HS2 - Birmingham to Manchester scrapped.

es1 said:
announcing this is the only outcome that will make me satisfied. the north desperately needs it - what it can't be is simply an upgrading of the existing line, that isnt good enough.

i've been in the rail engineering industry for 12 years and upgrading the transpennine line was one of the first projects i worked on and it's gone practically nowhere since! i've been on HS2 phase 1 for about 4 years now and our company has spent many thousands (and me many hours) bidding for parts of phase 2. disappointing to see it go but hardly surprised.
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The amount of money wasted because people can’t decide what they want on large infrastructure projects is unreal. They can spend a small fortune getting projects to GRIP5/ES5 only for them to be paused, rebid and then go through another detailed design phase or even the requirements completely changed going right back to concept design.

Seen it on GWEP, Midland Mainline, HS2, Crossrail etc and they never seem to learn the lessons.

Mind you, for monumental wastes of money that’s less visible to the general public you need to look no further than the MoD, those boys really know how to piss money away.
 
To go from London to Manchester via Birmingham is 'the long way around', so knocking a few minutes off the section south of Brum really will not cut it. That's quite apart from the gross lack of capacity on the existing lines leading to Manchester, Scotland and the NW. You can in theory widen the lines (most are already quadruple track either literally or in effect (different routes) but that won't be cheap. Just imagine, to give one example, adding another two tracks from Cheadle Hulme to Piccadilly. We are talking big bucks and massive engineering just for that small bit.

I don't know where we go, really. This country is fucked and this is just one symptom of it.
 
MCFC Wirral said:
Liverpool / Chester to Cardiff next Sunday looks interesting… North Walians need to go via Shrewsbury which, when I last looked, was in England.

I like to get to Swansea twice a year but the train journey is over five hours.
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Seems quite reasonable when you consider that you’re travelling 50 years back in time.
 
Tories just kicked the can down the road. They know very little will get started before they lose the next election. Putting in place a strategy to win the one after when they can claim Labour have renaged on all of the spending.
It's telling that London has better rail links with Northern France and parts of Belgium than it does with Manchester!
 
Chance to put the heavy rail curve back in at Ardwick onto the disused viaduct to link with the Line that passes Etihad.

Could run a continuous service from Piccadilly - Etihad - Victoria - Deansgate - Oxford Road - Piccadilly.

Brilliant for match and events at Coop live!
 
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MCFC Wirral said:
If I had a Christmas card list then I’d strongly consider taking you off it for that crass comment about super Swansea.

There’s also a branch of TGI Fridays on Wind Street now.
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Not been in a TGIs for decades! That doesn’t help your Swansea plea. ;-)

You’ll be telling us they have a Little Chef and a Wimpy’s next.
 
Had the local swivel eyed Plaid Cymru bod on the radio this morning ranting and raving about how you can't get from South Wales to North Wales by train without going into England....well yes dear, Wales is full of mountains and valleys, it's what makes Wales, Wales and trains dont like those geological structures, England on the otherhand is quite flat on the borders. There are also no motorways in Wales going from South to North either. Wind your fucking necks in you blinkered, short sighted idiots, you'll get paid out with a handsome rebate soon ( Allegedly ). The way your lot and Drakefords mob are handling the country no one will be coming anyway.
 
And it now transpires that Network Rail weren't consulted on any of today's "announcements" and it was all news to them. Bloody amateurs!
 
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