Is it still racist if it's offensive to everybody?

[pozorvlak]

[Joint work with wormwood_pearl]

Due to an administrative cock-up, the £15 billion earmarked for Crossrail has been diverted into the Scottish transportation budget. The result is the construction of a London-Glasgow shinkansen-style bullet train.

English announcer: On behalf of ScotProRailCorp Limited, we'd like to wish you a warm welcome to the Carling FA Premier London to Glarsgow high-speed expressway, departing London King's Cross at 1307, calling at London St Pancras at 1308 to give you a chance to change your mind, stopping at somewhere called... I think it says "Manchester"? Somewhere Northern, anyway - and arriving in Glarsgow Central at 1437. If you decide that it's all too grim and Northern for you, the next train back South leaves twenty minutes later at 1457. They use the same time zone as us up in Glarsgow - yes, I was surprised too! - so there's no need to re-set your watches. A range of sandwiches and some perfectly delightful little cakes are available from our on-train branch of Carluccio's in coach E.

Scots announcer: Awright, bawbags? This is the 1307 London tae Glesga Get-It-Right-Up-Ye-Bawbags Express. We'll be crossin the Scoattish border at 1420, at which point there wull be a short burst o pipin and a wee dram will be served tae wis all. Onybody no jinin in wi the singin o "Scots wha hae" will be taen ootside an gied a kickin. Yous can git yer Buckie, yer Bru and yer fish suppers fae the chip shoap in Coach D. Any c**t starts any'hin wi any o ma staff, and we'll chib ye and throw ye oot the windae at three hundred mile an ooer, so gonnae no dae that? Enjoy yer ride. Yer maw sure did last nicht!

Gaelic announcer: <For those of you who have the Gaelic, welcome to the Fairy King Iron Messenger From the South, leaving one big city in the Godless South at 1307 and arriving into another at 1437. The connection for the remaining twelve hours of your journey home will be departing fifteen minutes later. When you arrive home you will learn that while you've been off gallivanting down in London the girl you loved has married your worst enemy, your sister Mhairi has given her maidenhead to the local laird and then drowned herself in the well, little Murdo has taken sick and died from drinking the well water, and your mother has killed herself over the shame of having her eldest son down in London and going into pubs. Meanwhile, your cattle have made veterinary history by developing myxomatosis; and consequently the family farm has gone into receivership. We hope you have a pleasant journey.>

Comments

[susannahf.livejournal.com]

*giggles uncontrollably"

thankyou.

[firefliesinjune.livejournal.com]

:) :) :)

[mi-guida.livejournal.com]

You win. Though you could have warned me to put my tea down first *grin*

[pozorvlak.livejournal.com]

Thank you :-) Though at least half the jokes were wormwood_pearl's.

[half-of-monty.livejournal.com]

*Looks up what a shinkansen is* Ooh, shiny!

Excellent plan, you win.

[pozorvlak.livejournal.com]

I did see something in the paper a while ago about a proposal to construct one, actually, but I'll believe it when I see it. The Virgin express intercities are now down to less than five hours, though, which isn't too bad.

But seriously, £15bn (the price quoted on the Today programme this morning) seems a little daft for Yet Another railway line through London. At the low end of the estimates, you could build a space elevator (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevator_economics) for that.

[pozorvlak.livejournal.com]

By the way, I wasn't exaggerating at all about the "remaining twelve hours of your journey". That's how long it takes to get to Stornoway from Glasgow if you don't fly.

[half-of-monty.livejournal.com]

I doubt it not.

Since you seem to be hot on railway costings this afternoon, how much have the French just got all their lovely new TGV lines for? Can we have one?

To be fair, it's probably a bit easier to get things into space than to get lots of people efficiently and comfortably across London at the same time as each other.

[necaris.livejournal.com]

There's a TGV line on the verge of opening, actually, from London's St Pancras to Ashford... any idea how much that cost?

[pozorvlak.livejournal.com]

Well, the LGV Est (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGV_Est), which is about 400km, cost about 4bn euros (including rolling stock). So a London-Glasgow TGV should only cost about £4.5bn, assuming the same cost per mile.

Damnit, how much nicer could you make this country with 1200 miles of TGV line?

[pozorvlak.livejournal.com]

The space elevator construction cost includes the development of carbon nanotube technology to the point where you can make 100,000km-long cables out of them - so the cost's a bit speculative, but the payoff's undoubtedly huge :-)

[necaris.livejournal.com]

Dude that is just utterly amazing :-D

[whodo-voodoo.livejournal.com]

The depressing thing is even if they made a shinkansen style line it would never be as nice as the real thing.

*sinks into wanna go back to japan mode and heads to bed*

[r-e-mercia.livejournal.com]

Very amusing m'dears.

[sable-veins.livejournal.com]

Fucking marvelous.

[david jones (from livejournal.com)]

and it completely bypasses the Welsh, which seems appropriate too.

[pozorvlak.livejournal.com]

... yeah, sadly.

Are you Welsh, then?

[david jones (from livejournal.com)]

About 25% Welsh, yes.

[pozorvlak.livejournal.com]

Cool. I'm somewhere between 25% and 50% Welsh, myself.

[neoanjou.livejournal.com]

Presumably at some point you've come across: UK Ultraspeed - a proposed London to Glasgow high-speed monorail train, which would apparently cost *only* £18 billion.

I WANTS IT!

[pozorvlak.livejournal.com]

I believe I have seen that, yes, but I'd forgotten the name. I wants one, too. Especially now that I've learned the expression "gliding stock" :-)

Actually, maglevs only hack the less important part of the problem, namely the rolling resistance - air resistance is a bigger factor. So what we really need are maglevs running in vacuum tunnels, as featured in Dan Dare comics in the 50s. I believe the Swiss are experimenting with vacuum tunnel trains; mrpj_antarctica tells me that Brunel tried to build one, but rats kept eating his greased-leather air seals...

[pozorvlak.livejournal.com]

On second thoughts, you know what? I think it's more of a Shelbyville sort of idea...