Starmergeddon: They Came And Ate Us

[SaintK]

Rayner greenlights City Airport expansion against the wishes of Labour run Newham council. Very positive news, roll on Heathrow

City Airport is an overcrowded shithole at the best of times so I must admit I dread what it will be like with even bigger passenger numbers.

Name me one that's not an overcrowded shithole.
Haven't flown anywhere for 7 years or so but always thought City was fine for city hops on business.

[Hal Jordan]

Rayner greenlights City Airport expansion against the wishes of Labour run Newham council. Very positive news, roll on Heathrow

Not sure how that one squares away with Net Zero...

[Biffer]

Rayner greenlights City Airport expansion against the wishes of Labour run Newham council. Very positive news, roll on Heathrow

City Airport is an overcrowded shithole at the best of times so I must admit I dread what it will be like with even bigger passenger numbers.

Name me one that's not an overcrowded shithole.
Haven't flown anywhere for 7 years or so but always thought City was fine for city hops on business.

City is an overcrowded shithole by airport standards though. pre pandemic, in 2019 it had 5.1 million passengers, 2016 it was 4.5. Think they're expecting pre pandemic numbers for 2024. This proposal increase their cap to 9 million.

[epwc]

Rayner greenlights City Airport expansion against the wishes of Labour run Newham council. Very positive news, roll on Heathrow

Not sure how that one squares away with Net Zero...

Biggest worry for me, the DLR will need to be upgraded too I guess

[Paddington Bear]

Rayner greenlights City Airport expansion against the wishes of Labour run Newham council. Very positive news, roll on Heathrow

City Airport is an overcrowded shithole at the best of times so I must admit I dread what it will be like with even bigger passenger numbers.

Name me one that's not an overcrowded shithole.
Haven't flown anywhere for 7 years or so but always thought City was fine for city hops on business.

Agree with this. A convenient and largely civilised airport

[TheNatalShark]

Rayner greenlights City Airport expansion against the wishes of Labour run Newham council. Very positive news, roll on Heathrow

Not sure how that one squares away with Net Zero...

If the argument is around location of flights, people in and around London have less distance to travel to larger airports a million fucking miles away from London, where the price of a family on trains begins to make long stay car park cost a viable alternative. Can be ditto for execs.

If the argument is around less scope for air travel, well it isn't one we would win by itself, but gives a little when we can push for support in expanded domestic infrastructure to connect these opportunities. Domestic infrastructure improvement will go a long way to improving domestic travel attractiveness that doesn't involve cars.

[Paddington Bear]

If we built HS2 in full as initially proposed, the chances of City needing to expand would have been very slim. But we haven’t so we are where we are

[inactionman]

If we built HS2 in full as initially proposed, the chances of City needing to expand would have been very slim. But we haven’t so we are where we are

Would HS2 help that much? There's only Glasgow and Edinburgh as mainland UK destinations from City airport and HS2 would mainly improve the Glasgow side.

They can only land smaller commercial airplanes there (I think up to Airbus A318 size, but many will be turboprop), so it's not going to be long-haul, but there are many short hop flights to continental Europe.

I will admit I've only ever flown to City from Edinburgh which is certainly viable by train, I assume there's many travellers from Glasgow who would forgo flights if the train was faster (and cheaper)

[clydecloggie]

I've flown to City from Glasgow and certainly wouldn't do that with a better train offer. In fact I've chosen Eurostar many times over flying on my regular London - Rotterdam trip because journey times are decent and prices competitive if you buy well in advance. Ironically the main thing making me hesitate each time is that St. Pancras is an overcrowded shithole when boarding.

On Net Zero, btw, there is a start up aiming to offer flights from Rotterdam to London City on a fully battery-powered plane within the next few years. I would be in the market for that, but expect them to be novelty pricey initially.

[petej]

If we built HS2 in full as initially proposed, the chances of City needing to expand would have been very slim. But we haven’t so we are where we are

We don't have the people or workforce to do railways at a national level. We have thousands of accountants, lawyers, consultants and the like but fuck all welders etc.. and by the time the former have had their share of the money there really isn't enough to build a railway at any rate. Ditto on stuff like nuclear power plants.

[Paddington Bear]

If we built HS2 in full as initially proposed, the chances of City needing to expand would have been very slim. But we haven’t so we are where we are

We don't have the people or workforce to do railways at a national level. We have thousands of accountants, lawyers, consultants and the like but fuck all welders etc.. and by the time the former have had their share of the money there really isn't enough to build a railway at any rate. Ditto on stuff like nuclear power plants.

Half true, half not. We have the people and the workforce to build excellent rail infrastructure, it just takes forever because of the regulatory structure so we get far less bang for our buck. Some of the HS2 engineering near me is superb, Lizzie Line gets enough plaudits to be self evident, even on a smaller scale the new station at Brent Cross is very well done.

[epwc]

https://www.tortoisemedia.com/2024/08/1 ... e-thought/

[epwc]

Literally a pointless waste of time unless it increases capacity

[Sandstorm]

If we built HS2 in full as initially proposed, the chances of City needing to expand would have been very slim. But we haven’t so we are where we are

We don't have the people or workforce to do railways at a national level. We have thousands of accountants, lawyers, consultants and the like but fuck all welders etc.. and by the time the former have had their share of the money there really isn't enough to build a railway at any rate. Ditto on stuff like nuclear power plants.

Dozy can weld.

[petej]

If we built HS2 in full as initially proposed, the chances of City needing to expand would have been very slim. But we haven’t so we are where we are

We don't have the people or workforce to do railways at a national level. We have thousands of accountants, lawyers, consultants and the like but fuck all welders etc.. and by the time the former have had their share of the money there really isn't enough to build a railway at any rate. Ditto on stuff like nuclear power plants.

Half true, half not. We have the people and the workforce to build excellent rail infrastructure, it just takes forever because of the regulatory structure so we get far less bang for our buck. Some of the HS2 engineering near me is superb, Lizzie Line gets enough plaudits to be self evident, even on a smaller scale the new station at Brent Cross is very well done.

Blaming the regulators is easy so everyone does it. In my experience the regulators are fine and best dealt with directly but if you don't have a project with useful specialist equivalents you are fucked. You end up dealing with legal people who frequently interpret regulation insanely/impractically and consultancies making it unnecessarily complex (I guess that is what you mean by regulatory structures). If you have someone who will smash through that, the regulator is typically fine.

The mess of ownership, responsibilities and structures around Hinckley C makes it near impossible to come to sensible engineering decisions at times so not surprised the ONR would be twitchy particularly after the first person they speak to will be a project manager type who might have tried to bluff.

On crossrail - TFL have a enough people experienced at actually doing things (and booted useless people) which will help massively. Elsewhere we've kind of lost that practical underlying understanding of dealing with real things and owning it. New government will help by actually making decisions.

I'm just pissed off at work having had a package of work held up for no fucking reason for four months by various commercial and financial departments incompetence or as others call them the disabling functions.

[Paddington Bear]

We don't have the people or workforce to do railways at a national level. We have thousands of accountants, lawyers, consultants and the like but fuck all welders etc.. and by the time the former have had their share of the money there really isn't enough to build a railway at any rate. Ditto on stuff like nuclear power plants.

Half true, half not. We have the people and the workforce to build excellent rail infrastructure, it just takes forever because of the regulatory structure so we get far less bang for our buck. Some of the HS2 engineering near me is superb, Lizzie Line gets enough plaudits to be self evident, even on a smaller scale the new station at Brent Cross is very well done.

Blaming the regulators is easy so everyone does it. In my experience the regulators are fine and best dealt with directly but if you don't have a project with useful specialist equivalents you are fucked. You end up dealing with legal people who frequently interpret regulation insanely/impractically and consultancies making it unnecessarily complex (I guess that is what you mean by regulatory structures). If you have someone who will smash through that, the regulator is typically fine.

The mess of ownership, responsibilities and structures around Hinckley C makes it near impossible to come to sensible engineering decisions at times so not surprised the ONR would be twitchy particularly after the first person they speak to will be a project manager type who might have tried to bluff.

On crossrail - TFL have a enough people experienced at actually doing things (and booted useless people) which will help massively. Elsewhere we've kind of lost that practical underlying understanding of dealing with real things and owning it. New government will help by actually making decisions.

I'm just pissed off at work having had a package of work held up for no fucking reason for four months by various commercial and financial departments incompetence or as others call them the disabling functions.

Yeah you’re right about what I mean by regulatory structures. Our system encourages the rights of locals to peace and quiet over critical infrastructure, encourages pandering to NIMBYs and MPs attempting to appease them, and requires those trying to build something to prepare for judicial review. Judicial review is not there to stop a nuclear power plant or a railway being built! We cut through that we eliminate tonnes of the nonsense you’re referring to

[I like neeps]

If we built HS2 in full as initially proposed, the chances of City needing to expand would have been very slim. But we haven’t so we are where we are

Would HS2 help that much? There's only Glasgow and Edinburgh as mainland UK destinations from City airport and HS2 would mainly improve the Glasgow side.

They can only land smaller commercial airplanes there (I think up to Airbus A318 size, but many will be turboprop), so it's not going to be long-haul, but there are many short hop flights to continental Europe.

I will admit I've only ever flown to City from Edinburgh which is certainly viable by train, I assume there's many travellers from Glasgow who would forgo flights if the train was faster (and cheaper)

No we'd need a hugely expanded channel tunnel and high speed rail infrastructure into and across Europe. Most City flights are to Paris, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Milan, Dublin etc.

[Slick]

I've flown to City from Glasgow and certainly wouldn't do that with a better train offer. In fact I've chosen Eurostar many times over flying on my regular London - Rotterdam trip because journey times are decent and prices competitive if you buy well in advance. Ironically the main thing making me hesitate each time is that St. Pancras is an overcrowded shithole when boarding.

On Net Zero, btw, there is a start up aiming to offer flights from Rotterdam to London City on a fully battery-powered plane within the next few years. I would be in the market for that, but expect them to be novelty pricey initially.

Yup, I've flown City to Edinburgh a few times and actually really like City, although the price of food is fucking outrageous. But I've only ever done that flight because at the time it was much cheaper than the train, which I much prefer. It's absolutely fucking outrageous that a flight is cheaper than any train journey in the UK.

[epwc]

It's absolutely fucking outrageous that a flight is cheaper than any train journey in the UK.

This. It's immoral, and makes no sense. We did Italy by rail a few years ago every stop was at a rail station in the centre of town, no hassles getting to hotel/airbnb just really easy.

Whenever I've been to Glasgow or Edinburgh it's always been to the centre. Rail should be the only sane option.

[inactionman]

Just as an aside and a heads-up, I went down to London over the weekend and LNER offer a family return of £97 each way for 2 adults and 2 kids.

The train was delayed by 35 minutes on the way back, so with 50% refund for that leg it worked out at less than £150 for the 4 of us.

Usual disasters with points failures and cancellations meant both trains were packed to the gills, although we were lucky in that our trains weren't directly impacted, but such issues seem to be an ongoing problem with UK trains.

[duke]

Just as an aside and a heads-up, I went down to London over the weekend and LNER offer a family return of £97 each way for 2 adults and 2 kids.

The train was delayed by 35 minutes on the way back, so with 50% refund for that leg it worked out at less than £150 for the 4 of us.

Usual disasters with points failures and cancellations meant both trains were packed to the gills, although we were lucky in that our trains weren't directly impacted, but such issues seem to be an ongoing problem with UK trains.

I saw a tweet recently about LNER removing the vast majority of fare discounts soon which will make the East Coast main line even less economical.

[inactionman]

Just as an aside and a heads-up, I went down to London over the weekend and LNER offer a family return of £97 each way for 2 adults and 2 kids.

The train was delayed by 35 minutes on the way back, so with 50% refund for that leg it worked out at less than £150 for the 4 of us.

Usual disasters with points failures and cancellations meant both trains were packed to the gills, although we were lucky in that our trains weren't directly impacted, but such issues seem to be an ongoing problem with UK trains.

I saw a tweet recently about LNER removing the vast majority of fare discounts soon which will make the East Coast main line even less economical.

That's what I'm worried about - the 'standard' pricing is eye-watering.

I was looking to book another trip later in the year but I can't locate the offer. When I booked my recent trip a few months back, there were loads of trains we could have taken. It may be that it's already expired.

eta: looks like its still there:
https://www.lner.co.uk/tickets-savings/ ... y-singles/

[Paddington Bear]

The core reason trains are expensive in this country is because we lack capacity. We had a transformational project lined up to change this, and just about everyone hated it and said it was a waste of time. So demand management it is, with no prospect of a serious improvement until a government bites the bullet and builds a new line from Birmingham to Leeds and Manchester.

This also leads to just about every line running too many trains on it, which means when there is a delay it cascades and cascades. A severe points failure at Wembley can knock out a swathe of the underground, overground and the main line from the capital to Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool and Glasgow. Not ideal.

For what it’s worth if you shop around a bit you can usually travel on the ECML pretty economically, I struggle a little more to find cheap fares on the Midland and West Coast lines.

[Paddington Bear]

Just as an aside and a heads-up, I went down to London over the weekend and LNER offer a family return of £97 each way for 2 adults and 2 kids.

The train was delayed by 35 minutes on the way back, so with 50% refund for that leg it worked out at less than £150 for the 4 of us.

Usual disasters with points failures and cancellations meant both trains were packed to the gills, although we were lucky in that our trains weren't directly impacted, but such issues seem to be an ongoing problem with UK trains.

I saw a tweet recently about LNER removing the vast majority of fare discounts soon which will make the East Coast main line even less economical.

They’re removing a lot of off peak fares, advance tickets remain

[Paddington Bear]

It's absolutely fucking outrageous that a flight is cheaper than any train journey in the UK.

This. It's immoral, and makes no sense. We did Italy by rail a few years ago every stop was at a rail station in the centre of town, no hassles getting to hotel/airbnb just really easy.

Whenever I've been to Glasgow or Edinburgh it's always been to the centre. Rail should be the only sane option.

Italy built a high speed network! No shock that it now blows domestic aviation out of the water! We were concerned that a few trees might have to be chopped down to build one, so we are often forced to fly instead.

[epwc]

Italy built a high speed network! No shock that it now blows domestic aviation out of the water! We were concerned that a few trees might have to be chopped down to build one, so we are often forced to fly instead.

Yep

[Tichtheid]

I'm not convinced "forced" is the right word. I haven't flown for 16 years.

[inactionman]

I'm not convinced "forced" is the right word. I haven't flown for 16 years.

It all depends. I used to be forced to travel for work, not so much now (thankfully).

I've had times when train travel just wasn't viable, which shouldn't really be the case within the UK

[Paddington Bear]

I'm not convinced "forced" is the right word. I haven't flown for 16 years.

It depends on time and money. I much prefer travelling to Glasgow by train, but I don’t always have £120+ and 10+ hours available for the round trip.

Likewise I would love to always head to the continent by train but it just isn’t practical right now.

[TedMaul]

I'm not convinced "forced" is the right word. I haven't flown for 16 years.

It depends on time and money. I much prefer travelling to Glasgow by train, but I don’t always have £120+ and 10+ hours available for the round trip.

Likewise I would love to always head to the continent by train but it just isn’t practical right now.

100%, same. Last time I was up at St Andrews decided to train it as match was over in time to get back and the journey is enjoyable. The bonus was it got back over an hour late so got 100% refund. What a mad system…

[epwc]

The bonus was it got back over an hour late so got 100% refund. What a mad system…

Yep, my daughter was stuck in Dubai Airport for 19 hours last year coming back from Thailand, no compo.

[TedMaul]

Really not even a hotel

[robmatic]

When I travel back to the UK, the smart and connected way would be to arrive in Manchester Airport, exit the terminal and jump on the train that takes you directly to my local station in Yorkshire. Unfortunately, that train service is Trans Pennine Express, so it is slow, crowded, and unreliable. It is also not cheap. All manageable if I'm travelling solo but as a family and with a small child it becomes a big nope from me.

[sockwithaticket]

I'm not convinced "forced" is the right word. I haven't flown for 16 years.

It depends on time and money. I much prefer travelling to Glasgow by train, but I don’t always have £120+ and 10+ hours available for the round trip.

Likewise I would love to always head to the continent by train but it just isn’t practical right now.

100%, same. Last time I was up at St Andrews decided to train it as match was over in time to get back and the journey is enjoyable. The bonus was it got back over an hour late so got 100% refund. What a mad system…

An hour is definitely generous for a full refund. 2 is the threshold for South Western as I discovered on Monday. Two earlier 'rail trespass incidents', one of which turned out to involve a fatality, caused utter chaos. I was trying to get to London for a gig and it took about 2 and a half hours to get as far as Woking with all the cancellations. Once there we were being advised that it could take an hour and half even once boarded to get into Waterloo due to backlog of trains trying to get in and out. Thankfully it was a small band and small venue, so I didn't lose too much money by not being able to make it, but spending almost four hours on trains and platforms to get to Woking and back was not how that evening was supposed to go... In general I find South Western on the Portsmouth to Waterloo line pretty good, nothing like the horror stories you hear of other providers and lines, but it's fairly inescapable that even a well run train line can turn to utter chaos at the drop of a hat.

[epwc]

Really not even a hotel

They didn't offer anything, she didn't push. Her first experience with anything like that, the mate she was with is a space cadet so she wouldn't have been much help.

[Dinsdale Piranha]

When I travel back to the UK, the smart and connected way would be to arrive in Manchester Airport, exit the terminal and jump on the train that takes you directly to my local station in Yorkshire. Unfortunately, that train service is Trans Pennine Express, so it is slow, crowded, and unreliable. It is also not cheap. All manageable if I'm travelling solo but as a family and with a small child it becomes a big nope from me.

I feel for you. Trans Pennine is well known as a bag of shite.

I take trains where possible in the UK and Europe but fuck me it can be challenging sometimes, both on price and reliability.

Also you can't take bicycles on the TGV anymore so my easy cycling holidays of Eurostar/TGV then cycle out of the station are long gone. Last time I cycled in France we drove to Mont Ventoux as we worked out that was the easiest option for 2 people with bikes. That's criminal.

[epwc]

Also you can't take bicycles on the TGV anymore so my easy cycling holidays of Eurostar/TGV then cycle out of the station are long gone. Last time I cycled in France we drove to Mont Ventoux as we worked out that was the easiest option for 2 people with bikes. That's criminal.

I didn't know that, that is stupid

[Dinsdale Piranha]

Also you can't take bicycles on the TGV anymore so my easy cycling holidays of Eurostar/TGV then cycle out of the station are long gone. Last time I cycled in France we drove to Mont Ventoux as we worked out that was the easiest option for 2 people with bikes. That's criminal.

I didn't know that, that is stupid

Travelling with bicycles - both by rail and air - has been getting steadily more difficult since I first went on a cycling holiday 20 years ago.

[Biffer]

If we built HS2 in full as initially proposed, the chances of City needing to expand would have been very slim. But we haven’t so we are where we are

Would HS2 help that much? There's only Glasgow and Edinburgh as mainland UK destinations from City airport and HS2 would mainly improve the Glasgow side.

They can only land smaller commercial airplanes there (I think up to Airbus A318 size, but many will be turboprop), so it's not going to be long-haul, but there are many short hop flights to continental Europe.

I will admit I've only ever flown to City from Edinburgh which is certainly viable by train, I assume there's many travellers from Glasgow who would forgo flights if the train was faster (and cheaper)

No we'd need a hugely expanded channel tunnel and high speed rail infrastructure into and across Europe. Most City flights are to Paris, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Milan, Dublin etc.

The big miss with the channel tunnel is it not taking sleeper trains. They were dying out when it was designed and built so you can't really blame them. But if I was able to take a sleeper to Amsterdam, Paris, even Berlin, I'd do that.

[Paddington Bear]

Would HS2 help that much? There's only Glasgow and Edinburgh as mainland UK destinations from City airport and HS2 would mainly improve the Glasgow side.

They can only land smaller commercial airplanes there (I think up to Airbus A318 size, but many will be turboprop), so it's not going to be long-haul, but there are many short hop flights to continental Europe.

I will admit I've only ever flown to City from Edinburgh which is certainly viable by train, I assume there's many travellers from Glasgow who would forgo flights if the train was faster (and cheaper)

No we'd need a hugely expanded channel tunnel and high speed rail infrastructure into and across Europe. Most City flights are to Paris, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Milan, Dublin etc.

The big miss with the channel tunnel is it not taking sleeper trains. They were dying out when it was designed and built so you can't really blame them. But if I was able to take a sleeper to Amsterdam, Paris, even Berlin, I'd do that.

They ordered some for stations outside of London, but never followed through with the operation. I believe the trains themselves are used on Canada’s railways now.

Sleeper trains are by far the most civilised way to travel but are very hard to turn a profit on. Caledonian Sleeper remains a subsidised service I believe, even with the prices as they are