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Broken & Late Ltd: Britain's Railways

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    Originally posted by Walt Flanagans Dog View Post
    Sounds good in theory - Germany and Japan seem to do a lot more of this, i.e. a second stop on the way into/out of a city to avoid people having to converge on the centre - a London Shinjuku if you like. I just can't help but look at what we do everywhere else and think it'll end up a clusterfuck of badly organised interchanging and overcrowding, made worse by too many, badly placed branches of Pret and Costa. But I'm just grumpy about Euston really.
    Yeah, I'm sure we won't be short of retail options at Old Oak. It seems such a no-brainer now, but I think it took a while for it to be thought integral to HS2, which illustrates your point that we've been off the pace. One thing which gave it impetus was a report by, of all people, Brian Mawhinney. Admittedly, he saw Old Oak as a terminus to save expensive tunnelling and redevelopment of Euston (which was a daft idea) but it did bring out benefits of the new outer London station. Stratford does something like Old Oak in the East.

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      Watford Junction used to be a perfectly acceptable place for long-distance West-Coast Mainline trains to stop at. Sadly that's gone out of the window now.

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        Fussbudget has essentially nailed this above, but I would two other "reasons"

        - individuals obsessed with frequent flier miles/reward points
        - people who have been doing this for yonks and don't care to change their habits

        A number of transit planners thought that the New York - Washington DC shuttles would be dead shortly after the post 9/11 security "enhancements" increased minimum check in times to an hour, but they continue to be full, notwithstanding the fact that the hourly Acelas take less than three hours downtown to downtown.

        I've had a number of meetings at the SEC, which is literally next to Union Station, at which a number of my counterparts insisted on flying down and back, even in iffy weather.

        People are no more rational actors when it comes to transit than they are with respect to any other "economic" choice.

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          When did that start happening, GO? The passenger numbers for Watford Junction have gone through the roof in recent years.

          I liked the idea of linking Watford Junction to the Met Line, but that seems to be dropping in the no mans land between TfL and the DfT.

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            A couple of years back. I used to be able to get to Penrith directly from Watford Junction.

            We're still hopeful that the Met extension will go ahead.

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              There's still faecal matter all over the platform at Sunderland. The good news is, it seems to be fresh each day.

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                Originally posted by ursus arctos View Post
                Fussbudget has essentially nailed this above, but I would two other "reasons"

                - individuals obsessed with frequent flier miles/reward points
                - people who have been doing this for yonks and don't care to change their habits

                A number of transit planners thought that the New York - Washington DC shuttles would be dead shortly after the post 9/11 security "enhancements" increased minimum check in times to an hour, but they continue to be full, notwithstanding the fact that the hourly Acelas take less than three hours downtown to downtown.

                I've had a number of meetings at the SEC, which is literally next to Union Station, at which a number of my counterparts insisted on flying down and back, even in iffy weather.

                People are no more rational actors when it comes to transit than they are with respect to any other "economic" choice.
                You can get air miles flying from London to Paris/Brussels, no doubt. But Eurostar still carries upwards of 10m passengers a year, and could add a load more if it stopped at Stratford International.

                Why aren't people going to switch when offered two London stations instead of one, and much quicker journey times? Did you look at all the Old Oak Common links?
                Last edited by Tubby Isaacs; 14-12-2017, 17:47.

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                  Originally posted by Gangster Octopus View Post
                  A couple of years back. I used to be able to get to Penrith directly from Watford Junction.

                  We're still hopeful that the Met extension will go ahead.
                  Good luck with it. You've not had a lot of luck with transport schemes and places close to your heart lately, I don't think.

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                    Originally posted by Tubby Isaacs View Post
                    If you're flying to Heathrow and are going on to Manchester, I can see that the prospect of Heathrow- Euston to catch a train might not appeal.

                    But yeah, otherwise flying doesn't make much sense.
                    It's a lot cheaper during peak hours.

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                      Not as much as you'd think, sometimes. Choosing a day at random- Thursday 4 Jan.

                      You can get peak advanced fare from Kings Cross for £49. Flybe has some cheaper flights (£40), but otherwise British Airways is £69.

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                        I gather some kind of decision is due on the Croxley Rail Link today. Gangster O?

                        Unbelievable that Hilarious Boris signed up TfL to cover any cost overrun, even though it's mostly in Hertfordshire, and TfL had said they didn't trust the costings. By a happy coincidence, when he did that, the other parties to the project (the DfT and Hertfordshire Council) were safely Tory, whereas the London Mayoralty was likely to go Labour.

                        No wonder Khan wasn't keen on the project. Shame because I think it's a good one.

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                          Just posted about this on the Boris thread. LR has a long read on it.

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                            Shame because I think it's a good one.
                            At £300m? For a part of town which already has a tube station? Seems insane to me that TFL would fund that before the Bakerloo extension, say, or even Crossrail 2.

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                              I like the project because I think towns just outside London need more mass transit.

                              I'm not saying TfL should be paying all that much towards it, and I understand Khan's position.
                              Last edited by Tubby Isaacs; 02-01-2018, 12:46.

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                                Andy McDonald MP
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                                My day of campaigning has been interrupted by a broken down train on the recently bailed-out Virgin East Coast on the same day fares are hiked by 3.6%. Let’s take our railway back into public ownership!
                                Where do you start with rubbish like this?

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                                  Laura Pidcock MP‏Verified account
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                                  Another big fare rise for rail travellers: 3.6%, the highest in 5 years. On overcrowded, ageing stock, with less staff & lower safety standards. Privatisation is the problem, not the answer. @UKLabour will bring rail franchises back into public ownership as they expire. #RailFail
                                  Lower safety standards? The UK is the safest railway in Europe. That's well out of order.

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                                    What's the new and improved London Bridge station like? It's being hyped up a lot on BBC London.

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                                      Haven't stepped into it since it formally opened, though my train did stop there for the first time in years this morning - makes my commute take longer, but worth the trade-off for the connectivity. When I was in the new concourse before all the platforms were opened it seemed a bit spartan, with very few ticket machines (all new/remodelled stations seem to suffer from this), but maybe they have more going on now. I'm also hoping the interchanges work better now than they have done for the last few months.

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                                        Grayling's gone to Qatar. Only a cynic would say he's dodging angry commuters whose tickets have gone up today.

                                        The Rail Delivery Group (ie train companies) seem to be doing his job of explaining the rises.

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                                          Grayling's also supposedly one of the people getting reshuffled out, so maybe he's avoiding May and journalists as much as commuters.

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                                            One of the season tickets that has been singled out for attention was Cheltenham Spa to London.

                                            Does anyone actually do that every day? It would seem to take a minimum of five hours, even if one lived and worked close to the stations.

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                                              As you said before, the damage Grayling can do at Transport is small compared with other departments. But he's so unpopular, he has to go.

                                              I was surprised to see Greg Clark on the list for sacking. He got the shit sandwich of persuading car companies that Brexit won't be bad. I was impressed by that because there would be a technical brief to master there, and car companies aren't stupid. Or maybe he just gave them a nudge and said "Single Market, keep it under your hat", and he's being sacked for this.

                                              Or perhaps there's some "OK, you can keep Hammond, but we want a couple of sane ministers sacked" from the Brexiters.

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                                                Originally posted by ursus arctos View Post
                                                One of the season tickets that has been singled out for attention was Cheltenham Spa to London.

                                                Does anyone actually do that every day? It would seem to take a minimum of five hours, even if one lived and worked close to the stations.
                                                I doubt a even a handful do. There is the problem that we only have full season tickets and singles/returns, with no 3 or 4 day a week season tickets. So you'd likely get the Season ticket if you did it 4 or maybe even 3 times a week, I suppose. But the DfT have been promising change on this score for ages, but departmental cuts have likely stopped it being done.

                                                You can always find anomalies, but somebody living in Cheltenham (very expensive) and commuting to London five hours a day isn't one I'm going to lose sleep over.

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                                                  Originally posted by ursus arctos View Post
                                                  One of the season tickets that has been singled out for attention was Cheltenham Spa to London.

                                                  Does anyone actually do that every day? It would seem to take a minimum of five hours, even if one lived and worked close to the stations.
                                                  Eh? It's just over 2 hours to Paddington on Great Western. I still doubt too many people are doing that daily, mind.

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                                                    You'd have to work close to Paddington and live near Cheltenham Station to do it much quicker than Ursus says. You'd likely need to drive at the Cheltenham end. The town has more than enough traffic as it is.

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