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Parties Rail Policies Election 2015

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47802

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It was their idea in the first place...

Still don't believe it will be built by Labour and overall I think Dead End Milband Transport Policy is poor.

Do we need another railway standstill for another franchise review which at the end of the day probably wont change very much.
 
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pemma

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Still don't believe it will be built by Labour and overall I think Dead End Milband Transport Policy is poor.

Do we need another railway standstill for another franchise review which at the end of the day probably wont change very much.

The impression I get is the main CP5 projects have already been announced (and some of them have been pushed back to CP6 already.) Either a Conservative or Labour led government will likely roughly stick with what's been announced. The Conservatives manifesto really re-announces what has already been unveiled, Labour are in a tough place - they can't say existing plans in their manifesto as the Conservatives will accuse them of stealing ideas, yet they don't think money is available for much additional spending over the already announced plans.

I wouldn't be surprised if we've had another 2 general elections after this one before a HS2 train runs, whoever's in government.
 
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yorksrob

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Personally I think HS2 and the East West Rail link is enough to be going on with, particularly as I think the Waverley route and East West Rail link are covering two of the biggest gaps in the Rail Network, and the large amount of investment required for the existing network.

As for HS2 it remains to be seen I certainly don't believe it will be built under Labour.

Well, my views on the need to reopen certain routes have been stated many times on here. However, I don't believe that such projects would necessary have a detrimental effect on existing projects.

Reopening to Tavistock, for example, looks within reach without affecting the larger ones.
 
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Still don't believe it will be built by Labour and overall I think Dead End Milband Transport Policy is poor.

Do we need another railway standstill for another franchise review which at the end of the day probably wont change very much.

The reason Labour haven't made a big thing about transport spending is because the are classifying spending on capital projects like infrastructure differently to spending on day to day services like the NHS and education. This means that a Labour government will borrow more than a Tory one and Labour are terrified of the negative headlines that would go with admitting as much even if extra borrowing for infrastructure inprovements is good for the economy overall.
 

The Ham

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Please don't start all that again.

Start what? Talking about a developer funded (at least in part) reopening to Tavistock to enable passenger services to Plymouth is hardly controversial, especially when compared with the suggested options to bypass Dawlish or the building of HS2.
 

yorksrob

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Please don't start all that again.

It's no secret that I agree with reopening the Okehampton route (there is a very good thread on that already) however, on this occasion, I was referring to the route between Bere Alston and Tavistock which is at an advanced stage of planning.

Nevertheless, if one of the parties did commit to reopening the whole route through Okehampton, then I suppose that we would have to discuss it!
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
Start what? Talking about a developer funded (at least in part) reopening to Tavistock to enable passenger services to Plymouth is hardly controversial, especially when compared with the suggested options to bypass Dawlish or the building of HS2.

Quite.
 

Noddy

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As for HS2 it remains to be seen I certainly don't believe it will be built under Labour.

That will go down like a lead balloon in the Labour led councils of......wait for it.....you guessed it.....Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield, Rotherham (et al)
 

47802

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That will go down like a lead balloon in the Labour led councils of......wait for it.....you guessed it.....Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield, Rotherham (et al)

Maybe so but a lot of people dont actually see a need for Hs2 so if it were scrapped it wouldnt be a vote loser while Labour will be too busy spending money on other stuff
 

WatcherZero

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All the parties so far who have said they would scrap hs2 use the money to pay for other non transport things. No mention of how they woul replace the capacity requirement and i doubt they even realise they would need to.
 

Mikey C

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All the parties so far who have said they would scrap hs2 use the money to pay for other non transport things. No mention of how they woul replace the capacity requirement and i doubt they even realise they would need to.

Or the years of chaos on the WCML as its upgraded again...

(And we know how well the commuters to London Bridge are reacting to the disruption!)
 

BantamMenace

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The opposition would just use the line, "you cancelled a project that the country's taxpayers had already spent £Xm on with nothing to show for it".

Where i imagine X is a pretty large number right now given all the design and studies.
 

Noddy

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The opposition would just use the line, "you cancelled a project that the country's taxpayers had already spent £Xm on with nothing to show for it".

Where i imagine X is a pretty large number right now given all the design and studies.

Not to mention all the property HS2 Ltd has already purchased and the 100s of employees they would have to lay off as the company was wound up.
 

BantamMenace

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Not to mention all the property HS2 Ltd has already purchased and the 100s of employees they would have to lay off as the company was wound up.

Exactly, too much to put in the bin now so might as well follow through with it.

My personal view is that this will be the catalyst to a network of high speed ad only once we have a network connecting north, east, south and west will the real benefits be recognised with the conventional network harbouring more capacity for freight and regional.
 

yorksrob

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The opposition would just use the line, "you cancelled a project that the country's taxpayers had already spent £Xm on with nothing to show for it".

Where i imagine X is a pretty large number right now given all the design and studies.

A smaller scale, but we've already spent hundreds of thousands of pounds on studies for the reopening of Lewes - Uckfield with a further study in prospect. When are we going to have something to show for that.
 

Pigeon

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The things that stand out is they want local authorities running local services, bringing the proportion of electrified track to at least be similar lines in Germany (59% track electrified), fare cuts, scrapping HS2, removing congestion on the railways and re-opening lines and stations.

...but meanwhile they have got rid of all the coal and nuclear power stations; the new electric stock, in place of conventional seating, has bicycle frames, with little dynamos connected to the pedals to generate the power for the train.

That's the thing about the Greens - the excellence of their good ideas is surpassed only by the egregiousness of their bad ones, and for every "wow, I'd definitely vote for that" there is a "good grief, there's no way I'd vote for that".
 

CdBrux

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The opposition would just use the line, "you cancelled a project that the country's taxpayers had already spent £Xm on with nothing to show for it".

Where i imagine X is a pretty large number right now given all the design and studies.


Which is just bunkum economics (though it doesn't mean that an opposition party would not use that argument!)
 

Fishplate84

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Whats the point of allowing a government / state owned company bid for rail franchises? Do you give them £20m of taxpayers money, let them bid in the usual way and hope they win a franchise before they burn through all the cash?
How do you avoid accusation that a public sector company has somehow been allowed to win a franchise?
How many private operators back out of franchising out of concern the franchise competition is rigged, so they look for even more profit to mitigate this?
And if they win, what protections would there be if they got the numbers very wrong and they start loosing lots of money? A private operator has to crawl to shareholders to plug the gap. Would a public operator just turn to the bottomless pocket of the taxpayer? In which case, what would stop them low-balling everything to win. See my above comment about private competitors walking away as the risks for them rocket.

Makes no sense. If there is to be a public operator, which I'm not against, it should be a designated franchise that isn't tendered and is just used as a benchmarker against which the state could build knowledge and expertise with. A bit like East Coast could / should have been.
 

pemma

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That's the thing about the Greens - the excellence of their good ideas is surpassed only by the egregiousness of their bad ones, and for every "wow, I'd definitely vote for that" there is a "good grief, there's no way I'd vote for that".

That's similar to my view of the Tories.

They've previously said it's a good thing if people move around the country to find new jobs. I don't disagree with that. Some roles are only available in a limited number of areas, while some areas of the country have very few vacancies.

However, in their new manifesto they say they will make Housing Benefit will only be available to people over 21 (instead of 18.) So a 20 year old who relocated away from their immediate family for work and loses their job having paid 2 years of tax and NI, will be forced to move back home. Ridiculous!
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
Makes no sense. If there is to be a public operator, which I'm not against, it should be a designated franchise that isn't tendered and is just used as a benchmarker against which the state could build knowledge and expertise with. A bit like East Coast could / should have been.

But what's East Coast comparable to? Nothing really. Once it has IEP then you could say West Coast and East Coast are fairly similar franchises. However, you can't say - Arriva why is Wales and Borders needing so much subsidy when East Coast is profitable?

Although I do think you perhaps have something. DfT can say to West Coast bidders we want you to invest £x million and you've got the potential to get back £x+y million in profits from the franchise if you do a good job. With Northern bidders that wouldn't work, so why not allow Rail North to be the operator, opposed to Rail North submitting franchise specifications to DfT for approval?
 

yorksrob

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I see from 'Rail Magazine' that Ed Balls seems to be coming out against reopening the route through Okehampton. He's quoted as saying "I want to look at the evidence and see what is the best thing to do for business and investment" No mention of local communities or connectivity in poorly served towns. I think that's helped me to make my mind up who I won't be voting for.
 

Class 170101

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I see from 'Rail Magazine' that Ed Balls seems to be coming out against reopening the route through Okehampton. He's quoted as saying "I want to look at the evidence and see what is the best thing to do for business and investment" No mention of local communities or connectivity in poorly served towns. I think that's helped me to make my mind up who I won't be voting for.

But he also said he would prefer a new route to be constructed between Exeter and Plymouth, my view for some time is that an alternative route to the Sea Wall route needs to be found and I have suggested the new Exeter to Plymouth route should be a High Speed Route between Plymouth, Exeter, Bristol with diverging routes to both Old Oak Common and Birminmgham Interchange (or via Curazon Street if possible). Some capacity for classic services would be available between Exeter and Plymouth when the Sea Wall route was closed.

So I have to agree with Ed Balls actually on this one.
 
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yorksrob

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But he also said he would prefer a new route to be constructed between Exeter and Plymouth, my view for some time is that an alternative route to the Sea Wall route needs to be found and I have suggested the new Exeter to Plymouth route should be a High Speed Route between Plymouth, Exeter, Bristol with diverging routes to both Old Oak Common and Birminmgham Interchange (or via Curazon Street if possible). Some capacity for classic services would be available between Exeter and Plymouth when the Sea Wall route was closed.

So I have to agree with Ed Balls actually on this one.

If they're seriously contemplating coughing up for all that lot (which I doubt), they might as well spend the extra fraction of that cost on the Okehampton route for local services anyway.
 

Class 170101

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I doubt they will too. However if a South West Powerhouse is wanted then faster connections will be needed between 'Powerhouses' I suggest.
 

kieron

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And if they win, what protections would there be if they got the numbers very wrong and they start loosing lots of money? A private operator has to crawl to shareholders to plug the gap. Would a public operator just turn to the bottomless pocket of the taxpayer?
Yes it would, in the same way that a private operator such as National Express East Coast would turn to the bottomless pocket of the taxpayer in similar circumstances.
Although I do think you perhaps have something. DfT can say to West Coast bidders we want you to invest £x million and you've got the potential to get back £x+y million in profits from the franchise if you do a good job. With Northern bidders that wouldn't work
If you're thinking of the way some TOCs run services in addition to the franchise specification, Northern could do that too if the DfT wished it to happen. They would either need a route on which the extra mileage would more than cover its costs, or an agreement that the government would improve the finances of a route until it does this (such as by reducing the track charges, or agreeing a per-passenger subsidy).
 

yorksrob

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I doubt they will too. However if a South West Powerhouse is wanted then faster connections will be needed between 'Powerhouses' I suggest.

Better local connections within powerhouses will be just as important (if not more so).
 

LNW-GW Joint

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Well it looks like we can recycle all the election manifestos except the Tory one.
Probably little change in rail policy, certainly in franchising. There will be no public sector bids.
The Conservatives have only in the last few minutes won a Commons majority, but a backbencher has already been on demanding the axing of HS2 as a "reward" for their loyalty.
The Dept of Transport will have some new faces, maybe even a new Sec of State.
Personally I thought the Coalition DfT did pretty well and demonstrated a strongly pro-rail policy.
We'll soon see what a 100% Tory DfT will do, and whether the "£12 billion extra cuts" will have any impact on rail.
Expect a lot more on Northern Powerhouse (George Osborne has already mentioned it today).
 
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yorksrob

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Much as the prospect of a Tory majority chills me to the bone, perhaps we might at least get Okehampton?
 

Dave1987

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Fantastic election result. As much as I completely disagree on their stupidly expensive IEP project, at least with majority Tory govt projects like HS2 will be built rather than the Labour parties half hearted support of it. The economy should grow and the railways will follow suit.
 
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