Railways

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El Pollo Diablo
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Re: Railways

Post by El Pollo Diablo » Tue Nov 15, 2022 9:23 am

headshot wrote:
Tue Nov 15, 2022 8:47 am
I briefly heard a report on some ITV morning programme yesterday where they were talking about the benefit-cost ratio for HS2.

They said that for every £1 spent, there was a net financial benefit of £0.90.

This seems like total b.llsh.t.

Over what period? Why are the benefits being measured purely in financial terms??

Beware of this link to some naff news page: https://www.bucksfreepress.co.uk/news/9 ... n-reports/

Love some of the language in this:
Anti-HS2 figures have protested since the start that with modern technology such as laptop computers, this assumption is flawed.
Ah yes, those modern fangled laptop computers.
Having conducted extensive studies they found the large majority of business travellers did some work on train journeys and almost half of businessmen's travel time was spent working.

The report added: “"Sixty per cent reported that they would do no work in the 'saved' time."

HS2 Action Alliance said more than 40 per cent of the projected monetised benefits of HS2 come from assuming businessmen do not work on trains.
Apparently only men work in business.
For those who may not have noticed, the above article is from 2012 - Anti-HS2 sentiment obviously has a long history.

The documents leaked by Andrew Gilligan to the Telegraph are several years old, and not particularly current. Obvs as with many issues, the Telegraph have written it up in as sh.tty a way as possible.
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Re: Railways

Post by Fishnut » Tue Nov 15, 2022 9:50 am

In some good news, the line between Portishead and Bristol looks like it's finally going to get built, after decades of campaigning. It's not as good as it could be - it's only one line which means there's only one train an hour which pretty useless for commuters, but it's better than the nothing that currently exists.
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Re: Railways

Post by El Pollo Diablo » Tue Nov 15, 2022 9:56 am

Good news indeed, though sadly victim of the same lack of speed as East-West Rail, NPR, Trans-Pennine Route Upgrade, HS2, etc...
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Re: Railways

Post by El Pollo Diablo » Tue Nov 15, 2022 11:10 am

Worth pointing out that HS2's capital expenditure during 2021-22 was £5.0bn with resource expenditure of £0.2bn. The previous financial year it was a capital spend of £3.3bn, and the year before of £2.3bn. Note that that's just money spent (higher than £8bn) - money committed will be higher, and extricating the company from the contracts it has committed to will cost a lot of money.

Note also that capital expenditure is investment money. Yes, it can be spent in different places, but the business case for HS2 is still positive, despite the insane ramblings of a decrepit old man. This money is not being wasted. It is being spent on improving transport in the country (an unarguable point), providing employment and investment in the economy, and Phase One is fairly well advanced now. Cancelling it would have a much bigger impact than that cretin Jenkins says.
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Re: Railways

Post by nekomatic » Thu Nov 17, 2022 5:12 pm

The inaugural post in the Generic Railway Thread on the Bad Science forum was about the then-nascent Ordsall Chord, and I am ecstatic to report that I have finally found an excuse to travel on it.
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It’s actually more scenic than the picture suggests. I liked it. Would ride again.
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Re: Railways

Post by El Pollo Diablo » Thu Nov 17, 2022 8:03 pm

Oh, very good, well done!
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Re: Railways

Post by Aitch » Thu Nov 17, 2022 8:15 pm

The most bashed bridges 21/22 list is out - about halfway down this page. Couldn't find the full list on the NR site, just an article.

Staines Railway bridge has fallen out of the top ten, which set me thinking. The bit that was getting bashed was the section of it over Laleham Road. However, most of the bridge is over the river. Do they have different bridge plates somewhere on the river section supports, so you can report it if you run your cabin cruiser or whatever into them or do you use the ID on the road section and just mention it was one of the river supports?
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Re: Railways

Post by El Pollo Diablo » Thu Nov 17, 2022 10:43 pm

Given it's the same bridge, the ones on the road section will do the trick. The engineers will be able to tell whether it was a boat or a lorry that smashed into the bridge, probably because there'll be a smashed lorry or boat next to the bridge when they arrive
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Re: Railways

Post by Bird on a Fire » Thu Nov 17, 2022 11:06 pm

Amazing the kind of data they can get nowadays
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Re: Railways

Post by Gfamily » Thu Nov 17, 2022 11:35 pm

El Pollo Diablo wrote:
Tue Nov 15, 2022 7:32 am
Simon Jenkins' latest sh.t on the floor really is a masterpiece. In it he claims that making thousands of HS2 construction workers redundant would be good for the construction industry, and that cancelling HS2 would only cost the money that's been spent so far. Not going to link because he's a c.nt, but still
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He's just provided a link to this ...
https://paulbigland.blog/2022/11/15/sim ... never-was/
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Re: Railways

Post by Little waster » Thu Jan 26, 2023 10:30 pm

The BBC (via The Sun unfortunately ) now reporting that the plans for HS2 are being considered to be changed to sweep passengers at 225mph from Manchester across the English countryside before bundling them out ... *checks notes* ... somewhere in the West London suburbs.

The travellers might want to consider getting a tube train the rest of the way or perhaps some sort of bus.

Which sort of defeats the point really.
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Re: Railways

Post by Gfamily » Fri Jan 27, 2023 6:59 am

Little waster wrote:
Thu Jan 26, 2023 10:30 pm
The BBC (via The Sun unfortunately ) now reporting that the plans for HS2 are being considered to be changed to sweep passengers at 225mph from Manchester across the English countryside before bundling them out ... *checks notes* ... somewhere in the West London suburbs.

The travellers might want to consider getting a tube train the rest of the way or perhaps some sort of bus.

Which sort of defeats the point really.
My analogy is that HS2 is like a motorway as the main 'point' is to offer a fast alternative route that takes pressure off the existing routes.
The M1 doesn't go to the centre of London, so HS2 not going as far as Euston doen't really 'defeat the point' as most people on it won't be wanting to go to South Camden/Bloomsbury, and most people who will benefit won't be going anywhere near London anyway.
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Re: Railways

Post by El Pollo Diablo » Fri Jan 27, 2023 8:28 am

Gfamily wrote:
Fri Jan 27, 2023 6:59 am
Little waster wrote:
Thu Jan 26, 2023 10:30 pm
The BBC (via The Sun unfortunately ) now reporting that the plans for HS2 are being considered to be changed to sweep passengers at 225mph from Manchester across the English countryside before bundling them out ... *checks notes* ... somewhere in the West London suburbs.

The travellers might want to consider getting a tube train the rest of the way or perhaps some sort of bus.

Which sort of defeats the point really.
My analogy is that HS2 is like a motorway as the main 'point' is to offer a fast alternative route that takes pressure off the existing routes.
The M1 doesn't go to the centre of London, so HS2 not going as far as Euston doen't really 'defeat the point' as most people on it won't be wanting to go to South Camden/Bloomsbury, and most people who will benefit won't be going anywhere near London anyway.
No, it exactly defeats the point, because dumping people at Old Oak Common isn't where most people want to go. And the whole point of HS2 is to divert ridership for long distance journeys and create capacity on the WCML (MML & ECML apparently optional at this point).

The story is largely true, obviously ignoring the b.llsh.t from Greg Smith, and as ever with these stories the most annoying thing about them isn't the factual (or not) content, it's having to read shite from Greg f.cking Smith or Lord f.cking Berkeley, because apparently now journalism consists of finding the nearest person who thinks it's an outrage, whatever 'it' is.

The feeling here is the likelihood is most on delay rather than scope reduction. There isn't much cost to be saved from phase 1 scope reduction now, and the challenge is saving money in this parliament, rather than overall. The DfT, chumps as they are, know that there's a likelihood of a change of government at the next election, and Labour's policy towards HS2 is considerably more strategic, so they're likely to keep a holding pattern until then. But let's see - they are chumps, after all. The Transport Secretary held a meeting with the Chancellor about this on Monday, so f.ck knows where it'll land.
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Re: Railways

Post by Formerly AvP » Fri Jan 27, 2023 8:34 am

Gfamily wrote:
Fri Jan 27, 2023 6:59 am
Little waster wrote:
Thu Jan 26, 2023 10:30 pm
The BBC (via The Sun unfortunately ) now reporting that the plans for HS2 are being considered to be changed to sweep passengers at 225mph from Manchester across the English countryside before bundling them out ... *checks notes* ... somewhere in the West London suburbs.

The travellers might want to consider getting a tube train the rest of the way or perhaps some sort of bus.

Which sort of defeats the point really.
My analogy is that HS2 is like a motorway as the main 'point' is to offer a fast alternative route that takes pressure off the existing routes.
The M1 doesn't go to the centre of London, so HS2 not going as far as Euston doen't really 'defeat the point' as most people on it won't be wanting to go to South Camden/Bloomsbury, and most people who will benefit won't be going anywhere near London anyway.
But for me the unique USP of trains is that they generally take you into the heart of a city, unlike motorways or planes, and that's why I choose to travel by train (in a way that I also hope helps the environment). It'd true that sometimes when I arrive at King's Cross or Euston I may have to take the tube, but in fact for me there is quite a rich cluster of stuff in walking distance (for instance, a university, a big hospital, several Royal Colleges, the Wellcome Trust, the British Library, the GMC), YMMV. But even if I do have to get the tube. the closer to central London the richer the range of tube lines in easy walking distance. Sometimes my disability is bad enough that I have to get a taxi, and in that case I'm never far from my destinations, which all cluster more or less centrally. Where I live in the UK now, H2S would be an option: if it doesn't go into central London, I'll be choosing Euston.
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Re: Railways

Post by IvanV » Fri Jan 27, 2023 9:52 am

Gfamily wrote:
Fri Jan 27, 2023 6:59 am
Little waster wrote:
Thu Jan 26, 2023 10:30 pm
The BBC (via The Sun unfortunately ) now reporting that the plans for HS2 are being considered to be changed to sweep passengers at 225mph from Manchester across the English countryside before bundling them out ... *checks notes* ... somewhere in the West London suburbs.

The travellers might want to consider getting a tube train the rest of the way or perhaps some sort of bus.

Which sort of defeats the point really.
My analogy is that HS2 is like a motorway as the main 'point' is to offer a fast alternative route that takes pressure off the existing routes.
The M1 doesn't go to the centre of London, so HS2 not going as far as Euston doen't really 'defeat the point' as most people on it won't be wanting to go to South Camden/Bloomsbury, and most people who will benefit won't be going anywhere near London anyway.
It is a reasonable point that very few customers will be starting or ending their journeys precisely at or adjacent to Eusless, it's just an interchange, and not especially conveniently located for central London, being in fact a somewhat annoying distance away from either west end or City, albeit not as far as Paddington. So maybe Old Oak Common, on the new, shiny, fast, high capacity, but in reality often in practice unreliable and over-crowded Elizabeth Line, instead, might potentially be a reasonable alternative.

For some, like me, getting to OOC rather than Eusless would probably take longer than the journey time saving from using HS2, especially if I was only going to Brum. For some others, getting to OOC would be a journey time saving even before you add on the HS2 journey time saving. And there can be a sortative effect - people like me continue to go to Eusless, other more luckily located ones can go to OOC. But I rather expect when you crunch the numbers, it will on average increase people's journey time having to go to OOC to get it.

And that does somewhat knock the shine off it being a fast route. Especially for travellers to Birmingham, who are already going to arrive somewhere slightly inconvenient in Birmingham, with only a few minutes on-train time knocked off the Euston-New Street travel time. For all that it HS2 is also a capacity increase, ultimately the basic point of it is that it is fast. It's already quite ridiculously expensive. Apparently the now £40m budget for London-Brum will be exceeded, even though that is 2/3 of the cost of the entire Spanish high speed railway network. But its very high speed does considerably contribute to that expensiveness, and becomes somewhat unnecessary if we no longer think being fast is very important.

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Re: Railways

Post by El Pollo Diablo » Fri Jan 27, 2023 11:43 am

Fairly quick rebuttal from rhyming-slang. Sounds like his meeting with Harper on Monday to discuss this went well then.
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Re: Railways

Post by El Pollo Diablo » Tue Jan 31, 2023 8:56 am

Good article here from CIty AM of all places, on how politicians constantly dicking around with scope is, amazingly, not the best way to achieve the best, most efficient infrastructure projects.
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Re: Railways

Post by El Pollo Diablo » Tue Jan 31, 2023 11:42 am

The foundations for the Colne Valley Viaduct have now all been laid, which is great.

https://www.geplus.co.uk/news/piling-on ... 023/?tkn=1
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Re: Railways

Post by Gfamily » Tue Jan 31, 2023 1:10 pm

El Pollo Diablo wrote:
Tue Jan 31, 2023 11:42 am
The foundations for the Colne Valley Viaduct have now all been laid, which is great.

https://www.geplus.co.uk/news/piling-on ... 023/?tkn=1
Ah, that Colne Valley, not the other one up here, <checks Wiki> nor that other one
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Re: Railways

Post by Grumble » Thu Feb 09, 2023 3:42 pm

Cheshire Wildlife Trust are not happy with HS2 environmental impact assessments
https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/sites/de ... 77b6ce06a2
(pdf report, for some reason)
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Re: Railways

Post by shpalman » Tue Feb 21, 2023 6:04 pm

I'm going to Turin for the weekend, and while it's not that bad of a drive the hotel and the venues are actually in the city and I'm not sure if the hotel has parking or if it's free, so I looked at the trains...

And I booked the high-speed Freccia Rossa between Milan and Turin, roughly €30 each way. It takes an hour to do about 140 km (the normal train takes about two hours and would have been about €11 each way). Yes I have to add about €10 to get from Como to Milan and back (about 50 km). (The Freccia Rossa tickets specify a particular train but they can be changed. The Friday one is too soon to be able to book the even cheaper non-flexible one, but the Monday one wasn't, but I still went for the flexible option.)

It would otherwise cost me about €40 in petrol and a similar amount in motorway tolls to get there and back. Obviously for people who don't hate other people, sharing a car becomes economical. (Although some friends' ride to Brescia from Milan on Sunday decided he didn't feel like it so they needed another solution at the last minute and then left quite early, so that's what you get for relying on other people.)

Any comments on the costs/timings of a similar length of journey in the UK, booked in advance but not that far in advance?
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Re: Railways

Post by headshot » Tue Feb 21, 2023 8:24 pm

I booked a train from Birmingham to London next week. Arriving 10.45am Tuesday. Departing at 5.45pm Thursday. £60.

If I wanted to go to Cornwall on the train in two weeks time, an off peak return is £175 - but it is 5 hours each way.

That’s if the trains actually run.

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Re: Railways

Post by nekomatic » Tue Feb 21, 2023 9:28 pm

Leeds to Birmingham is 147 km, two hours, off-peak return seventy quid.
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Re: Railways

Post by shpalman » Tue Feb 21, 2023 11:52 pm

headshot wrote:
Tue Feb 21, 2023 8:24 pm
I booked a train from Birmingham to London next week. Arriving 10.45am Tuesday. Departing at 5.45pm Thursday. £60.

If I wanted to go to Cornwall on the train in two weeks time, an off peak return is £175 - but it is 5 hours each way.

That’s if the trains actually run.
In 4.5 hours for €50-60 it's possible to get from Milano to Napoli, which if you took the motorway would be over 8 hours and about 770 km.

I should see if it makes sense to get to Montecatini by train for Tuscany Balboa Weekend.
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Re: Railways

Post by gosling » Wed Feb 22, 2023 8:28 am

It really depends on which route/company you're on. I can get Leeds to London (272 km - 2h15m) for about £50 return using the LNER app a couple of weeks in advance. I've never had any luck with CrossCountry Leeds to Exeter advance fares and it ends up cheaper getting their off-peak return £150. Last time we gave up using them as it was cheaper to go LNER to London then GWR out to Exeter.

All this is assuming that TransPennine is actually running trains from Huddersfield to Leeds...

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