Rail Franchises

[ReeceSamuelsEsteen]

You have given no good reason why Taxpayers in Stoke and other planes should pay for a High Speed Railway that will not serve then even as its passes nearby!

By that logic, people should only pay for local roads and local stations. No big projects would ever be built!

[Pilot]

And A321 Pilot has confirmed the CTRL meaning for me as well. Thanks

No problem Geo, I beat your Edit by a few Seconds.

[Chris]

Amecher, I'm more convinced by you now than I am with the engineer at Railfest. Come to think of it, there were a couple of people talking about the trains who weren't fully correct in their information so... Oh sod it. I give up. I'm convinced. Apologies for the mistake.
Wow... Javelins sudden seem pretty crap. You've just single-handedly made the whole route seem bloody dull

Well no, they will fairly routinely go over 125mph, but only when they're late, not as exciting as going at 140mph, but hey, they're being bloody sensible - better to timetable to 125mph than pad out the timetable with slack at stations, means the energy consumption of the train is lower .

[Geo Ghost]

The fun of them and uniqueness has just been zapped out of it now
Going to go cry in the corner now. I was so certain of all that and it's not right Ah well. I know now at least, so if I ever see that engineer again, i'm going to shout "You lied to me!" in a broken hearted tone

[Ameecher]

The fun of them and uniqueness has just been zapped out of it now
Going to go cry in the corner now. I was so certain of all that and it's not right Ah well. I know now at least, so if I ever see that engineer again, i'm going to shout "You lied to me!" in a broken hearted tone

Sorry to ruin it for you and being perhaps overly persistent but we don't lies being spread around the internet do we?

[Geo Ghost]

Sorry to ruin it for you and being perhaps overly persistent but we don't lies being spread around the internet do we?

Can't have lies at all Though in this case it was simply incorrect information. My apologies for not being correct before. Though as you can tell, I firmly believed that was the case. Many thanks for the info you've provided though. Even if it has killed the fun of riding on them slightly

I really don't think that sign in the cab helped me very much. Two different *p/h speeds in the brackets... At a glance that's an easy mistake to make. Well, for a pillock like me anyway.

[Ameecher]

Yeah, basically HS1 (CTRL) operates to European HS line standards so KPH and the speedo reads KPH when on HS1 hence why that is the lead unit and mph is bracketed. As well all known we are old fashioned in Britain and our domestic network is in mph hence why that takes the lead unit on NR metals.

[Chris]

Interestingly, when the Houses of Parliament burned down (the 1834 time), we lost all of our imperial weights and measures definitions (ie. the lump of metal that weighs a pound, the length of metal that is a yard long etc.). Instead of adopting the metric system, we just defined all of our weights and measures against the metric system, so a pound is not defined by a lump of metal weighing a pound, but as 0.45... of 'Le Grand Kilo', and so on. Very silly.

[Kevo00]

And spending £60bn on a high speed line that wasn't a high speed line would be a good thing?

You've had the case set out in clear engineering terms. What more do you want?

[JamieLei]

Oh yes sorry. I really should think this through. Spending much, much more for something that won't be beneficial is a far better idea isn't it?

It would be far better value for moneu since it would serve far more people!

Again and again, you fail to realise that HS2 will allow far better and faster services on our existing lines, ALL of which go straight into the heart of our major cities! So you can get FAR MORE of your 125mph trains from Nuneaton, Stafford, Carlisle etc. They might not go up to 250mph, but if High Speed trains are going to call at such small stations, they're not going to get to 250mph anyway. The Kodama services on the Japanese Shinkansen (all stations) are such a waste of stock for precisely that reason.

[Geo Ghost]

Yes you did.

I did not

Yes. You. Did. You said these exact words.

"Also there are HSR at Ashford and Ebsfleet, not very big those towns"

Look at the things highlighted in bold. THAT is what you said. That Ashford and Ebbsfleet are towns. Stop denying what you said because we can all see it as clear as day. Why do you keep denying something you said? All you're doing is making yourself sound like a bigger idiot each time.

Now stop denying you're wrong and just admit it.

Not big as in lets say Stoke!

Aigh. Not this again.
So you've quoted me for saying that you won't admit to being wrong to talk about stoke.... riiiiight. Ok then

A railway line with 4 stations is not good enough for £60 billion!
-----
It would be far better value for moneu since it would serve far more people!

Just because it theoretically serves more people and has more stations does not make it better value for money.
Prove it's not good enough with just 4 stations. Prove how your plan would be better. At the moment, you're just saying "my plan would be better because I say it is". Back-up what you're saying Alan, com'on. You want us to take your seriously, you've got to put in the effort.

[Geo Ghost]

It’s not that many stations to start with!

HS2 planned Stations:
London, Heathrow, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds.

Alan's fantasy fairly land planned stations:
New London Airport, Central London, Wembley Stadium, High Wycombe, Oxford, Birmingham (x2), Stafford, Stoke-On Trent, Manchester (x2), Preston, Lancaster/Morcambe, Penrith, Carlisile, Motherwell, Glasgow, Stirling, Perth, Luton, Milton Keynes, Leicester, East Midland Airport, Derby or Nottingham, Sheffield, Leeds, York, Middlesbrough or Darlington, Newscastle, Edinburgh, Glenrothes/Kirkcaldy, Dundee, Aberdeen

No... It's really not that many stations you're suggesting...

Christ, looking at the two makes me realise how silly Alan's plan really is even more!

Ashford is a town, when I meant Ebsfleet, I meant the fact it was surrounds by towns combined together are of the population of a large town like Oxford!

Come now Alan. You know full well you didn't mean that You thought Ebbsfleet was a town and you just don't like admitting that you are wrong.
You said Ashford and Ebbsfleet were not very big towns. Towns. As in, more than one. That says you meant both, not one. Now you're jsut struggling to make excuses so you don't have to admit you made a mistake - and you're failing quite badly at that

[Dave]

Alan, please just accept that if you stop at those stations your High Speed trains will never reach high speed.

[JamieLei]

Alan, there simply isn't demand.

The Japanese Tokaido Line has 6 Nozomi (only 3 intermediate stops) per hour, made of 16 coaches. In contrast, there's only 1 Kodama (all 20ish intemediate stations) per hour, composed of 8 coaches. There's therefore 12 times more demand for the principal stations than all the intermediate ones combined (and that's STILL with yield management to push people onto the slower services. I also believe the Kodama services may be subsidised too.). And this is when the alternative is max 80mph local services.

In contrast, we have 125mph alternative services. Do you REALLY want to add 50% to the project cost so that you can serve all the intermediate stations? I'm sure that the people of Stoke, High Wycombe etc will be willing to pay an extra 30bn to get to London 5 mins quicker.

Alan, please present us with some empirical evidence that your plans will work, like I'm doing.

[Geo Ghost]

What you don't get is that-

Ops there we go. I've stopped paying attention again. Yes we know your plan is far longer. We can see that quite obviously.

Also you forgot to state that the DFT's version will also include a station in the East Midlands and Birmingham Airport and the fact there might be stations at Stoke and Sheffield as well!

I'm not making a big effort here Alan, that's why. I just put down the main stations. I see little point in putting in effort for what I say to you when you don't make an effort back.

You also forgot to note that Liverpool is included in my plan!

Alan, that list is copied from what you said So if it's not there, you didn't say it.

Also Alan, you may have missed what I added into my last post

Alan, please just accept that if you stop at those stations your High Speed trains will never reach high speed.

If he can't accept he made a simple mistake and was proved wrong, I don't think we'll get anywhere further than that unfortunately.

[Dave]

So now you're just replacing the entire network? A high speed branch to GRIMSBY!

[Geo Ghost]

Alan can you please stop filling up pages with that damn plan over and over and over again. It's getting somewhat annoying seeing it all the time...
The fact you have Liverpool in brackets and not on there normally like the other stations is probably why I missed it off.

Unless we improve acceleration and de-acceleration on High Speed Trains (which I think can be done!)

Of course it can be done, but at the cost of efficiency and passenger comfort. You could have very fast deceleration rates but I don't think passengers want to get thrown out of their seats

[Geo Ghost]

I also understand why you forgot Liverpool!

Good good. Sorry about that anyway
Try to keep the whole thing a standard format. It's a bit confusing coming across some things as headers, then other things in brackets which mean the same thing.

Actually better yet, try putting a map together with everything. You'll get a far better idea for things from a plan view rather than words, and so will we.

[Geo Ghost]

That is ok, but I would greatly appreciate it if you were able to accept responsibility for your mistakes and things you have been wrong with.
If I, someone who is pretty stubborn and hates losing, can admit to mistakes than I'm sure you can too

As for route map, I just get a large map of the UK or screen-print sections of google maps and stitch it together in photoshop (or something of the sort), draw lines on for routes etc. The plus side with using google maps is that you can plot the route that the plan would take. I.e going around towns/cities, following roads, avoiding lakes etc.

[61653]

Here is the lastest version of my plan for HS2:
...Sheffield

(Branch Line to Hull via Doncaster)

Leeds

(Harrogate Loop Line splits off)

York

(Harrogate Loop Line re-joins line)

Middlesbrough or Darlington

Newcastle
...
Harrogate Loop Line

Harrogate

Eastern Branch

Stevenage

Cambridge

Peterborough

Grantham

Lincoln

(Branch Line to Grimsby)

(Branch line to Hull via Scunthorpe)

Doncaster

York

(Joins with Branch 2)

Motherwell will no longer be served because I have changed the route HS2 will approach Glasgow (from the South, not the West)

The platforms will be 750 meters (for future use) and the loading gauge going to be 3.6 M x 6.2, but the track will remain 1435 mm (I might look at Dual gauge with 2138 mm included as well)

The tunnels will be at least 80% bigger than on HS2 and lines will be at least 4 tracked

Really? A High Speed Rail loop to serve HARROGATE???