The way some people go on one would think Northerners never travel anywhere and just walk up and down their own street walking their whippet
TBH I don't think that the attitude of some up north helps this argument - there's a lot of bitterness about Big Bad London
Within a 30 mile radius of Manchester there is probably the best motorway network in the country and the morning peak on parts of the M60, M61 and M62 start earlier than on the M25 and are just as bad
This is part of the problem with the "North is hard done by" line of argument.
Manchester/ Leeds/ Newcastle etc all have motorways (or "motorway equivalent" roads) and dual carriageways taking you into the city centre, they have dozens of NCPs/ multi storeys - they are fairly car friendly.
London is the other extreme - it has a congestion charge but few "fast" roads near the centre - so a lot more reliant upon public transport (hence more rail investment required to keep it going).
If most people were going to central Manchester/ Leeds/ Newcastle/ Liverpool/ Sheffield etc they'd consider driving. If they were going into central London, they'd probably need a train.
Oh, so it's
this angle of the "oh woe is me, I'm a poor put-upon Northerner" sketch that we're playing this time
:
Whenever it's talk of 319s being introduced to the North West, they're not good enough because almost everything out of Manchester is formed of 2 x 150s already, and lord forbid they replace the much coveted, "luxury" class 156 services...But when it's South East v North West, ALMOST EVERYTHING IS SINGLE PACERS!
Come on, pick one.
I know, it's infuriating. It's a bit like the "all London trains are modern and wonderful" argument, yet the minute there's talk of 319s coming north you get "these London cast-offs are rubbish, I'd heard they are held together with playdoh" kind of response.
One moment it's "Pacers don't just do short branch lines, they regularly work journeys like Manchester to Blackpool" but when you point out that 319s will be coming to that route then it becomes "Manchester to Blackpool only gets four coach 156s"...
(see also "319s won't be much of a capacity increase over a 323 because the 323's 3+2 seating means it has hundreds of seats" compared with "319s are unfit for Manchester because their unsuitable 3+2 seating won't be fully utilised")
Reality is that the CP5 electrification will see over a dozen departures per hour from Manchester converted to EMU operation - they're surely not all doubled up 156s!
Plus, looks like no DMUs will be leaving northern England (beyond eighteen coaches of 170s) - which means that the most deserving routes that aren't being electrified should see an increase in seating capacity too - something often forgotten on here!
130 new diesel carriages were proposed for Northern for extra capacity in service by December 2012
You mean the "jam tomorrow" proposal from the departing Labour government, who were keen to promise anything to anyone in their final months?
Were the Pacers running from 1825-1855, something that George Stephenson had been told were not good enough either for the Stockton and Darlington Railway or indeed, to participate in the Rainhill Trials....
It's rare that we get anything "new" on these kind of threads, yet alone anything amusing, but I have to admit that I laughed out loud at that one