HS2

[phil-b259]

21 minutes ago, Phaeton said:

 

We now live in a Post Thatcher era, there are no factories (or not the same volume) to ramp up, we sold the family silver, this is still a Tory Government in power, they will support their friends in the square mile, the only difference is they may have to fall in line behind the NHS, but they will open its doors to their friends as soon as they can

 

OK so substitute factories for Amazon warehouses if you like but the principle still stands.

 

Post WW2 it was the physical infrastructure which had taken a battering - hence rationing etc. Socially and mentally, the country was ironically in a better state than when the war started, the physical damage actually bringing folk together like never before. What the current Pandemic is doing is effectively battering the social and metal well being of people which is why trying to use the post WW2 experience as a direct comparison with the post pandemic situation is wrong.

 

When the worst has past and life can begin to return to normal all those restaurants, shops, etc will still be standing and can easily be reactivated - unlike bomb damaged railways or homes...

[billbedford]

26 minutes ago, Phaeton said:

 

We now live in a Post Thatcher era, there are no factories (or not the same volume) to ramp up,

 

I'm sure that will be news to the 3 million people employed in manufacturing, or the 2.5 million in construction

[Edwin_m]

10 hours ago, 62613 said:

Possibly the only "major" city it won't serve is Stoke-on Trent. On your call centres in central London point; The call centre for the London Borough of Islington is located just up the road from me, in Ashton-under-Lyne, for all the reasons you mention.

 

As far as I know the hourly HS2 service between London and Stoke (also serving Stafford and terminating at Macclesfield) is still in the plan.  This is now the only service planned to use the Handsacre connection at the northern end of phase 1, as the others will continue to Crewe on phase 2a which is intended to be completed at the same time.  I believe the connection is being simplified to reflect this and save a bit of money.  

9 hours ago, corneliuslundie said:

But the other thing we need to "break" is the false idea that everything happens in "the big city" so you must be there. Over the centuries that had caused the best of the rural young to head there, leaving rural areas impoverished. Dick Whittington was not alone. Even now there seems to be a fear that if you move away from the cities you will lose out in job opportunities compared with your colleagues there. Hence part of the difficulty in getting professionals such as doctors in rural areas. And while improved transport links such as HS2 (which I support) will improve travel to many major centres, it will also make it easier to get to London (and to return? Let's hope so.)

And this is not just a British problem. It happens all over the world.

My career started outside London with an organisation which had intentionally moved part of its operations. Within four years I was working in London and was there for the rest of my career. The job I did could have been done from anywhere, though it would inevitably have involved frequent travel to London, but none of the organisations ever made any attempt to decentralise - well no further than Balham in one case.

That is the mindset that needs changing. Governments in the past have done their best - such as Inland Revenue offices moved to various places. But sometimes when moves were attempted the staff simply didn't go. One example from many years ago is the National Chemical Laboratory which was with the NPL in Teddington.

So it is not just about transport links, communication facilities etc,. It is also about people.

Jonathan

There is something called the agglomeration effect which says that successful companies tend to cluster in the same place as other successful companies in the same business.  However, the imbalance in size and political power between London and the other cities is far more in the UK than the equivalent in most other countries, so the agglomeration effect tends to suck most of the successful sectors into London.  

 

HS2 is intended to spread this effect outwards by making many of the other cities more accessible to London and to each other.  I agree there is a risk that this just brings more prosperity into London and I believe we need to do things such as make season tickets more expensive on high speed and peak time returns cheaper on all services so places outside London become homes to connected business rather than commuter dormitories.  

 

The UK is also worse off than many of our European competitors in that transport into and within the main cities by bus and train is generally much worse here, particularly outside London.  The centres of the likes of Manchester, Leeds and Edinburgh remain prosperous but this doesn't feed out to surrounding towns where the sense of deprivation is palpable, especially to someone like me who grew up in one of them in the 1970s when their decline was less advanced.  So we absolutely have to invest in our regional and urban public transport to connect these places better to each other, their local cities and to the long-distance transport network including HS2.  

 

We also have more of a tendency towards rural living than many other countries - something that has been made possible by the car and may not be sustainable without continued car use.  

[melmerby]

2 hours ago, caradoc said:

 

The final Packham quote in the Guardian article shows just how hysterical the anti-HS2 campaign has become; 'We must stop HS2 as soon as possible – for all life on Earth.' So it is not Global warming/climate change that threatens everything, everywhere on the planet, it is HS2 !

 

He also says 'HS2......is fundamentally incompatible with our necessary net zero obligations', which given that it will be an electric railway, and will reduce the use of far more polluting transport modes, is complete nonsense.

 

They are moaning about disturbing birds in the woodlands they are claiming to be protecting.

So all these humans in tree houses and moving around by ropes isn't going to disturb the birds?

What a load of lunacy

[Northmoor]

3 hours ago, billbedford said:

 

I'm sure that will be news to the 3 million people employed in manufacturing, or the 2.5 million in construction

Phaeton and anyone else who believes the old "we don't make anything in Britain anymore" myth needs to read back through this thread. 

 

On more than one occasion, I have described just how much manufacturing we still have in this country, how using the measure of numbers directly employed heavily misrepresents this and how both economists and the general public misunderstand these statistics.  So much so that the myth in quotes above is still bandied about without any real basis whatsoever.

Edited March 28, 2020 by Northmoor

[Northmoor]

2 hours ago, Edwin_m said:

We also have more of a tendency towards rural living than many other countries - something that has been made possible by the car and may not be sustainable without continued car use.  

Yes, the old measure of a British man's success: a house in the country and a job in the city.  Which is why so many people who actually work in the country struggle to afford to live there.

[jamie92208]

A few years ago I was involved in a project to restore a horse tram.   Sourcing all the different materials I was astounded at the amount of highly skilled manufacturing industry I found from which all our parts were able to be manufactured from scratch.   Like many people I thought that such industry had almost disappeared but it hadn't and there were a host of talented and dedicated people out there making things.  In many cases I found craft apprentices still being trained and indeed one of the special springs we needed was of such a striking design that the factory owner gave the job to his apprentice to make as an "apprentice piece" and he made an extra one that is now displayed on the wall in the office.   Maybe not related directly to HS2 but It does show what is there if you look.

 

Jamie

[pete_mcfarlane]

I think the problem is that most people see manufacturing industry solely in terms of where their fridge/kettle/TV is made. Since these are all made in China, it follows that we no longer have any manufacturing industry in the UK. 

 

 

[Grovenor]

Quote

Packham said: “You’ve got to feel sorry for the contractors and the police. The police don’t need to be out in the woods at a time of national crisis. They are being put in a position where their safety is being compromised because of political aims and it’s disgusting for the government to treat the police in that way.”

I like this bit, just who is responsible for the police being there?

[Mark Saunders]

35 minutes ago, Grovenor said:

I like this bit, just who is responsible for the police being there?

 

This sounds like the pot calling the kettle black!

[Mark Saunders]

52 minutes ago, pete_mcfarlane said:

I think the problem is that most people see manufacturing industry solely in terms of where their fridge/kettle/TV is made. Since these are all made in China, it follows that we no longer have any manufacturing industry in the UK. 

 

Its been a long time since most white goods were made at home but are now made elsewhere. What appear to be British brands are now just a name made in another country!

 

There is a well known British brand of Toaster that costs a lot and all parts are available as spares and there is the cheap version made outside the UK that once it stops working is scrap!

[melmerby]

11 hours ago, pete_mcfarlane said:

I think the problem is that most people see manufacturing industry solely in terms of where their fridge/kettle/TV is made. Since these are all made in China, it follows that we no longer have any manufacturing industry in the UK. 

 

 

More like it

Not many TVs in the UK are Chinese, neither are fridges.

[melmerby]

11 hours ago, Mark Saunders said:

 

Its been a long time since most white goods were made at home but are now made elsewhere. What appear to be British brands are now just a name made in another country!

 

There is a well known British brand of Toaster that costs a lot and all parts are available as spares and there is the cheap version made outside the UK that once it stops working is scrap!

I assume you mean Dualit?

We have a Waring toaster which although designed in the UK is made in China but you can get spare parts, however the spares cost too much.

An element went in ours (out of warranty), the spares are readily available but one element costs close to the price of a new toaster which has a 3 year warranty, so we bought another new one, the old one will serve as spares

 

You can get some British White goods, e.g. White Knight tumbler dryers are made in the UK.

[corneliuslundie]

It is not just a British problem though. Many "German" products are made in Turkey.  And even a decade ago an American friend was surprised to find that his "American" jacket had come from China.

One problem over the years is that we have invented many things and then sold the manufacturing rights to foreign companies.

But this is not really anything to do with the topic. And we do still have a few British contractors to take up the contracts once things settle down - though even then who owns the shares in those companies? The whole share market in public companies seems to be completely international.

And back to our other subtext, by the time anything restarts the bird breeding season will be over.

Hopefully those involved in the project can be using their time in more detailed design, to save time later.

Jonathan

[The Stationmaster]

On 25/03/2020 at 21:55, billbedford said:

It is not entirely clear that there have been any excess deaths over what would have normally been expected. 

O/T I know but as Covid-19 has led to 1019 reported deaths (Note *) with at least 30 of them in people with no underlying health condition it seems pretty clear that it is und fortunately causing 'additional deaths'.  Or puttng it another way the virus is an infection whhich can kill people, including people who are otherwise perfectly healthy.

Note *. 'Reported deaths is basically those which have occurred in hospitals etc -  deaths at home or in care homes etc might be additional according official sources.

 

Back to HS2 

[billbedford]

It's not the absolute number of deaths that is important but the relative figure. The total average yearly number of deaths in the UK is around 600,000 or about 1650 a day, obviously this will b e higher during the winter. Of that number 17,000 a year, or 47 a day, are expected to die of influenza and that figure can be expected to double in the winter. 

 

Deaths are recorded as being Covid-19 if the victim has previously tested positive for the SARS-Cov-2 virus. 

 

There is a website that tracks European excess deaths, though the current numbers can be a couple of weeks out of date. Not that none of the current number for any country match the peaks in previous years. 

[meil]

Getting back to HS2. Reality is that if Boris wants (needs more like) to get the country moving again then building HS2 is about his only option.

[lmsforever]

Plenty of ways beside HS2 to get the country moving how about roller skates1

[Phaeton]

On 28/03/2020 at 08:41, 62613 said:

Possibly the only "major" city it won't serve is Stoke-on Trent. On your call centres in central London point; The call centre for the London Borough of Islington is located just up the road from me, in Ashton-under-Lyne, for all the reasons you mention.

 

It doesn't go into Derby, Nottingham, Sheffield Doncaster nor Leeds 

[62613]

1 minute ago, Phaeton said:

It doesn't go into Derby, Nottingham, Sheffield Doncaster nor Leeds 

Doesn't Leeds get an HS2 station alongside the existing one in phase 2B? Also, in phase 2B, my understanding is that there is a link onto HS2 from Sheffield. HS2 runs between Derby and Nottingham; there is a station being built to serve them both at Toton, again in phase 2B, no?

[Mike Storey]

4 hours ago, billbedford said:

It's not the absolute number of deaths that is important but the relative figure. The total average yearly number of deaths in the UK is around 600,000 or about 1650 a day, obviously this will b e higher during the winter. Of that number 17,000 a year, or 47 a day, are expected to die of influenza and that figure can be expected to double in the winter. 

 

Deaths are recorded as being Covid-19 if the victim has previously tested positive for the SARS-Cov-2 virus. 

 

There is a website that tracks European excess deaths, though the current numbers can be a couple of weeks out of date. Not that none of the current number for any country match the peaks in previous years. 

 

As well as the fact that Covid-19 is now killing far more people per day that the historical death rate of flu, I also have learned that the flu death rate over this past winter has been pretty low (c.6,000 I think), thought partly due to the relative mildness of the weather. (Unfortunately, I cannot cite a source for this).

 

You win some, you lose some. Back to HS2.

[jamie92208]

3 hours ago, 62613 said:

Doesn't Leeds get an HS2 station alongside the existing one in phase 2B? Also, in phase 2B, my understanding is that there is a link onto HS2 from Sheffield. HS2 runs between Derby and Nottingham; there is a station being built to serve them both at Toton, again in phase 2B, no?

Fully agree with that. Leeds HS2 station will be at right angles to the existing one and butting up to it. York and Newcastle will be served directly by the spur from Woodlesford to The ECML at Church Fenton. Sheffield will be served by a spur from HS2 near Clay Cross to the MML then continue via existing tracks back to HS2 north of Meadowhall. There are also plans for HS3 or Northern Powerhouse rail to join in that area. As mentioned Toton will be a major interchange btween the MML HS2 and the Nottingham trams plus probably a link to Derby. There are also I believe plans for a south facing spur near Trent Junction to serve Leicester. Birmingham  Leeds should come down to about an hour from 2 hours.

 

Jamie.

Edited March 29, 2020 by jamie92208

[Mike Storey]

Packham fails (unless they decide to appeal the appeal....)

 

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/apr/03/hs2-ancient-wood-clearance-go-ahead-chris-packham-legal-bid-fails

 

[jamie92208]

It looks as if the court has comprehensively rejected his arguments. It will be interesting  to read the full judgement.

 

Jamie

[Joseph_Pestell]

There seems to be a paradox here. Protesters are complaining that these works will be happening in Spring/Summer. But for their illegal occupation of the sites, the work could have been done earlier. So the protesters have been at least partly responsible for the damage to wildlife that they are objecting to.