Reply to: High Speed Rail Link Petition

[Doggy Styles]

I was being cruel to the residents of Aston Clinton (above). The residents of that village in Berkshire campaigned for decades for a bypass because of the A41 passing through causing so many deaths.

The bypass was held up by the various rich landowners in that part of the world, some of whom did not want the ugly new road, and others who sought the compensation from the government and wanted it on their land, despite that being an inappropriate route.

Those arguments held up the upgrading of that entire stretch of the A41 from the M25 to something like Aylesbury.

IIRC it was 1936 when the first plan was proposed for that bypass.


To give an idea of the mentality in that area, look at Tring. It is a village with a railway station miles from the houses. When the Grand Union Canal as proposed, the residents of Tring refused to have "that stinking ditch" anywhere near them, so the canal bypasses Tring. Hence Tring remains a village whilst its neighbours benefited from the increased trade and wealth the canal brought.

When the railways came, they caused so much grief the railway company built them a station nowhere near them out of spite!

But then, given how the Rothschilds are traditionally the dominant landowners in the area, is it any surprise they can hold the country to ransom and deny the nation services that it needs?

1. Aston Clinton isn't in Berkshire.

2. Tring is a town of 12,000 people.

3. If HMG are hoping freight will use this line instead of the road, lots of new link roads to its stations at either end will also have to be built, and total times will still be slower than driving lorries down the M40.

4. When does all this stop? If we stopped importing people we could see an end to the need for perpetual building.

[SueEllen]

Why are we obsessed with sending people around the place to meet face to face in the digital age?

Property boom

[Ardesco]

I live in the West Midlands and regularly attend meetings in London. The rail service is packed, slow and unreliable. The slow services to the intermediary stations are held up by the need to allow intercity trains to pass, making them even slower. Upgrading an existing service is expensive, slow, causes disruption and cannot produce a modern high-speed service.

Building a new, high speed, mass transit system between the two largest cities in the country is A Good Thing.

Next.

Wouldn't it be better to spend that money on an upgraded fibre network around the UK so that everywhere can shift enough data around for regular video conferencing instead then? That way everybody who is affected by the road works/disruption will benefit from them.

This high speed link is going to be totally pointless for over 90% of the people who will be affected by it's construction.

Why are we obsessed with sending people around the place to meet face to face in the digital age?

[VectraMan]

The question is where is the money going to come from.

We're skint. The foreign office is skint.

And New Labour are leaving a £30 billion googlie bill for the opposition.

It's not starting until 2019. Pleanty of time to get back to the boom stage of our regular boom-bust cycle (except this time it'll be different and there won't be a bust).

[RichardCranium]

Quite why people are worried about the straight line drawn from Brum to London when that actual route hasn't been decided is beyond me.

Bloody country luddites.

I was being cruel to the residents of Aston Clinton (above). The residents of that village in Berkshire campaigned for decades for a bypass because of the A41 passing through causing so many deaths.

The bypass was held up by the various rich landowners in that part of the world, some of whom did not want the ugly new road, and others who sought the compensation from the government and wanted it on their land, despite that being an inappropriate route.

Those arguments held up the upgrading of that entire stretch of the A41 from the M25 to something like Aylesbury.

IIRC it was 1936 when the first plan was proposed for that bypass.


To give an idea of the mentality in that area, look at Tring. It is a village with a railway station miles from the houses. When the Grand Union Canal as proposed, the residents of Tring refused to have "that stinking ditch" anywhere near them, so the canal bypasses Tring. Hence Tring remains a village whilst its neighbours benefited from the increased trade and wealth the canal brought.

When the railways came, they caused so much grief the railway company built them a station nowhere near them out of spite!

But then, given how the Rothschilds are traditionally the dominant landowners in the area, is it any surprise they can hold the country to ransom and deny the nation services that it needs?

[Green Mango]

Indeed. Big infrastructure projects like this ultimately make things better for everyone. It's good socialism, for a change.

No doubt when all the existing road and rail network was built, there were people against it. No doubt they said "what's in it for me", and "why does anybody need to go from A to B". And then they all moaned again when a lot of the railways were taken away years later.

Anyone know how the Hindhead A3 tunnel is coming along?

It ain't socialism at all, it's developing transport infrastructure.

[VectraMan]

Building a new, high speed, mass transit system between the two largest cities in the country is A Good Thing.

Indeed. Big infrastructure projects like this ultimately make things better for everyone. It's good socialism, for a change.

No doubt when all the existing road and rail network was built, there were people against it. No doubt they said "what's in it for me", and "why does anybody need to go from A to B". And then they all moaned again when a lot of the railways were taken away years later.

Anyone know how the Hindhead A3 tunnel is coming along?

[Green Mango]

Apart from the argument about the destruction of natural beauty.

The question is where is the money going to come from.

We're skint. The foreign office is skint.

And New Labour are leaving a £30 billion googlie bill for the opposition.

[Moscow Mule]

By creating new high speed rail lines for passengers, some of the existing network can be freed up for freight, taking some pressure off the roads.

More rail capacity is a good thing.

Quite why people are worried about the straight line drawn from Brum to London when that actual route hasn't been decided is beyond me.

Bloody country luddites.

[VectraMan]

Well I think that for a start this whole idea is stupid. We don't need to slap new railways lines through the middle of residential areas, we need to make the existing ones better.

And causing years and years of disruption to services, not to mention annoying all the local people who will be affected by the workmen and equipment that will have to be moved in to carry out the work.

The Kent link mostly runs alonside the M20, which makes me wonder if this couldn't just run alongside the M40. There was no end of protests about the M40 of course, but it's done now, and nobody is going to be woken up by the noise of a train that isn't already being woken up by millions of lorries.

[RichardCranium]

The poll may not be written amazingly well (hell I didn't write it) but it does cover the issue. Rather than rubbishing the wording on the poll how about looking into the issues and coming up for reasoned arguments as to why a one stop link between London and Birmingham is a good thing if you are pro this?

I live in the West Midlands and regularly attend meetings in London. The rail service is packed, slow and unreliable. The slow services to the intermediary stations are held up by the need to allow intercity trains to pass, making them even slower. Upgrading an existing service is expensive, slow, causes disruption and cannot produce a modern high-speed service.

Building a new, high speed, mass transit system between the two largest cities in the country is A Good Thing.

Next.

[Ardesco]

Well I think that for a start this whole idea is stupid. We don't need to slap new railways lines through the middle of residential areas, we need to make the existing ones better.

The poll may not be written amazingly well (hell I didn't write it) but it does cover the issue. Rather than rubbishing the wording on the poll how about looking into the issues and coming up for reasoned arguments as to why a one stop link between London and Birmingham is a good thing if you are pro this?

I personally can't think of anything, it will be useless for the majority of people IMHO.

[The_Equalizer]

"The high speed rail propsal looks to completely destroy areas of outstanding natural beauty between London and Birmingham - a tunnel under Old Amersham, trains that travel at 320kmph close to our children's schools - this cannot be the right thing to do?"

Not a very balanced or well thought-out statement.

On topic(ish) I've been watching and highly recommend this:

Great British Railway Journeys

From it I've concluded:

a) Railways are great;
b) The Victorians had an Empire for a reason;
c) We should build more lines;
d) It was a waste that Portillo left politics.

[Ardesco]

It's a feeble attempt by Nu Liemore to pander to the RMT!

[swamp]

The Conservatives will not build a rail line that flattens even a single blade of grass in their safe seats.

Labour have dangled this line as a carrot to the northern masses. They will get to: a) dig it; b) drive the trains; c) drink beer and puke on it when their teams plays Arsenal or Chelsea.

There is a big petition in May/June. It's called a General Election.