Hs2

[Stagger]

will the benefits be worth the spending buy the time its completed?

[Travs]

I was dead set against it before the corona outbreak... it seemed to me to be a vanity project which was going to line the pockets of a a few already rich businesses... rail infrastructure needs upgrading in this country, but do we really need to be able to travel from London-Birmingham 15 minutes quicker than we can now. And i'd argue that the priority for infrastructure should be connections between Midland/Northern cities.

However i do have to grudgingly accept that due to current economic circumstances, there's a possibility that it might help to stimulate the economy.

[Wheeze]

Of course. Will be needed to connect the new government in Birmingham to old government once London is flooded.

[Witton Park]

Rather than pick on HS2 I'll pick on the rail network generally.

It's a joke as far as I'm concerned.

Investment in it would be acceptable if it worked and if it was attractive to use.

The price is extortionate. HS2 will be like Concorde, for the wealthy and chuck in a few civil servants for good measure.

[Graham Breeze]

The price is extortionate, but as I've already mentioned they don't seem shy of spending 7 figure sums on it like confetti.

You mean like the sums footballers are paid to kick a pig's bladder about? Small change surely?

The TGV and Eurotunnel and the Shinkansen had their detractors...so I say let's smile and nod at the good burghers of Blackburn and get on with it.

Grand Projects for Great Britain!

[Witton Park]

You mean like the sums footballers are paid to kick a pig's bladder about? Small change surely?

The TGV and Eurotunnel and the Shinkansen had their detractors...so I say let's smile and nod at the good burghers of Blackburn and get on with it.

Grand Projects for Great Britain!

and if we'd have made a decision to go down that route back in the 60s/70s instead of the low budget APT which we developed then sold the technology abroad, we might have a functioning system.

The Japanese had the bullet train and we were still running Deltics up the East Coat main line.

We spent 10% on the APT that France did on TGV.

We are 50 years too late.

[Witton Park]

On a purely train note, as this is the HS2 thread, the APT wasn't a low budget scheme. Not when you consider British Rail's underfunded resources in the 1970s and early 1980s. The problem was that the West Coast mainline wasn't built by Brunel, and has a lot of sharp bends. It was good enough for the 1840s, but as it hadn't been re-aligned the curves required tilting technology which is what the APT offered and almost provided.

The French built new lines, dedicated to high speed travel. We didn't put the investment in, and spent less money trying to develop technology to allow new trains to travel fast over 1840s routes. In the end we did it by buying Pendolino trains

The reason we were running Deltics on the East Coast mainline was because British Rail couldn't afford to electrify it at that time. It's worth pointing out that when they were introduced the Deltics cut an hour of the scheduled London-Edinburgh time, set by the steam powered A4 pacifics (like Mallard), and were cutting edge diesel traction for the time.

I'm not knocking the Deltics. Cracking locomotives, but if we are talking technology they are quite a way from the Bullet Train.
I think the French put as much in to each km of the original TGV route as we put in to the APT. That's about 400 times the investment.
No wonder it's worked.

[bigfella]

Another problem with the UK rail network is too many bridges.

Deltics, what a fantastic engine sound they had.

[Graham Breeze]

I'm not knocking the Deltics. Cracking locomotives, but if we are talking technology they are quite a way from the Bullet Train.
I think the French put as much in to each km of the original TGV route as we put in to the APT. That's about 400 times the investment.
No wonder it's worked.

Apples and Pears

Shinkansen means new trunk route. It was an expensive newly built, fast straight elite-passenger line using dedicated coaches. When I travelled on one it displayed the train speed and counted down the number of seconds before the train left the station. Impressive.

Deltics used existing tracks calling at existing stations - so there was no point in designing them to travel at 200 mph and instead they were designed to pull massive trains of existing carriage stock to get ordinary people to work. Like Leeds (where I lived) to London (where I sometimes worked) quickly and reliably. Impressive

The TVG used a similar model to the Japanese and the new lines were mainly built over farm land of which France has rather a lot. Not too bad either.

[Stagger]

2 out of three ain't bad.

I would blow the euro tunnel tomorrow.