A tale of 2 trains

[43067]

found this in the hartlepool mail. just thought i'd post it out of interest.
http://www.hartlepoolmail.co.uk/news/columnists/alan-wright/a_tale_of_two_trains_1_4052914

 

[Masbroughlad]

found this in the hartlepool mail. just thought i'd post it out of interest.
http://www.hartlepoolmail.co.uk/news/columnists/alan-wright/a_tale_of_two_trains_1_4052914

Just back myself from a trip to Germany and Denmark. This article sums it up well. The public transport in the UK expensive, disjointed and unwelcoming. We could learn a lot from the Germans.

And its not just about DB buying a few of our TOCs or OAs, what's needed is a strategic, Governmental plan for every big town and city in the UK. Give them accessible, affordable and welcoming public transport that complements the intercity network. It's not socket science! Our public transport system is an embarrassment at the side of some of our European colleagues.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

It is not just a case of comparing Germany to Britain,....up here in "Northernland", we are used to being the poor relations in our own country. How many postings do I see, where Southern areas of Britain becoming ready to receive new stock, make the comment that Northern can have their old stock. How thrilled we must be to receive "crumbs from the rich man's table".

Is Northern the "elephant's graveyard" for elderly stock....or does it just seem like this? Another recent "gift" being the return of 7 x Class 142 Pacers back to our expanding fleet of this particular unit.

 

[Cherry_Picker]

I was about to say the same thing. Firstly it is too small a sample to drawn any conclusions on, but it is also important to highlight that there are plenty of places in the UK which put the Newcastle - Hartlepool journey to shame. I wonder if the guy writing the article would have jumped to the same conclusions if he had travelled between, say Birmingham and Leamington Spa for the UK leg of his trip?

 

[NSE]

It is not just a case of comparing Germany to Britain,....up here in "Northernland", we are used to being the poor relations in our own country. How many postings do I see, where Southern areas of Britain becoming ready to receive new stock, make the comment that Northern can have their old stock. How thrilled we must be to receive "crumbs from the rich man's table".

Is Northern the "elephant's graveyard" for elderly stock....or does it just seem like this? Another recent "gift" being the return of 7 x Class 142 Pacers back to our expanding fleet of this particular unit.

Yes, but it has been frequently mentioned that before this current arrival of desiro/electrostar generation, here in the south we had slam door stock, while you had sprinters. 175's, 185's, 170's and 380's are currently the same sort of 'generation' as plenty of Southern stock. 323's also don't strike me as being that different to 455's/456's, and 321/322's are used in both the south and north. Plus the TPE is going to receive some 350's, so really, the problem is the fact northern has loads of pacers, which I agree needs sorting. If possible of course.

 

[Schnellzug]

oh, here we go again. "They do it sooo much better everywhere else, everything is rubbish and stinky in Britain." People do know that DB doesn't have a monopoly any more in Germany, do they, and there's a huge number of operators providing local servcies, most of them with lightweight DMUs, albeit fairly new ones, and how punctuality of DB's long distance services lately has been distinctly inferior to the UK?
And does anyone really think that that picture illustrating the Article was taken in standard class, do they?

 

[junglejames]

Our system is very expensive yes. It is also quite disjointed at times. No arguments there. But it is also very very good a lot of the time. Unfortunately this is rarely mentioned.

 

[gordonthemoron]

And does anyone really think that that picture illustrating the Article was taken in standard class, do they?

to me it looks like First class in an IC, it certainly doesn't look like 2nd class on a DB regio (blue checked seats 2+2) or on the private run services

 

[FGWman]

That must be first class in the picture.

Also the problem with the loading guage in the UK means we can never have such spacious trains as on the continent. Our railways were built to carry coal trucks - the ones on the continent were built to carry armies around.

 

[Schnellzug]

Anyway, for anyone complaining about Pacers, DB (and DR) had plenty of their equivalent, until fairly recently... Schienenbusse

 

[route:oxford]

Isn't the article essentially saying...

"Look at these gorgeous comfortable German built trains they have on the mainland compared to the old British built ones we have here"

 

[JohnB57]

The comparison cited in the Hartlepool article is grossly unfair.

I do the Dusseldorf-Cologne trip regularly - I'll be doing it tomorrow evening - and I know the two cites well. They are both prosperous major commercial cities in an industrial region close to international borders. Both cities have rail connected international airports and exhibition centres and they are situated on Europe's main river, which itself is a heavily used freight artery. Germany and its neighbours are Schengen countries, allowing seamless connections from both cites to virtually anywhere in Europe - I also take the service from Cologne and Dusseldorf to Schipol from time to time. I also use onward services from Cologne to Gummersbach and can vouch for the quality and value of both ICE and DB Regio services. But a comparison with Hartlepool to Sunderland and Newcastle is pointless as the areas are totally incomparable. I happen to live in an area served by Northern and I'm not blind to the poor quality of the rolling stock, but at least let's compare eggs with eggs.

 

[OuterDistant]

Anyway, for anyone complaining about Pacers, DB (and DR) had plenty of their equivalent, until fairly recently... Schienenbusse

Is it me, or is that dangerously close to "scheissebusse"?

 

[gordonthemoron]

Anyway, for anyone complaining about Pacers, DB (and DR) had plenty of their equivalent, until fairly recently... Schienenbusse

well DB and some private rail companies in Germany still have single coach railbuses: railbus

 

[Schnellzug]

Isn't the article essentially saying...

"Look at these gorgeous comfortable German built trains they have on the mainland compared to the old British built ones we have here"

The same journalists, i'd wager, who'd be first in the queue to say "they should buy trains from British companies [i.e. Bombardier ], not buy from Foreigners!"

 

[sprinterguy]

That article has a complete disregard for any sort of sense of proportion. Cologne and Dusseldorf are both much bigger cities than Hartlepool and Newcastle, and both lie on an Intercity rail route, rather than being somewhat on a periphery like the Durham Coast line.

As Cherry Picker alludes to and JohnB57 details, a very unfair comparison is being made. Cologne has five times the population of Newcastle, and Dusseldorf 5 or 6 times the population of Hartlepool, and there are many other routes around Britain where the comparison with Germany would work out quite differently. For example, I could compare Sunderland to Newcastle to a UK rail journey between two cities of similar influence on the other: Birmingham to Coventry. Birmingham to Coventry sees three Pendolino Intercity trains an hour, and a total of seven trains per hour between the two. Does this mean I want to see Pendolinos operating between Newcastle and Sunderland? No, it's unrealistic: Birmingham and Coventry are both larger cities than Newcastle and Sunderland, and benefit from lying on the course of the WCML. I'd like to see a half hourly service between Middlesborough and Newcastle on the Durham coast, possibly some four carriage trains and the 142s replaced with something better, but we need to be comparing apples with apples and not with German oranges here.

 

[JohnB57]

The same journalists, i'd wager, who'd be first in the queue to say "they should buy trains from British companies [i.e. Bombardier ], not buy from Foreigners!"

You mean "British" as in "Canadian"?

 

[142094]

I agree that the comparison is bad, but the Durham Coast Line does have a poor service frequency and line speeds need to be increased. Rail travel will not attract many people when there is only 1tph and it is quicker to drive from Newcastle to Hartlepool or Middlesbrough along the A19.

 

[Cherry_Picker]

I think the alluded to that fact.

The Bombardier issue is kinda besides the point and it has been done to death on this forum, but it is worth emphasising the point that the factory was in Derby and put money into Derby's economy even if the head office is on the other side of the pond. They were British jobs in the literal sense that they employed people in Britain and those people would then spend their money on other British products and services.

 

[JohnB57]

Sorry - my Emoticon isn't fluent.

Edit - head office of Bombardier Transportation is actually in Berlin but I accept the arguments about local economy etc.