why all the hate for hs2?
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Delaying a project that will no longer do what was promised and costs at least twice as much - we're being taken for mugs, again. Some people will be making a lot of money from us taxpayers, we're constantly being used as a cash cow.
What a deal, we'll trash areas where you live, take your money and you can get to somewhere in Birmingham from somewhere in London. Sometime. Maybe. K, thanks, buh bye.
Not surprised in the slightest.
What a deal, we'll trash areas where you live, take your money and you can get to somewhere in Birmingham from somewhere in London. Sometime. Maybe. K, thanks, buh bye.
Not surprised in the slightest.
Soldato
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An initial estimate that was hopelessly optimistic?
Colour me surprised.
Colour me surprised.
Once again the tax payer has been stolen from from friends of the ruling class Tory party.
Execution for treason is now the only answer and a complete socialist rework of the trains.
China and Japan are fantastic examples of what can be achieved if private profits are removed. Europe is once again laughing at us Brits.
Execution for treason is now the only answer and a complete socialist rework of the trains.
China and Japan are fantastic examples of what can be achieved if private profits are removed. Europe is once again laughing at us Brits.
Least extreme hurddurf post.
Without wanting to defend the way our railway is currently organised too much, seems like a big oversimplification & bit of a red herring to blame everything solely on privatisation.
Eg Japan has a number of private railways that apparently perform very well. All over Europe they make extensive use of private contractors and suppliers. Network Rail owns and manages the UK railway infrastructure as a publicly owned ('socialist'?) organisation and it's far from perfect.
Things like long term government planning; the regulatory environment; realities of UK geography, development, and existing infrastructure; procurement strategy; etc are all issues.
I believe Gov is trying to extend the loan period a couple years to help with costs. They gave 10 of billions (it's going to hit a hundred, you can smell it) to private enterprise
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Ah yes and we should get some kind of train line in return for this generous gift.
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Ah yes and we should get some kind of train line in return for this generous gift.
Imagine what else could the £70B could have been spent on. Perhaps funding the NHS for 6 months? Employing more police officers and bigger prisons to tackle the ever increasing crime stats? More and better homes for those in need? Give people a tax break during these tough economic times? Securing our energy infrastructure? Or how about a mission to Mars where we can deposit the entre tory party once and for all 
. Nope, a big stupid train set so the London elite can **** off to their country estate quicker rather than sit in traffic with the other plebs.
I wonder if this is the biggest, most expensive folly in UK history.
. Nope, a big stupid train set so the London elite can **** off to their country estate quicker rather than sit in traffic with the other plebs.I wonder if this is the biggest, most expensive folly in UK history.
Except that that's not what it does.
It's an entire new line, so not just a few minutes faster, but more than doubling the capacity as the old line can be used for more local and goods trains, whilst the new line can be used for more large fast trains (when you mix train types on the same line you basically get the worst performance from all types), also the potential to hook up some of the old disused lines that were discontinued as non viable after Beaching* but are now likely viable again if they can be connected up due to increases in local population.
One of the interesting stats that they mentioned was that the rail line takes up something like a third of the space of the equivalent capacity motorway, so a trainline is actually likely far less harmful to the environment it passes through than road construction (and cleaner on an ongoing basis).
The argument that they're going to "save money" by delaying it is blatant nonsense, as it just drags things out and means you're paying more in the long term whilst not getting the benefits until much later.
*IIRC many of the cuts after Beaching were not actually recommended by him, but because the transport minister liked motorways more (and from memory turned out to have extensive connections to companies involved in motorway construction).
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From what I've briefly read on the BBC the delay is being implemented to spread out the cost of the construction over a longer period to ease the budget deficit and achieve an arbitrary target someone has come up with. Over the longer term though that strategy is just going to result in the total constructuction cost being the same (or more in real terms if inflation rises more than tax revenues) whilst the payback period is going to be longer as a result of the delays. Am I missing something or is this strategy mental?
I could understand it if there were some arguments for e.g. significantly reduced borrowing costs, more efficient deployment of resources over the life of the project etc, but that doesn't appear to be mentioned anywhere.
I could understand it if there were some arguments for e.g. significantly reduced borrowing costs, more efficient deployment of resources over the life of the project etc, but that doesn't appear to be mentioned anywhere.
Yup
The strategy, if you can call it that is stupid.
It's going to cost a lot more because some parts can't really be stopped/will end up having to be redone, you'll have inflation on top of that, and the line won't be able to start paying back for that much longer which means it's not even going to start showing a return for longer.
Well yes because those people want their country to succeed, this being Britain... it's self-loathing all the way down.
Man of Honour
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Sounds like a good way for someone else to take the financial and political hit for it. The project doesn't make sense if it's just Birmingham - Old Oak Common so future governments are going to have to proceed with the rest of the route or get blasted for being London centric.