HS2 not dead ?

[Anonymous]

The only thing I have against it is that it only goes to Birmingham and back. The East Coast line would be of more benefit to more people.
But a lot more expensive.

ECML is too far away from the Country's main business centres.


This is a very complex subject.

[morgan]

Well it looks like the white elephant is going to go ahead...now let's see the proposed costs double, when all the snouts get into the trough...

Snouts are already in. Deals are done. Wheels are greased.
You wait. We'll award to job to the Germans next...

We've got a crazy development for about a million homes in berkhamsted at the moment. The final decision rests with people who live hundreds of miles away and stand to make pots of cash from go ahead. Whats THAT about ?!?? Guess its similar here.

Aw I dunno why I care. Common sense seems 'What ? No way' but apparently someone somewhere likes it. Either that or Clivey has WAYyyyy more influence than we know

[Richard]

£79,000,000 per lane mile, I think we may be paying a little too much???

[Anonymous]

£79,000,000 per lane mile, I think we may be paying a little too much???

Thats average. If you wanted to increase the M25 by one lane through Junction 7 (M23) it would cost a damned sight more than that, and anyway, whats too much? Look at some of the stuff that comes up for sale on this board. Is that 'too much'?

People moan about the cost of motoring etc. Now you can see why. Your average joe digging the roads for a living wants his job to fund an M3 and 60 inch flat screen TV these days, so he has to be paid more to throw his shovel into the dirt.

[Dave999]

I've got a plan

instead

you drain the canals, as most of em go to Birmingham anyway

you put a massive sclextric track in the bottom but make sure the handset is connected the wrong way round for 1 lane so you can come back again

site a massive blue transformer in the desolate shell that is Battersea power station...
board up the windows so nobody can see in and paint on curtains like they do in Liverpool

yer power backup would be a treadmill and massive dynamo that the dogs from the dogs home could run when the power fails...

cable up through Chelsea to the Paddington basin where

two massive hand controllers could be sited

if they were both red you'd need to label them up
1 labeled coming
and 1 labeled going

if you had like, a red and a blue one the problem of sending something to Birmingham that was already there would be avoided provided you had a good memory for colours and the assigned direction you had chosen

the track would obviously need to be covered,
mark my words..... water and electric don't mix!!
and it would stop dogs lying on the track and avoid any traffic from being disrupted when yer dad falls asleep in front of grandstand and elbows his paper off the arm of the chair

suggest tarpaulin or corrugated iron sheeting stretched between tow paths either side and held down with bricks and that.

each lock keepers cottage would be supplied with a Bananarama! massive screw driver to fix connectivity issues

a big hand
to put the cars/trucks motorcycle combinations tiny go carts and bart Simpson on a skateboard back on the track..

and a plastic fella in a cap who is kneeling down next to a trolley jack for no reason

for the kids to climb on

Toms Hobbies and Models ltd at west Ruislip could supply massive replacement braids guides and tyres...thus kick starting the local economy in the NW of the capital

the employment opportunities at Hornby Hobbies in Kent will also be massive.

all safety barriers can be made from old tyres and bales of hay so addressing recycliing and giving the farmers something better to do than put bolts through cows heads cos they once spoke to a badger
win win...

two straight bits of classic track of normal size are currently £10
and the models are 1/32 so £320 for two real sized bits of track aint to bad in comparison to the govts plans


it will make passenger transport and haulage a right good laugh, especially if you run a back axle of too wide track so you can knock off the fella on the other side.

the only blight on the landscape would be the corrugated sheeting and tarps

and any storage facilities necessary for the Bananarama! massive screwdrivers
obviously with the current problem of people robbing metal
they'd need to be kept under lock and key

Scalectric track has it benefits also
its kind rubbery so hills won't be too much of an issue
and nobody can rip out the metal strips in it without picking it up and using pliers
frankly that would be impossible cos it would be so bloody big and really...have you ever tried taking the Bananarama! apart....

belt and braces measure would be to ban the manufacture of Bananarama! massive pliers as well...

you know what....when i put my mind to it i can crack any nut....

laters

Dave

[Dave-R]

The only thing I have against it is that it only goes to Birmingham and back. The East Coast line would be of more benefit to more people.
But a lot more expensive.

ECML is too far away from the Country's main business centres.


This is a very complex subject.

So the North East and Scotland is not a main business centre?

Leeds? Doncaster? York? Teeside? (one of the largest industrial areas in the country) and Tyneside?

Repeated demands for the A1 to be Motorway along its length to the N.E. have been shunned by successive governments. The A1 between Newcastle and Edinburgh is not even dual carriageway along most of it's length. It has a huge death rate.

If your argument was valid about rail being cheaper to build then they should at least give us that. No wonder the Scots want to break away from Britain. Most transport on the A1 from Scotland and the North East is fully laden going South and very little in the way of goods is on the North bound. You Southerners are all take and give little back.

We invented the bloody railways for christs sake.

[latil]

So,HS2 is going ahead. Time to see which MP's have interests in the companies involved in all aspects of building this white elephant.
Remember,when the motorway building started the minister for roads was Earnest Marples,he of the family that owned Marples Ridgeway,the road builder. Dr Beeching,whilst cutting railways was a major shareholder of Redland group,suppliers of materials to the road builders.

[Ivor]

Well, despite the fact that the HS2 has taken 100 grand off the value of my house, there is a little bonus that they have moved the line 150-200 yards further away from the village, so they can build enormous earthworks to deflect some of the noise and hide the 30 foot high viaduct that goes across the river and the watermeadows at the bottom of my garden.

Now let's see if any British owned companies get the contracts to build the thing...

I know Clivey has in depth knowledge of railways, but I have yet to be convinced this is the solution to our transport problems and will play a part in the future growth of UK business...I think Dave's idea makes more sense!

[Charger]

Very interesting debate. Ill informed, highly subjective and not particularly fact based, but interesting all the same.

it was going ok till you joined in

seriously though, the debate is always going to be subjective here because people will air their views about their personal situation, i deeply sympathise with Ivor and others who are DIRECTLY affected by HS2

I live 100yds from the Manchester to Liverpool railway line, it was there before me so I have no argument

for me it is the cost vs the end game; £14bn to save 30mins off of the journey time to me doesn’t make sense, £14bn for something brand new that has never been done before maybe ok, but just to save a few minutes per journey … ??

£14bn is a lot of money, yes civil engineering is horrendously expensive, yes railway infrastructure is expensive, and yes the Navi’s are paid more now than they were 150 years ago

BUT, I would be interested to know just how much of the £14bn goes to pay for the real product, the civils, the infrastructure, the workers’ wages, AND how much of it goes to line the fat cats’ pockets!!

[Dave-R]

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/soci ... 201114753/

[TyreFryer]

OT but this is hilarious too...

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/index.php ... &task=view

[Anonymous]

Dave, you are getting freight and passenger traffic confused. Two very diferent services and hugely diferent business models. HS2 is NOT about freight.

NO HIGH SPEED LINE IN THE WORLD CONTEMPLATES MIXED TRAFFIC.

If the ECML AND WCML were to be properly reviewed for capacity improvements, one of the FIST things to do would be to build dedicated freight lines and get the freight traffic OFF the passenger routes sso the lovely high speed stuff can do 125MPH and the freight can sit at 50MPH for ever and a day. Freight traffic slots cause mayhem to passenger timetables.



Oh, and far as Scotland goes, give em independence, and lets see them try and manage outside the EU on their own with the jock pound - or even, lets see them join the EU and get the EURO and then get trampled on like Ireland did and every other country with no voice.

I wonder, if Scotland was independent, could / would it have been able to bail out RBS Nah, thought not. We subsidise them too much anway.

All this because of Mel Gibson and Braveheart. Now they have the minerals to go it alone.

[Anonymous]

The biggest, and saddest travesty that will reveal itself is, that of all the billions this will cost, I predict hardly any will find its way into the coffers of british companies. The rolling stock wont be built by a british company - because there isnt one that can do it and the infrastructure will go to tender throughout the EU and there are too many companies in europe with far superior experience and skill to build infrastructure to this stnadard (Very high speed stuff is a lot tighter toleranced than what we normally use) than we have. If Bombardier built the trains (gasp!!!) and Balfours did the infrastructure at least the workforce would be from the UK predominantly, even if the profits went abroad.

[Dave-R]

Hitachi were talking about building trains somewhere up here. Not sure if that is going ahead or not?

[Anonymous]

Small recompense I suppose. Hitachi will use british contract labour but the profits will go to Japan.

When we had the tube bombings a few years back, two of our vhicles needed to be rebuilt as they were so severely damaged. bombarider UK won the contract to do it. They then promptly sub-contracted the work to an eastern european branch cos the labour costs were so much lower. The damaged bvehicles were then taken by road into europe,, repaired, then taken back by road. This was massively cheaper than doing the work here. This is what we are up against.

We talk about HS2 being too expensive, British labour is too expensive.