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On Fri, Mar 12, 2010 at 09:27:45PM +0000, Arthur Figgis wrote:

Paris Nord - Est is not too dissimilar to Euston - St Pancras. London
even avoids stairs.

Paris Nord - Est is a rather more pleasant walk though.

--
David Cantrell | Enforcer, South London Linguistic Massive

Repent through spending

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On Sat, Mar 13, 2010 at 02:14:07PM +0000, Roland Perry wrote:

The other day I posted a list of ten separate destinations served in a
couple of hours from the much smaller airport, East Midlands.

You might delight everyone with 2tph to Paris, but what of the dozens of
other places they might want to be going instead?

Paris is an excellent place to change trains. But there's very little
point in running direct services from London to cities all over Europe -
the unavoidable constraint that high speed trains *must* pass through
Kent and the Channel Tunnel means that the only way to do that would be
to run lots of half-empty trains to lots of places, with none (or
perhaps just one) of them getting a frequent service.

This is why there's bugger-all service from Norwich to Penzance,
Cardiff, Bangor, Liverpool, Carlisle, Newcastle and Edinburgh - it's
more efficient to use a central hub: London. Likewise, it's more
efficient to go from London to Copenhagen, Berlin, Warsaw, Prague,
Geneva, Pisa and Barcelona via a central hub: Paris. And consequently,
it's more efficient to offer service from Norwich or Newcastle to Prague
or Pisa via two hubs: London and Paris.

--
David Cantrell | Minister for Arbitrary Justice

When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life
-- Samuel Johnson

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In message , at 13:57:08
on Tue, 16 Mar 2010, David Cantrell remarked:
On Sat, Mar 13, 2010 at 02:14:07PM +0000, Roland Perry wrote:

The other day I posted a list of ten separate destinations served in a
couple of hours from the much smaller airport, East Midlands.

You might delight everyone with 2tph to Paris, but what of the dozens of
other places they might want to be going instead?

Paris is an excellent place to change trains.

I'm sure about that, but let's park that thought for now.

But there's very little
point in running direct services from London to cities all over Europe -
the unavoidable constraint that high speed trains *must* pass through
Kent and the Channel Tunnel means that the only way to do that would be
to run lots of half-empty trains to lots of places, with none (or
perhaps just one) of them getting a frequent service.

Exactly, that's what I've been saying. However it's what you'd need to
do if you want to replace the point-point flights from Heathrow (or
further afield) with trains, if has been suggested a change is a big
turn-off for many travellers.

This is why there's bugger-all service from Norwich to Penzance,
Cardiff, Bangor, Liverpool, Carlisle, Newcastle and Edinburgh - it's
more efficient to use a central hub: London. Likewise, it's more
efficient to go from London to Copenhagen, Berlin, Warsaw, Prague,
Geneva, Pisa and Barcelona via a central hub: Paris. And consequently,
it's more efficient to offer service from Norwich or Newcastle to Prague
or Pisa via two hubs: London and Paris.

Yes, a hub and spoke system is what would work best for rail, as I said
a few days ago. But don't expect it to abstract very large proportion of
point-to-point flights.
--
Roland Perry

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On Mar 16, 2:57*pm, David Cantrell wrote:

This is why there's bugger-all service from Norwich to Penzance,
Cardiff, Bangor, Liverpool, Carlisle, Newcastle and Edinburgh^

Er, there is a service from Norwich to Liverpool, once an hour. The
demand for it, other than operational convenience of combining a load
of regional services into one[1], is to avoid crossing London, which
is generally a nasty place to change trains and has a habit of taking
an hour out of your journey. And it can be used in part to travel to
those other places with less nasty changes than London.

That wouldn't be quite the same with HS2, though, as Euston and St
Pancras are pretty close together.

[1] Which could be done with HS1/HS2 were it not for the security and
immigration nonsense.

Neil

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On Tue, Mar 16, 2010 at 02:51:39PM +0000, Roland Perry wrote:

Exactly, that's what I've been saying. However it's what you'd need to
do if you want to replace the point-point flights from Heathrow (or
further afield) with trains, if has been suggested a change is a big
turn-off for many travellers.

I'd think it depends on the change. Brussels is a great place to
change, because there's just one station involved for most journeys.
Paris is less good because there are several stations, but at least you
can plan your journey so that you have a decent meal in between
stations. Euston to St Pancras sucks right now, because you have to
walk along the ghastly Euston Road, in the winter, at night, when it's
raining. And it's *always* a rainy winter's night on the Euston Road.
Betcha that if HS2 ever happens the connection between the two will be
improved somehow - maybe another entrance to Euston Square, or an
enclosed walkway.

Trains might be able to replace at least some *domestic* flights,
because there's more routing flexibility - no Kent and Pas de Calais
bottleneck. There's no reason that trains can't go straight between
the small number of cities that have significant airports for domestic
flights - London, Birmingham, Manchester, East Midlands (wherever the
hell that is - Nottingham?), Bristol, Edinburgh etc. But that's still
a hub and spoke network, with low-speed rail providing the spokes
radiating out from those hubs.

--
David Cantrell | http://www.cantrell.org.uk/david

I hate baby seals. They get asked to all the best clubs.

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In message , at 12:14:40
on Wed, 17 Mar 2010, David Cantrell remarked:

There's no reason that trains can't go straight between
the small number of cities that have significant airports for domestic
flights - London, Birmingham, Manchester, East Midlands (wherever the
hell that is - Nottingham?),

It's a mile or two from East Midlands Parkway station.

Bristol, Edinburgh etc. But that's still a hub and spoke network, with
low-speed rail providing the spokes radiating out from those hubs.

I'm not sure that this vendetta against domestic flights is all that
productive. You might just as well bash away at any other easily
describable modal shift: eg get people to abandon any car that costs
more than £50k, in favour of the train.
--
Roland Perry

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In message
, at
01:08:34 on Wed, 17 Mar 2010, Neil Williams
remarked:
This is why there's bugger-all service from Norwich to Penzance,
Cardiff, Bangor, Liverpool, Carlisle, Newcastle and Edinburgh^

Er, there is a service from Norwich to Liverpool, once an hour.

And from my observations, minimal numbers of passengers using it to pass
through (rather than to/from) Nottingham. Its sister service, Stansted
to Liverpool, used to go via Birmingham, and was split into two separate
services with barely a whimper of protest.
--
Roland Perry

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In article , (Roland
Perry) wrote:

In message
,
at 01:08:34 on Wed, 17 Mar 2010, Neil Williams
remarked:
This is why there's bugger-all service from Norwich to Penzance,
Cardiff, Bangor, Liverpool, Carlisle, Newcastle and Edinburgh^

Er, there is a service from Norwich to Liverpool, once an hour.

And from my observations, minimal numbers of passengers using it to
pass through (rather than to/from) Nottingham. Its sister service,
Stansted to Liverpool, used to go via Birmingham, and was split
into two separate services with barely a whimper of protest.

The difference there being that the extension from Birmingham to Liverpool
was an innovation which lasted for a very short time.

The link from East Anglia to the North West already existed when my father
first came to this country in 1934.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

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On Thu, Mar 18, 2010 at 04:52:10PM +0000, Roland Perry wrote:

I'm not sure that this vendetta against domestic flights is all that
productive. You might just as well bash away at any other easily
describable modal shift: eg get people to abandon any car that costs
more than £50k, in favour of the train.

It would free up valuable slots at the airports for the sort of flights
that rail can't realistically replace, such as to Ireland, Scandinavia,
northern Germany etc.

It also has the "benefit" of pushing people away from a mode of
transport whose fuel isn't taxed to one where it is.

*I'm* in favour of high-speed rail because trains are far more civilised
than planes these days, more comfortable, more convenient, faster ...

I've travelled first class (or whatever it's called) on domestic
flights. Second class train seats are more comfortable and cheaper.
FIRST class train tickets are also cheaper.

--
David Cantrell | Cake Smuggler Extraordinaire

Just because it is possible to do this sort of thing
in the English language doesn't mean it should be done

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On Wed, Mar 17, 2010 at 01:08:34AM -0700, Neil Williams wrote:
On Mar 16, 2:57=A0pm, David Cantrell wrote:
This is why there's bugger-all service from Norwich to Penzance,
Cardiff, Bangor, Liverpool, Carlisle, Newcastle and Edinburgh^
Er, there is a service from Norwich to Liverpool, once an hour.

But if you were to add services to all the others, then they'd all
(including the one to Liverpool) run once a day, if you were lucky.

--
David Cantrell | Official London Perl Mongers Bad Influence

Longum iter est per praecepta, breve et efficax per exempla.