Should it/shouldn't it?

Been watching a comment thread on Facebook about this, there is a guy on there who is comedy gold!!

Some of his exploits...

All these people who live in these villages to be "posh" have no problems driving their four wheel drives into town to go to work or the doctors or to buy their shopping or to take their kids to school or dance classes or for absolutly everything they need. Every time they do this they drive their vehicles past peoples houses without a care in the world. Cars are a constant noise 24/7. When people build a railway that might pass even a few miles away from their home they are up in arms. WELL PISS OFF YOU SELFISH BASTARDS

And your local line passes the end of peoples gardens who can't get on it either. If that line hadn't been built you wouldn't be able to use it and if the road to get you to your station hadn't been built you couldn't get there but when someone else wants to build a railway you become the selfish Bastards that you are. Live in a town near where you need to be or be prepared to build more railways.

As I'll say yet again for the hard of understanding. If no new roads or railways are ever built because they might pass peoples homes then those people (nimbys) whose argument is that all this extra traffic will have to pass their house, should have the decency not to drive past other peoples houses. But as we all use transport to pass other peoples homes, the owners of which don't directly use it, then we have no right to then complain when other people want to travel past ours. I have never owned a car, flown by plane or lived in a situation where I depend on a car. I do not mind living in a world where people clog up my country with vehicles because they have a right to do so and having invented a need for it it would be difficult to get rid of it.

What I find amazing is the attitude that people have, that I will drive past everyones house with impunity or enjoy rail travel through villages that have no station at will but moan when anyone else wants to do the same near mine. That makes the person a SELFISH BASTARD. .....And when someone points out this fact they get all upset. A good way of arguing these days is to then try and undermine the sensibley laid out facts as put by one side by insulting them which does not alter the facts just passes an opinion about the person delivering them. The argument is still the same if a professor or a knob delivers it.

I think its safe to assume he is in the 'pro' camp then

Whats HS2?

Ross

the new High Speed rail link.

I'm pretty much neither one way or t'other about the rail link, but I think it provides a great opportunity for a British company to prosper.

I am, of course, talking about MacLaren, who are likely to get the contract to build the vehicles for the replacement bus service.

My only question is why the need to travel between Brum and London 30 mins quicker than you can now?

Personally I think investment should go into ensuring that if you travel on a train you are guaranteed a seat. Just as you have to have when travelling by bus, car or plane

I'm surprised that amount of H2S isn't making more of a stink - oh, wait...

Ach the trouble folk have with your number plate Ross





High-speed buggies?

If one is seriously investing in rapid transit which has the potential to reduce motorway clogging and its associated time-wasting, aggro, fuel consumption, and emissions; to be a viable alternative to internal flights and the threat of a third runway at LHR with its own baggage [sorry] - you might as well think big as France and Japan have done.

If I go to London by plane it's either 2 buses and 2 hours between home and flight departure or drive to airport and pay a fortune for parking, followed by all the gubbins disembarking and travelling when there. Total around 4.5 hours. By rail however from Waverley, one bus and aboard train in 30 minutes, journey time about 4.5 hours, arriving more centrally at King's X. By far a less stressed journey and you can go for long walks and occasionally find the toilet vacant Roll on HS2!

Although the spin is all positive at the moment it does look as if the govt. has made an effort to reduce the impact on the environment from the original proposals.

The road north? It wasn't so long ago there was a proposal to tunnel under the Pennines ; a great plan which I fear may hit the same type of buffer that the last innovation in rail transport, the Advanced Passenger Train, did in the 80's due to disinclination to follow up investment after initial teething troubles. It was left to Richard Branson to bring them in - but all built in Italy.

It is nice that you will be able to get from London to Brum, and eventually Manchester and Leeds, quicker, but I really don't think that is the principal benefit. I can currently get from Selby to London in 1h51m if I get the right train - so its very marginal for me. But it is a benefit, and it has an interesting side-effect that Birmingham Airport will be accessible from Central London more quickly than Stansted.

The real biggie is that it will free up the existing network for better cross-country (i.e. non London) services, and for Leeds, Manchester and Brum it will help free up the commuter network.

Sounds like a win-win to me. Oh, and I'm a Civil Engineer, so I really like it when the Government decide to spend £32bn on infrastructure.