hs2 Waste of Money or not?

[AVFC_Hitz]

Lord Beecham

Beeching :-)

Yeah, whatever.... :winkold:

Anyway, spaccy mistakes aside. I do think that the huge amount of given to northern Europeans at the end of WWII let them get buzz lightyears ahead of us.

[PauloBarnesi]

We are a bit behind the times when it comes to high speed rail mainly because our lines weren't bombed to shit during the war and the whole Lord Beeching thing.

Wrong.

Two parts existed to the Beeching report, one which was the cutting of the unprofitable parts of the network. The second part was heavy investment what remained.

Guess what happened? They did the cutting, without the heavy investment. Beeching believed in the Intercity network and containers based rail freight.

And as for high speed railways, British Rail until the 1980s were doing pretty well with high speed railways; the HST which is the fastest diesel train and the electric APT. In the end the APT never made it due to lack of investment, even though its technology is fitted in the Italian Pendolinos which are slower.

But you are right we are behind now and we have some catching up to do...

[The_Rev]

Too many cuts to the rail network were made because of the road lobby being so powerful at the time. I think a lot of brown paper bags stuffed with money were passed around at the time. Yes, some cuts were justified but the full extents of the cuts Beeching recommended were insane, thankfully they didnt all happen but even some of the ones which did look like bad decisions now. Closing the Great Central was probably a mistake, as well as Oxford - Cambridge. But I digress.

[tonyh29]

In the end the APT never made it due to lack of investment

thought it was more to do with it keep getting stuck in tilt position ?

[The_Rev]

And they didnt invest enough money to fix the problem!

[PauloBarnesi]

Too many cuts to the rail network were made because of the road lobby being so powerful at the time. I think a lot of brown paper bags stuffed with money were passed around at the time. Yes, some cuts were justified but the full extents of the cuts Beeching recommended were insane, thankfully they didnt all happen but even some of the ones which did look like bad decisions now. Closing the Great Central was probably a mistake, as well as Oxford - Cambridge. But I digress.

Ernest Marples was the Tory minister who appointed Beeching, was a major shareholder in a road building company. He later fled the country whilst fearing his assets would be frozen.

[kidlewis]

if people think that HS2 will reduce domestic flight routes between the north and London then it won't work. specially scotland to london routes, that will never die out unless the trains plan on doing 300mph.

HS2 will only work from a consumer point of view if they go to the central stations. It doesn't stop at New Street and I believe it doesn't even start and Kings Cross or Euston does it?

not only that if it doesn't go via BHX, MAN etc then you have a big problem.

if London is to reduce it's traffic on the major airports then it needs to do the above at a minimum. LHR will ALWAYS be the main airport and the new runway will come at some point. it's unavoidable unless they build a new mammoth HK style airport somewhere else.

The other thing Bicks mentioned is about getting HGVs off the road and moving some of that traffic onto the rail network. The problem is that to do that you'd need a hell of a lot of rail passengers to move onto the HS2 line to fee up more space on the normal lines would you not?

I cannot see that happening unless the rail fares remain competitive even with reduced time.

You only need to look at Chiltern vs Virgin at peak times to see price is a major deciding factor. The Chilterns I get on at rush hour are bloody rammed now they have that new line in. and they are cheaper for what....10 mins difference? PAH

[PauloBarnesi]

if people think that HS2 will reduce domestic flight routes between the north and London then it won't work. specially scotland to london routes, that will never die out unless the trains plan on doing 300mph.

So Edinburgh-London will be a reported 2hr 6. So the train would run from Euston to Edinburgh Waverley. Euston is say a journey of 30 minutes from the centre of town, Waverley is the centre of Edinburgh. Lets add in 40 minutes to be safe; so just over three hours fifteen

Doing the same journey by air; its say a 50 minutes journey from central London, lets add in thirty minutes to be safe. The plane takes 1 hr 20. Take 10 minute to get out of the airport, and then thirty minutes into town.

So the times are about the same. The journey by plane involves an extra change, which may add time. Which would you prefer?

Look what happened with the London-Paris route; the train has virtually killed off the air route.

[kidlewis]

Hs2 offer Edinburgh to London in 2 hours? That isn't hs2 it only goes 180mph doesn't it?

Also you're forgetting London city and also the fact eurostar offer many tickets at £59 return and regularly £89 return. It's more than that to Edinburgh now from london.

Also you are guaranteed a seat on a plane but not on a train, even if you ore book now I have had many times on virgin their systems failed and all ore booked seats are 'void'

Trains don't even have weather in their favour as they are subject to same weather conditions, high winds severe snow leaves etc

Currently still after over a decade of Eurostar six routs from London to Paris by air all scheduled and I believe daily services. Not dead and will be the same for London Edinburgh.

As I said get it down to 90 minutes with guaranteed seats then maybe

[mjmooney]

I'll be impressed when I can get on a train in Leeds and go right through to Paris as fast as a plane.

Until then, flying remains my first choice.

[LondonLax]

Hs2 offer Edinburgh to London in 2 hours? That isn't hs2 it only goes 180mph doesn't it?

Also you're forgetting London city and also the fact eurostar offer many tickets at £59 return and regularly £89 return. It's more than that to Edinburgh now from london.

Also you are guaranteed a seat on a plane but not on a train, even if you ore book now I have had many times on virgin their systems failed and all ore booked seats are 'void'

Trains don't even have weather in their favour as they are subject to same weather conditions, high winds severe snow leaves etc

Currently still after over a decade of Eurostar six routs from London to Paris by air all scheduled and I believe daily services. Not dead and will be the same for London Edinburgh.

As I said get it down to 90 minutes with guaranteed seats then maybe

I went from London to Edinburgh for New Years last weekend and even at 4h20 the train looked a much better option than a plane. Just so much less hassle and when you add the cost of the train tickets to get to the airports and all the transfers and security etc it was probably a similar cost and not much greater travel time. I would use a high speed service over a plane for sure.

London to Paris is no contest, I can't fathom why anyone would consider the plane for that trip if you lived in central london?

[tonyh29]

I'm near the M25 and i can leave my home and be at Terminal 5 in less than 20 mins , with internet check in and hand luggage I can easily allow less than an hour before being on the plane (my flight to Vegas the other week with the wife and kids we left home and dropped luggage and cleared immigration inside 40 minutes from the time we left home ) ..flight time 1 hr 25 mins .. 30 mins to get to Paris central but lets be generous and say 3 1/2 hours door to door

to get to St Pancras I'd have to get to Woking 10 mins , 30 mins to Waterloo , 20 mins round to St Pancras and i think they want 40 mins min check in time on Eurostar ..then it's about 2 hrs 15 to Paris .. so around 4 hours ( not allowing for the fact that you will have to wait 30 mins for a taxi at Gare Nord )

BA price to Paris currently £55 one way , Euro star £56 but most fares are £77 for that same day

ok not totally hard and fast and I'm sure some people would panic at my airport check in time (my parents for one , they still insist on being at an airport 3 hours before take off :shock:) but it's not a lot in it ...

saying that , I went on Eurostar last month and the only thing i could fault it on was the price of a beer and a sandwich at St Pancras !!!

[kidlewis]

I'll be impressed when I can get on a train in Leeds and go right through to Paris as fast as a plane.

Until then, flying remains my first choice.

Eeeexactly.

[PauloBarnesi]

Hs2 offer Edinburgh to London in 2 hours? That isn't hs2 it only goes 180mph doesn't it?

London to Edinburgh is 330 miles or so; two hours at 180 mph would be?

Also you're forgetting London city and also the fact eurostar offer many tickets at £59 return and regularly £89 return. It's more than that to Edinburgh now from london.

London City airport from the centre of town I think would be even longer than London Heathrow. I am not sure what the Eurostar argument is? If you book any train in advance you can get ‘savings’. I am sure if you book a HS2 to Edinburgh in enough time you will find good deals.

Also you are guaranteed a seat on a plane but not on a train, even if you ore book now I have had many times on virgin their systems failed and all ore booked seats are 'void'

Thats the operator; until we know who is operating this service, we don’t know the conditions. I expect they will be a train that will have a guaranteed set. Virgin Trains hopefully won’t be allowed anywhere near this route.

Trains don't even have weather in their favour as they are subject to same weather conditions, high winds severe snow leaves etc

Generally the HS1 has been in full operation; its had technical issues with snow, which I believe are now sorted out. Of course you will have problems from time to time, but this seems a very curious argument.

Currently still after over a decade of Eurostar six routs from London to Paris by air all scheduled and I believe daily services. Not dead and will be the same for London Edinburgh.

Do you know anyone who chooses to go from Central London to Paris by plane?

As I said get it down to 90 minutes with guaranteed seats then maybe

It will around two hours; which is bloody impressive. If its anything like Eurostar it will be much nicer way of travelling and as quick.

[kidlewis]

It's 440 miles it's 330 from warwick

[PauloBarnesi]

I'm near the M25 and

You could drive to Ebbsfleet!

[PauloBarnesi]

It's 440 miles it's 330 from warwick

As the crow flies; I am presuming that the railway will be taking a fairly direct route; I suspect also that they will be running above 180 miles per hour; TGV are now up to 200mph

[tonyh29]

I'm near the M25 and

You could drive to Ebbsfleet!

that's an hour by car assuming good traffic and still 2 hours 10 to Paris

so flying would still be quicker for me :-)

[LondonLax]

I'm near the M25 and i can leave my home and be at Terminal 5 in less than 20 mins

I did say central London!

It takes 12 mins to get to St Pancras from my place

[kidlewis]

Again though this is all based from London. Great if it runs from Euston but unless it's going via major central stations along the way OR of they bold a new station like at Birmingham then it needs amazing city centre transport. Otherwise it's pointless.

All you need to do is look to Germany for the answers. I would say the Swiss but their public transport is travel utopia in comparison to ours.