HS2

[martin_wynne]

35 minutes ago, corneliuslundie said:

Or just vote for the Raving Loony Party.

 

Never again.

 

[billbedford]

Why not? It's quite interesting just how many of the RLP's ideas have been taken up by "serious" politicians. 

[Pete the Elaner]

11 hours ago, jools1959 said:

 

I had the unfortunate task of ending up in A&E on Tuesday evening, after having surgery earlier that day after the stitches came out.  I was talking to someone whilst waiting and he was something to do with Labour strategies, and even he said that to mention restarting the extension of HS2 in a election year would be suicide, so it would be better to say nothing or even say that they wouldn't continue it, as Keir Starmer said today.  I think deep down, if Labour get in, it will continue to Manchester (Crewe), then handed over to the Northern Powerhouse, to deflect the negative publicity of HS2, and rebrand it as a 'Northern Powerhouse' project.

 

I am sure more parts of what we knew as HS2a/HS3 etc will get built, but will not have HS in their name. This was a major publicity error.

It was a bit like the class 91s & Mk4s being very similar to the designs of the APT-S.

[62613]

11 hours ago, billbedford said:

 

Mrs T's policies have worked as far as there are 30-40% of the electorate who have a vested interest in the value of their property not diminishing, and who can be relied on to vote for the "right" parties. 

According to the latest polls, less than 25%.

[62613]

12 hours ago, jools1959 said:

 

I had the unfortunate task of ending up in A&E on Tuesday evening, after having surgery earlier that day after the stitches came out.  I was talking to someone whilst waiting and he was something to do with Labour strategies, and even he said that to mention restarting the extension of HS2 in a election year would be suicide, so it would be better to say nothing or even say that they wouldn't continue it, as Keir Starmer said today.  I think deep down, if Labour get in, it will continue to Manchester (Crewe), then handed over to the Northern Powerhouse, to deflect the negative publicity of HS2, and rebrand it as a 'Northern Powerhouse' project.

There was a report in one of the newspapers yesterday (might have been the Manchester Evening Sun  News) that Mayors Burnham and Street are jointly looking for private funding to do phases 2a and 2b. 

 

Wasn't the part of the line from Manchester Airport to Piccadilly meant to double up as part of NPR?

[billbedford]

13 minutes ago, 62613 said:

According to the latest polls, less than 25%.

 

But we have two Neoliberal parties - Tweedlecon and Tweedlelab. 

 

It's the old saw:- It doesn't matter who you vote for, the government will still get in. 

Edited January 12 by billbedford

[jamie92208]

21 minutes ago, 62613 said:

There was a report in one of the newspapers yesterday (might have been the Manchester Evening Sun  News) that Mayors Burnham and Street are jointly looking for private funding to do phases 2a and 2b. 

 

Wasn't the part of the line from Manchester Airport to Piccadilly meant to double up as part of NPR?

The Green Signal podcast mentioned above deals with this proposaand felt that it was not a good thing as any new proposal with a different route would need more consultation and legislation thus introducing several years more delay. 

 

Jamie

[Ron Ron Ron]

12 hours ago, billbedford said:

 

Mrs T's policies have worked as far as there are 30-40% of the electorate who have a vested interest in the value of their property not diminishing, and who can be relied on to vote for the "right" parties. 

 

40 minutes ago, 62613 said:

According to the latest polls, less than 25%.

 

What is less than 25% ?

 

 

.

[C126]

47 minutes ago, 62613 said:

According to the latest polls, less than 25%.

 

Are you quite sure?  According to the O.N.S., it is 62.5%, (15.5 million) in 2021, if I understand correctly:

 

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/housing/bulletins/housingenglandandwales/census2021

 

[Ron Ron Ron]

37 minutes ago, 62613 said:

There was a report in one of the newspapers yesterday (might have been the Manchester Evening Sun  News) that Mayors Burnham and Street are jointly looking for private funding to do phases 2a and 2b. 

 

Wasn't the part of the line from Manchester Airport to Piccadilly meant to double up as part of NPR?

 

The NPR line from Liverpool was a supposed to joint HS2, out to the west of Manchester Airport and share the HS2 line from there to Piccadilly.

 

HS2's Piccadilly plan is for an above ground station (not ground level) approached on a viaduct.

Andy Burnham and the TfN NPR advocates would prefer a sub-surface HS2 + NPR station, which would allow through running, onwards towards the NPR trans-pennine route, rather than having to reverse trains at HS2's planned terminus.

 

The sub-surface station proposal, would mean a significant change to the station approach, as there would be no need to create a tunnel portal and build over a mile of rising viaduct from there to the Piccadilly site.

Instead, the line would continue in tunnel right into the new HS2 + NPR station.

Less (expensive) land acquisition on the long station approach and a large amount of money making development potential above ground.

 

 

.

[Ron Ron Ron]

1 hour ago, 62613 said:

According to the latest polls, less than 25%.

 

16 minutes ago, C126 said:

 

Are you quite sure?  According to the O.N.S., it is 62.5%, (15.5 million) in 2021, if I understand correctly:

 

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/housing/bulletins/housingenglandandwales/census2021

 

 

That's why I ask what his "less than 25%" means?

 

If meaning home ownership then....

The ONS figures show home ownership by household as 62.3%.

A third of all homes (33%) are owned outright, without any mortgage or any sort of debt on them.

29.3% are owned with a mortgage or home loan against them.

Another 17% of homes are also privately owned. The bulk of which are rented out., but this also includes holiday or 2nd homes.

 

Socially rented households represent only 20.7% of all households.

Down from its peak of 34% in 1981.

 

Note that the UK population in 1981 was 56 million.

Today it's touching 68 million, with an additional (by the governments own estimates) between 600,000 and 1.2 million extra "unknowns" living here.

 

 

.

[billbedford]

Someone is confusing the number of property-owning middle class with the number of people who admit to expecting to vote Tory in the next election. 

[Ron Ron Ron]

12 minutes ago, billbedford said:

Someone is confusing the number of property-owning middle class with the number of people who admit to expecting to vote Tory in the next election. 

 

Certainly some confusion somewhere, but I take issue with your apparent notion that property ownership is "middle class" (whatever that means?).

The majority of what may be termed "working class" (whatever that means, if anything today) are home owners.

 

 

.

Edited January 12 by Ron Ron Ron

[class26]

7 hours ago, 62613 said:

There was a report in one of the newspapers yesterday (might have been the Manchester Evening Sun  News) that Mayors Burnham and Street are jointly looking for private funding to do phases 2a and 2b. 

 

Wasn't the part of the line from Manchester Airport to Piccadilly meant to double up as part of NPR?

Which is a bad move. It`s not just looking at private funding for 2a but variations of route etc which means starting again.  If they succeed in getting their new plans adopted it will take 10 years before spades are in the ground and how much in consultants fees I wonder ? The plans exist as does parliamentary approval for stage 2a. GET ON WITH IT, it will have to be done once the idiot politicians realise the truth about the bottlenecks, that stage 2a is actually fairly cheap and solves all those problems . 

Edited January 12 by class26

[Michael Hodgson]

16 hours ago, adb968008 said:

Channel Tunnel was only built inspite of the government, and HS1 only happened as it was a national disgrace not having it.

i’m quite sure if it wasnt for pressure Waterloo would still be using Eurostar….

The government wanted nothing to do with HS1 back in 1987.

 

The only reason the then Government chose Waterloo was it was one in the eye for the French! 

Probably put up to it by the Foreign Office.

[Compound2632]

The difficulty here is that discussion of any aspect of HS2 other than progress with the actual civil engineering works is at present intrinsically political. Short of the mods deleting any post that strays from the civil engineering, I'm not sure how one avoids the politics.

[phil-b259]

4 hours ago, Ron Ron Ron said:

 

 

Less (expensive) land acquisition on the long station approach and a large amount of money making development potential above ground.

 

 

.

But massively more expensive station and railway costs!

 

Tunnelling doesn’t come cheap - a big part of the reason HS2 is the huge number of tunnels being built (even if large sections are there to placate NIMBYs rather than being needed from a pure technical perspective)

 

Edited January 12 by phil-b259

[billbedford]

53 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

The difficulty here is that discussion of any aspect of HS2 other than progress with the actual civil engineering works is at present intrinsically political. 

 

 

So let's have a bit of fun...

 

If HS2 was finished as a roundy-roundy, say, London - Birmingham - Manchester - Leeds - Nottingham - London, and the London bit called "CrossRail3, " there wouldn't need to be a terminus anywhere, just relief sidings out in the country to allow the trains to change directions. 

[billbedford]

1 hour ago, Ron Ron Ron said:

The majority of what may be termed "working class" (whatever that means, if anything today) are home owners.

 

 

The idea that everyone who worked on the shop floor always voted Labour is one of the many misconceptions of the MSM. 

[ess1uk]

HS2 cut back everywhere, except in the price tag | RailTech.comhttps://www.railtech.com/all/2024/01/12/hs2-cut-back-everywhere-except-in-the-price-tag/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Newsletter week 2024-02

[GordonC]

1 hour ago, billbedford said:

 

 

So let's have a bit of fun...

 

If HS2 was finished as a roundy-roundy, say, London - Birmingham - Manchester - Leeds - Nottingham - London, and the London bit called "CrossRail3, " there wouldn't need to be a terminus anywhere, just relief sidings out in the country to allow the trains to change directions. 

 

you can guarantee that would get funded too when it benefits London

 

[billbedford]

6 minutes ago, GordonC said:

 

you can guarantee that would get funded too when it benefits London

 

 

It's really hard making predictions, especially about the future. 

[62613]

3 hours ago, class26 said:

Which is a bad move. It`s not just looking at private funding for 2a but variations of route etc which means starting again.  If they succeed in getting their new plans adopted it will take 10 years before spades are in the ground and how much in consultants fees I wonder ? The plans exist as does parliamentary approval for stage 2a. GET ON WITH IT, it will have to be done once the idiot politicians realise the truth about the bottlenecks, that stage 2a is actually fairly cheap and solves all those problems . 

For what it's worth, I agree with you. I also agree that the Piccadilly HS2 station should have been a "through" one, which, IMHO, could only be sub - surface.

 

I suspect that if the next phases were built entirely by private interests, they would want their pound of flesh somewhere along the line. Are there any individual private companies or consortiums with the financial resources to undertake such a project?

[GordonC]

19 minutes ago, 62613 said:

For what it's worth, I agree with you. I also agree that the Piccadilly HS2 station should have been a "through" one, which, IMHO, could only be sub - surface.

 

I suspect that if the next phases were built entirely by private interests, they would want their pound of flesh somewhere along the line. Are there any individual private companies or consortiums with the financial resources to undertake such a project?

 

While I agree with you, could that lead to problems of dwell times without multiple underground platforms being needed? Its quite different having local commuter services where passenger offloading and boarding is spread between several stations so the time to dwell at any one is short. If a Pendolino was stopping there and largely emptying with passengers from Euston, OOC or Manchester Airport then it could take some time for everyone to get unloaded before the platform could be cleared for the next train.

[Michael Hodgson]

This place is quite central and would make a good railway station ...