But in 2043 you’ll be able to travel to Birmingham half an hour faster…WHOOOPEEE….. why Birmingham, it’s crap….?

a lot of dosh to waste for brummies to escape out of it though. possibly the biggest and most expensive vanity project this country has ever come up with. they have got away with it because of the millions who live miles away from the line where it will never affect them apart from the taxes they pay for it. anyway it was never meant to be for the good of manchester, leeds or birmingham it was just bloody london yet again.

Apparently 80% of all public transport projects funding in England goes to London.
The only place in the country where buses were never privatised.

The project should not have started but when you have politicians with SHIT for BRAINS, that is the result.

They are working within half a mile of me near junction 10 of M42 but thankfully I hear no noise or encounter problems with traffic but I suppose this work will be halted.

I have noticed all capital projects where there is government funding have been pushed back over extra years.
It's all a shambles.

Another £50 billion down the pan if the second leg is cancelled, the contractors will want compensation for the cancelling of their contracts. Will they continue fabricating the concrete segments at the Heerema yard although they were for the Euston leg but I believe that was cancelled recently as well.

It’s eye watering how much money the government has burned through, £37 billion for the failed Track and Trace system, £25 billion fraudulently claimed during Covid which is being written off.

The PPE scandal involving Michelle Mone, PPE Medpro and partners made as much as £100m profits
At least £70m from PPE Medpro contracts taken offshore
Small electronics firm behind supply of gowns for NHS
Jet, yacht and racehorse purchased after PPE deal
Tory peer and husband now selling yacht and properties
Mone takes leave of absence from Lords and may leave UK
Private contractors run rings round the government whose officials have no idea how to deal with contracts.

Nearly £9bn spent by the government on personal protective equipment (PPE) during the coronavirus pandemic has been written off, annual accounts have shown.

My Sunday whinge !

A very justified whinge.
I want to know how it is these projects go so grossly over cost, are they underestimating costs to get them through or just incapable of cost management.
Also, why do they take so extremely long to complete..?
Back in the day I worked in the planning dept in the 70’s on maintenance wage costings and it was a very straight forward process to see what the wage bill was going to be for projects, and without a bleedin computer, it was all slide rules and a basic calculator.

sometimes it better to cut your losses now than plough even more into something thats bound to cost even more than the figures quoted today for there completion.

Build some more hospitals and schools, electrify the Trans Pennine Line.

that does not get the same free publicity though from the national media. all three would not get past the local news especially schools and hospitals.

All that money to get to Birmingham half an hour earlier

and thats when there is not a strike on.

They are on strike for a fair wage rise and to make sure if any staff who work in ticket offices receive a decent deal, every time there is a strike the MSM always highlight the salaries of train drivers. They forget station stall and conductors earn a helluva lot less. The government were quick to settle a deal with the barristers when they threatened to go on strike 7%, average salary £90k

On a couple of trips darn sarf (well. through the Midlands) the countryside is a mess by virtue of all the construction sites on the go, then there's the "temporary" speed restrictions which are needed to facilitate the work. The government's propensity to overspend on projects should have quashed this at birth, plus any national transport policy in place is rubbish

HOW has that Mone NOT been charged with Fraud - unbelievable
I assume that they are waiting for her to finish hiding all OUR money in the British Cayman Islands before any token investigation begins?

I'd scrap it- shore up wants been done to improve capacity and then write if off.

Was sceptical about it pre COVID - half an hour quicker to get to London

Post COVID and people being forced to improve their IT skills- most of working age, who need to, are able to conduct business through ZOOM, MS Teams or equivalent. So No real need for the masses to be in London half an hour quicker.

Like I’ve always said…let the train leave half an hour earlier…but why would anyone want to go to Birmingham.

HS2 was really about building extra capacity in the form of a new line to Birmingham/North West and Leeds (which is not the north east) rather than just to speed up the journey times. But because the line is newer/straighter and with better trains there would be an improvement in journey times.
The Leeds leg has been cancelled already.
When you now hear both Sunak and Starmer speak now its clear they are both on the same hymn sheet in that the line will now go no further than Birmingham.
At the moment there is no business case, the prices quoted are at 2019 levels and probably so to is the costing of the then planned project. There is no budget for expenditure and money is simply spent with no controls whatsoever.
Its totally out of control and needs to be stopped but the politicians (all parties) feel they cant deliver a failure hence the view to stop it at Birmingham to at least cap the price.
IMO everything north of Birmingham needs to be mothballed and the money saved needs to be spent on east/west connections and upgrade of the East Coast main line plus the Durham Coast line (ours).
The train now will run from Old Oak Common not Euston meaning a tube to central London is necessary.
This fiasco needs to be investigated by a Public Enquiry.
Rant over........ i need a cup of tea.

Spain have built a high speed a high speed rail network at a fraction of the cost of HS2, they have been investing in the Rail Network since the early 90s, the U.K. sold the railways off, private enterprises never reinvested profits just taking dividends similar to the water companies.

Whats the point of a public enquiry, we know the problem, government officials can’t manage government funded projects similar Council officials. Private contractors see government and council projects as cash cows, bottomless pit of cash.

At 3086km, Spain has the second-most extensive high-speed rail network in the world behind China.More than €55.89bn has been spent on developing high-speed lines in Spain over the past 35 years, of which €14.09bn (25.2%) is from European Union funding. Another €15.86bn was funded by debt held by infrastructure manager Adif AV, deficit and debt levels of which do not form part of the national account calculations.

Aye European funding WE and Germany were paying for to bring all those underdeveloped European countries across Europe up to scratch over the past 40 years….as the majority were taking out of the kitty while we and Germany were paying in.

Still doesn’t get away from the fact irrespective where the money came from the private companies have failed to invest in the Rail Network same as the privatised Water companies haven’t allowing raw sewage to be discharged.

[quote="Bluestreak"]HS2 was really about building extra capacity in the form of a new line to Birmingham/North West and Leeds (which is not the north east) rather than just to speed up the journey times. But because the line is newer/straighter and with better trains there would be an improvement in journey times.
what got me was why did they start in london and not leeds. its because everything is revolved around london so they could stop it at any time they wished as long as there was a section open to london. as for extra capacity then why was the hated trans pennine link reduced to 2 instead of the 4 tracks that were there for years previously. cost of the eventual track renewal and knocking a few minutes off the journey by cutting the bends out.

From the fact that Spain wasn’t paying for it, the EU were, with our money.

The comment about why did they not start it in Leeds/Manchester is maybe because they had no intention for it to go there and London to Birmingham was what they wanted but had to get the northern politicians etc on side.
I would like to see a public inquiry so we can actually find out what ministers knew and what deception there has been. BoJo squirming would be a real treat.

My original comparison was how much the high speed system cost Spain not who funded it, why didn’t the U.K. apply for funding all those years ago ?

A public inquiry to see where the billions went and we will never be able to retrieve it, probably last 2 years costing millions and at the end the day nothing will happen.

Because we wouldn’t have qualified, the infrastructure expenditure was across Europe to build what wasn’t there or update it including roads. Most of these countries were recipient countries, we weren’t.
We just funded it. Great system.

The comical thing about this whole farce apart from saving half an hour is that even if they covered the country from north to south and east to west…we couldn’t afford the bleeding fares.

Aye European funding WE and Germany were paying for to bring all those underdeveloped European countries across Europe up to scratch over the past 40 years….as the majority were taking out of the kitty while we and Germany were paying in.[/quote]

Still doesn’t get away from the fact irrespective where the money came from the private companies have failed to invest in the Rail Network same as the privatised Water companies haven’t allowing raw sewage to be discharged.[/quote]
From the fact that Spain wasn’t paying for it, the EU were, with our money.[/quote]

My original comparison was how much the high speed system cost Spain not who funded it, why didn’t the U.K. apply for funding all those years ago ?[/quote]
Because we wouldn’t have qualified, the infrastructure expenditure was across Europe to build what wasn’t there or update it including roads. Most of these countries were recipient countries, we weren’t.
We just funded it. Great system. [/quote]

Yes because they were government owned, we sold the Rail Network off, the EU wouldn’t give grants to private companies.

Still doesn’t get away from the fact irrespective where the money came from the private companies have failed to invest in the Rail Network same as the privatised Water companies haven’t allowing raw sewage to be discharged.[/quote]
From the fact that Spain wasn’t paying for it, the EU were, with our money.[/quote]

My original comparison was how much the high speed system cost Spain not who funded it, why didn’t the U.K. apply for funding all those years ago ?[/quote]
Because we wouldn’t have qualified, the infrastructure expenditure was across Europe to build what wasn’t there or update it including roads. Most of these countries were recipient countries, we weren’t.
We just funded it. Great system. [/quote]

Yes because they were government owned, we sold the Rail Network off, the EU wouldn’t give grants to private companies.[/quote]
You’re knocking on an open door there Jamie, the railways should be re-nationilsed along with the buses.

Bit like Cleveland - Hartlepool and Stockton paid in but the vast majority of the money stayed in borer (in the SARF)

Another ‘HS2’ type of thing in Hartlepool, the cost of the new leisure centre has soared albeit its being funded by various organisations.
https://www.gazettelive.co.uk/news/tees ... e-27705019

finding something to come in under budget is basically impossible. do they ever figure in the cost of materials and labour that are bound to go up year on year for the length of the project.

but they can on the continent. railway fares have always been higher than the bus fares whoever ran them even in the past in this country. if they want to get cars off the road lower subsidised fares should come first and simplified ticket systems to encourage people to ditch them.

Remember the Transport Interchange how much it went overbudget then the stairs started to fall to bits, local company S****** who pick up loads of contracts in the town including the last refurbishment of Church Street.The only bus that uses it is the on going to Durham.

The Interchange was a joke from the outset, a sort of bus station with a car park obviously designed by people who don’t ever use buses, what was promised was not what we got and for a start it was in the wrong bloody place.
We ended up with three bus shelters in a lay-by behind the station that are unused…. the local buses don’t use it because there’s no one there to pick up and the deviation off the one route that passes it ain’t worth the time and fuel.
An interchange is where commuter trains usually meet up with local buses to deposit off those who work out of town to take them home in large numbers to various parts of a town…..the dozen or so getting off here two times an hour don’t exactly fit the profile. None existent buses for non existent commuters.

The illustrious mayor of Teeside Ben Houchen has launched a scathing attack on HS2,

The Tory mayor of Teesside, Ben Houchen, has launched a scathing attack on HS2 in stark contrast to his fellow mayors - both Tory and Labour - who have so far been united in criticising reports that Rishi Sunak will cut the infrastructure project.

Mr Houchen slammed HS2 as a “white elephant”, saying it “completely ignores the North East”.

He added that the cost - which could be as high as £180 billion if fully constructed - is “ridiculous”.

The popular Red Wall figure, closely associated with Boris Johnson’s mission of levelling up, said: “If we reallocated the money, we could deliver Northern Powerhouse Rail, in full, and give every northern leader enough to transform local transport in their areas and still save the taxpayer £80 billion”

Not sure if he is just playing politics here but the words said are correct imo.

I don’t care if he his, he has a point.

the word interchange is a joke. the station itself is not as central as it once was when the town moved away from the area years ago and the bus stands eventually left church street.

Someone suggested building a bus station on the car park where the Clansman is as most people are using buses to go to the shopping centre, but some expert said they should walk over to the interchange…..that means negotiating several pedestrian crossings with shopping to get on a bus that goes past where you’ve just been, experts eh?
Mind you if they had built a proper bus station in the shopping centre they could have done away with all the bus stops around it, improving traffic flow.

The underground car park could have been a bus station, straight of York Road if they had built the roof higher.

Tesco owned the land it was eventually built on for years, but the Council kept coming up with excuses why it couldn’t be built, usually citing the shopping centre’s viability, but one year they came up with the excuse that if it was built they’d have to alter all the town bus routes to serve it…cobblers of course…because when it did open they never run all their buses past it apart from this odd one now again going to god knows where that died the death..keeping face?

Drum roll.............will he, wont he.
For god sake Rishi flip the coin now.

more likely he,ll take the middle ground and mothball the project until after the next general election to keep both sides happy.

IMO the best thing for the north east (true north) is for it to be cancelled and funds reallocated to east west connectivity and improvements in the area.
Can i suggest a fully stocked buffet car on the Boro to Toon express.

Slightly off tangent and I did mention previously that there is a by election where I live on Thursday 19th caused by Chris Pincher's resignation. There are 9 candidates to choose from - out of all these who would you vote for?

UK Independence Party (Local)
Conservative Party (Local)
Reform UK (Local)
Labour Party (South Birmingham)
The Official Monster Raving Loony Party (Fleet, Hampshire) (Dare I?)
Green Party (Worcester)
Independent (Warwickshire)
Britain First - Stop the Boats (Salford)
Liberal Democrats (Coventry)

A few don't live anywhere near Tamworth, even Labour is 20 miles away.

The list just follows the alphabetical list of wanabees.

HOWLING LAUD HOPE of the Loonies appeals to me.

Why not anyone from the "Gay Rastafarian One Parent Family Against the Bomb Party"?

Trainspotting Richi Sunak cans HS2.

https://youtu.be/WOJHz3pU7mI?si=szV94vfdZQTG944-

Brilliant