Have you noticed that as you grow older and wiser, you start to see problems in the logic of politicians and the media when they discuss important issues? Alan James of UK Ultraspeed is categoric that the German transrapid system will deliver advantages in virtually every area over conventional rail for high-speed lines yet for some reason, there are still people who are unconvinced. Of course, anyone can understand the risk of a wholesale change in something so large and important but I want to return to my initial point.
I have read various articles about why people legitimately think maglev is not to be preferred over conventional rail and here is where the problems are. Firstly, people compare the UK to Japan. In many ways we have similar issues, similar population densities and a love of trains except for one important detail: Japan has earthquakes and their maglev trains need a much greater distance between train and guideway in order to avoid serious damage in the event of an earthquake, generating strong magnetic fields over these great distances takes an enormous amount of power. Or the media compare the UK to China. Sure, China have an actual maglex system running every day and this is useful to prove it is technically workable but the Chinese system does not run into the centre of Shanghai (an irrelevance at best) and also the whole society in China is different, its economics are different, communism and state ownership dictate low costs to the public which makes it seem like a financial disaster. Again, ticket pricing could be calculated on running costs to recoup the outlay in, say, 10 years and this can be considered at the planning stage.
At the end of the day, I still cannot see any reasons, other than the practical concerns of building guideways or their aesthetics, to say that conventional rail is in anyway better. As I read before, it is like the Canal owners telling everyone that these new fangled trains would move so fast they would melt your eyeballs.
Technology has moved on, its a shame we can't.
Showing posts with label transport. Show all posts
Showing posts with label transport. Show all posts
Friday, 28 May 2010
Thursday, 27 May 2010
500 kph high-speed trains
I have been following these guys for a while. They are called UK Ultraspeed and are a lobby group trying to convince the government that rather than spending vast amounts of money on conventional high speed rail which, because of their designs and limits, provide moderate benefits at best, for the same money you can install a very high speed system capable of running trains at 500 kph which is around 310mph.
Essentially we are talking about magnetically levitated trains running on specially built concrete guideways. They have superior acceleration, braking, quality of ride and safety compared to standard trains and of course extremely high top speed.
What I am particularly impressed by is that Ultraspeed are not simply pitching high-technology which is expensive but worth it, they are instead saying that not only are you getting better equipment for the same money but that there are major economic advantages to cities outside of London, something that sadly is not currently true. For instance, the standard high speed rail systems have separate east and west coast systems because of the pennine mountains, which cause either expensive tunnelling operations or would require gradients that are quite simply not possible on standard rails. If you want to travel from Manchester to Newcastle, you either have to get a slow train across to Leeds and then up to Newcastle or go up to Glasgow and back across Scotland. Any new lines are not going to be able to use the existing tunnels and will not spend the 100s of millions to bore new ones. Ultraspeed on the other hand can support steep gradients because of the magnetic drive system so that a new line could indeed cross the Pennines without tunnels. Imagine Liverpool to Manchester in 20 minutes, Manchester to Newcastle in 30 minutes and Newcastle to Glasgow via Edinbugh in 40 minutes. Imagine what that would do to encourage investment in these areas with a massive workforce and little employment.
The only objections can be that the guideways are elevated and not attractive. The system requires less land to be bought, has been tried and tested elsewhere, requires less trains, less staff, less control equipment and ties the country together in a single high-speed line for the SAME money as other proposals. The idea that standard systems can re-use existing rails is a red herring. There is simply not the capacity for any additional trains to use most parts of the current system and the delays and problems you encounter are frequently due to level crossings, freight trains and local trains, things that do not exist on the transrapid system. There really is no reason to go backwards with conventional rail any more.
Essentially we are talking about magnetically levitated trains running on specially built concrete guideways. They have superior acceleration, braking, quality of ride and safety compared to standard trains and of course extremely high top speed.
What I am particularly impressed by is that Ultraspeed are not simply pitching high-technology which is expensive but worth it, they are instead saying that not only are you getting better equipment for the same money but that there are major economic advantages to cities outside of London, something that sadly is not currently true. For instance, the standard high speed rail systems have separate east and west coast systems because of the pennine mountains, which cause either expensive tunnelling operations or would require gradients that are quite simply not possible on standard rails. If you want to travel from Manchester to Newcastle, you either have to get a slow train across to Leeds and then up to Newcastle or go up to Glasgow and back across Scotland. Any new lines are not going to be able to use the existing tunnels and will not spend the 100s of millions to bore new ones. Ultraspeed on the other hand can support steep gradients because of the magnetic drive system so that a new line could indeed cross the Pennines without tunnels. Imagine Liverpool to Manchester in 20 minutes, Manchester to Newcastle in 30 minutes and Newcastle to Glasgow via Edinbugh in 40 minutes. Imagine what that would do to encourage investment in these areas with a massive workforce and little employment.
The only objections can be that the guideways are elevated and not attractive. The system requires less land to be bought, has been tried and tested elsewhere, requires less trains, less staff, less control equipment and ties the country together in a single high-speed line for the SAME money as other proposals. The idea that standard systems can re-use existing rails is a red herring. There is simply not the capacity for any additional trains to use most parts of the current system and the delays and problems you encounter are frequently due to level crossings, freight trains and local trains, things that do not exist on the transrapid system. There really is no reason to go backwards with conventional rail any more.
Monday, 7 September 2009
Karma?
I told a friend about my typical but crazy journey through the "computer controlled" traffic lights of Cheltenham going to Gloucester yesterday. I met 13 red lights and 6 greens (2 of which were pelicans). He said that it was karma getting its own back on me for my anti-traffic light blog. If I believed in karma I would agree but I don't which leaves me with the belief in incompetence at County Hall (whoops, nearly misspelled it to something rude but funny!).
Tuesday, 28 July 2009
The Great British Rail Ticket Farce
Buying train tickets should be really simple. You buy a return between two stations right? Well, if you want the cheapest tickets, it is not that simple. Here is a simple and general guide to saving money on tickets.
Firstly, there is a general balance between the cheapness of the ticket and its flexibility. In other words if you want to travel at any time on any train, these tickets will cost more than if you name a train(s) and travel after the rush hour so a good general rule is to try and book ahead as much as possible. Bear in mind that depending on other factors such as engineering works, you might not be able to book all of these advance tickets (since the company might not know if your named train is going to run). Generally more than 2 weeks in advance allows you to get cheap tickets on a first come, first served basis (some trains seem to only have about 50 available).
Secondly, after privatisation, the government decided to protect certain ticket prices from being overinflated by the train operating companies and pricing everybody of the trains. These tickets such as "saver" tickets and most season tickets are tied to inflation + 1% currently and are often good value for money. However, because the train companies don't like having their prices dictated, some offer single tickets that are cheaper than half a "saver return" to entice people from the government protected tickets (and perhaps one day get rid of the protected ones?). Always check on a return if two singles are cheaper but bear in mind that again due to availability, you might be restricted to certain trains if you want the cheapest singles and usually the singles are for a single train company and might restrict the route that you are allowed to travel.
The third and most bizarre condition is related to the way in which fares are calculate that run over more than one company's rails. Although the track is owned by Network Rail, for fares, it is treated as being owned by the main operator over that line who get to say how much it costs to run over that section. This can create savings for 2 reasons. 1 is that each company charges different amounts of money for similar routes and the other is that you are allowed to travel, using standard tickets, any reasonable route between two places. For instance, if you buy a ticket from London to Glasgow, you could travel from Kings Cross, Euston or St Pancras even though the fare will be based on only one route. The clever thing to do here is to "break your journey". As long as your train stops at a station (you do not have to alight) you can buy a set of tickets to cover the whole journey rather than one return ticket. This enables you to take advantage of off-peak returns (cheap day return), saver returns (limited in distance) and journeys over cheaper lengths of track. For example, suppose you need to go from Cheltenham to Weymouth for the day but you need to leave at 9:15. You cannot buy a cheap day ticket because it is before 9:30 so generally you would end up with a saver return which is about £30. You change trains at Bristol so by getting a standard return from Cheltenham to Bristol and then a cheap day return from Bristol to Weymouth, you save about £5. Note that the train must call where you "break the journey" but you do not have to alight at that station. With a bit of investigation, you can potentially save hundreds of pounds. The ticket office must sell you these sets of tickets but they will not usually offer them to you because they say it takes too much time.
Let me leave you with an example that Barry Doe the expert recounted on the BBC web site. You want to travel first class return to Manchester so the open first return is about £220 BUT you can alternatively buy a first return from London to Falkirk (yes in Scotland and which is set by East Coast railways) which is £100 cheaper and then you opt to choose the west coast route via Manchester and get off at Manchester. Bargain.
Firstly, there is a general balance between the cheapness of the ticket and its flexibility. In other words if you want to travel at any time on any train, these tickets will cost more than if you name a train(s) and travel after the rush hour so a good general rule is to try and book ahead as much as possible. Bear in mind that depending on other factors such as engineering works, you might not be able to book all of these advance tickets (since the company might not know if your named train is going to run). Generally more than 2 weeks in advance allows you to get cheap tickets on a first come, first served basis (some trains seem to only have about 50 available).
Secondly, after privatisation, the government decided to protect certain ticket prices from being overinflated by the train operating companies and pricing everybody of the trains. These tickets such as "saver" tickets and most season tickets are tied to inflation + 1% currently and are often good value for money. However, because the train companies don't like having their prices dictated, some offer single tickets that are cheaper than half a "saver return" to entice people from the government protected tickets (and perhaps one day get rid of the protected ones?). Always check on a return if two singles are cheaper but bear in mind that again due to availability, you might be restricted to certain trains if you want the cheapest singles and usually the singles are for a single train company and might restrict the route that you are allowed to travel.
The third and most bizarre condition is related to the way in which fares are calculate that run over more than one company's rails. Although the track is owned by Network Rail, for fares, it is treated as being owned by the main operator over that line who get to say how much it costs to run over that section. This can create savings for 2 reasons. 1 is that each company charges different amounts of money for similar routes and the other is that you are allowed to travel, using standard tickets, any reasonable route between two places. For instance, if you buy a ticket from London to Glasgow, you could travel from Kings Cross, Euston or St Pancras even though the fare will be based on only one route. The clever thing to do here is to "break your journey". As long as your train stops at a station (you do not have to alight) you can buy a set of tickets to cover the whole journey rather than one return ticket. This enables you to take advantage of off-peak returns (cheap day return), saver returns (limited in distance) and journeys over cheaper lengths of track. For example, suppose you need to go from Cheltenham to Weymouth for the day but you need to leave at 9:15. You cannot buy a cheap day ticket because it is before 9:30 so generally you would end up with a saver return which is about £30. You change trains at Bristol so by getting a standard return from Cheltenham to Bristol and then a cheap day return from Bristol to Weymouth, you save about £5. Note that the train must call where you "break the journey" but you do not have to alight at that station. With a bit of investigation, you can potentially save hundreds of pounds. The ticket office must sell you these sets of tickets but they will not usually offer them to you because they say it takes too much time.
Let me leave you with an example that Barry Doe the expert recounted on the BBC web site. You want to travel first class return to Manchester so the open first return is about £220 BUT you can alternatively buy a first return from London to Falkirk (yes in Scotland and which is set by East Coast railways) which is £100 cheaper and then you opt to choose the west coast route via Manchester and get off at Manchester. Bargain.
Monday, 22 June 2009
The cost of going to the airport.
I live in Cheltenham, I am going to Gatwick Airport on July 3rd for a 2 week holiday. Various return options:
Coach to Oxford and catch a lift: 5hrs 5m to Oxford (via Bristol) and then... forget it
The train via Reading: 3hrs 20m £148!!
A taxi: £120 each way 2hrs 30m
Hire cars: £110 2hrs 30m + hassle picking up/dropping off
Airport parking: £125 2hrs 30m + getting from car park to airport
Coach: £35 4hrs 30m
My car and park somewhere away from Gatwick and get a train in: £47 2hrs 30m
Guess which one I will be doing!!! What a joke, the train was ridiculous, wouldn't mind if it only took 5 minutes and you paid for the priviledge, I think you could cycle in less time (it's about 120 miles). The coach is not too bad but takes a long time (you have to go all the way off the M25 into Heathrow and wait 35 minutes to then come all the way back out, this must add at least 50 minutes to the journey time but fair enough).
Coach to Oxford and catch a lift: 5hrs 5m to Oxford (via Bristol) and then... forget it
The train via Reading: 3hrs 20m £148!!
A taxi: £120 each way 2hrs 30m
Hire cars: £110 2hrs 30m + hassle picking up/dropping off
Airport parking: £125 2hrs 30m + getting from car park to airport
Coach: £35 4hrs 30m
My car and park somewhere away from Gatwick and get a train in: £47 2hrs 30m
Guess which one I will be doing!!! What a joke, the train was ridiculous, wouldn't mind if it only took 5 minutes and you paid for the priviledge, I think you could cycle in less time (it's about 120 miles). The coach is not too bad but takes a long time (you have to go all the way off the M25 into Heathrow and wait 35 minutes to then come all the way back out, this must add at least 50 minutes to the journey time but fair enough).
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