That's twice I've been in the pub recently and Brexit has popped up again. I thought it was all supposed to be done and dusted now that the new gangsters have taken back control.
A few land grabs of the House of Lords, the Judiciary, the Media and the Treasury and the Mekon will have safely installed a few of his loopy loops.
The thing is, he's starting to look worried now like it's all about to unspool.
The train thing is an interesting case in point. To HS2 or not to HS2? By the time it has been kicked into 2040, who cares? Even the Chinese can see a better opportunity to build something faster.
There's chitter-chatter about re-nationalisation now, but most of the franchise operators are already government-controlled. Just not UK-government. We've Germany running several lines, France running a few, Italy running some and even the Japanese, and the Dutch have some pieces of the pie.
Above is a list, although with the re-nationalisation of a couple of lines recently, it will soon be out of date.
That's like the rolling stock we have on one of our local lines. Designed in 1985, with literally spare bus parts and refurbished diesel engines (note the bus windows or the seats) the Pacers trundle around this neck of the woods steering clear of the speedier bullet nosed HSTs that link us to London.
I'm intrigued by signals too. London's Tube can run trains at 2-3 minute intervals by having plenty of signals and short blocks on their tracks. Why doesn't Railtrack do some of that too? Adding double the rolling stock running to a shorter service interval must be a quicker way to deliver the benefits of HS2 than the current ditch digging? Bring in some ERTMS signalling management with reduced headrooms, maybe. Or is the reticence because E stands for European?
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