10.1% Increase in pensions (Budget)

Andy_L

zagfles said:

horsewithnoname said:

Linton said:

I know nothing about TPS but surely accrued employer pensions are defined by your contract of employment. UK Governments can change future contracts but  don’t arbitrarily renege on existing ones.

Lol. Read up on the civil service pension and redundancy schemes. 

Why, what has changed for accrued benefits? Future benefits can be changed (through a change to employment contract)

The RPI/CPI switch?

Although that's only seen as an accrued benefit change because people, understandably, didn't realise that indexation in the schemes wasn't legislated as RPI but as "inflation"

2nd_time_buyer

sgx2000 said:

Tories had no choice.  Less would have been suicide....

Perhaps cancelling the obscenely expensive HS2  and not increase taxes....

HS2 will not do anything for the North South divide.... 
woo....  London to Manchester 20 minutes quicker... 
That's going to balance the divide!! Not!!!

As someone who has done a lot for work for HS2, I agree. It has also been massively detrimental to the chances of modernizing the rest of the rail network. The money spent on it would have gone a long way to taking our railways out of the Victorian era. The horse has bolted now though.

double_dutchy

sgx2000 said:

HS2 will not do anything for the North South divide.... 
woo....  London to Manchester 20 minutes quicker... 

Whether you support HS2 or not, the main driver is not improved journey times but the increased capacity

michaels

double_dutchy said:

sgx2000 said:

HS2 will not do anything for the North South divide.... 
woo....  London to Manchester 20 minutes quicker... 

Whether you support HS2 or not, the main driver is not improved journey times but the increased capacity

What could digitising signalling on the existing network have achieved for capacity?

double_dutchy

michaels said:

What could digitising signalling on the existing network have achieved for capacity?

I'm not sure, I spent 30 years working for London Underground but not in signalling!

I assume you could certainly increase capacity if you improve the signalling so that trains can run closer together, as you could with almost any other railway, but to run more trains you would also require more rolling stock.

I understand that they have made improvements to signalling on the West Coast Main Line but, even so, it's difficult to increase capacity when you have a mix of fast and slow trains, unless you have some very clever timetabling and multiple passing points.

Taking the fast trains (HS2) out of the mix should allow you to increase capacity more easily on the existing lines where you would then only have slow and semi-fast services. It would also allow for more freight services.

zagfles

double_dutchy said:

sgx2000 said:

HS2 will not do anything for the North South divide.... 
woo....  London to Manchester 20 minutes quicker... 

Whether you support HS2 or not, the main driver is not improved journey times but the increased capacity

Is capacity an issue? I used to travel quite regularly between Manchester and London inc at peak times and the trains were rarely full. They used to go every 20 mins for most of the day but they seem to have reduced them, but they still don't seem to get full.

sevenhills

zagfles said:

double_dutchy said:

sgx2000 said:

HS2 will not do anything for the North South divide.... 
woo....  London to Manchester 20 minutes quicker... 

Whether you support HS2 or not, the main driver is not improved journey times but the increased capacity

Is capacity an issue? I used to travel quite regularly between Manchester and London inc at peak times and the trains were rarely full. They used to go every 20 mins for most of the day but they seem to have reduced them, but they still don't seem to get full.

My local train into the city is always packed on a morning, of course HS2 won't help that.

zagfles

sevenhills said:

zagfles said:

double_dutchy said:

sgx2000 said:

HS2 will not do anything for the North South divide.... 
woo....  London to Manchester 20 minutes quicker... 

Whether you support HS2 or not, the main driver is not improved journey times but the increased capacity

Is capacity an issue? I used to travel quite regularly between Manchester and London inc at peak times and the trains were rarely full. They used to go every 20 mins for most of the day but they seem to have reduced them, but they still don't seem to get full.

My local train into the city is always packed on a morning, of course HS2 won't help that.

Well exactly, it seems pointless increasing capacity on the high speed city centre to city centre routes if the local trains getting you into the city lack capacity.

Linton

zagfles said:

double_dutchy said:

sgx2000 said:

HS2 will not do anything for the North South divide.... 
woo....  London to Manchester 20 minutes quicker... 

Whether you support HS2 or not, the main driver is not improved journey times but the increased capacity

Is capacity an issue? I used to travel quite regularly between Manchester and London inc at peak times and the trains were rarely full. They used to go every 20 mins for most of the day but they seem to have reduced them, but they still don't seem to get full.

AIUI the cpacity problem is with freight.  That could be resolved if the high speed passenger service were moved elsewhere. Running high speed passenger trains down the winding track ties up too much track time that could more efficiently used by slow goods trains. ISTM selling the HS2 idea on the high speed passenger gains was a serious mistake.

p00hsticks

zagfles said:

double_dutchy said:

sgx2000 said:

HS2 will not do anything for the North South divide.... 
woo....  London to Manchester 20 minutes quicker... 

Whether you support HS2 or not, the main driver is not improved journey times but the increased capacity

Is capacity an issue? I used to travel quite regularly between Manchester and London inc at peak times and the trains were rarely full. They used to go every 20 mins for most of the day but they seem to have reduced them, but they still don't seem to get full.

As I understand it , it's not capacity in terms of number of passengers on a train, but in the maximum number / frequency of trains you can run on the line - and in particular freight rather than passenger trains.