Why the fuck would you try and get a plane from Paris to anywhere in France now is beyond me (with the exception of getting to Toulouse or Nice which are shit journey's on train) Most Cities are within an hour of Paris and easier to get around the country changing in the likes of Lille, Lyon and Bordeaux.
I've flown to Manchester and Newcastle in the past, I still would to Newcastle, and would for work to Glasgow or Edinburgh, because the trains are too slow and the flights have been cheaper
Why the fuck would you try and get a plane from Paris to anywhere in France now is beyond me (with the exception of getting to Toulouse or Nice which are shit journey's on train) Most Cities are within an hour of Paris and easier to get around the country changing in the likes of Lille, Lyon and Bordeaux.
I've flown to Manchester and Newcastle in the past, I still would to Newcastle, and would for work to Glasgow or Edinburgh, because the trains are too slow and the flights have been cheaper
It takes 10 hours to drive from Paris to Marseille, for example. Or 7 or 8 hours by ordinary train.
From London, it's only the Scottish routes on the mainland where flying still has a significant share of the point to point market (a few people will fly from Manchester to connect to another flight at Heathrow)
For region to region travel though, the trains are much slower than flying, e.g. Plymouth to Norwich or Newcastle
Why the fuck would you try and get a plane from Paris to anywhere in France now is beyond me (with the exception of getting to Toulouse or Nice which are shit journey's on train) Most Cities are within an hour of Paris and easier to get around the country changing in the likes of Lille, Lyon and Bordeaux.
I've flown to Manchester and Newcastle in the past, I still would to Newcastle, and would for work to Glasgow or Edinburgh, because the trains are too slow and the flights have been cheaper
It takes 10 hours to drive from Paris to Marseille, for example. Or 7 or 8 hours by ordinary train.
Then came the TVG ....... just 3hours 20.
Thats crazy, London to Edinburgh is 403-mins; Paris to Marseille is 480-miles
The quickest train tomorrow takes 4hrs 24mins, the majority take close to five hours
France and the rest of Europe are finally implementing open competition on many of their railways. Different companies will be able to run trains over the same route and charge whatever they like - non of this franchising nonsense.
This is leading to the introduction of very low cost services using large trains with no first class accommodation. You can only book online - some trains use out of town stations and yes - you have to pay extra for more than one piece of baggage!
HS2 may end up being a completely different experience to what some people are expecting. It's looking more likely to be the equivalent of Ryanair and EasyJet cramming 1500 people on trains between London and Manchester at 10 quid a time.
The rail system in Great Britain is not a lot better than third world. It is crying out for investment and modern technology. The real question should be why was this not started twenty years ago. By the time we get high speed trains the French will have had theirs for nigh on half a century.
Most of Britain's principal rail network was already built more than 150 years ago with Victorian technology and investment. Basically we're still depending on it, expecting it to be fast and reliable.
You've only got to cross the Channel or North Sea to see that our European neighbours are light years ahead of Britain in their thinking and investment.
The rail system in Great Britain is not a lot better than third world. It is crying out for investment and modern technology. The real question should be why was this not started twenty years ago. By the time we get high speed trains the French will have had theirs for nigh on half a century.
Most of Britain's principal rail network was already built more than 150 years ago with Victorian technology and investment. Basically we're still depending on it, expecting it to be fast and reliable.
You've only got to cross the Channel or North Sea to see that our European neighbours are light years ahead of Britain in their thinking and investment.
That's doing our railways a disservice. In France for example, the High Speed lines might be great, but many of the other services are pretty poor.
The rail system in Great Britain is not a lot better than third world. It is crying out for investment and modern technology. The real question should be why was this not started twenty years ago. By the time we get high speed trains the French will have had theirs for nigh on half a century.
Most of Britain's principal rail network was already built more than 150 years ago with Victorian technology and investment. Basically we're still depending on it, expecting it to be fast and reliable.
You've only got to cross the Channel or North Sea to see that our European neighbours are light years ahead of Britain in their thinking and investment.
That's doing our railways a disservice. In France for example, the High Speed lines might be great, but many of the other services are pretty poor.
It's hardly doing our railways a disservice. Just telling it as it is, from what I Iearned spending half my career on the railways; and travelling by train frequently all over Britain and Europe.
Apart from the TGV, the French TER regional services basically link or join up the dots for those places not connected to the TGV. Reliability is invariably good, certainly not inferior to British services; while there's still some old coaching stock around, most of it is in the process of being replaced by the standard expected today.
Even on more lightly used local and rural lines, much of the stock is modern and recently introduced.
Yeah, alright ....... there's the grubby RER around Paris; and a lot of suburban trains around the big cities suffer hugely from graffiti. But I wouldn't hold the railway company responsible for the actions of a 'couldn't give a shit' minority.
Crazy that the first post in 2013 was 'Whats the point'. Little did they know that 8 years later people would be working from home or meeting on zoom and the concept of needing to arrive somewhere for a meeting 20 min quicker.... would be even more pointless.
Shine, you must be crazy if you dont think businesses are not gonna invest in Birmingham once the train gets there from London 15 minutes quicker than before !!!
that is a whole half hour saved going to and from Birmingham - game changer !!!
Shine, you must be crazy if you dont think businesses are not gonna invest in Birmingham once the train gets there from London 15 minutes quicker than before !!!
that is a whole half hour saved going to and from Birmingham - game changer !!!
Actually, I think the selling point should be getting away from Birmingham 15 mins quicker, rather than arriving 15 mins quicker. That's the real sales pitch !
Christ the train companies really would see pound signs if that became the case!!
Zero competition on routes between Manchester and London etc. and they'll charge whatever they want
How many people fly between manchester and london?
My guess is the number is tiny. It's a great move by the French.
Late reply and you probably know by now, but if you fly long haul from Manchester on BA you have to change at Heathrow so that'll cover a fair chunk of it. I've flown Manchester to London before. Security at Manchester is the worse I've ever experienced, utterly clueless! Probably lasted longer than the actual flight!
scrap the rail idea and convert to a motorway a s a p .. few governments are as good/bad/inept as the UK's for spending billions on white elephant projects AND then continuing to throw even more money into the bottomless black hole when it's obvious the bastard brainchild is long past feasible
The problem in cancelling projects like this, is that slowly our rail infrastructure gets further and further behind our European competitors in terms of speed and the ability of the tracks to operate fast modern trains. Already we’re way behind the likes of France and Germany and probably many others. HS II is about moving our infrastructure forwards and not stagnating. Our rolling stock is in the main very out of date. Traction and braking systems we use are now unheard of in France and Germany. The sooner that rail is brought back into public ownership the better. What’s happened to our railways since the sixties is unforgivable.
Comments
''France moves to ban short-haul domestic flights
French lawmakers have moved to ban short-haul internal flights where train alternatives exist, in a bid to reduce carbon emissions.
Over the weekend, lawmakers voted in favour of a bill to end routes where the same journey could be made by train in under two-and-a-half hours.
Connecting flights will not be affected, however.''
I wonder if Europe is going in this direction.
I hope so.
Will add justification for the HS 2 decisions.
Zero competition on routes between Manchester and London etc. and they'll charge whatever they want
My guess is the number is tiny. It's a great move by the French.
I've flown to Manchester and Newcastle in the past, I still would to Newcastle, and would for work to Glasgow or Edinburgh, because the trains are too slow and the flights have been cheaper
Or 7 or 8 hours by ordinary train.
Then came the TVG ....... just 3hours 20.
For region to region travel though, the trains are much slower than flying, e.g. Plymouth to Norwich or Newcastle
The quickest train tomorrow takes 4hrs 24mins, the majority take close to five hours
This is leading to the introduction of very low cost services using large trains with no first class accommodation. You can only book online - some trains use out of town stations and yes - you have to pay extra for more than one piece of baggage!
HS2 may end up being a completely different experience to what some people are expecting. It's looking more likely to be the equivalent of Ryanair and EasyJet cramming 1500 people on trains between London and Manchester at 10 quid a time.
Not quite a vanity project for the rich.
Basically we're still depending on it, expecting it to be fast and reliable.
You've only got to cross the Channel or North Sea to see that our European neighbours are light years ahead of Britain in their thinking and investment.
It's hardly doing our railways a disservice. Just telling it as it is, from what I Iearned spending half my career on the railways;
and travelling by train frequently all over Britain and Europe.
Apart from the TGV, the French TER regional services basically link or join up the dots for those places not connected to the TGV.
Reliability is invariably good, certainly not inferior to British services; while there's still some old coaching stock around, most of it is in the process of being replaced by the standard expected today.
Even on more lightly used local and rural lines, much of the stock is modern and recently introduced.
Yeah, alright ....... there's the grubby RER around Paris; and a lot of suburban trains around the big cities suffer hugely from graffiti.
But I wouldn't hold the railway company responsible for the actions of a 'couldn't give a shit' minority.
that is a whole half hour saved going to and from Birmingham - game changer !!!
Speed will be important for the operator so they can get the most out of the trains.
Don't think the passenger cares much about speed to Birmingham - maybe Manchester in an hour might be attractive though.
All part of the feasibility stage/study of all major infrastructure project works.
Sensible thing to do. Nothing to really see here.
If you took all the London-Birmingham-Manchester-Glasgow traffic off the WCML.
Late reply and you probably know by now, but if you fly long haul from Manchester on BA you have to change at Heathrow so that'll cover a fair chunk of it. I've flown Manchester to London before. Security at Manchester is the worse I've ever experienced, utterly clueless! Probably lasted longer than the actual flight!
Although these projects cost many millions, they employ a lot of people paying a lot of taxes