Fortsätt till huvudinnehåll

Govia gets Thameslink franchise

Govia's award of the Thameslink franchise and the introduction of a new fleet of rolling stock will not solve the problems that have affected this service since it was introduced in 1988.

Thameslink reinstated a service which had last run in 1916. British Rail had been reluctant to re-open the route, arguing that there was no demand. When, in 1986, Chris Green took over what was then the London and South East Sector and re-christened it Network South East, he pursued the re-opening of the route. The trains were packed from day one, showing that it satisfied a long-standing suppressed demand.

However, it has always been a problematic route.The difficulties are inherent in running a long distance service through the middle of London. It is consequently vulnerable to disruptions on both of the main lines over which it runs ie a points failure at Haywards Heath will cause delays in the Bedford area a couple of hours later.

A further difficulty is that the rolling stock has to be designed to inner suburban standards with relatively few seats and plenty of space for standing and circulation. This means that passengers can spend an hour in an uncomfortable seat and may have to stand most of the way. On top of this are the crowds of passengers travelling to and from Gatwick with their luggage. Standing is a shiny new train is no more comfortable than standing in an old one, and in fact the new trains will be little different fundamentally than those they will replace.

The Thameslink (and Crossrail) concepts in the present form are flawed. These routes should be cut back to operate roughly within the area enclosed by the M25. Destinations further from London should be served by dedicated services operating from the London terminals.

Kommentarer

Anonymous sa…
The problem with running medium distance services into a terminus is that they take up a lot of land without providing the level of frequency. The whole point of Crossrail (and Crossrail 2) is that the more suburban services will move from a terminus to a through route. This then in turn allows more longer distance services to use the Termini.

Yes Thames link has been lengthened to serve places beyond the M25, but that is because there is no other space for such services in the existing London Termini. However most people who will (for instance) be using Crossrail from Reading will not be using it to get to Paddington, it is more likely that they will be using it to get somewhere between Reading and Paddington.

It could be argued that wherever there suppressed demand that a new line would be successful, but then there are those who wouldn't want to hear that as it may mean that something that they would want to fail may work well.

P.S. given you are against HS2, I'm surprised that there has been no post about the concept of HS3 which has been announced. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-27969885
24 juni 2014 kl. 07:22
Skicka en kommentar

Populära inlägg i den här bloggen

The dreadfulness of British governance

I wrote to my MP on two entirely separate issues recently. The first was to do with the replacement for the Inter City 125 train, which at £2.6 million per vehicle, is twice as expensive as it ought to be. The second concerned the benefits of a switch from business rate and Council Tax to a tax based on site values. In both cases, the replies were full of spurious, unsubstantiated assertions and completely flawed arguments. This is typical. You will not get an iota of sense from the government on any area of public policy at all - finance, economics, trade and employment, agriculture, housing, health, transport, energy. All junk. If you write to your MP you will invariably receive answers that are an insult to your intelligence, no matter what subject you are writing about. Of course they cannot understand statistics. They are innumerate. Whitehall is staffed with idiots with a high IQ. Look at their IT projects. And mind your purse, they will have that too.
Skicka en kommentar
Läs mer

How much more will the British tolerate?

The British are phlegmatic, tolerant and slow to rouse. Thus there was no great reaction after the terrorist attack in July 2005. The murder of Lee Rigby created a sense of outrage, but nothing more, since it appeared to be an isolated incident. Two serious incidents within a fortnight are another matter. Since the first major terrorist incident in 2001, authority has tried to persuade the public that Islam is a religion of peace, that these were isolated events, or the actions of deranged "lone wolves", having nothing to do with Islam, or to reassure that the chances of being killed in a terrorist attack were infinitesimally small. These assurances are are beginning to wear thin. They no longer convince. If government does not act effectively, people will take the law into their own hands. What, however, would effective action look like? What sort of effective action would not amount to rough justice for a lot of innocent people? Given the difficulties of keeping large n...
Skicka en kommentar
Läs mer

Importing people to sustain demand

I got involved in a discussion with a Youtuber called “Philosophy all along”. This was in connection with criticism of Trump’s policy of deporting illegal migrants, which he argued would be bad for the economy as it would reduce demand. This implies that there is a need to import people to sustain demand. There is no obvious reason why a population should not be able to consume everything that the same population produces. If it can not, then something else is going on. It is a basic principle that wages are the least that workers will accept to do a job. Wages are a share of the value added by workers through their wages. The remainder is distributed as economic rent, after government has taken its cut in taxes. Monopoly profit is a temporary surplus that after a delay gets absorbed into economic rent. Land values in Silicon Valley are an example of this; it's like a gold rush. The miners get little out of it. Rent and tax syphon purchasing power away from those who produce the g...
Skicka en kommentar
Läs mer