Is rail REALLY that bad in the North?

ole17 · 21 Jan 2018

B&I said:
The transport infrastructure of Manchester or Leeds would be regarded as a matter of shame if either of them was located in most other western European countries. So I thoroughly support our cities taking their cue from other, better-run countries.

Not if a frequent and reliable service was provided to most of the popular destinations out of them. Size of a station is not always directly related to the no. of services and seats that someone does provide out of them.

Plus, providing a transport infrastructure starts from transport planning. This starts with people who actually enjoy working out a cohesive plan for services in many years/decades to come, and also the people at the top who do understand infrastructure planning and not use it just to make money. This country is deficient in such people since ages ago. Look at our road infrastructure. Much more hot air from highways england than network rail's plan on what they want to do to improve infrastructure.

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Spartacus · 21 Jan 2018

Distance keeps coming up as a factor, but that's largely irrelevant, it's TIME that's the factor, whether people are on the train, car, bus or foot. As services were speeded up out of London, with housing developments to encourage them (sometimes by the railways themselves), people moved out of London, and it's just continued from then. The reason you'll get far fewer people proportionally commuting similar distances into Leeds and Manchester is simply because it takes so much more time to cover those distances. The 50 miles from Euston to MKC can be done in just over
half an hour, while travelling a similar time from Manchester Piccadilly would only get you 25 miles to Huddersfield and to go 50 miles would take over an hour. It's only the same as how building a new road making journeys quicker actually encourages more people to make the journey.

B&I · 21 Jan 2018

Olaf said:
So now you are knocking Local Officials in the UK again. Hmm.

Transport is not the determining factor in making the successful peer cities what they are - their success is more to do with attitudes towards work and self-reliance.

No, given how deeply centralised England is, if there is any criticism to be levelled it is at national level politicians and civil servants, but though some of our cities do have deeply hopeless local administrations as well.

As for your other point, can you provide me a link to evidence of differing attitudes towards work and self-reliance in different English cities? Or is this evidence of nothing more than your rather odd and prejudiced attitudes towards your fellow citizens, and unjustified sense of your own superiority?

SamYeager · 22 Jan 2018

B&I said:
is this evidence of nothing more than your rather odd and prejudiced attitudes towards your fellow citizens, and unjustified sense of your own superiority?

Being located in the southwest I don't benefit from all the money that's been spent on London & the SE so I have no axe to grind. Perhaps you should get rid of those chips on your shoulders and stop slagging off other posters.

TUC · 22 Jan 2018

The problem with population density arguments is that when you talk about a whole region an overall figure is misleading. Look at population density in West Yorkshire or Greater Mancester and you have similar figures to Surrey. Add in all of North Yorkshire and Northumberland and the density drops significantly. However, when looking at population density and the South we don't say for the needs of Surrey-London flows that 'taking the density of Devon and Cornwall into account your population is not dense', so why treat 'the North' as one generic area?

B&I · 22 Jan 2018

SamYeager said:
Being located in the southwest I don't benefit from all the money that's been spent on London & the SE so I have no axe to grind. Perhaps you should get rid of those chips on your shoulders and stop slagging off other posters.

Can you explain to me how I am in the wrong for questioning someone who believes that the relative economic success of different British cities is down to their inhabitants having different attitudes to work and self-reliance? I don't think I'm the one here with a chip on my shoulder.

fowler9 · 22 Jan 2018

B&I said:
Can you explain to me how I am in the wrong for questioning someone who believes that the relative economic success of different British cities is down to their inhabitants having different attitudes to work and self-reliance? I don't think I'm the one here with a chip on my shoulder.

Yeah. I thought you made quite a reasonable point.

B&I · 22 Jan 2018

fowler9 said:
Yeah. I thought you made quite a reasonable point.

Thanks. Probably the only one I'll manage this year.

Bevan Price · 22 Jan 2018

Spartacus said:
Distance keeps coming up as a factor, but that's largely irrelevant, it's TIME that's the factor, whether people are on the train, car, bus or foot. As services were speeded up out of London, with housing developments to encourage them (sometimes by the railways themselves), people moved out of London, and it's just continued from then. The reason you'll get far fewer people proportionally commuting similar distances into Leeds and Manchester is simply because it takes so much more time to cover those distances. The 50 miles from Euston to MKC can be done in just over
half an hour, while travelling a similar time from Manchester Piccadilly would only get you 25 miles to Huddersfield and to go 50 miles would take over an hour. It's only the same as how building a new road making journeys quicker actually encourages more people to make the journey.

In my opinion, that includes a bit of oversimplification. It is also necessary to consider the cost of housing, and the cost of rail travel. Housing in London and nearby can be horrendously expensive - and unaffordable for some., So, even after buying tickets, you can save money by living longish distances away from London. ***

Housing in/near most northern cities is mostly more affordable, so there is no real need to travel long distances to/from work. I think that availability of suitable jobs - plus a reluctance to move houses from an area you like - is probably an important reason for commuting in areas other than London and the "South East".

(*** - Whilst HS2 will bring Manchester within "time acceptable" commuting distance from London, you will need "bankers bonus" levels of salary to be able to afford to commute.)

.

Dentonian · 22 Jan 2018

Bevan Price said:
In my opinion, that includes a bit of oversimplification. It is also necessary to consider the cost of housing, and the cost of rail travel. Housing in London and nearby can be horrendously expensive - and unaffordable for some., So, even after buying tickets, you can save money by living longish distances away from London. ***

Housing in/near most northern cities is mostly more affordable, so there is no real need to travel long distances to/from work. I think that availability of suitable jobs - plus a reluctance to move houses from an area you like - is probably an important reason for commuting in areas other than London and the "South East".

(*** - Whilst HS2 will bring Manchester within "time acceptable" commuting distance from London, you will need "bankers bonus" levels of salary to be able to afford to commute.)

.

House prices in London are the very epitome of the free market and the price Londoners pay for the over centralised country mentioned earlier in the thread. Trouble is London (as an entity, if not the individuals born there) want their heavily subsidised cake and to eat it.

A general point that I think was also hinted at above is that its right to say the "North/South" Divide is a misnoma. As Roy Hattersley once said, its a "Metropolitan" divide, with the likes of Plymouth and Norwich just as badly short changed as many northern cities.

As for "Manchester" being brought into a "time acceptable" distance from London, what do you mean by "Manchester"? Its all very well spending £108 billion of tax-payers money (minus the rolling stock, which I believe is the only bit financed by the private sector) so that the few that can't get their daily dose of all things London from the BBC, can get there from Piccadilly Station in 68 minutes. But what about spending £108 million (or £10.8 million??) so that people can get from Manchester overspill estates 7 miles away. to Piccadilly in less than 68 minutes? Especially as the journey I had in mind, took as little as 28 minutes before bus deregulation!

Chester1 · 22 Jan 2018

Dentonian said:
House prices in London are the very epitome of the free market and the price Londoners pay for the over centralised country mentioned earlier in the thread. Trouble is London (as an entity, if not the individuals born there) want their heavily subsidised cake and to eat it.

A general point that I think was also hinted at above is that its right to say the "North/South" Divide is a misnoma. As Roy Hattersley once said, its a "Metropolitan" divide, with the likes of Plymouth and Norwich just as badly short changed as many northern cities.

As for "Manchester" being brought into a "time acceptable" distance from London, what do you mean by "Manchester"? Its all very well spending £108 billion of tax-payers money (minus the rolling stock, which I believe is the only bit financed by the private sector) so that the few that can't get their daily dose of all things London from the BBC, can get there from Piccadilly Station in 68 minutes. But what about spending £108 million (or £10.8 million??) so that people can get from Manchester overspill estates 7 miles away. to Piccadilly in less than 68 minutes? Especially as the journey I had in mind, took as little as 28 minutes before bus deregulation!

That is made up number! Even the £54bn official estimate includes 40% contigency. HS2 is being funded by loans which will be paid back by future fares, cancelling it would not mean any extra funding for other public transport. The CP6 funding level demonstrates it not zero sum.

Dentonian · 22 Jan 2018

TUC said:
The problem with population density arguments is that when you talk about a whole region an overall figure is misleading. Look at population density in West Yorkshire or Greater Mancester and you have similar figures to Surrey. Add in all of North Yorkshire and Northumberland and the density drops significantly. However, when looking at population density and the South we don't say for the needs of Surrey-London flows that 'taking the density of Devon and Cornwall into account your population is not dense', so why treat 'the North' as one generic area?

I'm not sure where you get these figures from, but according to wikpedia, the Population stats for the three "similar" areas are:

Surrey: P: 1176500 area 1663km2 = density of 707 people per sq km
WY 2300000 2029 1133
GM 2782000 1276 2180.

So population density of GM as a whole is more than three times that of Surrey.

Dentonian · 22 Jan 2018

Chester1 said:
That is made up number! Even the £54bn official estimate includes 40% contigency. HS2 is being funded by loans which will be paid back by future fares, cancelling it would not mean any extra funding for other public transport. The CP6 funding level demonstrates it not zero sum.

I understood the official figure was £56.9 billion but for the first phase only (London to Telford-ish). Admittedly, £108bn was the highest revised estimate, but there is certainly every suggestion that the figure will continue to grow, Also, it amazes me that whenever the proponents of a grand scheme (and they don't come grander than this!) are faced with the argument about the cost to the tax-payer, they never say that it WON'T cost the tax-payer that amount. Ie. why haven't they said what you've just said, to the Media?

I didn't actually suggest cancelling now would mean extra funding for other public transport or for anything else. My point was more to do with the fact that the disparity between journey speeds gets wider and wider. Soon, it will be quicker to fly from Heathrow to the moon, than to get from home to the nearest GP's surgery in the rest of the UK!

Anyway, we're well used to savings on cancellations going back to the Chancellor's wine cellar. The VERY first thing Philip Hammond did when elected to the Cabinet in May 2010 was to rip up the signed, sealed and about to be delivered "KickStart" funding. In GM, the grant was £1.5 million, but because Hammond scrapped it at he last minute £970,000 had already been spent or committed.

Chester1 · 22 Jan 2018

Dentonian said:
I understood the official figure was £56.9 billion but for the first phase only (London to Telford-ish). Admittedly, £108bn was the highest revised estimate, but there is certainly every suggestion that the figure will continue to grow, Also, it amazes me that whenever the proponents of a grand scheme (and they don't come grander than this!) are faced with the argument about the cost to the tax-payer, they never say that it WON'T cost the tax-payer that amount. Ie. why haven't they said what you've just said, to the Media?

I didn't actually suggest cancelling now would mean extra funding for other public transport or for anything else. My point was more to do with the fact that the disparity between journey speeds gets wider and wider. Soon, it will be quicker to fly from Heathrow to the moon, than to get from home to the nearest GP's surgery in the rest of the UK!

Anyway, we're well used to savings on cancellations going back to the Chancellor's wine cellar. The VERY first thing Philip Hammond did when elected to the Cabinet in May 2010 was to rip up the signed, sealed and about to be delivered "KickStart" funding. In GM, the grant was £1.5 million, but because Hammond scrapped it at he last minute £970,000 had already been spent or committed.

£54bn is the last figure I remember but the figure is regularly adjusted for inflation. They are approximate figures for all of HS2 not just phase 1. £108bn is an extreme worst case scenario that doesn't match the experience of HS1 and consider that the project would not be allowed to continue in full if it cost twice the contingency figure. The contracts signed so far are below budget and despite a glimmer of hope for anti HS2 people, the collapse of Carillion will not affect it as the Kier group is obligated to takeover Carillion's stake in their two contracts.

I am not arguing with you about poor choices and underfunding of rail infrastructure in the North, its clearly underfunded but I strongly disagree that cancelling HS2 would help. The NPR route that TfN is consulting on highlights that HS2 can be intergrated with other schemes in the north. Phase 1 is in law and contracts have been signed, its happening. Phase 2a is not far behind and has a better business case than phase 1. Phase 2b routes could plausibly be altered again but it would be political suicide for it to be cancelled.

Dentonian · 22 Jan 2018

Chester1 said:
I am not arguing with you about poor choices and underfunding of rail infrastructure in the North,

I didn't actually mention of underfunding of Rail - although obviously that's the thrust of this thread. KickStart was a Bus initiative.

Olaf · 22 Jan 2018

B&I said:
No, given how deeply centralised England is, if there is any criticism to be levelled it is at national level politicians and civil servants, but though some of our cities do have deeply hopeless local administrations as well.

If you engaged with the product of theses groups you would see that your claim is not correct.

B&I · 23 Jan 2018

Olaf said:
If you engaged with the product of theses groups you would see that your claim is not correct.

What is a 'theses group', and why would engaging with its products inform me that England is not a ridiculously centralised country?

Railwaysceptic · 23 Jan 2018

Dentonian said:
House prices in London are the very epitome of the free market and the price Londoners pay for the over centralised country mentioned earlier in the thread.

House prices in London do not epitomise the free market. They are the consequence of a rigged market, in which supply is restricted and rents are subsidised. Inevitably, prices and rents soar ever upwards. A genuinely free market would do away with the green belt and allow builders to put new houses wherever they wanted to meet demand. (I'm not suggesting that a totally free market would be a good thing!)

coppercapped · 23 Jan 2018

High house prices are the result of the amount of money put into the economy as a result of 'quantitative easing' and similar measures. This cash has to find somewhere to go and as interest rates were held down the most attractive place to put the money was in bricks and mortar.

House prices will fall, as indeed in London they already have, due to economic uncertainty and will certainly when interest rates rise to normal historical levels. As long as the change is not too sudden a decrease in the price of assets would be welcome as many of the pressures caused by inflated house prices will ease.

Bletchleyite · 23 Jan 2018

Railwaysceptic said:
House prices in London do not epitomise the free market. They are the consequence of a rigged market, in which supply is restricted and rents are subsidised. Inevitably, prices and rents soar ever upwards. A genuinely free market would do away with the green belt and allow builders to put new houses wherever they wanted to meet demand. (I'm not suggesting that a totally free market would be a good thing!)

They're probably more of a free market in the northern cities and similar areas where while there is still green belt there is plenty of brownfield type land to build on.

AndrewE · 23 Jan 2018

Railwaysceptic said:
House prices in London do not epitomise the free market. They are the consequence of a rigged market, in which supply is restricted and rents are subsidised. Inevitably, prices and rents soar ever upwards. A genuinely free market would do away with the green belt and allow builders to put new houses wherever they wanted to meet demand. (I'm not suggesting that a totally free market would be a good thing!)

The London housing market is also grossly distorted by foreign money buying property for investment purposes, based on the free market which applies and experience of the supply/demand curve.

B&I · 23 Jan 2018

coppercapped said:
High house prices are the result of the amount of money put into the economy as a result of 'quantitative easing' and similar measures. This cash has to find somewhere to go and as interest rates were held down the most attractive place to put the money was in bricks and mortar.

House prices will fall, as indeed in London they already have, due to economic uncertainty and will certainly when interest rates rise to normal historical levels. As long as the change is not too sudden a decrease in the price of assets would be welcome as many of the pressures caused by inflated house prices will ease.

Shame there seems to be almost no mechanisms for directing small to medium investor's cash to more productive use e.g. infrastructure improvements

Bletchleyite · 23 Jan 2018

B&I said:
Shame there seems to be almost no mechanisms for directing small to medium investor's cash to more productive use e.g. infrastructure improvements

Isn't that kind of thing what National Savings are for?

B&I · 23 Jan 2018

Bletchleyite said:
Isn't that kind of thing what National Savings are for?

Don't know. I thought that was a pretty marginal form of investment these days

HSTEd · 23 Jan 2018

B&I said:
Don't know. I thought that was a pretty marginal form of investment these days

NS&I has a cap on how much it is allowed to take from savers.

muddythefish · 23 Jan 2018

Olaf said:
So now you are knocking Local Officials in the UK again. Hmm.

Transport is not the determining factor in making the successful peer cities what they are - their success is more to do with attitudes towards work and self-reliance.

Nonsense.

According to recent figures, more than half of UK transport investment is in London; London gets 24 times as much spent on infrastructure per resident than north-east England. In other words, investment leads to growth.

Your insinuation that people is some areas might be less hard working is insulting and wrong.

Britain is the most over-centralised economy of any developed nation. Shift power and money out of London and we would have a better balanced nation with wealth and opportunities spread more evenly.

MAV39 · 23 Jan 2018

Please cite your source(s) for "According to recent figures, more than half of UK transport investment is in London"

The Ham · 24 Jan 2018

muddythefish said:
Nonsense.

According to recent figures, more than half of UK transport investment is in London; London gets 24 times as much spent on infrastructure per resident than north-east England. In other words, investment leads to growth.

Your insinuation that people is some areas might be less hard working is insulting and wrong.

Britain is the most over-centralised economy of any developed nation. Shift power and money out of London and we would have a better balanced nation with wealth and opportunities spread more evenly.

The problem is that to improve capacity in (for instance) Manchester the TOC's could buy some more trains (£0 infrastructure cost) even if some platforms need lengthening is shall change compared. Whilst to do so in the South East would be much more costly. As a lot of trains (at least in the peaks) are full length, so longer trains are not normally possible. As such new lines/junctions, etc are required which have a significantly higher cost.

In London to get to 240 million passengers you just need to look at the three biggest strains (Waterloo, Victoria and Liverpool Street) to get to a similar number of passengers from stations outside London and the Southeast you'd need about 15 (Glasgow Central, Leeds, Manchester Piccadilly, Edinburgh Waverly, Glasgow Queen Street, Liverpool Central, Liverpool Lime Street, Cardiff Central, Cambridge and Bristol TM which is 10 strains and gets you to about 200 million and then each station after that is less than 10 million passengers, meaning probably 5 more stations but could be one less or a few more to get to 240 million).

If you look at passengers in excess of capacity only one non London station equals or betters any of the 9 busiest stations in London. Manchester comes in at 3.0% effort the lowest of the 9 London strains is 2.7% followed by 3.1% and the average London value is 4.5% compared with 1.7% for non London cities (these figures are based on both AM and PM 3 hour peaks).

Both of these should give an indication of how many passengers the London stations deal with and how much busier the trains are. Which is why making improvements is much more costly.

It should also be pointed out that if some of the sitter train companies received the same level of subsidy as TPE then they would be able to fund massive improvements to their networks.

As such if the north is to get the same level of infrastructure (NR spend) increment then it's only fair that the southern TOC's get the same level of government support as the northern ones. If that is not to be the case then the overall level of government spend (TOC support and NR spend) should be considered, which to date hasn't been considered.

yorksrob · 24 Jan 2018

The Ham said:
The problem is that to improve capacity in (for instance) Manchester the TOC's could buy some more trains (£0 infrastructure cost) even if some platforms need lengthening is shall change compared. Whilst to do so in the South East would be much more costly. As a lot of trains (at least in the peaks) are full length, so longer trains are not normally possible. As such new lines/junctions, etc are required which have a significantly higher cost.

In London to get to 240 million passengers you just need to look at the three biggest strains (Waterloo, Victoria and Liverpool Street) to get to a similar number of passengers from stations outside London and the Southeast you'd need about 15 (Glasgow Central, Leeds, Manchester Piccadilly, Edinburgh Waverly, Glasgow Queen Street, Liverpool Central, Liverpool Lime Street, Cardiff Central, Cambridge and Bristol TM which is 10 strains and gets you to about 200 million and then each station after that is less than 10 million passengers, meaning probably 5 more stations but could be one less or a few more to get to 240 million).

If you look at passengers in excess of capacity only one non London station equals or betters any of the 9 busiest stations in London. Manchester comes in at 3.0% effort the lowest of the 9 London strains is 2.7% followed by 3.1% and the average London value is 4.5% compared with 1.7% for non London cities (these figures are based on both AM and PM 3 hour peaks).

Both of these should give an indication of how many passengers the London stations deal with and how much busier the trains are. Which is why making improvements is much more costly.

It should also be pointed out that if some of the sitter train companies received the same level of subsidy as TPE then they would be able to fund massive improvements to their networks.

As such if the north is to get the same level of infrastructure (NR spend) increment then it's only fair that the southern TOC's get the same level of government support as the northern ones. If that is not to be the case then the overall level of government spend (TOC support and NR spend) should be considered, which to date hasn't been considered.

It is a point that in the North, you could get a lot of "bang for your buck" just by lengthening trains and platforms, and you don't even have to build a load of massive tunnels. This was what TPE tried to do by ordering four carriage trains, rather than three carriage ones. Unfortunately, it was the DfT that stopped this.

Even without extending all platforms, SDO can allow a lot of services to be lengthened. The question is, with the new trains coming in in the North and the old ones being retired, will there be enough capacity increase.

Yes, the London stations deal with greater overcrowding, but the solutions are very expensive. In the North (and elsewhere in the UK) they needn't be as much.

AM9 · 24 Jan 2018

yorksrob said:
... Even without extending all platforms, SDO can allow a lot of services to be lengthened. The question is, with the new trains coming in in the North and the old ones being retired, will there be enough capacity increase.

Yes, the London stations deal with greater overcrowding, but the solutions are very expensive. In the North (and elsewhere in the UK) they needn't be as much.

I would agree with that statement, but so many threads on the differences between South-East vs North (or elsewhere) rail budgets and expenditure seem to gravitate to a per head of resident population, frequently referring to the regular IPPR proclaimations. As has been illustrated in this and other threads, the spemd level per head is irrelevant (other than as a news media attention-grabbing headline) as the railways in different regions are at very different stages of saturation which requires solutions with very differing costs. That is in addition that the sheer numbers of passengers are wildly different and a 'per resident' figure is meaningless as a greater proportion of the adult population travels both to work by any mode in London.

Is rail REALLY that bad in the North?

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