High speed rail network

[User]

 

[BrumJim]

Tricky to find space when there will always be planning objections, but High Speed 1 got built between Folkstone and London St Pancras through the notoriously NIMBY and expensive SE (hope that hasn't upset too many people, there). I guess they will have to use existing lines to get through the Birmingham conurbation, but that could be tricky since most of them are getting very full at the moment.

 

[Globalti]

Their problem won't be in the urban areas where they will just knock down crap housing and factories, their problem will be in the rural areas where there are wealthy influential landowners and articulate, well organised Ramblers with plenty of time on their hands. These are the nimbys who won't care about investing in the long-term future of the country, they will selfishly think about themselves only.

Lots of interesting technical stuff on TGVs on Wiki, here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TGV

 

[Tim Bennet.]

Will Swampy and his friends fight it every inch of the way? Is there any difference between bulldozing the countryside for a railway rather than a road.

Last year at the Walker Gallery in Liverpool, there was an excellent exhibition of 'Art in the Railway Age'. There were a number of 19th century paintings done to reflect the horror some people felt at the time as great swathes of the countryside were torn up for the tracks when the original network was built.

We now see our existing railways as part of the countryside; they've mellowed and become part of the scenery. But these new lines will be much more brutal as they will need to be straighter and flatter, with new out of town stations, massive passenger car parks, Travel Lodges, together with all the overhead wires, etc. Then there's all the hard stone quarrying for the ballast, etc, etc,

And for what? Half an hour off a journey time? Another impetus to rush from one end of the country to the other, just to sit in a meeting and be bored by a powerpoint presentation? Or is this just keeping up with 'Les Joneses', albeit 50 years late?

 

[Mr Pig]

When building railways they can pretty much do what they want. They'll put the line straight through your street if they have to.

 

[jonesy]

When building railways they can pretty much do what they want. They'll put the line straight through your street if they have to.

Don't be daft. It took years of wrangling to agree the route for HS1.

 

[Tim Bennet.]

In France, yes. In the UK, no.

Don't be too sure. The proposed changes in the planning system in the UK are to make the building of schemes of 'national importance' more 'efficient'. Any high speed rail link would be treated the same way as the next generation of nuclear power stations. Once they have been approved by some 'national process', local opposition will be swept aside.

 

[User169]

In France, yes. In the UK, no.

I thought that in France people compete to get train lines through their houses given the extremely generous compensation.

In the UK, the govt took a somewhat different approach.

I had a summer job in the late '80s working for an engineering company who were working on what was then called CTRL. I'll bet that the consultancy fees spent in the UK far outstripped those spent in France for their link to Paris, even when generous compensation is included.

 

[BrumJim]

And for what? Half an hour off a journey time? Another impetus to rush from one end of the country to the other, just to sit in a meeting and be bored by a powerpoint presentation? Or is this just keeping up with 'Les Joneses', albeit 50 years late?

This is the problem. In order to extract people from planes, you have to offer a better service on the tracks. This means quicker, and therefore less fuel efficient, and entices many more people than previous to do the Manchester or Glasgow to London trip. Which increases CO2 production. But probably not as much as doing nothing and therefore making the plane more popular. But which can't be proven as it isn't possible to build another copy of the UK further out in the Atlantic and run the two economies in parallel, the only difference being a High Speed Rail line.

 

[Davidc]

In France, yes. In the UK, no.

Other countries (including France) have used disused routes, often freight ones, for urban sections into and out of city stations. They aren't high speed sections but that doesn't make much difference if they're shortish and trains are stopping anyway.

(The routes in and out of Brussels Midi and Paris GDN aren't exactly fast!)

 

[Will1985]

The French do have 2.75 times more space to play with than the UK. They cottoned onto high speed rail quickly, but with the size of the country it was more of a necessity.

A lot of the tracks were built to hug existing track and also next to fast roads to minimise the impact on the countryside.

 

[Globalti]

HST tracks cause less disruption than traditional tracks because the massive power and momentum of the trains means the engineers don't need to construct a nearly flat track; they can blast over hills and valleys without the need for big cuttings and embankments and the consequent movement of material from one to the other. Ever been in the TGV when it climbs a hill? They're amazing.

 

[Paulus]

One solution to The HS route in Birmingham and Manchester is to tunnel under the cities and build the new stations under the existing ones. Expensive but saves bulldozing massive amounts of property. The route into London is more or less underground from Dagenham into St.Pancras.

 

[cookiemonster]

I've just heard about this on BBC World.

Nice to see that my home city, Aberdeen, once again is missing out, as well as Dundee.

Do these eejits not realise that life does exist north of Edinburgh? Do we not deserve the same kind of transport system that everyone else may be enjoying soon?

If there is any rail line that desperatly needs electrifying and updated it's the line from Glasgow/Edinburgh to Dundee/Aberdeen.

C'mon Network Rail, pull your finger out!!

 

[marinyork]

I do find it odd that having spent billions on an already fast line (west coast mainline and I know it's not fast in continental terms) that they are effectively going to build a second west coast mainline. Utterly bizarre. I suppose it's good they have the appetite for such a project.

I agree with what Cookiemonster says, although you could extend his thing about Aberdeen to much of England outside of the South East.