HS2, by moving long distance trains which use a lot of capacity, from other lines will release slots on existing railways.


So you benefit if you're nowhere near HS2.

Example: Trains from Aberyswtwyth serve Birmingham New Street. New Street is crowded and there are few spare slots.

HS2 will take Euston trains away, serving Curzon Street and allowing more trains from Aberystwyth to serve BNS. And providing more resilience if service is disrupted.

In reply to a post by jchamier:

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

In many respects one could argue that the availability of home networking and technology, actually was the safety net that staved off complete economic and educational system catastrophe.

Yes, I would argue that, but I'm probably biased working for a massive IT company

Iim not biased at alll, i work in construction. But what i would say is that it's obvious that home tech is the future. What i can't understand about it though is how would you build up friendships, long term working relationships if you have never actually met the people you work with ? All those little nods, winks that actually make up all of our characters.

In reply to a post by kitfit1:

Iim not biased at alll, i work in construction. But what i would say is that it's obvious that home tech is the future. What i can't understand about it though is how would you build up friendships, long term working relationships if you have never actually met the people you work with ? All those little nods, winks that actually make up all of our characters.

Vitally important!

When I worked in consulting for around 10 years, 4 out of 5 days I was either working on the clients premises or WFH.In order to maintain any sense of community or belonging with my actual colleagues (whom I could be working together with on another project with in 6 months time) it was vital to get around a day a week in our office, together. We would always try and do that despite my offices being 200+ miles apart. You can't beat time spent physically together to build actual human relationships.

Conversely my wife has "trainees" in her practice that have been employed by her company that have never actually stepped foot in their HQ since the start of their employment. How they are going to build relationships with their colleagues that they will depend on in times of difficulty or challenge is hard to fathom out. There is a growing generation that could be rather disenfranchised by too much remote working and not enough relationship building time.

Edited by Pheasant (Sun 14-Feb-21 15:46:44)

In reply to a post by kitfit1:

Iim not biased at alll, i work in construction. But what i would say is that it's obvious that home tech is the future. What i can't understand about it though is how would you build up friendships, long term working relationships if you have never actually met the people you work with ? All those little nods, winks that actually make up all of our characters.

This is something, in IT anyway, we realised a few years ago with multi-country teams. The only solution was to have groups of people in each country, then the groups talk to each other across the video calling systems.

I don't see long term home working for individuals, but I can see a 50% reduction in travel (and in hotel stays) for people going to an office a long way away. Perhaps a higher reduction in sales folk flying from London to Glasgow for a 2 hour meeting, and flying home again same day.

I hope that teams still continue to physically locate together for a lot of the time, but perhaps more people will be able to home work occasionally, e.g. when children are sick, or you need some work on your home etc.

Once we have a route out of the chaos, lots of companies will be asking these questions. Especially those whom have offices in extremely expensive locations, or those with no staff car parking etc.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

On the one firm running it the problem is not money but rather who and how its run. People want AAISP but likely to be Tiscali style

Tiscali style? I was with Tiscali and they were fine, ok that was in dial up days, but still ok.

We don't all want AAISP style, what we want is a reliable service which has the speed/bandwidth to cope with what we throw at it to a certain extent and at least some sort of customer service.

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

Tiscali style? I was with Tiscali and they were fine, ok that was in dial up days, but still ok.

We don't all want AAISP style, what we want is a reliable service which has the speed/bandwidth to cope with what we throw at it to a certain extent and at least some sort of customer service.

I think he may have been comparing the Rolls Royce with say an average road car, both get you from A to B but the ride in the Rolls Royce may be a lot more comfortable

Get a Rolls Royce service for Rolls money.


As opposed to an Austin Maxi

In reply to a post by heathrow:

As opposed to an Austin Maxi

I had a Hillman Minx in my mind but both are good examples

In reply to a post by broadband66:

People travel by car because it is cheaper, faster and much more convenient than by train, unless trying to park in London.

Why are there so many Smart Motorways (not ideal I know) being built then? Surely the way to get people on to the railways is to leave the roads congested?

Some smart motorway schemes have made absolutely no difference to the congestion, namely the M25.

Also made them significantly more dangerous by having the refuge areas every 1.5 - 2 km instead of every 500m as approved following the trial and many still don't have the stationary vehicle detection systems up and running yet.

Something like that comparison will work for some age groups

Tiscali in the days of 0.5 Mbps ADSL was well known for having 2 Mbps of capacity on exchanges and only increasing this once between 50 and 100 or more customers were sharing it, i.e. they ran the 50:1 contention strictly.