HS2

[Bernard Lamb]

1 hour ago, The Stationmaster said:

I don't know the figure but I know that various of the footpath fencing work in that general area was done incorrectly and another contractor had to then rerect a new footpath fence in the right place.  I also know that site management of fencing work can be best described as mis-management with jobs being cancelled at short notice and the contractor having to be compensated for the cost of hired machinery he had got to delivered to site ready for the scheduled dates - and those costs alone run into four figures for a week's work cancelled.

We could add to that the costs of the meetings concerning exactly when various stages of construction would occur and what changes to the design of a bridge were likely to be needed. That phase lasted at least two years.

I know from people involved with the work at Euston the scale of materials and plant that has been sitting around for ages. Ages more before any decision is reached I suspect. No doubt the people concerned had enough experience to have contracts draw up that cover them for just such eventualities.

The exact figures for this work, or rather lack of work, would also be interesting to see.

Bernard 

[rockershovel]

The thing about management in the oilpatch is that if you are asking "how much", you are probably asking the wrong question. The right question is usually "how soon" because oilfield construction usually consists of simple structures - such as a pipeline - repeated in cycles on an enormous scale, using fixed resources with huge daily costs. 

 

They are not, in that sense, challenging operations. The logistics can be mind-bending but the concept is not hard. 

 

The next thing is the value of the product. If you are at the right point in the cost cycle, the returns defy understanding. That is an aspect of geopolitical voodoo which about 6 people understand, worldwide; if one of these shamans declares a project viable, all Pandemonium (in Milton's sense of the term) breaks loose and the thing is done. 

 

Edited October 2, 2023 by rockershovel

[APOLLO]

HS2 Manchester leg axed.

 

https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1819069/hs2-manchester-northern-leg-scrapped

 

Brit15

 

[APOLLO]

Then again, perhaps not !!!

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-politics-66980550

 

What a disgusting state (of affairs).

 

Brit15

[corneliuslundie]

Except that the BBC is saying that our Prime Minister is refusing to say one way or the other about HS2.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-politics-66980550

Apollo beat me to it.

Re the Second World War, there were two senior ministers who were not politicians, for Food and "Propaganda". They were both businessmen.

Woolton (food) has been immortalised by the Woolton Pie. There is a biography which is well worth reading. The Civil Servants and Churchill didn't like him (though his civil servants came around when they saw that what he was doing worked) because he didn't follow the "rules". The other of course was Beaverbrook. 

Back to HS2, that and other railway (and many other) projects will never be successful while Whitehall calls all the shots and micromanages - and the same applies to the rest of the railway system.

Jonathan

Edited October 2, 2023 by corneliuslundie

[adb968008]

What a circus.

 

any sign of the ringmaster ?

 

I sometimes wonder what world these people live in, to think to hold a conference in a city they are thinking about cutting from the largest UK project in decades, and expect no one to talk about it ?

 

we had the clown show this morning but instead juggling she just dropped lead weights, but she said nothing about HS2. Next we had the magician who couldnt afford any tricks and he too pretended he had never heard of HS2 just to create a few giggles.

 

Any sign of the dancing bear yet ? - i’d imagine he might open his mouth and let some words fall out.

 

Meanwhile the estate agent media are drinking the bar dry in hysterics and putting quotes from the audience and the bouncers on the front pages, talking about the only thing they wanted to hear about… HS2...

its not an elephant in the room, its a giant 4 car pacer, and the audience is saying “its behind you” yet no one in the leadership can see it, they just keep talking about… well everything else they can’t do, but no one really cares about.
 

So its the Press, The Audience, Manchester, much of the construction industry and Burnham on an all out assault on Rishis invading army, which is finding itself under siege in a city they thought they would take by storm…. Will the dam break, we find out about HS2 this week ?

 

 

Edited October 2, 2023 by adb968008

[APOLLO]

 

Brit15

[4630]

11 minutes ago, adb968008 said:

What a circus.

 

any sign of the ringmaster ?

 

I sometimes wonder what world these people live in, to think to hold a conference in a city they are thinking about cutting from the largest UK project in decades, and expect no one to talk about it ?

 

we had the clown show this morning but she said nothing about HS2, then we had the magician who forgot his tricks and he two pretended he had never heard of HS2.

 

Any sign of the dancing bear yet ? - i’d imagine he might open his mouth and let some words fall out.

 

Meanwhile the estate agent media are drinking the bar dry in hysterics and putting quotes from the audience and the bouncers on the front pages, talking about the only thing they wanted to hear about.

 

 

I think you're being far too polite.

 

This whole episode is now one gigantic Sh1t Show.

 

The ones I really feel sorry for are the hundreds of men and women up and down the country actively working to deliver HS2 for the country.

 

To misquote Churchill 'Never have so many been let down by so few'. 

[Ron Ron Ron]

14 minutes ago, 4630 said:

 

......The ones I really feel sorry for are the hundreds of men and women up and down the country actively working to deliver HS2 for the country......

 

 

Hundreds ?

There are tens of thousands, including the all the manufacturing and supply chains.

 

It's not as if canceling 2A and 2B will save any significant money today, tomorrow, next year or the next couple of years.

On the current, deliberately delayed timescales, it's at least 2 full parliamentary terms away from those two phases being built.

They only recently pushed 2B  (Crewe - Manchester) back to open after 2040 !!!!!

 

 

.

Edited October 2, 2023 by Ron Ron Ron

[DenysW]

25 minutes ago, adb968008 said:

What a circus.

And what an irony it's being held in the re-purposed Manchester Central Railway Station.

[Ron Ron Ron]

1 minute ago, DenysW said:

And what an irony it's being held in the re-purposed Manchester Central Railway Station.

 

How fitting.

A perfect metaphor for the decimation of Britain's railway network and history.

 

(......even if central was surplus to requirements, when it closed).

[The Stationmaster]

46 minutes ago, APOLLO said:

HS2 Manchester leg axed.

 

https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1819069/hs2-manchester-northern-leg-scrapped

 

Brit15

 

If we ever needed any proof that we live in a country governed by brain dead iditotts we certainly have it now.

[APOLLO]

3 minutes ago, The Stationmaster said:

If we ever needed any proof that we live in a country governed by brain dead iditotts we certainly have it now.

 

Ah but these brain dead idiots are not just any old idiots, they are multi millionaire idiots (Remember the Marks & Spencer ads ?).

 

Does ANYONE think they act for us ?

 

Brit15

[Ron Ron Ron]

Don't worry, we'll be getting a fresh lot of amateurs and idiots in charge next year, who'll have their own ideas on how best to tank the economy and continuing the social and moral destruction of the nation.

 

 

.

Edited October 2, 2023 by Ron Ron Ron

[adb968008]

7 minutes ago, APOLLO said:

 

Ah but these brain dead idiots are not just any old idiots, they are multi millionaire idiots (Remember the Marks & Spencer ads ?).

 

Does ANYONE think they act for us ?

 

Brit15

and to think that we actually pay them.

[rockershovel]

My, aren't they having fun at the Conservative Party Conference? Doesn't help that the Press appear to have abandoned all attempts at actual journalism. and are just presenting whatever anyone last said as fact. 

 

 

[APOLLO]

4 minutes ago, rockershovel said:

My, aren't they having fun at the Conservative Party Conference? Doesn't help that the Press appear to have abandoned all attempts at actual journalism. and are just presenting whatever anyone last said as fact.

 

 

Are they drinking this !!!

 

 

Brit15

[Dunsignalling]

None of them will have the balls to confirm the truncation of HS2 before they are safely back in the only city that really matters to them.

Edited October 2, 2023 by Dunsignalling

[rockershovel]

14 minutes ago, Ron Ron Ron said:

Don't worry, we'll be getting a fresh lot of amateurs and idiots in charge next year, who'll have their own ideas on how best to tank the economy and continuing the social and moral destruction of the nation.

 

 

.

Which is sort of the point, really. Whatever your opinion might be of some of the more..... extravagant?... characters on the Labour ticket, you know that you would be voting for a party which takes them seriously. 

 

The Conservatives have the problem of defending a large majority founded upon promises, real or apparent which they clearly don't believe in, made by a leader they have since defenestrated. They have an increasing schism revolving around ANOTHER erstwhile leader who also clearly lacks political finesse, to say the least...

[rockershovel]

1 hour ago, corneliuslundie said:

Except that the BBC is saying that our Prime Minister is refusing to say one way or the other about HS2.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-politics-66980550

Apollo beat me to it.

Re the Second World War, there were two senior ministers who were not politicians, for Food and "Propaganda". They were both businessmen.

Woolton (food) has been immortalised by the Woolton Pie. There is a biography which is well worth reading. The Civil Servants and Churchill didn't like him (though his civil servants came around when they saw that what he was doing worked) because he didn't follow the "rules". The other of course was Beaverbrook. 

Back to HS2, that and other railway (and many other) projects will never be successful while Whitehall calls all the shots and micromanages - and the same applies to the rest of the railway system.

Jonathan

I don't for a moment believe it will EVER be actually CANCELLED. It just won't HAPPEN 

[APOLLO]

Back to the future

 

First HS2 at Manchester -!!!!!!!!

 

 

If the plebs don't like it they can always walk !!!!

 

Brit15

[APOLLO]

 

Just a bit of "Levelling up" required Rishy, should only cost a £Billion or two, AND it's spade ready !!

 

"When do the pie shops open" says the guy on the left !!!!

 

 

 

Brit15

Edited October 2, 2023 by APOLLO

[APOLLO]

A way to go would be to build Phase 1 from Euston to Curzon Street, and then look to connect HS2 with the WCML around the south of Crewe

Might not be the perfect solution, but it would allow faster services from Birmingham / Manchester / Liverpool / The North West and Scotland.

 

Yes ££££££££ but lots of areas "up here" would benefit. Sorry Yorkshire, God put you lot on the wrong side of the Pennines !!

 

Brit15

[woodenhead]

I am hoping this works "I cannot see when they will ever complete HS2"

 

I say this because two weeks back I commented on a local hospital whose roof was destroyed in a fire and it was still covered in scaffolding over 2 years later and I could not see how long it would take to complete it.  The day after I wrote that, the scaffolding began to come down.

 

Then last week whilst at the local retail park I said to Mrs W - "I don't think they will ever complete the back half of this place, it was meant to be a garden centre but it's not been touched since Covid".  Well today I went to the local shops and there was plant machinery on that plot excavating.

 

So I say again "I cannot see when they will ever complete HS2" ............

 

Of course I might be third time lucky and they actually don't complete HS2 🙁

[woodenhead]

14 minutes ago, APOLLO said:

 

 

 

"And if you look closely Prime Minister, you can just see the old ballast under this tarmac"

 

"Ah yes I can see that"

 

"This retail park was built over part of the London Extension of the Great Central Railway, very nice little earner.  I hear you've got some more land you'd like us to tarmac over somewhere between Lichfield and Manchester, it's all been purchased so no landowners to deal with and, we can charge a toll for people to use you you say?"