They never have the infrastructure in place to deal with it because they claim it doesn't happen often enough to justify the expenditure. When you get a sudden heavy snowfall everthing comes to a grinding halt. I always chuckle when I'm in Scandinavia and see airports pretty much snowed in but everything operating as though it's a summer's day. In England all the flights would be cancelled and someone would be calling for a state of emergency!
"It only adds capacity to the long distance inter City routes on the WCML and may eventually create capacity on the East Coast line when the HS2 extension to Leeds is completed in many years time." Which is precisely why it is needed and needed as soon as possible. What I find incredible is the length of time it takes in this country to plan, develop and build a project such as this. Expense is relative. To do nothing until it is too late and we run out of capacity for long distance rail travel in the UK would be far more expensive to the nation's economy. It is the do nothing option that expenditure on HS2 must be measured, not on, I believe, spurious and arguable "benefits to the economy". What cost benefit exercise was done against the building of the first motorways I wonder - which, as I recall, were virtually empty for the first few years after opening (primarily because the lorry drivers already had their favourite routes together with transport cafes etc.). I do take your point however about improving commuter lines - it should not be an either or. HS2 should not be an excuse for a government to stop spending on the existing rail infrastructure. Living on the "Bedpan" line - more correctly called Thameslink these days, you should be aware of the Thameslink 2000 project - wildly misnamed but now almost ready, to improve services between Bedford, Central & South London. This will deliver 12 carriage trains with a higher frequency to your line. Ten of millions have been spent and will continue to be spent on adding new lines, junctions and stations from St Pancras, Blackfriars, London Bridge and beyond. Again, this is Victorian railway politics and infrastructure that is the limiting factor which successive governments until recently have chosen to ignore, concentrating on more and more roads being built and neglecting railway investment - culminating in the 80s under Thatcher - who hated railways and, I believe, only travelled once on a train. Incidentally, providing rail services for commuters is a most expensive use of railway infrastructure. Trains must be provided for 2-3 hours in the morning then again for 2-3 hours in the evening, the rest of the time they stand idle. Rather than continually spending heavily on commuting services, maybe it's about time we looked at the seeming lunacy of upwards of a million people congregating on a small area of London every weekday morning, only to flood back out again in the evening! I made a conscious decision never to work in London and endure commuting and I never did!
Not strictly true Dan. I was at Stockholm's Arlanda airport one December afternoon and was snowed in for 4 hours by a sudden heavy fall. Admittedly there were at least 10 snowblowers at work on the runway at any given time, but they were still insufficient to clear it. It is much easier to justify expenditure on snow clearance measures when you know for certain that they are going to be used each winter for long periods of time. I recall the 90s when there was virtually no snow (in England at least) for years on end. Would I rather local councils spent heavily on gritting machines which lie unused for 355-360 days of the year, or would I rather they spent it on schools, refuse collecting, filling in potholes etc. etc.?
Where would the Costa Rican put the evaporated milk, I wonder? Smeared all over his/her body? Is this a wider Central American fetish or just restricted to Costa Rica (or NE Scotland?)
None of those Vic - it's one I picked up in PNG (but please don't tell the wife ) The local milk was as suspect as the local water, so cafes used imported tinned milk...
I don't disagree with you at all - it wouldn't be cost effective but it does still make me chuckle about how badly we seem to struggle. On Scamndianvia we can, of course, only talk about our personal experiences.
I learned today that in 2005 the Gordon Brown the British chancellor of the exchequer sent MI5 to investigate our banks for money laundry. If they had found anything bad why did they report nothing to him and stop the financial crisis that came after, or did they and he did nothing? This upset our banks so much they made a donation to the opposition political party in Britain. The response was trying to freeze our money using anti-terrorist laws! I do not think Iceland will be a holiday destination for Mr Brown.
I did hear from a colleague of mine that it was posible to buy tee shirts in Rejkyavik around 2008 with his picture saying "Brown is the colour of S***"
Are you quite sure about that? Didn't the Germans build a small railway network in Jersey during the war?
Don't suppose it will last, but half time score at the Recreation Ground - Aldershot 3 L*t*n 2 Keep up the good work Dean Holdsworth....
Thanks very much for the birthday rep dave ... nice surprise as I'm just back from a very enjoyable evening at Zizzi's in St Albans with the other half, two of my daughters and their friend - my birthday treat - now just taking the first sip from my birthday bottle of claret ... smashing day! (still wish I was thirty years younger mind )
