Could this be the end of hs2?

[Mister M]

10 minutes ago, Mr Bloke said:

Hmmm...

If Birmingham is one of the most prosperous cities in England...

... there's little hope for the rest of us!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-66730165

I meant the city, given that it's the second largest in the UK.

[Delbow]

48 minutes ago, Mister M said:

This wouldn't surprise me given thus far it's hugely over budget, and minister's are looking for savings, especially in the run up to an election.

However, scrapping it after £40 odd billion has been spent on it, just looks awful - not least because if scrapped, 2 of the most prosperous cities in England will have benefited.

So much for the Northern Powerhouse and levelling up!

I suppose now that they're resigned to getting a good leathering at the next GE, they feel they can drop the pretence that they care about places outside the home counties. £40,000,000,000 of our money down the drain but remember: there's 'no money' for good or useful things.

[hackey lad]

Daft question maybe but why is it 40 billion down the drain ?

[HeHasRisen]

5 minutes ago, hackey lad said:

Daft question maybe but why is it 40 billion down the drain ?

Compulsory land purchases? 

[Delbow]

18 minutes ago, hackey lad said:

Daft question maybe but why is it 40 billion down the drain ?

Because it already didn't take long to get between Birmingham and London, because they are actually quite close together.

[hackey lad]

1 minute ago, Delbow said:

Because it already didn't take long to get between Birmingham and London, because they are actually quite close together.

Oh right , I thought it was the bit above it being cancelled that was 40billion wasted .

[Delbow]

48 minutes ago, hackey lad said:

Oh right , I thought it was the bit above it being cancelled that was 40billion wasted .

My mistake I think, the amount spent so far is a lot lower than that - seems it is hard to find out how much, but £7bn per year seems to be what has been spent until now.

[Mister M]

It's emerged that the HS2 line which was supposed to connect the North to the South and to Europe - will not even go into central London, but to somewhere called Old Oak Common, 6 miles North of Euston

Rishi Sunak ‘pushing for HS2 to stop six miles north of Euston’ | The Independent

 

 

[HeHasRisen]

9 hours ago, Mister M said:

It's emerged that the HS2 line which was supposed to connect the North to the South and to Europe - will not even go into central London, but to somewhere called Old Oak Common, 6 miles North of Euston

Rishi Sunak ‘pushing for HS2 to stop six miles north of Euston’ | The Independent

 

 

I assume at that point it would just join up with normal lines and do the last 6 miles on those. Would be bonkers if it just stopped and people had to make their own way from there. 

[Chekhov]

On 14/09/2023 at 20:40, Delbow said:

Because it already didn't take long to get between Birmingham and London, because they are actually quite close together.

It's not just about speeding up the journey from London to Birmingham, it's also about increasing capacity on the WCML for stopping services and freight by putting the expresses on a different route, namely HS2.

 

That said the cost of civil engineering these days is an absolute joke, particularly anything to do with the railways, And it takes forever, part of the reason it's so expensive. The Victorians would have done it by now, even without much in the way of power tools and machinery.