They could not have fucked thus up more, really.
Given more time, the may well do so.
With the new government, it's not the same they anymore.
More delays for Euston's HS2 station
41–50 of 143 posts
Re: More delays for Euston's HS2 station
#42I dont understand how HS2 is not the number 1 priority to link the dying cities of the north to london, its important to have good communications, its such a tiny island anyway. Get a grip, and make the line extend to the northern territories, that was literally the whole point.
Re: More delays for Euston's HS2 station
#43To be honest I think with a lot of policy issues in the UK at the moment you need to just give the government a bit of time to breath. Sunak's decision making on HS2 was bizarre bad long term/short term/pragmatic/polcitical. It was just one of those bizarre moments where he had sort of a correct aim and then changed that aim into "How can I cause as much damage as possible". So the current policy is extremely expensi…
The old HS1 boss, said the main problem with HS2 goes was the government publicly announced the budget for each contract and the bidders bid... you guessed it right at the maximum of each contract.
HS1 never announced any budget for any contract, so lots of bids came in way under what the government was prepared to spend, hence came in well under budget.
I seem to recall that was also due to infrastructure 'transparency' and government 'openness' from the 00s.
It got off to a bad start under Andrew Adonis in the dying days of the Blair/Brown administration, but people forget that.
"Adonis himself is openly regretful. “HS2 should stop at Old Oak Common,” he told me, “interchanging with Crossrail there. We should leave open the question of going further into London.” As head of the Cameron’s national infrastructure commission, Adonis makes many speeches on these subjects. He nowadays lauds HS3, and lauds Old Oak Common as London’s greatest development opportunity. I have yet to hear him laud Euston. That station, he says, “is the poison at the heart of HS2. I bitterly regret not stopping it before I left office”."
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jun/07/hs2-the-zomb...
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/hs2-rishi-sun...
> Mr Holden also said HS1 was successful because the true budget was known to just “a handful of people”, while HS2 contractors inflated their prices once they saw the latter project’s true budget.
Re: More delays for Euston's HS2 station
#44I was reading the newspaper a few weeks ago and there were two articles that amused me: The first one was about Dutch high speed trains having to reduce speed to 80kph because the construction company fucked up the bridge construction. The second article was about the new high speed train in Indonesia. Every once in a while you're reminded that this is Asia's century.
Note that Indonesia's high speed rail is being built by China, so it is more accurate to remind everyone that this is China's century. On the other hand, for the sake of balance it is also important to remember that the grass is always greener on the other side, and in particular the famous saying about fascists (more accurately Mussolini) "they made the trains run on time."
Re: More delays for Euston's HS2 station
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would love to see HS2 reinstated, but I agree that it is not likely at this time. There are likely higher priority projects that should go ahead first (some form of Northern Powerhouse, for example). At a minimum, though, I do hope that they protect the route for HS2 north of Birmingham even if construction is indefinitely deferred. It is going to be needed eventually.
HS2 is by far the most important transportation project, it massively impacts the whole rail system. HS2 connects North and South like never before. And it massively improves what you can do with regional and local trains on the rest of the network. And its pretty much ready to go. Work is lined up and planed. All it needs is political support and funding. Other projects should be done, but they should be planned in…
> And its pretty much ready to go. Work is lined up and planed.
Is it? Or does the plan need a bunch of revisions, to restore the link to Euston and address the cost over-runs?
We all know there's not much money left. And politically speaking, Labour needs to give the north of england a fair deal on infrastructure spending, to shore up wavering support in red wall seats.
HS2 is an exciting project that a lot of work has already been done on, it'd be totally cool if it did go ahead - but I'm not holding my breath.
Re: More delays for Euston's HS2 station
#46I dont understand how HS2 is not the number 1 priority to link the dying cities of the north to london, its important to have good communications, its such a tiny island anyway. Get a grip, and make the line extend to the northern territories, that was literally the whole point.
Britain is not a tiny island. its the ninth largest in the word and is a lot bigger than Java (population of 156m BTW) and is only a little smaller than Honshu.
The cities of the north are not dying. Some are doing badly, some are doing well. its not a given that what they need most is better links to London- better links between northern cities might do more.
Re: More delays for Euston's HS2 station
#47Laber needs to get off its ass and reorganize this. The way the whole HS2 thing is organised is braindead. Throwing all the costs for everything from stations to trains into the same semi-private company. Not learning best practices from Japan rail station operation. Building way to many tunnels because of a few braindead Nimbys. Simply recreate BritishRail, make the railroad public, including things like rolling sto…
Nationalising the rail is one of their targets. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/apr/24/labour-prom...
Bear in mind that the rail system is already part nationalised everywhere (the rails were nationalised more than 20 years ago) and some of the train operating companies are too - so many rail journeys already take place entirely in a nationalised system.
Re: More delays for Euston's HS2 station
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
One problem that Labour face is that the contracts are already signed. So, for example - a report just out from the Audit Commission says it will be cheaper to build platforms in Birmingham that will never be used, than to not use them.
Source?
It might be this [1] which says
"According to the report, the decision was made by officials to continue to build the Birmingham Curzon Street Station to its full specification because it was cheaper than trying to cancel part of the scheme. "
"that the project will plough ahead with building a seven-platform station at Curzon Street, despite just three being required for the reduced HS2 line."
Unfortunately inews doesn't seem to quote the original NAO report, just linking to a list of NAO news items on inews :(?
[1] https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/hs2-waste-new-birmingham-s...
[EDIT] So the ft does actually link to the report [2] from this page [3] saying "The watchdog said scrapping the northern leg of the flagship high speed rail link would take three years and cost up to £100mn, and that some platforms would still be built even though they would never be used."
[2] https://www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/hs2-update...
[3] https://www.ft.com/content/ecde4265-0269-4169-ac0e-179938667...
Re: More delays for Euston's HS2 station
#49I read an article[0] just this morning (dated yesterday), that due to reduced seats on HS2, passengers may need to be "encouraged" to NOT travel by train at certain times "if at all". With the war on drivers, and years of trying to convince us to travel by train, despite ludicrous prices and appalling service, they're now going to tell us _not_ to travel by train? Complete and utter insanity, I mean seriously, the pl…
There was never a 'war on drivers' - just empty rhetoric that Sunak clung on to after the Uxbridge by-election.
Re: More delays for Euston's HS2 station
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s not insane if your desired outcome is to stir up hatred against immigrants, and to use them as a political pawn for electioneering and personal gain. Ship ‘em in, simultaneously cut services, policing, remove initiatives aimed to aid integration, and all the while loot the country while blaming the “swarm” - or was it “tidal wave”? I forget. “Stop the boats!”, they howl, while opening the floodgates. I mean, net…
"It’s not insane if your desired outcome is to stir up hatred against immigrants" That sort-of violates the principle that you don't attribute to malice what can be explained by plain incompetence. People who really dislike immigrants won't vote Tory anyway, Reform UK is there to catch their vote (and sink the Tories in the process of doing so). Most of the immigration influx is legal anyway, not boat travellers.
[dead]