I think the problem many of the nimby folks have is that the line may well pass nearby, but there won't be an actual stopping point anywhere in the vicinity. Especially on a high speed commuter line which is hardly going to have a station in Saint Arbrough-on-the-Twee or wherever these little pockets of Conservative moneyed up rich folk live.

If there was to be a station at Niceton-on-the-water they'd moan instead it would be bringing people in, too many of them.

They already have a motorway, and a mainline railway. Oh, and electrical power corridors too, huge ugly steel eyesores marching across the countryside raping badgers and chipping Royal Doulton figurines.

Is it like an S Club Party?

It seems silly to be burning up trees when they could build a waste-to-energy plant and burn refuse instead.

Alas, the protests would be even stronger over the perceived clouds of black garbage smoke something like that must obviously produce (obviously) and so 'biomass' has to be used to try and placate the ignorant hysteria.

A shame, really, as burning garbage in a modern WTE incinerator means we not only get electricity from it but don't have to use up land to dump it whereupon it biodegrades and releases another greenhouse gas, methane.

Then again, there's an article on the BBC today claiming that the world is anti-nuclear because of James Bond and Dr. No, so there really is no hope for humanity.

Being anti-nuclear isn't NIMBYism as far as I'm concerned; more like common sense and concern for the planet/future generations who to our best current knowledge will have no means of dealing with the deadly mess that we'll leave behind for our selfish energy requirements.

As opposed to greenhouse gas buildup from burning fossil fuels, of course. Better hope you're right that global warming doesn't exist! Because nuke waste, as nasty as it is, is at least fairly easy to contain in a small area. Atmospheric CO2 is everywhere.

I think you'll find, Cavey, the BBC article was universally decried as a load of old crap, based as it was on one silly man's statement. I certainly could think of better reasons to be afraid of nuclear power (if I was) than a deliberately far fetched action movie.

I don't get how a train line vaguely nearby a house can lower its value.

noise innit

I don't get how a train line vaguely nearby a house can lower its value.

There was a whole row of terraced houses near Bromley that collapsed due to the Eurostar vibrations.

Arguably, they were pretty shit houses then.

In our first rented unit out here we were close to a (slow) train line servicing the cement works about 8k away. The trains weren't that frequent and the only time we really heard them was as the freight cars clunked together as the train was moving slowly (is that called shunting? I'm not that into trains but am vaguely aware of some of the terms). Big trains though, I counted ~40 freight cars being pulled by 3 locos when I got caught at the crossing one day.

they were Victorian. I'm not sure they were specced for a several hundred tonne behemoth chuntering past them.

Wasn't the main issue in Japan down to the fucking earthquake? I don't think we'll have quite the same risk factor here.

Indeed, continuously welded rail.

The metal plates which hold the two sections of jointed track together are called 'fishplates'.

At least the airport will now be serviced by a tram.

Oh.

https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk ... e-27842632

This is one of this issues where I changed my mind substantially once I understand the capacity angle.