How to stop HS2

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  • HS2 is really about lack of capacity on the West Coast Main Line from Euston to Crewe. In addition, I wonder where all these ecowarriors were when the majority of the motorway/expressway/dual carriageway road network was being built from the sixties to the nineties? They are useful idiots for the road haulage and airline industries.
  • East Midlands Parkway might be a better candidate, I’ll grant you. But only if using an existing station is the priority. Given that the route is planned to go right past it I’m frankly amazed they’re not going to use it. I can only think the Toton site is linked to regeneration plans for that area, much like with the site of the Birmingham terminus.
    I gather you haven't spent any time at East Midlands Parkway?

    For those who haven't suffered that particular plight*, it's literally in the middle of nowhere surrounded by a large car park, ditto bus circle, the latter not much used, fields and Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station. Leading to the station is a road link to the M1 and that link crosses a canal, literally a canal, nothing else in sight. If you're lucky there's a shop-cum-café open in the station, if not, some vending machines.

    The station itself has six lines (iirc) running through it and sits on a straight section of track with a long view in either direction.

    The local railway guys cannot see why Toton is favoured, other than it's a siding already owned by Network Rail. But East Midlands Parkway already has that advantage, has already got some purpose as a park and ride route to East Midlands Airport and from the surroundings, it could be up for redevelopment too, with the links to the M1 and the land available after the decommissioning of Ratcliffe-on-Soar.

    * Yep, regular change for a trip, including one six hour plus wait there one afternoon and evening after some sods took out the signalling wires outside London, watching the time I had to leave to make my connections to get home disappear. Absolutely no alternatives to getting home from there. Very expensive that was for the rail company as I was cabbed home from St Pancras. I wasn't impressed as I didn't get in until about 2am instead of the planned sensible early evening to get ready for work the next day.
  • I wonder where all these ecowarriors were when the majority of the motorway/expressway/dual carriageway road network was being built from the sixties to the nineties?
    I see Swampy, famous for living in trees to protest/hinder road building has made an appearance in relative old age to live rough again in front of the bulldozers for HS2. So, yes these ecowarriors had been there when new roads were ploughed through the countryside in earlier decades. Many of them would have been children then, a new generation taking up the baton of peaceful protest and direct action against ill-considered routes for infrastructure.
  • Baptist TrainfanBaptist Trainfan Shipmate
    edited January 31
    Of course, if you're aiming for a frequent local service with a train every few minutes, the timetable doesn't matter, because you just turn up and get on the next one. But if there's one train an hour, I hope you brought a book.
    My wife used to have to make a journey from Ipswich to Whittlesford, changing at Cambridge. Each train was hourly and, in one direction, the connexional time was always 57 minutes - infuriating!

    Conversely, once I arrived early at Norwich station on a train from Cromer. The London train was still at the platform with few people on board. But the conductor wouldn't let me board as I was booked on the one 30 minutes later. Both trains were run by the same operator.

  • I wonder where all these ecowarriors were when the majority of the motorway/expressway/dual carriageway road network was being built from the sixties to the nineties?
    I see Swampy, famous for living in trees to protest/hinder road building has made an appearance in relative old age to live rough again in front of the bulldozers for HS2. So, yes these ecowarriors had been there when new roads were ploughed through the countryside in earlier decades. Many of them would have been children then, a new generation taking up the baton of peaceful protest and direct action against ill-considered routes for infrastructure.
    I certainly remember the protests around the Newbury Bypass and the M3 at Winchester.

  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    Dafyd wrote: »
    Here's a challenge: try changing trains in ten minutes when you have a small child, a toddler, a buggy, and assorted items for keeping said child and toddler fed, clean, and entertained on a long journey.
    Add in locating an information board to tell you which platform you need, and then figure out how to get there. For regular commuters the 10 minutes is going to be extreme, they'll get from one platform to the next in a couple of minutes, but for people who don't know where they need to be (especially as you say those with children, or the elderly and disabled) 10 mins can be a tight schedule.

    Though, as said much of that 10mins will be consumed by late arrival of the first train (though, can be made up for by late departure of the second).

    If there's one thing that will guarantee a service leaving on time, it's me being on an incoming service that's late by a margin sufficient for it to arrive after the scheduled departure of the next train I need to be on.
  • I wonder where all these ecowarriors were when the majority of the motorway/expressway/dual carriageway road network was being built from the sixties to the nineties?
    I see Swampy, famous for living in trees to protest/hinder road building has made an appearance in relative old age to live rough again in front of the bulldozers for HS2. So, yes these ecowarriors had been there when new roads were ploughed through the countryside in earlier decades. Many of them would have been children then, a new generation taking up the baton of peaceful protest and direct action against ill-considered routes for infrastructure.
    I certainly remember the protests around the Newbury Bypass and the M3 at Winchester.

    I do too -and now use both those for occasional visits to the in-laws up North.
    I remember when a bulldozer was sabotaged during construction of a Surrey section of the M25 near where I grew up. Never does any good though?
    But I don't remember any protests about the Hindhead Tunnel on the A3 -which is a wonderful thing I use for when visiting my aged mother!
  • Marvin the MartianMarvin the Martian Admin Emeritus
    edited February 1
    I wonder where all these ecowarriors were when the majority of the motorway/expressway/dual carriageway road network was being built from the sixties to the nineties?
    I see Swampy, famous for living in trees to protest/hinder road building has made an appearance in relative old age to live rough again in front of the bulldozers for HS2. So, yes these ecowarriors had been there when new roads were ploughed through the countryside in earlier decades. Many of them would have been children then, a new generation taking up the baton of peaceful protest and direct action against ill-considered routes for infrastructure.
    I certainly remember the protests around the Newbury Bypass and the M3 at Winchester.

    Yes, and look how useful both are now. Do you think Newbury would want to go back to having all that traffic going through the middle of it? Do you think all the people using the bypass would want to go back to having to go through the middle of town?

    How many people these days seriously look at the Newbury bypass and think it would be better if it had never been built? It will be the same with HS2, as long as the politicians don’t bottle it. Within a mere decade or so people will wonder why it wasn’t built earlier, not wish it hadn’t been built at all.

    Added missing end quote tag. BroJames, Purgatory Host
  • You're right; people will use HS2 and enjoy the speed. But just because something is good it doesn't mean there couldn't have been something better. There an opportunity cost. The massive resources of construction and engineering could be being used in so many other ways; more and better cycle paths, urban transport eg trams; full electrification and upgrades of all existing railways, proper insulation of all buildings, the sorting of the cladding problem, schools, hospitals etc etc.
    It's a very large fix for a relatively small and parochial problem.
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