Do We Need A High Speed Train?

[anotheoldgit]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2269401/HS2-route-London-Manchester-train-hour-20-years.html

/// London to Manchester by train in one hour (in 20 years): ///

One hour in 20 years time, may be crawling along.

[jno]

hard to see how it could get any quicker unless they reinstate Concorde for short hops. Going by road will take about 3 weeks, the same as by post-chaise in the 18th century.

[Zacs-Master]

Fuel will probably e £10 a litre so the railways may be a viable alternative in 20 years time.

[emmie]

there is much opposition to it, some of the folks and business around Euston are up in arms, seeing as how their homes and local businesses will go, and the compensation isn't a forgone conclusion.

[DTCwordfan]

what's the payback of this in Money of the Day and by Net Present Value.

I guess the issue is funding - abandoning Trident could go a long way, once they have allowed for the new Ark Royal, beefing the Forces and some UK Inc business development, particularly in upping our export selling techniques and resources.

[boxtops]

I can only add my fourpennorth - having the high speed train between London and our local stations has cut the journey time to an hour, I have nothing but good words to say about the service. Since we also travel to Scotland by train to see the MIL, anything that'll reduce the 8-hour journey there will be welcome too.

[anotheoldgit]

jno

/// hard to see how it could get any quicker ///

I suppose they said that 20 years ago.

[jno]

no, fast trains have been around a lot longer. Japanese bullet trains began in the 1970s, I think. It's only about 160 miles as the fly crows, I don't see why they need 250mph trains to do it in an hour. Even an InterCity 125 (do they still have those?) wouldn't take too much more than an hour.

[jake-the-peg]

Beefing up the forces DT?

No point in that! The moment we get into a war everybody wants the troops pulled out!

Frankly the economic benefits are questionable - the environmental benefit analysis assumed the benefit would come from *fewer* Heathrow flights and if you want jobs there are a lot better ways to spend the money!

The only sense of this would be if there was a lot of provision for freight which doesn't seem to have even been thought of.

It's nonsense on stilts!

[emmie]

how long will it actually take to get full approval, how long will it all take to build, years and years seemingly. and in the end you get to your destination a bit quicker than before. Meanwhile no one knows the full extent of how many peoples homes and businesses, green land will have to go in the process.

[Zeuhl]

This speed argument is the same nonsense trotted out for Concorde before they realised it was only viable for the premium paying minority.

It is based on the silly idea that the 120 or 60 minutes on the train represents the whole journey when anyone who thinks about the whole door to door journey realizes that getting to, from and through the termini render it insignificant.

I would be staggered if current train passengers or current motorway drivers gave 'make it a bit quicker' as the most important improvement for the trains.

[emmie]

no one wanted to go to war in Afghanistan, not that i can see, politicians make this idiot decisions remember.

[anotheoldgit]

em10

/// there is much opposition to it, some of the folks and business around Euston are up in arms, ///

Why it goes to Euston is a mystery, one would think that the best choice would have been St Pancras, for the Eurostar link?

[Zeuhl]

They're not that far apart - maybe a 'moving pavement' is planned

Surely they're not planning people to transfer via the Tube system!

[LazyGun]

DoH! in the minority again - I quite like the idea of HS2 :)

And yes, I know that Euston and Kings Cross/ St. Pancras are pretty close together - but it would kind of make sense, at least to a layperson, that the london terminus of HS2 would link directly with the Eurostar terminal....

[emmie]

that is the point - no one is sure why Euston, from all that i have read about this, the link would be better served elsewhere.

[FredPuli43]

AOG, a bit odd, at first glance,that it's not going to St Pancras but St Pancras is one stop on the tube from Euston , or a very short cab ride. But you can imagine, if there's fuss about it going to Euston, how much more,and how much more cost, there would be if it was being built demolishing all the buildings and crossing roads that lie on that alternative route.

Am reminded what the boss of SNCF said,when he was told that we had difficulty building a high speed line from the Channel Tunnel because of local objections: " In France,if we need to drain a swamp, we don't ask permission of the frogs first" [Sounds better in English where 'frogs' is insulting to French people ]

[emmie]

would have to be a very large moving platform, pavement, seeing the distance between St Pancras and Euston stations. It's not credible, there is much opposition from all quarters for siting the link elsewhere, and from what i have seen of the plans, hundreds of homes and many businesses would go. There had been proposals for the old temperance hospital to be knocked down and for homes to be built there to provide for those who homes would go, but that seems to have been shelved.

[Gromit]

Good job the Victorians had the foresight to invest in the railways in the first place, and the Government built the motorways after the war.

We need to invest now for our future generations.

The jobs and the money the workers earn during its construction is what our economy needs now. Infrastructure projects are a great way to stimulate the economy and build grow.

[emmie]

St Pancras is a separate station from Kings Cross, and it's a fair old walk connecting the two stations, that is if you use the connecting walkways under both stations.

[jno]

presumably there's a case for sending all trains from big cities to St Pancras so people can switch to Eurostar; but I suspect it's pretty much full up now. Euston's only a quarter of a mile away, and it was the traditional station, wasn't it?