A Decision Day For HS2?
HS2 is a project that I think will never be built.
I was listening to the debate on Radio 5 this morning about George Osborne’s £11. 5billion public pending cuts and one guy phoned in to question, why with the obvious need for cuts, we are going to spend £33billion on HS2.
There is so much opposition to HS2 amongst the Nimbys, that I suspect that at some time parliament will chicken out and vote the project down.
I have never heard so much opposition to a project, in my lifetime. But then the general public doesn’t want new railways, they want new roads on which to drive their gas-guzzlers.
I also think HS2 is probably going about things the wrong way, but as to what the right way is, I do not know.
But we do urgently need the following.
- More capacity on passenger trains from London to Manchester and onwards to Scotland. The case for Birmingham may be less important, especially, if services to Marylebone can be improved.
- More freight capacity through London and to the North, especially after London Gateway becomes fully operational.
- A rebuilt and more efficient Euston station.
The freight capacity cannot be increased without creating a substantial new railway.
It will be interesting to see the way that MPs vote.
Bacon Factory Curve Action
As the train to Woodbridge passed onto the East Suffolk Line, north of Ipswich station, it would appear that at last work is starting on creating the Bacon Factory or Ipswich North Curve to allow trains, and especially heavy freight ones, to pass to and from Felixstowe without reversing in Ipswich station.
Container Ships Are Getting Bigger
i always trawl the BBC’s web site in the morning to look for thought provoking articles. This one about the latest generation of container ships is fascinating. Describing the capacity of the ship it uses this paragraph.
Each will contain as much steel as eight Eiffel Towers and have a capacity equivalent to 18,000 20-foot containers (TEU).
If those containers were placed in Times Square in New York, they would rise above billboards, streetlights and some buildings.
Or, to put it another way, they would fill more than 30 trains, each a mile long and stacked two containers high. Inside those containers, you could fit 36,000 cars or 863 million tins of baked beans.
It also talks about the knock-on effects of such large ships for ports.
Ship owners also want vessels to be unloaded and loaded within 24 hours, which has various knock-on effects. More space is needed to store the containers in the harbour, and onward connections by road, rail and ship need to be strengthened to cope with the huge surge in traffic.
Felixstowe, which handles 42% of the UK’s container trade, has 58 train movements a day, but plans to double that after it opens a third rail terminal later this year.
Have we got the capacity on the railways to move that large number of boxes?
No!
The next big complaint from the public, will be the noise of freight trains rumbling through their neighbourhood at all hours of the day. The standard freight engines, the Class 66, are not the quietest of beasts.
So for a start, all of the freight routes, like Felixstowe to Nuneaton and Gospel Oak to Barking must be electrified.
But that will only be a stop-gap and we need to put in new lines to the north of the United Kingdom. At least HS2, if it is to be built will be a start.
Railways In Afghanistan
In Modern Railways this month, there is an informative article about how they are starting to build railways from scratch in that trouble country.
Apparently, they never developed a railway system, like neighbouring countries, and only now, with the need to remove vast amounts of natural resources around and out of the country, that the railways are being proposed.
It is a daunting task, made worse by the mountainous terrain and the fact that surrounding countries have a variety of different gauges.
Let’s hope the engineers succeed in their aims, as it might bring some wealth, prosperity and freedom to the country. There is a Wikipedia article, which gives more details.
A Row In Radlett
There is the mother of all battles starting in Radlett about a proposed road and rail freight depot.
Underlying all of this is the need for suitable sites for this close to the M25 to satisfy London’s freight transport needs. and of course there are few sites available.
But then London has a serious freight problem and short of forcibly moving half the population out, you will not cut the amount of freight going into the City.
So there will be pain somewhere!
The Real Arguments For HS2 Start Now!
The government has announced the route of HS2 this morning, as is detailed in this article on the BBC.
There is going to be masses of opposition.
In fact, I think that the amount of opposition is such, that the line will not get built. certainly, as I look forward at 65, I doubt I’ll ever see it.
Let’s face it, if you had a referendum, which asked if we wanted a high speed rail or more motorways, the man stuck in the jam on the M1 would vote for the roads.
HS2 also doesn’t help our biggest transport problem of the next twenty years. Or at least not directly! How do we get all the freight containers, to and from the major ports like Southampton, Felixstowe and Thames Haven? It deals with them indirectly, by making more paths available on the classic lines to the North and Scotland, especially if a few strategic freight by-passes are built and lines like Ipswich to Nuneaton are electrified.
There also seems to be a lots of opponents saying that London and the South East will be the biggest beneficiary. So perhaps we should built it from Birmingham to Scotland? Or at least that should be the first phase to open!
There is the classic opportunity here for a political party to fight an election on an anti-HS2 platform. I don’t think, any of the three major parties would do this, but who’s to say, some smaller party wouldn’t? After all, UKIP has said no to the project in this article on its web site.
Something Concrete About Cycle Safety
I was waiting for a bus, when I heard a voice repeating.
This lorry is turning left.
It turned out it was a recorded message on this cement lorry.
Something Concrete About Cycle Safety
I think it could be a good idea. Except for deaf cyclists.
Another Ipswich First
Ipswich is now believed to have the first Development Consent Order to come into force. This will allow the construction of the Ipswich Chord to take freight trains directly from the Felixstowe Branch towards Peterborough.
It doesn’t seem that the good burghers of Ipswich are bothered and that no badger-toed newts have been found on the site. But then they know a good thing when they see it. I suppose the only objectors could be truck drivers, as the scheme will cut a lot of road journeys.
The Rail Bridge At Primrose Hill
These pictures show the rail bridge at Primrose Hill.
It is now pedestrianised, but it wasn’t in 1970, when I used to walk across it twice to get to and from work.
There may well be development here, as some plans would mean adding the former Primrose Hill station, which used to be under this bridge, to a rerouted North London line. Wikipedia says this.
It has been proposed to re-open Primrose Hill station by bringing the short stretch of line between South Hampstead and Camden Road stations back into the regular passenger service by incorporating it into the London Overground network.
From this passenger’s point-of-view, it would be a good thing, but it is only part of a bigger plan, that might be needed to get the freight through London.
The Anonymous Widower 