General Chat

The Crossrail debates were over ten years ago,parts of it should be operational by the end of this year.

Bob there's been a good discussion about if there should be a bridge across the channel or not, also about HS1 and HS2 all good but nobody has said anything about (and I can understand this if you don't live in and around london) cross rail from West to East London

HS1 and HS2 rolling stock cannot be used outside of the designated HSx tracks becuause they exceed usual UK loading guage. They would bump into stuff such as tunnels, catenary wiring, platforms and so on.

Bob, plans for a bridge have existed since Chunnel days. These have been updated from time to time such that the route is pretty well fixed and the protected from any other construction.

Who will buy my luverly railway?
Debt so high it touches the sky

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/07/14/canadian-pension-funds-sell-loss-making-hs1-investor-consortium/

Two blokes having a chat. Perhaps we should build a bridge across the channel, says one. Good idea says the other. That's all it was. Not a proposal. Look at all the furore it has caused.

HS1 into Paddington creates both winners & losers.

Say you live in Kent & want to go to north up the East Coast Route out of Kings Cross. Kent trains tend to terminate at Victoria or Charing Cross. Let’s say a 45min semi suburban train into town. You then have to hike down stairs & escalators to the tube, repeated the other end. For the sake of argument, let’s assume a total travel time of 1hr 10m.

In comparison, 15 mins into Paddington from Ebbsfleet + an additional walk of say 10mins until you’re seated on a train out of Kings Cross. If you can’t manage escalators/stairs, there are lifts &/or slopes at both ends.
......

If, and a big if, a Bridge is part of a long term plan, someone needs to drop a hint to KCC. That way they can identify the likely transport corridors & refuse future planning permission for houses. On a different thread, Rollo had already hinted that Kent will be concreted over. We’re already aware of that!

I did not say that HS1 was flawed.

It does not stop at or provide any service to Dover (or Calais).

The HS1 serves three city centres - Paris Gare du Nord, Lille, London St Pancras.
It has never served Stratford Int. which in any case is not in central London.
HS1 intermediate stations in the UK are Ashford and Ebbsfleet the latter being by far the more important.

There has been a great deal of construction work allowing HS connections northward frpm St Pancras.

The HS1 tunnel has sufficient capacity for 8 trains each hr in each direction. Currently the max frequency operated is 3 trains / hr. London - Paris. There are also TGV services to Marseilles, Marhe-le-vallee (Disneyland ) , Brussels. Also Bourg St Maurice (French Alps) during the ski season.

Woeful, the geographical minds of some in charge, don't you think?

North does not stop where it is planned for HS rail any more than south stops at London.

They are missing whole swathes of the country.

Supposing they are ignoring that Scotland is northernmost of the mainland (N Sturgeon will have 'em), Berwick-upon-Tweed and across the border counties to, say, Carlisle miss out on any benefit, as do the areas from, say Penzance, along the south coast to Kent and all of Wales.

HS2 is too costly a project for such a small benefit (a few minutes off a businessman's travel at best).

Far better to spend on parallelling existing lines and re-opening some previously-closed stations. More people will benefit and it would likely mean that not so many businesses and homes will be desecrated.

Not that I know about civil (or other) engineering projects.

Rollo, over to you.

The High Speed rail system, present HS1 (Dover-London) and HS2 are flawed in that (as Rollo says) they either miss the city centres or go in but to an out of town station or terminus entailing a transfer to complete the journey.

HS1 was supposed to go to an international station at Stratford so enabling continuation (by HS2) "oop north" without changing or into central London by tube (only a couple of stops and trains every couple of minutes) but some numpty scrapped that idea.

Of course he said yes he wants people out of Calais quicker!

Well of course because it was Johnson 's idea the UK taxpayers.

Strange, I thought he said no, now I see I'm wrong, you're right, Sue, and he's all for it.
The questions is, who will pay?

But Macron he say yes.

Well, the French don't want the bridge anyway! :-D :-D :-D

Linda, I agree with you absolutely. We need to sort out the mess this country is in just now, Health Service, Education etc before we start other projects. And you are correct, if we havent the money to sort out those important things just now, we certainly shouldnt be thinking of starting any new projects as where is the money going to come from?

There are people sleeping rough, care homes in need of major overhalls etc and affordable housing for those on low wages.
These things should be a priority just now not building some bridge!

Florence
in the hebrides :-P

Joy Louise.

True Yorkshire Folk don't mince their words.
So Why should I and I have got too old to be bothered what people think.

I think it's quite mad to build one, it would bring more traffic to our roads and more of those big lorries driven by men who drive to fast need I go on, are going to have passport checks at both ends.

I thought we as a country was broke so the money that it would cost to build it could go to our N.H.S. for a start.2

Travel up the east coast a bit, Rollo. Felixstowe, Hull, Teesport, Sunderland, Newcastle and others .. I'd be surprised if they were all operating at full-stretch capacity.

Still, if the powers-that-be can be convinced by the persuasions of those who have some undetected interest in a bridge across to Europe come what may, a bridge will be on the cards as you wrote.

You can vote for brexit every day of the week the reality is that the UK will go on doing two thirds of its external business with the rest of Europe. Liam Fox idea that trade with Oz, NZ, USA & Canada, China and India will make up the gap is absurd.

There may be a brexit induced short term hiccup but in the long run there is going to be a serious capacity problem given that Dover, Newhaven, Portsmouth and Southampton already operate at full stretch. Adding much capacity is impossible due to geology and geography

Bridges are not something that spring out of the ground mushroom like.

From when the shoe starts to pinch financial and political discussions would take at least five years , detailed design work another five years and construction as long again. Most of us won't be around 20-30 years from now. And that is the point really, Tthe future of brexit, free movement, the single currency and such matters as a channel bridge will be taken by the young who have a very different point of view to Sue in Yorkshire.

fwiw May ( and Bojo )'s current negotiating position is for the UK to operate some kind of shadow EU regime via "the Wthdrawal Bill" which will create "equivalence" allowing the UK to trade in goods, food and services with the EU as it does now BUT without being subject to the ECJ or contributing any money. Best of luck.

Still as Nyx points out it may delay the need for a cross channel bridge.

Don't mince yer words Sue. :-D :-D :-D ;-) ;-) ;-)

Joy louise,,
Yes and that someone was/is against staying in the EU.

Stupid bugger. he is.