High speed rail network

[stoatsngroats]

I seem to think that there wer limited staions on this proposed route - Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow/Edinburgh, and London. I don't think that this will ever happen, HS" will be another consultation exercise, with vast sums spent on fees and studies, and great presentations - I can't understand what would push ANY political party towards such extravagant expense for so few pwople - 45 mins to Birmingham from London?! That's just plain outrageous - it takes me over an hour and 20 mins to train to London from the south coast......


It really is just a silly plan to get people thinking about something else other than the current financial/war/personality news hype......


By the way - have you heard...Big Brother is being cancelled!

 

[cookiemonster]

Would have to disagree there.... They have 125mph capability (hence the name!!) so any slowness would be down to the line speed. Never noticed any diesel whiff travelling in an HST. I'd say they're reasonably quiet to travel in because unlike Turbostars and Voyagers you haven't got the engine strapped underneath the carriage. The ride quality on HSTs is extremely hard to beat as well.

As I said, it looks like I'm just unlucky.

 

[domd1979]

As I said, it looks like I'm just unlucky.

 

[domd1979]

My gripe is with Virgin for insisting on so many 1st class coaches to London when they're always half empty.

There's a couple of really busy trains where it does fill up (or did before the recession...) but for the best part of the day they're probably worse than half-empty.

 

[Mr Pig]

I've never understood why people have to move around so much anyway. Take Glasgow and Edinburgh for example. Every morning hundreds of people batter along the M8 from one city, or near to it, to their work in the other. There must be hundreds of people going one way who are doing similar jobs to people going the other.

Why can't someone set up a scheme that helps people swap jobs with others who are doing a similar job nearer to where they live? Why is the emphesis on moving people around rather than moving the work nearer to the people? Less travelling is better for everyone.

 

[Night Train]

When I heard this I thought it was a good thing, London through Manchester. Then I thought about the objections to every bit of any proposed route that it may take due to NIMBY attitude.

Then I thought M1 M6. Why are train lines not run with major motorways as a double deck where ever possible and adjacent where not? Road on top, rail below, rail on a bridge or in a cutting and the road adjacent following the contour of the land. If that was designed at the very start then it would be easy.

I have thought as Mr Pig about the moving people about thing. I get offered agency housing officer work in Leeds or Birmingham but rarely Manchester.

 

[al78]

I seem to think that there wer limited staions on this proposed route - Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow/Edinburgh, and London. I don't think that this will ever happen, HS" will be another consultation exercise, with vast sums spent on fees and studies, and great presentations - I can't understand what would push ANY political party towards such extravagant expense for so few pwople - 45 mins to Birmingham from London?! That's just plain outrageous - it takes me over an hour and 20 mins to train to London from the south coast......


It really is just a silly plan to get people thinking about something else other than the current financial/war/personality news hype......


By the way - have you heard...Big Brother is being cancelled!

If people can get from Birmingham to London in 45 minutes that means that Birmingham now becomes a feasible place to live for people who work in London, which may help ease overcrowding in the SE (fewer people need to move there to work in London).

 

[snorri]

Then I thought M1 M6. Why are train lines not run with major motorways as a double deck where ever possible and adjacent where not?

Because past governments have seen that cheap private motoring was a better vote winner than cheap and efficient public transport

 

[cheadle hulme]

<geek mode>

I know. I can remember evenings on holiday in Cornwall watching them whistle along, and seeing which class 50 was taking the sleeper out.

</geek mode>

Class 50 in full height BR logo livery. <drools>

 

[661-Pete]

I've never understood why people have to move around so much anyway. Take Glasgow and Edinburgh for example. Every morning hundreds of people batter along the M8 from one city, or near to it, to their work in the other. There must be hundreds of people going one way who are doing similar jobs to people going the other.

Years ago, a friend of mine used to do just that. Lived in Glasgow, commuted to Edinburgh every day. The job he did, he couldn't have done anywhere else but Edinburgh, as it happens. But he did the journey by train.

He was killed in a train crash.

 

[stoatsngroats]

If people can get from Birmingham to London in 45 minutes that means that Birmingham now becomes a feasible place to live for people who work in London, which may help ease overcrowding in the SE (fewer people need to move there to work in London).

Yep - no problems there, but it would also push up house prices, and rent, in Brimingham, and surrounding areas.

 

[Mr Pig]

He was killed in a train crash.

Was that the one near Shotts?

 

[Rhythm Thief]

It's worth remembering that we used to have a third north - south rail route, built in 1899 by the Great Central. It was the last major rail route to be completed, and was built throughout to the continental loading gauge which would have enabled high speed running. But, thanks to the farsighted and visionary Doctor Richard Beeching, it closed in the 1960s.

 

[Paulus]

The Great Central also had ambitous plans to run trains from Glasgow to Paris.

 

[661-Pete]

Was that the one near Shotts?

It was in the 1980s, at Polmont.