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Post by gibroon on Sept 24, 2023 10:43:17 GMT
H2S was just another way of lining peoples pockets without much need for completing the damn thing. How many billions wasted? No chance of any accountability or getting the money back. We get a lovely eyesore of a building site travelling many miles for our tax payers money.
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Post by Bill in the rain on Sept 24, 2023 10:45:02 GMT
I wonder what would happen if they had started it at the manchester end. I bet they'd have gotten to london by now.
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askew
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Post by askew on Sept 24, 2023 11:18:59 GMT
It's very much had a Scouring of the Shire effect on the landscape. I can't get over the fact it's not even going to finish at Euston right now.
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Post by Reviewer on Sept 24, 2023 11:30:02 GMT
Having a faster line between the north and south was a good idea, however, having a reliable low cost train service would have been even better.
Pretty sure if trains turned up frequently and were a sensible price then it would have had the same effect and could have been a fraction of the cost and pain.
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Post by Bill in the rain on Sept 24, 2023 11:34:23 GMT
Having a high speed line between north and south shouldn't really have cost that much, taken very long, or been so complicated. It's not rocket science. One between east and west would have been good too. Though they'd just have ballsed it up.
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Post by Vandelay on Sept 24, 2023 12:02:58 GMT
Having a high speed line between north and south shouldn't really have cost that much, taken very long, or been so complicated. It's not rocket science. One between east and west would have been good too. Though they'd just have ballsed it up. Exactly this. It is insane how poorly mismanaged the whole thing must have been to have bills so ridiculously high (unless this "mismanagement" was the point...) The concept isn't just good, it is essential to have quick and reliable train connections between your major hubs. Far, far bigger countries than the UK have managed to do it. Our train service feel barely from the later 20th century, let alone the 21st, when compared to other countries.
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geefe
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Post by geefe on Sept 24, 2023 12:07:57 GMT
I saw a stat that basically showed the difference between the major cities of different countries in Europe compared. EG - the gap in economy between Paris, Lyon and Berlin, Frankfurt, etc.
To nobody's surprise, we have the biggest gap between London and our next economic hubs. All our secondary cities are also more closely clumped together than those of other countries.
Hell, those flats and shit they planned near Picadilly station, in anticipation of HS2, will now either not be built or not worth as much as they thought.
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Post by Reviewer on Sept 24, 2023 12:10:13 GMT
Even if built you can guarantee it would be some ridiculous price to use it.
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Bongo Heracles
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Post by Bongo Heracles on Sept 24, 2023 12:16:05 GMT
This is what I always thought. It doesn’t really matter how fast it is if it still costs £2 a minute to ride the fucking thing.
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askew
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Post by askew on Sept 24, 2023 12:21:11 GMT
What's Birmingham to London on VirginAvanti – £90? £60 on Chiltern. I imagine this will be £100+, unless you've remembered to book three months in advance. And you'll still be lucky to get a seat, though thank fuck you only need to be on your feet for 20 minutes less.
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Bongo Heracles
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Post by Bongo Heracles on Sept 24, 2023 12:37:27 GMT
The funny thing is that are clearly threatening to can the last leg in London so they can actually bin sections in the north as a ‘compromise’.
OH NO! NOT LONDON!! How about Manchester, then? Something has to give YEAH, FUCK THOSE GUYS
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geefe
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Post by geefe on Sept 24, 2023 13:53:49 GMT
We'll just end up with a train that sort of goes from Birmingham to Milton Keynes 15 minutes quicker
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Post by Reviewer on Sept 24, 2023 13:56:00 GMT
And will always be late and overcrowded.
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zephro
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Post by zephro on Sept 24, 2023 13:56:52 GMT
What's Birmingham to London on VirginAvanti – £90? £60 on Chiltern. I imagine this will be £100+, unless you've remembered to book three months in advance. And you'll still be lucky to get a seat, though thank fuck you only need to be on your feet for 20 minutes less. The whole point was capacity not speed (which is more of a nice bonus), so as to alleviate the complete lack of seats these days. The complete mismanagement of it is insane. They've spent a fortune buying land and demolishing shit around Euston (god bless you the Bree Louise), and it's not even going there now. Also who's going to catch the thing from Old Oak Common? It's basically Acton but while not being properly on the underground network. It's just a complete incompetent shitshow. I probably am more famous they demolished one of my favourite after work pubs and we don't even get an upgraded railway station out of it.
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Post by Reviewer on Sept 24, 2023 13:58:45 GMT
What's Birmingham to London on VirginAvanti – £90? £60 on Chiltern. I imagine this will be £100+, unless you've remembered to book three months in advance. And you'll still be lucky to get a seat, though thank fuck you only need to be on your feet for 20 minutes less. The whole point was capacity not speed (which is more of a nice bonus), so as to alleviate the complete lack of seats these days. The complete mismanagement of it is insane. Then why is it called High Speed 2?
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Post by elstoof on Sept 24, 2023 14:01:30 GMT
Because it was the second high speed rail project
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zephro
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Post by zephro on Sept 24, 2023 14:02:04 GMT
The whole point was capacity not speed (which is more of a nice bonus), so as to alleviate the complete lack of seats these days. The complete mismanagement of it is insane. Then why is it called High Speed 2? Because it's the second time we've built a high speed line? Why would anyone bother building "slow rail 25"?
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Post by elstoof on Sept 24, 2023 14:09:30 GMT
Also who's going to catch the thing from Old Oak Common? It's basically Acton but while not being properly on the underground network. It's just a complete incompetent shitshow. The smart move from the very beginning was to leave Euston as it is, build a hub at Old Oak Common and link it to HS1 from there. Elizabeth Line connections to central London as well as Northern England to mainland Europe without changing trains, who on earth wants to get off at Euston and spend half an hour trudging to St Pancras with their luggage
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Post by Reviewer on Sept 24, 2023 14:11:21 GMT
So it was about speed?
They could have called it anything without referencing its speed.
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zephro
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Post by zephro on Sept 24, 2023 14:11:48 GMT
Also who's going to catch the thing from Old Oak Common? It's basically Acton but while not being properly on the underground network. It's just a complete incompetent shitshow. The smart move from the very beginning was to leave Euston as it is, build a hub at Old Oak Common and link it to HS1 from there. Northern England to mainland Europe without changing trains, who on earth wants to get off at Euston and spend half an hour trudging to St Pancras with their luggage I think they were still planning Crossrail 2 at the time, the platforms were going to be underneath the British Library and effectively link Kings Cross + St Pancras and Euston into one mega station underground. Though doing anything in the UK and assuming other long-term planning projects will actually come off is betting strongly against the odds.
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geefe
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Post by geefe on Sept 24, 2023 14:50:50 GMT
So it was about speed? They could have called it anything without referencing its speed. The Train That Couldn't Slow Down
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Post by Whizzo on Sept 24, 2023 15:10:41 GMT
I'm not an expert on trains in the UK, they're far too fucking expensive for me to use that much, but I'm just back from a holiday that involved travelling by train from Berlin - Prague - Vienna - Budapest, all went pretty smoothly (I'll be reserving seats if I ever do that sort of thing again though). It was cheap as chips, worked really well (the first two trips were about 4 hours, the last leg was late by about 30 minutes so was 2.5 hours) and it makes the HS2 farce look fucking comical.
Public transport in the cities was incredibly cheap too, Britain needs a reboot on transport.
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X201
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Post by X201 on Sept 24, 2023 15:16:03 GMT
But if we make it cheaper, people will use it.
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zephro
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Post by zephro on Sept 24, 2023 15:31:53 GMT
Private Eye is always a good place to find out about how disfunctional the British transport system is. Effectively the only bit that actually works mostly as intended is TfL as it never got privatised and the TfL has oversight of linking together the buses, underground, trains and trams. So even if it got built as a mess of random Victorian railway craze it's been broadly rationalised. The West Midlands and Manchester have improved massively since I lived in them.
Basically UK transport functions with the least Government subsidy in the developed world except generally the US (though equivalent systems like New York, are more subsidised than TfL as the Mayor of New York can gather taxes as can the state of New York, which ought to be allowed in London, Manchester, The West Midlands). So the whole thing is overly expensive for that reason.
Privatisation has also increased costs. As the theory that competition will do anything doesn't really operate, if I need to get to Manchester I've got the West Coast Mainline and that's it. So demand is high, supply is low and prices go through the roof. Plus it doesn't improve anything as the Department of Transport effectively works as a lender of last resort, bailing out the operators for lost profits or just taking over when they fuck up. So it is subsidised but it's the shit bits that get the subsidy. So the financial incentives are all fucked.
Then any infrastructure project we do is criminally mismanaged, always overbudget and held up for decades in legal wrangling and general stupidity. Even time they spend vacillating on HS2 they are permanently paying private security companies to look after the land so there's just a permanent bleeding away of money.
Even with just Birmingham to London, you currently have 2 options Chiltern, London West Midlands and the West Coast Mainline. All of which tend to be overcrowded and shit. There's no pressure to bring down prices as you've got 2 hour trains or 1 hour 20 trains (for quite a short distance). Building HS2 was intended to expand capacity, so more potential seats and the costs on the other ones can come down to deal with the demand that actually exists. If you're building an inter-city link in the 21st century why the fuck would you purposefully build it for old slow trains? Though higher speeds increase capacity further, if it's 30% faster it can run 30% more journeys and 30% more passengers per hour.
It's especially true of getting to the North West as there's currently 1 option with a fucking shit awful operator running it.
TLDR; it's a shit show and the Tories are just incompetent.
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Post by anthonyuk on Sept 24, 2023 16:08:44 GMT
Recently came back from a trip to Italy and the cost of rail fare was a real eye opener as to how much we have our pants pulled down here in the UK.
Half an hours Journey was a couple of quid. A roughly comparative Manchester to London journey of Pisa to Rome (230ish miles or 3hours each way) was just under £30 for the return ticket. It activity encourages you to explore the country the fares are so cheap in comparison to home.
I rarely get the train back home, but me and my partner still have a "2 together" rail card which is around £20 per year covering both of us. For that you get roughly 1/3 off the price of tickets if you travel together. Even if we take the train twice a year, a few trips to London and Edinburgh from Manchester for example, we literally save hundreds of pounds for paying £20 up front. The value is ridiculous to the point you can't help but see how artificially overpriced the tickets are in the first place.
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Rich
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Post by Rich on Sept 24, 2023 16:20:25 GMT
Obviously I'm not going to be discussing the case, but I see Suella Braverman adding 'contempt of court' to the list of things she doesn't understand.
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Frog
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Post by Frog on Sept 24, 2023 16:23:24 GMT
Go and bludgeon her with your truncheon Rich.
In whichever manner you desire.
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Post by Whizzo on Sept 24, 2023 16:43:54 GMT
It wasn't all that long ago that someone who did the photocopying in a law practice was the most senior lawyer to the Crown as the Attorney General.
Now she's the Home Secretary potentially fucking up a murder trial.
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Bongo Heracles
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Post by Bongo Heracles on Sept 24, 2023 16:59:27 GMT
It’s actually a great tradition of the post
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Post by Danno on Sept 24, 2023 21:19:35 GMT
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