Fortsätt till huvudinnehåll

Railways to get 1,000 carriages


Britain's rail passengers have been promised an extra 1,000 train carriages by 2014 in a bid to tackle overcrowding. And soon afterwards we shall see the replacement for the HST taking shape. This ought to be good news but...

The past ten years has seen the replacement of a substantial proportion of Britain's train fleet, with the oldest now dating from the mid-1970s. The trouble is that a lot of it is badly designed. Often the trains have fewer seats, the trains and the seating is cramped and uncomfortable, there is insufficient space for luggage and cycles, the ride quality is poor, there aren't enough toilets, and the ride quality is poor, with severe vibration on some of the diesel-powered trains. The latest generation of British trains are in many ways the worst in the whole of Europe. Will the tradition of bad design continue or will someone get a grip of the problem? Why can't British train passengers enjoy the same standards of amenity as the standard class passengers in the Danish IC3 train above?

A further question is posed. First Great Western is currently refurbishing its fleet of HST trains dating from the late 1970s. This involves completely stripping out the interiors, and it turns out that they are in excellent condition with little corrosion. But most of the similar vehicles surplus from Virgin trains modernisation remain unused and apparently unwanted. The same goes for the 120 electric multiple unit vehicles comprising class 442 constructed for the Bournemouth line in 1988. And a further 70 vehicles of the class 180 Coradia type will also soon be take out of service, with no prospective user. This is a scandalous waste of scarce resources, especially when the Virgin Voyager trains used on the Cross-Country services, and the West Coast Main Line Pendolinos, are chronically overcrowded.

One might ask why the spare vehicles cannot be added to the overcrowded trains, or the spare trains be drafted onto the route? This is not possible as the trains are in fixed formations and incompatible with each other; in the case of the electric trains, they are also tied to particular lines.

All of which ought to have a bearing on the procurement strategy for new rolling stock. Above all, flexibility is needed. All rolling stock should be compatible with all other rolling stock. It should not be tied to a particular form of traction, or a particular route. Which takes us back to the design principle which ruled until the 1950s.
Etiketter:

Kommentarer

Skicka en kommentar

Populära inlägg i den här bloggen

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

The Zombie Train that refuses to die

The Guardian has published a couple more articles against HS2, one by specialist rail commentator Christian Wolmar, and another today by journalist Simon Jenkins. The main arguments in favour will doubtless be wheeled out by the commentators: the need for capacity and the disruption caused by upgrading existing routes. HST itself will severely disrupt services to Euston during the construction period. Capacity can be increased at a fraction of the cost by a variety of measures, provided that it is accepted that the additional traffic will run at existing speeds. It is not generally known that the Midland main line is, or was, four track all the way from London to Trent Junction, between Nottingham and Derby. This is because the additional tracks are separate, having been added for coal trains which trundled down to Brent sidings, on the edge of London, from a collection point at Toton in Nottinghamshire, where the Midland Railway build a huge marshalling yard. Beyond Derby, the main l...
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