HS2, is it right for the UK?

shortchanged_2

No, it's a waste of money and it could be better spent elsewhere.

The bottom line is that the UK is not a very large country geographically. Therefore the actual distances between major cities is not all that great. Some thought and planning needs to put in place to upgrade and improve current services.
The electrification of the London to Swansea service is an example which they are doing. More projects like this need to be carried out.

Also improve the tracks so trains can run at faster speeds. Keep the intercity services just that. Cut down on the number of small station stops and let the regional services pick up the slack. e.g does every FGW London to Swansea train need to stop at Bridgend, Port Talbot, Neath? The Link from London to Bristol Parkway is generally pretty quick. Go over the border into Wales and it starts becoming painfully slow.

BertieUK

No, it's a waste of money and it could be better spent elsewhere.

noodle_doodle wrote: »

Agreed if there's some thought behind it, unlike say the edinburgh tram 'network'. £1bn for a single line shuttling between the airport and the city centre when there's already a quality bus service doing the same. Apart from anything else, edinburgh airport is a triangle hemmed in on two sides by rail lines, it would have been a fraction of the cost to divert one of those lines and slap in a station.

One of the airports in scotland / north of england would seem to be ideal for hubbing, especially to north america as you're 400 miles closer to it at glasgow than you are at heathrow. It's frustrating having to fly edinburgh - london - us, you're flying back over the same ground you were flying over hours before. Guess rationalisation in the airline industry has knocked that for six though

What ever logic there was in setting up this tram 'Network Service beats me because as was said, there is a perfectly good Express bus service running directly to the airport. The years of disruption to business's in Edinburgh turned into a nightmare for them they lost millions in lost revenue.

Certainly no common sense was used on this venture.

cells

No, it's a waste of money and it could be better spent elsewhere.

John_Pierpoint wrote: »

Don't forget the carbon taxes and commitment to phase out fossil fuels.
There us still some way to go before we have effective electric cars and jet engines running on a mixture of methanol and rape seed oil.

The green 'revolution' idea is dead

Germany has baulked under the pressure of both the cost and technical issues

Its simply not feasible to provide more than a tiny fraction of your overall energy needs from wind and solar

They are now trying to fudge their way to meet theor commitments like burning Canadian trees shipped half way across the world to generate eletricity.

This is the last decade of the wind and solar fantasy.
The only way to overcome the problem is with a global grid and that isn't likely

The furniture will be the same as the past. Coal gas and oil
They may or may not yet embrace nuclear for bulk eletricity generation but that will jist mean about 30% nuclear the rest gas and oil as France has been doing for decades

wotsthat

ILW wrote: »

The last real major project was the channel tunnel, been a white elephant with no real benefits to anyone, did put most of the ferries out of business though.

So no real major infrastructure projects started since 1988. That's depressing. Ever wonder why we became dependent on services and the buying and selling of houses to each other at ever higher prices.

Thank heavens the Victorians didn't have our near sighted attitudes - we'd still be slopping out onto the streets and using horses to drag freight along in canals.

ILW

No, it's a waste of money and it could be better spent elsewhere.

wotsthat wrote: »

So no real major infrastructure projects started since 1988. That's depressing. Ever wonder why we became dependent on services and the buying and selling of houses to each other at ever higher prices.

Thank heavens the Victorians didn't have our near sighted attitudes - we'd still be slopping out onto the streets and using horses to drag freight along in canals.

The Victorians used private finance for most infrastructure projects, we just expect the government to do things, and most the time they are not very good at it.

shortchanged_2

No, it's a waste of money and it could be better spent elsewhere.

What I'm also wondering is, does the £50 billion price tag include the inevitable government subsidies that will continue to be paid to HS2 for decades after it would be up and running?

wotsthat

ILW wrote: »

The Victorians used private finance for most infrastructure projects, we just expect the government to do things, and most the time they are not very good at it.

Infrastructure projects are loss making so private investment will be limited. The government can look at the wider economic benefits though.

Yes we should demand that the government do a better job and increase efficiency but there's a flipside. Where private finance is used it seems to be at taxpayer cost - look at PFI - the taxpayer may have been better off borrowing the money and leaving the private sector out. Government don't have to be inefficient - it's a choice we let them make.

I think we'd actually like the lights to go out so we can engage in our national pastime of moaning and whinging.

cells

No, it's a waste of money and it could be better spent elsewhere.

wotsthat wrote: »

So no real major infrastructure projects started since 1988. That's depressing. Ever wonder why we became dependent on services and the buying and selling of houses to each other at ever higher prices.

Thank heavens the Victorians didn't have our near sighted attitudes - we'd still be slopping out onto the streets and using horses to drag freight along in canals.

About 10GW of new CCGTs were built over the last decade alone. That is enough to power about 25% of the entire country.

Close to 4 million homes have been built since 1990

A lot of new office and retail space has been added

Existing infrastructure has been utilised far more. Eg luton airport has gone from something like 5 million to 15 million passengers

Lots of lng facilities have been added

New port

Rail links have been improve and upgraded same with roads

Those alone are approaching £1 trillion in infrastructure


That you can't point to a white elephant doesn't mean we dont build or improve

Over £1 trillion in todays value has been spent since 1990 on infrastructure

noodle_doodle

No, it's a waste of money and it could be better spent elsewhere.

cells wrote: »

About 10GW of new CCGTs were built over the last decade alone. That is enough to power about 25% of the entire country.

Close to 4 million homes have been built since 1990

A lot of new office and retail space has been added

Existing infrastructure has been utilised far more. Eg luton airport has gone from something like 5 million to 15 million passengers

Lots of lng facilities have been added

New port

Rail links have been improve and upgraded same with roads

Those alone are approaching £1 trillion in infrastructure


That you can't point to a white elephant doesn't mean we dont build or improve

Over £1 trillion in todays value has been spent since 1990 on infrastructure

Also, about 60 miles of new motorway between Glasgow and Carlisle, it used be just A74(m) between abington and cambuslang and A-road the rest of the way. A new forth road bridge is being dropped in as we speak, so it's not all tram news.

And there's all the turbines :-)

Some of those offshore sites use 1,500 tons of steel and concrete for the monopile, transition piece, tower, nacelle and blades. Times that by say the 175 units of the london array, and you have 260,000 tons of steel for just one windfarm. A Us Nimitz airicraft carrier is only 106,000 tons. Bit of a carbon footprint all told, but it's big infrastructure.

http://www.londonarray.com/downloads/london_array_brochure.pdf

cells

No, it's a waste of money and it could be better spent elsewhere.

noodle_doodle wrote: »

Also, about 60 miles of new motorway between Glasgow and Carlisle, it used be just A74(m) between abington and cambuslang and A-road the rest of the way. A new forth road bridge is being dropped in as we speak, so it's not all tram news.

And there's all the turbines :-)

Some of those offshore sites use 1,500 tons of steel and concrete for the monopile, transition piece, tower, nacelle and blades. Times that by say the 175 units of the london array, and you have 260,000 tons of steel for just one windfarm. A Us Nimitz airicraft carrier is only 106,000 tons. Bit of a carbon footprint all told, but it's big infrastructure.

http://www.londonarray.com/downloads/london_array_brochure.pdf

Yes of course those wind mills. We have reached close to 10GW which must be in excess of £20B

Plus two new HVDC lines to Ireland and Europe about £2B

And lots more. Oh of course the Olympic siye too and the dozen or so new shopping centres must be another £20B

We do build lots of infrastructure. In excess of £1 trillion since 1990

But none of that counts unless it's a big white elephant

Perhaps we should spend a few hundred billion building a grander grand canyon to appease the 'we never build anything I heard about and could point to'