Fri Dec 15, 2017 10:01 pm
#1577690
I have to declare a vested interest. I live 500 yards from the prospective route of HS2, and about 20 miles from the nearest proposed station on it. So I will get all of the inconvenience of it being built, and none of the alleged benefits.
This certainly means I've taken an active interest. My take on it is...
(1) Okay, yes, there's probably a need for more capacity.
(2) There isn't a single HS2. There is HS2 North - desperately wanted and needed, and HS2 South, widely regarded as a white elephant.
(3) Making the South stretch first then North later makes absolutely no logical sense.
(4) Much of the economic case is built upon the understanding that nobody on a train does anything productive. Cobblers, we're all sat there working on our laptops and phones these days.
(4) The big problem is capacity first, speed far behind. You could solve many of the southern capacity issues by a combination of longer trains (and platforms), double decker trains (and lifting quite a few bridges), better command and control systems, and a number of big railway sidings to handle the flow asymmetry. All of those are much cheaper than even the wildly optimistic £20bn price tag for HS2.
Whilst I am biased in not wanting several years building work on my doorstep, and this may flavour my views, nonetheless...
- Stop fannying about down south, and build the Northern HS2 first.
- Create a realistic economic case both ends.
- Down south look seriously at building capacity within the current system, which will almost certainly solve the problems that do exist down here. It's up north that this is really needed, everybody knows that, yet politicians keep kicking that into the same long grass as the third Heathrow runway.
G
This certainly means I've taken an active interest. My take on it is...
(1) Okay, yes, there's probably a need for more capacity.
(2) There isn't a single HS2. There is HS2 North - desperately wanted and needed, and HS2 South, widely regarded as a white elephant.
(3) Making the South stretch first then North later makes absolutely no logical sense.
(4) Much of the economic case is built upon the understanding that nobody on a train does anything productive. Cobblers, we're all sat there working on our laptops and phones these days.
(4) The big problem is capacity first, speed far behind. You could solve many of the southern capacity issues by a combination of longer trains (and platforms), double decker trains (and lifting quite a few bridges), better command and control systems, and a number of big railway sidings to handle the flow asymmetry. All of those are much cheaper than even the wildly optimistic £20bn price tag for HS2.
Whilst I am biased in not wanting several years building work on my doorstep, and this may flavour my views, nonetheless...
- Stop fannying about down south, and build the Northern HS2 first.
- Create a realistic economic case both ends.
- Down south look seriously at building capacity within the current system, which will almost certainly solve the problems that do exist down here. It's up north that this is really needed, everybody knows that, yet politicians keep kicking that into the same long grass as the third Heathrow runway.
G
I am Spartacus, and so is my co-pilot.