Europe by rail, any tips

[lozcb]

Can’t have fast trains here in case it spoils Fortesque-Smythes’ view of his field.

I suppose that "train" of thought is normal for anyone unaffected , personally I have been affected twice by a similar DOT compulsory purchase order as I used to live on the A27 in Worthing when they toying with the idea of implementing and extending the dual carriage way , after purchasing several hundred mainly large detached 4/5 bedroom houses the scheme was scrapped ( twice if you dont mind ) made it really difficult to sell the house for what was the going rate at the time ............. even now some 30 years later they still havent gone ahead with it

 

[Oneball]

The high speed Spanish rail system is great. They have solved a lot of the integration problems by doing this:- (I’ve copied it)
“The interoperability of conventional and high speed networks was made possible by gauge changing technology that allows adjustable-axle trains to circulate on both”.

So the bullet train leaves the station on normal gauge tracks and outside town it glides through a shed where the tracks change to high speed ones. I must be a train enthusiast because I was quite excited finding that out.

Depends what you class as normal gauge, Spain and Portugal are pretty unique in Europe in having a wider gauge rail network at 5ft5 and a bit. Pretty much the rest of Europe runs 4ft8.5, which is what Spains high speed stuff is. So it really leaves the station on the odd gauge and changes to “normal” for the high speed stuff.

 

[Oneball]

I suppose that "train" of thought is normal for anyone unaffected , personally I have been affected twice by a similar DOT compulsory purchase order as I used to live on the A27 in Worthing when they toying with the idea of implementing and extending the dual carriage way , after purchasing several hundred mainly large detached 4/5 bedroom houses the scheme was scrapped ( twice if you dont mind ) made it really difficult to sell the house for what was the going rate at the time ............. even now some 30 years later they still havent gone ahead with it

Its an **** if you’re affected by a CPO but I wasn’t talking about that, we have to hide, burry or bend new railway in this country so it doesn’t spoil the view, it’s insane. There is now a 10 mile twin bore tunnel in the Chilterns costing hundreds of millions of pounds that actually only needed to be half that length to go under the hills. We’ve doubled the cost, reduced the speed, increased the journey time and put up maintenance costs 10 fold so we can’t see the railway. They don’t do that in France or Spain.

 

[lozcb]

Its an **** if you’re affected by a CPO but I wasn’t talking about that, we have to hide, burry or bend new railway in this country so it doesn’t spoil the view, it’s insane. There is now a 10 mile twin bore tunnel in the Chilterns costing hundreds of millions of pounds that actually only needed to be half that length to go under the hills. We’ve doubled the cost, reduced the speed, increased the journey time and put up maintenance costs 10 fold so we can’t see the railway. They don’t do that in France or Spain.

Perhaps the answer to CPO's is to compensate people fairly for those things with which they hold of high importance , Its headshakingly stupid how governments just waste public tax payers money now days .............I think I must have missed out on 20 years somewhere ........its appears budgets for these kind of projects just rack up the tens of billions and no one bats an eyelid anymore , Seems to me they pick a figure well above true cost out of thin air and then invent the reasons to spend it .

Another thing i cant understand is how these Councils that have reported that they are bankrupt are allowed to carry on trading when they are insolvent (that is against the law ) Surely the existing staff should be made redundant ( the present council wound up )and the running of said council be handed over to an administrator until a new council is formed ..........am I correct in my thinking