Why Can't Trains Cross Borders?
asks Brian Simpson, MEP
Some of you may be aware the Transport and in
particular, Railways is a passion of mine.
Throughout
transport, most people can go from one country to another. You can fly
around the world. You can drive around Europe; you can even cruise from one
country to another. So why can’t you travel by train without intervention
from country to country. I appreciate that we have Eurostar to Brussels and
Paris and Thalys from Paris to Amsterdam, but if you take these two services
out, you are left with very few if any long distance continuous rail
services. Every other mode of transport delivers inter-operability. Railways
do not. Every other mode of transport can give you a ticket from A to B
irrespective of how many borders you cross. Railways do not. In the area of
freight transport, a lorry can go from Egremont to Milan without stopping; a
train cannot. The reason for this is that Railways have been reluctant to
change from “the old way” of doing things and certainly in European terms,
they still only work on national networks with national rules. Frankly,
unless this attitude changes European Rail freight is finished and the dream
of taking a train direct from Carlisle to Brussels or Berlin will never
happen. Railways need to change and quickly and whilst it may not be popular
to say, so at this moment in time, Railways need more Europe not less.
Bees in a Buzz
The population of bees is in decline which is causing some consternation in
the EU because as we know, bees are essential for the pollinating of fruits
and plants. Now apart from the obvious danger they face when being swatted
by panic stricken human beings when they venture into our gardens, they are
also facing wipeout due to disease. As to a solution to this problem, well
it came in two ideas. One was from the Centre-Right which was to give
beekeepers more money and from the Greens, which was to ban all insecticide
and GMO (which we didn’t have anyway) neither of which in my view offered a
credible alternative. The fact that nobody knows why the number of bees is
decreasing, which is why in my view we need to do some research before we
either throw money at the problem or ban this that and the other. Either
way, it is a serious problem that needs to be addressed in a more scientific
way.
I noticed in a recent edition of Egremont 2 Day PCSO Peter Bradley is
encouraging people to have their bikes marked which is a great help to
police, should it be stolen. This got me thinking about the massive increase
in metal theft at this moment of time because of the high volume of scrap
metal. So it may be worth marking up your lawn mowers, wheelbarrows and
garden mowers; because believe it or not thieves are taking these items
also. A number of cricket and sports clubs across the North West have fallen
victim to this kind of crime, together with our railways who see copper
theft second only to terrorism as their major concerns at the moment. So
nothing made of metal is safe from these thieves, so please take all steps
you can to thwart them.
I want to partially agree with ML who wrote to E2D complaining about junk
mail and packaging. It is the packaging bit I want to mention. Firstly,
there is far too much of it and secondly some of it is so hard to get into
you need an explosive device! The classic in this are the toilet cistern
blocks. How anybody who suffers from arthritis manages God only knows! I
agree with ML that we need to tell the manufacturers and the supermarkets to
cut down on packaging and think of people who have difficulties in getting
to the product.
Finally, I want to wish all readers a Happy Christmas and a peaceful New
Year.
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