Finally some real good news!

[DimPrawn]

What kind of non "proper" jobs do people in the North do at the moment?

Stupid jobs "making" things I suspect.

[MrMark]

...and no one questions if £17 billion to build a 100 mile railway is value for money - in my drunken state I think that works out at 170 million per mile!

It does seem extremely expensive for a relatively short route along fairly benign land (ie no mountains or deep valleys). They build high speed lines on the continent for 5-10 billion and have to cope with harsher terrain. Another example - the new high speed line in the Saudi desert will cost just £6 billion BBC News - Saudi railway to be built by Spanish-led consortium

I'm not even sure the money will go on higher pay levels in the UK - they'll probably import labour and migrant workers. It's all going to go in the backpockets of lawyers, banksters and politicos innit?

[Freamon]

What happened to restoring the Oxford-MK-Hitchin-Cambridge route?

There's a telescope in the way.

[VectraMan]

What happened to restoring the Oxford-MK-Hitchin-Cambridge route?

There is a plan to upgrade the Oxford to Bicester line and link it to the other Bicester line and run services from Oxford to London:

Chiltern Evergreen3 - Home

I think the Oxford to Cambridge thing is a bit of a pipe dream. Routes that don't go to London always get shafted. The A34 is one of the busiest roads in the country, being really the only route from Southampton and the coast to the Midllands and North, and always needed to be a proper motorway. It carries far more traffic than a lot of motorways. But it doesn't go to London.

[OwlHoot]

It does seem extremely expensive for a relatively short route along fairly benign land (ie no mountains or deep valleys). They build high speed lines on the continent for 5-10 billion and have to cope with harsher terrain. Another example - the new high speed line in the Saudi desert will cost just £6 billion BBC News - Saudi railway to be built by Spanish-led consortium

I'm not even sure the money will go on higher pay levels in the UK - they'll probably import labour and migrant workers. It's all going to go in the backpockets of lawyers, banksters and politicos innit?

I imagine a fair bit of that will go on compulsory purchases. Why not leverage the UK's tunneling expertise and build the whole thing underground? Might work out cheaper, and there would be minimal disruption, no loss of land for housing or agriculture, millions of tons of spoil to bolster eroding coastlines, and no risk of young scrotes (or terrorist scrotes) leaving paving stones on the track.

[cojak]

This would have happened years ago if the route had to go through the Lake District.

Londoners do so hate their weekend retreats ruined...

[DodgyAgent]

What kind of non "proper" jobs do people in the North do at the moment?

Well according to a number of people on this site the North is awash with unemployed people who have neither the wit, the intelligence, the gumption nor the motivation to get another job or build a new career. These people are apparently the legacy of Thatcher.
Now I stand to be corrected, but I think that better connections to the North will encourage all sorts of enterprises to open businesses up there to take advantage of the lower living costs and the higher availability of workers, which is better than using the North as a dumping ground for public services.

[MrMark]

I imagine a fair bit of that will go on compulsory purchases. Why not leverage the UK's tunneling expertise and build the whole thing underground? Might work out cheaper, and there would be minimal disruption, no loss of land for housing or agriculture, millions of tons of spoil to bolster eroding coastlines, and no risk of young scrotes (or terrorist scrotes) leaving paving stones on the track.

I'm trying to think of drawbacks to your idea, but struggling... Maybe some passengers would be put off by travelling underground, especially at high speed?

[Freamon]

Well according to a number of people on this site the North is awash with unemployed people who have neither the wit, the intelligence, the gumption nor the motivation to get another job or build a new career.

That isn't true at all.

The reality is, the whole country is awash with such people.

[Freamon]

Why not leverage the UK's tunneling expertise and build the whole thing underground? Might work out cheaper

Crossrail has 21km of tunnels, and the project cost is £16bn (about half of that will go on the tunnelling). The Tunnel Boring Machines are currently under construction - in Germany.