HS2 - time is running out to object

[tokyonambu]

The alternative to HS2 isn't no railway, it's building another "classic" route for roughly the same money along the same or an adjacent alignment. It would be just as intrusive, almost as expensive and deliver less capacity (faster trains => less track occupancy => more capacity), and for what?

Sorry to be picky, but just one example of the alternative to HS2 - RP2A - is:

- significantly less intrusive. It includes upgrades to current routes in a practical way and does not mean the loss of loads of beautiful countryside, listed buildings, habitats of endangered species and other amenities

- less than quarter of the price

WCML PUG2 was roughly the same project. It was budgeted at £2.1bn, turned out at £9bn, and delivered only a fraction of what was promised. It reduced the WCML to a total shambles for a decade, and failed afterwards to deliver speed, frequency or reliability. WCML PUG2 is notorious as one of the most disastrous pieces of railway engineering in this country's history. It failed before, costing four times more than its budget on the way. HS1 was delivered on budget. Madness is doing the same thing again, expecting the outcome to be different.

[mike1880]

...capacity on the London--Birmingham--Manchester--Scotland route is desperately short, as anyone who's got a morning train from Birmingham to London will attest. Even with trains at, or arguably beyond, the length limits of the infrastructure running every twenty minutes on a time-table that is horrifyingly fragile, the trains are full to capacity for large parts of the day.

You might get away with saying that to an audience composed mostly of people that don't get a morning train from Birmingham to London but I'm afraid it really won't wash. The capacity bottleneck is confined to a couple of trains at the very peak, and even then a lot of the crowding is caused by students who all pile off the train at Coventry. I typically catch the 8:40am train and have never had any issues with crowding. Once you get into genuine off-peak - 9.30 onwards - it's a positive pleasure to travel and even begins to get ridiculously cheap.

The solution might perhaps be to tackle the root cause of the problem, which is the draining of "quality" private sector jobs away from the regions and into the South East and Thames corridor. HS2 will exacerbate that process and hence will further undermine prosperity in the North and Midlands, not increase it.

Mike

[no_ball]

It may also be prudent to leave countries that we occupy from a colonial prospective, and divert the spend in proper subsidy that would of benefit of this nations citizens.

[turtleglos]

My family and I can't afford to travel by rail now and when the cost of this is added to the tickets....
I would prefer cheaper tickets so that everyone can afford to use the train even if it will take an hour or so longer. If I need to speak to someone quickly I can phone,msn text etc. Why not stick some extra carriages on the back of each engine and tell passengers which ones stop at each station? Also make the price of each journey the same regardless of which train you need to catch as I know of so many people who miss connections etc and then get charged because the first train was late!
Perhaps its only the well off who will be able to travel in the next 10yrs.

[Loopyloulou]

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