This time it’s a railway tunnel to Northern Ireland.

[phil-b259]

31 minutes ago, adb968008 said:

I repeat my earlier quote..

You cant privatise cars.. they already are.

Those who drive, generally don't care as much too vote.

 

There has never been a corresponding tax cut to match a rail fare increase.

 

 

You are taking things to literally.

 

'Tax' doesn't just include income tax! - it means anything you are forced to pay to HM Government by law.

 

'Tax' includes (not a complete list by the way)

Vehicle excise duty

MOT fee

Fuel duty

Company car tax

VAT

....

 

So If the Government were really keen on trying to encourage modal shift then even though the manufacture and sale of motor vehicles is a private affair, it could

 

Raise VED

Raise Fuel Duty

Raise the MOT fee

Raise tax charged on motor insurance

Alter Company Car tax

Alter VAT rates (Brexit gives a lot more freedom here).

 

However research shows that doing any of these will also trigger lots of protests - indeed the whole reason the 'fuel duty escalator duty' got stopped was to try and neutralise the issue as an election approached following the 2008 financial crisis.

 

Meanwhile Government ministers have continued to insist that rail fares must go up above inflation each year.

 

The net result is that using a private car (or indeed transporting good by HGV) has got cheaper in real terms since 2011 but train fares have got more expensive in real terms in the same period. That is a significant dis-incentive to using rail by anyones logic!

 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 16, 2021 by phil-b259

[adb968008]

41 minutes ago, phil-b259 said:

 

You are taking things to literally.

 

'Tax' doesn't just include income tax! - it means anything you are forced to pay to HM Government by law.

Its taken 3 pages but your agreeing with me now..

 

Quote

Were supposed to be able to set our own laws too, which could be used to encourage via rail.. (Speed limits, emissions, driving hours, customs etc). And if the ROI gets to create more local delivery jobs, and 50% reduced delivery times, I doubt they will object to the EU about our moves either.

I agree onus is on government to set a playfield that doesn’t just make the bridge an option, but makes it an attraction, taking economic advantage of the point that most of its users will not be British.

 

Edited February 16, 2021 by adb968008

[Darius43]

This is rapidly developing into the sort of conversation that, in a pub, would be made much more tolerable by having had a few pints beforehand.

 

Cheers

 

Darius

 

[Northmoor]

Can I suggest that there is a precedent in the UK, more obvious example of building a major link to a less-affluent area of the UK in an attempt to promote economic development.  Unfortunately it didn't really change anything about the destination, which is still one of the most deprived areas of the UK, while the construction project was a complete financial disaster for which the debts are still being paid for now (in fact for a long time the income didn't even pay the interest on the debt, let alone pay down the debt itself).

 

It's the Humber Bridge.

[Gibbo675]

1 hour ago, Darius43 said:

This is rapidly developing into the sort of conversation that, in a pub, would be made much more tolerable by having had a few pints beforehand.

 

Cheers

 

Darius

 

Hi Darius,

 

I think it is because the Ever so Demoncratic-Non-Communist Party of Great Britain has ordered the proletariat to lock themselfs into self contained cabin fever inducing lunacy and also that:

 

You started it !!!!!

 

I'd love to quote some pernicious rules made up by government but as I take no notice of them any way I don't know what they are so I can't.

 

Perhaps its best to post something that has got a photograph of a Trix class 81 for no other reason than it will cause the already overheated muddles that bit more consternation.

 

 

Gibbo.

[Darius43]

9 minutes ago, Gibbo675 said:

 

You started it !!!!!.

 

Gibbo.

I know.  I created a rather dull economic monster.

 

Cheers

 

Darius

 

[Gibbo675]

4 minutes ago, Darius43 said:

I know.  I created a rather dull economic monster.

 

Cheers

 

Darius

 

Hi Darius,

 

The best bit is that the muddles are all quoting tosh that is pushed by newspapers and until the newspapers start carping on about the destruction of the current economic model through negative interest rates and the future imposition of digital currencies connected to social credit systems then you won't be hearing the muddles waffling about any of it on here any time soon.

 

Social credit scoring systems are already in place on forums such as this and market places such as eBay but it hasn't dawned on them yet so that makes me a tinfoil hat wearing nut-job, but hey-ho !

 

As for any taxation issues involved in building any tunnel anywhere I would like to point out that being self employed, in the last twelve months I have received more for HMRC than I have actually earned this year. I invite any one to square up where the funds came from.  No doubt negative interest rates will extinguish the debt so MMT (Magic Money Tree) central bank monetary policy all around !

 

Quick, where are those AL1 photographs ?

 

Gibbo.

[Bomag]

2 hours ago, PenrithBeacon said:

The whole idea of this link, bridge or tunnel, is crackers. A better ferry service,subsidised if needs be, is a good one. It will help the economies of both Scotland and Ireland to grow so whats not to like about ferries?

 

Well its a ferry and for many that's enough to look for an alternative. A 30 mile tunnel may be boring but it avoids bobbing up and down.

 

If you haven't  had the opportunity to try the Denmark to Sweden link then you may have missed how it makes a trip as ordinary as it would lets say going from Belfast to Lurgan.  Just as it has made Malmo a satellite of Copenhagen a fixed crossing would make Galloway an extension of the Belfast City Region. Depending on the route, if it ended up in the top of the Ards peninsular then it could be integrated with putting Newtonards etc back on the rail network. 

[ardbealach]

The Denmark to Malmo bridge tunnel link makes a regular appearance in this posting as a comparison to the thoughts on the Irish and Scottish link.  Having travelled by train from Copenhagen to Malmo, it certainly is an engineering masterpiece.  And like the other Danish tunnel projects in the pipeline - pardon the pun - they make good economic sense.  The Irish link would only make sense if say there was a large urban community like Glasgow located at say around Dumfries with a fast rail link to the WCML and the south. Like Malmo to DK it would then be an economic two way route benefitting both communities living in one country and working on the other.  But the reality is that in every direction of travel for the best part of 2 hours from Stranraer is nothing but moorland.  Why was the Port Road only ever a single line with passing places and certainly not economic to operate?  It only came into being because of the combined resources of the LNWR MR CR and the Sou West chasing the Irish traffic.  I am sure the LNWR had a better return on its Holyhead route.  Alisdair

[Bomag]

15 hours ago, ardbealach said:

The Denmark to Malmo bridge tunnel link makes a regular appearance in this posting as a comparison to the thoughts on the Irish and Scottish link.  Having travelled by train from Copenhagen to Malmo, it certainly is an engineering masterpiece.  And like the other Danish tunnel projects in the pipeline - pardon the pun - they make good economic sense.  The Irish link would only make sense if say there was a large urban community like Glasgow located at say around Dumfries with a fast rail link to the WCML and the south. Like Malmo to DK it would then be an economic two way route benefitting both communities living in one country and working on the other.  But the reality is that in every direction of travel for the best part of 2 hours from Stranraer is nothing but moorland.  Why was the Port Road only ever a single line with passing places and certainly not economic to operate?  It only came into being because of the combined resources of the LNWR MR CR and the Sou West chasing the Irish traffic.  I am sure the LNWR had a better return on its Holyhead route.  Alisdair

 

You miss the point that there does not need to be a large conurbation waiting to travel to NI. You will get development in Galloway from NI, instead of being the 2 hours from anywhere of note in GB  Stranraer would be 45min from Belfast. Malmo went from 230k before the crossing to 330k now, most of that is generated by traffic to / from Denmark and not the rest of Sweden. I doubt there would be too great a passenger demand from either Glasgow or England or at least more than a single line would carry, but it may create enough enough demand to reinstate the port road.  Historically economic activity in NI has been depressed from what it could/should be by the cross Channel transport costs and delays. Assuming a £16b price tag, you would only need to increase NI net trade by 5% for it to pay over about 20 years (depending on interest rates used for the number crunching); currently the government can borrow at very low rates - given how much it's spending on COVID the extra economic activity it can generate from something like this is moving into the affordable bracket as well as any potential political/community benefits.

 

The Holyhead route was historically the most important as it took trade/post/politicians to Dublin, with Belfast mainly being a counterweight to Dublin rather than having mainly a direct connection with GB. From partition NI policy was mainly governed by its internal situation. A fixed link is one way to resolve some these factors.

Edited February 17, 2021 by Bomag
Typo on cost, should be £16b not £6b

[Rivercider]

Surely the timing is all wrong here. A fixed link between GB and NI/ROI would have made more sense if we had just joined the EU - there might have been EU money to help build it.

I would expect trade across the Irish sea to decline in the short to medium term, with a corresponding increase in traffic on the direct Spain/France - ROI routes,

 

cheers

[Northmoor]

6 hours ago, Bomag said:

 

You miss the point that there does not need to be a large conurbation waiting to travel to NI. You will get development in Galloway from NI, instead of being the 2 hours from anywhere of note in GB  Stranraer would be 45min from Belfast. Malmo went from 230k before the crossing to 330k now, most of that is generated by traffic to / from Denmark and not the rest of Sweden. I doubt there would be too great a passenger demand from either Glasgow or England or at least more than a single line would carry, but it may create enough enough demand to reinstate the port road.  Historically economic activity in NI has been depressed from what it could/should be by the cross Channel transport costs and delays. Assuming a £6b price tag, you would only need to increase NI net trade by 5% for it to pay over about 20 years (depending on interest rates used for the number crunching); currently the government can borrow at very low rates - given how much it's spending on COVID the extra economic activity it can generate from something like this is moving into the affordable bracket as well as any potential political/community benefits.

 

The Holyhead route was historically the most important as it took trade/post/politicians to Dublin, with Belfast mainly being a counterweight to Dublin rather than having mainly a direct connection with GB. From partition NI policy was mainly governed by its internal situation. A fixed link is one way to resolve some these factors.

I've highlighted a couple of your (well made) points but therein lies two problems.  There was already development in Malmo; 230k is a big place.  Unfortunately the population of the whole of Dumfries and Galloway is only about 150k (it has one of the lowest population density counties/regions in Britain).  Also unfiortunately, you won't get a 22-mile under sea tunnel for £6Bn.  £20Bn would be more realistic.

Even Ms Sturgeon doesn't think this is a sensible way to spend £20Bn in Scotland, which has a good record on rail expenditure.

[Vistisen]

On 16/02/2021 at 10:35, adb968008 said:

The Oresund Bridge is a fantastic piece of engineering.

 

prior to its construction, Malmo was a decaying town at the south end of Sweden.

Building the bridge gave the town fast access by rail to Copenhagen, and its airport. It gave Malmo airport a Ryanair boost to cheap Danish flights.

 

Having travelled this bridge several times (working in Almhult.. you can guess by the name who for, and you could make a guess at the traffic they generate too), Ive seen this route as a huge time saver on a 3 hour trip from Stockholm.

 

The bridge was the need to cross a wide gulf used by Baltic shipping, not to mention the Russians and very large cruise ships.. so the height was needed too.
The solution was part tunnel, part bridge.. it starts on the surface on the Swedish side,  rises to a great height as it crosses to the Danish side, before lowering down to underground on an island (not sure if it was man made),thus leaving a part of the straights exposed for the largest vessels.

 

This means ships too tall to pass under, can still sail over it.

The idea isnt Scandinavian, its British, we did this on the High Speed route from Hong Kong Airport to Kowloon back in 1997, going subsurface to Tsing Yi island before rising onto a bridge off it.

 

This video was from Sept 19th 2018, on my way to CPH airport, back to the UK to do the GBRF Charity railtour.

Both Denmark and Sweden benefit this bridge, not to mention freight which could only reach Europe/Scandinavia by boat, or Russia.

 

I would imagine Bonded railfreight, not requiring customs inspections, running by night from Rotterdam to the Republic of Ireland would be of considerable benefit to using HS1, HS2 and this bridge, vs lorry transport on two ferrys and the M25 today, and probably save 50% travel time. This would be providing the UK government with some local jobs in the area and a revenue stream for access, not just to the bridge but substantial rail infrastructure across the country paid by EU industry in much the same way Switzerland does for freight crossing its country.

 

I doubt the business plan for this bridge is about weekend breaks for Belfasters and Glaswegians, but it would give interesting new commuter mileages... though the Oresund units hardly set the world on fire for their appearances..

 

The bridge over the great belt is even higher and really big ships can still get under it... just: 

 

[Zomboid]

Does that £6-20Bn include properly connecting Stranraer to somewhere of consequence? I doubt such a project could ever be justified by just making that corner of Scotland into a distant suburb of Belfast. So if it's going to be a serious rail link then the existing line to Ayr and Glasgow isn't going to cut it. And if not then the roads will need to be dual carriageways at least.

[Bomag]

2 hours ago, Zomboid said:

Does that £6-20Bn include properly connecting Stranraer to somewhere of consequence? I doubt such a project could ever be justified by just making that corner of Scotland into a distant suburb of Belfast. So if it's going to be a serious rail link then the existing line to Ayr and Glasgow isn't going to cut it. And if not then the roads will need to be dual carriageways at least.

 

As a UK project, connections to Glasgow would not be a priority. The capacity of of the A75 to Gretna is sufficient for the increase in freight if you flatten out the current variations in flow. Reinstating the port road would be nice but as with the channel tunnel moving lorries would be the main target with getting movement between SW Scotland and NI being secondary.  One of the current changes being put through is the ability of the UK government to put in infrastructure projects in the devolved administration; why do you think this is being enacted - other than the M4 Newport relief road (which is much less likely) this is the reason. With current discount and interest rates what is practicable covers a whole lot more than what people have previously thought. We just got a whole load of extra cash for RP 2020-2025, quite a bit of it from rail, as a number of 'marginal' schemes have become go-ers.

[Bomag]

4 hours ago, Northmoor said:

I've highlighted a couple of your (well made) points but therein lies two problems.  There was already development in Malmo; 230k is a big place.  Unfortunately the population of the whole of Dumfries and Galloway is only about 150k (it has one of the lowest population density counties/regions in Britain).  Also unfiortunately, you won't get a 22-mile under sea tunnel for £6Bn.  £20Bn would be more realistic.

Even Ms Sturgeon doesn't think this is a sensible way to spend £20Bn in Scotland, which has a good record on rail expenditure.

 

Sorry I missed a '1' of the value, whether the £16b would cover it is uncertain. On the evidence from some of the alpine tunnels one you get past 5km the tunnelling costs as a percentage of the total cost (safety and operational systems etc) reduces unless you find some dodgy geology.  The population in Galloway is depressed for several reasons, the fact that the population is much less that Skane is less important than the potentially much greater %age increase in economic activity a fixed link could bring to the area than the Oresund link did. Although given that the project is a UK government proposal and not a Scottish Government one, economic development in Galloway is going to be less important than incentivising the continued cohesion of the UK.

 

There is another, much more important, benefit of having a fixed link. You could have a much better remake of The Bridge than you got with Sky's The Tunnel. I would suggest Saga Noren be played Saoirse-Monica Jackson or Jamie-Lee O'Donnell from Derry Girls. Given the first episode of The Bridge had half a local female politician placed at the border, which first minister would it be? 

Edited February 17, 2021 by Bomag

[Colin_McLeod]

Update:

Work has started.

 

 

[ardbealach]

Sorry Bomag, but I cannot see South West Scotland gaining your perceived economic benefits with an upgrade of the A75 constructed principally to carry artic-wagon loads of goods to and from Ireland, unless the locals find employment in a series of truck stops and coffee shops on the route.   The current Birkenhead - Belfast ferry with its timings do give the wagon drivers their regulatory breaks from driving when they are on board.

 

I am certain the opening of the Port Road is even further away - even the principal towns in the area were branch lines miles off the main route.

 

Without being impolite, may I ask if you have knowledge of the geography of Galloway and south west Scotland?  It has always been an economically deprived area - even the Whithorn Branch lost its passenger traffic within a couple of years of nationalisation, the government of the day back then seeing little financial benefit from a sparse population.    [Alisdair]

 

 

 

 

 

  

[Gibbo675]

29 minutes ago, ardbealach said:

Sorry Bomag, but I cannot see South West Scotland gaining your perceived economic benefits with an upgrade of the A75 constructed principally to carry artic-wagon loads of goods to and from Ireland, unless the locals find employment in a series of truck stops and coffee shops on the route.   The current Birkenhead - Belfast ferry with its timings do give the wagon drivers their regulatory breaks from driving when they are on board.

 

I am certain the opening of the Port Road is even further away - even the principal towns in the area were branch lines miles off the main route.

 

Without being impolite, may I ask if you have knowledge of the geography of Galloway and south west Scotland?  It has always been an economically deprived area - even the Whithorn Branch lost its passenger traffic within a couple of years of nationalisation, the government of the day back then seeing little financial benefit from a sparse population.    [Alisdair]

 

 

 

 

 

  

Hi There,

 

I like Galloway the way it is, empty roads for tearing around on my bright red carbon foot-printing Ducati, with hardly any cars in the way it's fabulous.

 

Leave well alone is my preferred option.

 

Gibbo.

[Compound2632]

5 minutes ago, Gibbo675 said:

Leave well alone is my preferred option.

 

Also has the benefit of being the low-cost option.

[John-Miles]

How deep is the sea between Sweden and Denmark? It would have a significant bearing on costs. 

[bimble]

20 minutes ago, John-Miles said:

How deep is the sea between Sweden and Denmark? It would have a significant bearing on costs. 

 

The Drodgen Tunnel is in a trench cut into the seabed, under ~10m of water (according to the cross section on wikipedia). The bridge, being only 5 miles long, is presumably not over considerably deeper water.

[Flittersnoop]

If the tunnel could form part of a viable route between London and Dublin, it might, just, be built. But it can't possibly compete with air travel for passengers and the ferries for freight. Even typing this comment seems like a waste of effort - the feasibility study, much, much more so.

 

[Gibbo675]

45 minutes ago, Flittersnoop said:

If the tunnel could form part of a viable route between London and Dublin, it might, just, be built. But it can't possibly compete with air travel for passengers and the ferries for freight. Even typing this comment seems like a waste of effort - the feasibility study, much, much more so.

 

Hi Fittersnoop,

 

You must remember that a good old feasibility study allows consultants and lawyers to buy bigger houses, flashier cars and yet another set of golf clubs so there are benefits to be had in that regard even if it does go nowhere.

 

Gibbo.

[Darius43]

10 minutes ago, Gibbo675 said:

Hi Fittersnoop,

 

You must remember that a good old feasibility study allows consultants and lawyers to buy bigger houses, flashier cars and yet another set of golf clubs so there are benefits to be had in that regard even if it does go nowhere.

 

Gibbo.

 

Consulting:  if you’re not part of the solution, there’s good money to be made prolonging the problem.

 

Cheers

 

Darius