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Reopenings - the positive narrative the railway industry needs !
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And we shouldn’t be surprised if that “little longer” is measured in decades, either. You can destroy the economy of an area almost overnight, but to restore it to health takes a very long time indeed.
Aerospace is heavy industry? Literally bollocks
Killingworth
Established Member
Bristol is less than half as far (118 miles) from London Paddington as Newcastle is from Kings Cross (268 miles), not really compensated for by the faster fully electrified ECML journey taking 3 hours compared with the bi-mode journey from Bristol in just over half the time. It makes a difference.
However we're creeping off topic. I have an old map of the United bus network in a timetable from 1948. It covers from the Scottish border down to Scarborough, see below. There were a number of other municipal and private bus operators like Northern. Most of those routes have survived in some form - but they don't feed as well as they should and sometimes could with trains. Many duplicate long closed branch lines.
Down in the Peak District Hope Valley Climate Action's "Mini Switzerland in the Peak District" project has received funding of £6m for better bus services interchanging with trains. It works with frequent and reliable buses and trains when they can link closely together. Whether it will outside conurbations may be more difficult. See;
https://hopevalleyclimateaction.org.uk/mini-switzerland-in-the-peak-district/
Severnia333
Member
No need to be rude.
Areo engines, wings, airframes, component manufacture fit the definition of heavy industry pretty well.
Sensors, drones, missiles less so admittedly.
There's obviously a large systems engineering component to all of the above but the physical things still need building/assembling, and all are capital intensive with complex processes involved.
Modern steelworks and coal mines don't look like they did in the 19th century with 100s/1000s of workers using hand tools and steam driven machinery.
And chocolate and various other industries
Didn’t realise those were involved in the manufacture of aircraft.
The tragedy is, the north east still has plenty of industrial jobs, proper jobs, hard jobs where you do not want to waste time and energy on a commute unless absolutely necessary.
So the issue is how to get there if you don't own a car and the bus network is much reduced, given the greater distances involved, and their gradual move to edge of town or industrial estate locations, mainly for the better logistics. The state of housing also being a factor, making it harder to move.
If the Northumberland Line has been of any use to connect workers to jobs in ways that didn't already exist, or even f it was just a faster, easier, cheaper option for a significant number of people, there can be no doubt the economic impact would have been felt already. One of the few benefits of the UK economy is that it can move fast where new opportunities arise. Ashington opened 18 months ago.
In all likelihood it is what it is. Just a slightly faster and certainly cheaper means of travelling for those who already had pretty decent life commuting to an existing job, probably a service sector job, be that a bus/es journey, or using their car the whole way. Transformational? Unlikely.
For that, for proper jobs, actual reindustrialisation, you so very clearly need bus and rail in some combination, or a train that will let more than 2/4 bikes on at a time.
Or a train line that is wildly unrecognisable to Northern of today. One that takes ebikes/eecooters and stops on the edges of industrial estates, for example. A clean inviting electric train, not one that belches out more filth and makes more noise than is coming out of those actual factories. One that leaves before most factories begin work.
Hardly an impossible dream. Not even the stuff of futurism much less fantasy.
So the issue is how to get there if you don't own a car and the bus network is much reduced, given the greater distances involved, and their gradual move to edge of town or industrial estate locations, mainly for the better logistics. The state of housing also being a factor, making it harder to move.
If the Northumberland Line has been of any use to connect workers to jobs in ways that didn't already exist, or even f it was just a faster, easier, cheaper option for a significant number of people, there can be no doubt the economic impact would have been felt already. One of the few benefits of the UK economy is that it can move fast where new opportunities arise. Ashington opened 18 months ago.
In all likelihood it is what it is. Just a slightly faster and certainly cheaper means of travelling for those who already had pretty decent life commuting to an existing job, probably a service sector job, be that a bus/es journey, or using their car the whole way. Transformational? Unlikely.
For that, for proper jobs, actual reindustrialisation, you so very clearly need bus and rail in some combination, or a train that will let more than 2/4 bikes on at a time.
Or a train line that is wildly unrecognisable to Northern of today. One that takes ebikes/eecooters and stops on the edges of industrial estates, for example. A clean inviting electric train, not one that belches out more filth and makes more noise than is coming out of those actual factories. One that leaves before most factories begin work.
Hardly an impossible dream. Not even the stuff of futurism much less fantasy.
Egg Centric
Established Member
Why are you hand waving away the "don't own a car" bit?
It is absolutely fine to not own a car as a lifestyle choice of course. But the vast majority of reasons that actually prevent you from owning a car (in the north east where almost everywhere has easy parking) are ones that would stop you from doing "industrial jobs, proper jobs, hard jobs".
It's not unreasonable for society to look at the cost/benefit and wonder to what degree the lives of those who refuse and refuse to work around it* to so should be subsidised, when there are so many other competing cost pressures. Note that this is different from the few who genuinely can't drive or use the bus and in those circumstances if public transport doesn't work then subsidised taxis are probably the best way forward.
For balance - it's just as daft to my eyes when car drivers who are perfectly capable of cycling - and again that's most car drivers, I am horrendously unfit and if I can do it so can they - start whinging about cycling infrastructure and cyclists being given priority. Buy a bike then! They're both bloody excellent and fun ways of getting around when used appropriately.
*It's completely possible for most people who don't have a car by choice to work around it, by a combo of cycling, getting mates/family to give them a lift, taking a bit longer for bus journies, and in extremis the occasional taxi. It's worth remembering that running a car is not free so they have more disposable income than the drivers!
It's therefore a lifestyle choice not to carpool, since most car owners with proper jobs will have co-worker/s who live near them. So we now need to tax single occupancy cars used to commute to proper jobs as if they were a luxury, to deter this antisocial behavior.
The upside being, your bizarre line of reasoning makes it far easier to run a bus service to these proper jobs on a for profit basis.
The upside being, your bizarre line of reasoning makes it far easier to run a bus service to these proper jobs on a for profit basis.
Providing employers are able and willing to be flexible enough to guarantee carpoolers compatible shift times.
It involves big bits of metal, so most would consider it "heavy" industry.
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Fine, none of which negates the value of good passenger rail services.
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Though the idea is to be as light as possible...
It's more likely that the current emphasis on making sure employers offer flexible working, gets in the way of the natural suitability of shift work to car pooling.
I can’t imagine there are many jobs left where people do the same shift day in day out for years. Anything other than that risks finding out that the only person you can “pool” with is on a different shift next week.
there's plenty where it's sti
The last place I did it, you were talking 30 people on a shift, mostly car drivers but with at least 5 cycling, mostly because it was quicker than the bus (because even at 10pm or 6am, someone thought it was a good idea to have it wind through every back street on its eventual journey to the nearest stations and interchanges), because quite clearly, it going through that very large modern edge of town industrial estate + business park, was a matter of a happenstance, not the actual business plan of how to ensure there would be a steady flow of business for this route, week after week, year after year, pandemic or no pandemic, brexit or no brexit.
There's plenty of proper jobs where it's still the norm to have the same pool of permanent staff alternating weekly early and then late shifts.
The last place I did it, you were talking 30 people on a shift, mostly car drivers but with at least 5 cycling, mostly because it was quicker than the bus (because even at 10pm or 6am, someone thought it was a good idea to have it wind through every back street on its eventual journey to the nearest stations and interchanges), because quite clearly, it going through that very large modern edge of town industrial estate + business park, was a matter of a happenstance, not the actual business plan of how to ensure there would be a steady flow of business for this route, week after week, year after year, pandemic or no pandemic, brexit or no brexit.
Egg Centric
Established Member
Single occupancy cars are taxed, largely through fuel duty (and an up and coming replacement for EVs). If you carpool, you'll pay half the tax!
If this were not the case, then yes this would be entirely reasonable. Not quite equivalent though, as there's a pretty obvious difference between subsidy and tax.
I'm not entirely convinced that running mediocre train services and taxing people off the road to fill them (as several people on here are seeming to suggest) is real progress.
A good train service should be frequent, reliable, comfortable and cheap enough that it can compete with driving on its own merits.
A good train service should be frequent, reliable, comfortable and cheap enough that it can compete with driving on its own merits.
The goal for new charges / taxes on motorists should be to discourage people from unnecessary driving. Whether that is by walking, cycling, car-sharing, using public transport or more efficient planning of journeys is a secondary consideration - though public transport provision will need to be adapted (enhanced) accordingly.
Egg Centric
Established Member
What is "unnecessary"? I personally find a lot of car usage very silly but ultimately why am I in a better place to decide that than the drivers themselves? And if I'm not, why on earth is some civil servant or (even worse) local councillor?
The important thing is to make sure that car drivers bear the costs of externalities they create. Then they can decide whether the driving is "necessary" or not.
Imagine the uproar in this forum if some future government started cracking down on "unnecessary" train journeys.
I wasn't proposing that any "Big Brother" would decide whether any journey was necessary - only the person making that journey would make that decision (as now). However, changing the "immediate" costs of making any particular journey will, to a greater or lesser extent, alter people's perception of what is or is not "necessary". It's something car drivers in towns with high parking charges are already used to. I'll drive to the supermarket (free parking) - telling myself "I might have quite a lot to carry on the way home" - but will get the bus into town even if I know I'm going to have a lot to carry on the way back, because I've already got a season ticket for the bus and parking costs a lot.
Egg Centric
Established Member
Gotcha - I'm just curious of the places where the pricing already doesn't exist as I think it does as a rule although appreciate that there will be some exceptions. Fuel duty and the upcoming electricity charge covers both climate change and road maintenance. Car parking tends to be self financing in places where there is serious contention for space (even if somehow people like NCP manage to go bust).
I don't know where you live so heavy parking charges may be perfectly justified so as to ration the spaces and as a side effect encourage modal shift to the inconvenience of bringing back shopping on a bus but it's worth recognising that it's that - an inconvenience - and if you live somewhere like me where there's loads of room to park and pick up shopping then there's zero reason to make my life less pleasant to force me to take the bus. It's not something to adopt as an objective in general.
I do wish we could somehow get drivers more used to cycling* but the stick isn't the way.
*until the general standard of bus drivers improves I can't recommend them. 80% don't seem to understand the 4th derivative!
The thing is there around 1 in 12 trips made by car are under 800m.
Whist there'll be some of those which are needed (the trip is part of a longer journey, people unable to walk or cycle that far or buying a lot of shopping or similar) there'll also be a lot which are just because the person has the mindset of "I'm leaving my house so I'll get in the car" (even if they don't think that, it's what they do).
At 800m there's only a small time saving in driving over walking (10 minutes) as whist journey planners is likely to say driving is around 2 minutes with no congestion the extra time needed to get in the car, start it, manoeuvre, and the reverse at the other end is likely to add 2 or 3 minutes.
Likewise, depending on where the car can be parked the walk distance may be up to 1/3 of the distance of walking the whole distance.
It's why, in urban areas, it might be more useful to have a congestion charge (daily charge) to discourage some of these trips.
As I've said before, the goal is to get and reduce by up to 10% the milage undertaken by car, as if we reached that level we could see traffic congestion reduce significantly.
As a 10% reduction is what is seen in the morning peak on the school holidays vs term time (obviously not tourist areas) and for most people they would rather have those journeys all year round.
As I've also highlighted, the cost of excess car use extends beyond just the road maintenance costs.
There's significant spending by government in trying to fix many factors which could be reduced if there was less driving including:
- health (mental and physical)
- congestion
- social cohesion
- flooding
- cooling off urban areas
(The latter two likely to be achieved by not needing so much parking and so more green spaces can be created, even if that's a few extra trees along a street).
Depends on the nature of the tourist area, but even in areas where tourists are in cars, they’re unlikely to be up and about at the same time and in such concentrated form as the morning school run, though they may well be during the afternoon peak.
Yet you're happy to live in a world where a civil servant can basically say, well, you can drive and you can afford a car, so sorry, there shall be no bus service to get you to all the decent jobs which are now in edge of town locations, and that's just the socially fair, cost-benefit thing to do I am afraid.
It is not. There are no excuses now. We all know the costs to the environment, economy and public health of a high dependency on cars. It long ago ceased to be a lifestyle choice. Most people will keep taking what is by now clearly the selfish choice, until policy is put into actual practice.
Office jobs at the usual 8/9-4/5 hours in the usual central locations is what trains do best, and can ramp up the frequency to make the trip more appealing. But industrial estates are too scattered, low density, with more variation in journey times for the same to be applied in a cost effective way. There may be several places that could serve industrial estates, looking at Newcastle quickly I see Eastern Ave next to Team Valley as an option.
Batteries are banned for good reason.
Killingworth
Established Member
If you were suggesting a new station on the ECML where it meets Eastern Avenue it's over a mile north and south from there to the extremities of the open Team Valley Estate. In the first 50-100 years of railways such a hike was nothing, but nowadays it is. In the 1960s my non-car owning father had to go there from time to time. ! suspect he may sometimes have taken a taxi but usually a bus. My son worked there for a year and used relatively frequent buses.
I struggle to see how any railway solution could significantly improve the fairly comprehensive bus services that serve all parts of the estate but if it existed and had frequent services it would be used a little. Enough to justify the construction costs and delays to existing services? Umm!
However this well illustrates the changes that have gradually taken place since WW1. The Geordie Anthem goes 'Gannin' alang the Scotswood Road, to see the Blaydon Races'. 'We flew past Airmstrang's factory, and up to the "Robin Adair"
Back then places like Scotswood Road to the west and Shields Road to the east were lined with terraced housing (and pubs) with more similar roads at right angles to them. Industry was close by and tram routes brought workers from further away.
After WW2 new industry and warehouses dispersed and new housing estates were more open and away from main roads, the garden suburbs. Getting from one to the other made cars increasingly essential.
Car sharing can work very well. I did it for about 4 years averaging about 4 days a week when one of us wasn't on holiday or had something else to do. We worked in the same office and tended to attend the same events. Attempting it with a next door neighbour more recently it quickly fell apart. We worked for different employers and usually finished at totally different times. I had free car parking, he didn't so he soon opted for the bus home. I think he may have found somewhere to park so that arrangement didn't last much more than a a month.
Someone should perhaps tell the railway then that the world is changing, working in an office is becoming rarer, central office blocks are being repurposed or even demolished for lack of use (in the less desirable left behind regions) and where it happens at all, you are legallly entitled to flexible hours where reasonable (unlike in a shift/industrial setting). Oh, and good luck ramping up the frequency on the Ashington line. It's been desinged and built as a single track with few passing places.
The irony on the people of the North East won't be lost. Much of the industrial work up there is now devoted exclusively to battery technology, big and small, with entire factories making just one part even, such are the volumes now. And yet the railway, where it can even be bothered about people with proper industrial jobs, is serving these areas with filthy noisy 100% combustion engine technology, and is apparently going to do so for a very long time yet.
quantinghome
Established Member
- Joined
- 1 Jun 2013
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That sounds like a big problem but I don't think it is really.
The vast majority (75%+) of short distance trips are already made by walking. If driving takes up only 20 to 25% of those short distance trips I don't think there's much scope to reduce it that much further. A good number of those will be unavoidable - carrying something heavy, doing the shopping, disability, infirmity etc.
The other big thing is that once you take into account the distance of trips, rather than the headline number, the problem disappears - less than 1 in 200 car-miles involve trips of under a mile. So even if you did somehow manage to get all those trips shifted to active modes you're not denting road traffic by any significant amount.