JP's Corner of The Blogosphere

I have been asked quite a bit recently about what I think of the plans for a new high-speed railway line between London and Birmingham, and so I thought that I would blog about it.  I appreciate that this may not be of interest to everyone, but then when is that ever the case with my contributions to the Blogosphere? As a Transport Researcher, I should probably know more about some of the hard facts than I do, so I apologise in advance if you think that you’ve got a more educated opinion than me.  However, on the basis of what I do currently know, I am not hugely in favour of the scheme.  My reasoning can be broken down as follows: Capacity The biggest argument for building High Speed 2 is capacity.  It is argued that the current transport links (chiefly the West Coast Mainline and the M6) are overcrowded and are not going to cope with predicted future travel demand.  This is probably very true, but is all of the predicted future demand necessary?  In an...

Hello folks.  The dust has settled after landing back in the UK and normal service (that is, a tendency to complain about trains) has resumed.  If you’re wanting another fix of “Live Slowly. Die Old” do stay tuned because I have some ‘reflections’ I’ll get around to posting at some point. Proponents of a Nationalised Railway system in the UK often bleat about how good the French system is.  And I don’t doubt that their shiny TGVs are good if you have a desire to go from major city centre to major city centre.  But I have always been sceptical of the quality of their local and regional services, and if my experience just now is typical then I am right to question whether or not the French system is all it is cracked up to be. I am looking at the options for travel between Hyeres and Marseille Airport.  These places are not that far apart, and as far as I can tell, we’re not talking the middle of nowhere.  But if I want to go by train, on a Friday, I have ...

I hope you’re sitting down for this.  Perhaps you’d even like to prepare yourself by taking a few deep breaths.  I’d like to recommend that you read this article from The Guardian .  There.  I’ve said it. Although my feelings about said newspaper are generally well documented, I have to say that George Monbiot has written a particularly good article about the environmental impact of rail travel.  As you may know, this will be my area of research once I’ve got some exams out of the way, and it looks like there could be a few surprises and some tough decisions to be made.

I was intrigued by this BBC article about the train drivers’ union ASLEF putting in a bid for the East Coast Franchise.  My attention was particularly captured by the fact that ASLEF want “to show how services could be improved without spending more money.” To improve services, I would have thought that one might want more staff.  To do so without spending more money either means paying everyone less, or making existing staff work longer hours without a pay increase.  Isn’t that the sort of capitalist behaviour ASLEF would normally strike over? Furthermore, where is Bob Crowe? The thought of “not spending any money” normally has him kicking off about ‘safety’ issues and the like.

Those of you who've been here often, or who read my column in Impact * last summer are probably bored of my tale of failed romance when an attractive young lady smiled at me on the train, I smiled back, and...nothing else happened.   Yesterday I was given a second chance, when as my train pulled out of Swindon I looked up to find the attractive blonde across the aisle staring at me.  As is my custom I returned her smile, and sat back in my seat thinking how the moment of leaving Swindon had just become brighter still.  I settled down to watch 'Battle of the Bishops',** but my concentration was hampered by the fact that I continued to exchange the odd smile with the beau opposite.  I even like to think that she was staring at my reflection in the window, but my hunch would be that I am mistaken on that one***.  Anyway, she got off at Reading without so much as a backward glance, and that, as they say, was that.     >>   *See wh...

I’m not really sure what defines a Cardinal Sin, but I’m fairly certain that I committed one recently. A guy on the train was wearing the same tie as me.   I positioned my copy of the Metro to conceal this fact, and as I buried my nose in to the pages even closer than usual I shot a furtive glance across the aisle to make sure that he hadn’t noticed. I then glanced around at the rest of my fellow commuters to ensure they hadn’t noticed either. I’m not sure what this glance would have achieved, as anyone pointing out my offence would have risked committing a greater social faux pas, but I feel that on this occasion I got away with it.   I wonder if this is what women feel like when they turn up somewhere and someone else is wearing the same outfit?

It's been a while since I've taken the time to complain about anything train-related, so I'm going to rectify that with a short moan.  Rejoice, or bear with me as appropriate.   My commute takes me about half-way to London, and at the end of last year I paid a four-figure sum for the privilege of holding a Season Ticket for this.  You'd have thought, therefore, that when I actually want to travel all the way in to London I'd enjoy some reasonable savings, given that I only have to buy a ticket for half the journey.  If like me, however, you did think that, you thought wrong.  Especially when it comes to Saver Returns, as I found out this weekend.  I paid £15.70.  If you want to pay for the whole 1 1/4 hour journey in full, you pay £15.10.  The saving didn't even cover my Krispy Kreme doughnut* on arrival, and given that my Season Ticket works out at substantially more than 60p for that part of the journey I feel a bit short-changed. ...