Crossrail

[martint235]

Am I the only one depressed by the lack of ambition shown by the Crossrail projects? Reading to Abbey Wood? Why not Swansea to the channel tunnel and beyond with central London stops. Ally Pally to Wimbledon? Why not Edinburgh to Brighton at high speed? Build a new airport in the Thames estuary and link that to Wales, Scotland and the Midlands?

What is the point of these incredibly expensive but short sighted projects?

 

[TVC]

The rest of the country is more than adiquately served by the existing rail network. Do you realise there is almost one fast train between Manchester and Sheffield an hour. What more does the Northern Powerhouse need?

 

[martint235]

And why no sleeper service London to Munich, Madrid, or Milan?

Exactly! Or if you're doing sleeper services Edinburgh to Milan? A range of hubs: Milan ; lille ; Madrid ; Vienna that open up Europe with one or two changes of train?

 

[twentysix by twentyfive]

Much greener to invest in Transporter "beam me up Scotty" technology. Let's really have vision and long termness involved

 

[martint235]

The rest of the country is more than adiquately served by the existing rail network. Do you realise there is almost one fast train between Manchester and Sheffield an hour. What more does the Northern Powerhouse need?

Also true. And so rather than link them properly the current plan is to build a high speed line either side of the Pennines. It will be faster to travel from Manchester to London to Leeds than Manchester to Leeds.

These projects are taking years and costing billions. We should be ambitious about them

 

[Tim Hall]

And why no sleeper service London to Munich, Madrid, or Milan?

New York, London, Paris, Munich

 

[Supersuperleeds]

Also true. And so rather than link them properly the current plan is to build a high speed line either side of the Pennines. It will be faster to travel from Manchester to London to Leeds than Manchester to Leeds.

These projects are taking years and costing billions. We should be ambitious about them

We don't let Mancs directly into Leeds.

 

[mjr]

No, I'm depressed wondering what fraction of the budget for those unambitious rail projects will be allocated to the cycling infrastructure strategy.

 

[roadrash]

New York, London, Paris, Munich

THANKS, i know cant get this out of my head


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEfFOd8TDZA&list=RDiEfFOd8TDZA#t=25

 

[Racing roadkill]

 

[martint235]

No, I'm depressed wondering what fraction of the budget for those unambitious rail projects will be allocated to the cycling infrastructure strategy.

That's ok, I don't particularly want cycling infrastructure. I just want education and enforcement that allows me to use the existing road infrastructure without having to have arguments with motons.

 

[mjr]

Don't worry: I'm sure education and enforcement won't be funded any better

 

[martint235]

Don't worry: I'm sure education and enforcement won't be funded any better

I know but see "Tales from today's commute", I can do them myself.

 

[Over The Hill]

I have found it fairly easy to get off one train, walk across the station and get on another. About 95% of daily commuters to London do this with a rail/underground trip.
The network is already there, more lines are just slightly simplifying the journey for some. I could now get to Gatwick on two trains rather than three. But it is still a pain in the arse and too expensive so I will still go by car.

 

[martint235]

I have found it fairly easy to get off one train, walk across the station and get on another. About 95% of daily commuters to London do this with a rail/underground trip.
The network is already there, more lines are just slightly simplifying the journey for some. I could now get to Gatwick on two trains rather than three. But it is still a pain in the arse and too expensive so I will still go by car.

I wouldn't have thought it's as high as 95% as I doubt I'm that much alone in trying to live one train ride away from work.

However you also need to factor in hubs so from the outskirts of Glasgow to Glasgow (1 train), Glasgow to London (2 trains), Underground to another London station (3 trains), train to Paris (4 trains), Metro (5 trains), train to destination (6). Now I don't feel it should be beyond the wit of man in 2016 to have one train do a lot of that and also allow people to board and leave the train en route. In fact iirc correctly one of the drivers for the Channel Tunnel was the Glasgow to Paris idea but it never materialised. To spend billions on a train that gets people from the Ally Pally to Wimbledon just seems very short sighted and unambitious.