[MISQUOTE]North is North and South is South, and ne'er the twain shall meet.[/MISQUOTE]
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Diesel Under The Wires?
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[MISQUOTE]North is North and South is South, and ne'er the twain shall meet.[/MISQUOTE]
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LE Grays I agree with you regarding mark IV's but I guess we are where we are and the only thing that'll solve that is the wholesale replacement of classic line intercity stock that I'm sure will be happening in the not too distant future if the latest hot air from government departments is to be believed!
Also the speeds on the Midland and Great Western I believe won't really be addressed because if you look at the 'Y' shaped network it will mean the number of services serving Sheffield will reduce and many trains will terminate at Nottingham. This would suggest to be an Intercity service with relatively short distance to London as on the Anglia route. This sort of diminishes the idea of spending vast sums to speed it up anymore as I guess it will be seen that it should be an efficient but not necessarily fast service to London from Nottingham.
The Great Western, nows there's a problem!! The only way it'll ever get any quicker is a high speed line. Electrification and ERTMS would help things if the whole Great Western was electrified but call me a sceptic but I don't think it will be. This means we'll have all those diesels pouring onto it still from Stratford and Hereford as well as Cheltenham and Plymouth meaning electrification in itself won't help speeds at all! It will take a rolling electrification programme as well as a high speed line which will also mean cross country future trains utilising the wires for the duration of journeys.
Trains to Plymouth however will never get any faster in my opinion and no country that faced the geographical constraints would do any better than us in this respect. All the Devon coast area is hopeless for electrification and I doubt locals will want a new line drilled through Devon somehow!
Also the speeds on the Midland and Great Western I believe won't really be addressed because if you look at the 'Y' shaped network it will mean the number of services serving Sheffield will reduce and many trains will terminate at Nottingham. This would suggest to be an Intercity service with relatively short distance to London as on the Anglia route. This sort of diminishes the idea of spending vast sums to speed it up anymore as I guess it will be seen that it should be an efficient but not necessarily fast service to London from Nottingham.
The Great Western, nows there's a problem!! The only way it'll ever get any quicker is a high speed line. Electrification and ERTMS would help things if the whole Great Western was electrified but call me a sceptic but I don't think it will be. This means we'll have all those diesels pouring onto it still from Stratford and Hereford as well as Cheltenham and Plymouth meaning electrification in itself won't help speeds at all! It will take a rolling electrification programme as well as a high speed line which will also mean cross country future trains utilising the wires for the duration of journeys.
Trains to Plymouth however will never get any faster in my opinion and no country that faced the geographical constraints would do any better than us in this respect. All the Devon coast area is hopeless for electrification and I doubt locals will want a new line drilled through Devon somehow!
TGV
Member
State your source. While I agree with your point that Hull doesn't qualify in those terms, the order of population of UK conurbations according to the ONS (Office of National Statistics) are:
1 - Greater London
2 - Birmingham + West Midlands
3 - Greater Manchester
4 - West Yorkshire (Leeds, Bradford, Halifax etc)
5 - Glasgow
6 - Tyneside (Newcastle, Gateshead, South Shields - NOT Sunderland)
7 - Liverpool
8 - Nottingham
9 - Sheffield
10 - Bristol
To illustrate your point though, Hull is on the list at only 24th below Southampton and Reading.
This list is purely the number of people - it does not take into account the financial clout of these areas - in which case Edinburgh would be right up there, but as you say, Hull still wouldn't.
But assuming that railways generally run the most trains to destinations where there are most people, the above list gives the best indication of a "Major" destination.
starrymarkb
Established Member
Wiring the Sea Wall isn't a problem - 50kV insulation as used at Saltcoats (which is a more exposed coast then Dawlish - the main problem with Dawlish is the soft Sandstone is easily eroded)
You're right in terms of financial clout then Edinburgh would be 2nd or 3rd depending on how you measure it. The list above doesn't differ hugely from what we use to study urban economics and settlements (which come from the school of the built environment and our own masters studies using many different data sets and sources and a lot of hard work!) However, the ONS only will give you figures for the official boundaries which is what you have quoted there. Sunderland is part of the Newcastle suburbs and economic area. Also the West Midlands is not the whole of the Birmingham economic area as it extends well beyond the West Midlands Boundary. The urban land use area will show that Manchester's population and Birminghams' are more or less the same at around 3.9 - 4 million people. However, because Manchester has a larger labour pool around it with more universities and access to talent, it [Manchester] for now holds 2nd position unless it's population grows and its CBD attracts more business. The GDP of Manchester currently shows higher figures too. The annual survey of global business from PWC Partners rates Manchester ahead of Birmingham for where larger business would most likely set-up in the UK outside London.
You will also see the ONS state London's population at 7.75 to 8 million as of 2009 when the real figure for the urban land surrounding and running into London gives a population figure closer to 15 - 15.3 million centred on London's central business district with a gap of 6 miles or so separating London from another 2.4million mentropolitan area on the south coast stretching for some 100miles or so. The ONS will not tell you this as it's urban economics and geography is not what they do. They deal with 1940's boundaries that are irrelevant! If you have a look at the DEFRA site for urban land use that shows it quite clearly (google it as for some reason I can't attach it as a link)
starrymarkb
Established Member
Tony Miles is reporting that IEPlite will be 5 car Bi sets on the GW and EC with pure Electric 5 cars on EC in addition
I hope they are not considering running Paddington to Plymouth and Pezance trains as 5 car units. Do we want Voyager style overcrowding all over again?
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scotsman
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The 0700 was my first taste of 125mph running (school trip to London) and sadly it is no more. A HST now works the 0730 instead. I'm not surprised since the HST spent 1151 (usually approx1145) - 1400 sat doing nothing in KGX.
Well, they've drilled a single 26 mile tunnel under the Alps to make a higher speed route, as they felt the already massively long tunnel wasn't good enough. If you chucked enough money at it you could probably lop over 50% off the Plymouth-Penzance, and maybe 30% off London-Plymouth
scotsman
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Given the content of sea water (salty, to say the least), it is effectively an insulator itself.
starrymarkb
Established Member
With the Alps it was the Gradients that didn't help - the Lotschberg ramps to the Old Tunnel were 15ish miles averaging about 1 in 60 with trains reaching 5000ft. The views were spectacular as the trains descended into the Rohne valley in places with 2000ft drops next to the line!
Mind you the Gotthard Tunnel is going to be twice as long when finished!
I'm not sure the loading guage in the Dawlish tunnels would allow for electrification.
Old Timer
Established Member
Sorry not correct. "Manchester" as you describe it is actually Manchester and Salford.
The City of Salford starting immediately to the north of Manchester "city centre".
The Greater Manchester area is made up of 10 very individual Boroughs who guard their identity very carefully and will be greatly offended to be referred to as Mancunian.
Manchester by population is 420,000 compared to Birmingham's 920,000.
Greater Manchester remains ranked 3rd after the West Midlands.
TGV
Member
I noticed in the ONS statistics (this is kinda digressing...), that it talked of "Greater London", "Greater Manchester", and so on - indicating as we know that it's not strictly the unitary region known as a single city. However Glasgow stood alone by itself as a proper city in it's own right on the list. In other words, they didn't include Paisley, Motherwell, Hamilton, etc... as "Greater Glasgow".
Precisely my point so you can see why we get annoyed because these places don't exist on their own. They are simply suburbs of a much larger place in economic terms and when you're trying to market a city and it's 'pull' factors, lopping off half the population when it is blatently part of Glasgow whether people feel it or not because of an historic link.
You hit the nail on the head perfectly showing just how much of a city they leave out in these statistics. Also it is ONLY Britain where people think living in Salford is a different place to Manchester! No-one from any other country would measure our cities as seperate places whe the dominant centre swallowed them up ages ago making the lesser city de facto part of the bigger one and dominant business district!
The Paris urban area covers a wider area than the City of Paris itself. It should also be noted that many people living within Greater London at places like Ilford and Romford still insist they are in Essex and not London.
Old Timer, you're very wrong here and hopelessly out of date I'm afraid. We do this this as a career and Manchester is a sum of ALL it's old seperate places. Manchester is the dominant and only real central business district in the whole northwest when you're talking global economics and city measuring. A city is different to a metropolitan area and this needs to be made clear. Manchester's metropolitan area (that is the urban land area that runs into the centre that relies on it for prosperity and activity) is about 4 million and stretches from much of the northwest. This area is also much bigger than the Greater Manchester map.
The same is true of the west Midlands; population around 4 million and the dominant CBD is Birmingham where most economic activity resides. When people from Europe come here on business they refer to Birmingham as the whole metro area, not just the old boundary populations which is what you're referring to. Only people in Britain refer to old boundaries and think of themselves as separate which is fine, but not how cities are defined anymore. If one centre is dominant over all the others and most people travel to that centre for work, then the old city that would have been separate becomes no more than a suburb and therefore is subsumed into the bigger city and will be measured as such by anyone from overseas.
Regardless of what locals would think, no-one from any country in the world would see Salford as a separate city to manchester; it lost out years ago and is now part of Manchester, Greater Manchester and de facto part of it in every way.
If you want more info I'll be happy to supply it but I think we've digressed enough on this thread! You can mail me though and I'll be happy to offer more.
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True, localism is great but there are also those that feel every bit part of London (as they are). I think those people that think they're not miss the point of what a suburb actually is, which is where so much confusion is thrown up. These places would not be places on their own. They only exist because of the whole metropolitan area of London which gives us our jobs, salaries and everything else, without it our world here in the southeast would look very different!
Lampshade
Established Member
Salford is a city in its own right. Stalybridge for example is not in Manchester, but in Tameside; Old Trafford is not in Manchester, but in Trafford. 'Manchester' just refers to a general area, like saying you're from 'London' when you're from Staines etc.
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The City of London itself is a very small area and not actually part of Greater London. Westminster is also a city in its own right but I doubt anyone would claim Westminster is not in London. Greater London itself does not have city status but the 32 boroughs plus the City of London are known as London.
Lampshade
Established Member
Urgh, Greater Manchester as a county is defunct, it's a ceremonial name applied to the ten unitary authority districts that made up the metropolitan county of Greater Manchester until 1986, when GM County Council was abolished. The name 'Greater Manchester' only applies to bodies such as Fire, Police, refuse collection and transport (hence GMPTE). Look at any modern map, the name 'Greater Manchester' does not appear anywhere on it.
Salford is a city in its own right. Stalybridge for example is not in Manchester, but in Tameside; Old Trafford is not in Manchester, but in Trafford. 'Manchester' just refers to a general area, like saying you're from 'London' when you're from Staines etc.
Salford is a city in its own right. Stalybridge for example is not in Manchester, but in Tameside; Old Trafford is not in Manchester, but in Trafford. 'Manchester' just refers to a general area, like saying you're from 'London' when you're from Staines etc.
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It all depends on your view of the world as a local. All the places you mention of Manchester or the 'Northwest Metropolitan Area' are I'm afraid a product of Manchester's central business district and so you cannot separate them from Manchester's central business district activity. They would not exist in their own right with the same buildings, restaurants, pubs, people that live there, demographic, sociological activity, commercial activity without Manchester's CBD but the same would not be true if it were the other way round. Cities and urban areas are now measured like this in de facto terms. If you are not self sustaining and rely on another CBD for work mostly, or benefit from the activity that CBD brings, then you are a product of the larger CBD. If you are all of those things mentioned AND you are connected to the CBD via urban land use you become part of the CBD's place name when measuring cities/urban areas in urban economic terms and that's just the way modern cities are measured.
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Staines is not in the London boroughs but all who live there again only have their environment, products and services because of the rest of London. Staines is also by any measure part of the London urban area and the European Unions measure of London in the EU wide definition 'LUZ'. If you look up LUZ you will find this definition and you will find it in the global ESPON project for measuring metropolitan area.
Heat maps are an excellent way of showing the extent of the urban area of a city or the metropolitan area of a region. Have a look at the link:
http://chp.decc.gov.uk/heatmap/
Lampshade
Established Member
That's the biggest load of drivel I've ever read. By that measure most of Lancashire should be considered part of Preston (Central Lancs new town is irrelevant, Leyland isn't much more than a village and Chorley is, well... Chorley). I highly doubt places like Whitehaven depend on Carlisle.
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With respect my post is fact. That's the way cities are measured globally in urban studies. Whether you like it or not doesn't actually matter.
Whitehaven isn't right next to Carlisle so whether it depended on it or not it would never be considered part of Carlisle which shows you've MISREAD my post.
Preston would not have many of the industries that are there if it weren't for Manchester back office operations; fact. Most of Lancashire for PROFESSIONAL SERVICES relies on Manchester and this is bourne out by the commuting patterns.
Most of Lancs would be considered economically and by those looking to invest from abroad as a labour market MOSTLY of Manchester, yes. Chorley itself would be considered part of the Northwest Metropolitan Area dominated by Manchesters commercial hub. This in turn provides investors with reasons to invest. When they invest in Lancashire, it's not because of dozens of small nothing places that are linked together, it's because those dozens of nothing places are connected to Manchester's economy and built up area and the educated labour pool that eminated from there. This creates jobs, jobs create further housing in Lancashire and then you'll have great problems trying say that somewhere like Bolton and its now lifestyle is because of anything more than being a suburb of Manchester's business district.
Like I say I'm not asking you to like it, I'm just saying that's how cities are measured. If you did use your measure against that of the academic and financial world then no place would have a suburb!!!! I think you need to understand what a suburb is.
TGV
Member
As a totally un-scientific measure, I tend to think of anything inside the M25 as "London"!
I know there are probably hundreds of people who will jump on that statement but I'm not saying it's a fact - it's just how I perceive "London" as the built up bit inside the M25.
My point was that the ONS looked at Metropolitan areas for Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds and Newcastle, but treated Glasgow as a single entity and did NOT include Paisley, Motherwell, Hamilton etc... They must have had a reason for that - the ONS aren't exactly an amateur organisation. Had they done so, it may have come above Manchester. Treating them ALL as single entities without Metro areas, then London would be first followed by B'ham, Glasgow, Manchester then Leeds.
I know there are probably hundreds of people who will jump on that statement but I'm not saying it's a fact - it's just how I perceive "London" as the built up bit inside the M25.
My point was that the ONS looked at Metropolitan areas for Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds and Newcastle, but treated Glasgow as a single entity and did NOT include Paisley, Motherwell, Hamilton etc... They must have had a reason for that - the ONS aren't exactly an amateur organisation. Had they done so, it may have come above Manchester. Treating them ALL as single entities without Metro areas, then London would be first followed by B'ham, Glasgow, Manchester then Leeds.
Your version of London is what many people think too. And to back up your point a recent urban studies survey was carried out and even reported on the BBC that people in Watford consider themselves as 'Londoners'. So that just goes to show how out of date our boundaries are!
Like you say though, the ONS did not iclude those places in the Glasgow metro area when they are and act like suburbs. Their existence isn't there as destinations in their own right; they're very small businesses and houses for people working and making their living and using services irreversibly linked with Glasgow. ONS are not geographers and do use traditional boundaries of one sort or another in their figures. Like I say I'm always amused at the small population figure they give for London and her 'suburbs' at now 7.75 million ignoring even Chigwell and Loughton as well as Watford and Oxshott etc that are part of London's organism. Who's house are you going to cut through in that case to say 'London stops there'?!! This is why we study the urban land area and the extent of the suburbs which gives a much clearer picture of where people work and then where they live. If their suburbs have formed because of a 'factor of production' or in other words because of the central business district they work in and the built up area is attached to it then they are certainly not places in their own right that would exist or survive with the same income levels they do otherwise.
p.s you're right about London; like I say have a look at the urban heat map and that gives a very clear correlation between built up urban land area and dominant central business districts. People seem to forget here that London's boroughs exist because of the same type of study and all we're saying here is that London has got much bigger since and now encompasses other places that it did not in 1940!
Old Timer
Established Member
I think other posters have made many of the points I would have done.
It is the normal convention for the basis of statistics to be made clear when quoting them. As far as the UK and the Government are concerned, and indeed the EU I believe, as well as many other International organisations, there is a clear definition of what the boundaries of the various UK cities/urban areas are.
It was not totally clear what degree of acceptance has been given to your definitions by organisations and bodies outside your own sphere of influence. It would have been helpful if you had made that point clear, as referrring to "Cities" will direct people to look at what is determined as being the boundaries of the City in question. To dismiss me (and by definition both the UK Goverment and the EU) as being wrong for using the established definitions and boundaries does seem rather patronising, especially when the EU treats Manchester as part of the North West Region.
I note incidentally that the EU map indicates little difference in the geographical size of Manchester compared to Salford.
I find it rather sad, and a degree arrogant to dismiss the citizens of Salford in the manner that you do, and am disappointed at the apparent lack of the sensitivity to the feelings of the people who live within areas that you class as Manchester or Birmingham- and who will find that patronising and offensive to their own identity.
I note too that Salford had a population of 218,000 in 2006 whereas Manchester only had a population of 1,689. The definition of the Cities is as defined by the Local Government Act 1972. That Manchester exists as a mian centre to the cost of Salford is a matter of accidental history and perhaps the result even of location of the main railway station.
If your intent has been to prove some sort of academic superiority then I suggest you have been very successful, as there is much of that which comes across in your manner and way of addressing people. I doubt this had won you many friends however.
Anyway notwithstanding the above, this is neither a subject I am qualified to argue with an academic, nor one that particularly interests me in any case. Accordingly I shall now go to breakfast and bale out of the debate as I do not have the desire to enter into a long semantic debate.
brompton rail
Member
Eh?
What has this to do with "Diesels under the Wires?"
What has this to do with "Diesels under the Wires?"
As we often seem to do on RailUK we've wanderd some considerable distance from the original topic 
Still interesting though
Still interesting though
It was certainly not my intention to dismiss localist feelings of identity attached to history as I think that gives us some of our many charms as a nation. Salford geographically in place was separate, but now de facto Manchester in most people's eyes. I can offer you sources that are publicly available studies: ESPON, the EU's LUZ, Demographia (2001 statistics) areas which all don't separate Salford for example. Suburbs by their very nature have in Europe been separate places before but are no longer considered so because they are no longer economically self-sustaining. That doesn't mean people should ignore their identity in place.
I agree with you it doesn't win many friends but Britains do have a funny way of wanting to belong to a small place than a big place any herein lies the culture in some of Britain, different to that from the rest of the globe. Here some people will consider places in the Manchester metropolitan area separate from it even if economically and built up wise, they are not but in most other countries they would not dream of being in the middle of a built up/metropolitan area and considering themselves separate from the main CBD which supports life there. It's a very British phenomenon.
Anyway it's all academic; many will feel what they want because of historic reasons. It's a bit like what the English call a City. It used to have to have a cathedral but no more. If some of these places were wanting to be called a city today they'd have no chance given their population! I think of it more like foreigners do only in this instance and that is....quaint! However, like you say and I agree with you, it is all semantic debate.
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As we often seem to do on RailUK we've wanderd some considerable distance from the original topic
Still interesting though
Yes, apologies! Let's get back to railways!
Mainliner
Member
I caught the 2000 Kings Cross-Newcastle last night (first time I have used the 2000 on a Sunday), and wondered why it was an HST. Is this normal for the 2000 on a Sunday, or might there have been a particular reason?
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