Popular Post Wainy316 Posted March 9, 2023 Popular Post Share Posted March 9, 2023 5 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xann Posted March 9, 2023 Share Posted March 9, 2023 18 minutes ago, Genie said: Often delays are blamed for projects going wildly over budget. This is the only case I know of where delaying is actually going to save money. How is that possible? Pass the botch, being hopeful of skewering Labour on it later. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bickster Posted March 9, 2023 Moderator Share Posted March 9, 2023 29 minutes ago, DCJonah said: What a disgraceful amount of money. At a time when public workers are out on strike most months, it's sickening to read how much we've spent on this project. You'd prefer 30,000 people on the dole? Capital Building projects are mainly good not bad in times of economic hardship. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post chrisp65 Posted March 9, 2023 Popular Post Share Posted March 9, 2023 £77 billion wouldn’t half build a lot of homes with superb insulation and renewable energy self generation. If those homes could also have WiFi, might not even need to be built in the London commuter belt. Oh, and we’d end up being quite expert in all matters renewable energy, we could export our services. It would bring down the price of housing, then young families could afford child care and remain in work. Helping ease the staff shortage in so many industries. It would reduce our demand for fossil fuel, loosening the grip of unsavoury regimes, improving our overall security. Nah, bollocks, lets have yet another piece of London infrastructure so we can keep telling the nations and regions that they are dependent on London and should be grateful if they get a share. 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xann Posted March 9, 2023 Share Posted March 9, 2023 Another mugging for a mugged off nation of mugs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rodders Posted March 9, 2023 Share Posted March 9, 2023 How is Linekers comments newsworthy? Bbc such a **** bent news organisation 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Genie Posted March 9, 2023 Share Posted March 9, 2023 When is the announcement that HS2 won’t be going all the way into central London? They said it absolutely WOULD be so it’s only a matter of time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
desensitized43 Posted March 9, 2023 Share Posted March 9, 2023 1 hour ago, DCJonah said: What a disgraceful amount of money. At a time when public workers are out on strike most months, it's sickening to read how much we've spent on this project. I don't know about you, but I often think to myself on the Aviva train from Birmingham Int to Euston and wonder what it would be like to be there a whole 10 minutes faster. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DCJonah Posted March 9, 2023 Share Posted March 9, 2023 1 hour ago, bickster said: You'd prefer 30,000 people on the dole? Capital Building projects are mainly good not bad in times of economic hardship. No. And I agree with projects being good. I just don't believe this is an amount of money worthy of this particular project. I don't think spending the money we have is good when there's so many other issues that require public spending at the moment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bickster Posted March 9, 2023 Moderator Share Posted March 9, 2023 1 minute ago, DCJonah said: No. And I agree with projects being good. I just don't believe this is an amount of money worthy of this particular project. I don't think spending the money we have is good when there's so many other issues that require public spending at the moment. Improving Public transport is a good thing No? Lots of people don't understand what the aim of HS2 is? They just see it as another railway line that enables you to get to that London quicker. It really isn't that, the aim has been badly explained from the off. I've posted this before but a railway engineer explains why HS2 is really important to public railways and the advantages it will bring across huge parts of the rail network. The getting to London so many minutes faster is just the by-product of building a new modern railway. That isn't it's purpose 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisp65 Posted March 9, 2023 Share Posted March 9, 2023 It will exacerbate the existing problem of the whole of the UK being beholden to London and the self perpetuating problem that brings, of London needing more and more infrastructure. All the extra spending making London even m,ore important, making housing even more expensive meaning people have to live further out, meaning they need more infrastructure to get back in. Had London not been the starting point of a shrinking network, I’d be under some pressure to agree it was a worthwhile spend. If it connected Plymouth to Bristol to Birmingham to Liverpool. If it connected Bangor, to Wrexham, to Crewe, to Burnley, to Leeds, to Newcastle. It’s a London project. When they cut London out of it to save money, I’ll buy everyone a pint. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sidcow Posted March 9, 2023 VT Supporter Share Posted March 9, 2023 (edited) 46 minutes ago, desensitized43 said: I don't know about you, but I often think to myself on the Aviva train from Birmingham Int to Euston and wonder what it would be like to be there a whole 10 minutes faster. FFS. Its not about 10 minutes faster. It's about releasing massive extra capacity on existing overcrowded lines for more local services and a huge uplift in freight trains taking thousands of lorries off the road. All these things create employment and opportunities and increase the efficiency of the nation (we're a very inefficient nation compared to our peers and one of the big reasons for this is because transport in this country is piss poor). Other nations have multiple high speed train lines. They are a good thing. Seems the general public are as short sighted as our government about investing in the UK's public infrastructure. Edited March 9, 2023 by sidcow 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chindie Posted March 9, 2023 VT Supporter Share Posted March 9, 2023 HS2 can simultaneously be a good project generally and also one with the downside that it does further focus on London. We need more, better, trains. Our rail infrastructure is crap. We also need them to be more distributed. The country needs to get money flowing away from London - or more accurately get more money coming in that doesn't go via London first. HS2 doesn't really solve that, it makes it a little worse. It's a double edged sword. Unfortunately the one problem, the London one, is really **** hard to fix, and HS2 or not doesn't markedly change that. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisp65 Posted March 9, 2023 Share Posted March 9, 2023 1 minute ago, sidcow said: FFS. Its not about 10 minutes faster. It's about releasing massive extra capacity on existing overcrowded lines for more local services and a huge uplift in freight trains taking thousands of lorries off the road. All. These things create employment and opportunities and increase the efficiency of the nation (we're a very inefficient nation compared to our peers and one of the bid reasons for this is because transport in this country is piss poor. Other nations have multiple hign speed train lines. Seems the general public are as short sighted as our government about investing in the UK's public infrastructure. Absolute keen to see the UK’s infrastructure improved. Why is this another Londoncentric project? Is there no need to improve Holyhead freight terminal? Is Swansea dock well served by a 2 lane motorway? Is it quite easy to commute to Barnstaple? Will this reduce the £292.50 cost of a train to Paddington? Is it right to have to pay tolls to avoid the perpetual snarl up at Walsall? £31 billion, became £40, then £50, eventually £77 and now today ‘maybe’ £80 billion for another project that benefits London. It’s obscene. Meanwhile in Kings Lynn its still 1959 and a trip to Norwich takes an hour longer by train than by car. So much stuff not being done because of this. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sidcow Posted March 9, 2023 VT Supporter Share Posted March 9, 2023 (edited) 4 minutes ago, Chindie said: HS2 can simultaneously be a good project generally and also one with the downside that it does further focus on London. We need more, better, trains. Our rail infrastructure is crap. We also need them to be more distributed. The country needs to get money flowing away from London - or more accurately get more money coming in that doesn't go via London first. HS2 doesn't really solve that, it makes it a little worse. It's a double edged sword. Unfortunately the one problem, the London one, is really **** hard to fix, and HS2 or not doesn't markedly change that. But is does allow masses of extra train journeys on the tracks. We could for example run far more local trains between Coventry and Brum. Wolverhampton and Brum, Wolverhampton and Coventry. We could open additional suburban stations on the line to run slower trains through the conurbations. We could run significantly more services to Birmingham Airport. None of this is possible currently with the current infrastructure until we get those fast moving long distance trains off the tracks. Edited March 9, 2023 by sidcow 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sidcow Posted March 9, 2023 VT Supporter Share Posted March 9, 2023 4 minutes ago, chrisp65 said: Absolute keen to see the UK’s infrastructure improved. Why is this another Londoncentric project? Is there no need to improve Holyhead freight terminal? Is Swansea dock well served by a 2 lane motorway? Is it quite easy to commute to Barnstaple? Will this reduce the £292.50 cost of a train to Paddington? Is it right to have to pay tolls to avoid the perpetual snarl up at Walsall? £31 billion, became £40, then £50, eventually £77 and now today ‘maybe’ £80 billion for another project that benefits London. It’s obscene. Meanwhile in Kings Lynn its still 1959 and a trip to Norwich takes an hour longer by train than by car. So much stuff not being done because of this. If you're going to build a new railway the most logical place to build it is to replace the busiest most overcrowded line.... Which is what they've done. Imagine spending £77bn to relieve a line / road which doesn't have anything like the same pressure on it as the WCML. That would be a waste of money. And once the spine is in place you can build further stages in future when someone with a bit of vision is in charge of the finances. Each new stage will bring the same benefits to that location as Brum will experience once the capacity is released. Honestly other countries spend far far more money than we do on railways building multiple high speed lines and no one thinks its a waste of money. Don't know what it is about the UK. Truth is this should have been built years ago. We're an embarrassment. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bickster Posted March 9, 2023 Moderator Share Posted March 9, 2023 6 minutes ago, Chindie said: also one with the downside that it does further focus on London. It doesn't actually do that. It replaces one route to London with another. People won't be travelling to Euston on the same lines as they currently are. You won't be able to get a fast train from New St to Euston any more, that franchise will not exist, which is why the franchise for the NW Mainline had a condition of running High Speed networks There is no extra route, there is no extra focus. The express train to London will only use one route. The current routes will be used by more local services and freight. Slower trains require shorter stopping distances and that massively increases capacity on the lines. Separating the express trains from the slow and semi-fast trains adds huge capacity 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sidcow Posted March 9, 2023 VT Supporter Share Posted March 9, 2023 It's really funny people will travel abroad and marvel at the clean, modern, fast comprehensive railways and other mass transit systems they have abroad, moan that we can't have something similar here. Then when we do try to do it its called a waste of money and the press and public are hostile to it. You see similar comments about the West Midlands metro, people moaning about what a waste of money it is. Yes, more buses and cars and lorries are the answer. **** me. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisp65 Posted March 9, 2023 Share Posted March 9, 2023 4 minutes ago, sidcow said: If you're going to build a new railway the most logical place to build it is to replace the busiest most overcrowded line.... Which is what they've done. Imagine spending £77bn to relieve a line / road which doesn't have anything like the same pressure on it as the WCML. That would be a waste of money. And once the spine is in place you can build further stages in future when someone with a bit of vision is in charge of the finances. Each new stage will bring the same benefits to that location as Brum will experience once the capacity is released. Honestly other countries spend far far more money than we do on railways building multiple high speed lines and no one thinks its a waste of money. Don't know what it is about the UK. Truth is this should have been built years ago. We're an embarrassment. So its self perpetuating, you improve the busiest only, it will increase business there at the expense of elsewhere. There’s a logic to that. But then, after 100 years it becomes a monster sucking up all the resource all the budget to renew the extra investment it had previously. We don’t fix London and then do Leeds, we do London, then we update London, then we update London, then we update London. The crumbs left over are only ever crumbs. We wouldn’t be spending £77Billion to relieve a quieter line we’d be spending it to relieve lots and lots of quieter lines that could then become busier lines helping London not to be such a demand on all our resource. The point that other countries spend more, i absolutely agree with, we should spend more. But whilst we aren’t spending more, perhaps someone other than London should get a shout once every 50 years or so? I’m not against big budget schemes, or progress, or infrastructure. I’m against it all always having London in the title. On the pretence it will actually benefit Hereford. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisp65 Posted March 9, 2023 Share Posted March 9, 2023 5 minutes ago, sidcow said: It's really funny people will travel abroad and marvel at the clean, modern, fast comprehensive railways and other mass transit systems they have abroad, moan that we can't have something similar here. Then when we do try to do it its called a waste of money and the press and public are hostile to it. You see similar comments about the West Midlands metro, people moaning about what a waste of money it is. Yes, more buses and cars and lorries are the answer. **** me. Who’ve you seen arguing for more lorries? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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