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My concern is that it will cost a lot of money but ultimately not deliver a reliable, fast, comfortable service. For some reasons Brits seem incapable of delive

My concern is that it will cost a lot of money but ultimately not deliver a reliable, fast, comfortable service. For some reasons Brits seem incapable of delivering great railway services. The Calendonian Express fiasco is just the latest example - an amazing idea that could have been absolutely fantastic, completely ruined by the awful implementation. As a taxpayer, I would much rather the work was contracted out to the Japanese that built the Shinkansen services. But for some strange reason that seems politically unpopular.

tobylane 7y ago
It will be reliable and fast because it's on its own tracks. It'll be comfortable because those tracks are new, and the high ticket price requires decent seats. I'm surprised by your concerns. Try out HS1. Like with Hinckley and various other grand projects I'd rather we taught ourselves how to do it. Only HS2a has passed into law, b&c, HS3 and Crossrail2 are still to come.
- agent008t 7y ago
  1. Are constant delays and signal failures on existing tracks because the tracks are old, and so new tracks would not have these problems? 2. The Caledonian Express also has high ticket prices, yet the service is completely shambolic.
  - pjc50 7y ago
    > Are constant delays and signal failures on existing tracks because the tracks are old, and so new tracks would not have these problems? Yes. This is also why the Tube and the NYC metro have such big problems compared to more recently built systems.
  - NikkiA 7y ago
    It's not the 'tracks' per se, as in the lumps of metal on the ground, but more frequently it's the design of the segment of the route. A piece of route might have been designed in the 1800s, possibly to a speed limit of 20 or 30mph, then been rationalised and 'upgraded' over the years to a higher speed, but that section of track will still carry limitations that are implied by the way it was initially designed to be, signalling may be too close together, or too far apart, junctions that are rarely used but remain for whatever reason add complexity and potential failure sites, tracks. There are of course some physical aspects of physically old track - shorter (~100m) sections of rail joined together have a higher risk of failure than the newer techniques of long (0.5km to 1km or more) single track pieces welded together, old wooden sleepers allow track movement that can result in delays and maintenance issues, whereas relative-new concrete sleepers, and really-new split-concrete sleepers are more reliable and permit faster and more reliable train operation. Tearing routes apart and redesigning the sections from scratch is difficult politically, so the UK's railway network tends to suffer from the fact that 99% of it was designed and built before 1880.
- tempguy9999 7y ago
  > and the high ticket price requires decent seats The cost of the train can be amazing. I'd like to know what train users will say if offered the choice between 'decent seats' and a decent price.
  - isostatic 7y ago
    £6 for a 90 minute 130 mile trip? Sure is amazing. High costs on the WCML for flexible peak fares are becase 1) The costs subsidise rail elsewhere, like regional networks in the North and Welsh Valleys 2) The price encourages people to take less busier trains (2) falls down a bit with the hard cutoff, because there's no "shoulder peak" at Euston, meaning that 1840 is empty but the 1900 is really full, but the principle remains.
    - digianarchist 7y ago
      £120 from Euston to Lime Street sitting on the floor bank holiday weekend. HS2 can't come soon enough.
      - isostatic 7y ago
        Given that a walk up fare on a bank holiday is £89.60 return I struggle to see where you get £120 from. If you're happy to take a slow train it's £35 return. Bank holidays are always very busy, you'd think that if prices were really so high people wouldn't travel. The extra 10,000 seats an hour that HS2 provides will certainly help though.
        switch007 7y ago
        > Given that a walk up fare on a bank holiday is £89.60 return An relative bargain compared to London-Leeds costing £113.50
        isostatic 7y ago
        Yet of tou’re Willing to take longer it’s £35 rtutn, or about 10p/mile
jnty 7y ago
Equally, we've delivered plenty of surface railway projects on time and on budget - the Borders line and Airdrie to Bathgate in Scotland come to mind. It's a pretty defeatist attitude to cancel ambitious projects because they sometimes go over-budget and leads to countries having terrible infrastructure.
- arethuza 7y ago
  Also the Queensferry Crossing - a bit over time (due to weather problems) but under budget and a gorgeous bridge.
bengale 7y ago
This is my concern tbh. It's less about the 20min shorter travel figure, or the idea that is just extends the London commuter belt. But that we currently seem unable to deliver projects like this reliably or within a reasonable budget. Just look at the cross rail budget and delays for example. Something needs to be done about the way the gov handles these projects before piling more money into the hole.
youngtaff 7y ago
The train service from the West into London, is generally reliable, fast and a reasonable price if you avoid peak times

tobylane 7y ago

It will be reliable and fast because it's on its own tracks. It'll be comfortable because those tracks are new, and the high ticket price requires decent seats. I'm surprised by your concerns. Try out HS1. Like with Hinckley and various other grand projects I'd rather we taught ourselves how to do it. Only HS2a has passed into law, b&c, HS3 and Crossrail2 are still to come.

agent008t 7y ago
1. Are constant delays and signal failures on existing tracks because the tracks are old, and so new tracks would not have these problems? 2. The Caledonian Express also has high ticket prices, yet the service is completely shambolic.
- pjc50 7y ago
  > Are constant delays and signal failures on existing tracks because the tracks are old, and so new tracks would not have these problems? Yes. This is also why the Tube and the NYC metro have such big problems compared to more recently built systems.
- NikkiA 7y ago
  It's not the 'tracks' per se, as in the lumps of metal on the ground, but more frequently it's the design of the segment of the route. A piece of route might have been designed in the 1800s, possibly to a speed limit of 20 or 30mph, then been rationalised and 'upgraded' over the years to a higher speed, but that section of track will still carry limitations that are implied by the way it was initially designed to be, signalling may be too close together, or too far apart, junctions that are rarely used but remain for whatever reason add complexity and potential failure sites, tracks. There are of course some physical aspects of physically old track - shorter (~100m) sections of rail joined together have a higher risk of failure than the newer techniques of long (0.5km to 1km or more) single track pieces welded together, old wooden sleepers allow track movement that can result in delays and maintenance issues, whereas relative-new concrete sleepers, and really-new split-concrete sleepers are more reliable and permit faster and more reliable train operation. Tearing routes apart and redesigning the sections from scratch is difficult politically, so the UK's railway network tends to suffer from the fact that 99% of it was designed and built before 1880.
tempguy9999 7y ago
> and the high ticket price requires decent seats The cost of the train can be amazing. I'd like to know what train users will say if offered the choice between 'decent seats' and a decent price.
- isostatic 7y ago
  £6 for a 90 minute 130 mile trip? Sure is amazing. High costs on the WCML for flexible peak fares are becase 1) The costs subsidise rail elsewhere, like regional networks in the North and Welsh Valleys 2) The price encourages people to take less busier trains (2) falls down a bit with the hard cutoff, because there's no "shoulder peak" at Euston, meaning that 1840 is empty but the 1900 is really full, but the principle remains.
  - digianarchist 7y ago
    £120 from Euston to Lime Street sitting on the floor bank holiday weekend. HS2 can't come soon enough.
    - isostatic 7y ago
      Given that a walk up fare on a bank holiday is £89.60 return I struggle to see where you get £120 from. If you're happy to take a slow train it's £35 return. Bank holidays are always very busy, you'd think that if prices were really so high people wouldn't travel. The extra 10,000 seats an hour that HS2 provides will certainly help though.
      - switch007 7y ago
        > Given that a walk up fare on a bank holiday is £89.60 return An relative bargain compared to London-Leeds costing £113.50
        isostatic 7y ago
        Yet of tou’re Willing to take longer it’s £35 rtutn, or about 10p/mile

jnty 7y ago

Equally, we've delivered plenty of surface railway projects on time and on budget - the Borders line and Airdrie to Bathgate in Scotland come to mind. It's a pretty defeatist attitude to cancel ambitious projects because they sometimes go over-budget and leads to countries having terrible infrastructure.

arethuza 7y ago
Also the Queensferry Crossing - a bit over time (due to weather problems) but under budget and a gorgeous bridge.

bengale 7y ago

This is my concern tbh. It's less about the 20min shorter travel figure, or the idea that is just extends the London commuter belt. But that we currently seem unable to deliver projects like this reliably or within a reasonable budget. Just look at the cross rail budget and delays for example. Something needs to be done about the way the gov handles these projects before piling more money into the hole.

youngtaff 7y ago

The train service from the West into London, is generally reliable, fast and a reasonable price if you avoid peak times