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25% of the 13 minute journey from Whitechapel to Paddington is spent not moving

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Re: 25% of the 13 minute journey from Whitechapel to Paddington is spent not moving

#61

Post by angled »

switch007 wrote: post #34
benj111 wrote: post #14

Is this a continuation of 'first world problems'? 'London problems' Oh no, my train waits it the station for nearly a full minute. The fact that there actually is a train, the train isn't a converted bus that was supposed to be a temporary measure 30 years ago, that's it's deemed viable to actually make a 13 minute train journey, the fact that presumably the train isn't 13 minutes late and in fact turned up, and the…

I bet people downvoting don’t even know about Pacers or how bad they were lol. Most Londoners are completely ignorant of the pain of public transport up North (hell, even outside of London)

The NSW FP1 is gorgeous. I had no idea they existed!

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_South_Wales_FP_Paybuses

Re: 25% of the 13 minute journey from Whitechapel to Paddington is spent not moving

#62

Post by hkt »

danw1979 wrote: post #38
hkt wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Leeds remains one of the largest cities in Europe with no tram, trolleybus, or metro system. This having had the offer of such things rescinded multiple times.

Leeds was the specific example I had in mind when writing that comment. A city still entirely dominated by cars.

With awful consequences for its productivity and environment, no less. It is easier to commute to central Leeds from Hebden Bridge, Saltaire, and Mythholmroyd than from actual suburbs of the city itself. Utterly ridiculous.

Re: 25% of the 13 minute journey from Whitechapel to Paddington is spent not moving

#63

Post by NikkiA »

throwthrow5643 wrote: post #46

New to London. London transport is good when it works. One thing I don't get, compared to my home country, is why when the train employees strike, they cancel services? Back home they just refuse to collect fares, and open the turnstyles. That way the unions don't offside the public.

Mostly it's the drivers that have been striking, they tend to be an integrally important part of the trains moving.

Re: 25% of the 13 minute journey from Whitechapel to Paddington is spent not moving

#64

Post by leoedin »

clarkdave wrote: post #9
djtango wrote: post #2

The Elizabeth line (Lizzie line??) is a bit of a quandary for me... Was so excited about it opening and I still get excited about riding it. Although the tunnels are already notably less pristine, so I'm glad to have seen them when they almost sparkled. That all said, at least according to google maps and citymapper the Eline seems to be a little situational. For example, if you're on the Met line and want to go to C…

Indeed, the interchanges can be quite arduous, as it tends to be very deep, and usually quite a trek from the other lines in that station. This also means it can take a good chunk of time to even get to or from the platform. For example, if you wanted to go from Farringdon to Liverpool St, Google Maps would suggest using the Elizabeth line, but, in practice, it's usually better to use the sub-surface lines (Metropoli…

> only air-conditioned train that runs through the central section of London.

What about the district, metropolitan, Hammersmith and city and circle lines? And Thameslink of course!

Re: 25% of the 13 minute journey from Whitechapel to Paddington is spent not moving

#65

Post by chriswarbo »

hkt wrote: post #43
kergonath wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No other part of the country has ever had so much spent on mass transit nor will it ever. This entirely true and very unfortunate. It is great to see Manchester making improvements on that front, for example, and I hope many cities will follow as the current model is absurd. Franchising like in London is not ideal but a marked improvement. That said, there aren’t many places in the UK where a single train line can…

> Up to a point, improving transport around London is the best bang for your quid. I'm trying to limit snark in my responses to this article, but wow. It turns out if you invest in something continually at the expense of everywhere else it becomes the lynchpin of the system. Good grief. The major reason people in the north hate hearing about investment in the south is because politically it is very clearly a zero sum…

> What stings the most is that if London didn't exist, became independent, or fell into the sea, everyone else would likely benefit very rapidly.

Almost all regions/cities make below-average contributions to the UK economy. That's because London drags the total way up (IIRC Bristol is the only other that's above-average, but barely).

That's obviously driven by a feedback-cycle that encourages investing in London rather than elsewhere. That does not imply that the rest of the UK would "benefit" from losing London; it would be an economic disaster.

The problem is that governments are focused on raising the UK's GDP, but that's the sum of each region's GDP and London's contribution is so large that it's equivalent to just maximising London (to optimise a weighted sum, put all the weight on the largest term). Perhaps a solution is to use metrics that combine regions geometrically (multiplying each region's GDP): that encourages investment in poor areas, since they drag down the result (rather than simply contributing less; and in the extreme case, a contribution of zero would wipe-out everything else).

We could do the same analysis on other partition too, e.g. multiplying each sector's contribution would make things less dependent on finiancial services.

Re: 25% of the 13 minute journey from Whitechapel to Paddington is spent not moving

#66

Post by throwthrow5643 »

NikkiA wrote: post #63
throwthrow5643 wrote: post #46

New to London. London transport is good when it works. One thing I don't get, compared to my home country, is why when the train employees strike, they cancel services? Back home they just refuse to collect fares, and open the turnstyles. That way the unions don't offside the public.

Mostly it's the drivers that have been striking, they tend to be an integrally important part of the trains moving.

Are they a separate union to the platform staff?

Re: 25% of the 13 minute journey from Whitechapel to Paddington is spent not moving

#67

Post by NikkiA »

throwthrow5643 wrote: post #66
NikkiA wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mostly it's the drivers that have been striking, they tend to be an integrally important part of the trains moving.

Are they a separate union to the platform staff?

Yes, platform staff are mostly TSSA, drivers are mostly ASLEF and RMT.

While most of the train strikes over the last year have been RMT primarily, ASLEF and TSSA did vote to strike in support of RMT during the winter. They're both part of the TUC after all.

https://www.cityam.com/newest-strike-wave-to-hit-uk-as-platf...

Re: 25% of the 13 minute journey from Whitechapel to Paddington is spent not moving

#68

Post by drawfloat »

barrysteve wrote: post #60
switch007 wrote: post #6

It’s hard not to think Londoners are entitled and ungrateful. No other part of the country has ever had so much spent on mass transit nor will it ever. They have the finest public transport in the entire UK, and always will. I bet you can’t regularly do 1-40 mile journeys at the same speed and cost regularly anywhere else in the UK. The media recently tried to make out the Elizabeth line was one of the worst services…

Ungrateful? Have you seen the DLR? Fully automated, no hassle. It's amazing to me that in , the whole Britian is not clamouring to get rid of Southwest trains that stop because there's leaves on the railway, and the next train is 20minutes away. I'd rather not gamble being late in front of clients, in London, because leaves fell on some rails. The Tube gets hotter in the summer than an Aussie beach. 40-50deg in the b…

Having worked in Kingston and had to endure Southwest trains, their service is still an absolute dream vs most of the rest of the country. Trains are cancelled, but the next service is 20 mins away, not hours, and they're not 1970s road bus bodies stuck on rails like Pacers.

Re: 25% of the 13 minute journey from Whitechapel to Paddington is spent not moving

#69

Post by thebruce87m »

switch007 wrote: post #6

It’s hard not to think Londoners are entitled and ungrateful. No other part of the country has ever had so much spent on mass transit nor will it ever. They have the finest public transport in the entire UK, and always will. I bet you can’t regularly do 1-40 mile journeys at the same speed and cost regularly anywhere else in the UK. The media recently tried to make out the Elizabeth line was one of the worst services…

To people outside the UK, when an English person speaks about the UK and mentions “the north”, they are not referring to the north of the UK, but instead to the north of England.

Re: 25% of the 13 minute journey from Whitechapel to Paddington is spent not moving

#70

Post by thebruce87m »

eesmith wrote: post #51
benj111 wrote: post #14

Is this a continuation of 'first world problems'? 'London problems' Oh no, my train waits it the station for nearly a full minute. The fact that there actually is a train, the train isn't a converted bus that was supposed to be a temporary measure 30 years ago, that's it's deemed viable to actually make a 13 minute train journey, the fact that presumably the train isn't 13 minutes late and in fact turned up, and the…

> ... best public transport in the country. Nowhere else has an underground system with trains every 5 minutes. Glasgow? "There are trains every four minutes at peak times and every six-to-eight minutes during off-peak times." says https://www.spt.co.uk/subway/subway-timetables/ .

When English people talk about the “UK”, they really mean England. You’ll notice that even though they will talk about the UK throughout their post they will mention “the north”, by which they mean the north of England so they aren’t really talking about the UK.
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