£371 million for infrastructure....

[Masboroughlad]

.........on our roads system again. For just a short stretch (1 and a bit miles) of tunnel on the A3.

What would this buy for our railways? What could be reopened?

Sickens me - nobody batters an eyelid whenits spent on roads.

 

[BestWestern]

In all honesty, probably not a lot! This ludicrous creeping disease of astronomical costs has well and truly spread throughout our whole infrastructure, be it road or rail. Spurred on by Government-backed red tape - the same Government which, ironically, now wants to sack half the railways' staff to save money - the layer upon layer of pen-pushing which has to be contended with before anybody picks up a shovel, makes certain that the price of even the most modest project will make the eyes of a sensible person water. Shame.

 

[tom1649]

It really is quite frightening, to be honest I think it can surely only go so far before things have to change. In the end, the way we are heading, even the smallest infrastructure project will become completely unaffordable.

 

[sprinterguy]

It might buy around four hundred class 172 carriages, or allow about thirty miles of currently disused railway to be rebuilt and reopened (Looking at the costs I've seen-apologies if I'm wrong). For the cost of just one road scheme, this is not an insubstantial amount of rail improvements.

 

[Class172]

How much double tracked line would you be able to electrify?

 

[sprinterguy]

How much double tracked line would you be able to electrify?

Electrification costs around £3 million per mile, though I'm not sure whether that is for single track or twin track electrification. It'd certainly get the Great Western wires to Swansea though.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

In all honesty, probably not a lot! This ludicrous creeping disease of astronomical costs has well and truly spread throughout our whole infrastructure, be it road or rail. The layer upon layer of pen-pushing which has to be contended with before anybody picks up a shovel, makes certain that the price of even the most modest project will make the eyes of a sensible person water.

Did you ever follow the recent "Todmorden Chord" thread on the Infrastructure forum and see the comments about the project costings that were stated thereon?

 

[Samtron2000]

.........on our roads system again. For just a short stretch (1 and a bit miles) of tunnel on the A3.

What would this buy for our railways? What could be reopened?

Sickens me - nobody batters an eyelid whenits spent on roads.

I take it you have never spent the 90+ mins waiting to get through the traffic lights in hindhead on a Friday evening then! Regardless of it's cost, this tunnel should have been build many years ago!!!

 

[Class172]

I take it you have never spent the 90+ mins waiting to get through the traffic lights in hindhead on a Friday evening then! Regardless of it's cost, this tunnel should have been build many years ago!!!

When it would have been much cheaper!

 

[LE Greys]

Even keeping it in the road network, it might provide enough to dual at least one of the remaining bits of A1 north of Newcastle, with enough change to fix the potholes around North Herts. I'd much prefer to see it spent on electrifying Ely-Peterborough and reinforcing the wires on the main line to stop them falling down all the time.

 

[tbtc]

It might buy around four hundred class 172 carriages

...which would be enough to replace all Pacers (133 x 3 coach 172s)...

It may even bring more coaches than that, given the economies of scale that such a big order would bring (enough to replace all single-coach 153 diagrams from having to operate... hmm, where's my wishlist?)

 

[Rhydgaled]

Electrification costs around £3 million per mile, though I'm not sure whether that is for single track or twin track electrification. It'd certainly get the Great Western wires to Swansea though.

The figure I saw for the cost of wiring Swansea - Cardiff worked out as £1,400,000 per mile. I think the £3m per mile figure would be if you started a new electrification project rather than tagged your extra wires onto the end of an existing one. I wonder, does this have to be continuous wires or could you wire Cardiff-Swansea then jump up north and do Newcastle - Carlisle and still get the savings provided you are up there within a few days of finishing the Swansea job?

Anyway, at £1,400,000 per mile the 263.58 miles of the ValleyLines plus Swindon - Cheltenham - Severn Tunnel Junc. and Cardiff - Swansea would set you back about £369,012,000. That's one hell of a lot of wires for one road scheme. The money allocated to the £600m project to put a 4th lane on just 16miles of the Heads Of The Valleys Road would therefore be enough to buy all those wires AND the local trains to use them.

 

[DarloRich]

is that Hindhead Tunnel? Badly needed on that bit of road and a good use of money in my opinion

 

[Class172]

Yes the Hindhead Tunnel was needed but as we discussed, that money could do far more on a railway project.