Other areas aren't where you have population density and as such less need to invest in mass transport. What ever happens to the rest of the country, population of London wont decrease. Even if funding else where suddenly goes up multiple times, you wont get people out of London.
Rail improvements on hold
- Thread starter scorza
- Start date
Soldato
[TW]Fox;28229434 said:
Are you for real?
Interesting decision to be made in the coming weeks, apparently. FGW & DfT to decide whether to keep running the 1970s Intercity 125s in the SW until 2020, or to actually buy some new trains. I'm fully expecting they will opt to keep running the ancient 125s to save some pennies. After all, it's only Cornwall/Devon/Somerset, and nobody really cares.
And of course they'll need those extra pennies when HS2 runs another 20 billion over budget.
And of course they'll need those extra pennies when HS2 runs another 20 billion over budget.
It might not be such a bad thing if they do keep the (modified) 125s on. The proposed bi-mode IEP/AT300s would be running as glorified DMUs for most of their journey from PAD to Exeter/Plymouth/Penzance anyway.
If the new ones turn out to be anything like the horrors that are Voyagers/Turbostars etc I'd keep my 125 any day. It's also unclear what will happen to the restaurant cars with the new trains, which are currently available on some of the longer distance services and they're much appreciated. Trolleys and dry sandwiches aren't the same..
If the new ones turn out to be anything like the horrors that are Voyagers/Turbostars etc I'd keep my 125 any day. It's also unclear what will happen to the restaurant cars with the new trains, which are currently available on some of the longer distance services and they're much appreciated. Trolleys and dry sandwiches aren't the same..
I live in the Midlands. I am serviced by Stafford (20 mins), Lichfield TV (20 mins), Derby (30mins), Tamworth (25 mins), Birmigham International (40 mins). I commute to London many times a week, have done for 15 years. I can get a train from Stafford that is 1 hour 10, from Lichfield that is 1 hour 5 and from Birmingham Int that is 1 hour and runs 4 times an hour. The trains that hit Stafford also hit Manchester, Liverpool and Chester and provide a rapid, limited stop train into London. I get get to Manchester/Liverpool in 40 mins from Stafford. I can get to Crewe and be in Glasgow/Edinburgh in 3 hours.
All of these trains provide wifi and fairly good mobile signals and most of them run on time. The only issue is to London or Scotland they are bloody expensive. I am struggling to see that the Midlands needs anything. I can also drive to Rugeley TV (10 mins) and get a slower train to London for less money and circa 1 hour 40 minutes. The issues are more when I want to go east to west and that seems to be the same in most places and that is what needs fixing. Anyone who suggests it's hard to get to London from the north of England is wrong in my humble opinion, it isn't but it is silly money.
All of these trains provide wifi and fairly good mobile signals and most of them run on time. The only issue is to London or Scotland they are bloody expensive. I am struggling to see that the Midlands needs anything. I can also drive to Rugeley TV (10 mins) and get a slower train to London for less money and circa 1 hour 40 minutes. The issues are more when I want to go east to west and that seems to be the same in most places and that is what needs fixing. Anyone who suggests it's hard to get to London from the north of England is wrong in my humble opinion, it isn't but it is silly money.
Ahh all roads (rails) must lead to London right? It's like an addiction at this point.
I'm not annoyed, i don't live in England, so i barely care, but if it doesn't benefit London, the London-bias'd government system doesn't care either.
I would however add that MUCH too much investment happens in London. I look out my office window and I see cranes, over 100 I suspect and I fully appreciate it is a super city but there is a massive issue with all the money going into one place. I don't have an easy answer to fix it all and foreign money wants to be in London and it's hard to change that. However, I think a 5 year plan to invest in an area massively would be sensible, pick Midlands, North West, North East, Scotland, Cardiff and create serious incentives and investments within those 5 years. Then ensure housing and infrastructure supports those areas.
I suspect if you take a 5 x 5 street section 1 mile by 1 mile of London you have about 5% of London but that is pretty much the centre of Birmingham and Glasgow, the 2 second biggest cities in the country. It is so massively out of scale is is scary.
I suspect if you take a 5 x 5 street section 1 mile by 1 mile of London you have about 5% of London but that is pretty much the centre of Birmingham and Glasgow, the 2 second biggest cities in the country. It is so massively out of scale is is scary.
Quite the reverse, see above.
It's more that I'm just disappointed by the complete and total lack of any kind of investment/improvement in the railways south west of Exeter. Absolutely no investment at all in any of the lines between Penzance and Plymouth, and even Plymouth to Exeter hardly gets anything.
All that talk of another line between Plymouth and Exeter in case Dawlish gets washed away again appears to have gone nowhere.
But then it's hardly surprising. Beeching wanted to close all the lines west of Plymouth, and leave us with no rail service at all. Looking at Network Rail's proposals for investment in the GW mainline, the only improvement listed in the whole of Devon/Cornwall is a new disabled toilet. Well **** me, how's that for progress.
This is as good as it gets for Cornwall:
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/major-package-of-rail-improvements-for-cornwall
Re-fitting the sleeper train from London/Penzance, a bit of new signalling here and there, and a couple new sidings in Penzance. Wow, you can really feel the love, can't you.
So, of £900 million given to the south west for transport, £146 gets wasted on crap, and the rest goes on roads. **** knows what they're doing with that money, because the roads down here get worse every year. And we still have miles of single-carriageway between Penzance and Plymouth.
I seriously think that no one gives two craps about the sw's infrastructure. We get most of our funding from Europe these days anyhow...
It's not brilliant, no. However according to the Great Western franchise link from here https://www.firstgreatwestern.co.uk/about-us/our-business/our-partners they're planning to improve services around Cornwall, regardless of the IEPs.
It's not just the sleeper, but they're retiring all the old Pacers, single carriage 153s and a lot of the 150s around Cornwall, and they'll be replaced with 158s (which are far more comfortable on a longer trip). A slight increase in trains from/to London and a supposed 12 more trains between Penzance and Plymouth each day.
We'll see I guess.
![[TW]Fox](/data/man-of-honor/2009.png){kind=avatar}
Thing is those 125s when refurbished to a high standard are excellent - quiet and comfortable. You should see what Chiltern have done with their very similar coaches, they feel like high end new trains.
In the South West we also benefit from very low fares west of Tiverton. Brand new stuff for the sake of it costs money that's better spent elsewhere.
We get £10 per head per year in Newcastle for cycling infrastructure alone so I think those figures are not even relevant any more
large parts of the north east are rural anyway so I doubt they need much spending
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And the UK funds Europe...
[TW]Fox;28242599 said:
Well I'd like them to improve/straighten the line, and re-open branch lines, but that will likely never happen, due to prohibitive costs measured in billions.
At least if FGW have modern trains they can make a case for Railtrack to improve the lines more. Atm we're limited to 60mph all the way to Plymouth. We're going to end up in the slow lane compared to the rest of the country, for sure.
Also, if they stick with the IC125s then you'll have diesel trains running from Penzance to Paddington, over long distances of electrified track. Doesn't make a lot of sense.
Anyway, as for "better spent elsewhere", you know that the Welsh valley lines are all being electrified with new rolling stock? If there's a case for improving the infrastructure to the Welsh valleys then there must be a case for doing so in Cornwall/Devon.
It contributes. Your point being?
I didn't say the numbers were relevant, i don't expect them to be after 4 years, but the proportions are highly unlikely to have changed too much.
Suspended
[TW]Fox;28242599 said:
Shame there aren't enough carriages on those trains, we generally always end up standing on the 0800 to Marylebone
The point being that if we left the EU I think we'd be able to spend more money on our own trains, but that's a story for another thread.
BTW - you're complaining about 1970s era trains in the SW. Luxury! Northern Rail are still running 1950s era Pacer trains which are converted Leyland busses.
Depends where you go, Oakwood - Warren Street (11.2 miles according to google) by car ~40 minutes without traffic, with traffic ~1hour. I've done the journey enough times in my lifetime to know. My journey time from my house in Oakwood, to Wembley park is over an hour door to door. Just the train journey, 52 minutes according to tfl and that's with 3 lines. As another fun fact, journey time by public transport for me in Oakwood to Uxbridge(uni) is pretty much equal to your time for central Birmingham to central London by train.
Soldato
The east midlands gets screwed again ... But given how transport changes around here have been recently any change is likely to make things worse anyway as all the recent changes have generally done so ....
- Nottingham station refurb ... Yes we'll make it prettier but from a usability point of view throwing in some platforms which are miles from the main part of the station and any way to get between platforms just means that if your train comes in on one of them then you won't be making any form of connection. Since the changes it would also seem that some trains now leave from more random platforms so you never know where your train will be going from (my morning train can go from 1, 3 or 7). Also don't put a smart card reader checking point by the bridge from the tram when people can have a ticket which is allows them to use both so are likely to enter the station that way ... That would be too sensible.
- The new trams .... whoever designed these obviously has never actually looked at how they are used. I'm constantly seeing old people having issues with the step up to the seats and the end entrance ways are way to small so get jammed up pretty quickly. But again they look prettier and more modern in the publicity shots ...
What would be nice would be if they actually replaced some of the ancient rolling stock on the local train services, rather than just repainting the interior and shoving in so many seats that it's uncomfortable to sit as, even if you have short legs like me, the distance between the seats is way way to small .....
- Nottingham station refurb ... Yes we'll make it prettier but from a usability point of view throwing in some platforms which are miles from the main part of the station and any way to get between platforms just means that if your train comes in on one of them then you won't be making any form of connection. Since the changes it would also seem that some trains now leave from more random platforms so you never know where your train will be going from (my morning train can go from 1, 3 or 7). Also don't put a smart card reader checking point by the bridge from the tram when people can have a ticket which is allows them to use both so are likely to enter the station that way ... That would be too sensible.
- The new trams .... whoever designed these obviously has never actually looked at how they are used. I'm constantly seeing old people having issues with the step up to the seats and the end entrance ways are way to small so get jammed up pretty quickly. But again they look prettier and more modern in the publicity shots ...
What would be nice would be if they actually replaced some of the ancient rolling stock on the local train services, rather than just repainting the interior and shoving in so many seats that it's uncomfortable to sit as, even if you have short legs like me, the distance between the seats is way way to small .....