Well its great of them to leave 2 minutes for us to surf the comments

Too many coronas

There's so much going on of Coronas Virus flu's around. Well it happens of Emergency Climate change, so those who avoid severe Viruses from China caught, we'll get more trouble.

@@samcosgrave3342 You mean Half Coronas? lol

@M K MISHRA you were in ghost china. In my china, the high speed trains are always full. be careful, dont go to ghost china again!

@M K MISHRA Depends on which route. I took the Hangzhou to Beijing train in early Dec and it was fully occupied for the second class seats. Probably becos it's more affordable. Not sure about the first and business class seats. I knew this route is very popular and book it online 2 months ahead.

Very well said.

I can give you a few precise examples of such nimbyism driving up costs - Woodlesford was going to have a junction roughly 1/4mile away where the leeds link would separate from the spur to york, the locals campaigned to have this changed and now the current plans have 2, 2-mile tunnels under the entire village to link up to leeds, with the cost increasing the budget. Church fenton currently has 5 lines going through the village, with the plans calling for 2 more for HS2 (7 total), the locals complained until the route was diverted around the village including a new 1.4km viaduct. I can only imagine how much extra that is going to cost.

it would also allow for bigger capacity trains that are cheaper to manufacturer as due to the tilt mechanisms the loading guage is slightly restricted which means that internally seating per carriage is lost to the tilt mechanism and its safety features and mantenance would inevitably go down aswell as the tilt has to be regularly tested, it would also usher in the digital signalling which will replace the light based signalling currently used meaing that they will begin upgrading the 50+ year old signaling system the UK runs on to in cab systems which allow for with modern breaking and motor tech trains even at high speed to run closer together safely increasing capacity. Thus HS2 will free up the mainline for freight trains which will help the northern economy boom cos since the 1990s there has been an increase in rail freight between the mainland and throughout the UK (hopefully they bring back the postal train too like they did in france) hence the national rail motto "Britain Runs On Rails". If the north is to re industrialise the rails are gonna be of big importance for local commute and freight.

@@temslink2000 they have brought some of the mail trains back. You'll see them every night going down the east coast main line, they are distinctive due to the blue lights on the doors.

@@xaiano794 So do you live anywhere close to route of this white elephant called HS2?

Well said

@@hsvr Thanks! Are you also in favour of HS2?

Yes,we need Highspeed rail.

@@muhammeddiloarhussain1375 that's a dis for Britain is it then?

@@chrisj9700 Any amount is value for money if it generates more wealth than it costs.

Yes, Malcolm. In England the topography also means that HS2 is usually unable to even reach high speeds.

you clearly know nothing about rail networks if you're saying that. Let's do a simple thought experiment and look at the leeds to birmingham leg since that is a simple network - there is just one direct line, 2 tracks currently, this means that hs2 would double that to four. Imagine you decided to upgrade the current network to four tracks, you'd have to do the work overnight and at weekends, pay people shift work, put on replacement bus services, re-align every single junction on the route and after all that, you couldn't increase the speed since you can't change physics. It would clearly cost far, far more than building a new line where you could pay people 9-5 and don't need to pay for any rail replacement busses etc. The problem is anti-hs2 people have repeated that lie so much they actually believe it.

"You do not need HS2 for short journeys" Because High Speed Railways are dedicated to intercity express trains... If you want to make short journeys you'd obviously take the local trains, which would have better frequency thanks to the construction of HSR.

😂😂😂

duke Silver you don’t know what bad transport is Machester to Blackpool is 50 miles it took me four hours and all the direct trains were cancelled so you had to swap at Preston this is a norm 😆

The EU didn't fund anything. They haven't got any money. They took money off the UK and give us 50% back as development grants.

Anti-HS2 trolls like to pretend Birmingham is a suburb of London, so that they can pretend "the money is all going to London". ;-)

As someone that lives in Birmingham that used to live in greater Manchester I definitely disagree

High Speed 1?

Santa Clause Sure, HS1: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Speed_1

The Aberystwyth line is slow is because of the stupid stops that they have in Wales

Commuters have virtually vanished. WFH

@@johnreid7447 If it wasn't for the as you put it Stupid stops this line would of been closed by now.

You make it sound like the Contractor's can charge what they want. Their profit margins must be incredible. But they are not- 2 or 3% on turnover is a decent margin. T.he real reason is a lack of technical understanding by Cost Consuktants who cannot understand what things cost. So they put a budget on a project and it's always underestimated. I was an estimator for a national Contractor and every Project I have worked on and heard of since 1997 started off with an offer price that was over the budget.

We dont spend a lot on the military, we arent USA

@@samuelthornton9179 2% of GDP which is way more than many other countries

You need to speed more you lack a dedicated Intradictor force now that the tonka has retired

@Dylan Clayton So I guess he means that it's cheaper to build something in space than across a few fields?

it is nationalised - the company is wholly owned by the government

currently, anyway (looking at you, boris)

@@xaiano794 have you got any references for that? I doubt that there isn't a construction scam going on, the whole thing might be marginalized but I'm sure each part is put out to tender, the Tories would never agree anything without backhanders.

@@fuckfannyfiddlefart yeah it's a registered entity on companies House.

@@fuckfannyfiddlefart and I agree that the work will be issued to their friends, that's why it'll remain nationalised, so they retain full control. Ultimately though that's not an issue with the hs2 project, but with the current corrupt government, but hey brexit was more important than an honest government.

We let everyone complain indefinitely. It sounds like this shouldn't be the sole reason, yet it is and i'll give examples. The original plan was to run the line above ground out of london, the locals all complained and demanded it be put in tunnels, which can cost up to 15 times more per km. They are building an extra 16km of such tunnels. The original plan was to have a junction at a village called woodlesford near leeds (if you can find the original plans, you'll see all these changes) - all the locals complained and the single junction is now 2, 3-km tunnels under the entire village to link up to leeds. The original plan included a spur to link up to york, going alongside the existing tracks through church fenton (there are currently 5 tracks through the village, this would make it 7 tracks) but they all complained until the plans were changed to divert the route around the village including a new 1.4km viaduct. The anti-hs2 crowd have been, very intentionally, driving up the cost.

@@xaiano794 I'm sure you're right about changes made increased costs made delays and that NIMBYisum is a massive impediment to any infrastructure project. These are not problems China has to deal with for sure, which makes it much cheaper and faster to build them, this I knew already which is why I don't think it should be looked at as being Apples to Apples on price or timeframe. However, there is a limit (or there should be) on how far north on cost and timeframe you can go before these projects become economically and technologically redundant. I don't know enough about the original planned route/implementation and the revisions to comment but I'd also be willing to bet that the procurement, tendering, labour costs (unionised workforce), over-regulation, political footballing, and bureaucracy are even bigger problems to delivering such projects at all, let alone is acceptable timescales and costs. Furthermore, I don't trust that even the original plan was well thought out, forward looking enough, or took advantage or account of the technology and economics that this project would have to compete with, or could be used to build it. I'd say High-speed rail, such as the Shinkansen in Japan, has been the best solution for moving people around at the 250km ~ 500km odd distance for the last 60 years or so, that's for sure. The lack of ambition in the UK since 1970 to implement it, may now mean that we've missed that particular boat. This seems an open question to me right now and one that I think is worth seriously looking at bearing in mind the cost and time frame vs economic benefit and technology advances that may well make it uncompetitive and to some extent, obsolete even. If this project would have been planned as late as the 1980s and finished in the late '90s, It would have made a lot more sense. Seeing as we are now looking at completion in 2040, the case for it, in its current form at least, may not be the right way to go anymore. Again, this is an open question but a very important one to answer. One thing I do know is that sunk cost fallacy is not a good reason to continue with any project.

@@markfernandes2467 I can tell you that the sunk cost issue is only relevant when no action is an option since it may be better to cancel everything. Unfortunately anyone who has travelled on the Leeds to Birmingham route at rush hour via literally any mode of transport will tell you how bad the capacity issue is. As far as rail goes, the issue is a simple one : we don't have enough tracks. A new line would double capacity along the route and while some might advocate a regular speed line along the same route, having no improvement would obviously not be an option unless you wanted to intentionally make the route impossible to travel upon. Upgrading the existing lines would cost more, much more, and it's something many opponents of hs2 avoid discussing, but it's obvious to see why it would be more expensive as soon as you start to consider what such an upgrade would entail. Imagine the Leeds to Birmingham route, currently it is a single line, 2 tracks. If you were to upgrade it to a 4 track layout, you would have to do the work overnight, at weekends, pay people shift rates, pay for replacement bus services, cancel trains and it would take decades to boot. That's before you consider that railway lines have been built up to and that urbanised land would be far more expensive to acquire. Hs2 is actually the cheapest option, that's why despite the massive cost increases caused by nimbys it's still being considered by the government.

@@xaiano794 I assure you, I totally agree with you that none of the other "options" you bring up are viable options at all. Upgrading existing lines is dumb. All your points as to why this is the case are valid in my opinion. The problem is that I'm not sure that HS2, in its current form, solves the problem as well as it should either. You can't look at the problem without looking at the economics and technological development on the horizon. Again, I think this is an open question and one that needs to really be answered as well as we can given the uncertainty or predicting 20 years out. I accept your point that endlessly pontificating is also not a good idea. However, right now I honestly think the current generation of high-speed rail system proposed, may not be the way to go if I think about a 2040 completion. Another practical problem is HS2 may not solve any part of the problem (Leeds to Birmingham) until it solves 100% of the problem. I'm not sure on this, as it might be possible to open the project stage by stage, you'd probably know better than me if this is in their current plans. I'd certainly hope they'd be looking to open leg by ley rather than all at once in 20 years but I don't know. Right now (I just looked it up) Birmingham to Leeds is 150km as the crow flys, around 200km by road apparently. a Bus is the cheapest way to get there (6 to 26GBP) and takes 2hours and 20 mins. Interestingly "ride-sharing" and by car currently compete with this on price and time whereas rail currently is on average 3 times the cost (45~70 GBP) and can't even beat driving on time taken according to this source at least. www.rome2rio.com/s/Birmingham-England/Leeds The real question to me, therefore, is in 2040, is high-speed rail the best answer for 150km to 200km distance routes? Furthermore, is an incremental improvement over that time a better way to go than no improvement for 20 years? My suspicion is that the advent of autonomous vehicles will probably cut the door to door times and costs down to levels any current-gen high-speed rail could for this journey. All you have to do is concede this one point and HS2 looks like a bit of a white elephant. That's my concern.

A lot less than 1000km.

We could build faster than china - we regularly do - the problem is that we let everyone and their dog complain about it rather than getting on and doing it. We never used to be this way, that's why we used to be great. Don't believe me? The victorians needed a line to link the marsh lane station in leeds with the new central station - a direct line would go through the cemetery of the Leeds Minster, so naturally they just got on and built it - they made some new gravestones to replace those buried by the works and they now line the railway embankment.

35,000km since 2008.

£10 a meter .... well work the unit cost out and go from there

That's a lot of money to give to the shareholders...

sure - let's do that. Let's look at a single leg from leeds to birmingham since that is a less complex part of the network and easy to isolate. There are currently only 2 tracks, one line direct from birmingham to leeds. HS2 would double the amount of tracks. If we expanded the current 2 lines to birmingham to 4 tracks (i.e. same capacity) we would have to do it in weekend closures, overnight works, put on replacement busses - so we would have to pay people night shifts, pay for busses, suffer decades of closures on the main line while the works are carried out whereas HS2 built on separate land would be able to be worked on 9-5 without disrupting anything. Upgrading the existing line would cost far, far more than building a new line on a new route and the worst thing is you would get no added benefit for this massive cost, your line would still be the same speed as it always was - you can't change physics after all. I understand that you've heard lots of other people repeating this lie, but surely you can tell after thinking about it for just a few minutes that it is a lie - you would have to take the current tracks out of service to upgrade them, that would cost massive amounts of money and cause literally decades of disruption.

The project is now starting to eat money the rest of the railway networks needs. It would make more sense to upgrade the east coast line to Scotland and link it to HS1 at St Pancras. It would make more sense to build, or at least upgrade, a line across the north from Manchester to Leeds. It would be more economic by far to improve the congested motorway network. Just 2% of passenger trips are nowadays by rail - or 8% by distance - and a minuscule percentage of freight ones. Like it or not, roads are the lifeline of the economy. High-speed rail is irrelevant.

@@AllahAkbar-gt5dz @Phil Mitchell isn't it suspicious you've ignored the replies I made to your other comments, especially about you proving how little you know about the situation? The line from Birmingham to Leeds is far more overcrowded than the Newcastle to Edinburgh run, longer distance and would cost more to add new lines mostly due to the terrain. I suspect you've come to this conclusion based on the false assumption that what matters are journey times when that isn't the case, it's capacity. Hs2 just has the bonus of providing both at the lowest price. As for motorways, it takes a 6 lane motorway to carry the same volume of traffic hs2 its projected to take, how much of the UK should we pave over? I can copy paste too

John 259 we rlly aren’t declining

Well I suppose it could be worse they could of voted Labour, it was prodominatly Labour run councils that turned a blind eye to grooming gangs in the North. If I lived in the North, I'd rather vote for party that desent investe in iinfrastructure over a party that allows rape gangs.

@@jjosephs6521 You mean that one council - in that one town. Funny how all labour members everywhere are responsible for that now. I suppose that means that one councillor in torbay, Mike King who fled to manilla with all our money means that all the conservatives are responsible according to you? Or do you imagine one rule applies to your side and another rule to labour?

@@jjosephs6521 Clown

@@davidcolley7714 Not an argument against the insurmountable evidence of my position.

@@jjosephs6521 As this is a conversation about HS2, all you are doing is making irrelevant and mendacious comments, so yes calling you a clown is warranted

but it does connect up - it connects just up from st pancras. The current plan isn't to run direct services because the 2 ventures will be funded separately with nearly 20bn of chinese funding pledged for HS2 already. If we paid for it all ourselves then we could integrate the services but the fact is they are building the tracks so it could be connected up if we shelled out at a later date. The designers aren't idiots even if the politicians are - and check the actual plans which are still publicly available if you don't believe me.

no. work exists.

I think that is fine but #CLOSEMOTORWAYS first!

Will you be affected by the construction of HS2?

It actually uses stretches of this route and that was the original plan, however the nimbys started complaining and the plans had to be modified to appease them, at massive cost. Just one example is outside London where over 10 miles of tunnels are being constructed because people complained that a rail line would ruin their view. It costs as much as 15 times as much to build a line in a tunnel.

Xaiano totally crazy. Imagine if the Japanese had so many planning appeals when they built the Shinkansen in the 1960s

The Great Central route has been erased from the map: so much of it has been demolished, infilled and/or built-over that it could never be reinstated.

@@None-zc5vg there is still quite a bit north of Aylesbury up to Rugby where there bridges & trackbed is still there, although overgrown in parts.

@@Mishima505 But the trackbed has been built-over in places and many key structures like tunnels and viaducts have been blocked or knocked-down (look at Nottingham Victoria, or the viaducts at Brackley, Leicester and Rugby (over the W.C.M.L.). Reinstating all that's gone would be hugely expensive in today's scenario, with inflated costs for everything. It just wouldn't be affordable to reconstruct the 'London Extension'.

Why is the Route from Birmingham to London crazy, the whole idea of running HS2 from Birmingham to London is that the present Birmingham to Rugby section is now overloaded.

Jason Devon no because north is a waste and rubbish. Who even cares about the notth

well you wont get HS3 in the North until the original new Railway, HS2 is built and connects Birmingham to London first

That was the original plan, minus the starting at the North. The people who live along the route blocked the project in the courts complaining about the impact on their view, so the line had to be sunk into an extra 10 miles of tunnels to appease them. This appeasement has happened along the whole route and if you can still find the original draft of the hs2 plans you'll see this. This is why the cost has tripled

he's a moron - the line from sheffield/rotherham to birmingham is massively over capacity - that takes capacity away from the sheffield-manchester route. Ideally you want both, but the concept of wasting the 8 billion already spent is idiotic.

@@xaiano794 wasting 8 billion? How bout saving another 100 billion ya muppet

@@AllahAkbar-gt5dz I don't think you understand how money works - i'm guessing you're a child and your parents just pay for everything, no way you could possibly be an adult, but let me explain. If you were going to put petrol in your car and decide not to spend £1.30/l at the BP garage, you haven't saved £1.30 by not going there - you'd only save money if you managed to buy it cheaper - so unless you have a cheaper alternative, you could end up costing us all money when you force us to drive down the road and find out the only other option costs £1.50/l at the services...

The project is now starting to eat money the rest of the railway networks needs. It would make more sense to upgrade the east coast line to Scotland and link it to HS1 at St Pancras. It would make more sense to build, or at least upgrade, a line across the north from Manchester to Leeds. It would be more economic by far to improve the congested motorway network. Just 2% of passenger trips are nowadays by rail - or 8% by distance - and a minuscule percentage of freight ones. Like it or not, roads are the lifeline of the economy. High-speed rail is irrelevant.

@@AllahAkbar-gt5dz so you can't answer the question. I think that says far more than your copied bs. Thanks.

Lying again, it passed even the most recent report into viability.

@@xaiano794 Its massively failed the money test. What was its original cost and what is it estimated to be now? God know what the cost will be if and when its finished. But Phil Mitchell is right in his assertion about welfare being slashed by the Tories

@@davidcolley7714 I posted a detailed explanation of how people like Phil here have managed to increase the cost of the project, you either didn't bother to read it, or you did and decided to lie in this post. Either way you're proving my point, you don't care about what is best for people wanting to travel by rail, you only care about your own personal wishes, this seems to be an extremely common factor in many replies on here including Phil who has also ignored facts, lied, as he did here and pushed his own personal views ahead of any search for an ideal solution.

@@xaiano794 You are very good at calling people liars, which proves what an obnoxious person you are. You didn't listen to his social concerns but you plow ahead and say that HS2 is an ideal solution and anyone who objects are fools. No it's you who will not listen, even as the costs go through the roof you still persist in your foolish adherence to HS2. People are allowed to voice their misgivings to projects that may affect them, but you would no doubt throw then into a Gulag. What a vile brainwashed idiot you are

@@davidcolley7714 you really can't read, can you? I never called hs2 ideal, I said that you, like others did not strive for an ideal solution.

Monorail, monorail, monorail, monorail. Lol

From 200MPH to 3MPH monorail. Ok Boomer.

Is there a chance the track could bend?

@sprouting wings yeah but itll take at least 10 years to build and by then it will be too old, so we should skip straight to vacuum tubes like on Futurama. But then that will be too old. Maybe HS4 should just involve teleportation?

How is HS2 last last Century Engineering, it is being built for speeds upto 300 MPH, in cab signalling and high speed tracks, it is not being built for George Stephenson " Rocket ".

we desperately need the birmingham to leeds leg. the lines were over capacity 10 years ago, we need it now.

@@xaiano794 Yes but it can be a normal pendalino service

@@allovdem it's not the trains that are the issue - it's the lack of tracks. Currently we only ave one line, 2 tracks, from leeds to birmingham - hs2 would double that to four.

@@xaiano794 No we don't need it. A better line connecting Leeds, Manchester and Liverpool is what is needed

@@xaiano794 No huge demand from people wanting to travel to Birmingham from Leeds and vice versa. If there was then Cross Country would have lengthened the trains that they use

Upgrading the existing railway network will be just as expensive, if not more expensive, than the entirety of HS2 itself. Plus it won't be as effective since the upgrade would be more of a railway for next year rather than for 100 years.

So how does HS2 benefit London and the South East, HS2 goes North to Birmingham and Manchester not to Kent.

HS3 is the next project which would link liverpool-manchester-leeds-hull and hs2 would link leeds-york-newcastle. They can't move on to HS3 because people keep holding up HS2 so when you want to ask why things haven't been done yet, it's because of all these people on here complaining about it. They are holding it up.

Fraser McFadyen yes because northerners are waste

Ask the Government for your money, HS2 has nothing to do with bad transport up North that is a different thing.

So what you're saying is if we built hs2 and cancelled trident we'd be better off in only 25 years even if it never made any money? What a good point!

Alton Riggs Scotland pays for it and they get nowt

Probably because 25% of the UK's GDP originates in London. A fast rail link is unlikely to change that. My home town Hull, needs the M62 extending into the city. Is this viable? What would make the north more attractive? A faster journey to London? I doubt it.

@@miyahtallulah HS3's planned route would link liverpool to hull via leeds - they can't move on to that because people keep obstructing HS2 and delaying everything.

So why has the West Midlands got to suffer for train services in the North, the whole idea of HS2 is to ease up capacity at Birmingham New Street so giving other Rail Services a chance in the west midlands

Quite ironic that many NIMBYs who live in places like Chesham and Amersham have their homes on former farmland that, when the railways began to expand, particularly the Metropolitan (which is part of the London Underground now), were bought near stations for homes so commuters can travel by train. Fast forward 150 or so years and everyone in those areas commits to themselves on opposing HS2.... Whilst driving around in their Range Rovers.

@@onlinefriend3889 good point. Add to that if plans were shelved every time someone or other objected we'd still be living in caves! Any improvement is always going to affect somebody or something. I hear the great John Nettles who currently narrates some sort of nature program on TV is complaining about a solar farm that's due to be installed the other side of his 'back fence" Ironic really lol

YET......WITHIN A WEEK. THEY CAN FIND THE MONEY TO GO TO PHONEY WARS. DISRUPT COUNTRIES. ETC ETC ETC. THEY SEEM TO FIND THE MONEY FOR THAT. I THINK IT WOULD BE FAR MORE JUST. AND A PRIORITY, THAT WASPI WOMEN WERE REIMBURSED. INFRASTRUCTURE BROUGHT TO STANDARD. HEALTH CARE... APPRENTICESHIPS ETC ETC ETC...............MORE OF A PRIORITY. MAD WORLD...XXX

@MGazT A gift before we leave then.

You got HS1, that'll be it now

No.

the cost was bumped up by anti-hs2 people. They want it to cost as much as possible in the hopes it will be cancelled.

they should, but it wouldn't be economical really

they really should - leeds to birmingham is hopelessly overcrowded.

@@xaiano794 had overcrowded form king's cross london to sunerland

@@movesky6696 so you're for hs2 being built then? It will add an extra route from London to the North East as there will be a junction on the Leeds line to join up with the line to Newcastle just north of church Fenton

@@xaiano794 (1 look at london crossrail it cost over run has not work 2/3 year later ) 2 cost of hs2 would be the same over run "will be shareholder's look after well " but the worker would a zero

that's because you've never looked t why it's increased - all the anti-hs2 people have been secretly driving the price up. Don't believe me? look at some of the route changes that have been forced upon the designers - outside london they campaigned against HS2 demanding that the section through their entire region be put in tunnels - 10 miles of tunnels, add that to the cost. Woodlesford on the leeds leg, they complained that they were going to be able to see the junction which would be sited 1/4 mile from their village. They demanded it be changed and the plans were modified to provide 2, 2-mile tunnels right under the whole village - again, at what cost? The best example is church fenton - the original plan called for 2 more tracks, there are already 5 through the village. 12 houses were to be affected by the new tracks - they successfully campaigned and now the plan has been changed to build a 1.4km viaduct to avoid the village. It'll cost millions. The thing is that people clearly have been intentionally wasting money with the clear aim of cancelling the whole project. The irony is that despite the cost increases it is still the most cost effective option, that's why it's going ahead - just at a huge cost increase thanks to your fellow 'frugal' brits. We did this to ourselves.

@@xaiano794 The project is now starting to eat money the rest of the railway networks needs. It would make more sense to upgrade the east coast line to Scotland and link it to HS1 at St Pancras. It would make more sense to build, or at least upgrade, a line across the north from Manchester to Leeds. It would be more economic by far to improve the congested motorway network. Just 2% of passenger trips are nowadays by rail - or 8% by distance - and a minuscule percentage of freight ones. Like it or not, roads are the lifeline of the economy. High-speed rail is irrelevant.

@@AllahAkbar-gt5dz isn't it suspicious you've ignored the replies I made to your other comments, especially about you proving how little you know about the situation? The line from Birmingham to Leeds is far more overcrowded than the Newcastle to Edinburgh run, longer distance and would cost more to add new lines mostly due to the terrain. I suspect you've come to this conclusion based on the false assumption that what matters are journey times when that isn't the case, it's capacity. Hs2 just has the bonus of providing both at the lowest price. As for motorways, it takes a 6 lane motorway to carry the same volume of traffic hs2 its projected to take, how much of the UK should we pave over?

They aren't, the thing that people seem to conveniently ignore is that the project has changed. The original design was for an above ground rail line on a direct route. The complainers demanded it be changed many times, including burying 10 miles of track outside London, adding several billion to the cost, the locals near Leeds blocked an above ground junction forcing the design to be changed to 2, 2-mile tunnels adding billions to the cost. There are numerous other examples, if you can find copies of the initial plans you'll see. The problem is most of the news you hear is from those same complainers and their advocates who obviously won't want you to blame them for the cost rises they forced upon the project.

Don't be so absurd. Fares will always be at a rate that people can afford, unaffordable fares would make less money, use your head!

Joe Bloggs Not to mention Crossrail

@@frmcf it is only a lot/waste of money if it is outside London.

@@frmcf London will regret sticking its face up to the North during the last 4 years.

Joe Bloggs no it won’t lol

@@smashb3766 get back to quarantine

Fixed*

Again nobody's actually got full scale working hyperloops - waay too expensive to develop for now

Yes because most people ain't under the illusion that it is free.

@@WhereAllTheRumGone Both cost money, but one is going ahead and one isn't, even though one is much more cost effective, future proof and universally beneficial than another.

That's exactly what hs2 is doing, yet somewhere along the line you've been lied to and convinced the two issues are separate. Between Birmingham and Leeds there are currently only 2 tracks, a single line. Hs2 will double this capably and take hundreds of thousands of passengers a month off the current services and on to the express ones. This will obviously reduce overcrowding on the regular trains and help many issues with them. The time saving is a bonus, but don't get conned by the London to Leeds Times as those aren't what matters, it's the time from Leeds to Birmingham that will see the biggest change, the current 2h journey will only take around 35 minutes with hs2

This line is being built initially from Birmingham to London and will replace the existing fast train service from Birmingham to London, then it will be expanded to Manchester known as HS3.

How can you claim it's a scam if you've never funded a single project?

California has to keep up

@@buddyhirshfield5970 california never funded it's high speed rail project. Pretty difficult to finish something if you deny it funding

They saw it was a boondoggle so they quit

@@buddyhirshfield5970 they didn't quit, they never gave funding to the project to start with. Nothing was pulled, they didn't quit anything, they just never allocated any money to it.

The Leeds to Birmingham leg is in the North and it's badly needed

Zaros Kujala no one cares about northern cities they’re useless and irrelevant

@@smashb3766 How so?

and replace it with what, nothing?

@@xaiano794 upgrade the existing networks and save 50 billion in the process.

@@AllahAkbar-gt5dz How would upgrading the current lines save money? Let's look at leeds-birmingham as it's a simple example, there is only one direct line (2 tracks) currently - so building HS2 would double it to 4 tracks. If you built 2 more tracks beside the current ones, you'd have to do the work overnight, at weekends, cancel current train services, pay shift work, pay for replacement bus services, compensate travellers, and that's before we consider the higher cost of the urbanised land surrounding rail lines. What cost savings would there be, they'd have to be pretty substantial to offset all these increased costs and I can't foresee any such savings, but i'm sure you're about to tell me, i'm sure you aren't just talking out of your rear....

kzfaq.info/get/bejne/d9mEiaeTsJ2Vl4U.html

@@AllahAkbar-gt5dz You do know why that was the case, right? Whiners like you. They didn't waste time and money costing property acquisitions because people like you kept forcing alterations to the planned route - changes which took it through different properties requiring different costs. I find it far more telling despite asking time and again you offer no alternative solution - no, you don't care because it isn't your problem. I have to thank you because I can see that not a single one of the anti-hs2 crowd are actually concerned about cost savings or efficiency, they are all, like you, selfish and only support projects they would personally want themselves.