Viewing 23 posts - 41 through 63 (of 63 total)
  • Edinburgh trams yet again.
  • mc
    Free Member

    The big issue with the trams, was pretty much everybody who was in a position of authority and dared to question them, was bumped/silenced in some shape or form.

    Like a former exec with Lothian Buses, who mentioned the fact they could of provided free buses for x number of years for the cost of the trams, was suddenly given early retirement.
    Or another person who mentioned they were effectively spending hundreds of millions to replace the number 22 bus…

    Hohum
    Free Member

    mc – Member
    The big issue with the trams, was pretty much everybody who was in a position of authority and dared to question them, was bumped/silenced in some shape or form.

    Like a former exec with Lothian Buses, who mentioned the fact they could of provided free buses for x number of years for the cost of the trams, was suddenly given early retirement.
    Or another person who mentioned they were effectively spending hundreds of millions to replace the number 22 bus…

    Bumped by who though? Someone big and powerful was masterminding all of this 😐

    Northwind
    Full Member

    It’s not running to gogarburn, it’s running to the airport. It’s not like it isn’t bad enough without adding misinformation 😉

    Garry_Lager – Member

    15 years into the future it will still seem like an embarrassment.

    Not convinced. The elephant in the room is that Edinburgh city centre was/is a traffic disaster. People now are pretending it’s because of the tramwork but it’s easy to see through that.

    The bus service is excellent, but the hubs- Princes St in particular- were already past capacity. The 22’s the perfect example (and btw the tram doesn’t just replace it, it runs further). At rush-hour you can see snarled up lines of 22s, literally nose to tail trying to load up or move away, and still more people waiting than they can carry. I used to use the 22 and plenty of days I’d have to wait for 3 or more to pass before any had even standing room. They’d thrown more buses onto the route for years but it gets to a point that it just doesn’t work any more, and that happened years ago.

    So yep the trams have been a fiasco but I still think when it’s up and running people will start to see the point. Someone mentioned the expected return- it’s not a project that should be judged solely on its own profit.

    I will bet a shiny scottish pound that within 10 years of the reduced line being fully operational, there’ll be moves on to finish the job.

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    project
    Free Member

    Just think when the scots do get their own governmnent, and taxes they will be paying forever for the tram set, and with no oil to sell, theyre going to be stuck for cash.

    druidh
    Free Member

    Princes Street does get snarled up with buses at rush hour, but how much better will it be when there is one less lane for them to use in order to keep it clear for the tram?

    rickmeister
    Full Member

    This is from a 1956 newspaper we found under the carpet…

    What goes around etc etc. The cooncil will be ripping up the trams for hover boards in 2025..

    Its the “One Big Contract” that makes me laugh…

    SurroundedByZulus
    Free Member

    See if they’d just given someone “one big contract” rather than lots of people lots of different contracts the trams would have been finished by now.

    Northwind
    Full Member

    druidh – Member

    Princes Street does get snarled up with buses at rush hour, but how much better will it be when there is one less lane for them to use in order to keep it clear for the tram?

    Quite a bit, I expect. It’s a fairly solid reduction in the number of buses, and the trams load and unload far faster. I’m not sure what’s planned for the bus stops though. The reduced route’s going to have an impact on that though of course.

    project
    Free Member

    a future episode of Top gear features the men helping to solve transport problems for poor people who cant druive, using a car pulling some caravans down a railway track, looks good.

    Hohum
    Free Member

    See if they’d just given someone “one big contract” rather than lots of people lots of different contracts the trams would have been finished by now.

    It does seem like the main problem is around the procurement and governance of the whole project.

    Stu_N
    Full Member

    Glad it’s going ahead and just wish they would get the bloody thing built now. Edinburgh city centre is rubbish for traffic and always has been (been living here 10 years now, long before tram works and traffic calming). I say get Edinburgh Airport – St Andrews Square done, see how it works out (reckon it will be pretty good myself) and then crack on with turning Edinburgh Park into a viable interchange station for trains from west and airport trams and get building a wider network over 10-20 years.

    Rail link would have been a problem on may levels. First off, which line do you link it up to? The Edinburgh – Forth Bridge line goes by the end of the runway (but still about a km from the terminal); the Edinburgh – Glasgow line is on the other side of the A8 and about 20m higher than airport level so again would take a bit of moving. There’s a lot of volcanic rock around there (see Ratho quarries, Craigie Hill etc) which is expensive to tunnel through as it’s so hard, you’re not dealing with chalk etc. And if you can solve that there are still severe capacity problems between Waverley and Haymarket. Only 4 tracks service about 15 platforms and no way of widening without encroaching on Princes Street Gardens, or tunnelling through the Castle Rock. Stopping trains at the airport would add a few mins to every journey too (the logic for not stopping Ed-Gla at Edinburgh Park apparently). Have a look at what the Heathrow Express to set up and a “few miles of track and a station” soon adds up.

    Infrastructure programs are always long term gain for short term pain – that’s sort of the point.

    mc
    Free Member

    Bumped by who though? Someone big and powerful was masterminding all of this

    Edinburgh council has for some unknown reason wanted trams back for many years, and several people who were critical of trams, are now enjoying pretty good early retirement packages….

    Princes Street does get snarled up with buses at rush hour, but how much better will it be when there is one less lane for them to use in order to keep it clear for the tram?

    Buses won’t be running the same way as the trams.
    No bus service will be allowed to run in direct competition with the trams.
    Which basically means that if you want to go anywhere that involves going in a similar direction to the trams, yet isn’t on the tramline, you’ll have to get of a bus, on the tram, then back on a bus.
    For example, if you want to go from Jocks Lodge to the Zoo, which you could do via the 26 at the moment, you’ll have to get the bus from Jocks Lodge to St Andrews Sq, get the tram along Princes Street to Haymarket, then get another bus for the final stretch to the zoo.

    I’m sure First Bus will come up with alternatives, but I’m equally sure the council will ensure there’s no decent direct alternative routes.

    druidh
    Free Member

    mc – Member

    Buses won’t be running the same way as the trams.
    No bus service will be allowed to run in direct competition with the trams.
    Which basically means that if you want to go anywhere that involves going in a similar direction to the trams, yet isn’t on the tramline, you’ll have to get of a bus, on the tram, then back on a bus.
    For example, if you want to go from Jocks Lodge to the Zoo, which you could do via the 26 at the moment, you’ll have to get the bus from Jocks Lodge to St Andrews Sq, get the tram along Princes Street to Haymarket, then get another bus for the final stretch to the zoo.Tosh. Other bus services running along Princes Street are not being stopped just because there is a replacement for the No.22.

    trailertrash
    Full Member

    I still don’t understand exactly why a quote for work, once accepted, can change. If I tell a customer what I’m going to do will cost them £1000, knowing I’ll make £100 profit, if my profit drops to zero because of increased costs then I have to swallow that loss and re-think my strategy. Why is it different in this kind of venture? All that seems to happen is people quote stupidly low (or reasonable) prices and then as soon as the first 5 minutes are up there’s tooth sucking and head shaking and it’s as twice as pricey as the most expensive quote. idiotic.

    Most engineering contracts quite rightly feature clauses for unforeseen circumstances, things that cannot be quantified before the works begin – like the amount of services in the ground and their location. The only ones that don’t are Guaranteed Maximum Price contracts.

    M74 £2000 / inch
    Trams about £2500 / inch at the moment

    expensive eh?

    I don’t know the veracity of this but there is quite of a lof of information here

    Wiki trams

    which appears well substantiated and I would recommend anyone who is interested at least have a read.

    peterfile
    Free Member

    I just wrote a massive reply, but deleted it because it feels better to sit here and just smile at the majority of these posts 😀

    turin
    Free Member

    Nortwind
    Ill happily take that shiny scottish pound bet with you, infact ill take any value of wager you like!
    There is not enough time left in the universe for the trams to be extended to even the “completion” of the.proposed first phase of the first route to newhaven let alone granton or any of the other pie in the sky routes.

    Given the proposed building of homes in the eastern part of leith docks i would suggest that the trams were to pre-empt some planning concerns

    I wonder why the route wasnt started from the airport and built towards the outer terminus, im guessing because they knew there would be serious budget issues and without large swathes of the work done that the project would be pulled. If they had built it from the airport to town then the trams could have been running by now generating an income while the remainder of the works were completed.

    Given the history of edin cooncil an non completion of projects, some ancient, calton hill, some more recent, the western approach road its hardly a surprise!

    The most annoying thing about this imho is that the edinburgh electorate will vote the same **** back in!! Im all for the stw massive standing in every ward on a trams were a fiasco ticket. Not on the fact that they were built but on the managemet of them.

    Fwiw if the original plan of a tram NETWORK had went ahead it would have been worthwhile and tackled many of the congestion issues but not a partial single line!!

    onehundredthidiot
    Full Member

    The reduction in traffic on Princes Street was modelled on the whole length of the track. By not going down Leith (the part with the highest profit potential, apparently) the 22s will still run at least part of teh route.

    bigjim
    Full Member

    druidh That’ll be the development activity reduced and production beginning. Different skills required, see.

    Nope, they are still in development, its the production staff they are laying off, because they can’t get anyone to invest in wave power and buy the devices.

    I think that is the SPR machine you linked to in the picture, the eon one is already up in Orkney being tested. I think once the SPR machine is built they are going to lose their production staff which is a real mess.

    TandemJeremy
    Free Member

    Ruddy tram – what a farce. All that money for a useless white elephant It was allways the wrong solution to the wrong question. mainline trains should be going to the airport, light rail should have been the reinstatement of the south suburban loop(the rails are still there and used for freight) with the north suburban loop added ( maybe later).

    The trams do not integrate with either the railway or the airport properly anyway – just stupid. Worse that the existing bus service for integration

    Garry_Lager
    Full Member

    What went wrong with the Western Approach Rd (mentioned by Turin)? First bit was just an old railway line to Princes St, couldn’t ask for an easier thing to tarmac.
    It always does strike me as an odd road, coming out the back of Gorgie the way it does, this start point is sort of discrete. I’ve never needed to use it though, maybe it’s great if that’s your commute.

    marty
    Free Member

    Western Approach Road – this proposal?

    Northwind
    Full Member

    turin – Member

    Nortwind
    Ill happily take that shiny scottish pound bet with you, infact ill take any value of wager you like!

    I’ll put one aside for you, just in case.

    wallace1492
    Free Member

    Glasgow still has tramlines.

    The only problem is they are buried under several inches of tarmac!

    I remember seeing them on Hyndland Road years ago when they had dug part of the road up.

    Well, see them quite often on Maryhill Road when the potholes open up. Together with the cobblestoned streets below. Looks lovely…… as you are spilled over the handlebars to crack your wrists on 100 year old tram lines…. 8)

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