Wednesday:
Today presenter: So why have you taken such drastic measures to cut down trees alongside the railway lines, sometimes up to thirty yards from the tracks?
Network Rail Spokesperson: Well, I don't see what the problem is. We got on the palantír to the Dark Lord Sauron and he said we should tear down the forests of Isengard and burn them to power an industrial machine that would carry a new Darkness across all the lands of the West.
Later...
Sauron: This is getting silly! I've been waiting for my invasion for Ages now! What's causing all these delays?!
Announcer (over PA): Network Rail would like to apologise for the late running of the 18:30 Nazgûl from Minas Morgul to Minas Tirith. Further delays are expected to all services between Orodruin and the Black Terminus of Barad-dûr. This is due to the wrong sort of ash and lava on the line.
Sauron: Oh Balrogs!
Showing posts with label Railways. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Railways. Show all posts
Thursday, June 28, 2012
Monday, March 03, 2008
Day 2615: The Knighthood Now Arriving on Platform 13 is the delayed 14.40 Gong from Rugby
Thursday:
No, seriously, they're giving the boss of Network Rail a KNIGHTHOOD on the same day as they fine his company a record FOURTEEN MILLION POUNDS.
"It is London’s commuters who deserve a knighthood for putting up with the cattle-class travel conditions they experience day-in, day-out, not Network Rail's boss."
said Liberal Democrat candidate for Mayor, Mr Brian.
Handily, that fine will come out of one government bank account and go back into another, rather than, say, being spent upgrading the West Coast Main Line…
In an emergency room somewhere, satire is flatlining again!
No, seriously, they're giving the boss of Network Rail a KNIGHTHOOD on the same day as they fine his company a record FOURTEEN MILLION POUNDS.
"It is London’s commuters who deserve a knighthood for putting up with the cattle-class travel conditions they experience day-in, day-out, not Network Rail's boss."
said Liberal Democrat candidate for Mayor, Mr Brian.
Handily, that fine will come out of one government bank account and go back into another, rather than, say, being spent upgrading the West Coast Main Line…
In an emergency room somewhere, satire is flatlining again!
Thursday, November 22, 2007
Day 2516: Conservatory and Labour Show their True Colours… They have Red Faces Not Green Credentials
Wednesday:
Hilarity at the end of Prime Monster's Questionable Time as Conservatory Mr David Half-cocked Amoral demands a stop to windmills… like the one on Mr Balloon's roof.
But the SERIOUS damage is to be done by the Secretary of State for Ruining Everyone's Environment, Mr Ruth Kelly, who is going to give the go-ahead to a THIRD runway and a SIXTH terminal at Britain's Busiest Noise Polluter: Heathrow Airport.
"These plans could see the number of flights from Heathrow rise to 800,000 per year, making a mockery of any attempts to tackle climate change," said Ms Susan Kramer-vs-Kramer, Liberal Democrat Transport Spokesperson.
The Labour and Conservatories both back these proposals – involving the BULLDOZING of two local villages – leaving only the Liberal Democrats to stick up for local people and future generations.
The argument for ever-increasing air travel into Heathrow is surely very weak.
From a climate change point of view we NEED to be looking at keeping increases in air travel to a minimum. And there are two PERFECTLY LOGICAL alternatives available to us, neither of which need to impose more on a Heathrow already stretched to capacity.
Firstly, we need to look at reducing the number of INTERNAL air flights, and the answer to that is surely to make our RAILWAYS work properly. High speed rail links from the capital to the regions would be the environmentally friendly alternative, and would ease the overcrowding on those Heathrow runways.
Liberal Democrats already have plans to Get Britain Back on Track
and THAT is where we should be spending money, not on making things worse in West London.
Secondly, if more air-travel really IS necessary, we should be looking at using the available capacity in regional airports, like Manchester or Bristol or Glasgow. Instead of having EVERYTHING fly into Heathrow – in order to be packed onto lorries and driven round the motorways causing more congestion and pollution – and instead of having EVERYONE fly off out of Heathrow – packing themselves and their kids into cars to try and drive there on motorways already congested with lorries. We should be looking at SMARTER thinking about routes in and out of the country.
And we all know that one of the big PROBLEMS of the British economy is the INEQUALITY caused by most of the businesses and work being drawn to London while the regions are left behind. Expanding Heathrow at the expense of everywhere else is only going to EXACERBATE that!
Mr Kelly's promises that the development must meet strict NOISE POLLUTION tests do not carry much weight either when the Government is apparently trying to SIDELINE its own report into the PROBLEM of Airport Noise. What is the use of the Government insisting that airports do not exceed the limit of 57 decibels when their own experts are saying that noise becomes intrusive at an average of just 50 decibels?
We cannot just carry on agreeing to the endless expansion of Heathrow's concrete. We need a BETTER ANSWER!
Hilarity at the end of Prime Monster's Questionable Time as Conservatory Mr David Half-cocked Amoral demands a stop to windmills… like the one on Mr Balloon's roof.
But the SERIOUS damage is to be done by the Secretary of State for Ruining Everyone's Environment, Mr Ruth Kelly, who is going to give the go-ahead to a THIRD runway and a SIXTH terminal at Britain's Busiest Noise Polluter: Heathrow Airport.
"These plans could see the number of flights from Heathrow rise to 800,000 per year, making a mockery of any attempts to tackle climate change," said Ms Susan Kramer-vs-Kramer, Liberal Democrat Transport Spokesperson.
The Labour and Conservatories both back these proposals – involving the BULLDOZING of two local villages – leaving only the Liberal Democrats to stick up for local people and future generations.
The argument for ever-increasing air travel into Heathrow is surely very weak.
From a climate change point of view we NEED to be looking at keeping increases in air travel to a minimum. And there are two PERFECTLY LOGICAL alternatives available to us, neither of which need to impose more on a Heathrow already stretched to capacity.
Firstly, we need to look at reducing the number of INTERNAL air flights, and the answer to that is surely to make our RAILWAYS work properly. High speed rail links from the capital to the regions would be the environmentally friendly alternative, and would ease the overcrowding on those Heathrow runways.
Liberal Democrats already have plans to Get Britain Back on Track
and THAT is where we should be spending money, not on making things worse in West London.
Secondly, if more air-travel really IS necessary, we should be looking at using the available capacity in regional airports, like Manchester or Bristol or Glasgow. Instead of having EVERYTHING fly into Heathrow – in order to be packed onto lorries and driven round the motorways causing more congestion and pollution – and instead of having EVERYONE fly off out of Heathrow – packing themselves and their kids into cars to try and drive there on motorways already congested with lorries. We should be looking at SMARTER thinking about routes in and out of the country.
And we all know that one of the big PROBLEMS of the British economy is the INEQUALITY caused by most of the businesses and work being drawn to London while the regions are left behind. Expanding Heathrow at the expense of everywhere else is only going to EXACERBATE that!
Mr Kelly's promises that the development must meet strict NOISE POLLUTION tests do not carry much weight either when the Government is apparently trying to SIDELINE its own report into the PROBLEM of Airport Noise. What is the use of the Government insisting that airports do not exceed the limit of 57 decibels when their own experts are saying that noise becomes intrusive at an average of just 50 decibels?
We cannot just carry on agreeing to the endless expansion of Heathrow's concrete. We need a BETTER ANSWER!
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Day 2406: Let's Get this Green Revolution Moving
Friday:
I have been on HOLIDAY but I am BAAAAACK!
And now, here are some stories I may have missed…
Don't you think that it is a bit STRANGE that oftentimes travelling by railway can be MORE expensive that travelling by car? Or, even more bizarrely, that it can be more expensive than travelling by AEROPLANE?
This CANNOT be very good for the planet!
Just this week, the House of Commons Joint Committee on Climate Change said that the government's targets for cutting carbon emissions should be tougher.
But here we are, actually giving people an incentive to use the WORST forms of polluting travel.
I think that the problem is caused because there are only so many trains that you can run. Already they are carrying more people than ever and, without importing those people from Tokyo with their foam rubber battering rams, there is no way to cram any more bodies on board.
This is why the Liberal Democrats have a PLAN.
We want to raise billions of pounds to spend on fixing the BOTTLENECKS in the system so that you can run more trains; to build improved, fast-rail links to major cities, sort of like railway bypasses, so that passengers can get about more quickly and more goods can go on goods trains without getting in the way; and to support much needed relief projects like the London Crossrail. We also want to help cut fares so that people think it is better to use railways than their cars.
Liberal Democrat Shadow Minister for the Environment, Mr Hewn, launched the plan to fix our railways saying:
"The Future Transport Fund will provide ring-fenced funding for the improvements that future generations need if we are to cut our carbon emissions."
While Ms Susan Kramer-vs-Kramer, Liberal Democrat Shadow Secretary for Industry added:
"Rail is the key to cleaning up Britain's transport, not an added extra as ministers seem to think."
Funding from new charge on road freight and on internal air travel. This is GOOD! First because, as we know, air travel causes more pollution, and it should therefore cost MORE and not LESS. And second because freight lorries do more damage to our roads than cars do – in fact they do ALMOST ALL the damage to the road surface, causing all the roadworks for resurfacing, whereas you could run cars practically forever before wearing out a motorway.
I do have one little QUALM. Did we not say that we were going to try to be FISCALLY NEUTRAL from now on? I may be wrong, but this does look like raising just the teensiest bit more tax in order to do some more spending.
I think this must be why we have said that these taxes will be a TEMPORARY measure. Let us hope that they are MORE temporary than that other temporary tax – introduced to cover the expense of going to war against NAPOLEON! – the Income Tax!
When the Conservatories flogged off the old British Rail, they made what even THEY now admit was a horrible botch up of it all. Because they made it all so COMPLICATED it is not just a simple matter of the government paying money to support the train companies. I think that someone is going to have to look at the way that some companies can, say, OWN the railway carriages and make HUGE profits leasing them to the people who are ACTUALLY running the railways and making it more difficult for those people to make a fair profit of their own.
Sorting this sort of thing out would help US in our aim of getting private business to help the railways.
Making our trains work would be a massive undertaking and a big risk… but it would be of immense benefit to many, many people and to all of our futures if we succeed.
I have been on HOLIDAY but I am BAAAAACK!
And now, here are some stories I may have missed…
Don't you think that it is a bit STRANGE that oftentimes travelling by railway can be MORE expensive that travelling by car? Or, even more bizarrely, that it can be more expensive than travelling by AEROPLANE?
This CANNOT be very good for the planet!
Just this week, the House of Commons Joint Committee on Climate Change said that the government's targets for cutting carbon emissions should be tougher.
But here we are, actually giving people an incentive to use the WORST forms of polluting travel.
I think that the problem is caused because there are only so many trains that you can run. Already they are carrying more people than ever and, without importing those people from Tokyo with their foam rubber battering rams, there is no way to cram any more bodies on board.
This is why the Liberal Democrats have a PLAN.
We want to raise billions of pounds to spend on fixing the BOTTLENECKS in the system so that you can run more trains; to build improved, fast-rail links to major cities, sort of like railway bypasses, so that passengers can get about more quickly and more goods can go on goods trains without getting in the way; and to support much needed relief projects like the London Crossrail. We also want to help cut fares so that people think it is better to use railways than their cars.
Liberal Democrat Shadow Minister for the Environment, Mr Hewn, launched the plan to fix our railways saying:
"The Future Transport Fund will provide ring-fenced funding for the improvements that future generations need if we are to cut our carbon emissions."
While Ms Susan Kramer-vs-Kramer, Liberal Democrat Shadow Secretary for Industry added:
"Rail is the key to cleaning up Britain's transport, not an added extra as ministers seem to think."
Funding from new charge on road freight and on internal air travel. This is GOOD! First because, as we know, air travel causes more pollution, and it should therefore cost MORE and not LESS. And second because freight lorries do more damage to our roads than cars do – in fact they do ALMOST ALL the damage to the road surface, causing all the roadworks for resurfacing, whereas you could run cars practically forever before wearing out a motorway.
I do have one little QUALM. Did we not say that we were going to try to be FISCALLY NEUTRAL from now on? I may be wrong, but this does look like raising just the teensiest bit more tax in order to do some more spending.
I think this must be why we have said that these taxes will be a TEMPORARY measure. Let us hope that they are MORE temporary than that other temporary tax – introduced to cover the expense of going to war against NAPOLEON! – the Income Tax!
When the Conservatories flogged off the old British Rail, they made what even THEY now admit was a horrible botch up of it all. Because they made it all so COMPLICATED it is not just a simple matter of the government paying money to support the train companies. I think that someone is going to have to look at the way that some companies can, say, OWN the railway carriages and make HUGE profits leasing them to the people who are ACTUALLY running the railways and making it more difficult for those people to make a fair profit of their own.
Sorting this sort of thing out would help US in our aim of getting private business to help the railways.
Making our trains work would be a massive undertaking and a big risk… but it would be of immense benefit to many, many people and to all of our futures if we succeed.
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