Do We Need A High Speed Train?

[anotheoldgit]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2269401/HS2-route-London-Manchester-train-hour-20-years.html

/// London to Manchester by train in one hour (in 20 years): ///

One hour in 20 years time, may be crawling along.

[FredPuli43]

Come to think of it, the Victorian railways were built by 'foreigners', gangs of Irish navvies who came over. Now, at the time, they were British in that Ireland was not independent and so they had the right to work here, but they still would as would citizens of other EU countries.

If the trains or machinery used in construction are equally foreign, EU, made, we have only ourselves to blame for not making the equivalent.

[emmie]

Euston is a diverse area, has lots of ethnic minorities, so unlikely to be core tory voters.

[LeMarchand]

Yes, there were Victorian philanthropists - but do you see much of that these days? The rich keep as much of their wealth as they can, using all sorts of underhand means to avoid giving any away *cough*Starbucks*cough*. Bill Gates (US, I know) only seems to be getting "properly" charitable now he can see the reaper on the horizon.

Besides which, we shouldn't have to rely on the possibility of some rich person feeling generous (especially as so few of them are).

[emmie]

you did say that all tories were rich people who kept the poor down, i was just pointing out that not all were like that. These days perhaps those who do good works don't shout it from the rooftops. Besides which we don't have the type of poverty, disease, or indeed workhouses, that were endemic in Victorian Britain. Most people who are not that well off can get some state help.

[emmie]

generalisations like yours really make me despair of ever getting over this class mindset.

[anotheoldgit]

em 10

http://www.myrailtrip.co.uk/londontransfers.asp

Forget what you have been told Em, the total distance ½ mile.

That is 2,640 feet, when I went to school.

[emmie]

i know the distance in fact, have walked it a hundred times, know how long it takes me, dragging suitcases or simply ambling along on a sunny day

[jno]

who uses the tunnels, FredPuli? Those who arrive by tube. The glam entrance to St Pancras is up a slope, not great for those with luggage. The notion of a moving walkway underground sounds good, but it may be there's simply too much infrastructure underground (pipes, drains, escalators) to get around, I don't know. Getting along crowded, uneven Euston Rd with luggage is no fun, so a subterranean option would be welcome.

[emmie]

tourists, locals and all sorts use the underground walkways,

[Zeuhl]

/Forget what you have been told Em, the total distance ½ mile.

That is 2,640 feet, when I went to school. /

AOG

Pity then that your school didn't teach you to think properly

Your reference is the distance to walk from the exit of one station to the other

A direct underground connection for transferring passengers - which is the context of the discussion on distance- would not do that would it?

[jno]

I make it 2214ft from door to door, incidentally. (Google maps.) That's 0.4 miles. The bit along Euston Rd is 1276ft, but both stations are back from the road.

[emmie]

according to my calculations as i said before if you base it on a quarter of a mile which is what some have been saying, is 1320 ft, but does it matter.
jno is right the whole idea of a long walkway under the ground isn't feasible, for one thing there are whole housing estates between stations, not to mention the British Library, not to mention the new development that is currently going on.

[Zeuhl]

1400 feet

Just for the record; the distance between the south eastern perimeter of Euston Station (near Wellesley House) and the south western perimeter of St Pancras near the junction of Midland Road and Euston Road

[Zeuhl]

You're right-enough on distance em

re: the walkway and the 'housing estates

who said it needed to be above ground?

[emmie]

i meant underground, no idea what's down there, as jno pointed out.
as to Wellesley House, did you mean Friends house, as that is opposite Euston Station

[boxtops]

It seems there are only a few of us in this discussion who commute regularly, to whom the prospect of saving even half an hour on each leg of any journey would be very welcome. As I said before, I'm up for it. And yes, I know how to be inconvenienced as a resident in the cause of speedier travel - many years ago ago in Birmingham, I had the M5 (literally) at the bottom of my garden.

[LeMarchand]

//you did say that all tories were rich people who kept the poor down, i was just pointing out that not all were like that.//

WERE being the operative word.

//Besides which we don't have the type of poverty, disease, or indeed workhouses, that were endemic in Victorian Britain.//

Not yet; they've only had a few years in power - give them a couple more terms and see how it is then.

//generalisations like yours really make me despair of ever getting over this class mindset.//

The fact that those with the money and power are getting richer and richer while the rest of us get poorer and poorer and getting increasingly underhand in their methods to retain their money and power make ME despair that we will ever achieve a society were all of us are anywhere near equal.

[jno]

Zeuhl, even bits of housing estates are underground - plumbing etc. I don't know whether it's feasible or not, but I wouldn't be amazed if it wasn't. These days when anything gets dug it has to be really deep, like Crossrail - and even that keeps bumping into plague pits.

You can measure distances on Google maps by clicking on Maps Labs and enabling the Distance Measurement Tool.

[LeMarchand]

//It seems there are only a few of us in this discussion who commute regularly, to whom the prospect of saving even half an hour on each leg of any journey would be very welcome.//

Surely proof that it's not needed? Besides which, you want it to be easier to visit the MIL? Are you mad?

[Zeuhl]

jno - ta for distance measurement tool

housing estate drains in the way of underground passenger transfer?

couldn't they re-purpose some old sewers

boxtops - i regularly travel up to london from south coast
shortening train journey is irrelevant when getting across london from victoria is factored in

I'd be much more interested in some 'infrastructure investment' that made the signalling more reliable and the trains more frequent, less crowded, more comfortable
Then it would be easier to work on the train making the duration even less relevant.