Just another reason to ban Liebor party

[VectraMan]

Why do people need to move around so much? How yesterday.

It's a good point. £33bn would buy a lot of broadband.

And with all the new targets on carbon emissions (which our highest paid scientists believe causes climate change), why are we making trains faster? Surely we should be making trains slower.

[Freamon]

Difficult to judge with these projects, as the web of concealed interests will be so vast and complex. Perhaps Labour have just realised how many Tory donors hold interests in the construction firms that will do the work, and are worried about more public money being funnelled towards them?

[AtW]

Perhaps Labour have just realised how many Tory donors hold interests in the construction firms that will do the work, and are worried about more public money being funnelled towards them?

The construction firms would lobby whoever is in Govt - Labour before, Tories now.

What Labour is trying here is to basically say - keep as many public servants in jobs as possible at the expense of vital infrastructure projects like HS2.

[RichardCranium]

Yes but AtW was talking about a London Birminham link, which goes in the opposite direction, surely ?

And that is uphill, which is why it will cost more.

[swamp]

There is no need for HS2. Just make the current service a bit better. The Javelin train on HS1 has been a bit of a failure. It's too expensive for most commuters, and it goes to the 'wrong' station.

High Speed 2 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It's 1 hour 24 minutes to Birmingham right now. HS2 will cut this to 49 minutes.... £33,000,000,000 so that a few Brummies can attend a meeting in London 35 minutes quicker. I'd rather have an aircraft carrier or two.

[AtW]

There is no need for HS2.

Yes, there is.

First of all there is lack of capacity - existing train stations are too short so you can't just add more carriages, HS2 is purpose build so it will fix it.

Secondly 49 mins vs 1 hour 20 mins means that same number of trains will carry 60% more passangers - and that without making trains longer! You can actually make train tickets more affordable if train carries more passengers in the same day - that one of the reasons why Ryanair/Easyjet can keep prices lower.

Thirdly - given that max legal car speed is 70 mph, it means that having very high speed trains would take people off the road because travel time will be much faster - it will help reduce conjection.

And finally - this is the kind of project that will give this country proper rail network that will last for a long time - it will also create jobs and hopefully maybe revive some local expertise: developing countries like China, Russia are building long distance rail networks, and guess who they are buying trains from? Companies like Siemens and TGV!

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The new station is planned right outside of our office as well - much shorter walk than to New Street!

[Freamon]

There is no need for HS2. Just make the current service a bit better. The Javelin train on HS1 has been a bit of a failure. It's too expensive for most commuters, and it goes to the 'wrong' station.

High Speed 2 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It's 1 hour 24 minutes to Birmingham right now. HS2 will cut this to 49 minutes.... £33,000,000,000 so that a few Brummies can attend a meeting in London 35 minutes quicker. I'd rather have an aircraft carrier or two.

The journey times to Manchester, Liverpool and Glasgow would also come down by similar amounts, and a later HS2+ extension further north would cut journey times to other major cities.

It's important to remember that the £33bn quoted is the up-front cost, but the overall economic impact in terms of future improvements to GDP (and therefore tax receipts) would probably bring this down quite a bit.

Having said all that, it's not surprising there is so much opposition when you have the absolute shower at DfT in charge of making the case. No wonder they were kicked off the Crossrail project once it was off the ground.

[d000hg]

High speed rail not affordable, says Labour

I thought we were supposed to complain Labour spent money, not complain they don't want to spend it?

Waste of money, use the internet. It takes less than 90min anyway, big deal.

[TimberWolf]

It's a good point. £33bn would buy a lot of broadband.

And with all the new targets on carbon emissions (which our highest paid scientists believe causes climate change), why are we making trains faster? Surely we should be making trains slower.

I imagine £33bn spend on the internet would benefit the economy more than old fashioned moving about technology.

[VectraMan]

First of all there is lack of capacity - existing train stations are too short so you can't just add more carriages, HS2 is purpose build so it will fix it.

Last time I went to New Street, the platforms were huge. Most seem to be divided into A & B, and still the trains are dwarfed by the size of the platforms. In the "good old days" trains were much longer, and so are most platforms at least at older stations.

But even if that were completely true, extending one or two platforms in London and Birmingham is considerably less cost and effort than building a whole new railway.

Thirdly - given that max legal car speed is 70 mph, it means that having very high speed trains would take people off the road because travel time will be much faster - it will help reduce conjection.

Only for people that want to go from city centre to city centre. A car will probably be faster for the majority, or at least driving to another station with better parking and access than New Street and not bothering with the new high speed line.