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The rail thing

It is very revealing to see the universal opposition to this project even on a website like this where you may expect to find engineers champing at the bit to show off their technical prowess on such a major showcase project. There are none so blind as those who will not see, and those promoting HS2 are deliberately ignoring public opinion, inconvenient facts and a grossly overstated business case which anyone with a modicum of intelligence can see has been biased from the start. Our (the taxpayers') £33bn (or more probably £90bn) could be spent in much better ways on the railway network. How about reversing the order of things - upgrade the existing network (longer platforms, upgraded track, rolling stock and signalling to increase train speeds and frequency etc.) then see in 2050 if we still need HS2, whether the 15 or 20 minutes saving in journey time still justifies the spend, and properly analyse how many people will use the service at the extortionate fares it will have to charge to be viable. The M6 Toll should make a good case study for a start! Britain is a lot smaller than Japan or France, and the impact on travel times is a lot less. Ditch this white elephant now!

7 May 2012

4:42 pm