Hydrogen powered 071

[Mol_PMB]

  On 17/1/2025 at 1:57 PM, jhb171achill said:

I think we’ll all be back on the backs of donkeys before all this gets sorted…..!

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I hope they don't fart methane as badly as cows...

I can well remember donkey carts on the Irish roads, often with a couple of milk churns, and the donkey prohibition signs at the start of the motorway (I think there was only one motorway back then).

[jhb171achill]

  On 17/1/2025 at 2:21 PM, Broithe said:

As long as your donkey passes the methane emission test...

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Mine is 4 wheel drive and runs on renewable eco-friendly fuel.

  On 17/1/2025 at 2:23 PM, Mol_PMB said:

I hope they don't fart methane as badly as cows...

I can well remember donkey carts on the Irish roads, often with a couple of milk churns, and the donkey prohibition signs at the start of the motorway (I think there was only one motorway back then).

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I remember the donkeys too, often pulling turf trailers!

[jhb171achill]

  On 17/1/2025 at 2:23 PM, Mol_PMB said:

I hope they don't fart methane as badly as cows...

I can well remember donkey carts on the Irish roads, often with a couple of milk churns, and the donkey prohibition signs at the start of the motorway (I think there was only one motorway back then).

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I remember the donkeys too, often pulling turf trailers!

[Horsetan]

  On 17/1/2025 at 2:23 PM, Mol_PMB said:

I hope they don't fart methane as badly as cows....

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What's not to like?

[Railer]

Is this project still going ahead are still blue sky kite flying at this stage. I did read an article late last year stating that Irish Rail are basically donating an 071 to this project but they still all appear to be in active use lately despite no more tara trains operating.

[Branchline121]

  On 12/2/2025 at 2:08 PM, Railer said:

Is this project still going ahead are still blue sky kite flying at this stage. I did read an article late last year stating that Irish Rail are basically donating an 071 to this project but they still all appear to be in active use lately despite no more tara trains operating.

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I wouldn’t call the 071s inactive as I’ve seen them on IWT liners around Dublin and AFAIK the hydrogen project hasn’t been cancelled.

[ttc0169]

  On 12/2/2025 at 2:08 PM, Railer said:

Is this project still going ahead are still blue sky kite flying at this stage. I did read an article late last year stating that Irish Rail are basically donating an 071 to this project but they still all appear to be in active use lately despite no more tara trains operating.

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085 is currently being modified I’m told. 

[leslie10646]

Obviously, IR aren't reading Modern Railways which is full of misery stories of hydrogen trains being withdrawn IN GERMANY where they know a bit about engineering - and being replaced by DIESELS.

[Broithe]

Emerging technologies will always need a development period, before they become normal in the real world. 

Some will fail, and some will become the daily normality.

Anybody not willing to go through that period needs to try not using anything that didn't exist for the whole of their lifetimes - cordless tools, mobile phones, the internet, etc.

Some of us grew up with slide rules, imagine if we were still stuck back there, because early calculators were too expensive and unreliable to bother pursuing...

The first calculator I ever saw cost £32 and was bought by a chap I worked with who came from a well-to-do background. Our gross pay at that time was £17 a week.

Having said that, I wouldn't be a huge fan of hydrogen for personal use in the immediate future, but it does have a place in being a way to store excess night-time electrical energy production for economical use at busier times of the day,

[Horsetan]

  On 13/2/2025 at 12:54 PM, Broithe said:

......The first calculator I ever saw cost £32 and was bought by a chap I worked with who came from a well-to-do background. Our gross pay at that time was £17 a week....

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My first calculator was a Sinclair pocket thing, with red 8-digit (not LED, but sort of electroluminescent) display. Cost ten quid from Lasky's, the hi-fi specialists, in Oxford Street in about 1976.

[Broithe]

  On 13/2/2025 at 1:40 PM, Horsetan said:

My first calculator was a Sinclair pocket thing, with red 8-digit (not LED, but sort of electroluminescent) display. Cost ten quid from Lasky's, the hi-fi specialists, in Oxford Street in about 1976.

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I had (still have somewhere) a Sinclair Scientific.

Reverse Polish logic*, but still a huge advance on slide rules and tables - about £50 at the time, when a £ was a lot bigger than it is now,,,

* Hence there being no = key.

[Horsetan]

  On 13/2/2025 at 1:51 PM, Broithe said:

I had (still have somewhere) a Sinclair Scientific.

Reverse Polish logic*, but still a huge advance on slide rules and tables - about £50 at the time, when a £ was a lot bigger than it is now,,,

* Hence there being no = key.

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Mine was a Sinclair Cambridge Memory.

Looking back on it, the digits would have been the correct size for theatre indicators on 4mm scale colour light signals.

[Railer]

  On 12/2/2025 at 5:22 PM, Branchline121 said:

I wouldn’t call the 071s inactive as I’ve seen them on IWT liners around Dublin and AFAIK the hydrogen project hasn’t been cancelled.

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I think you misread my post regarding in active as apposed to inactive. To me all or most of the 071s are very active considering the limited duties available. 071s assigned to the liners appear to be swapped out very regularly in my observations as of late.

[hurricanemk1c]

  On 13/2/2025 at 12:18 PM, leslie10646 said:

Obviously, IR aren't reading Modern Railways which is full of misery stories of hydrogen trains being withdrawn IN GERMANY where they know a bit about engineering - and being replaced by DIESELS.

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Very different hydrogen style of operation though it has to be said (although the issues with supply still apply). The German ones are fuel cell technology while the 071 conversion is internal combustion of hydrogen