HS2 and the Grand Union

[JungleJames]

10 minutes ago, matty40s said:

That was the main jist of the thread opener. 

 

 

The opening thread sounded like a NIMBY sounding off.

[MtB]

And of some of the these arguments being levelled against HS2 could have (and probably were) used to oppose the building of most canals.

 

Blot on the lansdcape I bet most of them were, during and for a while after building. 

[JungleJames]

10 minutes ago, MtB said:

And of some of the these arguments being levelled against HS2 could have (and probably were) used to oppose the building of most canals.

 

Blot on the lansdcape I bet most of them were, during and for a while after building. 

I was thinking of mentioning them. Just to get the point home.

Plus the boatyards to build your boats, and the marinas you berth your boats in. 

 

[MtB]

5 minutes ago, JungleJames said:

I was thinking of mentioning them. Just to get the point home.

Plus the boatyards to build your boats, and the marinas you berth your boats in. 

 

 

Not only that but I remember a similar level of fuss and resistance to building the M25, a road which everyone loves to denigrate, yet is curiously well patronised all day and all night, every day of the year. 

 

I'm pretty sure there was uproar against the building of most major roads back in the day, the M1 and the M4 especially, although I was very young at the time. Both these roads seem to have 'bedded in' to the landscape pretty well since and are very handy for travelling long distances quickly. 

 

Once HS2 is built I shall love seeing the trains running on it from my boat. If I haven't keeled over in the interim. 

[Wanderer Vagabond]

22 minutes ago, MtB said:

And of some of the these arguments being levelled against HS2 could have (and probably were) used to oppose the building of most canals.

 

Blot on the lansdcape I bet most of them were, during and for a while after building. 

The difference is that at the time of building the canals were going to be widely used, the rump of HS2 that we are going to be left with simply isn't. We have a line with a station at each end that has cost billions to serve what purpose (now). The completed system as originally proposed had some value, what we now have left if simply a vanity project that only marginally satisfies London and the South East once again. The area that needed the improved rail infrastructure (the North) has been crapped on once again.

[MtB]

1 minute ago, Wanderer Vagabond said:

The difference is that at the time of building the canals were going to be widely used, the rump of HS2 that we are going to be left with simply isn't.

 

In your opinion.

 

And the freight? Do you see no value in freeing up freight timetables on the old route, once there are fewer passenger services? 

[Wanderer Vagabond]

3 minutes ago, MtB said:

 

Not only that but I remember a similar level of fuss and resistance to building the M25, a road which everyone loves to denigrate, yet is curiously well patronised all day and all night, every day of the year. 

 

I'm pretty sure there was uproar against the building of most major roads back in the day, the M1 and the M4 especially, although I was very young at the time. Both these roads seem to have 'bedded in' to the landscape pretty well since and are very handy for travelling long distances quickly. 

 

Once HS2 is built I shall love seeing the trains running on it from my boat. If I haven't keeled over in the interim. 

Funnily enough I remember the building of the M25 as one of our customers houses was right alongside it as they were building.  At the time we said that a proposal to link all of the motorways going into London (M1, M2, M3,M4 etc) all with a motorway also only containing 3 lanes (as it was originally built) was insanity and would rapidly be overloaded, and what happened?........they had to build more lanes, quelle surprise! Whoever 'planned' it obviously didn't see that coming

2 minutes ago, MtB said:

 

In your opinion.

 

And the freight? Do you see no value in freeing up freight timetables on the old route, once there are fewer passenger services? 

Nope, I'd say the HS2 line would be better used as a freight line alone since no-one else is going to be using it. An expensive freight line, I'll grant you.

[MtB]

I'd say canal folk have always opposed the building of railways.

 

And with good reason! 

 

And so it continues today. 

 

 

[Tracy D'arth]

I have worked since I was 14, all sorts of jobs, some good, some bad. Some easy and clean, others highly difficult and filthy.

But I have never withdrawn my labour.

If you don't like the work or its not what you want for the pay, change your job.

[MtB]

32 minutes ago, Tracy D'arth said:

I have worked since I was 14, all sorts of jobs, some good, some bad. Some easy and clean, others highly difficult and filthy.

But I have never withdrawn my labour.

If you don't like the work or its not what you want for the pay, change your job.

 

 

It has always puzzled me ever since I was a kid, why everyone striking did not do this instead. 

 

[Wanderer Vagabond]

1 hour ago, Tracy D'arth said:

I have worked since I was 14, all sorts of jobs, some good, some bad. Some easy and clean, others highly difficult and filthy.

But I have never withdrawn my labour.

If you don't like the work or its not what you want for the pay, change your job.

So leaving a job isn't 'withdrawing your labour' then? I have also had a number of jobs and when the job has been crap I've got another one and then handed in my notice and told the boss I was leaving because his pay was shit. Doesn't do anything to improve the working conditions for the job I was leaving though does it? Next person is going to get the same crap conditions, or perhaps you would support mass immigration to get the cheap labour to keep such businesses going

56 minutes ago, MtB said:

 

 

It has always puzzled me ever since I was a kid, why everyone striking did not do this instead. 

 

I have done several times and, except for a certain 'Federation', haven't belonged to a union either, but I did appreciate their efforts at making crap working conditions better.

[Victor Vectis]

6 hours ago, Tracy D'arth said:

Wow, touched a nerve there then!

 

I would like a job where I sat down all day and didn't have to turn the steering wheel  for £65K plus a year! And a rock solid pension, free travel, and uniform supplied.

Then why don't you apply for one then?

4 hours ago, matty40s said:

Just the loss of the Bree Louise pub near Euston needed heads chopping off.

It was a bit of a dive but, yes!

[MtB]

25 minutes ago, Wanderer Vagabond said:

Doesn't do anything to improve the working conditions for the job I was leaving though does it? Next person is going to get the same crap conditions, or perhaps you would support mass immigration to get the cheap labour to keep such businesses going

 

Hang on, aren't you loonie lefties totally in favour of mass immigration?

 

 

[JungleJames]

2 hours ago, Tracy D'arth said:

I have worked since I was 14, all sorts of jobs, some good, some bad. Some easy and clean, others highly difficult and filthy.

But I have never withdrawn my labour.

If you don't like the work or its not what you want for the pay, change your job.

That's funny, because if there is one industry people often go into for the love of it, then it is the railways.

Not always, but often.

 

Staff on the whole are not liking this, but it has got to the stage where they need to protect the industry long term.

 

The damage to the industry caused by the government. Or in this case, damage the government wants to cause.

Things always operate much more smoothly when government takes a back seat. 

 

Remember, this all first started before interest rates rose.

All was needed was for someone to say- 2% this year, 2% next. Job sorted. Even 1% could have done it.

But for ages the government banned any conversation at all, then they started bringing in all sorts of horrendous clauses and scrapping long held perks of the job. Railway management knew they were being shafted. This would have been sorted with zero strikes had the government left well alone. But no. 

 

In fact, pretty much everything brought up on this thread has the blood of the government on it.

[MtB]

18 minutes ago, JungleJames said:

The damage to the industry caused by the government.

 

The same body that funds it, you mean?

 

 

Do you hold that the railways would thrive if the guvvermint backed out totally? Including withdrawal of funding? 

 

 

 

I have my doubts. But then I'm an ultracrepidarian where the railways are concerned. 

 

In fact where most subjects are concerned! 

 

 

[JungleJames]

7 hours ago, MtB said:

 

The same body that funds it, you mean?

 

 

Do you hold that the railways would thrive if the guvvermint backed out totally? Including withdrawal of funding? 

 

 

 

I have my doubts. But then I'm an ultracrepidarian where the railways are concerned. 

 

In fact where most subjects are concerned! 

 

 

No, withdrawal of funding can't work. Overall the railways would make a loss.

 

Yes the government funds it, but they have a habit of screwing these things over as they don't know what they are doing.

Best to keep at arms length and let the railway manage and run itself. Everything works much better that way.

Like in the latter BR days. Here's your money. Off you go. It usually works.

 

Railway management would have sorted this stalemate out without resort to strikes. 

What sort of government refuses management the permission to speak to unions? Because that is what they did at first.

 

It is daft. Back before all this, the railway was on the whole allowed to manage itself. 

Since the virus, and the new contracts that were introduced with the operators, people can't go to toilet without first asking the government. It is bonkers.

[MtB]

37 minutes ago, JungleJames said:

No, withdrawal of funding can't work. Overall the railways would make a loss.

 

Yes the government funds it, but they have a habit of screwing these things over as they don't know what they are doing.

Best to keep at arms length and let the railway manage and run itself. Everything works much better that way.

Like in the latter BR days. Here's your money. Off you go. It usually works.

 

Railway management would have sorted this stalemate out without resort to strikes. 

What sort of government refuses management the permission to speak to unions? Because that is what they did at first.

 

It is daft. Back before all this, the railway was on the whole allowed to manage itself. 

Since the virus, and the new contracts that were introduced with the operators, people can't go to toilet without first asking the government. It is bonkers.

 

 

Yes totally bonkers.

 

But I wonder if you are too young to remember the railways back in the 60s and 70s before privatisation. My own recollection is of constant strikes and truly abysmal rail services. So unreliable that no-one used them. The dire state of the railway industry was supposedly gonna be fixed by privatisation.

 

It struck me as an over-complicated solution that wouldn't and didn't work. But as I said above, I know nothing about the railways beyond being an occasional user much of my life. 

 

 

[JungleJames]

41 minutes ago, MtB said:

 

 

Yes totally bonkers.

 

But I wonder if you are too young to remember the railways back in the 60s and 70s before privatisation. My own recollection is of constant strikes and truly abysmal rail services. So unreliable that no-one used them. The dire state of the railway industry was supposedly gonna be fixed by privatisation.

 

It struck me as an over-complicated solution that wouldn't and didn't work. But as I said above, I know nothing about the railways beyond being an occasional user much of my life. 

 

 

Definitely have no knowledge that far back. 

But even before privatisation (say early 90s) the railways were running fairly well and efficiently. Because the government were hands off.

The amount of subsidy rocketed come privatisation. Imagine what BR could have done with today's subsidy.

The daft thing is, The government are more hands on now than they were before privatisation.

 

 

[Momac]

The railways waste money on an immense  scale.

In this respect the train operating companies are just as bad if not worse than the former nationalised arrangements.

 

As far as HS2 is concerned I  may not travel on it as quite simply I  live  near the East Coast mainline  . But as  said there may be other benefits due to other routes being under reduced demand.

 

[Pluto]

14 hours ago, MtB said:

And of some of the these arguments being levelled against HS2 could have (and probably were) used to oppose the building of most canals.

 

Blot on the lansdcape I bet most of them were, during and for a while after building. 

The early canals, 1760-1770, were promoted by people with a very definite need for transport to develop their local economy. The Canal Mania ones, early 1790s, were promoted by people who just looked at the benefits provided by early canals, and thought you just had to build a canal and trade would magically appear. Modern transport promoters seem to belong to the Canal Mania school.

[Ronaldo47]

14 hours ago, Wanderer Vagabond said:

At the time we said that a proposal to link all of the motorways going into London (M1, M2, M3,M4 etc) all with a motorway also only containing 3 lanes (as it was originally built) was insanity and would rapidly be overloaded, and what happened?........they had to build more lanes, quelle surprise! Whoever 'planned' it obviously didn't see that coming

 

One of the other attendees at a course I was on at the Civil Service College in the 1980's, was from the Department of Transport. He told me that, what usually happened was  that they would be asked to design a road, which they would do, taking into account the expected growth in traffic and service life. The government would then tell them it was too expensive and ask them to change the design to something cheaper. This might result in fewer lanes or road surfaces with a shorter life. The subject had arisen in conversation, as stories about premature deterioration of a motorway in the Midlands were featuring in the news at that time, something that the guy said was entirely predictable.

 

The Humber Bridge construction project was a topic on that course in the context of how government decisions are made. The need for votes in a crucial by-election was indeed  identified as the key factor!  

[Wanderer Vagabond]

On 23/02/2024 at 11:09, JungleJames said:

Well if Euston is pulled, then ok. But as yet it isn't. If it is, well, bang goes any speed benefit.

But, Birmingham is still in the centre of BirmIngham. 

 

As for who will travel on it. Don't just assume that as you won't, nobody else will.

 

How well do you know Birmingham? The fact is that Curzon Street is over a kilometre (by road, not as the crow flies) from New Street Station so let us say a 15 minute walk, and all that you've saved in time from London on the new line is supposedly 20 minutes, which you are going to pretty much lose walking to New Street to catch your connection to go further north. The 'gains' are entirely illusory.

[Tracy D'arth]

13 hours ago, Victor Vectis said:

Then why don't you apply for one then?

 

Being of considerable age with two terminal brain tumours; I don't think that I would be a candidate for employment anymore!

But I could still drive a train though, cushy job that. Not colour blind, can sit down all day, short working hours, like to be alone, not dealing with the general public, pension, uniform, free travel, no physical exertion, overpaid, no outside working, piece of cake.

[Wanderer Vagabond]

1 hour ago, Ronaldo47 said:

One of the other attendees at a course I was on at the Civil Service College in the 1980's, was from the Department of Transport. He told me that, what usually happened was  that they would be asked to design a road, which they would do, taking into account the expected growth in traffic and service life. The government would then tell them it was too expensive and ask them to change the design to something cheaper. This might result in fewer lanes or road surfaces with a shorter life. The subject had arisen in conversation, as stories about premature deterioration of a motorway in the Midlands were featuring in the news at that time, something that the guy said was entirely predictable.

 

The Humber Bridge construction project was a topic on that course in the context of how government decisions are made. The need for votes in a crucial by-election was indeed  identified as the key factor!  

Your anecdote doesn't surprise me in the slightest, it seems to be the way of Government to try to get the cheapest option for everything regardless of quality. I think someone on another thread quoted the maxim that you can have a project cheap, on time and efficient but you will only ever get two of the three options. Cheap and on time will mean that it wont be efficient, cheap and efficient means that it wont be on time and efficient and on time means that it wont be cheap.

 

The current degradation of UK roads is almost certainly down to getting the cheapest possible job along with total lack of maintenance. As another anecdote, we have the South Devon Link Road down here in my area and I cycled along part of it the other day, it was only finished in 2016 (8 years ago) and the surface is already breaking up. It is a well used piece of road, but 8 years? really!!

 

The Humber Bridge construction was an interesting one, as was pointed out by my relatives in Goole, it went from nowhere to nowhere at that time (how much demand was there for the good people of Barton on Humber to get to Hessle?). After the initial novelty of it wore off, it was barely used particularly as it was a toll road (this is Yorkshire you are talking about). I don't doubt that the key factor driving it's construction was the need for votes in a by-election.

[Captain Pegg]

1 hour ago, Wanderer Vagabond said:

How well do you know Birmingham? The fact is that Curzon Street is over a kilometre (by road, not as the crow flies) from New Street Station so let us say a 15 minute walk, and all that you've saved in time from London on the new line is supposedly 20 minutes, which you are going to pretty much lose walking to New Street to catch your connection to go further north. The 'gains' are entirely illusory.

The new HS2 station will not be on Curzon Street. It will occupy the site of the former Curzon St station and incorporate the listed former station building on the periphery of the site.

 

It will however be considerably bigger than the original station with its main entrance adjacent to that of Moor St station on Moor Street Queensway.

 

There are - or at least were - collateral schemes to expand Moor St station to accommodate trains from the NE-SW corridor using new chord lines linking to the Camp Hill railway thus providing increased connections to HS2 and alleviate over crowding at New St which doesn’t entirely get resolved by HS2.

 

It’s also a short walk from Moor St (and therefore also from the new HS2 station) to New St and a regular connection used by thousands of people every day. Including quite often me.