Mass transport of the near future

[SydneyRover]

OK, everyone by now has felt or at least seen what nature can do and as someone smart said recently we are not trying to save the planet the planet will survive, it's just we won't have any representatives on it.

What will we do for mass transport for the long journeys, ships are good but slow and polluting so for me it has to be fast rail, I don't see any other way of moving lots of people long distances.

Airlines are struggling, fuel prices are rising and many will go to the wall. If governments want to stick to their greenhouse promises they will have to reduce flying.

[big fat yorkshire pudding]

Doncaster to New York by train?  Sydney to Shanghai by train?  Nope.

Needs a less polluting way of flight that's the way forward.

[Donnywolf]

Hasn't Johnson proposed the first Leg of the Donny to NY with the Stranraer to Portpatrick Bridge ?

Second leg may be a bit more challenging though

I take your point .... Aircraft  that pollute much much
less less have to be the way forward

Incidentally talking of less pollution but quick travel ... there were lots of trial Maglev trains (Mag netic Lev itation for those who didn't see them) and they could be great , but , do they pollute less being as I remember opposite magnetic poles were the way they ran ?

[BillyStubbsTears]

Doncaster to New York by train?  Sydney to Shanghai by train?  Nope.

Needs a less polluting way of flight that's the way forward.

Of course air travel will be needed for some journeys for the foreseeable future. But there's no reason why we should ever be travelling by air from London to Edinburgh, or Los Angeles to San Francisco.

[Donnywolf]

Plenty of scope with Japan having a Bullet type maglev train which will be able to do 600 kmh or 340 ish mph

That would be an innovation for HS3 !

[colfromdonny]

MagLev is  what HS 2 should have been. Just zero foresight from our career politicians

[danumdon]

Doncaster to New York by train?  Sydney to Shanghai by train?  Nope.

Needs a less polluting way of flight that's the way forward.

Of course air travel will be needed for some journeys for the foreseeable future. But there's no reason why we should ever be travelling by air from London to Edinburgh, or Los Angeles to San Francisco.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-6432989/Kim-Kardashian-Kanye-West-leave-fans-SICKENED-private-flight.html

What chance does the world have with dross like this ?

[big fat yorkshire pudding]

Doncaster to New York by train?  Sydney to Shanghai by train?  Nope.

Needs a less polluting way of flight that's the way forward.

Of course air travel will be needed for some journeys for the foreseeable future. But there's no reason why we should ever be travelling by air from London to Edinburgh, or Los Angeles to San Francisco.

Do we fund it by quite expensive high speed rail then?  Even with hsq a trip to Paris is much longer by train than flight (and costs more).  Unless you have high speed city to city non stop rail it won't ever happen.

Focus on rail for short journeys air for long.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Doncaster to New York by train?  Sydney to Shanghai by train?  Nope.

Needs a less polluting way of flight that's the way forward.

Of course air travel will be needed for some journeys for the foreseeable future. But there's no reason why we should ever be travelling by air from London to Edinburgh, or Los Angeles to San Francisco.

Do we fund it by quite expensive high speed rail then?  Even with hsq a trip to Paris is much longer by train than flight (and costs more).  Unless you have high speed city to city non stop rail it won't ever happen.

Focus on rail for short journeys air for long.

I've done Paris city centre to Sheffield city centre in 5 hours by train. I challenge you to beat that flying.

And that's even with the East Midlands Line being the shitest to serve a major city in Western Europe.

[BillyStubbsTears]

As for cost, charge flights for the CO2 they emit and see which is the cheaper.

[big fat yorkshire pudding]

Doncaster to New York by train?  Sydney to Shanghai by train?  Nope.

Needs a less polluting way of flight that's the way forward.

Of course air travel will be needed for some journeys for the foreseeable future. But there's no reason why we should ever be travelling by air from London to Edinburgh, or Los Angeles to San Francisco.

Do we fund it by quite expensive high speed rail then?  Even with hsq a trip to Paris is much longer by train than flight (and costs more).  Unless you have high speed city to city non stop rail it won't ever happen.

Focus on rail for short journeys air for long.

I've done Paris city centre to Sheffield city centre in 5 hours by train. I challenge you to beat that flying.

And that's even with the East Midlands Line being the shitest to serve a major city in Western Europe.

Not tried it from Paris but have done some very good short flights to Europe very quickly.  Amsterdam stood out, 2-2.5 hours from city centre to living room. Can't do that on a train.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Well aye, you're always going to struggle to get a decent train service when there's 200 miles of sea between start and end. So, yes, there will always be cases where flights are clearly better.

But here's an example of what is possible if you put the effort in.

Osaka to Tokyo is further than Donny to Amsterdam as the crow flies. You can get from city centre to city centre by train in just over 2 hours. And a turn up and pay ticket is £80.

Japan invested in that infrastructure precisely because they didn't want to encourage short haul flights. Absolutely no reason why every developed country can't do the same. It's down to political will.

[danumdon]

We had a window of opportunity in the lead up and after the channel tunnel opened to really kick on and modernise our railway infrastructure. This was the period when most of Europe were pumping massive resources into their railways and modernising their networks.

What did we do? we argued the toss and talked a good fight but ultimately we persisted with our hamstrung franchising system that brought no tangible benefits to the travelling public bar some new rolling stock and some extended platforms.

We "modernised" the west coast mainline in such a ham fisted manner that it cost three time the original budget that had to settle for 125mph running after they had promised Branson 140mph track, even worse they had to pay compensation to him for the shortfall. This overrun of budget also prevented many upgrades and improvements to the East coast main line from going ahead. Some have only just recently been completed 20 years after the event.

Shockingly poor mismanagement from the Tories in the first place that was never corrected by labour when they came into power in 97.

You could argue that governments of all colours have neglected the overall railway infrastructure ever since privatisation up to now when you compare where we are in relation with the Europeans. This will be something that we will end up paying for dearly in the future when and after we totally trash our supposedly "integrated transport policy"

In the future,when we tax and expel most motorists off the roads we will look at our alternatives and wish we had the foresight to plan in 20/40 year timescales.

[BillyStubbsTears]

We DID spend a small fortune on Crossrail. We are planning to spend double that on Crossrail2.

The political will is there if the work is benefiting London and the Home Counties...

[danumdon]

But that was the issue, all these infrastructure projects were of little use to most north of Watford gap, we have allowed our national infrastructure to slowly disintegrate at the expense of servicing London and the south east.

This was know to much earlier governments than just Johnson's with his "levelling up" and "northern powerhouse" nonsense.

The average send per person in the country on infrastructure has been skewered towards London and the south east for so long its now become laughable.

[pib]

Meanwhile...

https://www.mic.com/culture/kylie-jenner-private-jet-three-minutes-wtf?utm_campaign=mic&utm_content=1658181601&utm_medium=owned&utm_source=twitter

What hope have we got?

[River Don]

Given the technology we have now, I think the only option is fast rail.

Short haul flight should be scaled back and longhaul pan continental flight has probably got to become much more expensive.

Aviation though has only ideas about growth and I doubt there is the political will to hold it back.