HS2

Frank the tank

I know it'll be 20years before it's finished but what do you think?

Will it spread employment and prosperity to the wider populous or will it just enable people who work in London to commute there from a greater distance.

awallace

I think the latter is more likely, and it will be good to get around the UK quicker - just think of all of the cycling within an hour when HS2 comes, but... the ticket prices will be a small fortune, and i cant help think that the politicians have another agenda to get it through. Its not for the good of the country, its for them somewhere and some how to profit. Although i have no evidence of this at all.

Daz555

White elephant.

We should be investing in the digital economy - every home and business in the land could be wired up to fibre optic broadband for about 20% of the cost and we could have free public wi-fi in every major town and city in the land - that would help stimulate our economy.

All we are actually getting is a several thousand peoples lives destroyed who live or own business on the route and a massive extension to the London commuter belt.

No mistake, this train will simply make London bigger.

tim_wand

Its going to turn Toton into the centre of the Universe, Unlucky Hucknall least you ve got a NET tram stop

Jez mon

As far as I can see, its not really about pure speed, although this is what the government is focussing on (I guess it sounds sexier) it's about extra capacity. Well, the extra capacity isn't needed in twenty years, it's needed now. Why is it going to take so long? Well as far as I can see, a bunch of time is taken up by (what will be) largely pointless consultations.

Plus, with it taking absolutely ages until it becomes capable of generating revenue, it's going to be a massive budget black hole.

From me, when it comes to HS2, the government wins points for:
Being brave, (it goes through Tory heartlands)
Making a serious investment in the railways (realistically, the railways in this country need extra capacity)

They lose points because:
It's going to take far too long to build (although a lot of this is I think, out of the govts. hands)

random man

I wouldn't think that people will move north so that they can live outside London but get to work just as quick, but it could encourage people living in the midlands to work in London.
It will cost a fortune to travel on though.

More important, can you get on it with your bike and travel through to France easier than flying? If not, it's a waste of money

tim_wand

random man wrote:

I wouldn't think that people will move north so that they can live outside London but get to work just as quick, but it could encourage people living in the midlands to work in London.
It will cost a fortune to travel on though.

More important, can you get on it with your bike and travel through to France easier than flying? If not, it's a waste of money

You can get t tram all the way to Clifton and then freewheel to East Midlands Parkway then get the train all the way to Gard de Lyon and the Alps. (watch out for your bike in Clifton though Gary)

tiredofwhiners

Daz555 wrote:

White elephant.

Rubbish - the history of railways is that if you build them, they fill up to capacity.

Forget the 'digital economy' as its what 25 year olds think work should be like - just because they don't want to get out of bed in the morning. People meet face to face to make things happen and that will never change no matter what the kiddies think. Existing train routes cannot go faster, the trains cannot be longer (grade and traction limits), and they have to share the lines with local train services. People will always travel for important things.

It'll be full and by definition will not be too expensive. The days of non-travellers subsidising travellers is gradually reducing, and still the trains are full. It'll be quicker to live in Leeds and commute to London - yes, a season ticket might cost £15,000 a year, but its so much cheaper and pleasant than living in London in a shoebox, on a mortgage paying £2,000 a month more in mortgage fees. It will increase the price of houses near the interchanges which will please some of the locals. And it'll be practical to run a London business from outside of London in cheaper places.

I use to commute from Nuneaton to Euston for a year or so - 1 hour 10 mins in a comfortable seat compared to my colleagues who took 45 minutes to get to Stanmore and then a 30 minute drive ....

I understand the Nimbys feelings but hey, the UK cannot survice without breaking eggs.

verylonglegs

Without wanting to sound strange these kind of discussions always remind me of the time my mum had an argument with her WI group! Most of them are very keen to stop a local road building/housing development plan and she was mad enough to point out to them that as they all had children and grandchildren maybe they should accept their offspring would need somewhere to live and work so should stfu. It didn't go down well apparently but it's almost fighting an attitude of 'yeah I've got kids but I better do my best to make sure they've nowhere to live'. Crazy.

Seriously, the number of people who think everything should stay as it is whilst the next generation somehow muddles through shows their lack of knowledge about their own past for a start, I'm not even 40 and am still able to recognise massive changes to many areas local to me so surely they are seeing the same? So yeah, build it I say.

Daz555

The future is not more trains more planes - more "physical" connectivity and mobility. The Gov have been trotting out the great economic benefits Japan got from their high speed network......well they started that 50 bloody years ago when the world was entirely different.

From an environmental perspective the future has to be digital connectivity and working closer to home for as many people as possible.

At work we have already massively reduced our travel in sites where we have the latest and greatest in video conf facilities. We still need face to face meetings at other sites however where the tech is not present to allow you a decent approximation of a face to face conversation - but that must and will change over time. It won't be many years before we have holographic meeting rooms where we can actually 'sit' next to the person we are having a meeting with rather than look at them on a crap telly on the other side of the room.

http://www.eyeliner3d.com/cisco_telepre ... ncing.html I'd say its a fair bet that we'll be able to buy a decent holographic video/phone system for our own homes way before this highspeed train delivers a single passenger.

The long term is NOT traveling. We need to stay put a lot lot more - within cycling range as much as we can.

Daz555

The £33bn cost is justified they say because of the long term economic benefit to the economy on this investment. Well many think we'd get far more benefit to the economy by spending the money on something else - and I agree with them.

When it does start construction however its going to be a great time to be in engineering and construction and their related service industries. I'll be retired by the time they stick the fist shovel in the ground no doubt!

GavH

Not a chance will this project be delivered on time, on budget and within scope. 20 years from now it'll be nothing but a national embarassment on so many levels. :oops:

finchy

Meanwhile the Japanese are working on this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sts25IzK0Xk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chūō_Shinkansen
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L0_series

smoggysteve

Daz555 wrote:

The £33bn cost is justified they say because of the long term economic benefit to the economy on this investment.

Thats £33bn quoted now. What figure will that spiral up to by the time its finished? There will be the usual campaigning by conservationist and environmentalists complaining about their patch of the countryside being ripped up to make way for rail works that will add further delays and again drive up the costs. Things like this are not bad ideas but you do hope that it is thought through properly and allowed to be completed with the minimum of expense to the public.

dynamicbrick

It seems to be the answer to a question nobody has really asked. Personally I think the £33bn would be far more effectively spent re-opening branch lines, and on shorter more sensible schemes where there is chronic congestion.

Brighton Mainline II is one such scheme which the Government willfully ignores.

http://www.bml2.co.uk/about-bml2.html

In summary, BML2 costs a fraction of HS2, uses former track routes retired from service (so no new diggind), and wouldn't take a quarter of century to deliver.

MattC59

I love all the p*ssing and whining that accompanies subjects like this.

You can guarantee that if there was no investment in HS2, then in 20 years time there would be even more p*ssing and whining that there should have been more investment and the countries infrastructure was not adequate.
:roll:

finchy

MattC59 wrote:

I love all the p*ssing and whining that accompanies subjects like this.

You can guarantee that if there was no investment in HS2, then in 20 years time there would be even more p*ssing and whining that there should have been more investment and the countries infrastructure was not adequate.
:roll:

It's not just "p*ssing and whining. Overall I support this project (although I would much prefer that Japanese maglev train I linked to above - 310 mph!! :shock: 8) ), but people do have a right to object if they feel that this project is a misuse of the money that they pay in taxes, or that there are other works which should take precedent.

pinno

Japan has such a good high speed rail network that internal flights are almost non-existent.
In the UK, people commute from Galsgow and other places to London - by plane!
When the oil starts to get seriously expensive (some say 2025) we won't be able to afford flying. Whats more, flying is an environmental disaster.
I'm on the fence here because I do believe it would be good for Britain to have a high speed network but:
A) It won't be and it should be subsidised, as it benefits all of us
The Chilterns are soft stone and it would be possible to have vast tracts of it underground thereby lessening the impact, but this has not been expressed by anyone.
C) Its cheaper than replacing Trident and far less destructive (potentially).
D) When the oil runs out/becomes v expensive, we are going to be a backwater economy and we need to think more about public transport.

cougie

Daz - my company is the same. Travel budgets slashed so its all video conferences.

I don't think HS2 is the answer - weve needed more investment in the railways for years. This is a glamour project - 30 mins quicker London to Manchester just doesn't sound worth it.

We need better capacity on the trains. More seats. Free wifi to allow working as you go. As reliable as trains in Holland or Switzerland.

cedargreen

Given that we're living in a country which has systematically tried to destroy its railways over the last 50 years, we ought to be over the moon at the prospect of High speed rail but.....

What's been lost in all the claims about squillions of jobs etc is that it will almost certainly lose money because:

1. The UK is the most expensive place in the world to build high speed lines (and probably anything else)-
High Speed 1, the channel tunnel rail link cost about £70million per mile compared with £10m/ mile for Madrid- Barcelona.

2. The revenue potential isn't that great. Successful high speed lines in Japan, France and Spain operate over much longer distances than HS2, typically 300 miles or more and the significant time savings created new journey opportunities such as the ability to make a day trip and enabled the railway to capture air traffic. The Madrid- Barcelona high speed line cut the journey time from around seven hours to two and a half, decimating air traffic on what was once Europe's busiest domestic air route.

These benefits just don't exist on routes to Birmingham, Manchester or Leeds. Only Manchester still has flights from London and those are in decline since Virgin's 'Pendolino' service started. And trains on these routes are already quick- only two hours to Leeds or Manchester so day trips are already possible.

Worst of all, this vast project will be overseen by the Dept for Transport, the same department responsible for decades of failed transport policy which has left us with the highest train fares in the world, absurd levels of car dependency and pitiful conditions for walking and cycling. Almost as bad is that politicians from all the main political parties are in favour of High Speed 2- backing a big project like this makes it look as if they're doing something for transport while failing to adress any of the real issues. For a fraction of the cost of HS2 we could transform conditions for cycling in the UK for example.

dynamicbrick

/\ This

(well, that, seeing as this ended up on page 2)

tiredofwhiners

GavH wrote:

Not a chance will this project be delivered on time, on budget and within scope. 20 years from now it'll be nothing but a national embarassment on so many levels. :oops:

I think you'll find that Olympics aside, most major capital projects of the last decade have been on time and under budget. Mainly because the public sector keeps its nose out of things once they get going. The olympics was overbudget because the public sector came up with the budget, and it specifically excluded huge elements in the budget as they had no idea what it would cost.

ben@31

Daz555 wrote:

The £33bn cost is justified they say because of the long term economic benefit to the economy on this investment.

Is that the cost of a single ticket from London to Leeds?

Unless you book it several months in advance for 22:00 on a thursday.

Frank the tank

tiredofwhiners wrote:

GavH wrote:

Not a chance will this project be delivered on time, on budget and within scope. 20 years from now it'll be nothing but a national embarassment on so many levels. :oops:

I think you'll find that Olympics aside, most major capital projects of the last decade have been on time and under budget. Mainly because the public sector keeps its nose out of things once they get going. The olympics was overbudget because the public sector came up with the budget, and it specifically excluded huge elements in the budget as they had no idea what it would cost.

You hate the public sector. If ever your house is burning down and you're rescued by some public sector worker and taken to an NHS hospital I hope you're magnanimous enoughto appreciate the efforts public sector workers have done and subsiquently choke on a huge piece of humble pie.

capt_slog

tim wand wrote:

You can get t tram all the way to Clifton and then freewheel to East Midlands Parkway then get the train all the way to Gard de Lyon and the Alps. (watch out for your bike in Clifton though Gary)

Not just the bike, watch the tram too. I'll give it only weeks before the residents of Scallyville have one up on bricks and the wheels down the scrappers.

GavH

tiredofwhiners wrote:

most major capital projects of the last decade have been on time and under budget.

Not trying to call you out on this one, but would greatly appreciate any link to the empirical evidence you've used to support that assertion. I'm considering something of this ilk as a topic for an MBA dissertation so would genuinely appreciate any such stats to form part of my research if I do go down that route.

EDIT: A week on and no come back with supporting evidence. I stand by my initial comments.

Giraffoto

pinarello001 wrote:

Japan has such a good high speed rail network that internal flights are almost non-existent.

Unlike us, our friends in Japan are spread out over four sizeable islands, so there are a fair few internal flights. Just saying.

All pedantry aside, they should build the Northern part first - if the benefits are as advertised, it'll have the Southerners crying out to be connected to it

cedargreen

High Speed rail makes sense in Japan because its major cities -Tokyo, Nagoya and Osaka are all in a line along the coast and are connected with a single high speed line. Distances are greater than the UK- Tokyo -Osaka is over 300 miles and the high speed line replaced a slow narrow gauge line, producing huge time savings.

The UK is not like this- there are lots of cities dotted all over the country- Bristol, Leeds, Edinburgh etc etc, most of which are less than 200 miles from London and already have quite fast (125mph) trains. This makes the case for high speed weaker in the UK, and the supporters of HS2 need to explain how this is going to be overcome.

Kieran_Burns

tim wand wrote:

random man wrote:

I wouldn't think that people will move north so that they can live outside London but get to work just as quick, but it could encourage people living in the midlands to work in London.
It will cost a fortune to travel on though.

More important, can you get on it with your bike and travel through to France easier than flying? If not, it's a waste of money

You can get t tram all the way to Clifton and then freewheel to East Midlands Parkway then get the train all the way to Gard de Lyon and the Alps. (watch out for your bike in Clifton though Gary)

Freewheel? Down the A453? That's be novel. Short and flat, but novel.

Interesting as well... in a "May you live in interesting times" kind of way.

(before anyone mentions Gotham, I was being facetious)

(Ironically - the stretch of road on that main arc through Clifton is possibly one of the nicest bits of road in the area)

secretsam

1. The business case for HS2 is a little dodgy, to say the least (FWIW, I write business cases for a living)
2. You seriously would not believe some of the lovely countryside that will be desecrated by it
3. Whom does it benefit? London. Those towns in the north who think it will revive their economies are living in cloud cuckoo land
4. The same economic benefit generated by its construction could be achieved more quickly by investing in a number of other projects
5. This will probably hoover up all the railway CapEx for the next 20 years, so forget any other much needed improvements
6. Was there an options' appraisal? I.e. consideration of how else the same objectives and benefits could be achieved

Was listening to R4 or R5 the other day and they had a transport Professor on, who was deeply sceptical about the whole thing. As me I. £33Bn would build (for example) around 50-60 new, state of the art large regional hospitals.

capt_slog

SecretSam wrote:

1. The business case for HS2 is a little dodgy, to say the least (FWIW, I write business cases for a living)
2. You seriously would not believe some of the lovely countryside that will be desecrated by it
3. Whom does it benefit? London. Those towns in the north who think it will revive their economies are living in cloud cuckoo land
4. The same economic benefit generated by its construction could be achieved more quickly by investing in a number of other projects
5. This will probably hoover up all the railway CapEx for the next 20 years, so forget any other much needed improvements
6. Was there an options' appraisal? I.e. consideration of how else the same objectives and benefits could be achieved

Was listening to R4 or R5 the other day and they had a transport Professor on, who was deeply sceptical about the whole thing. As me I. £33Bn would build (for example) around 50-60 new, state of the art large regional hospitals.

The whole issue reminds me of the Animal Farm's windmill.