its source of fuel when that closed down in the mid 80s and after that I think it existed on bits of reclaimed bings until it too was mothballed and - about a month ago - demolished. </p> http://citycyclingedinburgh.info/bbpress/topic.php?id=3060#post-32394 Sun, 29 May 2011 21:37:07 +0000 wee folding bike 32394@http://citycyclingedinburgh.info/bbpress/ <p>It didn't work for Inverkip.</p> <p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverkip_power_station" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverkip_power_station</a></p> <p>The chimney was useful if you were sailing. </p> http://citycyclingedinburgh.info/bbpress/topic.php?id=3060#post-32393 Sun, 29 May 2011 21:18:13 +0000 crowriver 32393@http://citycyclingedinburgh.info/bbpress/ <p>Now that I come to think of it, wasn't the electricity network also owned by the state back then? As were most of the power stations and the coal industry which supplied the fuel for most of them.</p> <p>Although the government held stakes in many UK oil producing companies (eg. Burmah Oil and subsidiary BP), they were still private sector concerns, with shares listed on the stock exchange. One can see how the oil sector would want to grow its market share against the then still dominant coal sector. There are still oil fired power stations around dating from the 1960s, which must have seemed feasible when oil was still cheap. </p> http://citycyclingedinburgh.info/bbpress/topic.php?id=3060#post-32392 Sun, 29 May 2011 20:02:49 +0000 chdot 32392@http://citycyclingedinburgh.info/bbpress/ <p>"I'll wear her down and she'll get a bike one day."</p> <p>I expect she'll have been brought up to think that this -</p> <p><a href="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3396/5772433257_bf5c29e82c_o.jpg"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3396/5772433257_d09011a62d.jpg"><br /> </a></p> <p>is cheap/value for money/desirable/necessary etc. </p> <p>(and of course that price is without insurance, petrol etc...) </p> http://citycyclingedinburgh.info/bbpress/topic.php?id=3060#post-32391 Sun, 29 May 2011 19:45:03 +0000 crowriver 32391@http://citycyclingedinburgh.info/bbpress/ <p>Great quote at the end:</p> <p>"Once you're in a city or a built environment, it all seems like a fait accompli, it seems as if you can't change it, that cities are the way they are, and have always been that way, or this is the way our life is conducted. And the truth is, these big infrastructure projects are not forever; they're constantly being built and changed and revamped, and made to work in ways that nobody dreamed they ever would need to be worked. That was what was so moving to me, thinking about this rail system and that whole communities were formed and shaped and grew up around rail lines and streetcar systems and they are now entirely gone. And it's not just that the system's gone, and that you're riding a different mode of transit, but it's the way that rail lines and streetcars and public transit creates civic life in a city that is very important, and struck me as an incredible loss.</p> <p>I think our automobile culture has a lot of interesting and fun and wild kind of aspects to it, but civic life is certainly not among them." </p> http://citycyclingedinburgh.info/bbpress/topic.php?id=3060#post-32390 Sun, 29 May 2011 19:40:16 +0000 wee folding bike 32390@http://citycyclingedinburgh.info/bbpress/ <p>I've read a thesis that part of the problem with UK trains was the Luftwaffe's failure to bomb it into the ground.</p> <p>By the end of WWII it was mostly still in place and still running steam trains. Elsewhere in Europe rebuilding allowed electrification. I can't find a mention on the web but the information beside Evening Star in York says something about them expecting it would run until '75.</p> <p>I like steam trains just fine but I'm also quite annoyed that I didn't manage to see the Deltic in Striling a couple of years ago. </p> http://citycyclingedinburgh.info/bbpress/topic.php?id=3060#post-32389 Sun, 29 May 2011 19:40:01 +0000 crowriver 32389@http://citycyclingedinburgh.info/bbpress/ <p>A fascinating Australian documentary on the Los Angeles tram system (once one of the biggest in the world) and why it was replaced by buses after WW2: <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/rn/rearvision/stories/2006/1749886.htm">http://www.abc.net.au/rn/rearvision/stories/2006/1749886.htm</a></p> <p>Apparently something similar happened in Australia too. They forgot to mention the UK... </p> http://citycyclingedinburgh.info/bbpress/topic.php?id=3060#post-32388 Sun, 29 May 2011 19:24:29 +0000 crowriver 32388@http://citycyclingedinburgh.info/bbpress/ <p>@gembo <em>Can there have been anything wrong with trams - did they shoal like buses, break down often etc.? Or was it a mass psychology thing where they were seen as the past the same way as bulldozing whole areas of Glasgow for a motorway was apparently accepted as progress.</em></p> <p>The post-war period in the UK is a very strange story if one cares to think about it. It seems we became so utterly transfixed by the culture of America that we adopted many attributes of US capitalism, despite having unique cultures, traditions and infrastructure of our own. Trams, railways, canals and shipping infrastructure were all in place, inherited in large part from the Victorians. We actually tore up most of this infrastructure and switched almost entirely to road transport. I can't think of any other country that has done this in such a wholesale fashion apart from the US. We did this despite living on a small, crowded island where distances between population centres are not great, ie. the complete opposite of the US situation.</p> <p>Why? The shared language and cultural factors were obviously influential. But ultimately it must be because enough people's interests were served by this change: they could profit from it. Inherited infrastructure, mostly run by the state (after WW2 nationalisation), does not feed the profits of private investors. That's why it happened in the US (eg. cities like Los Angeles used to have trams), and that's why it happened here, <em>despite the fact that it goes against logic and common sense</em>. </p> http://citycyclingedinburgh.info/bbpress/topic.php?id=3060#post-32387 Sun, 29 May 2011 19:22:49 +0000 wee folding bike 32387@http://citycyclingedinburgh.info/bbpress/ <p>That might explain why I've never been on a train in Edinburgh. OTOH I've only used a bus a few times and not for more than 10 years. Once I got a Brompton I just took that with me.</p> <p>Who knew Glasgow was so good?</p> <p>One of our probationers had to go into town for something last week. The older members said the best idea was to leave her car at Easterhouse and get the train but she decided against this. Queen St was 200 m from the council office which she had to go to. All the car parks are further away and circling for a space could take more time than she expected to save. Nonetheless she used the car. She doesn't even seem very experienced in city traffic as she was nervous about it.</p> <p>I'll wear her down and she'll get a bike one day. </p> http://citycyclingedinburgh.info/bbpress/topic.php?id=3060#post-32386 Sun, 29 May 2011 19:16:37 +0000 chdot 32386@http://citycyclingedinburgh.info/bbpress/ <p>"I think the line from St Enoch through Gorbals might have been freight only"</p> <p><a href="http://www.railbrit.co.uk/City_of_Glasgow_Union_Railway/frame.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.railbrit.co.uk/City_of_Glasgow_Union_Railway/frame.htm</a> </p> http://citycyclingedinburgh.info/bbpress/topic.php?id=3060#post-32385 Sun, 29 May 2011 19:11:19 +0000 wee folding bike 32385@http://citycyclingedinburgh.info/bbpress/ <p>Bicycle wheels got caught in the tram lines. My uncle even caught his moped wheels in them. My mum's friend had ears at different heights because his wheels were trapped and he collided with a car.</p> <p>I don't know how they could avoid grouping like busses since they couldn't pass each other.</p> <p>Perhaps trolley busses with a battery back up for short stretches of off piste would have been a good idea. </p> http://citycyclingedinburgh.info/bbpress/topic.php?id=3060#post-32384 Sun, 29 May 2011 19:09:36 +0000 crowriver 32384@http://citycyclingedinburgh.info/bbpress/ <p>"Glasgow has the largest network of suburban railway lines in the UK outwith London. Much of the network is 25kV AC electrified, with the exception of the Croy Line, Maryhill Line, Paisley Canal Line, South Western Lines, Shotts Line, Whifflet Line and Cumbernauld Line."</p> <p>From: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strathclyde_Partnership_for_Transport">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strathclyde_Partnership_for_Transport</a></p> <p>Edinburgh has hardly any suburban network, unless you count the spurs to Newcraighall, North Berwick, and the Bathgate line (which now goes all the way to Glasgow). I don't think the Fife circle counts, though arguably much of southern Fife is a <em>de facto</em> dormitory suburb of Edinburgh... </p> http://citycyclingedinburgh.info/bbpress/topic.php?id=3060#post-32383 Sun, 29 May 2011 19:04:06 +0000 gembo 32383@http://citycyclingedinburgh.info/bbpress/ <p>The first ramp mentioned by Folds would have taken out Firhill Stadium so maybe Partick Thistle influence too. The collective will to knock down Cowcaddens and other historical areas to build the M8 seems to have cracked in the 1960s. This led to various Bridges to nowhere (some now with offices built on top). The new southside connection to the M74 was resurrected when the Kingston Bridge was spotted to be falling down.</p> <p>The rise of the car is obviously also Thatcher's fault as she convinced us all that we all need our own house and our own car. Can there have been anything wrong with trams - did they shoal like buses, break down often etc.? Or was it a mass psychology thing where they were seen as the past the same way as bulldozing whole areas of Glasgow for a motorway was apparently accepted as progress. </p> http://citycyclingedinburgh.info/bbpress/topic.php?id=3060#post-32382 Sun, 29 May 2011 18:59:54 +0000 wee folding bike 32382@http://citycyclingedinburgh.info/bbpress/ <p>Ahhh, well that might good for cycling on, but the general populace might prefer the trains back again.</p> <p>I think the line from St Enoch through Gorbals might have been freight only but I haven't seen a train on there for a long time. There are lots of tress growing there a bit like the old Third Lanark pitch.</p> <p>Hmmm, had a look with Google. There are trees on the line but there are still tracks <a href="http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&amp;source=s_q&amp;hl=en&amp;geocode=&amp;q=eh1&amp;sll=53.800651,-4.064941&amp;sspn=15.14217,30.454102&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;hq=&amp;hnear=Edinburgh+EH1,+United+Kingdom&amp;t=k&amp;ll=55.853134,-4.249172&amp;spn=0.00165,0.004367&amp;z=18">too</a>: </p> http://citycyclingedinburgh.info/bbpress/topic.php?id=3060#post-32381 Sun, 29 May 2011 18:48:40 +0000 wee folding bike 32381@http://citycyclingedinburgh.info/bbpress/ <p>Apparently the new M74 extension doesn't follow the original planned route. I guess that's why the ski jumps are still there and not connected to anything.</p> <p>The north-south eastern side of the box would have required demolition of some of the oldest parts of town or perhaps they just ran out of money.</p> <p>There is a lot of road building going on related to the M74 and some seems to be for the Commonwealth games or being done with that as an excuse.</p> <p>The council are putting in some shared use paths from the river up to Parkhead where the velodrome will be, indeed the velodrome looks fairly well advanced. I don't plan to use the shared use path so I haven't spent much time investigating it. I think it will link to the Sustrans 75. </p> http://citycyclingedinburgh.info/bbpress/topic.php?id=3060#post-32380 Sun, 29 May 2011 18:41:39 +0000 chdot 32380@http://citycyclingedinburgh.info/bbpress/ <p>"I don't know how the suburban rail compares with Edinburgh"</p> <p>Very well!!</p> <p>Most is cycle path apart from the South Sub which is STILL freight only. </p> http://citycyclingedinburgh.info/bbpress/topic.php?id=3060#post-32379 Sun, 29 May 2011 18:36:48 +0000 wee folding bike 32379@http://citycyclingedinburgh.info/bbpress/ <p>So politicians of red and blue were getting back handers? Nothing changed here then. In Glasgow it's been formalised into Arms Length Organisations, ALEOs.One of the first is Sport and Leisure run by a Mrs Bridget McConnell. You may be aware of her husband.</p> <p>The Subway lost business when areas on the south side were knocked down. It's fairly busy between the city and the west end (and Govan on every second Saturday).</p> <p>I don't know how the suburban rail compares with Edinburgh but large sections of it were cleared in the '60s. It never dealt with the post war schemes very well. One section has been reinstated in the last 20 years. </p> http://citycyclingedinburgh.info/bbpress/topic.php?id=3060#post-32378 Sun, 29 May 2011 18:33:26 +0000 Arellcat 32378@http://citycyclingedinburgh.info/bbpress/ <p>The main through-route south of the eastern side of the Glasgow Inner Ring Road also comes to a <a href="http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&amp;source=s_q&amp;hl=en&amp;geocode=&amp;q=eh1&amp;sll=53.800651,-4.064941&amp;sspn=15.14217,30.454102&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;hq=&amp;hnear=Edinburgh+EH1,+United+Kingdom&amp;ll=55.86588,-4.236045&amp;spn=0.0013,0.004292&amp;t=k&amp;z=19&amp;layer=c&amp;cbll=55.86563,-4.236072&amp;panoid=wgbzIgK6EPzxnXf7LQLDDQ&amp;cbp=12,213.69,,0,1.35">rather abrupt halt</a>, with all the traffic being shoved onto what would've been the northbound side.</p> <p>There's a great "if only" map on <a href="http://pathetic.org.uk/unbuilt/glasgow_inner_ring_road/maps/">Pathetic Motorways</a>. The route north would've been about <a href="http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&amp;source=s_q&amp;hl=en&amp;geocode=&amp;q=eh1&amp;sll=53.800651,-4.064941&amp;sspn=15.14217,30.454102&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;hq=&amp;hnear=Edinburgh+EH1,+United+Kingdom&amp;ll=55.871381,-4.257026&amp;spn=0.000653,0.002146&amp;t=k&amp;z=20&amp;layer=c&amp;cbll=55.871419,-4.256899&amp;panoid=ObK3aWChHgFiNgn94bg9aw&amp;cbp=12,170.13,,0,2.08">here</a> and looks like it would've used the alignment of Craighall Road, although <a href="http://m8motorway.tripod.com/m8_glasgow_j16a.htm">David Miller</a> says that the frenzy of urban motorway building neatly coincided with the closure of the canals.</p> <p>The <a href="http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&amp;source=s_q&amp;hl=en&amp;geocode=&amp;q=eh1&amp;sll=53.800651,-4.064941&amp;sspn=15.14217,30.454102&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;hq=&amp;hnear=Edinburgh+EH1,+United+Kingdom&amp;ll=55.85215,-4.266021&amp;spn=0.002614,0.008583&amp;t=k&amp;z=18&amp;layer=c&amp;cbll=55.85215,-4.266021&amp;panoid=XGq8ensRY9bru00jpZE0Tw&amp;cbp=12,245.46,,0,1.35">ski jump roads</a> of the south part of the Ring Road are still there, too. </p> http://citycyclingedinburgh.info/bbpress/topic.php?id=3060#post-32377 Sun, 29 May 2011 18:11:03 +0000 crowriver 32377@http://citycyclingedinburgh.info/bbpress/ <p>@wfb <em>The same thing happened in Glasgow so I'm not sure how political allegiances mattered.</em></p> <p>Presumably Glasgow Labour were in the pockets of the builders too! In any case, Glasgow had and still has an underground and a huge network of heavy rail, so the impact of losing trams was likely much less. </p> http://citycyclingedinburgh.info/bbpress/topic.php?id=3060#post-32376 Sun, 29 May 2011 18:07:06 +0000 chdot 32376@http://citycyclingedinburgh.info/bbpress/ <p>Small section visible -</p> <p><a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&amp;q=55.870299,-4.259858%20%28Glasgow,%20Glasgow%20City%20G4%200DF%29" rel="nofollow">http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&amp;q=55.870299,-4.259858%20%28Glasgow,%20Glasgow%20City%20G4%200DF%29</a> </p> http://citycyclingedinburgh.info/bbpress/topic.php?id=3060#post-32375 Sun, 29 May 2011 17:49:33 +0000 wee folding bike 32375@http://citycyclingedinburgh.info/bbpress/ <p>The line looks right for that, I'd never seen an aerial view of it. </p> <p>You can almost see how the east bound ramp might sweep in as well but there is none of it in place. Wiki has a piece on the Bruce report which says that ramp was supposed to go to Maryhill. </p> http://citycyclingedinburgh.info/bbpress/topic.php?id=3060#post-32374 Sun, 29 May 2011 17:21:43 +0000 chdot 32374@http://citycyclingedinburgh.info/bbpress/ <p><a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&amp;q=55.870158,-4.254896%20%28Glasgow,%20Glasgow%20City%20G4%200,%20UK%29" rel="nofollow">http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&amp;q=55.870158,-4.254896%20%28Glasgow,%20Glasgow%20City%20G4%200,%20UK%29</a></p> <p>Presume it was planned to fill in the rest of the canal. </p>