HS2

[jamie92208]

I drove up through the HS2 area on Thursday and was looking for evidence of how it's going to cross the A43. Apart from a coup,e of road signs to do with HS2 traffic, I didn't see any sign of it.

 

Jamie

[Arun Sharma]

22 minutes ago, jamie92208 said:

I drove up through the HS2 area on Thursday and was looking for evidence of how it's going to cross the A43. Apart from a coup,e of road signs to do with HS2 traffic, I didn't see any sign of it.

 

Jamie

Perhaps they will rebuild the Great Ouse Viaduct into the centre of Brackley?

[Pandora]

Here is the National audit Office Update into HS2, the report which examined the rise in estimated costs from £20.6 bn to £30.1 bn  in 18 months,  the only costs which fell were for rolling stock, the train fleet cut from 60 to 54.

Figure 7 and 8 in the report are a summary of the costs broken down into the key categories of the project

High-Speed-Two-A-progress-update(1).pdf

[jamie92208]

35 minutes ago, Arun Sharma said:

Perhaps they will rebuild the Great Ouse Viaduct into the centre of Brackley?

That reply gave rise to a pleasant interlude looking at the approved plan for the route st Brackley. It crosses the A43 just east of the easternmost roundabout on the Brackley bypass. About a mile of the A43 is due to be realigned slightly north of the existing road, starting at the roundabout. HS2 will be entering Bracley south cutting at this point and there will be an overnridge to carry the new A43.  The line will cross the existing A43 in a cutting. There are going to be a couple of viaducts just further south.

 

Jamie

Edited August 8, 2021 by jamie92208

[Pandora]

2 hours ago, SamThomas said:

Mass transfer of goods back to the rail network will never happen - the infrastructure is no longer there & will never have the flexibility of a truck which can be re-routed for the cost of a message to the on-board telematics.

We can also aportion some of the blame to ourselves because we want everything "next day" - road transport from HGV's to white van man gives us that.

Exactly as Dr Beeching observed, railways have a specific strength  in transporting  bulk freight,  long distance block trains such as container-borne goods traffic, whisked from handling  point to handling point at high-speeds  as per the intention of the FreightLiner scheme ,  the daily pick-up goods on a branchline was  had little virtue , the demise was long overdue. 

[Pete the Elaner]

2 hours ago, SamThomas said:

Always seem to get the "lorries are more harmful to the road surface" comments. HGV's pay an obsence amount of Road Fund Licence & Duty on diesel which (in theriory) pays for the use of the roads.

Most HGV's thesedays have air suspension which is kinder to the roads.

Poor maintence of the road contributes to it's own demise - the smoother the road suface the less vibration.

Mass transfer of goods back to the rail network will never happen - the infrastructure is no longer there & will never have the flexibility of a truck which can be re-routed for the cost of a message to the on-board telematics.

We can also aportion some of the blame to ourselves because we want everything "next day" - road transport from HGV's to white van man gives us that.

 

My parents live in a village in Essex & a company wanted to open a quarry near the river. The road down to the river is totally unsuitable for large vehicles. Even cars have to stop to let another pass in the other direction.

I completely understand why the locals were totally against this, but I had a different idea.

 

The proposed quarry location is about half a mile from the nearest railway & the line itself is double with 2 trains an hour in each direction, so creating a rail head seemed like a reasonable alternative.

My reaction would have been to welcome the quarry as long as the extracted stone was taken away by rail. One train could do the work of hundreds of lorries. The nearby line is electrified too, so a pair of 90s could have done much of the work.

 

The problem is that many of today's businesses look at budgets over a short term & if they cannot make a profit each year, they are not prepared to invest in a scheme which will make a bigger overall profit over the next 5-10 years.

My point is that road transport is an easy, cheap option in the respect that it has smaller up front costs.

[Northmoor]

7 minutes ago, Pete the Elaner said:

 

My parents live in a village in Essex & a company wanted to open a quarry near the river. The road down to the river is totally unsuitable for large vehicles. Even cars have to stop to let another pass in the other direction.

I completely understand why the locals were totally against this, but I had a different idea.

 

The proposed quarry location is about half a mile from the nearest railway & the line itself is double with 2 trains an hour in each direction, so creating a rail head seemed like a reasonable alternative.

My reaction would have been to welcome the quarry as long as the extracted stone was taken away by rail. One train could do the work of hundreds of lorries. The nearby line is electrified too, so a pair of 90s could have done much of the work.

 

The problem is that many of today's businesses look at budgets over a short term & if they cannot make a profit each year, they are not prepared to invest in a scheme which will make a bigger overall profit over the next 5-10 years.

My point is that road transport is an easy, cheap option in the respect that it has smaller up front costs.

Profit may have had almost nothing to do with it.  Where was the quarried stone intended for?  A lot of stone is quarried for local purposes and the destination may have at right angles to the railway's route and nowhere near another railway.

[jamie92208]

1 hour ago, Northmoor said:

Profit may have had almost nothing to do with it.  Where was the quarried stone intended for?  A lot of stone is quarried for local purposes and the destination may have at right angles to the railway's route and nowhere near another railway.

The cost of installing a new private siding is eyewatering in the many millions. They tend only to be economic with at least a trainload per day.

 

Jamie

[Phil Parker]

On 05/08/2021 at 14:05, melmerby said:

Even on a recent BBC update report on it started with:

"HS2, being built to cut the journey time from London to Birmingham to 49 minutes" or words to that effect.

 

That the BBC, an organisation that always tests and electric car by driving from London to Scotland, reports this, doesn't make it true. It either means the journalist hasn't done any research (quite likely, they are probably on a tight deadline) or, like the local paper in Leamington, has an agenda. The trouble is, most people don't do any research either, including large numbers of anti-HS2 protestors.

[Trog]

9 hours ago, SamThomas said:

Always seem to get the "lorries are more harmful to the road surface" comments.............

 

When I was doing my Civil Engineering HNC I remember the lecturer stating that if you built a road to a standard fit for use by 32 ton lorries, car traffic would barely polish the aggregate in the surfacing.

[melmerby]

7 hours ago, Phil Parker said:

 

That the BBC, an organisation that always tests and electric car by driving from London to Scotland, reports this, doesn't make it true. It either means the journalist hasn't done any research (quite likely, they are probably on a tight deadline) or, like the local paper in Leamington, has an agenda. The trouble is, most people don't do any research either, including large numbers of anti-HS2 protestors.

It was a presenter (on the One Show I think?) doing a piece on HS2, who no doubt gets the info given to them by researchers.

[Pete the Elaner]

24 minutes ago, melmerby said:

It was a presenter (on the One Show I think?) doing a piece on HS2, who no doubt gets the info given to them by researchers.

 

If the nation's public-funded organisation is giving out information surely you should trust it enough to believe it? They must have a lot of influence on public opinion, regardless of their accuracy.

Their naivety or bias (not sure which) with subjects like this in which I have a little understanding have made me sceptical of other "information" they present.

 

I find it frustrating.

[Trog]

If you read an article in a newspaper, or see an item on the TV about something you know something about it is almost always complete rubbish, and obvious that whoever produced it had no idea what they were talking about. Therefore it is probably safe to assume that the articles about things that you know little about are of a similar level of accuracy. Most medias are about as worth listening to as a politicians promise. 

[Northmoor]

39 minutes ago, Trog said:

If you read an article in a newspaper, or see an item on the TV about something you know something about it is almost always complete rubbish, and obvious that whoever produced it had no idea what they were talking about. Therefore it is probably safe to assume that the articles about things that you know little about are of a similar level of accuracy. Most medias are about as worth listening to as a politicians promise. 

As you say, that's the stuff you know about.  And that's from professional journalists, who have editorial control on their output (i.e., someone checks it before it's published).  So imagine how much utter garbage there is in the non-mainstream media, who some people insist is the only one "telling the truth".

[Ron Ron Ron]

33 minutes ago, Northmoor said:

……….. So imagine how much utter garbage there is in the non-mainstream media, who some people insist is the only one "telling the truth".

The problem is, these days there’s a plethora of news and information channels, from social media, to alternative left wing to right wing internet outlets. Much of it purports to tell the real truth and avoid the bias and control of the “establishment “ and main stream media, when it is generally far from that, often naively biased towards some sort of political agenda or whatever.

The issue is that a fairly large proportion of the population has access to these “information channels” and is becoming more and more reliant on it for forming their own personal world view. Particularly the young, under 30’s etc.

For example, the current overwhelming coverage to convince young adults to come forward to have their COVID jabs, is being ignored by a sizeable percentage of the 18- 25 year old group, because they don’t watch mainstream TV news, listen to radio news or read mainstream newspapers. They get almost all their info from social media and associated news streams, or they regularly go to “alternative media” to find out about things.

Those “alternative sources” are awash with so-called scientific arguments against the need to be vaccinated at one end, to anti-vaxer nonsense at the other extreme.

Going back to HS2, we see the same sort of nonsense being bandied around in this “alternative universe”,  never mind the tosh we see in the main stream media.

 

 

.

 

 

[Phil Parker]

1 hour ago, Trog said:

If you read an article in a newspaper, or see an item on the TV about something you know something about it is almost always complete rubbish, and obvious that whoever produced it had no idea what they were talking about.

 

Or does it not match your opinion, and is therefore "complete rubbish"?

 

And if this is the case, where should anyone get information from if EVERY source is "complete rubbish"?

[Ron Ron Ron]

2 minutes ago, Phil Parker said:

 

Or does it not match your opinion, and is therefore "complete rubbish"?

 

And if this is the case, where should anyone get information from if EVERY source is "complete rubbish"?

Well Phil, there’s a whole industry out there feeding on the eternal question of   “ what is truth”,  “does truth matter”,  “ truth is what you want it to be” etc, etc.

Now it gets political.

Western society is going into a death spiral etc.

 

 

.

[melmerby]

7 minutes ago, Phil Parker said:

 

Or does it not match your opinion, and is therefore "complete rubbish"?

 

 

Maybe that's why I don't buy any newspapers and haven't done for maybe 30 years or more.

I even decline the free Daily Mail/Sun/Times or whatever you occasionally get offered with your copy of Railway/Computer/Music etc. magazine.

 

It reminds me a bit about the guy at work many years ago who was a professed communist and had the "Daily Worker" every day and was always careful to be seen "reading" it, however sometimes the open DW he was reading actually contained inside a copy of one of the 'capitalist' papers which he was surreptitiously reading instead.

 

[Joseph_Pestell]

14 minutes ago, Phil Parker said:

 

Or does it not match your opinion, and is therefore "complete rubbish"?

 

And if this is the case, where should anyone get information from if EVERY source is "complete rubbish"?

 

I think that Trog was referring to facts, not opinion.

 

Most of us have, at some time, experienced press/TV?media reporting that was inaccurate as to facts - not least in our own field of railways. Which paper was "The driver steered the train from danger"?

 

Not to say that all reports are wrong but one can be forgiven for losing a bit of confidence in the media. Where that leaves us is another question. Social media is likely to be even worse with misinformation being deliberately disseminated.

[Trog]

40 minutes ago, Phil Parker said:

 

.............

 

And if this is the case, where should anyone get information from if EVERY source is "complete rubbish"?

 

That is a very good question. To which I believe there is no good answer.

[Ron Ron Ron]

Some actual, hard truth....

Old Oak Common.....

 

 

 

 

 

.

[corneliuslundie]

Ah, but now we have Photoshop etc can we believe photos?

Not that I am suggesting anything about those posted by RonRonRon which are a very useful document of progress.

Mind you photos have been doctored for a century or more. There are plenty of examples in our area of interest, even PO vehicles with fake liveries (and I don't mean Charles Roberts photo liveries).

The other aspect of "news" these days is that a lot of it seems to be created by the media to make a point. A reporter goes out and asks half a dozen people the same question and the answer is presented as a fact.

I do have sympathies, having seen the job of the journalist change from news gathering to typesetting technician, with very little time for the "journalist" part of the job. When I started as a technical journalist the typesetting was done by others, the blocks for illustrations were produced by an outside company, the layout was often done by someone else (it certainly was in newspapers). Now the "journalist is expected to master the publishing software, edit the images, lay out the pages and produce a complete finalised file for the printer. Very little time left to do the job properly. This is worst in the local press, where profits are steadily shrinking as circulations drop, but it is also happening even with the major nationals. I am sure that one or two of the Mods can comment on this.

Jonathan

[Rugd1022]

1 hour ago, Ron Ron Ron said:

Some actual, hard truth....

Old Oak Common.....

 

 

 

 

 

.

 

Good God, is that really the same spot I cabbed a withdrawn Blue Pullman power ca back in 1973....?

[pete_mcfarlane]

3 hours ago, melmerby said:

Maybe that's why I don't buy any newspapers and haven't done for maybe 30 years or more.

I even decline the free Daily Mail/Sun/Times or whatever you occasionally get offered with your copy of Railway/Computer/Music etc. magazine.

 

It reminds me a bit about the guy at work many years ago who was a professed communist and had the "Daily Worker" every day and was always careful to be seen "reading" it, however sometimes the open DW he was reading actually contained inside a copy of one of the 'capitalist' papers which he was surreptitiously reading instead.

 

Reminds me of the 'Hale and Pace' sketch where a chap in the Newsagent hides his tabloid newspaper inside a porn mag so that nobody will see him walking out of the shop with it.

[lmsforever]

Tonight work is starting at Wendover the bypass is closed overnight plus they are starting prep for the bridge over the A413 this will be ongoing every night for some time.I must say that I have given up on news from papers and the BBC.