Controversial railway opinions (without a firm foundation in logic..)

[Krokodil]

The UK railways need to look at Deutsche Bahn as an example of how not to run a railway.

True for the most part, though Berlin Hbf should have been the model for New Street when the opportunity to acquire land from the Bullring was an option.

 

[Envy123]

Wasn't a station planned for Hampton and the land is still set aside for it by the developer? The issues are I think that the line really needs to be 4 tracks at this point for it to be workable and the local authority seem to think it is all nothing to do with them and Network Rail should be bringing forward the station project and funding it without any input from them.

Really? Interesting. I guess another issue is that such a station won’t ever be served by LNER, so my mother would still drive to the main station to avoid Thameslink.

 

[nlogax]

True for the most part, though Berlin Hbf should have been the model for New Street when the opportunity to acquire land from the Bullring was an option.

Firmly agree. Berlin Hbf should be the example to all for how to build a central through station for a large city. It's wonderful.

 

[Bletchleyite]

True for the most part, though Berlin Hbf should have been the model for New Street when the opportunity to acquire land from the Bullring was an option.

True for some part at the moment, certainly they have a lot to learn from us on punctuality. But we could learn about Takt and interior comfort from them.

 

[nw1]

Phase 1 CIG's were, by a country mile !

Of the four (early CIGs, late CIGs, VEPs and CEPs) these were the ones I used the least!

Mostly because none were ever allocated to South Western/SWT-land.

I did occasionally use them on Coastway services post-refurbishment, I seem to remember the seats were quite nice.

Of all of them, the ones I never used were unrefurbished CEPs - before my time!

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 22 Aug 2023 ==

And OA competition gets people out their cars more than the DfT using Intercity as a cash cow to cross subsidise basket cases.

Cars>public transport
9. British weather. Going out for the day in the car I have umbrellas in the boot, a coat and hoodie on the back seat etc etc Don’t want to be lugging that on the train, nor walking round my destination in clothing inappropriate for how the weather has turned out by the time I get there (and if it’s bad/overcrowded I can jump back in the car and go somewhere else). Plus having food and drink in the car, and maybe some kit in case I decide to grab a hotel and stay longer.

I guess you can always restrict your days out to days when the weather is fine, even if that means some weekends you have to stay home. Days out in dull, wet weather arguably aren't much fun anyway, even by car!

 

[LYuen]

True for some part at the moment, certainly they have a lot to learn from us on punctuality. But we could learn about Takt and interior comfort from them.

I agree that DB is in a disgraceful state, but I also think the S-Bahn is actually quite good.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I agree that DB is in a disgraceful state, but I also think the S-Bahn is actually quite good.

I think it's fair to say with DB that the concepts are all sound but the implementation is more than a little bit iffy.

 

[Silenos]

the GWR had it sort of right with their "xxxxxxx Road" naming convention. Any station more than a mile from the place its named for should have to have some sort of suffix to indicate its nowhere near

See also: ‘Parkway’

 

[Howardh]

There again Leeds bus station is where hardly anyone wants to go. They want to be in Briggate. And its a fair drag from the train station.
Some out of town services shun the bus station. Its easy to see why
(Transdev X98/99 to Wetherby and Arriva 444/446 to Wakefield via Rothwell)

Same as Preston, bizarre planning! Luckily my bus in Leeds is the 444/446 so I'm happy. Dunno if it's a controversial rail or bus topic, but bus stations should always be adjacent to rail ones. If not, then there should be a frequent free bus between them.

 

[yorksrob]

Same as Preston, bizarre planning! Luckily my bus in Leeds is the 444/446 so I'm happy. Dunno if it's a controversial rail or bus topic, but bus stations should always be adjacent to rail ones. If not, then there should be a frequent free bus between them.

The problem with these bloody buses is that they all finish too early for my train which gets into Leeds at 23:36.

The 444 would be smashing but the last one's at 23:18.

The 110 leaves at 23:45, but that only goes from the bus station, which is miles away from anywhere useful.

The last train to Wakie leaves about five minutes before I get in.

Evening connections back to Wakefield and the five towns are truly dire.

Those new stations at Kirkstall Forge and the other one don't help. They should run the Leeds - Forster Sq train all day instead of slowing up the late trains from the valley.

 

[Falcon1200]

And not that different from the Highways Agency concreting-in road bridges that cross potentially reinstatable lines, which continues to this day.

How many bridges have been concreted-in on lines with a realistic (as opposed to a railway enthusiast's pipe dream) prospect of re-instatement?

 

[Silenos]

How many bridges have been concreted-in on lines with a realistic (as opposed to a railway enthusiast's pipe dream) prospect of re-instatement?

Even if they aren’t reinstatable as railway lines they can often be reinstated as walking and cycle routes. Blocking the route with a ruddy great wall of concrete puts paid to any such use.

 

[Falcon1200]

Blocking the route with a ruddy great wall of concrete puts paid to any such use.

Actually, no it does not, at all, in fact it might provide additional access points to the line where none might otherwise exist; On a route I regularly cycle, Camphill in Paisley is one such example.

 

[HSTEd]

Even if they aren’t reinstatable as railway lines they can often be reinstated as walking and cycle routes. Blocking the route with a ruddy great wall of concrete puts paid to any such use.

Not really, given that both of those uses can cross roads on the flat. Especially since none of these roads are particularly busy.

 

[Silenos]

Not really, given that both of those uses can cross roads on the flat. Especially since none of these roads are particularly busy.

You obviously haven’t seen the way people drive our corpse-littered roads here in Norfolk.

 

[CaptainHaddock]

There's no convincing business case for reopening any former branch lines in the UK where the trackbed has since been built over with roads or housing.

 

[py_megapixel]

Crossrail / Elizabeth Line is incredibly overhyped - it's a decent enough system (now that they've finally managed to finish it), but on a worldwide level, it's really nothing special.

The trains/stations are of course very large, but I don't think they're not larger than you would expect a city as big and congested as London to need.
It connects the main airport to the heart of the city in 30-40 minutes, which is a big improvement, but that's more a reflection of how substandard Heathrow's previous connections were.
It connects suburban destinations into a central city centre corridor rather than kicking people off at termini, but that's hardly an original concept, even for the UK (see Merseyrail).
It has long, high-density trains with quick acceleration and lots of doors, but nothing really sets them apart from - for example - the long, high-density trains with quick acceleration and lots of doors that you'll find on S-bahn trains in almost any major German city.

And that's what Crossrail is: an S-bahn. Nothing more, nothing less. It's not a bad S-bahn by any stretch (despite inheriting some silly British idiosyncrasies, such as an aversion to route numbers), and full credit to the engineering teams for successfully getting it under a city centre which is already full of pipes, cables, not to mention other railways and their ancillary infrastructure - but it's not as miraculous as some would make it out to be.

And as a side-note, for such a modern system, I was really disappointed with the standard of passenger information on board the 345s. They have giant full-colour LCD screens, and yet they spend most of their time just showing black text on a white background. How about estimated journey times to the next few stations? A departures list for connecting services? Even just telling us what side the doors open on?

 

[PGAT]

Crossrail was the biggest rail construction project in Europe, is that not special enough for you? Although I do agree the passenger information is pretty mediocre (at best) on the 345s, especially the announcements

 

[CaptainHaddock]

Crossrail was the biggest rail construction project in Europe, is that not special enough for you? Although I do agree the passenger information is pretty mediocre (at best) on the 345s, especially the announcements

The money wasted on Crossrail would have been better spent on improving services in Northern England.

 

[PGAT]

The money wasted on Crossrail would have been better spent on improving services in Northern England.

God, not this again...

 

[eldomtom2]

Japanese railways are overrated in many regards - outside urban areas you're often dealing with ramshackle branch lines infrequently operated by ratty DMUs living under the threat of closure.

 

[Howardh]

The problem with these bloody buses is that they all finish too early for my train which gets into Leeds at 23:36.

The 444 would be smashing but the last one's at 23:18.

The 110 leaves at 23:45, but that only goes from the bus station, which is miles away from anywhere useful.

The last train to Wakie leaves about five minutes before I get in.

Evening connections back to Wakefield and the five towns are truly dire.

Those new stations at Kirkstall Forge and the other one don't help. They should run the Leeds - Forster Sq train all day instead of slowing up the late trains from the valley.

When Leeds gets it's trams....

 

[yorksrob]

When Leeds gets it's trams....

Would they even run any later ?

 

[Gigabit]

The mobile coverage is woefully inadequate and should have been sorted years ago.

 

[jayah]

Open Access operations should be banned. They use up track capacity with short units

Plenty of franchised operators burning through capacity with even shorter trains.

No Open Access operators have 2 car trains because they would lose money.

 

[py_megapixel]

Crossrail was the biggest rail construction project in Europe, is that not special enough for you? Although I do agree the passenger information is pretty mediocre (at best) on the 345s, especially the announcements

I never denied that it was big, but fundementally it's the same thing as many other systems, just in a very big city! From "mainline-size trains in a tunnel serving underground stations in a city centre" to "longer mainline-size trains in a tunnel serving bigger underground stations in a bigger city centre" isn't much of a jump. (I'm not sure by which metric it was the biggest in Europe, but I'll take your word for it)

@CaptainHaddock has a point too - it somehow becomes less impressive when elsewhere in your country large swathes of the network are served by tarted up 30 year old 2-car diesels.

 

[xotGD]

The money wasted on Crossrail would have been better spent on improving services in Northern England.

That's not a controversial opinion. Merely a factual statement.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I never denied that it was big, but fundementally it's the same thing as many other systems, just in a very big city! From "mainline-size trains in a tunnel serving underground stations in a city centre" to "longer mainline-size trains in a tunnel serving bigger underground stations in a bigger city centre" isn't much of a jump. (I'm not sure by which metric it was the biggest in Europe, but I'll take your word for it)

@CaptainHaddock has a point too - it somehow becomes less impressive when elsewhere in your country large swathes of the network are served by tarted up 30 year old 2-car diesels.

Even London already had one. Sure, it goes further out, but the Liz is just a more modern Thameslink, rotated by 90 degrees.

 

[Dr Hoo]

True for the most part, though Berlin Hbf should have been the model for New Street when the opportunity to acquire land from the Bullring was an option.

I'm pretty sure that this claim has been comprehensively debunked on these Forums before.

Can you provide details of this 'opportunity' (unless you possibly mean the original bomb-damaged Bull Ring that I dimly remember as a small child)?

I think that there is an important distinction between an absence of foundation in logic (i.e. a whacky idea) and an absence of foundation in fact (i.e. potentially an attempt to confuse or deceive).

 

[Bald Rick]

This will encourage the industry to improve the on time performance, and encourage new passengers.

It would do exactly the opposite

(inserts performance allowance and longer dwell times everywhere).