Re: New high speed rail link ...is it worth it ?
 

Martyh, that is a very good point, I honestly think that it will be very hard to change the law on this, As this law has been like it for years, and l think it will go to the supreme court of England to change it, and there will be long legal battles to alter it. And by then the High speed link will be there.

I can never understand why they want to build another line, there is miles of lines that are unused, and some lines that just need adjusting.

Re: New high speed rail link ...is it worth it ?
 

there woulnt need to bee a change of law, All that would bee needed is a licence from the department of constitutional affairs

(from martyh's link)
As you can see there is even precedence for the removal of remains for permanent infrastructure projects (road widening and other developments). SO this will cause no issues for HS2 :)

Re: New high speed rail link ...is it worth it ?
 

Thery could change the route to avoid the gravesites.

Anyway this reminds me of the first 2 episodes of Boss, the Mayor had to deal with a gravesite with Native American remains, which was near the Airport (the gravesite was in an area need to expand the airport)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boss_(TV_series)

Re: New high speed rail link ...is it worth it ?
 

I am bumping this thread as phase two of HS2, extending the route north of Birmingham to Manchester and Leeds has been announced to-day.

Policy paper.

https://www.gov.uk/government/public...ter-and-beyond


Here is a link to maps which cover the governments initial preferences for the routes the new link will take.

https://www.gov.uk/hs2-phase-two-ini...-to-manchester

... and an idea of how much time we will all save traveling in the future.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news...ourney-1559969

Re: New high speed rail link ...is it worth it ?
 

Personaly i would have liked the money spent on widening the motorways where needed. I never use the train because it costs so bloody much.

Re: New high speed rail link ...is it worth it ?
 

Same here Sirius. I certainly don't fancy the knock on effects of building a 7.5 mile (12km) tunnel under Manchester will cause but will probably be pushing up daisies by the time the first train uses the line in 2033.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england...ester-21230543

Re: New high speed rail link ...is it worth it ?
 

And me :(

Re: New high speed rail link ...is it worth it ?
 

A major problem coming from this news, who will win the contracts to build the trains, stations etc.

Gurranteed it wont be British companies, the one thing that is bad is that the government say it will create 100.000 jobs - who for.

We know what the policies are for this coalition, we will give it to oversea's then we can get more exports/imports, same old story - give the contracts to the British workforce.

Re: New high speed rail link ...is it worth it ?
 

Well, unfortunately for you Arthur, Labour also wants to see this railway built, so you can't blame it on the Coalition. Lord Adonis, the Labour transport secretary in 2010, had already commissioned a lot of the exploratory work.

HS2 is *going* to get built. The last lingering doubt was a rumour that George Osborne had gone cool on the idea, but seeing as he has come out and given it his full backing today, the one and only possibility of this being shelved has now gone.

For me, one of the best things about today's announcement is that it will prevent short-sighted whingers from constantly moaning about all this effort just to cut Birmingham-London journey times by 10 minutes. This isn't about Birmingham and never was. HS2 will eventually be a national high-speed rail backbone connecting central Scotland with London and then on to the continent via HS1 and the Chunnel. Now the route has been published as far as the north of England, perhaps the debate can get off the silly soundbites and onto the detail of how best to do this with minimal environmental impact and maximum economic benefit.

Re: New high speed rail link ...is it worth it ?
 

Yes, but Chris, the coalition could have stopped it to save money, they could have put the money into building better motorways and given the freight industry a big life.

There is no guarantee that this will benefit the British economy, what will probably happen is that this will go before the High Court with injunctions coming out of the ear hole, and l suppose the good thing is that the Coalition won't be in power when it starts will they.

Re: New high speed rail link ...is it worth it ?
 

We should just get on an build it.

It's become embarrassing in this country, we can't get sod all done.

Last year China built 3000km of high speed rail, to add to the 6300km they already had

http://eandt.theiet.org/news/2013/jan/china-rail.cfm

And we're arguing about a few hundred miles and it'll take over a decade before work starts.

You can see quite clearly what a 'can do' attitude can do for your economy.

Cut the red tape, give the environmentalists the finger, and get these projects going.

Re: New high speed rail link ...is it worth it ?
 

Well we got the Olympics 'done' quite nicely to be fair. ;)

As prestigious an engineering feat as it would be, I can't see how HS2 can really work to drive the economy except during its construction phase. It's going to be massively expensive to build and unless it's heavily subsidised it'll be underused. I've yet to see a convincing commercial argument about how cutting journey times by train by, IIRC, a hour between London and Manchester is going to generate a significant amount of new jobs and wealth.

Right now I think the money would be far better spent on building things we really need like housing and improving the infrastructure we already have, including roads and railways. We could also try generating some jobs and avoiding the huge costs of disruption and destruction due to severe weather by improving basic things like our flood defences.

Re: New high speed rail link ...is it worth it ?
 

If you don't see how halving the time it takes to get from London to Manchesteer is going to benefit the economy, how are you expecting any benefits to accrue from the mere shaving of journey times you get from widening or straightening stretches of road or existing rail?

Radical improvement is only going to come from doing something radically different. Back in the early 19th century, the canal companies did all in their power to prevent the newfangled railways from being built. If they had, we might still all be employed as farmhands and market stall keepers, watching small quantities of Wedgwood china occasionally floating past our cottage windows. Thankfully they failed and as a result, Britain led the industrial revolution for another century.

History has shown time and time again that allowing something to be done faster and more efficiently results in economic benefit. From canals to rail to paved road, the internal combustion engine and the computer, all of it has resulted in growth. HS2 will be the same. Although sadly the British capacity for moaning about it will also be the same. However, I'm confident our grandchildren will find the idea of there not being a high speed rail network as odd as we would find the idea of there being no motorways.

Re: New high speed rail link ...is it worth it ?
 

I didn't say it'd give no benefit merely pointed out that unless it's heavily subsidised the benefits derived from it will be mitigated. I feel that more benefit would be derived from spreading improvements over a wider area. I studied history a very long time ago so may be wrong but IIRC when the railways and canals were being built the economy was expanding rapidly and there was the demand and the finances. They were not funded by central govt. but by private companies and wealthy industrialists. Moreover there were no viable alternatives then and now there are in the form of road and air travel. If a private company wants to finance, build and run HS2 and it's not going to wind up yet another long term burden on the taxpayer that's fine by me but given the history of our railways since Beeching, I feel it will become just that if it's to generate any significant growth. I'm not against rail but and agree we need better infrastructure but just think that we'd get more 'bang for the buck' in terms of growth from other measures (including rail) which could be implemented far quicker and over a far wider area than HS2 will ever be.

I suppose one means of estimating its risks and long term benefits v. costs to UK PLC would be to compare those same effects of Eurotunnel on our economy. It'd be interesting to know what they've been since it's been up and running.

Re: New high speed rail link ...is it worth it ?
 

I wonder if the same arguments were given against the early motorways being built (M1, M4, etc).

I do remember (as I lived dahn sahf in the mid-80s) all the nay-sayers stating that the M25 was pointless, and it wasn't needed, and it would bring no benefit.