hs2 and sd2

So that's it, HS2 will happen. It all seemed so easy.

Of course in the real world what we need is massive investment in new railways and tramways in the UK, bringing a sustainable and modern transport system into every corner of the UK, far surpassing the rather sparse network bequeathed by the Victorians and dimished even further by the misguided idiot Beeching.

But we have to work in the world we have, not the one we want, so we're stuck with this expensive if essential piece of infrastructure, the cost of which would have rebuilt sixteen S&Ds - and brought modern transport to people that needed it, not those that already have it!

As for SD2 as it's now becoming known? Well the fact that governments are now seeing rail as the default future transport system can only be a good thing. In truth of course this has been a process that's been happening for some time, from the building of the Channel Tunnel. The 'road lobby' is now a distant memory, and HS2 will also do its bit to bring the early end of air travel, despite the rather daft idea that HS2 will link to Heathrow - as if it will still be operating in 2026, when HS2 is due to begin services.

And what about its effect on SD2? I suspect that once HS2 is finished other parts of the UK will be clamouring for a high speed link and I suspect a priority will be London to Bristol to Cardiff/Plymouth, which suggests an SD2 link at Bristol (via the Radstock-Pensford-Bristol line, part of our remit). Imagine - Shepton to Paris in 3 and a half hours! Of course the Bath line will be no less important - at least 95% of travellers on SD2 will be local passengers.

So HS2 is going to cause a lot of controversy. You can't blame residents for fighting it if they can't actually use the trains. Perhaps bundling it with a package of conventional rail reopenings, particularly in the area through which it will run, will sweeten the pill somewhat?

It's clear that our economy will be a purely rail-based one within a few decades. HS2 is a step in that process. But it needs to be presented as a small part in a  much bigger plan, the roll back of Beeching, the building of thousands of miles of new railways and tramways, the linking of industries, farms etc to the network, the creation of super-efficient, fully sustainable locomotives and, most of all, the complete reorientating of our industry and commerce to not merely be sustainable but to continue to develop into the post oil age.

usa tries to catch up with the rest of us ....

Could the US crack high-speed rail?

14 October 11 11:07

By Tom Geoghegan
BBC News, Washington

A conference in New York is looking at plans to spend $600bn (£380bn) on a national network of high-speed railways, to rival continental Europe's. But how likely is it to happen?
The fastest train in the US pulls slowly out of platform 10 at New York's Penn Station, heading west.
Keeping a leisurely pace on the other side of the Hudson River, the Empire State Building sticks stubbornly to the horizon before eventually receding into the distance. Thirteen minutes later, the Acela Express makes its first stop, in Newark.
This is high-speed rail, American-style.
For many of the passengers packed on board the Acela Express to Washington DC, it is no voyage of discovery but a regular trip.
Train travel beats flying, says hotel executive Michael Shepard. "Getting a plane has become so unattractive, especially for short distances. The train is quicker and takes you right into the city."
But the 29-year-old New Yorker says the premium you pay for the Express does not represent value for money, with no more legroom than a normal train and not even a complimentary coffee or tea. And he questions whether it's fast enough (2hr 46mins between New York and Washington) to persuade drivers to ditch their cars.
"It's called 'high speed' but is it really? That's the question."
Other passengers say it's a reliable and comfortable service but those with experience of European trains say the American ones are a pale reflection - in terms of frequency, speed and relative luxury.
The Acela is the flagship line of Amtrak, the government-owned company that runs the US railways, a vast network which is reporting a post-war record for numbers of passengers.
Making enough money to cover its operating costs, but little more, it runs along the densely-populated, north-east corridor between Boston and Washington, using trains that briefly reach speeds of 241km/h (150mph) but average about 127km/h (79mph).
That's not fast enough to meet some international definitions of high-speed rail - though a forthcoming upgrade of a 24-mile section of track in New Jersey means the trains will reach speeds of 257km/h (160mph) by 2017.
"This is the first step of a larger programme for Amtrak's vision to get to 220mph (354km/h)," says spokesman Steve Kulm, adding that private firms have shown strong interest in helping to pay for it.
Despite the relatively high standard of the service in the north-east corridor, the architectural grandeur of some stations and some scenic journeys, train travel in the land of the motor vehicle is not a mass pursuit.
In a country that owes its economic strength to railways - the first transcontinental railroad linked east and west in the 1860s - most investment in recent decades has been on roads and aviation.
Rail industry experts meeting in New York next month are pushing for a reversal of that trend.
The US High Speed Rail Association (USHSR), which is hosting the event, has set out a highly ambitious, $600bn (£383bn) plan to build a high-speed rail network in four phases by 2030, which it illustrates on its website with an animated map.
"This really is the transport system for the 21st Century and there's no reason why we shouldn't build it," says Andy Kunz, president and chief executive officer of USHSR. "In fact we will have to build it. There are no other options.
"The oil supply and price is not sustainable and we will not be able to continue to run America with oil at $200 a barrel. If we are going to maintain our prosperity and mobility we have to build this rail system."
Using public and private funds, Mr Kunz argues the network could pay for itself within five or 10 years, because dependency on foreign oil currently costs the US hundreds of billions of dollars annually, and these railways would use cleaner energy sources. They would also generate hundreds of thousands of jobs.
When asked whether it's feasible to implement such a huge project any time soon, he points to two great American feats of engineering - President Lincoln's transcontinental railroad and President Eisenhower's interstate highways built over a period of 35 years a century later.
But there are considerable political and financial hurdles to overcome.
In 2009, President Barack Obama allocated $8bn in his stimulus package towards high-speed rail in 10 areas, but state governors in Florida, Ohio and Wisconsin said "no thanks" and the funds intended for their states were allocated elsewhere.
In February, when vice-president Joe Biden proposed a $53bn bill for what he described as the biggest investment in rail since Lincoln, he was derided by one influential Republican as "insane".
For some critics, the problem is not high-speed rail in principle but picking the right projects to invest in, especially when the country is facing a financial crisis and huge spending cuts.
A spokesman for a public policy think-tank, the Reason Foundation, questions the projected passenger figures that enthusiasts put their faith in, and says that beyond the north-east, there are very few places in the US where it could pay its way.
In Europe, where higher fuel prices and denser populations help make high-speed rail more attractive, there has been a frenzy of construction and planning. France and Spain aim to double their networks of bullet trains in the coming decades.
China, which already boasts half the world's high-speed lines, is making similar strides, although an accident that killed 40 people earlier this year sparked a debate about whether the government was moving too fast.
The country also operates a magnetic levitation train, which reaches staggering speeds of 430km/h (268mph).
In the US, California could be the first state to get a dedicated high-speed passenger rail system, with work due to begin next year on the first section of a line running the length of the huge state, which would carry 322km/h (200mph) trains.
Congressman Jim Costa believes building the railway will generate nearly 300,000 jobs and then another 450,000 permanent posts after it's built.
But Christian Wolmar, a transport expert based in the UK, has serious doubts.
"In California, the notion that they can build in one fell swoop a high-speed network that runs from Sacramento to San Diego is just too ambitious.
"Why not start with a high-speed line that stretches from one end of the Bay Area to another? Then extend it to LA? Instead they plan this massive high-speed line that goes from one end of the state to another."
While the US freight rail system is fantastically successful, the existing passenger service is decades behind Europe, he says, due to low investment and hostility from freight companies, which own most of the track.
"America has not been able to retain anything but a vestige of a passenger railway. Amtrak carries about 30 million [passengers] a year, which in Britain, a much smaller country, is about 10 days' worth of journeys," says Mr Wolmar, who recently returned from the US and wrote about the American railways in his blog.
"They haven't managed to achieve speeds, frequency or fares that would rival cars."
The fact that so many Americans have never boarded a train presents a significant cultural barrier, he adds.
But Mr Kunz disagrees. "People say Americans were born with car keys in their hands and driving is in our DNA - but if you look back to 1922 then 99% of Americans lived in cities and moved around on trains."
From that point on, the oil and motor industries pushed for road projects and American cities were developed with that in mind. But he believes the expansion of light rail and metro systems can help turn urban America into more "walkable communities".
Back on the Acela, the train pulls into its final destination, Union Station, bang on time.
"This is Washington DC. Final stop," says the announcement.
For the American dream of high-speed rail, it could be just the start.

rail keeps booming

(Both Bedminster 12.4.2011 copyright Steve Sainsbury)

Rail journeys are up by 15 million in the first quarter of the year compared to the same quarter in 2010. The main reason stated is the price of fuel. This is the busiest the railways have been since the 1920s.

So when will this backwards-looking government start to realise that rail capacity needs to be greatly increased NOW, not simply by putting more trains on existing routes or by building High Speed routes to free up capacity, but by building NEW community railways?  The railways can only get busier as the long term trend for rising oil costs continue, freight will soon be far cheaper to carry by train and supply crunches and rationing (directly or by price) for public petrol and diesel can only be a few years away now.

This is indeed the golden age for rail and it's only going to get better and better!

q and a session

(Photos - all inspirationally Swiss!)

Recently posted - a gift for return of serve!


Wish you luck and agree with idea but you are living in a fantasy world if you think it will ever REALLY happen; too many plots sold off and millions upon millions of pounds of infrastructure to replace. Should never have been closed - but the time to fight was 60s, like the Settle and Carlisle Railway supporters did. The only REAL railway investment likely to happen now is HIGH SPEED links, not the local loss making railways. Despite this, you are right but that doesn't mean much!
My reply -

I hate fantasy - it's a waste of energy! You won't find any in the New S&D - we are a terribly straight-laced and unsentimental lot! Businesspeople, accountants, economists and academics in the main.

Please don't just wish us luck - join us!

Billions, not millions. We have no illusions as to the difficulty in raising money like this, but there are ways. And it will get easier as time goes by.

The S&C fight was in the 70s, the absolute nadir of railways. In fact I felt that was the turning point for rail in the UK and the S&C (I was born in Carlisle) is one of the inspirations for the S&D.

Most rail infrastructure investments in this country since have been for local routes - Robin Hood line, Airdrie-Bathgate, Ebbw Vale, Waverley route, Larkhall, Alloa, Welsh Highland Railway. HS rail is part of the future, but will hardly be ideal for freight, terrible for local rail traffic and is already causing controversy through the areas it runs, as the inhabitants can't see the benefits they'll get. It's not a zero-sum game. Remember all that former road development money is coming rail's way ...

And the S&D won't be a loss-maker in any case. Remember that dodgy accounting, hatred of the route by the regional management and a deliberate decision not to rationalise and dieselise the route, together with diversion of traffic, killed the line, not big losses. It certainly won't be a loss maker in the future - we hope to pay regular and good dividends to the shareholders!It will happen - the only question is what sort of S&D will emerge. Let's do it our way.

plane speaking

(The sky over Bristol on Saturday - no enhancements, no twiddling, no contrails ...)


Could we live without flights?

Source

By Finlo Rohrer and Rajini Vaidyanathan BBC News Magazine

For days no planes have taken off or landed across the UK, due to the Icelandic volcano. The lack of air travel has inconvenienced holidaymakers, school and businesses - but how would we cope if the ban went on and on?

At the moment air travel is virtually all by engines powered by kerosene. One day kerosene - like every other fossil fuel - will run out.
So does the effect of the ash cloud hanging over northern Europe give us a valuable insight into what the world would be like with dramatically reduced or non-existent aviation?

How would the UK cope?

TOURISM

"I think you'd be talking about going to the situation like the 1950s, "when planes were very much the preserve of the upper classes because it was extremely expensive to fly," says a spokesman for the Association of British Travel Agents, Abta.

The main impact would be on long-haul travel. But this would be partly offset by short-haul breaks, to mainland Europe, thanks to improved high-speed train links or ferries. Then again, many of us might just stay at home more.

Figures show that the lion's share of tourism revenue in the UK actually comes from domestic holidaymakers, compared with inbound visitors.

Some categories of tourism would be squashed by the demise of the plane. The foreign weekend break to anywhere other than a small segment of north-western Europe would no longer be viable.

But to the environmentally-minded that might not be a bad thing.

In 2009, 30 million people visited the UK from overseas, and three-quarters of them travelled by plane.

Strip away air travel, and it would inevitably change the shape of the tourism industry, but not all for the worse, says a spokesman for Visit Britain, the organisation responsible for promoting tourism here.

"Although fewer people would be coming in, we'd hope that people would take the opportunity to visit the whole of Britain in a way they wouldn't consider doing normally," says the spokesman.

One of the biggest concerns might be a potential loss in revenue generated by foreign tourists.

While visitors to the UK from other countries outnumber Americans, those from the US spend the most - £2.2bn a year. Take away air travel and that revenue seam would vastly diminish.

FOOD

The good news in a flight-less world is that Britain would still get enough to eat. Moreover, it would still get its share of tropical fruit and vegetables.

"The impact is not massive. We only import 1.5% of all our fruit and veg by air," says Michael Barker, fresh foods editor at the Grocer magazine.

Tesco goes along with this picture, saying less than 1% of all its stock comes by air. At the higher end of the market, Waitrose also says the proportion is tiny.

Specific examples might include fresh mangoes from Ghana, asparagus from Peru and papayas. They are not exactly staples of the British diet.

Much of the food that comes from abroad, comes on "reefers", special refrigerated ships, or in refrigerated containers on ordinary ships.

If you need an out-of-season apple from New Zealand, it comes on a ship. Within Europe, much of the distance from field to plate will be covered by road and rail.

And of course, there has been continuous pressure in the past few years from environmentalists to eat more local and seasonal food.

But one thing we really do need planes for is the UK's floral industry. Many of our flowers come from Africa, particularly Kenya, and they are much more perishable than most other produce.

The industry would have to be radically reshaped to cope with the loss of aviation, says Jason Rodgers, retail director of the British Florist Association. More than 80% of the flowers sold by florists in the UK come through the Netherlands, which is an international nexus for auctions.

They come to the UK often by road or rail, but they will often have got to the Netherlands by air from Kenya, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, Colombia and other supplier nations.

ENTERTAINMENT

Even if there were no planes, the show would go on. It just might look and sound a bit different.

"No air travel doesn't necessarily mean no entertainment, but it could affect the kind of artists who would come and tour here", says Matt Wooliscroft, a concert promoter for SJM concerts.

For Mr Wooliscroft, this week has shed a light on how tricky arranging tours can be without the benefits of aviation. The Icelandic volcano has meant one of his bands, the Australian group Powderfinger, have had to reschedule their tour dates. Some members of another act he works with, Alphabeat, are stuck in Norway, and are trying to see if there are ways they can travel overland to fulfil their UK tour commitments.

Looking at a hypothetical scenario with no planes, the Australian and US music acts would be hit the hardest, says Mr Wooliscroft. When it comes to European artists it might not make such a dent, he explains, because most bands travel across the continent on their trusted tour buses anyway.

"For the smaller American bands, it'd be less cost effective to tour. For the bigger bands, if it took them a week or two to get here by boat they may not be able to afford the time to do that."

This week has seen some celebrity spottings on ferries however, with both Whitney Houston and Dizzee Rascal making the trip to Dublin on the ferry to honour concert commitments.

In a plane-free world, the nature of travelling by sea could fundamentally alter in terms of cost and speed, says Mr Wooliscroft, so the journey across the pond to play a gig, might not be as painful as one might imagine.

Sport needs aeroplanes. If you take football as your example, the number of games played every season is sustained by the availability of air travel. This week Liverpool will have played a Premiership match against West Ham on Monday, immediately started a 1,300 mile overland journey to Madrid to play a Europa League semi-final against Atletico Madrid before getting straight back on the road to get to Burnley for another Premiership match on Sunday.

It can be allowed as an exhausting one-off now, but a prolonged absence of plane travel would mean massive changes to the structure of sport.

Once upon a time cricketers spent weeks sailing to play in the Ashes in Australia, but now the game sees international cricketers fly to play 20/20 in India before hopping back to the UK for county cricket or off somewhere else for a test.

BUSINESS

The effect on British business would not just be in terms of tourist disruption or impossible air freight.

"We are an island nation and without that ease of use and connectivity we would be cut off," says Gareth Elliott, senior policy adviser at the British Chambers of Commerce.

The increasingly globalised world we live in has been made possible by - among other things - the rise of air travel. Video conferencing has made it possible to hold meetings without leaving the comfort of your office, but for many critical deals and projects, a face-to-face meeting is necessary.

"People want to meet each other," says Mr Elliott. "They want to be able to greet and shake hands."

"Sometimes it is as simple as seeing goods you are buying or selling. You need to speak to the people who are doing it, gain their trust."

There are circumstances where nothing else will do. No matter how convincing the balance sheets, how regular the video conferences and how trusted the middle men, a Far East business person is not going to buy a business in the UK without coming here first to check it out. A big deal may require a series of visits by different people.

Having to go by ship or not at all would impede that process.

And the change in the nature of industry in the UK makes air travel more important than ever before.

"As we have moved up the value chain, consultancy has grown significantly in terms of the share of exporting our skills to other countries. This is a high value knowledge economy where you need to move these people."

He gives the example of ARM Holdings, which designs processor chips.

"They need to move people rather than goods. Aviation is vital. If you look at some of the UK's biggest businesses they are always located within easy reach of an airport."

Pharmaceutical and consumer goods giant GlaxoSmithkline is a case in point - siting itself next to the motorway that leads to Heathrow airport, he says. It is where it is to be near Heathrow, and so connected with the world.

But for Prof Helen Walker, an expert in sustainable supply chains and corporate social responsibility at Warwick Business School, the insight we are currently having into a Britain without flight is a useful exercise.

"We have in the last 10, 20, 30 years been moving increasingly towards off-shoring our manufacturing to drive down costs. We have got increasingly complex global supply chains.

"If we are reliant on suppliers in other countries, it is necessary to have multiple sourcing strategies."
She concurs with the analysis of the UK's changing economic base.

"Britain as a nation has become more a service sector nation. That makes us vulnerable."

THE GOOD SIDE

It's important not just to think about what we would lose if air travel was to come to an end.

There are those who would welcome just such a scenario.

"Of course a complete halt in air transport would be dramatic, but transport by water and land would re-emerge and essentially suffice," says John Stewart, chairman of HACAN Clearskies, which campaigns to mitigate the impact of aircraft in London and the South East.

"We would lead more localised lives - communities have become dispersed with the invention of the motor car and even more so now that we use aeroplanes."

The group is not campaigning for an end to planes, but their enforced absence has been a bonus in the last few days for many residents near to airports, he says.

"For the first time in years they have had a sequence of five or six good nights' sleep, and they feel calmer for it."

A lady of 60 e-mailed him, saying: "For the first time in decades [I'm] able to sit out in the garden for more than 20 minutes at a time and linger over the sound of the birds… and there isn't the feeling that they will start again soon, fearing a plane is going to come and take it all away."

wise words

Nice succinct comments from Nick Howes re yesterday's story about the new high speed link from London to the north.

a) air travel is a dying duck eg Heathrow spur and

b) the Great Central is sat there doing nothing (Berne gauge) and I’m sure that wont cost 30 billion to put back. Where do they get these inflated figures from?!

I suspect the figures are thrown about either to stop things happening or to get a huge budget!

The Great Central is such a valuable asset but at the moment its either used to shuttle a few commuter trains (Aylesbury southwards), to recreate BR in the 60s (Leicester-Loughborough - a fantastic line but still a waste as it doesn't run 'real' trains (yet!)) or, mainly, serves as a scar on the landscape that should be a vibrant and extremely busy route. It's ironic that in parts it runs alongside the M1, I can see the roles being reversed in a few decades time!

And as for connecting to Heathrow, what bloody future does even the most stupid politician think that white elephant will have?

The real issue here, and it's only been slightly touched on, is that construction of an entirely new route will cause even more destruction to our landscape. There are NO intermediate stations planned between Birmingham and London so how on earth do they plan to sell this to the communities en route? Even a motorway would have more value as it can be accessed! I don't disgree with High Speed Trains but I would still rather see existing and new routes serve the towns and villages in between BEFORE investment in High Speed Rail. There are still far too many towns and villages in Britain that are rail-less, large towns like Norton-Radstock, Glastonbury, Gosport, Ripon etc for example. Air travel is already losing ground rapidly to the existing rail network, we don't need to force this by building completely new rail routes, not yet at least. Imagine how many new rail miles could be built to the places that count for that £30 billion - probably around 500 miles. That's the whole S&D, Great Central, Waverley, Plymouth-Okehampton, Dumfries-Stranraer, Ilfracombe, Tiverton, Bude and a dozen other routes that should never have closed.

This brings up the whole secondary disaster that Beeching caused - the closing of thousands of small stations on routes that are STILL open. Most if not all of these could now be economically reopened, indeed many have, but don't they make it difficult!

If there's money like £30 billion out there for starting to get our railways up and running again let's use it to help everybody, not just every damn fool in London who wants to be in Birmingham in forty minutes!

a US view

From the great James Howard Kunstler's blog - wise views on future transport in the USA, that could equally be applied to the UK and Europe.

[W]hat people of good intention and progressive predilection want to know is how come Mr. Obama doesn’t just lay out the truth, undertake the hard job of cutting the nation’s losses, and get on with setting this society on a new course. The truth is that we’re comprehensively bankrupt, and no amount of shuffling certificates around will avail to alter that. The bad debt has to be "worked out" — i.e. written off, subjected to liquidation of remaining assets and collateral, reorganized under the bankruptcy statutes, and put behind us. We have to work very hard to reconfigure the physical arrangement of life in the USA, moving away from the losses of our suburbs, reactivating our towns, downscaling our biggest cities, re-scaling our farms and food production, switching out our Happy Motoring system for public transit and walkable neighborhoods, rebuilding local networks of commerce, and figuring out a way to make a few things of value again.

What’s happened instead is what I most feared: that our politicians would mount a massive campaign to sustain the unsustainable. That’s what all the TARP and TARF and PPIT and bailouts are about. It will all amount to an exercise in futility and could easily end up wrecking the USA in every sense of the term. If Mr. Obama doesn’t get with a better program, then we are going to face a Long Emergency as grueling as the French Revolution. One very plain and straightforward example at hand is the announcement last week of a plan to build a high-speed rail network. To be blunt about it, this is perfectly ******* stupid. It will require a whole new track network, because high speed trains can’t run on the old rights of way with their less forgiving curve ratios and grades. We would be so much better off simply fixing up and reactivating the normal-speed track system that is sitting out there rusting in the rain — and save our more grandiose visions for a later time.

I don’t like to be misunderstood. With the airlines in a business death spiral, and mass motoring doomed, we need a national passenger rail system desperately. But we already have one that used to be the envy of the world before we abandoned it. And we don’t have either the time or the resources to build a new parallel network.