HS2

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Discussion

lamboman100

1,445 posts

120 months

Wednesday 30th April 2014
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RichB said:
lamboman100 said:
Trains are a 19th century technology..
Cars are also 19thC technology but that doesn't stop everyone joining a forum called Pistonheads where we discuss cars biglaugh

There is currently no better way of transporting several hundred people around at high speed unless you consider EasyJet to be more advanced biggrin
You need to think forward, not backward.

The train, plane and car will mostly be replaced by the Internet and its successors over the next 50 years. Humans are moving into an online world. The offline world is quickly already becoming less and less relevant.

Spending 50 to 100 billion (the likely true cost) on an aging 19th century technology in a small country -- on a railway line that will only serve to help more people flee faster to London and escape the poorer north -- is not a wise investment. The money would be far better spent on broadband tech, green tech, nano tech, or some other element better suited to the 21st century and beyond.

Rovinghawk

13,300 posts

157 months

Wednesday 30th April 2014
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lamboman100 said:
The train, plane and car will mostly be replaced by the Internet and its successors over the next 50 years. Humans are moving into an online world. The offline world is quickly already becoming less and less relevant.
How does that work for plumbers, farmers, factory workers, builders, social workers, etc?

We can't all just sit tapping at computers- some people need to go & do 'real stuff'.

RichB

51,434 posts

283 months

Wednesday 30th April 2014
quotequote all
lamboman100 said:
You need to think forward, not backward.

The train, plane and car will mostly be replaced by the Internet and its successors over the next 50 years. Humans are moving into an online world. The offline world is quickly already becoming less and less relevant.

Spending 50 to 100 billion (the likely true cost) on an aging 19th century technology in a small country -- on a railway line that will only serve to help more people flee faster to London and escape the poorer north -- is not a wise investment. The money would be far better spent on broadband tech, green tech, nano tech, or some other element better suited to the 21st century and beyond.
Having spent my life in IT I should agree with you but I don't. I use WebEx, GoToMeeting, Skype, Google Hangouts everyday, I can stand up an instance of my product in the cloud to facilitate an easy evaluation by a prospect if they don't want it on premise. I'm on a conf-call right now however guess what the outcome of that call will be? Right, a meeting. It is inevitable that ultimately to sell something, in my case software and services, you will meet the client. That's been true for the last 100 years and it will be true for the next. Yes the internet is a wonderful and I understand what you are saying. However... it will not and never can be a substitute for meeting people face-to-face. It's a been a wonderful enhancement to business but the idea of people conducting business entirely over the internet is rather like the Starwars dream of levitation and beaming me up - in the real world it's not going to happen. People still need to travel around and trains are a great way of dong that. All IMO of course wink

Digga

40,207 posts

282 months

Wednesday 30th April 2014
quotequote all
RichB said:
lamboman100 said:
You need to think forward, not backward.

The train, plane and car will mostly be replaced by the Internet and its successors over the next 50 years. Humans are moving into an online world. The offline world is quickly already becoming less and less relevant.

Spending 50 to 100 billion (the likely true cost) on an aging 19th century technology in a small country -- on a railway line that will only serve to help more people flee faster to London and escape the poorer north -- is not a wise investment. The money would be far better spent on broadband tech, green tech, nano tech, or some other element better suited to the 21st century and beyond.
Having spent my life in IT I should agree with you but I don't. I use WebEx, GoToMeeting, Skype, Google Hangouts everyday, I can stand up an instance of my product in the cloud to facilitate an easy evaluation by a prospect if they don't want it on premise. I'm on a conf-call right now however guess what the outcome of that call will be? Right, a meeting. It is inevitable that ultimately to sell something, in my case software and services, you will meet the client. That's been true for the last 100 years and it will be true for the next. Yes the internet is a wonderful and I understand what you are saying. However... it will not and never can be a substitute for meeting people face-to-face. It's a been a wonderful enhancement to business but the idea of people conducting business entirely over the internet is rather like the Starwars dream of levitation and beaming me up - in the real world it's not going to happen. People still need to travel around and trains are a great way of dong that. All IMO of course wink
^This.

Plus - and this is where the lack of road investment blights the lives of many of us at weekends and Bank Holidays - just as soon as I'm out of work, I like to be outdoors. I'm lucky enough to live in 16,000 acres of AONB within which to roam, but most people in the UK are not, so they must travel to get their fix of outdoor fun and/or relaxation. Perish the thought that sitting on a lardy, atrophied arse is seen as a substitute for time spent hiking, fishing, horse riding, cycling etc. etc.

menousername

2,106 posts

141 months

Wednesday 30th April 2014
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speedyguy said:
I was chatting to a bloke yesterday who worked on crossrail etel and his views tie in spot on with RichB and others,
The last proper North South rail built apprx 150 years ago and since then the population has trebled,
The France arguement does not stand up, approx the same population as the uk in over twice the space so the issues in no
Way compare like with like.

Talking to someone in London earlier today and they are seriously having to consider their business as London is now to expensive for staff.
The reason why the last stretch is 150 years old is because it was built by thousands of men working for a pittance in woeful conditions. The infrastructure is simply too expensive and the cost-rewards do not add up even with improvements in technolgoy and engineering.

And the London business owner will not be helped by HS2. Not at all. The timelines do not add up and any area within reach will be deemed to be within a train journey of London and prices there will rise








oyster

12,577 posts

247 months

Wednesday 30th April 2014
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skyrover said:
Money would have been better spent finishing off the UK motorway network IMO
I'd agree with you if the existing motorway was used to capacity.

But when only 2 out of 4 lanes are ever used to capacity, then it's a waste of money.
At least trains always stay left unless overtaking!

RichB

51,434 posts

283 months

Wednesday 30th April 2014
quotequote all
As a point of detail (for the non-railway people on the thread) the last grand scale railway constructed in the Britain was just over 100 years ago, The Great Central Railway. This was in fact the forerunner of the concept behind HS2. Built by a railway entrepreneur, Sir Edward Watkin, the line linked London through the central midlands to Manchester and Sheffield via Leicester and Nottingham. He started an attempt to build a channel tunnel and the line was built to the larger continental loading gauge, as straight as possible and with large radius curves, to allow trains to run from Paris at high speeds right through to the north of England. He was truly a visionary unlike Dr Beeching who closed most of this particular line along with hundreds of other potentially useful lines in the early 60s.

Digga

40,207 posts

282 months

Wednesday 30th April 2014
quotequote all
The railway is, as RichB points out, an antiquted, inefficient dinosaur.

Having lived by the West Cost mainline for much of my life, I am fully aware of a.) how much space it occupies and b.) what sort of traffic density it achieves. That myself and my contemporaries regularly crossed the lines without anyone ever being killed is testament to the relative lack of traffic.

Rails need regular and rigorous maintenance, as do overhead power lines. I cannot help but think rail is an idealised and idolised solution.

chrisispringles

893 posts

164 months

Wednesday 30th April 2014
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Digga said:
The railway is, as RichB points out, an antiquted, inefficient dinosaur.

Having lived by the West Cost mainline for much of my life, I am fully aware of a.) how much space it occupies and b.) what sort of traffic density it achieves. That myself and my contemporaries regularly crossed the lines without anyone ever being killed is testament to the relative lack of traffic.

Rails need regular and rigorous maintenance, as do overhead power lines. I cannot help but think rail is an idealised and idolised solution.
Sorry, what? Between 17:15 and 18:15, the top of the evening peak, the WCML around Watford Junction carries 50 passenger and 7 freight services. Damn nearly 1 train per minute. Each of those passenger trains is carrying 500-1000 people and those freight services are doing the work of 25-30 trucks each. How big a road would you need to build to have enough capacity to allow 50-100,000 people to drive at 100-125mph and 175-210 trucks doing 75mph in the space of one hour? Certainly far wider than the WCML.

Digga

40,207 posts

282 months

Wednesday 30th April 2014
quotequote all
chrisispringles said:
Sorry, what? Between 17:15 and 18:15, the top of the evening peak, the WCML around Watford Junction carries 50 passenger and 7 freight services.
Might do on that section, but not for the rest of it.

RichB

51,434 posts

283 months

Wednesday 30th April 2014
quotequote all
Digga said:
The railway is, as RichB points out, an antiquted, inefficient dinosaur.
Did I hehe

Digga

40,207 posts

282 months

Wednesday 30th April 2014
quotequote all
RichB said:
Digga said:
The railway is, as RichB points out, an antiquted, inefficient dinosaur.
Did I hehe
Sorry, couldn't resist.

You have to admit that it is industrial revolution technology which, in some way, surely could be bettered? Mass transit is a great concept and can be very efficient, but the way rail is set up right now, it's also pretty inflexible.

chrisispringles

893 posts

164 months

Wednesday 30th April 2014
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Digga said:
ight do on that section, but not for the rest of it.
Not exactly, there's still 31 per hour up the Trent Valley. That's why the service at Nuneaton, Tamworth, Lichfield and Rugeley sucks. There isn't enough time between trains to stop them and get them back up to speed without them delaying trains behind them. The congestion problem stretches at least as far as Crewe which has 31 services on the WCML.

And it's that section where the problem is. The easiest and cheapest way to clear that problem is to move as many of the 25 intercity trains per hour on to their own route. The cost of closing the WCML alone to do the work would dwarf HS2 before you even start buying land and completely remodelling the entire route. And then there would be the cost to UK plc of cutting all of the WCML commuters off from their jobs and Northern businesses off from clients and meetings in London.

hornet

6,333 posts

249 months

Wednesday 30th April 2014
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I commute from Leighton Buzzard into Euston, and the fast London Midland services (i.e. direct from LB) are standing room only when they arrive, and they're all 12 carriage trains. I believe most originate at Birmingham or Crewe, so even if they're not full at source, they certainly are after stopping at the likes of Northampton, Coventry and Milton Keynes, so there's clearly huge demand for services on that stretch. None can be added at present as it would conflict with the Virgin intercity stuff, so shifting intercity services to a dedicated route south of Birmingham (HS2 or otherwise) would free up new paths and reduce clashes with the suburban and freight stuff.

I also don't buy the idea trains are old technology. Passenger use has increased massively over the last decade, even with the expansion of the internet. The idea we can all work from home just hasn't transpired, and we've had the internet for long enough for it to have taken route by now. If anything, rather than the work/home decision, people are using the internet to work at both, plus all points between. Connectivity has made people explore hybrid ways of working, not simply choose between two existing options. I think new rail capacity will do the same. With paths cleared by HS2, new routes will be explored that nobody had considered before, perhaps linking in with the new East West services once they go live.

Digga

40,207 posts

282 months

Wednesday 30th April 2014
quotequote all
hornet said:
I also don't buy the idea trains are old technology.
Look, they simply are. even the fastest shiniest train is a well-honed replica of a dinosaur. I can't help but think that paving the lines and reserving them for rubber-tyred, alternatively guided, modular mass-transit (train type) vehicles would give greater flexibility and actually reduce line maintenance.


hornet said:
Passenger use has increased massively over the last decade, even with the expansion of the internet.
There's been a huge population increase and virtually no investment in roads. Even if second class meant open coal trucks, there would likely still be punters forced to use the service.

chrisispringles

893 posts

164 months

Wednesday 30th April 2014
quotequote all
Digga said:
hornet said:
I also don't buy the idea trains are old technology.
Look, they simply are. even the fastest shiniest train is a well-honed replica of a dinosaur. I can't help but think that paving the lines and reserving them for rubber-tyred, alternatively guided, modular mass-transit (train type) vehicles would give greater flexibility and actually reduce line maintenance.
So let me get this straight, you reckon the future of transport lies in robotic bendy buses?

Digga

40,207 posts

282 months

Wednesday 30th April 2014
quotequote all
chrisispringles said:
Digga said:
hornet said:
I also don't buy the idea trains are old technology.
Look, they simply are. even the fastest shiniest train is a well-honed replica of a dinosaur. I can't help but think that paving the lines and reserving them for rubber-tyred, alternatively guided, modular mass-transit (train type) vehicles would give greater flexibility and actually reduce line maintenance.
So let me get this straight, you reckon the future of transport lies in robotic bendy buses?
Sort of - bit of an oversimplification, but yes.

Big functional problem with rail is switching tracks - difficult for faster vehicles to overtake slower and problematic when you have forced maintenance on short sections. Then there is the cost of re-packing ballast and replacing rails, all of which are seldom spoken of but exorbitant.

chrisispringles

893 posts

164 months

Wednesday 30th April 2014
quotequote all
Digga said:
Sort of - bit of an oversimplification, but yes.

Big functional problem with rail is switching tracks - difficult for faster vehicles to overtake slower and problematic when you have forced maintenance on short sections. Then there is the cost of re-packing ballast and replacing rails, all of which are seldom spoken of but exorbitant.
So instead you close of access to London from the North, rip up all of the track, build a road over it and replace all of the rolling stock with buses.

Yes, the cost of maintaining the road will be cheaper, but the running costs as a whole would probably be far dearer. Rubber tires are not energy efficient, whereas steel wheels on rails have very low rolling resistance; buses would require far more power than trains do. Those tires also aren't going to last long at 100-125mph. That said they wouldn't be able to do that in the rain otherwise they'd aquaplane so for at least half the year journies would be noticably slower than today.

And finally, unless you are proposing that they all be powered by diesel, they'd still struggle to overtake each othe because they be sharing overhead wires.

ETA:

Surely the autonomous omnibus is just a refined dinosaur?

RichB

51,434 posts

283 months

Wednesday 30th April 2014
quotequote all
chrisispringles said:
Those tires also aren't going to last long at 100-125mph...
But if we're dreaming of the future, which we are, then speeds of 100-125mph are far too slow. 125mph is commonplace on all main lines and HS1 does, and HS2 is planned to, run at 180mph. Surely these robotic bendy buses must travel over 200mph to be the least bit impressive. Else they're just a dinosaurs of a different species.

Rovinghawk

13,300 posts

157 months

Wednesday 30th April 2014
quotequote all
RichB said:
Surely these robotic bendy buses must travel over 200mph to be the least bit impressive.
They need to seat 500 people, too.

The tyre issue is easily solved by using a pair of steel rails & replacing the tyres with steel wheels.