In article ,
Tim Streater wrote:
Freight often runs overnight. As you'd see if you catch any late
trains round London. And that could likely be increased.

20% may not sound like much, but putting that 20% on the roads
would cause chaos.

That 20% is already on the roads.

Could you explain the maths to me?

I'm not talking about putting an extra 20% on the roads, I'm talking
about taking 20% *off* the roads.

Right.

So on the roads, you've gone from 80%
to 60%, a reduction of a quarter.

I'm not quite sure of those maths either, but I get your jist. ;-)

Not massive but would probably help
congestion a lot. But to achieve that you've gone from 20% on the
railway to 40%, i.e., a doubling. I'm asking how that might be achieved.

It only takes a small percentage reduction in road traffic to make a big
difference to the traffic flow. School holidays are a good example. And a
small increase over normal can clog things up totally. As we will find
during the Olympics...

But if most freight already runs overnight, there's a lot to be
said for adding the extra tracks so more of it can runs daytime too.

Adding track is pretty expensive. If not it would already have been
done to reduce passenger overcrowding. But I don't think overnight
freight capacity is anywhere near maximum.

If you don't build HS2 you've suddenly got a ****ing great big pot of
dosh.

Indeed. If it ever gets built they'll go for airline security so check in
etc takes several times as long as the actual journey.

--
*A picture may be worth a thousand words, but it uses up a thousand times more memory.

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.