Railrider

5.1K posts

Railrider

@RailNutter

Frequent rail user in London and the south east of England. Supporter of electrification, new or reopened lines, and other rail investment.

London, England Katılım Ekim 2021

40 Takip Edilen850 Takipçiler

Railrider@RailNutter·3h

@cynicalkind And I read somewhere this has cost the government £50bn in lost revenue. They could have just increased the tax by the rate of inflation each year and invested that money in public transport. - or the NHS or defence, if you prefer. Even in fixing potholes!

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James Taylor@cynicalkind·4h

@RailNutter Yet road fuel duty has been frozen for more than 15 years, I believe

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James Taylor@cynicalkind·1d

Fuel duty freeze extended until the end of the year - BBC News How about freezing #rail and other #publictransport fares! bbc.co.uk/news/articles/…

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Railrider@RailNutter·4h

@imlirvingit I am not sure what point you are making here, but yes it does, and I use it often for trips to Kent.

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Luke Irving@imlirvingit·10h

@RailNutter Reminder: HS1 exists

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Luke Irving@imlirvingit·23h

All I can say is thank Christ the Victorians didn’t think like this. What a dreadful attitude, in Japan they beat torrential rain, earthquakes and apologise if it’s 2 minutes late. How have we gotten to this point in our infrastructure?

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Railrider@RailNutter·4h

@cynicalkind It is surprising, yes.

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James Taylor@cynicalkind·10h

@RailNutter That's a first.

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Railrider@RailNutter·11h

@EngFocus Another railway that went massively over budget during construction, by the way.

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Chris (Rail Focus)@EngFocus·1d

What is it with GCR cultists? 🤣

Alan@A1an_M

So we could just have reused the old Great Central alignment after all (the one that was much cheaper but abandoned because it wasn't suitable for high speed).

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Railrider@RailNutter·11h

@EngFocus Or they could have spent the money reopening the Somerset & Dorset…..🤣

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Railrider@RailNutter·1d

@BerryAndBitty Sad, I agree, but it will probably be a LONG time before we need the 18tph….

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Berry@BerryAndBitty·1d

@RailNutter I mean, the thing with the speed isn't as much that it takes longer, but it SIGNIFICANTLY reduces max tph, which is part of the reason why it was wanted to be that fast Foregoing ATO is, just kinda sad Especially with how ETCS works this function can be enabled later if needed

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Railrider@RailNutter·1d

A lot of this today. As US essayist HL Mencken said: “there is a well-known solution to every human problem - neat, plausible and wrong”.

John Duffield@jfwduffield

The reason why HS2's route had to be incredibly straight & intrusive was because it was absurdly over specc-ed for 250 mph line speeds. Rather HS1's 186 mph or 140 mph on a conventional mainline with in-cab signalling. It was fundamentally the wrong project from the outset.

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Railrider@RailNutter·1d

@BRCWCo I am looking at the sky and it is greyish white. This blue business is just made-up nonsense……🤣

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BRCW Co Ltd@BRCWCo·1d

@RailNutter John has been a long time opponent to HS2, and even if they posted the sky was blue he'd disagree.

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Railrider@RailNutter·1d

@sunlit_upland And if they didn’t insist they were building 65 miles of tunnels because being engineers they counted each bore of a twin bore tunnel separately!!

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Martin Lowe@sunlit_upland·1d

@RailNutter So much public ignorance could have been snuffed out immediately if the HS2 website had had a simple FAQ page.

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Railrider@RailNutter·1d

@BerryAndBitty The speed reduction from 225mph (normal operations) to 199mph is not huge frankly. A few minutes on the journey. Other countries will have slightly faster trains, that is all. It is just a pity to be penny-pinching for such a small saving (1-2.5% of the projected cost).

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Railrider@RailNutter·1d

@BerryAndBitty The line has been built to 260mph speed. That is not going to change. What Alexander has said is they will use a simpler form of signalling to reduce complexity in testing. This saves minimal money but makes it look as if the gov is doing something.

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Railrider@RailNutter·1d

@BerryAndBitty There was SOME extra cost from extra tunnelling mandated by Parliament (by MPs that never then admitted to adding cost), but this has not been the major issue. Inflation, the job being more complex than expected, and, yes, some poor cost control are the main reasons.

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Berry@BerryAndBitty·1d

@RailNutter The document is really good, and, yeah, slower trains isn't going to solve it Hell, the cost of going faster isn't that much of a problem given alignment! From what I heard (grain of salt), a lot of cost comes from not wanting surface alignments on a good chunk and just, dig...

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Railrider@RailNutter·1d

@jfwduffield See page 23 and following of this report if you want the actual facts on this assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/upl…

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Railrider@RailNutter·1d

@jfwduffield To quote HL Mencken, this is neat, plausible and wrong. Lots of factors influenced the choice of route: high versus not so high speed was a minor one. They did actually consider lower speeds and concluded it would not make much difference.

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John Duffield@jfwduffield·1d

Ameer Kotecha@Ameer_Kotecha

It would help if we still built viaducts that looked like this

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Railrider@RailNutter·1d

@AndyRoden1 @jfwduffield There are actual examples of this. I remember reading that a slower speed alignment that would have bypassed Cubbington Wood was considered, but it would have taken the line closer to a village. Route decisions are complex and not governed by just one factor.

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Andy Bowes-Roden = =@AndyRoden1·1d

@jfwduffield It's true a slower line could have had tighter curves. However, all those slower curves would have achieved is to have taken the railway closer to places you'd want to avoid such as ancient woodlands and villages. Whatever the speed, the alignment would have been similar.

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Railrider@RailNutter·1d

@MatthewJDalby @alexmaccaroon Quite. Nor is it completely flat. I learned the other day that high speed lines can have steeper gradients (3% or so) than normal ones (about 1%). So this “because it was high speed it had to be completely straight and flat” line, so often peddled by opponents, is rubbish.

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Matthew Dalby@MatthewJDalby·1d

@RailNutter @alexmaccaroon It isn't even very straight if you look at parts of the track.

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Alex Webster@alexmaccaroon·2d

FUN FACT: one of the reasons that HS2 has been such a ballache has been the lines have to be perfectly straight in large sections to hit the high speeds.

GB Politics@GBPolitcs

🚨NEW: Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander is expected to confirm that HS2 trains will run slower than initially planned, in a bid to cut costs

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Railrider@RailNutter·1d

@pharmst @mickeyhynes 54% is tunnels and cuttings, yes, which means 46% isn’t. These are not “my figures”, by the way: they are the official figures, easily available on the web. There is a search engine called Google on which one can easily check such stats, I believe.

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Phil@pharmst·1d

@RailNutter @mickeyhynes 32+44 = 76 which is definitely more than half of 144. By your own numbers more than half the route is underground or in cuttings.

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Mickey Hynes 🇬🇧🇮🇪🇺🇦@mickeyhynes·1d

The bat tunnel for HS2 represents about 0.1% of the total projected cost. The problem no one in the media wants to address is that most of the route was tunnelled unnecessarily because Rupert and Tabatha out walking Tilly the cockerpoo didn't want to look at a viaduct.

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Keşfet

@cynicalkind @imlirvingit @EngFocus @BerryAndBitty @BRCWCo @sunlit_upland @elonmusk @BarackObama