MolteniArcore
Well-known member
HS2 had cross party support over the last 15 years. It’s Rishi Sunak’s short term mindset that has put a stop to it.
Surprise surprise HS2
- Thread starter Ebor
- Start date
HS2 had cross party support over the last 15 years. It’s Rishi Sunak’s short term mindset that has put a stop to it.
Norman_Conquest
Well-known member
I’m not a cyclist and only use my bike in the summer whilst in France. If only we could emulate their cycle lanes.
Piccadilly Day Tripper
Well-known member
Ahhh, then their good judgement and wise investment has already reaped rewards!
FishofContemplation
Well-known member
A detail perhaps given that the rolling stock is still nothing to write home about especially up our way but Northern phased out pacers in 2020.
h_m_boro
Well-known member
I know......but the majority of the country don't. Tories will take a photo opportunity outside "the" shiny new train and declare the £10bn investment money well spent.......
r00fie1
Well-known member
Its disgraceful the majority of our railways were built between 1850 - 1890.
Some lines still have semaphore signals in daily use and old signal boxes.
We dont have a uniform national signalling system across the UK so some trains are line restricted.
Victorian infrastructure means permenant speed restrictions due to tunnels, restrictive bends and curves, viaducts, restricted British loading gauge, weight restrictions, etc.
Many of our stations are in need of major investment and those with bus-shelters are a bluddy disgrace. Not all stations have lifts or access for those with ambulatory issues.
Pretty soon, we will have no ticket offices either!
Just to add to m3t4tr0n above:
Spain
Italy
Greece
Portugal
Sweden
Uzbekistan
Apart from the West Coast and East coast Main Lines - neither of which are High Speed Rail Lines, we have some of the oldest battered trains in Europe. Even India is building High Speed Lines, as is Canada, USA and Australia. Brazil, Argentina and countries in Africa are in the advanced stages of planning and building proper high speed lines.
Disgusting.
Mr_Fridge
Well-known member
Having experienced Swedish trains in the summer they're no stranger to rail replacement services! Brilliant local services in the cities though, trains, trams, buses.
Agree with your overall point.
Was listening to an industry analyst talking about it this morning and he raised the prospect of the purchased land being sold off in a fire sale! More cheap assets for the lads!
Used the TGV loads recently and it is a brilliant service, even has that modern phenomenon, wifi, available throughout the journey unlike when I travel from 50 miles outside London into the capital of our great progressive nation.
Used the TGV loads recently and it is a brilliant service, even has that modern phenomenon, wifi, available throughout the journey unlike when I travel from 50 miles outside London into the capital of our great progressive nation.
Beeching and all the followed have a LOT to answer for
... but we all know the state can't possibly operate a decent train service ... except of course when its a foreign state running ours, then its fine.
Andy_W
Well-known member
Because we over regulate everything, by 100% of our own choosing.
Regulations were fine 20 years ago, but the regulators ran out of things to regulate, so they started inventing more and more forms every year. It's laughable now, but it means people can make £1,000 a day sat in their office (at home), working 5 hours a day. I know it, as this is what I compete with (the regulations I fill in paperwork/ design to comply to), I charge half that and still make a killing.
Another major problem is we have own own infrastructure holding other infrastructure to ransom.
Rather than Highways/ Rial/ EA/ Utilities/ local authorities all working together for a common goal, what you get is self preservation (which effectively becomes ransom), and all it does is jack up the time and risk to contractors, so this jacks up the cost of everything.
Prime example, putting a 100mm pipe 50m accross a farm track or down a local authority (council) verge might cost £1,500, but to do it across a Highway will be ~£15,000 and rail it will be ~£150,000. That's using the exact same technology for each, with what should be the exact same time, disruption and risk. The £148,500 extra for the rail doesn't make it any safer in reality, it may reduce risk ~1% on site per hour, but becease of the added duration and other work, the actual risk is far higher.
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Andy_W
Well-known member
I love it when they advertise that you can work when travelling on rail
It's laughable, but it's even funnier that this con always seems to get through unchallenged.Every time I try and do it I end up fighting the Wi-Fi for 2 hours out of the 2.5 hour journey, and even then it's super noisy or there's some other disruption which requires a complete change of plan. It's a myth. Anyone with a laptop or iPad out is doing zero (worthwhile) work, I practically guarantee it. The only things which can be done are ancillary tasks, but you can't even do those unless you actually plan to do those. Nobody does this though, as everyone assumes they're going to be able to do "normal" work. Not possible.
I've now realised I'm far more productive just putting my ear plugs in for 2.25 hours and going to sleep, and doing an extra hour or so on the evening.
r00fie1
Well-known member
Beeching did a good job sounding the death nell for our railways. If he had his way to complete his original plan - rail would barely exist in GB.
Beeching following proposed closures - retained lines in black!
His companion - Minister of Transport, Edward Marples, was CEO of Marples-Ridgway - a company which specialised in building motorways and was awarded major contracts in the 60`s - starting with the M! !
Pre-Beeching [1963]:
just imagine the public transport network we could have had if lines were kept and invested in over all that time ... I think about this every time I take the dog down the castle eden "walkway"
Andy_W
Well-known member
Same here, I live not far from a part of that, the only consolation is the place is good to walk the dogs!
This would have been near where my house is:
Now it looks like this:
When I show people the old photo's they're amazed at what we've lost, and what we've blown up, considering what it must have cost to build.
Piccadilly Day Tripper
Well-known member
All train wifi is good for is writing drafts ready to send when you arrive at a station and find a cafe with an actual signal to press 'send'. Always good for a bit of peace and quiet though.I love it when they advertise that you can work when travelling on rail
Every time I try and do it I end up fighting the Wi-Fi for 2 hours out of the 2.5 hour journey, and even then it's super noisy or there's some other disruption which requires a complete change of plan. It's a myth. Anyone with a laptop or iPad out is doing zero (worthwhile) work, I practically guarantee it. The only things which can be done are ancillary tasks, but you can't even do those unless you actually plan to do those. Nobody does this though, as everyone assumes they're going to be able to do "normal" work. Not possible.
I've now realised I'm far more productive just putting my ear plugs in for 2.25 hours and going to sleep, and doing an extra hour or so on the evening.
Andy_W
Well-known member
I've tried that, problem is, it's so sketchy that you will miss the three e-mails which supersede it, and when you do press send you're replying to something which is possibly out of date, which makes you look a bit nuts in some circumstances.
That's also assuming your drafts actually work, from my experience it's not reliable enough, for valuable time so I end up writing e-mail replies in word, but that's not productive either.
It's not too much to ask to have something like a ~5MB permanent connection (to every user who wants it) on a main line, that's all it would take, but nope. I pay enough for the tickets with working wifi advertised, it's poor.
Then there's the security of it too, I don't even trust it without a VPN which then slows you down further.
Piccadilly Day Tripper
Well-known member
for the amount you need to pay for the tickets, I expect a foot rub and hot towel, never mind a reliable signal to keep on top of things!
Not sure what they use in France but basically I had pretty much perfect streaming of UK TV using a VPN for hundreds of miles through rural France on a train at 200mph, same when I drove to Paris a few months ago, I streamed UK radio the length of the motorway from Calais. It's hardly rocket science