Trump inadvertently stars a galactic war with the notoriously thin-skinned Grokons of Alpha Centauri, pissed that their "economic miracle" has been slighted.....
I think the problem we don't build that many big projects in the UK so when we do , people want it capable of doing everything. If we were serious we'd have planned 3 high speed lines in the UK, replacements for the West Coast and East Coast and New line for the South West.
Excellent post all round. I've also seen a proposal for an eastern high speed line (alongside the southwestern one you mention and HS2) - out of Liverpool Street or Stratford to Stansted, then east to join the Great Eastern Main Line. The idea seems a sound way of opening up more of the East for London commuters and boosting the 'London Stansted Cambridge Corridor'.
If you wanted to help Cambridge, a very simple and cheap measure would be to rebuild the train line that ran between Sudbury and Cambridge that was closed in the 1960s. That would reconnect Cambridge and Colchester and open up a string of new commuter towns for Cambridge such as Haverhill that could do with reinvigoration.
Agree - the Braintree-Stansted/Bishop's Stortford Line is another no-brainer for re-opening, which could have a similar impact.
I think the problem we don't build that many big projects in the UK so when we do , people want it capable of doing everything. If we were serious we'd have planned 3 high speed lines in the UK, replacements for the West Coast and East Coast and New line for the South West.
Excellent post all round. I've also seen a proposal for an eastern high speed line (alongside the southwestern one you mention and HS2) - out of Liverpool Street or Stratford to Stansted, then east to join the Great Eastern Main Line. The idea seems a sound way of opening up more of the East for London commuters and boosting the 'London Stansted Cambridge Corridor'.
Which party did those constituencies vote for? I can't see it happening immediately.
From a distance you would think a good Dem candidate would look at this election and see it as a great chance to be elected POTUS when the opposition is Trump.
I guess the stigma of finding yourself second to Trump may have negative implications for your political future?
Trump's ratings are still under 50%, something only Carter and Obama had since 1980 in presidents seeking re election at this stage and of course Reagan beat Carter though Obama beat Romney. Kerry lost to George W Bush and still ended up Secretary of State, Romney is now a Senator so not fatal to your political career
I think the problem we don't build that many big projects in the UK so when we do , people want it capable of doing everything. If we were serious we'd have planned 3 high speed lines in the UK, replacements for the West Coast and East Coast and New line for the South West.
Excellent post all round. I've also seen a proposal for an eastern high speed line (alongside the southwestern one you mention and HS2) - out of Liverpool Street or Stratford to Stansted, then east to join the Great Eastern Main Line. The idea seems a sound way of opening up more of the East for London commuters and boosting the 'London Stansted Cambridge Corridor'.
Which party did those constituencies vote for? I can't see it happening immediately.
From a distance you would think a good Dem candidate would look at this election and see it as a great chance to be elected POTUS when the opposition is Trump.
I guess the stigma of finding yourself second to Trump may have negative implications for your political future?
I think the issue is that it's a 2 year election cycle where the president has an incumbency advantage and you need to hope that events will work out against the president.
For that reason even when the president is Trump it's probably safer to sit it out.
My question is more because except for AOC no other democrats are on my radar and while I'm not particularly interested in US Politics I have a lot of US friends who tweet things so I'm probably little different from anyone in the US who doesn't get their news from TV.
As for @AlastairMeeks' point about other projects I'm sure that's the case but it's the toothpaste and socks argument. If we didn't spend so much money on toothpaste and socks we could afford to do or buy something much more exciting. But we need toothpaste and socks.
I think the problem we don't build that many big projects in the UK so when we do , people want it capable of doing everything. If we were serious we'd have planned 3 high speed lines in the UK, replacements for the West Coast and East Coast and New line for the South West.
Excellent post all round. I've also seen a proposal for an eastern high speed line (alongside the southwestern one you mention and HS2) - out of Liverpool Street or Stratford to Stansted, then east to join the Great Eastern Main Line. The idea seems a sound way of opening up more of the East for London commuters and boosting the 'London Stansted Cambridge Corridor'.
If you wanted to help Cambridge, a very simple and cheap measure would be to rebuild the train line that ran between Sudbury and Cambridge that was closed in the 1960s. That would reconnect Cambridge and Colchester and open up a string of new commuter towns for Cambridge such as Haverhill that could do with reinvigoration.
I suspect enough of the track has been built on that re-opening it will be impossible.
I belong to a group that is interested in UK railways and occasionally there is a meet up. It has some old hands from BR and the Dft in it and some of the stories about it all really works is interesting. Old stories about the civil servants in charge of the railways, basically hating the railways one who used to really hate London railway commuters in particular.
For a lot of the DFT it's actually about preventing spending on infrastructure with a love of ever more deeper studies and consultations that drag about the planning period for roads and railways until most of the time people give up.
Crossrail is an example. The was fierce campaigning against it being built and when the Cameron came to power, it was eagerly offered up as a scheme to cancel to save money. Indeed I remember stories in the Times about senior civil servants boasting about killing it off. It survived , and yes it has gone over budget, but at the moment it looks like it's going to be 20 to 25% over budget.
But it is necessary, it will be busy and will transform London. It will be worth it.
So will Hs2. It is only answer to the mainlines out of London filling up. Upgrading the existing lines is running into diminishing returns. It increases capacity on the West coast main line by 62%, midland main by 42% and the East Coast by 35%.
There is an argument that it is over engineered. In their desire to run 18 trains an hour on the new line, is leading to some expensive track construction options to foundations and track quality. The busiest high speed lines in the World run no more than 14 trains an hour. To push it higher you are increasing wear on the track, this means more maintenance but less time to do it in, when you want the line to run at full capacity. If they pushed it back down to 14 trains an hour you'd save a lot on track construction. You could compensate on the capacity by running more splitting services. Train on Hs2 can be 400m long, so almost 2 normal trains in length. Plus the services to Manchester, Leeds and Birmingham can be run with double decker trains when you need the capacity.
I think the problem we don't build that many big projects in the UK so when we do , people want it capable of doing everything. If we were serious we'd have planned 3 high speed lines in the UK, replacements for the West Coast and East Coast and New line for the South West.
The reality is, if the line to Birmingham is built, then the opposition to a new railway know they have lost. As this is the most important and expensive part. Plus once it's built all the Southern Tories will no longer care, and most Northerners will want the extensions built. Once built the next stages may take longer, but they will eventually happen.
I think the problem we don't build that many big projects in the UK so when we do , people want it capable of doing everything. If we were serious we'd have planned 3 high speed lines in the UK, replacements for the West Coast and East Coast and New line for the South West.
Excellent post all round. I've also seen a proposal for an eastern high speed line (alongside the southwestern one you mention and HS2) - out of Liverpool Street or Stratford to Stansted, then east to join the Great Eastern Main Line. The idea seems a sound way of opening up more of the East for London commuters and boosting the 'London Stansted Cambridge Corridor'.
If you wanted to help Cambridge, a very simple and cheap measure would be to rebuild the train line that ran between Sudbury and Cambridge that was closed in the 1960s. That would reconnect Cambridge and Colchester and open up a string of new commuter towns for Cambridge such as Haverhill that could do with reinvigoration.
I suspect enough of the track has been built on that re-opening it will be impossible.
Reopening would be impossible. Rebuilding would be easy enough. Suffolk and Cambridgeshire are quite empty. You’d have to move Sudbury train station but it’s not as if that’s a glittering terminus.
There’s already a proposal to build a light railway from Cambridge to Haverhill. That is worth doing all by itself but joining that to the existing spur from Marks Tey would be a simple connection with disproportionate benefits.
I think the problem we don't build that many big projects in the UK so when we do , people want it capable of doing everything. If we were serious we'd have planned 3 high speed lines in the UK, replacements for the West Coast and East Coast and New line for the South West.
Excellent post all round. I've also seen a proposal for an eastern high speed line (alongside the southwestern one you mention and HS2) - out of Liverpool Street or Stratford to Stansted, then east to join the Great Eastern Main Line. The idea seems a sound way of opening up more of the East for London commuters and boosting the 'London Stansted Cambridge Corridor'.
If you wanted to help Cambridge, a very simple and cheap measure would be to rebuild the train line that ran between Sudbury and Cambridge that was closed in the 1960s. That would reconnect Cambridge and Colchester and open up a string of new commuter towns for Cambridge such as Haverhill that could do with reinvigoration.
I suspect enough of the track has been built on that re-opening it will be impossible.
Reopening would be impossible. Rebuilding would be easy enough. Suffolk and Cambridgeshire are quite empty. You’d have to move Sudbury train station but it’s not as if that’s a glittering terminus.
There’s already a proposal to build a light railway from Cambridge to Haverhill. That is worth doing all by itself but joining that to the existing spur from Marks Tey would be a simple connection with disproportionate benefits.
Will these London-centric types never cease to show off by name dropping these trendy, urban hangouts?
I think the problem we don't build that many big projects in the UK so when we do , people want it capable of doing everything. If we were serious we'd have planned 3 high speed lines in the UK, replacements for the West Coast and East Coast and New line for the South West.
The problem is that every big project seems to come in way over budget and way behind schedule.
Currently we're getting a cost increase or time delay on HS2, Crossrail or HPC every other month.
Or if we go back a few years remember those government IT systems ?
An abandoned NHS patient record system has so far cost the taxpayer nearly £10bn, with the final bill for what would have been the world's largest civilian computer system likely to be several hundreds of millions of pounds higher, according a highly critical report from parliament's public spending watchdog.
I think the problem we don't build that many big projects in the UK so when we do , people want it capable of doing everything. If we were serious we'd have planned 3 high speed lines in the UK, replacements for the West Coast and East Coast and New line for the South West.
Excellent post all round. I've also seen a proposal for an eastern high speed line (alongside the southwestern one you mention and HS2) - out of Liverpool Street or Stratford to Stansted, then east to join the Great Eastern Main Line. The idea seems a sound way of opening up more of the East for London commuters and boosting the 'London Stansted Cambridge Corridor'.
If you wanted to help Cambridge, a very simple and cheap measure would be to rebuild the train line that ran between Sudbury and Cambridge that was closed in the 1960s. That would reconnect Cambridge and Colchester and open up a string of new commuter towns for Cambridge such as Haverhill that could do with reinvigoration.
I suspect enough of the track has been built on that re-opening it will be impossible.
Reopening would be impossible. Rebuilding would be easy enough. Suffolk and Cambridgeshire are quite empty. You’d have to move Sudbury train station but it’s not as if that’s a glittering terminus.
There’s already a proposal to build a light railway from Cambridge to Haverhill. That is worth doing all by itself but joining that to the existing spur from Marks Tey would be a simple connection with disproportionate benefits.
Will these London-centric types never cease to show off by name dropping these trendy, urban hangouts?
I’m currently posting from Manchester Piccadilly. With reference to the HS2 debate, my train up yesterday (2 hours and 5 minutes from London) had exactly two people in my carriage. If capacity is being reached, it wasn’t obvious then.
I’m all in favour of infrastructure investment. HS2 seems to be a massively expensive project with only moderate advantages. Use the money elsewhere on projects with more obvious advantages like Crossrail 2.
I can see the case for upgrading a national infrastructre that is now 150 years old. The problem with the massively expensive HS2 project is that once the commitment is made and construction is commenced, the Govt. can't cancel - even if the costs spiral to £200 bn. You can't have a high speed train from London to the middle of leafy Oxfordshire - and then stop.
And knowing that it can't be cancelled, the costs will inevitably spiral. There is no meaningful sanction to prevent that happening.
We are in rare agreement.
The other aspect is that HS2 is very unambitious. If we’re going to dig up all that countryside, shouldn’t we be installing plutonium-powered MagLev or Elon Musk vacuum tubes rather than technology that is already thirty years old? And if we are installing thirty years old technology, surely it should be cheap by way of compensation?
You mean, we should consider one form of technology that is known not to work, and another designed by a certifiable lunatic who has never yet designed anything useful (actually using a Victorian idea) ahead of technology that has worked for three decades?
Are you sure that’s not going to lead to an increase in costs?
Indeed. Look up ‘Atmospheric Railway’.
HS2 will allow large numbers of people to be moved rapidly around the country, in comfort, roughly every 5 minutes very efficiently using low carbon/no carbon green electricity.
Short of a teleporter it’s about as much of a wonder technology as we can credibly get.
You mean move them around the south of England of course, vanity project for London as usual.
Why even write that?
You know it goes to Manchester, Leeds and Sheffield and will knock an hour off the train time to Edinburgh.
Is your objection that it goes to London?
My objection is we will pay for it and it will do nothing for Scotland in teh next 50 years if it ever reaches us. As usual we pay for south east infrastructure when we are still using single lines, single lane roads. It is a southern project that might eventually in 30 plus years reach north of England, F*** all use to Scotland.
I think the problem we don't build that many big projects in the UK so when we do , people want it capable of doing everything. If we were serious we'd have planned 3 high speed lines in the UK, replacements for the West Coast and East Coast and New line for the South West.
Excellent post all round. I've also seen a proposal for an eastern high speed line (alongside the southwestern one you mention and HS2) - out of Liverpool Street or Stratford to Stansted, then east to join the Great Eastern Main Line. The idea seems a sound way of opening up more of the East for London commuters and boosting the 'London Stansted Cambridge Corridor'.
If you wanted to help Cambridge, a very simple and cheap measure would be to rebuild the train line that ran between Sudbury and Cambridge that was closed in the 1960s. That would reconnect Cambridge and Colchester and open up a string of new commuter towns for Cambridge such as Haverhill that could do with reinvigoration.
I suspect enough of the track has been built on that re-opening it will be impossible.
Reopening would be impossible. Rebuilding would be easy enough. Suffolk and Cambridgeshire are quite empty. You’d have to move Sudbury train station but it’s not as if that’s a glittering terminus.
There’s already a proposal to build a light railway from Cambridge to Haverhill. That is worth doing all by itself but joining that to the existing spur from Marks Tey would be a simple connection with disproportionate benefits.
Will these London-centric types never cease to show off by name dropping these trendy, urban hangouts?
I’m currently posting from Manchester Piccadilly. With reference to the HS2 debate, my train up yesterday (2 hours and 5 minutes from London) had exactly two people in my carriage. If capacity is being reached, it wasn’t obvious then.
*Waves from iver the road* Try travelling on the 7pm from Euston (i.e. the first off-peak after 2-ish). But anyway, tge bigger issue is track capacity - one high speed train heading through South Manchester and Cheshire takes up track that three or four commuter trains could use. That's the bigger win for Manchester - separate the fast and slow trains and you can run a much better commuter service. Of course, it's not as simple as that, as you still have your fast services to Cadiff etc on the classic network, and you don't entirely stop your fast services to London callung at Stockport ans Macc. But the more you can separate fast and slow, the more caoacity you have.
Top tip: if you like skiing, Davos this coming week is the place to be. Normally, the slopes of Davos-Klosters are filled with skiiers. Next week, the hotels are full of heads of state, and the slopes are empty. Stay down the mountain, and get the train to Klosters, and ski some of Switzerlands best slopes when they are wonderfully, bizarrely empty.
The flaw in your plan is that the conditions are shite, much like most of the Alpine range in this joke of a winter
HS2 seems to be a great example of Don't Let Great Be The Enemy Of Good. There might be projects with better paybacks. But if we spend all our time arguing over which project is best, we'll end up actually building nothing.
It's ridiculous that it's so contentious and divisive.
It's just a modern high-speed railway line running up the spine of England connecting all the major cities with the capital, whilst the others date from the Victorian era and are dangerously creaky and at capacity. It's a strategic economic enabler for the midlands and the North and will really help modal shift off domestic flights as well and liberate space on existing domestic commuter lines as well. Once it's built, it will be a step change and widely appreciated.
And yet, people go purple in the face about it - a railway line.
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For that reason even when the president is Trump it's probably safer to sit it out.
My question is more because except for AOC no other democrats are on my radar and while I'm not particularly interested in US Politics I have a lot of US friends who tweet things so I'm probably little different from anyone in the US who doesn't get their news from TV.
As others have said, excellent post. Thanks.
As for @AlastairMeeks' point about other projects I'm sure that's the case but it's the toothpaste and socks argument. If we didn't spend so much money on toothpaste and socks we could afford to do or buy something much more exciting. But we need toothpaste and socks.
There’s already a proposal to build a light railway from Cambridge to Haverhill. That is worth doing all by itself but joining that to the existing spur from Marks Tey would be a simple connection with disproportionate benefits.
Currently we're getting a cost increase or time delay on HS2, Crossrail or HPC every other month.
Or if we go back a few years remember those government IT systems ?
An abandoned NHS patient record system has so far cost the taxpayer nearly £10bn, with the final bill for what would have been the world's largest civilian computer system likely to be several hundreds of millions of pounds higher, according a highly critical report from parliament's public spending watchdog.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/sep/18/nhs-records-system-10bn
It is a southern project that might eventually in 30 plus years reach north of England, F*** all use to Scotland.
Try travelling on the 7pm from Euston (i.e. the first off-peak after 2-ish).
But anyway, tge bigger issue is track capacity - one high speed train heading through South Manchester and Cheshire takes up track that three or four commuter trains could use. That's the bigger win for Manchester - separate the fast and slow trains and you can run a much better commuter service.
Of course, it's not as simple as that, as you still have your fast services to Cadiff etc on the classic network, and you don't entirely stop your fast services to London callung at Stockport ans Macc. But the more you can separate fast and slow, the more caoacity you have.
https://www.onthesnow.co.uk/graubunden/davos-klosters/skireport.html