NoMorePacers
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Yes, a lorry shuttle - because what are exhaust emissions?
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Why are people opposed to HS2? (And other HS2 discussion)
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The Planner
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Except little goes to and from the tunnel. You would need to do that from Southampton to the North and Felixstowe to the west.
LNW-GW Joint
Veteran Member
Are you saying that France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Belgium and the Netherlands are wrong in seeking to advance their economies and transport systems with high speed railways?
They're all out of step with the UK?
Sounds a bit like the Groucho Brexit argument to me ("any club that would have us as a member we wouldn't want to join").
We aren’t France, Germany or Spain - very different distances and geography. And Spain high speed is a huge white elephant vanity project isn’t it?
Germany is a more sensible model by building bypasses rather than flat out long new lines, and the French model didnt put new routes into city centres did it?
Re not enough traffic.....eh?!?! 2 million trucks across the channel isn’t it? And I would build the route to the East of London to become a spine the East Coast Container traffic can join.
If there was a solid direct reliable continental gauge freight route from Europe to the North West and Birmingham then the number of proper freight trains would rocket.
Germany is a more sensible model by building bypasses rather than flat out long new lines, and the French model didnt put new routes into city centres did it?
Re not enough traffic.....eh?!?! 2 million trucks across the channel isn’t it? And I would build the route to the East of London to become a spine the East Coast Container traffic can join.
If there was a solid direct reliable continental gauge freight route from Europe to the North West and Birmingham then the number of proper freight trains would rocket.
Railwaysceptic
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No, that's not what I'm saying. Read my post again.
Railwaysceptic
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Completely wrong. Anyone suggesting that we build motorways merely because other countries have them would be as idiotic as those using that argument in favour of HS2. We have not built motorways for that reason. We've built them for several very good reasons.
~65% of the Madrid-Barcelona market is now on high speed rail. Quite some White Elephant.
You may apply the WE tag to one or two of the politically-motivated intermediate stations, mind.
Exactly the model HS2 is adopting - bypassing the most congested part of the network (in this case the Southern WCML)
In general high speed infrastructure does not go onto cities (Lille being a notable exception). But TGV services themselves do, via various connections.
But that is because the terminals and approaches are already sized large enough to accommodate them - a luxury not afforded in Britain. Mainly because French 'classic' services are much, much less intensive than British equivalents would be on the WCML.
What is not direct and not reliable about the currently available freight route?
JohnB57
Member
Diesel vehicles are the major overall polluters, not petrol.
Raising fuel duty is a blunt instrument - one that that, amongst other things, would increase price inflation. Like it or not, we all depend on road transport in varying degrees and if we add to its cost, that simply gets passed back to us in higher prices, which in turn reduces our disposable income, reducing tax revenue in other ways. And the notional “£40 billion” in additional revenue only works if people don’t change their habits, which hardly fits your environmentally sound rationale.
Beeching was nearly sixty years ago. Maybe time to get over it? Motorways have continued being built because 100% of us rely on them every day of our lives, not because we envy Germany.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
This is false. Both emit carbon dioxide in pretty similar quantities and assorted other nasties. Diesel emits particulates which are a particular (!) issue in terms of health issues caused, but neither is to be encouraged. We simply need to stop burning dead dinosaurs.
Motorway building stopped being continuous when the final section of the M60 opened in December 2000.
I think the only present Motorway* construction in progress is the A14(M) between Cambridge and Huntingdon?
*Technically an Expressway
Pretty much everything!!
JohnB57
Member
But we continue to develop existing motorways through widening schemes or by upgrading major routes, such as the A1 for example.
Your slightly pedantic point doesn’t change mine, does it?
JohnB57
Member
My post carefully referred to “overall polluters”.
This is from the British Lung Foundation website:
“In towns and cities, the main source of air pollution is road transport. Diesel and petrol vehicles create pollutants, including nitrogen dioxide and particulate matter. The friction of brakes and tyres on the road also creates particulate matter. Most diesel vehicles create much higher levels of these pollutants than petrol vehicles.”
I don’t disagree with the nub of your post, but I think they probably have more reliable data than you on what is in any case a pretty meaningless point within the overall subject.
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DynamicSpirit
Established Member
Haha. I'm not quite sure if you're intending that as satirical or a serious post. But - if it is serious - which adults would those be? Because "we must have high speed railways because other European countries have them" sounds to me just like the kind of daft mis-representation of the HS2 arguments that the anti-HS2 brigade routinely put out, and completely unlike any serious argument that has actually been made for HS2.
DynamicSpirit
Established Member
But, barring political reasons, they are not going to do that unless someone can come up with a series of business cases that demonstrates other ways that we can spend £55bn that would give something like the same level of benefits. Given how expensive railway projects are generally, it seems pretty implausible to me that any other way to spend the money would yield more than a fraction of the overall capacity and tempting-people-out-of-cars/planes benefits of HS2.
Railwaysceptic
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That's your opinion, and if Members Of Parliament were challenged about their voting record, they would undoubtedly deploy the same argument. There are, however, numerous post all over this forum expressing a different opinion, and there is nothing to prevent an M.P. advocating that alternative approach in Parliament. That they have not done so is the reason there was never any prospect of HS2 money being spent on other railway projects.
Isn’t the HS2 business case based on new journeys? And the set up encourages lots of car commuting to hub parkway stations. It just doesn’t seem very green to me
squizzler
Established Member
Isn't it funny how our London based media are not campaigning stridently against Crossrail 2 despite it being:
1) Totally within London*, an argument they seem desperate to ascribe to the new rail spine running up the country.
2) Not yet under construction, so still with an opportunity to change the outcome.
*Actually Fleet Street do not recognise the existence of anything outside the capital, which when combined with their ignorance of how railways work, results in bizarre prejudices against HS2. After all £35bn or whatever is indeed a bit steep for a rail line that, as they see it, goes from Euston to Old Oak Common, turns right only to disappear into a tunnel. Some editors think they fall off the end of the world at this point whereas others say this conceals a place where giant hands will reach down to swap the trains around so that a different one can emerge from the same tunnel a few minutes later.
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DynamicSpirit
Established Member
Careful! Someone is going to read that £35bn quote. Then a few days later, they'll read the correct £55bn figure somewhere else, and then start Tweeting all about how we need to cancel HS2 because it's costs have gone by £20bn in just a few days. And the next thing you know, it'll be all over the Guardian.
Right so...
A) How many intending trains cannot run due to lack of network capacity?
B) What is the typical performance of ex-Tunnel freights arriving at (say) Trafford Park?
The reason for the extra passengers is down to the increase in the population. Without HS2 how will those journeys be made? Not likely to be by rail without significant extra capacity, likewise not likely to be road. That would imply that those extra trips would likely result in extra flights.
This is something that those who oppose HS2 forget when highlighting these figures.
Likewise when there's talk about the fact that there's going to be a net increase in CO2 emissions due to the building and operation of HS2. As that is compared to the existing population it doesn't compare like for like.
Clearly HS2 haven't communicated this well, but at least they have an option unlike those who oppose it. IIRC I'm still awaiting an alternative from those opposed to HS2.
That sounds like they think railways from inter city terminii run like a 1:1 scale version of a model layout, complete with fiddle yards!
I doubt that raising fuel duty by any realistic amount (i.e. the amount that taxes tend to be raised if they are going to be raised) will have a significant effect on the price of consumer goods. The fact that I can buy a jar of pasta bake for £1.75, and that price has to contribute to the cost of raw materials to make the glass jar it came in, the cost of growing and/or raising the crops and animals to be slaughtered/harvested to provide the ingredients, a contribution to income for the farmers, the (energy/equipment/building) running cost of manufacture, the salaries of those who work for the factories, the operating costs of the supermarket, the salaries of the supermarket workers, and profit for the manufacturers and supermarket after tax is deducted, suggest that transport cost is a tiny contribution to the price.
I agree it is a blunt instrument, in that it penalises those who drive a car because they have no other practical choice for mobility, as well as those who drive a car because they can't be bothered to use alternatives, despite those alternatives being available and practical.
Arguably more green than those car journeys doing the full distance from home to work, clogging up the major roads even more than at present.
DynamicSpirit
Established Member
I'm not fully certain of the extent of new journeys, but realistically it's impossible to create new capacity on a crowded line without stimulating some new journeys - that's human nature: If you make it easier/more comfortable for people to travel a certain way then more people will take advantage, and some of those will be people who wouldn't otherwise have made the journey at all. I don't think that's really an issue as long as the capacity you're stimulating is eco-friendly (and realistically, high capacity well used electric trains are in general very eco-friendly). Personally I'm not massively keen on parkway stations, but most of the HS2 stations are city centre ones. Even Toton will probably end up surrounded by houses and things. And I can live with people driving 10 miles to - say - Birmingham Interchange station for HS2 - even if some of those journeys are new - when I know that a good proportion of those people would have otherwise driven 100 miles if HS2 wasn't there.
The classic example is building the M25. Before, nobody drove from (say) Harlow to Heathrow because of how hard it was.
Now, it's a relative doddle, hence why the M25 is full - the traffic largely didn't exist before it!
And it will hopefully be a big interchange too with a mix of both tram and heavy rail services running to and from from surrounding towns and cities, and there will probably be local buses connecting too, bearing in mind the station will be fairly close to Long Eaton town centre (just as close as the existing station bearing the name on the Derby line). It's quite likely a tram extension from Nottingham will carry on into Long Eaton centre after calling at the terminal.
And there's the argument that too many junctions were provided due to local pressure, resulting in the road attracting some local traffic that already had reasonable alternatives. As the traffic grinds to a halt at busy times, that is at least self limiting to an extent.
Hell, even raising fuel duty in line with inflation would be better than current government policy, which is nominal cuts in the levy.
Road transport accounts for nearly 30% of all CO2 emissions in the UK; that's more than the entire energy sector, and more than manufacturing.
How long does it take to get from the tunnel to Trafford Park? Is it direct non stop and allowed to run at any time of day? And can it take continental gauge wagons?
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