Boris folly #347 gets green light.

[idunnosomename]

Choo choo fishnchipsfishnchips

[Captain Z]

Boris Johnson's response to Welsh Labour about this being an absolute fucking pisstake and taking away a shitload of funds from Wales was something about getting the M40 done.

Presume you meant the M4 but ironically the M40 follows the exact path of HS2.

[bgmnts]

Presume you meant the M4 but ironically the M40 follows the exact path of HS2.

Probably although its hard to make stuff out when everyone goes "OHHHHHHAAHIIIOHHHH" towards the end of every sentence like utter FUCKING children.

Gas the useless cunts.

[Pinball]

As has been said, it's probably more about additional capacity and freeing up other lines than just speed, but by the time this is built I'm hoping to be using drone air-taxis anyway.

[SteK]

As has been said, it's probably more about additional capacity and freeing up other lines than just speed, but by the time this is built I'm hoping to be using drone air-taxis anyway.

Should never have sacked off the Fairey Rotodyne.....

[kenneth trousers]

As others have said, it should be looked at as a way of increasing capacity, using the technology available in the 21st century.
The cost is spread over 25 years and at the end of it we have an asset, as well as keeping thousands employed.
The alternative, upgrading existing lines, would be far more expensive (in my opinion). Trying to do the required amount of work on an open railway would be a colossal ball ache. For example, the other week I was working on a engineering possession with the High Output Ballast Cleaner (a train/on track machine that replaces old ballast - longest train in the country). That work got cancelled on the night at a cost of £250,000 due to the ballast tamper (on track machine that lines and levels the track that follows the HOBC) being blocked in by a train in Guide Bridge sidings. These sorts of things happen all the time. A crane breaking down outside King's Cross over Xmas 2014 had the knock on effect of chaos for the best part of a week. Now, on major jobs, there's always contingency. So there's on track machines sat idle in sidings and freight train drivers sat waiting for a phone call just in case. All incredibly wasteful and not an issue on HS2.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Would it be fair to assume the rail infrastructure is currently shit because successive governments from both sides have done relatively little about it and just kicked the can down the road for nearly 40 years?

You know, like how we nearly run out of electricity every winter and risk having to pay off industry to ramp down to stop blackouts because successive governments did fuck all and didn't build any (ok, one) nuclear plants in the 80's and 90's?

[SteK]

Would it be fair to assume the rail infrastructure is currently shit because successive governments from both sides have done relatively little about it and just kicked the can down the road for nearly 40 years?

You know, like how we nearly run out of electricity every winter and risk having to pay off industry to ramp down to stop blackouts because successive governments did fuck all and didn't build any (ok, one) nuclear plants in the 80's and 90's?

Err, Torness, Hunterston B, Hartlepool and Heysham, similar AGR's....

[Sebastian Cobb]

Err, Torness, Hunterston B, Hartlepool and Heysham, similar AGR's....

I should've said commissioned really. Construction started on 3 plants in the 1980's, Heysham 2 and Torness (AGR's) in 1980 and Sizewell B (PWR) in 1988. Construction started on HB in 1967 and it went into service in 1976.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_the_United_Kingdom#Operating

[SteK]

I should've said commissioned really. Construction started on 3 plants in the 1980's, Heysham 2 and Torness (AGR's) in 1980 and Sizewell B (PWR) in 1988. Construction started on HB in 1967 and it went into service in 1976.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_the_United_Kingdom#Operating

I worked at the first two, Torness had a cracking canteen!

[chveik]

I live in Birmingham, I'll never be able to afford to get a mortgage so I'm genuinely concerned about what this is going to do to rents here in the next decade. I'm 40, unlikely to ever earn much more than I do now and I can barely afford the rent on a 1 bedroom flat, so if all this shit sends Brum rents through the roof I'm going to have to just...I genuinely don't know. HS2 didn't exist when I moved here, and while I understand transport infrastructure needs to develop and improve, being a potential loser in the advancement of that is pretty shit.

yep a few of those high speed rail lines have been made in France and the rents in the cities concerned have sky-rocketed.

[gilbertharding]

Should never have sacked off the Fairey Rotodyne.....

What a machine. Burst your eardrums at 500m.

[gilbertharding]

I live in Birmingham, I'll never be able to afford to get a mortgage so I'm genuinely concerned about what this is going to do to rents here in the next decade. I'm 40, unlikely to ever earn much more than I do now and I can barely afford the rent on a 1 bedroom flat, so if all this shit sends Brum rents through the roof I'm going to have to just...I genuinely don't know. HS2 didn't exist when I moved here, and while I understand transport infrastructure needs to develop and improve, being a potential loser in the advancement of that is pretty shit.

I dunno.

I live in Kent, which is reaping the benefits of being served by HS1... but it's already so expensive hereabouts who knows what difference it made.

I do know there was a lot of upset because people who had spent their lives commuting into Victoria, and working in places near there, suddenly had to travel to St Pancras instead and your heart weeps.

[Gurke and Hare]

I worked at the first two, Torness had a cracking canteen!

All the three-eyed fish you could eat?

[SteK]

All the three-eyed fish you could eat?

I've seen the dead fish at the effluence pond at Hunterston, this like fountain would erupt in the sea and u'd look in the well at the land side, full of dead fish!

Normal size, eyes etc...