N E W S Nantes, France - See P4 an Occasional Newsletter from Parry People APRIL 2019 ISSUE NO 76 Movers Ltd & Parry Building Products Ltd

High & Dry Classroom in Compressed air tram in Mozambique - See P3 n e w s Nantes, France - See P4 An Occasional Newsletter from Parry People APRIL 2019 ISSUE NO 76 Movers Ltd & Parry Building Products Ltdwww.parrypeoplemov

www.parrybuildingproducts.com www.parrypeoplemovers.com BOOST FOR LIGHTWEIGHT RAIL AS GOVERNMENT ACKNOWLEDGES THE ULR OPTION AT LAST Current concerns about the scar- tramway installations in the hand- of British Airways, has been in pro- city of affordable housing coupled ful of locations where they have gress for 5 months and Mr Williams with the drive to improve the air been introduced, but alongside has revealed some of the prelimi- quality in urban centres and re- these mentions the Ultra Light Rail nary conclusions that had already lieve traffic congestion caused by operation at the Stourbridge been formed, including the unnec- excessive dependence on private Branch and its potential in essary expense of a one-size-fits-all cars for routine daily journeys stretched form to provide more policy and rules and regulations- has convinced the government modern tram systems for smaller based culture which seemed to dis- more strongly of the case for light towns and cities. The Minister courage otherwise talented and en- rail. A recent call for plans to visit Stourbridge in the thusiastic railway engineers from ‘Expressions of Interest’ by the coming weeks. A root-and-branch adopting innovative ideas.

Minister of State, Jesse Norman study of the Railways under the Finance has been allocated for a major study MP, for the first time describes independent chairmanship of Keith of the ‘corridor’ between Bristol and Bath not only the new major Williams, a former Chief Executive where campaigners are calling for trams, pos- sibly an inter-urban system. THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME In This Issue

- BBC Radio 4 takes a look at the Stourbridge Operation

Adrian Goldberg reports

- A Nation of Shoppers? (if you overlook the SMEs) P2 & 3 - Technology development Agenda from Bristol to bogies P4

- Solutions are coming P5

- Diesel/flywheel hybrid Class Emerging out of 20 years experience building and supporting ultra light rail 139, an important vehicle P6 vehicles in demonstration and full passenger service, PPM’s design work - Gravity an intriguing means of has advanced to the stage of being able to propose a 90 passenger unit the capturing and storing energy me- size of a motorway coach which will be equally suited to operate on street on chanically and what about embedded track or on a reopened former branch railway line.

compressed air? P8 Where will Britain’s first modern inter-urban tramway be trialled?

1 Parry People Movers Ltd, Overend Road, Cradley Heath, West Midlands, B64 7DD, UK FROM MACHINERY SUPPLIERS TO THE WORLD HAVE WE NOW BECOME JUST A NATION OF SHOPPERS? A comment on the contemporary scene

of light rail with a hope for introduc- - and seeing more money spent ing many more systems into than ever on improving the rail- (Britain’s) cities and towns’. He ways

also referred to Government’s in- These are good things but what

dustrial strategy. Having in mind seems to have been neglected is the preponderance of foreign and the focus on the customer which John Parry foreign-owned businesses supply- Mr Williams, as a former Chief ing almost all of hardware for the Executive of British Airways, says At a recent Rail Industry show at newly established light rail systems is of prime importance. But re- the NEC, the empty table along- why, with all its talents can’t this quirements are not static, they side me became occupied by country make more rail equipment change. In the rail industry there three marketing types who I rec- for its own needs? is little or no incentive to innovate ognised were from three major in response to altering circum- European rail businesses in Ger- Question:- stances but over-concentration of many, France and Spain. They When we make most of our own short term thinking even trying to were speaking in English:- ‘Well, buses and even have increasing make one size fit all. As a result here we are on Treasure Island success in exporting them, can’t of that and other factors, again!’ I realised what the joke we do the same with trains and ‘passenger growth can no longer meant was that they were in a trams? The full government docu- be taken for granted’ and there is country where the procurement ment can be accessed from general frustration within the in- executives look over the heads of Gov.uk/government/consultations/ dustry that rules and regulations local suppliers and to buy in the light-rail-and-other-rapid-transit- are holding back innovation and smartly packaged and promoted solutions-in-cities-and-towns-call- problem solving’. products from European firms. for-evidence Kaiser Bill called Britain ‘a nation In response to a question from of shopkeepers’, but a nation of Concurrent with this initiative on the floor, ‘will the review concen- shoppers for a sales manager is light rail, Mr Keith Williams, the In- trate only on the railway that ex- Treasure Island. dependent Chair of the Rail Re- ists rather than looking also at view has now completed the first the ‘deserts’ in the country Britain could be as important to five months of his work which is where there used to be rail-based the EU as China was to the East centred on the main rail network. public transport, but now there is India Company in early Victorian Having been invited to give the none?’ Mr Williams said - ‘very Times. Malleable officialdom, George Bradshaw Address at the much so, because his team of easy money. Technical and regu- Institution of Civil Engineers in independent experts have seen latory alignment with European February, he felt the need to indi- clearly that most customers make practices has been the gunboats cate his team’s preliminary findings journeys from ‘A’ to ‘B’ to ‘C’ which kept the trade routes open. considering the remit ‘to bring in whereas the railways have only Nothing to be proud of then, or root and branch change’. This is really looked at the A to B leg of now. for an industry which seems to the journey without thought being ‘The Mountains are Moving’ have been losing public trust, all in given to providing rail-type bene- The Strengthening Profile of the spite of:- fits to ‘C’; reaching closer to end destinations’. Parry People Mover Brand is part - doubling passenger numbers of a much bigger picture. A job for the designers and engi- - running more trains than at any neers and for smaller firms to The new Minister of State, Jesse time in the railways history Norman has put out a ‘Call for take the lead. - whilst delivering improvements in Evidence on the Opportunities’ - safety

2 Parry People Movers Ltd, Overend Road, Cradley Heath, West Midlands, B64 7DD, UK INNOVATING FOR THE HOME MARKET AND FOR EXPORT The conventional wisdom that Britain does not design and manufacture anything any more, but factories assemble just the bits that others have created, is far from correct. Well known brands such as JCB and Salter are just two of thousands of examples where the original flair and skills still result in world competitive products. In rail vehicle manufacturing West Midlands-based firms are finding sales in unexpected places such as Arctic Russia, Canada and the Middle East as well as in the home market. Clayton Equipment Ltd A venerable locomotive-building firm, Clayton Equipment, founded in 1931 and at one time part of the Rolls Royce Northern Engineering Group, has since management buy-out and full independence demonstrated a capability to design and build ‘bespoke’, but carefully-engineered rail equipment for prestigious projects, such as Cross Rail where a fleet of 7 support locos has been moving materials from below London to surface workshops. The Company’s products are in daily use in countries throughout the world.

Severn Lamb A specialist in mass transit used in major visitor at- tractions, including North America and the Middle East, Severn Lamb are responsible to emerging opportunities such as currently having a works filled with double deck trams ordered by Middle East customers. Authoritative figures in the UK Tram industry have been heard to say ‘Double deck trams should be confined to the museums’, but this may turn out to have misjudged what changing tastes and attitudes might arise in the UK and elsewhere overseas.

Parry Building Products Ltd

Now separately owned, but sited alongside ULRPartners’/Parry People Movers Visitor Reception Unit at Stourbridge, Parry Building Products Ltd continue in the spirit of innovation to solve problems in low income countries. Applying the intermediate technology approach to ease the drudgery and risks to women and children using hammers to break rocks down into gravel, PBP’s engineers are just preparing to announce a new manually-operated jaw-crusher which greatly speeds up the stone-breaking task and make it much safer. Using a flywheel mechanism to create inertia (part of the innovative concept) rather than ship a heavy flywheel across the world, it is seen as possible to use a small tractor tyre, the tread of which makes hand grips with which to rotate the mechanism.

Floods have again overwhelmed low lying areas of Mozambique, just as in year 2000. At that time MRDF, the development arm of the Methodist Church requested Parry to come up with a way of assisting communities, protect lives and precious possessions. The outcome was the design of a low cost structure built on stilts strong enough to withstand the flow of water while providing sufficient space for everyone in the village to take refuge. Three examples were built using local labour and the accommo- dation proved suitable for use as a school classroom at normal time. The High & Dry Classroom. All flood plain villages should have one.

3 Parry People Movers Ltd, Overend Road, Cradley Heath, West Midlands, B64 7DD, UK TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT FROM BRISTOL TO BOGIES

The Bristol Electric Railbus during 2 ½ years of dem- 20 years later having undergone a comprehensive ex- onstration service in the City of Bristol achieved clean, ternal and internal refurbishment, the Railbus stands safe and reliable operation with zero carbon emission ready to be fitted with a testbed driveline comprising the latest version of the PPM ultra clean technology. Founded on over 20 years of experience with vehicles built subsequently for other operations, PPM’s designers and engineers have been investigating three different approaches which can adapt the same basic layout and deliver different bands of performance to suit contrasting applications. These could include a) entirely urban applications, b) cross country systems, linking adjacent towns, c) level ground without gradi- ents or d) hilly terrain. Such features will alter the choice of hybrid or ‘tribrid’ traction methods and to an extent the choice of prime mover fuel. The R&D programme has centred on the task of fitting everything that is needed into a bogie frame measuring

2.4m by 4.1m i.e to suit a small rail vehicle bogie. This will facilitate the driveline being tested in the original small railbus vehicle which formerly ran demonstration service in Bristol. Shake-down is essential for a vehicle being commissioned to enter service for the first time, or re- commissioned having been laid up for several years. Only after satisfactory trials can the engineering specifica- tion and design be taken to its ultimate stage and become the first of two bogies forming the running gear of a new longer railcar, the PPM 90, the Compact Tramtrain. Conceptual designs have been prepared for three differ- Illustration of Option 1 version of the Testbed, conversion ent traction options:- of the Class 139 driveline to bio-methane fuel, ultimately powering the bogies of the Compact Tram Train. 1. Bio-methane - a widely distributed waste gas, normally uncollected, but recognised as harmful to the environment if simply left to dissipate from decaying refuse etc. 2. Hydrogen fuel cell - able to convert H² into electric current supplying batteries to power an electric motor. 3. Air under high pressure will deliver power to an air motor such as used as a starter for diesel engines and the jet engines of aircraft. In the late 19th Century most trams running in France were powered by compressed air including about 100 units in Nantes. The compressed air was produced by stationary steam engines at depots and termini and piped across to tanks on board the trams.

4 Parry People Movers Ltd, Overend Road, Cradley Heath, West Midlands, B64 7DD, UK SOLUTIONS ARE COMING Intermediate Mode A secondary network of well con- Inter-connectivity turns small If public transport returns to a nected but generally non- towns and villages from being function of being frequent, reli- interoperating lines could be run ‘far away places with strange able and cheap many short jour- on less exacting rules than those sounding names’ to somewhere neys by car would not be made. that are needed for faster, heavier that you regularly visit because The Vision could become reality rolling stock. Instead the trams they are easy and cheap to get as a result of creating an Inter- are dimensionally more similar to to. This was part of the transfor- mediate Rail Mode which com- buses, but are speed restricted. mation of the Nation which hap- prises elements of the three ex- pened as a result of the boom in - Line of sight operation isting modes of transport: trains, construction of local railways light rapid transit and buses. - Track unfenced and well lit dur- and tramways in Victorian and Treated as a Town and Country ing hours of darkness Edwardian times, the Industrial facility the services would oper- Revolution. - No gated level crossings just ate day and night bringing in pro- traffic lights. Public can cross or Trams have now begun to return duce from the farms and market walk alongside the track but just in eight places, Man- gardens in neat stockroom con- chester, Sheffield, Croydon, Not- tainers and even taking away - Road/rail transport inter-changes tingham, Birmingham, Edin- rubbish for recycling. have public amenities and parking burgh, Blackpool and Dublin in Ireland. A century earlier without any form of ‘Master Plan’ everything just seemed to become connected up and not 8, but 200 systems came into operation. Then along came the private car which demanded some much space even to park and take triv- ial journeys, that local tram and A town centre interchange where several modes meet; heavy rail, train lines became ‘uneconomic’ buses, tramtrains and even driverless ‘pods’. and were ripped up. (Model constructed by PPM’s Head of Design, Paul Davis)

Folkestone Harbour Line is one short Branch where the local promoters of LOCAL INITIATIVE TO REVIVE A MORIBUND LINE the Remembrance Line are considering a Class 139-based service.

The harbour and rail line were used intensively in the Second World War, but have lain unused over recent decades. With plans for the harbour to be converted into a marina and development of highly desirable resi- dential apartments, use of the mothballed branch line to provide a link to the Dover to London main line less than a mile away will benefit the whole locality. Computer-generated visualisation produced by local architect for the Reme- brance Line Association.

5 Parry People Movers Ltd, Overend Road, Cradley Heath, West Midlands, B64 7DD, UK HOW THE ORIGINAL CLASS 139 LIGHT RAILCAR CAN FUNCTION AS A

PATHFINDER AND RESEARCH VEHICLE FOR BRANCH LINE REVIVAL Originally manufactured 18 years A farsighted intervention by the rail- ago, PPM railcar No 12, the prototype way branch line reopening firm, of Class 139. It was used for periods Lightweight Community Transport of demonstration service on privately Ltd, has resulted in a transforma- owned lines in Staffordshire, Leices- tion of a prototype railcar into a tershire, North Yorkshire and form which matches extremely Worcestershire where, courtesy of closely the two PPM60 Class 139 the Severn Valley Railway, it was light railcars which are in service on used for crew training in preparation the Stourbridge Town Branch. for the Stourbridge Branch line public rail service. Now with refurbished coachwork it is being prepared to leave the Bloxwich Works.

Originally No 12 in the sequence of prototype and demonstration vehicles the ‘first Class 139’ is being described as ‘No 139000’ seeking approval to enter into passenger service as a result of comprehensive refurbishment and upgrade work, carried out mainly at the The railcar interior has been retrimmed with dark blue seats Works of Trailways in Bloxwich. and the floor panelling has been reconfigured to provide clear

Trailways is a skilled bus and access to driveline equipment situated below the floor. coach repairer and builder which had worked on several past pro- The driver’s cab layout in the jects for the PPM Company. original prototype was improvised as the design progressed. Dur- There is a crucial difference intro- ing the current refurbishment duced on the rebuilt vehicle in re- LCT instructed that identical con- sponse to the views of the owners trols and instrumentation of the in and operators of privately owned -service Class 139s should be and managed lines. They control Why a Diesel engine? installed. preserved and heritage railways In a heritage railway environment authenticity is important and so despite and regard the fuel used on the all the difficulties, enthusiasts manage to provide the experience of view- Stourbridge Branch, lpg as being ing historic locomotives in steam, a main aspect of the attraction. The in- inconvenient to provide, but all dustry comprises over 90 working standard gauge lines and many more have diesel fuelling facilities. Ac- that are narrower gauge. The majority of train services are, however, cordingly, with the assistance of a hauled by diesel locomotives which are easier to maintain and cheaper to Coventry-based engine supplier, in run. There are also a handful of diesel rail buses. The diesel/flywheel place of the Ford lpg engine used traction of the third Class 139 rail car may set the standard for energy effi- in the 139001 and 002, a modern ciency for a diesel rail vehicle by having a very much smaller than normal Ford diesel engine has been in- engine, having energy-recovery during braking and being able to operate stalled in 139000 together with the for short periods using just flywheel power. For a short stop the railcar latest catalytic exhaust equipment. can enter and leave a station with no fumes being emitted, engine not running, just the flywheel.

6 Parry People Movers Ltd, Overend Road, Cradley Heath, West Midlands, B64 7DD, UK PPM’S STRENGTHENING PROFILE

How can it be that the smallest railway operation within the national network has become such a major talking point?

Introduction in 2009 of a train ser- Meanwhile, in complete contrast vice on a track which is less than and concentrating on the innova- a mile long using two bus sized tive use of flywheel energy storage railcars would normally be unno- in order to increase efficiency, Dr ticed in Britain’s massive nation- Armin Buchroithner of the Energy wide industry. However, there is Aware Systems Group of Graz something about the Stourbridge University of Technology has sent shuttle operation which has the following message - The BBC’s Mishal Husain, the Pro- brought about a growing profile gramme Presenter, introduced the ‘I am working on a scientific book on piece - over the years. The view that its flywheel energy storage and alterna- differences from what passengers tive propulsion systems for vehicles, ‘Leeds Supertram, Edinburgh’s normally expect, the informality, which will be published with Springer trams, London’s Cross Rail—3 re- the lack of fuss and above all the media this year. During my research I cent examples of ambitious public transport projects which ran into diffi- sense that it is both clean and came across some extremely relevant culty of one sort or another. Time very economical and the all round projects by PPM, which I would like to perhaps to think on a more modest visibility has generated affection, include in my book, since they show excellent examples of this technology. scale like the unique and very suc- also the feeling that, developed Would you be so kind to provide some cessful train service that Adrian further, it could be applied to solve information/photo material of your fly- Goldberg has been on in the West very many local transport needs. wheel powered railcars that I could Midlands’. Filling in the gaps. The public rec- include in my book? Thank you in Adrian Goldberg’s piece in ‘From our ognised what the transport plan- advance. Kind regards from Austria, Home Correspondent’ was con- ners did not. Armin Buchroithner’. ducted at a breathless pace, pep- A new book ‘The Railway Adven- TV crews have frequently visited pered with descriptions of the ‘oily sheds’ of Black Country industry and tures’ written by Vicki Pipe and the Stourbridge Branch. Michael inventors’ dreams of doing great Geoff Marshall - (the railway trav- Portillo featured a trip on the Shut- things in a national environment elling duo who visited all the sta- tle in one of his Great Rail Jour- where there are 99 people looking tions of the Network), describes neys and the Tomorrow’s World for problems for every one looking special aspects of the service:- Producers paid close attention to for solutions. He concentrated on Today a ten-minute shuttle service how a flywheel delivers energy the People Mover which he de- (fifteen minutes on a Sunday) oper- and performance advantages and scribed as ‘an ingenious piece of kit’ ates between the two Stourbridge powers the People Movers. referring to its unique transmission stations, which is serviced by the which used regenerative braking most unique class of train in the entire using a flywheel to boost accelera- country - a Class 139 Parry People tion using recycled energy. Mover, or as Vicki likes to describe it, Despite the modest surroundings, ‘The cutest train I’ve ever seen!’’ and - Goldberg commented on the signifi- ‘This is a great example of cost, cance of the high reliability of the efficiency and environmental con- Stourbridge service and obvious cerns all magically aligning to provide popularity with passengers now taking around 600,000 journeys a year. the perfect solution to the question of, Image from the DfT ‘Expressions of ‘How can we quickly and efficiently Interest’ document: photo courtesy UK Finally, he pointed out that the tech- move lots of people a very short dis- Tram nology seemed suited to being tance?’’ Anyone listening to BBC Radio 4 adapted to tram technology running on street. He quotes John Parry as just before 2 p.m. on 17th Febru- seeing ‘its potential for joining up ary would again have found them- smaller towns and cities to the larger selves riding on the Shuttle on the transport network in the UK and Stourbridge Branch line. abroad’.

7 Parry People Movers Ltd, Overend Road, Cradley Heath, West Midlands, B64 7DD, UK STORING ENERGY FROM WIND, SOLAR AND OTHER NATURAL SOURCES The role envisaged for a mechanical means of using potential energy to store electricity They say that the batteries that are technology. This stores and re- any similar installation in the world already in use and the even better leases potential energy in an instal- and equal to the power requirement versions ‘just around the corner’ lation comprising a massive weight of 1500 households annually. will provide the answers. Not all of hanging in a deep shaft which is Tidal energy can turn into electricity them, we think. The perfect battery winched up when energy is in sur- some of the kinetic energy avail- does not exist and is not even on plus supply, then is lowered, gener- able from the spinning of Planet the horizon; ‘perfection’ requires ating electric power when this is not Earth (an enormous flywheel rotat- virtually unlimited numbers of available from wind and solar ing once every 24 hours). When charge - discharge cycles giving sources. coupled with gravity from the Moon decades with little or no special this raises and lowers the sea level, requirements to control tempera- causing millions of tons of water to ture or humidity which affects the flow in and out of estuaries and performance. Curiously, lead-acid coastal lagoons. Power from tidal batteries are nearer to reaching ‘fit energy might thus be considered to and forget’ robustness, but on their be a ‘form of Gravitricity’ depending own as a source of traction energy as it does on the Moon’s gravita- their weight limits how far the vehi- tional attraction coupled with the cle can go before recharging. In- totally-reliable kinetic energy avail- ternational development experi- Gravitricity energy-storage installation able from our own planet’s rotation. ence contains endless examples of Why not capture more of it? generous assistance given to poor In earlier years, Prof Fraenkel had communities to install a piece of been the founder-CEO of the inter- CAES and Gravitricity equipment to improve matters, but mediate technology company, IT Captured ‘free’ energy needs to be when a while later a spare part is Power Ltd, which working in devel- stored in order to realise its value. needed or whole replacement, the oping countries introduced the original donors are not around and means of capturing some of the Considering the investment needed it finishes up broken down and un- kinetic energy of a river using a run to create the means of lifting and used even if all that is needed is a -of-stream turbine and gearing sys- lowering heavy weights down a replacement battery. tem to generate electricity with an shaft in the ground, one’s mind alternator. Then, more recently, in turns to the other forms of mass Mechanical equipment; trains, fer- a leap of ambition, working with a which could be moved vertically but ries, the engines of ‘posho-mills’ Newcastle University team of scien- not so much. Pads like mini hover- grinding cereal into flour are kept tists, Peter began to study a con- crafts are used to lift very heavy going for many years. During peri- centrated source of tidal energy machinery around factory floors ods of economic isolation, the such as that which twice a day using compressed air. So why not Tamil area of Sri Lanka had plenty flows in and out of Strangford lift up a complete building two or of 50 year Morris Minors still in Lough, a large inland lake which three feet using compressed air? daily use as they were built so that connects to the Irish Sea. Counterbalanced hydraulic systems they could easily be repaired. lift whole ships from low to high A British marine engineer, Prof level in the new Three Gorges Dam Peter Fraenkel MBE, an old friend on the Yangtze River and on a and colleague of John Parry, has, smaller scale at Falkirk in Scotland. together with other business asso- A large quantity of energy is ciates formed a company, needed to lift a ship. A frame and Gravitricity Ltd, as an energy- slide mechanism which would per- storage specialist which can deliver mit the lifting and lowering function an alternative means of storing en- for a complete building, weighing ergy without requiring the mining of over a thousand tonnes. A wacky scarce minerals such as cobalt. It notion? A lot of engineering break- The SeaGen Tidal Power Station at uses mechanical means to store throughs start out this way! Strangford Lough, Northern Ireland energy. Gravitricity has gained in a 9 year pathfinding operation £650,000 UK government R&D proved the prospect of generating support for developing a pathfinder quantities of electricity larger than example of ‘falling weight’

8 Parry News 76 compiled and produced by John Parry, Karen Norris, illustrations by Paul Davis and Will Jarman