HS2 high-speed London-Birmingham route rail project - discussion

[ViolentPanda]

The human civilisation is not going to deviate from its quest for faster travel between major cities within a country, continent or the world, in spite of environmental crises like global warming and depleting fossil fuel resources.

Haven't read up on the project, have you?
HS2 should cut the volume of internal air travel once completed, and for a much lower environmental cost than a motorway, or indeed the equivalent amount of travel in air-miles.

Europe and even China have faster train services. Britain has to keep up with the rest of the world in mass transport in the 21st century. On that account HS2 is a good idea. However, mitigation of the environmental impacts of HS2 is also a requisite.

It's not about "keeping up", it's about easing a bottleneck that's already caused a large increase in internal flights over the last 20 years.

Besides the measures to mitigate the environmental impacts considered so far, the environmental opponents of the project should proactively participate on the project to address the points of impacts they are concerned with rather than opposing the project or letting those impacts materialise without treatment.
Last but not least, in my view shielding the HS2 track with a corridor of proper woodland will take the strain of environmental impacts of the controversial train.

Oh dear.

 

[skyscraper101]

This whole 'shielding' out of sight. Its bonkers. What about people on the train, don't they get to look out over rolling landscape or will they only get to see mile after mile of blurred vegetation sweeping past at close range? You may as well be on a plane.

What is it with all these twats and their NIMBY attitudes? I don't remember getting a say over the noise of military excersises taking place over Salisbury Plain when I was younger, nor the perpetual police helicopers which hover over london all night when I'm there. I love seeing trains rolling accross landscape, its a beautiful thing and if I were in charge, they'd all get a wind turbine stuck in their back garden for being difficult.

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

The NIMBYs are mad, trains do look good...

Build 'em proud!

 

[London_Calling]

Think how beautiful that river and valley would be without the fucking viaduct.

 

[Roadkill]

Think how beautiful that river and valley would be without the fucking viaduct.

The viaducts are beautiful IMO. Ribblehead Viaduct, especially, is truly spectacular close up.

Unfortunately we've lost perhaps the most spectacular of the lot, Belah Viaduct, designed by Thomas Bouch of Tay Bridge infamy, on the old northern route over the Pennines between Barnard Castle and Kirkby Stephen.

It was dismantled and cut up for scrap when the line closed in the 1960s.

 

[London_Calling]

If that's 'beautiful' I'm Justin Timberland.

 

[Crispy]

That last one is ugly as hell. Had to have been the cheapest design (which is what we'll get with HS2 btw - the viaducts will look exactly like A-road flyovers)

 

[hipipol]

The proposed route does not pass thru any SSSI locations - unlike say various bypass routes which seem not to raised the ire of the Shireocracy
Its merely that they feel they have purchased their own little slice of paradise and fuck the others who not have that good fortune
Without transport, trade, economic activity, etc I doubt there would be anyone with the wedge to "enjoy" the various actors and writers in the Chilterns who see this as some sort of personal attack. Most of those who live there do so because of the proximity to London and the economic benefit this confers - well share some of the drawsbacks you whining little shits

 

[Roadkill]

That last one is ugly as hell. Had to have been the cheapest design (which is what we'll get with HS2 btw - the viaducts will look exactly like A-road flyovers)

What, Belah? Disagree - I think it looks rather magnificent.

Tbh I don't have a problem with road bridges either, per se. Some are hideous, but then some aren't. I defy anyone to say the Humber Bridge isn't beautiful:

 

[T & P]

Everybody loves a railway line (or should). At worst, a railway line will cause indifference on most people appreciating a countryside view.

Very few people indeed could possible look at a landscape cut across by a six-lane motorway (not to mention the inevitable assortment of soul-destroying retail and industrial estates that attach themselves to parts of it) and think anything other than 'what a cunting eyesore'.

 

[frogwoman]

well i hate to piss on peoples bonfires but the problem is that it will go through a park that people use, and it will reduce the frequency of local railway services which have already been decimated in the last couple of years. it's largely been done to benefit business travellers going from london to birmingham.

it's been portrayed as a bunch of middle class tossers objecting to it but my sp branch are actually heavily involved in a campaign against it, it passes very near to an estate in aylesbury and we got 2000 signatures against it.

 

[frogwoman]

im actually not opposed to it in principle but i think it's just fucking ridiculous the way its been done and all the routes have been worked out ...

 

[Crispy]

it will reduce the frequency of local railway services

Hmm, this is news to me. Do you have a link? (genuine interest)

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

Think how beautiful that river and valley would be without the fucking viaduct.

I genuinley feel that many viaducts enhance the countryside.

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

The M40 through the Chilterns looks like this:

Leading on to...

Now the folk who live in the area who are bitching about the train line, do they seriously think it'll be as bad as that? Bet the fucks are happy to use the M40 to get about though, without a thought to those walking the Ridgeway etc.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Think how beautiful that river and valley would be without the fucking viaduct.

Back to your cave, Primi!

 

[London_Calling]

It's the opposite of that though you knuckleheads - put the fucking things in tunnels and cuts rather than have some privatised phallus hurtling all over the countryside on cheap, concrete built bridging that look like the Hammershit flyover. And cut the noise pollution.

 

[ViolentPanda]

It's the opposite of that though you knuckleheads - put the fucking things in tunnels and cuts rather than have some privatised phallus hurtling all over the countryside on cheap, concrete built bridging that look like the Hammershit flyover. And cut the noise pollution.

Interesting that the person making proposals that would increase the cost of any line extensively chooses to call others "knuckleheads".

Do you prefer the idea of maxed-out air slots between London, Brum, Leeds and Manchester? I don't, just as I don't prefer the idea of spending mch more on a rail-link than necessary merely to cater to the concerns of a tiny minority of people.

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

Interesting that the person making proposals that would increase the cost of any line extensively chooses to call others "knuckleheads".

Do you prefer the idea of maxed-out air slots between London, Brum, Leeds and Manchester? I don't, just as I don't prefer the idea of spending mch more on a rail-link than necessary merely to cater to the concerns of a tiny minority of people.

Point of interest; there are no flights between London and Birmingham (they stopped when the M40 was completed) and now there are no longer flights between London and Leeds, (this is a very recent development).

 

[paolo]

Point of interest; there are no flights between London and Birmingham (they stopped when the M40 was completed) and now there are no longer flights between London and Leeds, (this is a very recent development).

(((cobbles)))

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

(((cobbles)))

 

[T & P]

The ultimate goal of course is to render flights between London and Scotland as meaningless and unpopular as they are between London and Paris.

If HS2 was just to serve Birmingham with no plans of expansion I myself would probably be against it. But the whole point is (in theory at least) that it is only phase 1 of an eventual high speed railway network linking London with Edinburgh & Glasgow. There are still plenty of flights between London and the those two Scottish cities (not to mention flights to Liverpool and Manchester, which are little short of a crime against humanity in my book), and we should aim to eliminate the immense majority of them.

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

There are no flights to Livepool from London, but plenty to Manchester. HS1 must stop at Heathrow though, or else these domestic flights will continue, as the majority of Manchester to London fliers are connecting on to other flights and would be resistant to having to change trains in central London before going to Heathrow.

 

[Crispy]

A Heathrow link is included as part of the specification for phase 2. If it's a loop or a spur is undecided yet. In theory, it could link onto the line to Bristol & Cardiff as well, although I'm not sure if that would actually be useful. Would it be quicker to get to Machester from Bristol if you went via Heathrow? Maybe, bearing in mind the GWML is capable of higher speeds than 125mph for decent stretches.

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

It needs to be integral to banish Manchester-Heathrow flights.

People still fly to Paris to make connections, even though it is but a short train journey from Gare du Nord to Charles de Gaulle; if you've just flown in overnight from the Caribbean you really don't need to be fucking about with train connections.

 

[skyscraper101]

Exactly ^

 

[hipipol]

On a personal note, I love the clean sinuous lines of a railway cutting across a landscape
What I despise are thousands of vile little boxes running for mile after mile, virtually every one of them with tarmaced drives, 3 or 4 cars on it, a bleak soul destroying landscape that is simply the march of stupidity
If there were speedy links, with reduced carbon footprint as a result of the efficient use of energy to transport, people it might be possible to persuade people not to cram in ever denser clusters in the South East - London is huge enough already - anything that makes it easier to reduce the density makes sense

 

[free spirit]

it will reduce the frequency of local railway services

really?

everything I've seen indicates that it ought to increase the frequency of local rail services and stopping trains because it frees up line capacity from the fast intercity trains on that line that basically have cut out the local train stops in an attempt to speed up the london-birmingham times.

The last time I read through this stuff was a few years back mind, so I might be out of date, but this just doesn't square with anything I've seen about it at all, and is basically contrary to half the rationale for building it.

 

[Roadkill]

Very few people indeed could possible look at a landscape cut across by a six-lane motorway (not to mention the inevitable assortment of soul-destroying retail and industrial estates that attach themselves to parts of it) and think anything other than 'what a cunting eyesore'.

I don't. Some motorway architecture is hideous in the same way some rail bridges are hideous, but overall I don't see any reason to assume that rail construction = good and road construction = bad, aesthetically speaking, aside from the blind (and profoundly stupid) hatred of anything on four wheels that's fashionable in some parts, of course.

 

[paolo]

I don't. Some motorway architecture is hideous in the same way some rail bridges are hideous, but overall I don't see any reason to assume that rail construction = good and road construction = bad, aesthetically speaking, aside from the blind (and profoundly stupid) hatred of anything on four wheels that's fashionable in some parts, of course.

Hmmm. Well, a typical 8 lane (6 + hard shoulders) motorway takes up a shed load more space than twin track HS, or even quad track fast + local.