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You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jul/25/north-crossrail-conservative-northern-rail-chris-grayling
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| Here in the north, we’ve put the cross into rail | Here in the north, we’ve put the cross into rail |
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| Tue 25 Jul 2017 19.09 BST | |
| Last modified on Mon 27 Nov 2017 19.32 GMT | |
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| There was something particularly enraging about the transport secretary’s support this week for another multibillion-pound rail tunnel under London – one that just so happens to start in his constituency – mere days after he cancelled electrification upgrades to key lines outside the M25. | There was something particularly enraging about the transport secretary’s support this week for another multibillion-pound rail tunnel under London – one that just so happens to start in his constituency – mere days after he cancelled electrification upgrades to key lines outside the M25. |
| Chris Grayling is the MP for Epsom, the first station on Crossrail 2, a £30bn train line connecting Surrey and Hertfordshire with the capital. His show of enthusiasm for the project came two years before Crossrail 1 is due to fully open – and three days after he gave an interview to the Financial Times in which he let slip he was thinking of breaking a Conservative manifesto commitment to electrify the main rail routes in the north of England. The job was proving a bit too hard, apparently. | Chris Grayling is the MP for Epsom, the first station on Crossrail 2, a £30bn train line connecting Surrey and Hertfordshire with the capital. His show of enthusiasm for the project came two years before Crossrail 1 is due to fully open – and three days after he gave an interview to the Financial Times in which he let slip he was thinking of breaking a Conservative manifesto commitment to electrify the main rail routes in the north of England. The job was proving a bit too hard, apparently. |
| As I type this, I am about to dispatch a work experience student from the Guardian’s Manchester office to Blackburn. She doesn’t have a car, so will have to take the train. It is just 21 miles away but the journey will take 49 minutes, if she waits for the hourly “fast” service. She will probably be on a Pacer train, a juddering “bus on rails” with no tables and a diesel engine so loud she won’t be able to make a phone call. Wifi? We are still dreaming of plug sockets. | As I type this, I am about to dispatch a work experience student from the Guardian’s Manchester office to Blackburn. She doesn’t have a car, so will have to take the train. It is just 21 miles away but the journey will take 49 minutes, if she waits for the hourly “fast” service. She will probably be on a Pacer train, a juddering “bus on rails” with no tables and a diesel engine so loud she won’t be able to make a phone call. Wifi? We are still dreaming of plug sockets. |
| This sort of tortuously slow and uncomfortable journey is the key reason, after deindustrialisation, why places such as Blackburn rank so highly on all the scales no town wants to top: deprivation, unemployment, poor life expectancy. It takes too long to get to Manchester, where the jobs are. Compare that with Reading, 40 miles from London, but served by a 28-minute train that runs at least every five minutes during rush hour. | This sort of tortuously slow and uncomfortable journey is the key reason, after deindustrialisation, why places such as Blackburn rank so highly on all the scales no town wants to top: deprivation, unemployment, poor life expectancy. It takes too long to get to Manchester, where the jobs are. Compare that with Reading, 40 miles from London, but served by a 28-minute train that runs at least every five minutes during rush hour. |
| As Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, has pointed out, one thing that wasn’t in the Tory manifesto was to build Crossrail 2. Instead the party promised to fund “northern powerhouse rail”, sometimes dubbed HS3: a high-speed trans-Pennine route from Liverpool to Hull that will surely be impossible without electrified lines. | As Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, has pointed out, one thing that wasn’t in the Tory manifesto was to build Crossrail 2. Instead the party promised to fund “northern powerhouse rail”, sometimes dubbed HS3: a high-speed trans-Pennine route from Liverpool to Hull that will surely be impossible without electrified lines. |
| Figures published this week by the thinktank IPPR North showed that if the north of England had received the same amount of transport spending per head as London, it would have received £59bn more over the last decade. If Grayling spent more time up here, he would understand why the urban north remains a largely Tory-free zone. | Figures published this week by the thinktank IPPR North showed that if the north of England had received the same amount of transport spending per head as London, it would have received £59bn more over the last decade. If Grayling spent more time up here, he would understand why the urban north remains a largely Tory-free zone. |
| High speed, low priorities | High speed, low priorities |
| Last week I spent an afternoon in Mexborough, South Yorkshire, talking to people who face losing their homes after Grayling decided to route HS2 right through their community. Much has been written about the brand new Shimmer estate, home to 160 families, which will be destroyed when a honking great viaduct is built in its place. Mexborough, like Blackburn, has been poorly served by the rail network for decades – there are just four trains an hour, offering passage to Lincoln, Sheffield, Scunthorpe and a village called Adwick. It is exactly these places that could do with the fast connections offered by an HS2 or 3. Mexborough will have to settle for the sound of the trains shooting by at 250mph instead. | Last week I spent an afternoon in Mexborough, South Yorkshire, talking to people who face losing their homes after Grayling decided to route HS2 right through their community. Much has been written about the brand new Shimmer estate, home to 160 families, which will be destroyed when a honking great viaduct is built in its place. Mexborough, like Blackburn, has been poorly served by the rail network for decades – there are just four trains an hour, offering passage to Lincoln, Sheffield, Scunthorpe and a village called Adwick. It is exactly these places that could do with the fast connections offered by an HS2 or 3. Mexborough will have to settle for the sound of the trains shooting by at 250mph instead. |
| Bike-share bravery | Bike-share bravery |
| Given how terrible our trains are, I was chuffed when Manchester got a jazzy dockless bike share scheme last month. Mobike brought 1,000 bikes here before trying the same in Ealing, west London – a rare example of the north getting something cool before the capital. Alas, following early reports of rampant vandalism we hear now of Mobike heroes risking life and limb to challenge those brazenly pedalling around on hacked bikes with the locks and GPS trackers smashed off. My friend came a cropper in Salford on Monday night challenging two people on stolen Mobikes who shoved her off her own steed, resulting in some nasty grazes. To succeed, Mobike needs good citizens to take the reprobates to task. But at what cost? | Given how terrible our trains are, I was chuffed when Manchester got a jazzy dockless bike share scheme last month. Mobike brought 1,000 bikes here before trying the same in Ealing, west London – a rare example of the north getting something cool before the capital. Alas, following early reports of rampant vandalism we hear now of Mobike heroes risking life and limb to challenge those brazenly pedalling around on hacked bikes with the locks and GPS trackers smashed off. My friend came a cropper in Salford on Monday night challenging two people on stolen Mobikes who shoved her off her own steed, resulting in some nasty grazes. To succeed, Mobike needs good citizens to take the reprobates to task. But at what cost? |
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