Playing with trains/ HS2 & 3

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Ironic, isn't it, that the main opponents to HS2 are Conservative constituents ...

driving around in massive 4 x 4s...

[aeolium]

Ironic, isn't it, that the main opponents to HS2 are Conservative constituents expressing their hostility on visual damage to their beloved locales, when one thinks that railway landscapes have provided some of our most picturesque scenery, unlike motorways.

Oh really, S_A? And have you read any of the arguments on this thread - are these also from Conservative constituents in areas affected by the proposed route?

It would be good to hear your reasons why you think it is a good idea.

[MrGongGong]

Yes - that's hardly the option you'd immediately think of as the cheapest (actually, I'd have thought four singles might have been cheaper, as two singles are often cheaper than the equivalent return). I often drive to Gloucester or Cheltenham if I'm going to Birmingham for a concert as it costs so much more from my local rail station.
You've also got to know when the cheap advance tickets become available. I wanted to book a return from London to Edinburgh for my niece and started checking 3 months in advance to see if cheap tickets were available but it was around £120 each way By delaying it until just under 2 months I was able to get a ticket for around £18 each way.
I suppose someone has written a book on all the tricks to use to get affordable tickets (probably as big as the Thomas Cook Rail timetable) but you shouldn't really have to become a rail geek to travel on British trains.

I always thought that the most expensive ticket was to buy a single on the London underground from Charing Cross to Embankment ! which at £4 when they are more or less in the same place on the surface works out at something astronomical per mile !!!

[Serial_Apologist]

Oh really, S_A? And have you read any of the arguments on this thread - are these also from Conservative constituents in areas affected by the proposed route?

It would be good to hear your reasons why you think it is a good idea.

It isn't a good idea, for all the reasons I've read on this thread. I was merely commenting on the irony, that's all.

[Richard Tarleton]

A thought from Paul Ormerod's excellent book "Why most things fail":

A great deal of human strategic decision-making, whether at the level of individuals, firms or governments, takes place in a conmplex environment. Many factors, some ephemeral and some more permanent, combine to influence the outcome of any particular decision....Intent may not lead to the desired outcome. Whether drawn up by the mice and men of Robert Burns' famous poem, by multinational corporations or by governments, even the most carefully constructed plans may lead to unexpected and undesired outcomes"

The example of London-Swansea is not an advertisement for the decision-making process. They are going to electrify - but only as far as Cardiff. People travelling from Swansea who currently can be in London in 3 hours will have to change in Cardiff, and the journey will therefore take longer.

[Petrushka]

I think it was Mr Pee on an earlier thread on this subject a while ago who wondered why everybody is in such a hurry these days. I have some sympathy with that view but also accept that we have been left years behind the times in modernising our rail network. Travelling from Derby to London now takes something like an hour and a quarter, hardly enough time to settle down with a coffee and a good book, as opposed to around 2 hours not that many years ago.

Fares are the real horror story on the network. My daily travel to the office has just increased by 5.7% while salaries are barely moving.

[teamsaint]

£1700 per household according to the mail. (not that you can believe that rag).

and exactly who will be able to afford it?

oh thats right , rich people.

Magic.

[MrGongGong]

£1700 per household according to the mail. (not that you can believe that rag).

and exactly who will be able to afford it?

oh thats right , rich people.

Magic.

And asylum seeking benefit scroungers if the wail is to be believed

[Dave2002]

A thought from Paul Ormerod's excellent book "Why most things fail":

The example of London-Swansea is not an advertisement for the decision-making process. They are going to electrify - but only as far as Cardiff. People travelling from Swansea who currently can be in London in 3 hours will have to change in Cardiff, and the journey will therefore take longer.

We have another example in Eurostar running along HS1. Now that it runs from St Pancras the journey time to Paris or Brussels has been reduced for anyone starting in London, or north of it. Anyone who comes in from the south now has a longer and more inconvenient journey because of the need to travel by tube between stations. in the case of the proposed HS2, the London to Birmingham time will, for many, not be the dominant factor in overall journey time. London to Birmingham is already pretty quick, so getting to and from the terminal station by much slower transport is likely to be comparable in time for many.

[MrGongGong]

We have another example in Eurostar running along HS1. Now that it runs from St Pancras the journey time to Paris or Brussels has been reduced for anyone starting in London, or north of it. Anyone who comes in from the south now has a longer and more inconvenient journey because of the need to travel by tube between stations. in the case of the proposed HS2, the London to Birmingham time will, for many, not be the dominant factor in overall journey time. London to Birmingham is already pretty quick, so getting to and from the terminal station by much slower transport is likely to be comparable in time for many.

Its about time those in the south were inconvenienced a little bit don't you think ?

[mangerton]

Its about time those in the south were inconvenienced a little bit don't you think ?

Oh, my heart positively bleeds for the people in the south. There are still no electrified railway lines north of Edinburgh, and it would appear that we're going to waste more public money on yet another vanity project* which will have no benefits at all for the populace at large.

* Millennium dome, Olympic nonsense, Jubilee jollities, to name but three.

[MrGongGong]

Isn't it great news that the poor unfortunate folk in London village are going to be getting a way of travelling to Birmingham to hear the CBSO,BCMG and BEAST ! They should extend it to Huddersfiled in time for the HCMF

[gradus]

I quite like train travel but think too little attention is paid to the environmental impact of our transport systems on those unfortunate enough to live in the vicinity of the rail line/road/ airport.
By all means build high speed connections between the regions, Wales and Scotland too, but place them in tunnels to achieve sound containment and avoid visual and light pollution. Cost/benefit arguments usually defeat this argument but in an age of raised environmental awareness, they should command attention and drive policy.
Seems that new canals are completely ignored as a means of improving inter-regional transport. The inherently slower pace of canal transport can be planned into distribution and logistics systems, further, they can enhance a landscape, seem unlikely to pollute by noise or light and offer leisure opportunities. The Victorians used underwater rack and pinion drive systems that enabled barges to follow a single track through the water and I am certain that our engineers could update and improve things with GPS and other wonders to ensure that canals could offer clean, congestion free albeit slower flows of commercial traffic.
Back to the water!

[ahinton]

I quite like train travel but think too little attention is paid to the environmental impact of our transport systems on those unfortunate enough to live in the vicinity of the rail line/road/ airport.
By all means build high speed connections between the regions, Wales and Scotland too, but place them in tunnels to achieve sound containment and avoid visual and light pollution. Cost/benefit arguments usually defeat this argument but in an age of raised environmental awareness, they should command attention and drive policy.
Seems that new canals are completely ignored as a means of improving inter-regional transport. The inherently slower pace of canal transport can be planned into distribution and logistics systems, further, they can enhance a landscape, seem unlikely to pollute by noise or light and offer leisure opportunities. The Victorians used underwater rack and pinion drive systems that enabled barges to follow a single track through the water and I am certain that our engineers could update and improve things with GPS and other wonders to ensure that canals could offer clean, congestion free albeit slower flows of commercial traffic.
Back to the water!

But how much traffic could existing canals accommodate? - and what likelihood can there be of building new ones which would almost certainly raise at least as many objections as would projected new motorways, rail links, airports and terminal et al?

[gradus]

From a quick Google it seems that about 3% of the UK's transported goods were carried on internal waterways including river estuaries in 2007, so I would guess that canal traffic is light and could accommodate far more.
I think it extremely unlikely that new canals would be built but I suppose my point was that new internal waterways might be feasible and more acceptable than other transport infrastructure developments, but one never sees them mentioned.