HS2 and Fradley Junction

[Guest]

Mrs T has a house in Burton Green in which her mother lives, She is in her late 70's and does not relish the upheaval of moving.

It is in the direct route of HS2 and will be demolished should HS2 go ahead.

 

The area is blighted so no one in their right mind will buy a house in that lane for "true" market value. The lady next door to Mother in Law sold her house to HS2 (Government) and they gave her a price of £50k less than "true" market value despite a load of promises, which proved to be false, about price. They don't make an offer until the selling process has started and once started you are NOT allowed to back out.

 

Mike, YOU are lucky YOU are not affected.

 

ETA there are also houses in the lane which will not be demolished but they are also in "The Blighted Area" so their current value does not represent the "true" value had the railway not been planned.

 

This is the nub of it.

 

The selfish folk don't understand this, because they can get to London quicker., deep joy. God forbid they might actually explore means of not actually needing to get there in the first place.

[Southern Star]

 

 

 

The area is blighted so no one in their right mind will buy a house in that lane for "true" market value.

It's not the true market value then, is it?

 

My boat is moored at Brinklow, every ten minutes or so, I can hear a distant train going past on the West Coast Main Line. It doesn't make me think "Oh my God, I can hear a train, I'll have to move on".

 

My advice to Mrs T is to sell her house to the greater fool before the whole property Ponzi scheme collapses shortly after next year's General Election.

[Ray T]

It's not the true market value then, is it?

 

My boat is moored at Brinklow, every ten minutes or so, I can hear a distant train going past on the West Coast Main Line. It doesn't make me think "Oh my God, I can hear a train, I'll have to move on".

 

My advice to Mrs T is to sell her house to the greater fool before the whole property Ponzi scheme collapses shortly after next year's General Election.

 

You do not seem to grasp the meaning of what a "Blighted area" means, it is far from I can hear a train in the distance. In this case it will be 50 meters away from the houses not being demolished. At that point the trains will be doing at least 100 mph.

 

I'm glad you are not my financial advisor. Correct me if I am wrong but I believe you don't own a house?

If / when you do own a house and are willing to accept £50K less than what it is worth I will listen to you.

Edited October 3, 2014 by Ray T

[Guest]

It's not the true market value then, is it?

 

My boat is moored at Brinklow, every ten minutes or so, I can hear a distant train going past on the West Coast Main Line. It doesn't make me think "Oh my God, I can hear a train, I'll have to move on".

 

My advice to Mrs T is to sell her house to the greater fool before the whole property Ponzi scheme collapses shortly after next year's General Election.

You invite comments about your apparent inability to comprehend deliberately I am sure, there is a name for that.

 

But did you actually read Ray's post, as in properly read it?

[Southern Star]

 

 

 

I'm glad you are not my financial advisor. Correct me if I am wrong but I believe you don't own a house?

 

No, you are right, I don't own a house. I have owned two houses, outright, I sold the last one at the peak of the market since when it has dropped in value by around £30,000. That's what paid for my narrowboat.

 

God alone knows how much further it will fall in value when interest rates start rising but then that really isn't my problem, I found some poor wooden-headed sap to sell it to and that's all I need to know.

[Guest]

No, you are right, I don't own a house. I have owned two houses, outright, I sold the last one at the peak of the market since when it has dropped in value by around £30,000. That's what paid for my narrowboat.

 

God alone knows how much further it will fall in value when interest rates start rising but then that really isn't my problem, I found some poor wooden-headed sap to sell it to and that's all I need to know.

Bully for you.

 

However just what has this to do with property blighted by the proximity of HS2???

[Cheshire cat]

It's always going to be a risk though and everyone is a nimby at heart. I wonder if the people who live in Weedon think they are blighted because the West Coast Mainline passes overhead.

 

I grew up next door to a line taking coal to the Trent power stations. We just thought it was normal to have 32 wagon trains rattling the house every 10 minutes. Funnily enough, in the last decade the line has fallen silent.

 

Some people will undoubtedly be adversely affected but others will benefit. If they benefit economically then we all gain because they have to pay taxes. I don't know how long it will take to generate 50 billion but rail is a better bet than road for long distance transport in the long term. I really can't see HGV and coaches running on battery power.

[Ange]

I wrote a long reply and then the computer crashed and I lost it. I don't have the heart to recreate it so I'll just do a synopsis.

 

It was, in my opinion, dreadfully misguided to shut down and tear up so many railways in the belief that road travel was the way forward. It isn't, we need to get as many people and freight back on the railways as possible.

 

I lived in Kent during the upheavals of HS1 - we bought a house that had been blighted and compulsorily purchased but was then released back into the market. The railway ran less than 100 yards away with a big soundproof fence between us. While we were aware of the trains, they never disturbed us. We would rather moor next to a railway line than a motorway - with the latter the noise is incessant, with the former it's occasional and far less (to me) intrusive.

 

I know it isn't easy, and I do feel for those directly affected who find their homes worthless and their future uncertain. That's horrible. But what's the alternative? Widen the motorways, build more? That solution blights a whole new set of homes and habitats.

 

It's not an easy question, but I believe the railways are the way forward, not road travel. Certainly in Ashford the new link to the continent and to London and the rest of the country is now seen as a progression. We've hopped on the train a few miles from our door and got off in Paris and Brussels. London is now 40 minutes away instead of 1 hour 20 minutes. These benefits will magnify when it rolls out across the rest of the country.

 

As for cost, if you book in advance and are flexible with your travel times you can find that rail travel is cheaper than the price of the petrol/diesel you'd have to pay for in the car. If we didn't have a dog that detests trains more than she hates car travel we'd use the train to visit our rellies in Kent rather than drive down.

[Southern Star]

Bully for you.

 

However just what has this to do with property blighted by the proximity of HS2???

Well, I personally would consider a property to be "blighted" if it was about to collapse into the sea or something, I wouldn't consider it to be "blighted" simply because a train went past every 20 minutes, several hundred yards away. In fact, a property would probably be more "blighted" by being adjacent to a means of transportation where my smoky old BMC engined narrowboat chugged past at 2 mph.

 

We need a better rail network. Trains have to go somewhere. The impact of having a nearby railway line is minimal, except in the minds of nimbys who will find anything to moan about and whose only interest in the matter is "how much is my property worth?".

[Guest]

Well, I personally would consider a property to be "blighted" if it was about to collapse into the sea or something, I wouldn't consider it to be "blighted" simply because a train went past every 20 minutes, several hundred yards away. In fact, a property would probably be more "blighted" by being adjacent to a means of transportation where my smoky old BMC engined narrowboat chugged past at 2 mph.

 

We need a better rail network. Trains have to go somewhere. The impact of having a nearby railway line is minimal, except in the minds of nimbys who will find anything to moan about and whose only interest in the matter is "how much is my property worth?".

A great many people who object to HS2 live no where near it though, that is not the basis and the point of many peoples objections, but for those who's property has diminished substantially in value I find your rather smug 'I'm alright Jack' dismissal (because you got out of property) of their real worries and concerns says rather a lot.

 

And comparing the blight of a property by a high speed railway with that associated with living next to a canal shows a rather startling lack of knowledge about how the property market works, because in most situations the canal side location of a property would mean it commands a price premium and would not be devalued by it at all, so your comment doesn't hold water (no pun intended).

Edited October 4, 2014 by The Dog House

[MoominPapa]

The selfish folk don't understand this, because they can get to London quicker., deep joy. God forbid they might actually explore means of not actually needing to get there in the first place.

Dog House, your life must be really difficult, what with not ever using any of those nasty motorways which blighted (and continue to blight) hundreds of thousands of existing houses. Then there's the problem of the disturbance you create driving down old village main-streets, whilst avoiding the motorways. Those villages were there before the car was even invented!

 

MP.

[b0atman]

HS2 when is London due to flood will it be before or after ? plenty of London moorings then .

forget to put smilie

[ditchcrawler]

AND the most environmentally sound way of traveling.

 

 

MtB

Does that take into account all the queues of traffic sitting with their engines running at all the level crossings. Here in Lowestoft in the morning there is often half a mile of cars each side of the crossing

[Up-Side-Down]

 

The trouble with a giant project like HS2 (or the Channel Tunnel, the expansion of Heathrow or Boris Island) is, the decision has to be based on so many factors that in the end we have to rely on civil servants and ministers, having weighed up advice from businesses and others, to put a proper cost on everything including the effect on the lives of people along the route. Unfortunately constituency politics comes into play, and we have to hope that the Prime Minister of the day is brave enough to rise above that and come to the best decision for the long term good of the country.

 

On a gut level I have my doubts about HS2, because by all reports the real need is for greater capacity, and won't greater speed get in the way of that? Because the stopping distance of a train increases more than linearly with speed, faster trains will need much greater gaps between them, so in theory I think they'd move more people along a given stretch of track on 100mph trains than on 150mph trains (I don't know the actual speeds but for the purposes of this theory that doesn't matter).

ACTUALLY THERE ISN'T THAT MUCH DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE BRAKING DISTANCES OF TRAINS. SOME OF THE WORST ARE DMU'S! HOWEVER ON HS2 THE PLAN IS FOR ALL TRAINS TO BE DOING THE SAME SPEEDS, ROUGHLY, SO THE BRAKING DISTANCES AND THEREFORE THE HEADWAY BETWEEN EACH TRAIN WILL BE ROUGHLY THE SAME.

 

I can't help wondering whether a series of smaller projects to remove bottlenecks on the various lines from London to the North, and anywhere else that demand is expected to exceed supply, would be better value for money, and whether it might make sense to improve railways that go around London, or even build a sort of rail equivalent of the M25 joining up to the lines it crosses. If passengers could get trains direct from the ports of the South East to the Midlands and the North without having to drag their luggage through the Tube, wouldn't that be good for the North and help to ease overcrowding in London? A London orbital rail line would be expensive, but would have a lot of benefits and might just help balance up the economy.

UNFORTUNATELY MOST OF THE BOTTLENECKS ARE WITHIN URBAN AREAS, SO FINDING A SOLUTION WOULD BE BOTH DIFFICULT AND EXPENSIVE, AND STILL WOULDN'T RELIEVE THE MASSIVE OVERCROWDING THERE IS ON THE TRACKS ON BOTH THE BOTH LINES NORTH OF LONDON. IT IS NOW ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE TO FIND EMPTY PATHS FOR ANYTHING EXTRA AND TO TRY TO GET ANY MAINTENANCE DONE NEEDS COMPLETE CLOSURE AS TRYING TO GET A BLOCK BETWEEN TRAINS IS ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE, EVEN FOR 5 MINUTES. A PROBLEM THAT CAUSES MY SIGNALLING COLLEAGUES AT THE VARIOUS SIGNALLING CENTRES TO PULL THEIR HAIR OUT!

 

What has become of the concept of moving block signalling that was to have accompanied the upgrade of the WCML?

[Up-Side-Down]

 

This is the nub of it.

 

The selfish folk don't understand this, because they can get to London quicker., deep joy. God forbid they might actually explore means of not actually needing to get there in the first place.

In reality SPEED has little or nothing to do with it. It's essentially about providing the capacity to travel in an environmentally sound way for the foreseeable future.

[Guest]

Dog House, your life must be really difficult, what with not ever using any of those nasty motorways which blighted (and continue to blight) hundreds of thousands of existing houses. Then there's the problem of the disturbance you create driving down old village main-streets, whilst avoiding the motorways. Those villages were there before the car was even invented!

 

MP.

I think you have missed my point.

 

My point relates to the numbers of journeys that relate to business meetings and conferences that could be just as effective even if people didn't actually move them selves around to have them. We as a country are not fully exploiting alternatives to face to face meetings using readily available technology.

[b0atman]

I think you have missed my point.

 

My point relates to the numbers of journeys that relate to business meetings and conferences that could be just as effective even if people didn't actually move them selves around to have them. We as a country are not fully exploiting alternatives to face to face meetings using readily available technology.

Wow does this technology really exist today well think how much more advanced it will be in ten twenty thirty years time !

We need the beeching cuts undoing where possible and a better system put in place for freight.

Edited October 4, 2014 by b0atman

[Guest]

In reality SPEED has little or nothing to do with it. It's essentially about providing the capacity to travel in an environmentally sound way for the foreseeable future.

I question the need for expansion without looking properly at alternatives to actually moving so many people about in the first place. That is all, I don't think that is being or has been done.

[b0atman]

Keep trying to give you greenies martin but my 2 a day where used last night.

[craftycarper]

I think that the point many people are missing is that fifty billion pounds would electrify our entire network and bring it into the twenty first century were as we will get one line to run from brum to London twenty minutes quicker it's a know brainer

[MtB]

I think that the point many people are missing is that fifty billion pounds would electrify our entire network and bring it into the twenty first century were as we will get one line to run from brum to London twenty minutes quicker it's a know brainer

 

It's you who is missing the point. Getting people there quicker is a by-product of the new line.

 

The point is to increase capacity, to shift MORE goods and people than the current line can manage. Goods traffic being just as important as the human traffic, if not more so.

 

MtB

[Hawkmoth]

The bulk of people using HS2 will be claiming expenses which will be claimed against tax so we pay again .

How much freight will HS2 take off the roads ?

Will technology not have advanced to the point where meetings can be held in virtual conference rooms and computers and mobile devices will be able to connect people face to face anywhere in this country or maybe even the world

Now private enterprise link up some of these preserved lines and run steam trains and you get my vote

This is my main objection to the project. There will still be the regular railways, probably left with less funding, for the hoi polloi. the people using the HS2 will be the fat cats. Mr and Mrs average probably won't be able to afford. A bit like Concorde, a wonder thing, but only for the rich.

So you think HS2 will be leisure use when other trains will be running from and to the same locations albeit a tad slower .

Oh you mean the rich leisure users for whom money is no objection.

See above.

 

The money could be much better spent on upgrades to the present system, and the health service.

Bob

[Graham Davis]

So you think HS2 will be leisure use when other trains will be running from and to the same locations albeit a tad slower .

Oh you mean the rich leisure users for whom money is no objection.

 

From the current usage figures, possibly, but then your bias will not accept that.

[Graham Davis]

What has become of the concept of moving block signalling that was to have accompanied the upgrade of the WCML?

 

Still a possibility/probability. The trial of ERTMS/ETCS on the Cambrian line has now been extend to a line in East Anglia and is to be "shadow" run on the Great Western mainline.

Wow does this technology really exist today well think how much more advanced it will be in ten twenty thirty years time !

We need the beeching cuts undoing where possible and a better system put in place for freight.

 

The majority of Beeching cuts were on uneconomical rural branch lines, many of which would still be uneconomical today.

Building HS2 will increase the availability of freight paths on the current lines paralleling it.

I think that the point many people are missing is that fifty billion pounds would electrify our entire network and bring it into the twenty first century were as we will get one line to run from brum to London twenty minutes quicker it's a know brainer

 

Even electrifying the whole system, it would still not create enough additional paths to allow an increase in usage.

And from the figures currently being given for the electrification of the GW line to South Wales and the South Wales valleys I doubt your figure.

[craftycarper]

It's you who is missing the point. Getting people there quicker is a by-product of the new line.

 

The point is to increase capacity, to shift MORE goods and people than the current line can manage. Goods traffic being just as important as the human traffic, if not more so.

 

MtB

. No I'm not missing anything our entire country's rail network is falling to bits not just a one hundred mile stretch, it will cut 20 minutes off the journey which will benefit a tiny percentage of rail users, were as fifty billion pounds could improve things for a far larger number of users if it was spent on the existing network and for graham can you explain were hs2 will benefit South wales and the valley,s you are not getting a massive addition to our rail infrastructure just one line between London and brum nothing more,it benefits firms from Europe getting to and from the mass cheap labour force that is the Midlands if you believe it is going to improve yours or my life in any way you are just fooling yourself