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Nearly half of new passenger cars in EU electrified -ACEA::Sales of electric cars in the European Union were almost half of all new passenger car registrations in the EU between January and November 2023 and already crossed the halfway mark in the month of November alone, data showed on Wednesday. Electrified vehicles - either fully electric models, plug-in hybrids or full hybrids - accounted for over 47.6% of all new passenger car registrations in the EU as of November, up from 43% in the same period last year, the European Automobile Manufacturers Association (ACEA) said. New-car registrations in the EU increased 6.7% in November, the 16th consecutive month of growth, with a year-on-year rise of 13.3% in the registration of electric vehicles.
Damn I wish our trains were like that.
On multiple occasions I’ve seen it be cheaper to fly to France or the Netherlands then back to the UK, rather than get the train between two cities.
Fuck the Beeching Cuts and all the negative consequences that came of it.
Here’s the summary for the wikipedia article you mentioned in your comment:
The Beeching cuts were a major series of route closures and service changes made as part of the restructuring of the nationalised railway system in Great Britain in the 1960s. They are named for Richard Beeching, then-chair of the British Railways Board and the author of two reports – The Reshaping of British Railways (1963) and The Development of the Major Railway Trunk Routes (1965) – that outlined the necessity of improving the efficiency of the railways and the plan for achieving this through restructuring. The first report identified 2,363 stations and 5,000 miles (8,000 km) of railway line for closure, amounting to 55% of stations, 30% of route miles, and the loss of 67,700 British Rail jobs, with an objective of stemming the large losses being incurred during a period of increasing competition from road transport and reducing the rail subsidies necessary to keep the network running. The second report identified a small number of major routes for significant investment. Such was the scale of these cuts that the programme came to be colloquially referred to as the Beeching Axe, though the 1963 report also recommended some less well-publicised changes; including a switch to the now-standard practice of containerisation for rail freight, and the replacement of some services with integrated bus services linked to the remaining railheads. Protests resulted in the saving of some stations and lines, but the majority were closed as planned. Beeching's name remains associated with the mass closure of railways and the loss of many local services in the period that followed. A few of these routes have since reopened. Some short sections have been preserved as heritage railways, while others have been incorporated into the National Cycle Network or used for road schemes. Others have since been built over, have reverted to farmland, or remain derelict with no plans for any reuse or redevelopment. Some, such as the bulk of the Midland Metro network around Birmingham and Wolverhampton, have since been incorporated into light rail lines.
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