HS2, is it right for the UK?

Percy1983

Yes, the benefits to the UK are far too great to ignore.

shortchanged wrote: »

I did suggest the reasons for this at an earlier point. The fact that these smaller airports have a poorer choice of international flights and the costs are so much more. It's effectively a competition issue because these airports simply can't compete with the level of traffic the London airports can supply.

I would be in favour of Gatwick size airports in the north and the South West.

I'm sure most people in the UK would much rather have an airport closer to them and easily accessible instead of having to travel half way across the country to catch a flight. The prices of small regional airports often make them an unattractive option for many hence why the demand at the London airports is so high.

I agree, I live close to Manchester airport, but in many cases it would be cheaper to travel to london and fly from there.

andrewf75

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

zagubov wrote: »

We're like a medieval theme park compared with Europe.

Britain is Europe.

And which part are you comparing it with? France? Belarus? Albania?

DominicJ_2

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

neilem wrote: »

Has any interviewer even asked this? The railways are privatised, leave it for them to build (surely that is what all those above inflation ticket rises are taking into account)...

Someone please correct mistakes, if any.
Trains are not private
Train OPERATORS are

Train Tracks, Stations, Carriages and Engines are all still nationalised.

Every so often, the government decides what train services will be offered on a train line, and train operators bid for the right to run those services. The highest bidder wins, and proceeds to fleece the end user.



We are a VERY long way off private individuals building railways and running their own passenger trains.
Even the Channel Tunnel owners, who built the tunnel and the tracks inside it dont own it. They have a, if memory serves, 100 year lease, at which point the government takes ownership.

CLAPTON

DominicJ wrote: »

Someone please correct mistakes, if any.
Trains are not private
Train OPERATORS are

Train Tracks, Stations, Carriages and Engines are all still nationalised.

Every so often, the government decides what train services will be offered on a train line, and train operators bid for the right to run those services. The highest bidder wins, and proceeds to fleece the end user.



We are a VERY long way off private individuals building railways and running their own passenger trains.
Even the Channel Tunnel owners, who built the tunnel and the tracks inside it dont own it. They have a, if memory serves, 100 year lease, at which point the government takes ownership.

I don't understand your point

there is no reason why the project can't be run by private enterprise except of course they wouldn't fund it because they don't think it will make money

GingerSte

Yes, the benefits to the UK are far too great to ignore.

DominicJ wrote: »

Someone please correct mistakes, if any.
Trains are not private
Train OPERATORS are

Train Tracks, Stations, Carriages and Engines are all still nationalised.

Every so often, the government decides what train services will be offered on a train line, and train operators bid for the right to run those services. The highest bidder wins, and proceeds to fleece the end user.



We are a VERY long way off private individuals building railways and running their own passenger trains.
Even the Channel Tunnel owners, who built the tunnel and the tracks inside it dont own it. They have a, if memory serves, 100 year lease, at which point the government takes ownership.

The trains are owned by Rolling Stock Operating Companies, also known as ROSCOs. Of the 4 operating in the UK (Angel Trains, Porterbrook, Eversholt and QW Rail Leasing), only one is even part owned by the government (Porterbrook is part owned by Lloyds) according to Wikipedia and 2 minutes' searching. This includes carriages, engines and multiple-units.

I think that the government provides guarantees for use of the rolling stock for when the lifetime of a train is longer than the lifetime of the franchise, so that the ROSCO isn't left with a load of trains left idle, but I'm not sure.

Willing to go with you on the track ownership though.

princeofpounds

I did suggest the reasons for this at an earlier point. The fact that these smaller airports have a poorer choice of international flights and the costs are so much more. It's effectively a competition issue because these airports simply can't compete with the level of traffic the London airports can supply.

shortchanged is right. Whilst it sounds like a good idea to have midsize regional airports, economically it's actually a really dumb idea.

Airlines and therefore airports benefit from a network effect, where aggregating traffic into a hub makes possible routes that would not otherwise be economic.

There are unlikely ever to be enough people in Bristol wanting to fly to Abuja to justify a direct route.

But collect together people from Bristol, Cardiff, Manchester and Liverpool together with people from London and you can have a route, a more frequent route, and a cheaper route. London-Abuja is going to be running anyway and so the marginal cost of adding seats is much much less than adding them at a new airport.

As a result, it makes sense to have the odd small regional airport that can serve very popular destinations (basically Europe) but otherwise not really.

Airports are most definitely NOT an 'if you build it, they will come' type of business.

If you were starting again with a blank piece of paper you would never come up with the airport distribution we currently have. You would prefer to have one absolutely huge hub airport near London, but very accessible to the rest of the country and also in a less-disruptive location (which are kind of conflicting objectives).

At a push you'd have a second smaller regional airport near London for point flights that are going to be full anyway, to European holiday destinations. Although if you wanted to be the leading international hub (which provides jobs and fees remember even if the people travelling never enter the UK) you'd rather this was subsumed into the main airport.

These are kind of the roles that Heathrow and Gatwick are trying not very well to fill.

Then you might have another regional airport in the North, and perhaps a third in mid-Scotland.

Obviously the picture becomes way more complicated if you have large existing capacity.

zagubov

andrewf75 wrote: »

Britain is Europe.

And which part are you comparing it with? France? Belarus? Albania?

The countries I mentioned earlier with faster trains.

And good motorways and adequate airports.

TruckerT

I haven't ploughed through this entire thread, but I am pleased that the last few posts seem to be bringing air travel into the equation.

I think the politicians have not yet made it clear as to whether HS2 is intended to improve existing rail services, or whether it is intended to provide a link to international air travel, and/or an alternative to UK internal flights.

If the latter is the case, then it is hard to understand why Heathrow is not included in the plans (and it is even harder to understand why the extensions to Manchester and Leeds seem to be regarded as an 'add-on' to the London-Birmingham line). If the former is true then it is hard to understand why there are so few intermediate stops.

TruckerT

grizzly1911

wotsthat wrote: »

If, say, someone from China is looking to invest in Leeds they're almost certainly going to travel via London but they'll find the journey up country more civilised. If I was an investor and had to make multiple trips to monitor the investment the current options of driving (yeah right) or taking the train and smelling the toilets for a couple of hours that would make me think the UK weren't that interested in encouraging people to invest.

Any guarantee the new trains won't smell of toilets too? The Virgin ones were like that from new IIRC. Never knew why they smelt like that and couldn't be resolved.

Personally not having air con is more of a pain.

grizzly1911

michaels wrote: »

Wasn't the French experience that the rapid Paris-Lyon link actually sucked business that was done in Lyon away to Paris?

Probably cheaper to move Birmingham closer to London or give someone house in Levenshulme if they want to spend more time there.