OnionTerror Posted January 10, 2012 Share Posted January 10, 2012 I was fully for it until I heard a difference of opinion on the radio this morning. The first: Some geezer that used to be high up in British Rail. He is now a "Rail Consultant". He seemed to think that for £3 billion you could feasibly increase the capacity on the current west coast mainline The second: Users of HS1 between Ashford and London. Loads of them said that HS1 was great and quick, but that they had stopped using it and gone back to the slow train because it was too expensive. My conclusion: This infrastructure improvement is not for plebs. It's for these magical suited and booted types that travel the country exclusively by rail creating millions in wealth. Whats the betting, that an average ticket will cost at least £100+, possibly double that during peak hours... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cica Posted January 10, 2012 Share Posted January 10, 2012 Definitely a good idea to improve infrastructure and F the Nimby's but it's just seems a little expensive and some of the time benefits don't seem that impressive and it's Brumland specific. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
winkie Posted January 10, 2012 Share Posted January 10, 2012 Whats the betting, that an average ticket will cost at least £100+, possibly double that during peak hours... ...well if the price was that high that most people who would benefit from it would be priced out it would not work.....fill all seats at all times at the lowest price 100% capacity or fail....this has to be the peoples rail, if people can't afford to move, transport themselves ( inc moving house and jobs ) the economy will grind to a halt.....our poor, weak, under invested infrastructure and future energy sources require urgent investment now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
efdemin Posted January 10, 2012 Share Posted January 10, 2012 I was fully for it until I heard a difference of opinion on the radio this morning. The first: Some geezer that used to be high up in British Rail. He is now a "Rail Consultant". He seemed to think that for £3 billion you could feasibly increase the capacity on the current west coast mainline The second: Users of HS1 between Ashford and London. Loads of them said that HS1 was great and quick, but that they had stopped using it and gone back to the slow train because it was too expensive. My conclusion: This infrastructure improvement is not for plebs. It's for these magical suited and booted types that travel the country exclusively by rail creating millions in wealth. Yeah right, I'd could make it twice as good for only £5billion, honest! On the other hand, HS1 is more use for the Eurostar direct out of St Pancras so it's not completely useless. At least they were able to make a choice though. If HS1 really needed their custom it would drop its prices, surely?. If they're happy with the slower local trains then that is also ok - the 'market', such as it is, at work. You get the same trade-offs in France and Japan. The Shinkansen is not cheap by any means and only really makes economic sense for medium/long distance trips like Tokyo-Osaka or Kyoto. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bloo Loo Posted January 10, 2012 Share Posted January 10, 2012 Whats the betting, that an average ticket will cost at least £100+, possibly double that during peak hours... by the time its built, thatll be £1000 for a single. as the guy on the politics show said (Lord Adonis) Government always underestimates....well, they overestimate the demand and ALWAYS half the projected cost...they must do cos projects always cost at least double. IMHO, ill be nice to have a high speed link...but the trains are NOT eurostars as they travel faster...I wonder if they are in anyway compatible with the Euro stock, which many cant even use the tunnel...too dangerous. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
uptherebels Posted January 10, 2012 Share Posted January 10, 2012 It would probably work out cheaper to just move Birmingham closer to London. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
@contradevian Posted January 10, 2012 Share Posted January 10, 2012 Noticed Geoffery Palmer, the actor was a campaigner against HS2. Showed him in a pub greeting the decision with dismay. However its doubtful he'll still be around by the time its built, as he will be around 100 by then. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wayo Posted January 10, 2012 Share Posted January 10, 2012 I dont see how this London to Birmingham High Speed vanity project is going to improve that situation. Precisely - the £2bn a year that will be spent building it will cause a huge drain on investment everywhere else in the country. Labour had the idea of HS2, and the Tories latched onto it because it offered them a mitigation for their opposition to Heathrow runway 3. Now we have a Transport Sec who bitterly opposed the runway near to her leafy Putney constituency (classic NIMBY) no idea how aviation growth will be accommodated in the SE without said runway, and HS2 - which is about as expensive as Boris Island, and will have a modest effect on the relatively tiny London - Lowland Scotland air market. But even after HS2 it will still take 3hr30 to reach Edinburgh. As the current fast journey is 4hr with one stop, introducing tilting trains from Kings Cross would achieve a similar result far quicker and cheaper. As the anti brigade have pointed using first hand resarch, out the fast trains from Euston are nowhere near full at the moment, except when the prices drop immediately after the rush hour. This is despite the very cheap book ahead tickets, future lengthening to 11 carriages and the excessive number First Class carriages. There are three companies operating to Birmingham, but because they are also after Rugby and Milton Kenyes types, even the 'fast' trains stop quite often, so typical journey times are around 1hr25, when 1hr10 is perfectly achievable. The majority of the time benefit comes in the middle for example Manchester - Birmingham currently 1hr30 or Leeds - Birmingham currently 2hr. However the cost of this misadventure is astronomical - a typical politician's ego trip. The French only build high speed lines to the outskirts of major cities - LGV Est towards Strasbourg cost Euro7bn for 190 miles or around £30m per mile - similar to a UK motorway. Even 4% of £32bn is £1.3bn per year to find - a fair proportion of all the money spent on rail fares in the whole country. The projections of growth are a flight of fantasy, and if they are produced by Network Rail there is more than a hint of bias! The detail has been argued to death during the past few months. However our own Channel Tunnel, High Speed Line through Kent and now the Dutch High Speed line to Antwerp have all failed badly. Much better to deal with the places where there is overcrowding now and where planned improvements for commuters amount to little more than running to stand still. Britain should IMHO be looking at double deck commuter trains for major conurbations, but the cost of replacing all those Victorian bridges would leave no money for the PM's legacy project. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/road-and-rail-transport/9000166/High-speed-rail-A-250m-lesson-for-Britains-rail-enthusiasts.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eric pebble Posted January 10, 2012 Share Posted January 10, 2012 I just KNEW it's all about "HOUSE PRICES"!!! How many of you have spotted all those people from Buckinghamshire [etc] complaining about HS2!!!! It's the same old thing --- It's REALLY about the UK RELIGION -- i.e. HOUSE PRICES!!!! http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2012/jan/10/hs2-house-prices-high-speed-rail?CMP=NECNETTXT8187&google_editors_picks=true Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wayo Posted January 10, 2012 Share Posted January 10, 2012 The government doesn't particularly want to build large numbers of diesel carriages as it locks them in to diesel for at least another 35 years so they want to keep electrifying at a pace roughly equal to the rate of retirement of the life expired diesel stock or required capacity increase. [the Committeee on Climate Change for example expects virtually full electrification by 2050 which working on 35 year design life means 90%+ of everything new will be electric. i.e. 2015 is the cut off date] Climate Change Committee? Network Rail have about 20,000 miles of track. Electrification costs about £1m per track mile. About a third is already done, so that leaves a bill of... £13.5bn? What will happen is that no leasing company from this day forward will touch diesel with a barge pole and the current diesel fleet will be run down until it falls apart. Meanwhile electrification will not keep up with the climate change fantasists, commuters will stand and other investment will be pared back. Electrification works in a mass transit context, with frequent stops, where there are long or heavy trains or where you need very high speeds. But most of the rail system isn't like that and most of what is - is the third that is already electrified or soon will be. In most places the payback in fuel savings is dwarfed by the capital spending. When you had steam trains it was a very different equation... Diesel works perfectly well and perfectly reliably for the 95% odd of the freight transport moved in this country. Modern diesel trains have high performance, reliable engines that are basically slightly adapted truck engines and are becoming more efficient all the time. If the oil does run begin to run out, a fuel solution will found in road transport, or we will have much bigger problems to worry about - like finding the time to grow our own food. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Si1 Posted January 10, 2012 Share Posted January 10, 2012 when I was at school in Liverpool we did a case study on the building of the Liverpool to Manchester railway in 1800 whatever it was significantly opposed by nimbys, as you would guess Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
quinnbear Posted January 10, 2012 Share Posted January 10, 2012 (edited) I think house prices factor in there somewhere. It seems in this country if you pick at most issues you find house prices lurking behind the scenes. I saw someone on channel 4 news today complaining that her house hadn't sold for 18 months, and none of the others in the hamlet either. That could well be due to the looming threat of nearby trainline, or perhaps it just reflects the situation in the rest of the country? There are bungalows and houses that have had the same For Sale sign since I first moved to my current area in May 2010, and I am sure the HS2 link is NOT coming anywhere hear Norfolk! [Edit for poor grammar] Edited January 10, 2012 by quinnbear Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pandabear Posted January 10, 2012 Share Posted January 10, 2012 Doesn't this just move the commuter belt as far north as Birmingham? House prices again.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stormymonday_2011 Posted January 10, 2012 Share Posted January 10, 2012 (edited) UK governments usually wait until their second or third terms before indulging in Folie De Grandeur projects such as HS2 Cameron's lot have lost the plot very early on. This will be a guaranteed yawning open goal for any half way sane opposition party in 2-3 years time but sadly for the taxpayers of the UK Ed Stupid and his Labour team of f*ck wits are equally as barking mad. Better to spend the money building cheap public housing for rent. It would create more jobs, cut the absurd amounts of HB paid to private landlords and generally help drive down house prices for everyone else. Edited January 10, 2012 by stormymonday_2011 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bear Goggles Posted January 10, 2012 Share Posted January 10, 2012 I think house prices factor in there somewhere. It seems in this country if you pick at most issues you find house prices lurking behind the scenes. I saw someone on channel 4 news today complaining that her house hadn't sold for 18 months, and none of the others in the hamlet either. That could well be due to the looming threat of nearby trainline, or perhaps it just reflects the situation in the rest of the country? There are bungalows and houses that have had the same For Sale sign since I first moved to my current area in May 2010, and I am sure the HS2 link is NOT coming anywhere hear Norfolk! [Edit for poor grammar] I saw the news too. A couple of things struck me: Who refers to their area as a 'hamlet'? Perhaps the sort of person that believes their house is worth more than it is. Someone else was referred to as a 'villager' this was Wendover FFS, just outside the M25. A good few of the interviewees will probably be in a care home or dead by the time this thing gets finished. Someone has apparently written a protest song against HS2. Time was when the baby boomer generation wrote protest songs about war, or oppression. Now they are being written about protecting the property prices of affluent folk in the Chilterns. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkG Posted January 11, 2012 Share Posted January 11, 2012 UK governments usually wait until their second or third terms before indulging in Folie De Grandeur projects such as HS2 Cameron's lot have lost the plot very early on. It's an EU project, isn't it? Got to do what your Masters tell you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
efdemin Posted January 11, 2012 Share Posted January 11, 2012 Precisely - the £2bn a year that will be spent building it will cause a huge drain on investment everywhere else in the country. Labour had the idea of HS2, and the Tories latched onto it because it offered them a mitigation for their opposition to Heathrow runway 3. Now we have a Transport Sec who bitterly opposed the runway near to her leafy Putney constituency (classic NIMBY) no idea how aviation growth will be accommodated in the SE without said runway, and HS2 - which is about as expensive as Boris Island, and will have a modest effect on the relatively tiny London - Lowland Scotland air market. But even after HS2 it will still take 3hr30 to reach Edinburgh. As the current fast journey is 4hr with one stop, introducing tilting trains from Kings Cross would achieve a similar result far quicker and cheaper. ... Not really. The idea of a high-speed line oop north has been knocking around since the Channel Tunnel was given the go-ahead. The idea being to update the rail infrastructure of the UK and also have a more direct rail link to the continent. But all governments kept bottling it and pushing it out and in the meantime Ryanair and Easyjet brought down the price of flying (which gave them more reason to push it into the long grass). With no significant new rail lines to build and therefore carriages to make, is it any wonder the UK rail manufacturers reduced in size? And then you're surprised why everything is now expensive after that expertise has gone? Adding a new runway to Heathrow was a mad idea from the start. There is hardly any room for it. The airspace over that part of the country is already crowded. The infrastructure on the ground is woeful - Terminal 5 may be alright but the others are horrific. Access to Heathrow via road is a nightmare at any non-rush hour time. It is only really viable if you live in the South/South-West out to Bristol. It only helps magnify the 'London effect' by drawing in more commerce to that one area. etc. etc. Canning it was one of the better decisions this government has made. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PopGun Posted January 11, 2012 Share Posted January 11, 2012 Fewer NIMBYs in Spain I bet though! They're more used to socialist land grabbing more like. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Riedquat Posted January 11, 2012 Share Posted January 11, 2012 With no significant new rail lines to build and therefore carriages to make, is it any wonder the UK rail manufacturers reduced in size? And then you're surprised why everything is now expensive after that expertise has gone? No new carriages to make? BR seemed to keep building them even when lines were being closed down. Also consider that the length of trains has on average shortened considerably over the years, particularly the last 10, whilst the level of crowding has increased and there seems to be no spare stock whatsoever for busy times, one-offs, or emergencies (having it hanging around for such occasions is 'inefficient' I suppose) and it's apparent to me that there's plenty that could be done. Anyway, you seem to be arguing for building new lines just so there's some reason to build more carriages, and that's a dreadful, wasteful, pointless, and damaging approach. Building just about anything makes the place a bit more of a mess (especially since we seem incapable of not building ugly crap any more), so there has to be a damned good reason to do it, and doing work for the sake of doing work isn't one. It's another example of paying one person to dig a hole just to provide work for another guy to fill it in again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CrashInHand Posted January 11, 2012 Share Posted January 11, 2012 (edited) They tried something close to that in Germany a few years back. For €15 or thereabouts, you could get a ticket which would let a group of up to five people travel anywhere in the country for a weekend. Result - the trains became jam-packed with tramps and winos travelling back and forth between Berlin, Cologne, Hamburg and Munich just for a seat in the warm! I find it hard to believe that Germany has that many tramps or that they run an inefficient rail network. Admittedly we would need more lines and more trains to cope with the switch from car to train but we would save money in terms of the cost of road congestion to the country and we would create lots of jobs building the new infrastructure. Eddington has estimated that congestion may cost the economy of England £22 bn a year in lost time by 2025http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_congestion#United_Kingdom Edited January 11, 2012 by CrashInHand Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
efdemin Posted January 11, 2012 Share Posted January 11, 2012 No new carriages to make? BR seemed to keep building them even when lines were being closed down. Also consider that the length of trains has on average shortened considerably over the years, particularly the last 10, whilst the level of crowding has increased and there seems to be no spare stock whatsoever for busy times, one-offs, or emergencies (having it hanging around for such occasions is 'inefficient' I suppose) and it's apparent to me that there's plenty that could be done. Anyway, you seem to be arguing for building new lines just so there's some reason to build more carriages, and that's a dreadful, wasteful, pointless, and damaging approach. Building just about anything makes the place a bit more of a mess (especially since we seem incapable of not building ugly crap any more), so there has to be a damned good reason to do it, and doing work for the sake of doing work isn't one. It's another example of paying one person to dig a hole just to provide work for another guy to fill it in again. No, I'm not. What I'm saying is that investment should be a fairly consistent, ongoing thing instead of a few big splurges dotted around when things become chronic. Only spending in spurts means skills get lost, capacity for manufacturing new stuff or repairing old stuff declines and basically repairing the old stuff or making new stuff gets more expensive, not less. Compare where the French nuclear and train companies like Thalys and EDF are to their British equivalents like BNFL or whatever it is now called, National Rail and Bombardier. On the one hand people moan about EU countries bailing out their semi-state industries and on the other they moan about the decline of British industries but never seem to think to put the two together. And now here we are in 2012 with EDF a major player in our power market (directly and indirectly via the interlink with France) and Thalys winning contracts to make trains for us, make aircraft carriers for us, etc. But as long as no-one spoils the view from my garden it's all ok, isn't it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trampa501 Posted January 11, 2012 Author Share Posted January 11, 2012 (edited) I'm now coming around to the conspiracy theory that this line is not being built to enable quicker journeys for Birmingham-London commuters (although it will do that as a side effect). It's actually to stop the Estuary airport scheme (Boris Island) being built. If Heathrow can expand, even though the runway will be 90 miles away at Birmingham airport, then there is no call to build Boris Island. Edit: It seems now that Boris Johnson has done a U-turn this week and now welcomes the HS2 decision! Edited January 11, 2012 by Trampa501 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brush2805 Posted January 11, 2012 Share Posted January 11, 2012 Your quoting wikipedia which is edited in the main by 14 year old Americans! From day 1 there is no HS1 direct link Manchester and Glasgow, the line is only being built to Birmingham with an option to build further, but by then the whole thing will be such a waste of money they won't chuck 3x what ever stage 1 costs! to get to Manchester let alone Glasgow (in fact Manchester to Glasgow would be an engineering nightmare and probably way too expensive to build even in good economic times). Birmingham may be called England's second city but what is there that is there? its a dump, no commerce that would warrant such expenditure. All just so a few Tory MP's can travel home a bit quicker. We don't have any Tory Members of Parliament in Birmingham. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billybong Posted January 12, 2012 Share Posted January 12, 2012 (edited) I think it was in the Times today that at least part of the High Speed Link funding is coming from them dipping into some pension fund. I think it was the public sector pension fund? Just shows there's always money for their pet projects. Edited January 12, 2012 by billybong Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cells Posted January 12, 2012 Share Posted January 12, 2012 Its probably going to be alright if you quickly need to get to a business meeting in either city, but I'd imagine the ticket prices to be so ridiculously high, that it wont be suitable for the "average" commuter... Exactly These mega-projects often largely benifit the very rich to get a service that they wouldnt pay for themselves No jo public is going to see their life changed from arriving in birmingham a few minutes sooner like i said previously, you can currently get an advanced booking from london to birmingham for £6 and it takes a little under 1.5h Or you could drive for £10 in fuel How is this new line goin to revolutionise the above (hint, ticket costs £60 and your who journey time has gone from 3h to 2.5h plus a £30B public debt which will will always have to pay the interest on) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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