£106BN?!?!? £106BN?!?! I'm sure we could build a train line to the bloody Moon for less. As far as I'm concerned, the whole thing should be binned now. In the words of Jonathan Pie, 'Who the eff wants to get to Birmingham faster anyway?'. Anyways, interested in others' thoughts.
That's what happens when you don't bother to fund railway maintenance and upgrades for several decades: the bill comes all at once when you find all the things you need to fix and replace to fix and replace the things you need in place to install the upgrades needed to support your shiny new project. Odds are if HS2 is cancelled and a 'slow line' built in place, the bill will be almost identical as almost all the same work needs doing in either case.
Leading a rather sheltered life I'm probably wrong when i say this, but i would've thought there's less of a need to move people/goods around what with conferencing and whatnot, i guess what I'm questioning is if there's the demand there, are passenger and goods train at there limit on existing routes? I can certainly think of better things to spend the money on like better broadband so conferencing is more viable and better/cheaper local transport for people outside of London.
Yeah, like we couldn't see this coming from the day it was announced. We could bring the whole network up to scratch for the money. Plus, you know, not destroy ancient woodlands whilst flying an 'we love the environment' flag.
I dont think investing in railway is a bad idea but can't help but feel the improving existing lines would be a more immediate return on investment. I can already travel to Euston from Warrington in <2 hours. Reducing this to ~1 hour won't make a blind bit of difference in real terms. However it takes an age on overcrowded and crap trains to travel less distance east to west. I know where my money would go!
I saw an interview with one of the people involved in the enquiry, who left and released his own report as he thought some things were being swept under. He thought it should be scrapped and the money used to improve the existing network around Birmingham and Northern regions, which could be done for half the cost. This would alleviate the horrendous overcrowding for the hundreds of thousands of daily commuters, not just the odd few who'd like to get from London to Birmingham a little quicker. Having been subjected to many indecent assaults on the train into Birmingham I'm inclined to agree. There was never a real need for hs2. Birmingham to London takes 1hour25min. That's plenty fast enough. Crack a laptop open and do some work, make a call to Bob and fire him for his errant wire transfer, have a coffee or just relax. Train journeys, particularly the one's in question, are planned, you take into account the time of the journey for any schedules. For anything urgent there's the phone. I used to work for intu and each centre and head office was bought a massive surface hub for quarterly meetings etc. So much more convenient then all the department managers travelling to one central the for a meeting and a hell of a lot cheaper in the long run, with no travel or accommodation costs. There is no need for hs2, there never was. There was a need for some budget to be spent and pockets to be filled.
Apart from the huge cost and the questionable usefulness of HS2, why the f**k do they need to tear up should a broad swathe of the countryside for two 4 ft 8 1 ⁄ 2 in gauge railway lines?
But what if I need to leave Brum quicker ???? At the end of the day it's public transport and a government project too so it'll come it costing way more than it should. I'll stick to my car or motorbike thanks.
Because unless you want the train to go flying off a wonky track the ground needs to be levelled along the width of the track. And that levelling needs to be wide enough and sturdy enough to support the passing trains without subsiding. And needs to be wide enough for access for works vehicles to actually build the thing. That extra width itself also needs to support said equipment without subsiding. And to build up that level area you need access around that area in order to build it up without dumping material on top of your own head, etc.... You can't just float the rails out into thin air and toss some dirt underneath. Civil engineering is no joke if you want things to actually work.
If used for that purpose it would only have to work once, so it might actually be within the capability of the companies operating UK trains
We must plough on and spend the extra SEVENTY BILLION POUNDS that wasn't budgeted, to prevent wasting the £7bn already spent. I don't actually need sarcasm tags there, do i?
Ahh, I'd wondered how much had been spent on it to date. What exactly has been bought? It looks as though there's a generally shared opinion that the money should instead go to improving the existing services. I can get behind that. Personally, I think the money should be used to reduce the cost of tickets. I had to get a train from Newport to Sheffield last year at short notice and it cost me over £100. The cost in fuel had I driven would've probably been ~£25 (evil diesel car).
As far as I can tell, ripping up trees and hedgerows, legal paperwork associated with compulsory purchase of properties and lining pockets.
From general redditing (so take with a pinch of salt).... HS2 isn't about speed but capacity as I understand it. As for the money, the plans seem to have been altered as well as issues with soil have increased costs. Not really a response worthy of a serious thread but heyho.
