HS2 - Birmingham to Manchester scrapped.

domalino said:
In 10 years people will be looking back at this like Nick Clegg's genius idea to not build nuclear power plants in 2010 because they were expensive and wouldn't come online until 2022.

We need high speed rail infrastructure in this country, and it will never be cheaper to build in the future.
Click to expand...
Fully agree re the Nuclear build programme, its criminal that energy security, which has been talked about for years as a major threat, hasn't been properly addressed.

We do have an issue in the UK in particular around electrification and new railways and thats the cost per single track km which is as much as double that in Germany and France. Most of the cost is down to fragmentation of the design and build across too many companies along with the rules around land purchase.
 
domalino said:
In 10 years people will be looking back at this like Nick Clegg's genius idea to not build nuclear power plants in 2010 because they were expensive and wouldn't come online until 2022.

We need high speed rail infrastructure in this country, and it will never be cheaper to build in the future.
Click to expand...
I think it's better not to invest in anything too expensive at the moment. I'd wait for alien technology.
 
Blue Llama said:
Whole thing a daft idea to start with. What was the potential saving in time? Was it about 15 minutes off a 1 hour journey to Birmingham and 30 minutes of 2 hour one to Manchester?
Click to expand...

I think this was one of the main problems with HS2 from the start. Basically terrible marketing. They decided to make this faster journey times claim their central argument when that was never the main reason for doing it in the first place.

The business case for HS2 centres on increasing capacity for commerce, freeing up road networks by encouraging companies to move freight to railway and also improving capacity on local rail services.

I’m not making an argument for or against building the thing as I leave that to the experts, but the government has done an unbelievably fucking woeful job of explaining the value of infrastructure like this to the public.

Once again it looks like this misalignment of government messaging and public understanding is going to just leave the North worse off in the long run while London and the South reap the benefits. It’s an absolute shambles.
 
west didsblue said:
Anyone who has travelled on the train at peak times will tell you why an increase in capacity is desperately needed. The time savings aren’t as important but that’s not a significant factor in increasing the cost.
Click to expand...
Id disagree a bit with that, the cost of building a railway with a high linespeed similar to HS2 is significantly more, particularly with the design of the trackbed and any tunnels. Not to mention the increased power requirements to run the trains remembering that aerodynamic drag increases with the square of speed.
 
west didsblue said:
Anyone who has travelled on the train at peak times will tell you why an increase in capacity is desperately needed. The time savings aren’t as important but that’s not a significant factor in increasing the cost.
Click to expand...
I do not disagree that an increase in capacity is required
The current lines aren't being maximised. Manchester/London trains are only full at certain times due to pricing policy

I live in Northwich, 25 miles from the centre of Manchester
I catch a train to Piccadilly, the journey takes an hour
 
dickie davies said:
I do not disagree that an increase in capacity is required
The current lines aren't being maximised. Manchester/London trains are only full at certain times due to pricing policy

I live in Northwich, 25 miles from the centre of Manchester
I catch a train to Piccadilly, the journey takes an hour
Click to expand...
You are correct in saying that the existing infrastructure isn't being utilised but its more from an operational point of view and the over reliance of outdated signalling technology. You could run trains a lot closer together (shorter headway) and potentially more efficiently if we would just bite the bullet.
 
Hes the left back remember said:
Always thought it wasn't as beneficial as made out to be.
They kept talking about this as part of the Northern levelling up project.
The first and most simple thing they can do is give over 60s free travel on bus and tram as they do in London.
They get free travel on bus and tube!
Click to expand...
As they also do in Scotland,Wales and Northern Ireland.
It's just us poor oiks in the industrial North and Midlands who don't get free public transportation until we are 66.
 
Victoria to Lime Street the other week was great on the express train. I didn’t time it but maybe 35 - 40 minutes. It’s often an hour plus if you go from Piccadilly as it makes so many stops.
 
Looks like they have cancelled it north of Birmingham. Personally I think this is wrong. If they started in Manchester or Leeds they would never have got to Brimingham or Oxford and cancelled the last bit to London.

Secondly the costs are clearly out of control, Civil Servants should nit be in charge of these sortsnoc budgets. There is no way a railway line should cost on average half a million pounds a meter to construct. Essentially most of it is earthworks. IE Cut and Fill. With short sections of tunnel in the Cities. The cost overruns on public infrastructure projects in this country are horrendous. Hinckley Point is costing £22Billion pounds. Ie £22,000,000.00. For something that is just concrete some specialised engineering.
 
Churchlawtonblue said:
Looks like they have cancelled it north of Birmingham. Personally I think this is wrong. If they started in Manchester or Leeds they would never have got to Brimingham or Oxford and cancelled the last bit to London.

Secondly the costs are clearly out of control, Civil Servants should nit be in charge of these sortsnoc budgets. There is no way a railway line should cost on average half a million pounds a meter to construct. Essentially most of it is earthworks. IE Cut and Fill. With short sections of tunnel in the Cities. The cost overruns on public infrastructure projects in this country are horrendous. Hinckley Point is costing £22Billion pounds. Ie £22,000,000.00. For something that is just concrete some specialised engineering.
Click to expand...
Aren’t the huge increases very little to do with engineering costs and very much to do with paying landowners, in the London and Home Counties especially, huge sums to buy up their land??
That’s what I was led to believe anyway.
 
As a minor point, they got the branding wrong. HC2 for high capacity, to stop so many getting hung up on the journey time. Trains of a mile long could’ve carried a helluva lot.
 
After all the money spent in the southeast does it come as a surprise to anyone the the money has run out. Levelling up bollock I bet this was just trotted out to keep the plebs in the north quiet on the promise of future money. Still think there was no fucking intent to spend in the north. Fuck London the Home Counties and the Tory wankers.

£18 billion plus just on crossrail. Bastards
 
chesterbells said:
Aren’t the huge increases very little to do with engineering costs and very much to do with paying landowners, in the London and Home Counties especially, huge sums to buy up their land??
That’s what I was led to believe anyway.
Click to expand...
Everything is being overpaid for. But generally if you CPO a piece of land the landowner only gets 110% of its value. And the valuation is provided by three independent valuers and an average taken. That's my understanding
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Unread Posts

Don't have an account? Register now and see fewer ads!

SIGN UP
Back
Top