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As a small side point, high rise buildings are a huge upcoming problem. They rely on large furnaces heated by natural gas, and a brief overnight failure of the gas supply in the winter would cause the pipes to freeze, making the buildings uninhabitable. If there is a significant glitch in the energy supply to New York, the city could become vacant in a matter of a week.
Once you get populations up to the level to support genuine urban districts, it seems to me that the only direction to address the megalopolis problem is to pursue network cities.
But my geographic knowledge of Britain in terms of travel distance is sketchy ... if there was a real HSR line north from the City of London, where would the half hour radius go to the north? and the hour radius? I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.
Using the models we discussed in your HSR diary DoDo:
If it is easy to implement, I'd suggest you refine your model with these next simplest assumptions: give 40 km/25 miles and 10 minutes each for the acceleration and deceleration phases (the latter is in reality much shorter, but let's have buffer for city entrances), calculate the rest at maximum speed, if you're a bit bolder, 220 mph (which is a bit under the 360 km/h max for the next generation of Shinkansens), accept half-hour distances as minimum. Final point: what about Houston-NOLA, St. Louis-NOLA, Jacksonville-NOLA? All seem to be within the scope of your rules (and all would be great to serve some major sub-million cities along the way, too).
If it is easy to implement, I'd suggest you refine your model with these next simplest assumptions:
town minutes 1 Aberdeen 138 2 Aberystwyth 63 3 Birmingham 36 4 Bristol 37 5 Cardiff 47 6 Derby 39 7 Dover 26 8 Edinburgh 109 9 Exeter 52 10 Glasgow 110 11 Inverness 148 12 Leeds 58 13 Liverpool 59 15 Manchester 56 16 Newcastle 80 17 Norwich 37 18 Nottingham 39 19 Oxford 27 20 Portsmouth 26 21 Sheffield 49 22 Southampton 27 23 York 58
you'd have to not stop at llanfair.p.g. though, just drive straight past at speed so that the passengers thought,"did that sign really say what I thought it did"? Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.
from to score miles 90 Manchester Leeds 41654.487 44.0 88 Manchester Liverpool 38969.011 34.7 86 London Birmingham 36850.567 118.0 84 Manchester Sheffield 30957.756 38.7 82 Birmingham Nottingham 23908.977 51.6 80 Birmingham Manchester 23736.151 95.3 78 Leeds Sheffield 23732.979 41.3 76 London Manchester 20703.905 208.0 74 London Nottingham 18349.031 128.0 72 London Bristol 18100.438 118.0 70 London Leeds 17975.517 196.0 68 Birmingham Leeds 15422.111 120.0 66 Leeds Liverpool 15259.233 72.5 64 Manchester Nottingham 15065.351 81.1 62 Nottingham Sheffield 14986.543 43.6 60 Birmingham Liverpool 13961.131 97.8 58 London Sheffield 13873.797 166.0 56 Leeds Nottingham 13618.395 73.4 54 Birmingham Sheffield 13456.476 89.9 52 London Liverpool 12319.395 211.0 50 Leeds Newcastle 11661.980 98.5 48 Birmingham Bristol 11542.302 97.2 46 Manchester Newcastle 9683.194 145.0 44 London Newcastle 9605.132 281.0 42 Liverpool Sheffield 9142.400 79.1 40 London Glasgow 7716.775 403.0 38 Manchester Glasgow 7455.181 217.0 36 Birmingham Newcastle 6848.996 207.0 34 Glasgow Newcastle 6714.830 151.0 32 Liverpool Nottingham 6584.736 112.0 30 Manchester Bristol 6277.328 177.0 28 Leeds Glasgow 6016.128 220.0 26 Birmingham Glasgow 5632.880 290.0 24 Newcastle Sheffield 5402.064 139.0 22 Newcastle Liverpool 4761.271 178.0 20 Newcastle Nottingham 4669.284 164.0 18 Glasgow Liverpool 4458.924 219.0 16 Leeds Bristol 4370.254 208.0 14 Nottingham Bristol 4297.704 141.0 12 Liverpool Bristol 3725.906 180.0 10 Glasgow Sheffield 3379.604 256.0 8 Sheffield Bristol 3301.136 180.0 6 Glasgow Nottingham 3128.789 282.0 4 Newcastle Bristol 2329.008 299.0 2 Glasgow Bristol 2162.716 371.0
Considering the Leeds-Manchester-Liverpool line seems to be a no-brainer and potentially the most sensible of all major rail links in the country, I decided to check nationalrail.co.uk to see what the situation is like at present.
The fastest direct train takes 1h47 minutes, while we know it could take as little as 27 minutes non-stop and less than 40 minutes with a stop in Manchester. At nearly 2h travel time it almost makes sense to fly from Leeds to Liverpool, but a good rail connection via Manchester would such the airlines dry of their market share. We have met the enemy, and it is us — Pogo
OK, Leeds, Manchester, 14 miles in 20 minutes, 30 miles at 100mph so about 18 minutes, for a total of 38 minutes.
Manchester, Liverpool, 14 miles in 20 minutes, 21 miles at 100mph, is about 13 minutes, for about 33 minutes.
10 minutes for debarking and embarking at Manchester, and eventually arriving after an HSR London/Birmingham/Manchester arrives and before it returns, would yield 1 hour 21 minutes.
Non-stop Leeds/Liverpool, 14 miles in 20 minutes, 59 miles in 39 minutes, 59 minutes. I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.
The DfT states that their involvement in a future fleet specification and acquisition is necessary for several reasons. Though Britain's rail operators are privatised, their franchises seldom last for more than 12 years; a train, on the other hand, may remain in service for more than 30 years. It is therefore entirely unprofitable for the franchise operator to replace the fleet, leaving the only other option to hire newly acquired trains from third parties, which can prove extremely expensive. The DfT also states that it can, and has, brought train operators together with a `whole system, whole life' perspective to decide on a specification that will be more flexible with regards to future routes and fleet transfers as well as more environmentally aware.
Say what? We have met the enemy, and he is us — Pogo
But it looks like the key there is conventional Non-Stop / Express / Local scheduling with the Non-Stop chasing the Express chasing the Local into Manchester (on either side).
Assuming 125mph and working that through again ...
Leeds, Manchester, 14 miles in 20 minutes, 30 miles at 125mph so about 15 minutes, for a total of 35 minutes.
Manchester, Liverpool, 14 miles in 20 minutes, 21 miles at 125mph, is about 10 minutes, for about 30 minutes.
10 minutes for debarking and embarking at Manchester, and eventually arriving after an HSR London/Birmingham/Manchester arrives and before it returns, would yield 1 hour 1:15 minutes, so not the same improvement as :145 to 1:20.
Non-stop Leeds/Liverpool, 14 miles in 20 minutes, 59 miles in 29 minutes, 49 minutes.
Not surprisingly, the bonus for a slight ratcheting up of the speed of the class 43 is is the Leeds/Liverpool non-stop.
But to me, the linchpin there for the regional transport task is a true HSR line London/Birmingham/Manchester, and Non-Stop / Express / Locals chasing each other into Manchester to connect with the HSR. However, if it is possible to get an effective Dublin connection by ferry from Liverpool, then I can see taking a London/Birmingham/Manchester HSR on into Liverpool. I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.
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