And of course the two main people quoted are Independent Sage members, which I notice many don't have in their twitter handles....its like they are trying to keep it on the down low these days.
Now the precedent has been set for taking extraordinary measures to “protect theNHS” there will be calls for it to happen every winter as a minimum. Or an insistence that the NHS is permanently and variably funded (ie with some sort of automatic stabilisers) to never operate at more than “90% capacity” (whatever that actually means) for more than a week at all times.
A rise in cases was predicted as part of lifting lockdowns. The difference though is vaccinations prevent cases becoming hospitalisations and deaths. 74.5% of all adults have had a vaccine. 48.1% of all adults have had two vaccines.
As well as pushing against Boris' Brexit in the 55% Remain area, the report also says the LDs are pushing a NIMBY agenda hard.
'In a letter to Tory by-election candidate Peter Fleet, Lib Dem MP Layla Moran urged him to condemn the government’s approach, writing: “Over the last two years the Conservative Party has received over £11m in donations from property developers.
“Local people are right to be angry at a Conservative Party that chooses to champion those who seek to build on the green belt rather than the views of local people in Chesham and Amersham.”
Clearly there has been a swing to the LDs there but the Tories should hold on unless the LDs can squeeze the Labour and Green vote to near zero
Isn’t HS2 likely to be an issue still as well? Especially given it’s finally under construction.
And Shapps just announced it is to go to Leeds
It is not going to be cancelled and they have started tunnelling in the Chilterns
That is good news, I hadn’t seen that. Although it looks as though they might be reducing the top speed a bit.
But I was thinking that the construction process itself will be disruptive and unpleasant. Lots of extra traffic, road closures, noise and pollution therefrom, etc.
Lines are never popular when being built (just look at how tough it was to build the original Grand Junction and Great Western mainlines, even including mustering private armies to confront recalcitrant companies).
It is really good news for the levelling up process and I agree there is going to be considerable disruption, indeed three years tunnelling under the Chilterns, but that is the price we have to pay to provide a modern high seed railway and at the same time allow the existing East and West coast mainlines to concentrate on more stopping services and services to local communities
It will do absolutely nothing for the levelling up process or the North South divide. Making it quicker to get from the Midlands to London does nothing to help employment or investment in the North. The EU knew this more than 20 years ago when they commissioned an in depth report into the effects of high speed rail links on the provinces, notably in France. All it did was draw more investment away from the regions into Paris.
So what would make a difference then?
Ooh. This is my special subject.
The research seems to suggest:
1. Devolution of powers and tax base 2. Local / public transport infrastructure designed to reduce commuting times and enable a larger commuting catchment pool 3. Local skills development 4. Thriving local chamber of commerce with participation in local economic planning 5. Policies in support of industrial clustering; university/business partnerships; investment financing.
@Richard_Tyndall is correct that high speed rail etc tend to strengthen existing imbalances.
Indeed, is there any evidence that the long established TGV network has helped the old coalfields of Picardy? Or has it just whizzed people through it, going from metropolis to metropolis?
As I mentioned, the EU published a paper about 2 decades ago on this which showed that the TGV system in France has served to suck GDP away from the regions rather than increase it. There was a very small attributable increase in overall GDP for France but the TGV increased the imbalance between Paris and the TGV destinations compared to those regions not served by the system.
I'm sure you're right. But TGV is great. Paris to Montpellier (465 miles) in a little over 3 hours is a journey we love, upstairs on the double decker trains. And it's civilised and quiet - nobody uses their mobile phones in the carriages. And they don't constantly make banal announcements over the tannoy. We should be aiming for something similar in the UK.
But there is nowhere in the UK where significant population centres are separated by 465 miles, unless you want to build HS2 from Penzance to Portree
France is more than twice the size of the UK - France arguably NEEDS high speed trains
We are a much more compact nation, where almost all our major cities are within 2-3 hours of each other. This is an advantage. We don't really need HS trains
Talk to me about increasing commuter capacity into Leeds, Brum and Manc without HS2.
Why, in 13 years, has no one opposed to HS2 come up with a better alternative given the main reason it's being built ?
Either there is no better way or those opposed have still not worked out why it is getting built.
Yes, I get that argument. As I say below. I just don't think the "high speed" by itself is a justification. We don't need it.
Anyway, thank fuck they killed the Camden Spur
What was the problem with the Camden Spur? (Apart from those who happened to have properties where it would have been built).
It meant a huge, decade-long ordeal of demolition and disruption across some of the priciest/most profitable resi and business property in north London, to achieve about 3 trains a day which might go straight from Birmingham to Paris etc
Fuck off, Brummies, northerners and Jocks. Walk from Euston to St Pancras. It's about 300 yards. Sorted
I liked the underground walkway idea that could connect them in the same way airport terminal buildings are. Not sure why they didn't do it in the end.
It's not much further than between the RER and metro platforms at Châtelet–Les Halles in Paris.
It's a shorter distance than Bank to Monument I think.
It's not just 900yds, it's a change.
I've done Leeds to Ashford International a few occasions, 2tph both n inbound and outbound, and that is typically a 45 min change with family (15 min too tight even though 99% of the distance is on concourse). I reckon if I was doing it monthly and fully oriented I'd have the 15 minute change off pat, but let's say relatively few travellers reach that level of instant orientation . A direct train would probably sit in London for a bit, but I reckon the transfer just from KGX to St Pancras is a 35 minute loss compared to what direct would be.
I reckon for North of London to the continent, that is at least an hour loss compared to a theoretical direct train, plus Eurostar is a bit less walk-up in nature for through ticketting compared to a Javelin.
It would've been really good, well beyond 900yds or moving walkway good, to have a direct route for even just a few trains a day, but hey-ho.
Yeah but for that you had to knock down my part of london, so fuck that
I always thought it was a huge mistake not to connect the North to the continent with direct trains. Who knows, perhaps we wouldn't have had Brexit if we had. But that would have required either expensive security and customs arrangements at some northern stations or the UK to have joined Schengen. (I also think we should have joined Schengen).
As well as pushing against Boris' Brexit in the 55% Remain area, the report also says the LDs are pushing a NIMBY agenda hard.
'In a letter to Tory by-election candidate Peter Fleet, Lib Dem MP Layla Moran urged him to condemn the government’s approach, writing: “Over the last two years the Conservative Party has received over £11m in donations from property developers.
“Local people are right to be angry at a Conservative Party that chooses to champion those who seek to build on the green belt rather than the views of local people in Chesham and Amersham.”
Clearly there has been a swing to the LDs there but the Tories should hold on unless the LDs can squeeze the Labour and Green vote to near zero
Isn’t HS2 likely to be an issue still as well? Especially given it’s finally under construction.
And Shapps just announced it is to go to Leeds
It is not going to be cancelled and they have started tunnelling in the Chilterns
That is good news, I hadn’t seen that. Although it looks as though they might be reducing the top speed a bit.
But I was thinking that the construction process itself will be disruptive and unpleasant. Lots of extra traffic, road closures, noise and pollution therefrom, etc.
Lines are never popular when being built (just look at how tough it was to build the original Grand Junction and Great Western mainlines, even including mustering private armies to confront recalcitrant companies).
It is really good news for the levelling up process and I agree there is going to be considerable disruption, indeed three years tunnelling under the Chilterns, but that is the price we have to pay to provide a modern high seed railway and at the same time allow the existing East and West coast mainlines to concentrate on more stopping services and services to local communities
It will do absolutely nothing for the levelling up process or the North South divide. Making it quicker to get from the Midlands to London does nothing to help employment or investment in the North. The EU knew this more than 20 years ago when they commissioned an in depth report into the effects of high speed rail links on the provinces, notably in France. All it did was draw more investment away from the regions into Paris.
So what would make a difference then?
Ooh. This is my special subject.
The research seems to suggest:
1. Devolution of powers and tax base 2. Local / public transport infrastructure designed to reduce commuting times and enable a larger commuting catchment pool 3. Local skills development 4. Thriving local chamber of commerce with participation in local economic planning 5. Policies in support of industrial clustering; university/business partnerships; investment financing.
@Richard_Tyndall is correct that high speed rail etc tend to strengthen existing imbalances.
Indeed, is there any evidence that the long established TGV network has helped the old coalfields of Picardy? Or has it just whizzed people through it, going from metropolis to metropolis?
As I mentioned, the EU published a paper about 2 decades ago on this which showed that the TGV system in France has served to suck GDP away from the regions rather than increase it. There was a very small attributable increase in overall GDP for France but the TGV increased the imbalance between Paris and the TGV destinations compared to those regions not served by the system.
I'm sure you're right. But TGV is great. Paris to Montpellier (465 miles) in a little over 3 hours is a journey we love, upstairs on the double decker trains. And it's civilised and quiet - nobody uses their mobile phones in the carriages. And they don't constantly make banal announcements over the tannoy. We should be aiming for something similar in the UK.
But there is nowhere in the UK where significant population centres are separated by 465 miles, unless you want to build HS2 from Penzance to Portree
France is more than twice the size of the UK - France arguably NEEDS high speed trains
We are a much more compact nation, where almost all our major cities are within 2-3 hours of each other. This is an advantage. We don't really need HS trains
Talk to me about increasing commuter capacity into Leeds, Brum and Manc without HS2.
Why, in 13 years, has no one opposed to HS2 come up with a better alternative given the main reason it's being built ?
Either there is no better way or those opposed have still not worked out why it is getting built.
Yes, I get that argument. As I say below. I just don't think the "high speed" by itself is a justification. We don't need it.
Anyway, thank fuck they killed the Camden Spur
What was the problem with the Camden Spur? (Apart from those who happened to have properties where it would have been built).
It meant a huge, decade-long ordeal of demolition and disruption across some of the priciest/most profitable resi and business property in north London, to achieve about 3 trains a day which might go straight from Birmingham to Paris etc
Fuck off, Brummies, northerners and Jocks. Walk from Euston to St Pancras. It's about 300 yards. Sorted
I liked the underground walkway idea that could connect them in the same way airport terminal buildings are. Not sure why they didn't do it in the end.
It's not much further than between the RER and metro platforms at Châtelet–Les Halles in Paris.
It's a shorter distance than Bank to Monument I think.
It's not just 900yds, it's a change.
I've done Leeds to Ashford International a few occasions, 2tph both n inbound and outbound, and that is typically a 45 min change with family (15 min too tight even though 99% of the distance is on concourse). I reckon if I was doing it monthly and fully oriented I'd have the 15 minute change off pat, but let's say relatively few travellers reach that level of instant orientation . A direct train would probably sit in London for a bit, but I reckon the transfer just from KGX to St Pancras is a 35 minute loss compared to what direct would be.
I reckon for North of London to the continent, that is at least an hour loss compared to a theoretical direct train, plus Eurostar is a bit less walk-up in nature for through ticketting compared to a Javelin.
It would've been really good, well beyond 900yds or moving walkway good, to have a direct route for even just a few trains a day, but hey-ho.
Yeah but for that you had to knock down my part of london, so fuck that
I always thought it was a huge mistake not to connect the North to the continent with direct trains. Who knows, perhaps we wouldn't have had Brexit if we had. But that would have required either expensive security and customs arrangements at some northern stations or the UK to have joined Schengen. (I also think we should have joined Schengen).
What's the point in connecting the North by train to the Continent when air flights are much cheaper than rail fares would be?
As well as pushing against Boris' Brexit in the 55% Remain area, the report also says the LDs are pushing a NIMBY agenda hard.
'In a letter to Tory by-election candidate Peter Fleet, Lib Dem MP Layla Moran urged him to condemn the government’s approach, writing: “Over the last two years the Conservative Party has received over £11m in donations from property developers.
“Local people are right to be angry at a Conservative Party that chooses to champion those who seek to build on the green belt rather than the views of local people in Chesham and Amersham.”
Clearly there has been a swing to the LDs there but the Tories should hold on unless the LDs can squeeze the Labour and Green vote to near zero
Isn’t HS2 likely to be an issue still as well? Especially given it’s finally under construction.
And Shapps just announced it is to go to Leeds
It is not going to be cancelled and they have started tunnelling in the Chilterns
That is good news, I hadn’t seen that. Although it looks as though they might be reducing the top speed a bit.
But I was thinking that the construction process itself will be disruptive and unpleasant. Lots of extra traffic, road closures, noise and pollution therefrom, etc.
Lines are never popular when being built (just look at how tough it was to build the original Grand Junction and Great Western mainlines, even including mustering private armies to confront recalcitrant companies).
It is really good news for the levelling up process and I agree there is going to be considerable disruption, indeed three years tunnelling under the Chilterns, but that is the price we have to pay to provide a modern high seed railway and at the same time allow the existing East and West coast mainlines to concentrate on more stopping services and services to local communities
It will do absolutely nothing for the levelling up process or the North South divide. Making it quicker to get from the Midlands to London does nothing to help employment or investment in the North. The EU knew this more than 20 years ago when they commissioned an in depth report into the effects of high speed rail links on the provinces, notably in France. All it did was draw more investment away from the regions into Paris.
So what would make a difference then?
Ooh. This is my special subject.
The research seems to suggest:
1. Devolution of powers and tax base 2. Local / public transport infrastructure designed to reduce commuting times and enable a larger commuting catchment pool 3. Local skills development 4. Thriving local chamber of commerce with participation in local economic planning 5. Policies in support of industrial clustering; university/business partnerships; investment financing.
@Richard_Tyndall is correct that high speed rail etc tend to strengthen existing imbalances.
Indeed, is there any evidence that the long established TGV network has helped the old coalfields of Picardy? Or has it just whizzed people through it, going from metropolis to metropolis?
As I mentioned, the EU published a paper about 2 decades ago on this which showed that the TGV system in France has served to suck GDP away from the regions rather than increase it. There was a very small attributable increase in overall GDP for France but the TGV increased the imbalance between Paris and the TGV destinations compared to those regions not served by the system.
I'm sure you're right. But TGV is great. Paris to Montpellier (465 miles) in a little over 3 hours is a journey we love, upstairs on the double decker trains. And it's civilised and quiet - nobody uses their mobile phones in the carriages. And they don't constantly make banal announcements over the tannoy. We should be aiming for something similar in the UK.
But there is nowhere in the UK where significant population centres are separated by 465 miles, unless you want to build HS2 from Penzance to Portree
France is more than twice the size of the UK - France arguably NEEDS high speed trains
We are a much more compact nation, where almost all our major cities are within 2-3 hours of each other. This is an advantage. We don't really need HS trains
Talk to me about increasing commuter capacity into Leeds, Brum and Manc without HS2.
Why, in 13 years, has no one opposed to HS2 come up with a better alternative given the main reason it's being built ?
Either there is no better way or those opposed have still not worked out why it is getting built.
Yes, I get that argument. As I say below. I just don't think the "high speed" by itself is a justification. We don't need it.
Anyway, thank fuck they killed the Camden Spur
What was the problem with the Camden Spur? (Apart from those who happened to have properties where it would have been built).
It meant a huge, decade-long ordeal of demolition and disruption across some of the priciest/most profitable resi and business property in north London, to achieve about 3 trains a day which might go straight from Birmingham to Paris etc
Fuck off, Brummies, northerners and Jocks. Walk from Euston to St Pancras. It's about 300 yards. Sorted
I liked the underground walkway idea that could connect them in the same way airport terminal buildings are. Not sure why they didn't do it in the end.
It's not much further than between the RER and metro platforms at Châtelet–Les Halles in Paris.
It's a shorter distance than Bank to Monument I think.
It's not just 900yds, it's a change.
I've done Leeds to Ashford International a few occasions, 2tph both n inbound and outbound, and that is typically a 45 min change with family (15 min too tight even though 99% of the distance is on concourse). I reckon if I was doing it monthly and fully oriented I'd have the 15 minute change off pat, but let's say relatively few travellers reach that level of instant orientation . A direct train would probably sit in London for a bit, but I reckon the transfer just from KGX to St Pancras is a 35 minute loss compared to what direct would be.
I reckon for North of London to the continent, that is at least an hour loss compared to a theoretical direct train, plus Eurostar is a bit less walk-up in nature for through ticketting compared to a Javelin.
It would've been really good, well beyond 900yds or moving walkway good, to have a direct route for even just a few trains a day, but hey-ho.
Yeah but for that you had to knock down my part of london, so fuck that
I always thought it was a huge mistake not to connect the North to the continent with direct trains. Who knows, perhaps we wouldn't have had Brexit if we had. But that would have required either expensive security and customs arrangements at some northern stations or the UK to have joined Schengen. (I also think we should have joined Schengen).
What's the point in connecting the North by train to the Continent when air flights are much cheaper than rail fares would be?
When I went to Paris to watch Arsenal a few years ago I drove to Luton and flew to Paris Orly. It was about £150 cheaper than the train.
That said, train prices are always inflated when there’s football. The big benefit of the train is that you arrive in city centres. As with HS2, the cost of tickets would go on the company account so I’m sure there would have been demand for Birmingham or even Manchester to Paris and Brussels.
Cookie's right down thread. HS2 will open up WCML services and enable them to be developed - look up Northern Powerhouse and Northern Powerhouse Rail who are working on a rail link from Liverpool to Hull, Rotherham and Newcastle. If you work at one end of this chain and live in the other your only commuting alternative is via the M62. The proposal, linking in to HS2 and Tans Pennine Railway, is being submitted this month. It includes electrification and turning hubs into communities with meeting and other facilities. The last wholesale rail project lasted over 150 years. Amortize the cost of HS2 and the benefits over the next 100 years.
A rise in cases was predicted as part of lifting lockdowns. The difference though is vaccinations prevent cases becoming hospitalisations and deaths. 74.5% of all adults have had a vaccine. 48.1% of all adults have had two vaccines.
No excuses to delay lifting lockdown.
It also frankly makes no real sense. Implicit within the “warnings” is clearly a belief that the restrictions have already been lifted far too much. If there is an exponential wave (or infections) going on due to the extreme high transmissibility of the ‘India variant’ then further easing post June 21st will create no real difference to outcomes. The only thing that would make a difference to infections would be some reversion to tighter measures...
So the drumbeat that lockdown are the answer drones on - and even if the Govt resists now, but definitely if they concede the “few weeks” point - we’ll be hearing the calls all winter as the strain on the NHS grows and new variants get identified. The UK’s excellent genome sequencing programme becomes a curse...
As well as pushing against Boris' Brexit in the 55% Remain area, the report also says the LDs are pushing a NIMBY agenda hard.
'In a letter to Tory by-election candidate Peter Fleet, Lib Dem MP Layla Moran urged him to condemn the government’s approach, writing: “Over the last two years the Conservative Party has received over £11m in donations from property developers.
“Local people are right to be angry at a Conservative Party that chooses to champion those who seek to build on the green belt rather than the views of local people in Chesham and Amersham.”
Clearly there has been a swing to the LDs there but the Tories should hold on unless the LDs can squeeze the Labour and Green vote to near zero
Isn’t HS2 likely to be an issue still as well? Especially given it’s finally under construction.
And Shapps just announced it is to go to Leeds
It is not going to be cancelled and they have started tunnelling in the Chilterns
That is good news, I hadn’t seen that. Although it looks as though they might be reducing the top speed a bit.
But I was thinking that the construction process itself will be disruptive and unpleasant. Lots of extra traffic, road closures, noise and pollution therefrom, etc.
Lines are never popular when being built (just look at how tough it was to build the original Grand Junction and Great Western mainlines, even including mustering private armies to confront recalcitrant companies).
It is really good news for the levelling up process and I agree there is going to be considerable disruption, indeed three years tunnelling under the Chilterns, but that is the price we have to pay to provide a modern high seed railway and at the same time allow the existing East and West coast mainlines to concentrate on more stopping services and services to local communities
It will do absolutely nothing for the levelling up process or the North South divide. Making it quicker to get from the Midlands to London does nothing to help employment or investment in the North. The EU knew this more than 20 years ago when they commissioned an in depth report into the effects of high speed rail links on the provinces, notably in France. All it did was draw more investment away from the regions into Paris.
So what would make a difference then?
Ooh. This is my special subject.
The research seems to suggest:
1. Devolution of powers and tax base 2. Local / public transport infrastructure designed to reduce commuting times and enable a larger commuting catchment pool 3. Local skills development 4. Thriving local chamber of commerce with participation in local economic planning 5. Policies in support of industrial clustering; university/business partnerships; investment financing.
@Richard_Tyndall is correct that high speed rail etc tend to strengthen existing imbalances.
Indeed, is there any evidence that the long established TGV network has helped the old coalfields of Picardy? Or has it just whizzed people through it, going from metropolis to metropolis?
As I mentioned, the EU published a paper about 2 decades ago on this which showed that the TGV system in France has served to suck GDP away from the regions rather than increase it. There was a very small attributable increase in overall GDP for France but the TGV increased the imbalance between Paris and the TGV destinations compared to those regions not served by the system.
I'm sure you're right. But TGV is great. Paris to Montpellier (465 miles) in a little over 3 hours is a journey we love, upstairs on the double decker trains. And it's civilised and quiet - nobody uses their mobile phones in the carriages. And they don't constantly make banal announcements over the tannoy. We should be aiming for something similar in the UK.
But there is nowhere in the UK where significant population centres are separated by 465 miles, unless you want to build HS2 from Penzance to Portree
France is more than twice the size of the UK - France arguably NEEDS high speed trains
We are a much more compact nation, where almost all our major cities are within 2-3 hours of each other. This is an advantage. We don't really need HS trains
Talk to me about increasing commuter capacity into Leeds, Brum and Manc without HS2.
Why, in 13 years, has no one opposed to HS2 come up with a better alternative given the main reason it's being built ?
Either there is no better way or those opposed have still not worked out why it is getting built.
Yes, I get that argument. As I say below. I just don't think the "high speed" by itself is a justification. We don't need it.
Anyway, thank fuck they killed the Camden Spur
What was the problem with the Camden Spur? (Apart from those who happened to have properties where it would have been built).
It meant a huge, decade-long ordeal of demolition and disruption across some of the priciest/most profitable resi and business property in north London, to achieve about 3 trains a day which might go straight from Birmingham to Paris etc
Fuck off, Brummies, northerners and Jocks. Walk from Euston to St Pancras. It's about 300 yards. Sorted
I liked the underground walkway idea that could connect them in the same way airport terminal buildings are. Not sure why they didn't do it in the end.
It's not much further than between the RER and metro platforms at Châtelet–Les Halles in Paris.
It's a shorter distance than Bank to Monument I think.
It's not just 900yds, it's a change.
I've done Leeds to Ashford International a few occasions, 2tph both n inbound and outbound, and that is typically a 45 min change with family (15 min too tight even though 99% of the distance is on concourse). I reckon if I was doing it monthly and fully oriented I'd have the 15 minute change off pat, but let's say relatively few travellers reach that level of instant orientation . A direct train would probably sit in London for a bit, but I reckon the transfer just from KGX to St Pancras is a 35 minute loss compared to what direct would be.
I reckon for North of London to the continent, that is at least an hour loss compared to a theoretical direct train, plus Eurostar is a bit less walk-up in nature for through ticketting compared to a Javelin.
It would've been really good, well beyond 900yds or moving walkway good, to have a direct route for even just a few trains a day, but hey-ho.
Yeah but for that you had to knock down my part of london, so fuck that
I always thought it was a huge mistake not to connect the North to the continent with direct trains. Who knows, perhaps we wouldn't have had Brexit if we had. But that would have required either expensive security and customs arrangements at some northern stations or the UK to have joined Schengen. (I also think we should have joined Schengen).
What's the point in connecting the North by train to the Continent when air flights are much cheaper than rail fares would be?
The PM was insistent that commuting will come back and that "it needs to come back".
That’s an interesting quote from the PM, and similar to his comments last autumn about going back to offices.
I’m not sure government yet understands, how much of a permanent step-change in working patterns has occurred in the last 15 months. It has profound implications for areas such as transport and housing that will not be thought about, if the assumption is that 2022 work and life patterns look exactly the same as 2019 did.
People actually don’t like spending three hours a day commuting, productivity isn’t massively suffering as a result, and companies are realising they don’t need quite so many city centre offices.
As well as pushing against Boris' Brexit in the 55% Remain area, the report also says the LDs are pushing a NIMBY agenda hard.
'In a letter to Tory by-election candidate Peter Fleet, Lib Dem MP Layla Moran urged him to condemn the government’s approach, writing: “Over the last two years the Conservative Party has received over £11m in donations from property developers.
“Local people are right to be angry at a Conservative Party that chooses to champion those who seek to build on the green belt rather than the views of local people in Chesham and Amersham.”
Clearly there has been a swing to the LDs there but the Tories should hold on unless the LDs can squeeze the Labour and Green vote to near zero
Isn’t HS2 likely to be an issue still as well? Especially given it’s finally under construction.
And Shapps just announced it is to go to Leeds
It is not going to be cancelled and they have started tunnelling in the Chilterns
That is good news, I hadn’t seen that. Although it looks as though they might be reducing the top speed a bit.
But I was thinking that the construction process itself will be disruptive and unpleasant. Lots of extra traffic, road closures, noise and pollution therefrom, etc.
Lines are never popular when being built (just look at how tough it was to build the original Grand Junction and Great Western mainlines, even including mustering private armies to confront recalcitrant companies).
It is really good news for the levelling up process and I agree there is going to be considerable disruption, indeed three years tunnelling under the Chilterns, but that is the price we have to pay to provide a modern high seed railway and at the same time allow the existing East and West coast mainlines to concentrate on more stopping services and services to local communities
It will do absolutely nothing for the levelling up process or the North South divide. Making it quicker to get from the Midlands to London does nothing to help employment or investment in the North. The EU knew this more than 20 years ago when they commissioned an in depth report into the effects of high speed rail links on the provinces, notably in France. All it did was draw more investment away from the regions into Paris.
So what would make a difference then?
Ooh. This is my special subject.
The research seems to suggest:
1. Devolution of powers and tax base 2. Local / public transport infrastructure designed to reduce commuting times and enable a larger commuting catchment pool 3. Local skills development 4. Thriving local chamber of commerce with participation in local economic planning 5. Policies in support of industrial clustering; university/business partnerships; investment financing.
@Richard_Tyndall is correct that high speed rail etc tend to strengthen existing imbalances.
Indeed, is there any evidence that the long established TGV network has helped the old coalfields of Picardy? Or has it just whizzed people through it, going from metropolis to metropolis?
As I mentioned, the EU published a paper about 2 decades ago on this which showed that the TGV system in France has served to suck GDP away from the regions rather than increase it. There was a very small attributable increase in overall GDP for France but the TGV increased the imbalance between Paris and the TGV destinations compared to those regions not served by the system.
I'm sure you're right. But TGV is great. Paris to Montpellier (465 miles) in a little over 3 hours is a journey we love, upstairs on the double decker trains. And it's civilised and quiet - nobody uses their mobile phones in the carriages. And they don't constantly make banal announcements over the tannoy. We should be aiming for something similar in the UK.
But there is nowhere in the UK where significant population centres are separated by 465 miles, unless you want to build HS2 from Penzance to Portree
France is more than twice the size of the UK - France arguably NEEDS high speed trains
We are a much more compact nation, where almost all our major cities are within 2-3 hours of each other. This is an advantage. We don't really need HS trains
Talk to me about increasing commuter capacity into Leeds, Brum and Manc without HS2.
Why, in 13 years, has no one opposed to HS2 come up with a better alternative given the main reason it's being built ?
Either there is no better way or those opposed have still not worked out why it is getting built.
Yes, I get that argument. As I say below. I just don't think the "high speed" by itself is a justification. We don't need it.
Anyway, thank fuck they killed the Camden Spur
What was the problem with the Camden Spur? (Apart from those who happened to have properties where it would have been built).
It meant a huge, decade-long ordeal of demolition and disruption across some of the priciest/most profitable resi and business property in north London, to achieve about 3 trains a day which might go straight from Birmingham to Paris etc
Fuck off, Brummies, northerners and Jocks. Walk from Euston to St Pancras. It's about 300 yards. Sorted
I liked the underground walkway idea that could connect them in the same way airport terminal buildings are. Not sure why they didn't do it in the end.
It's not much further than between the RER and metro platforms at Châtelet–Les Halles in Paris.
It's a shorter distance than Bank to Monument I think.
It's not just 900yds, it's a change.
I've done Leeds to Ashford International a few occasions, 2tph both n inbound and outbound, and that is typically a 45 min change with family (15 min too tight even though 99% of the distance is on concourse). I reckon if I was doing it monthly and fully oriented I'd have the 15 minute change off pat, but let's say relatively few travellers reach that level of instant orientation . A direct train would probably sit in London for a bit, but I reckon the transfer just from KGX to St Pancras is a 35 minute loss compared to what direct would be.
I reckon for North of London to the continent, that is at least an hour loss compared to a theoretical direct train, plus Eurostar is a bit less walk-up in nature for through ticketting compared to a Javelin.
It would've been really good, well beyond 900yds or moving walkway good, to have a direct route for even just a few trains a day, but hey-ho.
Yeah but for that you had to knock down my part of london, so fuck that
I always thought it was a huge mistake not to connect the North to the continent with direct trains. Who knows, perhaps we wouldn't have had Brexit if we had. But that would have required either expensive security and customs arrangements at some northern stations or the UK to have joined Schengen. (I also think we should have joined Schengen).
What's the point in connecting the North by train to the Continent when air flights are much cheaper than rail fares would be?
Good morning folks. A bit later than usual. Back Holiday sleep in! Temp 13.2degC here, according to my phone app.
Big advantage of trains over planes is that they go to the middle of the city one wants to get to, rather than half-an-hours (expensive) taxi ride outside.
Mr. Sandpit, when I was in China some years ago it was 35-40C for quite a lot of the time. Not fantastic, although thankfully drier heat than the UK, and plenty of AC.
As well as pushing against Boris' Brexit in the 55% Remain area, the report also says the LDs are pushing a NIMBY agenda hard.
'In a letter to Tory by-election candidate Peter Fleet, Lib Dem MP Layla Moran urged him to condemn the government’s approach, writing: “Over the last two years the Conservative Party has received over £11m in donations from property developers.
“Local people are right to be angry at a Conservative Party that chooses to champion those who seek to build on the green belt rather than the views of local people in Chesham and Amersham.”
Clearly there has been a swing to the LDs there but the Tories should hold on unless the LDs can squeeze the Labour and Green vote to near zero
Isn’t HS2 likely to be an issue still as well? Especially given it’s finally under construction.
And Shapps just announced it is to go to Leeds
It is not going to be cancelled and they have started tunnelling in the Chilterns
That is good news, I hadn’t seen that. Although it looks as though they might be reducing the top speed a bit.
But I was thinking that the construction process itself will be disruptive and unpleasant. Lots of extra traffic, road closures, noise and pollution therefrom, etc.
Lines are never popular when being built (just look at how tough it was to build the original Grand Junction and Great Western mainlines, even including mustering private armies to confront recalcitrant companies).
It is really good news for the levelling up process and I agree there is going to be considerable disruption, indeed three years tunnelling under the Chilterns, but that is the price we have to pay to provide a modern high seed railway and at the same time allow the existing East and West coast mainlines to concentrate on more stopping services and services to local communities
It will do absolutely nothing for the levelling up process or the North South divide. Making it quicker to get from the Midlands to London does nothing to help employment or investment in the North. The EU knew this more than 20 years ago when they commissioned an in depth report into the effects of high speed rail links on the provinces, notably in France. All it did was draw more investment away from the regions into Paris.
So what would make a difference then?
Ooh. This is my special subject.
The research seems to suggest:
1. Devolution of powers and tax base 2. Local / public transport infrastructure designed to reduce commuting times and enable a larger commuting catchment pool 3. Local skills development 4. Thriving local chamber of commerce with participation in local economic planning 5. Policies in support of industrial clustering; university/business partnerships; investment financing.
@Richard_Tyndall is correct that high speed rail etc tend to strengthen existing imbalances.
Indeed, is there any evidence that the long established TGV network has helped the old coalfields of Picardy? Or has it just whizzed people through it, going from metropolis to metropolis?
As I mentioned, the EU published a paper about 2 decades ago on this which showed that the TGV system in France has served to suck GDP away from the regions rather than increase it. There was a very small attributable increase in overall GDP for France but the TGV increased the imbalance between Paris and the TGV destinations compared to those regions not served by the system.
I'm sure you're right. But TGV is great. Paris to Montpellier (465 miles) in a little over 3 hours is a journey we love, upstairs on the double decker trains. And it's civilised and quiet - nobody uses their mobile phones in the carriages. And they don't constantly make banal announcements over the tannoy. We should be aiming for something similar in the UK.
But there is nowhere in the UK where significant population centres are separated by 465 miles, unless you want to build HS2 from Penzance to Portree
France is more than twice the size of the UK - France arguably NEEDS high speed trains
We are a much more compact nation, where almost all our major cities are within 2-3 hours of each other. This is an advantage. We don't really need HS trains
Talk to me about increasing commuter capacity into Leeds, Brum and Manc without HS2.
Why, in 13 years, has no one opposed to HS2 come up with a better alternative given the main reason it's being built ?
Either there is no better way or those opposed have still not worked out why it is getting built.
Yes, I get that argument. As I say below. I just don't think the "high speed" by itself is a justification. We don't need it.
Anyway, thank fuck they killed the Camden Spur
What was the problem with the Camden Spur? (Apart from those who happened to have properties where it would have been built).
It meant a huge, decade-long ordeal of demolition and disruption across some of the priciest/most profitable resi and business property in north London, to achieve about 3 trains a day which might go straight from Birmingham to Paris etc
Fuck off, Brummies, northerners and Jocks. Walk from Euston to St Pancras. It's about 300 yards. Sorted
I liked the underground walkway idea that could connect them in the same way airport terminal buildings are. Not sure why they didn't do it in the end.
It's not much further than between the RER and metro platforms at Châtelet–Les Halles in Paris.
It's a shorter distance than Bank to Monument I think.
It's not just 900yds, it's a change.
I've done Leeds to Ashford International a few occasions, 2tph both n inbound and outbound, and that is typically a 45 min change with family (15 min too tight even though 99% of the distance is on concourse). I reckon if I was doing it monthly and fully oriented I'd have the 15 minute change off pat, but let's say relatively few travellers reach that level of instant orientation . A direct train would probably sit in London for a bit, but I reckon the transfer just from KGX to St Pancras is a 35 minute loss compared to what direct would be.
I reckon for North of London to the continent, that is at least an hour loss compared to a theoretical direct train, plus Eurostar is a bit less walk-up in nature for through ticketting compared to a Javelin.
It would've been really good, well beyond 900yds or moving walkway good, to have a direct route for even just a few trains a day, but hey-ho.
Yeah but for that you had to knock down my part of london, so fuck that
I always thought it was a huge mistake not to connect the North to the continent with direct trains. Who knows, perhaps we wouldn't have had Brexit if we had. But that would have required either expensive security and customs arrangements at some northern stations or the UK to have joined Schengen. (I also think we should have joined Schengen).
What's the point in connecting the North by train to the Continent when air flights are much cheaper than rail fares would be?
Global warming.
And that would have meant we wouldn't have Brexited how?
Beside the only solution to climate change is clean technologies like clean planes. 🤦♂️
Without clean planes the planet can't realistically reach Net Zero. With clean planes, there's no reason to use an inferior, more expensive, slower technology.
People wanting to use HS1 to the continent from the Midlands and North are probably better served by using Midland Main Line into St Pancras, and just going down the escalator. Far nicer than the walk from Euson with luggage. Far more locations served too.
The PM was insistent that commuting will come back and that "it needs to come back".
That’s an interesting quote from the PM, and similar to his comments last autumn about going back to offices.
I’m not sure government yet understands, how much of a permanent step-change in working patterns has occurred in the last 15 months. It has profound implications for areas such as transport and housing that will not be thought about, if the assumption is that 2022 work and life patterns look exactly the same as 2019 did.
People actually don’t like spending three hours a day commuting, productivity isn’t massively suffering as a result, and companies are realising they don’t need quite so many city centre offices.
I don’t know. Personally I wonder if the supposed “no massive suffering in productivity” hasn’t been stretched to the limit, and the fraying ropes could start to break very soon. As turnover in the jobs market begins to ramp up again and personnel and training gaps start to become increasingly apparent. I think we’ve had a year where many larger organisations will have become very disjointed, with large amounts of work being done in very small teams frozen in March 2020, but with growing levels of disconnectivity to the wider organisation. And that has to start having a big impact at some point.
As well as pushing against Boris' Brexit in the 55% Remain area, the report also says the LDs are pushing a NIMBY agenda hard.
'In a letter to Tory by-election candidate Peter Fleet, Lib Dem MP Layla Moran urged him to condemn the government’s approach, writing: “Over the last two years the Conservative Party has received over £11m in donations from property developers.
“Local people are right to be angry at a Conservative Party that chooses to champion those who seek to build on the green belt rather than the views of local people in Chesham and Amersham.”
Clearly there has been a swing to the LDs there but the Tories should hold on unless the LDs can squeeze the Labour and Green vote to near zero
Isn’t HS2 likely to be an issue still as well? Especially given it’s finally under construction.
And Shapps just announced it is to go to Leeds
It is not going to be cancelled and they have started tunnelling in the Chilterns
That is good news, I hadn’t seen that. Although it looks as though they might be reducing the top speed a bit.
But I was thinking that the construction process itself will be disruptive and unpleasant. Lots of extra traffic, road closures, noise and pollution therefrom, etc.
Lines are never popular when being built (just look at how tough it was to build the original Grand Junction and Great Western mainlines, even including mustering private armies to confront recalcitrant companies).
It is really good news for the levelling up process and I agree there is going to be considerable disruption, indeed three years tunnelling under the Chilterns, but that is the price we have to pay to provide a modern high seed railway and at the same time allow the existing East and West coast mainlines to concentrate on more stopping services and services to local communities
It will do absolutely nothing for the levelling up process or the North South divide. Making it quicker to get from the Midlands to London does nothing to help employment or investment in the North. The EU knew this more than 20 years ago when they commissioned an in depth report into the effects of high speed rail links on the provinces, notably in France. All it did was draw more investment away from the regions into Paris.
So what would make a difference then?
Ooh. This is my special subject.
The research seems to suggest:
1. Devolution of powers and tax base 2. Local / public transport infrastructure designed to reduce commuting times and enable a larger commuting catchment pool 3. Local skills development 4. Thriving local chamber of commerce with participation in local economic planning 5. Policies in support of industrial clustering; university/business partnerships; investment financing.
@Richard_Tyndall is correct that high speed rail etc tend to strengthen existing imbalances.
Indeed, is there any evidence that the long established TGV network has helped the old coalfields of Picardy? Or has it just whizzed people through it, going from metropolis to metropolis?
As I mentioned, the EU published a paper about 2 decades ago on this which showed that the TGV system in France has served to suck GDP away from the regions rather than increase it. There was a very small attributable increase in overall GDP for France but the TGV increased the imbalance between Paris and the TGV destinations compared to those regions not served by the system.
I'm sure you're right. But TGV is great. Paris to Montpellier (465 miles) in a little over 3 hours is a journey we love, upstairs on the double decker trains. And it's civilised and quiet - nobody uses their mobile phones in the carriages. And they don't constantly make banal announcements over the tannoy. We should be aiming for something similar in the UK.
But there is nowhere in the UK where significant population centres are separated by 465 miles, unless you want to build HS2 from Penzance to Portree
France is more than twice the size of the UK - France arguably NEEDS high speed trains
We are a much more compact nation, where almost all our major cities are within 2-3 hours of each other. This is an advantage. We don't really need HS trains
Talk to me about increasing commuter capacity into Leeds, Brum and Manc without HS2.
Why, in 13 years, has no one opposed to HS2 come up with a better alternative given the main reason it's being built ?
Either there is no better way or those opposed have still not worked out why it is getting built.
Yes, I get that argument. As I say below. I just don't think the "high speed" by itself is a justification. We don't need it.
Anyway, thank fuck they killed the Camden Spur
Don't agree. I'm really annoyed I can't get to, say, Orange without having to stop in London and get out and lug all the luggage. Utterly barbaric.
Agree 100%.
Just dialling back two or three comments; to be clear, the point of High Speed 2 isn't High Speed. Of all the problems with rail in this country, the adrquacy of journey times between London and Manchester is not high up the list. What HS2 is about is capacity. We do not have enough capacity on our rails - especially the WCML - to run all the services we would like (inter-city, local and freight), In particualr, mixing high speed and low speed kills capacity (freight and local can mix reasonably well as both average a similar speed). So what we need is new track. If we are doing this, why not engineer it so that it can go as fast? But speed is not the driver.
It’s all about capacity, and a massive amount of that is freight and the need to get lorries off the roads as much as possible. It’s expensive and inefficient to move containers one at a time across the country, not to mention that the various climate targets - whatever we think of them - require a lot fewer lorries on the roads than we have now.
The Camden link will almost certainly happen eventually, whether as a viaduct or more likely a tunnel. When the Chilterns tunnelling is finished, they need to move the machine to the Pennines to work on speeding up the East > West routes.
As well as pushing against Boris' Brexit in the 55% Remain area, the report also says the LDs are pushing a NIMBY agenda hard.
'In a letter to Tory by-election candidate Peter Fleet, Lib Dem MP Layla Moran urged him to condemn the government’s approach, writing: “Over the last two years the Conservative Party has received over £11m in donations from property developers.
“Local people are right to be angry at a Conservative Party that chooses to champion those who seek to build on the green belt rather than the views of local people in Chesham and Amersham.”
Clearly there has been a swing to the LDs there but the Tories should hold on unless the LDs can squeeze the Labour and Green vote to near zero
Isn’t HS2 likely to be an issue still as well? Especially given it’s finally under construction.
And Shapps just announced it is to go to Leeds
It is not going to be cancelled and they have started tunnelling in the Chilterns
That is good news, I hadn’t seen that. Although it looks as though they might be reducing the top speed a bit.
But I was thinking that the construction process itself will be disruptive and unpleasant. Lots of extra traffic, road closures, noise and pollution therefrom, etc.
Lines are never popular when being built (just look at how tough it was to build the original Grand Junction and Great Western mainlines, even including mustering private armies to confront recalcitrant companies).
It is really good news for the levelling up process and I agree there is going to be considerable disruption, indeed three years tunnelling under the Chilterns, but that is the price we have to pay to provide a modern high seed railway and at the same time allow the existing East and West coast mainlines to concentrate on more stopping services and services to local communities
It will do absolutely nothing for the levelling up process or the North South divide. Making it quicker to get from the Midlands to London does nothing to help employment or investment in the North. The EU knew this more than 20 years ago when they commissioned an in depth report into the effects of high speed rail links on the provinces, notably in France. All it did was draw more investment away from the regions into Paris.
So what would make a difference then?
Ooh. This is my special subject.
The research seems to suggest:
1. Devolution of powers and tax base 2. Local / public transport infrastructure designed to reduce commuting times and enable a larger commuting catchment pool 3. Local skills development 4. Thriving local chamber of commerce with participation in local economic planning 5. Policies in support of industrial clustering; university/business partnerships; investment financing.
@Richard_Tyndall is correct that high speed rail etc tend to strengthen existing imbalances.
Indeed, is there any evidence that the long established TGV network has helped the old coalfields of Picardy? Or has it just whizzed people through it, going from metropolis to metropolis?
As I mentioned, the EU published a paper about 2 decades ago on this which showed that the TGV system in France has served to suck GDP away from the regions rather than increase it. There was a very small attributable increase in overall GDP for France but the TGV increased the imbalance between Paris and the TGV destinations compared to those regions not served by the system.
I'm sure you're right. But TGV is great. Paris to Montpellier (465 miles) in a little over 3 hours is a journey we love, upstairs on the double decker trains. And it's civilised and quiet - nobody uses their mobile phones in the carriages. And they don't constantly make banal announcements over the tannoy. We should be aiming for something similar in the UK.
But there is nowhere in the UK where significant population centres are separated by 465 miles, unless you want to build HS2 from Penzance to Portree
France is more than twice the size of the UK - France arguably NEEDS high speed trains
We are a much more compact nation, where almost all our major cities are within 2-3 hours of each other. This is an advantage. We don't really need HS trains
Talk to me about increasing commuter capacity into Leeds, Brum and Manc without HS2.
Why, in 13 years, has no one opposed to HS2 come up with a better alternative given the main reason it's being built ?
Either there is no better way or those opposed have still not worked out why it is getting built.
Yes, I get that argument. As I say below. I just don't think the "high speed" by itself is a justification. We don't need it.
Anyway, thank fuck they killed the Camden Spur
What was the problem with the Camden Spur? (Apart from those who happened to have properties where it would have been built).
It meant a huge, decade-long ordeal of demolition and disruption across some of the priciest/most profitable resi and business property in north London, to achieve about 3 trains a day which might go straight from Birmingham to Paris etc
Fuck off, Brummies, northerners and Jocks. Walk from Euston to St Pancras. It's about 300 yards. Sorted
I liked the underground walkway idea that could connect them in the same way airport terminal buildings are. Not sure why they didn't do it in the end.
It's not much further than between the RER and metro platforms at Châtelet–Les Halles in Paris.
It's a shorter distance than Bank to Monument I think.
It's not just 900yds, it's a change.
I've done Leeds to Ashford International a few occasions, 2tph both n inbound and outbound, and that is typically a 45 min change with family (15 min too tight even though 99% of the distance is on concourse). I reckon if I was doing it monthly and fully oriented I'd have the 15 minute change off pat, but let's say relatively few travellers reach that level of instant orientation . A direct train would probably sit in London for a bit, but I reckon the transfer just from KGX to St Pancras is a 35 minute loss compared to what direct would be.
I reckon for North of London to the continent, that is at least an hour loss compared to a theoretical direct train, plus Eurostar is a bit less walk-up in nature for through ticketting compared to a Javelin.
It would've been really good, well beyond 900yds or moving walkway good, to have a direct route for even just a few trains a day, but hey-ho.
Yeah but for that you had to knock down my part of london, so fuck that
I always thought it was a huge mistake not to connect the North to the continent with direct trains. Who knows, perhaps we wouldn't have had Brexit if we had. But that would have required either expensive security and customs arrangements at some northern stations or the UK to have joined Schengen. (I also think we should have joined Schengen).
What's the point in connecting the North by train to the Continent when air flights are much cheaper than rail fares would be?
Good morning folks. A bit later than usual. Back Holiday sleep in! Temp 13.2degC here, according to my phone app.
Big advantage of trains over planes is that they go to the middle of the city one wants to get to, rather than half-an-hours (expensive) taxi ride outside.
Don't most major cities have a train service that goes from the airport to the middle of the city one wants to get to? Plus often other stops too if you don't want to go to the middle of the city.
Last time I travelled a domestic train to the airport, flight, domestic train to destination was considerably cheaper and faster than trying to do the entire route by rail.
As well as pushing against Boris' Brexit in the 55% Remain area, the report also says the LDs are pushing a NIMBY agenda hard.
'In a letter to Tory by-election candidate Peter Fleet, Lib Dem MP Layla Moran urged him to condemn the government’s approach, writing: “Over the last two years the Conservative Party has received over £11m in donations from property developers.
“Local people are right to be angry at a Conservative Party that chooses to champion those who seek to build on the green belt rather than the views of local people in Chesham and Amersham.”
Clearly there has been a swing to the LDs there but the Tories should hold on unless the LDs can squeeze the Labour and Green vote to near zero
Isn’t HS2 likely to be an issue still as well? Especially given it’s finally under construction.
And Shapps just announced it is to go to Leeds
It is not going to be cancelled and they have started tunnelling in the Chilterns
That is good news, I hadn’t seen that. Although it looks as though they might be reducing the top speed a bit.
But I was thinking that the construction process itself will be disruptive and unpleasant. Lots of extra traffic, road closures, noise and pollution therefrom, etc.
Lines are never popular when being built (just look at how tough it was to build the original Grand Junction and Great Western mainlines, even including mustering private armies to confront recalcitrant companies).
It is really good news for the levelling up process and I agree there is going to be considerable disruption, indeed three years tunnelling under the Chilterns, but that is the price we have to pay to provide a modern high seed railway and at the same time allow the existing East and West coast mainlines to concentrate on more stopping services and services to local communities
It will do absolutely nothing for the levelling up process or the North South divide. Making it quicker to get from the Midlands to London does nothing to help employment or investment in the North. The EU knew this more than 20 years ago when they commissioned an in depth report into the effects of high speed rail links on the provinces, notably in France. All it did was draw more investment away from the regions into Paris.
So what would make a difference then?
Ooh. This is my special subject.
The research seems to suggest:
1. Devolution of powers and tax base 2. Local / public transport infrastructure designed to reduce commuting times and enable a larger commuting catchment pool 3. Local skills development 4. Thriving local chamber of commerce with participation in local economic planning 5. Policies in support of industrial clustering; university/business partnerships; investment financing.
@Richard_Tyndall is correct that high speed rail etc tend to strengthen existing imbalances.
Indeed, is there any evidence that the long established TGV network has helped the old coalfields of Picardy? Or has it just whizzed people through it, going from metropolis to metropolis?
As I mentioned, the EU published a paper about 2 decades ago on this which showed that the TGV system in France has served to suck GDP away from the regions rather than increase it. There was a very small attributable increase in overall GDP for France but the TGV increased the imbalance between Paris and the TGV destinations compared to those regions not served by the system.
I'm sure you're right. But TGV is great. Paris to Montpellier (465 miles) in a little over 3 hours is a journey we love, upstairs on the double decker trains. And it's civilised and quiet - nobody uses their mobile phones in the carriages. And they don't constantly make banal announcements over the tannoy. We should be aiming for something similar in the UK.
But there is nowhere in the UK where significant population centres are separated by 465 miles, unless you want to build HS2 from Penzance to Portree
France is more than twice the size of the UK - France arguably NEEDS high speed trains
We are a much more compact nation, where almost all our major cities are within 2-3 hours of each other. This is an advantage. We don't really need HS trains
Talk to me about increasing commuter capacity into Leeds, Brum and Manc without HS2.
Why, in 13 years, has no one opposed to HS2 come up with a better alternative given the main reason it's being built ?
Either there is no better way or those opposed have still not worked out why it is getting built.
Yes, I get that argument. As I say below. I just don't think the "high speed" by itself is a justification. We don't need it.
Anyway, thank fuck they killed the Camden Spur
What was the problem with the Camden Spur? (Apart from those who happened to have properties where it would have been built).
It meant a huge, decade-long ordeal of demolition and disruption across some of the priciest/most profitable resi and business property in north London, to achieve about 3 trains a day which might go straight from Birmingham to Paris etc
Fuck off, Brummies, northerners and Jocks. Walk from Euston to St Pancras. It's about 300 yards. Sorted
I liked the underground walkway idea that could connect them in the same way airport terminal buildings are. Not sure why they didn't do it in the end.
It's not much further than between the RER and metro platforms at Châtelet–Les Halles in Paris.
It's a shorter distance than Bank to Monument I think.
It's not just 900yds, it's a change.
I've done Leeds to Ashford International a few occasions, 2tph both n inbound and outbound, and that is typically a 45 min change with family (15 min too tight even though 99% of the distance is on concourse). I reckon if I was doing it monthly and fully oriented I'd have the 15 minute change off pat, but let's say relatively few travellers reach that level of instant orientation . A direct train would probably sit in London for a bit, but I reckon the transfer just from KGX to St Pancras is a 35 minute loss compared to what direct would be.
I reckon for North of London to the continent, that is at least an hour loss compared to a theoretical direct train, plus Eurostar is a bit less walk-up in nature for through ticketting compared to a Javelin.
It would've been really good, well beyond 900yds or moving walkway good, to have a direct route for even just a few trains a day, but hey-ho.
Yeah but for that you had to knock down my part of london, so fuck that
I always thought it was a huge mistake not to connect the North to the continent with direct trains. Who knows, perhaps we wouldn't have had Brexit if we had. But that would have required either expensive security and customs arrangements at some northern stations or the UK to have joined Schengen. (I also think we should have joined Schengen).
What's the point in connecting the North by train to the Continent when air flights are much cheaper than rail fares would be?
Global warming.
And that would have meant we wouldn't have Brexited how?
Beside the only solution to climate change is clean technologies like clean planes. 🤦♂️
Without clean planes the planet can't realistically reach Net Zero. With clean planes, there's no reason to use an inferior, more expensive, slower technology.
The advantage of high speed rail over "clean planes" is that the former exist. I think that giving the rest of the UK better links to the rest of the EU might have helped them see the point of it. In London, you can get to Paris quicker than to many places in the North, and I think that is part of the reason that for Londoners it always looked so daft to cut our connections with the continent. Would it have swung the vote? Perhaps. Perhaps not. It was pretty close as I am sure you recall.
The PM was insistent that commuting will come back and that "it needs to come back".
That’s an interesting quote from the PM, and similar to his comments last autumn about going back to offices.
I’m not sure government yet understands, how much of a permanent step-change in working patterns has occurred in the last 15 months. It has profound implications for areas such as transport and housing that will not be thought about, if the assumption is that 2022 work and life patterns look exactly the same as 2019 did.
People actually don’t like spending three hours a day commuting, productivity isn’t massively suffering as a result, and companies are realising they don’t need quite so many city centre offices.
Come the next election, if train travel is still well below what it was pre-pandemic, the Tories will have a hard time defending HS2, especially if they’re implementing austerity on steroids.
As well as pushing against Boris' Brexit in the 55% Remain area, the report also says the LDs are pushing a NIMBY agenda hard.
'In a letter to Tory by-election candidate Peter Fleet, Lib Dem MP Layla Moran urged him to condemn the government’s approach, writing: “Over the last two years the Conservative Party has received over £11m in donations from property developers.
“Local people are right to be angry at a Conservative Party that chooses to champion those who seek to build on the green belt rather than the views of local people in Chesham and Amersham.”
Clearly there has been a swing to the LDs there but the Tories should hold on unless the LDs can squeeze the Labour and Green vote to near zero
Isn’t HS2 likely to be an issue still as well? Especially given it’s finally under construction.
And Shapps just announced it is to go to Leeds
It is not going to be cancelled and they have started tunnelling in the Chilterns
That is good news, I hadn’t seen that. Although it looks as though they might be reducing the top speed a bit.
But I was thinking that the construction process itself will be disruptive and unpleasant. Lots of extra traffic, road closures, noise and pollution therefrom, etc.
Lines are never popular when being built (just look at how tough it was to build the original Grand Junction and Great Western mainlines, even including mustering private armies to confront recalcitrant companies).
It is really good news for the levelling up process and I agree there is going to be considerable disruption, indeed three years tunnelling under the Chilterns, but that is the price we have to pay to provide a modern high seed railway and at the same time allow the existing East and West coast mainlines to concentrate on more stopping services and services to local communities
It will do absolutely nothing for the levelling up process or the North South divide. Making it quicker to get from the Midlands to London does nothing to help employment or investment in the North. The EU knew this more than 20 years ago when they commissioned an in depth report into the effects of high speed rail links on the provinces, notably in France. All it did was draw more investment away from the regions into Paris.
So what would make a difference then?
Ooh. This is my special subject.
The research seems to suggest:
1. Devolution of powers and tax base 2. Local / public transport infrastructure designed to reduce commuting times and enable a larger commuting catchment pool 3. Local skills development 4. Thriving local chamber of commerce with participation in local economic planning 5. Policies in support of industrial clustering; university/business partnerships; investment financing.
@Richard_Tyndall is correct that high speed rail etc tend to strengthen existing imbalances.
Indeed, is there any evidence that the long established TGV network has helped the old coalfields of Picardy? Or has it just whizzed people through it, going from metropolis to metropolis?
As I mentioned, the EU published a paper about 2 decades ago on this which showed that the TGV system in France has served to suck GDP away from the regions rather than increase it. There was a very small attributable increase in overall GDP for France but the TGV increased the imbalance between Paris and the TGV destinations compared to those regions not served by the system.
I'm sure you're right. But TGV is great. Paris to Montpellier (465 miles) in a little over 3 hours is a journey we love, upstairs on the double decker trains. And it's civilised and quiet - nobody uses their mobile phones in the carriages. And they don't constantly make banal announcements over the tannoy. We should be aiming for something similar in the UK.
But there is nowhere in the UK where significant population centres are separated by 465 miles, unless you want to build HS2 from Penzance to Portree
France is more than twice the size of the UK - France arguably NEEDS high speed trains
We are a much more compact nation, where almost all our major cities are within 2-3 hours of each other. This is an advantage. We don't really need HS trains
Talk to me about increasing commuter capacity into Leeds, Brum and Manc without HS2.
Why, in 13 years, has no one opposed to HS2 come up with a better alternative given the main reason it's being built ?
Either there is no better way or those opposed have still not worked out why it is getting built.
Yes, I get that argument. As I say below. I just don't think the "high speed" by itself is a justification. We don't need it.
Anyway, thank fuck they killed the Camden Spur
Don't agree. I'm really annoyed I can't get to, say, Orange without having to stop in London and get out and lug all the luggage. Utterly barbaric.
Agree 100%.
Just dialling back two or three comments; to be clear, the point of High Speed 2 isn't High Speed. Of all the problems with rail in this country, the adrquacy of journey times between London and Manchester is not high up the list. What HS2 is about is capacity. We do not have enough capacity on our rails - especially the WCML - to run all the services we would like (inter-city, local and freight), In particualr, mixing high speed and low speed kills capacity (freight and local can mix reasonably well as both average a similar speed). So what we need is new track. If we are doing this, why not engineer it so that it can go as fast? But speed is not the driver.
It’s all about capacity, and a massive amount of that is freight and the need to get lorries off the roads as much as possible. It’s expensive and inefficient to move containers one at a time across the country, not to mention that the various climate targets - whatever we think of them - require a lot fewer lorries on the roads than we have now.
The Camden link will almost certainly happen eventually, whether as a viaduct or more likely a tunnel. When the Chilterns tunnelling is finished, they need to move the machine to the Pennines to work on speeding up the East > West routes.
Rail freight makes a lot more sense in an era of electric vehicles. Long distance electric HGV don't sound very viable.
As well as pushing against Boris' Brexit in the 55% Remain area, the report also says the LDs are pushing a NIMBY agenda hard.
'In a letter to Tory by-election candidate Peter Fleet, Lib Dem MP Layla Moran urged him to condemn the government’s approach, writing: “Over the last two years the Conservative Party has received over £11m in donations from property developers.
“Local people are right to be angry at a Conservative Party that chooses to champion those who seek to build on the green belt rather than the views of local people in Chesham and Amersham.”
Clearly there has been a swing to the LDs there but the Tories should hold on unless the LDs can squeeze the Labour and Green vote to near zero
Isn’t HS2 likely to be an issue still as well? Especially given it’s finally under construction.
And Shapps just announced it is to go to Leeds
It is not going to be cancelled and they have started tunnelling in the Chilterns
That is good news, I hadn’t seen that. Although it looks as though they might be reducing the top speed a bit.
But I was thinking that the construction process itself will be disruptive and unpleasant. Lots of extra traffic, road closures, noise and pollution therefrom, etc.
Lines are never popular when being built (just look at how tough it was to build the original Grand Junction and Great Western mainlines, even including mustering private armies to confront recalcitrant companies).
It is really good news for the levelling up process and I agree there is going to be considerable disruption, indeed three years tunnelling under the Chilterns, but that is the price we have to pay to provide a modern high seed railway and at the same time allow the existing East and West coast mainlines to concentrate on more stopping services and services to local communities
It will do absolutely nothing for the levelling up process or the North South divide. Making it quicker to get from the Midlands to London does nothing to help employment or investment in the North. The EU knew this more than 20 years ago when they commissioned an in depth report into the effects of high speed rail links on the provinces, notably in France. All it did was draw more investment away from the regions into Paris.
So what would make a difference then?
Ooh. This is my special subject.
The research seems to suggest:
1. Devolution of powers and tax base 2. Local / public transport infrastructure designed to reduce commuting times and enable a larger commuting catchment pool 3. Local skills development 4. Thriving local chamber of commerce with participation in local economic planning 5. Policies in support of industrial clustering; university/business partnerships; investment financing.
@Richard_Tyndall is correct that high speed rail etc tend to strengthen existing imbalances.
Indeed, is there any evidence that the long established TGV network has helped the old coalfields of Picardy? Or has it just whizzed people through it, going from metropolis to metropolis?
As I mentioned, the EU published a paper about 2 decades ago on this which showed that the TGV system in France has served to suck GDP away from the regions rather than increase it. There was a very small attributable increase in overall GDP for France but the TGV increased the imbalance between Paris and the TGV destinations compared to those regions not served by the system.
I'm sure you're right. But TGV is great. Paris to Montpellier (465 miles) in a little over 3 hours is a journey we love, upstairs on the double decker trains. And it's civilised and quiet - nobody uses their mobile phones in the carriages. And they don't constantly make banal announcements over the tannoy. We should be aiming for something similar in the UK.
But there is nowhere in the UK where significant population centres are separated by 465 miles, unless you want to build HS2 from Penzance to Portree
France is more than twice the size of the UK - France arguably NEEDS high speed trains
We are a much more compact nation, where almost all our major cities are within 2-3 hours of each other. This is an advantage. We don't really need HS trains
Talk to me about increasing commuter capacity into Leeds, Brum and Manc without HS2.
Why, in 13 years, has no one opposed to HS2 come up with a better alternative given the main reason it's being built ?
Either there is no better way or those opposed have still not worked out why it is getting built.
Yes, I get that argument. As I say below. I just don't think the "high speed" by itself is a justification. We don't need it.
Anyway, thank fuck they killed the Camden Spur
Don't agree. I'm really annoyed I can't get to, say, Orange without having to stop in London and get out and lug all the luggage. Utterly barbaric.
Agree 100%.
Just dialling back two or three comments; to be clear, the point of High Speed 2 isn't High Speed. Of all the problems with rail in this country, the adrquacy of journey times between London and Manchester is not high up the list. What HS2 is about is capacity. We do not have enough capacity on our rails - especially the WCML - to run all the services we would like (inter-city, local and freight), In particualr, mixing high speed and low speed kills capacity (freight and local can mix reasonably well as both average a similar speed). So what we need is new track. If we are doing this, why not engineer it so that it can go as fast? But speed is not the driver.
It’s all about capacity, and a massive amount of that is freight and the need to get lorries off the roads as much as possible. It’s expensive and inefficient to move containers one at a time across the country, not to mention that the various climate targets - whatever we think of them - require a lot fewer lorries on the roads than we have now.
The Camden link will almost certainly happen eventually, whether as a viaduct or more likely a tunnel. When the Chilterns tunnelling is finished, they need to move the machine to the Pennines to work on speeding up the East > West routes.
Interesting counterfactual to wonder how the debate on HS2 would have developed if the HS hadn’t been bolted on as a “nice to have” bonus...
Hospital admissions, vaccine status, age profile, and outbreak areas are essential information
Yesterday an argument was being put forward that as the NHS has such a backlog which they are starting to address, they cannot accept any rise in covid patients
Now that is turning the narrative on its head, and on that basis the Country will be locked down for months, even years, and it is just not acceptable
I was angry and a rebel yesterday, largely because the media and independent sage have taken over the narrative with their zero covid, eliminate covid strategy, which is just not feasible and in order to convince many millions of citizens, including myself, that we have to have further delays there has to be far more transparent figures on hospital admissions
Of course I would comply with restrictions if it is proven they are needed, but I am not persuaded by those who seem to have taken over the agenda
Let us not forget that there are many opponents of Boris driven by many who have not come to terms with Brexit, that to prevent the 21st June opening would see it as a political win to their cause, and it is not being driven by the actual clinical reality
I would include Independent Sage and large parts of the broadcast media in that category
Mr. Sandpit, when I was in China some years ago it was 35-40C for quite a lot of the time. Not fantastic, although thankfully drier heat than the UK, and plenty of AC.
Yes, it’s the humidity that does it. In the middle of the summer here, we see close to 50°C, and on the humid days your sunglasses immediately steam up when moving from inside to outside. It’s quite horrible during the summer months, although the year up until a couple of weeks ago has been lovely. Will be horrible until about October, which is why in a normal year so many people travel away from it all.
As well as pushing against Boris' Brexit in the 55% Remain area, the report also says the LDs are pushing a NIMBY agenda hard.
'In a letter to Tory by-election candidate Peter Fleet, Lib Dem MP Layla Moran urged him to condemn the government’s approach, writing: “Over the last two years the Conservative Party has received over £11m in donations from property developers.
“Local people are right to be angry at a Conservative Party that chooses to champion those who seek to build on the green belt rather than the views of local people in Chesham and Amersham.”
Clearly there has been a swing to the LDs there but the Tories should hold on unless the LDs can squeeze the Labour and Green vote to near zero
Isn’t HS2 likely to be an issue still as well? Especially given it’s finally under construction.
And Shapps just announced it is to go to Leeds
It is not going to be cancelled and they have started tunnelling in the Chilterns
That is good news, I hadn’t seen that. Although it looks as though they might be reducing the top speed a bit.
But I was thinking that the construction process itself will be disruptive and unpleasant. Lots of extra traffic, road closures, noise and pollution therefrom, etc.
Lines are never popular when being built (just look at how tough it was to build the original Grand Junction and Great Western mainlines, even including mustering private armies to confront recalcitrant companies).
It is really good news for the levelling up process and I agree there is going to be considerable disruption, indeed three years tunnelling under the Chilterns, but that is the price we have to pay to provide a modern high seed railway and at the same time allow the existing East and West coast mainlines to concentrate on more stopping services and services to local communities
It will do absolutely nothing for the levelling up process or the North South divide. Making it quicker to get from the Midlands to London does nothing to help employment or investment in the North. The EU knew this more than 20 years ago when they commissioned an in depth report into the effects of high speed rail links on the provinces, notably in France. All it did was draw more investment away from the regions into Paris.
So what would make a difference then?
Ooh. This is my special subject.
The research seems to suggest:
1. Devolution of powers and tax base 2. Local / public transport infrastructure designed to reduce commuting times and enable a larger commuting catchment pool 3. Local skills development 4. Thriving local chamber of commerce with participation in local economic planning 5. Policies in support of industrial clustering; university/business partnerships; investment financing.
@Richard_Tyndall is correct that high speed rail etc tend to strengthen existing imbalances.
Indeed, is there any evidence that the long established TGV network has helped the old coalfields of Picardy? Or has it just whizzed people through it, going from metropolis to metropolis?
As I mentioned, the EU published a paper about 2 decades ago on this which showed that the TGV system in France has served to suck GDP away from the regions rather than increase it. There was a very small attributable increase in overall GDP for France but the TGV increased the imbalance between Paris and the TGV destinations compared to those regions not served by the system.
I'm sure you're right. But TGV is great. Paris to Montpellier (465 miles) in a little over 3 hours is a journey we love, upstairs on the double decker trains. And it's civilised and quiet - nobody uses their mobile phones in the carriages. And they don't constantly make banal announcements over the tannoy. We should be aiming for something similar in the UK.
But there is nowhere in the UK where significant population centres are separated by 465 miles, unless you want to build HS2 from Penzance to Portree
France is more than twice the size of the UK - France arguably NEEDS high speed trains
We are a much more compact nation, where almost all our major cities are within 2-3 hours of each other. This is an advantage. We don't really need HS trains
Talk to me about increasing commuter capacity into Leeds, Brum and Manc without HS2.
Why, in 13 years, has no one opposed to HS2 come up with a better alternative given the main reason it's being built ?
Either there is no better way or those opposed have still not worked out why it is getting built.
Yes, I get that argument. As I say below. I just don't think the "high speed" by itself is a justification. We don't need it.
Anyway, thank fuck they killed the Camden Spur
Don't agree. I'm really annoyed I can't get to, say, Orange without having to stop in London and get out and lug all the luggage. Utterly barbaric.
Agree 100%.
Just dialling back two or three comments; to be clear, the point of High Speed 2 isn't High Speed. Of all the problems with rail in this country, the adrquacy of journey times between London and Manchester is not high up the list. What HS2 is about is capacity. We do not have enough capacity on our rails - especially the WCML - to run all the services we would like (inter-city, local and freight), In particualr, mixing high speed and low speed kills capacity (freight and local can mix reasonably well as both average a similar speed). So what we need is new track. If we are doing this, why not engineer it so that it can go as fast? But speed is not the driver.
It’s all about capacity, and a massive amount of that is freight and the need to get lorries off the roads as much as possible. It’s expensive and inefficient to move containers one at a time across the country, not to mention that the various climate targets - whatever we think of them - require a lot fewer lorries on the roads than we have now.
The Camden link will almost certainly happen eventually, whether as a viaduct or more likely a tunnel. When the Chilterns tunnelling is finished, they need to move the machine to the Pennines to work on speeding up the East > West routes.
But you still need lorries to take individual containers from Daventry, Lawley Street or Trafford Park to their final destination. It’s because we’re a small country that road haulage makes sense.
As well as pushing against Boris' Brexit in the 55% Remain area, the report also says the LDs are pushing a NIMBY agenda hard.
'In a letter to Tory by-election candidate Peter Fleet, Lib Dem MP Layla Moran urged him to condemn the government’s approach, writing: “Over the last two years the Conservative Party has received over £11m in donations from property developers.
“Local people are right to be angry at a Conservative Party that chooses to champion those who seek to build on the green belt rather than the views of local people in Chesham and Amersham.”
Clearly there has been a swing to the LDs there but the Tories should hold on unless the LDs can squeeze the Labour and Green vote to near zero
Isn’t HS2 likely to be an issue still as well? Especially given it’s finally under construction.
And Shapps just announced it is to go to Leeds
It is not going to be cancelled and they have started tunnelling in the Chilterns
That is good news, I hadn’t seen that. Although it looks as though they might be reducing the top speed a bit.
But I was thinking that the construction process itself will be disruptive and unpleasant. Lots of extra traffic, road closures, noise and pollution therefrom, etc.
Lines are never popular when being built (just look at how tough it was to build the original Grand Junction and Great Western mainlines, even including mustering private armies to confront recalcitrant companies).
It is really good news for the levelling up process and I agree there is going to be considerable disruption, indeed three years tunnelling under the Chilterns, but that is the price we have to pay to provide a modern high seed railway and at the same time allow the existing East and West coast mainlines to concentrate on more stopping services and services to local communities
It will do absolutely nothing for the levelling up process or the North South divide. Making it quicker to get from the Midlands to London does nothing to help employment or investment in the North. The EU knew this more than 20 years ago when they commissioned an in depth report into the effects of high speed rail links on the provinces, notably in France. All it did was draw more investment away from the regions into Paris.
So what would make a difference then?
Ooh. This is my special subject.
The research seems to suggest:
1. Devolution of powers and tax base 2. Local / public transport infrastructure designed to reduce commuting times and enable a larger commuting catchment pool 3. Local skills development 4. Thriving local chamber of commerce with participation in local economic planning 5. Policies in support of industrial clustering; university/business partnerships; investment financing.
@Richard_Tyndall is correct that high speed rail etc tend to strengthen existing imbalances.
Indeed, is there any evidence that the long established TGV network has helped the old coalfields of Picardy? Or has it just whizzed people through it, going from metropolis to metropolis?
As I mentioned, the EU published a paper about 2 decades ago on this which showed that the TGV system in France has served to suck GDP away from the regions rather than increase it. There was a very small attributable increase in overall GDP for France but the TGV increased the imbalance between Paris and the TGV destinations compared to those regions not served by the system.
I'm sure you're right. But TGV is great. Paris to Montpellier (465 miles) in a little over 3 hours is a journey we love, upstairs on the double decker trains. And it's civilised and quiet - nobody uses their mobile phones in the carriages. And they don't constantly make banal announcements over the tannoy. We should be aiming for something similar in the UK.
But there is nowhere in the UK where significant population centres are separated by 465 miles, unless you want to build HS2 from Penzance to Portree
France is more than twice the size of the UK - France arguably NEEDS high speed trains
We are a much more compact nation, where almost all our major cities are within 2-3 hours of each other. This is an advantage. We don't really need HS trains
Talk to me about increasing commuter capacity into Leeds, Brum and Manc without HS2.
Why, in 13 years, has no one opposed to HS2 come up with a better alternative given the main reason it's being built ?
Either there is no better way or those opposed have still not worked out why it is getting built.
Yes, I get that argument. As I say below. I just don't think the "high speed" by itself is a justification. We don't need it.
Anyway, thank fuck they killed the Camden Spur
Don't agree. I'm really annoyed I can't get to, say, Orange without having to stop in London and get out and lug all the luggage. Utterly barbaric.
Agree 100%.
Just dialling back two or three comments; to be clear, the point of High Speed 2 isn't High Speed. Of all the problems with rail in this country, the adrquacy of journey times between London and Manchester is not high up the list. What HS2 is about is capacity. We do not have enough capacity on our rails - especially the WCML - to run all the services we would like (inter-city, local and freight), In particualr, mixing high speed and low speed kills capacity (freight and local can mix reasonably well as both average a similar speed). So what we need is new track. If we are doing this, why not engineer it so that it can go as fast? But speed is not the driver.
It’s all about capacity, and a massive amount of that is freight and the need to get lorries off the roads as much as possible. It’s expensive and inefficient to move containers one at a time across the country, not to mention that the various climate targets - whatever we think of them - require a lot fewer lorries on the roads than we have now.
The Camden link will almost certainly happen eventually, whether as a viaduct or more likely a tunnel. When the Chilterns tunnelling is finished, they need to move the machine to the Pennines to work on speeding up the East > West routes.
Why do we need to get freight off the road? There's a reason in this country 89% of freight moves by road.
Rail makes sense for freight with large nations moving huge volumes of goods from A to very long distance away B. That's not the UK.
If all you're moving is a relatively small volume of goods a relatively small distance then HGVs make much more sense. Which is why ~89% of freight in this country is moved by HGV and only ~5% by rail and that's never going to change.
My in-laws live in a mining town in the Canadian Rockies. Except for discussions of climate, seeing the train depart from the mine is an impressive thing of beauty. I swear it must be hundreds of carriages departing on one train further than the eyes can see in both directions, it takes minutes for the whole train to go past - and they're going to travel many hundreds or even thousands of km.
Hospital admissions, vaccine status, age profile, and outbreak areas are essential
Yesterday an argument was being put forward that as the NHS has such a backlog which they are starting to address they cannot accept any rise in covid patients
Now that is turning the narrative on its head and on that basis the Country will be locked down for months, even years, and it is just not acceptable
I was angry and a rebel yesterday largely because the media and independent sage have taken over the narrative with their zero covid, eliminate covid strategy which is just not feasible and in order to convince many millions of citizens, including myself, that we have to have further delays there has to be far more transparent figures on hospital admissions
Some of the arguments put yesterday were even worse than that. They were arguing that further loosening of restrictions would lead to a rise in non-Covid related admissions, and that the current lack of NHS capacity means they couldn’t cope with that. It is setting the ground work arguments for restrictions on personal freedoms even in a world without Covid - to be told we can’t do things every time there are winter shortages in flu season or whatever.
As well as pushing against Boris' Brexit in the 55% Remain area, the report also says the LDs are pushing a NIMBY agenda hard.
'In a letter to Tory by-election candidate Peter Fleet, Lib Dem MP Layla Moran urged him to condemn the government’s approach, writing: “Over the last two years the Conservative Party has received over £11m in donations from property developers.
“Local people are right to be angry at a Conservative Party that chooses to champion those who seek to build on the green belt rather than the views of local people in Chesham and Amersham.”
Clearly there has been a swing to the LDs there but the Tories should hold on unless the LDs can squeeze the Labour and Green vote to near zero
Isn’t HS2 likely to be an issue still as well? Especially given it’s finally under construction.
And Shapps just announced it is to go to Leeds
It is not going to be cancelled and they have started tunnelling in the Chilterns
That is good news, I hadn’t seen that. Although it looks as though they might be reducing the top speed a bit.
But I was thinking that the construction process itself will be disruptive and unpleasant. Lots of extra traffic, road closures, noise and pollution therefrom, etc.
Lines are never popular when being built (just look at how tough it was to build the original Grand Junction and Great Western mainlines, even including mustering private armies to confront recalcitrant companies).
It is really good news for the levelling up process and I agree there is going to be considerable disruption, indeed three years tunnelling under the Chilterns, but that is the price we have to pay to provide a modern high seed railway and at the same time allow the existing East and West coast mainlines to concentrate on more stopping services and services to local communities
It will do absolutely nothing for the levelling up process or the North South divide. Making it quicker to get from the Midlands to London does nothing to help employment or investment in the North. The EU knew this more than 20 years ago when they commissioned an in depth report into the effects of high speed rail links on the provinces, notably in France. All it did was draw more investment away from the regions into Paris.
So what would make a difference then?
Ooh. This is my special subject.
The research seems to suggest:
1. Devolution of powers and tax base 2. Local / public transport infrastructure designed to reduce commuting times and enable a larger commuting catchment pool 3. Local skills development 4. Thriving local chamber of commerce with participation in local economic planning 5. Policies in support of industrial clustering; university/business partnerships; investment financing.
@Richard_Tyndall is correct that high speed rail etc tend to strengthen existing imbalances.
Indeed, is there any evidence that the long established TGV network has helped the old coalfields of Picardy? Or has it just whizzed people through it, going from metropolis to metropolis?
As I mentioned, the EU published a paper about 2 decades ago on this which showed that the TGV system in France has served to suck GDP away from the regions rather than increase it. There was a very small attributable increase in overall GDP for France but the TGV increased the imbalance between Paris and the TGV destinations compared to those regions not served by the system.
I'm sure you're right. But TGV is great. Paris to Montpellier (465 miles) in a little over 3 hours is a journey we love, upstairs on the double decker trains. And it's civilised and quiet - nobody uses their mobile phones in the carriages. And they don't constantly make banal announcements over the tannoy. We should be aiming for something similar in the UK.
But there is nowhere in the UK where significant population centres are separated by 465 miles, unless you want to build HS2 from Penzance to Portree
France is more than twice the size of the UK - France arguably NEEDS high speed trains
We are a much more compact nation, where almost all our major cities are within 2-3 hours of each other. This is an advantage. We don't really need HS trains
Talk to me about increasing commuter capacity into Leeds, Brum and Manc without HS2.
Why, in 13 years, has no one opposed to HS2 come up with a better alternative given the main reason it's being built ?
Either there is no better way or those opposed have still not worked out why it is getting built.
Yes, I get that argument. As I say below. I just don't think the "high speed" by itself is a justification. We don't need it.
Anyway, thank fuck they killed the Camden Spur
Don't agree. I'm really annoyed I can't get to, say, Orange without having to stop in London and get out and lug all the luggage. Utterly barbaric.
Agree 100%.
Just dialling back two or three comments; to be clear, the point of High Speed 2 isn't High Speed. Of all the problems with rail in this country, the adrquacy of journey times between London and Manchester is not high up the list. What HS2 is about is capacity. We do not have enough capacity on our rails - especially the WCML - to run all the services we would like (inter-city, local and freight), In particualr, mixing high speed and low speed kills capacity (freight and local can mix reasonably well as both average a similar speed). So what we need is new track. If we are doing this, why not engineer it so that it can go as fast? But speed is not the driver.
It’s all about capacity, and a massive amount of that is freight and the need to get lorries off the roads as much as possible. It’s expensive and inefficient to move containers one at a time across the country, not to mention that the various climate targets - whatever we think of them - require a lot fewer lorries on the roads than we have now.
The Camden link will almost certainly happen eventually, whether as a viaduct or more likely a tunnel. When the Chilterns tunnelling is finished, they need to move the machine to the Pennines to work on speeding up the East > West routes.
But you still need lorries to take individual containers from Daventry, Lawley Street or Trafford Park to their final destination. It’s because we’re a small country that road haulage makes sense.
That leg would work with electric HGV as much shorter range. Long distance not so much.
As well as pushing against Boris' Brexit in the 55% Remain area, the report also says the LDs are pushing a NIMBY agenda hard.
'In a letter to Tory by-election candidate Peter Fleet, Lib Dem MP Layla Moran urged him to condemn the government’s approach, writing: “Over the last two years the Conservative Party has received over £11m in donations from property developers.
“Local people are right to be angry at a Conservative Party that chooses to champion those who seek to build on the green belt rather than the views of local people in Chesham and Amersham.”
Clearly there has been a swing to the LDs there but the Tories should hold on unless the LDs can squeeze the Labour and Green vote to near zero
Isn’t HS2 likely to be an issue still as well? Especially given it’s finally under construction.
And Shapps just announced it is to go to Leeds
It is not going to be cancelled and they have started tunnelling in the Chilterns
That is good news, I hadn’t seen that. Although it looks as though they might be reducing the top speed a bit.
But I was thinking that the construction process itself will be disruptive and unpleasant. Lots of extra traffic, road closures, noise and pollution therefrom, etc.
Lines are never popular when being built (just look at how tough it was to build the original Grand Junction and Great Western mainlines, even including mustering private armies to confront recalcitrant companies).
It is really good news for the levelling up process and I agree there is going to be considerable disruption, indeed three years tunnelling under the Chilterns, but that is the price we have to pay to provide a modern high seed railway and at the same time allow the existing East and West coast mainlines to concentrate on more stopping services and services to local communities
It will do absolutely nothing for the levelling up process or the North South divide. Making it quicker to get from the Midlands to London does nothing to help employment or investment in the North. The EU knew this more than 20 years ago when they commissioned an in depth report into the effects of high speed rail links on the provinces, notably in France. All it did was draw more investment away from the regions into Paris.
So what would make a difference then?
Ooh. This is my special subject.
The research seems to suggest:
1. Devolution of powers and tax base 2. Local / public transport infrastructure designed to reduce commuting times and enable a larger commuting catchment pool 3. Local skills development 4. Thriving local chamber of commerce with participation in local economic planning 5. Policies in support of industrial clustering; university/business partnerships; investment financing.
@Richard_Tyndall is correct that high speed rail etc tend to strengthen existing imbalances.
Indeed, is there any evidence that the long established TGV network has helped the old coalfields of Picardy? Or has it just whizzed people through it, going from metropolis to metropolis?
As I mentioned, the EU published a paper about 2 decades ago on this which showed that the TGV system in France has served to suck GDP away from the regions rather than increase it. There was a very small attributable increase in overall GDP for France but the TGV increased the imbalance between Paris and the TGV destinations compared to those regions not served by the system.
I'm sure you're right. But TGV is great. Paris to Montpellier (465 miles) in a little over 3 hours is a journey we love, upstairs on the double decker trains. And it's civilised and quiet - nobody uses their mobile phones in the carriages. And they don't constantly make banal announcements over the tannoy. We should be aiming for something similar in the UK.
But there is nowhere in the UK where significant population centres are separated by 465 miles, unless you want to build HS2 from Penzance to Portree
France is more than twice the size of the UK - France arguably NEEDS high speed trains
We are a much more compact nation, where almost all our major cities are within 2-3 hours of each other. This is an advantage. We don't really need HS trains
Talk to me about increasing commuter capacity into Leeds, Brum and Manc without HS2.
Why, in 13 years, has no one opposed to HS2 come up with a better alternative given the main reason it's being built ?
Either there is no better way or those opposed have still not worked out why it is getting built.
Yes, I get that argument. As I say below. I just don't think the "high speed" by itself is a justification. We don't need it.
Anyway, thank fuck they killed the Camden Spur
What was the problem with the Camden Spur? (Apart from those who happened to have properties where it would have been built).
It meant a huge, decade-long ordeal of demolition and disruption across some of the priciest/most profitable resi and business property in north London, to achieve about 3 trains a day which might go straight from Birmingham to Paris etc
Fuck off, Brummies, northerners and Jocks. Walk from Euston to St Pancras. It's about 300 yards. Sorted
I liked the underground walkway idea that could connect them in the same way airport terminal buildings are. Not sure why they didn't do it in the end.
It's not much further than between the RER and metro platforms at Châtelet–Les Halles in Paris.
It's a shorter distance than Bank to Monument I think.
It's not just 900yds, it's a change.
I've done Leeds to Ashford International a few occasions, 2tph both n inbound and outbound, and that is typically a 45 min change with family (15 min too tight even though 99% of the distance is on concourse). I reckon if I was doing it monthly and fully oriented I'd have the 15 minute change off pat, but let's say relatively few travellers reach that level of instant orientation . A direct train would probably sit in London for a bit, but I reckon the transfer just from KGX to St Pancras is a 35 minute loss compared to what direct would be.
I reckon for North of London to the continent, that is at least an hour loss compared to a theoretical direct train, plus Eurostar is a bit less walk-up in nature for through ticketting compared to a Javelin.
It would've been really good, well beyond 900yds or moving walkway good, to have a direct route for even just a few trains a day, but hey-ho.
Yeah but for that you had to knock down my part of london, so fuck that
I always thought it was a huge mistake not to connect the North to the continent with direct trains. Who knows, perhaps we wouldn't have had Brexit if we had. But that would have required either expensive security and customs arrangements at some northern stations or the UK to have joined Schengen. (I also think we should have joined Schengen).
What's the point in connecting the North by train to the Continent when air flights are much cheaper than rail fares would be?
Global warming.
And that would have meant we wouldn't have Brexited how?
Beside the only solution to climate change is clean technologies like clean planes. 🤦♂️
Without clean planes the planet can't realistically reach Net Zero. With clean planes, there's no reason to use an inferior, more expensive, slower technology.
The advantage of high speed rail over "clean planes" is that the former exist. I think that giving the rest of the UK better links to the rest of the EU might have helped them see the point of it. In London, you can get to Paris quicker than to many places in the North, and I think that is part of the reason that for Londoners it always looked so daft to cut our connections with the continent. Would it have swung the vote? Perhaps. Perhaps not. It was pretty close as I am sure you recall.
If you actually want to help the environment and not just virtue signal then the only solution is to make clean planes exist.
If you can't do that then countries around the world aren't going to abandon flights and for trains.
Helping to ensure leaps forward in technology for things that don't exist yet but are needed for the nation is one thing the state can actually get involved in reasonably well. A vaccine challenge style investment in clean plane technologies will do more than any pissing in the wind trying to get people to abandon flights.
The PM was insistent that commuting will come back and that "it needs to come back".
That’s an interesting quote from the PM, and similar to his comments last autumn about going back to offices.
I’m not sure government yet understands, how much of a permanent step-change in working patterns has occurred in the last 15 months. It has profound implications for areas such as transport and housing that will not be thought about, if the assumption is that 2022 work and life patterns look exactly the same as 2019 did.
People actually don’t like spending three hours a day commuting, productivity isn’t massively suffering as a result, and companies are realising they don’t need quite so many city centre offices.
I don’t know. Personally I wonder if the supposed “no massive suffering in productivity” hasn’t been stretched to the limit, and the fraying ropes could start to break very soon. As turnover in the jobs market begins to ramp up again and personnel and training gaps start to become increasingly apparent. I think we’ve had a year where many larger organisations will have become very disjointed, with large amounts of work being done in very small teams frozen in March 2020, but with growing levels of disconnectivity to the wider organisation. And that has to start having a big impact at some point.
Yes, there has definitely been an effect on larger businesses, which as you suggest might reach a point where inefficiency becomes an issue. It’s definitely more difficult to integrate new members into a team, for example, and there’s probably less communication between teams than would be the case if everyone were in the office.
But it’s also true that a lot of the recruitment over the past year, has been based on remote working - the new hires don’t ever expect to be told to go to London five days a week, and they live all over the country. The productivity numbers are also fed by salaries and office costs reducing, if people don’t need to commute and buy lunch every day.
The business to invest in, for the next few years, is going to be budget hotels in city business districts. There’s going to be a lot of people working two days a week in the office. Rail use will be more long-distance routes than commuter routes too.
Major Poblem for Lib Dems. I expect them to win Chesham on a landslide, all the vibes are currently indicating that could happen. However within 2 weeks Batley and Spen votes and they will struggle to get into a double figure percentage. So Chesham will leave the public mind with the media going overboard if the Tories win "up north". Best result at Batley for the Libs would be a Labour win.
As well as pushing against Boris' Brexit in the 55% Remain area, the report also says the LDs are pushing a NIMBY agenda hard.
'In a letter to Tory by-election candidate Peter Fleet, Lib Dem MP Layla Moran urged him to condemn the government’s approach, writing: “Over the last two years the Conservative Party has received over £11m in donations from property developers.
“Local people are right to be angry at a Conservative Party that chooses to champion those who seek to build on the green belt rather than the views of local people in Chesham and Amersham.”
Clearly there has been a swing to the LDs there but the Tories should hold on unless the LDs can squeeze the Labour and Green vote to near zero
Isn’t HS2 likely to be an issue still as well? Especially given it’s finally under construction.
And Shapps just announced it is to go to Leeds
It is not going to be cancelled and they have started tunnelling in the Chilterns
That is good news, I hadn’t seen that. Although it looks as though they might be reducing the top speed a bit.
But I was thinking that the construction process itself will be disruptive and unpleasant. Lots of extra traffic, road closures, noise and pollution therefrom, etc.
Lines are never popular when being built (just look at how tough it was to build the original Grand Junction and Great Western mainlines, even including mustering private armies to confront recalcitrant companies).
It is really good news for the levelling up process and I agree there is going to be considerable disruption, indeed three years tunnelling under the Chilterns, but that is the price we have to pay to provide a modern high seed railway and at the same time allow the existing East and West coast mainlines to concentrate on more stopping services and services to local communities
It will do absolutely nothing for the levelling up process or the North South divide. Making it quicker to get from the Midlands to London does nothing to help employment or investment in the North. The EU knew this more than 20 years ago when they commissioned an in depth report into the effects of high speed rail links on the provinces, notably in France. All it did was draw more investment away from the regions into Paris.
So what would make a difference then?
Ooh. This is my special subject.
The research seems to suggest:
1. Devolution of powers and tax base 2. Local / public transport infrastructure designed to reduce commuting times and enable a larger commuting catchment pool 3. Local skills development 4. Thriving local chamber of commerce with participation in local economic planning 5. Policies in support of industrial clustering; university/business partnerships; investment financing.
@Richard_Tyndall is correct that high speed rail etc tend to strengthen existing imbalances.
Indeed, is there any evidence that the long established TGV network has helped the old coalfields of Picardy? Or has it just whizzed people through it, going from metropolis to metropolis?
As I mentioned, the EU published a paper about 2 decades ago on this which showed that the TGV system in France has served to suck GDP away from the regions rather than increase it. There was a very small attributable increase in overall GDP for France but the TGV increased the imbalance between Paris and the TGV destinations compared to those regions not served by the system.
I'm sure you're right. But TGV is great. Paris to Montpellier (465 miles) in a little over 3 hours is a journey we love, upstairs on the double decker trains. And it's civilised and quiet - nobody uses their mobile phones in the carriages. And they don't constantly make banal announcements over the tannoy. We should be aiming for something similar in the UK.
But there is nowhere in the UK where significant population centres are separated by 465 miles, unless you want to build HS2 from Penzance to Portree
France is more than twice the size of the UK - France arguably NEEDS high speed trains
We are a much more compact nation, where almost all our major cities are within 2-3 hours of each other. This is an advantage. We don't really need HS trains
Talk to me about increasing commuter capacity into Leeds, Brum and Manc without HS2.
Why, in 13 years, has no one opposed to HS2 come up with a better alternative given the main reason it's being built ?
Either there is no better way or those opposed have still not worked out why it is getting built.
Yes, I get that argument. As I say below. I just don't think the "high speed" by itself is a justification. We don't need it.
Anyway, thank fuck they killed the Camden Spur
Don't agree. I'm really annoyed I can't get to, say, Orange without having to stop in London and get out and lug all the luggage. Utterly barbaric.
Agree 100%.
Just dialling back two or three comments; to be clear, the point of High Speed 2 isn't High Speed. Of all the problems with rail in this country, the adrquacy of journey times between London and Manchester is not high up the list. What HS2 is about is capacity. We do not have enough capacity on our rails - especially the WCML - to run all the services we would like (inter-city, local and freight), In particualr, mixing high speed and low speed kills capacity (freight and local can mix reasonably well as both average a similar speed). So what we need is new track. If we are doing this, why not engineer it so that it can go as fast? But speed is not the driver.
It’s all about capacity, and a massive amount of that is freight and the need to get lorries off the roads as much as possible. It’s expensive and inefficient to move containers one at a time across the country, not to mention that the various climate targets - whatever we think of them - require a lot fewer lorries on the roads than we have now.
The Camden link will almost certainly happen eventually, whether as a viaduct or more likely a tunnel. When the Chilterns tunnelling is finished, they need to move the machine to the Pennines to work on speeding up the East > West routes.
Interesting counterfactual to wonder how the debate on HS2 would have developed if the HS hadn’t been bolted on as a “nice to have” bonus...
I would have thought that if you're building a brand new long distance rail line the cost-benefit of enabling high running speeds (basically affecting the alignment and signalling) would be pretty unanswerable.
As well as pushing against Boris' Brexit in the 55% Remain area, the report also says the LDs are pushing a NIMBY agenda hard.
'In a letter to Tory by-election candidate Peter Fleet, Lib Dem MP Layla Moran urged him to condemn the government’s approach, writing: “Over the last two years the Conservative Party has received over £11m in donations from property developers.
“Local people are right to be angry at a Conservative Party that chooses to champion those who seek to build on the green belt rather than the views of local people in Chesham and Amersham.”
Clearly there has been a swing to the LDs there but the Tories should hold on unless the LDs can squeeze the Labour and Green vote to near zero
Isn’t HS2 likely to be an issue still as well? Especially given it’s finally under construction.
And Shapps just announced it is to go to Leeds
It is not going to be cancelled and they have started tunnelling in the Chilterns
That is good news, I hadn’t seen that. Although it looks as though they might be reducing the top speed a bit.
But I was thinking that the construction process itself will be disruptive and unpleasant. Lots of extra traffic, road closures, noise and pollution therefrom, etc.
Lines are never popular when being built (just look at how tough it was to build the original Grand Junction and Great Western mainlines, even including mustering private armies to confront recalcitrant companies).
It is really good news for the levelling up process and I agree there is going to be considerable disruption, indeed three years tunnelling under the Chilterns, but that is the price we have to pay to provide a modern high seed railway and at the same time allow the existing East and West coast mainlines to concentrate on more stopping services and services to local communities
It will do absolutely nothing for the levelling up process or the North South divide. Making it quicker to get from the Midlands to London does nothing to help employment or investment in the North. The EU knew this more than 20 years ago when they commissioned an in depth report into the effects of high speed rail links on the provinces, notably in France. All it did was draw more investment away from the regions into Paris.
So what would make a difference then?
Ooh. This is my special subject.
The research seems to suggest:
1. Devolution of powers and tax base 2. Local / public transport infrastructure designed to reduce commuting times and enable a larger commuting catchment pool 3. Local skills development 4. Thriving local chamber of commerce with participation in local economic planning 5. Policies in support of industrial clustering; university/business partnerships; investment financing.
@Richard_Tyndall is correct that high speed rail etc tend to strengthen existing imbalances.
Indeed, is there any evidence that the long established TGV network has helped the old coalfields of Picardy? Or has it just whizzed people through it, going from metropolis to metropolis?
As I mentioned, the EU published a paper about 2 decades ago on this which showed that the TGV system in France has served to suck GDP away from the regions rather than increase it. There was a very small attributable increase in overall GDP for France but the TGV increased the imbalance between Paris and the TGV destinations compared to those regions not served by the system.
I'm sure you're right. But TGV is great. Paris to Montpellier (465 miles) in a little over 3 hours is a journey we love, upstairs on the double decker trains. And it's civilised and quiet - nobody uses their mobile phones in the carriages. And they don't constantly make banal announcements over the tannoy. We should be aiming for something similar in the UK.
But there is nowhere in the UK where significant population centres are separated by 465 miles, unless you want to build HS2 from Penzance to Portree
France is more than twice the size of the UK - France arguably NEEDS high speed trains
We are a much more compact nation, where almost all our major cities are within 2-3 hours of each other. This is an advantage. We don't really need HS trains
Talk to me about increasing commuter capacity into Leeds, Brum and Manc without HS2.
Why, in 13 years, has no one opposed to HS2 come up with a better alternative given the main reason it's being built ?
Either there is no better way or those opposed have still not worked out why it is getting built.
Yes, I get that argument. As I say below. I just don't think the "high speed" by itself is a justification. We don't need it.
Anyway, thank fuck they killed the Camden Spur
Don't agree. I'm really annoyed I can't get to, say, Orange without having to stop in London and get out and lug all the luggage. Utterly barbaric.
Agree 100%.
Just dialling back two or three comments; to be clear, the point of High Speed 2 isn't High Speed. Of all the problems with rail in this country, the adrquacy of journey times between London and Manchester is not high up the list. What HS2 is about is capacity. We do not have enough capacity on our rails - especially the WCML - to run all the services we would like (inter-city, local and freight), In particualr, mixing high speed and low speed kills capacity (freight and local can mix reasonably well as both average a similar speed). So what we need is new track. If we are doing this, why not engineer it so that it can go as fast? But speed is not the driver.
It’s all about capacity, and a massive amount of that is freight and the need to get lorries off the roads as much as possible. It’s expensive and inefficient to move containers one at a time across the country, not to mention that the various climate targets - whatever we think of them - require a lot fewer lorries on the roads than we have now.
The Camden link will almost certainly happen eventually, whether as a viaduct or more likely a tunnel. When the Chilterns tunnelling is finished, they need to move the machine to the Pennines to work on speeding up the East > West routes.
But you still need lorries to take individual containers from Daventry, Lawley Street or Trafford Park to their final destination. It’s because we’re a small country that road haulage makes sense.
That leg would work with electric HGV as much shorter range. Long distance not so much.
The UK doesn't have "long distance". That's rather the problem with this logic.
Electric HGVs make much more sense. You can already get HGVs that can travel hundred of miles and the technology is only going to improve from here.
Plus you can get charging infrastructure in the depot.
As well as pushing against Boris' Brexit in the 55% Remain area, the report also says the LDs are pushing a NIMBY agenda hard.
'In a letter to Tory by-election candidate Peter Fleet, Lib Dem MP Layla Moran urged him to condemn the government’s approach, writing: “Over the last two years the Conservative Party has received over £11m in donations from property developers.
“Local people are right to be angry at a Conservative Party that chooses to champion those who seek to build on the green belt rather than the views of local people in Chesham and Amersham.”
Clearly there has been a swing to the LDs there but the Tories should hold on unless the LDs can squeeze the Labour and Green vote to near zero
Isn’t HS2 likely to be an issue still as well? Especially given it’s finally under construction.
And Shapps just announced it is to go to Leeds
It is not going to be cancelled and they have started tunnelling in the Chilterns
That is good news, I hadn’t seen that. Although it looks as though they might be reducing the top speed a bit.
But I was thinking that the construction process itself will be disruptive and unpleasant. Lots of extra traffic, road closures, noise and pollution therefrom, etc.
Lines are never popular when being built (just look at how tough it was to build the original Grand Junction and Great Western mainlines, even including mustering private armies to confront recalcitrant companies).
It is really good news for the levelling up process and I agree there is going to be considerable disruption, indeed three years tunnelling under the Chilterns, but that is the price we have to pay to provide a modern high seed railway and at the same time allow the existing East and West coast mainlines to concentrate on more stopping services and services to local communities
It will do absolutely nothing for the levelling up process or the North South divide. Making it quicker to get from the Midlands to London does nothing to help employment or investment in the North. The EU knew this more than 20 years ago when they commissioned an in depth report into the effects of high speed rail links on the provinces, notably in France. All it did was draw more investment away from the regions into Paris.
So what would make a difference then?
Ooh. This is my special subject.
The research seems to suggest:
1. Devolution of powers and tax base 2. Local / public transport infrastructure designed to reduce commuting times and enable a larger commuting catchment pool 3. Local skills development 4. Thriving local chamber of commerce with participation in local economic planning 5. Policies in support of industrial clustering; university/business partnerships; investment financing.
@Richard_Tyndall is correct that high speed rail etc tend to strengthen existing imbalances.
Indeed, is there any evidence that the long established TGV network has helped the old coalfields of Picardy? Or has it just whizzed people through it, going from metropolis to metropolis?
As I mentioned, the EU published a paper about 2 decades ago on this which showed that the TGV system in France has served to suck GDP away from the regions rather than increase it. There was a very small attributable increase in overall GDP for France but the TGV increased the imbalance between Paris and the TGV destinations compared to those regions not served by the system.
I'm sure you're right. But TGV is great. Paris to Montpellier (465 miles) in a little over 3 hours is a journey we love, upstairs on the double decker trains. And it's civilised and quiet - nobody uses their mobile phones in the carriages. And they don't constantly make banal announcements over the tannoy. We should be aiming for something similar in the UK.
But there is nowhere in the UK where significant population centres are separated by 465 miles, unless you want to build HS2 from Penzance to Portree
France is more than twice the size of the UK - France arguably NEEDS high speed trains
We are a much more compact nation, where almost all our major cities are within 2-3 hours of each other. This is an advantage. We don't really need HS trains
Talk to me about increasing commuter capacity into Leeds, Brum and Manc without HS2.
Why, in 13 years, has no one opposed to HS2 come up with a better alternative given the main reason it's being built ?
Either there is no better way or those opposed have still not worked out why it is getting built.
Yes, I get that argument. As I say below. I just don't think the "high speed" by itself is a justification. We don't need it.
Anyway, thank fuck they killed the Camden Spur
Don't agree. I'm really annoyed I can't get to, say, Orange without having to stop in London and get out and lug all the luggage. Utterly barbaric.
Agree 100%.
Just dialling back two or three comments; to be clear, the point of High Speed 2 isn't High Speed. Of all the problems with rail in this country, the adrquacy of journey times between London and Manchester is not high up the list. What HS2 is about is capacity. We do not have enough capacity on our rails - especially the WCML - to run all the services we would like (inter-city, local and freight), In particualr, mixing high speed and low speed kills capacity (freight and local can mix reasonably well as both average a similar speed). So what we need is new track. If we are doing this, why not engineer it so that it can go as fast? But speed is not the driver.
It’s all about capacity, and a massive amount of that is freight and the need to get lorries off the roads as much as possible. It’s expensive and inefficient to move containers one at a time across the country, not to mention that the various climate targets - whatever we think of them - require a lot fewer lorries on the roads than we have now.
The Camden link will almost certainly happen eventually, whether as a viaduct or more likely a tunnel. When the Chilterns tunnelling is finished, they need to move the machine to the Pennines to work on speeding up the East > West routes.
Interesting counterfactual to wonder how the debate on HS2 would have developed if the HS hadn’t been bolted on as a “nice to have” bonus...
They really shouldn’t have called it HS2, they should have called it something like 22CC, building capacity for the 22nd century. The focus on the high speed element has been a big distraction to the politics and optics of the project.
As well as pushing against Boris' Brexit in the 55% Remain area, the report also says the LDs are pushing a NIMBY agenda hard.
'In a letter to Tory by-election candidate Peter Fleet, Lib Dem MP Layla Moran urged him to condemn the government’s approach, writing: “Over the last two years the Conservative Party has received over £11m in donations from property developers.
“Local people are right to be angry at a Conservative Party that chooses to champion those who seek to build on the green belt rather than the views of local people in Chesham and Amersham.”
Clearly there has been a swing to the LDs there but the Tories should hold on unless the LDs can squeeze the Labour and Green vote to near zero
Isn’t HS2 likely to be an issue still as well? Especially given it’s finally under construction.
And Shapps just announced it is to go to Leeds
It is not going to be cancelled and they have started tunnelling in the Chilterns
That is good news, I hadn’t seen that. Although it looks as though they might be reducing the top speed a bit.
But I was thinking that the construction process itself will be disruptive and unpleasant. Lots of extra traffic, road closures, noise and pollution therefrom, etc.
Lines are never popular when being built (just look at how tough it was to build the original Grand Junction and Great Western mainlines, even including mustering private armies to confront recalcitrant companies).
It is really good news for the levelling up process and I agree there is going to be considerable disruption, indeed three years tunnelling under the Chilterns, but that is the price we have to pay to provide a modern high seed railway and at the same time allow the existing East and West coast mainlines to concentrate on more stopping services and services to local communities
It will do absolutely nothing for the levelling up process or the North South divide. Making it quicker to get from the Midlands to London does nothing to help employment or investment in the North. The EU knew this more than 20 years ago when they commissioned an in depth report into the effects of high speed rail links on the provinces, notably in France. All it did was draw more investment away from the regions into Paris.
So what would make a difference then?
Ooh. This is my special subject.
The research seems to suggest:
1. Devolution of powers and tax base 2. Local / public transport infrastructure designed to reduce commuting times and enable a larger commuting catchment pool 3. Local skills development 4. Thriving local chamber of commerce with participation in local economic planning 5. Policies in support of industrial clustering; university/business partnerships; investment financing.
@Richard_Tyndall is correct that high speed rail etc tend to strengthen existing imbalances.
Indeed, is there any evidence that the long established TGV network has helped the old coalfields of Picardy? Or has it just whizzed people through it, going from metropolis to metropolis?
As I mentioned, the EU published a paper about 2 decades ago on this which showed that the TGV system in France has served to suck GDP away from the regions rather than increase it. There was a very small attributable increase in overall GDP for France but the TGV increased the imbalance between Paris and the TGV destinations compared to those regions not served by the system.
I'm sure you're right. But TGV is great. Paris to Montpellier (465 miles) in a little over 3 hours is a journey we love, upstairs on the double decker trains. And it's civilised and quiet - nobody uses their mobile phones in the carriages. And they don't constantly make banal announcements over the tannoy. We should be aiming for something similar in the UK.
But there is nowhere in the UK where significant population centres are separated by 465 miles, unless you want to build HS2 from Penzance to Portree
France is more than twice the size of the UK - France arguably NEEDS high speed trains
We are a much more compact nation, where almost all our major cities are within 2-3 hours of each other. This is an advantage. We don't really need HS trains
Talk to me about increasing commuter capacity into Leeds, Brum and Manc without HS2.
Why, in 13 years, has no one opposed to HS2 come up with a better alternative given the main reason it's being built ?
Either there is no better way or those opposed have still not worked out why it is getting built.
Yes, I get that argument. As I say below. I just don't think the "high speed" by itself is a justification. We don't need it.
Anyway, thank fuck they killed the Camden Spur
Don't agree. I'm really annoyed I can't get to, say, Orange without having to stop in London and get out and lug all the luggage. Utterly barbaric.
Agree 100%.
Just dialling back two or three comments; to be clear, the point of High Speed 2 isn't High Speed. Of all the problems with rail in this country, the adrquacy of journey times between London and Manchester is not high up the list. What HS2 is about is capacity. We do not have enough capacity on our rails - especially the WCML - to run all the services we would like (inter-city, local and freight), In particualr, mixing high speed and low speed kills capacity (freight and local can mix reasonably well as both average a similar speed). So what we need is new track. If we are doing this, why not engineer it so that it can go as fast? But speed is not the driver.
It’s all about capacity, and a massive amount of that is freight and the need to get lorries off the roads as much as possible. It’s expensive and inefficient to move containers one at a time across the country, not to mention that the various climate targets - whatever we think of them - require a lot fewer lorries on the roads than we have now.
The Camden link will almost certainly happen eventually, whether as a viaduct or more likely a tunnel. When the Chilterns tunnelling is finished, they need to move the machine to the Pennines to work on speeding up the East > West routes.
But you still need lorries to take individual containers from Daventry, Lawley Street or Trafford Park to their final destination. It’s because we’re a small country that road haulage makes sense.
That leg would work with electric HGV as much shorter range. Long distance not so much.
A Trafford Park in every town and city? There’s some evidence of a trend in that direction:
As well as pushing against Boris' Brexit in the 55% Remain area, the report also says the LDs are pushing a NIMBY agenda hard.
'In a letter to Tory by-election candidate Peter Fleet, Lib Dem MP Layla Moran urged him to condemn the government’s approach, writing: “Over the last two years the Conservative Party has received over £11m in donations from property developers.
“Local people are right to be angry at a Conservative Party that chooses to champion those who seek to build on the green belt rather than the views of local people in Chesham and Amersham.”
Clearly there has been a swing to the LDs there but the Tories should hold on unless the LDs can squeeze the Labour and Green vote to near zero
Isn’t HS2 likely to be an issue still as well? Especially given it’s finally under construction.
And Shapps just announced it is to go to Leeds
It is not going to be cancelled and they have started tunnelling in the Chilterns
That is good news, I hadn’t seen that. Although it looks as though they might be reducing the top speed a bit.
But I was thinking that the construction process itself will be disruptive and unpleasant. Lots of extra traffic, road closures, noise and pollution therefrom, etc.
Lines are never popular when being built (just look at how tough it was to build the original Grand Junction and Great Western mainlines, even including mustering private armies to confront recalcitrant companies).
It is really good news for the levelling up process and I agree there is going to be considerable disruption, indeed three years tunnelling under the Chilterns, but that is the price we have to pay to provide a modern high seed railway and at the same time allow the existing East and West coast mainlines to concentrate on more stopping services and services to local communities
It will do absolutely nothing for the levelling up process or the North South divide. Making it quicker to get from the Midlands to London does nothing to help employment or investment in the North. The EU knew this more than 20 years ago when they commissioned an in depth report into the effects of high speed rail links on the provinces, notably in France. All it did was draw more investment away from the regions into Paris.
So what would make a difference then?
Ooh. This is my special subject.
The research seems to suggest:
1. Devolution of powers and tax base 2. Local / public transport infrastructure designed to reduce commuting times and enable a larger commuting catchment pool 3. Local skills development 4. Thriving local chamber of commerce with participation in local economic planning 5. Policies in support of industrial clustering; university/business partnerships; investment financing.
@Richard_Tyndall is correct that high speed rail etc tend to strengthen existing imbalances.
Indeed, is there any evidence that the long established TGV network has helped the old coalfields of Picardy? Or has it just whizzed people through it, going from metropolis to metropolis?
As I mentioned, the EU published a paper about 2 decades ago on this which showed that the TGV system in France has served to suck GDP away from the regions rather than increase it. There was a very small attributable increase in overall GDP for France but the TGV increased the imbalance between Paris and the TGV destinations compared to those regions not served by the system.
I'm sure you're right. But TGV is great. Paris to Montpellier (465 miles) in a little over 3 hours is a journey we love, upstairs on the double decker trains. And it's civilised and quiet - nobody uses their mobile phones in the carriages. And they don't constantly make banal announcements over the tannoy. We should be aiming for something similar in the UK.
But there is nowhere in the UK where significant population centres are separated by 465 miles, unless you want to build HS2 from Penzance to Portree
France is more than twice the size of the UK - France arguably NEEDS high speed trains
We are a much more compact nation, where almost all our major cities are within 2-3 hours of each other. This is an advantage. We don't really need HS trains
Talk to me about increasing commuter capacity into Leeds, Brum and Manc without HS2.
Why, in 13 years, has no one opposed to HS2 come up with a better alternative given the main reason it's being built ?
Either there is no better way or those opposed have still not worked out why it is getting built.
Yes, I get that argument. As I say below. I just don't think the "high speed" by itself is a justification. We don't need it.
Anyway, thank fuck they killed the Camden Spur
Don't agree. I'm really annoyed I can't get to, say, Orange without having to stop in London and get out and lug all the luggage. Utterly barbaric.
Agree 100%.
Just dialling back two or three comments; to be clear, the point of High Speed 2 isn't High Speed. Of all the problems with rail in this country, the adrquacy of journey times between London and Manchester is not high up the list. What HS2 is about is capacity. We do not have enough capacity on our rails - especially the WCML - to run all the services we would like (inter-city, local and freight), In particualr, mixing high speed and low speed kills capacity (freight and local can mix reasonably well as both average a similar speed). So what we need is new track. If we are doing this, why not engineer it so that it can go as fast? But speed is not the driver.
It’s all about capacity, and a massive amount of that is freight and the need to get lorries off the roads as much as possible. It’s expensive and inefficient to move containers one at a time across the country, not to mention that the various climate targets - whatever we think of them - require a lot fewer lorries on the roads than we have now.
The Camden link will almost certainly happen eventually, whether as a viaduct or more likely a tunnel. When the Chilterns tunnelling is finished, they need to move the machine to the Pennines to work on speeding up the East > West routes.
But you still need lorries to take individual containers from Daventry, Lawley Street or Trafford Park to their final destination. It’s because we’re a small country that road haulage makes sense.
That leg would work with electric HGV as much shorter range. Long distance not so much.
The UK doesn't have "long distance". That's rather the problem with this logic.
Electric HGVs make much more sense. You can already get HGVs that can travel hundred of miles and the technology is only going to improve from here.
Plus you can get charging infrastructure in the depot.
Yes, but international HGV is long distance, and that should be by rail.
As well as pushing against Boris' Brexit in the 55% Remain area, the report also says the LDs are pushing a NIMBY agenda hard.
'In a letter to Tory by-election candidate Peter Fleet, Lib Dem MP Layla Moran urged him to condemn the government’s approach, writing: “Over the last two years the Conservative Party has received over £11m in donations from property developers.
“Local people are right to be angry at a Conservative Party that chooses to champion those who seek to build on the green belt rather than the views of local people in Chesham and Amersham.”
Clearly there has been a swing to the LDs there but the Tories should hold on unless the LDs can squeeze the Labour and Green vote to near zero
Isn’t HS2 likely to be an issue still as well? Especially given it’s finally under construction.
And Shapps just announced it is to go to Leeds
It is not going to be cancelled and they have started tunnelling in the Chilterns
That is good news, I hadn’t seen that. Although it looks as though they might be reducing the top speed a bit.
But I was thinking that the construction process itself will be disruptive and unpleasant. Lots of extra traffic, road closures, noise and pollution therefrom, etc.
Lines are never popular when being built (just look at how tough it was to build the original Grand Junction and Great Western mainlines, even including mustering private armies to confront recalcitrant companies).
It is really good news for the levelling up process and I agree there is going to be considerable disruption, indeed three years tunnelling under the Chilterns, but that is the price we have to pay to provide a modern high seed railway and at the same time allow the existing East and West coast mainlines to concentrate on more stopping services and services to local communities
It will do absolutely nothing for the levelling up process or the North South divide. Making it quicker to get from the Midlands to London does nothing to help employment or investment in the North. The EU knew this more than 20 years ago when they commissioned an in depth report into the effects of high speed rail links on the provinces, notably in France. All it did was draw more investment away from the regions into Paris.
So what would make a difference then?
Ooh. This is my special subject.
The research seems to suggest:
1. Devolution of powers and tax base 2. Local / public transport infrastructure designed to reduce commuting times and enable a larger commuting catchment pool 3. Local skills development 4. Thriving local chamber of commerce with participation in local economic planning 5. Policies in support of industrial clustering; university/business partnerships; investment financing.
@Richard_Tyndall is correct that high speed rail etc tend to strengthen existing imbalances.
Indeed, is there any evidence that the long established TGV network has helped the old coalfields of Picardy? Or has it just whizzed people through it, going from metropolis to metropolis?
As I mentioned, the EU published a paper about 2 decades ago on this which showed that the TGV system in France has served to suck GDP away from the regions rather than increase it. There was a very small attributable increase in overall GDP for France but the TGV increased the imbalance between Paris and the TGV destinations compared to those regions not served by the system.
I'm sure you're right. But TGV is great. Paris to Montpellier (465 miles) in a little over 3 hours is a journey we love, upstairs on the double decker trains. And it's civilised and quiet - nobody uses their mobile phones in the carriages. And they don't constantly make banal announcements over the tannoy. We should be aiming for something similar in the UK.
But there is nowhere in the UK where significant population centres are separated by 465 miles, unless you want to build HS2 from Penzance to Portree
France is more than twice the size of the UK - France arguably NEEDS high speed trains
We are a much more compact nation, where almost all our major cities are within 2-3 hours of each other. This is an advantage. We don't really need HS trains
Talk to me about increasing commuter capacity into Leeds, Brum and Manc without HS2.
Why, in 13 years, has no one opposed to HS2 come up with a better alternative given the main reason it's being built ?
Either there is no better way or those opposed have still not worked out why it is getting built.
Yes, I get that argument. As I say below. I just don't think the "high speed" by itself is a justification. We don't need it.
Anyway, thank fuck they killed the Camden Spur
Don't agree. I'm really annoyed I can't get to, say, Orange without having to stop in London and get out and lug all the luggage. Utterly barbaric.
Agree 100%.
Just dialling back two or three comments; to be clear, the point of High Speed 2 isn't High Speed. Of all the problems with rail in this country, the adrquacy of journey times between London and Manchester is not high up the list. What HS2 is about is capacity. We do not have enough capacity on our rails - especially the WCML - to run all the services we would like (inter-city, local and freight), In particualr, mixing high speed and low speed kills capacity (freight and local can mix reasonably well as both average a similar speed). So what we need is new track. If we are doing this, why not engineer it so that it can go as fast? But speed is not the driver.
It’s all about capacity, and a massive amount of that is freight and the need to get lorries off the roads as much as possible. It’s expensive and inefficient to move containers one at a time across the country, not to mention that the various climate targets - whatever we think of them - require a lot fewer lorries on the roads than we have now.
The Camden link will almost certainly happen eventually, whether as a viaduct or more likely a tunnel. When the Chilterns tunnelling is finished, they need to move the machine to the Pennines to work on speeding up the East > West routes.
But you still need lorries to take individual containers from Daventry, Lawley Street or Trafford Park to their final destination. It’s because we’re a small country that road haulage makes sense.
Of course, but moving them a hundred at a time from Southampton Docks to Trafford or Daventy reduces the number of road miles significantly - with positive implications on the environment, traffic levels and road maintainance.
Major Poblem for Lib Dems. I expect them to win Chesham on a landslide, all the vibes are currently indicating that could happen. However within 2 weeks Batley and Spen votes and they will struggle to get into a double figure percentage. So Chesham will leave the public mind with the media going overboard if the Tories win "up north". Best result at Batley for the Libs would be a Labour win.
"landslide", huh? No expectation management there then!
As well as pushing against Boris' Brexit in the 55% Remain area, the report also says the LDs are pushing a NIMBY agenda hard.
'In a letter to Tory by-election candidate Peter Fleet, Lib Dem MP Layla Moran urged him to condemn the government’s approach, writing: “Over the last two years the Conservative Party has received over £11m in donations from property developers.
“Local people are right to be angry at a Conservative Party that chooses to champion those who seek to build on the green belt rather than the views of local people in Chesham and Amersham.”
Clearly there has been a swing to the LDs there but the Tories should hold on unless the LDs can squeeze the Labour and Green vote to near zero
Isn’t HS2 likely to be an issue still as well? Especially given it’s finally under construction.
And Shapps just announced it is to go to Leeds
It is not going to be cancelled and they have started tunnelling in the Chilterns
That is good news, I hadn’t seen that. Although it looks as though they might be reducing the top speed a bit.
But I was thinking that the construction process itself will be disruptive and unpleasant. Lots of extra traffic, road closures, noise and pollution therefrom, etc.
Lines are never popular when being built (just look at how tough it was to build the original Grand Junction and Great Western mainlines, even including mustering private armies to confront recalcitrant companies).
It is really good news for the levelling up process and I agree there is going to be considerable disruption, indeed three years tunnelling under the Chilterns, but that is the price we have to pay to provide a modern high seed railway and at the same time allow the existing East and West coast mainlines to concentrate on more stopping services and services to local communities
It will do absolutely nothing for the levelling up process or the North South divide. Making it quicker to get from the Midlands to London does nothing to help employment or investment in the North. The EU knew this more than 20 years ago when they commissioned an in depth report into the effects of high speed rail links on the provinces, notably in France. All it did was draw more investment away from the regions into Paris.
So what would make a difference then?
Ooh. This is my special subject.
The research seems to suggest:
1. Devolution of powers and tax base 2. Local / public transport infrastructure designed to reduce commuting times and enable a larger commuting catchment pool 3. Local skills development 4. Thriving local chamber of commerce with participation in local economic planning 5. Policies in support of industrial clustering; university/business partnerships; investment financing.
@Richard_Tyndall is correct that high speed rail etc tend to strengthen existing imbalances.
Indeed, is there any evidence that the long established TGV network has helped the old coalfields of Picardy? Or has it just whizzed people through it, going from metropolis to metropolis?
As I mentioned, the EU published a paper about 2 decades ago on this which showed that the TGV system in France has served to suck GDP away from the regions rather than increase it. There was a very small attributable increase in overall GDP for France but the TGV increased the imbalance between Paris and the TGV destinations compared to those regions not served by the system.
I'm sure you're right. But TGV is great. Paris to Montpellier (465 miles) in a little over 3 hours is a journey we love, upstairs on the double decker trains. And it's civilised and quiet - nobody uses their mobile phones in the carriages. And they don't constantly make banal announcements over the tannoy. We should be aiming for something similar in the UK.
But there is nowhere in the UK where significant population centres are separated by 465 miles, unless you want to build HS2 from Penzance to Portree
France is more than twice the size of the UK - France arguably NEEDS high speed trains
We are a much more compact nation, where almost all our major cities are within 2-3 hours of each other. This is an advantage. We don't really need HS trains
Talk to me about increasing commuter capacity into Leeds, Brum and Manc without HS2.
Why, in 13 years, has no one opposed to HS2 come up with a better alternative given the main reason it's being built ?
Either there is no better way or those opposed have still not worked out why it is getting built.
Yes, I get that argument. As I say below. I just don't think the "high speed" by itself is a justification. We don't need it.
Anyway, thank fuck they killed the Camden Spur
Don't agree. I'm really annoyed I can't get to, say, Orange without having to stop in London and get out and lug all the luggage. Utterly barbaric.
Agree 100%.
Just dialling back two or three comments; to be clear, the point of High Speed 2 isn't High Speed. Of all the problems with rail in this country, the adrquacy of journey times between London and Manchester is not high up the list. What HS2 is about is capacity. We do not have enough capacity on our rails - especially the WCML - to run all the services we would like (inter-city, local and freight), In particualr, mixing high speed and low speed kills capacity (freight and local can mix reasonably well as both average a similar speed). So what we need is new track. If we are doing this, why not engineer it so that it can go as fast? But speed is not the driver.
It’s all about capacity, and a massive amount of that is freight and the need to get lorries off the roads as much as possible. It’s expensive and inefficient to move containers one at a time across the country, not to mention that the various climate targets - whatever we think of them - require a lot fewer lorries on the roads than we have now.
The Camden link will almost certainly happen eventually, whether as a viaduct or more likely a tunnel. When the Chilterns tunnelling is finished, they need to move the machine to the Pennines to work on speeding up the East > West routes.
But you still need lorries to take individual containers from Daventry, Lawley Street or Trafford Park to their final destination. It’s because we’re a small country that road haulage makes sense.
That leg would work with electric HGV as much shorter range. Long distance not so much.
A Trafford Park in every town and city? There’s some evidence of a trend in that direction:
As well as pushing against Boris' Brexit in the 55% Remain area, the report also says the LDs are pushing a NIMBY agenda hard.
'In a letter to Tory by-election candidate Peter Fleet, Lib Dem MP Layla Moran urged him to condemn the government’s approach, writing: “Over the last two years the Conservative Party has received over £11m in donations from property developers.
“Local people are right to be angry at a Conservative Party that chooses to champion those who seek to build on the green belt rather than the views of local people in Chesham and Amersham.”
Clearly there has been a swing to the LDs there but the Tories should hold on unless the LDs can squeeze the Labour and Green vote to near zero
Isn’t HS2 likely to be an issue still as well? Especially given it’s finally under construction.
And Shapps just announced it is to go to Leeds
It is not going to be cancelled and they have started tunnelling in the Chilterns
That is good news, I hadn’t seen that. Although it looks as though they might be reducing the top speed a bit.
But I was thinking that the construction process itself will be disruptive and unpleasant. Lots of extra traffic, road closures, noise and pollution therefrom, etc.
Lines are never popular when being built (just look at how tough it was to build the original Grand Junction and Great Western mainlines, even including mustering private armies to confront recalcitrant companies).
It is really good news for the levelling up process and I agree there is going to be considerable disruption, indeed three years tunnelling under the Chilterns, but that is the price we have to pay to provide a modern high seed railway and at the same time allow the existing East and West coast mainlines to concentrate on more stopping services and services to local communities
It will do absolutely nothing for the levelling up process or the North South divide. Making it quicker to get from the Midlands to London does nothing to help employment or investment in the North. The EU knew this more than 20 years ago when they commissioned an in depth report into the effects of high speed rail links on the provinces, notably in France. All it did was draw more investment away from the regions into Paris.
So what would make a difference then?
Ooh. This is my special subject.
The research seems to suggest:
1. Devolution of powers and tax base 2. Local / public transport infrastructure designed to reduce commuting times and enable a larger commuting catchment pool 3. Local skills development 4. Thriving local chamber of commerce with participation in local economic planning 5. Policies in support of industrial clustering; university/business partnerships; investment financing.
@Richard_Tyndall is correct that high speed rail etc tend to strengthen existing imbalances.
Indeed, is there any evidence that the long established TGV network has helped the old coalfields of Picardy? Or has it just whizzed people through it, going from metropolis to metropolis?
As I mentioned, the EU published a paper about 2 decades ago on this which showed that the TGV system in France has served to suck GDP away from the regions rather than increase it. There was a very small attributable increase in overall GDP for France but the TGV increased the imbalance between Paris and the TGV destinations compared to those regions not served by the system.
I'm sure you're right. But TGV is great. Paris to Montpellier (465 miles) in a little over 3 hours is a journey we love, upstairs on the double decker trains. And it's civilised and quiet - nobody uses their mobile phones in the carriages. And they don't constantly make banal announcements over the tannoy. We should be aiming for something similar in the UK.
But there is nowhere in the UK where significant population centres are separated by 465 miles, unless you want to build HS2 from Penzance to Portree
France is more than twice the size of the UK - France arguably NEEDS high speed trains
We are a much more compact nation, where almost all our major cities are within 2-3 hours of each other. This is an advantage. We don't really need HS trains
Talk to me about increasing commuter capacity into Leeds, Brum and Manc without HS2.
Why, in 13 years, has no one opposed to HS2 come up with a better alternative given the main reason it's being built ?
Either there is no better way or those opposed have still not worked out why it is getting built.
Yes, I get that argument. As I say below. I just don't think the "high speed" by itself is a justification. We don't need it.
Anyway, thank fuck they killed the Camden Spur
Don't agree. I'm really annoyed I can't get to, say, Orange without having to stop in London and get out and lug all the luggage. Utterly barbaric.
Agree 100%.
Just dialling back two or three comments; to be clear, the point of High Speed 2 isn't High Speed. Of all the problems with rail in this country, the adrquacy of journey times between London and Manchester is not high up the list. What HS2 is about is capacity. We do not have enough capacity on our rails - especially the WCML - to run all the services we would like (inter-city, local and freight), In particualr, mixing high speed and low speed kills capacity (freight and local can mix reasonably well as both average a similar speed). So what we need is new track. If we are doing this, why not engineer it so that it can go as fast? But speed is not the driver.
It’s all about capacity, and a massive amount of that is freight and the need to get lorries off the roads as much as possible. It’s expensive and inefficient to move containers one at a time across the country, not to mention that the various climate targets - whatever we think of them - require a lot fewer lorries on the roads than we have now.
The Camden link will almost certainly happen eventually, whether as a viaduct or more likely a tunnel. When the Chilterns tunnelling is finished, they need to move the machine to the Pennines to work on speeding up the East > West routes.
But you still need lorries to take individual containers from Daventry, Lawley Street or Trafford Park to their final destination. It’s because we’re a small country that road haulage makes sense.
Of course, but moving them a hundred at a time from Southampton Docks to Trafford or Daventy reduces the number of road miles significantly - with positive implications on the environment, traffic levels and road maintainance.
Your assuming that capacity is limiting current usage. I’m not so sure it is.
As well as pushing against Boris' Brexit in the 55% Remain area, the report also says the LDs are pushing a NIMBY agenda hard.
'In a letter to Tory by-election candidate Peter Fleet, Lib Dem MP Layla Moran urged him to condemn the government’s approach, writing: “Over the last two years the Conservative Party has received over £11m in donations from property developers.
“Local people are right to be angry at a Conservative Party that chooses to champion those who seek to build on the green belt rather than the views of local people in Chesham and Amersham.”
Clearly there has been a swing to the LDs there but the Tories should hold on unless the LDs can squeeze the Labour and Green vote to near zero
Isn’t HS2 likely to be an issue still as well? Especially given it’s finally under construction.
And Shapps just announced it is to go to Leeds
It is not going to be cancelled and they have started tunnelling in the Chilterns
That is good news, I hadn’t seen that. Although it looks as though they might be reducing the top speed a bit.
But I was thinking that the construction process itself will be disruptive and unpleasant. Lots of extra traffic, road closures, noise and pollution therefrom, etc.
Lines are never popular when being built (just look at how tough it was to build the original Grand Junction and Great Western mainlines, even including mustering private armies to confront recalcitrant companies).
It is really good news for the levelling up process and I agree there is going to be considerable disruption, indeed three years tunnelling under the Chilterns, but that is the price we have to pay to provide a modern high seed railway and at the same time allow the existing East and West coast mainlines to concentrate on more stopping services and services to local communities
It will do absolutely nothing for the levelling up process or the North South divide. Making it quicker to get from the Midlands to London does nothing to help employment or investment in the North. The EU knew this more than 20 years ago when they commissioned an in depth report into the effects of high speed rail links on the provinces, notably in France. All it did was draw more investment away from the regions into Paris.
So what would make a difference then?
Ooh. This is my special subject.
The research seems to suggest:
1. Devolution of powers and tax base 2. Local / public transport infrastructure designed to reduce commuting times and enable a larger commuting catchment pool 3. Local skills development 4. Thriving local chamber of commerce with participation in local economic planning 5. Policies in support of industrial clustering; university/business partnerships; investment financing.
@Richard_Tyndall is correct that high speed rail etc tend to strengthen existing imbalances.
Indeed, is there any evidence that the long established TGV network has helped the old coalfields of Picardy? Or has it just whizzed people through it, going from metropolis to metropolis?
As I mentioned, the EU published a paper about 2 decades ago on this which showed that the TGV system in France has served to suck GDP away from the regions rather than increase it. There was a very small attributable increase in overall GDP for France but the TGV increased the imbalance between Paris and the TGV destinations compared to those regions not served by the system.
I'm sure you're right. But TGV is great. Paris to Montpellier (465 miles) in a little over 3 hours is a journey we love, upstairs on the double decker trains. And it's civilised and quiet - nobody uses their mobile phones in the carriages. And they don't constantly make banal announcements over the tannoy. We should be aiming for something similar in the UK.
But there is nowhere in the UK where significant population centres are separated by 465 miles, unless you want to build HS2 from Penzance to Portree
France is more than twice the size of the UK - France arguably NEEDS high speed trains
We are a much more compact nation, where almost all our major cities are within 2-3 hours of each other. This is an advantage. We don't really need HS trains
Talk to me about increasing commuter capacity into Leeds, Brum and Manc without HS2.
Why, in 13 years, has no one opposed to HS2 come up with a better alternative given the main reason it's being built ?
Either there is no better way or those opposed have still not worked out why it is getting built.
Yes, I get that argument. As I say below. I just don't think the "high speed" by itself is a justification. We don't need it.
Anyway, thank fuck they killed the Camden Spur
Don't agree. I'm really annoyed I can't get to, say, Orange without having to stop in London and get out and lug all the luggage. Utterly barbaric.
Agree 100%.
Just dialling back two or three comments; to be clear, the point of High Speed 2 isn't High Speed. Of all the problems with rail in this country, the adrquacy of journey times between London and Manchester is not high up the list. What HS2 is about is capacity. We do not have enough capacity on our rails - especially the WCML - to run all the services we would like (inter-city, local and freight), In particualr, mixing high speed and low speed kills capacity (freight and local can mix reasonably well as both average a similar speed). So what we need is new track. If we are doing this, why not engineer it so that it can go as fast? But speed is not the driver.
It’s all about capacity, and a massive amount of that is freight and the need to get lorries off the roads as much as possible. It’s expensive and inefficient to move containers one at a time across the country, not to mention that the various climate targets - whatever we think of them - require a lot fewer lorries on the roads than we have now.
The Camden link will almost certainly happen eventually, whether as a viaduct or more likely a tunnel. When the Chilterns tunnelling is finished, they need to move the machine to the Pennines to work on speeding up the East > West routes.
Interesting counterfactual to wonder how the debate on HS2 would have developed if the HS hadn’t been bolted on as a “nice to have” bonus...
I would have thought that if you're building a brand new long distance rail line the cost-benefit of enabling high running speeds (basically affecting the alignment and signalling) would be pretty unanswerable.
Well of course, but that wasn’t my point. Which, as Sandpit points out above, is that the HS “no brainier” addition has come to dominate the public perception of what the project is all about, allowing opponents to misleading employ arguments completely at odds with the real reasons it is being pursued (whether you agree with those or not).
As well as pushing against Boris' Brexit in the 55% Remain area, the report also says the LDs are pushing a NIMBY agenda hard.
'In a letter to Tory by-election candidate Peter Fleet, Lib Dem MP Layla Moran urged him to condemn the government’s approach, writing: “Over the last two years the Conservative Party has received over £11m in donations from property developers.
“Local people are right to be angry at a Conservative Party that chooses to champion those who seek to build on the green belt rather than the views of local people in Chesham and Amersham.”
Clearly there has been a swing to the LDs there but the Tories should hold on unless the LDs can squeeze the Labour and Green vote to near zero
Isn’t HS2 likely to be an issue still as well? Especially given it’s finally under construction.
And Shapps just announced it is to go to Leeds
It is not going to be cancelled and they have started tunnelling in the Chilterns
That is good news, I hadn’t seen that. Although it looks as though they might be reducing the top speed a bit.
But I was thinking that the construction process itself will be disruptive and unpleasant. Lots of extra traffic, road closures, noise and pollution therefrom, etc.
Lines are never popular when being built (just look at how tough it was to build the original Grand Junction and Great Western mainlines, even including mustering private armies to confront recalcitrant companies).
It is really good news for the levelling up process and I agree there is going to be considerable disruption, indeed three years tunnelling under the Chilterns, but that is the price we have to pay to provide a modern high seed railway and at the same time allow the existing East and West coast mainlines to concentrate on more stopping services and services to local communities
It will do absolutely nothing for the levelling up process or the North South divide. Making it quicker to get from the Midlands to London does nothing to help employment or investment in the North. The EU knew this more than 20 years ago when they commissioned an in depth report into the effects of high speed rail links on the provinces, notably in France. All it did was draw more investment away from the regions into Paris.
So what would make a difference then?
Ooh. This is my special subject.
The research seems to suggest:
1. Devolution of powers and tax base 2. Local / public transport infrastructure designed to reduce commuting times and enable a larger commuting catchment pool 3. Local skills development 4. Thriving local chamber of commerce with participation in local economic planning 5. Policies in support of industrial clustering; university/business partnerships; investment financing.
@Richard_Tyndall is correct that high speed rail etc tend to strengthen existing imbalances.
Indeed, is there any evidence that the long established TGV network has helped the old coalfields of Picardy? Or has it just whizzed people through it, going from metropolis to metropolis?
As I mentioned, the EU published a paper about 2 decades ago on this which showed that the TGV system in France has served to suck GDP away from the regions rather than increase it. There was a very small attributable increase in overall GDP for France but the TGV increased the imbalance between Paris and the TGV destinations compared to those regions not served by the system.
I'm sure you're right. But TGV is great. Paris to Montpellier (465 miles) in a little over 3 hours is a journey we love, upstairs on the double decker trains. And it's civilised and quiet - nobody uses their mobile phones in the carriages. And they don't constantly make banal announcements over the tannoy. We should be aiming for something similar in the UK.
But there is nowhere in the UK where significant population centres are separated by 465 miles, unless you want to build HS2 from Penzance to Portree
France is more than twice the size of the UK - France arguably NEEDS high speed trains
We are a much more compact nation, where almost all our major cities are within 2-3 hours of each other. This is an advantage. We don't really need HS trains
Talk to me about increasing commuter capacity into Leeds, Brum and Manc without HS2.
Why, in 13 years, has no one opposed to HS2 come up with a better alternative given the main reason it's being built ?
Either there is no better way or those opposed have still not worked out why it is getting built.
Yes, I get that argument. As I say below. I just don't think the "high speed" by itself is a justification. We don't need it.
Anyway, thank fuck they killed the Camden Spur
Don't agree. I'm really annoyed I can't get to, say, Orange without having to stop in London and get out and lug all the luggage. Utterly barbaric.
Agree 100%.
Just dialling back two or three comments; to be clear, the point of High Speed 2 isn't High Speed. Of all the problems with rail in this country, the adrquacy of journey times between London and Manchester is not high up the list. What HS2 is about is capacity. We do not have enough capacity on our rails - especially the WCML - to run all the services we would like (inter-city, local and freight), In particualr, mixing high speed and low speed kills capacity (freight and local can mix reasonably well as both average a similar speed). So what we need is new track. If we are doing this, why not engineer it so that it can go as fast? But speed is not the driver.
It’s all about capacity, and a massive amount of that is freight and the need to get lorries off the roads as much as possible. It’s expensive and inefficient to move containers one at a time across the country, not to mention that the various climate targets - whatever we think of them - require a lot fewer lorries on the roads than we have now.
The Camden link will almost certainly happen eventually, whether as a viaduct or more likely a tunnel. When the Chilterns tunnelling is finished, they need to move the machine to the Pennines to work on speeding up the East > West routes.
But you still need lorries to take individual containers from Daventry, Lawley Street or Trafford Park to their final destination. It’s because we’re a small country that road haulage makes sense.
That leg would work with electric HGV as much shorter range. Long distance not so much.
The UK doesn't have "long distance". That's rather the problem with this logic.
Electric HGVs make much more sense. You can already get HGVs that can travel hundred of miles and the technology is only going to improve from here.
Plus you can get charging infrastructure in the depot.
Yes, but international HGV is long distance, and that should be by rail.
As well as pushing against Boris' Brexit in the 55% Remain area, the report also says the LDs are pushing a NIMBY agenda hard.
'In a letter to Tory by-election candidate Peter Fleet, Lib Dem MP Layla Moran urged him to condemn the government’s approach, writing: “Over the last two years the Conservative Party has received over £11m in donations from property developers.
“Local people are right to be angry at a Conservative Party that chooses to champion those who seek to build on the green belt rather than the views of local people in Chesham and Amersham.”
Clearly there has been a swing to the LDs there but the Tories should hold on unless the LDs can squeeze the Labour and Green vote to near zero
Isn’t HS2 likely to be an issue still as well? Especially given it’s finally under construction.
And Shapps just announced it is to go to Leeds
It is not going to be cancelled and they have started tunnelling in the Chilterns
That is good news, I hadn’t seen that. Although it looks as though they might be reducing the top speed a bit.
But I was thinking that the construction process itself will be disruptive and unpleasant. Lots of extra traffic, road closures, noise and pollution therefrom, etc.
Lines are never popular when being built (just look at how tough it was to build the original Grand Junction and Great Western mainlines, even including mustering private armies to confront recalcitrant companies).
It is really good news for the levelling up process and I agree there is going to be considerable disruption, indeed three years tunnelling under the Chilterns, but that is the price we have to pay to provide a modern high seed railway and at the same time allow the existing East and West coast mainlines to concentrate on more stopping services and services to local communities
It will do absolutely nothing for the levelling up process or the North South divide. Making it quicker to get from the Midlands to London does nothing to help employment or investment in the North. The EU knew this more than 20 years ago when they commissioned an in depth report into the effects of high speed rail links on the provinces, notably in France. All it did was draw more investment away from the regions into Paris.
So what would make a difference then?
Ooh. This is my special subject.
The research seems to suggest:
1. Devolution of powers and tax base 2. Local / public transport infrastructure designed to reduce commuting times and enable a larger commuting catchment pool 3. Local skills development 4. Thriving local chamber of commerce with participation in local economic planning 5. Policies in support of industrial clustering; university/business partnerships; investment financing.
@Richard_Tyndall is correct that high speed rail etc tend to strengthen existing imbalances.
Indeed, is there any evidence that the long established TGV network has helped the old coalfields of Picardy? Or has it just whizzed people through it, going from metropolis to metropolis?
As I mentioned, the EU published a paper about 2 decades ago on this which showed that the TGV system in France has served to suck GDP away from the regions rather than increase it. There was a very small attributable increase in overall GDP for France but the TGV increased the imbalance between Paris and the TGV destinations compared to those regions not served by the system.
I'm sure you're right. But TGV is great. Paris to Montpellier (465 miles) in a little over 3 hours is a journey we love, upstairs on the double decker trains. And it's civilised and quiet - nobody uses their mobile phones in the carriages. And they don't constantly make banal announcements over the tannoy. We should be aiming for something similar in the UK.
But there is nowhere in the UK where significant population centres are separated by 465 miles, unless you want to build HS2 from Penzance to Portree
France is more than twice the size of the UK - France arguably NEEDS high speed trains
We are a much more compact nation, where almost all our major cities are within 2-3 hours of each other. This is an advantage. We don't really need HS trains
Talk to me about increasing commuter capacity into Leeds, Brum and Manc without HS2.
Why, in 13 years, has no one opposed to HS2 come up with a better alternative given the main reason it's being built ?
Either there is no better way or those opposed have still not worked out why it is getting built.
Yes, I get that argument. As I say below. I just don't think the "high speed" by itself is a justification. We don't need it.
Anyway, thank fuck they killed the Camden Spur
What was the problem with the Camden Spur? (Apart from those who happened to have properties where it would have been built).
It meant a huge, decade-long ordeal of demolition and disruption across some of the priciest/most profitable resi and business property in north London, to achieve about 3 trains a day which might go straight from Birmingham to Paris etc
Fuck off, Brummies, northerners and Jocks. Walk from Euston to St Pancras. It's about 300 yards. Sorted
I liked the underground walkway idea that could connect them in the same way airport terminal buildings are. Not sure why they didn't do it in the end.
It's not much further than between the RER and metro platforms at Châtelet–Les Halles in Paris.
It's a shorter distance than Bank to Monument I think.
It's not just 900yds, it's a change.
I've done Leeds to Ashford International a few occasions, 2tph both n inbound and outbound, and that is typically a 45 min change with family (15 min too tight even though 99% of the distance is on concourse). I reckon if I was doing it monthly and fully oriented I'd have the 15 minute change off pat, but let's say relatively few travellers reach that level of instant orientation . A direct train would probably sit in London for a bit, but I reckon the transfer just from KGX to St Pancras is a 35 minute loss compared to what direct would be.
I reckon for North of London to the continent, that is at least an hour loss compared to a theoretical direct train, plus Eurostar is a bit less walk-up in nature for through ticketting compared to a Javelin.
It would've been really good, well beyond 900yds or moving walkway good, to have a direct route for even just a few trains a day, but hey-ho.
Yeah but for that you had to knock down my part of london, so fuck that
I always thought it was a huge mistake not to connect the North to the continent with direct trains. Who knows, perhaps we wouldn't have had Brexit if we had. But that would have required either expensive security and customs arrangements at some northern stations or the UK to have joined Schengen. (I also think we should have joined Schengen).
What's the point in connecting the North by train to the Continent when air flights are much cheaper than rail fares would be?
Global warming.
And that would have meant we wouldn't have Brexited how?
Beside the only solution to climate change is clean technologies like clean planes. 🤦♂️
Without clean planes the planet can't realistically reach Net Zero. With clean planes, there's no reason to use an inferior, more expensive, slower technology.
The advantage of high speed rail over "clean planes" is that the former exist. I think that giving the rest of the UK better links to the rest of the EU might have helped them see the point of it. In London, you can get to Paris quicker than to many places in the North, and I think that is part of the reason that for Londoners it always looked so daft to cut our connections with the continent. Would it have swung the vote? Perhaps. Perhaps not. It was pretty close as I am sure you recall.
If you actually want to help the environment and not just virtue signal then the only solution is to make clean planes exist.
If you can't do that then countries around the world aren't going to abandon flights and for trains.
Helping to ensure leaps forward in technology for things that don't exist yet but are needed for the nation is one thing the state can actually get involved in reasonably well. A vaccine challenge style investment in clean plane technologies will do more than any pissing in the wind trying to get people to abandon flights.
Paris to Marseilles (562 miles drive according to Google maps) takes 3h07 by TGV. Paris to Manchester is just 516 miles. Once you factor in getting to/from the airport and checking in/security, a high speed train service between the two cities looks pretty good. No "virtue signalling" (yawn) required.
People wanting to use HS1 to the continent from the Midlands and North are probably better served by using Midland Main Line into St Pancras, and just going down the escalator. Far nicer than the walk from Euson with luggage. Far more locations served too.
Depends where you’re starting from. For Leicester, yes, that probably would work. How about the West Midlands? The nearest connections I have to the Midland main line are Derby or Leicester. To get to Leicester means at least one change - either at Tamworth or Birmingham, depending on where I start from.
When HS2 is built, I can go direct from Stafford, which is seven miles away.
As well as pushing against Boris' Brexit in the 55% Remain area, the report also says the LDs are pushing a NIMBY agenda hard.
'In a letter to Tory by-election candidate Peter Fleet, Lib Dem MP Layla Moran urged him to condemn the government’s approach, writing: “Over the last two years the Conservative Party has received over £11m in donations from property developers.
“Local people are right to be angry at a Conservative Party that chooses to champion those who seek to build on the green belt rather than the views of local people in Chesham and Amersham.”
Clearly there has been a swing to the LDs there but the Tories should hold on unless the LDs can squeeze the Labour and Green vote to near zero
Isn’t HS2 likely to be an issue still as well? Especially given it’s finally under construction.
And Shapps just announced it is to go to Leeds
It is not going to be cancelled and they have started tunnelling in the Chilterns
That is good news, I hadn’t seen that. Although it looks as though they might be reducing the top speed a bit.
But I was thinking that the construction process itself will be disruptive and unpleasant. Lots of extra traffic, road closures, noise and pollution therefrom, etc.
Lines are never popular when being built (just look at how tough it was to build the original Grand Junction and Great Western mainlines, even including mustering private armies to confront recalcitrant companies).
It is really good news for the levelling up process and I agree there is going to be considerable disruption, indeed three years tunnelling under the Chilterns, but that is the price we have to pay to provide a modern high seed railway and at the same time allow the existing East and West coast mainlines to concentrate on more stopping services and services to local communities
It will do absolutely nothing for the levelling up process or the North South divide. Making it quicker to get from the Midlands to London does nothing to help employment or investment in the North. The EU knew this more than 20 years ago when they commissioned an in depth report into the effects of high speed rail links on the provinces, notably in France. All it did was draw more investment away from the regions into Paris.
So what would make a difference then?
Ooh. This is my special subject.
The research seems to suggest:
1. Devolution of powers and tax base 2. Local / public transport infrastructure designed to reduce commuting times and enable a larger commuting catchment pool 3. Local skills development 4. Thriving local chamber of commerce with participation in local economic planning 5. Policies in support of industrial clustering; university/business partnerships; investment financing.
@Richard_Tyndall is correct that high speed rail etc tend to strengthen existing imbalances.
Indeed, is there any evidence that the long established TGV network has helped the old coalfields of Picardy? Or has it just whizzed people through it, going from metropolis to metropolis?
As I mentioned, the EU published a paper about 2 decades ago on this which showed that the TGV system in France has served to suck GDP away from the regions rather than increase it. There was a very small attributable increase in overall GDP for France but the TGV increased the imbalance between Paris and the TGV destinations compared to those regions not served by the system.
I'm sure you're right. But TGV is great. Paris to Montpellier (465 miles) in a little over 3 hours is a journey we love, upstairs on the double decker trains. And it's civilised and quiet - nobody uses their mobile phones in the carriages. And they don't constantly make banal announcements over the tannoy. We should be aiming for something similar in the UK.
But there is nowhere in the UK where significant population centres are separated by 465 miles, unless you want to build HS2 from Penzance to Portree
France is more than twice the size of the UK - France arguably NEEDS high speed trains
We are a much more compact nation, where almost all our major cities are within 2-3 hours of each other. This is an advantage. We don't really need HS trains
Talk to me about increasing commuter capacity into Leeds, Brum and Manc without HS2.
Why, in 13 years, has no one opposed to HS2 come up with a better alternative given the main reason it's being built ?
Either there is no better way or those opposed have still not worked out why it is getting built.
Yes, I get that argument. As I say below. I just don't think the "high speed" by itself is a justification. We don't need it.
Anyway, thank fuck they killed the Camden Spur
Don't agree. I'm really annoyed I can't get to, say, Orange without having to stop in London and get out and lug all the luggage. Utterly barbaric.
Agree 100%.
Just dialling back two or three comments; to be clear, the point of High Speed 2 isn't High Speed. Of all the problems with rail in this country, the adrquacy of journey times between London and Manchester is not high up the list. What HS2 is about is capacity. We do not have enough capacity on our rails - especially the WCML - to run all the services we would like (inter-city, local and freight), In particualr, mixing high speed and low speed kills capacity (freight and local can mix reasonably well as both average a similar speed). So what we need is new track. If we are doing this, why not engineer it so that it can go as fast? But speed is not the driver.
It’s all about capacity, and a massive amount of that is freight and the need to get lorries off the roads as much as possible. It’s expensive and inefficient to move containers one at a time across the country, not to mention that the various climate targets - whatever we think of them - require a lot fewer lorries on the roads than we have now.
The Camden link will almost certainly happen eventually, whether as a viaduct or more likely a tunnel. When the Chilterns tunnelling is finished, they need to move the machine to the Pennines to work on speeding up the East > West routes.
But you still need lorries to take individual containers from Daventry, Lawley Street or Trafford Park to their final destination. It’s because we’re a small country that road haulage makes sense.
That leg would work with electric HGV as much shorter range. Long distance not so much.
The UK doesn't have "long distance". That's rather the problem with this logic.
Electric HGVs make much more sense. You can already get HGVs that can travel hundred of miles and the technology is only going to improve from here.
Plus you can get charging infrastructure in the depot.
Yes, but international HGV is long distance, and that should be by rail.
If it's high volumes then it can be and probably already is already.
If it's small volumes that fit within a HGV and has multiple stops along the route then it doesn't necessarily make sense to do that.
The market already effectively deals with this. You're never going to have a meaningful removal of all the Eddie Stobart style HGVs on the road as they're on the road for a reason.
As well as pushing against Boris' Brexit in the 55% Remain area, the report also says the LDs are pushing a NIMBY agenda hard.
'In a letter to Tory by-election candidate Peter Fleet, Lib Dem MP Layla Moran urged him to condemn the government’s approach, writing: “Over the last two years the Conservative Party has received over £11m in donations from property developers.
“Local people are right to be angry at a Conservative Party that chooses to champion those who seek to build on the green belt rather than the views of local people in Chesham and Amersham.”
Clearly there has been a swing to the LDs there but the Tories should hold on unless the LDs can squeeze the Labour and Green vote to near zero
Isn’t HS2 likely to be an issue still as well? Especially given it’s finally under construction.
And Shapps just announced it is to go to Leeds
It is not going to be cancelled and they have started tunnelling in the Chilterns
That is good news, I hadn’t seen that. Although it looks as though they might be reducing the top speed a bit.
But I was thinking that the construction process itself will be disruptive and unpleasant. Lots of extra traffic, road closures, noise and pollution therefrom, etc.
Lines are never popular when being built (just look at how tough it was to build the original Grand Junction and Great Western mainlines, even including mustering private armies to confront recalcitrant companies).
It is really good news for the levelling up process and I agree there is going to be considerable disruption, indeed three years tunnelling under the Chilterns, but that is the price we have to pay to provide a modern high seed railway and at the same time allow the existing East and West coast mainlines to concentrate on more stopping services and services to local communities
It will do absolutely nothing for the levelling up process or the North South divide. Making it quicker to get from the Midlands to London does nothing to help employment or investment in the North. The EU knew this more than 20 years ago when they commissioned an in depth report into the effects of high speed rail links on the provinces, notably in France. All it did was draw more investment away from the regions into Paris.
So what would make a difference then?
Ooh. This is my special subject.
The research seems to suggest:
1. Devolution of powers and tax base 2. Local / public transport infrastructure designed to reduce commuting times and enable a larger commuting catchment pool 3. Local skills development 4. Thriving local chamber of commerce with participation in local economic planning 5. Policies in support of industrial clustering; university/business partnerships; investment financing.
@Richard_Tyndall is correct that high speed rail etc tend to strengthen existing imbalances.
Indeed, is there any evidence that the long established TGV network has helped the old coalfields of Picardy? Or has it just whizzed people through it, going from metropolis to metropolis?
As I mentioned, the EU published a paper about 2 decades ago on this which showed that the TGV system in France has served to suck GDP away from the regions rather than increase it. There was a very small attributable increase in overall GDP for France but the TGV increased the imbalance between Paris and the TGV destinations compared to those regions not served by the system.
I'm sure you're right. But TGV is great. Paris to Montpellier (465 miles) in a little over 3 hours is a journey we love, upstairs on the double decker trains. And it's civilised and quiet - nobody uses their mobile phones in the carriages. And they don't constantly make banal announcements over the tannoy. We should be aiming for something similar in the UK.
But there is nowhere in the UK where significant population centres are separated by 465 miles, unless you want to build HS2 from Penzance to Portree
France is more than twice the size of the UK - France arguably NEEDS high speed trains
We are a much more compact nation, where almost all our major cities are within 2-3 hours of each other. This is an advantage. We don't really need HS trains
Talk to me about increasing commuter capacity into Leeds, Brum and Manc without HS2.
Why, in 13 years, has no one opposed to HS2 come up with a better alternative given the main reason it's being built ?
Either there is no better way or those opposed have still not worked out why it is getting built.
Yes, I get that argument. As I say below. I just don't think the "high speed" by itself is a justification. We don't need it.
Anyway, thank fuck they killed the Camden Spur
Don't agree. I'm really annoyed I can't get to, say, Orange without having to stop in London and get out and lug all the luggage. Utterly barbaric.
Agree 100%.
Just dialling back two or three comments; to be clear, the point of High Speed 2 isn't High Speed. Of all the problems with rail in this country, the adrquacy of journey times between London and Manchester is not high up the list. What HS2 is about is capacity. We do not have enough capacity on our rails - especially the WCML - to run all the services we would like (inter-city, local and freight), In particualr, mixing high speed and low speed kills capacity (freight and local can mix reasonably well as both average a similar speed). So what we need is new track. If we are doing this, why not engineer it so that it can go as fast? But speed is not the driver.
It’s all about capacity, and a massive amount of that is freight and the need to get lorries off the roads as much as possible. It’s expensive and inefficient to move containers one at a time across the country, not to mention that the various climate targets - whatever we think of them - require a lot fewer lorries on the roads than we have now.
The Camden link will almost certainly happen eventually, whether as a viaduct or more likely a tunnel. When the Chilterns tunnelling is finished, they need to move the machine to the Pennines to work on speeding up the East > West routes.
But you still need lorries to take individual containers from Daventry, Lawley Street or Trafford Park to their final destination. It’s because we’re a small country that road haulage makes sense.
Of course, but moving them a hundred at a time from Southampton Docks to Trafford or Daventy reduces the number of road miles significantly - with positive implications on the environment, traffic levels and road maintainance.
Your assuming that capacity is limiting current usage. I’m not so sure it is.
Isn’t whole point of the project is that the WCML is completely full as currently configured, mostly because the fast trains and the slow trains really don’t work well together on the same track?
As well as pushing against Boris' Brexit in the 55% Remain area, the report also says the LDs are pushing a NIMBY agenda hard.
'In a letter to Tory by-election candidate Peter Fleet, Lib Dem MP Layla Moran urged him to condemn the government’s approach, writing: “Over the last two years the Conservative Party has received over £11m in donations from property developers.
“Local people are right to be angry at a Conservative Party that chooses to champion those who seek to build on the green belt rather than the views of local people in Chesham and Amersham.”
Clearly there has been a swing to the LDs there but the Tories should hold on unless the LDs can squeeze the Labour and Green vote to near zero
Isn’t HS2 likely to be an issue still as well? Especially given it’s finally under construction.
And Shapps just announced it is to go to Leeds
It is not going to be cancelled and they have started tunnelling in the Chilterns
That is good news, I hadn’t seen that. Although it looks as though they might be reducing the top speed a bit.
But I was thinking that the construction process itself will be disruptive and unpleasant. Lots of extra traffic, road closures, noise and pollution therefrom, etc.
Lines are never popular when being built (just look at how tough it was to build the original Grand Junction and Great Western mainlines, even including mustering private armies to confront recalcitrant companies).
It is really good news for the levelling up process and I agree there is going to be considerable disruption, indeed three years tunnelling under the Chilterns, but that is the price we have to pay to provide a modern high seed railway and at the same time allow the existing East and West coast mainlines to concentrate on more stopping services and services to local communities
It will do absolutely nothing for the levelling up process or the North South divide. Making it quicker to get from the Midlands to London does nothing to help employment or investment in the North. The EU knew this more than 20 years ago when they commissioned an in depth report into the effects of high speed rail links on the provinces, notably in France. All it did was draw more investment away from the regions into Paris.
So what would make a difference then?
Ooh. This is my special subject.
The research seems to suggest:
1. Devolution of powers and tax base 2. Local / public transport infrastructure designed to reduce commuting times and enable a larger commuting catchment pool 3. Local skills development 4. Thriving local chamber of commerce with participation in local economic planning 5. Policies in support of industrial clustering; university/business partnerships; investment financing.
@Richard_Tyndall is correct that high speed rail etc tend to strengthen existing imbalances.
Indeed, is there any evidence that the long established TGV network has helped the old coalfields of Picardy? Or has it just whizzed people through it, going from metropolis to metropolis?
As I mentioned, the EU published a paper about 2 decades ago on this which showed that the TGV system in France has served to suck GDP away from the regions rather than increase it. There was a very small attributable increase in overall GDP for France but the TGV increased the imbalance between Paris and the TGV destinations compared to those regions not served by the system.
I'm sure you're right. But TGV is great. Paris to Montpellier (465 miles) in a little over 3 hours is a journey we love, upstairs on the double decker trains. And it's civilised and quiet - nobody uses their mobile phones in the carriages. And they don't constantly make banal announcements over the tannoy. We should be aiming for something similar in the UK.
But there is nowhere in the UK where significant population centres are separated by 465 miles, unless you want to build HS2 from Penzance to Portree
France is more than twice the size of the UK - France arguably NEEDS high speed trains
We are a much more compact nation, where almost all our major cities are within 2-3 hours of each other. This is an advantage. We don't really need HS trains
Talk to me about increasing commuter capacity into Leeds, Brum and Manc without HS2.
Why, in 13 years, has no one opposed to HS2 come up with a better alternative given the main reason it's being built ?
Either there is no better way or those opposed have still not worked out why it is getting built.
Yes, I get that argument. As I say below. I just don't think the "high speed" by itself is a justification. We don't need it.
Anyway, thank fuck they killed the Camden Spur
Don't agree. I'm really annoyed I can't get to, say, Orange without having to stop in London and get out and lug all the luggage. Utterly barbaric.
Agree 100%.
Just dialling back two or three comments; to be clear, the point of High Speed 2 isn't High Speed. Of all the problems with rail in this country, the adrquacy of journey times between London and Manchester is not high up the list. What HS2 is about is capacity. We do not have enough capacity on our rails - especially the WCML - to run all the services we would like (inter-city, local and freight), In particualr, mixing high speed and low speed kills capacity (freight and local can mix reasonably well as both average a similar speed). So what we need is new track. If we are doing this, why not engineer it so that it can go as fast? But speed is not the driver.
It’s all about capacity, and a massive amount of that is freight and the need to get lorries off the roads as much as possible. It’s expensive and inefficient to move containers one at a time across the country, not to mention that the various climate targets - whatever we think of them - require a lot fewer lorries on the roads than we have now.
The Camden link will almost certainly happen eventually, whether as a viaduct or more likely a tunnel. When the Chilterns tunnelling is finished, they need to move the machine to the Pennines to work on speeding up the East > West routes.
But you still need lorries to take individual containers from Daventry, Lawley Street or Trafford Park to their final destination. It’s because we’re a small country that road haulage makes sense.
That leg would work with electric HGV as much shorter range. Long distance not so much.
The UK doesn't have "long distance". That's rather the problem with this logic.
Electric HGVs make much more sense. You can already get HGVs that can travel hundred of miles and the technology is only going to improve from here.
Plus you can get charging infrastructure in the depot.
Paris-Marseilles - 774km London-Inverness - 912 km.
Hospital admissions, vaccine status, age profile, and outbreak areas are essential
Yesterday an argument was being put forward that as the NHS has such a backlog which they are starting to address they cannot accept any rise in covid patients
Now that is turning the narrative on its head and on that basis the Country will be locked down for months, even years, and it is just not acceptable
I was angry and a rebel yesterday largely because the media and independent sage have taken over the narrative with their zero covid, eliminate covid strategy which is just not feasible and in order to convince many millions of citizens, including myself, that we have to have further delays there has to be far more transparent figures on hospital admissions
Some of the arguments put yesterday were even worse than that. They were arguing that further loosening of restrictions would lead to a rise in non-Covid related admissions, and that the current lack of NHS capacity means they couldn’t cope with that. It is setting the ground work arguments for restrictions on personal freedoms even in a world without Covid - to be told we can’t do things every time there are winter shortages in flu season or whatever.
Not so long ago, we were told that cases would definitely rise because of opening-up but as long as it didn't cause an increase in hospitalisations and deaths, and could be contained, it didn't matter. Cases are now up from ~2,000 a day to ~3,000 a day, 2 weeks from when we were allowed back in the pub again. Hospitalisations have crept up, but we are told many of the hospitalised are not so ill. Deaths are up but as there was no corresponding increase in cases 3-4 weeks ago, I suspect it is an artefact of small numbers.
Of course the Indian variant is a worry, and if the increase continues, well we know know about exponential growth. But I am not sure we are in any different position in regards to cases, deaths etc than we expected to be in.
As well as pushing against Boris' Brexit in the 55% Remain area, the report also says the LDs are pushing a NIMBY agenda hard.
'In a letter to Tory by-election candidate Peter Fleet, Lib Dem MP Layla Moran urged him to condemn the government’s approach, writing: “Over the last two years the Conservative Party has received over £11m in donations from property developers.
“Local people are right to be angry at a Conservative Party that chooses to champion those who seek to build on the green belt rather than the views of local people in Chesham and Amersham.”
Clearly there has been a swing to the LDs there but the Tories should hold on unless the LDs can squeeze the Labour and Green vote to near zero
Isn’t HS2 likely to be an issue still as well? Especially given it’s finally under construction.
And Shapps just announced it is to go to Leeds
It is not going to be cancelled and they have started tunnelling in the Chilterns
That is good news, I hadn’t seen that. Although it looks as though they might be reducing the top speed a bit.
But I was thinking that the construction process itself will be disruptive and unpleasant. Lots of extra traffic, road closures, noise and pollution therefrom, etc.
Lines are never popular when being built (just look at how tough it was to build the original Grand Junction and Great Western mainlines, even including mustering private armies to confront recalcitrant companies).
It is really good news for the levelling up process and I agree there is going to be considerable disruption, indeed three years tunnelling under the Chilterns, but that is the price we have to pay to provide a modern high seed railway and at the same time allow the existing East and West coast mainlines to concentrate on more stopping services and services to local communities
It will do absolutely nothing for the levelling up process or the North South divide. Making it quicker to get from the Midlands to London does nothing to help employment or investment in the North. The EU knew this more than 20 years ago when they commissioned an in depth report into the effects of high speed rail links on the provinces, notably in France. All it did was draw more investment away from the regions into Paris.
So what would make a difference then?
Ooh. This is my special subject.
The research seems to suggest:
1. Devolution of powers and tax base 2. Local / public transport infrastructure designed to reduce commuting times and enable a larger commuting catchment pool 3. Local skills development 4. Thriving local chamber of commerce with participation in local economic planning 5. Policies in support of industrial clustering; university/business partnerships; investment financing.
@Richard_Tyndall is correct that high speed rail etc tend to strengthen existing imbalances.
Indeed, is there any evidence that the long established TGV network has helped the old coalfields of Picardy? Or has it just whizzed people through it, going from metropolis to metropolis?
As I mentioned, the EU published a paper about 2 decades ago on this which showed that the TGV system in France has served to suck GDP away from the regions rather than increase it. There was a very small attributable increase in overall GDP for France but the TGV increased the imbalance between Paris and the TGV destinations compared to those regions not served by the system.
I'm sure you're right. But TGV is great. Paris to Montpellier (465 miles) in a little over 3 hours is a journey we love, upstairs on the double decker trains. And it's civilised and quiet - nobody uses their mobile phones in the carriages. And they don't constantly make banal announcements over the tannoy. We should be aiming for something similar in the UK.
But there is nowhere in the UK where significant population centres are separated by 465 miles, unless you want to build HS2 from Penzance to Portree
France is more than twice the size of the UK - France arguably NEEDS high speed trains
We are a much more compact nation, where almost all our major cities are within 2-3 hours of each other. This is an advantage. We don't really need HS trains
Talk to me about increasing commuter capacity into Leeds, Brum and Manc without HS2.
Why, in 13 years, has no one opposed to HS2 come up with a better alternative given the main reason it's being built ?
Either there is no better way or those opposed have still not worked out why it is getting built.
Yes, I get that argument. As I say below. I just don't think the "high speed" by itself is a justification. We don't need it.
Anyway, thank fuck they killed the Camden Spur
Don't agree. I'm really annoyed I can't get to, say, Orange without having to stop in London and get out and lug all the luggage. Utterly barbaric.
Agree 100%.
Just dialling back two or three comments; to be clear, the point of High Speed 2 isn't High Speed. Of all the problems with rail in this country, the adrquacy of journey times between London and Manchester is not high up the list. What HS2 is about is capacity. We do not have enough capacity on our rails - especially the WCML - to run all the services we would like (inter-city, local and freight), In particualr, mixing high speed and low speed kills capacity (freight and local can mix reasonably well as both average a similar speed). So what we need is new track. If we are doing this, why not engineer it so that it can go as fast? But speed is not the driver.
It’s all about capacity, and a massive amount of that is freight and the need to get lorries off the roads as much as possible. It’s expensive and inefficient to move containers one at a time across the country, not to mention that the various climate targets - whatever we think of them - require a lot fewer lorries on the roads than we have now.
The Camden link will almost certainly happen eventually, whether as a viaduct or more likely a tunnel. When the Chilterns tunnelling is finished, they need to move the machine to the Pennines to work on speeding up the East > West routes.
But you still need lorries to take individual containers from Daventry, Lawley Street or Trafford Park to their final destination. It’s because we’re a small country that road haulage makes sense.
Of course, but moving them a hundred at a time from Southampton Docks to Trafford or Daventy reduces the number of road miles significantly - with positive implications on the environment, traffic levels and road maintainance.
Your assuming that capacity is limiting current usage. I’m not so sure it is.
Isn’t whole point of the project is that the WCML is completely full as currently configured, mostly because the fast trains and the slow trains really don’t work well together on the same track?
Yes. And for that to happen, the new line needs to be *at least* as fast as the existing railway. Preferably, for capacity reasons, somewhat faster.
As well as pushing against Boris' Brexit in the 55% Remain area, the report also says the LDs are pushing a NIMBY agenda hard.
'In a letter to Tory by-election candidate Peter Fleet, Lib Dem MP Layla Moran urged him to condemn the government’s approach, writing: “Over the last two years the Conservative Party has received over £11m in donations from property developers.
“Local people are right to be angry at a Conservative Party that chooses to champion those who seek to build on the green belt rather than the views of local people in Chesham and Amersham.”
Clearly there has been a swing to the LDs there but the Tories should hold on unless the LDs can squeeze the Labour and Green vote to near zero
Isn’t HS2 likely to be an issue still as well? Especially given it’s finally under construction.
And Shapps just announced it is to go to Leeds
It is not going to be cancelled and they have started tunnelling in the Chilterns
That is good news, I hadn’t seen that. Although it looks as though they might be reducing the top speed a bit.
But I was thinking that the construction process itself will be disruptive and unpleasant. Lots of extra traffic, road closures, noise and pollution therefrom, etc.
Lines are never popular when being built (just look at how tough it was to build the original Grand Junction and Great Western mainlines, even including mustering private armies to confront recalcitrant companies).
It is really good news for the levelling up process and I agree there is going to be considerable disruption, indeed three years tunnelling under the Chilterns, but that is the price we have to pay to provide a modern high seed railway and at the same time allow the existing East and West coast mainlines to concentrate on more stopping services and services to local communities
It will do absolutely nothing for the levelling up process or the North South divide. Making it quicker to get from the Midlands to London does nothing to help employment or investment in the North. The EU knew this more than 20 years ago when they commissioned an in depth report into the effects of high speed rail links on the provinces, notably in France. All it did was draw more investment away from the regions into Paris.
So what would make a difference then?
Ooh. This is my special subject.
The research seems to suggest:
1. Devolution of powers and tax base 2. Local / public transport infrastructure designed to reduce commuting times and enable a larger commuting catchment pool 3. Local skills development 4. Thriving local chamber of commerce with participation in local economic planning 5. Policies in support of industrial clustering; university/business partnerships; investment financing.
@Richard_Tyndall is correct that high speed rail etc tend to strengthen existing imbalances.
Indeed, is there any evidence that the long established TGV network has helped the old coalfields of Picardy? Or has it just whizzed people through it, going from metropolis to metropolis?
As I mentioned, the EU published a paper about 2 decades ago on this which showed that the TGV system in France has served to suck GDP away from the regions rather than increase it. There was a very small attributable increase in overall GDP for France but the TGV increased the imbalance between Paris and the TGV destinations compared to those regions not served by the system.
I'm sure you're right. But TGV is great. Paris to Montpellier (465 miles) in a little over 3 hours is a journey we love, upstairs on the double decker trains. And it's civilised and quiet - nobody uses their mobile phones in the carriages. And they don't constantly make banal announcements over the tannoy. We should be aiming for something similar in the UK.
But there is nowhere in the UK where significant population centres are separated by 465 miles, unless you want to build HS2 from Penzance to Portree
France is more than twice the size of the UK - France arguably NEEDS high speed trains
We are a much more compact nation, where almost all our major cities are within 2-3 hours of each other. This is an advantage. We don't really need HS trains
Talk to me about increasing commuter capacity into Leeds, Brum and Manc without HS2.
Why, in 13 years, has no one opposed to HS2 come up with a better alternative given the main reason it's being built ?
Either there is no better way or those opposed have still not worked out why it is getting built.
Yes, I get that argument. As I say below. I just don't think the "high speed" by itself is a justification. We don't need it.
Anyway, thank fuck they killed the Camden Spur
Don't agree. I'm really annoyed I can't get to, say, Orange without having to stop in London and get out and lug all the luggage. Utterly barbaric.
Agree 100%.
Just dialling back two or three comments; to be clear, the point of High Speed 2 isn't High Speed. Of all the problems with rail in this country, the adrquacy of journey times between London and Manchester is not high up the list. What HS2 is about is capacity. We do not have enough capacity on our rails - especially the WCML - to run all the services we would like (inter-city, local and freight), In particualr, mixing high speed and low speed kills capacity (freight and local can mix reasonably well as both average a similar speed). So what we need is new track. If we are doing this, why not engineer it so that it can go as fast? But speed is not the driver.
It’s all about capacity, and a massive amount of that is freight and the need to get lorries off the roads as much as possible. It’s expensive and inefficient to move containers one at a time across the country, not to mention that the various climate targets - whatever we think of them - require a lot fewer lorries on the roads than we have now.
The Camden link will almost certainly happen eventually, whether as a viaduct or more likely a tunnel. When the Chilterns tunnelling is finished, they need to move the machine to the Pennines to work on speeding up the East > West routes.
But you still need lorries to take individual containers from Daventry, Lawley Street or Trafford Park to their final destination. It’s because we’re a small country that road haulage makes sense.
That leg would work with electric HGV as much shorter range. Long distance not so much.
The UK doesn't have "long distance". That's rather the problem with this logic.
Electric HGVs make much more sense. You can already get HGVs that can travel hundred of miles and the technology is only going to improve from here.
Plus you can get charging infrastructure in the depot.
Paris-Marseilles - 774km London-Inverness - 912 km.
There is a difference. People, in their millions want to go from Paris to Marseille. Very few, comparatively, want to go from London to Inverness.
I have been doing some research, and it transpires that the latest class 802s and 397s can achieve 125mph north of Preston without tilting capability, due to their very high acceleration.
Whether this has been officially signed off yet I don’t know, but it suggests there might not need to be a loss of speed with HS2 classic compatible units (which will also have rapid acceleration).
As well as pushing against Boris' Brexit in the 55% Remain area, the report also says the LDs are pushing a NIMBY agenda hard.
'In a letter to Tory by-election candidate Peter Fleet, Lib Dem MP Layla Moran urged him to condemn the government’s approach, writing: “Over the last two years the Conservative Party has received over £11m in donations from property developers.
“Local people are right to be angry at a Conservative Party that chooses to champion those who seek to build on the green belt rather than the views of local people in Chesham and Amersham.”
Clearly there has been a swing to the LDs there but the Tories should hold on unless the LDs can squeeze the Labour and Green vote to near zero
Isn’t HS2 likely to be an issue still as well? Especially given it’s finally under construction.
And Shapps just announced it is to go to Leeds
It is not going to be cancelled and they have started tunnelling in the Chilterns
That is good news, I hadn’t seen that. Although it looks as though they might be reducing the top speed a bit.
But I was thinking that the construction process itself will be disruptive and unpleasant. Lots of extra traffic, road closures, noise and pollution therefrom, etc.
Lines are never popular when being built (just look at how tough it was to build the original Grand Junction and Great Western mainlines, even including mustering private armies to confront recalcitrant companies).
It is really good news for the levelling up process and I agree there is going to be considerable disruption, indeed three years tunnelling under the Chilterns, but that is the price we have to pay to provide a modern high seed railway and at the same time allow the existing East and West coast mainlines to concentrate on more stopping services and services to local communities
It will do absolutely nothing for the levelling up process or the North South divide. Making it quicker to get from the Midlands to London does nothing to help employment or investment in the North. The EU knew this more than 20 years ago when they commissioned an in depth report into the effects of high speed rail links on the provinces, notably in France. All it did was draw more investment away from the regions into Paris.
So what would make a difference then?
Ooh. This is my special subject.
The research seems to suggest:
1. Devolution of powers and tax base 2. Local / public transport infrastructure designed to reduce commuting times and enable a larger commuting catchment pool 3. Local skills development 4. Thriving local chamber of commerce with participation in local economic planning 5. Policies in support of industrial clustering; university/business partnerships; investment financing.
@Richard_Tyndall is correct that high speed rail etc tend to strengthen existing imbalances.
Indeed, is there any evidence that the long established TGV network has helped the old coalfields of Picardy? Or has it just whizzed people through it, going from metropolis to metropolis?
As I mentioned, the EU published a paper about 2 decades ago on this which showed that the TGV system in France has served to suck GDP away from the regions rather than increase it. There was a very small attributable increase in overall GDP for France but the TGV increased the imbalance between Paris and the TGV destinations compared to those regions not served by the system.
I'm sure you're right. But TGV is great. Paris to Montpellier (465 miles) in a little over 3 hours is a journey we love, upstairs on the double decker trains. And it's civilised and quiet - nobody uses their mobile phones in the carriages. And they don't constantly make banal announcements over the tannoy. We should be aiming for something similar in the UK.
But there is nowhere in the UK where significant population centres are separated by 465 miles, unless you want to build HS2 from Penzance to Portree
France is more than twice the size of the UK - France arguably NEEDS high speed trains
We are a much more compact nation, where almost all our major cities are within 2-3 hours of each other. This is an advantage. We don't really need HS trains
Talk to me about increasing commuter capacity into Leeds, Brum and Manc without HS2.
Why, in 13 years, has no one opposed to HS2 come up with a better alternative given the main reason it's being built ?
Either there is no better way or those opposed have still not worked out why it is getting built.
Yes, I get that argument. As I say below. I just don't think the "high speed" by itself is a justification. We don't need it.
Anyway, thank fuck they killed the Camden Spur
Don't agree. I'm really annoyed I can't get to, say, Orange without having to stop in London and get out and lug all the luggage. Utterly barbaric.
Agree 100%.
Just dialling back two or three comments; to be clear, the point of High Speed 2 isn't High Speed. Of all the problems with rail in this country, the adrquacy of journey times between London and Manchester is not high up the list. What HS2 is about is capacity. We do not have enough capacity on our rails - especially the WCML - to run all the services we would like (inter-city, local and freight), In particualr, mixing high speed and low speed kills capacity (freight and local can mix reasonably well as both average a similar speed). So what we need is new track. If we are doing this, why not engineer it so that it can go as fast? But speed is not the driver.
It’s all about capacity, and a massive amount of that is freight and the need to get lorries off the roads as much as possible. It’s expensive and inefficient to move containers one at a time across the country, not to mention that the various climate targets - whatever we think of them - require a lot fewer lorries on the roads than we have now.
The Camden link will almost certainly happen eventually, whether as a viaduct or more likely a tunnel. When the Chilterns tunnelling is finished, they need to move the machine to the Pennines to work on speeding up the East > West routes.
But you still need lorries to take individual containers from Daventry, Lawley Street or Trafford Park to their final destination. It’s because we’re a small country that road haulage makes sense.
That leg would work with electric HGV as much shorter range. Long distance not so much.
The UK doesn't have "long distance". That's rather the problem with this logic.
Electric HGVs make much more sense. You can already get HGVs that can travel hundred of miles and the technology is only going to improve from here.
Plus you can get charging infrastructure in the depot.
Paris-Marseilles - 774km London-Inverness - 912 km.
An exception to prove the rule.
What percentage of freight on the roads do you think is going direct from London to Inverness or vice versa.?
As well as pushing against Boris' Brexit in the 55% Remain area, the report also says the LDs are pushing a NIMBY agenda hard.
'In a letter to Tory by-election candidate Peter Fleet, Lib Dem MP Layla Moran urged him to condemn the government’s approach, writing: “Over the last two years the Conservative Party has received over £11m in donations from property developers.
“Local people are right to be angry at a Conservative Party that chooses to champion those who seek to build on the green belt rather than the views of local people in Chesham and Amersham.”
Clearly there has been a swing to the LDs there but the Tories should hold on unless the LDs can squeeze the Labour and Green vote to near zero
Isn’t HS2 likely to be an issue still as well? Especially given it’s finally under construction.
And Shapps just announced it is to go to Leeds
It is not going to be cancelled and they have started tunnelling in the Chilterns
That is good news, I hadn’t seen that. Although it looks as though they might be reducing the top speed a bit.
But I was thinking that the construction process itself will be disruptive and unpleasant. Lots of extra traffic, road closures, noise and pollution therefrom, etc.
Lines are never popular when being built (just look at how tough it was to build the original Grand Junction and Great Western mainlines, even including mustering private armies to confront recalcitrant companies).
It is really good news for the levelling up process and I agree there is going to be considerable disruption, indeed three years tunnelling under the Chilterns, but that is the price we have to pay to provide a modern high seed railway and at the same time allow the existing East and West coast mainlines to concentrate on more stopping services and services to local communities
It will do absolutely nothing for the levelling up process or the North South divide. Making it quicker to get from the Midlands to London does nothing to help employment or investment in the North. The EU knew this more than 20 years ago when they commissioned an in depth report into the effects of high speed rail links on the provinces, notably in France. All it did was draw more investment away from the regions into Paris.
So what would make a difference then?
Ooh. This is my special subject.
The research seems to suggest:
1. Devolution of powers and tax base 2. Local / public transport infrastructure designed to reduce commuting times and enable a larger commuting catchment pool 3. Local skills development 4. Thriving local chamber of commerce with participation in local economic planning 5. Policies in support of industrial clustering; university/business partnerships; investment financing.
@Richard_Tyndall is correct that high speed rail etc tend to strengthen existing imbalances.
Indeed, is there any evidence that the long established TGV network has helped the old coalfields of Picardy? Or has it just whizzed people through it, going from metropolis to metropolis?
As I mentioned, the EU published a paper about 2 decades ago on this which showed that the TGV system in France has served to suck GDP away from the regions rather than increase it. There was a very small attributable increase in overall GDP for France but the TGV increased the imbalance between Paris and the TGV destinations compared to those regions not served by the system.
I'm sure you're right. But TGV is great. Paris to Montpellier (465 miles) in a little over 3 hours is a journey we love, upstairs on the double decker trains. And it's civilised and quiet - nobody uses their mobile phones in the carriages. And they don't constantly make banal announcements over the tannoy. We should be aiming for something similar in the UK.
But there is nowhere in the UK where significant population centres are separated by 465 miles, unless you want to build HS2 from Penzance to Portree
France is more than twice the size of the UK - France arguably NEEDS high speed trains
We are a much more compact nation, where almost all our major cities are within 2-3 hours of each other. This is an advantage. We don't really need HS trains
Talk to me about increasing commuter capacity into Leeds, Brum and Manc without HS2.
Why, in 13 years, has no one opposed to HS2 come up with a better alternative given the main reason it's being built ?
Either there is no better way or those opposed have still not worked out why it is getting built.
Yes, I get that argument. As I say below. I just don't think the "high speed" by itself is a justification. We don't need it.
Anyway, thank fuck they killed the Camden Spur
Don't agree. I'm really annoyed I can't get to, say, Orange without having to stop in London and get out and lug all the luggage. Utterly barbaric.
Agree 100%.
Just dialling back two or three comments; to be clear, the point of High Speed 2 isn't High Speed. Of all the problems with rail in this country, the adrquacy of journey times between London and Manchester is not high up the list. What HS2 is about is capacity. We do not have enough capacity on our rails - especially the WCML - to run all the services we would like (inter-city, local and freight), In particualr, mixing high speed and low speed kills capacity (freight and local can mix reasonably well as both average a similar speed). So what we need is new track. If we are doing this, why not engineer it so that it can go as fast? But speed is not the driver.
It’s all about capacity, and a massive amount of that is freight and the need to get lorries off the roads as much as possible. It’s expensive and inefficient to move containers one at a time across the country, not to mention that the various climate targets - whatever we think of them - require a lot fewer lorries on the roads than we have now.
The Camden link will almost certainly happen eventually, whether as a viaduct or more likely a tunnel. When the Chilterns tunnelling is finished, they need to move the machine to the Pennines to work on speeding up the East > West routes.
But you still need lorries to take individual containers from Daventry, Lawley Street or Trafford Park to their final destination. It’s because we’re a small country that road haulage makes sense.
That leg would work with electric HGV as much shorter range. Long distance not so much.
The UK doesn't have "long distance". That's rather the problem with this logic.
Electric HGVs make much more sense. You can already get HGVs that can travel hundred of miles and the technology is only going to improve from here.
Plus you can get charging infrastructure in the depot.
Paris-Marseilles - 774km London-Inverness - 912 km.
There is a difference. People, in their millions want to go from Paris to Marseille. Very few, comparatively, want to go from London to Inverness.
Alright. Let’s make it London-Edinburgh (646 km). Roughly 75% of the distance.
Is that ‘long distance’ by French standards? It’s considerably further than Paris-Lyon which I would describe as the nearest equivalent.
As well as pushing against Boris' Brexit in the 55% Remain area, the report also says the LDs are pushing a NIMBY agenda hard.
'In a letter to Tory by-election candidate Peter Fleet, Lib Dem MP Layla Moran urged him to condemn the government’s approach, writing: “Over the last two years the Conservative Party has received over £11m in donations from property developers.
“Local people are right to be angry at a Conservative Party that chooses to champion those who seek to build on the green belt rather than the views of local people in Chesham and Amersham.”
Clearly there has been a swing to the LDs there but the Tories should hold on unless the LDs can squeeze the Labour and Green vote to near zero
Isn’t HS2 likely to be an issue still as well? Especially given it’s finally under construction.
And Shapps just announced it is to go to Leeds
It is not going to be cancelled and they have started tunnelling in the Chilterns
That is good news, I hadn’t seen that. Although it looks as though they might be reducing the top speed a bit.
But I was thinking that the construction process itself will be disruptive and unpleasant. Lots of extra traffic, road closures, noise and pollution therefrom, etc.
Lines are never popular when being built (just look at how tough it was to build the original Grand Junction and Great Western mainlines, even including mustering private armies to confront recalcitrant companies).
It is really good news for the levelling up process and I agree there is going to be considerable disruption, indeed three years tunnelling under the Chilterns, but that is the price we have to pay to provide a modern high seed railway and at the same time allow the existing East and West coast mainlines to concentrate on more stopping services and services to local communities
It will do absolutely nothing for the levelling up process or the North South divide. Making it quicker to get from the Midlands to London does nothing to help employment or investment in the North. The EU knew this more than 20 years ago when they commissioned an in depth report into the effects of high speed rail links on the provinces, notably in France. All it did was draw more investment away from the regions into Paris.
So what would make a difference then?
Ooh. This is my special subject.
The research seems to suggest:
1. Devolution of powers and tax base 2. Local / public transport infrastructure designed to reduce commuting times and enable a larger commuting catchment pool 3. Local skills development 4. Thriving local chamber of commerce with participation in local economic planning 5. Policies in support of industrial clustering; university/business partnerships; investment financing.
@Richard_Tyndall is correct that high speed rail etc tend to strengthen existing imbalances.
Indeed, is there any evidence that the long established TGV network has helped the old coalfields of Picardy? Or has it just whizzed people through it, going from metropolis to metropolis?
As I mentioned, the EU published a paper about 2 decades ago on this which showed that the TGV system in France has served to suck GDP away from the regions rather than increase it. There was a very small attributable increase in overall GDP for France but the TGV increased the imbalance between Paris and the TGV destinations compared to those regions not served by the system.
I'm sure you're right. But TGV is great. Paris to Montpellier (465 miles) in a little over 3 hours is a journey we love, upstairs on the double decker trains. And it's civilised and quiet - nobody uses their mobile phones in the carriages. And they don't constantly make banal announcements over the tannoy. We should be aiming for something similar in the UK.
But there is nowhere in the UK where significant population centres are separated by 465 miles, unless you want to build HS2 from Penzance to Portree
France is more than twice the size of the UK - France arguably NEEDS high speed trains
We are a much more compact nation, where almost all our major cities are within 2-3 hours of each other. This is an advantage. We don't really need HS trains
Talk to me about increasing commuter capacity into Leeds, Brum and Manc without HS2.
Why, in 13 years, has no one opposed to HS2 come up with a better alternative given the main reason it's being built ?
Either there is no better way or those opposed have still not worked out why it is getting built.
Yes, I get that argument. As I say below. I just don't think the "high speed" by itself is a justification. We don't need it.
Anyway, thank fuck they killed the Camden Spur
Don't agree. I'm really annoyed I can't get to, say, Orange without having to stop in London and get out and lug all the luggage. Utterly barbaric.
Agree 100%.
Just dialling back two or three comments; to be clear, the point of High Speed 2 isn't High Speed. Of all the problems with rail in this country, the adrquacy of journey times between London and Manchester is not high up the list. What HS2 is about is capacity. We do not have enough capacity on our rails - especially the WCML - to run all the services we would like (inter-city, local and freight), In particualr, mixing high speed and low speed kills capacity (freight and local can mix reasonably well as both average a similar speed). So what we need is new track. If we are doing this, why not engineer it so that it can go as fast? But speed is not the driver.
It’s all about capacity, and a massive amount of that is freight and the need to get lorries off the roads as much as possible. It’s expensive and inefficient to move containers one at a time across the country, not to mention that the various climate targets - whatever we think of them - require a lot fewer lorries on the roads than we have now.
The Camden link will almost certainly happen eventually, whether as a viaduct or more likely a tunnel. When the Chilterns tunnelling is finished, they need to move the machine to the Pennines to work on speeding up the East > West routes.
But you still need lorries to take individual containers from Daventry, Lawley Street or Trafford Park to their final destination. It’s because we’re a small country that road haulage makes sense.
That leg would work with electric HGV as much shorter range. Long distance not so much.
The UK doesn't have "long distance". That's rather the problem with this logic.
Electric HGVs make much more sense. You can already get HGVs that can travel hundred of miles and the technology is only going to improve from here.
Plus you can get charging infrastructure in the depot.
Paris-Marseilles - 774km London-Inverness - 912 km.
An exception to prove the rule.
What percentage of freight on the roads do you think is going direct from London to Inverness or vice versa.?
I don’t think very much freight goes to Inverness, although I could be wrong. There’s a lot on the West Highland Line to Fort William.
Don’t forget however that roughly 40% of all Railfreight travels on the WCML - and more would, if there was room for more trains and lower prices.
Which would considerably ease congestion for you and I on the M6.
As well as pushing against Boris' Brexit in the 55% Remain area, the report also says the LDs are pushing a NIMBY agenda hard.
'In a letter to Tory by-election candidate Peter Fleet, Lib Dem MP Layla Moran urged him to condemn the government’s approach, writing: “Over the last two years the Conservative Party has received over £11m in donations from property developers.
“Local people are right to be angry at a Conservative Party that chooses to champion those who seek to build on the green belt rather than the views of local people in Chesham and Amersham.”
Clearly there has been a swing to the LDs there but the Tories should hold on unless the LDs can squeeze the Labour and Green vote to near zero
Isn’t HS2 likely to be an issue still as well? Especially given it’s finally under construction.
And Shapps just announced it is to go to Leeds
It is not going to be cancelled and they have started tunnelling in the Chilterns
That is good news, I hadn’t seen that. Although it looks as though they might be reducing the top speed a bit.
But I was thinking that the construction process itself will be disruptive and unpleasant. Lots of extra traffic, road closures, noise and pollution therefrom, etc.
Lines are never popular when being built (just look at how tough it was to build the original Grand Junction and Great Western mainlines, even including mustering private armies to confront recalcitrant companies).
It is really good news for the levelling up process and I agree there is going to be considerable disruption, indeed three years tunnelling under the Chilterns, but that is the price we have to pay to provide a modern high seed railway and at the same time allow the existing East and West coast mainlines to concentrate on more stopping services and services to local communities
It will do absolutely nothing for the levelling up process or the North South divide. Making it quicker to get from the Midlands to London does nothing to help employment or investment in the North. The EU knew this more than 20 years ago when they commissioned an in depth report into the effects of high speed rail links on the provinces, notably in France. All it did was draw more investment away from the regions into Paris.
So what would make a difference then?
Ooh. This is my special subject.
The research seems to suggest:
1. Devolution of powers and tax base 2. Local / public transport infrastructure designed to reduce commuting times and enable a larger commuting catchment pool 3. Local skills development 4. Thriving local chamber of commerce with participation in local economic planning 5. Policies in support of industrial clustering; university/business partnerships; investment financing.
@Richard_Tyndall is correct that high speed rail etc tend to strengthen existing imbalances.
Indeed, is there any evidence that the long established TGV network has helped the old coalfields of Picardy? Or has it just whizzed people through it, going from metropolis to metropolis?
As I mentioned, the EU published a paper about 2 decades ago on this which showed that the TGV system in France has served to suck GDP away from the regions rather than increase it. There was a very small attributable increase in overall GDP for France but the TGV increased the imbalance between Paris and the TGV destinations compared to those regions not served by the system.
I'm sure you're right. But TGV is great. Paris to Montpellier (465 miles) in a little over 3 hours is a journey we love, upstairs on the double decker trains. And it's civilised and quiet - nobody uses their mobile phones in the carriages. And they don't constantly make banal announcements over the tannoy. We should be aiming for something similar in the UK.
But there is nowhere in the UK where significant population centres are separated by 465 miles, unless you want to build HS2 from Penzance to Portree
France is more than twice the size of the UK - France arguably NEEDS high speed trains
We are a much more compact nation, where almost all our major cities are within 2-3 hours of each other. This is an advantage. We don't really need HS trains
Talk to me about increasing commuter capacity into Leeds, Brum and Manc without HS2.
Why, in 13 years, has no one opposed to HS2 come up with a better alternative given the main reason it's being built ?
Either there is no better way or those opposed have still not worked out why it is getting built.
Yes, I get that argument. As I say below. I just don't think the "high speed" by itself is a justification. We don't need it.
Anyway, thank fuck they killed the Camden Spur
What was the problem with the Camden Spur? (Apart from those who happened to have properties where it would have been built).
It meant a huge, decade-long ordeal of demolition and disruption across some of the priciest/most profitable resi and business property in north London, to achieve about 3 trains a day which might go straight from Birmingham to Paris etc
Fuck off, Brummies, northerners and Jocks. Walk from Euston to St Pancras. It's about 300 yards. Sorted
I liked the underground walkway idea that could connect them in the same way airport terminal buildings are. Not sure why they didn't do it in the end.
It's not much further than between the RER and metro platforms at Châtelet–Les Halles in Paris.
It's a shorter distance than Bank to Monument I think.
It's not just 900yds, it's a change.
I've done Leeds to Ashford International a few occasions, 2tph both n inbound and outbound, and that is typically a 45 min change with family (15 min too tight even though 99% of the distance is on concourse). I reckon if I was doing it monthly and fully oriented I'd have the 15 minute change off pat, but let's say relatively few travellers reach that level of instant orientation . A direct train would probably sit in London for a bit, but I reckon the transfer just from KGX to St Pancras is a 35 minute loss compared to what direct would be.
I reckon for North of London to the continent, that is at least an hour loss compared to a theoretical direct train, plus Eurostar is a bit less walk-up in nature for through ticketting compared to a Javelin.
It would've been really good, well beyond 900yds or moving walkway good, to have a direct route for even just a few trains a day, but hey-ho.
Yeah but for that you had to knock down my part of london, so fuck that
I always thought it was a huge mistake not to connect the North to the continent with direct trains. Who knows, perhaps we wouldn't have had Brexit if we had. But that would have required either expensive security and customs arrangements at some northern stations or the UK to have joined Schengen. (I also think we should have joined Schengen).
What's the point in connecting the North by train to the Continent when air flights are much cheaper than rail fares would be?
Global warming.
And that would have meant we wouldn't have Brexited how?
Beside the only solution to climate change is clean technologies like clean planes. 🤦♂️
Without clean planes the planet can't realistically reach Net Zero. With clean planes, there's no reason to use an inferior, more expensive, slower technology.
The advantage of high speed rail over "clean planes" is that the former exist. I think that giving the rest of the UK better links to the rest of the EU might have helped them see the point of it. In London, you can get to Paris quicker than to many places in the North, and I think that is part of the reason that for Londoners it always looked so daft to cut our connections with the continent. Would it have swung the vote? Perhaps. Perhaps not. It was pretty close as I am sure you recall.
If you actually want to help the environment and not just virtue signal then the only solution is to make clean planes exist.
If you can't do that then countries around the world aren't going to abandon flights and for trains.
Helping to ensure leaps forward in technology for things that don't exist yet but are needed for the nation is one thing the state can actually get involved in reasonably well. A vaccine challenge style investment in clean plane technologies will do more than any pissing in the wind trying to get people to abandon flights.
Paris to Marseilles (562 miles drive according to Google maps) takes 3h07 by TGV. Paris to Manchester is just 516 miles. Once you factor in getting to/from the airport and checking in/security, a high speed train service between the two cities looks pretty good. No "virtue signalling" (yawn) required.
Edit - Paris to Marseiiles isn't quite that long, I had the "avoiding tolls" setting on Google maps (I am Scottish) and the most direct routes in France are toll motorways. But the general point still stands. Northern cities to Paris or Brussels are similar to European High speed routes done in times and at prices that are very competitive with (environmentally disastrous) flights.
The PM was insistent that commuting will come back and that "it needs to come back".
That’s an interesting quote from the PM, and similar to his comments last autumn about going back to offices.
I’m not sure government yet understands, how much of a permanent step-change in working patterns has occurred in the last 15 months. It has profound implications for areas such as transport and housing that will not be thought about, if the assumption is that 2022 work and life patterns look exactly the same as 2019 did.
People actually don’t like spending three hours a day commuting, productivity isn’t massively suffering as a result, and companies are realising they don’t need quite so many city centre offices.
I don’t know. Personally I wonder if the supposed “no massive suffering in productivity” hasn’t been stretched to the limit, and the fraying ropes could start to break very soon. As turnover in the jobs market begins to ramp up again and personnel and training gaps start to become increasingly apparent. I think we’ve had a year where many larger organisations will have become very disjointed, with large amounts of work being done in very small teams frozen in March 2020, but with growing levels of disconnectivity to the wider organisation. And that has to start having a big impact at some point.
Yes, there has definitely been an effect on larger businesses, which as you suggest might reach a point where inefficiency becomes an issue. It’s definitely more difficult to integrate new members into a team, for example, and there’s probably less communication between teams than would be the case if everyone were in the office.
But it’s also true that a lot of the recruitment over the past year, has been based on remote working - the new hires don’t ever expect to be told to go to London five days a week, and they live all over the country. The productivity numbers are also fed by salaries and office costs reducing, if people don’t need to commute and buy lunch every day.
The business to invest in, for the next few years, is going to be budget hotels in city business districts. There’s going to be a lot of people working two days a week in the office. Rail use will be more long-distance routes than commuter routes too.
We’ve moved about 60% of our fun money portfolio to specialty property segments - warehousing & logistics, GP surgeries, serviced offices, light industrial, tenanted pubs, etc. Only have one resi holding now but even that is a mixed use site and driven by office to resi conversion.
As well as pushing against Boris' Brexit in the 55% Remain area, the report also says the LDs are pushing a NIMBY agenda hard.
'In a letter to Tory by-election candidate Peter Fleet, Lib Dem MP Layla Moran urged him to condemn the government’s approach, writing: “Over the last two years the Conservative Party has received over £11m in donations from property developers.
“Local people are right to be angry at a Conservative Party that chooses to champion those who seek to build on the green belt rather than the views of local people in Chesham and Amersham.”
Clearly there has been a swing to the LDs there but the Tories should hold on unless the LDs can squeeze the Labour and Green vote to near zero
Isn’t HS2 likely to be an issue still as well? Especially given it’s finally under construction.
And Shapps just announced it is to go to Leeds
It is not going to be cancelled and they have started tunnelling in the Chilterns
That is good news, I hadn’t seen that. Although it looks as though they might be reducing the top speed a bit.
But I was thinking that the construction process itself will be disruptive and unpleasant. Lots of extra traffic, road closures, noise and pollution therefrom, etc.
Lines are never popular when being built (just look at how tough it was to build the original Grand Junction and Great Western mainlines, even including mustering private armies to confront recalcitrant companies).
It is really good news for the levelling up process and I agree there is going to be considerable disruption, indeed three years tunnelling under the Chilterns, but that is the price we have to pay to provide a modern high seed railway and at the same time allow the existing East and West coast mainlines to concentrate on more stopping services and services to local communities
It will do absolutely nothing for the levelling up process or the North South divide. Making it quicker to get from the Midlands to London does nothing to help employment or investment in the North. The EU knew this more than 20 years ago when they commissioned an in depth report into the effects of high speed rail links on the provinces, notably in France. All it did was draw more investment away from the regions into Paris.
So what would make a difference then?
Ooh. This is my special subject.
The research seems to suggest:
1. Devolution of powers and tax base 2. Local / public transport infrastructure designed to reduce commuting times and enable a larger commuting catchment pool 3. Local skills development 4. Thriving local chamber of commerce with participation in local economic planning 5. Policies in support of industrial clustering; university/business partnerships; investment financing.
@Richard_Tyndall is correct that high speed rail etc tend to strengthen existing imbalances.
Indeed, is there any evidence that the long established TGV network has helped the old coalfields of Picardy? Or has it just whizzed people through it, going from metropolis to metropolis?
As I mentioned, the EU published a paper about 2 decades ago on this which showed that the TGV system in France has served to suck GDP away from the regions rather than increase it. There was a very small attributable increase in overall GDP for France but the TGV increased the imbalance between Paris and the TGV destinations compared to those regions not served by the system.
I'm sure you're right. But TGV is great. Paris to Montpellier (465 miles) in a little over 3 hours is a journey we love, upstairs on the double decker trains. And it's civilised and quiet - nobody uses their mobile phones in the carriages. And they don't constantly make banal announcements over the tannoy. We should be aiming for something similar in the UK.
But there is nowhere in the UK where significant population centres are separated by 465 miles, unless you want to build HS2 from Penzance to Portree
France is more than twice the size of the UK - France arguably NEEDS high speed trains
We are a much more compact nation, where almost all our major cities are within 2-3 hours of each other. This is an advantage. We don't really need HS trains
Talk to me about increasing commuter capacity into Leeds, Brum and Manc without HS2.
Why, in 13 years, has no one opposed to HS2 come up with a better alternative given the main reason it's being built ?
Either there is no better way or those opposed have still not worked out why it is getting built.
Yes, I get that argument. As I say below. I just don't think the "high speed" by itself is a justification. We don't need it.
Anyway, thank fuck they killed the Camden Spur
Don't agree. I'm really annoyed I can't get to, say, Orange without having to stop in London and get out and lug all the luggage. Utterly barbaric.
Agree 100%.
Just dialling back two or three comments; to be clear, the point of High Speed 2 isn't High Speed. Of all the problems with rail in this country, the adrquacy of journey times between London and Manchester is not high up the list. What HS2 is about is capacity. We do not have enough capacity on our rails - especially the WCML - to run all the services we would like (inter-city, local and freight), In particualr, mixing high speed and low speed kills capacity (freight and local can mix reasonably well as both average a similar speed). So what we need is new track. If we are doing this, why not engineer it so that it can go as fast? But speed is not the driver.
It’s all about capacity, and a massive amount of that is freight and the need to get lorries off the roads as much as possible. It’s expensive and inefficient to move containers one at a time across the country, not to mention that the various climate targets - whatever we think of them - require a lot fewer lorries on the roads than we have now.
The Camden link will almost certainly happen eventually, whether as a viaduct or more likely a tunnel. When the Chilterns tunnelling is finished, they need to move the machine to the Pennines to work on speeding up the East > West routes.
But you still need lorries to take individual containers from Daventry, Lawley Street or Trafford Park to their final destination. It’s because we’re a small country that road haulage makes sense.
That leg would work with electric HGV as much shorter range. Long distance not so much.
The UK doesn't have "long distance". That's rather the problem with this logic.
Electric HGVs make much more sense. You can already get HGVs that can travel hundred of miles and the technology is only going to improve from here.
Plus you can get charging infrastructure in the depot.
If that is your solution you can't travel the highways and byways of our glorious nation too much.
Have you used the M1 or M6 in the last 20 years? Keep freight off the roads!
As well as pushing against Boris' Brexit in the 55% Remain area, the report also says the LDs are pushing a NIMBY agenda hard.
'In a letter to Tory by-election candidate Peter Fleet, Lib Dem MP Layla Moran urged him to condemn the government’s approach, writing: “Over the last two years the Conservative Party has received over £11m in donations from property developers.
“Local people are right to be angry at a Conservative Party that chooses to champion those who seek to build on the green belt rather than the views of local people in Chesham and Amersham.”
Clearly there has been a swing to the LDs there but the Tories should hold on unless the LDs can squeeze the Labour and Green vote to near zero
Isn’t HS2 likely to be an issue still as well? Especially given it’s finally under construction.
And Shapps just announced it is to go to Leeds
It is not going to be cancelled and they have started tunnelling in the Chilterns
That is good news, I hadn’t seen that. Although it looks as though they might be reducing the top speed a bit.
But I was thinking that the construction process itself will be disruptive and unpleasant. Lots of extra traffic, road closures, noise and pollution therefrom, etc.
Lines are never popular when being built (just look at how tough it was to build the original Grand Junction and Great Western mainlines, even including mustering private armies to confront recalcitrant companies).
It is really good news for the levelling up process and I agree there is going to be considerable disruption, indeed three years tunnelling under the Chilterns, but that is the price we have to pay to provide a modern high seed railway and at the same time allow the existing East and West coast mainlines to concentrate on more stopping services and services to local communities
It will do absolutely nothing for the levelling up process or the North South divide. Making it quicker to get from the Midlands to London does nothing to help employment or investment in the North. The EU knew this more than 20 years ago when they commissioned an in depth report into the effects of high speed rail links on the provinces, notably in France. All it did was draw more investment away from the regions into Paris.
So what would make a difference then?
Ooh. This is my special subject.
The research seems to suggest:
1. Devolution of powers and tax base 2. Local / public transport infrastructure designed to reduce commuting times and enable a larger commuting catchment pool 3. Local skills development 4. Thriving local chamber of commerce with participation in local economic planning 5. Policies in support of industrial clustering; university/business partnerships; investment financing.
@Richard_Tyndall is correct that high speed rail etc tend to strengthen existing imbalances.
Indeed, is there any evidence that the long established TGV network has helped the old coalfields of Picardy? Or has it just whizzed people through it, going from metropolis to metropolis?
As I mentioned, the EU published a paper about 2 decades ago on this which showed that the TGV system in France has served to suck GDP away from the regions rather than increase it. There was a very small attributable increase in overall GDP for France but the TGV increased the imbalance between Paris and the TGV destinations compared to those regions not served by the system.
I'm sure you're right. But TGV is great. Paris to Montpellier (465 miles) in a little over 3 hours is a journey we love, upstairs on the double decker trains. And it's civilised and quiet - nobody uses their mobile phones in the carriages. And they don't constantly make banal announcements over the tannoy. We should be aiming for something similar in the UK.
But there is nowhere in the UK where significant population centres are separated by 465 miles, unless you want to build HS2 from Penzance to Portree
France is more than twice the size of the UK - France arguably NEEDS high speed trains
We are a much more compact nation, where almost all our major cities are within 2-3 hours of each other. This is an advantage. We don't really need HS trains
Talk to me about increasing commuter capacity into Leeds, Brum and Manc without HS2.
Why, in 13 years, has no one opposed to HS2 come up with a better alternative given the main reason it's being built ?
Either there is no better way or those opposed have still not worked out why it is getting built.
Yes, I get that argument. As I say below. I just don't think the "high speed" by itself is a justification. We don't need it.
Anyway, thank fuck they killed the Camden Spur
Don't agree. I'm really annoyed I can't get to, say, Orange without having to stop in London and get out and lug all the luggage. Utterly barbaric.
Agree 100%.
Just dialling back two or three comments; to be clear, the point of High Speed 2 isn't High Speed. Of all the problems with rail in this country, the adrquacy of journey times between London and Manchester is not high up the list. What HS2 is about is capacity. We do not have enough capacity on our rails - especially the WCML - to run all the services we would like (inter-city, local and freight), In particualr, mixing high speed and low speed kills capacity (freight and local can mix reasonably well as both average a similar speed). So what we need is new track. If we are doing this, why not engineer it so that it can go as fast? But speed is not the driver.
It’s all about capacity, and a massive amount of that is freight and the need to get lorries off the roads as much as possible. It’s expensive and inefficient to move containers one at a time across the country, not to mention that the various climate targets - whatever we think of them - require a lot fewer lorries on the roads than we have now.
The Camden link will almost certainly happen eventually, whether as a viaduct or more likely a tunnel. When the Chilterns tunnelling is finished, they need to move the machine to the Pennines to work on speeding up the East > West routes.
But you still need lorries to take individual containers from Daventry, Lawley Street or Trafford Park to their final destination. It’s because we’re a small country that road haulage makes sense.
As an aside (not really a response to your post) freight is 9% (and water 13%).
The lower figures are % of freight by weight (freight lifted) but doesn’t take into account the distance travel. Rail tends to be for longer distances.
As well as pushing against Boris' Brexit in the 55% Remain area, the report also says the LDs are pushing a NIMBY agenda hard.
'In a letter to Tory by-election candidate Peter Fleet, Lib Dem MP Layla Moran urged him to condemn the government’s approach, writing: “Over the last two years the Conservative Party has received over £11m in donations from property developers.
“Local people are right to be angry at a Conservative Party that chooses to champion those who seek to build on the green belt rather than the views of local people in Chesham and Amersham.”
Clearly there has been a swing to the LDs there but the Tories should hold on unless the LDs can squeeze the Labour and Green vote to near zero
Isn’t HS2 likely to be an issue still as well? Especially given it’s finally under construction.
And Shapps just announced it is to go to Leeds
It is not going to be cancelled and they have started tunnelling in the Chilterns
That is good news, I hadn’t seen that. Although it looks as though they might be reducing the top speed a bit.
But I was thinking that the construction process itself will be disruptive and unpleasant. Lots of extra traffic, road closures, noise and pollution therefrom, etc.
Lines are never popular when being built (just look at how tough it was to build the original Grand Junction and Great Western mainlines, even including mustering private armies to confront recalcitrant companies).
It is really good news for the levelling up process and I agree there is going to be considerable disruption, indeed three years tunnelling under the Chilterns, but that is the price we have to pay to provide a modern high seed railway and at the same time allow the existing East and West coast mainlines to concentrate on more stopping services and services to local communities
It will do absolutely nothing for the levelling up process or the North South divide. Making it quicker to get from the Midlands to London does nothing to help employment or investment in the North. The EU knew this more than 20 years ago when they commissioned an in depth report into the effects of high speed rail links on the provinces, notably in France. All it did was draw more investment away from the regions into Paris.
So what would make a difference then?
Ooh. This is my special subject.
The research seems to suggest:
1. Devolution of powers and tax base 2. Local / public transport infrastructure designed to reduce commuting times and enable a larger commuting catchment pool 3. Local skills development 4. Thriving local chamber of commerce with participation in local economic planning 5. Policies in support of industrial clustering; university/business partnerships; investment financing.
@Richard_Tyndall is correct that high speed rail etc tend to strengthen existing imbalances.
Indeed, is there any evidence that the long established TGV network has helped the old coalfields of Picardy? Or has it just whizzed people through it, going from metropolis to metropolis?
As I mentioned, the EU published a paper about 2 decades ago on this which showed that the TGV system in France has served to suck GDP away from the regions rather than increase it. There was a very small attributable increase in overall GDP for France but the TGV increased the imbalance between Paris and the TGV destinations compared to those regions not served by the system.
I'm sure you're right. But TGV is great. Paris to Montpellier (465 miles) in a little over 3 hours is a journey we love, upstairs on the double decker trains. And it's civilised and quiet - nobody uses their mobile phones in the carriages. And they don't constantly make banal announcements over the tannoy. We should be aiming for something similar in the UK.
But there is nowhere in the UK where significant population centres are separated by 465 miles, unless you want to build HS2 from Penzance to Portree
France is more than twice the size of the UK - France arguably NEEDS high speed trains
We are a much more compact nation, where almost all our major cities are within 2-3 hours of each other. This is an advantage. We don't really need HS trains
Talk to me about increasing commuter capacity into Leeds, Brum and Manc without HS2.
Why, in 13 years, has no one opposed to HS2 come up with a better alternative given the main reason it's being built ?
Either there is no better way or those opposed have still not worked out why it is getting built.
Yes, I get that argument. As I say below. I just don't think the "high speed" by itself is a justification. We don't need it.
Anyway, thank fuck they killed the Camden Spur
Don't agree. I'm really annoyed I can't get to, say, Orange without having to stop in London and get out and lug all the luggage. Utterly barbaric.
Agree 100%.
Just dialling back two or three comments; to be clear, the point of High Speed 2 isn't High Speed. Of all the problems with rail in this country, the adrquacy of journey times between London and Manchester is not high up the list. What HS2 is about is capacity. We do not have enough capacity on our rails - especially the WCML - to run all the services we would like (inter-city, local and freight), In particualr, mixing high speed and low speed kills capacity (freight and local can mix reasonably well as both average a similar speed). So what we need is new track. If we are doing this, why not engineer it so that it can go as fast? But speed is not the driver.
It’s all about capacity, and a massive amount of that is freight and the need to get lorries off the roads as much as possible. It’s expensive and inefficient to move containers one at a time across the country, not to mention that the various climate targets - whatever we think of them - require a lot fewer lorries on the roads than we have now.
The Camden link will almost certainly happen eventually, whether as a viaduct or more likely a tunnel. When the Chilterns tunnelling is finished, they need to move the machine to the Pennines to work on speeding up the East > West routes.
But you still need lorries to take individual containers from Daventry, Lawley Street or Trafford Park to their final destination. It’s because we’re a small country that road haulage makes sense.
That leg would work with electric HGV as much shorter range. Long distance not so much.
The UK doesn't have "long distance". That's rather the problem with this logic.
Electric HGVs make much more sense. You can already get HGVs that can travel hundred of miles and the technology is only going to improve from here.
Plus you can get charging infrastructure in the depot.
Paris-Marseilles - 774km London-Inverness - 912 km.
There is a difference. People, in their millions want to go from Paris to Marseille. Very few, comparatively, want to go from London to Inverness.
In part because the SNP makes it unpleasantly clear we are not welcome
People wanting to use HS1 to the continent from the Midlands and North are probably better served by using Midland Main Line into St Pancras, and just going down the escalator. Far nicer than the walk from Euson with luggage. Far more locations served too.
Depends where you’re starting from. For Leicester, yes, that probably would work. How about the West Midlands? The nearest connections I have to the Midland main line are Derby or Leicester. To get to Leicester means at least one change - either at Tamworth or Birmingham, depending on where I start from.
When HS2 is built, I can go direct from Stafford, which is seven miles away.
Leicester, Derby, Nottingham, Sheffield, Leeds all have direct services to St Pancras.
As well as pushing against Boris' Brexit in the 55% Remain area, the report also says the LDs are pushing a NIMBY agenda hard.
'In a letter to Tory by-election candidate Peter Fleet, Lib Dem MP Layla Moran urged him to condemn the government’s approach, writing: “Over the last two years the Conservative Party has received over £11m in donations from property developers.
“Local people are right to be angry at a Conservative Party that chooses to champion those who seek to build on the green belt rather than the views of local people in Chesham and Amersham.”
Clearly there has been a swing to the LDs there but the Tories should hold on unless the LDs can squeeze the Labour and Green vote to near zero
Isn’t HS2 likely to be an issue still as well? Especially given it’s finally under construction.
And Shapps just announced it is to go to Leeds
It is not going to be cancelled and they have started tunnelling in the Chilterns
That is good news, I hadn’t seen that. Although it looks as though they might be reducing the top speed a bit.
But I was thinking that the construction process itself will be disruptive and unpleasant. Lots of extra traffic, road closures, noise and pollution therefrom, etc.
Lines are never popular when being built (just look at how tough it was to build the original Grand Junction and Great Western mainlines, even including mustering private armies to confront recalcitrant companies).
It is really good news for the levelling up process and I agree there is going to be considerable disruption, indeed three years tunnelling under the Chilterns, but that is the price we have to pay to provide a modern high seed railway and at the same time allow the existing East and West coast mainlines to concentrate on more stopping services and services to local communities
It will do absolutely nothing for the levelling up process or the North South divide. Making it quicker to get from the Midlands to London does nothing to help employment or investment in the North. The EU knew this more than 20 years ago when they commissioned an in depth report into the effects of high speed rail links on the provinces, notably in France. All it did was draw more investment away from the regions into Paris.
So what would make a difference then?
Ooh. This is my special subject.
The research seems to suggest:
1. Devolution of powers and tax base 2. Local / public transport infrastructure designed to reduce commuting times and enable a larger commuting catchment pool 3. Local skills development 4. Thriving local chamber of commerce with participation in local economic planning 5. Policies in support of industrial clustering; university/business partnerships; investment financing.
@Richard_Tyndall is correct that high speed rail etc tend to strengthen existing imbalances.
Indeed, is there any evidence that the long established TGV network has helped the old coalfields of Picardy? Or has it just whizzed people through it, going from metropolis to metropolis?
As I mentioned, the EU published a paper about 2 decades ago on this which showed that the TGV system in France has served to suck GDP away from the regions rather than increase it. There was a very small attributable increase in overall GDP for France but the TGV increased the imbalance between Paris and the TGV destinations compared to those regions not served by the system.
I'm sure you're right. But TGV is great. Paris to Montpellier (465 miles) in a little over 3 hours is a journey we love, upstairs on the double decker trains. And it's civilised and quiet - nobody uses their mobile phones in the carriages. And they don't constantly make banal announcements over the tannoy. We should be aiming for something similar in the UK.
But there is nowhere in the UK where significant population centres are separated by 465 miles, unless you want to build HS2 from Penzance to Portree
France is more than twice the size of the UK - France arguably NEEDS high speed trains
We are a much more compact nation, where almost all our major cities are within 2-3 hours of each other. This is an advantage. We don't really need HS trains
Talk to me about increasing commuter capacity into Leeds, Brum and Manc without HS2.
Why, in 13 years, has no one opposed to HS2 come up with a better alternative given the main reason it's being built ?
Either there is no better way or those opposed have still not worked out why it is getting built.
Yes, I get that argument. As I say below. I just don't think the "high speed" by itself is a justification. We don't need it.
Anyway, thank fuck they killed the Camden Spur
Don't agree. I'm really annoyed I can't get to, say, Orange without having to stop in London and get out and lug all the luggage. Utterly barbaric.
Agree 100%.
Just dialling back two or three comments; to be clear, the point of High Speed 2 isn't High Speed. Of all the problems with rail in this country, the adrquacy of journey times between London and Manchester is not high up the list. What HS2 is about is capacity. We do not have enough capacity on our rails - especially the WCML - to run all the services we would like (inter-city, local and freight), In particualr, mixing high speed and low speed kills capacity (freight and local can mix reasonably well as both average a similar speed). So what we need is new track. If we are doing this, why not engineer it so that it can go as fast? But speed is not the driver.
It’s all about capacity, and a massive amount of that is freight and the need to get lorries off the roads as much as possible. It’s expensive and inefficient to move containers one at a time across the country, not to mention that the various climate targets - whatever we think of them - require a lot fewer lorries on the roads than we have now.
The Camden link will almost certainly happen eventually, whether as a viaduct or more likely a tunnel. When the Chilterns tunnelling is finished, they need to move the machine to the Pennines to work on speeding up the East > West routes.
But you still need lorries to take individual containers from Daventry, Lawley Street or Trafford Park to their final destination. It’s because we’re a small country that road haulage makes sense.
That leg would work with electric HGV as much shorter range. Long distance not so much.
The UK doesn't have "long distance". That's rather the problem with this logic.
Electric HGVs make much more sense. You can already get HGVs that can travel hundred of miles and the technology is only going to improve from here.
Plus you can get charging infrastructure in the depot.
If that is your solution you can't travel the highways and byways of our glorious nation too much.
Have you used the M1 or M6 in the last 20 years? Keep freight off the roads!
Try the A14 or the A12. Quite a few HGV's. Or at least there were before Brexit.
People wanting to use HS1 to the continent from the Midlands and North are probably better served by using Midland Main Line into St Pancras, and just going down the escalator. Far nicer than the walk from Euson with luggage. Far more locations served too.
Depends where you’re starting from. For Leicester, yes, that probably would work. How about the West Midlands? The nearest connections I have to the Midland main line are Derby or Leicester. To get to Leicester means at least one change - either at Tamworth or Birmingham, depending on where I start from.
When HS2 is built, I can go direct from Stafford, which is seven miles away.
Leicester, Derby, Nottingham, Sheffield, Leeds all have direct services to St Pancras.
Yes, and none of them are easy to get to from Canncok. All would mean at least two changes.
Long time lurker here. I have 4 year old august born son. He has loves his well run state school whereas he disliked the private nursery he went to before, it is just a world of difference, much more structure, discipline, order, facilities, resources etc. And the nursery we had was oversubscribed - one of the better ones which we were paying something like £800 a month for. The issue is whether it is really right to force 4 years olds to read and write the way they do - it might be better that they just spend more time playing and being kids.
Long time lurker here. I have 4 year old august born son. He has loves his well run state school whereas he disliked the private nursery he went to before, it is just a world of difference, much more structure, discipline, order, facilities, resources etc. And the nursery we had was oversubscribed - one of the better ones which we were paying something like £800 a month for. The issue is whether it is really right to force 4 years olds to read and write the way they do - it might be better that they just spend more time playing and being kids.
Apologies, I have a feeling that I greeted you by sidetracking your contribution onto the wrong thread. Welcome, and I hope you repost your interesting contribution in the correct place.
Long time lurker here. I have 4 year old august born son. He has loves his well run state school whereas he disliked the private nursery he went to before, it is just a world of difference, much more structure, discipline, order, facilities, resources etc. And the nursery we had was oversubscribed - one of the better ones which we were paying something like £800 a month for. The issue is whether it is really right to force 4 years olds to read and write the way they do - it might be better that they just spend more time playing and being kids.
Welcome. What you are suggesting applies in much of the civilised world. Finland, IIRC, doesn't start 'proper learning' until a child is 7. Children of 3/4/5 of course aren't really 'playing'; they actively learning all sorts of useful, especially social, skills.
I have been doing some research, and it transpires that the latest class 802s and 397s can achieve 125mph north of Preston without tilting capability, due to their very high acceleration.
Whether this has been officially signed off yet I don’t know, but it suggests there might not need to be a loss of speed with HS2 classic compatible units (which will also have rapid acceleration).
The TPE 802s don't serve WCML, rather they have enough grunt (and juice) to serve the ECML north or York, and have allowed TPE to reach Edinburgh that way without causing hold ups (they serve Edinburgh-Liverpool and Newcastle-Manchester Airport both via ECML). They are, in theory, 140able as well should that line speed increase ever come to fruition that far north. However, iirc, all the TPE fleets did a decent amount of their running in miles up to Longtown depot near Carlisle, so I reckon there was a chance back then to look at this for future reference (and given First involvement in both TPE and Avanti there was cross franchise benefit in looking at 802s on WCML when this was done).
Comments
Got to say I prefer cooler weather.
@nickeardleybbc: Prof Ravi Gupta from Nervtag suggests 21 June relaxations should be delayed by "a few weeks"
"If you look at the c… https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1399248259546324992
The difference though is vaccinations prevent cases becoming hospitalisations and deaths.
74.5% of all adults have had a vaccine.
48.1% of all adults have had two vaccines.
No excuses to delay lifting lockdown.
That said, train prices are always inflated when there’s football. The big benefit of the train is that you arrive in city centres. As with HS2, the cost of tickets would go on the company account so I’m sure there would have been demand for Birmingham or even Manchester to Paris and Brussels.
So the drumbeat that lockdown are the answer drones on - and even if the Govt resists now, but definitely if they concede the “few weeks” point - we’ll be hearing the calls all winter as the strain on the NHS grows and new variants get identified. The UK’s excellent genome sequencing programme becomes a curse...
I’m not sure government yet understands, how much of a permanent step-change in working patterns has occurred in the last 15 months. It has profound implications for areas such as transport and housing that will not be thought about, if the assumption is that 2022 work and life patterns look exactly the same as 2019 did.
People actually don’t like spending three hours a day commuting, productivity isn’t massively suffering as a result, and companies are realising they don’t need quite so many city centre offices.
Temp 13.2degC here, according to my phone app.
Big advantage of trains over planes is that they go to the middle of the city one wants to get to, rather than half-an-hours (expensive) taxi ride outside.
Beside the only solution to climate change is clean technologies like clean planes. 🤦♂️
Without clean planes the planet can't realistically reach Net Zero. With clean planes, there's no reason to use an inferior, more expensive, slower technology.
The Camden link will almost certainly happen eventually, whether as a viaduct or more likely a tunnel. When the Chilterns tunnelling is finished, they need to move the machine to the Pennines to work on speeding up the East > West routes.
Last time I travelled a domestic train to the airport, flight, domestic train to destination was considerably cheaper and faster than trying to do the entire route by rail.
I think that giving the rest of the UK better links to the rest of the EU might have helped them see the point of it. In London, you can get to Paris quicker than to many places in the North, and I think that is part of the reason that for Londoners it always looked so daft to cut our connections with the continent. Would it have swung the vote? Perhaps. Perhaps not. It was pretty close as I am sure you recall.
Hospital admissions, vaccine status, age profile, and outbreak areas are essential information
Yesterday an argument was being put forward that as the NHS has such a backlog which they are starting to address, they cannot accept any rise in covid patients
Now that is turning the narrative on its head, and on that basis the Country will be locked down for months, even years, and it is just not acceptable
I was angry and a rebel yesterday, largely because the media and independent sage have taken over the narrative with their zero covid, eliminate covid strategy, which is just not feasible and in order to convince many millions of citizens, including myself, that we have to have further delays there has to be far more transparent figures on hospital admissions
Of course I would comply with restrictions if it is proven they are needed, but I am not persuaded by those who seem to have taken over the agenda
Let us not forget that there are many opponents of Boris driven by many who have not come to terms with Brexit, that to prevent the 21st June opening would see it as a political win to their cause, and it is not being driven by the actual clinical reality
I would include Independent Sage and large parts of the broadcast media in that category
Rail makes sense for freight with large nations moving huge volumes of goods from A to very long distance away B. That's not the UK.
If all you're moving is a relatively small volume of goods a relatively small distance then HGVs make much more sense. Which is why ~89% of freight in this country is moved by HGV and only ~5% by rail and that's never going to change.
My in-laws live in a mining town in the Canadian Rockies. Except for discussions of climate, seeing the train depart from the mine is an impressive thing of beauty. I swear it must be hundreds of carriages departing on one train further than the eyes can see in both directions, it takes minutes for the whole train to go past - and they're going to travel many hundreds or even thousands of km.
The UK doesn't have anything like that.
If you can't do that then countries around the world aren't going to abandon flights and for trains.
Helping to ensure leaps forward in technology for things that don't exist yet but are needed for the nation is one thing the state can actually get involved in reasonably well. A vaccine challenge style investment in clean plane technologies will do more than any pissing in the wind trying to get people to abandon flights.
But it’s also true that a lot of the recruitment over the past year, has been based on remote working - the new hires don’t ever expect to be told to go to London five days a week, and they live all over the country. The productivity numbers are also fed by salaries and office costs reducing, if people don’t need to commute and buy lunch every day.
The business to invest in, for the next few years, is going to be budget hotels in city business districts. There’s going to be a lot of people working two days a week in the office. Rail use will be more long-distance routes than commuter routes too.
Electric HGVs make much more sense. You can already get HGVs that can travel hundred of miles and the technology is only going to improve from here.
Plus you can get charging infrastructure in the depot.
https://www.railfreight.com/railfreight/2021/05/10/sheffield-sees-iconic-marshalling-yard-reborn-as-intermodal-terminal/?gdpr=accept
When HS2 is built, I can go direct from Stafford, which is seven miles away.
If it's small volumes that fit within a HGV and has multiple stops along the route then it doesn't necessarily make sense to do that.
The market already effectively deals with this. You're never going to have a meaningful removal of all the Eddie Stobart style HGVs on the road as they're on the road for a reason.
London-Inverness - 912 km.
Of course the Indian variant is a worry, and if the increase continues, well we know know about exponential growth. But I am not sure we are in any different position in regards to cases, deaths etc than we expected to be in.
People may find this article of interest.
https://garethdennis.medium.com/high-speed-two-and-the-need-for-speed-91d8c68c5d80
I have been doing some research, and it transpires that the latest class 802s and 397s can achieve 125mph north of Preston without tilting capability, due to their very high acceleration.
Whether this has been officially signed off yet I don’t know, but it suggests there might not need to be a loss of speed with HS2 classic compatible units (which will also have rapid acceleration).
More here:
https://garethdennis.medium.com/is-the-end-already-in-sight-for-britains-tilting-trains-b6ebb496433c
What percentage of freight on the roads do you think is going direct from London to Inverness or vice versa.?
Is that ‘long distance’ by French standards? It’s considerably further than Paris-Lyon which I would describe as the nearest equivalent.
Don’t forget however that roughly 40% of all Railfreight travels on the WCML - and more would, if there was room for more trains and lower prices.
Which would considerably ease congestion for you and I on the M6.
Have you used the M1 or M6 in the last 20 years? Keep freight off the roads!
The lower figures are % of freight by weight (freight lifted) but doesn’t take into account the distance travel. Rail tends to be for longer distances.
increased estimated costs by 87%.
I have 4 year old august born son. He has loves his well run state school whereas he disliked the private nursery he went to before, it is just a world of difference, much more structure, discipline, order, facilities, resources etc.
And the nursery we had was oversubscribed - one of the better ones which we were paying something like £800 a month for.
The issue is whether it is really right to force 4 years olds to read and write the way they do - it might be better that they just spend more time playing and being kids.