Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but you can do Southampton or Felixstowe to Birmingham in a lorry inside four and a half hours, in other words (technically) non-stop.In actual fact you can get there and back in a day. So therefore there is no time-saving benefit over putting the freight on rail for this sort of distance.
Going further north, though, past Nottingham, the rail-freight starts to pay dividends as you don’t have to schedule lorries being away for days at a time. You’d have to change train crews of course (as they do at Crewe on the WCML) but the journey’s only interrupted by a few minutes. Run up to rail-heads at Manchester, Leeds, Carnforth and Glasgow and local haulage takes over from there, just as Freghtliner used to do before it was decimated in the 1970’s.
That apart, HS2 will struggle to take off (sorry for the pun but it’s unavoidable) whilst it remains cheaper to fly to Glasgow than to go by train. As oil reserves become scarcer and more expensive, though, only a fool would predict that this situation could last forever, and it therfore makes far more sense to put the railway infrastructure in place now rather than play catch-up later.
gnasty gnome:
Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but you can do Southampton or Felixstowe to Birmingham in a lorry inside four and a half hours, in other words (technically) non-stop.In actual fact you can get there and back in a day. So therefore there is no time-saving benefit over putting the freight on rail for this sort of distance.
Going further north, though, past Nottingham, the rail-freight starts to pay dividends as you don’t have to schedule lorries being away for days at a time. , .
Blimey I thought i drove steady, but north off Nottingham and you have to schedule lorries being away for days at a time. Can round trip Leeds from Felixstowe.
You’d have to change train crews of course (as they do at Crewe on the WCML)
Thats cool coz I can only round trip Crewe on a 10 hour day from Felixstowe, and that is why Rail is struggling to compete with road freight.
Here’s another thought, aint 30 billion or so the balance of collected road tax that isnt spent on the roads.wonder which train i’m sponsoring.
Having said that, if they forge the track in this country, build rolling stock in this country, well make every thing here, it might be a good thing. but with the toryies at the helm, it’ll be chinese for all the plastic bits , germany for all the metal bits that need to work, poland for all the guys to build it. what a great country we were
Dieseldogsix:
Imagine if we’d said all this about the M1, M6, M40, and M5, progress has to start somewhere.
Depends on your definition of ‘progress’.There is a point where you could cover the whole country in just infrastructure and houses in which case no one really would want to live here.We’ve already built the motorways and they exist so there’s no point in wrecking the place even more just to provide the big business rail industry zb’s with some extra profit while making the existing road infrastructure increasingly redundant for freight carriage.
The whole CO2 bs argument is just a way for big business to add to it’s profits by shifting as much transport as possible from the existing road network onto rail at the expense of tax payers and ruining yet more of the country’s landscape.
gnasty gnome:
Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but you can do Southampton or Felixstowe to Birmingham in a lorry inside four and a half hours, in other words (technically) non-stop.In actual fact you can get there and back in a day. So therefore there is no time-saving benefit over putting the freight on rail for this sort of distance.
Going further north, though, past Nottingham, the rail-freight starts to pay dividends as you don’t have to schedule lorries being away for days at a time. You’d have to change train crews of course (as they do at Crewe on the WCML) but the journey’s only interrupted by a few minutes. Run up to rail-heads at Manchester, Leeds, Carnforth and Glasgow and local haulage takes over from there, just as Freghtliner used to do before it was decimated in the 1970’s.
That apart, HS2 will struggle to take off (sorry for the pun but it’s unavoidable) whilst it remains cheaper to fly to Glasgow than to go by train. As oil reserves become scarcer and more expensive, though, only a fool would predict that this situation could last forever, and it therfore makes far more sense to put the railway infrastructure in place now rather than play catch-up later.
But if you’re based in Birmingham then you can run to Felixstowe/Southampton on Monday, pick up your box and be in your local for darts on Monday evening. Tuesday morning you are heading north with same box on the back and no night out money has been paid.
Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but you can do Southampton or Felixstowe to Birmingham in a lorry inside four and a half hours, in other words (technically) non-stop.In actual fact you can get there and back in a day. So therefore there is no time-saving benefit over putting the freight on rail for this sort of distance.
Going further north, though, past Nottingham, the rail-freight starts to pay dividends as you don’t have to schedule lorries being away for days at a time. You’d have to change train crews of course (as they do at Crewe on the WCML) but the journey’s only interrupted by a few minutes. Run up to rail-heads at Manchester, Leeds, Carnforth and Glasgow and local haulage takes over from there, just as Freghtliner used to do before it was decimated in the 1970’s.
That apart, HS2 will struggle to take off (sorry for the pun but it’s unavoidable) whilst it remains cheaper to fly to Glasgow than to go by train. As oil reserves become scarcer and more expensive, though, only a fool would predict that this situation could last forever, and it therfore makes far more sense to put the railway infrastructure in place now rather than play catch-up later.
So instead of the Chilterns getting torn up it would be yet more of Surrey’s countryside instead in addition to the damage that the M25 has done.
If oil reserves ever reach the point where no one can actually afford to fly or use the car to drive up the existing motorway network then what makes you think that the rail zb’s won’t use their monopoly position to rip off rail users to the point where they couldn’t afford to go by train either and why would electricity be any cheaper than any other type of fuel in that case in an economic environment where the choice would be between expensive gas or nuclear generated electricity and bearing in mind that the government would also need to get the lost road fuel duty and VAT back from rail users in that case.
What peeees me off the most is the way they will pay for it.
I’ll bet it’s going to use a Private Finance Initiative.
PFI is how Labour built many new hospitals in the last 10 years. Private dosh is ‘lent’ to the Gov,
which then has to be paid back at huge interest rates over 15 to 25 years. Some new hospitals will end up costing 3 to 4 times more.
That’s why so many NHS trusts are broke,they are paying off debt instead of buying medicine.
I forecast an eventual bill of some 200 billion… …don’t laugh, just wait.
They won’t admit any of this right now of course. It’s all about the polititians being seen to be
doing something, but actually,in reality, nothing. Finish date 2026…laughable if it wasn’t so sad.
206doorman:
What peeees me off the most is the way they will pay for it.
I’ll bet it’s going to use a Private Finance Initiative.
PFI is how Labour built many new hospitals in the last 10 years. Private dosh is ‘lent’ to the Gov,
which then has to be paid back at huge interest rates over 15 to 25 years. Some new hospitals will end up costing 3 to 4 times more.
That’s why so many NHS trusts are broke,they are paying off debt instead of buying medicine.
I forecast an eventual bill of some 200 billion… …don’t laugh, just wait.
They won’t admit any of this right now of course. It’s all about the polititians being seen to be
doing something, but actually,in reality, nothing. Finish date 2026…laughable if it wasn’t so sad.
The government sack loads of public sector workers because they supposedly can’t afford to pay them because of the debt that they’ve already run up and then spend even more,using more borrowed money,on a zb railway line to make the big business rail industry lot richer.
eddie snax:
Blimey I thought i drove steady, but north off Nottingham and you have to schedule lorries being away for days at a time. Can round trip Leeds from Felixstowe.
Having said that, if they forge the track in this country, build rolling stock in this country, well make every thing here, it might be a good thing. but with the toryies at the helm, it’ll be chinese for all the plastic bits , germany for all the metal bits that need to work, poland for all the guys to build it. what a great country we were
Fair enough; I admit my estimate was on the conservative (small “c” ) side but I was basing my calculation on running at trolley dolly speeds!
Track and rolling stock from the UK is feasible, signalling too. At least your much-derided Tories are looking at getting it built, and even they couldn’t import the whole lot, so that means much-needed jobs. I’m all for making the stuff here, but this is business not charity, and if materials of equal quality could be had from outside the UK for a worthwhile cost saving then that’s the way it’d go.
Point was made earlier about risk assessors and H&S, and it’s a fair one. Good friend of mine was one of the senior engineers on the West Coast Main Line upgrade, and he told me this little gem. He needed to de-hire some Portakabins which they’d been using as offices, and they needed a lick of paint before they could be sent back. His inital costing of £750 for the job had mushroomed to over five grand by the time all the H&S compliance crap had been factored in! Not his doing, but as he said to me, that’s where half the money goes.
Dunno why you’re complaining about stuff coming from abroad though; it’s kept you in work as a lorry driver for long enough!
gnasty gnome:
Fair enough; I admit my estimate was on the conservative (small “c” ) side but I was basing my calculation on running at trolley dolly speeds!
Dunno why you’re complaining about stuff coming from abroad though; it’s kept you in work as a lorry driver for long enough!
The rail lot’s friends in government will make sure that everything using the road gets limited to trolley dolly speeds if they think it will be in their interests of getting more freight and people onto trains to increase their profits.
If we keep importing a lot more from abroad than we export and that we could be making for ourselves it won’t matter what job anyone is in because sooner or later the trade deficit will break the whole economy.
Thing I’d if something costs 100 to make and import from abroad but costs 105 to mak and transport here the 100 quid leaves the country and the employees and company spend there wages and profits at home not here but if the 105 quid from the uk company comes in to play it’s spent here and keeps other people in work. Although it has to be as good as the competition we shouldn’t buy British even if it’s crap.
kr79:
Although it has to be as good as the competition we shouldn’t buy British even if it’s crap.
I rather suspect that’s a typo and not what you actually meant!
However… that sort of mindset’s common in America; or rather was. It’s a laudable aim, but the problem is that if, in business, we don’t buy stuff from other countries they’re less likely to buy stuff we make. And you can’t force British people to buy British stuff, Stalin tried a similar trick with the Russians and they ended up driving Ladas (if they were lucky) and living on cabbages.
Of course, we used to have British trucks didn’t we? And who were the first people to whine if they wee given a British-built ERF? Not your much-despised gaffers, they loved 'em 'cos they were cheap. No, it was the drivers who wanted to be glory-boys poncing around in their Scanias and Volvos, sneering at the home-built stuff cos it didn’t have a built-in fridge and electric windows. It’s like anything else British, we only love it when it ain’t there no more. Read back in history about the Beeching days (dragging the thread back to railways) and see how the last trains on the redundant branch lines were packed, standing room only; those same trains that nobody wanted to bother with a week before because they’d bought a Ford Cortina and they could use that new-fangled motorway now and get there in half the time.
Don’t get me wrong, I love this country, and I’m proud of being a Brit; I’m afraid though that nowadays that pride is tinged with a sense of realism that you can’t wish the past back.
kr79:
Although it has to be as good as the competition we shouldn’t buy British even if it’s crap.
I rather suspect that’s a typo and not what you actually meant!
However… that sort of mindset’s common in America; or rather was. It’s a laudable aim, but the problem is that if, in business, we don’t buy stuff from other countries they’re less likely to buy stuff we make. And you can’t force British people to buy British stuff, Stalin tried a similar trick with the Russians and they ended up driving Ladas (if they were lucky) and living on cabbages.
Of course, we used to have British trucks didn’t we? And who were the first people to whine if they wee given a British-built ERF? Not your much-despised gaffers, they loved 'em 'cos they were cheap.
Don’t get me wrong, I love this country, and I’m proud of being a Brit; I’m afraid though that nowadays that pride is tinged with a sense of realism that you can’t wish the past back.
The fact is we’re in a massive trade deficit with our so called export markets which isn’t sustainable in the long term so it’s not a matter of choice it’s one of economic survival and we’ve got nothing to lose by putting up trade barriers now.
As it stands we’d be better off by just concentrating on the domestic economy by closing it to imports of anything that we can make for ourselves while we’ve still got a domestic market left to buy products at any price.
All this talk of building infrastructure for the future… i have to ask why the government cancelled the other half of the a1 upgrade between leeming and barton?
Basically, in 30 years we are going to have super duper high speed rail links between london, the midlands, manchester and leeds yet there the north east will still be without a direct motorway route??
206doorman:
What peeees me off the most is the way they will pay for it.
I’ll bet it’s going to use a Private Finance Initiative.
PFI is how Labour built many new hospitals in the last 10 years. Private dosh is ‘lent’ to the Gov,
which then has to be paid back at huge interest rates over 15 to 25 years. Some new hospitals will end up costing 3 to 4 times more.
That’s why so many NHS trusts are broke,they are paying off debt instead of buying medicine.
I forecast an eventual bill of some 200 billion… …don’t laugh, just wait.
They won’t admit any of this right now of course. It’s all about the polititians being seen to be
doing something, but actually,in reality, nothing. Finish date 2026…laughable if it wasn’t so sad.
‘Flagship’ pfi hospital in Carlisle,£75 to change one air freshener,£600 for one shower curtain,
West Coast Main Line supposed to be £1 to 2 billion,ended up £8+?Consultants did well though,if any one has the time->Special investigation: incompetence at Railtrack | UK news | The … guardian.co.uk/world/2004/ap … t.politics
Carryfast:
The fact is we’re in a massive trade deficit with our so called export markets which isn’t sustainable in the long term so it’s not a matter of choice it’s one of economic survival and we’ve got nothing to lose by putting up trade barriers now.
As it stands we’d be better off by just concentrating on the domestic economy by closing it to imports of anything that we can’t make for ourselves while we’ve still got a domestic market left to buy products at any price.
I don’t dispute the fact that we have a trade deficit. Unfortunately the only way out of it is to trade better. Protectionism is not the way forward; simply because we are an island nation we should not adopt an island mentality.
How would we be better off by adopting your suggestion when a visit to virtually any retail facility in the UK will tell you that we make hardly bugger-all for the domestic market? Trade is by its very nature reciprocal, and denying other traders access to your market is likely to shut their doors to you; the UK does not have the resources of the USA,and even they are having serious trouble getting Americans to buy American-made goods.
Carryfast:
The fact is we’re in a massive trade deficit with our so called export markets which isn’t sustainable in the long term so it’s not a matter of choice it’s one of economic survival and we’ve got nothing to lose by putting up trade barriers now.
As it stands we’d be better off by just concentrating on the domestic economy by closing it to imports of anything that we can’t make for ourselves while we’ve still got a domestic market left to buy products at any price.
I don’t dispute the fact that we have a trade deficit. Unfortunately the only way out of it is to trade better. Protectionism is not the way forward; simply because we are an island nation we should not adopt an island mentality.
How would we be better off by adopting your suggestion when a visit to virtually any retail facility in the UK will tell you that we make hardly bugger-all for the domestic market? Trade is by its very nature reciprocal, and denying other traders access to your market is likely to shut their doors to you; the UK does not have the resources of the USA,and even they are having serious trouble getting Americans to buy American-made goods.
If we don’t start to adopt ‘an Island mentality’ then eventually we won’t be able to afford anything at all wether it’s made here or imported.
We can’t ‘trade better’ because anything which we can do they can do themselves because they’ve either already copied the technology or soon will do and they’ve got nothing which we need that we can’t do for ourselves.
We’ve got nothing to lose by shutting our doors because we take more in than we export and that situation isn’t likely to change.
But the fact that we can’t visit any retail outlet and buy anything much made here is the problem but the fact is if that situation continues the economy will eventually collapse anyway.
The reason why the USA is having trouble getting US people to buy US goods is because the US government is controlled by big business interests that have invested a lot of money in foreign industries so it’s not in the government’s interests to impose the massive import quotas and taxes required to do the job.However there’s no way that the US public will be stupid enough to allow that situation to continue.
Protectionism is the only way forward or bust.It’s just a question of how long it will take for their government and ours to get the message.That’s if the economies of the US and Europe don’t sink first.
) side but I was basing my calculation on running at trolley dolly speeds! 
