Hs2

[mondo_notion]

Now I must admit that I don't know too much about this except some of the eye watering budgets for it that are being mentioned but I just saw an advert for LNER saying they have now got their Edinburgh to London service down to 4 hours 19 minutes.

If that's on the standard rail tracks is there such a need for upgrading this network to Leeds or where ever?

[donsdaft]

England is a foreign country as far as I'm concerned but seeing as how they will be using my money to pay for this I might as well have a say.

1/ They're years, actually decades behind other countries with their rail system, it's point and laugh stuff so they better get the damn thing built.

2/ They'll make a complete shambles of it, making sure all the public school t'wats make a fortune from the public purse.
They'll never bother building it north of Birmingham.

In summary, Yes it should be done but not as a vanity project and not until they upgrade the rest of the system.

Spend the money on something we really need , like a fantasy bridge between Scotland and Northern Ireland.

[mondo_notion]

All the English seem to think the bridge is just a sweetener to keep all the Scottish Boris bashers happy. Wooh.... a bridge! Cheers BJ

My point is if we've got Edinburgh to London down to less than 5 hours surely we don't need high speed rail.

[Red Zone]

All the English seem to think the bridge is just a sweetener to keep all the Scottish Boris bashers happy. Wooh.... a bridge! Cheers BJ

My point is if we've got Edinburgh to London down to less than 5 hours surely we don't need high speed rail.

Like you I don't know an awful lot about HS2 but from what little I have read it's not really a speed issue (although a lot of focus has been on travel times) but rather it's a capacity issue. The expectation and hope is that more and more people will use trains in the future and existing line capacity is just not enough. The thinking is that as more people travel on HS2 that frees up capacity on existing lines to run more services (both local and long distance) and more freight trains taking both lorries and cars off the road plus a slower growth in domestic air travel so many environmental benefits as well.

Although it's a crazy price tag, the spending is over the next 20-30 years so at around £3Billion a year it would be affordable. Whether it's the best way to spend £3Bn a year on this versus upgrades to existing railway lines etc, it's debateable maybe but as DD says we are so far behind other European countries with rail infrastructure it's laughable.

[mondo_notion]

but as DD says we are so far behind other European countries with rail infrastructure it's laughable.

I suppose that's where the problem lies and the question needs to be asked of how we were left so far behind.

I remember getting the train back down to Ljubljana from Maribor in the Europa cup a few seasons back and I was dreading the hungover train journey but to my surprise the train was busy but still plenty spaces and I even found a restaurant carriage. A proper one too none of this scotrail buffet cart nonsense. I sad down on the comfy seats ordered my water and pork schnitzel with salad and fries and thought about those overcrowded, stuffy commutes up to Inverness with a warm tin of tennents and a dry egg sandwich.