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HS2

A virtual pub for off topic, light hearted pub related banter and discussion. No trainers
scotia
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Re: HS2

#279212

Postby scotia » January 22nd, 2020, 3:17 pm

tjh290633 wrote:A long time ago, in 1965, I did a little study to understand why American workers could look after 14 machines, while ours in the UK could manage fewer.

It came down to speed of work. Those in the USA moved more quickly, did a little multitasking, and paid more attention to what they were doing. They would also lend a colleague a hand if needed.

The Lancastrians and Ulstermen never did catch up with their counterparts in West Virginia.

TJH

I know we have drifted off topic - but I'm sure its allowed in the Snug.
I'm more of the opinion that the historical difference in productivity between the US and the UK had a lot to do with class structure - the management versus the workers - and I chose "versus" deliberately. I recollect a large UK manufacturing company 55 years ago (now defunct) where there was a workers canteen, a staff canteen ( with waitress service for senior staff) and a managerial canteen. And workers wore blue overalls - staff wore white lab coats. The biggest insult that one worker could hurl at another was "you're working for a white coat". In this antagonistic system, its no wonder there was low productivity. But new incoming, foreign funded companies who had none of this historic baggage seemed to do well, while many of the old UK companies collapsed. And tipping and the welfare state (as others appear to have suggested) had nothing to do with the difference. The need is to make all employees aware that they are a valued part of the team - something that was certainly not the norm in my youth.

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Re: HS2

#279240

Postby sunnyjoe » January 22nd, 2020, 5:30 pm

Jonathan Pie has strongly expressed views on HS2 links to airports
http://stophs2.org/tag/jonathan-pie

airbus330
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Re: HS2

#279241

Postby airbus330 » January 22nd, 2020, 5:40 pm

tjh290633 wrote:I agree that second runways at Gatwick and Stansted should come before a 3rd at Heathrow. What I would do is to use Northolt for domestic flights, possibly short haul European flights as well. It's not far away, and a surface or subsurface link to LHR would be easily provided.

Remember the original search for a New London Airport? Various disused locations were suggested, like Stoney Cross in the New Forest, Greenham Common, one in the Bedford are and, of course, Maplin. A coastal location has much to recommend it. Not for nothing were the RAF Master Airfields all coastal. Manston, Valley, St Mawgan were all chosen for allowing descent through cloud and low level approach over the sea. Modern instrumentation has made that less important, but it also reduces overflying built up areas. Back when you had a radio and the seat of your pants to rely on, it was very important.

TJH


That's a lovely nostalgic post and one which I can just about remember being involved with. Sadly its not compatible with the modern flying environment. Autolands in 0 visibility are a routine function, but they have disastrous effects on the flow of traffic, which to the airport operator is everything, not least money. A few tons of extra fuel for the invariable early morning fog at Gatwick is to be avoided and anything closer to the Thames Estuary would be worse. The idea of modern day airline pilots, the children on the magenta line, doing dive and drive approaches is not going to happen either, much to high a risk of a smoking hole in the ground. Anyone ever wondered why the likes of Easy/Ryan etc have never had a hull loss, in spite of the relative inexperience of some of their crew?

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Re: HS2

#279243

Postby tjh290633 » January 22nd, 2020, 5:43 pm

scotia wrote: I recollect a large UK manufacturing company 55 years ago (now defunct) where there was a workers canteen, a staff canteen ( with waitress service for senior staff) and a managerial canteen.


Not Turner & Newall was it? I worked at TBA in Rochdale for a while and they had a very hierarchical structure. The bogs were "Men", "Women", "Clerks", Senior Staff" and "Private".

Also a similar canteen structure as you mention, plus the Directors went to Falinge Corner for lunch.

TJH

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Re: HS2

#279254

Postby stewamax » January 22nd, 2020, 7:23 pm

scotia wrote:I recollect a large UK manufacturing company 55 years ago (now defunct) where there was a workers canteen, a staff canteen ( with waitress service for senior staff) and a managerial canteen.

55 years ago that was almost single-status! At BR and BL locations I worked at there were usually six or so levels: weekly paid, 4-weekly paid and monthly paid canteens, and three levels of management messes. The latter three had the same food but were distinguished by the free drink: middle management usually had beer, upper management had beer, wine and sherry, and the directors mess had spirits as well.

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Re: HS2

#279256

Postby scotia » January 22nd, 2020, 7:48 pm

tjh290633 wrote:
scotia wrote: I recollect a large UK manufacturing company 55 years ago (now defunct) where there was a workers canteen, a staff canteen ( with waitress service for senior staff) and a managerial canteen.


Not Turner & Newall was it? I worked at TBA in Rochdale for a while and they had a very hierarchical structure. The bogs were "Men", "Women", "Clerks", Senior Staff" and "Private".

Also a similar canteen structure as you mention, plus the Directors went to Falinge Corner for lunch.

TJH

No - it was Ferranti where I worked as a vacation student in the summer of 1965. It was an eye-opener! I could hardly believe that industrial relations could be so bad. But they made money - so much so that the government required them to hand back some of their gains on the Bloodhound contract. I was charged to a Naval contract.
But the end came, as you probably know, due to a bad decision to purchase a US company (ISC) which supposedly had large US military contracts. But the US company was run by a crook who later pleaded guilty to fraud which the accountancy firms associated with the purchase failed to identify. However it was Ferranti that suffered the consequences.
I suspect at that time there were many un-enlightened companies in the UK. We had technicians in the university who were the sons of Clydeside ship builders, and although they were now working in an entirely different environment, the prejudices of earlier times sometimes prevailed. But hopefuly times have changed. Nissan insisted on a single-union deal in its factory in Sunderland - and has never lost a minute to industrial disputes in over 30 years. And it is one of the most productive car plants in Europe, producing more cars per worker than any other factory (data from Wiki).

scotia
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Re: HS2

#279299

Postby scotia » January 23rd, 2020, 1:30 am

stewamax wrote:
scotia wrote:I recollect a large UK manufacturing company 55 years ago (now defunct) where there was a workers canteen, a staff canteen ( with waitress service for senior staff) and a managerial canteen.

55 years ago that was almost single-status! At BR and BL locations I worked at there were usually six or so levels: weekly paid, 4-weekly paid and monthly paid canteens, and three levels of management messes. The latter three had the same food but were distinguished by the free drink: middle management usually had beer, upper management had beer, wine and sherry, and the directors mess had spirits as well.

Intriguing - the higher up the echelon the more alcohol you consumed. The good old days - rigid segregation, boozy bosses, bolshie workers and lousy productivity. :)

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Re: HS2

#279324

Postby didds » January 23rd, 2020, 9:20 am

A really interesting thread, cheers all.

I am very ignorant of the realities of all of this - hence this thread being so interesting :-) - but the queries I'd have generally which have i am sure very simple answers are in no particular order..

1) why the focus on adding runways/airports to the immediate London area? I get its the largest "portion" of population ... but adding capacity in the very SE can only lead to that capacity being filled and by as well as SE-ers everybody else from the rest of the country. ie the rest of the country is even more forced into using a London area airport rather than having an expanded more local alternative.

2) while I can really see a point in helping business do business more efficiently if travel is more efficient ... I can't help but think much of this increased capacity would end up being filled by more people using it for leisure activities (ie holidays). Not that people shouldn't go abroad on holiday (leaving economic and environmental concerns aside for now) but is it really a national economic benefit to spend billions helping people go on holiday ?

3) meanwhile... are we not approaching - well frankly we have got there! - whereby business meetings can surely be more efficient timewise etc using web meetings? I have chums who seen to spend most of their working lives travelling to and from airports, waiting in airports, flying, and then having to rest in a hotel room for meetings that must only take a very hours. How can that ever be an efficient use of resource? I know the theory is they spend all that dead time on a laptop working... but I'm not convinced its a meaningful environment to do much more than answer or send a few emails and fill in an expenses form. And sitting at home/office can do all of this still.

eg Live in Devon - its a 4 hour drive to LHR. Plus then parking, transit, check-in, wait... the best part of six to seven hours BEFORE anybody gets on the plane to start their journey. And almost the same in reverse ... so its a full waking day almost just to start and end a trip.

4) what is stopping european rail operators coming up with more competitive fares? On the few occassions we go abroad (Europe) I always consider rail versus flying mainly cos we have reached the stage of disliking the flying expereince so much... and every time we can both fly (including transit and parking etc) for the price of one of us travelling by rail. We'd love to use rail but just cannot justify a few hundred quid "extra" spent on getting there and back...

5) As for the much vaunted concept of driverless cars leading to the end of mass car ownership I'm all for it. Though I have concerns that the reality will mean there will be sufficient capacity to get thousands of peple in a rural commnity to their workplace/school/college/railhead starting at 0700-0800 every weekday morning (for those not appreciating this - current public transport is such areas is often/usually totally inadequate/non existent. Round here if you used the bus to get to the nearest railhead, you'd miss the first SIX trains heading towards Bristol or London. That is SIX in EACH direction ie twelve trains....)



didds

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Re: HS2

#279330

Postby gryffron » January 23rd, 2020, 9:33 am

didds wrote:1) why the focus on adding runways/airports to the immediate London area?

Mostly it's what airlines want. You get much more crossover traffic operating out of huge hub airports. e.g. Flyers travelling Brest->LHR then LHR->Miami. With medium size airports the routes don't work quite as well.

didds wrote:3) meanwhile... are we not approaching - well frankly we have got there! - whereby business meetings can surely be more efficient timewise etc using web meetings?

Definitely quicker. But Have you tried web meetings? I find it's not the same. Much harder to judge personality, reactions, body language etc in a web meeting. And anyway, don't all the real decisions get made over lunch?

Gryff

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Re: HS2

#279339

Postby Lootman » January 23rd, 2020, 9:47 am

didds wrote:eg Live in Devon - its a 4 hour drive to LHR. Plus then parking, transit, check-in, wait... the best part of six to seven hours BEFORE anybody gets on the plane to start their journey. And almost the same in reverse ... so its a full waking day almost just to start and end a trip.

I spend a fair amount of time in Devon and I also fly long-haul a lot. My choices are:

1) Fly from Exeter Airport via the quasi-bankrupt Flybe on a turbo-prop plane to Paris, Amsterdam or Dublin, and thence onto another continent.

2) Take a 90 minute drive to Bristol Airport for a greater choice of connecting flights and airlines, but still have to connect somewhere like Amsterdam to get anywhere far away.

3) Train to Paddington (fastest 2 hours and 5 minutes) then 15 minutes on the Heathrow Express and then non-stop to anywhere in the world.

I've done 1 and 2, but nearly always do 3. The ability to fly non-stop trumps anything else, and that means Heathrow.

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Re: HS2

#279345

Postby didds » January 23rd, 2020, 9:54 am

gryffron wrote:Definitely quicker. But Have you tried web meetings? I find it's not the same. Much harder to judge personality, reactions, body language etc in a web meeting. And anyway, don't all the real decisions get made over lunch?

Gryff


LOL. I have at least one every week. screen sharing etc . works well - we;ve UK based memebers in various places and a team in india in several places.

As for lunch - web meeting and people eat wherever they are... ;-)

didds

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Re: HS2

#279368

Postby UncleEbenezer » January 23rd, 2020, 10:44 am

didds wrote:
gryffron wrote:Definitely quicker. But Have you tried web meetings? I find it's not the same. Much harder to judge personality, reactions, body language etc in a web meeting. And anyway, don't all the real decisions get made over lunch?

Gryff


LOL. I have at least one every week. screen sharing etc . works well - we;ve UK based memebers in various places and a team in india in several places.

As for lunch - web meeting and people eat wherever they are... ;-)

didds

At one job I was sometimes[1] the only member of a team to have (most of) our weekly meetings at a sensible time of day. A typical 4pm here was early morning for team members in California (including the boss), and mid-evening for those in India.

I have other meetings with various worldwide teams. Our timezone usually, but not always, gets a pretty good deal on those. For a time we had an Aussie chairman whose local time might be 4 or 5 a.m.

On the other hand, when I was connecting to a two-day conference hosted by LinkedIn, it was me working into the wee hours. As is also occasionally the case with general global meetings.

For your amusement, https://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/01/0 ... _business/

[1] We also had someone in France who was sometimes in those meetings.

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Re: HS2

#279384

Postby Leothebear » January 23rd, 2020, 11:43 am

I know we have drifted off topic - but I'm sure its allowed in the Snug.
I'm more of the opinion that the historical difference in productivity between the US and the UK had a lot to do with class structure - the management versus the workers - and I chose "versus" deliberately. I recollect a large UK manufacturing company 55 years ago (now defunct) where there was a workers canteen, a staff canteen ( with waitress service for senior staff) and a managerial canteen. And workers wore blue overalls - staff wore white lab coats. The biggest insult that one worker could hurl at another was "you're working for a white coat". In this antagonistic system, its no wonder there was low productivity. But new incoming, foreign funded companies who had none of this historic baggage seemed to do well, while many of the old UK companies collapsed. And tipping and the welfare state (as others appear to have suggested) had nothing to do with the difference. The need is to make all employees aware that they are a valued part of the team - something that was certainly not the norm in my youth.


Spot on. The idea that you're all one team was anathema to most UK companies. Maybe still is. I'm out of the loop these days.
Leo

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Re: HS2

#279401

Postby JohnB » January 23rd, 2020, 12:45 pm

"Does allowing people to have holidays benefit the national economy" - Yes, its an economic activity people want to spend money on.

"Why do people need to fly to meetings" - because people need to see people in the flesh to build social bonds. You can have followup meetings virtually, but to build that rapport you need to meet them, ideally in the flesh over dinner and drinks. I spent 6 years doing mostly virtual meetings, and always felt excluded.

"Why are airports around London" - because that's the biggest market, both because of population density and hub-spur models. Its probably self-fufilling too, as people/companies who fly a lot probably move to London because its easier to fly from there.

"Why aren't rail fares cheaper" - because that's how much it costs. All rail networks are heavily subsidised by government, airlines get their subsidy through duty-free fuel, but air-travel is cheaper, if you ignore the externalities of the noise and emission pollution it causes.

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Re: HS2

#279678

Postby scrumpyjack » January 24th, 2020, 12:43 pm

Interesting that the Chinese are building a hospital from scratch in Wuhan in 6 days. Pity we can't get them to build HS2 or even something useful?

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Re: HS2

#279681

Postby dionaeamuscipula » January 24th, 2020, 12:50 pm

scrumpyjack wrote:Interesting that the Chinese are building a hospital from scratch in Wuhan in 6 days. Pity we can't get them to build HS2 or even something useful?


Yes, well, the Chinese government don't much care about minor things like consultation, how many construction workers die in the process, who happens to already be living where they want to build, and protesters have an unfortunate habit of disappearing off for a few weeks "re-education". But hey ho.

DM

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Re: HS2

#280409

Postby Clitheroekid » January 27th, 2020, 7:38 pm

Lootman wrote:Yes, I'd put it down to these three things:

1) The protestant work ethic has endured there in a way it has not here.
2) The tipping culture, where relevant. Many US workers get paid less than minimum wage if they receive tips, so the latter is the primary source of income.
3) If you lose your job in the US you lose your healthcare and probably your home. No nanny state to bail you out. Conversely if you do well, you will earn more than here, and keep more of it because of lower taxes. IOW how you perform more directly influences your standard of living.

1) Good. The protestant work ethic is greatly overrated, and I'd prefer to live in a country where people are motivated by more important things than satisfying their employer's demands.

2) The `compulsory' (as it effectively is in the USA) tipping culture is toxic, and degrades both the person giving the tip and the person receiving it. It may have been absorbed into US culture, but it's particularly unsuited to the UK culture. In any case, with virtually everyone paying by card nowadays there's no easy and widely accepted method of tipping, so that the resultant tipping confusion and chaos, at the end of a meal for example, ends up injecting stress into what should be a pleasant and relaxing occasion.

3) See 1. Do you seriously believe that employees should be incentivized (sic) by the threat of losing their health care and their home if they don't perform as well as their employer demands? Maybe, as an American, you do, but I don't think it's a belief that's crossed the Atlantic to any extent, and I personally think it's an appalling attitude towards employees.

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Re: HS2

#280436

Postby zico » January 27th, 2020, 9:46 pm

dionaeamuscipula wrote:
scrumpyjack wrote:Interesting that the Chinese are building a hospital from scratch in Wuhan in 6 days. Pity we can't get them to build HS2 or even something useful?


Yes, well, the Chinese government don't much care about minor things like consultation, how many construction workers die in the process, who happens to already be living where they want to build, and protesters have an unfortunate habit of disappearing off for a few weeks "re-education". But hey ho.

DM


On a 3 gorges trip in China, our guide told us that where villages would be flooded by the dam, the villagers were made to dismantle their own village and rebuild it 600 feet higher up. He also said 1 million people displaced by the dam were moved to Shanghai where more workers were needed. The fact that a completely different language was spoken in Shanghai was deemed irrelevant.

There surely must be a sensible middle way between the Chinese approach and the UK approach of having a completely new year-long review every time a Natterjack toad moves from one pond to another.

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Re: HS2

#280440

Postby jackdaww » January 27th, 2020, 10:01 pm

perhaps a bit off topic..

i didnt know until tonights keeler ward profumo skit that ernest marples was also a major security risk .

this adds to his crime of dismantling many useful railway lines via poor dr. beeching who gets the blame .

marples had a major vested interest in developing motorways .

so he would do that wouldnt he ...

so the great central line which was expressly designed for large heavy rolling stock from the northern cities to london AND on to dover could still be with us .

:( :(

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Re: HS2

#280468

Postby Leothebear » January 28th, 2020, 5:04 am

marples had a major vested interest in developing motorways .


Makes me wonder who has a vested interest in HS2.


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