For help, advice and discussion about stuff not related to aviation. Play nice: no religion, no politics and no axe grinding please.
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User avatar
By kanga
#1714933
eltonioni wrote:[mugsgame]

Prediction; HS2 to be started in the north, combined with HS3,
..
[/mugsgame]


.. which is what should have happened anyway, and in time to be integrated with Sheffield City Airport .. :roll:
PaulB, eltonioni liked this
#1718822
Bill Drummond / K Foundation would have been a better choice to judge the demise of those hateful Pacer things. Just get rid.
rikur_ liked this
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By rikur_
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1718838
eltonioni wrote:Bill Drummond / K Foundation would have been a better choice to judge the demise of those hateful Pacer things. Just get rid.

So it's not you that's applied for one to convert to a bird hide then?

One of the engineers summed up nicely .... all the things that make them bad trains will make them bad community centres: cold, draughty, badly insulated, corroding, no disabled access, hard to maintain, etc. Given that proper portakabin units go second hand for < £10k and occasionally even 'free to collect', the only thing they've got going for them is a perverse nostalgia.
One of those moments when the minister just announces something, and everyone goes 'did I hear that right?'
cockney steve liked this
By cockney steve
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1718859
I started reading the referred-to document, I thought "surely it's not April 1 "

As an infrequent railway- user (at least 3 times in the last 40 years :lol: ) I have no knowledge of the conveyances in question, however, it seems that, if one is parked on a bit of waste- ground and left unlocked, the local undesirables will colonise it. (OK, call it a "community-facility)

Artistic graffiti will cover all hard surfaces, windows broken ensures adequate ventilation, soft furnishings (seating) can be vandalised to their heart's content and there will be plenty of secluded spots for the druggies and weed-smokers. It would provide a handy diversion for the anti-social and prepare the hulk for piecemeal collection by the "scrap-metal collectors".
What's not to like? :clown:
#1742079
Even "doubled" is a bit misleading. I remember it being a £32bn project six years ago.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21221828

It's long past time to can everything south of Crewe and commit £50bn into the North, including the Sheffield-Manchester Trans-Pennine road tunnel please.
johnm liked this
User avatar
By kanga
#1742139
eltonioni wrote:..
It's long past time to can everything south of Crewe and commit £50bn into the North, including the Sheffield-Manchester Trans-Pennine road tunnel please.


.. and (as should have happened first anyway :? ) buiild the projected Northern bits of HS2 first; oh, and reinstate Sheffield City Airport and a HS2 interchange station on its edge .. But I'd emend this to say 'South-East of Crewe': Devon, Cornwall and the whole of Wales have been similarly starved of transport infrastructure investment for decades.

The strategic value to the nation would and should be to shift a cusp-effect number of 'opinion-formers', especially in high finance and the media, out of the South East.
eltonioni liked this
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By rikur_
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1742143
Aside from the issue of cost, the very real question is whether as a nation we actually can actually acquire the skills to design and build the multitude of rail schemes now being promised - we certainly won't have experience (and lack of experience drives up cost and errors).
5 years ago it looked like we might have Crossrail finishing as HS2 started, HS2 finishing as Northern Powerhouse Rail (aka HS3) started - and by luck rather than planning you might pull it off.
Now we have HS2 delayed so that it overlaps with NPR, at the same time of significant projects on classic rail such as TransPennine Route Upgrade and East-West Rail, and possibly CrossRail 2.

I have a feeling this is a bit like promising 20,000 extra police officers - it's a relatively safe promise to make, as the costs won't happen because there isn't the supply to fulfil the promise.
User avatar
By eltonioni
#1742150
The skills certainly exist, whether they exist in sufficient volume for a £200bn (hey, why not, it's only money!) fancy trainset project is another thing.

This government has a secure 5 years which is enough time to get young people into new FE colleges in September 2020 for a couple of years to give them basic C&G qualifications before firing them into the trades to start their career to whatever level they are able. It will mean severely pishing off the new wave of university vice-chancellors who push meaningless education, so that's a bonus too.

By 2025 we could transform industry from the ground up and negate the effects of post B word low-wage immigration. Let's see.
User avatar
By rikur_
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1742189
JoeC wrote:Quite a few large investments have already been made and hopefully more on the way for training/educating next gen technicians/engineers.

https://www.doncaster.gov.uk/services/b ... speed-rail

not necessarily effective investments:
1) you need suitable students, not just a training college;
2) training in high speed train maintenance comes many years after civil engineering training to design and build the stuff that the trains run on

whilst the intent might have been well intended, not sure what we've seen so far, nor what is in the pipeline, is going to address the gap
By PaulB
#1742974
So will this £106bn cost be swallowed by the government (actually us, the taxpayers) or will it be recouped from the ticket prices of those who use the routes? If they latter how will they be affordable?
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