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HS2, is it right for the UK?
Comments
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Yes, the benefits to the UK are far too great to ignore.grizzly1911 wrote: »How will "faster" luxury train travel create more profitable industries and increase exports?
Why will it had a big increase in employment outside the build stage and service workers on line?- By enabling businesses to take advantage of lower costs in provincial cities, while maintaining ease of access to the capital. Why pay someone in London £40k to do a job, when you can pay someone in Brum £30k, and they will have the same (or better) standard of living?
- By enabling businesspeople to access markets further afield (meet face to face, give presentations, tour factories, sell products, carry out quality assurance, etc). Not just connecting the provincial cities with London, but also (using the proposed HS1-2 link) to cities in near-Europe: France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Western Germany etc.
- By reducing the time spent in transit, reducing the costs for those businesses where people already travel. This also includes making trips that would have required an overnight stay into possible day trips. Saves on things like hotel bills, making businesses more profitable.
- By increasing the amount of business that can be done in the capital, without cramming more houses in (as employees can live further afield if necessary).
- By increasing the amount of business that can be done, as travellers spend a greater proportion of their journey at their seat on the train compared with air travel (check in, passport control etc). People can get on with their work much easier at their seat than while checking in, etc, as the journey is less broken up.
- By allowing people to spend more time (and therefore money) in London, knowing they can get home in speed and comfort. Again, trips that would have required an overnight stay could be done that day. Want to grab a pint or a glass of wine with the people you've just done business with, and cement those relationships? You're not driving home, so it is do-able.
- By making Birmingham Airport a viable alternative to Heathrow and Gatwick, adding runway capacity to the south east without actually building any new runways. (Apparently it would be quicker to get to from large areas of London than Heathrow. I haven't personally checked this, though.)
- By allowing the existing London airports to focus more on long haul flights to the emerging markets (China, India, South America), and less on short haul / internal flights. In fact, with the Heathrow spur mentioned as part of HS2 a while back, more passengers could use Heathrow from places like Leeds and Manchester.
- By consolidating the cities served as alternatives to London, allowing businesses to cluster and feed off each other.
Like the energy suppliers, the reason why the railways can get away with their unreasonable price rises is because their 'customers' have no alternative.
Of course they have alternatives. Those alternatives may take longer and be more difficult, but they are there.The railways occupy stupidly large areas of land within London, and I would guess that there is a similar picture in other UK cities.
And you'd be guessing wrong. London is so large that you need a transport system to get around it. With most other cities the railway will get you into the city to the main train station(s). They are then generally compact enough that you can walk around the city centre if you really wanted to. That's not to say you wouldn't need transport to get into the wider suburbs etc.Ride the line from Willesden to Clapham and you will see what I mean. There is plenty of space for car parking, and onward travel would be not a lot different from what we have already (tubes and buses).
Would that be the Clapham which is one of the busiest railway stations in Europe, is the busiest for interchange in the UK (with 21.7 million passengers changing there last year), and serves London's two busiest terminal stations (Waterloo and Victoria)?The railways are outdated because they offer no meaningful link to the road network, which is nearly everybody's preferred mode of travel.
We have these things called railway stations now. You can get on and off trains at them and everything!Arguably, it would be a new form of cultural madness if we were to pour £50billion pounds into an outdated transport system such as rail.
It might be better to spend the money on yet more motorways, and massive underground carparks on the edge of every city.
TruckerT
Make the argument then. Come up with this better plan for motorways and massive underground car parks. Watch as people tear it to shreds as it's not what they would do.0 -
No, it's a waste of money and it could be better spent elsewhere....
The railways are outdated because they offer no meaningful link to the road network, which is nearly everybody's preferred mode of travel. It ought to be possible to extend the BorisBike concept into the BorisBuggy concept, with an automated vehicle control system which would not be restricted to an inflexible rail layout.
TruckerT
I agree.
Time to innovate. A novel "road train" system which hooked up cars in close proxmity convoy fashion would make our motorways even more efficient. A lot of modern cars have the comms and control guidance onboard to make this a reality in the future. Auto-guided long distance road journeys would be much less stressful, making employees more relaxed at work and at home.
As a freelancer I struggle to justify a £300 trip to London from Manchester by train as it is. I can't see how a £500 high speed trip will change matters. I'm not alone in this. Just look at the thousands of cars commuting up and down the country every day.
Now, if you will excuse me, I'm going to have a poke around in my wife's new German car; see if I can adapt self park to self drive
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Yes, the benefits to the UK are far too great to ignore.I agree.
Time to innovate. A novel "road train" system which hooked up cars in close proxmity convoy fashion would make our motorways even more efficient. A lot of modern cars have the comms and control guidance onboard to make this a reality in the future. Auto-guided long distance road journeys would be much less stressful, making employees more relaxed at work and at home.
As a freelancer I struggle to justify a £300 trip to London from Manchester by train as it is. I can't see how a £500 high speed trip will change matters. I'm not alone in this. Just look at the thousands of cars commuting up and down the country every day.
Now, if you will excuse me, I'm going to have a poke around in my wife's new German car; see if I can adapt self park to self drive
I quite like the idea of this automated road train, except for the fact that everyone would have to buy new cars with the technology for it to work, it would remove control from the drivers, it only work on long stretches of road with no features (as against in the cities where it would be pretty useless). People don't like getting on trains with automated drivers, as it makes them feel unsafe. And that's with tracks to guide them!
Also, you're on a money-saving website and you think it costs £300 to get to London on the train? How cute! :rotfl: I could do it for a quarter of the price, just by looking online for five minutes.0 -
No, it's a waste of money and it could be better spent elsewhere...
and you think it costs £300 to get to London on the train? How cute! :rotfl: I could do it for a quarter of the price, just by looking online for five minutes.
Yeah, but you know what? Businesses pay these prices all the time. Take my better half; last week. Manchester->London , one way, £163. Bargain-tastic.
British Gas paid for it. You might wonder why our gas bills are so high
On the subject of road trains, you regularly see Audi drivers trying to 'prototype' this on the M6 daily; 2 feet from you car's a**se at 70. It doesn't seem to put them off - this safety issue.0 -
Also, you're on a money-saving website and you think it costs £300 to get to London on the train? How cute! :rotfl: I could do it for a quarter of the price, just by looking online for five minutes.
I could do it on LM for probably £15 but not when I want to go and would probably take 4 hours.
Business users often don't have the chance to book in advance or want to be confined to a single train at some god awful time on the return."If you act like an illiterate man, your learning will never stop... Being uneducated, you have no fear of the future.".....
"big business is parasitic, like a mosquito, whereas I prefer the lighter touch, like that of a butterfly. "A butterfly can suck honey from the flower without damaging it," "Arunachalam Muruganantham0 -
Yes, the benefits to the UK are far too great to ignore.a £300 trip to London from Manchester by train as it is. I can't see how a £500 high speed trip will change matters.
What on earth is this nonsense?
Just went online and.....
A ticket today is £76.
A ticket tomorrow is £19
A ticket further in advance is £12.50
Just because a few idiots may pay more, or travel first class, doesn't mean the majority do.
Even a short notice (less than 48 hours) peak morning rush hour ticket can be had for as little as £68.“The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie – deliberate, contrived, and dishonest – but the myth, persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic.
Belief in myths allows the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.”
-- President John F. Kennedy”0 -
Yes, the benefits to the UK are far too great to ignore.Yeah, but you know what? Businesses pay these prices all the time. Take my better half; last week. Manchester->London , one way, £163. Bargain-tastic.
British Gas paid for it. You might wonder why our gas bills are so high
On the subject of road trains, you regularly see Audi drivers trying to 'prototype' this on the M6 daily; 2 feet from you car's a**se at 70. It doesn't seem to put them off - this safety issue.
In that case, thanks to your missus and British Gas for subsidising my trip to London at the weekend. Birmingham to London return, first class for £48. Laughed as we sailed past queuing traffic on the M1 (presumably one of those Audi drivers got too close), as I sipped my complementary tea.grizzly1911 wrote: »I could do it on LM for probably £15 but not when I want to go and would probably take 4 hours.
Business users often don't have the chance to book in advance or want to be confined to a single train at some god awful time on the return.
Hamish beat me to it. Look at his reply. You don't need to book 7 weeks in advance or go on the slow train to save money.0 -
Yes, the benefits to the UK are far too great to ignore.
Shouldn't we look at future work patterns first?
They did.
And concluded they'll be little different to today.
Telecommuting or remote working simply doesn't work for the majority of staff in most companies.
And business travel can't be replaced by videoconferencing.
You simply don't get the same interaction, no matter how good the system.“The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie – deliberate, contrived, and dishonest – but the myth, persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic.
Belief in myths allows the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.”
-- President John F. Kennedy”0 -
No, it's a waste of money and it could be better spent elsewhere.In that case, thanks to your missus and British Gas for subsidising my trip to London at the weekend. Birmingham to London return, first class for £48. Laughed as we sailed past queuing traffic on the M1 (presumably one of those Audi drivers got too close), as I sipped my complementary tea.
Hamish beat me to it. Look at his reply. You don't need to book 7 weeks in advance or go on the slow train to save money.
I suppose it's like many of these newly privatised industries. The people who pay full price make it possible for those who pick up the cheap bargains. Someone inevitably has to pay.
We should examine this though. Find me a peak time train from Manchester to London tomorrow, getting there for 9am and returning before 8ish say. If you can find it for £75 I shall happily concede. I promise in return to let some of the big banks and other employers around here know, and in return you will benefit from much lower energy and banking costs 0 -
- By enabling businesses to take advantage of lower costs in provincial cities, while maintaining ease of access to the capital. Why pay someone in London £40k to do a job, when you can pay someone in Brum £30k, and they will have the same (or better) standard of living?
- By enabling businesspeople to access markets further afield (meet face to face, give presentations, tour factories, sell products, carry out quality assurance, etc). Not just connecting the provincial cities with London, but also (using the proposed HS1-2 link) to cities in near-Europe: France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Western Germany etc.
- By reducing the time spent in transit, reducing the costs for those businesses where people already travel. This also includes making trips that would have required an overnight stay into possible day trips. Saves on things like hotel bills, making businesses more profitable.
- By increasing the amount of business that can be done in the capital, without cramming more houses in (as employees can live further afield if necessary).
- By increasing the amount of business that can be done, as travellers spend a greater proportion of their journey at their seat on the train compared with air travel (check in, passport control etc). People can get on with their work much easier at their seat than while checking in, etc, as the journey is less broken up.
- By allowing people to spend more time (and therefore money) in London, knowing they can get home in speed and comfort. Again, trips that would have required an overnight stay could be done that day. Want to grab a pint or a glass of wine with the people you've just done business with, and cement those relationships? You're not driving home, so it is do-able.
- In fact, with the Heathrow spur mentioned as part of HS2 a while back, more passengers could use Heathrow from places like Leeds and Manchester.
- By consolidating the cities served as alternatives to London, allowing businesses to cluster and feed off each other.
That's just the "faster" bit. I haven't even mentioned capacity (on the railway at least), which I believe is the main part of the argument for HS2.
Will actually be much faster, in reality? I appreciate the argument is switching to capacity, perhaps they should have majored on that in the first place.
.
As we correspond Cameron has instructed the HS2 "fat controller" to shave the budget. Smacks of desperation if the benefits are as promised."If you act like an illiterate man, your learning will never stop... Being uneducated, you have no fear of the future.".....
"big business is parasitic, like a mosquito, whereas I prefer the lighter touch, like that of a butterfly. "A butterfly can suck honey from the flower without damaging it," "Arunachalam Muruganantham0
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