Avon Valley Railway - Fighting the Nimby-Graffiti

WR Tim · Post by **WR Tim** » Mon May 04, 2009 1:20 pm

Hi all,

I'm sure most people will be aware that there have been problems for a long time with anti-railway graffiti being sprayed on the tarmac of the cycle path alongside the Avon Valley Railway.

Things have taken a new turn recently with the 4F tender just north of Bitton station being attacked. See picture at
http://narroways.fotopic.net/p57970011.html. The graffiti first appeared about a week ago but was painted over by the AVR. It reappeared sometime between Saturday morning and this morning (when the photo was taken).

The more recent type of vandalism really pees me off so I was wondering about ways of creating a disincentive for them to do it.

I was thinking that if a bunch of us get together and pledge to give a certain amount each time there is a graffiti attack then it would rapidly raise a fair amount of money for the AVR. If the vandals become aware (eg via a page on the AVR website) that every time there is a graffiti attack the AVR is receiving a couple of hundred quid and have been given X thousand in total then they might start to think twice about doing it.

The first thing is that it makes sure the AVR aren't out of pocket for cleaning up the graffiti but I'd also suggest that we ask that any excess is put towards the funds required for the southern extension (the thing the nimbys are against) which then gives a symobollic start on funding for it.

I'll kick things off by pledging a Ãº25 cheque as a first payment and Ãº10 for every subsequent graffiti attack.

Anybody care to join me?

Tim

Robin Summerhill · Post by **Robin Summerhill** » Mon May 04, 2009 2:32 pm

Whilst your idea has its merits I am concerned that it might simply lead to even more attacks. After all, the definition of a zealot is somebody who redoubles his efforts when he's forgotten his cause.

Should it come to the attention of the perpetrator that the AVR is becoming better off as a result of this, it is more likely that attacks would increase rather than shoulders be shrugged and they would stop.

Personally I would prefer it if there was some way of catching and stopping the little blighter. I use the term "little" and the singular deliberately because it appears to me from the tone and content of the graffiti that it is being put there by some youngster on a self-appointed mission with a misplaced bee in its bonnet.

Is there any CCTV installed at Bitton? If not I would be prepared to donate something towards such a system.

Shovel · Post by **Shovel** » Mon May 04, 2009 6:02 pm

The graffiti is becoming more serious as time goes on. Railway warning signs are being over painted and then written on. Also the railway has had to replace the Fixed Distant signal on the approach to Avon Riverside due to the red graffiti on it. All of this has been reported to the police.

Robin Summerhill · Post by **Robin Summerhill** » Mon May 04, 2009 6:46 pm

Shovel wrote:The graffiti is becoming more serious as time goes on. Railway warning signs are being over painted and then written on. Also the railway has had to replace the Fixed Distant signal on the approach to Avon Riverside due to the red graffiti on it. All of this has been reported to the police.

So I would suggest this is even more reason why somebody needs to find out the identity of the little sod that's doing it.

WR Tim · Post by **WR Tim** » Wed May 06, 2009 1:45 pm

It doesn't appear that there would be any kind of groundswell of support for a regular contributions campaign so I'll just send them a donation and leave it at that.

I think most of the graffiti attacks are away from Bitton station proper so getting cables for CCTV feed and power might be a problem (thinking of the 4F tender and Avon Riverside Fixed Distant.

Corbs · Post by **Corbs** » Mon Jun 15, 2009 1:36 pm

How about getting the press involved, but highlighting how ridiculous these claims are that preserved steam railways are to blame for global warming, vs the road going car, with some figures of average carbon emissions for a train compared to the same amount of people travelling by road?
Make the eco-vandals look silly.

BristleGWR · Post by **BristleGWR** » Mon Jun 15, 2009 2:13 pm

How many tons of coal do the AVR use on average every year?

WR Tim · Post by **WR Tim** » Mon Jun 15, 2009 3:24 pm

Corbs wrote:How about getting the press involved, but highlighting how ridiculous these claims are that preserved steam railways are to blame for global warming, vs the road going car, with some figures of average carbon emissions for a train compared to the same amount of people travelling by road?
Make the eco-vandals look silly.

The problem with that analysis is that the people travelling on the AVR aren't actually going anywhere. The trip is purely for enjoyment rather than a necessary journey.

There is no environmentally friendly argument to be made for steam engines - they aren't getting people off the road and they are pretty inefficient (I wouldn't be entirely surprised to find that an 0-6-0 tank with three or four Mk1s produces more CO2 than the equivalent number of modern cars).

The only argument to be made is that there are so few steam engines running at a given time that they make a negligable contribution - which is true and (IMO) quite sufficient to justify the expansion of an industrial heritage museum/tourist attraction.

You have just reminded me that I never got as far as sending the AVR a cheque though - must do that.

Corbs - letters about the graffiti turn up semi-regularly in the Bristol Evening Post.

Corbs · Post by **Corbs** » Mon Jun 15, 2009 8:18 pm

Aye it did cross my mind but I typed away anyway

Maybe this fool doing the damage is under the impression that it is harmful smoke, not steam, coming out of the locomotive's exhaust, as it would with a car.

Makes me angry, like people who vandalise people's cars. To be honest it makes me want to pollute even more just to annoy them.... now where did I put my de-cat pipes?

Robin Summerhill · Post by **Robin Summerhill** » Mon Jun 15, 2009 8:40 pm

Corbs wrote:Maybe this fool doing the damage is under the impression that it is harmful smoke, not steam, coming out of the locomotive's exhaust ....

A lot depends here on the competence of the enginemen

jules · Post by **jules** » Mon Jun 15, 2009 10:16 pm

under the impression that it is harmful smoke, not steam, coming out of the locomotive's exhaust ....

I don't approve of vandalism to railway property one little bit, being a very active volunteer on the WSR, but I think if we're going to have an environmental discussion, at least let's get the facts right.

CO2 is a colourless gas. If you burn coal, you emit CO2 - period. "Harmful" smoke is just that, actually unburnt or partly burnt fuel compounds and ash.

So yes, the efficiency of the steam locomotive to burn its fuel completely and therefore extract the most energy from it, is the skill of a good fireman. But a really good fireman will probably emit MORE CO2 than an unskilled one who produces both CO2 and a lot of nasty unburnt gases too.

Of course, for the environmentalists, steam is utterly harmless - it just makes fluffy little clouds

Corbs · Post by **Corbs** » Tue Jun 16, 2009 1:45 am

Unsure who that's directed at

Just to clarify - I only used the phrase 'harmful smoke' to contrast with 'harmless steam'.

My theory was that the person in question is looking at the AVR locos going about their business and mistaking the plentiful steam for said gases, and making the assumption that everything coming out of the exhaust is environmentally damaging.

WR Tim · Post by **WR Tim** » Tue Jun 16, 2009 8:48 am

jules wrote:
under the impression that it is harmful smoke, not steam, coming out of the locomotive's exhaust ....
So yes, the efficiency of the steam locomotive to burn its fuel completely and therefore extract the most energy from it, is the skill of a good fireman. But a really good fireman will probably emit MORE CO2 than an unskilled one who produces both CO2 and a lot of nasty unburnt gases too.

In the spirit of good natured pedentry with which Jules made that comment...

I suspect both good and bad fireman will produce roughly the same amount of CO2. Yes, the bad fireman will allow more unburnt hydrocarbons to be emited from the chimney so a lower proportion of the loco's emission will be CO2. BUT the loco fundamentally needs to produce the same amount of CO2 to boil the fixed quantity of water it needs to move from A to B - energy to boil the water coming from oxidising the hydrocarbons into H20 and CO2 and therefore the heat produced in the firebox/passed to the boiler being proportional to the CO2 emitted. ie, good and bad fireman produce the same amount of CO2 but bad fireman has to burn a bit more coal to do it to fire some unburnt hydrocarbons* out of the chimney.

There may actually be a further factor that makes the bad fireman emit even more CO2 though this is from general theory and I'm not certain it applies to steam engines. Unburnt hydrocarbons are generally found with a cooler than ideal fire (ie good fireman keeps the fire hotter) and generally a thermo-mechanical machine is more efficient when working at a higher temperature, so with a slightly hotter fire the loco will require less combustion/CO2 to boil the necessary amount of water.

The man primarily responsible for minimising the amount of CO2 emitted is probably either the driver driving the engine efficiently (gentle acceleration, coasting into stations, not working it hard to show off for the punters) or the person who writes the timetable (not leaving engines sitting around at stations needing the fire kept hot but blowing off steam because they aren't going anywhere, having challenging times that require hard acceleration, etc).

* of course if come of those unburnt hydrocarbons are CH4 (methane) then that's several times worse than the CO2 if it had been properly burnt.[/i]

jules · Post by **jules** » Tue Jun 16, 2009 3:05 pm

Quite agree with the further development of this discussion

There is an interesting page here, showing CO2 emissions for various types of heating (steam engine) fuel:

http://www.stovesonline.co.uk/fuel-CO2-emissions.html

It would seem from this, that the most ecologically friendly option would be to chop down all the lineside trees and feed these to the steam engine!

That's sure to keep the ecoists happy!

WR Tim · Post by **WR Tim** » Tue Jun 16, 2009 5:03 pm

jules wrote: It would seem from this, that the most ecologically friendly option would be to chop down all the lineside trees and feed these to the steam engine!

Not really. Those figures are based on the pleasant fiction that burning biomass produces no net carbon because all the carbon emitted by burning it has been absorbed from the air during growth. Even accepting as fact that this statement is true*, it's not the whole truth.

Theory (per acre of land):

Plant (tree/corn) grows and absorbs X Kg of CO2 from air
Change in CO2 = -X

Plant is burnt (as logs/corn ethanol) emitting X Kg of CO2
Change in CO2 = +X

Net CO2 from 1 acre used as fuel = 0

Yay - we've manage to heat our home without adding a gram of CO2 to the atmosphere. (If slightly honest admit that powering chainsaw/transporting logs from forest to home uses some fuel and emits some CO2 - the very small emissions shown at your link).

Reality of current situation:

Plant (tree/corn) grows and absorbs X Kg of CO2 from air
Change in CO2 = -X

Plant is eaten, excreted and goes down the sewer (corn) or dies and rots (tree) emitting no CO2.
Change in CO2 = 0

Current net CO2 from 1 acre = -X

Therefore, by changing the use of an acre of land from food crops/unharvested woodland to corn for bioethanol/trees for logging you change its carbon footprint from -X Kg per acre to 0 Kg per acre .... a net change of +X Kg per acre.

Even more unfortunately X for biofuels is extremely large (low calorific value), making them far worse pollutants than any of the fossil fuels (plus they don't burn cleanly adding smog to the local atmosphere as well as greenhouse gases to the planet as a whole). The studies that I have read (scientific as opposed to industry lobbying - your link comes from someone trying to sell wood burning stoves) all put wood and biofuels far ahead of coal/gas/oil in terms carbon emissions (worst overall is normally peat).

*I'm not a biologist but I'm pretty sure that saying plants absorb 100% of their carbon content from the air is bollocks. They do absorb a significant amount of CO2 during photosynthesis but I'm pretty sure that they also pick up a significant amount from the soil through their roots - ie amount of CO2 absorbed from the air is less than amount of CO2 released by burning them. To be fair you don't burn the rootstock or anything like the whole plant so maybe this evens it out.