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UK Green Lights HS2 High Speed Rail Line
An anonymous reader writes "The United Kingdom has given the green light to the first phase of its proposed High Speed Two train line. In response to environmental concerns, the route for HS2 will now include extra tunneling in the first 90 miles, so not to disrupt the natural beauty of the English countryside. The first phase will connect London to Birmingham and could be functional by 2026."
...any chance they'll ever fix the horrible mess they've made of the non-high speed lucky-if-you-get-there-alive train service in the UK?
That's because the Germans were involved. When Germans are on the team, things get organized a lot faster.
Lots of beautiful English countryside south of Manchester. Also lots of stockbrokers / rich city types who don't want their countryside fantasy shattered by noisy development work. A bit like the rich lords and ladies 150 years ago who complained about their views being ruined the first time they put railway lines across the land.
Though to be fair there are ecological concerns to be taken into account this time round seeing as we've got less countryside left.
You can thank the exponential growth of bureaucracy over the last 70 years for that. It's the same reason why it took 7 years to build the original World Trade Center and now more than a decade after 9/11, they're "hoping" that it will be almost done by 2020 (19 years after).
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
You probably haven't been to much south of Manchester either. There's the peak district, dartmoor, norfolk, The chilterns (the ones that the HS2 protesters worry about), and the south downs to name just a few.
Which is why it is funny in a way that Lord Astor has suggested that HS2 is unnecessary and an improved Internet backbone for better video conferencing would be a more sensible use of the money. The fibre link from London to Birmingham could easily be laid along the existing railway or canal network.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Its capacity and cost. A return from Leeds to london tomorrow will cost £123 off peak. That's just under 200 miles so its chaper to drive. If you want the chapest travel then you would go by coach for £9.50. It seems to me that for the same or less than HS2 they could have longer platforms, double decker coaches (like in France) and get the cost down. I would rather have a 2 hour service for about £30 that I could actually use than a 50 minute one for £200.
It took only six years for the greatest mobilization in world history to defeat the Axis.
Yes, well this time you don't have Russians doing the bulk of the dirty work for you.
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
19 years is very long. Is the 19 years for all 7 towers? The Burj Khalifa, Taipei 101 and Petronas Twin Towers all took about 6-7 years, and they cost less than USD2 billion.
Not expecting it to be this fast:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hdpf-MQM9vY
But if it's 19 years for one or two towers, it is crazy.
Yes, transport in general in the UK is a mess...
As was reported recently, trains cost massively more in the UK than in other european countries, and if you live outside of a large city public transport is even worse or may be entirely lacking.
Concorde cut the journey time to new york in half, and yet it's no longer flying... Faster transport isn't whats needed, we need to decrease distances, decrease congestion and most importantly decrease the need to travel.
Encourage home working... Most office jobs can be done from anywhere with an internet connection and phoneline...
Stagger working hours - don't have everyone travel in for 9am, that just causes mass congestion at specific times and creates a horrendously inefficient transport system where the extra capacity to handle peak traffic is simply wasted at other times. Many staff never need to interact directly with third parties and so have no reason to be at work 9-5.
Convince businesses to get over this stupid obsession of having offices in central london (or other large cities), it doesn't make your company look prestigious it just increases costs and hinders your recruitment process because people are put off by the horrendous commute and will usually demand more money for working there. Instead, build your offices in small business parks located outside the centre of cities, not only are these considerably cheaper but there is generally affordable housing within a short distance. I personally have turned down several job offers that required commuting to central london.
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Well, you know – if it hadn't been for the US in WW2, the UK would have had decent train service now... :P
Premise: I'm half-Brit half-Italian.
A while ago an Italian newspaper compared the time it took to build the Channel Tunnel compared to the Milan Bypass Railway (6 vs 24 years) poking much fun at our (Italian) slowness. Now that Italy has a full high-speed rail link between Turin-Milan-Rome-Naples (which included digging new tunnels in the Appenini mountains) built in less than 20 years (nearly 1000 Km), someone should write a similar article.
Obviously these times and distances are laughable compared to France and Japan anyway.
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The world is divided in two categories:
those with a loaded gun and those who dig. You dig.
Conveniently ignoring the fact that the US waited until they knew they were on the winning side. Just like a bunch of Manchester United supporters.
No, really, it's purpose is to spend 32 billion+.
The stretch to bitmingham will cost 15bn and save 40 (not 20) minutes, not to mention increasing capacity. The Full cost is for the full plan is for the extension to Manchester and Leeds which will cost 32bn and save considerably more time and also add capacity.
The mainline is running close to capacity, and only the government has the foresight and funds to spend money on large infrastructure projects.
Since you're likely to troll me with the same assertion as before, what do you propose should be done to increase capacity?
SJW n. One who posts facts.
The less well off can still use the existing routes on the conventional lines, which will take longer and on older trains but will still exist once the high speed project is live. If the high speed train is a great success, then some capacity on existing lines can be made spare or re-allocated for regional and suburban services that currently run on the same lines as the intercity service. What I actually worry about is that the added capacity encourages more people and companies to have more trips into London, where they will use the tube to get to their final destinations and that is really hard to upgrade.
Well yes, of course - once the US stopped handing vast amounts of machinery and oil to Germany, beating them was easy. Glad you guys finally decided to come on side once the difficult bit was done, though.
British accountants frequently combine arrogance with ignorance; their inability to understand how businesses really work has been one of the reasons for failure of UK PLC.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."