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[Bigron]

Play nicely, children.....

Ron.

[Lizzie Zoom]

Play nicely, children.....

Ron.

Don't worry Ron.  DG and I are used to playing these games when we get bored!!

Whatever him and I say will not make a jot of difference about anything!  Life goes on for all of us and we make the best of it

[Rods2]

UK elites are still in the Victorian era when it comes to new railway lines, when they should have been thinking 450mph Maglev or even faster Hyperloop. Done right they would compete with aircraft for speed and can be made more energy efficient and therefore cheaper. Practical daily commuting means a maximum of 1hr of traveling each way with 450mph making Edinburgh to London daily commuting practical.

Now, this really would spread the London economic effect all over the country.

[Lizzie Zoom]

UK elites are still in the Victorian era when it comes to new railway lines, when they should have been thinking 450mph Maglev or even faster Hyperloop. Done right they would compete with aircraft for speed and can be made more energy efficient and therefore cheaper. Practical daily commuting means a maximum of 1hr of traveling each way with 450mph making Edinburgh to London daily commuting practical.

Now, this really would spread the London economic effect all over the country.

I agree Rod, but we have seen the backlash about the costs of the HS lines in planning, can you imagine the furore generated with the public when increasing the costs by many billions for a Maglav.

That would be the future for passenger traffic, but at the moment it could be difficult to send freight by it, although that must be the final goal

[Kevin Wood]

UK elites are still in the Victorian era when it comes to new railway lines, when they should have been thinking 450mph Maglev or even faster Hyperloop. Done right they would compete with aircraft for speed and can be made more energy efficient and therefore cheaper. Practical daily commuting means a maximum of 1hr of traveling each way with 450mph making Edinburgh to London daily commuting practical.

Now, this really would spread the London economic effect all over the country.

I wonder if that's true. Aircraft have the unique advantage of operating in very thin air where drag is low.

[Doctor Gollum]

UK elites are still in the Victorian era when it comes to new railway lines, when they should have been thinking 450mph Maglev or even faster Hyperloop. Done right they would compete with aircraft for speed and can be made more energy efficient and therefore cheaper. Practical daily commuting means a maximum of 1hr of traveling each way with 450mph making Edinburgh to London daily commuting practical.

Now, this really would spread the London economic effect all over the country.

I wonder if that's true. Aircraft have the unique advantage of operating in very thin air where drag is low.

Mr Musk would concur... looking at an hour for London-Sydney and for the same price as a standard economy fare by 2022...

Interesting times ahead

[Nick W]

I envisage a world, well at least the UK, where we have roads free of thousands of heavy lorries and the pollution that comes with them with millions of working hours saved by people being able to travel freely on a joined up transport system.  Key to that is the High Speed Railway system which will be able to equal the speed of going by air and, once more, reduced pollution.  Those that want to still drive, their electric / hydrogen / hybrid cars,  will be able to on clear very fast running motorways, as was envisaged way back when the M1 was opened.

Many are worried about how much land the High Speed links will require, but that is relatively a small price to pay to save millions of acres being concreted over under yet more new motorways / motorway upgrades, lorry parks, new airport runways and facilities smashing over peoples houses.

It's interesting that you think a 16.5 metre long truck carrying 25 tons of stuff is a worse use of the road space than 3 cars that probably only have one occupant. Especially if that occupant is commuting 50 miles to work or travelling to a meeting that could probably be done over the phone(if it needs doing at all) both uses that are very common.


Vehicles that aren't fully loaded are an incredibly poor use of resources; solving that would be the best improvement we could make to transport issues. Unfortunately that would require a massive social change, and no politician in history would even consider trying to force such a thing.


A High Speed rail link can only be between two places a fair distance apart; if it has to stop at any point on that route it's no longer high speed. In a country where the biggest cities are only 200 miles apart that means such infrastructure is appallingly inefficient even before considering the enormous cost or environmental impact.


Any new transport scheme needs to be convienient, fast and cheap. Nobody is ever going to manage all three of those.

[Sir Tigger KC]

UK elites are still in the Victorian era when it comes to new railway lines, when they should have been thinking 450mph Maglev or even faster Hyperloop. Done right they would compete with aircraft for speed and can be made more energy efficient and therefore cheaper. Practical daily commuting means a maximum of 1hr of traveling each way with 450mph making Edinburgh to London daily commuting practical.

Now, this really would spread the London economic effect all over the country.

Ahem!  Reply #24. 

Rather than spending billions on Victorian technology with HS2 etc we should be investing in MagLev trains! 

Just give the Magic Money Tree another shake, it'll be fine!   

 

[TheBoy]

LZ, for the record, HS2 Ltd have absolutely, categorically stated that no freight whatsoever will be carried on HS2.  Obviously, it won't be carrying many passengers either, but at least it will create artificial employment which will be heavily subsidised at our expense.

The subsidy levels HS2 Ltd have claimed they will need (which is already high) is based on their business case of *EVERY* train full to capacity on every trip (which, IIRC, is every 3 minutes (which it can't be, as it takes 20 mins to load a train, so you'll need more platforms than they have space)).  Assuming absolute best case scenario that you might get a couple of full trains at peak time, then you can see its a financial disaster, that a new Beeching - if we have anyone visionary enough - will quickly close

As to there being full trains from Lichfield to West London, well, it doesn't happen now, so why should it happen in the future?


And as to speed, before HS2 was planned, even Chiltern could get a train from Moor Street to Marylebone in 1hr15 (obviously Network Rail have gone out of their way to increase that, seeing as their people are the seniors at HS2 which will only do it in an hour).  Its all a bit too cosy, and jobs for the boys, and utterly corrupt.

[TheBoy]

when they should have been thinking 450mph Maglev or even faster Hyperloop.

That would likely mean buying in the technology and skills. HS2 Ltd want to develop their own unique rails and bogies for HS2, rather than use cheaper, proven solutions from across the world.

So we'll end up stumping Maglev costs for HST speeds. Grand.