Transport Links

[JAWS]

Q. What do you get for 800 Million Pounds?
A. A tarted-up Victorian Train Shed in London.
Q. What do you get for almost Six Billion Pounds?
A. A rail link from London to Dover to save Twenty Minutes on a train journey to Paris.

From London you can now get to:-
Brussels – 1hr 15min
Paris – 2hrs 15min
Amsterdam – 5hrs
Lyon – 5hrs
Geneva – 7hrs
Marseille – 7hrs 15min
Toulouse – 9hrs
Berlin – 10hrs
Milan – 10hrs 45mins
Wick – 14hrs
Barcelona – 15hrs
Madrid -17hrs
Venice - 17hrs
Rome - 19hrs

I wonder how much benefit there would be for the Highlands if almost Seven Billion Pounds were spent improving transport links between here, the rest of Scotland and that place south of the Border?
Isn’t it a bit ridiculous that it takes twice as long to get from Wick to London as it does to get from London to the South of France.
What's even more crazy is that it takes almost three times as long to get from here to Inverness by train than it does to get from London to Brussels.

[brokencross]

I agree with you regarding transport priorities.
The loose change from those projects would dual carriageway sections of the A9, the A66 and the A1, and hence improve journey times within the UK and more importantly save lives.

[Tugmistress]

Train times certainly need improving, when the neep goes to her dad in Bridlington it is a 13 hour train journey to there!

[Ricco]

Excellent points, Jaws. I won't ask where the data comes from - it look really good. ;)

[Bobinovich]

I agree with you regarding transport priorities.
The loose change from those projects would dual carriageway sections of the A9, the A66 and the A1, and hence improve journey times within the UK and more importantly save lives.

Not forgetting that deathtrap the A96 of course...

[honey]

i know what you mean, im facing a 7 1/2 journey each way at christmas to get to Thurso from Glasgow.. which is a nightmare, especially with a 1 year old. although my 8 year old will spend the time with his DS games....

we'd be quicker flying abroad!!!

[Anne x]

Not forgetting that deathtrap the A96 of course...

I second that dreadfull road long overdue of upgrade
Ax

[Rheghead]

Q. What do you get for almost Six Billion Pounds?
A. A rail link from London to Dover to save Twenty Minutes on a train journey to Paris.

From London you can now get to:-
Wick – 14hrs


What's even more crazy is that it takes almost three times as long to get from here to Inverness by train than it does to get from London to Brussels.

What would you rather have? 6 billion spent on a high speed rail link from Inverness to Wick, :roll: just to service the needs of 30,000 who wouldn't use it anyway?:confused

[bekisman]

Thought the SNP were going to duel the A9 ? (Inverness to Perth).
Me thinks the M74 (the newer part) is a great road, fast, quiet & beautful scenery AND the 'Cumberland Gap' is being upgraded right now 'tween M6/M74.
AND the A836 is now totally opened from Melvich to Strathy - apart from 30 mph and no white line yet.. (that'll be 4 minutes saved to get to Tesco.)
It all takes time but it gets done eventually

[xx_chickie]

It's crazy how far around the world someone could travel in the same length of time for us to travel to the nearest city! :eek:

Are we becoming too impatient in a world full of instant technology? :confused

[JAWS]

Thought the SNP were going to duel the A9 ? (Inverness to Perth).
Me thinks the M74 (the newer part) is a great road, fast, quiet & beautful scenery AND the 'Cumberland Gap' is being upgraded right now 'tween M6/M74.
AND the A836 is now totally opened from Melvich to Strathy - apart from 30 mph and no white line yet.. (that'll be 4 minutes saved to get to Tesco.)
It all takes time but it gets done eventually"Cumberland Gap", I like that one. Does anybody know why that gap was left? If I remember rightly it is only about seven miles long and it's not as if there would be any problem with the link up.
I've often wondered if there was a squabble between different Government Departments about how the cost should be split.

When I travelled regularly between here and England the one part of the journey I dreaded both by day and by night was the A9 between Perth and Inverness. It is one of the most frustrating roads I have ever driven on. I can understand how those who use it a regularly can get tempted into the risk of the suicidal overtake and also how those who don’t know it at all can get caught out by misjudging their overtakes. The sooner it’s dualled the better. If it had been a road in England it would have been upgraded decades ago without a doubt considering it’s location and usage.

[JAWS]

Excellent points, Jaws. I won't ask where the data comes from - it look really good. ;)I got most of it from a map in one of the Dailies. The exceptions were Wick and Marseilles both of which I got from a site called The Trainline. I didn’t dare check for prices though. :eek:

The part which got to me was the fact that the aim of the article was to boast how wonderful it was to be able to travel so quickly from London to all over Europe. It just seemed a silly amount of money to spend for a 20 minute saving in journey times.
My opinion is that it would have been far better to spend that amount of money on improving journey times throughout Britain rather than just saving, in effect, 20 minutes between London and Dover. Without all that money having been spent the only difference would be that you added 20 minutes to all the European journeys mentioned which, for most of them, would be hardly noticeable.
I wonder it they would spend that much money to knock 20 minutes of the journey time between London and Inverness which takes about nine hours?
Anybody need a lot of time to work out the answer to that one?

[Gross]

Scotland currently has more stations opening, railway lines opening and new schemes that the rest of the UK. Alastair Darling blocked nearly all English tram schemes because they were "too costly" (when in fact the goalposts where changed), while the one in his own constituency, Edinburgh, got the go ahead. Funny that.

With regards to taking 14 hours to get to Wick, that's because Wick is about 800 miles from London. You can't change geography! When it comes to speeding up the trains from Inverness to Wick, that is entirely under Scotland's control - the will just isn't there.

Don't detract from a great engineering achievement just because it's English.