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Johnson's second bridge plan - from Scotland to Northern Ireland

Started by Fambo Number Mive, September 11, 2019, 02:44:08 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

Fambo Number Mive

So not content with having wasted £43m of public money on a Garden Bridge that never happened, Johnson is considering a bridge between Northern Ireland and Scotland: https://www.indy100.com/article/brexit-boris-johnson-bridge-northern-ireland-scotland-josh-1226-pm-9100781

Unlike most of his views, its a nice idea in theory, although I'd prefer a Channel Tunnel style rail link (off topic, imagine if we had a undersea train between Dublin and Liverpool via Holyhead. There's probably lots of reasons why that wouldn't work though).

However, in practice it's clear it wouldn't work: https://twitter.com/AdamBienkov/status/1171513909842366464

I also wouldn't trust Johnson's government to build anything. It would probably be coloured red white and blue and end up collapsing.

pancreas

I don't know why he doesn't go full Bannon and offer to rebuild Hadrian's Wall.


imitationleather


Fambo Number Mive

Quote from: bgmnts on September 11, 2019, 02:47:13 PM
If he personally funds it i'm okay with it.

I wouldn't want to drive on it though.

Be cool if it had a footpath so you could walk from Scotland to Northern Ireland.



Norton Canes

Quote from: Fambo Number Mive on September 11, 2019, 02:57:09 PM
Be cool if it had a footpath so you could walk from Scotland to Northern Ireland

He could join up the Giant's Causeways in Antrim and Ulva.

steveh

With the Garden Bridge gone he no doubt has an existential fear of having nothing to leave behind on the earth as a symbol of his time here. Wouldn't be surprised if the island airport gets resurrected again, assuming he can actually last as Prime Minister.

One estimate costed his vanity projects as mayor at around half a billion.

bgmnts

Quote from: Fambo Number Mive on September 11, 2019, 02:57:09 PM
I wouldn't want to drive on it though.

Be cool if it had a footpath so you could walk from Scotland to Northern Ireland.

They'd have to build a travelodge on the Irish Sea somewhere, it's a good 20 miles at least.



gabrielconroy

Apparently they'd have to build something like 50 towers going down to 1,000 feet (each taller than the Empire State Building). The Channel Tunnel is only about 380 feet down. It also happens to cross an area where thousands of explosive munitions were dumped, the exact whereabouts of which no one knows. The extreme weather conditions would mean it would have to be closed for large portions of the year. And the landing points are in remote areas with very poor road access.

And it's still not his worst idea.

Blue Jam



Captain Z

Quote from: gabrielconroy on September 11, 2019, 03:17:01 PM
Apparently they'd have to build something like 50 towers going down to 1,000 feet (each taller than the Empire State Building). The Channel Tunnel is only about 380 feet down. It also happens to cross an area where thousands of explosive munitions were dumped, the exact whereabouts of which no one knows. The extreme weather conditions would mean it would have to be closed for large portions of the year. And the landing points are in remote areas with very poor road access.

And it's still not his worst idea.

Quote from: Mike Giggler, TwitterProject Fear. The contractors just need to believe more.

Mr Banlon

The last big Scotland to Ulster project wasn't exactly trouble free.

Buelligan

Quote from: Fambo Number Mive on September 11, 2019, 02:44:08 PM
I also wouldn't trust Johnson's government to build anything. It would probably be coloured red white and blue and end up collapsing.

Have no fear, British companies wouldn't get a look in. 

ajsmith2

Given the greatly increased likelihood of the UK seperating into its constituent parts if Boz gets his way Brexit wise, why the fuck would he with his other hand be attempting to initiate and finance a presumably decades in the making connecting pipe between 2 of said constituent elements very likely to no longer be part his dominion in the near future? Is this supposed to function as a compensatory 'reward'/incentive for us putting up with the consequences of No Deal with no complaints or rumblings of independence or something?

Kalabi



QDRPHNC


Paul Calf

It's another dead cat. And everyone's going "OH LOOK A DEAD CAT" rather than "WHAT'S THIS FASCIST CUNT DOING IN DOWNING STREET?"

Fuck's sake...

Fambo Number Mive

It's a dead cat now, but I can imagine that he'd try and get it through somehow if he manages to win an election.

Paul Calf

He's probably serious about it, but it's definitely being used as a dead cat by Cummings, Bannon and company.

Buelligan

Quote from: Kalabi on September 11, 2019, 03:53:14 PM
Just more "gosh arn't I daft eh?" bollocks I reckon.

Absolutely this, it's the straight out of the Bannon/Trump playbook.  Sprinkle enough mad dazzle bollocks about and people won't know what to believe, concentrate on or oppose. 

It gives the electorate a false sense of security.  Every time one of these non-existent insanity bombs doesn't go off (and they won't, because they're duds and intended to be so), people feel more able to sit quiet and let other evil mad shit pass in the hope that it won't explode either.  But it will.  Of course it will.  That's how this game is played.  You spin the barrel and squeeze the trigger.

Cloud


Ambient Sheep

Yeah, this was all ripped apart the last time he mentioned it.  As has been said, this is just a distraction tactics from the news about the court ruling and Cummings' attempted data-snatch.

For the reasons that have been stated, the shortest route is completely impossible due to depth and Beaufort's Dyke (super-deep and full of explosives).

Having done it myself via ferry it really is amazing how short it is, but unfortunately the journey to get to that bit of Scotland is non-trivial (two hours plus by train & coach from Glasgow alone) so unless they also opened a high-speed road/railway to get there it'd be largely pointless anyway.

There are a couple of other routes but ultimately the only one that would make any economic sense at all would be Holyhead to Dublin... which is also the longest, thus unlikely to happen.  Would probably work best as a tunnel... still staggeringly deep though but the Japanese have apparently gone deeper.

The other issue is that Irish trains (such as they are) run to an entirely different gauge (5'3" instead of 4'8.5"), so through-running would be extremely difficult.

I'm sure I read about all this on a Railforums thread a couple of years ago, but the only one I can find now is this much older one (which links to older ones still), but it repeats many of the same arguments I remember reading before: https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/united-kingdom-ireland-tunnel.77694/

Post #1 has a quick & dirty map of the routes and post #24 has a handy map of sea depths but I think you need an account to open the latter.  If I have time later on I'll reupload it.

mothman

Quote from: Ambient Sheep on September 11, 2019, 05:07:50 PM
the journey to get to that bit of Scotland is non-trivial (two hours plus by train & coach from Glasgow alone) so unless they also opened a high-speed road/railway to get there it'd be largely pointless anyway.

They'd have to reinstate HS2!

Quotestill staggeringly deep though but the Japanese have apparently gone deeper.

But they have to pixelate it.

QuoteThe other issue is that Irish trains (such as they are) run to an entirely different gauge (5'3" instead of 4'8.5")

Oh, that's easy, when they rejoin the UK to avoid a hard border (incredible to believe some people really suggested this) they'll have to change all their trains to ours!!


greenman

Quote from: gabrielconroy on September 11, 2019, 03:17:01 PM
Apparently they'd have to build something like 50 towers going down to 1,000 feet (each taller than the Empire State Building). The Channel Tunnel is only about 380 feet down. It also happens to cross an area where thousands of explosive munitions were dumped, the exact whereabouts of which no one knows. The extreme weather conditions would mean it would have to be closed for large portions of the year. And the landing points are in remote areas with very poor road access.

And it's still not his worst idea.

That's a bit off, the deepest is more like 150 meters on the Galloway route but still would make any bridge massively expensive.

Knowing the Tories you'd get a consultancy phase worth at least several hundred million handed out to ex Eton pals at the end of which fuck all would happen.

Ambient Sheep

Quote from: greenman on September 11, 2019, 07:34:04 PMthe deepest is more like 150 meters on the Galloway route

QuoteBeaufort's Dyke is a trench between Northern Ireland and Scotland within the North Channel. The dyke is 50 km long, 3.5 km wide and 200–300 metres deep.

Although I agree that you probably wouldn't need as many as 50 towers at 1000 feet / 300 metres.