tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-57287206705359779122024-03-05T19:20:34.112+00:00Treading LightlyLearning to live as if the environment really mattered through engineering and sustainable living.
Treading Lightlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09307438052399650830noreply@blogger.comBlogger86125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5728720670535977912.post-35401980536846423832017-01-12T17:57:00.002+00:002017-01-12T21:53:52.901+00:00Reflections from a Sustainability Study Day<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This week, I was published on the <a href="https://www.ice.org.uk/news/knowledge/january-2017/how-cpd-can-help-your-career-take-off" target="_blank">ICE Civil Engineer blog</a> explaining
how engineers can use our development action plans and CPD records to grow our own careers and serve society better.
I have <a href="http://treadinglightly08.blogspot.co.uk/p/railway-tales.html" target="_blank">written previously</a> about the challenges within my
discipline to adapt to the increased frequency and impact of extreme weather
events, as illustrated in <a href="http://www.ciria.org/News/blog/Asset_deterioration_and_degradation_modelling_of_earthworks.aspx" target="_blank">this article from Iain McKenzie</a> reflecting on the
challenges of maintaining earthworks for Welsh roads (<i>“Can we make it rain less
in Wales, or maybe flatten out some of those pesky mountains? If not, are we
headed for a managed decline in performance?"</i>)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">But when engineers talk about climate change, we have a tendency to focus on
adapting to its effects rather than addressing the root cause, so a key
objective for me this year is to improve my understanding of low carbon and
energy saving solutions which are applicable to the rail sector.</span></div>
<a name='more'></a><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I’m kicking off the year with a day immersed in climate
change resources for engineers, helped by ICE’s new six-month knowledge
campaign on the theme of <a href="https://www.ice.org.uk/ice-thinks" target="_blank">Energy, Resilience and Climate Change</a>. A
further challenge is to share learning as widely as possible, so I am sharing
links and thoughts over the course of the day below and on Twitter under the
hashtag <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23SustainabilityStudyDay&src=tyah" target="_blank">#SustainabilityStudyDay</a>. Please feel free to contribute your own
ideas and suggestions for further study in the comments or via Twitter. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Cancer, climate
change and priorities</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">As my own family’s story last year has been shaped by the
<a href="https://edbucks16.wordpress.com/2016/03/25/in-grief-and-hope-a-journey-in-books/" target="_blank">loss of my dad to cancer</a>, this article from <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/17/opinion/sunday/cancer-and-climate-change.html?_r=0" target="_blank">astronautand NASA climate scientist Piers J Sellers</a> seemed like a good way to start the
day. Having been diagnosed with late stage pancreatic cancer, he reflects on
whether this changes his focus in life: does climate still matter to him?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">As an astronaut, he says that <i>“I saw
how fragile and infinitely precious the Earth is. I’m hopeful for its future. And
so, [as a climate scientist], I’m going to work tomorrow.” </i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">My dad also decided that he should “go to work tomorrow”,
continuing to work from home until about six weeks before he died. In his case,
his contribution was about using statistics to support the discovery of better
drugs for prostate cancer and heart disease. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The contribution my colleagues can make is
clear too: with the evidence for a changing climate now accumulating from all
quarters of the world, it is time to focus on action. <i>“The initial heavy lifting will have to be done by policy makers” </i>(hopefully
influenced by heavyweight policy advice like the ICE’s <a href="https://www.ice.org.uk/news/sir-john-armitt-presents-national-needs-assessment" target="_blank">National Needs Assessment</a>)<i>, </i>but: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>“Ultimately, </i><b><u>it will be
up to the engineers</u></b><i> and industrialists of the world to save us. They
must come up with the new technologies and the means of implementing them. The
technical and organizational challenges of solving the problems of clean energy
generation, storage and distribution are enormous, and they must be solved
within a few decades with minimum disruption to the global economy.”<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>What does the Paris Agreement mean for civil engineers?</b> (*ICE
recorded lecture, Nov 2016</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Between 1990 and 2014, the UK has reduced
emissions from some sectors (eg waste management) by up to 73%, but my own
sector is seriously lagging: transport has a major impact (14% of total UK
emissions) and has only reduced that impact marginally in the last 25 years (a
measly 3%).</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; text-indent: -18pt;">Here’s something I really want to know: what
exactly are my legal obligations as an engineer under the Climate Change Act
2008? My project teams regularly comply with regulations about health and
safety or protected species, and I'm proud that <a href="http://www.ciria.org/News/blog/Biodiversity_Net_Gain_is_the_next_big_thing.aspx" target="_blank">Network Rail and Highways England are pioneering "Net Positive" biodiversity impacts</a> from engineering projects. However, I have never had a briefing about climate
regulations despite working on critical national infrastructure (ie I work in
rail).</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; text-indent: -18pt;"><a href="https://www.ice.org.uk/news/sir-john-armitt-presents-national-needs-assessment" target="_blank">The National Needs Assessment </a>used the
newly-developed NISMOD “system of systems” modelling tool to understand how
different infrastructure policies affect the overall outcome. The model and its
implications are well explained by an article in this quarter’s <a href="http://www.icevirtuallibrary.com/doi/full/10.1680/jcien.16.00018" target="_blank">ICE Proceedings</a>*.</span></li>
</ul>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It was great to hear that the UK is leading the
world with the Climate Change Act, but the modelling implies that:</span><br />
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Without demand management AND
electrified heat and transport, we will not hit the CCA targets.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I didn’t know that hitting the targets
in the Act still assumes that we will overshoot the Paris Agreement target of 1.5
degrees and then need to claw it back through carbon capture initiatives, the
efficacy of which are currently unproven. This means we will experience
increased flooding and climate-related damage than if we aimed straight for the
target.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">An interesting outcome for nuclear: if
Hinckley and the other proposed new nuclear power stations are delayed for 10
years, that results in 400MT more CO2, with consequential damage to our
infrastructure through flooding. </span></li>
</ul>
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This makes for interesting reading alongside
the <a href="http://www.icevirtuallibrary.com/doi/full/10.1680/jcien.16.00005" target="_blank">paper in ICE Proceedings</a>* about the eye-watering costs and timescales to
engineer new containment structures for Chernobyl, mentioning in passing that <i>“the decommissioning of units 1 to 3 [which
were still in use after the accident till 2001] is underway and planned for
completion in 2064”</i> while <i>“the
complete decontamination of the Chernobyl site will be solved only in the very
distant future”</i>.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I'll be posting more thoughts from my Sustainability Study Day over the next few days, so stay tuned and let me know your own suggestions.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">NB: Links marked * are accessible to ICE members only. If you work in
the built environment/infrastructure sector and would like access to ICE
recorded lectures and other resources, check out the new <a href="https://www.ice.org.uk/membership/grades-of-ice-membership/associate-member" target="_blank">Associate Member grade</a>
launched this week for people like you!</span><o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
Treading Lightlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09307438052399650830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5728720670535977912.post-28499663027648790342016-11-28T23:04:00.004+00:002016-11-28T23:10:50.962+00:00Mental Models of the Underworld<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><em><strong>This is
the first in a series of posts inspired by the Bryan Lovell Meeting at the
Geological Society, 24th to 25th Nov 2016. More details <a href="https://www.geolsoc.org.uk/risk_17" target="_blank">here</a></strong></em></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><em><strong>
</strong></em></span></div>
<div lang="en-US" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">At the
end of two days talking about watery hazards such as flooding, drought,
landslips and sinkholes came a session focused upon communication skills to
explain those risks to the people who are affected by them. But there's a
catch: it's not enough just to use what you think are simplified words in place
of your usual engineering or geological jargon. First, you need to establish
whether you have any concepts in common to which you can refer!</span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Hazel
Gibson from Plymouth University presented a fascinating piece of research based
on the idea of "mental models"*, which found that there is actually
very little common ground between the expert and the public when it comes to
understanding the ground beneath our feet. Concepts of above-ground features
such as rivers, mountains or different types of rock were shared (although
understandably the expert's concept was more detailed), but as soon as you
leave the realm of what most ordinary humans experience, it becomes a lot less
understood. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">For
example, most people did not share the geologist's concept of void space, as evidenced by the response to the question "can water flow through solid rock?" Many people answered "no" or "not sure" (and apparently wrote reams of responses to the
question about exactly what might be meant by "solid rock"). </span><br />
<div lang="en-US" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">If you
have no concept of permeable and less permeable rocks,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>where then does the water go? For many
people, the answer is obvious: water must make a channel for itself and flow
through it - just like a river, but underground. After all, we've all seen photos of
caverns with stalactites and water running through them, and where I grew up,
pretty much everyone had been down the Blue John Mine, Speedwell Cavern (which
even has a boat trip in the cave to help you) or similar places in the Peak
District.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This
means that when we want to talk about springs, groundwater or the water table
rising and falling**, we cause confusion we may not have expected. A similar
problem occurred when consulting on a new carbon capture and storage project in
Switzerland. Scientists couldn't work out why they were getting such a vehement
rejection from local people to the very idea of trialling the project, but it
turned out that a single word, "bubble", caused all the problems.
They had chosen "bubble" to explain how the gas would be stored deep
underground in the rock. But they had not considered that to most people, the
key feature of a bubble is its fragility: bubbles go "pop", which
sounds like a very dangerous thing to happen if your house is sitting on top of
it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div lang="en-US" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">So what
can we learn to communicate better, whether about flooding or fracking?</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<ol style="direction: ltr; font-family: Calibri; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.375in; margin-top: 0in; unicode-bidi: embed;" type="1"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span>
<li lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; vertical-align: middle;" value="1"><span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Don't
assume that everyone shares the same concepts of how the world works.
Instead, this research demonstrates that mental models are a very useful
way to investigate how your audience might think about the issues you want
to explain, and hence what concepts you can hang your argument on.</span></span></li>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span>
<li lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; vertical-align: middle;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Always move from the familiar
to the more difficult. In the case of ground problems, this means we need
to start above ground with photos before moving onto the maps and
cross-sections, because there is much more common understanding of
features above ground. Don't lose people in your first few words!</span></span></li>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span>
<li lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; vertical-align: middle;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Be prepared for unexpected
interpretations (see recommendation 1!)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></li>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span></ol>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div lang="en-US" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><em>*The
research method included a combination of semi-structured interviews to explore
what concepts people held about the ground, including sketching or modelling
them, followed by a questionnaire given to a larger number of people to test
whether the concepts expressed were held widely within the community. The
research was conducted in three villages in the South West, some of which had a
history of mining.</em><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div lang="en-US" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><em>**
Another great example of how our mental models shapes how we perceive the world
and what associations we make. Geologists usually talk about groundwater level
going up or down, as if we were talking about a 2D cross section like we
usually draw it. Apart from the (rare) 2D situation where rainwater infiltrates
vertically downwards, this concept makes it harder for us to visualise the way
that in reality, water usually flows from here to there, not vertically up and
down.</em></span> </div>
<br />
<div lang="en-US" style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in;">
<strong>For
further reading:</strong></div>
<ul>
<li><strong>
</strong><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://treadinglightly08.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/in-praise-of-precision.html" target="_blank">In Praise of Precision</a> - Perhaps this research explains why the critical difference between an embankment and a cutting is not a concept shared by most of my non-geotechnical colleagues. If you don't really know what an embankment is made of, you won't be too concerned about whether one is naturally occurring soil in layers and the other is a melange of human-mixed soil from somewhere else.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/rogerdooley/2016/09/01/pre-suasion-robert-cialdinis-sequel-to-influence/#39bc17f71bab" target="_blank">Presuasion by Robert Cialdini</a> - I'm reading this book at the moment, and there are some real gems about how associations can be triggered by all sorts of unexpected things, which can help when you are trying to influence the public. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.ice.org.uk/eventarchive/lunch-and-learn-talking-climate" target="_blank">Talking Climate</a> - my ICE webinar (June 2016) about climate communication for engineers</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.climateoutreach.org.uk/" target="_blank">Climate Outreach</a> - lots of excellent research about testing your message and pitching important messages using values which others can resonate with (particularly the centre-right).</span></li>
</ul>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"></span><br />Treading Lightlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09307438052399650830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5728720670535977912.post-28189174762694712122016-11-06T19:40:00.003+00:002016-11-07T07:21:14.468+00:00These Psalms Were Made For Walking<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Some Psalms are known as the "songs of ascent", to be sung by pilgrims while walking up the steep road to Jerusalem for the major festivals. A friend was telling me this morning how he had done this himself earlier this year, an experience which had changed his understanding of the Psalms forever. But it turns out most of the Psalms have a sense of movement about them.<br /><br />For example, what comes to your mind when you think of <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm+23&version=NLT" target="_blank">Psalm 23</a>? </span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Perhaps it's a cheesy picture of Jesus as "The Good Shepherd" surrounded by some fluffy little lambs, or an image of lounging around beside some still waters (maybe with a picnic to represent "a feast set out in front of my enemies").<br /><br />At least, these are the images that come to my mind. This is a psalm which I have always read as static. Peaceful, certainly, but often with a feeling of cosiness and putting your feet up rather than engaging with the wider world. <br /><br />I read it again today and realised I had been taught it the wrong way round. Listen again to the verbs of movement:</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">"I have everything I need... </span></i> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">(The shepherd) leads me beside quiet waters... </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">He guides me in the right path... </span></i> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Even though I walk through the valley of darkness, I am not afraid because you are with me...</span></i> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life"</span></i></blockquote>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This is not an exhortation to JUST be still, as if our highest calling is to do nothing. This is a poem about how God calls us to <a href="http://www.licc.org.uk/prayerworks/prayer-journeys/connecting-with-our-work/" target="_blank">rhythms of effortful practice</a> so that we may develop our gifts to competently serve others, followed by rest, followed by getting up and seeking again to grow and improve. The good shepherd is the one who came so that we "may have life, and have it to the full", or as some put it, "the glory of God is a human being fully alive!" Doesn't that sound like persevering in purposeful practice to you? <br /><br />"I have everything I need" is echoed later by the <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ephesians+2%3A1-10&version=NIVUK" target="_blank">promise in Ephesians </a>that "God equips us for every good work". "He restores my soul" (or strength, depending on your translation) so you can get up and try again. "Goodness and mercy" have to follow me about because I'm hard at God's work all the days of my life, and it only comes to a full stop at the end, where "I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever". So I'm going to work to become the best engineer I can be, and I'd love to hear what you're doing to live life to the full.<br /><br /><b>See also:</b></span><br />
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://treadinglightly08.blogspot.nl/2015/03/holiness-in-action-god-at-work.html" target="_blank">Holiness in Action:</a> my series on God at work</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://utmost.org/" target="_blank">Oswald Chambers, " My Utmost for His Highest</a>"</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://wesley.nnu.edu/john-wesley/the-sermons-of-john-wesley-1872-edition/sermon-2-the-almost-christian/" target="_blank">John Wesley, "The Almost-Christian"</a> - on growing in holiness every day</span></li>
</ul>
</div>
Treading Lightlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09307438052399650830noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5728720670535977912.post-45982989239548693312016-04-02T10:01:00.002+01:002016-04-17T20:46:27.298+01:00Engineering: The Perfect Retirement Job?<span style="color: #454545; font-size: 17px;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I was interested to read a piece in Infrastructure Intelligence this week which suggested that the engineering industry is losing out on the experience of older people by failing to support them in later life. This surprised me, because that hasn't been my experience at all. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #454545; font-size: 17px;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I'm thinking of several people for whom engineering has proved the ideal retirement job, provided that companies allow them to focus on doing what they do best: great technical work and passing on their expertise to the next generation. After all, who would willingly give up a job as endlessly fascinating and useful as <a href="http://treadinglightly08.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/ice-triennial-1-on-desmond-and.html" target="_blank">bridges and railways, roads and flood defences</a>?</span></span><br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<div style="color: #454545; font-size: 17px;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">One former colleague proudly writes at the top of his CV (which runs to 10 pages of papers, presentations at conferences and major project experience) that his proudest achievement is that <i>"I have acted as Supervising Civil Engineer for 8 people and they all passed their professional review, several with merit". </i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">When people come to him asking about his CPD plans, he replies that since he intends to retire in a few years or so, his plan is to help as many younger engineers progress as he can, for example by co-writing papers for major conferences and putting his own name second. </span></div>
<div style="color: #454545; font-size: 17px;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In another place I worked, we loved Geoff who was in his early seventies and worked 2 days a week, primarily checking and reviewing design work and mentoring younger engineers (he was SCE for half the office). He only stopped working when his wife became ill and needed him at home as a carer (so you could argue he didn't retire, he just changed job...)</span></div>
<div style="color: #454545; font-size: 17px;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And they are not alone: last year I helped with the ICE's annual audit of CPD records, which are mandatory for SCEs and Reviewers (ie the people most involved in <a href="http://treadinglightly08.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/ice-triennial-2-why-engineering-change.html" target="_blank">training and assessing professional engineering qualifications</a>). That meant that around 50% of the sample were retired people still involved in training civil engineers and it was a joy to see just how much they keep contributing to the profession after their days of working full time are over.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Then there are the <a href="https://www.ice.org.uk/eventarchive/reservoirs-serviceability-vs-avoiding-failure" target="_blank">Reservoirs Panel Engineers </a>who are ultimately responsible for the safety of dams in the UK: the experience required to become a Panel engineer is vast and difficult to obtain, so you're unlikely to be appointed to the highest (All Reservoirs) panel until your 40s or 50s. One Panel engineer complained to me that his business was struggling because there are so many retired Panel engineers about who can charge peanuts to look after a couple of dams each because they already have a pension - to the extent that engineers of working age are almost pushed out of the market! I have not been able to independently verify this complaint, but it is an intriguing proposition (though dangerous in the long run, since we need a pipeline of talent coming through). </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Another example is my Grandad, who started out as an <a href="http://www.networkrail.co.uk/careers/schemes/students-and-graduates/advanced-apprenticeship-scheme/" target="_blank">apprentice</a> in the welding workshop (still a <a href="http://www.networkrail.co.uk/careers/schemes/students-and-graduates/advanced-apprenticeship-scheme/" target="_blank">great route to the top</a> in the rail industry!) and finished his career as Chief Structural Engineer for a fabricating firm supplying the construction trade. I asked him recently when he'd stopped working, expecting him to tell me that he retired around 60 or 65. His reply? "I stopped looking for work at 75, but people kept sending to me anyway because they knew I'd do it well so I only stopped doing work at 80". The work in question was mainly independent checking of structural calculations, which involves checking the assumptions and the detail, or doing the calculation yourself to confirm you get the same results. This meant he could work from his computer at home in his little office (with a working pendulum clock made from cardboard cutouts - just because!) </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And finally there is the fabulously named "<a href="http://www.wrinkleywork.com/" target="_blank">WrinkleyWork</a>", a matchmaking agency to connect older people who want to work on a part time or project by project basis with businesses who need help. I showed their ad to a former boss of mine, who simply laughed and said he had no shortage of retired-but-still-working engineers on his books already! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">So my conclusion is: engineering can indeed be a great career throughout your working life, but we need to provide flexibility. The flip side of the stories above is that we have a leaky pipeline: if we keep you involved and engaged in engineering throughout your career, you'll have a great retirement. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">But what about all the people we lose along the way? There are so many chartered engineers whose membership lapses in their mid-30s to 40s, and most of those we lose are women. We need to make it easier to stay involved through flexible working and the kinds of work I've outlined above, and easy to get back in when you want to return full time (see this <a href="http://www.daphnejackson.org/news/reports/DJT%20Report%20of%20Feasibility%20Study%20for%20BIS.pdf" target="_blank">research from the Daphne Jackson Trust</a>) otherwise we won't have a diverse range of older engineers to call upon when we need their expertise.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Liked this? You'll love my new book blog <a href="http://www.edbucks.co.uk/">www.EdBucks.co.uk</a></b></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">See also:</span></b></div>
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<ul>
<li><a href="http://treadinglightly08.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/ice-triennial-2-why-engineering-change.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Expertise Comes From Experience, Not the Internet</span></a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.ice.org.uk/disciplines-and-resources/industry-transformation/ice-talks-engineering-change" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" target="_blank">ICE's Engineering Change</a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> series of talks</span></li>
<li><a href="http://treadinglightly08.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/in-praise-of-precision.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In Praise of Precision - why terminology matters</span></a></li>
<li><a href="http://treadinglightly08.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/international-womens-day-why-im.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Pledging for Parity in the Rail Industry</span></a></li>
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Treading Lightlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09307438052399650830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5728720670535977912.post-62990570430015520422016-03-07T07:54:00.002+00:002016-05-10T19:49:21.086+01:00International Women's Day: Why I'm Pledging for Parity in the Rail Industry<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The theme for this year's <a href="http://www.internationalwomensday.com/Pledge">International Women's Day is to Pledge for Parity</a>: "to change everything, we need everyone" because everyone can contribute to creating an inclusive culture. So what does that look like in engineering, and particularly the rail industry? I highly recommend the <a href="https://www.ice.org.uk/disciplines-and-resources/industry-transformation/ice-talks-engineering-change">ICE's series of Engineering Change short talks</a> (you could use these as conversation starters in a team briefing this month!)</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQMcr2YoycmoOGM1ns6Z-BhW0YyPWEWjGbRC17Dflzl4TqIrzb6WR1_U9cTn4SnpLFIy7aUYfxcfkU0yTuvNwiHfZYMBUm31wv4CHFIlYd_Nah1K1oMj7dvDO7nZ6M_l1Fbd7w9YEBcsw/s1600/ice-talks-banner-large.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="176" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQMcr2YoycmoOGM1ns6Z-BhW0YyPWEWjGbRC17Dflzl4TqIrzb6WR1_U9cTn4SnpLFIy7aUYfxcfkU0yTuvNwiHfZYMBUm31wv4CHFIlYd_Nah1K1oMj7dvDO7nZ6M_l1Fbd7w9YEBcsw/s640/ice-talks-banner-large.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Engineering change takes all of us - yes, you too! (image (c) Institution of Civil Engineers)</span></b></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsWC7KGjFBuoMcbUP0-9VK02O5qscqO9T584dzdHMjPXqn-afKLyAyRqqGfxL719KSzavziJyECsWPgGM1LkYJMkDluYMhsK2J5f3NP6StIzFE6yn046J7UwwPePbRBvZdlqILC2OUuxo/s1600/IMG_20160304_162947362_HDR.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsWC7KGjFBuoMcbUP0-9VK02O5qscqO9T584dzdHMjPXqn-afKLyAyRqqGfxL719KSzavziJyECsWPgGM1LkYJMkDluYMhsK2J5f3NP6StIzFE6yn046J7UwwPePbRBvZdlqILC2OUuxo/s400/IMG_20160304_162947362_HDR.jpg" width="223" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;"><b><i>From valuing women and men's contributions<br />equally to challenging bias, we can all<br />contribute to a fairer workplace</i></b></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Why does it matter? My story</b><br /><br />Although I still (annoyingly frequently) get older people declaring "Ooh, that's really unusual" when I tell them my profession, as a female engineer, I generally enjoy myself at work and I rarely notice the gender disparity. <br /><br />For one thing, I studied in a cohort at Clare College, Cambridge where 5 of the 9 engineers in my year were girls (unfortunately, other colleges have considerably worse ratios and the overall course ratio is approximately 25% women). For another, I've chosen to work in the field which most interests me, ground engineering, where the deficiencies of civil engineering departments to attract sufficient women have been made up by geology courses which appeal equally to men and women, so my immediate colleagues have always been 50:50.<br /><br />However, looking wider shows that this is not universal. I worked for a large engineering consultant in Leeds where 200 people delivered highways, flood defences, buildings and a range of environmental disciplines. Again, the presence of ecologists, archaeologists, architects and planning consultants made up for the low ratios in some of the teams, noticeably highways (why are women more likely to work in buildings and flood defences than highways?) <br /><br /> The York office of the same company was a different story, being solely rail (signalling, electrical, track and civil engineers). For over 12 months, I was the only woman regularly in the office other than the receptionist.<br /><br /> The office expanded and more women joined, but half of these were in lower status roles such as project management (with apparently few opportunities for training in the civil engineering which they were managing) and document control roles. (Tip: one of the best ways out of the skills crisis is to train your existing staff - night school and day release should be as available to a 40 year old wanting to diversify from HR or project management into engineering as a 22 year old apprentice!)<br /><br /><b>What does inclusive language look like? </b></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMRVDV9zZKe0WmRAPISSXfYVl_g9l5NUEx36Ub-tIR0dbF_XRW4_gYsdK4zTSwR6_H20YHcSiY-Km5Nu5y7_1dApaSwrzDUqyYKUubEu1L1StAp-8wn-mu7bgXI_2zI4eMoOcFNdTm1kU/s1600/IMG_20160304_134555430_HDR.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMRVDV9zZKe0WmRAPISSXfYVl_g9l5NUEx36Ub-tIR0dbF_XRW4_gYsdK4zTSwR6_H20YHcSiY-Km5Nu5y7_1dApaSwrzDUqyYKUubEu1L1StAp-8wn-mu7bgXI_2zI4eMoOcFNdTm1kU/s320/IMG_20160304_134555430_HDR.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>Clare Brint is proudly supporting <br />International Women's Day</i></span></b></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Imagine a few typical engineering scenes. You open a quotation from a contractor, which states that the work will be done by "number of men - 4 plus 1x site manager/COSS". You're talking about the contractor going to site the next day and what "he" might need to do the job. You discuss meeting up with a major client for a new contract and you immediately fall into using the pronoun "he". You receive emails addressed to "Dear Lady and Gentlemen", as if you needed reminding that you're the only woman on the project team. (Tip: there is an important difference between celebrating what makes us unique and using language which emphasises that one member of the team is different from all the others).<br /><br />These are all examples of "unconscious bias", where we have a picture of what we expect a certain role to look like, and in engineering it has an uncanny tendency to ALWAYS look like a man (unless you're talking about the receptionist or admin assistant who just as frequently is assumed to be a woman). The English language doesn't help here, since we have no gender-neutral singular pronoun (it's repetitive to say "he or she" all the time, and some people object to "they" in the singular, although you could make a good argument that "the contractor" or "the client" is always a team anyway). My challenge is this: one day every week, I'm going to deliberately try to break the habit and use "she" or "they" as standard, except where the person is known to me personally (in which case, I could use their name!) What will YOU do? <a href="http://www.internationalwomensday.com/Pledge">Here's how to make your own pledge.</a><br /></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Liked this? </b></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>See my new Business Book Club at: <a href="http://www.edbucks.co.uk/">www.EdBucks.co.uk</a> inspired by women who want to talk business!</b></div>
<br /><b>See also:</b> <br /><ul>
<li><a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/yassmin_abdel_magied_what_does_my_headscarf_mean_to_you?language=en">Fantastic TED talk from engineer Yassmin Abdel-Magied</a> which illustrates unconscious bias beautifully. </li>
<li><a href="https://www.ice.org.uk/disciplines-and-resources/industry-transformation/ice-talks-engineering-change">ICE Engineering Change</a> - join the debate and watch inspiring short talks about how we can transform the construction industry's culture </li>
<li>Inspiring women on our book blog <a href="https://edbucks16.wordpress.com/">EdBucks</a>: <a href="https://edbucks16.wordpress.com/2016/03/05/inspiring-people-i-am-malala/">Malala Yousafzai</a>, Elaine Storkey and <a href="https://edbucks16.wordpress.com/2016/03/06/inspiring-people-waris-dirie-1/">Waris </a>Dirie.</li>
</ul>
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Treading Lightlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09307438052399650830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5728720670535977912.post-68028387862090447742016-02-28T09:30:00.000+00:002016-04-17T20:48:10.283+01:00Walls in the Willows - a renewable construction material<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This week I was fascinated by a lunchtime talk about a renewable construction material that grows itself: <a href="https://www.ice.org.uk/eventarchive/lunch-and-learn-live-willow">retaining walls made from willow! </a>This has been used in several locations in Norfolk either on its own (for footpaths or river banks which aren't particularly sensitive to settlement) or to provide living scour protection for gabion basket walls (for roads or rail applications).</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3zbnhsfCPhFEDvlzssG1omMkCBwviIPS6V60QxOXvXi3SNS4WVM3OBgpn9UxRPAeivnd52bvFjMqdrG1HyN66hg943UGGybGQO4a5-6EU_-A0Eho-GKlgtAfCF6subflDBakWb5gbdDA/s1600/willow_spiling_erosion_control.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="246" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3zbnhsfCPhFEDvlzssG1omMkCBwviIPS6V60QxOXvXi3SNS4WVM3OBgpn9UxRPAeivnd52bvFjMqdrG1HyN66hg943UGGybGQO4a5-6EU_-A0Eho-GKlgtAfCF6subflDBakWb5gbdDA/s320/willow_spiling_erosion_control.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Willow spiling wall comprises posts and withy infill. <br />Image from JPR Environmental</span></b></td></tr>
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<b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What is willow spiling?</b><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A willow spiling wall consists of two elements:</span><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Live timber posts measuring at least 100mm in diameter (being a natural material, the size will vary somewhat) which are installed at 0.6 to 1.0m centres like a king post wall. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Willow "withies" are woven between the posts to form the infill panels (as this is a fairly open weave, a layer of Terram is advised on the landward side of the wall to prevent loss of fines). </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Backfill to the retaining wall should comprise silt, sand or gravel.<a name='more'></a></span></li>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">There is a limit on the depth to which the posts can be installed while still allowing the roots to grow. This means you can achieve typical retained heights of 0.6 to 0.9m, although most willow walls are built as a series of terraces with 2-3m wide earth fill between each vertical section.</span><br />
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<b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What is it useful for?<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgl3FwWgSz8212h5wl3Gtu4di1jx-3T2EREmi6wxeNAwDLp3yEBITUYIaqW5_55A9-OKgOt5TwM9EgMMzRph1qARH9JyAQqlWirZNOI-7yxTLAYlUSpHS8R4VL5btVdpFLrgbOaTEuWAkY/s1600/live-willow.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="226" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgl3FwWgSz8212h5wl3Gtu4di1jx-3T2EREmi6wxeNAwDLp3yEBITUYIaqW5_55A9-OKgOt5TwM9EgMMzRph1qARH9JyAQqlWirZNOI-7yxTLAYlUSpHS8R4VL5btVdpFLrgbOaTEuWAkY/s320/live-willow.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Terraced willow wall adjacent to a watercourse <br />(image (c) Harmageddon)</b></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Generally it is used to prevent scour and create low walls along riverbanks or watercourses. As well as being very cheap, construction benefits for use of these walls on riverbanks include the ease of installation, as posts are just hammered in by an auger or fence post driver; the lack of a concrete base which means there is no risk of polluting adjacent watercourses and the ability to place backfill to the wall using small lightweight equipment, so it is easy to construct in places with difficult access. There is also the potential for reuse of any excavated material on site to build the terraces, especially if it is sandy rather than clayey soil.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The walls can be installed in places which flood, but it is advisable to ensure that the fill material behind the wall cannot be washed out (ie either make sure it is well vegetated or cover it with Terram to protect it).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>What do you mean, it grows itself? </b></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtcFIb1DJPkcisEnefbKcKlnnjKQu4wnPIZRnGQx1WzoJVWFrRPP5-Jn-tqIBuFblGT3fbYOaB8OoUXNyx_WOF0uW6sXopGVXS95tLYQH4bJUpjJpn6kmu3ErwYngcZZz56g8r4RnqA4A/s1600/Willow%252BTiers%252BAndy%252Bfor%252Bweb.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtcFIb1DJPkcisEnefbKcKlnnjKQu4wnPIZRnGQx1WzoJVWFrRPP5-Jn-tqIBuFblGT3fbYOaB8OoUXNyx_WOF0uW6sXopGVXS95tLYQH4bJUpjJpn6kmu3ErwYngcZZz56g8r4RnqA4A/s320/Willow%252BTiers%252BAndy%252Bfor%252Bweb.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;"><b>Willow wall under construction with turf laid<br />over the terraces (image from Willowbank Services Ltd)</b></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Amazingly, both the posts and the infill panels will root themselves within 12 months and start growing into a living structure (90% success rate, and the 10% loss is usually taken up by the adjacent posts and withies growing into the space). The reason this works is that willow has an exceptional ability to form roots and shoots from any cutting, because unlike most trees, every part of the plant has dormant root cells which can be reactivated when they come into contact with the ground (the horticultural term for this is "Latent root primordia"). As the wall grows, its strength is likely to increase with time, although it will need to be cared for over the first few years to ensure it becomes well established, and afterwards it will need the occasional trim and pruning to keep it in check as with most vegetation.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Willow also has some other properties which make it very useful in wet environments such as adjacent to rivers. The plant is able to move oxygen round better than others trees, so willow can grow roots even in very wet or saturated ground (where the roots don't get any air). It's a very thirsty tree, so it takes water out of slope as it grows which can often help slope stability in itself (although remember that more water will be absorbed in hot dry weather than in mid-winter when the tree has no leaves!) It's easy to grow the raw material (willow stakes and withies) You can also store the stakes in a cold store until you want to use them. It absorbs carbon as it grows, and provides a great habitat (water voles in particular love the terraced structure).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>How can you design with it?</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">As a relatively new technique, the lack of published research was restricting the use of willow walls as the primary retaining solution where settlement is important, such as roads and rail embankments, as there was no method to calculate how much settlement might occur for different loading arrangements or wall heights. This problem was the reason why chartered engineer Dr Debbie Scott from GroundSolve Ltd conducted a research project with contractor Richards Laing to determine suitable design parameters.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">GroundSolve's research comprised building a willow wall and then loading the embankment above using concrete weights in order to measure the vertical deflection at the top of the wall. You can obtain a copy of the paper if you're interested by <a href="http://www.groundsolve.com/">contacting the author directly</a>, but the key findings were that the wall shows three main phases in its response to loading:</span><br />
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<ul>
<li><b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Initial loading (0 to 5kPa)*: </b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Approx 10mm movement at the beginning (first 5kpa), caused primarily by (a) compaction of the loose embankment material and (b) lack of good contact between the wall and the retained material. This initial movement can be reduced by using material with a reasonable angle of friction (eg well graded sand and gravel) and compacting it to medium dense to dense with lightweight plant.</span></li>
<li><b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Normal use (5 to 20kPa): </b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Over this load range, there is relatively little movement. The research suggested a couple of reasons for this: the weight of the surcharge compacts the retained material (increasing its strength) and compresses it against the withies, while the withies also become tighter as they are now in tension.</span></li>
<li><b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Overloading leading to failure (25 to 40kPa):</b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> The wall starts to fail with excessive displacements reported.</span></li>
</ul>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>*The force is reported as a pressure applied over a 5m wide strip immediately behind the wall. For comparison, engineers usually use 5kPa as the standard loading applied by a crowd of pedestrians on a footpath, while vehicles typically apply 10 to 20kPa if there is a road at the top of the wall.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Further work will be needed to revisit the test bed in a few years and load again, to investigate the behaviour of the spiling as the roots develop. As always, real projects where monitoring can be installed to provide further evidence of how the walls perform over time would be excellent.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Liked this? See my new Business Book Club at: <a href="http://www.edbucks.co.uk/">www.EdBucks.co.uk</a></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>See also</b></span><br />
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://treadinglightly08.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/the-circular-economy-and-sustainable.html">How to Use Recycled Concrete as a Construction Material</a></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://treadinglightly08.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/living-within-our-limits-exploring.html">A Guide to Sustainable Infrastructure</a></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://evidence.environment-agency.gov.uk/FCERM/en/SC060065/MeasuresList/M5/M5T6.aspx?pagenum=2">The Environment Agency on the use of willow and other materials to prevent riverbank erosion</a></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.ice.org.uk/events?etypes=29">ICE Lunchtime Webinar series</a></span></li>
</ul>
</div>
Treading Lightlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09307438052399650830noreply@blogger.com18tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5728720670535977912.post-3820302086910750152016-02-27T18:46:00.000+00:002016-04-17T21:13:09.870+01:00Sitting Down for a Fairtrade Breakfast in York<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>"Before you finish eating breakfast in the morning, you’ve depended on more than half the world" </i>(Martin Luther King)</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Perhaps this morning you relied on farmers in India for your tea, Colombia for your bananas, cocoa from Cote D'Ivoire, sugar from Malawi or coffee from Ethiopia. So since we rely on so many people just to produce our breakfast, how come the people who grow the food we take for granted can’t always feed their own families? This question lies at the heart of this year's Fairtrade Fortnight, which we kicked off in style in Yorkshire by hosting a Fairtrade Breakfast in front of York Minster. This is probably the only time I'm likely to eat breakfast outdoors in my pyjamas with the Lord Mayor of York in her dressing gown! The passing tourists loved it, unsurprisingly...</span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi__o8MQDZCjAA2ROmRGhax8vTudwzhCnQAGd-wIB1hlrAp6_sr3txcURfVymToyY3hh0dRw5oK6lXmAbcpNUdCtiGZuhkLR7ADf1ntjVBrRuMftzqfVhdZ_vAKBu6r0L3H7qOOXBzm794/s1600/Fairtrade+Lord+Mayor.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi__o8MQDZCjAA2ROmRGhax8vTudwzhCnQAGd-wIB1hlrAp6_sr3txcURfVymToyY3hh0dRw5oK6lXmAbcpNUdCtiGZuhkLR7ADf1ntjVBrRuMftzqfVhdZ_vAKBu6r0L3H7qOOXBzm794/s400/Fairtrade+Lord+Mayor.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Breakfast with Lord Mayor of York, Sonja Crisp, in her dressing gown, complete with mayoral chains (she refused to be drawn on whether she actually goes to bed in these!)</span></b></td></tr>
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<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Over our croissants and Fairtrade orange juice (or the lucky few who got some coffee from a Thermos), I met Fairtrade campaigners from all over Yorkshire, hearing stories from Batley and Spen, Bradford and of course our fair city of York which has been a Fairtrade City for more than 11 years. Between us, we represented a huge number of people across this part of the UK who believe it is a scandal that 70% of cocoa farmers in Cote D'Ivoire go hungry for at least a month every year, while half of children on tea estates in Malawi are stunted due to lack of food. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Here's just a few facts and figures to illustrate the scale of the problem of food insecurity:</span><br />
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">90% of the world's cocoa and 80% of the world's coffee is grown by smallholder farmers. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">2 billion people depend on smallholder farming, which often doesn't generate enough income or food to feed the family all year round. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Half of the world's 795 million people facing severe malnutrition work on small farms. Even more people go hungry for part of the year between harvests.</span></li>
</ul>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjM7QzjQDtvDSxe_-rdRf5NnKskExm44thwOF3aDmN_Bcc3pLoPVBj5SGj7AbwRGW9H0UZcDpRKIqoXipDif9HSwevQ4ySHr-hFilMsn0Xcx21CoA2eLMdg899m68SL4noEgGhSur-dma8/s1600/Fairtrade+Bananas+in+Pyjamas.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="299" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjM7QzjQDtvDSxe_-rdRf5NnKskExm44thwOF3aDmN_Bcc3pLoPVBj5SGj7AbwRGW9H0UZcDpRKIqoXipDif9HSwevQ4ySHr-hFilMsn0Xcx21CoA2eLMdg899m68SL4noEgGhSur-dma8/s320/Fairtrade+Bananas+in+Pyjamas.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Bananas in Pyjamas: otherwise known as <br />Fairtrade campaigners from York and Batley!</span></b></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">The human cost of this tragedy was brought home to me this week by my friend Nell, who has been writing about her work in Madagascar with the hospital ship "Africa Mercy". The ship provides surgery to address the diseases that malnutrition causes, particularly </span><a href="https://nellgoestomercyships.wordpress.com/2016/02/11/23-hope-and-healing-part-2-orthopedics/" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">lack of vitamin D (rickets)</a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">, resulting in bowed legs and permanent disability, and a horrific infection called </span><a href="https://nellgoestomercyships.wordpress.com/2016/02/20/24-hope-and-healing-part-3-max-fax/" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">noma which either kills you or destroys half your face</a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;"> (great choice, eh?) and is primarily caused by undernutrition (it has been unknown in Europe for decades). </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNnIOISPFxmjPF0o414nR7w_XoJfqfhfa9AKbKjTeJOYZ6t7vq0_ajtWv-dUtcDomadfi5MYOvIWKLxQxOoHHdJW9xx_V8wFrv1iJR_4Ng2156D7-3Qw0SJ0h2gW-Kp64_kyWnOqng7K8/s1600/Tea+on+the+Green.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNnIOISPFxmjPF0o414nR7w_XoJfqfhfa9AKbKjTeJOYZ6t7vq0_ajtWv-dUtcDomadfi5MYOvIWKLxQxOoHHdJW9xx_V8wFrv1iJR_4Ng2156D7-3Qw0SJ0h2gW-Kp64_kyWnOqng7K8/s320/Tea+on+the+Green.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>This is Rachel Parker, who runs Fairtrade<br />cafe Tea on the Green in Acomb:<br />an excellent venue for a hearty<br />Fairtrade breakfast!</b></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Food insecurity is caused by multiple factors, but mostly it comes down to: </span><br />
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<ul><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
<li><b>power </b>(one retailer will deal with thousands of farmers, making it difficult to obtain a fair price for your crop or any certainty about whether you will be able to sell it next year); </li>
<li><b>poverty</b> (lack of money to buy food, lack of savings or other assets like livestock to tide you over if your harvest fails or you suffer illness, lack of training to assist you in getting more yield and a nutritionally balanced diet out of your small plot of land); and </li>
<li><b>infrastructure </b>(poor roads restrict access to sell your produce for a good price and to buy food off other people, while lack of suitable processing and storage means it is difficult to store your own food for the lean periods). </li>
</span></ul>
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Fairtrade addresses each of these needs. By dealing with cooperatives, farmers have more <b>power </b>to negotiate and train each other in new irrigation and crop rotation methods. By committing to pay <b>a fair price which will always cover the costs of production</b>, and providing an advance at planting time to prevent farmers getting into debt with loan sharks, farmers can invest in improving their land with confidence and start to build up savings. Finally, the Fairtrade premium paid to the cooperative allows each community to <b>invest in the infrastructure</b> they need, whether it is better roads, a well, a school or food processing facilities. Being an engineer, I've written a whole separate <a href="http://treadinglightly08.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/how-fairtrade-creates-essential.html">blog post on the infrastructure issue here!</a> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />So, will you wake up to the challenges farmers face and stand up for them by harnessing the power of a Fairtrade breakfast? And will you encourage your friends and family to do the same? After all, with Fairtrade, what you eat means the workers who made it can eat too! </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJH5pOrY1gh_5v_9qiXe_SzQ43mx8ufwRPRWmiTOnR-3-ZEslIABgKAVSJ1cmREaa3Klzkz3HVUs4TvFjmSsNeFYDsuj6NVEuEXPdHDcEIv8A1izpzmAnpE_3NoDBTzV82xKgOKUdxhzg/s1600/Fairtrade+Yorkshire.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJH5pOrY1gh_5v_9qiXe_SzQ43mx8ufwRPRWmiTOnR-3-ZEslIABgKAVSJ1cmREaa3Klzkz3HVUs4TvFjmSsNeFYDsuj6NVEuEXPdHDcEIv8A1izpzmAnpE_3NoDBTzV82xKgOKUdxhzg/s320/Fairtrade+Yorkshire.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Proud to live in Yorkshire. the <br />world's first Fairtrade region!</span></b></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">If you want to join a Fairtrade breakfast near you, <a href="http://fairtrade.org.uk/breakfast">check out the map here.</a> And if you're in York, join us at York St John University on 1st March for breakfast at the Holgate Building (10 till 11.30am), or get down to the cafes in York libraries where there'll be 10% off Fairtrade food and drink during the two weekends of Fairtrade Fortnight (29th Feb to 13th March). <br /><b><br />Enjoyed this? See my new book blog at <a href="http://www.edbucks.co.uk/">www.edbucks.co.uk</a>!</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b><br />See also: </b></span><br />
<ul><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
<li><a href="http://treadinglightly08.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/fairtrade-history-in-netherlands.html">How the Netherlands invented Fairtrade</a> </li>
<li><a href="http://treadinglightly08.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/how-fairtrade-creates-essential.html">Fairtrade - Engineering in Action to Provide Essential Infrastructure</a> </li>
<li><a href="https://www.blogger.com/">Fairtrade Yorkshire events</a> </li>
<li><a href="https://nellgoestomercyships.wordpress.com/">Nell's tales from Mercy Ships</a></li>
</span></ul>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJH5pOrY1gh_5v_9qiXe_SzQ43mx8ufwRPRWmiTOnR-3-ZEslIABgKAVSJ1cmREaa3Klzkz3HVUs4TvFjmSsNeFYDsuj6NVEuEXPdHDcEIv8A1izpzmAnpE_3NoDBTzV82xKgOKUdxhzg/s1600/Fairtrade+Yorkshire.jpg"></a></div>
Treading Lightlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09307438052399650830noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5728720670535977912.post-37703257020905318282016-02-17T22:13:00.002+00:002016-04-17T21:13:17.811+01:00The Perfect Storm? Climate Change, Flooding and Resilience<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Following the flooding across Yorkshire over Christmas, this week I'm speaking at a panel debate in York entitled "A Perfect Storm: Climate Change, Cuts and Floods", bringing a civil engineering perspective to a national (and international) problem. Come and join us </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">at </span><a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/747933485342615/" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">7.30pm on Thursday 18th Feb, Quaker Meeting House, Friargate</a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">So how can I summarise in a ten minute opening speech (alongside contributions from a climate expert, a flooded resident and a firefighter) what are the most important things we need to do to become more resilient to flooding, and are we doing them? </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Well, as I've written in my earlier posts, to consider a problem holistically I like to</span><a href="http://treadinglightly08.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/ice-triennial-2-why-engineering-change.html" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> start from first principles</a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">. So here is the flooding problem as we face it in the UK: </span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">1) Rain falls out of the sky (and more rain is coming)</span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">We live on an island next to the Atlantic Ocean, which is warming up as a result of climate change. The prevailing wind blows warm wet air over the UK, depositing its moisture as it goes (especially on the west side of the Pennines - sorry Cumbria!). <a href="http://treadinglightly08.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/ice-triennial-1-on-desmond-and.html">My gut feeling in December was that something was seriously wrong with the weather </a>and our infrastructure was likely to suffer the consequences. The Met Office confirmed this a<a href="http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/mobile/news/article/news/releases/archive/2015/early-dec-stats">s the average temperature over the month of December was 8.0 degrees,</a> a whopping 4.1 degrees higher than the long term average of 4 degrees and much larger than the previous record (6.9 degrees in 1934). </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Warm winters usually mean wet and windy ones, as storms blow in off the sea and this winter has been unusual, but not unexpected given what we know about climate impacts. Therefore, while we cannot control the weather itself, we do have a choice about limiting our carbon emissions now to prevent making it worse. </span><br />
<a name='more'></a><b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">2) When rain falls, the water needs to go somewhere. </span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The main factors which affect the proportion of rainfall which ends up in watercourses are: </span><br />
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">the soil type</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">local topograghy (more water runs off steep slopes than gentle ones)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">saturation of the soil (the wetter it is, the less capacity to absorb more water - so even relatively little rainfall can cause flooding in late winter while the first heavy rain of winter is usually absorbed without a problem); and </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">land use (trees and peat bogs absorb the most, livestock can churn the soil up or compact the surface, while paved surfaces run off almost all the water).</span></li>
</ul>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Ideally, we would manage our land use so that water soaks into the ground or is absorbed by trees and vegetation, and is released only very slowly into local watercourses. However, the land use trend is in the opposite direction: to pave over more land and to reduce tree cover, which means that a higher proportion of the water ends up in the watercourse. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Engineers have a good solution to this, known as SUDS (Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems), which means that you include within your urban planning water storage features such as permeable paving, rainwater harvesting or ponds with reedbeds. There's a fascinating <a href="https://www.ice.org.uk/news/knowledge/february/how-suds-are-being-retrofitted-to-a-whole-town">project in Llanelli in south Wales to retrofit SUDS to the whole town.</a> But these require someone to maintain them - a theme which will recur time and time again.</span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">3) Water flows downhill</span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The total volume of water falling on a catchment is equal to the intensity in mm/hour * duration of storm * area of catchment. However, flooding is not caused by the total amount of rain that falls, but by the peak height of the water in your local watercourse, which is affected by how long it takes for the water to travel from where it falls to a receptor (like your house) which could be affected. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Slowing the water down is an excellent way to reduce the peak height of water downstream, for example using weirs, meanders and flood storage using the floodplains like Clifton Ings upstream of York or <a href="http://treadinglightly08.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/storms-floods-and-landslides-engineer.html">the flood storage reservoir I built upstream of Wakefield.</a> This also reduces the energy of the water, because fast-flowing water exerts a huge force on anything in its way which can damage buildings and bridges like the one at Tadcaster. A recent case study well worth reading is <a href="http://www.forestry.gov.uk/fr/beeh-9zyf7k">the Slowing the Flow project in Pickering</a>, which deliberately built small dams and weirs to reduce the peak flow in the Pickering Beck. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Incidentally, dredging rarely increases the capacity of a watercourse significantly but can result in speeding up the flow, which means it is not usually the best solution to a flooding problem. It may of course be an excellent solution to the problem of allowing boats to travel up and down your watercourse without hitting the bottom. </span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">4) Protect what's downstream</span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Given that we live in a wet country, we need to accept that land adjacent to our watercourses will flood on a regular basis. Flooding is only a problem if we insist on putting things we care about in the way of the water. Therefore, we have several options to protect our towns and cities:</span><br />
<br />
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Avoid: </b>Don't build on the flood plain at all (though these are tempting flat pieces of ground in the middle of our urban areas with a lovely waterside view!) </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Protect vulnerable assets</b> (substations, telephone exchanges or hospitals) with flood defences, remembering that we must maintain them as a whole system including pumps and moving elements such as floodgates because the water will get in at any weak spots we leave.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Floodproofing: </b>Construct anything that needs to go on the floodplain in such a way that when it floods, it isn't a major problem. For example, waterside flats where the ground floor is used only for car parking, not for storage or living space, or the King's Arms in York where every surface is tiled, the electrical sockets are high on the wall not along the skirting board and all the furniture can be moved at short notice upstairs (even the toilet doors come off). When you come back, you wipe it down and carry on. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Community resilience and contingency planning:</b> Train people to respond to floods and have several back up plans - think "what if?" Flooding problems are often exacerbated by critical infrastructure failures which make it difficult to implement the original flood plan.</span></li>
</ul>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Liked this? See my book blog for reviews, author interviews and more at: <a href="http://www.edbucks.co.uk/">www.EdBucks.co.uk</a></b></span></div>
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</span><br />
<div>
<ul>
</ul>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>See also:</b></span><br />
<ul>
<li><a href="http://treadinglightly08.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/ice-triennial-1-on-desmond-and.html"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">On Desmond and Destruction</span></a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.ice.org.uk/media-and-policy/the-infrastructure-blog/december-2015/why-did-flood-defences-fail-against-storm-desmond"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The ICE Infrastructure Blog: Why did flood defences fail against Storm Desmond?</span></a></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.ice.org.uk/news/knowledge/february/how-suds-are-being-retrofitted-to-a-whole-town">Case study: Sustainable Drainage for a Whole Town in Llanelli</a></span></li>
</ul>
</div>
Treading Lightlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09307438052399650830noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5728720670535977912.post-24717435041080100162016-02-13T12:08:00.003+00:002016-04-17T20:52:10.438+01:00From Ashes to Hope<div dir="ltr">
<span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0); font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This week I went to York Minster to start Lent with the beautiful ancient ceremony which gives Ash Wednesday its name: receiving a cross of ashes on my forehead. Why ash? Because it is a symbol of mourning and mortality, given to each person with words echoing those I last heard at my father's funeral in late December: "remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return". To many, Lent is a time of giving things up, of disciplining the body and reflecting on our frailty and failures. While this is valuable, it raises the question of what the purpose of discipline actually is. What are we training for? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In her sermon, the Dean encouraged us to think differently about Lent: rather than trying to punish ourselves because we are not perfect, let us put in the effort to pursue excellence. </span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">We were encouraged to reflect on how both life and Lent are short, that we need to grasp hold of life with both hands and invest in living it to the full. And for most of us, this doesn't mean doing more different things as a dilettante doing a little bit of this and a little of that, but doing a few things to the best of ability. Consider for example the Minster: the architecture, the stone masons, the glass conservators, the choristers who have trained for years to sing the solos in Allegri's Miserere (a setting of Psalm 51 traditionally sung on Ash Wednesday which makes your heart soar with them). These are skills which allow each person to make a real contribution to our common life, but they take a level of single mindedness that some would call anti-social, unbalanced or even selfish (will you spend all your time on just one project, like writing a book or practising your stone carvings, when there's so many other things you could be doing?) But who else will do that for you? God has called us to be co-creators with him, which is an awesome responsibility. He is with us always, but he will not do for us what we can do for ourselves because otherwise how will we become mature?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">After all,</span> both Ash Wednesday and the funeral service are just as clear that death isn't the end of the story. Lent is about preparing for Easter, for resurrection, in the sure and certain hope that we belong to God who has promised to renew the earth. Therefore we are encouraged to invest in the hard, the slow, the occasionally dull practice day after day which allows us to become truly competent, for the resurrection means that "nothing we do for the Lord is ever useless" 1 Cor 15:56. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Lent is a time of preparation where the natural world echoes what we are doing ourselves: digging the ground, planting and making ready to bear fruit in the spring and summer. So this Lent, I encourage you to savour all that is good and learn to delight in it. As Wesley put it, do all the good that you can as long as ever you can</span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> - which I suggest is most likely to happen if you train, practice and discipline yourself for a single purpose, not a scattergun approach. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">So what am I doing for Lent? I have recommitted myself to the skills I've been working on for some time: learning Dutch, training for a long cycle ride later this year and investing in developing my own and others' engineering skills.</span></span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Liked this? See my series "In Grief and Hope" on my book blog at: <a href="https://edbucks16.wordpress.com/2016/03/25/in-grief-and-hope-a-journey-in-books/" target="_blank">www.EdBucks.co.uk</a> </b></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b style="text-align: center;"><br /></b></span></span>
<b style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">See also:</b></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<ul>
<li><a href="http://treadinglightly08.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/ice-triennial-2-why-engineering-change.html" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Engineering Change: Why there are no shortcuts in the pursuit of excellence</a></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://wanderingmedic.wordpress.com/2016/02/10/dust-and-ashes/">Dust and Ashes - Dr Beth Routledge reflects on the tension between humility and holy ambition</a></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://treadinglightly08.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/advent-reflections-1-what-are-we-here.html">What Are We Here For? Living With Purpose</a></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://treadinglightly08.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/advent-reflections-2-making-all-things.html">Making All Things New: The Hope of Renewal</a></span></li>
</ul>
</div>
Treading Lightlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09307438052399650830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5728720670535977912.post-74458800213688278342016-01-28T06:53:00.000+00:002016-01-28T07:19:50.655+00:00ICE Triennial 2: Why Engineering Change Needs All of Us to Get Involved<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This morning, an <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jan/21/the-guardian-view-on-knowledge-in-an-information-age-take-it-to-heart" target="_blank">opinion piece about the value of learning by heart</a> got me thinking. Does the ubiquitous availability of sat-navs mean that the Knowledge, the detailed memorisation of routes through Central London required to become a London taxi driver, is no longer necessary? Or is there value in spending several years and discipline to get by hard work what any visitor can get off their smart phone? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">You could ask a similar question about engineering practice. A trend in the rail industry, where a quarter of experienced rail engineers are expected to retire in the next ten years, is to meet the shortage of skilled resources with project managers and new software to automate planning processes as much as possible. The ICE have been asking what the role of engineers will be in the future, in an age of Building Information Modelling (BIM), driverless cars and other technologies such a 3D printing or off-site fabrication. When people can look up anything that interests them on the internet, do we still need textbooks and engineering courses? </span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It seems to me that there are two dangers here: either engineers keep control without adapting, training the next generation of construction workers to be so wedded to the old ways that technical innovation is held back, or alternatively innovators will simply bypass the engineering profession and look for early adopters who are more open to change - business leaders, project managers or perhaps technology companies like Google (who are after all trying to enter the driverless car market). But without a strong technical focus in our organisations and the way we deliver projects, we will end up relearning old lessons the hard way, because the corporate memory has disappeared in the influx of new people who have not lived through the rigorous training of old. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Innovation needs to happen with a solid theoretical basis and an understanding of why the current systems and safeguards have been developed, because the laws of physics and human error have not changed! Over-reliance on one technology can also reduce resilience in the same way that mono-culture farming may increase yields in the short term at the cost of genetic diversity and the risk of sudden widespread failure when a crop virus strikes. By ensuring that people within the rail industry have a strong technical understanding of the how the whole system works and how one element impacts on another, you provide diversity of opinions which can find a way forward when life is not in line with protocol.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">So we would do well to reflect on </span><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jan/21/the-guardian-view-on-knowledge-in-an-information-age-take-it-to-heart" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" target="_blank">this</a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">: </span><i style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">"There is a difference between a disaggregated collection of facts pulled in and out of storage as needed and the kind of knowledge built through learning by heart. To learn by heart is to bring knowledge into the centre of our being, and into the imagination which knits everything together."</i><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Engineering judgement cannot be gained solely by looking up facts, but by using that knowledge and coming to understand what is relevant. <i>"The difference between what can be learned from a map and the knowledge gained by walking over the territory is profound". </i>My team use many maps, aerial photos and historical records to understand our earthworks sites, but there is no replacement for the understanding which comes from walking over it. After all, a map is only the result of someone else's interpretation. In the world of earthworks, there are many possible interpretations and seeing for yourself the evidence on the ground is the only way to untangle whether a cutting failed because of a loss of strength (for example softening of the soil due to wetting or an unplanned excavation at the toe), from excess rainwater flowing over the ground from above (perhaps from blocked drains, from someone else's land or from a broken pipe) or from groundwater emerging somewhere on the slope. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">So let us ensure that engineering education does not rely on superficial knowledge of facts, but a deep understanding of principles and the collected experience of history. We cannot create the infrastructure of the future without that expertise, developed through practical experience and mentoring. That's why I have recently signed up to become a Supervising Civil Engineer (SCE) with the ICE to support civil engineers in training, whether graduates on a training scheme or older engineers seeking to fill in the gaps in their experience and become professional qualified engineers through the Career Appraisal process. I hope that I can contribute to a rail industry where technical expertise is genuinely valued, sought after and shared to build the skills of everyone working on a project. We all have a responsibility to pass on our knowledge, and if we are managers, the professional development of our staff should be high on the priority list. So what will you do?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">After all, <i>"Whatever can be looked up instantly can be instantly forgotten"</i> but our infrastructure decisions will come back to haunt us for decades to come if we do not make them wisely. And how will we deal with the challenges of the future if we forget the lessons of the past?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>See also</b></span><br />
<br />
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://treadinglightly08.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/in-praise-of-precision.html">In Praise of Precision</a></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://treadinglightly08.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/ice-triennial-1-on-desmond-and.html">ICE Triennial 1: On Desmond and Destruction</a></span></li>
<li><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/lets-get-active-new-years-resolutions-civil-stephanie-thomas?forceNoSplash=true" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" target="_blank">Let's Get Active - ICE Yorkshire's Director Penny Marshall</a> <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">with an inspiring new year's resolution for engineers to get involved in shaping the future of our profession</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://treadinglightly08.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/in-fog-3-railway-jobs-youve-never.html">In Fog 3: 5 Rail Jobs You've Never Thought Of</a></span></li>
</ul>
<br />Treading Lightlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09307438052399650830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5728720670535977912.post-80407382035440855942016-01-22T17:21:00.000+00:002016-01-28T06:54:00.257+00:00In Praise of Precision<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">If you care about using language precisely, does that make you a pedant or a good engineer? This question has been coming up a lot lately, because people regularly use embankment, cutting and earthwork as if all three words mean exactly the same thing, whereas to a ground engineer like me, they are completely different. What's the difference then? </span><br />
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">An embankment supports the railway track above natural ground level and was built by human hands, usually from poorly compacted soil, ash or rubble (because the Victorians had no access to the kind of compaction plant we would use today). The only way to find out what an embankment is made from is to drill boreholes, because there are no decent construction records from the 1830s and it could vary dramatically over a very short distance. If an embankment fails, your track could be left dangling in mid-air like those photos from Dawlish.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A cutting is where the natural ground level is higher than the railway, so material can fall off or be washed onto the track, which can cause a derailment (whether this material is soil, pieces of rock or rotten tree stumps). Cuttings are slopes within the natural ground, so there might be layers of different types of soil, bands of hard and soft rock or places where groundwater emerges onto the slope (springs). You need to consult the geological map (and ideally some borehole data) to work out the ground conditions.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">An earthwork is "any structure made of earth" ie it is the general team we use to mean both embankments and cuttings.</span></li>
</ul>
<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">So why use language precisely? Firstly to aid communication, because you can then ensure that you're not talking at cross purposes, and secondly because the public expects professional people to know what we are talking about. </span><br />
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<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">If you went to the doctor and she told you that you'd just suffered a myocardial infarction, you would be entirely justified in asking for that in plain English please. That's medical jargon for "a heart attack". But how would you feel if the doctor showed no interest in using the plain English terminology correctly? "Oh yes, sorry, when I said you'd had a heart attack, I actually meant you have lung cancer". Totally different diseases, causes, symptoms and treatments. "Ah, well, they all affect your chest region so it doesn't really matter, does it?" Methinks you'd be getting yourself a new doctor sharpish!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">But when you are surrounded by a community who use similar jargon to you, it is easy to forget this. For example, what are the consequences of writing on your drawings or briefing your staff that at this site you will be "working adjacent to a live road with moving vehicles"/"working next to live traffic"? I would guess that your first thought is: "I might be hit by a car or lorry". If you're an engineer, your next thought will be: "So what's the plan to keep us away from the traffic? Temporary traffic lights? Road cones? A banksman when turning on or off the main road?" You'd then be listening for some controls in the site briefing.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Unfortunately on the railway, "road" can be used informally to mean "track" (especially where one track is closed and the adjacent one is open). So I have actually seen drawings which used "working adjacent to a live road" to mean "working on a railway track which is officially closed (under possession) but there will still be engineering trains coming through for other sites nearby". If you read that drawing, would you be worried about being hit by a train? Or taking necessary precautions?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Well, we're all railway people - surely if anyone was confused, they would just ask? I certainly hope so, but the point is to communicate clearly, especially between the office and the site workers (potentially working in the middle of the night and a long way from home). The person briefing you on site (the COSS) is the last line of defence - if he or she is also confused by the information given to them, how can they tell you accurately what is going on? There's no shortage of <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/report-202015-unsafe-events-at-heathrow-tunnel-junction" target="_blank">Rail Accident Investigation Branch reports </a>to demonstrate what happens when this goes wrong - people walking along one track believing it to be closed until a train is bearing down on them, getting a line blockage on the up line when the work is actually on the down, placing possession boards in the wrong place etc. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">So let's use plain English wherever we can, and if we're going to use jargon, let's use it correctly and consistently, because communication matters - and it can even save your life!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>See also:</b></span><br />
<ul>
<li><a href="http://treadinglightly08.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/ice-triennial-1-on-desmond-and.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">ICE Triennial 1: On Desmond and Destruction </span></a></li>
<li><a href="http://treadinglightly08.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/learning-to-see.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Learning to See - how knowing the name for something allows you to really appreciate it</span></a></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://blogs.agu.org/landslideblog/" target="_blank">The Landslide Blog </a>and <a href="http://rockyrexscience.blogspot.co.uk/" target="_blank">Rocky Rex's Science Blog</a> - two great example of how to explain ground engineering proble</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">ms </span></li>
</ul>
Treading Lightlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09307438052399650830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5728720670535977912.post-41758425152153513012015-12-12T22:35:00.003+00:002015-12-13T09:25:51.835+00:00ICE Triennial #1: On Desmond and Destruction<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It was a dark and stormy night...</span></i></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">So I began my blog two years ago in December 2013 telling my engineer's tales of how climate change is affecting UK infrastructure through storms, floods and landslides. This week, as the COP21 climate negotiations in Paris have worked through many stormy nights (literal and metaphorical) to try and hammer out a deal, <a href="http://www.ice-conferences.com/the-civil-engineering-triennial-summit-2015/" target="_blank">the ICE hosted the Triennial Summit</a> with the American and Canadian societies of civil engineers, a conference about resilience, climate and meeting the infrastructure needs of the future for cities around the world.</span><br />
<b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></b>
<b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A review of 2013/14</span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">2013/14 was a bad winter for the railways, as I <a href="http://treadinglightly08.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/winter-woes-for-not-very-resilient.html" target="_blank">wrote about in more detail </a>a few months later in March 2014, when it had been confirmed as the wettest three month period in UK history in some places. The railway at Dawlish was wrecked by ferocious waves caused by the St Jude storm's high winds, cutting off rail access to Cornwall and it was only reopened in time for Easter.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">There were over 100 landslides on the rail network, including several places like the Hastings line where multiple incidents happened on the same line. A presentation by a rail engineer for Kent at the <a href="https://www.ice.org.uk/near-you/uk/yorkshire-and-humber/committees#geotechnicalgroup" target="_blank">Yorkshire Geotechnical Group in May</a> told a sorry tale of fighting the elements to get the lines reopened again, but in some cases it took many weeks because it was impossible to get materials in or out by rail where the line was blocked in both directions.</span><br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This was just one example of the cascade effect, where the failure of one piece of infrastructure makes other elements more susceptible. For example, what use is it having emergency generators to keep a hospital running if your staff and patients cannot get to it because the local transport infrastructure is flooded? What happens when your flood pumping stations require electricity to run but the whole area is without power due to wind damage to the overhead lines, or because a major substation is flooded? How can you run an airport when the motorway and railway which get staff, passengers and freight into and out of it are not available? These are just some of the stories in the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/groups/review-of-the-resilience-of-the-transport-network-to-extreme-weather-events-expert-panel" target="_blank">DfT's Transport Resilience Review</a> conducted in the aftermath of the floods, published in July 2014, demonstrating that our infrastructure systems are interdependent and vulnerable, and there is a particular need to identify and protect "critical points of failure" without which everything stops working.</span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Another stormy winter ahead?</span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Now it feels like history is repeating itself. I have felt misgivings since early October this year, because like that disastrous winter two years ago, we have had<a href="http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/news/releases/archive/2015/November-stats" target="_blank"> virtually no frosts in York</a> (or indeed elsewhere) this year. I'm a gardener and a cyclist, so I notice when it's frosty, and while I'm no fan of icy roads, it does bother me when winter doesn't behave like winter.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">On the railways, we also monitor leaf fall, because <a href="http://www.networkrail.co.uk/timetables-and-travel/delays-explained/leaves/" target="_blank">as this video explains</a>, wet compacted leaves on the line are to train drivers what black ice is to motorists. So I can tell you with confidence that this year, the trees held onto their leaves until late November then lost them abruptly over about three weeks, on a curve that looked like none of the winters that had gone before...except 2013/14. </span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK_4Pmnsj61KBoYQgcFi5ff0X82yIhVxEgGTyykW8DBZI6tv2sjSaB-zwhHi9Ex7k4nbu6tTaxzN6W0CCiO6zzHegdrANeMwrPl4spXPnS_iZT-ee5dZ23KOXhTI49UITyc-bGKGk2nBQ/s1600/Malham+Cove+waterfall2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="226" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK_4Pmnsj61KBoYQgcFi5ff0X82yIhVxEgGTyykW8DBZI6tv2sjSaB-zwhHi9Ex7k4nbu6tTaxzN6W0CCiO6zzHegdrANeMwrPl4spXPnS_iZT-ee5dZ23KOXhTI49UITyc-bGKGk2nBQ/s320/Malham+Cove+waterfall2.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;"><b><i>Malham Cove becomes (briefly) UK's highest waterfall, Dec 2015</i></b></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">As one of the UK's biggest landholders, the National Trust has published a report explaining <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/nov/20/uk-heritage-hit-by-climate-change-warns-national-trust" target="_blank">how their stately homes, farmland and countryside are being impacted by changing weather</a>, from bird and insect populations to farmland. Most striking this week was Malham Cove: after a visit to this stunning limestone cliff 18 months ago, I wrote about <a href="http://treadinglightly08.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/if-there-is-no-home-for-nature.html" target="_blank">why I want to prevent climate change to protect beautiful places that I love</a>. At the time, I was thinking of the wildlife - I never expected that it would become <a href="http://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/news/trending/video-storm-desmond-causes-malham-cove-to-become-stunning-waterfall-for-first-time-in-centuries-1-7609734" target="_blank">the UK's highest waterfall</a> this week for the first time in centuries, because the rain exceeded the capacity of the sinkhole where the stream usually disappears and emerges at the toe of the cliff.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEig_gnEOrxQZqj6g54wbdXxCOLN9Xlniq1UQD8AjksySh2Do3Q_ezLlM9GYN3rT5Nech3LGBIUqs-x838NybGxRtx69UAGfplPHXItB3Ydb6beBod6dulP44qfwyS0f9wihmAFPRW1b6XI/s1600/Malham+Cove+waterfall.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEig_gnEOrxQZqj6g54wbdXxCOLN9Xlniq1UQD8AjksySh2Do3Q_ezLlM9GYN3rT5Nech3LGBIUqs-x838NybGxRtx69UAGfplPHXItB3Ydb6beBod6dulP44qfwyS0f9wihmAFPRW1b6XI/s320/Malham+Cove+waterfall.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><i>Malham Cove's waterfall bypasses the dry valley which <br />usually emerges at the toe of the limestone cliff</i></b></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The storm season started in mid-November with a new initiative from the Met Office to name our big storms, so we have so far had </span><a href="http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/uk-storm-centre" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" target="_blank">Abigail, Barney, Clodagh and finally Desmond</a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> which has broken rainfall records for Cumbria (a region which is not exactly known for its dry weather...) and flooded huge swathes of the North West, including more than 2m depth of floodwater on the railway at Carlisle.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">You'd think that was bad enough, but I'm worried about the rest of the winter. Warm, wet and windy is bad news for most of us, but the reason it worries earthworks engineers like me is best illustrated by two graphs:</span><br />
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The first graph by the British Geological Survey (BGS) shows the strong </span><a href="http://www.bgs.ac.uk/landslides/landslidesAndRainfall.html" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" target="_blank">relationship between high rainfall events and subsequent landslides</a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> (and there's a similar pattern for </span><a href="http://www.bgs.ac.uk/research/engineeringGeology/shallowGeohazardsAndRisks/sinkholes/Feb2014.html" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" target="_blank">sinkholes here</a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">).</span></li>
</ul>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGQqrwK2TM5oncbpddWNzbU3hI0423-e5Erq7C2-aLtwWxpwgipOUkyg4MlmdmwKuyp_7_zFPysNwjKEkjW2VYDvnMdeUl9HXkuYEEzwj1LWwWe_0ZymembgIfvbLJrfQtlqy_WMVkKFU/s1600/LandslidesandRainfalldataUK.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="414" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGQqrwK2TM5oncbpddWNzbU3hI0423-e5Erq7C2-aLtwWxpwgipOUkyg4MlmdmwKuyp_7_zFPysNwjKEkjW2VYDvnMdeUl9HXkuYEEzwj1LWwWe_0ZymembgIfvbLJrfQtlqy_WMVkKFU/s640/LandslidesandRainfalldataUK.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></div>
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<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">the second graph (unpublished) compares the quantity of rainfall per month on a particular section of the rail network with the delay minutes caused by earthworks and drainage. High rainfall can result in serious disruption, but not usually at the time: it tends to be January to April where the delay really racks up. The reason is simple: both flooding and earthworks failures are related to the level of saturation in the soil. The same amount of rainfall can cause massive disruption on ground which is already saturated, while on dry soil it sinks in and you would hardly notice it.</span></li>
</ul>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">So, what can engineers do to make our infrastructure more resilient, prevent the cascade effect and communicate effectively with the public when weather conditions do not allow us to run a "normal" service? And how can we equip cities with energy, food, water and transport using a fifth of the fuel and carbon we use today, which is what we need to meet the 1.5 to 2 degree limit agreed this week in Paris? Stay tuned for the next instalment from the Triennial Summit...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b><u>See Also:</u></b></span><br />
<br />
<ul>
<li><b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://treadinglightly08.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/storms-floods-and-landslides-engineer.html" target="_blank">Storms, Floods and Landslides - An Engineer's Tale of Climate Change in the UK</a></b></li>
<li><b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://treadinglightly08.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/winter-woes-for-not-very-resilient.html" target="_blank">Winter Woes for a (not very) Resilient Railway</a></b></li>
<li><b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://treadinglightly08.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/if-there-is-no-home-for-nature.html" target="_blank">For the Love Of Malham Cove</a></b></li>
<li><b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.ice.org.uk/news/knowledge/november-2015/paris-conference-on-climate-change" target="_blank">ICE - Why Engineers Care About the Paris COP21 Summit</a></b></li>
</ul>
</div>
Treading Lightlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09307438052399650830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5728720670535977912.post-70402993469134998492015-09-21T12:00:00.000+01:002015-09-21T12:00:11.019+01:00Wildlife Watching at St Nick's Field<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One of the best ways to spend a sunny Saturday afternoon is nature-spotting, so I was pleased that there are regular opportunities to join organised wildlife-spotting walks at one of my favourite places: <a href="http://stnicks.org.uk/" target="_blank">St Nick's Fields nature reserve </a>in York. A few weeks ago, twenty of us enjoyed a pleasant walk with the help of expert volunteers who pointed out insects, plants and birds, including frequent stops to look at things more closely or get excited about something a little way off the path. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The walk was at the start of <a href="http://www.bigbutterflycount.org/" target="_blank">the B</a></span><a href="http://www.bigbutterflycount.org/" target="_blank">ig Butterfly Count</a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">, an annual fortnight-long initiative to record sightings of butterflies around the UK, and therefore understand the geographical spread and frequency of different species. Butterflies are particularly vulnerable to pollution and habitat loss, so make a useful marker for the health or otherwise of our natural world. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">With the help of an identifying sheet which <a href="http://www.bigbutterflycount.org/" target="_blank">you can download here</a>, we spotted six kinds of butterfly: green-veined whites, large white, ringlets, a six-spotted burnet moth, gatekeeper and comma. We also found a huge southern hawker dragonfly resting on a tree (which dragonflies often do soon after hatching until their wings are dry). We saw and heard birds too: a black-headed gull, a greenfinch, a bullfinch sitting by the beck, a young dunnock, collared doves and woodpigeons.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The real highlight of the walk for me was seeing a family of water voles. Water voles are an endangered species, and I have read plenty of ecology reports for construction sites which have looked for potential water vole habitats, but until that day I had never seen one. Twenty minutes spent quietly watching next to Tang Hall Beck was enough to see several voles come out of their holes, go for a swim or walk around their various burrows. It was one of the most beautiful things I'd seen, and it's great to know that a beck that was once polluted by industry with no space for wildlife is now providing a much needed habitat to water voles.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Beautiful!</span></div>
Treading Lightlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09307438052399650830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5728720670535977912.post-16922427015866777762015-09-20T19:10:00.002+01:002015-09-20T23:16:16.705+01:00Living Life in Orange<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As the time approaches for me to renew my Personal Track Safety (PTS) accreditation, here's a summary of the things that I get asked most frequently about how the railway really works. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Disclaimer: this post is obviously NOT intended to be a substitute for the PTS course! If you want more information on railway safety, see the videos and resources on Network Rail's <a href="https://www.safety.networkrail.co.uk/" target="_blank">Safety Central</a> site or read some of the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/rail-accident-investigation-branch" target="_blank">incident reports produced by the RAIB</a>.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One reason for the course is that most people underestimate just how dangerous the railway environment is. After all, from the perspective of passengers, the railway is as safe as we can possibly make it, and you are considerably less likely to be killed or injured as a train passenger than by driving to your destination. But this leads to problems at level crossings, the one place where members of the public interact with trains travelling at their normal speed. People tend to assume that the stopping distance for a train is similar to a bus or a lorry travelling at 30mph on an urban road. </span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Unfortunately, trains are considerably heavier (hundreds or thousands of tonnes, not 10 tonnes like a bus), travel faster than road vehicles (usually at least 60mph, remembering you're not allowed pedestrians on the motorway, and 125mph on the fastest lines) and make use of a deliberately low-friction surface (the rails), all of which means that if a driver applies the emergency brake, it will still take over a mile to stop. And they can't swerve out of the way of any obstructions, either. So railway workers are regulated as a "high risk" industry with similar procedural requirements for safety as an oil refinery or a nuclear power plant.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Obviously, the safest method of working is by stopping the traffic (known as a "possession") and turning the electricity off if you're on an electrified line (an "isolation"). This means most construction work on the railway is done in the wee small hours (with attendant problems of working or walking about in the dark). But fairly obviously, members of the public don't see the railway under possession conditions. So how can you safely work when there's trains going past? Why do train drivers honk? And why do track workers that you pass on the train never seem to be doing any work? </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The answer is: when you see a train on the track near where you're working, you raise one arm to "acknowledge" ie tell the driver you've seen it (both arms means "emergency stop"), shout a warning to your colleagues and move immediately to a position of safety away from the track (you must be there at least 10 seconds before the train arrives, which is not that much warning if you're on a bend and the trains are going fast - we have special lookout arrangements to cover this). The driver honks as soon as he or she sees you, and honks again until every member of the party has acknowledged, which is usually enough to make you move quickly! </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You keep your arm in the air until the cab has gone past, then hold onto your hard hat (or put the chinstrap on) because as people who use Stevenage station know very well, "passing trains cause air turbulence". In fact, they cause more turbulence at track level than on the station, so you have to prepare yourself for a blast of air (potentially full of dust or grit) in your face about a second after the last carriage has whooshed past - delightful...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One thing which becomes very obvious from the PTS course is that most of our safety systems were invented 50+ years ago for a low-tech railway that's very different from what we have today. As high-tech options have become more useful, these have been added but the old ones still have to be memorised (which means that if the high tech versions don't work, there's always a backup plan). Thus, we now have a preference order for problems like: what if there's an emergency and you need to stop the trains? </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The preference order looks like this:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1) Apply track circuit operating clips (this makes the signalling system think there's a train in your block, so it sets the signals on the approach to red). You should always have a set of clips with you.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2) (ideally one of your colleagues does this at the same time as option 1) Ring the signaller and/or electrical control room and tell them to stop the trains or turn the electricity off as applicable. About two hours of the PTS course are devoted to practising how to make emergency calls, including the phonetic alphabet.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3) If you need an ambulance or the fire service, ring them next unless the signaller is able to do this for you. Note that in railway land, mobile phones are very useful but there are also line side telephones in some places which is good if there's no signal, or if the person who's been injured is your COSS who has the task briefing with all the relevant phone numbers on him/her (programming useful phone numbers into your phone is advisable).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">4) Now for the low-tech options: walk 1.25 miles in the direction of traffic and put down detonators on the track to warn any driver that comes along. Yes, by detonators I do mean explosives: little canisters which go off if a train drives over them (instructions include: put them on the line, then stand well back!)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If your phone isn't working to do option 2, this turns into "walk to the nearest telephone, put detonators down then ring the signaller". </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Now, really? We're talking here about walking for at least 20 minutes on ballast, potentially in the dark in the middle of the night, which is quite frankly daft if you're working on the East Coast Mainline with a train every 3-5 minutes. So in these days of high traffic and ubiquitous phones, you start by putting the detonators wherever the incident has happened, another set in advance of any relevant signals or points and then as a last resort, put some more down a mile and a quarter down the line. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">5) My personal favourite though: methods of telling a passing driver to stop if you haven't had time to implement options 1 to 4 yet. In daylight, this comprises either both arms in the air, a red light or a red flag. In the dark, only the light is useful - and what if you don't have a red light? The super low-tech option is: Any light will do, waved about "vigorously" (not up/down or side to side, because this might look like a shunting signal).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>See also:</b></span><br />
<br />
<ul>
<li><a href="http://treadinglightly08.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/in-fog-5-changing-face-of-railway-safety.html" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" target="_blank"><b>In Fog 5: The Changing Face of Railway Safety</b></a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.safety.networkrail.co.uk/" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" target="_blank"><b>Network Rail - Safety Central</b></a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.blogger.com/In%20Fog%203:%20Railway%20Jobs%20You%E2%80%99ve%20Never%20Thought%20Of" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" target="_blank"><b>In Fog 3: Railway Jobs You've Never Thought Of</b></a></li>
</ul>
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Treading Lightlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09307438052399650830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5728720670535977912.post-87326476971089998782015-08-30T09:54:00.001+01:002016-01-28T06:55:31.790+00:00Inspiration and Ideas: Transport Books<em><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Looking for more book reviews or reading suggestions? Follow posts tagged "<a href="http://treadinglightly08.blogspot.co.uk/p/inspiration-and-ideas.html" title="Inspiration and Ideas">Inspiration and Ideas</a>"...</span></em><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Being a rail engineer, I read plenty of books about transport (<a href="http://treadinglightly08.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/books-books-everywhere.html" title="Books, Books Everywhere">as previously noted</a>, these are not usually the ones featuring steam trains!) So here are my current favourites:</span><br />
<strong><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></strong>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><strong>1) Planning Sustainable Transport, Barry Hutton</strong> (Routledge, 2014)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This is currently my favourite book about transport, because it really opened my mind to concepts that make a great deal of sense but are rarely discussed. For example, consider the space budget, beautifully illustrated by this sequence of images showing how much space 200 people take up in 170 cars, two buses, on foot or bike or on a tram. Or, consider how transport planning usually assumes that people have a fixed start and end point and a choice of the way in which you get there. This isn't actually true, for example out-of-town shopping centres which assume you travel by car: people avoid congestion in central York by changing their destination as well! So land use is intimately linked to transport options, but are usually considered completely separately.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><strong></strong></span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><strong>2) Railpolitick: Bringing Railways Back to the Community, Paul Salveson</strong> (Laurel and Wishart, 2013). Paul Salveson is a fascinating railway expert, having conceived the Community Rail Partnership idea and implemented it around the country, worked for Northern and got an MBE for services to rail. I hope to meet him some day... </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Following an overview of rail history, privatisation and how we got to the state we're in now, this is a book about how rail makes a difference to communities both large and small, from the national network down to branch lines where the local station has become a hub for community services.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><strong>3) Asset Management, and its partner International Case Studies in Asset Management, both by Chris Lloyd</strong> (ICE Publishing, 2014)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">These two books are a great overview of why asset management matters, and how it has been implemented across different industries and regulatory regimes. There's lots of practical tips for engineers trying to promote a culture of targeted investment for long term gain in all our major infrastructure types.</span><br />
<strong><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></strong>
<strong><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">4) The Intercity Story: 1962 to 2012, <a href="http://www.railwaystoday.com/2013/10/17/book-review-the-intercity-story/" title="Book review: The Intercity Story">Chris Green and Mike Vincent</a>
</span></strong><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This is a well-illustrated coffee table book which explains how long distance train travel has morphed over the last fifty years, including a detailed analysis of the privatised franchises and how their fortunes have fared. There are lots of useful facts and figures, and the book aims to be a fairly objective review of how the rail industry has developed. However, it's worth noting that the book was supported by various railway companies, and hence does not allow itself to be too critical of the way things are now, so I recommend reading alongside Paul Salveson to get both sides of the story.</span><br />
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<strong><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">5) Urban Transport Without the Hot Air, Steve Melia, UIT Cambridge
</span></strong><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I thought I'd finish with one book that's still on my "To Read" list, which provides an overview of transport issues (similar to Barry Hutton's book) followed by case studies from places like Cambridge and Groningen. Meanwhile here's a <a href="http://makewealthhistory.org/2015/05/29/urban-transport-without-the-hot-air-by-steve-melia/" title="Book review: Urban transport without the hot air">great review by Jeremy Williams</a> to whet your appetite! The key points of the book are also <a href="http://www1.uwe.ac.uk/et/research/cts/transportfilms.aspx" title="Urban Transport Without the Hot Air">summarised in a series of videos here</a>.</span><br />
<strong><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></strong>
<strong><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">See Also:</span></strong><br />
<ul>
<li><a href="http://treadinglightly08.blogspot.co.uk/p/inspiration-and-ideas.html" title="Inspiration and Ideas"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Inspiration and Ideas</span></a></li>
<li><a href="http://treadinglightly08.blogspot.co.uk/p/railway-tales.html" title="An overview of railway tales from the Treading Lightly blog"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Railway Tales</span></a></li>
<li><a href="http://treadinglightly08.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/in-fog-3-railway-jobs-youve-never.html" title="Railway Jobs You've Never Thought Of"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In Fog 3: Railway Jobs You've Never Thought Of</span></a></li>
</ul>
Treading Lightlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09307438052399650830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5728720670535977912.post-42699683322515395582015-07-25T22:01:00.000+01:002016-04-17T21:12:26.217+01:00In Fog 5: The Changing Face of Railway Safety<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It's fair to say that if you want to create drama about the railways, this usually involves staging a crash of one form or another. So it should be no surprise that both productions at the Railway Museum this summer feature either a crash averted by waving some famous red knickers (The Railway Children) or a financial and physical train crash (<a href="https://edbucks16.wordpress.com/2016/04/13/on-stage-in-fog-and-falling-snow-george-stephenson/" target="_blank">In Fog and Falling Snow</a>). </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">You would think that watching this happen night after night, we would become inured to it, but I wasn't expecting the emotional impact. I spend every working day maintaining railway earthworks to protect the travelling public. Part of my training is to read the detailed <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/rail-accident-investigation-branch" target="_blank">Rail Accident Investigation Branch reports</a> which detail the consequences of not doing so (including the many minor incidents which could have been so much worse). So watching people scream for help amid the wreckage of a train (even one made of large wooden boxes) is literally my worst nightmare, and it frequently made me cry during the show. It probably didn't help that the news was full of sad stories from "7/7 ten years on" during the last week of the production.</span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">On the other hand, at least railways are safer now than in George Hudson's day! When the railways were run by private companies, the profit motive came before public safety, with cuts to drivers' pay and inexperienced workers a key part in the high death toll. Regulation and nationalisation improved things, but the rail industry lost its way again in the years shortly after privatisation in 1993, when maintenance and inspections were outsourced and unreliably conducted. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In the run-up to "In Fog" I read the full report into the <a href="http://www.railwaysarchive.co.uk/documents/HSE_Lad_Cullen002.pdf" target="_blank">events surrounding Ladbroke Grove</a> in 1999, the worst UK rail crash in recent history where one passenger train drove head-first into another, causing multiple deaths and a fireball. The<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2001/jun/19/ladbrokegrove.transport2" target="_blank"> root causes of this tragedy</a> were found to be poor signal sighting: having rebuilt the track layout at Paddington Station such that you could go from any of the platforms onto any of the four approach tracks, it was then electrified, resulting in signals being covered up by bridges, gantries and portals). </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Though this particular signal had been repeatedly passed at danger over several years (the railway equivalent of running a red light), no action had been taken to make the signals easier to see. Instead, a confusing and unusual "reverse-L" shape was adopted, which meant that the red light was next to the yellow rather than below it. This didn't help drivers reading the signals quickly. This situation underlines the importance of signal sighting committees (who inspect every new signal and check that it is visible at the correct distances) and the railway psychologists whose job is to predict driver and signaller behaviour.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">On the fateful day, the signal was missed by a newly trained driver with little experience travelling into and out of Paddington and signallers who took no action until it was too late, because they had expected a driver who goes through a red light to notice and stop of his own accord. In their words, it was "just a SPAD" (= "Signal Pased at Danger"), not realising that the train which had gone through the red light was accelerating towards the mainline and another train travelling at high speed in the opposite direction.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This incident was one of many during the late 1990s and early years of 2000, leading to much soul-searching, the demise of Railtrack (becoming the publicly owned Network Rail) and the growth of collaboration across the fragmented industry. The lessons of these accidents were hard to learn, but were taken deeply to heart. It came as a surprise to me that many of the features of today's rail safety culture are relatively recent, for example, the RAIB only began in 2006, as investigations had previously been the responsibility of the HSE. </span><br />
<br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is a mark of success, therefore, that we have just celebrated a decade in which only one passenger has been killed in a train accident, a remarkable and unprecedented record. However, there is no room for complacency.<a href="http://www.christianwolmar.co.uk/2012/05/rail-697-safety-is-the-hidden-success-story/"> As Christian Wolmar puts it in an excellent 2012 article</a>, </span><div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>"This method of improvement [learning from failure] no longer works because all the obvious risks have largely been eliminated. With so many trains whizzing around a crowded network at speeds of up to 125mph, disaster is only one set of errors or bad luck away. And there is widespread concern within the industry that the background indicators, rather than the headline grabbing ones, are worryingly stable." </i></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At the <a href="https://www.ice.org.uk/near-you/uk/yorkshire-and-humber/committees#geotechnicalgroup" target="_blank">Yorkshire Geotechnical Group's</a> conference in York in May 2015, geotechnical engineers discussed the effects of the unprecented bad winter of 2013/14, where heavy rainfall caused more than 100 landslides across the rail network, but fortunately no derailments. The words of one rail engineer that day still ring in my ears: "we were lucky we didn't kill somebody". </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So the screams for help on a Yorkshire stage this summer will continue to motivate me to work for a future where we do not disrupt the weather by pumping pollution into the atmosphere, and we have <a href="http://treadinglightly08.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/winter-woes-for-not-very-resilient.html" target="_blank">a railway network resilient enough to cope</a> with whatever the weather may bring.</span><br /><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>See Also:</b></span><br />
<br />
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://treadinglightly08.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/in-fog-1-yorks-railway-history-on-stage.html" target="_blank">In Fog 1: York's Railway History on Stage</a></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://edbucks16.wordpress.com/2016/04/13/on-stage-in-fog-and-falling-snow-george-stephenson/" target="_blank">On Stage: "George Stephenson" by Hunter Davies (Book review inspired by In Fog and Falling Snow)</a></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://treadinglightly08.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/ice-triennial-1-on-desmond-and.html" target="_blank">ICE Triennial 1: On Desmond and Destruction</a></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://treadinglightly08.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/living-life-in-orange.html" target="_blank">Living Life in Orange, Or, What I Learned on My Track Safety Course</a></span></li>
</ul>
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Treading Lightlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09307438052399650830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5728720670535977912.post-37870779813265543352015-07-24T21:25:00.000+01:002016-04-17T20:54:11.278+01:00In Fog 4: The Out-Takes<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">You may have noticed I've been taking a rest from blogging while I was performing in<a href="http://treadinglightly08.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/in-fog-2-engineer-who-loves-to-sing.html" target="_blank"> "In Fog and Falling Snow"</a>, so this is a chance to reflect on how it went. June and July were fairly intense, with choir rehearsals or performances most evenings and every Saturday, and family visiting me to come and see the play. It was worth it, because we produced something amazing. Indeed, one person who came to see it told our choir director they were so engrossed in the choir, they totally missed some of what happened on stage, like Richard Nicholson's suicide...<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://farm1.staticflickr.com/330/19412298658_9252fd9fea_b_d.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://farm1.staticflickr.com/330/19412298658_9252fd9fea_b_d.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The lovely choir with choir director Maddy in the middle</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">We got fantastic write-ups including <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2015/jul/03/in-fog-and-falling-snow-review-national-railway-museum-york" target="_blank">four stars from the Guardian</a> and<a href="http://www.yorktheatreroyal.co.uk/event/In_Fog_And_Falling_Snow.php#.VbQGT7NViko" target="_blank"> a full set of reviews are available here</a>. The choir was a great group of friends, many of whom had sung in York Theatre Royal's previous community productions (the Mystery Plays and Blood and Chocolate). When not on stage, most of the choir are members of other choirs around the city, so there's a great culture of invitations: I can be sure that if I try out any choir in York, there'll be someone I know! We'll be reconvening next year for the Mystery Plays, to be held next May in the Minster for Corpus Christi.</span><br />
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<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Here are a few of my personal highlights from the show:<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaDlud6OXnR6Kul2FE984JywC-9Vb2zSJIKxgoa6vbejmzvGtXd0nATN6-B_WVcAQq-guLF8Oqp5jkvyPdyh8c6sHVWiDu-44-9GCT3DKyKFepFWfJ9ELR4ohsj6-zEC1v9t20-sdSmy4/s1600/The+Rocket+arrives.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaDlud6OXnR6Kul2FE984JywC-9Vb2zSJIKxgoa6vbejmzvGtXd0nATN6-B_WVcAQq-guLF8Oqp5jkvyPdyh8c6sHVWiDu-44-9GCT3DKyKFepFWfJ9ELR4ohsj6-zEC1v9t20-sdSmy4/s320/The+Rocket+arrives.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>The Rocket arrives on the turntable in the Great Hall</b></td></tr>
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</span></div>
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<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Rehearsing (and later holding the cast party) in the De Grey Rooms, where my local history book tells me George Hudson held some of the fateful meetings we were portraying on stage! Some days were very hot, so we had to prop open the windows and serenade passers-by with our songs as we practised. This was the point where we realised that if we all stood up, we couldn't see choir director Maddy Hudson at all! Various adaptations took place during the tech rehearsal phase to make sure that our conductor was always visible.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Singing a great anthem as the Rocket (yes, the actual genuine Rocket!) came into the Great Hall bearing George Stephenson about a metre from my elbow (fortunately my PTS card was not required unless any of us stepped off the choir's stand while the train was moving). </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Singing parlour songs round the piano in the Station Hall, especially "Oh Mr Porter" which we sang as the audience gathered at the end of the first act - we sang as many verses as were required while the cast danced, until George Hudson came along and put a stop to all that. I must say, I'm pleased to have that song out of my head now though! </span></li>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7MdBgnnw1miYOOxL1leRPIAw60uQI4tUDC7sDJcEZELIIhwtG96xTymYjpmT165tfoUnukJd8NpMpFs1ZJYY0KBRxV7cg8AjGWMAKLcefR6OJcqmGPdOJB5OVtWkDIGjBRe3HLV8BRyo/s1600/steam+train+cast.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7MdBgnnw1miYOOxL1leRPIAw60uQI4tUDC7sDJcEZELIIhwtG96xTymYjpmT165tfoUnukJd8NpMpFs1ZJYY0KBRxV7cg8AjGWMAKLcefR6OJcqmGPdOJB5OVtWkDIGjBRe3HLV8BRyo/s320/steam+train+cast.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8000001907349px; text-align: center;">The Jenkins family arrive in York - a scene<br />
staged in a steam train next to the choir</td></tr>
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<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A few nights from the end of the show, the cast of the scene which occurred in the Ellerman steam train next to the choir stand surprised us with a little parcel of chocolate biscuits with a note to thank the choir for entertaining them with songs of navvies and railway mania every night. </span></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The tech rehearsals required those wearing microphones to keep talking while the sound levels were adjusted to suit. Problem was, many people had only a line or two in each scene, so we were treated to a study of how to say the same line 10 times in 10 different ways (sometimes with unintentionally hilarious effect!)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">One night we had a derailment while wheeling the remains of the train crash off stage. The four "dead bodies" had to get up and walk off while the hardworking tech crew manhandled it back into place, while the next scene continued at the other end of the stage as if nothing was happening. Both the crew and the actors were true professionals - the show must go on!</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Presenting Maddy with a big bunch of flowers and her very own song with lyrics written by a choir member (rehearsed in secret just before our final show) which she loved so much, we had to sing it again for her husband in the pub afterwards!</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Sharing the ICE's advert in the programme with my friends in the cast and choir, inviting people to <a href="http://www.tomorrowsengineers.org.uk/" target="_blank">explore Tomorrow's Engineers</a> and follow in the footsteps of York's first rail engineers.</span></li>
</ul>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>If you missed out on "In Fog", why not read my <a href="https://edbucks16.wordpress.com/2016/04/11/on-stage-books-inspired-by-york-theatre/" target="_blank">series of book reviews inspired by the York Theatre Royal</a>?</b></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">See also:</span></b><br />
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2015/jul/03/in-fog-and-falling-snow-review-national-railway-museum-york" target="_blank"><b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Guardian review of "In Fog and Falling Snow"</span></b></a></li>
<li><a href="http://treadinglightly08.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/in-fog-1-yorks-railway-history-on-stage.html" target="_blank"><b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In Fog 1: York's Railway History On Stage</span></b></a></li>
<li><a href="http://treadinglightly08.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/in-fog-2-engineer-who-loves-to-sing.html" target="_blank"><b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In Fog 2: An Engineer Who Loves to Sing</span></b></a></li>
<li><a href="http://treadinglightly08.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/in-fog-3-railway-jobs-youve-never.html" target="_blank"><b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In Fog 3: Railway Jobs You've Never Thought Of</span></b></a></li>
</ul>
</div>
<div>
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Treading Lightlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09307438052399650830noreply@blogger.com0York, UK53.959965100000012 -1.087297900000066953.885224600000015 -1.2486594000000668 54.034705600000009 -0.92593640000006694tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5728720670535977912.post-8602225873587662302015-06-14T09:28:00.000+01:002015-06-25T21:50:06.526+01:00Acomb Garden pitching for funds at York Soup!<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It's been an exciting month at Acomb's <a href="http://acombmethodistchurch.org.uk/the-jubilee-project-an-overview/jubilee-project-the-garden/" target="_blank">community garden </a>project. We have been selected to pitch for a grant of £1000 at <a href="http://www.yorkcvs.org.uk/york-soup-celebrating-and-supporting-community-ideas/" target="_blank">York Soup</a>, a new initiative by York CVS where 100 people donate £10 and over a soup dinner on 25th June listen to 4 great local causes make a pitch for the money. There's still 30 tickets left, so get yours today and come along to support us!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQhrZ2kiX2H02l5Y3NnVVJYFuahqWJRnfZA9hVWmj6Jxrn0pQdlsQ7NtpxySr3uLRbyKnEPNkCE06mZQcy5s2cQbB1kd4BPvkMYGbbLPXYDhiUnNCvfKpwYb8ocSq3fQAV8eKJjmwRP4Q/s1600/York-Soup-logo-300x97.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="128" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQhrZ2kiX2H02l5Y3NnVVJYFuahqWJRnfZA9hVWmj6Jxrn0pQdlsQ7NtpxySr3uLRbyKnEPNkCE06mZQcy5s2cQbB1kd4BPvkMYGbbLPXYDhiUnNCvfKpwYb8ocSq3fQAV8eKJjmwRP4Q/s400/York-Soup-logo-300x97.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We're fundraising for the next stage: installing full disabled access so that everyone can get involved (it's really sad for all of us that our friends Gerry and Denise can't join in because the only way into the garden is via steps). We also want to construct a meeting room/log cabin which will be the heart of the garden, for making tea, holding events or prayer times and including a tool store as well.</span><br />
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<a name='more'></a><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Preparing our pitch has also been a chance to reflect more deeply within the garden team about what we are working for. A place to connect with God's creation, to get involved in food production and to create somethingSoup together. We conducted a <a href="http://acombmethodistchurch.org.uk/the-jubilee-project-an-overview/jubilee-project-the-survey/" target="_blank">community survey</a> survey in 2013 which demonstrated that Acomb is hungry for a sense of community, with 48% of people putting loneliness and isolation as one of our biggest challenges.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtY49t1SlhEKbP4cjgvn2AZY_CnKaTfYUMG0x3Hdd3thxnzuF2FBjjImATvjwYP5ubQKAawPYN7bFDAQG4s7AKeTqpeZtxUocoJqNjJKUQDFmXhI7y7nlw6SDIMU0rZaPG1ff9JH3HTes/s1600/IMG_20150606_132555597_HDR%255B1%255D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtY49t1SlhEKbP4cjgvn2AZY_CnKaTfYUMG0x3Hdd3thxnzuF2FBjjImATvjwYP5ubQKAawPYN7bFDAQG4s7AKeTqpeZtxUocoJqNjJKUQDFmXhI7y7nlw6SDIMU0rZaPG1ff9JH3HTes/s400/IMG_20150606_132555597_HDR%255B1%255D.jpg" width="223" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Strawface McBean keeps watch <br />over the potato plants</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">York Press have covered the York Soup idea and the four pitches have just been announced. They're all great local causes, whether we win our pitch or not, we're looking forward to an evening where we can share our hopes for the garden project and build contacts and opportunities to work with others.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the garden itself, work has continued to keep everything well watered and growing well. As the vegetables and fruit trees have come into full leaf, Messy Church planted sunflowers and created a scarecrow (immediately christened Strawface McBeanby some of our young people) to watch over the growing crops and keep the birds away. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This was a team effort by forty-odd children and adults as we meditated on the story of Ruth, an environmental refugee whose relationship with the land was shaped by famine, poverty and scraping just enough food to survive by gleaning. Christian environmental charity A Rocha have written <a href="http://arocha.us/ruth-economic-migrant-or-environmental-refugee" target="_blank">a fascinating meditation on Ruth here</a>. Ruth was a woman whose faith and persistence are commended, a foreigner who became grandmother to King David and eventually Jesus himself. Amusingly, Strawface McBean has been scaring more people than birds this week, as people go to water the garden and forget that he's there!</span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">See also:</span></b><br />
<br />
<ul>
<li><a href="http://treadinglightly08.blogspot.co.uk/p/acomb-community-garden.html" target="_blank">Acomb Community Garden - the story so far</a></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://treadinglightly08.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/inspiration-from-helmsley.html" target="_blank">Acomb Garden: Inspiration from Helmsley</a></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Acomb <a href="http://acombmethodistchurch.org.uk/the-jubilee-project-an-overview/jubilee-project-the-survey/" target="_blank">Community survey </a>report</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.yorkpress.co.uk/news/12953577.How_100_people_and_a_lot_of_soup_could_change_York_for_the_better_____/" target="_blank">York Press article about York Soup</a></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://treadinglightly08.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/life-in-community-reflections-from-lilac.html" target="_blank">A sense of <span id="goog_1278037384"></span>community<span id="goog_1278037385"></span> at LILAC</a></span></li>
</ul>
Treading Lightlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09307438052399650830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5728720670535977912.post-38526216416623209432015-06-04T22:42:00.000+01:002016-04-02T07:36:30.569+01:00In Fog 3: Railway Jobs You’ve Never Thought Of<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>This is the third in a series of posts about my role in the choir in<a href="http://www.yorktheatreroyal.co.uk%2Fevent%2Fin_fog_and_falling_snow.php%26ei%3Dxmrwvbpqi8pb7gauoigwcq%26usg%3Dafqjcnecttihrsagvrpjwmfh-mfmzc-brw%26sig2%3Drppaju0zukyokvtledoetw%26bvm%3Dbv.94911696%2Cbs.1%2Cd.bgg/"> York Theatre Royal's production In Fog and Falling Snow </a>(26th June to 11th July). See links below to follow this series!</i><br /><br />Ask any 10-</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">year-old to suggest a couple of jobs you could do if you want to work on the
railways, and you’ll get three answers: train driver, ticket collector and
station staff. Ask most adults, and you’ll get the same three answers, with the
possible addition of “the man who opens the level crossing gate at Poppleton
station” (in places with </span><a href="http://treadinglightly08.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/rail-electrification-at-last-for-north.html" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" target="_blank">antiquated signalling systems like the Harrogate line!</a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">) or “manufacturing trains” (especially if you happen to ask people in
places like Stafford, Derby or York with a long history of train building, although the </span><a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/972f7360-89fa-11e4-9b5f-00144feabdc0.html" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" target="_blank">UK's biggest train factory opened earlier this year in County Durham</a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">).</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img alt="Hitachi Rail Europe has won a £5.7bn contract to supply the intercity express programme" src="http://im.ft-static.com/content/images/dc642433-8a8a-4707-af9a-4c77efeda06a.img" height="180" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="320" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8000001907349px; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>Hitachi's new IEP train, being manufactured<br />in County Durham and coming soon<br />to a mainline near you!</i></span></b></td></tr>
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<span lang="EN-AU"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I mentioned
<a href="http://treadinglightly08.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/in-fog-1-yorks-railway-history-on-stage.html" target="_blank">previously in this series </a>that since York’s carriage building workshops closed down, the rail
workforce has been spread around the city’s offices out of sight, so many
people don’t realise that the rail industry still employs thousands of York
(and Yorkshire)’s brightest and best. So here’s just a few of the more unusual jobs
that happen behind the scenes here in York. If you want to know more, <a href="http://www.tomorrowsengineers.org.uk/Transport/" target="_blank">see the great videos here</a> (including my friend Philippa Jefferis!).</span></span></div>
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<b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><u>Operations</u></b></div>
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<b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: -18pt;">Psychologist</b></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The biggest cause of safety incidents on the railway is human error. So
how can we predict what a driver will do when she’s done this route 50 times,
but today something is different? Or whether the many alarms and flashing
lights on a signaller’s workstation will lead to action or just distraction,
with too many things to concentrate on at once? Or how a crowd of passengers
will behave in an emergency situation? Railway safety depends on psychologists
who are experts in human behaviour and can ensure that systems work as designed
when faced with real human beings!</span></span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span lang="EN-AU"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: -18pt;">Web designer</b></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The last time you bought a train ticket, I bet you didn’t buy it at a
ticket office. On your phone or a computer? Or using a ticket machine? So
developing websites and passenger information systems that provide useful
information for planning journeys and during disruption is vital. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It’s important for other customers too, like supermarkets who want to
get their containers of fruit or clothing delivered to their warehouse just in
time as they do using road transport. Last week I heard a great talk from DB
Schenker, one of Europe’s biggest freight operators about how to provide
innovative train planning and logistics tools via web apps to integrate train
movements with warehouse stock levels and vastly improve customer service
(compared to 10 years ago when most freight carried on the rail network was
coal or steel, and no-one much cares if that arrives half an hour late). <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Then there is the Digital Railway and ORBIS projects, which use
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) or 3D modelling to give rail staff the
best possible information about the network in a form which is easily
searchable. <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; text-indent: -18pt;"><b>Signalling or electrical controller</b></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Controlling the signals and the electricity supply is what keeps all of us safe on the railway, so it’s a challenging and well paid job. Rather than pulling levers in a distant signalbox somewhere, today’s signalling workforce is being moved to Rail Operating Centres like the one just completed at York, using screens to monitor train movements over a wide area and communicate with drivers, level crossings and the electrical controls.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; text-indent: -18pt;"><b>Delay attribution</b></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">We have a highly regulated rail network, so if a train is late or
cancelled, there is a fine to pay. But who pays it? That depends whether it was
a fault with the train (which would be the operator’s fault), with the train in
front (another operator’s fault but not necessarily the same company) or with
the track or signalling, for example speed restrictions or engineering work
that overran (Network Rail’s responsibility). One of the downsides of a
privatised rail network is that we end up employing rather a large number of
people to argue about these things between all the different parties…</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b><u>Maintenance</u></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; text-indent: -18pt;"><b>Train maintenance</b></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Obviously trains need maintenance as much as the track, but they’re
pretty complicated pieces of kit nowadays, with air conditioning, lighting, heating, a kitchen, on-board
electrical equipment, engines, wheels and plumbing to worry about, not to mention the wifi and customer information screens.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; text-indent: -18pt;"><b>Asset manager</b></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The railway network is vast, with thousands of miles of track, bridges,
stations, embankments, electrical equipment etc, which deteriorate over time at
different rates but need to be
maintained in working condition at all times. How do we ensure that money is
spent wisely and is targeted at the most critical locations to give the best
performance? Network Rail as an organisation owns these assets, but each one is
personally “owned” as well by an asset manager, who is a specialist in a
particular asset type such as earthworks (a geotechnical engineer) and has
responsibility for everything in her patch, which is usually vast (as you can see here).</span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-AU"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>UPDATE: <a href="http://www.youngrailpro.com/ambassadors/rail-week/" target="_blank">Rail Week 2016</a> takes place from 27th June to 3rd July. Get involved here and find out how you can build your career in rail!</b></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>See also</b></span></span></div>
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<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://treadinglightly08.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/in-fog-1-yorks-railway-history-on-stage.html" target="_blank">In Fog 1: York's Railway History on Stage</a></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://treadinglightly08.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/in-fog-2-engineer-who-loves-to-sing.html" target="_blank">In Fog 2: An Engineer Who Loves to Sing</a></span></li>
<li><a href="http://www.tomorrowsengineers.org.uk/Transport/" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" target="_blank">Tomorrow's Engineers - a great resource about engineering careers you'd never thought of </a></li>
</ul>
Treading Lightlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09307438052399650830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5728720670535977912.post-71542581456395916392015-06-02T07:00:00.000+01:002015-06-04T22:42:29.525+01:00In Fog 2: An Engineer Who Loves to Sing<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is part of a series of posts telling my stories as a choir member in York Theatre Royal's show "</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In Fog and Falling Snow" (tickets available <a href="http://www.yorktheatreroyal.co.uk/event/In_Fog_And_Falling_Snow.php#.VWxM589Viko" target="_blank">here</a>). </span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Given there are 150 people in the cast & choir,</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> there's not
much room in the programme, so here's my long answer to the question people are frequently asking me at the moment:
how exactly did you get into singing at the National Railway Museum?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My first theatrical outing in York was the Poppleton Panto in Feb 2013 shortly after we moved here, where I played a “Scottish Doll” and rather surprisingly managed to convince quite a few local people I was Scottish (much to my amusement). This was where I first formulated the York Railway Game: since it is impossible to attend any social function in York without encountering someone who works on the railway, the game is to see how long it takes to find that person at any given gathering. Being in panto means that whenever I need to talk to Network Rail’s Head of Track for the whole North East region, our conversations now start with “How’s your daughter doing with her singing?” Based on her star performance as the lead in this year's Sleeping Beauty, I’d say rather well…!</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrjPsKyO9zQf_iqWjbhgy_eO5cMf4CQfAVajMqHsFKYZkR_C9MQvtHADkZ3n8dqMNm-rNBehCLEutl-ER64ezFQnL5AcaTQleKSEnnNz9-XaJP_lubfhY5ICzpvkIC5v2DM2vilxeFmuA/s1600/Fairtrade+Frivolities.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: right;"><img border="0" height="163" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrjPsKyO9zQf_iqWjbhgy_eO5cMf4CQfAVajMqHsFKYZkR_C9MQvtHADkZ3n8dqMNm-rNBehCLEutl-ER64ezFQnL5AcaTQleKSEnnNz9-XaJP_lubfhY5ICzpvkIC5v2DM2vilxeFmuA/s320/Fairtrade+Frivolities.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My band The Spectacles features my husband
Ed on guitar, folky vocals from me, with songs mostly written by Ed inspired by
Dido and Kirsty McColl. We've played several gigs in York, including events for
<a href="http://www.fairtradeyork.com/fun-packed-evening-for-fairtrade-fortnight/" target="_blank">York Fairtrade Forum</a> and <a href="http://www.christianaidcollective.org/collective" target="_blank">Christian Aid Collective </a>at City Screen
Basement and at various open mic nights. If you're looking for a band for an event you're planning, feel free to leave a comment! </span><br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I also had the privilege of singing a solo </span><a href="http://treadinglightly08.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/holiness-in-action-were-you-there.html" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" target="_blank">"Were You There When They Crucified My Lord?"</a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> in an amazingly resonant spot in York Minster as part of the 2014 Good Friday Service. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> <o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiObxzjWY1QyPt0_i85Wi_n547j8AeyD1eOjdpmHmpyEHCxQVtalH8KJHPev6KEQtRhcjt0467tqBcAuOrbXKwNtNfqbkmMqIMCva64cenNXQBzbRcUQA-QXCDAqZzSLySzcwi_M-IjJQw/s1600/Holy+Boy+advert.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiObxzjWY1QyPt0_i85Wi_n547j8AeyD1eOjdpmHmpyEHCxQVtalH8KJHPev6KEQtRhcjt0467tqBcAuOrbXKwNtNfqbkmMqIMCva64cenNXQBzbRcUQA-QXCDAqZzSLySzcwi_M-IjJQw/s320/Holy+Boy+advert.jpg" width="227" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As well as singing solo, my most recent community choir event was with a dozen kids, two dozen adults and a full
band in Acomb Methodist Church's choral nativity play "Holy Boy" in
December 2014, which inspired <a href="http://treadinglightly08.blogspot.co.uk/p/blog-page.html" target="_blank">a series of reflections you can read here</a>.
It was amazing to see people with a wide variation in musical experience
flourish as we practised together under the skilful musical direction of Jo
Lindley, bringing out hidden talents with difficult solos. It was a family
affair, with many parents and children in the choir, so the children also
gained confidence, becoming self-organising under our teenage leaders for the hour
and a half when they needed to amuse themselves while their parents rehearsed
with the adult choir. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We're looking forward to trying this again next year,
potentially with an Easter choral piece. Meanwhile, several months of
rehearsing together and Friday nights which finished in the pub created an
appetite for doing things together that has led to <a href="http://treadinglightly08.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/a-journey-of-transformation-at-acomb.html" target="_blank">our garden project</a> and a
regular monthly social every second Sunday. In recent months, this has seen us
try a variety of things from playing board games, barbecues, building bridges
from spaghetti and <a href="http://treadinglightly08.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/inspiration-from-helmsley.html" target="_blank">visiting Helmsley Walled Garden</a>!</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 18px;"><b>See also</b></span></span></div>
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</div>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://treadinglightly08.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/in-fog-1-yorks-railway-history-on-stage.html" target="_blank">In Fog and Falling Snow 1 - York's rail history</a></span></li>
<li><a href="http://treadinglightly08.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/advent-reflections-1-what-are-we-here.html" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" target="_blank">Reflections inspired by Holy Boy</a></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://treadinglightly08.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/holiness-in-action-were-you-there.html" target="_blank">Meditation inspired by singing in York Minster</a></span></li>
<li><a href="http://treadinglightly08.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/a-journey-of-transformation-at-acomb.html" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" target="_blank">Acomb Community Garden</a></li>
</ul>
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Treading Lightlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09307438052399650830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5728720670535977912.post-80231989873087063602015-06-01T13:38:00.001+01:002015-06-01T21:35:39.296+01:00In Fog 1: York's Railway History on Stage<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>This is the first in a series of posts about my role as part of York Theatre Royal's production </i><a href="http://www.yorktheatreroyal.co.uk/event/In_Fog_And_Falling_Snow.php#.VWxPUs9Vikp" style="font-style: italic;" target="_blank">In Fog and Falling Snow</a><i> (26th June to 11th July). See links below to follow this series!</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpN5WlTiyqzkmvT5Fyt3RlBwaMvWZlRvbcB-qNmBtm39qrY9eISpeVCW4dcIBCMvvd3E5jj_egJw0oB0iSTO89H36D5-RNbcneFAGpOMvGs9KbrEIbd6xNlBfzC_L9pbgNWRfdi-Gvw0E/s1600/In+fog+banner.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="147" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpN5WlTiyqzkmvT5Fyt3RlBwaMvWZlRvbcB-qNmBtm39qrY9eISpeVCW4dcIBCMvvd3E5jj_egJw0oB0iSTO89H36D5-RNbcneFAGpOMvGs9KbrEIbd6xNlBfzC_L9pbgNWRfdi-Gvw0E/s400/In+fog+banner.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Something exciting is happening in York this Summer and I'm really glad to be part of it by singing in the choir. York Theatre Royal have a history of organising top quality productions with a large community cast, including the Mystery Plays (which I saw in 2012) and Blood & Chocolate, a promenade performance around the city centre in 2014 telling stories about how World War One affected York's chocolate makers.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfCRvtplEOkpJmaWVybyYUg2GhL-sSeYH5n_WXuSJL1_jlYT3AjrhGO5UAb03nY3wKarVwcjYH7AFbBGVMIOi4RpAk-Vp7FKqKanNzK6OX_anMofjOCEukxHTiY-D1dUs5tdUI4_hPx8M/s1600/signal+box+theatre.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfCRvtplEOkpJmaWVybyYUg2GhL-sSeYH5n_WXuSJL1_jlYT3AjrhGO5UAb03nY3wKarVwcjYH7AFbBGVMIOi4RpAk-Vp7FKqKanNzK6OX_anMofjOCEukxHTiY-D1dUs5tdUI4_hPx8M/s320/signal+box+theatre.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8000001907349px; text-align: center;"><b><i>The Signal Box Theatre under construction at the NRM</i></b></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #222222;">How did York become the centre of the rail industry that it is today? The answer rests on one man, as hated as he was loved, George Hudson, and his story will be told this summer by the people of York around the steam engines and carriages of the National Railway Museum in a new play, "In Fog and Falling Snow". The play will make use of a new temporary "Signal Box Theatre" (built around existing rail lines in the South Yard at the NRM and includes a genuine signal box where the stage manager will be keeping us in order...) </span></span><br />
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<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So who was George Hudson? He was known as the Railway King in the early days of railways,when there were shares to be bought and sold and fortunes to be won. Hudson bought and amalgamated several rail companies & used his influence in Parliament to ensure that the East Coast Mainline went through York rather than Leeds. He later became Lord Mayor of York. But he has a chequered story of boom and bust, with many of his investments eventually found to be fraudulent in the Enron scandal of his day, which meant that he spent part of his later life in prison.<span style="color: #222222;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">He is, indirectly, the reason I'm a rail engineer: if you want to live in York & work in construction, your choice is either working on rail projects in York or commute to Leeds, and I've done both in my time...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For that reason, his role in York's rise to prominence has often been airbrushed from the popular accounts (often by his rivals). Hudson Street spent a century as only Railway Street until it was renamed in the 1970s, and the standard joke by Network Rail colleagues is that the best view of York is to be had inside the offices at Hudson House (the concrete building next to the new Network Rail office just inside the city walls) ... because when you're inside it you can't see Hudson House! The last laugh may be upon us however, as in six months time the engineering offices will become flats instead.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />Many people don't realise just how important the rail industry continues to be to this city. Because the carriage works have closed down, so York no longer manufactures trains, it is assumed that it is only the station which has lasting importance being a junction between north/south and east/west routes, and the museum which celebrates the glory days when York was the centre of the rail network. It still is. York is home to the head offices of train companies Grand Central, Northern Rail and Virgin East Coast and hosts major offices for First TransPennine Express and freight companies like DB Schenker as well.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Network Rail's George Stephenson House in York is responsible for the operation and maintenance of the whole London North East (LNE) route which means the East Coast Mainline from London to Berwick upon Tweed, plus all railway tracks east of the Pennines from Lincolnshire to Scotland. In a word, massive. Most of the East Midlands route is managed from York also (London to Sheffield via Bedford and Nottingham, plus branch lines) with Derby as a secondary centre. <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNvZQzsYlZLC-rS5L_6y47wsxZKTSSbq3iAoCBsoEclQud58dQNQNCboOPEuCy09WhKQsDRBDJM8jOlk21zfkDmjPWc4FwYmQInKckaoU9IYsLMYDDI3N3_uKXfzSSeT0pjrJKYceOF-s/s1600/NRRoute-Map2.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNvZQzsYlZLC-rS5L_6y47wsxZKTSSbq3iAoCBsoEclQud58dQNQNCboOPEuCy09WhKQsDRBDJM8jOlk21zfkDmjPWc4FwYmQInKckaoU9IYsLMYDDI3N3_uKXfzSSeT0pjrJKYceOF-s/s400/NRRoute-Map2.gif" width="317" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Network Rail routes: York controls LNE and <br />East Midlands, which covers <br />nearly a quarter of England!</b></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">All the major engineering firms have rail-only offices in York serving not just maintenance needs but the redesign of the rail network to meet the needs of the future, from the North Doncaster Chord to the ETCS signalling system being designed in York. This will be a world first: applying high speed train in-cab signalling technology to a complex existing line, the East Coast Mainline, with hundreds of different types and speeds of train for commuters, long distance passengers and freight.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Another innovation is the <a href="http://www.yorkpress.co.uk/news/11472127.__25m_rail_operation_centre_opens_in_York/?ref=rss" target="_blank">"Rail Operating Centre"</a> or ROC newly opened at York, which is one of just 12 centres replacing signalboxes up and down the country with a combined signalling and electrical control centre for the entire route. In case you missed it, that's the new shiny building between the tracks which most people seem to think is an office block (the inside's a bit more high tech and high security than that!)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />In my next posts I'll be exploring the relationship between NRM and the Theatre Royal, my own railway stories and how a humble rail engineer came to be taking part in a production alongside <a href="http://www.yorktheatreroyal.co.uk/list/railway_king_confirmed.php#.VWxPDs9Viko" target="_blank">professional actors like George Costigan.</a></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">See Also:</span></b></div>
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<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.yorktheatreroyal.co.uk/event/In_Fog_And_Falling_Snow.php#.VWxPUs9Vikp" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">York Theatre Royal - Tickets </span></a></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In Fog 2: An Engineer Who Loves to Sing</span></li>
</ul>
Treading Lightlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09307438052399650830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5728720670535977912.post-29740520165159544362015-05-24T00:34:00.000+01:002015-05-24T09:29:53.931+01:00In the Footsteps of St Cuthbert<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqfbhKuzVqehsvp4gCWL_IVW4RDTM8ifgU50dr50giAAVuZDFScTYXwl3obgb487JlhGuDtDD-CrsmoK33sthuSseaoR-kSzBiqC9HUV4u-QDn1Fgc1D6lTANP8Og8lFx54F_xUgL6VH0/s1600/IMG_20150503_171102642.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqfbhKuzVqehsvp4gCWL_IVW4RDTM8ifgU50dr50giAAVuZDFScTYXwl3obgb487JlhGuDtDD-CrsmoK33sthuSseaoR-kSzBiqC9HUV4u-QDn1Fgc1D6lTANP8Og8lFx54F_xUgL6VH0/s320/IMG_20150503_171102642.jpg" width="179" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8000001907349px; text-align: center;"><b>Waves crashing around the rocks at Amble.<br />Coquet Island is behind the rock</b></td></tr>
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<a href="http://treadinglightly08.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/a-car-free-holiday-in-northumberland.html" target="_blank">My visit to Northumbria</a> at the beginning of May was shaped by its connections to holy places and people that played a part in the history of how we came to know Christ in Britain. We stayed in a B&B with a view over the bay including Coquet Island, where Cuthbert once lived as a hermit until he was persuaded to become bishop of Lindisfarne. We walked along the bay to Alnmouth, where the ancient church in which Cuthbert was ordained bishop has now been washed away.<br />
A highlight of the trip was a visit to the Franciscan friary at Alnmouth (which I had heard much about from friends who are members of the Third Order of Franciscans, following the way of St Francis in everyday life under vows but not in a residential community). We had tea and conversation with a range of people staying with the friars as a retreat house, before evening prayer filled us with a sense of peace and the presence of God.
St Cuthbert in particular resonates with me, and I read much about him before my birthday trip to Durham a few years ago to see the Lindisfarne gospels.<br />
One place remains to be visited on another occasion: the holy island itself, perhaps next Easter with thousands of other pilgrims.<br />
<a name='more'></a>This week, I have been reading <a href="http://www.psbooks.co.uk/products/back-by-popular-demand/item/how-christianity-came-to-britain-and-ireland" target="_blank">a beautifully illustrated book </a>"How Christianity Came to Britain and Ireland", setting Cuthbert in his context. The first thousand years after Jesus' birth in Britain was shaped by waves of invaders, each of whom encountered the faith at different times. In York, Constantine was declared emperor and soon afterwards became a Christian, ending the state-sponsored persecution of Christians (at least for a while). The first record of Christians in York is Bishop Eboricus in 314, but after this, the Roman state collapsed and waves of invasions by Angles, Saxons and Jutes pushed the Romano-British faith to the edges - Wales, Cornwall, Scotland and Ireland. This is where it flourished in places like Iona, who eventually sent missionaries like Aidan and Cuthbert to reach the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms.<br />
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Mission also came from Rome, via St Augustine of Canterbury and Paulinus who baptised Edwin king of Northumberland in York on Easter Day 627 along with St Hilda of Whitby.
The place just outside the Minster (which was in their day a small wooden church) where they were baptised is still used today, in the great outdoor Easter baptisms where people from across the city come to tell their testimonies and be baptised by their own minister and Archbishop John Sentamu.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9PbS6-4HfBvhhcItJ-5ApICVCvxvYgFbKtH7IQCocla6vJG6pEMu1BPvdBejU6lTjH19hy4VYrnjaK8okp6HO2yx67Un1r6knrinPShRVSTR4VfjmaMWcGl0jXlMFOiWXXzRueQFPSX0/s1600/IMG_20150523_152306683%255B1%255D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9PbS6-4HfBvhhcItJ-5ApICVCvxvYgFbKtH7IQCocla6vJG6pEMu1BPvdBejU6lTjH19hy4VYrnjaK8okp6HO2yx67Un1r6knrinPShRVSTR4VfjmaMWcGl0jXlMFOiWXXzRueQFPSX0/s320/IMG_20150523_152306683%255B1%255D.jpg" width="178" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8000001907349px; text-align: center;"><b>Try Praying banners appearing<br />across York</b></td></tr>
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Tonight, I have just got home from<a href="http://www.yhop.co.uk/" target="_blank"> St Cuthbert's House of Prayer</a>, an ancient church on Peaseholme Green where <a href="http://www.belfrey.org/history" target="_blank">in 1965 a small, aging congregation chose to believe God could speak anew</a> to them. David Watson prayed and prophesied and that congregation outgrew St Cuthbert's, becoming the thousand-strong St Michael-le-Belfrey, a church which has had a massive impact on the city and its people. St Cuthbert's is now the home of the <a href="http://www.24-7prayer.co.uk/" target="_blank">24/7 prayer movement in York,</a> where church unity is expressed by offering God 100 hours of unbroken prayer and worship in the days leading up to Pentecost with 2hr slots led by a variety of churches. It is an amazing thing to kneel where others have knelt for centuries, surrounded by a community of people seeking God together.<br />
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Tomorrow evening we will <a href="http://www.belfrey.org/pentecost-celebration" target="_blank">celebrate Pentecost with a thousand strong congregation from churches across the city </a>filling the nave of the Minster and launching the TryPraying initiative which challenges anyone and everyone to try praying for 7 days and see what happens. The service ends as it does each year, with flaming torches representing the flames that people saw when the Holy Spirit came at Pentecost, held aloft by the newly appointed Mayor and Sheriff leading us in procession out through the great West doors into the street. It's a great way to make someone nervous - on one of your first civic occasions, do take care not to burn down the Minster...<br />
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There is in York an ongoing sense of history. Our heritage breathes through us, we are surrounded by it, and if we will listen and learn to see, it speaks afresh to us today. May that be our experience this Pentecost.<br />
<b>See also:</b><br />
<ul>
<li><b><a href="http://www.trypraying.org/" target="_blank">Try Praying</a></b></li>
<li><b><a href="http://treadinglightly08.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/a-car-free-holiday-in-northumberland.html" target="_blank">A car-free holiday in Northumberland</a></b></li>
<li><b><a href="http://treadinglightly08.blogspot.co.uk/p/blog-page.html" target="_blank">Reflections and Meditations</a></b></li>
</ul>
Treading Lightlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09307438052399650830noreply@blogger.com0York, York, York, UK53.959965100000012 -1.087297900000066953.885224600000015 -1.2486594000000668 54.034705600000009 -0.92593640000006694tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5728720670535977912.post-62256051256073849022015-05-16T21:48:00.000+01:002015-06-25T21:50:38.992+01:00Acomb Garden: Inspiration From Helmsley<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhX5ge8t-FlBD6WdgOKbpe80ytMdoOH5lhB7mPiW1oJoIjCfH3AiRJxuba-LtFQgcYA1Kb6FtwDwfxuUTgED_IxRqX4A8pR2mNoV-5wYsu7II1cpxWf_iDt_MSQfFFIpatJUl0q835pJ0/s1600/IMG_20150509_111707673.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhX5ge8t-FlBD6WdgOKbpe80ytMdoOH5lhB7mPiW1oJoIjCfH3AiRJxuba-LtFQgcYA1Kb6FtwDwfxuUTgED_IxRqX4A8pR2mNoV-5wYsu7II1cpxWf_iDt_MSQfFFIpatJUl0q835pJ0/s400/IMG_20150509_111707673.jpg" width="223" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>View of newly planted wildflower <br />meadow, with hedge now starting to <br />grow and lawn laid!</b></td></tr>
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As the weather has improved, <a href="http://treadinglightly08.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Acomb%20Methodist%20Church" target="_blank">Acomb's community garden</a> is starting to take shape as you can see in the photos here. Many hands made light work of planting a variety of flower seeds in the wildflower meadow on <a href="http://treadinglightly08.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/springing-into-action-on-acomb.html" style="background-color: transparent;" target="_blank">Seed Sowing Saturday</a> in April, while leaves are appearing along the lines of veg (supplemented by any unsold plants from the church plant sale on 9th May, which raised a fantastic £850 for the charity Madalitso in Malawi - <a href="http://treadinglightly08.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/for-love-of-malawi-why-im-fasting-for.html" style="background-color: transparent;" target="_blank">more on their stories here</a>).<br />
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A couple of new fruit trees have been planted along the boundary fence which will soon come into leaf (though we'll be lucky if we get any fruit this year). A generous gift of turf has meant that Janette now has a good lawn within her new hedge (where a large patch of brambles once stood!) Apart from that, the patient work of weeding and digging continues, with a growing pile of bricks and other obstructions removed from the soil. It has been a very dry spring, so the garden team has been popping round at regular intervals to water different sections of the garden, especially to encourage areas of new planting (our best protection against weeds is vigilance and planting things we WANT to grow in their place!)<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTxgBuQdeIqXZo17E_NbbB3yeI1TNFmdf9u25rgxhVpBWMJk-7FiM7xW_OoBkfgOYK8EzNsMLpfFS9rFfy8jCAjeUhbADDb5k77xKqAGbvEz7WGv7o4wXljU2rEHuHkH9V2ioBzONy360/s1600/IMG_20150509_111810831_HDR.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="356" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTxgBuQdeIqXZo17E_NbbB3yeI1TNFmdf9u25rgxhVpBWMJk-7FiM7xW_OoBkfgOYK8EzNsMLpfFS9rFfy8jCAjeUhbADDb5k77xKqAGbvEz7WGv7o4wXljU2rEHuHkH9V2ioBzONy360/s640/IMG_20150509_111810831_HDR.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Large areas of the garden have now been dug over and planted <br />(though there's still plenty of weeding to do!)</b></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8000001907349px; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Tulips with a view of the castle</span></b></td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">The next step on our garden journey was our "Second Sunday Social", which this month featured a picnic and afternoon exploring <a href="http://www.helmsleywalledgarden.org.uk/" target="_blank">Helmsley Walled Garden </a>on the day our York Cards got us in for free! (The garden isn't open during the normal <a href="http://www.visityork.org/residents-festival.aspx" target="_blank">York Residents Festival</a> in late January, a fabulous weekend when we get to enjoy reduced rates being tourists in our own city, so mid-May is offered as an alternative). </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">The walled garden is just below the castle (<a href="http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/helmsley-castle/" target="_blank">an excellent attraction in its own right,</a> which I explored with my friend Hannah last year). It originally supplied the kitchens of Duncombe House, then was a market garden until 1984 when it was abandoned. After a decade of neglect, the garden was rediscovered in 1994 by a mental health nurse who dreamed of restoring the garden as a means of helping people recover. Therapeutic gardening is an idea which York NHS also <a href="http://treadinglightly08.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/energy-and-transport-how-railways-moved.html" target="_blank">put to good use at the Poppleton Railway Nursery (as I've written about here)</a>. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjjoC9g2fSfOULHSf1LVDrvMnnblv_SP3y8K0rJi4mp6oQiNVMohB5oS1sYLR6qVkZZaj6xNKgi177B_naNVADhjNOnUbtp8X02TDu2UxksyePZM_PB0cff8Ik9MYKbh_Ht-BdAbwoPGY/s1600/IMG_20150510_153918998.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="356" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjjoC9g2fSfOULHSf1LVDrvMnnblv_SP3y8K0rJi4mp6oQiNVMohB5oS1sYLR6qVkZZaj6xNKgi177B_naNVADhjNOnUbtp8X02TDu2UxksyePZM_PB0cff8Ik9MYKbh_Ht-BdAbwoPGY/s640/IMG_20150510_153918998.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Fruit trees and gooseberry bushes along the back wall of the garden</span></b></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVHuawUuUZHUVFrxX8jmgMAhMMRGr2PNAx6F8HAq7bjtRPi95aGKy-6WfVbQyyFzan6odcZXFA0tRp3GIM3YHR5YoE_tWu4bShv51eCojEEzdmRUnb90k3TWL245OJJKKen5-48qb5ZAs/s1600/IMG_20150510_153307064.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVHuawUuUZHUVFrxX8jmgMAhMMRGr2PNAx6F8HAq7bjtRPi95aGKy-6WfVbQyyFzan6odcZXFA0tRp3GIM3YHR5YoE_tWu4bShv51eCojEEzdmRUnb90k3TWL245OJJKKen5-48qb5ZAs/s400/IMG_20150510_153307064.jpg" width="223" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8000001907349px; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Well-placed reeds, hedges and gateways<br />divide the garden into different spaces<br />including this "quiet" garden and a physic garden<br />(as recommended by John Wesley!) </span></b></td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">We thought our patch of wilderness was hard to conquer, but we were much encouraged to compare the photos of all 5 overgrown acres of Helmsley with the garden we explored on Sunday! The garden now employs two full time horticultural therapists who assist many people to rebuild their lives while tending to the flowers, fruit trees, vegetables, chickens and bees (very useful pollinators!) </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">We particularly liked the way that the garden had a variety of different "rooms" with space for contemplation as well as play, and occasional interpretation boards explain some of the principles in use for organic, wildlife-friendly gardening (while still battling the perennial weeds!) </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">There is also an allotment area outside the main garden tended by a local school - like </span><a href="http://www.edibleyork.org.uk/" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;" target="_blank">Edible York's work in schools across the city</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">, they have found that one of the best ways to connect people to valuing the natural world is through food!</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">The garden is a charity and social enterprise supported by entrance fees to the garden, selling some of their plants and veg at a well stocked garden center and a cafe full of vines, where we tried to drink enough coffee to make a decent contribution to the charity on our visit despite our free entry... At the end of a beautiful afternoon, a number of people had to head home but there were still 18 of us for fish and chips (becoming <a href="http://treadinglightly08.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/acomb-garden-transformation-begins.html" target="_blank">something of a recurring theme in our garden exploits!</a> Community is built best over food, right?)</span><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">See also:</span></b><br />
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://treadinglightly08.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/acomb-garden-pitching-for-funds-at-york.html" target="_blank">Acomb Garden: Changing Our Community through York Soup!</a></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.acombmethodistchurch.org.uk/" target="_blank">Acomb Methodist Church website</a></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://treadinglightly08.blogspot.co.uk/p/acomb-community-garden.html" target="_blank">Acomb Community Garden - The Story So Far</a></span></li>
<li><a href="http://treadinglightly08.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/for-love-of-malawi-why-im-fasting-for.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For the Love of Malawi - Why I'm Praying and Fasting for Climate Action</span></a></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://treadinglightly08.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/energy-and-transport-how-railways-moved.html" target="_blank">Gardening for Better Mental Health in Poppleton</a></span></li>
</ul>
Treading Lightlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09307438052399650830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5728720670535977912.post-65942930634181110972015-04-12T08:30:00.000+01:002015-04-13T21:46:34.108+01:00Energy and Transport: How the Railways Moved From Freight to Passengers<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When the railways were first built, they were conceived as a method of carrying goods efficiently from one place to another, and passengers were something of an afterthought. The opposite is now true: most people think first of passenger trains and freight has often seemed the "poor relation" (for example, freight-only routes are usually designated "secondary" with a lower standard of maintenance and investment than high speed passenger routes such as the East Coast Mainline). </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">While freight continues to be a vital part of the rail network <a href="http://www.networkrail.co.uk/Developing_rail_freight_in_Control_Period_5.aspx" target="_blank">(and estimated to grow by 30% over the next 5 years)</a>, what and how materials are transported are a world away from the original design. This can be illustrated by the small goods depot at Poppleton station, which I photographed on my way home. Under the original model, railways were statutorily required to accept any and all goods at all stations to any destination, whether a crate of chickens or milk churns going to market or coal to factories, homes or local "town gas" plants/power stations. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">All that changed when energy started being supplied differently: r</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">ather than having a power station for every town, we n</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">ow distribute electricity via pylons and the National Grid from a few large power stations miles away. </span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Natural gas for heating and cooking is also piped directly to homes, with no need now for local coal depots at every station to bring you your fuel in bags on the back of a cart. Rather than being transported from coal mines up and down the country to a wide range of factories and homes, coal is now only transported by train from ports such as Immingham and Heysham directly to the power stations (like Drax, Cottam and West Burton) or from the few remaining UK coal mines. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKTS9FhmF8yEgBdX9XqbZp6lnxK-_wlD1LIj6aTGPMh4LjPdWVZjpiS0nBtktwKnr4ai_AND9XqtvaLu_MoAMBnJZVw1M5L19O-lyd0gla5YGtlpgHFoK1wIdhifTGRxxvVCebqD6gorM/s1600/IMG_20150410_174258777.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKTS9FhmF8yEgBdX9XqbZp6lnxK-_wlD1LIj6aTGPMh4LjPdWVZjpiS0nBtktwKnr4ai_AND9XqtvaLu_MoAMBnJZVw1M5L19O-lyd0gla5YGtlpgHFoK1wIdhifTGRxxvVCebqD6gorM/s1600/IMG_20150410_174258777.jpg" height="356" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>The former goods yard at Poppleton Station, now being turned into an extension of the Railway Nursery with space for composting and gardening</b></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTEVCZ56h2VI8p1t2NMChvrrWXP73qzHqevitUk8nBxrEWxCpc4_qkUzZfifJpHVobEoVyLApAzUaOae51eU6-IQwH2kyVDCs3KzDCL7nGv9Dz0zisyKMHyYUul5Rwo9kw92IrSEE8p0k/s1600/IMG_20150319_173526954.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTEVCZ56h2VI8p1t2NMChvrrWXP73qzHqevitUk8nBxrEWxCpc4_qkUzZfifJpHVobEoVyLApAzUaOae51eU6-IQwH2kyVDCs3KzDCL7nGv9Dz0zisyKMHyYUul5Rwo9kw92IrSEE8p0k/s1600/IMG_20150319_173526954.jpg" height="400" width="223" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Poppleton station, made beautiful by the <br />work of Poppleton Railway Nursery</b></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Many stations have changed their former goods yards into car parks. In the case of Poppleton, the goods yard is soon to become an extension of another piece of railway history: <a href="http://www.poppletonrailwaynursery.co.uk/history.html" target="_blank">the last surviving railway nursery in the country</a>. This was operational up to the 1990s, supplying plants to stations around the London North East region but following privatisation the nursery was abandoned. Jarvis used the space as a maintenance yard until 2006, when a community group invested in the nursery and now operate it as a social enterprise. The nursery now provides plants again for stations around the York area (the flower beds at Poppleton make me smile every morning, especially as all the spring bulbs have come up!) There are regular open days and plant sales to the general public, and volunteers from all walks of life help to grow the plants. One key part of the nursery's activities is its par</span><span style="font-family: Arial;">tnership with the NHS, providing a safe space and therapy through horticultural skills and being connected to the natural world for people recovering from mental health crises. Paul Botting, NHS Technical Instructor, said, </span><br />
<blockquote style="font-family: Arial;">
<i>"The NHS trust needed additional dedicated space to consolidate on one site and to expand its nursery training operation. Our partnership with PCRN is absolutely ideal." </i></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Now there's an innovative use of an old freight depot!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>See also:</b></span><br />
<br />
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.poppletonrailwaynursery.co.uk/history.html" target="_blank">Poppleton Community Railway Nursery</a></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://stnicks.org.uk/get-inspired/events/ecotherapy-project-launch/" target="_blank">Ecotherapy launch event - Drop in to St Nicks Fields in York on 27th April for activities looking at how gardening can support mental health recovery</a></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://treadinglightly08.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/getting-transport-policy-right.html" target="_blank">Getting Transport Policy Right: Why the Harrogate Line needs an upgrade</a></span></li>
</ul>
Treading Lightlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09307438052399650830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5728720670535977912.post-31757559032244050912015-04-11T16:46:00.000+01:002015-04-11T16:46:05.641+01:00Springing Into Action on Acomb Community Garden <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As the days get longer, work continues on the <a href="http://treadinglightly08.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/a-journey-of-transformation-at-acomb.html" target="_blank">Acomb Community Garden project </a>at <a href="http://treadinglightly08.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Acomb%20Methodist%20Church" target="_blank">Acomb Methodist Church.</a> After successful work with a digger and tree surgeon in February, the focus has turned to preparing the ground and putting some shape to the garden at the beginning of the growing season. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3_NF2XW6GipWf_6adTjTiGQ-niVxmD8PYGi9YBxFIJ1Ob7qt58ZZOmxjkIWJ2fJyjC-ionR3G3bnqcWC6EYCqlHhmW_C6mmbOd7g_a9FvNhsIdH4BML69b8MmNuvG7QVl565RuuM3hkw/s1600/10338384_796145407142228_2036348340600311420_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3_NF2XW6GipWf_6adTjTiGQ-niVxmD8PYGi9YBxFIJ1Ob7qt58ZZOmxjkIWJ2fJyjC-ionR3G3bnqcWC6EYCqlHhmW_C6mmbOd7g_a9FvNhsIdH4BML69b8MmNuvG7QVl565RuuM3hkw/s1600/10338384_796145407142228_2036348340600311420_o.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">View over the garden following clearance and levelling</span></b></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There are two reasons for this approach: firstly, as this is not a domestic garden there is no automatic "permitted development", so planning permission is required to install structures or hard landscaping such as paths. While this is achievable and unlikely to be refused, it will take time and require fundraising to support the production of detailed plans for the planning application. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The second reason is that we are currently tendering for the ground source heat pump (<a href="http://treadinglightly08.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/renewable-heat-for-community-buildings.html" target="_blank">see previous post here - further updates to be published soon!</a>) This will require drilling and pipe installation, but the exact location of boreholes/pipework will to some extent depend on the chosen contractor so it is wise to allow the garden to be shaped around the boreholes rather than vice versa.</span><br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtl8c0PRpGcFkIaNgtdE3Ice7s0fjJQkreo2e9a5sFbFuPyQrG_3q2Bkk3U468ykAdV97oQdiA5uMOMMgo9ELZD8xwieuoiKmI8VTbl5KoLJK4wamZmpiwV4idlDj6-f_44RXONAUkwgQ/s1600/11071612_796149453808490_6714545879430572043_n.jpg" height="320" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="240" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8000001907349px; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">After laying the hedge, Gill plants potatoes<br />in the veg section</span></b></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Shaping up the Garden Plans</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The garden has now been marked out with stakes to show where the major features will go with a cross-shaped pathway dividing the garden into four sections: </span><br />
<br />
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> larger lawn area around a feature tree which will have seating around it, providing space for children to play or to hold events (garden party, anyone?) We also dream of installing a living willow structure to play around as well.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Vegetable growing area, currently planted with two rows of potatoes and a rhubarb patch! We'll be adding to this over the course of the spring (donations of seeds or plants always very welcome!</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A space where the proposed meeting room/prayer space will go.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Wildflower meadow with bee and butterfly-friendly flowers (see below)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Trees around the edge of the garden: we have now cleared dead trees or those which were in the wrong place, and we are now looking to put in fruit trees and others to provide just the right amount of shading and seclusion. </span><div class="separator" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; clear: both; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; orphans: auto; text-align: center; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 1; word-spacing: 0px;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqO-oa6IDcYSbixpy33ea7gzD3y-dl4bm3qIDtnV_GFhDtbt5dyuvLtR8d3dopXWblYkCfDlf7UdcNJM3iOyqL4FOIR1coD-SFil3kGkqt7IhlXwYDK33doHYaT5lkqWhXfgtrEFiKTvU/s1600/IMG_20150411_110838472_HDR.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></a></div>
</li>
</ul>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqO-oa6IDcYSbixpy33ea7gzD3y-dl4bm3qIDtnV_GFhDtbt5dyuvLtR8d3dopXWblYkCfDlf7UdcNJM3iOyqL4FOIR1coD-SFil3kGkqt7IhlXwYDK33doHYaT5lkqWhXfgtrEFiKTvU/s1600/IMG_20150411_110838472_HDR.jpg" height="223" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="400" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8000001907349px; padding-top: 4px; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Trees providing shade and interest along<br />the back of the garden</span></b></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgj9RvufOQPNX1aFWDm09PVycFade3skitdCpEJUwYeyTefrd_phvO67-ae9fgpSZYKPgk1nL9F57DzUzUxhgm7IY5bqqPtlNadkiB92WI77knjxw6EaTWPxCA1-IJroojKgjqT2mObTZI/s1600/IMG_20150411_111455365_HDR.jpg" height="320" style="cursor: move; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="179" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8000001907349px; padding-top: 4px; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Feature tree on the new lawn area</span></b></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>What's Next? </b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> We'd like this to be something we build together, so j</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">oin us for Seed Sowing Saturday on 18th April from 10am, where we'll be planting the wildflower seeds and the lawn. This is a great event for both children and adults alike (as you'll have seen from the photos of our previous family workdays!) </span><br />
<div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We are also looking for donations of plants or seeds or anyone with skills to share, from composting to pruning fruit trees! You could sponsor a tree or help fundraise to make the garden a reality. Or if you're really keen, we'd love more </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">committee me(approx once a month commitment) and a project manager (someone who could commit a bit more time) to help take the project forward. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If you want to get involved in the garden project in any of these ways, come along to one of our workdays, <a href="http://acombmethodistchurch.org.uk/contact-us/" target="_blank">call the church office</a> or get in touch by leaving a comment below.</span></div>
<div>
<b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></b></div>
<div>
<b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">See also</b></div>
<br />
<ul>
<li><b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://treadinglightly08.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/acomb-garden-transformation-begins.html" target="_blank">Acomb Garden: The Transformation Begins (Feb 2015)</a></b></li>
<li><b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://treadinglightly08.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/day-of-digger.html" target="_blank">Day of the Digger (March 2015)</a></b></li>
</ul>
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Treading Lightlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09307438052399650830noreply@blogger.com0