why all the hate for hs2?

[adam cool dude]

I hate public transport and would rather drive

Planes, have their place in the general transport industry, ideally you need a mix of both.

It has its uses. I would rather use the train to go to London as the place is just a dive to drive around.

Everywhere else though drive anytime.

 

[413x]

It has its uses. I would rather use the train to go to London as the place is just a dive to drive around.

Everywhere else though drive anytime.

I use the bus (national express). Less disruption, significantly cheaper 5* ish! And I actually prefer the experience.

Only issue is its slower to London.

 

[bris]

To be fair we lag behind most countries when it come to high speed links.

I have no problem upgrading the infrastructure, at least we see the benefit of that.

it might help keep a lot of cars off the M1 and M6 roads which are a nightmare most times.

 

[englishpremier]

I have no problem with massive infrastructure projects and upgrade, but East - West connections would have been more of a priority for me.

What's a bet also that when HS2 goes live you'll be forbidden from book or carrying bicycles on it.

Anyway back to big infrastructure if I was in power I'd already want construction to have started on the second channel tunnel link its well over due. I'd probably make it open for road traffic as by that time it's likely most people will be driving EVs and they'll be much more driving automation.

 

[Freefaller]

I have no problem with massive infrastructure projects and upgrade, but East - West connections would have been more of a priority for me.

What's a bet also that when HS2 goes live you'll be forbidden from book or carrying bicycles on it.

Anyway back to big infrastructure if I was in power I'd already want construction to have started on the second channel tunnel link its well over due. I'd probably make it open for road traffic as by that time it's likely most people will be driving EVs and they'll be much more driving automation.

Yet Grant Shapps was suggesting East West Rail may get cut or shrunk in scope. Though I'm pretty sure it won't.

It's a crying shame the full HS2 scheme isn't going to be delivered as that's where the majority of the benefits lie. But perhaps in time they'll expand it. 200+ mph trains whilst not new is still quite something. You could do London to Edinburgh in about 2hrs or less. I'd definitely use the train instead of a plane.

Vertiports will be the next intercity thing I reckon. If they can get them to work and the legalities right.

 

[chrcoluk]

I have no problem with massive infrastructure projects and upgrade, but East - West connections would have been more of a priority for me.

What's a bet also that when HS2 goes live you'll be forbidden from book or carrying bicycles on it.

Anyway back to big infrastructure if I was in power I'd already want construction to have started on the second channel tunnel link its well over due. I'd probably make it open for road traffic as by that time it's likely most people will be driving EVs and they'll be much more driving automation.

I have always felt HS2 is decades too late, and the other issue is it only benefits so few areas, many of the areas it passes through it cannot stop, and it seems to be mainly to benefit the London area and the north west economic powerhouses.

But sadly the one thing I feel I can never accept is the sheer cost of this when we have so many more important areas to spend money on such as housing and energy infrastructure. If the country didn't have so many poverty issues and inequality I would be more accepting of it.

 

[DJai]

It makes me laugh that people think that this is going to reduce traffic on motorways. Let's face it, public transport is unreliable (particularly trains) and generally inconvenient and expensive. There aren't enough incentives for people to stop driving and with homeworking being much more commonplace, who is really going to benefit from this?

 

[Housey]

I don't like it because NIMBY

1000 yards from the bottom of my garden.

 

[Deleted member 68110]

To be fair we lag behind most countries when it come to high speed links.

I have no problem upgrading the infrastructure, at least we see the benefit of that.

it might help keep a lot of cars off the M1 and M6 roads which are a nightmare most times.

When MPs got their last vote on it, they were told it would cost c£33bn and deliver all sorts of benefits. This was pre-pandemic.

Now it's at £106bn (and rising) and many of its benefits have been axed.

Infrastructure is great, but only when it delivers value for money, and HS2 does not.

It's been bungled, and we're getting ripped off with the wrong thing, at the wrong time, for the wrong price.

 

[englishpremier]

It makes me laugh that people think that this is going to reduce traffic on motorways. Let's face it, public transport is unreliable (particularly trains) and generally inconvenient and expensive. There aren't enough incentives for people to stop driving and with homeworking being much more commonplace, who is really going to benefit from this?

This likely won't but decent high speed rail can. For example Alicante to Madrid is roughly a 5 hour drive to get into the centre. You can get there by train in less than 2.5 hours. So unless you really need your car at the other end, then the shorter journey time is a significant benefit. Another good example is Paris to Strasbourg. Over 4 hours driving, but you can get a train that does it in 1:45.

The problem with trains and public transport in the UK is that it isn't much quicker than just driving. In fact in some instances it is much longer despite the distance being relatively small. Birmingham to Stansted for example is some 3 hours often 3:30 by train, but you can drive in 2:20.

 

[Trifid]

I want a line running from London straight Edinburgh maybe stopping off at a few major cities along the east coast of the country.

Like the Lumo service? https://cheapholidayexpert.com/blog...fares-from-london-to-newcastle-and-edinburgh/

 

[DJai]

This likely won't but decent high speed rail can. For example Alicante to Madrid is roughly a 5 hour drive to get into the centre. You can get there by train in less than 2.5 hours. So unless you really need your car at the other end, then the shorter journey time is a significant benefit. Another good example is Paris to Strasbourg. Over 4 hours driving, but you can get a train that does it in 1:45.

The problem with trains and public transport in the UK is that it isn't much quicker than just driving. In fact in some instances it is much longer despite the distance being relatively small. Birmingham to Stansted for example is some 3 hours often 3:30 by train, but you can drive in 2:20.

Exactly, this country doesn't benefit the same way that others do.

 

[smilertoo]

HS2 is a waste of money to save a little time; they should have built a haulage railway and got all that crap off the roads, making the roads much safer and massively reducing road surface damage.

 

[Penfold101]

HS2 is a waste of money to save a little time; they should have built a haulage railway and got all that crap off the roads, making the roads much safer and massively reducing road surface damage.

Passenger services move to HS2, more freight on the original lines, freight off the road. Theres more to it than just shortening passenger journey times.

 

[Chuk_Chuk]

Like the Lumo service? https://cheapholidayexpert.com/blog...fares-from-london-to-newcastle-and-edinburgh/

Yes but cut the journey time by 2 hours.

 

[DJai]

HS2 is a waste of money to save a little time; they should have built a haulage railway and got all that crap off the roads, making the roads much safer and massively reducing road surface damage.

Sounds good to me.

 

[Werewolf]

Passenger services move to HS2, more freight on the original lines, freight off the road. Theres more to it than just shortening passenger journey times.

Exactly.
At the moment passenger trains (fast and slow) are sharing the same set of rails, one of the biggest things about HS2 that has been really badly dealt with in terms of publicity, is that by adding HS2 they're basically doubling the capacity along that general route, and being able to move the fast/long distance passenger trains to the new line, leaving them with far more capacity for trains doing local stops and cargo.

People tend to grasp the idea that in theory taking a single carriage road and making it into dual carriage not only doubles the capacity but decreases journey time (because you're now at 70mph vs 60), but can't see that the same applies to trains, and it's really not helped that all the messaging about what it'll mean has tended to be "it'll cut 15 minutes of an average journey", and not "this will double capacity and mean that if we have to do work on the existing line, we can really reduce the disruption massively".

Personally if I was in charge of infrastructure I'd probably be looking at not "upgrading" old lines as a priority but instead putting a load of new high speed lines, then upgrading the old lines, as the chances are you can build an entirely new trainline faster than upgrading the old one, especially if you're trying to keep the old line at least partially operating. IIRC it took something like 5-10 years for them to do works on the line near me because they could never shut it down fully for long, and it wasn't a particularly long stretch (about 20 miles).
I can't remember how long it took them to put in the lifts at Clapham Junction, but it seemed like it was at least 5 years that they had either partially built, or temporary overhead walkways in place before they finally finished them, largely because for every hour or so of work they might be able to do on a line that isn't totally shut down, they tend to have to do at least the same again to get it back up and running, so 12 hours overnight on a bank holiday might mean 3 hours removing temporary work, 6 hours of fixing in the new permanent stuff, then another 3 hours getting it ready to run again.

 

[Werewolf]

Sounds good to me.

A pure cargo rail line is not going to be much quicker or cheaper than HS2 to build, much of the cost is pretty much the same as when you are looking at saving maybe a couple of percent of the cost by doing the lines for "old" speeds vs current/near future ones, you don't put in a standard that is not up to date on new construction for a project that is meant to be in use for decades, not when retrofitting to update it will cost a significant fraction of the total original project cost in in a few years.
Much of the time spend on building HS2 has been down to things like planning, and checking the route for suitability for any form of rail, getting it a bit smoother etc for higher speed trains is nothing compared to that.

In computer terms, you're wiring up your house or office for a network.
You've got to drill the holes, run the cables, do the ducting etc regardless of what speed you aim to use. You're an idiot if you decide that you're going to save a few percent of the total cost by running say cat5 (not 5e, let alone 6), and fit 100mbit switches, although at least with slow switches they're relatively simple to just swap out even if it's still a waste of money to buy obsolete gear* (unlike major infrastructure where it's extremely expensive and usually very time consuming to make even minor updates).


*I remember working that out back in the 90's when I realised the difference between a hub and a switch, and went onto Jungle.com and picked up an 8 port 10/100 switch with 4 10/100 cards for only about £20 more than a hub cost (the cards actually made it cheaper as at the time realtek 10/100 cards were around a tenner each).

 

[DJai]

Very interesting points made in your two posts.

 

[jpaul]

further creeping costs on this like cross-rail/olympics maybe the killer, how much can/should they force the contractors to deliver at bid prices, given labour/materials inflation,
steel & cement must be spiking - was hearing yesterday how China (steel?, maybe cement?) obliges it's work-force to sleep in the factories to maintain zero-covid and keep productivity.