Reasons To Go Virgin Or East Coast
I went up to the Commonwealth Games on the 08:30 Virgin out of Euston arriving on time at 13:01 give or take a minute or so.
The best thing about going Virgin before 09:00, is that you get a proper breakfast, which includes a gluten-free option. I had plenty of tea, some delicious scrambled egg and smoked salmon and a glass of juice.
I didn’t get my gluten-free roll though!
As I was meeting someone in Glasgow, who’d come through from Edinburgh, I could have gone up with East Coast and then across to Glasgow with her.
But it would have meant an earlier start and I had to see the builders.
I think it’s true to say that if you’re going to Glasgow or Edinburgh from London, it’s probably better to go direct. But even so, the distance between the two big Scottish cities isn’t great, with the fastest trains taking between fifty minutes and an hour.
So as Virgin run twenty trains a day up the West Coast and East Coast run eighteen and the fastest trains take about the same four hours sand a bit, it’s very much a case of you pays your money and takes your choice.
The trains are different with Virgin running tilting Class 390 trains and non-tiliting diesel InterCity 125 and electric Inter City 225 trains. My preference is for the non-tilting trains.
The only certain thing is that in the next few years, train routes between England and Glasgow and Edinburgh will gain more capacity and will get faster.
As an example, over the last year, Transpennine Express has introduced new faster Class 350 electric trains to and from Manchester. I thought I heard several northern families in Glasgow, who looked like day trippers up for the Games.
A Transpennine Class 350 In Glasgow
So is this illustrative of how fast, comfortable, high-capacity railways change our lives?
The biggest changed will be Network Rail moving to in-cab signalling, which will allow running over 200 kph on both the West and East Coast Main Lines. This could bring the journey time from London to Scotland much closer to the magic four hours, using the current trains.
When I went to Edinburgh recently by easyJet, security problems meant that I took five and a half hour from my home to Edinburgh city centre. So a four hour journey will be fast enough to give the planes a run for their money. But not everybody goes between London and the major Scottish cities and possibly the biggest beneficiaries of a faster service will be those who have easy access to intermediate stations like York, Peterborough, Preston and Carlisle.
The biggest problem will be track and train capacity on the East and West Coast routes. On the West Coast, there will probably be a further increase in the Class 390 fleet and on the East Coast the Class 800 and 801 are coming.
As with so much on Britain’s railways, the elephant-in-the-room is freight, which is increasing substantially. So will we see extra routes and tracks opened up to held the freight through, just like we have with the GNGE between Doncaster and Peterborough via Lincoln. Of course, we will!
Perhaps, in Scotland, we might even see the return of freight to a Waverley line extended to Carlisle.
Then there is the Edinburgh Glasgow Improvement Program, a project that seems to have lost its way a bit recently. But the main aim of getting about a dozen services every hour between Edinburgh and Glasgow, with some taking just over half-an-hour must be a goal for Scotland.
The Scottish Team’s Uniform For The Commonwealth Games
It looks like they’ll be OK if the weather’s cold and wet.
Where’s Carole, the Scottish weathergirl on BBC Breakfast, when you need her forthright views?
This report is from the Scotsman. Here’s a paragraph.
Comments on Twitter compare the outfits to “a pair of curtains” or “something a 70s dance troupe would wear”. Some people did voice their support for the designs but the majority of the reaction poked fun at them.
I will not add further comment, except that I hope their warm-looking design doesn’t mean that the designer knows the Games will be held in bad weather.
A Worry For Scottish Fund Managers
I had lunch with an intelligent lady yesterday and the subject of Scottish devolution came up.
She said that she had money invested with Scottish Funds and would be moving the money to London before the devolution referendum.
So how much sensible money will be removed from North of the Border?
I certainly wouldn’t allow any of my money to be managed outside of the country in which I live. I moved my pension away from a company controlled by the Bank of Santander for just that reason.
Several of my friends have lost savings and their pension over the last few years. I wouldn’t put all or any part of my money in an overseas basket!
The Consequences Of A Yes Vote For Scottish Independence
I don’t care one way or another, if Scotland votes for independence or not, as I don’t think it would affect me much at all, if the decision was made for all time. Nothing would be worse than continuous referenda every two years or so.
But I’ve just read an article in Modern Railways, by their respected columnist; Alan Williams, in which he details some of the problems we might see in the event of Scotland voting for independence.
He suggests that after Sottish Independence, England and Wales might decide to adopt Central European Time, as most of the opposition is in Scotland. So if Scotland was to stay on the current time, we’d have the problem of running connected businesses like trains and power networks. I know we do it successfully with the French, but we’ve not changed our time relationship with the French for some decades.
Now this is just one of several problems he flags up with the railway industry.
How many other problems will arise in splitting other industries and utilities?
It’s not my set of problems, but it would be a rich vein for critics and comedians.
Porridge For Those On An Extreme Diet
I bought this pot of Nairn’s porridge in Waitrose at Canary Wharf
Porridge For Those On An Extreme Diet
Is it for those on extreme diets or is it a taste of what the English will get out of Scottish independence?
The Big Disadvantage Of The New Borders Railway
The Borders Railway which is Scotland’s new rail line from Edinburgh to the borders, is progressing well according to an article in Modern Railways.
Speaking of the new terminal station at Tweedbank, the article ends with this sentence.
It will have platforms of sufficient length to accommodate charter trains and thus give Borders tourism a welcome boost.
Do the locals really want more tourists from Edinburgh?
Should Scottish Islands Be Given More Independence?
The BBC this morning is running a report about more independence from Scotland and the rest of the UK.
Scottish Secretary Alistair Carmichael has promised to deliver greater powers for the Northern and Western Isles.
The Orkney and Shetland MP said government from Edinburgh had been “just as bad and just as dangerous” for the islands “as it is from London.”
He hopes to deliver “genuine and long lasting reform,” and said an agreement should be in place by midsummer.
Why not?
It could be argued that a greater degree of independence hasn’t done the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands any harm!
But if we look at giving this independence to any area of the UK, giving them control of their strengths and natural resources and such things as infrastructure, education and planning could only be positive.
I probably know most about infrastructure and especially railways than anything else and if we look at Scotland and London, where transport policy has been partially devolved, we’ll see a lot more rail projects than say in the North East or South West, so I’ll look at one example.
If East Anglia had control of its transport, they would have probably dualled the A47, A11 and A140 by now and would be seriously thinking about improving the London to Norwich and the Peterborough to Ipswich rail lines. The latter is probably needed to be electrified, to enable Felixstowe to compete with the London Gateway.
This type of local control could only be good for an area.
But as I said in this article on Mayors, central government doesn’t like to give up power.
Would You Buy A Political Idea From This Man?
Gordon Brown is going to outline his ideas for better power sharing between London and Edinburgh. It’s all here on the BBC.
I doubt anybody will be listening!
I certainly won’t be, as he was one of the idiots, who saddled the UK with that useless bank, the Royal Bank of UK Taxpayers, for which we are all still paying.
It would have been so much cheaper to liquidate it and then pay everyone who lost out in taxpayers money. But that would have meant Labour losing all votes in Scotland!
Are Lawyers Going To Be The Biggest Beneficiaries Of The Scottish Independence Referendum?
In a front page story today, the Sunday Times says that a leading lawyer is going to mount a challenge under EU law, that expatriate Scots should be allowed a vote in the upcoming Scottish Referendum.
You can rest assured, that at the bottom of every big argument, there is a lawyer stirring the pot and trousering a few large fees.
It doesn’t affect me, as the only thing Scottish in my veins is the odd glass of Bells!
Will The Scottish Independence Referendum Settle Anything?
I’m from the Don’t Care Tendency on the Scottish Independence Referendum.
But after listening to the debate about who owns the oil in the North Sea, I worry about the result of the referendum!
I can’t believe that if the vote is No, that the Scottish Nationalists will accept it quietly for ever, judging by the passionate arguments they put forward this morning.
And if the answer is Yes, will those against prolong the argument as long as they can?
Either way, it doesn’t bode well for people like me, whose taxes go to finance all of the whims of politicians.
If there is a way, then there should be a gradual disintegration of the United Kingdom. Scotland, Wales and London have shown that it is not a bad idea to devolve powers to locally elected bodies.
But then it was suggested that the North East might like an Assembly and that was rejected.
Abraham Lincoln is supposed to have said.
You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.
Even with fool replaced by please, it’s probably pretty true and sums up why devolution is so difficult to get right.
The Anonymous Widower 