why all the hate for hs2?
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Wouldn't that be, becuase the TOCs are private. The governments supplying the money to build the track?
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Soldato
How much did the high speed rail network in France cost?
Personally I think a high speed Edinburgh - Glasgow line would have a bigger impact.
Edit: the Edinburgh - Glasgow HS line is going ahead at a cost of £650 million.
Personally I think a high speed Edinburgh - Glasgow line would have a bigger impact.
Edit: the Edinburgh - Glasgow HS line is going ahead at a cost of £650 million.
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Man of Honour
I personally think infrastructure improvements are desperately needed. Crossrail in London is going to make a huge difference to London and the suburbs. They cost money but they also drive economy, redevelopment and innovation. Hs2 seems less attractive, but if there's a need for it, that tied with with crossrail and crossrail 2 as and when that happens should make for a much more integrated transport network.
Soldato
We need a proper 3G network over the whole country, we need fibre optic/cable broadband over the whole country and we need lots of new homes over the whole country. ALL before we will ever need this. I just can't see the benefit at all.
Man of Honour
Yes, but it sets a precedent, for further development.
Whilst I agree telecoms are amazing now, some things just need face to face interaction.
Whilst I agree telecoms are amazing now, some things just need face to face interaction.
Do you mean find a way to stop people travelling?
My only concern is that ticket prices will be even more stupidly high. I travel to Birmingham from London 2-3 times a month and only used Virgin trains a handful of times due to how insanely expensive they are. I'm forced to use Midland trains
Associate
Isn't the point that this will eventually save 2 hours getting yourself from Edinburgh to London as opposed to saving just 30 minutes from Birmingham? If you ask me, i'd be fairly nice to see high speed rail throughout the UK but this should include the likes of aberdeen and newcastle and hopefully mitigate the desire to locate everything around london, as it'd make traveling throughout the UK much more pleasant.
Some of the objections are that it will be a costly project which will end up with expensive tickets
Most are simply from people in the wealthy north-of-London commuter area and expensive parts of the country who won't see any benefits personally (they can get to London easily) but it will pass near them.
For those in the West Midlands, North West, Scotland and later on the North East, it will make a huge difference to travel to London. It won't shorten a single journey to London by 30 minutes, it will more than halve my travel time to London from over 2 hours to under 1. It will shorten 5 hours to 4, 4 to 3, 3 to under 2, 2 to less than 1, and will make Birmingham a quick jaunt from London. Joining our two largest cities with a 30 minute service can only be a good thing. Putting Manchester an hour away isn't much worse - business in the UK will love this.
It will also have other effects, it's not just about cutting down the direct London-Birmingham/Liverpool/Manchester etc journeys, it will free up a lot of capacity for local and shorter express services. It should also help punctuality - right now a single delay on the WCML can have knock-on effects for hours. HS2 should give more head-room for catching back up to timetables, not to mention capacity for diversions (meaning less rail replacement buses)
Perhaps more importantly it will free up a lot of desperately needed freight capacity - if we offload all the long distance, nearly all the middle distance and some of the local/commuter trains from the West Coast Main Line, we will be able to put a lot more freight on rails instead of the roads. This will be cheaper, greener and will un-clog various motorways and A-roads, not to mention taking lorries off the roads into city centres.
Parts of the West Coast Main Line are running at absolute capacity, most of the East Coast Main Line and Midland Main Line aren't far behind. Very simply, we NEED more north-south rail capacity. We may as well do that with a high speed, modern line.
Most are simply from people in the wealthy north-of-London commuter area and expensive parts of the country who won't see any benefits personally (they can get to London easily) but it will pass near them.
For those in the West Midlands, North West, Scotland and later on the North East, it will make a huge difference to travel to London. It won't shorten a single journey to London by 30 minutes, it will more than halve my travel time to London from over 2 hours to under 1. It will shorten 5 hours to 4, 4 to 3, 3 to under 2, 2 to less than 1, and will make Birmingham a quick jaunt from London. Joining our two largest cities with a 30 minute service can only be a good thing. Putting Manchester an hour away isn't much worse - business in the UK will love this.
It will also have other effects, it's not just about cutting down the direct London-Birmingham/Liverpool/Manchester etc journeys, it will free up a lot of capacity for local and shorter express services. It should also help punctuality - right now a single delay on the WCML can have knock-on effects for hours. HS2 should give more head-room for catching back up to timetables, not to mention capacity for diversions (meaning less rail replacement buses)
Perhaps more importantly it will free up a lot of desperately needed freight capacity - if we offload all the long distance, nearly all the middle distance and some of the local/commuter trains from the West Coast Main Line, we will be able to put a lot more freight on rails instead of the roads. This will be cheaper, greener and will un-clog various motorways and A-roads, not to mention taking lorries off the roads into city centres.
Parts of the West Coast Main Line are running at absolute capacity, most of the East Coast Main Line and Midland Main Line aren't far behind. Very simply, we NEED more north-south rail capacity. We may as well do that with a high speed, modern line.
Same here, had no idea that this was being planned.
If i was to catch a train tomorrow to London, it would cost me the best part of £80 for a return ticket (off-peak), it wouldn't cost me that much in a car for fuel and parking, in a car im not restricted to travel at the cheapest times which are not always convenient for meetings etc, plus i can take passengers in the car for no additional cost, so i have more flexibility in a car, on that basis i would rather they spent money on the road infrastructure than fancy trains.
If i was to do the same journey (say for a meeting in London) so would need to travel at peak time, the train fair is then into the £140+ bracket for the cheapest ticket, i could catch a flight from Bristol to Paris for £160 (£20 more), so the whole train traveling is not a cost effective way of traveling, i therefore cannot see what benefit that this HS2 is going to bring, especially when you take into account of what they will charge on this new hyper-super-fast service once its up and running, if it ever gets completed before its canned.
They'd be better off using the money to make the current rail network cheaper in some way.
I'd love to be able to get the train from Newcastle to my folks near Nottingham when we visit them and save 3 hours of "Are we nearly there yet?" from the back seat, but i could have a short family holiday for the cost of doing so versus about £60 worth of petrol.
I'd love to be able to get the train from Newcastle to my folks near Nottingham when we visit them and save 3 hours of "Are we nearly there yet?" from the back seat, but i could have a short family holiday for the cost of doing so versus about £60 worth of petrol.
Where do you live?
For me, getting the train into London is MUCH more effective as I can work whilst travelling. It's also much easier than driving through London traffic and trying to find somewhere suitable to park.
Soldato
"Mandelson fears HS2 will prove an ‘expensive mistake’" about right.
Even I could knock a few Billion off the price but the gov want their mates to get rich.
Even I could knock a few Billion off the price but the gov want their mates to get rich.
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For the sake of discussion i live in South Wales (hence HS2 is of no benefit to me), the times when i have had to be in London for a 10am meeting (as it does happen) i do on occasion use the train, but at the companies cost (certainly not mine), yes its ok to work as you travel if you are lucky to get a table seat with a working power-point, but my issue is around the general cost of using trains, is not (n my case) economical for personal traveling, hence the comparison between a £140 train ticket, and a £160 flight to Paris, mile-for-mile it just seems out of proportion, don't you think ?
The price quoted is also for one of Great-Western's finest trains (please don't laugh) which you are lucky to have a power-point that is in working order to plug a laptop/etc into for the 4hrs it takes to get to London (without any delays), if your really lucky you get the same faulty carriage there and back with no power, so i wouldn't like to guess what they would propose the journey cost is going to be for anyone lucky enough to use the HS2 when its finished, have they forecast any kind of travel costs ?
Associate
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I think my main annoyance is the way numbers are quoted. It is entirely natural for a project budget to increase and it is not necessarily a sign that the project is failing or going badly. MP's and the press tend to twist these things to make it sound like everything is spiraling out of control which is not always the case.
The worry with a project of this size really is the unknown. It is actually impossible to come up with an accurate figure for both the cost and the benefit. It's all a political game of what will get votes. Nobody really knows if it's a good idea or not.
What we do know is that the current infrastructure is forecast to be saturated in 20-30 years and we have only just finished upgrading it a few years ago. I'm not arguing HS2 is a great solution, but at present I dont really see any other viable options.