LEAVE the Conservative Party and save your country!
Comments
-
Q: What would you do if you had £1m in your bank account?Stevo_666 said:
I would hate that.Pross said:
Yeah, I'd be gutted to be earning £125k and having to pay more taxshirley_basso said:Better get above £125k pronto as the tax makes it a horrible place to be trapped.
A: I'd wonder where all my money had gone0 -
The original planning / justification for what was named HS2 was apparently capacity. But when the politicians got involved, they wanted it to sound more sexy, so the decision was taken to sell the concept to the public based on speed. Who isn’t impressed by the thought of British trains speeding British workers through British countryside at 400kph? Whereas who is impressed by addressing bottlenecks on existing lines? Rhetorical questions both, obviously.surrey_commuter said:
why don't you consider that you have been mugged off by a retro fitted capacity argument?rick_chasey said:
It's almost pointless discussing this with you when you won't consider **capacity**.surrey_commuter said:
that is one factor but speccing it to run trains at 240mph seems to be a bigger one.rick_chasey said:Was reading that apparently a lot of the extra costs that have spiralled for HS2 have come from Tory MPs in the Chilterns who are demanding a lot more tunnels to protect views etc.
It seems poignant that the original budget was £33bn to build the Y shaped high speed line yet they have already spent that and need to spend the same again to get it completed from the Scrubs to Brum.
At £33bn it was a marginal call on a ROI basis so my theory is that the interested parties blagged a low number on the basis they would spend hard and fast so that it was uncancellable.
Ignore the sunk costs and ask yourself whether at east £30bn is worth it to build a railway from west london to Brum, a journey so short that the trains will only reach top speed for 7 mins until they have to start slowing down again.
UK rails are used vastly more than pretty much any other railway in the the developed world. 70% of all delays are in some part down to congestion.
Every f*cking day there's a signalling problem or a points failure. It's almost certainly in part because they're used so much, way beyond design.
But no, let's wang on about how speed is the problem.
It's 2023, of course you need a f*cking fast train. Trains are unbearably slow in this country.
The millions of hours wasted by this godawful transport system.
why did they design and build it to world beating specs so trains could run fast if it was all about capacity?
Given the voters dislike / distrust of expensive projects given years of late, over-budget projects that taxpayers bail out, a further decision was taken to factor in the time savings from faster journeys as additional economic benefits. All those saved 40 minutes between London and Leeds soon add up.
This started to unravel when it was highlighted that most folk travelling on the proposed hs2 routes work on the train already, so saving 40 minutes here and there isn’t much of an issue. I can only assume that those who took the decision to rely on the economic benefits of saved time are high-ranking wasters who don’t work on their train journeys, but that’s by the by.
So the argument then reverted to “it’s about capacity, not speed”.
0 -
Foreign ownership is actually Blair’s legacy. Thatch’s privatisations all involved the government retaining a “golden share” which retained control of the privatised company within the government’s hands in certain circumstances relating to the strategic nature of the underlying activity. Blair (doubtless at brown’s suggestion) cancelled / surrendered such shares, thus facilitating foreign ownership.orraloon said:It's his bedroom wall poster. For to encourage the rightie hand jobbing.
Thatcher may be dead but her legacy lives on. One example: privatised water utilities, mega divis taken by e.g. furrin' pension funds while loading debt on the company accounts. What's wrong with that?
0 -
Plenty of people can’t and don’t work on the train.wallace_and_gromit said:
The original planning / justification for what was named HS2 was apparently capacity. But when the politicians got involved, they wanted it to sound more sexy, so the decision was taken to sell the concept to the public based on speed. Who isn’t impressed by the thought of British trains speeding British workers through British countryside at 400kph? Whereas who is impressed by addressing bottlenecks on existing lines? Rhetorical questions both, obviously.surrey_commuter said:
why don't you consider that you have been mugged off by a retro fitted capacity argument?rick_chasey said:
It's almost pointless discussing this with you when you won't consider **capacity**.surrey_commuter said:
that is one factor but speccing it to run trains at 240mph seems to be a bigger one.rick_chasey said:Was reading that apparently a lot of the extra costs that have spiralled for HS2 have come from Tory MPs in the Chilterns who are demanding a lot more tunnels to protect views etc.
It seems poignant that the original budget was £33bn to build the Y shaped high speed line yet they have already spent that and need to spend the same again to get it completed from the Scrubs to Brum.
At £33bn it was a marginal call on a ROI basis so my theory is that the interested parties blagged a low number on the basis they would spend hard and fast so that it was uncancellable.
Ignore the sunk costs and ask yourself whether at east £30bn is worth it to build a railway from west london to Brum, a journey so short that the trains will only reach top speed for 7 mins until they have to start slowing down again.
UK rails are used vastly more than pretty much any other railway in the the developed world. 70% of all delays are in some part down to congestion.
Every f*cking day there's a signalling problem or a points failure. It's almost certainly in part because they're used so much, way beyond design.
But no, let's wang on about how speed is the problem.
It's 2023, of course you need a f*cking fast train. Trains are unbearably slow in this country.
The millions of hours wasted by this godawful transport system.
why did they design and build it to world beating specs so trains could run fast if it was all about capacity?
Given the voters dislike / distrust of expensive projects given years of late, over-budget projects that taxpayers bail out, a further decision was taken to factor in the time savings from faster journeys as additional economic benefits. All those saved 40 minutes between London and Leeds soon add up.
This started to unravel when it was highlighted that most folk travelling on the proposed hs2 routes work on the train already, so saving 40 minutes here and there isn’t much of an issue. I can only assume that those who took the decision to rely on the economic benefits of saved time are high-ranking wasters who don’t work on their train journeys, but that’s by the by.
So the argument then reverted to “it’s about capacity, not speed”.
I certainly can’t and a quick glance around the carriage this morning I’d put the proportion of people working as around 1/100 -
Unfortunately, HS2 has now been deemed officially woke.0
-
You would need to be able to sit down, not need to speak and/or not be doing anything confidential, to start with.rick_chasey said:
Plenty of people can’t and don’t work on the train.wallace_and_gromit said:
The original planning / justification for what was named HS2 was apparently capacity. But when the politicians got involved, they wanted it to sound more sexy, so the decision was taken to sell the concept to the public based on speed. Who isn’t impressed by the thought of British trains speeding British workers through British countryside at 400kph? Whereas who is impressed by addressing bottlenecks on existing lines? Rhetorical questions both, obviously.surrey_commuter said:
why don't you consider that you have been mugged off by a retro fitted capacity argument?rick_chasey said:
It's almost pointless discussing this with you when you won't consider **capacity**.surrey_commuter said:
that is one factor but speccing it to run trains at 240mph seems to be a bigger one.rick_chasey said:Was reading that apparently a lot of the extra costs that have spiralled for HS2 have come from Tory MPs in the Chilterns who are demanding a lot more tunnels to protect views etc.
It seems poignant that the original budget was £33bn to build the Y shaped high speed line yet they have already spent that and need to spend the same again to get it completed from the Scrubs to Brum.
At £33bn it was a marginal call on a ROI basis so my theory is that the interested parties blagged a low number on the basis they would spend hard and fast so that it was uncancellable.
Ignore the sunk costs and ask yourself whether at east £30bn is worth it to build a railway from west london to Brum, a journey so short that the trains will only reach top speed for 7 mins until they have to start slowing down again.
UK rails are used vastly more than pretty much any other railway in the the developed world. 70% of all delays are in some part down to congestion.
Every f*cking day there's a signalling problem or a points failure. It's almost certainly in part because they're used so much, way beyond design.
But no, let's wang on about how speed is the problem.
It's 2023, of course you need a f*cking fast train. Trains are unbearably slow in this country.
The millions of hours wasted by this godawful transport system.
why did they design and build it to world beating specs so trains could run fast if it was all about capacity?
Given the voters dislike / distrust of expensive projects given years of late, over-budget projects that taxpayers bail out, a further decision was taken to factor in the time savings from faster journeys as additional economic benefits. All those saved 40 minutes between London and Leeds soon add up.
This started to unravel when it was highlighted that most folk travelling on the proposed hs2 routes work on the train already, so saving 40 minutes here and there isn’t much of an issue. I can only assume that those who took the decision to rely on the economic benefits of saved time are high-ranking wasters who don’t work on their train journeys, but that’s by the by.
So the argument then reverted to “it’s about capacity, not speed”.
I certainly can’t and a quick glance around the carriage this morning I’d put the proportion of people working as around 1/100 -
Exactly. And privacy screens only work if everyone is sitting down. Anyone standing up can see exactly what you're doing over your shoulder.0
-
Aside from the ones that were time limited anyway, is surrendering the golden shares anything to do with Maastricht, though? i.e. State control in some industries being illegal under EU law?wallace_and_gromit said:
Foreign ownership is actually Blair’s legacy. Thatch’s privatisations all involved the government retaining a “golden share” which retained control of the privatised company within the government’s hands in certain circumstances relating to the strategic nature of the underlying activity. Blair (doubtless at brown’s suggestion) cancelled / surrendered such shares, thus facilitating foreign ownership.orraloon said:It's his bedroom wall poster. For to encourage the rightie hand jobbing.
Thatcher may be dead but her legacy lives on. One example: privatised water utilities, mega divis taken by e.g. furrin' pension funds while loading debt on the company accounts. What's wrong with that?
Not something I know about - all I can do is find multiple hugely wordy academic publications on the issue from a quick google search, which I probably can't understand anyway.1 -
-
Yes, but not control. Apparently.rick_chasey said:Do we want foreign investment or not?
0 -
Think we can mark that as the point the word ceased to have any real meaning.kingstongraham said:Unfortunately, HS2 has now been deemed officially woke.
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0 -
Isn't "woke" the opposite of "boomer"?0
-
The use of one denotes one's membership of the other?1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0 -
Commuter train is more tricky but travelling long distance in first class, work is easy enough.rick_chasey said:Exactly. And privacy screens only work if everyone is sitting down. Anyone standing up can see exactly what you're doing over your shoulder.
0 -
Sure, but I'm sceptical 40% of people ware ok with longer train journeys because they're working on them anyway.shirley_basso said:
Commuter train is more tricky but travelling long distance in first class, work is easy enough.rick_chasey said:Exactly. And privacy screens only work if everyone is sitting down. Anyone standing up can see exactly what you're doing over your shoulder.
0 -
Frankly the train line should have kept its political views to itself and not kept grandstanding on social issues.rjsterry said:
Think we can mark that as the point the word ceased to have any real meaning.kingstongraham said:Unfortunately, HS2 has now been deemed officially woke.
- Genesis Croix de Fer
- Dolan Tuono0 -
surely a more pertinent question is how big a premium would people pay to save a bit of time?rick_chasey said:
Sure, but I'm sceptical 40% of people ware ok with longer train journeys because they're working on them anyway.shirley_basso said:
Commuter train is more tricky but travelling long distance in first class, work is easy enough.rick_chasey said:Exactly. And privacy screens only work if everyone is sitting down. Anyone standing up can see exactly what you're doing over your shoulder.
0 -
There's also a H&S side, there's no way you're complying with the Display Screen Regulations when working on a laptop sat on a train.First.Aspect said:
You would need to be able to sit down, not need to speak and/or not be doing anything confidential, to start with.rick_chasey said:
Plenty of people can’t and don’t work on the train.wallace_and_gromit said:
The original planning / justification for what was named HS2 was apparently capacity. But when the politicians got involved, they wanted it to sound more sexy, so the decision was taken to sell the concept to the public based on speed. Who isn’t impressed by the thought of British trains speeding British workers through British countryside at 400kph? Whereas who is impressed by addressing bottlenecks on existing lines? Rhetorical questions both, obviously.surrey_commuter said:
why don't you consider that you have been mugged off by a retro fitted capacity argument?rick_chasey said:
It's almost pointless discussing this with you when you won't consider **capacity**.surrey_commuter said:
that is one factor but speccing it to run trains at 240mph seems to be a bigger one.rick_chasey said:Was reading that apparently a lot of the extra costs that have spiralled for HS2 have come from Tory MPs in the Chilterns who are demanding a lot more tunnels to protect views etc.
It seems poignant that the original budget was £33bn to build the Y shaped high speed line yet they have already spent that and need to spend the same again to get it completed from the Scrubs to Brum.
At £33bn it was a marginal call on a ROI basis so my theory is that the interested parties blagged a low number on the basis they would spend hard and fast so that it was uncancellable.
Ignore the sunk costs and ask yourself whether at east £30bn is worth it to build a railway from west london to Brum, a journey so short that the trains will only reach top speed for 7 mins until they have to start slowing down again.
UK rails are used vastly more than pretty much any other railway in the the developed world. 70% of all delays are in some part down to congestion.
Every f*cking day there's a signalling problem or a points failure. It's almost certainly in part because they're used so much, way beyond design.
But no, let's wang on about how speed is the problem.
It's 2023, of course you need a f*cking fast train. Trains are unbearably slow in this country.
The millions of hours wasted by this godawful transport system.
why did they design and build it to world beating specs so trains could run fast if it was all about capacity?
Given the voters dislike / distrust of expensive projects given years of late, over-budget projects that taxpayers bail out, a further decision was taken to factor in the time savings from faster journeys as additional economic benefits. All those saved 40 minutes between London and Leeds soon add up.
This started to unravel when it was highlighted that most folk travelling on the proposed hs2 routes work on the train already, so saving 40 minutes here and there isn’t much of an issue. I can only assume that those who took the decision to rely on the economic benefits of saved time are high-ranking wasters who don’t work on their train journeys, but that’s by the by.
So the argument then reverted to “it’s about capacity, not speed”.
I certainly can’t and a quick glance around the carriage this morning I’d put the proportion of people working as around 1/100 -
Will it be a rail version of the M6 toll road?surrey_commuter said:
surely a more pertinent question is how big a premium would people pay to save a bit of time?rick_chasey said:
Sure, but I'm sceptical 40% of people ware ok with longer train journeys because they're working on them anyway.shirley_basso said:
Commuter train is more tricky but travelling long distance in first class, work is easy enough.rick_chasey said:Exactly. And privacy screens only work if everyone is sitting down. Anyone standing up can see exactly what you're doing over your shoulder.
I'm not sure if there have been any discussions over fares relative to the current routes. I assume it will be more expensive but also that it would be more like Eurostar where all trains require a seat reservation so at least you know you aren't spending the journey standing with your nose in someone's armpit.0 -
Unsure whether to laugh or cry at that comment0
-
Good news for Rick, there are plans afoot to connect Cambridge via rail to... Milton Keynes...
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-66937239- Genesis Croix de Fer
- Dolan Tuono0 -
Judging by the house prices, about £50k per half hour over 1hr to London.surrey_commuter said:
surely a more pertinent question is how big a premium would people pay to save a bit of time?rick_chasey said:
Sure, but I'm sceptical 40% of people ware ok with longer train journeys because they're working on them anyway.shirley_basso said:
Commuter train is more tricky but travelling long distance in first class, work is easy enough.rick_chasey said:Exactly. And privacy screens only work if everyone is sitting down. Anyone standing up can see exactly what you're doing over your shoulder.
0 -
Bad news within that report though...pangolin said:Good news for Rick, there are plans afoot to connect Cambridge via rail to... Milton Keynes...
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-66937239
"But with capital spending squeezed, all major transport projects are now being carefully scrutinised."The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
I am not sure. You have no chance.Veronese68 wrote:PB is the most sensible person on here.0 -
It's pretty good actually. They'll build a "Cambridge South" station too.pblakeney said:
Bad news within that report though...pangolin said:Good news for Rick, there are plans afoot to connect Cambridge via rail to... Milton Keynes...
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-66937239
"But with capital spending squeezed, all major transport projects are now being carefully scrutinised."0 -
Won't that be yet another stop to slow your journey with passengers using the station being left waiting for cancelled services though.rick_chasey said:
It's pretty good actually. They'll build a "Cambridge South" station too.pblakeney said:
Bad news within that report though...pangolin said:Good news for Rick, there are plans afoot to connect Cambridge via rail to... Milton Keynes...
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-66937239
"But with capital spending squeezed, all major transport projects are now being carefully scrutinised."0 -
I'm unlikely to be where I am now by the time that's built.Pross said:
Won't that be yet another stop to slow your journey with passengers using the station being left waiting for cancelled services though.rick_chasey said:
It's pretty good actually. They'll build a "Cambridge South" station too.pblakeney said:
Bad news within that report though...pangolin said:Good news for Rick, there are plans afoot to connect Cambridge via rail to... Milton Keynes...
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-66937239
"But with capital spending squeezed, all major transport projects are now being carefully scrutinised."0 -
They have, they will, or it's being scrutinised and may not happen at all?rick_chasey said:
It's pretty good actually. They'll build a "Cambridge South" station too.pblakeney said:
Bad news within that report though...pangolin said:Good news for Rick, there are plans afoot to connect Cambridge via rail to... Milton Keynes...
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-66937239
"But with capital spending squeezed, all major transport projects are now being carefully scrutinised."The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
I am not sure. You have no chance.Veronese68 wrote:PB is the most sensible person on here.0 -
The Javelin that runs on HS1 definitely charges more, it only works if the final stop is handy for where you are based, if not you hand back your times savings.Pross said:
Will it be a rail version of the M6 toll road?surrey_commuter said:
surely a more pertinent question is how big a premium would people pay to save a bit of time?rick_chasey said:
Sure, but I'm sceptical 40% of people ware ok with longer train journeys because they're working on them anyway.shirley_basso said:
Commuter train is more tricky but travelling long distance in first class, work is easy enough.rick_chasey said:Exactly. And privacy screens only work if everyone is sitting down. Anyone standing up can see exactly what you're doing over your shoulder.
I'm not sure if there have been any discussions over fares relative to the current routes. I assume it will be more expensive but also that it would be more like Eurostar where all trains require a seat reservation so at least you know you aren't spending the journey standing with your nose in someone's armpit.0 -
Great for day trips to the seaside. Also pretty cheap.surrey_commuter said:
The Javelin that runs on HS1 definitely charges more, it only works if the final stop is handy for where you are based, if not you hand back your times savings.Pross said:
Will it be a rail version of the M6 toll road?surrey_commuter said:
surely a more pertinent question is how big a premium would people pay to save a bit of time?rick_chasey said:
Sure, but I'm sceptical 40% of people ware ok with longer train journeys because they're working on them anyway.shirley_basso said:
Commuter train is more tricky but travelling long distance in first class, work is easy enough.rick_chasey said:Exactly. And privacy screens only work if everyone is sitting down. Anyone standing up can see exactly what you're doing over your shoulder.
I'm not sure if there have been any discussions over fares relative to the current routes. I assume it will be more expensive but also that it would be more like Eurostar where all trains require a seat reservation so at least you know you aren't spending the journey standing with your nose in someone's armpit.0 -
That's the plan.pblakeney said:
They have, they will, or it's being scrutinised and may not happen at all?rick_chasey said:
It's pretty good actually. They'll build a "Cambridge South" station too.pblakeney said:
Bad news within that report though...pangolin said:Good news for Rick, there are plans afoot to connect Cambridge via rail to... Milton Keynes...
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-66937239
"But with capital spending squeezed, all major transport projects are now being carefully scrutinised."
TBH, my bike rides are more or less a tour of villages who have signs up opposing the development, but what can ya do?
Crazy. It makes the place more attractive, not less.0
