Finally some real good news!

[escapeUK]

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.

You are thinking of NorthernLad arent you?

I live in the north too, and I can honestly say this perception is correct, and Im talking about the employed ones. Not being able to read very well, having to be told the same thing over and over, making the same mistakes every day. Its virtually impossible to employ anyone with a bit of drive or the spark of intelligence. People are quite content to earn a little as long as the state tops it up.

I dont see much hope, the young ones are poorly educated. Am amazed how little computer skills they have when they have grown up in the computer age. The tend to give up easily if they dont understand, think someone else should do it.

As to the rail link, what a waste of money. The future of this country, indeed the world, will be getting people to live close to where they work. Already people are being priced off the road, rail is no cheaper. This will continue, its on purpose.

[DodgyAgent]

That isn't true at all.

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

As was pointed out earlier there are too many areas with too few employers. I think better transport systems will make people far more mobile, creating more job competition. This will not only sharpen up employers but it will also remove complacency amongst employees. Oh and of course more wonga for agents moving more people between jobs

[DodgyAgent]

You are thinking of NorthernLad arent you?

I live in the north too, and I can honestly say this perception is correct, and Im talking about the employed ones. Not being able to read very well, having to be told the same thing over and over, making the same mistakes every day. Its virtually impossible to employ anyone with a bit of drive or the spark of intelligence. People are quite content to earn a little as long as the state tops it up.

I dont see much hope, the young ones are poorly educated. Am amazed how little computer skills they have when they have grown up in the computer age. The tend to give up easily if they dont understand, think someone else should do it.

As to the rail link, what a waste of money. The future of this country, indeed the world, will be getting people to live close to where they work. Already people are being priced off the road, rail is no cheaper. This will continue, its on purpose.

Whilst I would agree with your analysis I would take issue about the outcome. With more and varied employers there will be a huge stimulus for workers to train and look beyond the single employer. As I sad on my previous comment, such a stimulus would have positive effects on both employers and employees (even though many would not like it). As for living near work, with better communication links workers will be more mobile thus adding to the stimulus.

[Doggy Styles]

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.

You're probably right.

It's just that the track from Bicester to MK (Bletchley) is still there and used for freight, and the MK (Bletchley) to Bedford and Hitchen to Cambridge bits are still used for passengers.

In the grand scheme of things that doesn't leave a lot more track to be built.

[VectraMan]

As to the rail link, what a waste of money. The future of this country, indeed the world, will be getting people to live close to where they work. Already people are being priced off the road, rail is no cheaper. This will continue, its on purpose.

Or work at home more. What the economy needs is a flexible mobile workforce, but house prices and transport costs make that difficult. Fortunately most people probably could work at home, or at least in small shared local offices and do the same jobs, so maybe that's the future.

As someone who lives roughly half way along the route, HS2 won't bring anything but noise and disruption (whilst it's being built), and a likely reduction in train services once it's up and running. I'm still in favour though.

[MrMark]

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.

£16 billion for 21km of tunnels?

This line is 179 km long, with 42 km of tunnels (blasting through the Guadarrama mountain range, not London clay) and cost 4.2 billion Euros. Madrid It must be the numerous stations on CrossRail that ups the price somewhat.

[MrMark]

If they invent the teleporter before 2030, won't it make the line totally obselete?

[AtW]

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

The reason it's cheaper there is because they won't have planning permission, consultation and expensive lawyers problem there.

Also rest assured the line will be build by effectively slave labour with low health standards (as in people will die during construction).

HS2 can link up to Europe later and major continental cities will be available - overnight sleepers should be popular.

Anyway the cost of the line is roughly equivalent to 1-2 years of City bankers bonuses.

[Freamon]

£16 billion for 21km of tunnels?

This line is 179 km long, with 42 km of tunnels (blasting through the Guadarrama mountain range, not London clay) and cost 4.2 billion Euros. Madrid It must be the numerous stations on CrossRail that ups the price somewhat.

I think the reason Crossrail is so expensive is that London obviously already has a significant amount of underground tunnelling for the existing tube lines, sewers, royal mail train etc. Crossrail's tunnel bore exercise has been likened to threading a needle at arms length whilst blindfolded.