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An incredible achievement by London, for London, perhaps. Meanwhile in North England... Nope, not much to report. We still have converted buses running on tr

An incredible achievement by London, for London, perhaps. Meanwhile in North England... Nope, not much to report. We still have converted buses running on tracks, lack of electrification, extremely short trains/platforms, and train companies often on the verge of going bust (perhaps because everyone drives).

Symbiote 7y ago
And, unfortunately, majority of people in the North of England blame the European Union for this. Edit: OK, the rather few people I know from the North are not representative.
- NeedMoreTea 7y ago
  Um, nope. Of all the many complaints I've heard against the EU, particularly in the last 3 years, many are wrong. Yet I've never heard anyone up here blaming the EU for the North and Scotland's public transport. We almost entirely blame Westminster, all parties, and their London exceptionalism. Some will still single out Mrs T. I think it's reached triple the transport spending per head in London compared to elsewhere. Then there's the subsidy of buses Thatcher permitted to continue in London, but nowhere else. So the regions pay double or more what London does on bus routes. West Coast main line electrification was put off for I guess 50 years! The cross Pennine route is a sick joke, still running those awful bus on rails trains. Those were supposed to be a 4-5 year, super-cheap fill in. Ooh 30 or 40 years ago. Crossrail? Sure, give it a blank cheque and immediately talk about crossrail 2. Andy Burnham has had a fairly remarkable transition from Westminster Minister after becoming mayor of Manchester. There's been a few enlightening media pieces about him and public transport. Course now he vocally realises where the problem is, he's no longer an MP...
  - techsupporter 7y ago
    > The cross Pennine route is a sick joke, still running those awful bus on rails trains. Pacers are an amazing innovation that are best appreciated in the appropriate context: videos from Geoff Marshall making fun of them. They're completely useless outside of that and should be binned immediately.
  - tonyedgecombe 7y ago
    Judging by the way the North votes it seems it's mostly the Tories that get the blame. Which creates a vicious circle as why would the Tories do anything for a region that doesn't vote for them anyway.
    - switch007 7y ago
      It goes much deeper than that. If we all voted for them they would still do nothing for us as I didn’t go to Eton, my uncle isn’t a viscount, I don’t own land and have no membership at any gentleman’s club. You can judge how interested they are by their manifestos. They’re targeted towards their existing voters and rarely make any promises for infrastructure in the North.
      - NeedMoreTea 7y ago
        They talked about the Northern Powerhouse for a few weeks. That's our lot for this decade.
    - NeedMoreTea 7y ago
      Not sure that works. London is overwhelmingly Labour, and the Tories do plenty for that region that doesn't vote for them. The Tories traditionally hold the shires who get almost as little done for them by Tory governments as the North. Seems more about where the City is and isn't. ;) This opens the can of worms of how ridiculously unrepresentative and centralised our system has become. Particularly under FPTP with an electorate that increasingly votes for a multi-party system.
- switch007 7y ago
  I’ll join the other comment and add another “er, no”. The disdain for Westminster has existed far, far longer than than the EU has existed. You could probably go back hundreds of years at a minimum.
  - TheOtherHobbes 7y ago
    There's plenty of anti-Westminster and anti-London sentiment in Richard Cobbett's Rural Rides from around 1820 - all of it justified. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rural_Rides https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rural_Rides The text is on Gutenberg. It's too repetitive for a full read, but worth a scan to get the flavour.
NikkiA 7y ago
> Nope, not much to report. Hey, we may* get rid of the pacers this year! Also, they sucessfully managed to dodge upgrading the transpenine route for the 3rd? 4th? time since it's last upgrade in the 80s. That's a win.... for something.
- johnday 7y ago
  > Hey, we may* get rid of the pacers this year! They've been saying that since I was there several years ago. They'll out live all of us.
  - tialaramex 7y ago
    They're coming. Slowly, but they are coming. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NScxhRR3LyY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NScxhRR3LyY
    - switch007 7y ago
      All gone by summer 2020 is their latest statement. Training is their current excuse for the delay: "“They are in Yorkshire for one simple reason – that is that our train crew here can drive them now, can operate them now. If we introduced them elsewhere where they don’t operate them now, we would introduce a training need that could not be coped with." https://www.examinerlive.co.uk/news/local-news/pacer-trains-will-gone-next-16886917 https://www.examinerlive.co.uk/news/local-news/pacer-trains-...
      - tialaramex 7y ago
        Drivers need to be competent on the specific type of train. This seems especially obvious for a driver who has spent the last decade driving Pacers and might now be given a Class 195 DMU. The handling characteristics are pretty difficult, it's not even like it was a small upgrade - as observed so many times a Pacer is basically a railbus. If anything the anomaly is that we aren't expected to retrain on the roads. I am old enough to be "grandfathered" into the UK's old regime where a single pass, as a teenager, in a small hatchback, qualifies me for like 50 years to drive a 5 tonne truck even with a trailer. I've never driven anything with a trailer, no evidence I'd be safe doing it but hey, the rules used to be lax so...

Symbiote 7y ago

And, unfortunately, majority of people in the North of England blame the European Union for this. Edit: OK, the rather few people I know from the North are not representative.

NeedMoreTea 7y ago
Um, nope. Of all the many complaints I've heard against the EU, particularly in the last 3 years, many are wrong. Yet I've never heard anyone up here blaming the EU for the North and Scotland's public transport. We almost entirely blame Westminster, all parties, and their London exceptionalism. Some will still single out Mrs T. I think it's reached triple the transport spending per head in London compared to elsewhere. Then there's the subsidy of buses Thatcher permitted to continue in London, but nowhere else. So the regions pay double or more what London does on bus routes. West Coast main line electrification was put off for I guess 50 years! The cross Pennine route is a sick joke, still running those awful bus on rails trains. Those were supposed to be a 4-5 year, super-cheap fill in. Ooh 30 or 40 years ago. Crossrail? Sure, give it a blank cheque and immediately talk about crossrail 2. Andy Burnham has had a fairly remarkable transition from Westminster Minister after becoming mayor of Manchester. There's been a few enlightening media pieces about him and public transport. Course now he vocally realises where the problem is, he's no longer an MP...
- techsupporter 7y ago
  > The cross Pennine route is a sick joke, still running those awful bus on rails trains. Pacers are an amazing innovation that are best appreciated in the appropriate context: videos from Geoff Marshall making fun of them. They're completely useless outside of that and should be binned immediately.
- tonyedgecombe 7y ago
  Judging by the way the North votes it seems it's mostly the Tories that get the blame. Which creates a vicious circle as why would the Tories do anything for a region that doesn't vote for them anyway.
  - switch007 7y ago
    It goes much deeper than that. If we all voted for them they would still do nothing for us as I didn’t go to Eton, my uncle isn’t a viscount, I don’t own land and have no membership at any gentleman’s club. You can judge how interested they are by their manifestos. They’re targeted towards their existing voters and rarely make any promises for infrastructure in the North.
    - NeedMoreTea 7y ago
      They talked about the Northern Powerhouse for a few weeks. That's our lot for this decade.
  - NeedMoreTea 7y ago
    Not sure that works. London is overwhelmingly Labour, and the Tories do plenty for that region that doesn't vote for them. The Tories traditionally hold the shires who get almost as little done for them by Tory governments as the North. Seems more about where the City is and isn't. ;) This opens the can of worms of how ridiculously unrepresentative and centralised our system has become. Particularly under FPTP with an electorate that increasingly votes for a multi-party system.
switch007 7y ago
I’ll join the other comment and add another “er, no”. The disdain for Westminster has existed far, far longer than than the EU has existed. You could probably go back hundreds of years at a minimum.
- TheOtherHobbes 7y ago
  There's plenty of anti-Westminster and anti-London sentiment in Richard Cobbett's Rural Rides from around 1820 - all of it justified. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rural_Rides https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rural_Rides The text is on Gutenberg. It's too repetitive for a full read, but worth a scan to get the flavour.

NikkiA 7y ago

> Nope, not much to report. Hey, we may* get rid of the pacers this year! Also, they sucessfully managed to dodge upgrading the transpenine route for the 3rd? 4th? time since it's last upgrade in the 80s. That's a win.... for something.

johnday 7y ago
> Hey, we may* get rid of the pacers this year! They've been saying that since I was there several years ago. They'll out live all of us.
- tialaramex 7y ago
  They're coming. Slowly, but they are coming. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NScxhRR3LyY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NScxhRR3LyY
  - switch007 7y ago
    All gone by summer 2020 is their latest statement. Training is their current excuse for the delay: "“They are in Yorkshire for one simple reason – that is that our train crew here can drive them now, can operate them now. If we introduced them elsewhere where they don’t operate them now, we would introduce a training need that could not be coped with." https://www.examinerlive.co.uk/news/local-news/pacer-trains-will-gone-next-16886917 https://www.examinerlive.co.uk/news/local-news/pacer-trains-...
    - tialaramex 7y ago
      Drivers need to be competent on the specific type of train. This seems especially obvious for a driver who has spent the last decade driving Pacers and might now be given a Class 195 DMU. The handling characteristics are pretty difficult, it's not even like it was a small upgrade - as observed so many times a Pacer is basically a railbus. If anything the anomaly is that we aren't expected to retrain on the roads. I am old enough to be "grandfathered" into the UK's old regime where a single pass, as a teenager, in a small hatchback, qualifies me for like 50 years to drive a 5 tonne truck even with a trailer. I've never driven anything with a trailer, no evidence I'd be safe doing it but hey, the rules used to be lax so...