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2641
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Journey by Journey / Bristol (WECA) Commuters / Re: Four track for Filton Bank - ongoing discussion
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on: November 13, 2018, 17:14:17
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Great seeing the line to the harbour railway on here too, running down to the left of the original passenger shed, and then down to the bottom left across the road and onwards towards Redcliffe tunnel
Other things of interest: The old tram terminus shed, at the foot of the incline; the tramlines which served this are still in situ; also notice the gateway structure to the left of the Old Station facade, which this had a mate to the right of the facade which was demolished for the tram terminal. Finally, the tower over the entry at the top of the incline has its steeple - unusually, this actually was destroyed by the Luftwaffe and not the town planners... I live in hope that this will be restored when Temple Meads finally gets its long-overdue makeover. A tram terminal at Temple Meads? What nonsense I hear you say; what kind of lunatic would think it a good idea to integrate a tram system with the main railway system? Thankfully it was seen for that madness that it was, and swept away by 1941. |
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2642
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Journey by Journey / Bristol (WECA) Commuters / Re: Four track for Filton Bank - ongoing discussion
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on: November 13, 2018, 13:51:50
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The Up and Down Filton Mains were supposedly closed due to the weak condition of the former bridge over Stapleton Road, which for several years, had a permanent speed restriction over it.
To add to that: The River Froom/Frome used to run under the northern span of the old Stapleton Road viaduct, but was diverted when the M32 was built. I'm told that as the land dried out as a consequence of this, it did for the viaduct's foundations. Obviously they could have been fixed at the time, but this was the early 80's - no-one was planning for expansion; the future of the Severn Beach line was in doubt, and two tracks would just have to do. |
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2644
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All across the Great Western territory / The Wider Picture in the United Kingdom / Re: HS2 - Government proposals, alternative routes and general discussion
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on: November 13, 2018, 12:51:51
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The money could be far better spent elsewhere.
Ah, if only macroeconomics were that simple... Or to make a fuller argument: HS2▸ : a magic money tree?
27 September, 2018
Unthinking populism has led some to put forward scrapping HS2 as a solution to worrying projections of economic losses from Brexit. ‘Here’s £50bn we could save and spend instead on (say) the NHS’.
But scrapping HS2 does not create a magic money tree.
Rather, it would be an act of extreme short-termism, signalling no belief in the future of the UK▸ .
For a start, aborting the capital spend on HS2 means losing the stream of economic benefits it generates at roundly the rate of £2 benefit of every £1 outlay.
More reliable, quicker rail journeys, more capacity for commuters, fewer lorries on our motorways; fewer people travelling by car and air – so fewer accidents, and less carbon; a huge stimulus for businesses to locate in Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Preston, Crewe, Leeds, Sheffield, York, Darlington and elsewhere; a chance to re-structure services across the existing rail network – benefits that translate into higher productivity and a more balanced economy worth £100bn+ would all be foregone.
But that’s not all.
The belief that scrapping HS2 would provide the state with a magic money tree overlooks the fact that HS2 can and surely will be used to return a huge cash pay-out directly back to Treasury.
Just look at the experience with HS1▸ (the channel tunnel rail link, as was). Just two years after its completion, it was sold on a long-term concession to a major pension fund. At a stroke, HM Treasury recouped around 40% of the line’s capital cost. The pension fund is happy: it has a secure and reliable income stream from track charges levied on Eurostar and other users of the country’s only high-speed line to date, on which demand for train paths growing steadily, year-by-year. So much so, that it recently changed hands at a premium. And it doesn’t stop there. The concession is time limited, so 30 years on, it can be sold again, no doubt for a much higher amount.
Now compare HS2 with HS1. Rather than 2-3 international trains/hour and a handful of commuter trains for Kent (with half of the line’s capacity yet to be taken up), HS2 will start with 11-12 intercity trains each hour. The income prospect is much higher than with HS1, even on a per mile of route basis (the first phase of HS2 is twice the length of HS1). If a similar or equivalent approach is taken, much more than 40% of the Treasury’s cash outlay on HS2 could be returned by this route alone – and again, just a few years after its opening.
True, Government hasn’t said it will do this with HS2. It might favour another way of recouping its capital outlays on HS2. It might use the proceeds from HS2’s first phase to fund the second. It knows these options are bumper bonus opportunities for Treasury ten years hence.
Even this is only part of the fiscal bonanza. The economic stimulus from HS2 will have a whole range of tax implications. Higher productivity means more profit and so more tax, expanding employment, higher pay levels and so more tax income. Greater investment by the private sector to capitalise on the gains HS2 offers – and note, the development boom around Birmingham’s Curzon Street station has already started – is likewise a source of extra tax revenue.
So yes, in a sense, HS2 will be a magic money tree once it is built. But scrapping HS2 would mean huge cash returns to Treasury as soon as the line opens will be lost.
Source: Greengauge21 |
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2645
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Journey by Journey / Bristol (WECA) Commuters / Re: MetroBus
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on: November 13, 2018, 12:42:03
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To try and sort out the road situation - basically Buses vs Cars - in this way could take literally decades to solve, and yet as the city expands further it could potentially always be playing catch up anyway
Buses v cars v pedestrians v cyclists, isn't it? Planning policy can help - let people live nearer where they work, play and go to school, and they need less transport. Essentially this means building at higher density, something which cities everywhere are doing, but this, as you say, takes decades. I don't know where Mr Freeman thinks he's going to put his bus lanes though; as far as I can see there aren't many gaps. Come to that, I don't know where Mr Rees thinks he's going to run his almost metro-like white-line-following buses. I can't see any option but to go underground, but there doesn't appear to be the will or wherewithal to do this. No easy answers to this one. |
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2646
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Journey by Journey / Bristol (WECA) Commuters / Re: Four track for Filton Bank - ongoing discussion
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on: November 13, 2018, 09:25:50
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To add my two penn'orth:
Filton Bank is part of what was the Bristol and South Wales Union Railway (as an aside there were two pubs named after this - one by Stapleton Road Station, and another which is now 'The Farm' in St Werburgh's); this route was never intended to take trains from Bristol to the north.
The route from Bristol to Yate via Mangotsfield was the Bristol and Gloucester Railway, which was built in Brunelian broad gauge and which the GWR▸ hoped to acquire; as it happens the B&G▸ got a better deal from the Midland (which involved them re-gauging and thus avoiding break of gauge at Gloucester for trains heading to Birmingham).
The Midland route - Bristol-Mangotsfield-Yate - is a more direct way from Bristol to the north, and avoids conflicts between east-west and north-south traffic which now have to share the line between Westerleigh and Parkway. It's a moot point whether we would now need four tracks up Filton Bank if they hadn't closed Bristol-Mangotsfield-Yate, but Parkway would be a less useful interchange than it now is.
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2648
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Journey by Journey / Bristol (WECA) Commuters / Re: Bristol's Temple Gate layout change planned in £21m revamp
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on: November 12, 2018, 18:55:17
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I'm sure the George and Railway was closed when I moved to Bristol in 1977. So about time, although given Bristol's track record, this announcement probably means that things like Engine Shed 2 are about to go out of fashion.
I think I may have had a pint or two of Courage Best there in 1978, but let's not quibble. It is perhaps unfair to blame the paralysis of this site on Bristol City Council; as I remember it the problem is that the two buildings - The George Railway Hotel (for so long idiomatically referred to as the George and Railway that this is now its actual name!) and the Grosvenor Hotel - were owned by two equally-powerful developers who both wanted the whole site; the only way out of the impasse was a CPO but Bristol were worried about the legal costs. I'm not sure what has changed that means Bristol is no longer afraid of this - perhaps now that the site is bigger, they can afford to throw caution to the wind. |
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2651
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Journey by Journey / Bristol (WECA) Commuters / Re: Four track for Filton Bank - ongoing discussion
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on: November 12, 2018, 12:44:21
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I was just looking back through this topic and suddenly realised that we started talking about this project just over 5 years ago. Isn't it just typical of the UK▸ to take so long to deliver such an important infrastructure project?
Took 8 years to complete the GWR▸ from London to Bristol, didn't it? Still I'll tell you what: Filton Bank is turning into a bloody lovely bit o' railway! |
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2652
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Journey by Journey / Bristol (WECA) Commuters / Re: Four track for Filton Bank - ongoing discussion
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on: November 12, 2018, 10:40:08
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This is but one of many examples that demonstrate that corrections to nomenclature take generations to effect in Bristol.
Where language is concerned, the angels are with those who describe rather than prescribe (or even proscribe). So at Narroways Hill Junction, it's just interesting to see this process from the outset - quite possibly someone will put up a sign soon at the junction, without the 's', and it will begin to gain currency among railway folk. However the original name of the wider area is unlikely to go away just because of a clerical error in a Network Rail design office. Whether The Downs is known idiomatically as Clifton Downs or not, we can be fairly clear that Clifton Down station was named after Clifton Down. Were the station to be renamed Clifton Downs, that would be neither a correction nor an error, but simply an acceptance that the idiom had become mainstream. It's a bit unlikely though, as it's not very near The Downs. How about Bahnhof Zoo? |
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2653
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All across the Great Western territory / The Wider Picture in the United Kingdom / How much will it cost? Expanding the network.
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on: November 11, 2018, 22:24:55
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How much will it cost?
Another forum member raised this question in the context of Dawlish, but I think it is worth widening it into a general discussion about rail investment.
There's a facile way to answer the question, which is to calculate how many holes you need to dig, how many metres of rail you need, how trains and so on. That doesn't tell you very much though, because we're talking about an investment and you measure the value of an investment against its returns. But we also know that if rail was expected to wash its face in pure business terms then the GWML▸ would end at Bristol Parkway, something even Margaret Thatcher stopped short of.
This whole business of calculating BCR▸ is probably pretty much nonsense, given that the benefit is unquantifiable: how much is it worth to the economy if Jo Smith can get to work by train, or if Mo Khan can get to see his gran a bit easier, or if a business relocates to Galashiels? The only honest answer is surely that no-one really knows.
I don't think anyone pretends that Beeching's rationalisation was perfect, either in its analysis or in its execution; its effects have left us with a network which could perhaps best be described as unfair. If you live in Chippenham or Ebbw Vale, you have access to a pretty good train service; if you live in Hawick or Cheddar, you don't.
So how do you decide where to invest? This is particularly difficult given that our railway is, and must probably remain, state-owned in one way or another. Rail investment has to stand up against education, health and all the other government budgets that make this a civilised country. We have to concede that keeping the existing network safe, reliable and attractive must take priority if we accept that funds are limited. But do we accept that the network cannot be expanded, and that this unfairness should persist? Is it romantic nonsense to believe that many parts of the country suffered damage when the railways were ripped up, damage that no bus service could ever compensate for?
The cost of building new lines along the courses of old ones - 're-opening' is a misnomer - sometimes appears to be astronomically high, probably inflated by applying stricter rules to rail than to road transport. But do we just give up on this, or do we accept that cost of reinstating some key routes is the price we have to pay for the mistakes of the past, and just get on with it?
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2655
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Journey by Journey / Bristol (WECA) Commuters / Re: Four track for Filton Bank - ongoing discussion
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on: November 11, 2018, 19:04:15
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The gap between the Reliefs and the Mains was always there, and I'd imagine that it's still there because of the bridge spacings to the immediate north of the former station site  . Here's one of my shots of a failed 47, which just about coasted alongside the former Up Relief platform, with a 47-hauled freight passing by on the Up Main - https://www.flickr.com/photos/bristol-re/9059595148/in/album-72157641961867643/Well that was my first take, after metalrail made his observation, but looking at it today I'd say that the gap was now wider than it was in your photo; in any case they could have chosen to bring the lines closer together sooner, maybe thus avoiding the need for some of the piling visible from Boiling Wells Lane. The area to the east of the mains where any fourth platform would go looks pretty generous too, but that's probably just down to the removal of a lot of vegetation. |
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