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

Campaign for the HSR

[Uncle Peter]

I wonder how much heat this would take off LHR. I use the Manchester - LHR shuttle on a regular basis but given the choice I would much rather jump on a high-speed train directly into the city rather than faff about at those two awful airports.

I suppose the key would be that the toc didn't charge the same peak-time comedy prices that Virgin do... 200 quid (in fact I've seen it as much as 375!) to be crammed like a sardine under some sweaty armpit while half of the train is made up of empty first-class carriages.

[Chrysalis]

Originally Posted by martyh

No you didn't you said the have it ,
"I can think of many better ways to spend 32billion which the government has now shown they got"

A large chunk of government spending is borrowed money and yes it is fine as long as we can afford it .The reason we can afford it is because of cuts being made in other aspects of government spending

That isnt saying they got it in a vault, thats saying they got it available to spend on budgets.

What you wont admit is you think the government should cut back on things you dont support under the guise they cant afford it and then when its something you support its ok to borrow and splash the cash. You assuming this is been borrowed when its quite possible its simply been funded from cuts in other departments.

The message is this.

The government cant afford to spend 30 billion on social services, welfare, housing, prisons, border security, police, pensions amongst other things. Yet they can afford it to spend it on 100 miles of rail track. Credibility out of the window.

The fact is and it is a fact, the government sold us the cuts were been used to reduce a deficit, not to shift money to other projects. Especially projects that are clearly overpriced and some contractors will be making a nice wad of cash from it.

Freedom of information request will be going in to see what companies are doing this expensive work and if any have ties to political donations. I expect to be told it cant be provided due to commercial sensitivity tho.

20 mins is a luxury small boost to a journey its not a game breaker. Yes it is nice to have a quicker journey, however not at that cost. Modern business uses video conferencing now days, if they wanted to invest in making business meetings more practical then that would have made more sense and probably cheaper for benefiting more of the country as well. This just benefits london and birmingham plus whats in between. What is sad as well is that people will be paying twice, once via taxation and again via higher fares.

From the link two posts above yours.

Myth-busting

Originally Posted by Chrysalis

The government cant afford to spend 30 billion on social services, welfare, housing, prisons, border security, police, pensions amongst other things. Yet they can afford it to spend it on 100 miles of rail track. Credibility out of the window.

Only to people that don't understand the difference between debt and deficit. If your out of work you cut back on monthly expenses but you wouldn't think twice about spending money on a train ticket to enable you to get to job interviews.

20 mins is a luxury small boost to a journey its not a game breaker. Yes it is nice to have a quicker journey, however not at that cost. Modern business uses video conferencing now days, if they wanted to invest in making business meetings more practical then that would have made more sense and probably cheaper for benefiting more of the country as well. This just benefits london and birmingham plus whats in between. What is sad as well is that people will be paying twice, once via taxation and again via higher fares.

The higher fares are not that much higher and this doesn't just benefit London to Birmingham, other trains going north can use the high speed rail up to Birmingham making trips to Manchester, Leeds and more faster.

Originally Posted by Damien

Only to people that don't understand the difference between debt and deficit. If your out of work you cut back on monthly expenses but you wouldn't think twice about spending money on a train ticket to enable you to get to job interviews.

QFT.

[Osem]

As the Government prepares to give the go-ahead to its hugely controversial high-speed train project, its closest equivalent in Europe has had to be saved from bankruptcy with a £250 million government bailout.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukne...thusiasts.html

The new “Fyra” high-speed service in the Netherlands — opened just two years ago — is close to financial collapse with passengers shunning its premium fares and trains running up to 85 per cent empty. The line, between Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Breda, cost taxpayers more than £7 billion to build but is losing £320,000 a day amid disastrous levels of patronage.

The Dutch aren't renowned for infrastructure failures and I fear we're in for more of the same if this goes ahead. It will almost certainly overrun, the final bill will be far more than predicted and if the pricing is high enough to make some return then only the relatively well off will be prepared to use it. It just doesn't add up and I can't see how it wouldn't make more sense to spend the vast sums involved, creating jobs and stimulating growth over a much wider area by improving our existing network for both passengers and freight.

Did a report by Network Rail not conclude that attempting to upgrade the existing WCML would not have the effect the opponents of HS2 have claimed for it?

[Osem]

Originally Posted by Chris

Did a report by Network Rail not conclude that attempting to upgrade the existing WCML would not have the effect the opponents of HS2 have claimed for it?

I wouldn't be surprised and both sides will be making claims that can't really be proved. I dare say the Dutch govt. and transport operators made a whole lot of claims about all the pros of their scheme, the main one of which (i.e. actual usage) hasn't materialised in reality.

[Alan Fry]

If they reorgnised services on WCML so they do not conflict with HS2 then it would be ok to build HS2, what they could do for example:

London-Birmingham-Wolverhampton should now end end in Coventry (or maybe Wolverhampton) but should not stop at Birmingham

London-Manchester should be cut short and end at Stoke-upon-Trent

London-Glasgow should be combined with Birmingham to Glasgow/Edinburgh

all other routes will remain the same but, they might operate under a reduced timetable and they might no longer servie Birmingham New street/Birmingham International

Originally Posted by Osem

I wouldn't be surprised and both sides will be making claims that can't really be proved. I dare say the Dutch govt. and transport operators made a whole lot of claims about all the pros of their scheme, the main one of which (i.e. actual usage) hasn't materialised in reality.

On the other hand TGV in France has been a success. Generated over €1 billion for the state owned railway (SNCF) in a single year, the initial success led not only to France expanding the network where they could but for other European countries to take up the network. Mainland Europe is now connected via a network of high speed lines. We have the connection to Paris, a German rail company (English ones lack the foresight, competence or skill it would seem) are planning a London to Frankfurt line. The French had the foresight to start this investment in 1981! So we're only 30 years behind.

---------- Post added at 10:01 ---------- Previous post was at 09:59 ----------

BTW The government has now officially approved it.

[Alan Fry]

Originally Posted by Damien

On the other hand TGV in France has been a success. Generated over €1 billion for the state owned railway (SNCF) in a single year, the initial success led not only to France expanding the network where they could but for other European countries to take up the network. Mainland Europe is now connected via a network of high speed lines. We have the connection to Paris, a German rail company (English ones lack the foresight, competence or skill it would seem) are planning a London to Frankfurt line. The French had the foresight to start this investment in 1981! So we're only 30 years behind.

The sooner we get HS2 the better, it would be of more benifit to the North of England than the Failed Regional Eurostar Project!

BBC Map and estimated journey times.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/interac...ap-interactive

London to Birmingham:

Currently 1 hour 24 minutes, would be shortened to 45 minutes. A saving of 39 minutes.

London to Manchester:

Currently 2 hours 8 minutes, would be shortened to 1 hour 38 minutes. A saving of 30 minutes. Although from 2032 it would be 1 hour 8 minutes, a saving of an entire hour.

[Osem]

Originally Posted by Damien

On the other hand TGV in France has been a success. Generated over €1 billion for the state owned railway (SNCF) in a single year, the initial success led not only to France expanding the network where they could but for other European countries to take up the network. Mainland Europe is now connected via a network of high speed lines. We have the connection to Paris, a German rail company (English ones lack the foresight, competence or skill it would seem) are planning a London to Frankfurt line. The French had the foresight to start this investment in 1981! So we're only 30 years behind.

---------- Post added at 10:01 ---------- Previous post was at 09:59 ----------

BTW The government has now officially approved it.

And maybe that's exactly what's wrong Damien - we've missed the boat and what should have been done when financial and other conditions were far better than they are now simply wasn't.

Furthermore, the French network has never suffered from the huge legal and other problems that getting planning permission requires in the UK so, mile for mile, their network was built far quicker and cheaper than ours will be and has had the benefit of vast sums of govt. aid over decades. What we know is that in Holland, the nearest equivalent of what's being proposed here, completed only a couple of years ago (as opposed to decades ago as in the case of much of the French network) is failing and already requiring lots more taxpayers money just to keep it running full of empty seats. That seems to be a far more realistic comparison.

[Chrysalis]

Originally Posted by Damien

Only to people that don't understand the difference between debt and deficit. If your out of work you cut back on monthly expenses but you wouldn't think twice about spending money on a train ticket to enable you to get to job interviews.



The higher fares are not that much higher and this doesn't just benefit London to Birmingham, other trains going north can use the high speed rail up to Birmingham making trips to Manchester, Leeds and more faster.

I would think twice actually.

Didnt you say they £5 higher? thats significant.

On a train journey from london to say glasgow, the 20mins is even less relevant.