| Anyone who opposes HS2 09:31 - Dec 1 with 3175 views | Ely_Blue |
Has obviously never travelled on the Eurostar to Paris, other than the horrendous overcrowding before boarding in St Pancras the comfort and speed of the service is second to none |  |
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| Anyone who opposes HS2 on 17:56 - Dec 1 with 260 views | Ryorry |
| Anyone who opposes HS2 on 17:42 - Dec 1 by cbower |
Yeah 'cos the whole of the North is desperate to get to London whenever and as fast as we can as it's the centre of our world. We don't need better local links to help improve the journeys of......... well almost everyone in fact. As long as we can get from Leeds to London in under 2 hours then everything will be better. We can look out of the window as we fly past environmental destruction so quickly we barely notice it. At the same time, those losers sitting on sluggish and dilipidated trains taking an hour to travel 25 miles to work ( if the companies don't cancel the train) can be grateful we have politicians who can't see that HS2 is out of date. I can talk to anyone all over the country and indeed the world if I have a decent broadband (ah, another failure of government). I don't need to get to and back from London in a few hours for an extortionate price.
So yeah, pretty much agree with you except for everything you have said. |
Andy Burnham commented on the BBC QT from Skipton last week, that on the evening of the broadcast, pretty much all the trains supposed to go from Skipton to anywhere else had been cancelled (sorry I can't remember the exact quote, but it'll be on iPlayer). |  |
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| Anyone who opposes HS2 on 18:30 - Dec 1 with 234 views | HARRY10 |
I think it is pretty much a given now that it will stop at Birmingham.
The real problem is how much damage will it have done before then - and I don't mean the environment either.
The existing rail infrastructure in parts of the north (cross Pennine) is being starved of funds to keep this white elephant going, hopefully up and running in another decade or so. Trains are being cancelled. Journey times are increasing and yet
"Last year, the government published its Integrated Rail Plan. Most of the money is for HS2, with three-quarters (£72.3bn out of £96.4bn) allocated to the different phases of development."
Instead the UK should be looking to provide fast fibre broadband to every household, as with water, electricity gas, sewage etc. Access to films, football extra would be extra. You only have to see how metered phone calls and broadband have long gone. In fact with various methods phones calls are becoming free.
That is the way things are going. The daily commute will become a think of the past, just as become the trudge to the mill or mine.
HS1 never delivered the passenger numbers expected, and
"A total of 332 million rail passenger journeys were made in Great Britain in the latest quarter (1 April to 30 June 2022). This equates to 75.8% of the 437 million journeys in the same quarter three years ago (pre-pandemic)."
Part of the work I once did required quarterly meetings in London for around 20 of us. I am no longer part of that but do know those same meetings are now held online. Not only on a cost basis, but time. As once the meeting is over you can resume whatever you were doing before.
I cannot see this will not continue. The business that continues to fork out expense on meeting such as those, and costly accomodation will be less competitive.
An example of change is B&Q who are holding less stock and moving towards online purchase that is collected or delivered directly to your home. They have worked out peoples time requirements are different So why not have a lower amount of stock at one central hub, than have a half a dozen shops carrying full stock.
It almost amounts to a new industrial age - - where small localised production was replaced with centralised mass production. Only now the internet/computerisation has meant the idea/costs of assembling workers in one place is not financially practical.
Whether it is 'progress' is a mute point, but it is happening, all around us. Faster than many think, by comments on here. |  | | |
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