UK Politics Thread (Part 3)

If only @Mascot were here to see this, he’d be setting fireworks off and opening champagne I’d imagine.

They missed the biggest political open goal in history at the last election, odd that they’ve finally woken up to the blindingly obvious.

At this point, they should just scrap the damn thing. As the article points out, by scrapping the link to Manchester, it basically removes any benefit of the railway.

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It does have “sunk cost fallacy” written all over it. I don’t think I have ever heard a coherent business case for the thing.

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I think the original point was that the railways are already operating near to their maximum capacities? A new railway would take some load off, especially for longer-distance express trains, which if I understand correctly, mean that a lot of capacity would be freed up for slower-moving local, regional, and freight trains because of the way they have to be stacked on each other timing-wise.

It wasn’t about speeding up journey times, it was about adding enough capacity to the rail network, and increasing the potential frequency of services.

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That’s what they stated when the relatively small reductions in journey times were quoted. The problem is, that isn’t where the big lack of capacity is. If it was being done purely on that they would have started by upgrading trans-Pennine services. As it is, that isn’t even part of the plan.

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Strange someone goes from verging on spamming levels of post volumes to zero.

Is that for passenger volume, or rail volume as a whole? I think the comments I’ve read about it suggest that Birmingham to London is highly congested?

Colour me surprised that this government doesn’t care about the North of England. £100bn to transform this country’s railways wholesale, I think there would be a lot of buy-in. £100bn to upgrade Birmingham to Old Oak Common? They might as well scrap that…

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Everything. If it is running to schedule, the trains are slow and usually packed. However, if there is the slightest delay the whole thing will back up. Something as simple as going from Liverpool to Manchester Airport takes about an hour and a half. That’s probably about three times as long as it should be but because of the delays you have to allow at least double that time (plus check-in time).

A big part of the problem is that much of the rail infrastructure is Victorian and was designed for steam trains. It is possible to upgrade the existing lines much more cheaply but it still requires replacement bridges, signalling, power lines etc.

I think a lot of the thinking on HS2 is still related to long distance commuting. That may have made sense 30 years ago but the priority for that should be fibre based broadband hubs. This is something that government economists have been saying since the turn of the century.

Its actually embarrassing to be potentially pulling out of that terminus given how much chaos that’s already been created to neighbourhoods around the station. Has anybody seen how much has been knocked down??

Can the government please make up its mind?!

Hope he’s okay :confused:

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He might need to change his user name… Can’t have a football forum without a mascot…!

Utterly pointless from day one. Warrington to Euston is 2:15 ish. How much quicker do you need to get there?

I’m not a fan of HS2, but I don’t think it’s useless. It’s in effect shaving of enough time that it makes that mode of travel viable.

Shaving off half an hour off a 1hr 45min trip might not sound a lot but it makes something like commuting possible. Just enough off an exhausting journey (if you do it regularly).

Or helping to make it a better option than a short haul flight.

Is it a particularly good idea to be encouraging 2 hour commutes to begin with? Replacing short haul flights is definitely worth it but you would want to start that on the London to Edinburgh and Glasgow routes. Even on the original plan they were only getting as far as Manchester.

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Short haul flight from South Manchester to Heathrow? Non starter for communitng, particularly when you need to be there 6 hours in advance due to all the people at security who can’t read signs or follow simple instructions.

I really don’t see the advantage of saving half an hour in 2:15 if it’s environmentral and financial cost is so huge. That ticket will cost a frankly ridiculous amount as and when. Once heard that what killed Concord wasn’t that it was too fast but that it wasn’t fast enough. London to NYC in 1 hour is worth the extra, being 25% quicker than normal isn’t worth the ££££.

Is @Klopptimist feeding him?

Just want to comment on the mobile cinema thing, as I’ve been catching up. Two things come to mind. In a budget of billions, undoubtedly with lots of waste, and bloated expenses for uncaring officials, it’s a relative drop in the bucket. A cursory glance at the UK Spring 2023 budget revealed £27Billion in tax cuts for business. (Not interested in the wider debate on tax cuts for business, I understand both sides of it. The point I’m making is the cost for a mobile cinema is minuscule).

It boils down to what we think taxation is for. If it is supposed to help the protection and functioning of society, and be for the public good, then it’s not difficult to see a community and cultural case for the mobile cinema. There might even be a health and well-being case to be made, as it brings people together, reducing isolation in remote areas, and would presumably contribute toward better mental health.

I don’t know the arrangements, but of course the people should also be paying towards it, with an entrance fee, as it is also their entertainment.

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My local train station (about 50 miles north of Edinburgh) to central London.
-5 1/2 hours.

Flying to get to central London.

  • One hour to Edinburgh airport
  • One hour (minimum) check in and security.
  • One hour flight.
  • One hour to get from arrivals to central London.

For the extra 1 1/2 hours it takes on the train, the advantages of not having to deal with awkward, arrogant racist airport staff makes it worthwhile

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Hope so, sure he is.
He’ll be out there somewhere telling someone how wrong they are :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

Quite honestly the only advantage I can think of in favour of HS2 is to allow maintenance work on the existing lines without disruption to services.

Otherwise, it’s a folly

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