The new 33bn HS2 Rail Network - your thoughts on it...

[DPW]

What are your thoughts on this new rail network?

 

BBC News - HS2: High-speed rail network gets go-ahead

 

I'm not sure what I think about it and so would like to hear other peoples views.

 

From the outset it seems to be a heck of a wedge of cash for a small impact on our public transport system with a very long timescale. And do I really want to be getting to London any quicker?

 

Actually, think Ive made my mind up, it seems a complete load of bollocks. Am I wrong?

 

Educate me the good intellectual minds of the GF...

[Fugitive]

It's pissing off angry farmers and people who live in the countryside with their shit accents and incestuous ways.

 

For that reason, I'm in.

[Pony Princess]

It's easier to be on a moving train pissing out of the window, than it is being outside of a moving train trying to piss into the window.

[mattyq]

Where's Monty when you need him?

I'm all for it. Our rail network appears to be fucked and rubbish so investment is long overdue

[dennis tooth]

Well after all the 'cuts', closing of hospitals etc, etc, etc I think all the money saved should be put towards a big fucking rail link between Birmingham and London that will shave 15 minutes off the journey. Genius.

[dennis tooth]

No-one in a hurry to get to Birmingham

11-01-12

 

SUPPORT for the high speed rail link between London and Birmingham was muted yesterday as nobody really wants to go there.

 

The £33 billion investment will be the biggest infrastructure program since the motorway building of the late 50s that eventually led to the birth of Jeremy Clarkson in 1960.

 

London-based arsehole Julian Cook said: "I sometimes have to travel to North Finchley for my job and that’s unutterably dreadful enough, so the only thing that would compel me to go as far north as Birmingham is if everything south of Rugby burst into flames.

 

"And I can’t see the appeal for Birminghamites either, because they clearly wanted to live in a large, cosmopolitan city but somehow got it disastrously wrong so being shown around London just seems cruel."

 

The government defended the scheme insisting it will encourage the building of other high-speed rail links further north but then failed to explain why that would be a good thing either.

 

The new trains will travel at 250 mph on the three days a year they work properly and could cut the journey to 45 minutes, barely giving passengers time to become nauseated by the smells from the malfunctioning toilets or the dining car.

 

Environmentalists have condemned the link on the grounds it does not involve a bamboo rickshaw ferrying passengers over fields to avoid waking up a badger.

 

But Cook added: "I think the main problem isn’t conservation areas or economic displacement, it’s the idea that having a high-speed rail system will make us just that little bit more French."

[Carvalho Diablo]

My feelings on this project per se, are pretty ambivalent tbh, but I do think all such projects like this one should be supported because they will pump government money into the economy.

 

And it will circulate amongst us.

 

It will generate jobs, and stimulate construction and building trades, engineering and retail, security and the service industries, etc etc.

 

So instead of pumping yet more billions into the economy via quantitive easing, in the hope that greedy fucking self serving banks will do the right thing and use this money to invest in small businesses themselves, rather than simply paying off their balance sheet deficits, fuck em.

 

Invest in people.

[Phoenix]

My feelings on this project per se, are pretty ambivalent tbh, but I do think all such projects like this one should be supported because they will pump government money into the economy.

 

And it will circulate amongst us.

 

It will generate jobs, and stimulate construction and building trades, engineering and retail, security and the service industries, etc etc.

 

So instead of pumping yet more billions into the economy via quantitive easing, in the hope that greedy fucking self serving banks will do the right thing and use this money to invest in small businesses themselves, rather than simply paying off their balance sheet deficits, fuck em.

 

Invest in people.

 

That sums it for me aswell especially if it helps bring business north after it is bulit.

[Tyler Durden]

It won't reach Burmingham until 2026, not like they are spending the money now. I like this type of long term planning but it shouldn't take so long.

[stringvest]

I built a model of it with my Hornby train set. The neighbours were pissed off when they found out it was running through their bedroom.

[dennis tooth]

It wont help the economy at all, on top of the olympics its something else the taxpayers will pay for, no one at all will benefit from either, thats bullshit.

Then private entities will cream profits off the top while we will pay the debts.onto high speed trainsa

If its such a great moneyspinner and I fail to see how, why the private sector is not offering to pay for it.

All you are doing is taking rich passengers off airplanes and maybe some out of first class trains onto other trains. In a virtual, online world, in a small country, where, we already have trains that go from london to birmingham, do people not realise what is being spent here?

Im sure costa coffe and john menzies are rubbing their lips with glee but seriously its a fucking millenium dome of an abortion of a tory idea.

If there is a single net job gain Ill get dead ladies rotting fanny transplanted onto the side of my face. Cant say furrer than that.

[dennis tooth]

It won't reach Burmingham until 2026, not like they are spending the money now. I like this type of long term planning but it shouldn't take so long.

 

In that case expect the projected costs to spiral exponentially as history will bear out.

I would ask if the chinese are behind this but it changes little anyway.

[Skidfingers McGonical]

It wont help the economy at all, on top of the olympics its something else the taxpayers will pay for, no one at all will benefit from either, thats bullshit.

Then private entities will cream profits off the top while we will pay the debts.onto high speed trainsa

If its such a great moneyspinner and I fail to see how, why the private sector is not offering to pay for it.

All you are doing is taking rich passengers off airplanes and maybe some out of first class trains onto other trains. In a virtual, online world, in a small country, where, we already have trains that go from london to birmingham, do people not realise what is being spent here?

Im sure costa coffe and john menzies are rubbing their lips with glee but seriously its a fucking millenium dome of an abortion of a tory idea.

If there is a single net job gain Ill get dead ladies rotting fanny transplanted onto the side of my face. Cant say furrer than that.

 

To be fair Dennis, It was Labour who started the idea a few years ago,

[Ginny]

This was a labour idea not Tory. I think its a good idea. I just hope all if the construction, material costs, planning and labour costs and are all in house 'UK' rather than farmed out to abroad. It eould be so easy for the government to go to another country that already have hi speed train services to build this for us.

[Hand Shandy]

Reaching Birmingham in 2026?

 

Not exactly high speed...

[Guest TK-421]

Whoever builds it is bound to mess it up and blame the weather .

[a stoner]

Shit idea. No way do we need a highspeed rail link from a shit city to a really fucking shit city. Pointless waste of time and money.

[Liverpool lad]

I reckon it will cost a lot more than that come the end

[VladimirIlyich]

Why not just spend the money on updating the outdated system we've currently got?

 

The infrastructure is there,it just needs somebody to dish out the tools.

 

Im not big on geography but isnt the uk only about the same length as a trip from say LA to say San Francisco? How hard can it be?

[cochyn]

Agree with mattq up there. Fucking Spain has a high-speed rail network FFS. It works in that it makes Brum and all the shitholes in between commutable to London. Taking commuter wealth out of the London has to be a good thing as it eases pressure on local infrastructure while spreading the wealth beyond the M25. And we get boss trains and get the knit-your-own-muesli brigade all worked up into the bargain. Progress; ace innit?

[mattyq]

We'd have had this exact same discussion with the building of canals, then railways and then motorways.

Why do we need to get to Birmingham in 2 days on the canal when i can ride a horse and it only takes 5 days? Waste of money, Not in my back yard etc etc

Progress. We need it badly in this country

[xerxes]

The sort of public infrastructure project that is long overdue.

[VladimirIlyich]

33bn is the current forecast?

 

Maybe we can have a blue peter style meter that shows how much the costs have risen each week and set a target that it must reach before its finished.

 

100bn maybe?

[skend04]

It'll cost at least twice and when you get to brum you 'll be faced by delays on every other fucking line and it'll all be Ed Milliban's fault. Shit idea! Why not electrify the existing infrastructure? Add more carriages too. This is the Tory Millennium Dome.

[Liverpool lad]

We'd have had this exact same discussion with the building of canals, then railways and then motorways.

Why do we need to get to Birmingham in 2 days on the canal when i can ride a horse and it only takes 5 days? Waste of money, Not in my back yard etc etc

Progress. We need it badly in this country

 

45 minutes off a train ride compared to canals, well done

 

33bn is the current forecast?

 

Maybe we can have a blue peter style meter that shows how much the costs have risen each week and set a target that it must reach before its finished.

 

100bn maybe?

 

This is a good idea, and at each £1bn mark we can talk about who has had to do without for it.

 

'We have just hit £41bn, we have shut more libraries, attacked public sector pensions and legalised rape to cut down on legal aid.'