Are The Hs2 Plans Unravelling ?

[mikey4444]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24278772

A new Chairman appointed, Labour throwing doubt on whether it will proceed when they win the next election.

Are we looking at the death throws of HS2 ?

[mushroom25]

//I don't see why the Government ................ don't add a track to the existing network, widening that where they need to. //

not so easy, that. for instance, a serious pinch-point on the west coast line is between rugby and nuneaton, where currently there are 3 tracks. To add a 4th (for northbound freight trains) will be unbelievably expensive (and disruptive) because the present M6 bridge over the railway will have to be demolished and rebuilt, plus the canal that passes adjacent will have to be diverted.

[Gromit]

Zeuhl

// The idea that shaving 30 minutes off a train journey is somehow the most important factor is the same muddled and lazy thinking that produced the air transport white elephant that was Concorde. //

Four points.
1. Concorde was not a white elephant because it was fast or even that it was expensive. Concorde failed because it was too small, couldn't carry enough freight or passengers. HS2 wants to be the jumbo jet of rail. Longer trains, more passengers, more often.

2. The problem with the existing route is that it is clogged up with slow local trains, slowing up the fast trains and congesting the system. Also it is too windy for the fast trains to safely travel fast on. Imagine a motorway with 20mph speed bumps, and that is the situation we have with the current track. Calling the route High Speed 2 is misleading. Really it is not slow speed 2.

3. Getting more journeys made by rail will actually keep the roads useable for longer. The trains carry 500+ passengers, so if you do that 4 or even 8 times an hour you keep 2000-4000 vehicles off the motorways and out of the City.

4. Carrying 500 people on one electric train causes vastly less emissions than 500 cars doing the same journeys.

[DTCwordfan]

could tunnel those pinch points, mushroom.......just an option/thought.

[mushroom25]

//4. Carrying 500 people on one electric train causes vastly less emissions than 500 cars doing the same journeys. //

that's only true at point of use, unless the electricity was itself generated by a clean means, which at present in the UK, in general it isn't.

when the west coast upgrade was planned, diesel engine technology had advanced so far that Railtrack (as they were then) seriously encouraged Virgin to look at opting for combustion engines over electric traction - overall emissions about the same, maybe slightly better, plus huge savings on replacement electric traction infrastructure.

[DTCwordfan]

That doesn't surprise me, diesel engines are tremendously more efficient than tricity ones, even allowing for the environmental cost of refining' in short, they are the most efficient of engines on the current market in terms of overall CO2 and NOx/SOx balances.

[Gromit]

Mushroom

Trains are far less polluting than cars per passenger.

http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/+/http://www.dft.gov.uk/adobepdf/187604/263473/relativecarbonperform.pdf

Comparing modern electric trains and modern deisel trains, electric train CO2 emissions are about 30% less per passenger mile than deisel trains.

There is a strategy to decarbonise electricity generation in the UK. By the time HS2 is built, the cO2 at point of generation should be down on what it is today.

[emmie]

i did say initially -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Llanelly_and_Mynydd_Mawr_Railway

[DTCwordfan]

Stats lie - what about before the grid, the generation, the construction of the plant, the chosen fuel for generation, waste disposal. In short these figures are a load of b0llocks.

[mushroom25]

quite.

using similar statistics, stephen byers (in 2002) was able to prove that the weight of a pendolino was such that each pair of passenger seats represented the same energy consumption as a large 4x4.

[grasscarp]

At the moment you can go to Birmingham for 50p but I cant think of any reason to go there, even if it only costs pennies!
http://www.chilternrailways.co.uk/es50offer

[Zeuhl]

^
But can people also ESCAPE from Birmingham for 50p?

[DTCwordfan]

^ to which you must add the green tax and the Cotswold/Chilterns premium, (£3.00 each way)...