Quote:
Originally Posted by Hugh
Sorry, I didn't explain myself very well.
I would expect the train driver/bus driver to know the tactical impact of issues (slow trains, hold-ups and delays), but not the strategic reasons for them (major infrastructure refreshes required, the difference in costs between upgrading/making do/completely rebuilding), or the political, economic, and social impact of any of those options, and the prioritisation of those.
It can often cost more to try and upgrade existing lines, with the impact on services whilst those upgrades are happening, than to build new. For instance, we just had to decide between refreshing/upgrading a 12 year old datacentre, or outsource, or build new (we actually built new, and it was cheaper than refreshing, without the risk of the centre upgrade negatively affecting existing systems and services - now we have implemented this, we can refresh the old one for Disaster Recovery).
I see the HS2 as the equivalent of the Motorway system - most people said we didn't need it, but where would we be without it now?
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I could buy into that point of view Hugh if there was a feasability study done to say that is the case it may well be,if there is the government should publish and we could make our own minds up,i do buy the point of view its sometimes cheaper to build from new then upgrade all i am concerned about is this is done properly before any digging up of the area concerned takes place.
And if there is another way explore it at the moment we still live in a green and quite pleasant land and i would hate that to change unessasarily, before all options are sounded out.
I might even be persuaded if it would halve journey times but to just shave a few minutes off makes me hope the government will at least take a fresh look Hugh.