Cycling UK Forum

When are we going to see a world of home working? I'm sure tomorrow's world painted a picture of such a future a few times.

Seriously I believe in use of technology to avoid travel. My partner often deals with team meetings where some are in a meeting room at workplace. Others are at their home 10 miles away because there's no reason to travel for one meeting. A few might be London, Bristol or anywhere. You just need a business Skype account (other ones available), computer, speaker, webcam and internet connection.

Thirdly I believe when you have to travel priorities are on least polluting methods. I'm never going to cycle to London from Manchester but hs2 is better than a car. Whatever the truth of hs2 there is a problem with Birmingham new street. It's a bottleneck. There are train capacity issues around Manchester. There's a whole problem with capacity on and around the west coast line. That needs addressing for development and growth in the northwest England and probably up to Glasgow too. I've been sat in regional trains at mainline stations or outside stations waiting for west coast mainline trains to go through, late. Always late when travelling north. Always delays around Birmingham that never get caught up.

So the question I have is if hs2 isn't the answer for capacity problems what is? You cannot get more trains on routes this full. Perhaps it's not ideal but could it be the only solution capable of helping the situation?

horizon wrote:

RickH wrote:The guy on the video linked to said . . .

The video was interesting (especially the capacity issue). AIUI he also said that HS2 would have very little environmental impact. But I also read this:

Another report collating data from local Wildlife Trusts last week disclosed that HS2 will destroy or irreparably damage five internationally protected wildlife sites, 693 local wildlife sites, 108 ancient woodlands and 33 legally protected sites of special scientific interest.

I don't think HS2 solves the problem of what to do about the demand for movement of goods and people. Nor do I know that the construction issues of HS2 (use of materials, disposal of waste) have been addressed. And AFAIK HS2 increases use of energy, even if that offsets other uses. And nor is the economic case (such as it is) fully made.

What really gets to me though is that there is a built-in assumption that laying down concrete in order to speed up human movement must always trump people's need for peace, quiet, the countryside and nature. The assumption in the video was that capacity must be increased. Why?

The important thing, if we can't just stop people moving about, is modal shift. For long distance movement of people & goods get them on the railways. For urban areas get them walking & cycling for short trips & bus/train/tram for longer ones. And, of course, if people aren't travelling from one urban area to another by car they won't be adding to the the congestion & local pollution at their destination.

Whilst the headlines go on about HS2 cutting journey times between London & Birmingham the vastly increased potential for local & regional trains - more reliable & more frequent - that have to share the mainline track & stations (even if only briefly en route) with the intercity trains is almost never mentioned.

RickH wrote:The guy on the video linked to said . . .

The video was interesting (especially the capacity issue). AIUI he also said that HS2 would have very little environmental impact. But I also read this:

Another report collating data from local Wildlife Trusts last week disclosed that HS2 will destroy or irreparably damage five internationally protected wildlife sites, 693 local wildlife sites, 108 ancient woodlands and 33 legally protected sites of special scientific interest.

I don't think HS2 solves the problem of what to do about the demand for movement of goods and people. Nor do I know that the construction issues of HS2 (use of materials, disposal of waste) have been addressed. And AFAIK HS2 increases use of energy, even if that offsets other uses. And nor is the economic case (such as it is) fully made.

What really gets to me though is that there is a built-in assumption that laying down concrete in order to speed up human movement must always trump people's need for peace, quiet, the countryside and nature. The assumption in the video was that capacity must be increased. Why?

Cyril Haearn wrote:London is the problem, its size and dominance
Not many on these fora love London I suspect

Read several times that speedy trains benefit the places that were already doing better, hs trains might benefit Leeds, even Crewe or Rugby, but not Todmorden, Morley, Colwyn Bay

The guy on the video linked to said that the opposite is true. He used Aberystwyth as an example & he reckoned it was probably about as far away from HS2 as you can get on the network. The argument goes that moving express trains off the overcrowded lines through Birmingham New St will improve the services from Aberystwyth which are often unreliable as trains get stuck waiting for a platform at New St.

The current situation also means that services can't be improved by more trains on local routes because there isn't the capacity at the moment to feed them into the stations on the mainline network.

RickH wrote:I knew we needed more capacity

I would really like to explore this more, especially of course also in relation to roads. Can you exlpain to a layman such as myself at what point we won't require more capacity and how that will come about?

Tinpotflowers wrote:A different point of view,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nf5avCUNP0M

I was just going to post a link to that video having just watched it.

If you've not clicked on the link it is titled "Should we build HS2 or Re-open old Railway lines?" and a lot of it is talking with a railway engineer called Gareth Dennis explaining the reasoning for building it (in terms that I've not heard before about increasing capacity. (The rest is more usual fare for the channel talking about features of abandoned lines around the country).

I knew we needed more capacity (I've spent enough time waiting for trains at Preston, Wigan & Warrington Bank Quay to appreciate just how full the West Coast mainline is) but hadn't heard figures on just how big the effect of moving the fast intercity trains off the current multi-purpose lines would be - basically a tripling of the capacity.

horizon wrote:

mjr wrote:

horizon wrote:HS2 is what happens when mankind sinks almost to its lowest level; it is a solution to a problem that doesn't really exist that provides benefit only to a small class of financiers, construction firms and business persons.

So everyone travelling through Milton Keynes has imagined the sardine trains and immense traffic jams on the M1 and A5 caused by the displaced demand?

Apologies for my vitriolic language (above) but I do feel enraged by HS2. So to address your point:

There is a capacity problem on the roads (free at point of use at peak time) and trains. Both these are largely peak use problems. Simply buildng more capacity seems to me to be the grossest of over-simplifications. It doesn't address any of the issues of managing demand or distributing capacity. What it does do is hand over our natural resources to a lobby-driven, concrete-laying so-called solution. The cost of HS2 isn't just the £100bn: it is the effect on people's lives, loss of landscape and natural habitat and historic buildings. Whatever advantage is to be gained from HS2 has already been lost before a single train runs on the line. At a time when we should be preserving our habitats and questioning unrestricted travel, we hand over our landscape to a nineteenth century monstrosity of an idea. We are not even looking at issues like peak cement or the physical materials needed for this project. It is astounding just how far removed our human activity has become from Nature and landscape. Shame on all of us.

V.good post.

mjr wrote:

horizon wrote:HS2 is what happens when mankind sinks almost to its lowest level; it is a solution to a problem that doesn't really exist that provides benefit only to a small class of financiers, construction firms and business persons.

So everyone travelling through Milton Keynes has imagined the sardine trains and immense traffic jams on the M1 and A5 caused by the displaced demand?

Apologies for my vitriolic language (above) but I do feel enraged by HS2. So to address your point:

There is a capacity problem on the roads (free at point of use at peak time) and trains. Both these are largely peak use problems. Simply buildng more capacity seems to me to be the grossest of over-simplifications. It doesn't address any of the issues of managing demand or distributing capacity. What it does do is hand over our natural resources to a lobby-driven, concrete-laying so-called solution. The cost of HS2 isn't just the £100bn: it is the effect on people's lives, loss of landscape and natural habitat and historic buildings. Whatever advantage is to be gained from HS2 has already been lost before a single train runs on the line. At a time when we should be preserving our habitats and questioning unrestricted travel, we hand over our landscape to a nineteenth century monstrosity of an idea. We are not even looking at issues like peak cement or the physical materials needed for this project. It is astounding just how far removed our human activity has become from Nature and landscape. Shame on all of us.

horizon wrote:HS2 is what happens when mankind sinks almost to its lowest level; it is a solution to a problem that doesn't really exist that provides benefit only to a small class of financiers, construction firms and business persons.

So everyone travelling through Milton Keynes has imagined the sardine trains and immense traffic jams on the M1 and A5 caused by the displaced demand?

The Guardian article is about illegal tree-felling and habitat destruction in a local nature reserve. While that's wrong, it's far from unusual in construction projects lately. I'm sure many campaigners know local examples, ranging from this sort of plant clearance to stop protected species setting up home in the spring, through to letting cycleways rot, arguing that maintaining them is a waste of money when there's building work planned that will dig it up and reinstate it and then so often the reinstatement doesn't happen "because almost no-one used that route so it obviously isn't needed" rather than because it had been left in disrepair enough to displace cyclists onto other routes or vehicles.

horizon wrote:[...] Imagine what you could so with £100bn: transform communities, communications, landscape. I would challenge any self-respecting person to question their support for this savage, laughable lump of human excrement.

I think there are good arguments that we could probably spend £100bn better - it would probably pay for improving the design of all roads that are barriers to active travel many times over, or to do that and increase capacity and speeds on the current 70mph Sheffield-Manchester and 60mph Leeds-Manchester lines - but I don't think that in itself makes HS2 a bad project. Of course, HS2 was a better project when it had a diverted and extended National Cycle Route 50 alongside it...

Hmmm! A question asked by someone who has no expectation of hs2 ever benefiting them. Or someone without any interest in the potential benefits.

The real issue imho is the difference in travel times up the east and west coast lines. West coast line is decades behind east coast line for connectivity with London. That's the real issue. London is simply that important. The connectivity with it that is.

I have no ideological support or opposition to hs2. I simply prefer to see equality in train connectivity across the country.

Tried to find a commodious comparison between east and west lines but didn't really find much. Did see a news piece about new fast trains having to slow down as soon as they hit northern areas. It's something I'm aware of.

Every time I go into Manchester by train it always, always gets a lengthy stop once it gets into greater Manchester. Indeed south of Preston. Capacity problems I guess.

Whatever the best rail improvement is i just feel like it's time that London and the south east gets forgotten about and other areas of the UK gets the investment. Imho they should have sorted out north/ south development inequalities first. Even south west too. Even before cross rail line and other south east or London developments. You have a few booming cities in the north but so much else isn't doing well. So they decide to put fast rail line into some of the best performing northern cities and forget about the others.

Hi Reohn2, The "Step Change" that I can envisage for our cities is for people to do just that - WALK! The marrow bone coach is certainly appropriate in most places such as London, Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds et al.
Of course rural areas will still need individual transport modules, no question. But investment in more, better public transport will not only help locals but give a fillip to tourism.
But the folk in charge will have to have better joined up thinking than that shown in recent times? HS2 should get the chop pronto, such a short distance High Speed Service is a very expensive joke, a vanity project.
The electrification of the service would certainly pay, chiefly with catary, but also duel mode.
But additional thought would have to be applied to the rapid removal of stricken rolling stock, as a single axle failure shut down a major part of Merseyrail last Thursday!
The genius who came up with "Smart Motorways" as a way to increase capacity should be made to sit in a Lada on a converted hard shoulder in a fog . Well, I won't be here to suffer the idiots much longer. Carpe Diem. MM

mjr wrote:

reohn2 wrote:Instead we have the HS2 white elephant which does nothing for the problem costs a fortune and gets you to London 20minutes sooner

Nonsense: HS2 frees up a lot of capacity on the classic lines by moving all the high-speed travel which takes up a lot of space in a heterogenous network to its own more homogenous line. Have you tried travelling to/from North Kent before and after HS1 opened? It's like night and day.

But we've discussed this at some length before and still the lie that HS2 is only about speed and does nothing for the problems gets repeated. If you want to argue against HS2, argue against it factually (and there are some valid grounds, mainly that it costs too much for the good it does) instead of repeating the lie.

I'm repeating no lies.
HS2 is a white elephant on cost alone,let alone that because its' supposed to be so super fast it can only stop at only a few stations.
YVMV mine won't
BTW quit calling me a liar,especially on something that's not even been built yet!
With a bit of luck that money may be spent on local lines starved of funding and run for profit only on worn out inferior trains,overseen by idiots,non bigger than the present transport secretary who I wouldn't pay with the holes out of washers

mjr wrote:

reohn2 wrote:Instead we have the HS2 white elephant which does nothing for the problem costs a fortune and gets you to London 20minutes sooner

Nonsense: HS2 frees up a lot of capacity on the classic lines by moving all the high-speed travel which takes up a lot of space in a heterogenous network to its own more homogenous line.

Exactly, it's amazing that people think we can run a 21st century public transport system on 19th century infrastructure.

And before Beeching gets mentioned he recommended improvements and investment in major, profitable lines; but both Labour and Conservative made the cuts but did not invest.

reohn2 wrote:Instead we have the HS2 white elephant which does nothing for the problem costs a fortune and gets you to London 20minutes sooner

Nonsense: HS2 frees up a lot of capacity on the classic lines by moving all the high-speed travel which takes up a lot of space in a heterogenous network to its own more homogenous line. Have you tried travelling to/from North Kent before and after HS1 opened? It's like night and day.

But we've discussed this at some length before and still the lie that HS2 is only about speed and does nothing for the problems gets repeated. If you want to argue against HS2, argue against it factually (and there are some valid grounds, mainly that it costs too much for the good it does) instead of repeating the lie.

SA_SA_SA wrote:

PH wrote:...but what SA_SA_SA is talking about is road freight using the tunnel and the tunnel Vs the ferry and that isn't what was being discussed in PI. I understand the argument of road Vs rail, but that has nothing to do with the question of lorry drivers preferring the ferry. The volume of road freight using the shuttle is as it was envisaged and I understand close to capacity..

Yes, I was suggesting a shuttle system rather than motorways, but with no need to stop the train to join. As motorways were new builds I was also assuming such a system would also have been new build thus avoiding the UKs legacy narrow rail tunnels which limit freight routes on old lines.

PH wrote:Also - it isn't just the subsidies to road transport that has killed of rail freight, I read a few years ago about the expected pay back period that any rail freight proposal would need to meet, it simply priced it out of the market.

NB Apparently the Germans have some sort of tax disincentive on longer lorry journeys that makes rail preferable in terms of cost....

Rather than waste money on the white elephant of HS2 I would rather have more electrification and more ordinary lines (which should be made to cope with.containers /shuttles etc). In a recent rail magazine nicer cheaper gantrys were reported using a resin impregnated wood triangle which doubles as insulator and support while looking nicer, and being cheaper.... (hung from steel post ie vertical of P is steel , rest of triangle is resin-wood) .
https://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/news/three-finalists-in-overhead-lines-contest-revealed/8662318.article?search=https%3a%2f%2fwww.architectsjournal.co.uk%2fsearcharticles%3fqsearch%3d1%26keywords%3doverhead+lines+contest

EDITed to add link

Starter for ten: W10 gauge all over, some more long loops and more paths plus not keep putting track access charges up. That would make use of container trains much easier, add in a few more intermodal depots & links to distribution hubs.....

More better value for money than HS2 methinks.

TPO