HS2, whats the current status ?
Discussion
FourWheelDrift said:
speedyguy said:
Esseesse said:
This runs beside the M1. I've always thought that any significant new line should run alongside a motorway. Why trash more countryside?
Good job they didn't hold those views when they first built the railways eh ?Interesting you mention the victorians a colleague was having a chat with a pedestrian on the motorway near Manchester who insisted it was his right to walk down the motorway as "that's what the victorians (or it may have been the romans) built them for"
He only got another few hundred yards before being lobbed in the back of a police vehicle
Fittster said:
robinessex said:
Lets spend the £50billion on getting driverless cars on the road, and we won't need the bloody thing. And the cars can go ANYWHERE in the uk!!!
Can these driverless cars in park in central London?This would make them miles cheaper to operate as a taxi service rather than an ownership model. The solution to congested areas is that cars pay dynamic road tax based on vehicle mass and level of congestion.
In cities at peak times expect dynamic lift sharing in larger vehicles to replace buses. However I suspect that it would be rare to share with more than 5 or 6 given average bus and car ridership.
hidetheelephants said:
The only thing I can think of is the rolling stock might be being built in the EU, so moderately pork-barrelworthy, but that's a bit of a stretch. The same reasoning could be attached to any alternate to HS2 as they would also need shiny rolling stock.
My local railway line is The Chiltern mainline, operated by Chiltern Railways, parent company Arriva, which is in turn owned by Deutsche Bahn, which, in turn, is owned by The Federal Rebublic of Germany. Just a thought.What else do Arriva run in the UK? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arriva
rs1952 said:
I'm struggling to find any reasonable explanation for why the EU could give a toss whether we have a high speed line or not. Perhaps somebody else can think of some? No more conspiracy theories please - let's try to find some facts.
Surely if the EU wanted HS2 the track would connect to HS1 which I understand it doesn't but could well be wrong.steveT350C said:
My local railway line is The Chiltern mainline, operated by Chiltern Railways, parent company Arriva, which is in turn owned by Deutsche Bahn, which, in turn, is owned by The Federal Rebublic of Germany. Just a thought.
What else do Arriva run in the UK? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arriva
This is just the sort of conflation that I find every day down the pub. What else do Arriva run in the UK? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arriva
Chiltern Railways operate the route between Marylebone and Banbury/ Birmingham Snow Hill/ various other destinations in the Midlands, and has recently (October 2015) started running a Marylebone to Oxford service via High Wycombe (just to Oxford Parkway on the northern outskirts of the city at the moment, but will be extending into Oxford’s main station within the next few weeks).
The company started life essentially as a management buy-out by a group led by one Adrian Shooter, a former British Rail employee. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Shooter
Mr Shooter no doubt made a few bob for himself and his team by flogging the franchise on to others, but both he and the later owners have transformed what was a rural rundown backwater that arch-railway hater and darling of the political right Margaret Thatcher wanted to close, into a profitable concern that is now competing with Virgin for the Midlands traffic and (First) Great Western for the Oxford money. The story of how political dogma and ideology nearly made an almighty cock-up against common sense is told here, and the comments on the story from “Graham H” are most enlightening as he was involved with the matter at the time.
http://www.londonreconnections.com/2014/near-termi...
But back to today. Who owns the company who owns the company who owns the company who run one of the most profitable and efficient railways in the UK is irrelevant. The company employs a lot of British people who pay their British taxes and spend their British pounds in the local economy, with shops and businesses who then employ British people who pay their British taxes and spend their British pounds in the local economy, and so on. Meanwhile, the company’s shareholders, who could live anywhere from Hong Kong to Adelaide to Los Angeles to Chipping Sodbury, get their so many pence per year per share as a return on their investment. Personally I don’t have a problem with that.
The government of the Federal Republic of Germany is not “the EU” any more than is the government of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, no matter how much some people enjoy photoshopping Nazi uniforms and little moustaches onto pictures of Angela Merkel. But even if it was, Chiltern Railways would not be a very good example for the Brexiters to hold up as an instance of how the EU are buggering things up for the UK. Quite the reverse, in fact.
rs1952 said:
The government of the Federal Republic of Germany is not “the EU” any more than is the government of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, no matter how much some people enjoy photoshopping Nazi uniforms and little moustaches onto pictures of Angela Merkel. But even if it was, Chiltern Railways would not be a very good example for the Brexiters to hold up as an instance of how the EU are buggering things up for the UK. Quite the reverse, in fact.
Why would brexiters blame the EU? As you say, Germany is not the EU.This is a commercial deal, so why hold it up as 'quite the reverse'?Chrisgr31 said:
Surely if the EU wanted HS2 the track would connect to HS1 which I understand it doesn't but could well be wrong.
Quite. HS2 is planned to run into Euston, HS1 runs out of St Pancras. There is no physical connection currently planned between the two except via the North London line, which is already full of a 10-minute interval Overground stopping service with freight traffic squeezed in between the gaps.If the British Government had left HS2 to the EU, or better still to DB or SNCF, a bit more joined-up thinking might have been employed
s2art said:
rs1952 said:
The government of the Federal Republic of Germany is not “the EU” any more than is the government of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, no matter how much some people enjoy photoshopping Nazi uniforms and little moustaches onto pictures of Angela Merkel. But even if it was, Chiltern Railways would not be a very good example for the Brexiters to hold up as an instance of how the EU are buggering things up for the UK. Quite the reverse, in fact.
Why would brexiters blame the EU? As you say, Germany is not the EU. This is a commercial deal, so why hold it up as 'quite the reverse'?rs1952 said:
I'm struggling to find any reasonable explanation for why the EU could give a toss whether we have a high speed line or not. Perhaps somebody else can think of some? No more conspiracy theories please - let's try to find some facts.
hidetheelephants said:
The only thing I can think of is the rolling stock might be being built in the EU, so moderately pork-barrelworthy, but that's a bit of a stretch. The same reasoning could be attached to any alternate to HS2 as they would also need shiny rolling stock.
steveT350C said:
My local railway line is The Chiltern mainline, operated by Chiltern Railways, parent company Arriva, which is in turn owned by Deutsche Bahn, which, in turn, is owned by The Federal Rebublic of Germany. Just a thought.
What else do Arriva run in the UK? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arriva
What else do Arriva run in the UK? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arriva
steveT350C said:
No Steve, Germany is not the EU.If you think it is, perhaps you should consider not casting a vote in the referendum because it suggests that you don't know enough about the subject to make a rational decision
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/05/14/hs2-may...
Latest news , I can see this getting cancelled.
Latest news , I can see this getting cancelled.
dav123a said:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/05/14/hs2-may...
Latest news , I can see this getting cancelled.
Complete government ideological fLatest news , I can see this getting cancelled.
k updav123a said:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/05/14/hs2-may...
Latest news , I can see this getting cancelled.
Cancelled or built half arsed and massively over budget. Latest news , I can see this getting cancelled.
So the accountants will look at the sensible options people might use, ie actually get on a train that goes to the city and say it costs too much. They'll then come up with a really poor but vastly cheaper alternative, like changing trains 35miles from where you want to go. Then they'll wonder why it isn't used. Except they won't as they'll have got a party off and retired long before it opens and some poor sod of an engineer will get the blame for designing it wrong.
anonymous said:
[redacted]
Don't forget the newts, the BANANAs and the NIMBYs.For some folks, any sort of infrastructure improvement is bad news and
they are willing to fight it until the proposed economic benefit is
substantially reduced. In their view, how the UK is now is not allowed to change.
I've talked to a few highway engineers and they seem to be sick to the back
teeth of having all sorts of pointless time consuming obstacles put in their
way for projects which, in other countries, would be constructed far
faster and cheaper.
Building HS2 will result in many years of paid work for archaeologists, for example.
So much so, there are too few of them to cope.
There is a balance to be made here and the UK does seem to have it wrong.
Lets cancel it, and go for this instead:-
Magnetic Hyperloop pod unveiled at MIT
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-36292467
Should be fun, acceleration is circa 5g !!!
Magnetic Hyperloop pod unveiled at MIT
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-36292467
Should be fun, acceleration is circa 5g !!!
Edited by robinessex on Monday 16th May 09:48
dcb said:
Don't forget the newts, the BANANAs and the NIMBYs.
For some folks, any sort of infrastructure improvement is bad news and
they are willing to fight it until the proposed economic benefit is
substantially reduced. In their view, how the UK is now is not allowed to change.
I've talked to a few highway engineers and they seem to be sick to the back
teeth of having all sorts of pointless time consuming obstacles put in their
way for projects which, in other countries, would be constructed far
faster and cheaper.
Building HS2 will result in many years of paid work for archaeologists, for example.
So much so, there are too few of them to cope.
There is a balance to be made here and the UK does seem to have it wrong.
Would you want HS2 at the bottom of your garden?For some folks, any sort of infrastructure improvement is bad news and
they are willing to fight it until the proposed economic benefit is
substantially reduced. In their view, how the UK is now is not allowed to change.
I've talked to a few highway engineers and they seem to be sick to the back
teeth of having all sorts of pointless time consuming obstacles put in their
way for projects which, in other countries, would be constructed far
faster and cheaper.
Building HS2 will result in many years of paid work for archaeologists, for example.
So much so, there are too few of them to cope.
There is a balance to be made here and the UK does seem to have it wrong.
The problem with the UK rather than other countries is we don't have the space to do these massive infrastructure projects without the adversely affecting the lives of millions of people.
MarshPhantom said:
Would you want HS2 at the bottom of your garden?
No, but if UK Gov bought my house at some 30% over the current market value,like the French do, then I'd be happy to move elsewhere to allow HS2 to be built.
The French got a lot of TGV network for not much aggro from the locals.
The Germans got their ICE network and the Spaniards got their AVE network as well.
Job's not impossible. Why do the Brits make such a mess of it ?
dcb said:
MarshPhantom said:
Would you want HS2 at the bottom of your garden?
No, but if UK Gov bought my house at some 30% over the current market value,like the French do, then I'd be happy to move elsewhere to allow HS2 to be built.
The French got a lot of TGV network for not much aggro from the locals.
The Germans got their ICE network and the Spaniards got their AVE network as well.
Job's not impossible. Why do the Brits make such a mess of it ?
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