I can't see where this thread is going. There are those who just want to say it's not fair, he's got one so I want one, and there are those who are content with the status quo and ask what the problem is. I don't think we can be sure that posters on either side of this bickering thread are representative of real people, i.e. the passengers who pay fares and use the services, and the population from whose public purses the investments are made.
-
Our booking engine at tickets.railforums.co.uk (powered by TrainSplit) helps support the running of the forum with every ticket purchase! Find out more and ask any questions/give us feedback in this thread!
"The North Of England Is Getting A Rough Deal" discussion
- Thread starter tbtc
- Start date
- Status
Sponsor Post - registered members do not see these adverts; click here to register, or click here to log in
R
RailUK Forums
GatwickDepress
Established Member
I have to admit, I would gladly live in Hull. Direct trains to London, frequent services to York, an actual regeneration effort from business and local government...
ANorthernGuard
Established Member
- Joined
- 8 Oct 2010
- Messages
- 2,662
We are not "Stuck up" BUT we certainly have a heck of a city to be proud of that has attracted investment and business BUT moonshot don't be too proud of Metrolink that overcrowded overpriced TfGM backed monstrosity (yes I hate the bloody things) could cost you your job one day!
I never mentioned anything about it being the " centre of the world " - I simply said its a brilliant place to live and work. Nothing stopping you moving here is there.......?
LateThanNever
Member
- Joined
- 18 Jul 2013
- Messages
- 1,027
This is very true - about the risk particularly - but the government also seems to lack resolute, radical thought. There is an acute housing shortage in London, not helped by so very many rich foreigners wanting to live in the posh parts. The not so posh parts are often not places most other people want to live, hence London needs all this investment in commutable railway lines - including Crossrail - just to service its requirements. Otherwise there would be a labour shortage.
So in my book a big mansion tax for people in posh homes and spend the money raised on better infrastructure outside London - which would be likely to encourage commerce to relocate at least to some extent to areas where those improvements have been made. For me personally I'd like to see Cross Country speeded up into at least a fast and a semi fast service pattern so that connectivity is improved and so that Plymouth to Newcastle is not usually quicker via London... But I know only one of those places is in the 'North'...
I simply pointed out that the tram network ( which didnt exist pre 1992 ) has been a tremendous boost to Manchester.......and if its overpriced , why is it overcrowded?
northwichcat
Veteran Member
Well if the city centre was still like this: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LLSbQYNkG14/UmL3H1fPwfI/AAAAAAAAOI0/N5O5Tlgt02A/s1600/IRAcarnage.jpg I don't think we could class ourselves as a developed country! As many people have said before the IRA did Manchester a favour because in the 80s and early 90s it was a run down city in desperate need of redevelopment. Vulnerable people were actually afraid to use the Arndale Bus Station which the IRA destroyed.
What should be noted is that a lot of new jobs in central Manchester and Salford Quays have resulted in less jobs being available outside the city and that's helped cause the rail overcrowding and congestion as a lot of people now have to travel further to work.
And it should also be noted that not every city in the North has had the same level of regeneration as Manchester and Salford.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
Being from outside a PTE area I find Metrolink's prices comparable to bus operator's prices - very expensive on very short distances, but very cheap on long distances.
Certainly a tram every 12 minutes from Oldham-Manchester using 1 driver uses less staff than a train every 15 using 1 driver + 1 guard. Plus there's no ticket office staff - just machines. Moonshot's previously mooted idea of converting most of the suburban lines around Manchester to Metrolink would probably put him out of a job, unless he wants one paying £6.50 an hour to stand around at a station/tram stop in a florescent saying "tickets please" to anyone passing.
Not all the south gets new trains - Devon and Cornwall get almost exclusively HSTs, 150/1 & 150/2s, 153s and Pacers, (though with a few 159s from SWT and XC Voyagers) - in fact most of FGW's "west" fleet leaves a lot to be desired, though the 158s do a good job. I do think FGW 150/2 refurbs have made their Sprinters look a lot better than ATW's 150/2s.
This might be an unpopular opinion but if Pacers are meant to be withdrawn by 2020 because they won't be DDA compliant, I don't see why some examples in better shape can't run, on the condition that they are coupled with a unit that is compliant and has suitable facilities. This would help to cope with overcrowding on specific services/routes. Although 142s/143s/144s have a bad reputation, they still get people from A to B (most of the time)!
This might be an unpopular opinion but if Pacers are meant to be withdrawn by 2020 because they won't be DDA compliant, I don't see why some examples in better shape can't run, on the condition that they are coupled with a unit that is compliant and has suitable facilities. This would help to cope with overcrowding on specific services/routes. Although 142s/143s/144s have a bad reputation, they still get people from A to B (most of the time)!
Last edited:
You'll get yourself banned for saying things like that on here.
However you're absolutely right. And I recall an article by Roger Ford in MR which had the operating costs for different units were given and it was clear that the Pacers were relatively cheap to run.
I don't mind a journey on a Pacer if it's a short journey. They are perfectly acceptable for a 15-20 minute commuter run. The views out of a 144 are excellent, the newish seats are OK and the ride's not bad on CWR. The view out and seating are better than a 150. And a 319 is basically a 150 with Pantograph.
So whilst Garforth or Castleford to Leeds on a 144 might be OK as peak hour relief, Manchester to Southport on a 142 is a nightmare due to the state of the track and the 142's not having been brought up to a decent standard.
Possibly the biggest constraint on railways in the North has been lack of Rolling stock. I know people who wont consider rail due to the cattletruck conditions. So perhaps we should keep the Pacers long term and thereby enable longer trains. Better a seat in a Pacer than an uncomfortable journey stood up, or train missed because not physically possible to Board.
With regard to Metrolink, I think the conversion of suburban lines, for example to Bury and Altrincham will come to be seen as a mistake. The number of passengers might have increased but the result is that significantly large towns such as Bury and Oldham are increasingly cut off from direct services into the national rail network. All journeys commence with a bumpy, rough 30 minute ride on a tram.
I am sure if, for example, the Bury line had the type of modern trains running around London, passenger increases would be just as great, particularly if trains ran through to destinations such as Manchester airport or a few London services extended to these towns similar to some Leeds services extending to Harrogate, Bradford and Skipton.
I am sure if, for example, the Bury line had the type of modern trains running around London, passenger increases would be just as great, particularly if trains ran through to destinations such as Manchester airport or a few London services extended to these towns similar to some Leeds services extending to Harrogate, Bradford and Skipton.
On the other hand do I want to be spending my hard earned cash buying a rail ticket in 2020 to travel on a 35year old bus, we can afford 40 billion for HS2 which of course is also to a large degree focused on London and London capacity issues but we can not afford to replace a 35 year old railbus. Hmm!
Manchester77
Established Member
But think of the Bury line when conversion was on the cards, it had a unique and life expired electrification system as well as rolling stock and would have probably been unelectrified and be running with 142s and 150s now with a much lower frequency.
tbtc
Veteran Member
You forgot to say "if this was Scotland then this would have been done by now"
313s?
All we know at the moment is that stock will be leaving the TSGN franchise - they may well find futures elsewhere.
Oh, at least!
It's become a strange cause celebré on here of late - not sure why (for example whilst people argue that Bolton has lost out due to no Scottish services and that Bolton "deserves" some direct London services, nobody seems bothered that Bolton lost its direct services to Birmingham/ Oxford etc a few years ago). Odd.
That's a very important question.
Personally, I think that the railway is better at tackling actual demand, rather than trying to create it - creating demand can work but there are a lot of actual problems to solve before we have the luxury of trying to solve problems that aren't really there.
You could spend billions on a Bradford Crossrail and it wouldn't change the fact that London is so busy - other than moving a few civil servants "oop north", there's a limit to what the Government can really do to encourage people and jobs to move outside London.
True.
Even in the "north", there seems to be a lot more complaints on here from the area that's had a lot of transport infrastructure (Manchester) than there is from those living north/east of York (where there's really not a lot been spent in recent years).
Agreed.
The problem is that a lot of people fixate on "Northern" and ignore other spending in "the north" - since many "southern" TOCs run a mixture of "attractive" and "unattractive" services, the fact that some lines around London suffer is hidden (e.g. the British Rail stock at GA/ SE/ SN/ SWT doesn't stand out so much because there's some shiny modern stock - even if that modern stock doesn't run on the same lines as the knackered stuff).
Well, it looks like the 315s are going to be used in Wales for the rest of their natural life, and the 319s are going to be used at Northern for the rest of their natural life, so it's not so different.
I've tried to find context for those figures, but couldn't - since every Northern journey gets a subsidy of 40p per mile (compared to most London area train services which are roughly breaking even), that suggests that the average person in the north east of England travels less than than fifteen miles a year by train (?)
There are tens of thousands (hundreds of thousands?) of people who commute from outside Greater London into the capital each year - and therefore use the infrastructure there - so the "number of people living within zones 1-6" isn't a great benchmark when compared to the population of northern England (where the number of people in "the north" at midday is going to be basically the same as it was at midnight)
Agreed.
A Mancunian Boris? Now there's a scary prospect!
It's true though - beneath the bufoonery, he's managed to get London a good slice of pie from central Government and from private business.
Sadly "the north" was throwing this money around at a bad time (in terms of public transport). When flush with postwar cash, councils threw money at inner city motorways and digging up tram tracks.
We've got a lot of concrete underpasses to show for it now, but it feels like (in hindsight) we had the money to spend at the wrong time - when the car was seen as the way forward.
Northern has seen a capacity increase of something like 30% (AFAICR). Not as high as the increase in passenger numbers (40?), but still pretty decent when you consider the "no growth" headlines
You can throw billions at northern cities, but what realistic ways are there to take the heat off London and encourage private business to relocate beyond the M25?
I'd rather that we had more plurality in our cities (basically London is our Washington, our New York and our Los Angeles - other countries have separate hubs for their politics, money and cultural industries), but given that we are where we are, I don't know how rail can solve this.
London's transport infrastructure can be vulnerable to bad weather, but then the same can be said of "northern" infrastructure, surely?
There's plenty of spending "oop north" over the next few years (on top of what's been spent in recent years - all of those Mancunian trams etc)
Yes, Manchester scrapes by with its 350/4s whilst southern England has lovely stock like the 483s?
Bit patronising?
There's some nice places to live in/around Sunderland, Rotherham and Bradford (don't know Hull so well), whilst there are some areas of serious urban depravation in Greater London).
I just wanted to provide a "lightening conductor" for all of the "north v south" arguments that have been mucking up other threads on here recently - the same stuff about Pacers gets repeated in several threads - I thought it'd be easier to try to keep it contained here (no, it probably won't work, I know...)
It's too busy yet people are also paying too much?
Metrolink seems to manage to wash it's face okay in terms of operating costs on existing lines, whilst Northern passengers need a 40p subsidy for every mile that they travel - Metrolink seems to be a shining success by many metrics
True - I reckon it'd have been like Penistone (which saw the "oddball" electrification come down and be replaced with DMUs) - which would have meant the diesel fleet around Manchester stretched even thinner and lots more services causing congestion at Victoria.
Metrolink was the only realistic future.
muddythefish
On Moderation
- Joined
- 13 May 2014
- Messages
- 1,576
You can throw billions at northern cities, but what realistic ways are there to take the heat off London and encourage private business to relocate beyond the M25?
given that we are where we are, I don't know how rail can solve this.
.
Start by relocating govt departments. Sir Humphrey might push for more electrification if he had to endure a 150 from the Ribble Valley to Manchester every day.
Then close down the Houses of Parliament (sell it off to the Russians for apartments), and relocate parliament outside London. It doesn't have to be in the capital.
Rail can help massively to bridge the north-south divide. Electrification of every route creating better and faster links would help enormously. Plus more rolling stock of course and reopenings of lines such as Woodhead and Ripon - Northallerton.
Kiss good bye to the social railway then (i.e. our lovely well used routes but which don't turn a profit due to heavy infrastructure or short urban journeys).
Aside from that, I think the OP includes rather too much levity for what is essentially an important debate. Yes the South East needs Crossrail and Thameslink 2000 (if only BR had been around to deliver it!) but we need investment in the rest of the Country as well.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
You forgot to say "if this was Scotland then this would have been done by now"
Well, it's true. He should have said that. The railways in England have been held back by the dead hand of Westminster over the past twenty years and it has been the devolved nations which have shown the way on investment in the railway network.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
Well, fair play to metrolink, it's done well as far as it goes, although as a regular user of the Walkden route, I certainly don't want to see that turned over to a similar slow toiletless service, as seems to be regularly threatened.
But look at the whole argument around tram trains. Why is it they are the supposed be all and end all to vast swathes of the regional railway, when it's plain to see that what the regional railway needs is a new generation of all round DMU's to fill the gap between the expiry of the 2nd generation units and the electrification of the entire network (which we all know is going to happen - honest guv
).But this is impractical, because the clueless wonders in London have decreed that we're not to have any more regional DMU's, even though they've been happy to subsidise plenty of InterCity type DMU's which are likely to be superceded by electrification a lot earlier than the rest of the railway. Regional DMU's too expensive ? Perhaps if we had our own rolling stock builders developing and designing stock for the purpose, this might not have been the case.
tbtc has gathered many of the previous posters' comments to show the spread of feeling here. It seems that some protagonists from each side have not spent much time in the area that they don't live in e.g. 'northerners' have not spent time in London in the heat of the rush hour, and 'London area' (I mustn't say home counties - apparently) residents have not suffered the piecemeal provision of rail transport in the north (Greater Manchester & West Yorkshire?). I would include myself in the latter group.
For those who don't know London travel patterns, this graph may come as a surprise:
http://londontransportdata.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/weekday-morning-peak-travel-into-central-london.png
It shows that for most of the last 60 years, over 1 million people travel into London every day and at least 60% travel by rail, now tending to 75%. The roads into London are at capacity.
I suspect that commuting modes in northern cities are probably the inverse of those figures and journeys are on average much shorter. So as I have indicated in previous posts, rail travel into London is key to getting to work and the network is a) fully loaded and b) prone to major collapse even when a single train failure occurs.
In addition, about 400,000 commuters use the tube as part or all of their journey to work. So if we look at the age of the tube stock, things are a mixed bag. Until 2009, two of the tube lines had stock that was over 40 years old. All four of the surface lines had a mix that between 30 and 60 years old. That's why there has been a major update of the stock, mostly paid for by local rates/taxes.
Its not that London is privileged to have this level of service, it would just collapse if it didn't.
For those who don't know London travel patterns, this graph may come as a surprise:
http://londontransportdata.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/weekday-morning-peak-travel-into-central-london.png
It shows that for most of the last 60 years, over 1 million people travel into London every day and at least 60% travel by rail, now tending to 75%. The roads into London are at capacity.
I suspect that commuting modes in northern cities are probably the inverse of those figures and journeys are on average much shorter. So as I have indicated in previous posts, rail travel into London is key to getting to work and the network is a) fully loaded and b) prone to major collapse even when a single train failure occurs.
In addition, about 400,000 commuters use the tube as part or all of their journey to work. So if we look at the age of the tube stock, things are a mixed bag. Until 2009, two of the tube lines had stock that was over 40 years old. All four of the surface lines had a mix that between 30 and 60 years old. That's why there has been a major update of the stock, mostly paid for by local rates/taxes.
Its not that London is privileged to have this level of service, it would just collapse if it didn't.
Last edited:
Well, as a resident of the North, I don't think it's entirely a railway thing. Infact, the longer I live up here, the less I'm convinced that centralised London Government is the best way to govern the rest of England in any respect. I'm not sure we need regions as such, perhaps more devolution of power to the Cities and Counties.
I speak as someone who grew up in Kent when the trains down South were forty years old (although I have to say, I'd still far rather spend my daily commute on a CIG, VEP or even an EPB than a pacer or 150).
One of the reasons that rail investment is more likely in the South East is that the cost of tickets are more. Take a journey which doesn't involve London (either defined as within the M25 or within the travel zones), in this case Basingstoke to Guildford it is more expensive (comparing season tickets) than travelling from Manchester to Leeds, and that is with the distance being shorter (35 miles vs 45 miles) the peak hour frequency being less less (three trains an hour compared with five, six if you are willing to use a service which is a bit slower).
As has been established elsewhere train travel in the north tends to be for shorter distances therefore you don't need many people paying 40ppm compared with 30ppm per day when they are travelling 30 miles rather than 10 to 15 miles before a TOC has earned an extra £1 million (I make it about 600 people). Therefore when an a evaluation of a project over a 40 year period is undertaken that extra money can easily turn it from a scheme which is unlikely to see the light of day in the next 30 years to a scheme which is essential for the next control period.
As has been established elsewhere train travel in the north tends to be for shorter distances therefore you don't need many people paying 40ppm compared with 30ppm per day when they are travelling 30 miles rather than 10 to 15 miles before a TOC has earned an extra £1 million (I make it about 600 people). Therefore when an a evaluation of a project over a 40 year period is undertaken that extra money can easily turn it from a scheme which is unlikely to see the light of day in the next 30 years to a scheme which is essential for the next control period.
Last edited:
Bantamzen
Established Member
And not forgetting that now that the Westfield site is underway, a Bradford Crossrail is now all but impossible. However many businesses in this area did support the idea, and many actively campaigned for it during the 10 year window that it had while the site was a ruddy great hole in the ground. Sadly outside of the area, no-one it seems were listening. And herein lies the problem, getting investment away from the capital seems to be all that more difficult, so encouraging business away is equally difficult. Large scale government initiatives can help here, but the political will needs to be in evidence, which it is not.
It has to start with the government putting the infrastructure in place to allow businesses to better operate, trade etc. Investment in the rail network can form part of this as is taking place in Manchester.
Oh absolutely. But if you spread businesses out across a number of hubs, then the risk of the entire economy grinding to a halt when the weather closes in reduces. It really makes a lot of sense, and as you've said earlier it's fairly common place away from the UK.
leedstraindude
Member
- Joined
- 18 Dec 2009
- Messages
- 127
As someone who lives on the Huddersfield line 2 stops out of Leeds I cant believe how atrocious the service is. No trains till just before 7am. Only one an hour after 7pm, and only 1tp2h on a Sunday. That coupled with the fact that more often than not if you try to use the train into Leeds in a rush hour the train is completely full already by the time it gets to us and your left on platform for another half hour waiting for another one or have to get up even earlier for work to get on a train.
Northern or WY Metro when challenged on the length of trains say they cant run longer trains than 3 coaches cause two of the platforms cant take anything longer, and cant find any money to lengthen the said platforms, but they can find the money to build brand new stations on other lines into the city as being reported all over local news lately. An extra service would be nice at least in rush hour but we cant have that cause that would reduce the number of express TPE trains that could run so were screwed either way.
Northern or WY Metro when challenged on the length of trains say they cant run longer trains than 3 coaches cause two of the platforms cant take anything longer, and cant find any money to lengthen the said platforms, but they can find the money to build brand new stations on other lines into the city as being reported all over local news lately. An extra service would be nice at least in rush hour but we cant have that cause that would reduce the number of express TPE trains that could run so were screwed either way.
Thank you. I have been looking for the source of that quote, which is neither from the ORR nor the DfT. It turns out that is is from the "The Institute for Public Policy Research, is the UK's leading progressive think tank", so the analysis is hardly likely to be balanced.
In the same paragraph, the following response from the DfT representative is given:
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201314/cmselect/cmtran/1140/114006.htm
I suspect that the IPPR research will not stand-up to inspection; for instance it probably neglected to include the investment in the Tyne&Wear Metro. I could be wrong; I've not not read their analysis, but that is because I have not found it yet. However I suspect not given the disparity in the figures and the political motivations of the Chair of the Parliamentary Transport Committee.
I think the key point however, is that there is a lot of emotion around this subject that has been stirred-up by the usual suspects in the political establishments but that there is generally little substance to the claims, except perhaps in some individual cases, when you take a look at the claims that are being made, and the grounds upon which they are based.
northwichcat
Veteran Member
tbtc said:
So are you saying the number of people from the North who travel to London for meetings, TV programs etc. on a daily basis is cancelled out by the number of people who travel to the North for similar reasons?
As examples, one person I know who lives just outside Manchester and works for Fast Web Media (who have offices at MediaCity and in London) travels to London twice a week for work purposes. However, if you consider TV program Countdown (filmed at MediaCity) regulars Nick Hewer, Susie Dent and Rachel Riley all live down south.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
What has to be noted though is Pacers are smaller than other trains. You could say a Mercedes Vito minibus is cheaper to run than a Optare Solo, but one gives you more than double the capacity of the other.
A 4 car 156 is cheaper to run than a 6 car 142, both formations are similar in length and capacity (if the 6 car 142 is formed of units with 2+2 seating) while a 6 car 143 or 144 is more expensive to run than a 6 car 142.
It's also worth noting that the cheapest to operate DMU (in terms of diesel usage and track access charges) is now the class 172. Even more so if you consider a 3 car 172 could take the place of a pair of 142s. However, the 172s do have higher leasing costs but should require less maintenance work.
Last edited by a moderator:
Yes, but don't forget that a lot of that was built from scratch in the post-war period with funding from outside as part of the initiatives to get Germany back on it's feet. During the same period the UK was broke, and what money it could spare went largely on the armed forces. It was not until the late 80s that UK finances were back on a stable footing and we have been playing catch-up ever since. So the comparison is not sound. Based on a rough count the UK has seven modern/modernized local systems; granted some of them are not as good, but still they exist.
The railways were originally built to service industry and trade, not passenger traffic, that came later. So by the Edwardian era the make-up of the railways was not optimum for public needs. I would also point out that railways were funded by southern money and by funds coming from the USA.
Provincial services benefit from Network Rail which works with all relevant local authorities and service providers. I would not rely on Rail North making a big change except for taking credit for future high-profile projects; the arguments will go on at the local level. One area it may make a positive contribution is in filtering out the more cloud cuckoo land schemes by peer pressure between the member authorities.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
Well, the vehicles to be cascaded north are more than likely to be refurbished by the new franchisee, and yes they are likely to be retained until they are retired, but that is the case with all units.
If only we were so lucky as to get those newish units; SWT's 455s are to be re-equipped with new traction which will likely see their service life extended, possibly closer to 50 years than not, and that is on a route that does not receive public subsidy. If rail users got the vehicles they deserved in line with some of the demands being made here, SWT urban commuters are due some gold-plated Audis with first-class standards through-out, and provincials would have to bi for our cast offs. Oh wo, Oh wo, wo wo wo is us.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
All these points have been answered in the RUS an elsewhere.
Last edited:
northwichcat
Veteran Member
I don't understand. Are you saying all franchises usually retain their units until they are retired? If so I can think of numerous examples where that's not been the case including 150s and 321s released by LM and 150s released by LO.
No they haven't. In the past couple of months Stephen Hammond has said it will be up to bidders of the next Northern franchise to propose ideas for the withdrawal of Pacers. The latest Northern RUS recommends an order of new DMUs to replace Pacers and 150s in CP5 but that's outdated now that a later ATOC document recommends no new DMUs being ordered in CP5.
Last edited by a moderator:
Would there? Most analysis indicates that there is nothing like the level of latent demand in provincial cities, while Greater London, the South East, and East Anglia have unserviced demand that was estimate to be about 10% of existing traffic as at 2010.
Not true. Those industries you refer to died a natural death. The world changed, but parts of the UK fail to recognize that.
Historically, neither Berlin nor Bonn have been at the heart of Germany's industrial or financial sectors. London has always been at the heart of those sectors in the UK. France is dominated by Paris in business to a greater degree than is the case in the UK. London is the world's leading business and financial center and draws not just from the UK but from around the world. Do you expect provincial cities can close that gap even with Government assistance?
All the Governments will do is undermine what we have (e.g. Heathrow airport expansion, destruction of international business services, FTT etc). Meanwhile the capital needs the funding both for historic underfunding and current growth which is accelerating.
When you speak to people (ie ordinary as opposed to railway enthusiasts) two phrases that never come up are "we really need to knock 10 minutes off the train time to London in order to boost the local economy" and "there aren't enough trains from Leeds to Manchester". The realities are all around your sort of issues such as physically being able to get on the train, getting a seat, people getting away without paying etc. What money there is, is being spent on the wrong things.
Taking the line you quote, everything is being stymied by TPE. But do we really need to run 5 fast trains an hour from Leeds to Manchester? Wouldn't 3 six car trains/hour be just as acceptable as 5 three car ( with some 4 and 6) trains? It would surely be much cheaper and make an impact on the subsidy required by TPE.
You then have potential to improve the local services, attract more passengers onto longer trains and get the subsidy down (by increasing fare income but not increasing train crew costs). On your line partly by opening a halt at White Rose Centre which we are told "cant be done" as the TPE service means there are no paths.
That may be the case, but where do you draw your boundaries to get the numbers? Crossrail will serve three EU regions not just Greater London. Likewise with Thameslink. The London-centric rail network has a catchment area that is approximately half the population of England. Investment in Euston will benefit the majority of users traveling down the WCML, but only a minority of those living within Greater London. Ditto the work on London Bridge, Paddington, and future work on Victoria, Waterloo, and Crossrail2.
Then what about demand? Servicing the growth in demand in London requires large scale infrastructure investment as well as extra vehicles. By comparison on Merseyside for example, the only significant infrastructure investment that is required is in the Central and Moorfields stations, while there are adequate vehicles to cover growth up to 2016 and beyond. So why spend money when it is not required? Manchester and Birmingham have stronger cases than Merseyside but not on the scale of London.
Then on top of that, development costs are significantly higher in London due to much of the infrastructure work requiring tunneling, underground works, and due to land property costs.
You said it.
Adjusting transport funding to address your points will not make much difference, and will only undermine successful businesses. The type of social engineering you suggest has been a proven failure; e.g. the Soviet Union, China's Cultural Revolution, Venezuela, Cuba, etc. QED.
P.S.
I am a Northerner that did make the move south.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
Revenue on Provincial services does not even cover half the operational costs, while London and South East are close to break-even. On top of that, new vehicles are required for Thameslink for technical reasons while the same applies to at least one fleet for Crossrail. So what is the justification for the Northern franchise to get new vehicles when the existing allocation is goo enough an serves it purposes?
Whilst I don't doubt that London possibly has a latent demand greater than the rest of the UK, I doubt very much it is as low as ten percent. Don't forget also, that services into Leeds alone have seen passenger demand double over the past fifteen years (and that is one of those areas in the Morth that has seen a modicum of investment) so I don't know which study concluded that latent demand for rail in the North was less than ten per cent of existing travel, but it sounds like claptrap to me.
Last edited:
That investment is happening; Reading, Nottingham, South Wales, WCML, Peterborough, Scottish Electrification, Electric Spine, York approaches, etc etc, but perhaps not as high profile nor as widely visible as the current big ticket schemes.
In a few years the high profile scheme will more than likely be HS2, while "southerners" will be whinging about the lack of funding for Crossrail2.
Not true; there has been a significantly greater investment in rail, by an order of magnitude or more, in that period than in the previous 50 years. The last 15 years have seen the most productive improvements since the end of the war.
Also remeber, that 'down south' a lot of the BR units have had a decent refresh in the last decade, and although EMT have done a good job on their Sptrinters and HST's Northern just dont have the money to do a refurbishment of anywhere near the same caliber.
- Status