UNPLANNED DOWNTIME: 12th Oct 23:45
HS2 Birmingham to Manchester scrapped.
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The question that was avoided by Rishi Sunak has now been answered. Years in the planning and across political parties has now been binned, thus preserving and probably even widening the North South divide. That decision shouldn't have been made by a single party and it's truly disgraceful. He's earmarked the money that would have been used for other transport projects around Birmingham and the North. Utter bullshit and just throwaway words. HS2 only worked properly if it connected North South and ideally HS3(long gone). So the money spent on it to Birmingham and surprise surprise now reinstated to central London from Old Oak Common is a waste of money. Picked his moment to announce it in Manchester at the Conservative Party conference with just enough time to pack his suitcase and head out of dodge. Coward.
Ian
Lowering my
expectations has succeeded beyond my wildest dreams.
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Sheffield's 38 miles away and the train takes anywhere between one and one and a half hours, predicated on the service actually bothering to turn up in the first place.
HS2 was about freeing capacity on the WCML which is now not going to happen. As for Sunak's promise of using the £38 billion to invest in transport, I think we can add that to the list of all the other bullshit he's promised (in the north, at least). So. Lose-lose.
The government has had control of Northern Rail for a few years now - I presume it was making a profit for Arriva/Deutschebahn before they took it back, so where's that money going now? The service is getting measurably shittier by the day.
Makes you want to cry.
Or buy another amplifier, whichever works.
Considering Nagoya to Tokyo is further apart. Considering the difference in technology.
Is the bulk of it the wages? I am sure land in Japan is also expensive too, and tunnelling is also very expensive.
The UK has a world-leading track record in delivering* public sector projects across a wide range of high-cost critical services, proven over decades. Whether that be IT for the NHS or "track and trace" or basic infrastructure, or, or, or ...
* there might be a missing "not" in that sentence.
Public spending is politics-driven, not public-benefit driven. Hence supposed long-term strategic projects are bent and twisted to fit short-term (4-5yr) political expediency. All parties are guilty of that. Managing a project where the requirements and constraints are changed by your sponsor and paymaster (ie the Govt), regularly but with no underlying logic or rationale (other than "there are votes in it") is a recipe for disastrous non-delivery. Add to that a sprinkling of public/media examination (critique) of the money spent, and the delivery team are also tasked with doing it as-cheap-as-possible which generally means it falls apart shortly after the (non) delivery.
It's the UK's chef's-special recipe.
I think our civil engineering contracting companies have found ways to turn government projects into a licence to print money.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Just because I don't care, doesn't mean I don't understand." - Homer Simpson
The cost of HS2 was a government failure, nothing else. This whole thing is a government failure.
The UK has the widest wealth gap between its first and second city in the developed world. By miles. And it's self-fulfilling as the London-centric politicians invest more in London because it's the golden goose so, guess what, London maintains that status whilst other cities fall further and further behind.
HS2 is needed, it's needed from top to bottom, but more importantly, it's needed from middle to top, the bit that has been scrapped.
And if you believe for one second that they will use the money 'saved' on other projects you are an idiot. I know that sounds harsh, but this is the government that has brought us austerity, track and trace, COVID fraud, cash for honours, contracts for mates, '£350 million a week for our NHS', and Brexit. So I stand by my comment, if you believe what he's said, you're an idiot.
I don't know why HS2 had to focus on the mega high speed thing - 2h 15 minutes London-Manchester is fine, make the new line as reliable as that all the way to Glasgow and you've got a high speed rail link for (presumably) less cash whilst also taking the strain off the existing WCML.
Maybe I'm just old, and we do need the extra speed. I remember when the high speed trains used to rattle into London at a snail's pace. Makes me itchy to this day, hammering through Kilburn doing a ton or more
I suspect that Sunak's idea of Northern rail investment amounts to a Greggs at every station and special provision on trains for whippets...
Not that he's out of touch or anything.
The WCML has been desperately short of capacity for years, closing and then destroying callously the Great Central Main Line is one of the biggest infrastructure errors in this country's fine history of fucking things up, getting rid of a replacement that actually went to all the right places this time compounds it.
We have never needed the railways more, and the government has roundly fucked them, and the North of England, just for a few more votes. Lis Truss lost £36 billion down the sofa in 24 hours when they let the crazy ragdoll witch into Downing Street.
That red wall will turn red again pretty much for certain, no matter how much Cruella rants about immigrants (what was her speech, the Jews have all the money? Oh no, that was someone else...).
Get this bunch of entitled ponces out of power ASAP.
PS - he is right about the smoking though (insert joke about public school and fags here).
"HS" 2 only vaguely made sense (if not value for money) and only in theory, before working from home was an established thing. The project became a very expensive way to meet a demand that changed seemingly for ever when the first Covid lockdown happened.
Today is yet another day when I can't use the train (in London) as none are running again. It's a Government failure, because the quality of Government has been so dire.
The Tories have utterly destroyed rail by carving it into lots of privately owned parts that have enriched a few billionaire pockets, have only theoretical accountability to customers, disenfranchised the people that do day jobs on trains and have delivered truly terrible service and value for money. I can rarely predict that I can travel by rail successfully end to end without a hitch.
When you travel abroad, mostly, stuff just works. Here, you cannot go anywhere without having to check whether anything is working. Is there any other country that has fragmented it's rail network so dramatically that it no longer functions?
The Tories are proven liars the the extent that I automatically disregard everything they say by default. I literally automatically assume the opposite of whatever they say. I know enough people that have to work for them to know how utterly useless they really are. To watch Truss try to resurrect her leadership credentials is beyond any parody I could imagine.
Unfortunately, Starmer has already proved himself to be a liar too by going back on all his "pledges" to his own people, so we know for sure we can't trust him either. His main job appears to be appear right wing enough to not scare the small number of real power brokers in this country to get into power and not freak out the markets.
An absolute shit show, in every sense.
Unlimited budgets, H&S restrictions, woke/PC approaches, poor incredibly poor management, and huge woke Environmental restrictions are some of the reasons for spiralling costs…
But you have to look at the top governance; they literally have no clue what they are doing.
Meanwhile we chug about on crowed diesel trains, paying through the nose for services that are frequently cancelled...
Can you share your explanation of how they are accountable?
Not a dig or a taunt, genuinely interested in your thinking of it.
"If it smells like shit...It is probably shit"
It was not as though they did not know that we, the customer, were coming - They just couldn't be bothered to look after us - Crap product - Crap service - So please tell me why I should be looking to use such a product/service again
Was chatting to a friend the other day whose daughter went from Manchester to Newcastle on the train via a change at Leeds - Nearly a 4 hour trip inc the change at Leeds - That 'new line' they dropped around 2021 , from Leeds to Manchester, the norths 2 largest cities, would have made such a difference - With then a strong link to the NE and Sheffield that should have been a popular route