Re~Stirred Forum

Doubt it Barnard.

That's not what I would call "derailed" Barnard - delayed due to "wrong sort of politics on the line" is more apt.

shows how WEAK Cameron is. He has not changed his mind due to the debate and arguments against him, just because it is politically easier not to upset a few tory mp's.

Whether you are against for for this that is wrong.

I read the chamberlain file earlier, I am pleased the land gobbling train has been delayed. it's the equivalent to concord, who could afford to fly by concord? Has anyone considered that a crash heaven forbid on the hs2 at 225mph would be catastrophic.
much better to update existing lines , cause the people against the hs2 would start legal proceeding to stop it.
Ancient woodlands would be destroyed and the affects on wild life re -losing their habitat, would not be fixable.
I still believe hs2 will take business to London from B'ham cause thats what the train boasts how quickly it can get to London from B'ham. At £300 a ticket, when "you" can get a bus for £1 there and a £1 back , more money than sense comes to mind.

Except of course in the French experience of 31 years of high speed TGV services there hasn't been a single fatality (source). That's no deaths over several hundred million passenger kilometres travelledThis has to be balanced against the positive effects of hpefully increasing capacity for rail freight on WCML.Why would business go from Birmingham to London where the same work is much more expensive. That's completely counter-intuitive - more realistically London firms may choose to outsource work to the Midlands since the same work would be done more cheaply here.

Clearly the £1 bus isn't all that amazing as it's completely failing to compete against conventional rail services. Most people want reliability and comfort - and some will pay a premium for faster services. That said, my understanding is that standard class tickets on a high speed line would not be significantly more expensive than on the WCML now.

This governement said they would push it through no matter what. All around Birmingham there are roadworks most working towards the new extention of the Metro to Curzon street (well they have to have some way of getting all these rich business men from the HST to the city centre!!) and the 'improvements' to New st station. Don't forget that because of the development that has already taken place there is no public transport to Curzon street station or millenium point.

That's also because it's publicly owned and run, derog.
The conservation arguments have been hyped up. This is a strip of land a couple of hundred yards wide at most, often less. There will not be much loss of ancient woodland. There are some historic buildings under threat but conservation societies (including the SPAB, alas) would be better arguing for their retention by moving them than against this scheme.

The essential argument for it, sally, is capacity. The West Coast Main Line will be full within twenty years. Adding extra tracks would be much more expensive and destructive than building HS2, because it runs through tight urban areas. If we don't build it, market forces will increase fares to such a level that you and I will be completely unable to travel by rail.

Most private airlines also have exceptional safety records despite operating in what is obviously a potentially hazardous business. I don't think it is about ownership - it is about a safety culture and having the right processes and procedures to ensure safety.It is also worth adding that HS2 will be tunnelled under the most sensitive areas (e.g. Chiltern Hills) it passes through. That said, I've never heard of anyone going to the Chiltern Hills for daytrips as you would to the Peaks or Malverns, so not sure whether they really all that interesting anyway.

Part of the reason you can't run HS2 along WCML is that the HS2 line needs to be as straight as possible so that trains can travel at full speed (and a shorter distance).

I wasn't talking about business people getting the £1 bus/coach to London -well not seriously.
If London firms could outsource work to the Midlands , well what are they waiting for? Do they need the land gobbling 20 minute saving hs2 to do that? . Surely outsourcing could be done via journeys on the London Midland line? If needed.
Sorry Derogatory for me theres too much to lose (inc parts of B'ham city centre) and very little to gain , I hope the decision is reversed
and the hs2 permanently sidelined.
Andy I have heard that the West Coast Main Line will be full in twenty years , but through lack of updating and investing in the rail track we have now, I am not knowledgable enough to debate on rail infastructure, all I hear is arguments and counter arguments re- for and against. So I have decided to stick to what I know will be lost if the hs2 went ahead.
So as an ordinary commuter the hs2 will not benefit me, the countryside, the wild life, or my pocket.

I don't think anyone challenges the fact that it will be full in twenty years, sally.

As far as I am aware nothing of any interest will be lost in Birmingham City Centre (or Birmingham more generally).Around £10bn was spent upgrading the WCML over the last decade. It did reduce travel times, increase capacity and improve reliability, but in the long term this is insufficient to meet growing demand.As I said above, HS2 will not charge exorbiant fares: "The business case for HS2 does not depend on charging higher fares... Reducing fares would reduce the price paid by each individual passenger, but would be likely to increase the number of passengers travelling, so the overall impact on revenues could be positive or negative." (source). So in fact increased capacity might actually allow average fares to be reduced.

the answer is a clear YES

no bill to be presented this term, can not go through before next election, Cameron the WEAK PM has dicthed it

Nothing will be presented on paper until the end of next year. never mind eh

Oh dear red warning alert for the HS2 tooooooooooooooo risky it seems to go ahead . Now how is the 17 billion going to be spent.

Sally 123 asks:

I am sure there are plenty of less grandiose railway improvement schemes that are "on the shelf" awaiting investment. There is already a substantial investment programme under way, although some are critical of the announcements that running costs need to be reduced.

I rely on the commentary by this expert, but he has nothing recent on alternative investment options:http://www.christianwolmar.co.uk/

This is just a normal grading of projects by civil servants in terms of financial risk. Very large projects are always more likely to exceed budget and have cost over-runs so it is hardly surprising.

Midlands Today have turned this into a story because as I've said before they have a hard right political agenda (set presumably by their political editor, private and grammar school governor Patrick Burns). So they support the affluent NIMBYs in villages like Burton Green, who even at the reduced valuation could still sell their houses for three times the price of mine or most people's here.

Why does being a grammar school govenor make someone "hard right"?

Andy is it really as simple as you say re-left and right wing? can't a person just disagree with some forms of "progress". I did hear on the news report that it was normal for expensive projects to get a red warning alert , it didn't mean the project was scrapped. (sadly).
I vote "Labour" but am against the HS2 , I have seen what is planned for Hampton in Arden, aside from that I can't see how spending so much in a double dip recession is justified. I know jobs will be created , but so they could if as Bunnyson stated other parts of the railways that need improvement were improved instead of being "on the shelf".
For me it's the "Concorde" too expensive, not for the benefit of everyone , and wont last.
Have you seen where it would go through Chelmsley Wood ? (hardly affluent) . Sorry Andy I can't agree with you on this.

Sally I was only commenting on the Midlands Today piece. Bunnyson is quite right to link to Christian Wolmar, one of the shrewdest contemporary writers on transport. He's on balance against, though as he says most commentators are in favour. The real argument is whether this is the best way to spend a given sum of money on public transport infrastructure. Midlands Today don't talk about that, but only its effect on the affluent people of Burton Green.

Andy I don't remember the name of the chap, that was interviewed in the news report but he was for the hs2.
I don't usually watch the news at 6pm so I don't have as much info as yourself , anyway sorry if I got my wires crossed, re- your post,
we can politely agree to differ if needed,- on the land gobbling hs2 .

I'm for HS2 on the simple basis that high speed train is a feature of modern countries and modern transport.
The UK has fallen behind many other parts of the worl in terms of transport, without perhaps even realising how much sometimes.
It is also a high profile Bham link with London - and psychologically, I think this is important at a time when Bham seems to be declining in importance in the minds of many people in the country.
I'm fully aware that there are lots of other aspects to this argument, but few of us have the time or energy to work through every point of every argument, and instinctively I feel HS2 is a positive development for the city and the country.

Better ways to prove B'ham is important, up grade the railways leading to B'ham , not only concentrating on " HS2" B'ham to London fast train, plenty of trains already go to London from B'ham, plus they give the business people using them a whole 20 mins more to use their laptops or finish paper work crossing t's and dotting I's.
If business needs such speed let them fly from B'ham to London.
I really believe that the country could think about using canals again for logistics , just order things earlier to allow for slower deliveries , better for the water ways , environment , less road congestion - ok people will "shoot" down my idea's
But the "we don't want the land gobbling HS2 campaign is growing , there's even a petition against it on "Cause 2care" ="Care2"

What part of "filled capacity" don't you understand Sally? We're looking at a shortage of space to cope with the demand as it is which cannot be resolved by "upgrading". So the requirement is for extra track capacity. There's little difference in the cost in supplying that additional track capacity whether its capable of taking high speed traffic or not - its just expensive.

Far better to offer HS2 as an investment opportunity for UK pension funds to ensure that the UK gets an improve rail infrastructure and that pensioners get a steady income from that investment.

Probably canal transport would not be appropriate for perishable goods [i.e. food]. As you know, many non-perishable goods are imported by sea. Most goods brought in by sea [and by other modes of transport] will be in standardised iso-containers that can be easily unloaded from ships and transferred on to freight trains or trucks without opening the containers.

I'm not sure whether these iso-containers would fit on to a canal barge and if they did whether a barge would be able to take the weight? If not, goods would need to be unloaded from the containers and transferred individually on to the barge - time consuming and therefore expensive. In any case, a canal barge could ony take one iso-container. A freight train can, in principle, transport several hundred iso-containers, though generally I usually see trains with about 30 cars.

A freight train can travel fairly directly to its destination at up to 80 mph. A canal barge travels at 5 mph or slower, taking a convoluted route around old waterways. So a canal barge would take about 15 times longer and transport about 1/30th of the amount of goods. Assuming you only need one person to operate either a train or barge, the barge would require 450 times the man hours to transport the same volume [or perhaps 900 times more, factoring in the return journey]. So leaving aside the costs associated with maintaining a vast fleet of barges, just your 'drivers' HR costs shoot up by a factor of 500 or so.

Besides, canals were dug 150-200 years ago around completely different transportation needs. Very few importers/ exporters/ transporters have premises backing on to canals any more. Those canals only serve the major industrial centres of the early 19th century and so many parts of the country are not covered. Many of today's ports are nowhere near canals; the largest freight port [Felixstowe] is 50 or more miles from any canals. So a great deal of the transportation would need to be done by road anyway, between ports, canals, and final destinations - surely something we want to avoid?

It is a balance between energy costs and other costs. Less energy is needed on the water, but that isn't an issue today (and is unlikely to be an issue for some years).

Ok I admit it. I have a somewhat romantic vision , of goods being transported on the canals by barge, rather than the reality and logistic problems that would occur, in contrast to as Derogatory says goods moved by freight trains.
Yet in this frenetic world of business , that demands a land gobbling super fast train transports all the extremely busy business men and women to London,a super fast 20 minutes sooner than the trains we already have.!! Then when you ask the business people "when do you want it"? they say loudly "YESTERDAY".--- It would be nice to use the canals. actually see your surroundings , rather than a blur which would be the view from the HS2 . If the work can be out-sourced to the midlands - lets have it , less movement as Christian Wolmar (on Bunnysons post via the link says) equals less need for fast trains and more roads.
LiKW your entitled to your view , I do understand "filled capacity" I don't have to accept that view , as a reason to spend 17 billion on the HS2 . Far better not to build extra track , far better to out-source the work to the midlands , stopping movement , creating local jobs , while the investors still move astronomical figures around investing our pensions , that are at the mercy of market forces. pensioners wont benefit from the HS2 unless they are going to be on a sustantial bankers pension , or head of council pension. Thats my view of things,- to which I am entitled to LiKW,- you understand?

I think you are basing your views on several misconceptions:

1. The cut in journey time will be more like half an hour on average, I think.

2. Not all people travelling on 'business' will be rich business people. All sorts of people may wish to go to London on business, whether to meet colleagues or to larger meetings. A great many conferences, lectures and courses are held in London that will be of interest to all sorts of professionals, including many in the public sector. Cutting a total of an hour off travel makes going to London somewhat more attractive, especially if you need to be in London early in the morning. The benefits - greater access to education, professional development and networking to bring business to Birmingham.

3. Most people travelling on HS2 will be 'leisure' travellers, not business [I have read up to 70% projected to be leisure travellers]. It pains me to say, but Birmingham is a pretty boring place. Again a cut in journey times makes it much more attractive to go to London for the evening to go to the theatre or for a Saturday visiting museums or parks or shops or whatever else. This may take some business away from Birmingham City Centre, but it would make Birmingham a much more attractive place for people to live [making better performing workers to consider finding jobs here] and set up your business. It would make our lives more interesting and the competition might get complacent Birmingham enterprises to up their game.

4. Everyone going on HS2 will actually be going to London. No - London is a major transport hub and HS2 would reduce rail journey times to destinations throughout the South East, parts of the East of England and - heaven forbid - Europe. For example, at present journey time to Cambridge on the direct Birmingham-Cambridge train [2hr 45] and via London [1hr 25 to Euston plus 1hr from Kings Cross] are roughly equal. A half-hour reduction would make the London option significantly faster [plus more frequent services and more comfortable trains].

5. As I've said a couple of times, the estimates are that HS2 fares would be equivalent to average fares today. Alternatively, increased capacity may enable fares to be reduced.Are you seriously suggesting using the Grand Union Canal for passenger services between Birmingham and London? At 5 mph it would take 27 hours for a canal boat to travel the 137 miles - not including the time it takes to traverse 166 locks. I don't imagine this would be any cheaper than a HS2 fare?As you know there are many cities other than Birmingham in Britain - and indeed the world. Many of the northern cities have lower costs than Birmingham. HS2 would be a positive, powerful reason to locate in Birmingham and not Manchester, Leeds, Newcastle or where ever else; the superior infrastructure in Birmingham outweighing advantages those other cities might have. In other words, there is no reason to think business would suddenly decide to start locating in Birmingham if we carry on as at present.Of course you are entitled to your own views, but simply stating opinions without justifying them is unlikely to win anyone over to your view point.