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UK diy (uk.d-i-y) For the discussion of all topics related to diy (do-it-yourself) in the UK. All levels of experience and proficency are welcome to join in to ask questions or offer solutions. |
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#201
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Diesel scrappage
On Fri, 21 Apr 2017 12:03:01 +0100, The Natural Philosopher
wrote: Fundamentally rail doesn't work in low density areas . The track and staffing costs need high traffic volumes to justify the outlay. Quite, those railways were doomed when the lorry and roads got improved enough to provide a supplier to customer service for the smaller items and the main power source of much of the country changed from coal delivered in railway trucks to station yards from which coal merchants moved it on in smaller quantities to electricity and for some gas which have their own networks to supply them. A train may be a better experience than a bus , especially the underpowered buses of the 1960's but you don't need all the paraphernalia of a railway designed to carry tons at a time to carry 20 or so passengers weighing about 14 stone each. There's lots of romantic crap talked about railways. A lot of the branches that were kept had some people moaning about how they were rationalized to keep costs to a minimum ,bus shelter style buildings ,no staff at many stations with tickets sold on the train etc. What those people really wanted was a steam loco at the head of a couple of coaches with a compartment to oneself and acquaintances , a coal fire in a waiting room and a porter to greet them and make them feel important. It was indeed a romantic notion but far too costly to provide and had largely been so since the 1920's . Closures had started in the 30's under the private companies and many had taken large share holdings in bus operators ,eg Southern Railway - Southern National, Great Western -Western National so they could move forward to a cheaper way of moving people in country areas. WW2 interrupted this plus Nationalisation afterwards made it politically undesirable for a decade till the economics got really silly. If WW2 had not happened non of us would talk about Beeching as many of the lines would have closed a generation or two before. G.Harman |
#202
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Diesel scrappage
wrote in message
... A lot of the branches that were kept had some people moaning about how they were rationalized to keep costs to a minimum ,bus shelter style buildings ,no staff at many stations with tickets sold on the train etc. Weren't there branches that went straight from significant staffing (maybe not the the extent of coal fires in waiting rooms) to closure, without unstaffed stations and tickets sold on trains? I remember reading that this is one of the gripes of the Beeching cuts, that reducing costs was not even attempted on some lines. Having said that, BR suffered a lot from unions imposing minimum staffing levels and hence cutting their noses off to spite their faces: reduced staffing levels (if unions had accepted this) *may* (or may not!) have saved some lines. |
#203
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Diesel scrappage
In message , Tim Streater
writes The real shame is that the rights-of-way were not permanently held. That would have allowed for them to be later re-used for rail, or bus-ways or bike/walking routes f'rinstance. Such as parts of the Worth Way in Sussex. Oi! I own a short stretch of the WGC to Dunstable branch line. Herts County Council purchased the bulk of it and it is open as *the Ayot Green Way*. -- Tim Lamb |
#204
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Diesel scrappage
On Fri, 21 Apr 2017 10:35:54 +0100, "Dave Plowman (News)"
wrote: This was the argument used by Beeching to remove branch lines. Change the train times so that they are useless - don't make connections, etc, and then claim nobody uses them. Not sure that is entirely true. The local line when I was a kid - Deeside, from Aberdeen to Ballater, never once broke even in its entire life. A line near where I grew up was scheduled have been built in the early 1900's but got delayed by WW1 , it finally opened in 1925 when the scarce traffic on offer was already being handled by war surplus lorries so it really should have been stillborne but it was completed as a scheme to provide work in a poor area. When it closed in 1965 the tickets for some of the stops were still from the original batch printed at opening , travelers on the last few services snapped them up as Souvenirs as a Southern Railway branded ticket was not normally issued by the sixties. Details here for those who have a deeper interest in such things. http://colonelstephenssociety.co.uk/...way/index.html G Harman |
#205
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Diesel scrappage
In article ,
NY wrote: wrote in message ... A lot of the branches that were kept had some people moaning about how they were rationalized to keep costs to a minimum ,bus shelter style buildings ,no staff at many stations with tickets sold on the train etc. Weren't there branches that went straight from significant staffing (maybe not the the extent of coal fires in waiting rooms) to closure, without unstaffed stations and tickets sold on trains? I remember reading that this is one of the gripes of the Beeching cuts, that reducing costs was not even attempted on some lines. Having said that, BR suffered a lot from unions imposing minimum staffing levels and hence cutting their noses off to spite their faces: reduced staffing levels (if unions had accepted this) *may* (or may not!) have saved some lines. Quite so. People should be delighted to give up their jobs for the sake of the community. Or go on to zero hours contracts etc. You just know it makes sense. -- *A bartender is just a pharmacist with a limited inventory * Dave Plowman London SW To e-mail, change noise into sound. |
#206
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Diesel scrappage
On 20/04/2017 23:17, charles wrote:
In article , Steve Walker wrote: On 20/04/2017 08:18, charles wrote: In article , Dave Plowman (News) wrote: In article , mechanic wrote: On Wed, 19 Apr 2017 00:06:30 +0100, Dave Plowman (News) wrote: In article , mechanic wrote: On Tue, 18 Apr 2017 10:50:46 +0100, Dave Plowman (News) wrote: And how about those who live there? Are they to be denied owning a car? Do they need one? Try public transport (at least in London). The obvious retort to that is if you need a car because of where you live, move. Makes as much sense as you've done. Not too much sense on here so far; many would walk/cycle/use public transport if those alternatives were suitable. The snag tend to be everyone wants everyone to use those far more worthy ways of getting around - except themselves, of course. 'They' always have excuses why only they need a car. Where we are bus routes are being cut so such alternatives are limited - city dwellers tend to have more choice. Bus routes tend to be cut if they are little used. and, by being cut, become useless and even less used. Our first bus into town is at 10.35 and there are only two more in the day. I can drive to work in under 20 minutes door to door. The alternative is a 15 minute walk to the station, with a lot of pain due to arthritic knees (10 minutes for someone else), plus allowing a spare 5 minutes in case of meeting someone on the way or just having to stop because of the pain. The train then takes another 15 minutes (assuming it is on time) where I am likely not to get a seat, so even more pain . I then have to get from the station to work, I cannot walk it - I would be in agony. The first bus doesn't leave the station 'til half and hour after my train arrives and takes another 10 minutes. I can't catch a later train without being late. Then I have the same in reverse at the end of the day. So 30 to 40 minutes a day by car or about 140 minutes by public transport. That extra 100 minutes per day (ignoring the pain, the frustration and the fact that I cannot be in and leave work at the times I need to), adds up to over 8 hours a week less paid work time (I am paid by the hour) or 8 hours less time with my family. but you have a car and can drive. Not everybody is in that fortunate position. I am not against public transport - in fact I'd like to see all local buses and trains made free to use, but the costs would be very high and the surge in use would probably bring the whole system down. I am against trying to force people not to use cars. SteveW |
#207
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Diesel scrappage
On 21/04/2017 11:57, NY wrote:
"Tim Streater" wrote in message .. . The real shame is that the rights-of-way were not permanently held. That would have allowed for them to be later re-used for rail, or bus-ways or bike/walking routes f'rinstance. Such as parts of the Worth Way in Sussex. Well said. There should have been a clause which said that any former transport route should remain a transport route (even if only for walkers and cyclists) and BR should not have been allowed to sell off the assets which at the time belonged to the nation (since BR was a nationalised industry). By all means save money by not running trains and not employing staff to do so or to maintain the route to railway standard, but that's as far as it should have gone. At least where lines have been closed since the days of Beeching, it was been on the basis of mothballing, with routes protected against development. Our local line had the stopping services reduced to one per hour about 10 years ago to free up capacity for non-stopping expresses - making it even more inconvenient and overcrowded for commuters. What it really needs is fast and slow lines to allow trains to pass. Land was reserved for that when the line was built in the 1870s. BR used to rent the land out to homeowners to extend their gardens and they could have been taken back at any time. However, in the 1980s they sold it all off to the homeowners and where there was railway land (ex sidings, coal yards, station yards, etc.) in and about the towns, they sold it to developers to build new estates right up to the lineside. So, once again, a short term cash grab has lead to poor service and no easy way to improve it. SteveW |
#208
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Diesel scrappage
In message , "Dave Plowman (News)"
writes In article , Graeme wrote: I knew you were a Scot, Dave, but didn't realise you were from this area. Did you know Ballater station was razed a couple of years ago? Yes. I was there only a couple of weeks ago. And noted some of the flood damage still not sorted. Indeed. The village is still full of white vans, 16 months later. People are coming from all over the place - I was chatting to guy from Manchester a few days ago. 7 hours each way. A scary day. Began when I was out with the dog, and predicted to peak at lunchtime. We had water on three sides, which came up the drive to within a couple of feet of the house. Sure enough, just after mid day, it stopped then receded. All gone by tea time. We were very, very lucky. -- Graeme |
#209
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Diesel scrappage
On Thursday, 20 April 2017 19:01:29 UTC+1, Another John wrote:
In article , "Dave Plowman (News)" wrote: Surely there is no point in running empty buses just in case someone need it? That was the whole point of public services: they were there. You knew they were there, and you knew you could rely on them, and (in the case of buses), you could rely on a regular, frequent service. So people used them -- and I for one would use them again, if any of those attributes still existed around here. Just about any country that I've visited in Europe does public transport better -- far better -- than the UK does. Perhaps they just haven't "caught up with us yet". They need a Thatcher to sort things out for them. J. This could be the solution. http://www.istanbultrails.com/2009/0...i-in-istanbul/ Common in many third world countries. |
#210
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Diesel scrappage
On Thursday, 20 April 2017 22:33:25 UTC+1, Steve Walker wrote:
On 20/04/2017 12:34, charles wrote: In article . com, dennis@home wrote: On 20/04/2017 11:31, mechanic wrote: On Thu, 20 Apr 2017 10:03:12 +0100, lid wrote: On 20/04/2017 00:20, Dave Plowman (News) wrote: Bus routes tend to be cut if they are little used. As they should be, empty buses pollute more than the odd car/taxi. Maybe they're an essential service for some? Its never essential to run empty buses. but someoen might get on at the next stop. They could certainly run much smaller, less polluting minibuses on underused routes, as they used to do some years ago. SteveW http://www.istanbultrails.com/2009/0...i-in-istanbul/ |
#211
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Diesel scrappage
"harry" wrote in message ... On Thursday, 20 April 2017 19:01:29 UTC+1, Another John wrote: In article , "Dave Plowman (News)" wrote: Surely there is no point in running empty buses just in case someone need it? That was the whole point of public services: they were there. You knew they were there, and you knew you could rely on them, and (in the case of buses), you could rely on a regular, frequent service. So people used them -- and I for one would use them again, if any of those attributes still existed around here. Just about any country that I've visited in Europe does public transport better -- far better -- than the UK does. Perhaps they just haven't "caught up with us yet". They need a Thatcher to sort things out for them. This could be the solution. Nope. http://www.istanbultrails.com/2009/0...i-in-istanbul/ Common in many third world countries. We've had shared taxis for more than 50 years and the entire taxi industry is about to implode completely due to uber and lyft etc. IMO its unlikely that shared minibuses will work in the first world, just because there is vastly better public transport there. |
#212
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Diesel scrappage
In article , NY
writes wrote in message .. . A lot of the branches that were kept had some people moaning about how they were rationalized to keep costs to a minimum ,bus shelter style buildings ,no staff at many stations with tickets sold on the train etc. Weren't there branches that went straight from significant staffing (maybe not the the extent of coal fires in waiting rooms) to closure, without unstaffed stations and tickets sold on trains? I remember reading that this is one of the gripes of the Beeching cuts, that reducing costs was not even attempted on some lines. Having said that, BR suffered a lot from unions imposing minimum staffing levels and hence cutting their noses off to spite their faces: reduced staffing levels (if unions had accepted this) *may* (or may not!) have saved some lines. Just like SR today. -- bert |
#213
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Diesel scrappage
In article , "Dave Plowman (News)"
writes In article , NY wrote: wrote in message ... A lot of the branches that were kept had some people moaning about how they were rationalized to keep costs to a minimum ,bus shelter style buildings ,no staff at many stations with tickets sold on the train etc. Weren't there branches that went straight from significant staffing (maybe not the the extent of coal fires in waiting rooms) to closure, without unstaffed stations and tickets sold on trains? I remember reading that this is one of the gripes of the Beeching cuts, that reducing costs was not even attempted on some lines. Having said that, BR suffered a lot from unions imposing minimum staffing levels and hence cutting their noses off to spite their faces: reduced staffing levels (if unions had accepted this) *may* (or may not!) have saved some lines. Quite so. People should be delighted to give up their jobs for the sake of the community. Some people need to recognise that the community doesn't owe them a living. Or go on to zero hours contracts etc. You just know it makes sense. -- bert |
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