HS2 and the future of British railways

[jfman]

Mod edit (Chris): These posts have been split out of the 20mph thread as it’s clear HS2 is going to require a thread of its own once the inevitable announcement is made in Manchester tomorrow.

Originally Posted by OLD BOY

We’ll see how the electorate in the Outer London Boroughs react. It’ll be interesting, but Rishi senses a winning formula…

Why do you think the Conservatives bucked the trend in the by-election?

A man with so much political nous he's flying to Manchester to tell those northern plebs why they don't need a high speed rail link to Lpndon.

[Sephiroth]

Originally Posted by jfman

A man with so much political nous he's flying to Manchester to tell those northern plebs why they don't need a high speed rail link to Lpndon.

Oh the irony, Hugh might have said somewhere.

[Mr K]

Originally Posted by jfman

A man with so much political nous he's flying to Manchester to tell those northern plebs why they don't need a high speed rail link to Lpndon.

Rishi seems not be sure about HS2 this morning. . He used to be indecisive but now he's not so sure....

Prob wait till he's safely flown back to civilisation and tweet it next week to the northern plebs.

[Pierre]

Originally Posted by Mr K

Rishi seems not be sure about HS2 this morning. . He used to be indecisive but now he's not so sure....

Prob wait till he's safely flown back to civilisation and tweet it next week to the northern plebs.

If he doesn’t pull off a massive bait and switch then he’s more of an idiot than I give him credit for.

Al this talk of scrapping HS2 to Manchester, while he’s in Manchester.

He’ll stand up on that podium and say, a conservative government will guarantee Manchester is connected blah blah levelling up blah blah. That’s what I’d do!

[1andrew1]

Originally Posted by Pierre

If he doesn’t pull off a massive bait and switch then he’s more of an idiot than I give him credit for.

Al this talk of scrapping HS2 to Manchester, while he’s in Manchester.

He’ll stand up on that podium and say, a conservative government will guarantee Manchester is connected blah blah levelling up blah blah. That’s what I’d do!

If he had to announce it at the conference, it should have been at the start to remove speculation until formal announcement.

Originally Posted by 1andrew1

If he had to announce it at the conference, it should have been at the start to remove speculation until formal announcement.

tbf, Pierre has made a good point - it would cut the legs off of all those saying he/the Tories don’t care about the North…

He is obviously going to say the money is going elsewhere, it's just how realistic and credible it is. If it's something else that requires years of consultation then it's meaningless.

[jfman]

Originally Posted by Damien

He is obviously going to say the money is going elsewhere, it's just how realistic and credible it is. If it's something else that requires years of consultation then it's meaningless.

Good for Tory donor consultancies who get to trouser even more taxpayer's money for delivering nothing.

[1andrew1]

Originally Posted by Hugh

tbf, Pierre has made a good point - it would cut the legs off of all those saying he/the Tories don’t care about the North…

I agree with you and Pierre that announcing it in Manchester is a poor look. But if he had to announce it at the conference, getting it out of the way first would have been preferable to the current situation.

---------- Post added at 16:38 ---------- Previous post was at 16:30 ----------

Originally Posted by Damien

He is obviously going to say the money is going elsewhere, it's just how realistic and credible it is. If it's something else that requires years of consultation then it's meaningless.

Trouble is to be meaningful, the infrastructure projects are probably going to be of the scale to require consultation and the pay off won't be quick.

Another side to this is the UK is running out of work for its train-builders and a delayed and shortened HST could result in redundancies.

Looks like HS2 will go to Manchester but will run on normal tracks after Birmingham. What's the point honestly?

[ianch99]

Originally Posted by Damien

Looks like HS2 will go to Manchester but will run on normal tracks after Birmingham. What's the point honestly?

So not High Speed then?

High Speed between London and Birmingham only.

It's just managed decline. Europe has managed a lot of high-speed rail and we give up even trying to get it to Manchester when we originally wanted it to go to Scotland. Complete failure and incompetence.

Utter, utter boneheaded stupidity from a spoiled little rich boy who simply hasn’t the faintest idea how the country works, and genuinely seems to think he can prove his skill at making long-term decisions by making precisely the same Treasury-driven, short sighted cuts that has blighted British infrastructure projects for decades.

If Keir Starmer has an ounce of political nous he will immediately promise to reinstate HS2 as soon as there’s a Labour government. Sadly I think he’s rather too fond of equivocation and will manage to slice the ball right over this wide open goal and into the pie shop at the back of the stand.

The depth of government ineptitude on display here is completely and utterly depressing. How is it possible for a room full of highly educated people to be so utterly crap at everything?

HS2 is stopping at Nottingham (apparently) but TBH, I really do not care if it does or doesnt.
Its not like its going to save huge amounts of time, plus it will be expensive (as all rail travel is these days, and has been for a long time).

[heero_yuy]

Originally Posted by Damien

High Speed between London and Birmingham only.

It's just managed decline. Europe has managed a lot of high-speed rail and we give up even trying to get it to Manchester when we originally wanted it to go to Scotland. Complete failure and incompetence.

The problem is though that Europe embraced the TGV's 360kph standards that we also used for HS1. We have gold plated this for HS2 and gone for 400kph. That has doubled costs already with no upper limit in sight just to shave a few extra minutes off the trip.