High speed rail

[princes town]

http://www.independent.co.uk/i/

when did newcastle cease to be one of our "great rail cities".

[Fatty eats roadkill]

When the posh boys decided the north started at Watford!

In all seriousness Newcastle is not all that big for rail companies now with everything based in York, Leeds and Manchester.

[princes town]

When the posh boys decided the north started at Watford!

In all seriousness Newcastle is not all that big for rail companies now with everything based in York, Leeds and Manchester.

I was tryin to work out what this scheme does for the North east. surely, the East Coast line should have been included or is that already deemed high speed. Manchester and Leeds do alright economically from what i can tell.

[DIRTYDAVE]

Its costing billions to help people move around the country that little bit quicker when it opens in 2036. We should really be spending the money on bringing the whole network up to date.

[princes town]

Its costing billions to help people move around the country that little bit quicker when it opens in 2036. We should really be spending the money on bringing the whole network up to date.

I'm not against capital spend and I think you're point about the upgrading is probably right. My preference would have been social housing and construction investment. I thought we were broke.

[lo36789]

London is the UKs economic powerhouse the better linked to London your company is then the more options you are going to have.

As for the North-East not benefitting, there will be a multiplier effect which comes to the North-East from this. Indirect benefit as Leeds & Manchester get stronger.

I am still not completely sold on it mind, comparisons keep being made with China, Japan & France who have high speed lines as if we are lagging so far behind. These are obviously much bigger than the UK so I am not convinced it is as crucial here.

[Jazz Maverick]

The railways in this country are a massive pile of wank, from the ground up. Overcrowded, overpriced, outdated and unreliable.

We are decades behind comparable European countries (and a boat load of poorer countries too, embarrassingly) when it comes to mass rail transit.

Even in London, where the majority of funding goes (rightly) and where the majority of the population rely on the train, the rail and tube system is rickety, severely overcrowded and completely unfit for purpose.

The economy would benefit far more in terms of a mobile workforce if the HS money was pumped into expanding, renewing, and rebuilding the current archaic system so that it has the capacity, frequency and reliability to serve a country of our population and density. As lo says above, do we need super high speed trains in a country as geographically small as ours?

[princes town]

Interesting to hear the downbeat views on the tube. I've found it OK but then I use it 4 times a year at most. My customers think it is gash. Don't the European systems receive a lot of public subsidy?

In response to Lo. Personally, I find it quite troubling that we are so reliant on London. One of the first lessons I learnt in human geography was that one of the characteristics of an underdeveloped nation was an over-reliance on one City. I'm sure the Germans have a much more enlightened political/industrial strategy geared around the regions. Irrespective of the private sector arguments for London given our chronic dependence on financial services, I've never quite understood why civil service departments need to be concentrated there.

Most of the Northern Cities have seen better days to be honest and can hardly be described as "great" any more because the industries that characterised this greatness have largely disappeared. London really does seem to be seem to be where it is at these days. The multiplier effect up North argument has been used a lot (even the supposed Olympic dividend) but the evidence is simply not there for it.

[love it!]

There was a motion in parlimant 2 years ago from 2 MP's trying to drum up interest in the idea of moving whitehall jobs out of London but never gained any support. Really can't see the benefit of keeping them in expensive buildings and have to pay top wages just because they are in London. People argue that being in London attracts the better candidate of employee but I disagree.

[Mission Impossible]

We wanted to go see our son in London over Easter. Two standard return tickets - Darlo to Kings Cross, coming back two days later are £377.00. We won't be going.
Ironically we now give more public subsidies to the privatised rail companies than we gave out when they were in public ownership. We also have the most expensive train fares in Europe.
The proposed high speed rail links costing £33 billion will be out of date by the time it's completed 30 years from now. We need an immediate boost to jobs and business now. The best bet to do this would be to install high speed broadband in the UK. This would cost £5 billion and give internet speeds of up to 100 instead of the average 4 that UK households have now. In South Korea they have done this and avoided the worse aspects of recession.

[Jazz Maverick]

We wanted to go see our son in London over Easter. Two standard return tickets - Darlo to Kings Cross, coming back two days later are £377.00. We won't be going.
Ironically we now give more public subsidies to the privatised rail companies than we gave out when they were in public ownership. We also have the most expensive train fares in Europe.
The proposed high speed rail links costing £33 billion will be out of date by the time it's completed 30 years from now. We need an immediate boost to jobs and business now. The best bet to do this would be to install high speed broadband in the UK. This would cost £5 billion and give internet speeds of up to 100 instead of the average 4 that UK households have now. In South Korea they have done this and avoided the worse aspects of recession.

Train fares are a disgrace in this country.

You should be able to walk up to a train station, buy a reasonably priced ticket, and then get on a train and travel somewhere else in your country without breaking the bank.

Im sick of being told that 'its cheap to book in advance'. What fucking use is that to me? I dont know the future, I dont know where I want or need to be 6 weeks in advance.

I was in Holland last year for a Europa League game. We landed at Schipol in Amsterdam and bought a ticket to Enschede, nearly 3 hours away. It cosr 20 euros each and was a clean, fast, comfortable train.

What would that have cost for the equivelant journey in this country if you bought it at the station, on the day? 100 quid?

[Fatty eats roadkill]

Marrakech to Casablanca first class return £25 on the day for a 3 and half hour journey each way.

[DL_Fourteen]

As for the North-East not benefitting, there will be a multiplier effect which comes to the North-East from this. Indirect benefit as Leeds & Manchester get stronger.

More likely is that the Northeast will lose out to Leeds and Manchester when companies want to expand. However if Hitatchi got the contract for new trains....

To be fair, we can hardly complain about not being connected to high-speed rail, for years the East Coast Main Line was faster and far superior to the alternative routes on the West Coast. Darlington to London is pretty damn fast on the Intercity compared to some routes of a similar distance elsewhere.

[TS3]

We wanted to go see our son in London over Easter. Two standard return tickets - Darlo to Kings Cross, coming back two days later are £377.00. We won't be going.

Just done a search, and can buy 2 advance (fixed train) return tickets for less than £150.


Sent from my ARCHOS 101G9 using Tapatalk HD

[Jazz Maverick]

We wanted to go see our son in London over Easter. Two standard return tickets - Darlo to Kings Cross, coming back two days later are £377.00. We won't be going.

Just done a search, and can buy 2 advance (fixed train) return tickets for less than £150.


Sent from my ARCHOS 101G9 using Tapatalk HD

Bargain!

All you have to do is plan your journey 3 months in advance, not deviate from it by a fucking minute, and still fork out 75 notes each

Where do I sign?!

[princes town]

I think Jazz is right. Train fares are pretty expensive.

[number_one]

Which isn't necesarily a bad thing as it keeps some of the riff raff away, but on a serious note there are lots of cheap tickets, often closer to the day you travel but you have to be pretty savvy on splitting journeys between various TOC's, something that should be addressed.

For what it's worth without looking at discount or advance tickets and going with say Grand Central to London I don't think 100 biff is unreasonable.