Nottingham and Edinburgh similar stories.
Can you instance some recent significant investment schemes in London that have been based on ‘seconds’ saved for many users? I was under the impression that schemes like Thameslink, the Elizabeth Line, Barking Riverside and the Battersea Power Station Underground extension were quite ‘transformative’ in terms of connectivity, end-to-end generalised journey times, capacity and so on.
Do Civil Servants no longer get London weighting?
I disagree. Taking money from London is exactly what this is about for many. They think that London gets all the money and they should suffer for a bit. It is jealousy, ignorance and suspicion driving those views.
Not all think that, obviously, but many. I do have some experience of this
And, indeed, southern fares and southern subsidy levels?
Yes, London weighting is still a thing.
By taking fast trains off of the two existing routes, you can dramatically increase the frequency of the stopping trains. Many stations on commuter routes into Liverpool and Manchester only see an hourly service because of the white space wasted by mixed traffic.
Limehouse to Paddington is between a third and a quarter of the distance from Hebden Bridge to Manchester.
I have no idea but the point that I was making is that taxpayers pay more for someone to do an identical job in London than elsewhere.
No, it’s the market working correctly.
For schools, hospitals and the like weighting makes sense for the very reason you state (you can’t relocate a GP surgery from Pimlico to Peterlee to save money) but less so for (bits of) businesses / government departments which could be almost anywhere.
www.bbc.co.uk
The 58/42 %age split is senior civil servants in London and rest of UK.
Yes, but sometimes the benefits outweigh the additional costs.
Memories fade with time but my recollection of reading the Crossrail business case was that it was justified almost wholly on time saved. Financially it was a basket case (and that was based on the original cost estimates) but a notional value was placed on time saved by passengers and this value was used to justify the case. Of course the value was based on the assumption that all the time saved would be used productively and would have a positive economic benefit. I suspect that in reality most of the commuters just spent more time in bed.
Given the cost of living in London, they've got longer to work at their second or third jobs.
Though France (like a number of other European countries) is actually significantly less centralised than it used to be and has made the changes in a much more coherent manner than the chaotic beginnings of regionalisation we have had here over the last thirty years with Whitehall still keeping a guiding dead hand on almost everything.
Sometimes they do but often they don't. Sometimes doesn't justify a general policy
Yes and quite clearly my comment was talking civil servants, as this was what the thread was about.
It's all very well to talk about the supposed benefits of moving jobs out of London but don't discount the cost of doing so. Network Rail moved their headquarters from London to Milton Keynes and have never successfully replaced much of the expertise and experience that was held by people who chose not to relocate. And that was a move of only 50 miles.
Which is of course the beauty of capital spending.
A clusterduck of a relocation. Going from a massive hub to a small town on a single radial route, imposing journey time limits that excluded most living 40 minutes out on other routes, and an arrogant assumption that you simply ‘grow’ replacement talent.
It wasn't just London though. They centralised a lot of functions from around the country.
I would also add that threads like this:
Are some trains too long?
Considering that overcrowding and lack of capacity is a huge problem across much of the railway network, I think the question of a train being too long with many free seats is actually a good reflection of the new rolling stock. Of course being articulated Stadler stock in this instance I am...www.railforums.co.uk
Are about trains in the south east being quiet in the interpeak. We all say "but yes this is merited because of the rush hour, demand peaks, etc."
But when Northern seek longer trains, the arguments are always "but the demand is only in the peaks, the rest of the time you're carrying air."
Almost certainly true - but in many cases 8 car trains all day (or indeed at all) is not what’s being looked for - 3 or (if I may be so bold) would be nice!
I would hardly call Milton Keynes a small town!
It was more than that for most of the train planners, it centralised Paddington, Birmingham and Leeds.
