HS2, whats the current status ?

[mikees]

JensenA said:

So currently, someone who works in. London and arranges a meeting with someone in Manchester, will, after HS2 , be able to ring up and say "I can meet yiu at 20 to 3 now". Whoopee do. What a waste of money. Money that could be spent on more carriages, more trains, better stations, more flexibility, more connections, resulting in a far better national rail service, that's what this country needs, not a couple of High speed ttrains that will allow the Business user to arrive 20 minutes earlier. The economy would benefit just as much from the investment, and everyone would have a better train service.
The only argument for HS2, is that some people will save 20 minutes on a journey.

+1

[BJG1]

onyx39 said:

I get that, but are they not selling it on the basis of it making places commutable that would not be otherwise, so people would move to other areas and use it accordingly?

Give £50n worth of tax cuts to businesses for setting up shop in the North's most deprived areas and people won't need to commute.

Seems arse about face to me, we should be asking why we've got ourselves into a situation that we need to make the North West and Midlands part of the London commuter belt rather than further facilitating it.

[theboss]

What's so hard to accept about the fact that millions of people in the Midlands and Northern cities *want* fast and easy access to London? You'd think they might know what serves their business interests better than a bunch of PHers who feel they should be confined to their own regions.

[Rick101]

JensenA said:

So currently, someone who works in. London and arranges a meeting with someone in Manchester, will, after HS2 , be able to ring up and say "I can meet yiu at 20 to 3 now". Whoopee do. What a waste of money. Money that could be spent on more carriages, more trains, better stations, more flexibility, more connections, resulting in a far better national rail service, that's what this country needs, not a couple of High speed ttrains that will allow the Business user to arrive 20 minutes earlier. The economy would benefit just as much from the investment, and everyone would have a better train service.
The only argument for HS2, is that some people will save 20 minutes on a journey.

That is a moronic argument. I'm sure you have read the information about HS2 and can understand both the positives and the negatives to it. Ranting about a 20 min time saving just demonstrates a pig headed mentality.

[JensenA]

Rick101 said:

JensenA said:

So currently, someone who works in. London and arranges a meeting with someone in Manchester, will, after HS2 , be able to ring up and say "I can meet yiu at 20 to 3 now". Whoopee do. What a waste of money. Money that could be spent on more carriages, more trains, better stations, more flexibility, more connections, resulting in a far better national rail service, that's what this country needs, not a couple of High speed ttrains that will allow the Business user to arrive 20 minutes earlier. The economy would benefit just as much from the investment, and everyone would have a better train service.
The only argument for HS2, is that some people will save 20 minutes on a journey.

That is a moronic argument. I'm sure you have read the information about HS2 and can understand both the positives and the negatives to it. Ranting about a 20 min time saving just demonstrates a pig headed mentality.

It demonstrates the truth. Spending the money on improved and new rolling stock and infrastructure, would generate the same amount of work and benefit to the economy as HS2.
The difference between the 2 is that HS2 will save some people 20 minutes on a journey.

[MarshPhantom]

theboss said:

What's so hard to accept about the fact that millions of people in the Midlands and Northern cities *want* fast and easy access to London? You'd think they might know what serves their business interests better than a bunch of PHers who feel they should be confined to their own regions.

Move closer to London then.

[Vaud]

MarshPhantom said:

theboss said:

What's so hard to accept about the fact that millions of people in the Midlands and Northern cities *want* fast and easy access to London? You'd think they might know what serves their business interests better than a bunch of PHers who feel they should be confined to their own regions.

Move closer to London then.

But it is a structural discussion. France is a single city culture - your head office (almost) must be in London.
Switzerland is more federated and the main cities all do quite well.

Question is do we want an ever expanding London or do we want to rebalance our expansion over the next 50 years?

Leeds, for example, saw high growth in Financial Services and Law in the 90's and 00's. Many happy lawyers traded in their London flats for a big house in Yorkshire and then commute to London as needed.

[Swervin_Mervin]

JensenA said:

Rick101 said:

JensenA said:

So currently, someone who works in. London and arranges a meeting with someone in Manchester, will, after HS2 , be able to ring up and say "I can meet yiu at 20 to 3 now". Whoopee do. What a waste of money. Money that could be spent on more carriages, more trains, better stations, more flexibility, more connections, resulting in a far better national rail service, that's what this country needs, not a couple of High speed ttrains that will allow the Business user to arrive 20 minutes earlier. The economy would benefit just as much from the investment, and everyone would have a better train service.
The only argument for HS2, is that some people will save 20 minutes on a journey.

That is a moronic argument. I'm sure you have read the information about HS2 and can understand both the positives and the negatives to it. Ranting about a 20 min time saving just demonstrates a pig headed mentality.

It demonstrates the truth. Spending the money on improved and new rolling stock and infrastructure, would generate the same amount of work and benefit to the economy as HS2.
The difference between the 2 is that HS2 will save some people 20 minutes on a journey.

It's quite a bit more than 20mins. It would pretty much cut the journey time in half.

[andy-xr]

Swervin_Mervin said:

It's quite a bit more than 20mins. It would pretty much cut the journey time in half.

From point a to b. But if you need to travel an extra hour to get on the train at point a, then it's not quite as attractive

[MysteryLemon]

JensenA said:

Money that could be spent on more carriages, more trains, better stations, more flexibility, more connections, resulting in a far better national rail service

And where would the extra capacity to run these longer and more frequent trains come from? Hmmm.. we could build a new line? Oh wait...

[PRTVR]

andy-xr said:

Swervin_Mervin said:

It's quite a bit more than 20mins. It would pretty much cut the journey time in half.

From point a to b. But if you need to travel an extra hour to get on the train at point a, then it's not quite as attractive

Also the distance from London to Birmingham from google is 126 miles, you really would have to go some to save more than 20 mins, given that the line will carry other trains that will not be running at high speed, along with stops for stations I think 20 mins is a good estimate of the time savings.

[Swervin_Mervin]

PRTVR said:

andy-xr said:

Swervin_Mervin said:

It's quite a bit more than 20mins. It would pretty much cut the journey time in half.

From point a to b. But if you need to travel an extra hour to get on the train at point a, then it's not quite as attractive

Also the distance from London to Birmingham from google is 126 miles, you really would have to go some to save more than 20 mins, given that the line will carry other trains that will not be running at high speed, along with stops for stations I think 20 mins is a good estimate of the time savings.

Right, so let's guesstimate rather than use the quoted journey times? The quoted journey time would give a 50 minute saving between Manchester and London, over the current 1hr 58min travel time.

And the train travels from the same point in Manchester to the same point in London.

[ukbabz]

I'd spoken to a mate of mine who works for Loughborough uni in their research on trains (massive simplification I expect) and he explained the cause for a high speed link quite well.

Currently, the rail is a bit like a single carriageway A road. With both slow moving lorries (commuter train) and cars (direct trains).

By building HS2, you effectively add a second fast lane (with no elephant racing like the roads). This means the slower lane can have more commuter and more direct trains too. So by adding another line you more than double the capacity of the network. On the issue of cost, the extra cost of the speed vs. another "slow" line wasn't a huge magnitude of scale.

Of course this is second hand, but I believe him (he's not working on it directly) and has changed my view on it.

[JB!]

ukbabz said:

I'd spoken to a mate of mine who works for Loughborough uni in their research on trains (massive simplification I expect) and he explained the cause for a high speed link quite well.

Currently, the rail is a bit like a single carriageway A road. With both slow moving lorries (commuter train) and cars (direct trains).

By building HS2, you effectively add a second fast lane (with no elephant racing like the roads). This means the slower lane can have more commuter and more direct trains too. So by adding another line you more than double the capacity of the network. On the issue of cost, the extra cost of the speed vs. another "slow" line wasn't a huge magnitude of scale.

Of course this is second hand, but I believe him (he's not working on it directly) and has changed my view on it.

Yep, pretty much.

The Network Rail HST New Measurement Train causes delays when it runs on the West Coast fast lines, as it can only do 110mph as it doesn't tilt, whereas the Pedolinos do 125mph, meaning the services behind the measuremt train are X(7?) mins late within the first hour of running...

SO.

Split the traffic, solve the problem. Freights and stoppers on one network, intercity jobbies on the other.

[menousername]

Judging by HS1 which is on my doorstep... it will not bring the promised results and will be too expensive anyway.

Further, the timescale involved means that it is solving a problem that may no longer exist or may have changed by all recognition when completed.

HS1 still needs to and does service stations on the domestic line... any problems there impact HS1 too. Additionally... HS1 can have its own problems where it is separate so its a double whammy.

Add on that its destination into St Pancs is a long and hard journey away from where everyone needs to be, plus the fact that every January it becomes even more offensively expensive, then it becomes self-defeating.

The only benefit of HS1 is to infrequent travellers who are moving at a time, from a station, whereby time-wise it is not worth waiting for the domestic service... eg... its benefits are too few and far between.

There has to be a better way of investing that will bring more meaningful and quicker benefits to the economy, no?

[PRTVR]

JB! said:

Yep, pretty much.

The Network Rail HST New Measurement Train causes delays when it runs on the West Coast fast lines, as it can only do 110mph as it doesn't tilt, whereas the Pedolinos do 125mph, meaning the services behind the measuremt train are X(7?) mins late within the first hour of running...

SO.

Split the traffic, solve the problem. Freights and stoppers on one network, intercity jobbies on the other.

If my memory serves me the point of tilting trains was for passenger comfort, not speed, I remember traveling on one of the first HS125 diesel trains many moons ago, very impressed when the driver announced we were traveling at 125 MPH, having followed developments in the railways over the years ( the few that there have been) I do not think higher speed is the way to go, the cost really doesn't justify the returns, unless it is for job creating or national pride, people are talking about cutting journey times in half, but that is only for the few, every day our roads from Manchester to London along with everywhere else are very busy, people are choosing to use the car, even though it takes considerable longer, to spend a fortune on making a few people's life easier is wrong.

[rs1952]

PRTVR said:

to spend a fortune on making a few people's life easier is wrong.

So presumably, using the same logic, you feel that we should never have built the motorway network.

You are Caroline Lucas AICMFP

[PRTVR]

rs1952 said:

PRTVR said:

to spend a fortune on making a few people's life easier is wrong.

So presumably, using the same logic, you feel that we should never have built the motorway network.

You are Caroline Lucas AICMFP

But the roads are for the masses, so no free pint, I am for investment in railways just not HS2, the money could be better spent elsewhere.

[rs1952]

PRTVR said:

rs1952 said:

PRTVR said:

to spend a fortune on making a few people's life easier is wrong.

So presumably, using the same logic, you feel that we should never have built the motorway network.

You are Caroline Lucas AICMFP

But the roads are for the masses, so no free pint, I am for investment in railways just not HS2, the money could be better spent elsewhere.

What were the reasons for building the motorway network?

1. Increasing traffic levels meaning that the existing road network could no longer cope with demand
2. Increasing the capacity of the road network
3. Reducing road journey times between major centres of population
4. Reducing congestion on the road network that were previously being used by through traffic


Replace the words "road network" with "existing railway system" above and you've got the rationale for building HS2

And if you were to spend only half a minute Googling "UK rail investment" you would see that there are umpteen schemes going on at the moment to improve capacity an efficiency elsewhere in the country.

[PRTVR]

rs1952 said:

PRTVR said:

rs1952 said:

PRTVR said:

to spend a fortune on making a few people's life easier is wrong.

So presumably, using the same logic, you feel that we should never have built the motorway network.

You are Caroline Lucas AICMFP

But the roads are for the masses, so no free pint, I am for investment in railways just not HS2, the money could be better spent elsewhere.

What were the reasons for building the motorway network?

1. Increasing traffic levels meaning that the existing road network could no longer cope with demand
2. Increasing the capacity of the road network
3. Reducing road journey times between major centres of population
4. Reducing congestion on the road network that were previously being used by through traffic


Replace the words "road network" with "existing railway system" above and you've got the rationale for building HS2

And if you were to spend only half a minute Googling "UK rail investment" you would see that there are umpteen schemes going on at the moment to improve capacity an efficiency elsewhere in the country.

You can't compare the roads to the railways, the people and freight moved on the roads far outnumber the railways, its interesting you talk about investment in the railways, I was stopped at a level crossing and the two trains that went past were over 40 years old, a sprinter passenger train and a type 1 main line shunter that I remember from my teenage years train spotting.