Fire Risk

It will make a difference as any Government should be able to recognise how vital water is to human life.

And therefore see it as a spending priority to have a resilient water system even if the investement doesn't meet commercial criteria and requires tax increases - something our current water company system cannot do.

Nothing would push a Government into action more than having a system that everyone in the country needs that doesn't work satisfactorily. Whilst those of us in Kent (as an example) have seen that does not apply to our water supply company.

Bryan

 

The evidence of my lifetime, suggests that's not necessarily the case - both at the time of privatisation, and in how the industry has been regulated. And, even so, it's a "should" rather than a "would" - my question is not about the value judgment, but about what would actually change directly as a result of this.

 

We will have to agree to disagree on 'should' or 'would'.

Bryan

 

Fair enough - I've just seen too many argument that X will change Y, when under inspection "X" is a proxy for a whole alphabet soup of other things that it's assumed will magically sort themselves if X happens.

 

DEFRA are currently considering a Southern Water application to have the ability to impose a ban on non-essential water use by busineses and households.

It seems the public consultation ran from 4 August to yesterday.

If that is granted, and if Southern Water decide to use it (possibly selectively re where to apply it) then any heritage railway still using steam (even if not in any specifc area it could be applied to) may feel under more pressure to change to diesel locos.

Bryan

 

That's it Bryan, the piece I extracted from The Guardian, about the water limitation sought by Southern Water, up-thread.

The other element for me, is where railways wrestle with whether to run steam or not, aside from optics, the fire risk, and the staff/passenger welfare risk, there's a pure cost issue. This came home to me in 2022 when I visited a line in the South specially as they had deployed heritage diesels - I got chatting to the line's GM at the end of my journey and he explained the rationale for diesel use, after having to pay a 60,000 pound excess on the railway's insurance after a farmers caught fire triggering the claim process. He said the small drop in passenger numbers by running diesel was less of a hit on revenue than having to find a further 60,000 pounds quickly. He added, that meant a hasty decision to run diesel, explain reasons to customers up front, rather than risk any further fires, causing physical and reputational damage in the community.

ATB Paul