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To elaborate on what Bozza's saying: it's very easy to run your shiny bullet-trains with atomic-clock style precision when they have dedicated tracks all to themselves and you're running maybe a couple of them an hour. It's much harder to ensure the Penzance-to-Paddington express service arrives on time when it has to share track and timetable with the pootling stopping services between Barnstaple and Exmouth, a couple of freight trains, some other express going to Bristol by way of Reading, many of which will be run by a totally different company under the dog's dinner of a system outlined in the OP.
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May 7, 2012 21:30
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The worst train in Britain is the one used by South West Trains on its commuter lines. The seats were designed by a powerful supercomputer to be as uncomfortable as humanly possible. I went on the Watercress Line (heritage steam railway thing) a couple of years back and was amazed to find little headreasts on the side of the seats in the carriages. Truly progress has gone into reverse in the past 40 years.
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May 8, 2012 07:24
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Bozza posted:Jet fuel is also massively subsidised by the government if my memory serves me correctly.
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May 8, 2012 11:25
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notaspy posted:Bozza, are trains designed to discourage people falling asleep on them? I ask as all the window ledges are slopped or not wide enough for an elbow and I know every is like me and would love to get a bit of shut eye just before or just after work.
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May 8, 2012 12:11
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Porphyrogenitos posted:South-West Trains doesn't even have a bloody wi-fi connection on what is supposedly one of the country's busiest commuter lines (From Bournemouth to Waterloo via Reading)
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May 9, 2012 11:38
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Hot Dog Day #60 posted:Could you elaborate on why there were such increases in ridership during this time dispute the increase in fares? I understand that the relationship between fare and ridership is inelastic, especially more so for people who have no choice but I don’t know enough about how people get around in the UK. Also, London's population started growing again in the 1980s after decades of falling, and its economy has done very well over the past 25 years, sucking in even more workers from the surrounding towns. A huge proportion of UK passenger rail traffic (like a third or more I think) is people commuting into and out of London. Each commuter generates 10 trips on average (2 a day, 5 a week), so population growth in London will boost rail usage disproportionately. London has also implemented a fairly expensive congestion charge that means only the truly plutocratic can afford to drive in the city on a regular basis. The Republicans might be interested to know that, for all that people defend railways as a social service, they are used overwhelmingly by the middle class and the rich because the fares are so eye-wateringly high. Even the rail minister has admitted that the railways are basically a "rich man's toy". This probably makes them attractive to the Republicans, of course, since it'll help them keep the poors in their ghettos. quote:The increase in ridership can partly be attributed to the end of white flight (to use an Americanism). Taking London as an example, many of the areas inside Inner London that were considered 'undesirable' for decades, such as Hackney and Brixton, are now being gentrified because fleeing to horrible commuter towns like Milton Keynes is no longer the dream; professionals want to live and work in urban communities (even if gentrification destroys said communities), where trains are almost always the most convenient way to travel. Zephro fucked around with this message at 11:51 on May 9, 2012 |
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May 9, 2012 11:43
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Bozza posted:I think it's a bit a bullshit to call the railway a "rich mans toy". Commuting certainly is, but travel in general is not. Far be it for me to defend ATOC, but there are cheap fares out there and it is by far and the way the best method of travel if you are willing to vary your travel time or date.
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May 10, 2012 17:14
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Jut posted:It was actually cheaper for me to drive to london from portsmouth than get a train a couple of years back. Haven't looked since.  about it you need to consider the cost of insurance, road tax, MOTs, servicing and the fact that you can't do anything while driving other than driving, but given that those are sunk costs for anyone who already owns a car, yeah, it's very often cheaper unless you book three weeks in advance and don't mind leaving at five in the morning.
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May 10, 2012 21:35
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Aren't all the New York lines cut-and-cover? That's a lot cheaper than building a double-wide deep line.
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May 14, 2012 20:44
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Install Gentoo posted:They're not all cut-and-cover, just mostly. It's cheaper to do, but, honestly cheaping out upfront just causes huge problems forever after.
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May 14, 2012 22:00
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Antinumeric posted:What advantages to broader gauges actually have? Was Brunel's thing about a smoother ride actually a thing?
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May 28, 2012 14:54
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Hey Bozza, is there any way I can find out whether South West Trains are going to pull their rolling stock from out of their fundaments at any point and put some wifi in along some of the busiest commuter routes in the country?
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Jul 17, 2012 10:11
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Seaside Loafer posted:You can always just get a permit to travel from the machine for a quid then you are covered.
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Oct 3, 2012 11:34
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South West Trains are poo poo because they charge far too much for what should be well-travelled, densely-used and therefore profitable routes. They're also poo poo because they're trying to abolish buying tickets on trains, forcing you into the colossal queue at Paddington if you made the stupid mistake of not being psychic enough to realise you'd need to travel at short notice. They're poo poo because their revenue protection people basically demand money with menaces. They're poo poo because in the second decade of the 21st century their trains still lack wifi. They play adverts in the trains encouraging everyone to follow them on Twitter just to really drive the point home. Also the seats on their commuter trains were designed by supercomputers to be as uncomfortable as humanly possible.
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Oct 5, 2012 18:32
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The shuttle train between the two terminals at Gatwick is automated, too. Like the Waterloo and City line it just runs between two stations. Pretty sure there are no staff on it to supervise it - early in the morning when there's three people in the train total, none of them looks like a driver, they all look like jet-lagged travellers. edit: I can't get that daily mail blog to render properly in Firefox, can someone c/p it if it's actually worth reading? Zephro fucked around with this message at 09:38 on Oct 11, 2012 |
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Oct 11, 2012 09:36
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Jonnty posted:The Heathrow thing is pretty awesome though - I reckon PRT must be the future of transport in this country if anything close to what roads are like now are to still exist in 50 years. With driverless cars you might not even need to do any infrastructure modifications. Small personal example - there's a one-lane country road I drive down reasonably often. If you meet someone coming the other way, one of you has to reverse to a passing place. Two of the passing places are so sodden in winter, though, that if don't have a 4x4 you're unlikely to be getting out again without help. That's not obvious just from looking at them, so all the edge-sensing radar in the world isn't going to help a robot car figure out what to do. As long as those situations are even somewhat common then you'll need some way for the driver to take manual control, and that tends to keep you tied to the 2+2 seating pattern of a modern car. edit: I mean I can totally see them working on motorways, we've had the tech for that since the 60s. And perhaps in city centres, too. And those will be a big benefit. I just think it's going to be a while, if ever, before you actually have a properly, consistently driverless car, because it seems to me that to deal with all the various situations a car can find itself in you would basically need functional AI before you could build one. Zephro fucked around with this message at 12:41 on Nov 5, 2012 |
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Nov 5, 2012 12:36
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kingturnip posted:Rather than what? Walking?
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Jan 23, 2013 23:29
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'embark' is old marine terminology, though I wonder if it was also needless jargon back then. "deplane" is an abomination and saying it should be grounds for a one-way trip to the gulag 
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Feb 12, 2013 14:03
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goddamnedtwisto posted:I've done that myself on the Jubilee Line with Canary Wharf and Canning Town when heading into town. Also, re high density seating - who actually designs these? They're built for dwarfs. I'm 5'8 and fairly trim and I struggle to fit comfortably in SWT's commuter seats. If you're over 6 foot or a bit lardy then they're little torture chambers.
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Mar 26, 2013 12:09
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