why all the hate for hs2?

[jonneymendoza]

The train goes both ways...?

It's not like the HS2 stops at Oxford, it goes to Manchester. Surely it would serve to bring people and wealth from London to the North as much as the other way round?

i mean yea technically true

 

[adidan]

Whatever happened to the Aeroliner3000? Getting on for about ten years since that was talked about - double decker carriages designed to run on the UK infrastructure.

 

[chrcoluk]

Imagine for a moment you have a road, It's speed limit is say 70mph.
Now imagine for a moment you build a second road where the speed limit is 125mph and only vehicles that can do at least 60mph are allowed on it, and at the same time you might restrict the old road to 55mph.

Is the second road's only effect to allow you to arrive somewhere a bit faster?

What you've done is you've knocked some time off how long it will take you to get from A to B with the new road for the vehicles that are doing those speeds, but you've still got that older road that can now be used to take far more buses, trucks and other vehicles that can only do the lower speeds (and not having to worry so much about someone coming up behind them 20-50mph faster), or where your speed isn't as important as how much you're carrying in a vehicle.
This is the big thing about building HS2, it's not replacing the old line, it's not just making it a bit faster, it's an entirely new line that is massively increasing the capacity because you can run more slower trains closer together on the old line now, and at the same time run more, much faster trains on the new line.
In reality it probably more than doubles the capacity of the old line, because when you are running a mix of fast and slow trains on the same line you need a lot of time and space between them (and the fast ones can't run at full speed as much), and have to juggle the schedules very carefully, if you're running trains that are all roughly the same speed you can potentially run more trains and it's simpler to manage.

In short it doubles the rail track along that rough route, and the cost of doing it to suit modern high speed trains is a negligible difference between making the new tracks just up to the standard we had in the 80's and are trying to improve on (and by doing it to the best you can now, you're potentially putting back any major improvements/upgrades 20-40+ years, as opposed to having to do them in 10).
A lot of our rail infrastructure is still being upgraded to what was "the new standard" 20+ years ago, so you build anything new to the current best standard (IIRC railway upgrades tend to work in the span of a decade+ because of the disruption and cost of doing it to existing rail).

The argument I think falls down when realising its only on that one route, its not a nationwide capacity upgrade. Is there capacity upgrades elsewhere? if yes how do the costs compare?

 

[adam cool dude]

There is a really good video on the ‘B1M’ YouTube channel on HS2 which covers how it’s being built and why it’s so expensive.

But as @Werewolf said, if we had invested in rail like we did roads, we wouldn’t have these problems anymore.

Most rail lines going into most city centres need straightening and more lines adding. The huge issue is that the routes around rail lines are so developed, it’s not possible to build new lines without turfing loads of people from their homes and businesses and there is no political will to do that. Tunnelling is incredibly expensive.

As I’ve said I’m not pro or anti HS2 and in reality but it needs to succeed like Cross Rail has because if it doesn’t, I think it’s fair to say new rail in the U.K. is dead. I’d probably go as far as saying it already is because of the toxicity that surrounds U.K. infrastructure.

Why not invest money in these "jobs" by other means by building offices etc in different parts of the country instead. Especially with the speed of technology now there is very little reason to even have a base for office type jobs.

Transporting people around in railways just seems very archaic really. Freight yes it makes sense and would get lorries off the road.

Investing in other places would just make far more sense than keeping everything in London. London was saturated decades ago. Plenty of other places are ripe for investment.

 

[mid_gen]

The train goes both ways...?

It's not like the HS2 stops at Oxford, it goes to Manchester. Surely it would serve to bring people and wealth from London to the North as much as the other way round?

The aim is to connect the country surely?

I'm sure all those people that live in London and commute to Birmingham are thrilled.....both of em It's not like every bloody train service England *already* revolves around getting to and from London.....god forbid you want to go between two other cities.

Putting a decent high speed line in linking the North would have been progress.

 

[Doobedoo]

Many years ago me and some mates tried getting a train from Bristol to Manchester to watch a game at Old Trafford. The cost was astronomical something like £6-700 for the 4 of us, we didn’t have enough money to do it so rang another mate who agreed to come pick us up and take us there and back for £100.

For me the train will likely never be a viable form of transport. Amsterdam tram system is different gravy though absolute brilliant.

 

[200sols]

The argument I think falls down when realising its only on that one route, its not a nationwide capacity upgrade. Is there capacity upgrades elsewhere? if yes how do the costs compare?

HS2 frees up capacity elsewhere that was the idea. But they keep chopping it apart.

Why not invest money in these "jobs" by other means by building offices etc in different parts of the country instead. Especially with the speed of technology now there is very little reason to even have a base for office type jobs.

Ironically companies don't want to invest in those areas and one reason is transport links are crap. So other areas may be ripe for investment but not until the infrastructure is upgraded. But you still invest in London as aswell as these other cities, not investing in your one global super city and keeping up with the rest of the world would be very stupid indeed.

 

[chrcoluk]

HS2 frees up capacity elsewhere that was the idea. But they keep chopping it apart.

At its best point it had an extra leg to leeds, nothing in east anglia, north east, scotand etc. Ultimately when we in the middle of a cost of living crisis, housing crisis, nhs crisis, energy infrastructure crisis, I dont know how people think this is a better use of tax payer money over all those things. Thats my issue, the sheer cost of the thing for something that benefits so few people.

 

[adam cool dude]

HS2 frees up capacity elsewhere that was the idea. But they keep chopping it apart.


Ironically companies don't want to invest in those areas and one reason is transport links are crap. So other areas may be ripe for investment but not until the infrastructure is upgraded. But you still invest in London as aswell as these other cities, not investing in your one global super city and keeping up with the rest of the world would be very stupid indeed.

Surely under developed areas are ripe for easy growth than somewhere that is already saturated?

With that 200 billion the government could use grants to hand out to help people develop in those areas. Kind of like the Sunderland Nissan plant for example that was done in the 80's.

 

[Freefaller]

Personally I like HS2 (not only because I work in the sector) as they're helping to de-risk future projects by investing into research and technology, meaning that future projects can exploit the original investment and hopefully drive down the costs of future projects.

 

[Raymond Lin]

I'm sure all those people that live in London and commute to Birmingham are thrilled.....both of em It's not like every bloody train service England *already* revolves around getting to and from London.....god forbid you want to go between two other cities.

Putting a decent high speed line in linking the North would have been progress.

I think the idea isn't a local regional upgrade to the rail system but a national upgrade by linking the north to the south.

And I also don't see this is built for people commuting, since if you are working in London and living in and around London, this line covers like 1 angle of where it goes, what happen to those living on the south coast wanting to commute into London? The purpose isn't to increase the capacity to commuters but to improve the link across the country.

Which is the same idea as the KTX in Korea between Seoul and Busan and the Shinkansen in Japan. It's just as quick to get the train there when you add in check in time for flights.

I am not saying there won't be commuters, i am sure there will be, and even if there are loads, it will lower the strain on the existing lines...

There should be an expansion down the line and connect Manchester up through to Leeds then Edinburgh perhaps eventually. Japan didn't start their project connecting the top to bottom, it started from Tokyo. Correct me if i am wrong but did France build their fast rail network not from Paris and Norway not from Oslo. It makes total sense to me that one end of the new train starts in London and the other end is a city up North. If the project had been London to Brighton...then I would question it. When it's Manchester, one of the largest city up North, it seems totally logical.

btw, this is coming from someone who lives in Herefordshire, to get to London I have to travel in the wrong direction for the first hour or so, like NORTH east towards Worcester before it heads down to London. Or I travel South WEST towards Bristol. I should be proposing a better line connecting Bristol to Manchester and upgrade this side....but I know the majority of the traffic isn't here.

 

[chrcoluk]

Surely under developed areas are ripe for easy growth than somewhere that is already saturated?

With that 200 billion the government could use grants to hand out to help people develop in those areas. Kind of like the Sunderland Nissan plant for example that was done in the 80's.

Indeed its a basically a link between the two existing powerhouses.

Even above this reply I see someone thinks its a national upgrade, when it isnt. Most of the places it goes through it has no stops.

 

[mid_gen]

I think the idea isn't a local regional upgrade to the rail system but a national upgrade by linking the north to the south.

And I also don't see this is built for people commuting, since if you are working in London and living in and around London, this line covers like 1 angle of where it goes, what happen to those living on the south coast wanting to commute into London? The purpose isn't to increase the capacity to commuters but to improve the link across the country.

Which is the same idea as the KTX in Korea between Seoul and Busan and the Shinkansen in Japan. It's just as quick to get the train there when you add in check in time for flights.

I am not saying there won't be commuters, i am sure there will be, and even if there are loads, it will lower the strain on the existing lines...

There should be an expansion down the line and connect Manchester up through to Leeds then Edinburgh perhaps eventually. Japan didn't start their project connecting the top to bottom, it started from Tokyo. Correct me if i am wrong but did France build their fast rail network not from Paris and Norway not from Oslo. It makes total sense to me that one end of the new train starts in London and the other end is a city up North. If the project had been London to Brighton...then I would question it. When it's Manchester, one of the largest city up North, it seems totally logical.

btw, this is coming from someone who lives in Herefordshire, to get to London I have to travel in the wrong direction for the first hour or so, like NORTH east towards Worcester before it heads down to London. Or I travel South WEST towards Bristol. I should be proposing a better line connecting Bristol to Manchester and upgrade this side....but I know the majority of the traffic isn't here.

London is already very well served by rail. Commuting in and out of London, while outrageously expensive, is tolerable. Most other European countries don't suffer from such polarised geography with one single city's gravity well sucking all the investment from the rest of the country.

Rail in the North is an absolute disaster. Spend the money where it makes a difference. But again, that would require 'Levelling Up' to actually mean something, and not be an empty slogan.

If you really wanted to make a statement infrastructure project that changed the country for the good, put a line in the length of the country, Plymouth -> Exeter -> Bristol -> Coventry -> Leicester -> Nottingham -> Sheffield -> Leeds -> Newcastle, something that will materially improve the lot of struggling economies, rather than making tiny improvements to places that are already well served.

 

[Raymond Lin]

Indeed its a basically a link between the two existing powerhouses.

Even above this reply I see someone thinks its a national upgrade, when it isnt. Most of the places it goes through it has no stops.

Of course it doesn't stop much in the middle....if it did it wouldn't make sense for it to go 200mph, it won't reach that speed if it had to keep stopping.

IMO it shouldn't stop at all between London and Manchester and so it can travel at like the Maglev at 400mph....I mean you don't see planes making a stop in the middle. I see it like a plane but easier to get one and off. At most, it would just stop once at Birmingham.

London is already very well served by rail. Commuting in and out of London, while outrageously expensive, is tolerable. Most other European countries don't suffer from such polarised geography with one single city's gravity well sucking all the investment from the rest of the country.

Rail in the North is an absolute disaster. Spend the money where it makes a difference. But again, that would require 'Levelling Up' to actually mean something, and not be an empty slogan.

If you really wanted to make a statement infrastructure project that changed the country for the good, put a line in the length of the country, Plymouth -> Exeter -> Bristol -> Coventry -> Leicester -> Nottingham -> Sheffield -> Leeds -> Newcastle, something that will materially improve the lot of struggling economies, rather than making tiny improvements to places that are already well served.

I don't see it serving London or commuting, to me is making the journey to and from Manchester faster. To get across the country faster. It's a national project, not a local one.

 

[mid_gen]

I don't see it serving London or commuting, to me is making the journey to and from Manchester faster. To get across the country faster. It's a national project, not a local one.

£200 billion to travel across the country a few % faster, just when business finally wakes up to the fact that people don't actually need to travel across the country to do business.

Spend £200 billion on a national car charging network and you might have something that benefits people everywhere and makes the phasing out of ICE actually feasible.

 

[chrcoluk]

Of course it doesn't stop much in the middle....if it did it wouldn't make sense for it to go 200mph, it won't reach that speed if it had to keep stopping.

IMO it shouldn't stop at all between London and Manchester and so it can travel at like the Maglev at 400mph....I mean you don't see planes making a stop in the middle. I see it like a plane but easier to get one and off. At most, it would just stop once at Birmingham.



I don't see it serving London or commuting, to me is making the journey to and from Manchester faster. To get across the country faster. It's a national project, not a local one.

Well there we have it, its mainly a high speed link between a select few locations rather than a national capacity upgrade as claimed, if it was a capacity upgrade it would be stopping more and have a wider coverage.

 

[Murf]

I don't see it serving London or commuting, to me is making the journey to and from Manchester faster. To get across the country faster. It's a national project, not a local one.

I see it as a way to turn Birmingham into a commuter town for London.

 

[Raymond Lin]

I disagree, there are no other country on earth builds a new rail network out on a smaller town first, not that i know of.

If the question is....should we spend money upgrading our rail network across the country, yes....but if the question is...should the HS2 go from a different place like Manchester to Newcastle first....then no.

 

[chrcoluk]

You just said 160 billion is good value to only have two stops one at London, and the other at Manchester as if only those two locations matter. O_o So I will leave it there.

 

[Raymond Lin]

You just said 160 billion is good value to only have two stops one at London, and the other at Manchester as if only those two locations matter. O_o So I will leave it there.

Good value? i didn't say that, i don't think it said the word "value" at all....I said it makes sense to stop less, because it is a high-speed rail. You can't get to those speed if it had to keep stopping. Then you might as well build a slow train.

The HS2 is a high speed train, to use the HS2 to it's potential, it can't keep stopping. So you can't and shouldn't have HS2 if that is your intention.

It is a multi-facet layered question. On one had do we want or need a high speed rail network? by high speed i don't mean 70mph, i mean 200, 300mph. Once we have committed to this type of trains then the rest of the debate whether it should stop more goes out the window I think, since it simply can't stop more.