They've always been trouble throughout my lifetime 3 people for every real position. They won't get in a Network Rail van alone, if a Manager speaks to them during their lunchbreak, the break starts again etc etc And they wonder why they lose millions of pounds a week and are a laughing stock. Overstaffed, overpriced and under performing would be 3 good reasons why, and I think the vast majority of ordinary people are losing or have lost all sympathy with them too. Strike by all means and when the level of debt becomes unsustainable let them all go broke, and instead of finding another job if they think they're that badly paid now, or they end up with no redundancy money then too bad, Mick Lynch - or lynch Mick ? is that what needs to happen ?
Just spoke with my neighbour who is on earlies .... I said not on strike then? he said no.. thats the RMT GUARDS AND THE SUCHLIKE! ..... stumbling block from him was it is more to do with working practice than actual wage ... protecting jobs ... Said basically it is not a pleasant place to work in ... misbehaviour /threats/ etc toward staff .. as a single person staffing a train you have no chance 2 people ... a chance. Penalties are basically non existant ... so no deterrent
Demand for rail travel continues to dwindle according to some sources, and this will truly bite the RMT and co in the arse before much longer as they won't be needed at all. In these times of cost of living and fuel crises, not to mention the price of the train tickets themselves and the unreliability of rail services and strike action, that more and more people are taking longer journeys within the UK by air (where possible), coach and private car. My Wife and I did the same when we went on our last cruise from Newcastle upon Tyne at the end of April. We looked into it, and it was some £300 cheaper to fly from BRS to Newcastle which included paying extra for our 3 suitcases, than it was to catch a train from Temple Meads.
Woa Woah OS ! We don't want any of that sort of common sense talked about in the UK please ! What would the people, who when HS2 (or maybe if HS2) is finished will expect to save up to 20 minutes on journeys between Manchester and London say, and all for a cost of tens of billions that would be better funnelled elsewhere !?
My concern with that approach is that we need desperately to modernise our infrastructure, these things cost a fortune but need to be done. I’m no expert on this particular project so don’t know if it could be done cheaper another way, but the principle of upgrading our infrastructure is desperately needed as much of it is old and needs replacing & upgrading.
I get that - but then again I don't get it. I'm certainly no expert either, but I can't help view the figures involved in the project as being disproportionate to the benefit. Last I read somewhere it was going to drain something like £120Bn - that's a lot of money by anyone's standards and poor value for the ultimate benefit envisaged. I've read somewhere that less than a third of that amount could totally modernise and transform the existing rail network for the whole of the country, not just what is effectively limited to the London and Manchester areas. Another third of that projected amount spent on new road projects and maintenance of the atrocious existing routes would have a huge positive impact on movement around the country. That would leave the other £40Bn for vital national and international trade portals such as seaports, airports and enabling logistics - but then again, what do I know?
If your figures are correct then obviously it seems a waste, the trouble is you hear so many conflicting accounts it’s impossible to know what’s correct. The infrastructure we have is largely very old across the board and needs updating and improving, we have to accept it’s going to cost a fortune to upgrade, but the cost of not doing it will be even greater.
Imagine back in the 1870's if the Victorians had abandoned the building of the Severn Tunnel because of growing funding costs and listened to all of the doomsters saying it was a waste of money and they should stick to the ferries between New Passage and Port Skewett, that tunnel has given 130 years of economic service and still going strong.
Difference is Wiz that there are already multiple services and routes between London and Manchester now - that's when the trains run that is ! When the Severn Tunnel was built it was the first of its kind between England and Wales as far as I'm aware ?
The HS2 is a necessary evil as Ashton says..... ... I have driven around 3.4million miles since I passed my test I keep a log/ record of everytime I buy fuel I log the miles! [ whether mine or someone elses mileage ] I have seen the M4 /M5/ M6 / and M1 and M25 CHANGE OVER THE YEARS! Our costs for doing upgrades etc is the slowness of the workforce doing them take the M6 over the past 10 years progress was painfully slow ... [ I witnessed theBelgians doing about 23km of up grading to a motorway going into Luxemborg ... a double skin barrier down centre 1 and 2 extra lanes added [ over some 15km of it ] and how many years did it take? 2 ? 3? 4? .... well I should have started on 1, yep just over a year .... oh and by the way it was both direction with a traffic delay twice a day 7- 9am and 4 -6pm no contra flow .. M6 8km stretch 3 years .... HS2 IS MORE THAN an upgrade it is a means to allow people to travel a long distance between economic centres quickly... London to Bristol is the same ....
Get your drift wiz, but that was different time and a local issue with little alternative. No road transport for passengers nor frieght as we now know it existed nor was percieved. I've no real knowledge of those options 150 years ago but was always of the opinion it was a private venture by GWR for their own ends, although it must have had government approval - HS2 is our money. The difference 150 years on is there were readily available options to improve the transport infrastructure (rail and road) which whilst it might have been a huge nuisance during implementation, would have produced a far more even spread of resources around the country and of wider benefit to the whole of the UK population. Just an opinion, but the HS2 proposals became a vanity project which proved very difficult to abandon - probably far too late now anyway.
It would probably be politically difficult for the Tories to abandon it now as it would be perceived as going back on levelling up the North West, which would jeopardise any hope they have of holding the “red wall” seats they took from Labour at the last election.
It was a venture that enabled the high quality coal that SOUTH WALES had [ steam coal.. anthracite? ]that was becoming more apparent to drive the progressive improvement of Steam trains. Also for the transport of other goods for a quicker passage to the capital [ London ]. There was a good programme on it a few months back .. one of the many programmes that do variations on a theme about train journeys/ history .... obviously done to make a profit and likely Merchant venturers were a part of the financing?
