HS2 - Cancel it now

Cheadle_hulmeBlue said:
yep. The main ones to benefit from this will be people who work in London and can commute and the companies they work for. whilst at the same time pushing up prices for everyone else.

massive waste of money that should have been spent improving the appalling transport links we have now.

Also more people are working from home now. So surely in 30 years time travelling to work will be redundant for many
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Actually, Rail travel between London and the North West increased by over 70% over the decade to 2017/18. The increase from the West Midlands was slightly higher. The consequence is that the WCML is close to capacity and therefore we need to build more railway. Anyone catching a train home from Euston between 4-7pm Mon-Fri can vouch for this.

HS2 will provide additional capacity and also relieve congestion on the WCML so more 'classic trains' can be run, including freight. Who knows, maybe places like Polesworth and Barlaston can have their stations back - these are places whose stations on the WCML have been sacrificed over the past 10 years to help keep the WCML moving.

Obviously we also need big improvements to routes within the North West and between the NW and adjacent regions. Top priorities should be the electrification of the Manchester Victoria to Leeds route, sorting out the ridiculous congestion that currently exists on the Castlefield corridor and probably also electrifying the route to Liverpool via Warrington Central.

But I haven't seen anything anywhere that suggests these improvements have been sacrificed in order to build HS2. Burnham said yesterday that he is supportive of the HS2 but he wants to see more details of what else will be happening. I agree with this 100%. We'll probably get more details come Budget time in March so I'm prepared to give the Government the benefit of the doubt until then.

Incidentally, according to the Labour Force Survey only 4% of people work from home and that includes people who use home as a base. The percentrage is growing but from a pretty low base. I am one of them actually (working from home 4 days a week usually, with the other spent travelling). But I still need to meet clients, and usually in London.
 
It will cost that much by the time its done that you can guess now, fares will be like Concorde was just to fucking use it!

Just use the money to open up the whole country and buy new rolling stock with the capacity needed.
 
blueinsa said:
It will cost that much by the time its done that you can guess now, fares will be like Concorde was just to fucking use it!

Just use the money to open up the whole country and buy new rolling stock with the capacity needed.
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You can only run so many trains per hour on each line. It's true you can increase capacity on some routes by lengthening trains. But on intercity routes most trains are already 11 carriages long and there is limited scope for extra trains to be run during the day.

Basically we need to build now so we have enough capacity from 2030 onwards.

Even if we didn't use high speed trains we'd still need to build additional capacity on the WCML. I suppose upgrading WCML to use double-decker might be an option, but that would involve rebuilding I don't know how many bridges and tunnels on route and years of disruption on the existing lines. It wouldn't be cheap either...

Nothing to do with railways is cheap. I think the recent electrification projects have averaged around £6m per kilometre.

A recent project to double up a single line track near where I live cost £45m for about 5 miles of track and went nearly 50% over budget, despite it being both straight and on the flat.
 
NeilYoungIsBack said:
You can only run so many trains per hour on each line. It's true you can increase capacity on some routes by lengthening trains. But on intercity routes most trains are already 11 carriages long and there is limited scope for extra trains to be run during the day.

Basically we need to build now so we have enough capacity from 2030 onwards.

Even if we didn't use high speed trains we'd still need to build additional capacity on the WCML. I suppose upgrading WCML to use double-decker might be an option, but that would involve rebuilding I don't know how many bridges and tunnels on route and years of disruption on the existing lines. It wouldn't be cheap either...

Nothing to do with railways is cheap. I think the recent electrification projects have averaged around £6m per kilometre.

A recent project to double up a single line track near where I live cost £45m for about 5 miles of track and went nearly 50% over budget, despite it being both straight and on the flat.
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Agree with all that which is why we need to open up old lines and install new ones right across the country.

More rolling stock is also needed but come the end of the day i genuinely fear that its all for nothing because as you say, nothing in rail is ever cheap and its the customer that will be asked to foot the bills through fares and at that point, most say fuck that and opt for the car.

£100B plus so that a few businessmen can pay for a first class ticket and get to London a bit quicker is frankly fucking silly.
 
NeilYoungIsBack said:
I suppose I count as a businessman but I've been known to book a £10 ticket from Crewe to London on the stopping train via Stoke...
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We can come back in say 15 years time when it might just be open and see if you can get a £10 ticket ;-)
 
There is an argument for spending that money on the current network, but you would have to completely close it without having an alternative to upgrade it, and that isn't a practical option. It is needed for the additional capacity rather than the time improvement. Its foolish not to join it up to St Pancras though for onward travel to Europe.

They should start building it from the other extremities (Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds etc) now to ensure it all joins up. I don't think its unreasonable to suspect they'll cancel the bit beyond Birmingham.

This needs to happen at some point and the longer it is left the more it will cost.
 
cptaidan88 said:
There is an argument for spending that money on the current network, but you would have to completely close it without having an alternative to upgrade it, and that isn't a practical option. It is needed for the additional capacity rather than the time improvement. Its foolish not to join it up to St Pancras though for onward travel to Europe.

They should start building it from the other extremities (Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds etc) now to ensure it all joins up. I don't think its unreasonable to suspect they'll cancel the bit beyond Birmingham.

This needs to happen at some point and the longer it is left the more it will cost.
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I think Boris is smitten with "Grands Projet" as was President Mitterrand in France so I expect the full scheme will happen...
 
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