HS2 to Manchester to be potted tomorrow

Are we surprised? Pissed off maybe, but surely not surprised. If you watched the conference clips, we should be angry.
 
Elizabeth line is nice and Cross rail.

Plus let’s be honest, if you needed to make the trip from London to Birmingham you will need to save fifteen mins surely before getting back to Roger the servants.

Northerners don’t need decent trains as they all live close to their coal mine, cotton mill or dole office
 
Fancy holding a political conference in Manchester with the keynote action of U-turning on infrastructure investment to..... Manchester.

Then again, this was the party in government in 1991 when they held their conference in some northern town and then axed the regular intercity service to London the day after the conference ended. Guess where?
 
Let’s get real here it simply wasn’t needed was nothing more than a vanity project it’s doubled in cost since the pipe dream back in 2010 from £33 billion to £66 billion and still rising.

Northern Power house my backside. 🤣
 
How do they justify the costs of just getting from Birmingham to London 15 mins quicker? The whole thing was a farce when you consider wifi on trains, people working from home etc. Meanwhile we have to put up with Northern rail etc that can't schedule a train on time or even guarantee it will be there at all.

As said previously, along with the Northern Powerhouse, London-centric bell end MPs don't give a toss about the North.
 
Jaffa_The_Hut said:
Let’s get real here it simply wasn’t needed was nothing more than a vanity project it’s doubled in cost since the pipe dream back in 2010 from £33 billion to £66 billion and still rising.

Northern Power house my backside. 🤣
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I haven't seen anyone asking the question why it has increased in cost so much. HS1 was a success, done in a decent timescale, so why is HS2 such a monumental failure? Anything to do with all the ameliorations to preserve Tory votes in Buckinghamshire andNorthamptonshire?
 
Chunkylad said:
Elizabeth line is nice and Cross rail.

Plus let’s be honest, if you needed to make the trip from London to Birmingham you will need to save fifteen mins surely before getting back to Roger the servants.

Northerners don’t need decent trains as they all live close to their coal mine, cotton mill or dole office
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That would be the closed coal mine, the closed cotton mill or the dole office.
 
Junior_BentsPlatformShoes said:
How do they justify the costs of just getting from Birmingham to London 15 mins quicker? The whole thing was a farce when you consider wifi on trains, people working from home etc. Meanwhile we have to put up with Northern rail etc that can't schedule a train on time or even guarantee it will be there at all.

As said previously, along with the Northern Powerhouse, London-centric bell end MPs don't give a toss about the North.
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It was nothing to do with time saved and everything to do with capacity on a creaking system. As it is, there will be even more trains clogging it up. Madness.
 
Wizaard said:
It was nothing to do with time saved and everything to do with capacity on a creaking system. As it is, there will be even more trains clogging it up. Madness.
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Ah, so either way it's been ill-thought out. It'll take longer to get from the North to London with more trains clogging it up.
 
1966_and_all_that said:
That would be the closed coal mine, the closed cotton mill or the dole office.
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Not in the minds of our southern lords and masters. Every period drama they watch reinforces the idea.

Unless they watch Sharpe, then they begrudgingly accept that a northerner is useful for fighting work (even if he was a Londoner in the books) but still doesn’t need a fast train really
 
traffordtang said:
That’s not true though is it? Apparently it is needed, just not between Birmingham and Manchester.
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Was it really needed between London & Birmingham though?

You can get from Blackpool to London in under 3 hours now so I’m guessing London Birmingham can’t be anymore than an hour and 15 minutes now? What is HS2 going to reduce it to an hour?

Like I said a waste of time and money.
 
Jaffa_The_Hut said:
Was it really needed between London & Birmingham though?

You can get from Blackpool to London in under 3 hours now so I’m guessing London Birmingham can’t be anymore than an hour and 15 minutes now? What is HS2 going to reduce it to an hour?

Like I said a waste of time and money.
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The government thinks it is. Scrapping the Birmingham to Manchester phase just makes the London to Birmingham part even more of a white elephant.
 
Who the fcuk wants to go to London anyway these days from the North you might never make it back again in one piece and they call Blackpool a shit hole seriously?
 
Jaffa_The_Hut said:
Let’s get real here it simply wasn’t needed was nothing more than a vanity project it’s doubled in cost since the pipe dream back in 2010 from £33 billion to £66 billion and still rising.
Northern Power house my backside. 🤣
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Would the line to Manchester make a jot of difference to most people? Not to me and not to anyone I know. The alternative proposal to improve transport links in the north looks to be a far better option.
 
tommytwojags said:
Would the line to Manchester make a jot of difference to most people? Not to me and not to anyone I know. The alternative proposal to improve transport links in the north looks to be a far better option.
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That’s not the point. Either scrap the lot or keep the lot. As usual it’s the Northern element that’s deemed unnecessary. Also why should it be an either or situation. The improved links should not be dependent on scrapping the northern element of HS2. It should be a given. Personally I’ll believe these improvements when I see them. They’ll do what they always do, announce the improvements then shelve them later and hope no one notices. Or at least they would if they were to get voted back in.
 
traffordtang said:
That’s not the point. Either scrap the lot or keep the lot. As usual it’s the Northern element that’s deemed unnecessary.
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It's exactly the point. Why pay billions for something that won't affect people when you can meet the real needs of northerners with a better, cheaper alternative.
 
It’s not just about saving a few minutes journey
The West Coast line is at saturation point giving little room for freight and extra local services.

I am old enough to remember Beeching “ The railways are out of date and we are looking at the future of building Motorways. There is no future with the railways hence my proposals for closures”
Short sighted just like the present government.

Beeching report was in 1963. They lost the election in 1964
History repeat itself?
 
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Macseasider said:
Change to "normal tracks". Not HS2 then!
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Who gives a shit. Maybe spend that money on rehousing ex servicemen and maybe up people's pension. I would get the train to that shithole London anyway even if it was free. Apart from watching United. Even then I would get the coach. And how much would the fair be from piccadilly to Euston on this bullet train?. Probebly around £220 I presume.
 
tommytwojags said:
Would the line to Manchester make a jot of difference to most people? Not to me and not to anyone I know. The alternative proposal to improve transport links in the north looks to be a far better option.
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Well said.
 
TangoDave said:
They really don't give a flying fuck about the North.
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Always said there should be a north south divide years ago. We couldn't give a shit about them and visa versa. Let them stick to eating pickled eggs and jellied eels. Penge minge southern wankers. They all think they are better than the next person.
 
tommytwojags said:
Would the line to Manchester make a jot of difference to most people? Not to me and not to anyone I know. The alternative proposal to improve transport links in the north looks to be a far better option.
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It's all about leveling up. The same for everyone across the nation. A northern powerhouse. All these promises from your Lord and Masters.

Quite frankly I don't care about HS2 as the whole shambles is another Tory white elephant. It's about holding people accountable for the streams of lies and pipe dreams.
 
As a nation we have become incapable of carrying out large projects on time and to cost. We can no longer build large nuclear power stations, we cannot carry through HS2 in full, we can no longer build large ships economically (but we do for the Royal Navy, but then they don’t work properly). I hate to say it, but the French are so much better than us at such things.
 
To be honest, there never was any need to build HS2 as being capable of running 400 km per hour trains. That was arrogance and hubris just waiting to bite back. HS2 could quite happily have been designed for 300 kph trains, similar to the French TGVs. That would have saved an immense amount of budget in track laying and route development.

In fact, that might be the cost-cutting exercise that allows the project to continue. But.. I forgot, they have already spent all that design budget.
 
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Jaffa_The_Hut said:
Was it really needed between London & Birmingham though?

You can get from Blackpool to London in under 3 hours now so I’m guessing London Birmingham can’t be anymore than an hour and 15 minutes now? What is HS2 going to reduce it to an hour?

Like I said a waste of time and money.
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For the millionth time, it's about capacity, not speed. There are not enough slots to take the volume of traffic of different speeds.

Why do people not get this simple fact?

When you're stood up from Preston to London it's obvious.
 
Wizaard said:
For the millionth time, it's about capacity, not speed. There are not enough slots to take the volume of traffic of different speeds.

Why do people not get this simple fact?

When you're stood up from Preston to London it's obvious.
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Well according to the transport minister this morning on the BBC news rail travel passengers (not commuters) are down 33% since Covid and figures still haven’t recovered yet.

So being about capacity is must be a myth because no offence but I’m sure the transport ministers figures are more accurate than your say so.
 
Jaffa_The_Hut said:
Well according to the transport minister this morning on the BBC news rail travel passengers (not commuters) are down 33% since Covid and figures still haven’t recovered yet.

So being about capacity is must be a myth because no offence but I’m sure the transport ministers figures are more accurate than your say so.
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They are conflating overall rail usage with the specifics of the traffic on the WCML, which is back to pre pandemic levels. Not like them to twist things.
 
Jaffa_The_Hut said:
Well according to the transport minister this morning on the BBC news rail travel passengers (not commuters) are down 33% since Covid and figures still haven’t recovered yet.

So being about capacity is must be a myth because no offence but I’m sure the transport ministers figures are more accurate than your say so.
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The number of passenger-rail journeys is back up to 88% of pre-pandemic levels in the Q3 of this year and it is rising rapidly. I didn't see that interview but sounds like from your post that the Transport Minister was telling a big fib. The real data is here https://dataportal.orr.gov.uk/statistics/usage/passenger-rail-usage/
 
Just seen as part of spending every penny on transport in the North and Midlands, the Transport Minister has included the cost of extending the Metrolink to Manchester Airport.

That clued up about Northern transport he hasn't realised it opened in 2014.

As I said on another thread, they will lie about the spend. Even I thought it would take more than 24 hours.
 
The transport minister flogged them figures.
True there is a slight decrease but he was not taking into account the striking days or system still not running 100%.

Nothing mentioned of the £2.3 billion wasted on HS2 north of Brum.
Buying land and setting down the foundations.


Sanuk mentioned electrification of Manchester to Sheffield line.
Well it was until the 70’s when they closed the Woodhead line. “ Railways are outdated and we now have the new M62”
 
Mr Starmer says he won't reverse Rishi's HS2 decision if Labour gets into power. Previously he was fully committed to the project but before that he said "I oppose HS2 on cost and merit. It will not achieve its stated objectives. The only sensible plan is to abandon the project altogether”. Does anyone know what the old flipflopper wants? Surely he needs to decide which side he's on. He can't go through his whole career prevaricating.
 
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tommytwojags said:
Mr Starmer says he won't reverse Rishi's HS2 decision if Labour gets into power. Previously he was fully committed to the project but before that he said "I oppose HS2 on cost and merit. It will not achieve its stated objectives. The only sensible plan is to abandon the project altogether”. Does anyone know what the old flipflopper wants? Surely he needs to decide which side he's on. He can't go through his whole career prevaricating.
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He hasn't said he won't reverse it, he's said he'd weigh it up, but the sale of the land in the interim is a deliberate ** up to stuff the North.
 
Wizaard said:
He hasn't said he won't reverse it, he's said he'd weigh it up, but the sale of the land in the interim is a deliberate ** up to stuff the North.
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HaHa He spends his whole life weighing things up. What's he going to do when his decisions actually matter?
 
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