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Having just been reminded of Alptransit what are the current prospects of shifting more freight traffic to rail? There is always a lot of talk about the environmental and other costs of hauling so much stuff by truck but any attempt to promote rail over road freight seems to get shot down.
Munin fucked around with this message at 22:17 on May 10, 2012 |
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May 10, 2012 16:40
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I've had the joy of dealing with three days straight of signal failures on the Thameslink/First Capital Connect.
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May 11, 2012 22:04
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Mahmoud Ahmadinejad posted:Or they can do what South West Trains did and increase capacity by taking out seats. You can cram in more people standing than you can sitting. They've done that already when you compare the old Bakerloo deep trains and the modern ones in the Jubilee line etc. The New Metropolitan line trains also trade sitting room for standing room.
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May 14, 2012 21:46
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Since it's now a program there must be a gibbering programmer somewhere who had to code all that logic. I'm sure ATOC does have a clue how it works and that even the people who built it now get lost in the spagetti logic.
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May 15, 2012 16:07
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Bozza posted:Keeps our £27.2bn net debt off the government books too! The "too" there is rather misleading... Btw, I know moving block signalling turned into a total disaster but is there really no way to use the improved tracking capabilities offered by GPS and modern comms technology to provide some sort of improvement over the existing system? How big an impact has technological change had on tracking activity on the network etc?
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Jun 27, 2012 15:39
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I love the note on that site: "Note: Not all the fares shown on this site are available to the general public. The ticketing system is not simple, and some amount of prior knowledge is needed in order to use the site effectively." I can picture the poor guy who tried to write a clean and simple guide and website tearing his hair out in despair. Another thing is that the precise on-peak/off-peak times for the various train companies tends to be almost impossible to find (or certainly used to be). Munin fucked around with this message at 18:28 on Aug 13, 2012 |
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Aug 13, 2012 18:26
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Andy Impey posted:This might have already been covered, but can anyone explain why when they privatised British Rail they went with the eccentric system we have, rather than simply selling off British Rail in one chunk, like they did with BT or British Gas? The idea was so there was a pool of "competing" rail companies. This "competition" would drive them to improve their service and drive down costs. The problem is that first they aren't competing directly against each other and the franchising process is a shambles. Currently the franchise bidding process is the only time where the ToCs compete with each other directly. This process could be used to steer business away from under-performing companies or from companies gaming the system but all that needs to be said about that is that First Group just won another major franchise after shafting the government at every turn. [edit] To elaborate, First group got additional support payments from government because they couldn't make enough money based on what they bid and the agreement they signed. In a sheer coincidence the additional support payment (I believe last year) matched more or less exactly the special dividend paid out to shareholders for that period. They also cut short their contract on another franchise where their back-loaded payments to the government were supposed to kick in and because the government couldn't find someone to take over on that short of notice they made a special arrangement with First to continue providing the service but without having to make the promised payments. etc etc Munin fucked around with this message at 15:01 on Aug 15, 2012 |
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Aug 15, 2012 14:56
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Bozza posted:CP4 at Network Rail was about £36bn, which covers 2009-2014. Apologies for my ignorance but what is CP4? It doesn't ring a bell for me.
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Aug 16, 2012 10:46
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Install Gentoo posted:It depends. Let's say we built a Shinkansen-quality line from London to Glasgow. To ensure the best speed, there's no stops along the way so you can stay cruising at 186 MPH all the way through. The train trip would still take 2 hours 10 minutes minimum, longer if the route was built so that there was other cities stopped at along the way. To compare to the schedules you get in Japan where they actually have these trains, and stops along the way, the Tokyo to Osaka route, which is 50 miles shorter than direct London-Glasgow, takes 2 hours 20 minutes. Flight London to Glasgow meanwhile is apparently 1 hour 10 minutes. And I'd have to think that if the for-profit private operators got to run the high speed trains, there's little chance of them costing less than the flight would. Yeah, but flights are airport to airport rather than city to city. Frankly if I had guaranteed seats that extra hour would come out in the wash since you wouldn't need the detour, the turning up an hour before your departure etc etc. Anyway, I just booked a short notice ticket from Köbenhavns Lufthavn/Kastrup to Karlskrona C in the south of Sweden and two first class tickets come to £80 and two standard class tickets would come to £65. I am now thinking about my last short trip on East Midlands and the cost + lack of seat, then followed by the last time I had to take a short notice trip to Manchester and the cost for that...
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Aug 16, 2012 20:50
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The main thing I'll say about rail versus air is that the issue is that it's often cheaper to just fly to Scotland instead of taking the train bringing us right back to the broken UK train system.
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Aug 18, 2012 22:13
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Luton also has a regular shuttle bus running from the station to the terminal. That said a couple of years back First introduced a separate ticket for that so if you just bought a ticket to "Luton Airport Parkway" instead of "Luton Airport" you have to pay a surcharge. You always get a bunch of (rightfully) outraged and confused tourists who bought the wrong tickets or had theirs mis-sold.
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Aug 22, 2012 22:06
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Lord of the Llamas posted:In all fairness the bus ticket + parkway ticket is exactly the same as the airport ticket so it's not like anyone ends up paying more than they should. It works out less expensive for a return at least. In any case that extra little bit of unnecessary confusion and aggravation is a showcase for the ticketing system on British public transport. What makes it even more egregious is that both the train and the shuttle-bus are (now) run by First group and they were the ones who introduced the fares for the bus after they gained control of both.
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Aug 26, 2012 15:10
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FISHMANPET posted:E: sorry for making GBS threads on your tea and crumpets British train chat with my fried cheeseburger and big gulp American train chat. Nah, we very much appreciate the occasional American cheeseburger.
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Sep 6, 2012 14:18
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StarkingBarfish posted:It means the loving tories of all people are renationalizing the railways I'm sure they'll find some way of making massive public payments to private companies for lost earnings or somesuch due to this.
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Sep 14, 2012 00:29
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Bozza posted:Here's one I took earlier (well, I say took, those are my boots in the top right) Are these bootmarks all over the "Do not step"? Why is it a "do not step" anyway?
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Oct 3, 2012 13:14
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Well, a quote from it would be:Hitchens posted:He asks ‘What makes him (me) so confident that the poor service, lame apologies, closures at every possible turn, would cease under a government that manages public services incompetently and at enormous expense?’
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Oct 11, 2012 09:44
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Bozza posted:Trainchat crosspost: Not that he'll care. Various UK governments have been improperly keeping PFI debt of the books books for years. Periodically you have one group/watchdog/international organisation/whatever call them out on it but ultimately the most that happens is that some stuff gets relabeled. It's a bit like the stuff Greece got up to with their state supported enterprises but of course what Gideon (and dear old Gordon back in the day) is doing is totally different... HTJ posted:It's amazing that regular loop users haven't yet realised that FCC will always prioritise the mainline over the loop when things are going to poo poo (e.g. lack of drivers in bad weather) and that they would benefit from having dedicated trains. All FCC services were cancelled after the recent storm, but there wasn't a single obstruction on the loop - all of the trains were stuck north of London. I'd been wondering why the First Capital Connect service was out essentially all day whilst the Jubilee line etc was only out briefly (even after a tree fell onto the tracks).
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Dec 19, 2013 11:35
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StarkingBarfish posted:So CERN is planning on building a 100km collider in the (far) future as an upgrade to the LHC. What does this have to do with trainchat? Well, it means they need a tunnel under Geneva of this circumference, and their kick-off meeting is this week. They called in the engineers working on the Gotthard base tunnel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gotthard_Base_Tunnel which is the world's longest railway tunnel at 57km. The following slides were presented, which may be of interest: What I love about that entire scheme is that it was also an example of direct democracy at work with three votes for investing now to head off a looming crisis. I would be more happy about the general concept if Switzerland didn't just vote 50.03% to 49.97% for xenophobia driven immigration curbs. At least my bit voted the right way...
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Feb 14, 2014 23:59
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TinTower posted:Adonis was probably the best transport minister in 30 years, purely because he agreed that Wakefield Kirkgate needed to be made less rapey. What is the story behind that comment?
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Feb 28, 2014 14:58
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I've just started seeing this ad coming up on YouTube... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0V71TQrqnOo Why Portillo?
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Mar 11, 2014 20:12
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Mahmoud Ahmadinejad posted:drat right, I hate soggy rear end hash browns caused by bean sauce osmosis. That is prevented by correct plating though. Plate option also allows more beans than tiny bowl option. I do like plenty of beans in my breakfast...
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Mar 17, 2014 14:47
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Bozza posted:Makes operational sense otherwise you need a Reading - Slough shuttle service to maintain any sort of level of service. How so, I had it in my head that Crossrail would be Thameslink style? Also, I just got a letter through about a Camden citizen meeting with one of the topics being HS2. What's been the brouhaha around it in Camden?
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Mar 27, 2014 12:48
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nozz posted:Thameslink: Ah, kk. for a sec I thought Crossrail would be more National Raily than Thameslink rather than less. I personally was under the impression it would be roughly as national raily with you able to use Oyster cards within a certain part of the network but then also (obviously) having coverage outside it. tentish klown posted:Oh gently caress that. I'm moving to London Bridge in Sept and work in Farringdon, and was going to take the Thameslink to work. Now I'm forced to take my life into my own hands and cycle. Hello fellow Farringdon worker.
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Mar 27, 2014 22:13
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The West Coast Mainline upgrades weren't just paid by the regions involved either.
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Mar 28, 2014 18:36
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Did they just look at funds on the 2013 National Infrastructure Plan which were specifically earmarked for certain regions? (As an aside the "National Infrastructure Pipeline 2013" spreadsheet linked on that page is pretty interesting if you're into that kind of stuff...) You have another chunk of money for projects in England and the UK which add another large amount on top for each of the regions. If you include the UK and England earmarked money then London gets about 25% of total funds. Note that the 60ish % of the total funds which are allocated to UK and England are largely earmarked for use outside London (London has its funding for road schemes etc in its funding pot) which will be muddied slightly once the HS2 funding kicks in which is also allocated to England but will include the spend for the part of the project that is in London. I also like how they highlight the North West as an egregious funding example when the South West has a growing population and gets even less money per capita. Yorkshire and Humber is another growing region which is getting the shaft earmarked funds wise (though a planned scheme in Leeds from 2016/2017 will make it pull ahead of the rest of the North after that). London does get more than most but it is not quite that skewed. Perceptions are in part shaped by the fact that basically all London funding is specifically allocated to it as opposed to the other regions of the UK. And Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, of the London funds about 43% are for tube line or tube station upgrades another 7% or so are for Overground and DLR. Crossrail alone counts for 34%. Between them they account for about 84% of London funds (if you look at the total for all funds for 2012/2013-2019/2020 in the National Infrastructure Plan 2013 which IPPR seem to also have done). Munin fucked around with this message at 14:04 on Mar 31, 2014 |
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Mar 31, 2014 14:01
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On further Camden HS2 news. I got a conservative pamphlet with an HS2 "Referendum" card attached to it. Apparently this got kicked off last month but they posted it through to people near where I live last week, presumably for it to be closer to the local elections so that they get to show off them taking action for the borough. The main talking points on it are how this will affect property prices in Camden and noise and air pollution during construction. To not seem totally partial it does also have one small paragraph mentioning that people elsewhere might benefit from better transport links. http://www.camdennewjournal.com/news/2014/apr/tories-launch-unprecedented-local-referendum-hs2-70000-vote-cards
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May 21, 2014 11:27
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Look, at least we have a unified tube system unlike Tokyo, Osaka and the likes who have about 3 each (at least you can get a cross usable railcard) and the Seoul metro map looks like this: https://www.smrt.co.kr/program/cyberStation/main2.jsp?lang=e
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May 22, 2015 13:48
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I am glad I got to see this before I die. I... I had lost hope. Thanks for the great post. Are there plans to install LIDAR etc at the automated half barriers? I'd have thought these would be a priority given there is no checking at the moment.
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Aug 22, 2015 20:02
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Thanks Ants posted:Network Rail privatisation 'on the table' I loved listening to the Tory transport minister stating that Corbyn's stance that the railways should be nationalised was an ideological boondoggle and totally ignored available evidence.
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Sep 22, 2015 22:35
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Is there any provision for disabled access?
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Nov 19, 2015 05:39
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goddamnedtwisto posted:If my experience of the Jubilee Line is anything to go buy it'll make things much, much worse because every idiot in the world will be standing there with cow-like expressions of incomprehension blocking people who want to get off the train. That's why you should have queue lines painted on the platform like in all the Asian tube networks.
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Nov 19, 2015 18:19
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coffeetable posted:To contrast, here's the NY subway, which still runs on people flipping levers That first section is pretty mindblowing and cool old tech must see style stuff.
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Mar 6, 2016 00:51
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