I think the Eastern leg was always the one that made less sense and had the most unfortunate compromises, so not surprised if it is going. Then again it would also have made a huge difference in travel possibilities linking up the cities along the route with Birmingham, some of which currently have painfully slow indirect routes.
why all the hate for hs2?
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Travelled on the maglev, wonderful thing.
Hs2 is a complete farse, you only need to look at the houses it didn't plow through and instead got built through a hill for the rich lovelies to see the hypocrisy of it.
Complete. Waste. Of money.
Soldato
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I read somewhere that The Boring Company have tunnelling costs down to £7.25m a mile, so the cost to tunnel the entire 330 mile 'Y' route of HS2 would start at ~£4.8b (that's with two tunnels on each leg). Obviously there's going to be a lot of extra costs involved when it comes to stations and other such associated projects, but it really makes you wonder where the projected cost of £107b+ is going.
Rich men giving money to rich men, I see it as a way to tap into the green fields above for housing development for the rich commuters into London now that the houses and land southwards are going up in price and the little towns are all joing up into urban sprawl.
Wonder how many are going to have it runnig through their back garden or having thier house knocked down, great big fat zero I guess.
Wonder how many are going to have it runnig through their back garden or having thier house knocked down, great big fat zero I guess.
I always said this but as usual, unless it's going to benefit London. They don't care.
While other countries build infrastructure to keep people out of their capital cities. The UK has an habit of drawing everyone into it, keeping the price of London high and expensive.
Soldato
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Spend the cash on electrification, more trains, lines and stations. Maximise the rail that we have. I'm pro HS2 but the costs have spiralled out of control
I'm not sure if this is the case for that cost estimate, but in the past when the boring company had claimed massive cost reductions it's not been on an equal footing. Things like their tunnels being much smaller than required for trains, ideal ground conditions only, not including the regular ventilation / escape shafts needed for longer tunnels.
But even then the actual tunneling will be a smallish part of the costs compared to actually building the railway systems, I believe.
Yes, just look at Crossrail which has had the tunnels open for years, but they still aren't running trains due to the other infrastructure work needed.
A huge problem with major infrastructure projects in the U.K. and wider EU is litigation and compensation.
While lots of lines do need upgrades, particularly east to west lines. In reality you can’t just keep upgrading what we have, we need more capacity, which means new lines. Sticking up some electric cables isn’t going to solve capacity issues.
Ideally you want separate lines for high speed, local stops and freight. High speed lines need to be straighter with less junctions so trans can travel faster, that generally means something needs to be bulldozed to fit it in. You are then back to all that litigation.
While lots of lines do need upgrades, particularly east to west lines. In reality you can’t just keep upgrading what we have, we need more capacity, which means new lines. Sticking up some electric cables isn’t going to solve capacity issues.
Ideally you want separate lines for high speed, local stops and freight. High speed lines need to be straighter with less junctions so trans can travel faster, that generally means something needs to be bulldozed to fit it in. You are then back to all that litigation.
But HS2 has just shown you can't build more lines and stations without it costing a fortune in environmental court cases
Gravel, cracks in foundations, water etc etc
You don't know what you're going to dig through and what will happen till you actually do it.
Also covid
Probably for site access to deliver equipment.
You'd be surprised how rarely these things are available/ decisions made at the time tenders are submitted and contracts awarded. So contractors/ consultants will submit the best case scenario cost and then claim when/ if circumstances change.
Making access for machinery?