It is, but the way that people talk about "four hours from Preston to Carlisle on a Pacer", those from outside the area might think that this was
- a regular thing
- a journey that lots of people do
- a journey with no alternatives
...whereas the reality is that Northern only run one service a day from Preston to Carlisle and the fairly regular Virgin/TPE services between the two places (generally three trains an hour) only take just over an hour - i.e. nobody in their right mind is going to use the Northern service between the two.
Carlisle to Barrow is still a fair way (2h30), agreed but this "go for the worst case scenario and then pretend that its a typical journey" frustrates me.
Similarly, I could say that "it's a disgrace that you could be on a Pacer for over an hour and a half between Retford and Doncaster" and hope that people from outside the area don't realise that there's a 125/180/225 once or twice an hour between the towns that takes under quarter of an hour (i.e. you'd be daft to sit on a Pacer all that way), but it's be equally disingenuous.
With huge great areas of empty countryside between them though - the Peak District/ Pennines/ Lake District/ North Yorkshire Moors and Dales are beautiful but mean the "thirteen million" are spread over a huge area that's less conductive to mass transportation.
No, it's nonsense.
There's generally three trains an hour via Penrith taking just over an hour (run by Voyagers, 185s and Pendolini - there's one train a day via Barrow taking around four hours (run by Sprinters or Pacers).
If you are taking a Pacer all the way from Preston to Carlisle then you are either a numpty or a railway enthusiast.
Not at all - the DRS stuff to Sellafield will ensure that the line survives (regardless of passenger traffic) as long as there's nuclear waste to process - no question.
Ah, the old "lets run loco hauled railtours as regularly priced services" line of nostalgia... It's the 21st century - running loco hauled jaunts from Hull to the Cumbrian coast is never going to happen
That's (at least) a fifty mile radius round Manchester, which includes huge areas of empty countryside not so conducive to mass transportation.
A fifty mile radius round London would include Cambridge, Milton Keynes, Oxford, Brighton, Medway towns etc, yet people on this thread only want to count a fairly restricted definition of "London".
Agreed.
I think that we need to use a consistent definition of "population" (so we're not just taking the metropolitan definition of one place against the entire "travel to work" definition of another) and I think that we need to look at the numbers travelling to those places - the populations of Manchester and Liverpool may be half a million each, but how many actually travel between the cities each day? There's less of a trend for commuting outside the boundaries of the city that you live in "up north" - it happens, of course, but not on the scale that it does around London.
It's not entirely clear, but I'm guessing you're not?
Ignoring the fact that they were tongue in cheek comments, you seem perfectly happy to complain about how mucky folk are "up north" (not using bins, littering...), but the moment someone from "down south" makes a criticism, you get very defensive...