High Speed Rail - a bit further West!

[whole diary]

[dking]

Take a look at this - $8bn to be invested!

<http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/01/28/president-obama-delivers-american-high-speed-rail>

[RailCornwall]

Seems unfortunate that a number of these projects would only be described as Inter City in the UK^▸ (United Kingdom), a number of these flagship schemes are 125mph max, and the politics behind the money, will see far too many stops to make the others true HSR.

The $8Billion won't go far either, one report suggests that some of this money will go to around 40 states so the spread really will be thin.

[willc]

Give them a break. In the land of the car and airliner, this is ground-breaking stuff.

Even in places where the distances between cities meant trains could still have been more than competitive with air or road over the past 40 years - like California, Florida, or radiating from Chicago - with investment in the track and the right sort of trains, most of the US railroads just threw in the towel in the late 1960s.

Everyone's got to start somewhere and there's a small island off the coast of Europe I can think of that's no great shakes in the high-speed rail stakes either.

[JayMac]

Fully agree with your last point willc. Ireland does indeed have some of the slowest inter-city services, as well as Europe's slowest 'international' express!

[woody]

Some 33 years ago when the HST^▸ (High Speed Train) made its debut its 125mph top speed and coupled with some gung -ho running made it only the second fastest train(DIESEL OR ELECTRIC) in the world after the Japanese "Bullet" trains.However times have moved on and 125mph is no longer the worlds definition of "High speed" and Britain has been left behind in the domestic speed stakes.Certainly First Great Western really has not moved on since those heady days of the 1970s  speed wise and seems to be going backwards if anything.Unfortunately on todays railway performance statistics are everything  not improvements to journey times.Certainly in my own back yard many of the regular journeys I make between Plymouth and Exeter which once took 50/55 minutes now takes 60/65 minutes.In real terms FGW^▸ (First Great Western) is going backwards certainly in my neck of the woods,I am not blaming First as there is only so much you can do with 33 year old trains(even refurbished ones) and Victorian infrastructure.

[inspector_blakey]

It's less to do with the trains and infrastructure than the vast increase in people actually using the railways. Put in simple terms, trains are stopping in more places than they used to and more people are getting on and off, increasing the station dwell times. This situation is not entirely without benefit though: bear in mind that not everyone wants to travel to London or make the "end to end" journey on an intercity service, and for those people who are joining or alighting at the extra stops their journey is much easier and more convenient.

[woody]

I suppose in the far South west much improved Road/Air links to London are now a good alternative for everyone who wants to travel to London or make the "end to end" journey on an intercity service.Leave the railways for the short haul commuter types seems to be FGWs^▸ (First Great Western) motto now in the 21st century(confirmed by the commuter style layouts in their Mk3s).Funny how every other longer distance main line is still trying to speed things up to take on the the competition.ie Chiltern,West Coast,East Coast,even Anglia is under pressure to do something about journey times.Has FGW thrown the towel in here?

[devon_metro]

Are you able to drive from Central London to Plymouth in 3hrs at legal speeds? The train does it twice a day. Both examples of the recent cutting of slack.

[woody]

Are you able to drive from Central London to Plymouth in 3hrs at legal speeds? The train does it twice a day. Both examples of the recent cutting of slack.

So does the plane from Plymouth(London City} and in a lot less time than the train and there is also the door to door aspect of motoring.Dont get me wrong I am all in favour of the train but its not where we are now but where we are going that concerns me.A 3hour rail journey time is not as competitive to Plymouth as it was a quarter of a century ago and will be less so in the future.The transport world will keep moving on even if FGW^▸ (First Great Western) does not.

[devon_metro]

Are you able to drive from Central London to Plymouth in 3hrs at legal speeds? The train does it twice a day. Both examples of the recent cutting of slack.

So does the plane from Plymouth(London City} and in a lot less time than the train and there is also the door to door aspect of motoring.Dont get me wrong I am all in favour of the train but its not where we are now but where we are going that concerns me.A 3hour rail journey time is not as competitive to Plymouth as it was a quarter of a century ago and will be less so in the future.The transport world will keep moving on even if FGW^▸ (First Great Western) does not.

Probably explains why all the trains to the west are empty...

[vacman]

Trains to the West are packed as ever with long distance passengers on FGW^▸ (First Great Western), woody you must never travel by rail if you think the airlines have seen off the trains because it's rubbish! 4 75 seat planes a day to London vs around 11 direct 550 seat trains per day, even if all their planes were full it's only around the same loading as 1 train!

[woody]

Oops sorry devon metro/Vacman did not mean to sound pro air/anti rail,in fact the complete oposite is true.in fact I have just got back from Exeter on the 1457 Paddington/Plymouth a trip I do at least once a week and have done for many years.I was just pointing out that over the years FGW^▸ (First Great Western) dont seem to have placed the same emphasis on journey time improvements that the other former Inter-city franchises do.
 To put matters straight regards Vacmans comment about train capacity compared to air capacity I totally agree with you Vacman in fact you have virtually paraphrased similar comments I made in my local rag in reponse to a local man who waxed lyrical about Air South west Plymouth/london Gatwick flights and kept refering to our "ricketty old railways".Indeed I said to him that Air South West only really cater for a niche market compared to the much wider appeal of rail.

[willc]

I don't buy this argument that all other intercity franchises have speeded things up. East Coast journey times are pretty much the same as they were with the arrival of HSTs^▸ (High Speed Train) in 1978, largely as a result of the route having been progressively improved from the 1960s to get the most out of the Deltics' capabilities, so there wasn't much else to be gained, other than the 125mph running delivered by the HST.

And how exactly do you propose that FGW^▸ (First Great Western) should speed up Plymouth services, unless it involves a whole new railway from Exeter to Plymouth and/or an extensive rebuild of the Berks & Hants route.

It takes just over two hours for the fastest services to reach Exeter, covering something like 170 miles, maybe five minutes more than the best times when I lived in Exeter 20 years ago and most of that extra time is presumably courtesy of ATP^▸ (Automatic Train Protection) operating between London and Reading.

The remaining 50 miles to Plymouth up and down and round the coast and hills consume just under an hour, so it's clear enough where the problem is and no-one is rushing to pay for the solution.

And that's if you accept there is a problem. If you stick to the speed limits on the motorways, you might make Plymouth from London in a shade under four-and-a-half hours by car, and longer using the A303, a time which even trains calling Taunton and Tiverton beat by an hour. As you observe, the plane is a niche market and hasn't exactly decimated rail traffic since Brymon launched the service all those years ago.

[RailCornwall]

Just wondering how this topic drifted back across the Atlantic?

[John R]

Not quite true. The electrification of the ECML^▸ (East Coast Main Line) resulted in a significant improvement in journey times, from those post HST^▸ (High Speed Train). Though much of that has since been lost to result in overall journey times that are only a shade better than in (say) 1980. However, that is still better than the significant increase on the GWML^▸ (Great Western Main Line) to Bristol over the same period.

Since 1980, the ECML underwent a further modernisation in 1990, and thus has more frequent and longer services, with more coming as soon as the various parties can stop arguing about how to fit them all in.  

The MML^» (Midland Main Line. - about) has undergone various fleet renewals and now runs 5 services ph as far as Kettering (4 to Leicester), vice 2 as little as 12 years ago, with a further improvement last December with 2tph to Sheffied. Thus a vastly improved service on 1980.

The WCML^▸ (West Coast Main Line) clearly has loads more services than it did in the early 1980s, and much faster too.

Meanwhile the GWML has stagnated, with only 33% more services, (4tph as far as Bristol vice 3), and journey times extended by around 20%. A few Adelentas were thrown at it as a sop to First Group buying out the previous management led franchise, subsequently replaced by HSTs bought by First Group.  But hardly a great step forward in 35 years.