Storm Jocelyn to cause disruption on Tuesday 23 January and Wednesday 24 January

enginedin said:

that was death by careless driving. Running out of fuel on a motorway is classed as careless driving, the resulting accident caused a death. It's a pretty straightforward case.

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Not straightforward at all. The vehicle straying into the hard shoulder was the careless driving primarily.

al78 said:

I haven't considered that but you are correct:

Is it illegal to run out of fuel on the motorway?

While it's not illegal to run out of fuel on a motorway, you could face charges if the breakdown causes an accident. We explain the rules.

www.motoringresearch.com

"Is it illegal to run out of fuel on the motorway?

While it's not an offence to run out of fuel on a motorway, you could face charges if the breakdown causes an accident. We explain the rules."

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A quite sensationalist article. Generally if a vehicle runs into the back of a slower, slowing or stationary vehicle, it is their fault for being careless. (following too close, no due care and attention etc).

lrailadventure said:

Those are due to engineering works.

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Thanks....I hadn't thought of looking on Journey Checker at that late hour!

HSTEd said:

We are heading towards a future where large parts of the railway network will be out of action a substantial portion of every winter.
At what point does it cease to be worth paying billions a year to keep lines nominally open?

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It really is utterly hyperbolic and sensationalist to suggest a handful of do not travel warnings and occasional line closures each year are a path to lines remaining “nominally open” (ie closed in all but name).

HSTEd said:

Well then why, hypothetically, should billions a year be burned off supporting a railway that is manifestly less able to perform than a road network that now has a similar cost to the state? (~£12bn for the railway excluding HS2 vs ~£12bn for road maintenance in total)

Saying "climate change means everyone will need more money" doesn't solve the fundamental political problem that the railway is hurtling towards.
If the railway wants to hold a significant position in the post carbon transport world, it will have to do better than it is currently doing, or at least do it cheaper.

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Fairly obviously, the railway performs a similar but also crucially different role the road network, and the overall economic benefits of having it outweigh its costs (we also subsidise ours rather less than our neighbours do theirs, by most measures).

You appear to express the view that the railway is hurtling towards Armageddon with monotonous regularity. You are of course free to vote for (or more likely need to found) a political party that wishes to abolish the railway, but it’s an incredibly niche view.

RT4038 said:

Not straightforward at all. The vehicle straying into the hard shoulder was the careless driving primarily.


A quite sensationalist article. Generally if a vehicle runs into the back of a slower, slowing or stationary vehicle, it is their fault for being careless. (following too close, no due care and attention etc).

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In the case I was referring to the driver of the car that ran out of petrol was jailed for three years for causing death by careless driving (dangerous driving was dropped).

The driver of the lorry that crashed into the car on the hard shoulder was jailed for four months on the same charge.

There was a time when train drivers were similarly egregiously jailed for manslaughter but ASLEF and their lawyers have long memories, deep pockets and access to the appeal court. For example the manslaughter conviction on the Purley crash driver was overturned as infrastructure deficiencies and previous near misses were unearthed as a contributory cause.

43066 said:

You appear to express the view that the railway is hurtling towards Armageddon with monotonous regularity. You are of course free to vote for (or found) a political party that wishes to abolish the railway, but it’s an incredibly niche view.

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See Greek Railways after the IMF were called in and imposed cuts, which is exactly what will happen here when the government can no longer sell enough bonds to fund the national debt.

Won't matter which party, none of them are willing to address the issue and are content to continue vast borrowing as when the IMF are called in they can blame the IMF for the cuts and say "the IMF made us do it"

EDIT - the car had pulled over to the edge of the road (no hard shoulder as converted to fourth lane and road unlit).

Lorry driver got four months suspended.

Infrastructure authorities (who abolished the hard shoulder and saw fit not to provide lighting) not investigated to the best of my knowledge.

21C101 said:

See Greek Railways after the IMF were called in and imposed cuts, which is exactly what will happen here when the government can no longer sell enough bonds to fund the national debt.

Won't matter which party, none of them are willing to address the issue and are content to continue vast borrowing as when the IMF are called in they can blame the IMF for the cuts and say "the IMF made us do it"

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The wider issue of borrowing is a valid point (largely due to the Covid response), but the UK isn’t Greece, and it’s highly unlikely that we will be in a position to need to close our national infrastructure down (and indeed doing so would likely cost more than any small savings realised). If we do get to that point railway closure will be the least of our worries.

Are there any mainstream suggestions that we’re in such dire financial straits? The current government is seemingly bullish enough to think we can afford tax cuts.

43066 said:

It really is utterly hyperbolic and sensationalist to suggest a handful of do not travel warnings and occasional line closures each year are a path to lines remaining “nominally open” (ie closed in all but name).

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I think the only line we could realistically say that for is the Conwy Valley, but unsurprisingly actually fixing the issue properly has resulted in no long-term closures since the modifications were made, which highlights that if particular lines are closed a lot this needs to be addressed.

43066 said:

The wider issue of borrowing is a valid point (largely due to the Covid response), but the UK isn’t Greece, and it’s highly unlikely that we will be in a position to need to close our national infrastructure down (and indeed doing so would likely cost more than any small savings realised). If we do get to that point railway closure will be the least of our worries.

Are there any mainstream suggestions that we’re in such dire financial straits? The current government is seemingly bullish enough to think we can afford tax cuts.

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Despite borrowing this year being £117 billion so far but £5 billion below the £122 billion it was expected to be.

Next government is getting a hospital pass.

21C101 said:

Despite borrowing this year being £117 billion so far but £5 billion below the £122 billion it was expected to be.

Next government is getting a hospital pass.

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Yes indeed but, although the situation isn’t great, the country isn’t anywhere close to defaulting on sovereign debt and needing to go to the IMF for a bail out. So I fail to see the relevance of comparisons to Greece.

HSTEd said:

Well then why, hypothetically, should billions a year be burned off supporting a railway that is manifestly less able to perform than a road network that now has a similar cost to the state? (~£12bn for the railway excluding HS2 vs ~£12bn for road maintenance in total)

Saying "climate change means everyone will need more money" doesn't solve the fundamental political problem that the railway is hurtling towards.
If the railway wants to hold a significant position in the post carbon transport world, it will have to do better than it is currently doing, or at least do it cheaper.

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If you want it to perform, investment is without alternative. Not just when it comes to the railway, other infrastructure will suffer as well. It is not a question of "what does the railway want to be", it is a question of "what do the people want the railway to be" (and are they willing to pay for what they want).

43066 said:

Yes indeed but, although the situation isn’t great, the country isn’t anywhere close to defaulting on sovereign debt and needing to go to the IMF for a bail out. So I fail to see the relevance of comparisons to Greece.

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That remains to be seen, we came close to bond carnage a year or two back. The issue isn't so much defaulting on existing debt as to find buyers for new debt for new borrorowing (and when existing matures).

I doubt such cuts would be as great as Greece suffered but you could well get pruning of pensions and pay cuts as happened in RoI at the same time.

43066 said:

Fairly obviously, the railway performs a similar but also crucially different role the road network, and the overall economic benefits of having it outweigh its costs (we also subsidise ours rather less than our neighbours do theirs, by most measures).

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That depends on how you measure it, but subsidies to the railway are, by a substantial margin, larger than they were before coronavirus whilst the importance of the railway to the economy has dropped substantially.

Once transport decarbonisation kills the environmental card the railway will be more exposed than it has been in decades.

43066 said:

You appear to express the view that the railway is hurtling towards Armageddon with monotonous regularity. You are of course free to vote for (or more likely need to found) a political party that wishes to abolish the railway, but it’s an incredibly niche view.

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Why would I want to abolish the railway? Have I ever said that I want to "abolish the railway"?

The fact is that the railway has received unprecedented political support for three decades, and that that support is weakening, even if it is not yet gone.
The pathway the railway is on will lead to cuts unless something changes.
The parallels to the pre-Beeching environment are rather striking.

LNER have cancelled today's Edinburgh Inverness train. ScotRail not accepting tickets from other TOCs. Spent a small fortune on a hotel room last night

Next time I'm booking Megabus.

It appears ScotRail are operating a 1633 to Inverness today, taking 6½ hrs

Sealink said:

It appears ScotRail are operating a 1633 to Inverness today, taking 6½ hrs

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That will be going via Aberdeen....due to the Highland Main Line still being closed due to flooding at Dalguise (between Dunkeld and Pitlochry). The LNER service will jave been cancelled for the same reason.

Sealink said:

LNER have cancelled today's Edinburgh Inverness train. ScotRail not accepting tickets from other TOCs. Spent a small fortune on a hotel room last night

Next time I'm booking Megabus.

It appears ScotRail are operating a 1633 to Inverness today, taking 6½ hrs

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Might be better off booking a Megabus and just getting a refund of the train fare. It's not what I would call fun (did it once) but it's typically cheap.

Yep, I definitely would:


(image shows two Megabus journeys today at 1800 and 1955 taking under 4 hours for £18.70 a pop)

Sealink said:

LNER have cancelled today's Edinburgh Inverness train. ScotRail not accepting tickets from other TOCs. Spent a small fortune on a hotel room last night

Next time I'm booking Megabus.

It appears ScotRail are operating a 1633 to Inverness today, taking 6½ hrs

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Not ideal but LNER are providing 2 coaches non stop Edinburgh to Inverness, and 2 coaches to Inverness calling at Intermediate station.
So not ideal, but they will get you to Inverness.

I drove south on the A9 Tuesday early afternoon in dreadful conditions, heavy rain and strong winds, and noted (1) there were far fewer HGVs on the road than normal, and indeed less traffic generally, perhaps 'avoiding unnecessary journeys' but (2) between Inverness and Stirling I saw around 8 northbound Tesco containers hauled by Russell (and it is possible others passed during our PNB at Bankfoot). Perhaps a demonstration of the flexibility of road haulage in that Russels were able to produce at short notice at least 8 vehicles and drivers to provide an alternative to the cancelled Mossend to Inverness Tesco train.

Continuing south on the M6 this morning another and this time distressing aspect of road haulage was visible. Between Penrith and Tebay I saw no fewer than 4 artics which had come to grief, one northbound which was on its side into an adjacent field and three southbound, the 1st on its side and down the bank, 2nd on its side across the hard shoulder and the third, upright but at right angles to the direction of travel and down the bank also. I'd guess these had occurred on the previous day or overnight as there were no emergency vehicles present and at three of the four sites recovery was underway - probably quite complex given the circumstances. We have to hope none of the drivers came to any serious harm. I can only guess just how frightening it must be to be driving along and suddenly your cab and trailer are leaving the road and turned on their sides.

43066 said:

The wider issue of borrowing is a valid point (largely due to the Covid response), but the UK isn’t Greece, and it’s highly unlikely that we will be in a position to need to close our national infrastructure down (and indeed doing so would likely cost more than any small savings realised). If we do get to that point railway closure will be the least of our worries.

Are there any mainstream suggestions that we’re in such dire financial straits? The current government is seemingly bullish enough to think we can afford tax cuts.

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Anything to win an election.........no matter what the cost. Anything to stay in power.