Agv

[cybertect]

Assembled in Toulouse, indeed.

The wings* and engines are built in Britain, though.

* On the prototype pictured, at least. BAE sold their 20% stake in Airbus so I'm not sure where they're making them for production models.

 

[Roadkill]

Which is essentially what happened with 19th century rail termini in London (and led to London having the first Underground railway in the world by several decades).

Not practical now, though. Cities are much bigger than then, and anyway, the main advantage that rail enjoys over air travel is that it's city centre to city centre. Most schemes for a high-speed line AFAIK envisage it sharing stations with the existing network.

 

[Poi E]

To lose
Chocks away!

 

[Crispy]

Not practical now, though. Cities are much bigger than then, and anyway, the main advantage that rail enjoys over air travel is that it's city centre to city centre. Most schemes for a high-speed line AFAIK envisage it sharing stations with the existing network.

like most tgv stations.

there are plenty of out-of-town tgv stations too, mind. not very popular.

 

[Cobbles]

Not practical now, though. Cities are much bigger than then, and anyway, the main advantage that rail enjoys over air travel is that it's city centre to city centre. Most schemes for a high-speed line AFAIK envisage it sharing stations with the existing network.

So how are they going to get the sanction to bulldoze out a swathe of all the major cities en route wide enoungh for 2 high speed trains to pass each other.

Even if they could overcome the planning objections ("awwww - 'ickle hedgehogs in the way / my patch of scrub ought to be preserved as a nature refuge" and all that crap), where would anyone get enough money to buy the requisite land even at miserly compulsory acquisition rates.

(*starts searching on web for route maps to plan purchase of suitable ransom strips*)

 

[mattie]

Assembled in Toulouse, indeed.

The wings* and engines are built in Britain, though.

* On the prototype pictured, at least. BAE sold their 20% stake in Airbus so I'm not sure where they're making them for production models.

Still in the UK.

And the RR site in Derby is absolutely colossal.

 

[Crispy]

Well luckily, when they closed a whole load of railway lines in the 60s, they left a whole load of handy routes in and out of city centers.

For example, Greengauge21's HS2 proposal makes use of existing corridors - the Grand Central main line, the M40 and M42, and on spare space on the existing Chiltern line right into Birmingham center.

 

[Cobbles]

Well luckily, when they closed a whole load of railway lines in the 60s, they left a whole load of handy routes in and out of city centers.

For example, Greengauge21's HS2 proposal makes use of existing corridors - the Grand Central main line, the M40 and M42, and on spare space on the existing Chiltern line right into Birmingham center.

£7.1 Billion to shave a wee 30 miutes off the Edinburgh/Glasgow to London timings - wow.


That's still 3 hours 45 minutes as opposed to 60 minutes - plus the additional expense per journey - no contest. If it made any economic sense at all, someone woul have done it by now.

 

[Crispy]

It's not just the shorter journey, it's the extra capacity. Railway use just keeps rising and rising. Shifting the inter-city route onto a dedicated line frees up a lot of existing capacity for commuter/local trains.

And it's not just economics at work here. As oil gets more and mroe expensive, flying a plane from birmingham to london will get expensive much more quickly than the train. Ignoring the environmental argument entirely here.

 

[Roadkill]

So how are they going to get the sanction to bulldoze out a swathe of all the major cities en route wide enoungh for 2 high speed trains to pass each other.

Even if they could overcome the planning objections ("awwww - 'ickle hedgehogs in the way / my patch of scrub ought to be preserved as a nature refuge" and all that crap), where would anyone get enough money to buy the requisite land even at miserly compulsory acquisition rates.

(*starts searching on web for route maps to plan purchase of suitable ransom strips*)

Mainly existing railway lines, those active now and those closed. If there really isn't space to add in the extra high-speed line alongside the existing one, they'd just have to share for a few miles. It works elsewhere.

You see, Cobbles, you can raise all of the insincere objections you like to this, but the reality is that it works all over Europe (and in Japan etc etc) and there's no reason that it shouldn't here. And it's not as if anyone takes your comments seriously anyway.

 

[teuchter]

That's still 3 hours 45 minutes as opposed to 60 minutes - plus the additional expense per journey - no contest.

Yawn yawn yawn.

Cobbles and his fantasy 60 minutes journey times yet again.



And for the record, it would already be possible to run London-Edinburgh in under 4 hours; in fact a timetabled train did this daily in BR days.

 

[Crispy]

Yep. It's congestion on the railways that prevents it these days. Too many local services squeezed onto the E/WCML.

 

[teuchter]

"power is distributed throughout all its coaches"

Ah. That's a shame.

That means everyone gets to sit on top of a diesel engine, i.e. noisier internally... if existing trains are anything to by, e.g. old school HST, engines each end, vs. the newer stuff we are seeing here - which are definitely noisier inside.

A 224mph diesel train would certainly be quite something!

You're quite right about the distributed power idea being less than ideal with diesel power (and hopefully the replacement for the HST currently being considered will stick with the power car at each end arrangement), but this proposal is definitely for an electric train.

The pendolinos that now operate between Glasgow and London have power distributed along their length; it's not a prticularly new idea.

 

[Roadkill]

And for the record, it would already be possible to run London-Edinburgh in under 4 hours; in fact a timetabled train did this daily in BR days.

It's 4 hours 12 now - or, at least, that's the fastest London-Edinburgh service today, according to trainline.

Services on some routes have actually slowed down since British Rail days, partly because the network is more crowded, but also because operators build more slack into timetables to avoid being penalised for late trains. Isn't the privatised railway a wonderful thing...?

 

[teuchter]

Yep. It's congestion on the railways that prevents it these days. Too many local services squeezed onto the E/WCML.

Indeed.

And I believe the APT did London-Glasgow in under four hours way back in the 80s, and Virgin did the same on a special run just a year or so ago. Again it's congestion and timetabling that are the main problems, rather than the speed of the trains themselves.

 

[teuchter]

It's 4 hours 12 now - or, at least, that's the fastest London-Edinburgh service today, according to trainline.

But Cobbles says the fastest train is 4 and a half hours!

Tell trainline they are mistaken!

 

[beesonthewhatnow]

That's still 3 hours 45 minutes as opposed to 60 minutes

I'm by no means anti plane, but you don't half come out with some crap with regards to journey times.

 

[Cobbles]

I'm by no means anti plane, but you don't half come out with some crap with regards to journey times.

It used to take 50 minutes to fly Edinburgh-Heathrow but now BMI list it as hour 30 and BA show it as and hour and 25 minutes - in my experience (60-ish returns/year), it's rarely longer than 50 minutes but the extra means that they can cope with the occasional delay and still show punctuality in the high 90's.

Edinburgh airport is about as far from where I live in time as Waverley in terms of time so there's no difference in the transit at that end of a trip and most of what I want in London (Whitehall/Holborn) isn't within 50 feet of Heathrow/Kings Cross so travel at t'other end is same-ish so unless they get the train time down to less than 2 hours it's just not competitive on time, never mind cost.

 

[teuchter]

It used to take 50 minutes to fly Edinburgh-Heathrow but now BMI list it as hour 30 and BA show it as and hour and 25 minutes - in my experience (60-ish returns/year), it's rarely longer than 50 minutes but the extra means that they can cope with the occasional delay and still show punctuality in the high 90's.

Where do you get the "high 90s" punctuality from? I am not aware of any airline that can claim this.

According to this, BMI, who are the best performers on the Edinburgh-London route, achieve a punctuality of 76.57%. This is defined as arriving within 15 minutes of schedule. The average amongst all airlines for that route is even worse at 67%.

In other words, one in three planes takes more than 15mins longer than the scheduled time, ie. more than 1hr 45, presumably

By the way, as far as I know, punctuality on the East Coast Main Line from Edinburgh to London is now at about 90%. That is defined as arriving within 10 minutes of schedule.

 

[teuchter]

Oh and I'll be interested to hear just how you get from the gate at Heathrow to Holborn in the "same-ish" time as you do from the platform at Kings Cross.

(Given that it's a twenty minute walk or 4 minute tube journey from KX to Holborn)

 

[fredfelt]

I was reading about a new high speed train between Barcelona and Madrid that will open soon. About the same distance as London to Edinburgh (395 / vs 405 miles)

The trip will take under 2 and a half hours, as opposed to a minimun of 4 and a half over here. I seem to recall that tickets cost around £30 to £50 quid. And get this, if the train is over 5 minutes late you get a full refund.

And it seems like cross country European train travel is going to get cheaper and easier this year due to some kind of new agreements. I love long distance trave by train!

 

[Cobbles]

Where do you get the "high 90s" punctuality from? I am not aware of any airline that can claim this.

According to this, BMI, who are the best performers on the Edinburgh-London route, achieve a punctuality of 76.57%. This is defined as arriving within 15 minutes of schedule. The average amongst all airlines for that route is even worse at 67%.

In other words, one in three planes takes more than 15mins longer than the scheduled time, ie. more than 1hr 45, presumably

By the way, as far as I know, punctuality on the East Coast Main Line from Edinburgh to London is now at about 90%. That is defined as arriving within 10 minutes of schedule.

So that means that the train still takes (at best) more than 4 hours.

Whatever - when the train can do Edinburgh-London in 2 hours then it'll be in contention.

For European tavel the train's only an option from Lunnun.

Spending 7 Billion quid just so you can get to the departure point of your 2 hour trip to Paris in 3 and a half hours would be farcical. Nobody would do it even if the connection to St Pancras was thrown in for free....

 

[kyser_soze]

£7.1 Billion to shave a wee 30 miutes off the Edinburgh/Glasgow to London timings - wow

What you fail to appreciate is, in that time honoured fashion beloved by statisticians, is that 30 minutes is multiplied by every single passenger journey possible, and taking a 'how much is this theorectical average persons time worth' amount (say £20), you calculate your cost/return analysis over the period your £7.1bn will be posted to be paid back...

So, assume each train carries 500 passengers, and there are 4 per hour, 2 each way, for 14 hours a day...£560,000 'saved' per day against existing transport costs. Multiply that over a year and you get £204,400,000 PA 'saved', so say you're amortizing over 10 years, you get a £2bn saving on pre-existing costs, no to mention any GAINS made by people switching from one mode of transport to another.

(Obviously this is a back of a beermat version of this and NOT a real figure so don't start quibbling with them, but this is essentially the process statisticians use to come up with these kinds of figures)

 

[Cobbles]

What you fail to appreciate is, in that time honoured fashion beloved by statisticians, is that 30 minutes is multiplied by every single passenger journey possible, and taking a 'how much is this theorectical average persons time worth' amount (say £20), you calculate your cost/return analysis over the period your £7.1bn will be posted to be paid back...

So, assume each train carries 500 passengers, and there are 4 per hour, 2 each way, for 14 hours a day...£560,000 'saved' per day against existing transport costs. Multiply that over a year and you get £204,400,000 PA 'saved', so say you're amortizing over 10 years, you get a £2bn saving on pre-existing costs, no to mention any GAINS made by people switching from one mode of transport to another.

(Obviously this is a back of a beermat version of this and NOT a real figure so don't start quibbling with them, but this is essentially the process statisticians use to come up with these kinds of figures)

Brilliant, but seeing as how most posters dribble on about how much "work" they can get done on the train, they're allegedly not wasting £20/hour. Mind you, most of the folk in cattle class only look like they're worth about £3.50/hour.

Anyway, if your £20/hour figure is accurate, then think of how much train travellers could save if they went by plane instead!

 

[teuchter]

So that means that the train still takes (at best) more than 4 hours.

Whatever - when the train can do Edinburgh-London in 2 hours then it'll be in contention.

I'm still interested to know where you got your "high 90s" punctuality figure for BMI from. Because if people start to think you're just pulling figures out of thin air, then no-one is going to be able to take anything you say seriously, and where would we be then?

Out of interest, what compensation do BMI or the other airlines pay when your flight is delayed?

 

[teuchter]

Brilliant, but seeing as how most posters dribble on about how much "work" they can get done on the train, they're allegedly not wasting £20/hour. Mind you, most of the folk in cattle class only look like they're worth about £3.50/hour.

Anyway, if your £20/hour figure is accurate, then think of how much train travellers could save if they went by plane instead!

That is a fair point. I suspect that the correct way to look at it would be to say that if the value of someone's working time is normally £20/hour, then perhaps it drops to £10 whilst on a train, but to £0 on an aeroplane.

 

[Cobbles]

I'm still interested to know where you got your "high 90s" punctuality figure for BMI from.

BMI Diamond Club Gold cardholder e-newsletter last year.

 

[T & P]

Spending 7 Billion quid just so you can get to the departure point of your 2 hour trip to Paris in 3 and a half hours would be farcical.

Try 2 and a half hours (see Big Phil's post above).

The benefit would be two-fold: first, city centre to city centre the train would beat the shit out of the plane- end of. Provided prices were similar (which I grant might be a problem) only a fool would want to fly from Scotland to London.

And second, for the millions of people who see flying nowadays as the godawful shit experience it is, even with a transfer time of, say, 45 minutes, a 5h15m total travel time from central Edinburgh to Central Paris would not be much worse at all than the air travel equivalent, and it would be an infinitely more pleasurable, preferable and pleasant experience.

 

[T & P]

Incidentally Cobbles if you think £7bn is a terrible waste of money for a 400 mile rail line upgrade, you must then think £12bn for a 3-mile strip of tarmac (i.e. Heathrow's proposed third runway) is the biggest waste of fucking money in human history. I know I do.

 

[teuchter]

Incidentally Cobbles if you think £7bn is a terrible waste of money for a 400 mile rail line upgrade, you must then think £12bn for a 3-mile strip of tarmac (i.e. Heathrow's proposed third runway) is the biggest waste of fucking money in human history. I know I do.

Especially when it can be argued that stopping all short-haul flights that go from Heathrow to destinations which can viably be reached in a similar time by train would entirely remove the need for a new runway.