The new faster train track

[sludgeguts]

Wheel on rail is akin to using valves in tellys. Britain is clinging to the train track because it is our invention.
Like many other good inventions, 'we' never want to run with it - so end up being the poor relations to other countries.
(No-one wanted dyson so he trotted off abroad where some forward-thinking people bankrolled him).
As for the £33bn - well, the tracks are imported from abroad (China?) and the trains are coming in from Germany (I believe). I reckon most of the labour force will be Eastern European cheap labour.
Government might just as well give the money away!

I reckon the Germans did a special deal on the trains so they can get rid of their existing stocks & bankroll more maglev solutions.

Thing with high speed rail is that it takes forever to get to speed & forever to slow to a stop - so in a 100 mile journey you will spend about 50 miles at top speed and the rest in accelleration/decelleration.

Maglev has a far better safety record, is cheaper to build, cheaper to run, quieter, has less environmental impact (footprint & vibration) & because most of the tracks are on stilts high above the ground, it's far harder for some muppet to jump in front of a train or for the local chavs to drop some crap on the line.

 

[dave]

Maglev has a far better safety record, is cheaper to build, cheaper to run, quieter, has less environmental impact (footprint & vibration) & because most of the tracks are on stilts high above the ground, it's far harder for some muppet to jump in front of a train or for the local chavs to drop some crap on the line.

reminds me of this

 

[ChrisUK]

Or for rails to be stolen cut up and sold for scrap.

 

[dave]

or the cheap steel for the track will be like the cheap steel fiat bought back in the day

 

[RuSZ]

No but theres a hell of a lot more copper for them to nick

 

[PuntoHowTo]

I use the train quite regularly not that this new high speed rail will ever be used by myself, but I do see the benefits of higher speed railways a trip which

It makes me think back to the 1980's when they cancelled the APT program which was supposed to be high speed trains to rival the french TGV etc but at the time the government couldn't see the benefit, then they sold off the rail ways now it seems we have taken a throw back to the 70's in competed technologically with other countries and the government want to pump inexplicable amounts of money into something that will only directly benefit a small percentage of the population, I'm sure huge sums of money could be saved from modernising current infrastructure and would also lessen considerably the amount of land that would need to be acquired

basically its all a huge waste of our tax payers cash which non of us have been asked if we want and i wouldn't be at all surprised if it all gets shelved the next turn of the government

 

[Hellcat]

Would have rather seen it spent on a few cross-country improvements than a single extra link to London. I can get direct to London even from my neck of the woods, but to get across the Country to Carlisle or Penrith is painful. What would take about 2 hours in the car, is best part of a whole day on the train. They say it will bring more money to the North - I'm concerned it may have exactly the opposite effect.

Trains are great. There is not much more efficient, especially for heavy or bulk items, but it needs to be cheaper and faster for passengers.

 

[sludgeguts]

It will be for the elite who have the big jobs in the city (but want a mansion in the sticks) & so can afford the rail prices.
What will also happen is that people will want to set up businesses in London rather than Brum - for the prestige.
My mate has recently bought his season ticket - £4,000. He's an independant financial advisor with his own firm & offices in central London.
He could work from home & save shedloads of cash but a London office address draws in better clients.

HS2 is simply a vanity project.

 

[panda panda]

Oh you mean the fact that less than 1% of the population will benefit from the investment of £32Bn from 100% of the tax paying population, which will then have to carry on subsidising it to. Personaly I still don't like it.

sounds a bit like scotland

 

[The Beard]

In the grand scheme of things this makes a certain degree of sense. If there is sufficient demand, a full express train to London from Manchester can carry up to around 800 people. Most flights on the same route will carry no more than around 150 as most of the aircraft are Boeing 737s or Airbus A319s.

If you live in South Manchester or Cheshire then flying from Manchester makes a certain degree of sense, but not if you live in the city centre or North Manchester. If you live to the south of Cheshire flying from Ringway isn't too bad but in Staffordshire or Shropshire you're closer to Birmingham but I think that's too close to the capital to warrant flights. Although I stand to be corrected there.

As a coincidence, or not, the HS2 will be calling at Manchester Airport which will benefit those who live in the Midlands or Lancashire and who want to go elsewhere than London. If you follow the link and look at the reduced journey times, the time to Manchester Airport shows an even greater time saving than that to the city centre because at the moment you have to go into Manchester Piccadilly and then back out again. Under the new system you would stop off en-route to Manchester. The only fly in the ointment is that for the last mile into and out of the airport trains only do 20mph and sometimes have to stop to wait for a train to leave the station.

What does baffle me is the so-called improvements to travel in Greater Manchester whereby the Metrolink, at a cost of hundreds of millions of pounds seems to be simply duplicating the existing bus and train routes. The latest is towards the east along Ashton New Road which already has a bus every 15 minutes or so and a rail line that runs nearby.

With the exception of the initial Metrolink from north to south, the rest of the network has provided an answer to a question that nobody asked.

 

[dave]

apart from for a football match, how often do 800 people all travel all the way from one to the other and back again at the same time?

 

[scout]

apart from for a football match, how often do 800 people all travel all the way from one to the other and back again at the same time?

And then with trains running regularly throughout the day I'm not sure that many people want to do the journey that often either