I see a committee of MPs has backed the high speed rail link from London to Birmingham.

I'm torn on this one - I can see it would be terrible for the farmers directly affected but, looking at the bigger picture, we do need a better rail infrastructure in this country. 

 

 

Lets hope they get the bulldozers out and make it as straight as possible. The idea of it having to curve around some blasted newts or some NIMBYs gardens would vex me.

Tim.Relf:

we do need a better rail infrastructure in this country. 

 

 

I don't think we do. What we do need is a bit of a firmer hand on the running of what we already have, which is an incredibly comprehensive network. There are far too many people milking a system which has deep rooted inefficiencies and a history of overpaid, under achieving overmanning. I know, because I've worked on the railways!

what will the time saving be?

for how many people?

will it pay? i expect not.

the problem with rail travel is its too expencive , i was thinking of traveling from west wales to newark but it will be cheaper to put fuel in my 4by4, an expencive new line will make things worse as somehow it has to be paid for, as already said whats there already needs to be more efficent,

I always found that travelling east-west or west-east was the problem with rail. Much better to upgrade that than build a high-speed link between two places that are attached by the M40 and not really very far apart. Too much 'capital-city' mentality!

Stuart Meikle:

Too much 'capital-city' mentality

I totally agree. Once Bovril has collected his zillions and the new London airport has been built on his farm, the rail from there should run directly north and west, bypassing London entirely. (We might put a spur on it to terminate in the heart of Soho)

Peter Wells:

[Once Bovril has collected his zillions and the new London airport has been built on his farm, the rail from there should run directly north and west,

I know you joke, (unless you know something I don't!) but several years ago there was a definite plan to put a huge new London airport to the east of Southend, either on Foulness Island or Maplin Sands. Part of the proposal was to bring the access road out to the north, and through our little peninsular. It would have totally destroyed our seclusion and quietness, but if we were near enough to a junction the rise in value would have hopefully meant we could get away from it!

We actually have a small branch line railway which trundles a train out this way every hour or so. I'm not sure how it avoided the Beeching cuts, but I can only assume that the nuclear power station near the end of the line had something to do with it. There was another line nearby which actually went to a couple of proper market towns, rather than just some scattered villages, and that was closed in 1964.

Looks like a decision on this could be imminent...

To answer Glasshouse's question as to what the time saving will be. Proponents say it will save 20 minutes.

Given that proponents always overstate their case, let us say that a saving of 15 minutes will be made on the journey time between Birmingham and London (Euston)

When the extension is later built to take the line in a Y shape to Manchester and Leeds, before then moving on Scotland, the saving between Manchester and London will be around 30 minutes.

A similarly distanced super track in Holland is currently running at 20% capacity as the low time savings are not worth passengers paying for the increased fare.

A point of reflection is that the premium priced Toll road M6 between Birmingham and Manchester makes a huge loss. This is because drivers find the time savings too little as compared with the existing 'free' motorway.

My own view is that the reasons for not flying Concorde between London and Birmingham are the very same reasons why slower, cheaper options are more sensible than the present proposals.

PS. Having got to London from Birmingham 15 minutes earlier, I will not then elaborate on the conditions that reduce all human movement to 4mph in the Euston area of London.

 

 

peter, well said , it is not worth the expense, just an ego trip for cameron.

if he spent the same sum on draining all the wet fields in britain, the return would be greater, but it wont make a soundbite.

i can catch the kings cross train ten minutes from my door at 6.19 am and arrive at 10am. its quite fast enough. faster than flying.

Peter Wells:

let us say that a saving of 15 minutes will be made on the journey time between Birmingham and London (Euston)

 

 

 

I wonder what they'll do with those 15 minutes that they save

 

What is wrong with the old line that it cannot be upgraded and if it is that bad it should not take too much to imrove it to the tune of taking 15 minutes off the travel time?

I think the old Royal Scott steam train used to thunder through our land London to Scotaland at 3.15pm and back through early morning every day, I' fairly sure it would not be much slower than the presant day trains, the slower trains had to make way for it.

Another thing most steamers pulled fifteen coaches,

Now the  goods container trains are doing 70/80 MPH so the average speed of all trafic is higher, and why cannot the modern electrics have more coaches and maintain a higher speed

Peter Wells:

Proponents say it will save 20 minutes

 

 

I discovered the other day it is possible to get from London to Barrow (on the south coast of Cumbria) in 3 hours 30 minutes. If thats not fast enough then why bother going. it takes me 4 hours 30 by car to get to the M25 and thats an hour away from Barrow by car. Would be a pointless expense to please to townies that want to work in london but not live with the sky high property prices.

Here is another example of how we need better judgement and how vocal small pressure groups must not get their way.A Locomotive weighs about one hundred tns,each carriage weighs about thirty five tns and seats fifty people,it produces between two and three thousand Hp [some five thousand ].Each Train will pull six Coaches. A Bus weighs five or six tns,carries forty five people has an engine of say two hundred Hp. The Railway Track has to be taken up every two or three years because the Hardcore moves,this costs a fortune.The whole thing is old Technology that costs the Earth to operate,costs the Earth in Maintance is very nice to ride in but too expensive.A Road Train on the Motorway would be a better bet and put the Motorway speed limit up to eighty mph.

Railway maintenance isn't quite that bad BB, but there is a massive amount of money wasted through over management, over manning, and union enforced labour inefficiency.

Maybe rather than running trains on steel tracks, tarmac those railways over and run high speed versions of the Cambridge guided busways along the network.

 a far better investment would be a high  volume water main from loch lomond to east anglia , for drinking water and irrigation. A pipe big enough to drive a tractor through, with a muckle great meter on it!

For me the important part of this whole scheme is that landowners and property owners whose property is required for the rail  development are properly compensated in a decent and realistic manner.

I think people will always protest against any new industrial development despite the fact that this development may be of huge advantage to the whole of  England ,particularly when it reaches Yorkshire and the North East. I am quite sure that when the railways were first built there would have been similar vigorous protests but fortunately they were ignored or bypassed,for without the wonder of our Railways we would never have developed into the great nation we are today.

Dick

Dick,

      I completley agree that we must have progress but this is old Technology that costs the Earth to run and install as well as looking terrible.We need high speed transport but at a price that is affordable, just look at Concorde, who did the Sums on that one.

Following my New Year's Resolution to only write short postings, all I will say on this one is 'Air Ships'!

Stuart Meikle:

New Year's Resolution to only write short postings

I hope it doesn't last.

Bit more land gone for no good

 I feel sorry for the farmers that will have there farms cut in half

folk should live next to there work like I do

 

Peter, not quite sure where you get the 15 minutes from. At the moment journey time between London and Birmingham is alleged to be one hour 24 minutes, with the high speed rail it is hoped to cut the journey time down to 45 minutes.

Personally I do not use the train much, our local station is closed and the service is poor and expensive. I would have thought a proper well run modern railway system would be very beneficial to the country. It is frustrating when people say we should get cars off the roads and use public transport when said public transport is pathetic, especially in our area.

I am not sure how much the high speed rail will help but I am all for modernisation and I believe the impact on the environment will be mitigated by cuttings and tunnels. We have been waiting for well over 30 years to get a bypass around our local town. The greenies and nimbys have scuppered plans  for the bypass time after time, we have to suffer hours and hours in queing traffic and the town itself is suffering because fed up shoppers go elsewhere.  I am all for progress. 

 

 

farmerbill:

Peter, not quite sure where you get the 15 minutes from.

I had read (I know you can't believe everything you read) that the journey time would be cut by twenty minutes. I then reduced it because proponents always overstate a case.

I know that a case can be made from the point of GO and the point of STOP and that on balance, I would be against the scheme at this time. However, a point in its favour not yet made is that history teaches us that many schemes which were of questionable value at the time they were built, turned out to be a benefit to subsequent generations.

For example, the Victorians built the London Underground that was massively over specified for its day, but which is critical nowadays. Likewise, their national rail network which, had it not been partially destroyed by Beeching would have been playing an even more important role today..

The Interstate Roads in the US were built at a time of recession but no-one would close them down today, similarly the German auto bahns.

It could be further argued that had the Danes, Norsemen and Saxons been a bit more farsighted they could have made better use of the roads left by the Romans and possibly created a more integrated and dynamic Britain earlier.