Recommissioning after Coronavirus

Although if that's the only way of getting one's steam fix all year they might be more popular than normal?

 

Yeah no doubt, I mean I'd consider them and I have never done any, but they would only be popular for a small market - the enthusiast.

 

Actually with good filters air conditioning and forced ventilation are probably fine: basic cars have a pollen filter.
But certainly my big reservation about flying.

Nor is this new; one of the conditions of approving Battersea Power Station in the 1920s was that there were electrostatic filters at the base of the chimneys for the flue gases.
Which became completely standard on all power stations burning solid fuel. Forty years ago, when they were sold for warm air heating in homes. state of the art was that they would take dust, germs and over 80% of tobacco smoke out in one pass. And I presume filtering should probably have improved decidedly since then - the clean rooms for
making the minuscule detail in computer chips.

However, wether or not they are installed, replaced, maintained, free of duct leaks, actually switched on......... One would like a good clear test

 

I make no judgement on whether air con units can filter out viruses, but I merely offer this as a comparison with pollen and virus particle size:

 

I notice that Germany is including some of the above categories in their release of lockdown. I therefore have my doubts that the release will be that restrictive.

 

It ALL depends on whether the support for salary costs continues or not. If it does then there may be less economic damage if staff stay on furlough and railways dont open even if they are permitted.

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Well, if that line represents the opening of a 1" micrometer, these viruses are much bigger than I thought!

 

Bloomin' Americans, ruining everything!

 

If you express it in sizes readily understood by the layman, the line is equivalent to 10^-8 standard football pitches ...

Tom

 

the dilemma is

1) open as soon as you can to recoup lost revenue while social distancing is in force

2) stay in hibernation with Govt assistance and possibly volunteers returning to site for maintenance.

there is no doubt that 2) is more attractive at present given that we don’t know what restrictions are going to be imposed, and even if open a (say) 50% reduction in business with no secondary sales (shop/cafe) is going to hit hard. Confidence in the market will take some time to return to pre COV19 levels.



regards

Matt

 

Germany haven't had it as bad as the UK and have a bigger population. I don't think the UK gov will risk a second peak.

 

I agree. But that doesn’t mean that precedents from elsewhere won’t be followed.


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I do believe that option 2 is the most attractive as far as heritage railways with significant paid staff are concerned. However, I have a niggle that the furlough scheme will not be continued after June and leisure organisations will be required to take such steps as are necessary to re-open with social distancing and other controls in place. That would relieve the government of the financial problem but push it fairly and squarely onto the businesses to solve the the impossible problem.

 

There is also the problem which I am sure has already been raised, but is worth repeating, that many of the volunteers on heritage railways are in the over-70 'at risk' group which may be subject to extended restrictions.

 

the problem though is how do you ensure social distancing in your average railway coach, everywhere else you can have some degree of control, one option may be a requirement for passengers to wear some kind of face covering, and if your lucky to have some open first Mk1,s with 1 and 2 seating, that might be enough to ensure people can maintain some distancing, as a short term measure , but if you require every passenger wears a mask, might that be enough to satisfy the requirements?

 

I think it might continue after June but may be limited to some extent whether a transition from full time to part time or restricted to certain businesses. I think the Govt might be in line for some criticism if the current life support is taken away from too many businesses sharply. There have been hints already but we will have to wait and see...

regards

Matt

 

Restricting it to certain businesses is the obvious thing to do, at which point heritage railways with paid staff will need to make sure they're on that list - hopefully the HRA will be of some use here in providing a voice and applying pressure.

 

A lot will depend on how and when we come out of lockdown. If a business has to remain closed then logical that support might continue. The problem is that heritage lines are a hybrid business between a transport system and a tourist attraction, while we can look to the mainline for guidance if we are seen to be attracting visitors to the area when the UK wide tourism industry is being discouraged then that might just tip the scales in favour of any revised scheme still being applicable.

 

We have been given masks to see our gp that contain copper as that is the only material that works against this virus, that is the only way we are able to see a doctor, as such I don’t have any faith in other filtering materials be it air conditioning units or masks

 

I think there is another issue, which applies to the whole economy, but which would effect heritage railways, which is about what the "new normal" looks like.

The Government's financial scheme (and I'm speaking as someone who thinks that, by and large, the handling of the economic fallout is one of the things the Government has handled reasonably well so far) is essentially predicated on an assumption that we are seeing a temporary blip. So they will provide money to tide fundamentally sound business over, until things return to how they were before.

But for many areas of the economy, I don't think things will return to how they were, and at some point the Government has to make a decision: at what point does handing money to a business cease to be a kind of bridging facility over a blip, and start being simply subsidising a fundamentally unsound sector of the economy? As an example, it seems quite likely to me that we will see a structural decline in the demand for air travel, and an increase in the demand for IT network capacity. So for a while the Government can furlough people in the aviation industry, but at some point it has to fundamentally realise that some part of the demand for flying has gone. Aeroplane maintenance technicians will - metaphorically or literally - need to become network infrastructure technicians.

For the Government, that is going to be a hard transition to make - one would hope that they would temper any diminution of support for certain industries with funding for re-training. I guess heritage railways are pretty low down on the list of priorities, but I suspect we have to be prepared for some fairly major changes to our core business model. That in turn has two challenges. One is working out what that business model might be; the other is persuading support societies (which can be quite small-c conservative groups) about the need for change.

Tom