H.M.Gov. (note, not Notwork Fail) have announced that they will electrify the route from Paddington to Swansea. They claim that the production of electricity for trains creates up to 35% less carbon than burning the equivalent amount of diesel.
Surely that could be 100%? All they need to do is hook a turbine up to IKB, who will be spinning in his grave as a result of all this.
Having been on both, I have to say that while I still like rail travel in general, the Germans (and even more so the Swiss) have it down to a relaxing, civilized art form.
Re:British vs. German Railways
nicholas on 2009-07-23T15:49:38
Given the status quo, I expect that most UK rail travellers wouldn't have any problem if the Germans wanted to come over and run our railways for us. Or the booking service. Heck, a lot of us can't wait for DB to run trains through to St Pancras, so that we get a decent through service to anywhere beyond Brussels.
Although spinne says that if you watch German TV, the Germans don't actually like DB - too expensive, and run late. She doesn't know whom they would like - I'd guess the Swiss.
Except, at this point, how big is the entire Swiss network? And how does that compare with the size and complexity of the networks either in the UK, or in Germany?
Re:British vs. German Railways
cyocum on 2009-07-23T16:09:31
True, the Swiss system is small when compared to the German and UK systems. However, I never had a problem with DB while I was in Germany and the only late train that I ever encountered was by five minutes, which is much more acceptable than what ScotRail has done to me in the past.
Re:British vs. German Railways
nicholas on 2009-07-23T20:11:04
Yes, I was most surprised to discover that the German station departure boards even have a column for "late". You usually don't notice it, because the column heading flips away when no trains are late.
Whereas, in the UK, "five minutes late" is "on time", according to the official bullshit. Heck, late™ is defined as "more than five minutes late at the final destination", or some wimp out close to that. I'd love to know what the on time statistics were really like, if we measured things using the plain honest English definition, and for all intermediate stops too. Dire, I suspect.
I suspect if Brunel was alive today, he would have managed to sweet talk the government into making the route maglev by now. He was a sucker for the New Shiny...
