Jump to content
 

Recommended Posts

26 minutes ago, Joseph_Pestell said:

 

I agree with you about Norwich. Lovely city. It may have an electrified railway but it has the short straw when it comes to roads.

...


Norwich was — finally — connected to the rest of the country by dual carriageway only a couple of years ago. Motorways have never got close. In fact, there’s the old joke about what’s the closest motorway to Norwich? The answer is the Amsterdam ring road. 
 

That’s not actually true (the M11 at Cambridge is a little closer), but the fact that it could be tells you how grim the local roads are. 
 

For amusement, compare the average journey times to London from Norwich and similarly-distant Peterborough...
 

Still: it’s a fine city. 
 

Paul

Edited by Fenman
  • Agree 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

8 minutes ago, melmerby said:
8 minutes ago, melmerby said:

Barclays was founded in London. Gurney's was founded in 1770 and formed part of Barclays Bank from 1896.

Incidentally Lloyds was founded in Birmingham in 1765, Midland was founded in Birmingham in 1836.


To quote from Barclays’ own history:

 

”East Anglia has long been a Barclays heartland, nurturing the Gurney family of banks since the eighteenth century. The Gurneys proved pivotal in the establishment of Barclays as we know it today. The banks founded by the Gurneys, alongside Barclays, Buxtons, Birkbecks and others provided the foundations for today’s bank.”

 

Paul

Edited by Fenman
Link to post
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Joseph_Pestell said:

 

As to the claim that East Midlands cities are the only ones without electrified railway to London: Gloucester, Worcester, Swansea, Exeter, Plymouth come to mind

 

And, for the want of 10 miles, Oxford !

 

  • Agree 5
Link to post
Share on other sites

50 minutes ago, Fenman said:

 

For amusement, compare the average journey times to London from Norwich and similarly-distant Peterborough...
 

 

But the reason for that is simple; Peterborough is on a main line linking multiple large cities with London, which has therefore justified continual investment and improvement, whereas Norwich.......is not !

 

 

  • Like 1
  • Agree 2
Link to post
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, caradoc said:

 

But the reason for that is simple; Peterborough is on a main line linking multiple large cities with London, which has therefore justified continual investment and improvement, whereas Norwich.......is not !

 

 

 

Oh, come on. It links London with Sheringham. Wot were you thinking???

  • Like 1
  • Funny 5
Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Premium
57 minutes ago, Fenman said:


Norwich was — finally — connected to the rest of the country by dual carriageway only a couple of years ago. Motorways have never got close. In fact, there’s the old joke about what’s the closest motorway to Norwich? The answer is the Amsterdam ring road. 
 

That’s not actually true (the M11 at Cambridge is a little closer), but the fact that it could be tells you how grim the local roads are. 
 

For amusement, compare the average journey times to London from Norwich and similarly-distant Peterborough...
 

Still: it’s a fine city. 
 

Paul

Look on the bright side.  There's many a city/town/county which has gained a dual-carriageway linking it to another large city and has immediately seen a significant increase in burglaries and other domestic theft.  The Crims can get in, load up a car and be long gone by the time the police are notified.  However, it's unlikely they'll ever operate using public transport.

Link to post
Share on other sites

4 minutes ago, caradoc said:

 

But the reason for that is simple; Peterborough is on a main line linking multiple large cities with London, which has therefore justified continual investment and improvement, whereas Norwich.......is not !

 

 

And Kings Lynn is a not especially large settlement on the end of a branch line, hence it's relatively slow service.

 

Not that I'm saying that it's good that the service has degraded over the last couple of decades, but it's served by an extension of a service whose principal market is Cambridge. Good job it was electrified a while back, these days it would be getting Bedwyn style bi-mode nonsense or a diesel shuttle service to Cambridge.

  • Like 1
  • Agree 4
Link to post
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, Ron Ron Ron said:

It's a waste of time and a pointless exercise speculating what the fares will be.

Apart from being far off in the future, as said a few times already, there's a prospect that the whole issue of rail fares will eventually be tackled between now and HS2 opening for business.

Who knows what will come out of any major shake up of the system?

 

Meanwhile, the notion that fares will be astronomically high, falls into the same bracket as the silly claims that....

HS2 will only be used by rich businessmen and elites,

that ordinary people won't be able to afford the fares,

that nobody will want to use it,

and that it'll be a White Elephant.

 

All hysterical clap trap.

 

Note a popular definition of a White Elephant:    Something that has cost a lot of money but has no useful purpose.

Only half of that will be true as far as HS2 goes, the other half is total tosh.

 

 

.

The speculation is about the policy of fares on HS2 and if the TOC will honour a commitment to make useage and ridership upon HS2 accessible to the many and not only an  ex-Concorde jetset traveller

Link to post
Share on other sites

13 hours ago, Phil Parker said:

 

Virtually all your posts since you joined RMweb have been on the HS2 thread. It's almost as though you signed up JUST to complain about it. You wouldn't be the first to join with the intention of battling on a single issue and when this happens, it rarely ends well. Please prove me wrong. 

 

So only one (pro-HS2) viewpoint is acceptable on RMWeb, and anyone who "battles" (i.e. disagrees)  and sticks their head above the parapet is fair game, despite many pro-HS2 voices admitting that the project has serious design flaws?

 

When a forum administrator ignores personal comments made only against people who are on one side of an argument and then weighs in with their own personal attack (& there's no other word for your comment above), it's easy to see why others feel entitled to do likewise, even though all that does is create a pro-HS2 social media echo chamber, where people can spend their time preaching to the converted. Welcome to public discourse in the 21st century!

  • Like 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, Zomboid said:

And Kings Lynn is a not especially large settlement on the end of a branch line, hence it's relatively slow service.

 

Not that I'm saying that it's good that the service has degraded over the last couple of decades, but it's served by an extension of a service whose principal market is Cambridge. Good job it was electrified a while back, these days it would be getting Bedwyn style bi-mode nonsense or a diesel shuttle service to Cambridge.


West Norfolk is an area of dispersed population: King’s Lynn is the railhead (and regional centre) for c.180,000 people. Not a megalopolis, but not insignificant either. 
 

Paul

Link to post
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, Fenman said:


West Norfolk is an area of dispersed population: King’s Lynn is the railhead (and regional centre) for c.180,000 people. Not a megalopolis, but not insignificant either. 
 

Paul

It's a feature of the geography that it's on a branch line - It'd be a different story if the line carried on to somewhere else significant. Without spending huge sums on doubling the line, trains really have to be all stations to Ely/ Cambridge. Unless there is a large market for Cambridge (or stations north of Cambridge) to the intermediate stations they really should run as fast/ limited stop from there though. There's plenty of other trains to provide a stopping service.

 

It's a bit like the Worcester - Oxford - London service in a lot of ways.

  • Agree 2
Link to post
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, mdvle said:

 

Here's the thing.  Among the mass of people here on RMweb is a smaller number of people who work in the rail industry, or have worked in it in the past.  Needless to say they have a great deal of knowledge, and they graciously share that knowledge with the rest of us so that we may (assuming we are paying attention) learn about the reality of the UK's railways.

 

To take a random example, Stationmaster worked on the railway in the past and at least one of the jobs he had done for the real railway is scheduling.  So those of us wiling to show some wisdom thus pay attention when he posts about scheduling trains, particularly on the issue of mixing goods and passenger workings and trains of various speeds, and the resulting problems of trying to get them to all use the same number of limited tracks.

 

So when all of these people are pro-HS2, it tells those of us (at least those of us who are aware of their knowledge, and are willing to pay attention) outside of the railway that HS2 is likely not only a good thing, but likely the only solution to its primary function - solving a capacity problem on the southern end of the WCML.

 

Now, regarding your accusation - that only pro-HS2 viewpoints are acceptable.  Nothing could be further from the truth - the existence of this thread, and for a long time the previous thread, proves that differing opinions are allowed.

 

But, and it is a very significant but, if you are going to oppose HS2 then you need to have a valid reason and not just a proverbial waving of the hands claiming it is bad, or quoting one of the many discredited anti-HS2 claims that have appeared both on random websites and in the media.

 

And no, nobody is saying that HS2 has serious design flaws.  There have been comments that it has been over-specified in terms of speed, or that there are issues with the cost of some of the methods used to attempt to keep people along the route happy, but those aren't serious design flaws.

 

 

Look, coming onto a forum and constantly posting the same thing over and over again, ignoring the evidence as presented to you that refutes your argument, is not going to end well.

 

This isn't, despite your claim, a pro-HS2 echo chamber.  If you, or anyone else, can come up with a valid alternative to HS2 there are many on here who will gladly listen to the argument.  I believe, for example, that Mike Storey has repeatedly made that request over the 2 threads this subject has now had. 

 

But then again, others have pointed out much of this to you already, and you have chosen to ignore them, so you will ignore this as well and continue to revert to portraying yourself as the victim.

 

If you re-read what you have written you are saying, despite your protestations to the contrary, that only one opinion regarding HS2 is acceptable on this forum, because your assertion is that only one conclusion is possible from the "evidence" that is graciously posted on here, and anyone who stubbornly fails to comply leaves themselves open to scorn and ridicule and being labelled as a troll.

 

I suggest that you and the others (including, extraordinarily, the moderators) who share your mindset listen to 'The Purity Spiral' on BBC Radio 4, to help you understand the group-think lynch-mob mentality that takes hold on social media.

 

It may shock you to learn that it is possible to be a life-long, well-informed railway enthusiast and modeller, and yet still reach the conclusion that HS2 is an ill-conceived, poorly-designed waste of money and a massive missed opportunity for the future of rail in the UK.

Link to post
Share on other sites

10 minutes ago, Flittersnoop said:

It may shock you to learn that it is possible to be a life-long, well-informed railway enthusiast and modeller, and yet still reach the conclusion that HS2 is an ill-conceived, poorly-designed waste of money and a massive missed opportunity for the future of rail in the UK.

Tell us what you'd do instead then and how it would solve the problems that HS2 is designed to.

  • Like 3
  • Agree 2
Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Premium
8 hours ago, Flittersnoop said:

 

despite many pro-HS2 voices admitting that the project has serious design flaws?

 

 

 

NONE of which invalidate the general principle of building it in the first place!

 

That is where you consistently fall down with your comments - and why you get such a hostile reaction.

 

I have said it many times before - but for avoidance of doubt, if you personally feel that the multitude of professional reports and engineering analysis is wrong, then the onus is on yYOU to put forward workable alternatives that will solve the well documented capacity crisis on our mainlines just as effectively as HS2 does - or alternatively stops the growth in demand for travel (without simply transferring it to the road network I hasten to add!)

 

 

 

 

  • Like 3
  • Agree 3
Link to post
Share on other sites

29 minutes ago, Flittersnoop said:

It may shock you to learn that it is possible to be a life-long, well-informed railway enthusiast and modeller, and yet still reach the conclusion that HS2 is an ill-conceived, poorly-designed waste of money and a massive missed opportunity for the future of rail in the UK.

 

In which case, as has been asked before,  will you please state the alternative to HS2 ? And if this is re-opening the Great Central (or rather, rebuilding, pretty much from scratch, the section suitable), will you please address the problems inherent in that idea, which have been clearly presented both here and in the article in Rail Magazine 898 ?

 

You are entirely entitled to your views on both HS2 and the GC, but so are others with a different view.

 

  • Like 2
  • Agree 4
Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Premium
1 hour ago, Joseph_Pestell said:

 

Credible to you (and me) or credible to them?

 

Credible in the sense that it:-

 

Will not cause more disruption than HS2 during construction*

Will not require more property demolition than HS2

Will provide the equivalent uplift in capacity as HS2**

Will not force more and more traffic on our roads (because of a lack of rail capacity)

Reflects how the economy currently works and what voters will let Governments do in curtailing their personal freedom to travel.

Reflects how global trade is currently conducted and the limited room to change things without wrecking the economy.

Reflects how we need to move away from polluting and climate change inducing oil based transportation modes.
 

 

* Please note the NR CEO was NOT joking when he said it would need 30 YEARS of weekend closures to upgrade the WCML to provide the same capacity benefits as HS2. Do you know what the biggest cost of the Smart motorway upgrade is? its called TRAFFIC MANAGEMENT - or laymans terms all the extra paraphernalia necessary to continue to accommodate the public while they travel through a building site. Then you need to factor in that closures can only be done overnight or at Weekends when staff and plant hire costs are far grater than during the day.... Similarly with railways the biggest cost is not actually the work itself - its the replacements buses, paying specialist staff to work antisocial hours, etc. Make no mistake - building ANYTHING is far cheaper and quicker if it is done as a 'new build' and the public don't get near it until the whole thing is finished.

 

** by which we mean an extra 18tph between London and Birmingham plus an extra 18tph between Birmingham and Manchester /plus an extra 18 tph Birmingham and Leeds - NOT just an extra 4tph to Birmingham!

  • Like 4
  • Agree 4
Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Premium
10 hours ago, Pandora said:

The speculation is about the policy of fares on HS2 and if the TOC will honour a commitment to make usage and ridership upon HS2 accessible to the many and not only an  ex-Concorde jetset traveller

 

However without a time machine speculation is just that - speculation !

 

The problem comes when Anti- HS2 people try and claim that speculation as fact - which it most certainly isn't!

 

The Government have already made written commitments that fares on HS2 will be broadly in line with the current fare principles (which many think as being badly in need of reform by the way).

 

If you REALLY want to know what will happen to fares policy, then in the absence of a time machine, any sane forecaster would look at what we currently do for HS1.

 

Yes there is a small price premium paid on every HS1 ticket - but beyond that the full range of tickets including cheap day returns, travelcards, etc as well as discounts like young persons railcard, groupsave, etc are valid. There is zero reason to believe that HS2 will be any different (unless you are an anti HS2 person desperate to make up lies to support your stance)

 

 

  • Agree 2
Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Premium
1 hour ago, Flittersnoop said:

 

It may shock you to learn that it is possible to be a life-long, well-informed railway enthusiast and modeller, and yet still reach the conclusion that HS2 is an ill-conceived, poorly-designed waste of money and a massive missed opportunity for the future of rail in the UK.

 

It might be - but I'm afraid your posts so far show that you are most certainly not well informed when it comes to anything HS2 related, because if you were you would not be posting half baked 'solutions' that have already been rejected many times over for sound engineering / disruptive reasons.

 

In general people on here are not biased against 'anti HS2' folk as such - but what most of us do have an issue with is when folk continue to pedal myths, lies and speculation around HS2 that has been already been shown up as false / unworkable by professionals in the field. If you have properly thought out alternatives to suggest then lets hear them.

 

  • Like 5
  • Agree 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Zomboid said:

Tell us what you'd do instead then and how it would solve the problems that HS2 is designed to.

 

If the problem is congestion on the southern part of the WCML, so I would have built a new railway from the Rugby area to London, as well as four-tracking the section from Coventry to Birmingham and building a link to Leicester to link up with the MML, and also four-track the Welwyn bottleneck on the ECML. The new railway would have been four tracks in places to enable a local service south of Rugby, an area due for big housing developments that currently and after HS2 has no train service to London. The new railway would not have had a signalling system and loading gauge that means ordinary trains can't use it. Brunel tried that kind of "future-proofing" on the GWR. It didn't "end well" to use a phrase popular on here.

 

But that isn't the point. The point is that one group of people on here shout down and belittle anyone who doesn't conform to their thinking. I meet plenty of railway enthusiasts who think HS2 is wrong, but they're not on here because they don't want to be the target of derisive comments. 

Link to post
Share on other sites

11 minutes ago, phil-b259 said:

 

It might be - but I'm afraid your posts so far show that you are most certainly not well informed when it comes to anything HS2 related, because if you were you would not be posting half baked 'solutions' that have already been rejected many times over for sound engineering / disruptive reasons.

 

In general people on here are not biased against 'anti HS2' folk as such - but what most of us do have an issue with is when folk continue to pedal myths, lies and speculation around HS2 that has been already been shown up as false / unworkable by professionals in the field. If you have properly thought out alternatives to suggest then lets hear them.

 

Please show me the "half-baked" solutions I have proposed.

 

By the way, the use of the phrase "half-baked" is just the kind of derogatory comment that I was referring to. So thanks for making my point for me.

 

Also, in order to point out a flaw in an argument it is not necessary to propose an alternative. If the flaw exists, it exists.

 

And it's "peddle", not pedal. Bikes have pedals.

 

I shan't comment any further. But if HS2 does get built, rest assured that every time a train failure or OHLE problem brings the whole show grinding to a halt, heaping further public derision on our rail industry, I shall be quietly laughing to myself and feeling very fortunate that I don't have to use it.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share

×
×
  • Create New...