Building a high speed line only going from Manchester to Leeds would indeed be expensive and a little pointless, but building one from Liverpool to Newcastle via Leeds would be a quite a different matter. Furthermore, it would join HS2 at Leeds and provide a direct London-Newcastle service, which should be extended northwards to Aberdeen.
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Now you've given me an idea - though probably unworkable! The route to Inverness from Edinburgh/Glasgow is rather obstructed by some large hills, but a fast route to Aberdeen might be possible as surely the terrain isn't so problematic. It is only about 100 miles or so - maybe up to 130 miles. Aberdeen to Inverness is a similar distance, and again the terrain might be manageable. So - how about a high speed line from Glasgow to Edinburgh to Aberdeen to Inverness? Of course that might presuppose that anyone would want to travel between these cities, or access them from the rest of the UK.Originally posted by Eine Alpensinfonie View Post
A high speed link to Aberdeen could perhaps be justified on economic grounds.Comment
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Are you serious, or is this a wind-up? I doubt if anyone would think of building a direct line from Glasgow to Inverness & by-passing Aberdeen - which happens to be a, if not the, major centre for the oil industry in the UK. So yes, I think that there might be a few people who would want to access it from the the rest of England, especially London. Same for Edinburgh, which is (still) a fairly major financial centre.Originally posted by Dave2002 View Post
Oh, and there is already a railway line that goes from Glasgow to Dundee (via Stirling and Perth), Aberdeen and Inverness (& on to the 'far North'), so I do think that the terrain is 'manageable'. Of course, Victorian railway engineers were a bit more adventurous than the current lot - they even managed to build a line across Rannoch Moor -
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Mme V's elder son is in Aberdeen as an oil engineer. He needs to visit London often (girlfriend... ). When he's flush and time matters, he flies. Otherwise (when not flush... ) he takes the night bus. I doubt he wd find a train of much use unless it was considerably cheaper than flying and/or considerably quicker than the coach...Comment
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Yes, and er no! Some of my whackier ideas were actually put into practice, and successful, and in one case saved about two years development time on a software project. There would be no need for those techniques now, but at the time ...Originally posted by Flosshilde View Post
The current trains to Aberdeen are quite slow, so I am serious that it should be possible to put in a high speed line to Aberdeen. I really do mean high speed - non of these namby pamby Brit efforts. I checked back recently on my first trips on the TGV between Lyon and Paris - and they took maybe a fraction over 2 hours, which I figure gave an average speed around 150 mph. That was getting on for 30 years ago!
Assuming a route from Edinburgh to Aberdeen of around 130 miles, then even a 130 mph train (slower than the TGVs of yesteryear) would get to Aberdeen in 1 hour. Current trains take over 2 hours - typically around 2 hours 20 minutes. Glasgow to Aberdeen might be around 145-150 miles - so could still arguably be achieved in 1 hour 15 minutes, giving an average speed of around 120 mph, while going via Edinburgh would add on another 45 miles approx, and could perhaps be done in 1 hour 30 minutes. The current best time from Glasgow to Aberdeen appears to be a fraction over 2 hours 30 minutes - via Stirling and Perth on trains leaving at 10:41am.
Of course perhaps hardly anyone would really want to go to Inverness - or at least not at high speed. The rather windy route is lovely to look out from, but my point was that if anyone did want to go to Inverness from either Glasgow or Edinburgh, a high speed line via Aberdeen could actually be the way to go, as it might avoid some of the trickier terrain and actually be feasible. It was this kind of consideration which the French rail engineers considered with their second and later TGV routes, as they realised that if the trains went fast enough, and energy and costs were not a consideration, that they could serve more people/areas than by going in a straight line route. This "trick" doesn't always work, but it's worth considering.
Generally for route planning, "distances" are important, and also intermediate stopping points - if any. Minimum cost spanning trees are a useful planning tool, but then "distances" have to be modified to take into account difficulty factors such as mountains and rivers, so the calculations don't only use raw distances, but modified distances which allow for the difficulty of going up mountains, across rivers etc. Another useful concept is that of the Steiner tree, which puts another point into the infrastructure as a new destination, and thus allows a greater service area without having to construct more infrastructure initially.
I will look into the Rannoch Moor effort. However, I don't think the terrain is quite as manageable as you suggest - things are a lot easier if slow speed trains are wanted - high speed trains do require different approaches.Comment
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With advance planning tickets on the sleeper train from Aberdeen to Euston can be obtained quite cheaply, though it's perhaps easier if there are two people travelling together, and perhaps Mme V's son's girlfriend would not like him taking a companion along on the train. Currently the Scotrail services do have a moderately interesting selection of whiskies - not too adventurous, but better than the usual Johnny Walker, Famous Grouse etc. These will be replaced in the next few years by newer trains, which I think will be run by Abellio.Originally posted by vinteuil View Post
It does require some getting used to, though, but practice ...
I recall that sometimes flights between London and Aberdeen can actually be competitively priced.Comment
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... the unreliability of helicopters from North Sea rigs (fog, mechanical issues... ) means that "advance planning" for tickets doesn't usually work - he can never guarantee when he will be free to travel...Originally posted by Dave2002 View PostComment
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Quite. Indeed, although personally I am not particularly fond of flying, the infrastructure costs are not related to distance in the same way as for surface travel, and for movement of relatively small numbers of people, flying probably makes a lot more sense than travelling by road or rail. Where road and rail start to come into their own is for mass transport of large numbers of people.Originally posted by vinteuil View Post
Some of the justifications for high speed surface travel are based on running costs, rather than the total infrastructure costs. Possibly air travel really is competitive even allowing for the significantly higher fuel costs.Comment
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I wasn't really suggesting a high-speed line across Rannoch Moor - for one thing, it probably wouldn't stop at Rannoch Station, & where would the grouse shooting parties & walkers be then?Originally posted by Dave2002 View PostComment
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