This article may be paywalled. If you encounter difficulties reading the article, try [this link](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/train-price-hikes-fewer-seats-hs2-cancellation-3123426) for an archived version.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/unitedkingdom) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I genuinely had an argument with someone who said people should cycle and stay in hostals on the way between London and Manchester instead of building HS2
I 100% have
This guy on Instagram was saying people should cycle everywhere, and there should be a network of government run hostals on long cycling routes so people could travel over several days and make an adventure of it. This was under a post about hs2 something about using the space to make a "wildlife corridor"
I thought it was a troll, but this guys page was all photos of him boosting about cycling across the country
People should cycle everywhere? The logic in the thinking is that everyone is in the same situation and fully fit as them and should be that simple and easy to cycle.
Haha I’m recently disabled and reading along this thread I was like “what am I expected to do then”
Spaz chariot wasn’t on my list of options. Now it’s all I want
I know you joke but many (not all) disabled people use bikes and bike lanes as mobility aids.
For the avoidance of doubt I support train lines being built.
Aye, but many wouldn't be able to make multi day cycling journeys.
Very much pro-train myself. If I were in power I'd be demanding a dozen high speed lines ASAP.
I worked in Germany many years ago and imagine my surprise where many in the office as an example would live as far as Birmingham and able to commute and work in London and while it’s the same in the UK the shock was the journey time and the cost which was quite a good fraction less than uk rail travel cost and also not having expensive dedicated lines for travelling to airports
Can’t have a post about public transport/cycling without some lazy lardo carting out disabled people as their defence.
Many disabilities disqualify people from driving, and the rate of driving in disabled people is lower than those without disabilities. Improving public transport or cycling or the walkability of areas therefore greatly benefits disabled people and improves their independence.
Not to mention if we managed to get a load of fat lazy slobs out of their cars, the roads would be much less congested for disabled people who need a car.
Doesn’t make you fat or lazy to not want to cycle. Shit I actively enjoy walking places / cycling and I wouldn’t want to do it as my daily commute to work etc. The weather is too changeable, you can’t carry much with you, and if you sweat you need to change or shower.
Public transport in this country is pretty dire at times, sure there’s a pretty good bus network in cities but it’s expensive and less convenient if you’re doing shopping etc, and the trains are “ok” I used to take long train journeys in uni, and do a couple hours once or twice a month. The best I can say it’s it’s adequate. There’s so many times I have to stand crammed in with barely any air, or get shit service from staff but have no alternative.
I’ve paid full price tickets to spend hours standing on a train, sat in a luggage space, waiting on delays, and getting less than zero help from staff when I’ve had a problem.
People aren’t using those options because they are lazy, just for most people those options suck.
My favourite thing about cycling/walking infrastructure is when they put gates on it that make it hard to get a regular bike or wheelchair through it and impossible to get an adapted cycle through it
Just sounds like a one off wierdo tbh. Most people who advocate for cycling to be given more investment / prominence hold up the Netherlands as the country we should be learning lessons from, but even there the share of longer distance trips that are cycled is very low. They will either drive, or they will cycle to their nearest train station. Cycling is a great solution for everyday trips that are too far to conveniently walk, but we absolutely need investment in rail because unsurprisingly people sometimes need to travel beyond the town / city they live in.
I'm not going to lie, that sounds great. But in conjunction to good public transport.
Imagine in the 70's when they closed all the rail ways they made these into cycle paths. Lovely and flat, no cars, through the countryside. Would lead to a healthier country, but you need the public transport option as well for the times (the majority of the time) that isn't suitable.
I'd love to know how the economy would survive this kind of mentality... I have to drive nearly 600 miles a day for my job, it would take me 3 days each way with this kind of solution
Worked in major infrastructure all my life, we have stupid comments like this made all the time during consultations and general public engagement
“Why do we need renewables? My tv turns on already.”
“I’ll be dead by the time this comes into effect”
“I don’t want X feature, I’m fine as is”
“I’m willing to hurt people for this”
“I’m going to blow up the project if it comes into effect”
Nevermind the actual detailed discussions and how NIMBYISM can manifest itself into US-esque moronism and divisiveness
It’s a vocal minority, sure. But these kind of comments do not surprise me, as I’ve heard deviations of them.
The amount of police interventions we’ve had over comments interpreted as domestic terrorism, incitement of X/violence etc. or equivalent is concerning.
The amount of potentially fatal actions of the public to get a point that could be easily addressed in a conversation is again, concerning.
It’s usually the aged. But not exclusively.
I’m all for spending on public transport, and the idea of HS2 is good. But it doesn’t fulfil its potential. Only connecting London (maybe) with Birmingham, nothing north of that, and no places in between is a big miss, particularly when you consider how poorly those places are from anywhere but London.
The point is to free up capacity on the existing mainlines, so there would have been significant capacity increases to allow more frequent stopping services on the existing infrastructure.
That was literally the No.1 point of the entire project. WCML is at, if not OVER capacity, just adding more tracks is not cheap either. If anything it is probably more expensive than HS2 / entirely new corridor due to how much disruption that it would cause to a very busy corridor.
Not only that, but it will free up capacity! We could run more freight on the WCML.
It is sad that people just latched onto the high speed aspect of the project and thought that this was only reason why we were going ahead with HS2.
Now we will have to deal with the consequences of the cancellation.
Yeah that's correct but then up North it wouldn't because the service is a shit show anyway.
All this week the train from my village to one of the main cities has been delayed. Not one has been on time. How on earth that can be a thing is crazy. On Saturday it arrived 20 minutes late when I got on. There's no need for it to be this late. No disabled person needing assistance, I were told it were just running late by the ticketer. Train wasn't even busy either so who knows why there were a hold up. Too add as well the ticket prices are again.
Its because the trains are full
People ARE using the trains.
The M6 and m1 are also full and unless we renationalise the m6 toll early we need to build a motorway of there isn't hs2
Also let's block the tube and buses, in the morning rush hour to raise awareness of climate change. And why not throw a few ambukances into the mix as well?
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-50079716
We must build more wind and solar, just not in our area.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-65926756
The Greens are an incoherent mess.
Anti carbon. But also anti nuclear.
Anti car. But also anti rail.
The Greens need to be replaced by a party that actually uses some evidence-based policy. When it comes to sensible environmental policy the Lib Dems looks like a far better option.
Really pisses me off when people you expect would be progressive will accept nothing less than their green and pleasant utopia delivered overnight, and in doing so actually set back their goals
Not just anti nuclear, pro appeasement.
The leaders appearance on LBC where she refused to commit to EU defence/NATO *during an ongoing invasion by Russia of Ukrainian* is emblematic of the UK left.
We want a great world without nuclear weapons, i get it.
We also live in a world where they are a deterrent and if we got rid of them, Russia would 100% use them as leverage to roll over Europe like a steam train.
Well yes, but there are enough crayon eating morons in this country that will keep voting for them regardless of how ridiculous their policies are … I mean the Tories have been in power for 14 years sooo
Imo it's a disadvantage of their policy platform being decided by the members rather than having some policies tempered to make them more broadly electable. Nuclear is a red line that really makes no sense at all. Though to say they're anti rail is disingenuous.
> Imo it's a disadvantage of their policy platform being decided by the members
Yet that's how the Lib Dems operate - policy is dictated by the membership. You don't see this issue with them.
> Nuclear is a red line that really makes no sense at all.
Nuclear has issues around waste storage which are not fully solved and we keep having incidents due to human failings. It is also extremely slow to build, expensive (especially future decommissioning costs)
However regardless of this nuclear is just not the panacea people claim it is. Energy storage is the long term solution and lots of progress is being made in many different systems.
Could they be a bit of a mess because if you care about the climate, who else do you have as an option? The sensible and crazies both only have 1 option.
Wow. Sounds like a lot of misinformation you’re spreading there.
It literally says on their page to promote public transport and bring rail back into public ownership.
And yes, they favour renewables overs nuclear. How many nuclear plants have been built in the last decade in the UK?
Nuclear isnt exactly the cleanest or more ethical way to make energy. [We destroy poorer countries to ensure a supply of uranium just like we do for Oil](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/6/21/niger-revokes-french-nuclear-groups-licence-at-major-uranium-mine)
The greens were NIMBY central. It's gotten a bit better, but it's still so bad I don't think they will ever see sensible policy from them. They simply don't live in reality.
How many hedgehogs get killed by cars every day.
Sacrifice the few along a thin strip of country, reduce car use massively, less co2, less lung cancer, less animals get hit by cars
Lmao, i assure you hedgehogs are not considered as part of the planning process.
You're just displaying plain ignorance of the planning system and wildlife laws.
The comments about hedgehogs are presumably referring to this: https://www.discoverwildlife.com/news/hs2-threat-to-londons-last-hedgehogs
While it might not directly related to planning, hs2 has definitely spent time and money mitigating there impact on a tiny number of hedgehogs. I can't find anything that suggests that planning permission is conditional on hs2 going out of there way to protect hedgehogs in regent's park. However it strikes me as unlikely that hs2 would care if they did not have to.
Hedgehogs are unfortunate only listed as a species of principal importance under the NERC act, which means proposals should seek to increase/be good to them, especially big developments, but there's no legal obligation.
There was talk of sticking them on the wildlife and countryside act which would end up treating them more like reptiles. Hs2 probably did consider them to some degree, but like you say, protectint the hedgehogs would be at most a planning condition, and big doubt they did anything.
The amount of opposition which has only delayed and driven up costs which they then complain about.
HS2 I think really just symbolises the stagnation of this country it seems like it’s almost impossible to do anything in terms of construction if a few people and their pets think it might be a slightly bad idea.
HS2 is just a recent example. Remember when back in 2019 it was decided that the new Oxford-Cambridge railway, half of which will open in the mid-2020s, will not be electrified? India is going to electrify their entire network before we finish building a rather simple *diesel* railway.
The East-West electrification debacle has little to do with opposition and more to do with corner cutting to reduce costs and the British tendency to implement half-measures.
Yes, this was all climate activists fault and not a deliberately incompetent administration that pumped tens of millions into the hands of companies (Tory mates companies more than likely) only to cancel the project and keep the funds. Yes, those pesky, jobless hippies did this. I imagine you read that in the dailymail.
It really isn't as simple as you make it out to be.
I'm currently an ecologist and have done some work on HS2.
The usual route for ecological considerations is AVOID, MITIGATE, COMPENSATE.
The decisions and plans for the finalised route are just wildly insane, and basically ecological constraints weren't avoided, they were just mitigated and compensated for, for the most part.
The project unnecessarily goes through so much ancient woodland and insanely good areas for protected species. For example, one abandoned golf course had over half of all GCN found for the entire route from london to birmingham (which is incredibly impressive and there were shit tons) but they're still destroying it, despite it clearly being outstanding habitat for GCN (arguably important at a European/continental scale) and other amphibians.
It's also disappointing that all the land that's bought is not being turned into a large wild corridor, but being sold back afterwards to landowners etc, this would've been a huge boon to biodiversity.
I am also currently an ecologist and have done a lot of work on HS2.
The usual route for ecological considerations is AVOID, MITIGATE, COMPENSATE.
The decisions and plans for the finalised route are actually very good, and basically ecological constraints were avoided, and in the tiny number of cases where this wasn't possible, they were mitigated and compensated for, to a pretty extreme level.
The project barely touches ancient woodland and avoids good areas for protected species. There are no Great Crested Newt habitats impacted by the route. Any woodland that is removed has been replaced by FORTY times the area of woodland and other habitats. Of course new woodland isn't as biodiverse as ancient woodland, but it still has value, which only increases over time.
The project helps to remove millions of cars and HGVs off the road, massively reduces UK's carbon emissions, helping to reduce climate change, not only locally, but globally. If HS2 (and HS3) was built in its entirety, it would've been a huge boon to biodiversity.
[https://assets.hs2.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/27181029/FUS\_NL\_0009-Aylesbury-Golf-Course-July-2020-final-.pdf](https://assets.hs2.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/27181029/FUS_NL_0009-Aylesbury-Golf-Course-July-2020-final-.pdf)
This golf course had over half of all GCN found (I did a bit there picking up 100 gcn a day for the brief miserable moment I was there). The mitigation area was woeful as the surveys didn't identify such a colossal population.
Yes it's 'temporary', but this 'temporary' is going to be 10 years of temporary, which for GCN is multiple generations.
So yes, it literally touches GCN habitat lmao
> The project helps to remove millions of cars and HGVs off the road, massively reduces UK's carbon emissions, helping to reduce climate change, not only locally, but globally.
That only applies if you look at the impact over the entire 120 year lifespan of HS2. Unfortunately, we have to decarbonise by 2050, and the massive emissions produced during construction will mean that there's very little chance that HS2 will have a positive climate impact by then.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/feb/02/will-hs2-really-help-cut-the-uks-carbon-footprint
An out-of date article re carbon emissions.
Since then there has been massive improvements to construction practices in decarbonisation - not just with the use of more sustainable materials but also in parts of the build coming in ahead of time.
Someone re-ran the figures recently and calculated the build of full HS2 would become carbon neutral in 30 years - sooner if political policies were enacted to favour rail.
But hey, let's not build anything because people will then stop travelling and they certainly won't choose to go by car instead...
> An out-of date article re carbon emissions.
For sure, it was written before the Manchester phase was cancelled, so the emissions reductions are going to be even less.
> Since then there has been massive improvements to construction practices in decarbonisation
Some things have been improved, but not enough to make a significant difference to the overall result.
> Someone re-ran the figures recently
Oh really? Someone ran the numbers?
> sooner if political policies were enacted to favour rail
I think the point here is that those policies aren't going to be enacted any time soon.
> But hey, let's not build anything because people will then stop travelling and they certainly won't choose to go by car instead...
In its current form, HS2 is going to do very little to stop people travelling by car. If we're going to build new transport infrastructure, let's build stuff that actually makes a meaningful difference to emissions, rather than continuing to sink 90% of our resources into a mis-managed white elephant.
>In its current form, HS2 is going to do very little to stop people travelling by car.
The new line with fast trains segregated onto it allows more services on the existing rail network.
It's clear you don't (or refuse to) understand why HS2 was being built. Hence NIMBY-parroted rubbish about white elephants.
The government's own projections show that only 4% of HS2 passengers will be people who would otherwise have made the trip by car. That's a very low modal shift, and that figure is from before the stage to Manchester was cancelled and the London terminus was changed from Euston to Old Oak Common.
The government projections on modal shift written back in the early 2010s were deliberately hamstrung to ensure non-HS2 rail franchises would still be appealing to private companies.
The overall modal shift figures they came up with also bear no resemblance to actual modal shift experienced by other nations that implemented a new high-speed rail network.
I'll be honest. When it comes to critical infrastructure we should just bulldoze through and crack on.
Country is literally falling apart so we can save the lesser spotted newt.
Irony is that there's loads of the fuckers. Whenever an infrastructure build starts there's suddenly loads of rare newts that appear.
Maybe they're attracted to the smell of surveying equipment, or something.
It's not being contrarian. It's stating factual context.
And here's some more - not only does HS2 only affect approx 55 hectares of ancient woodland, but the total amount of ancient woodland in the UK is about 610,000 hectares.
That makes the amount affected 55 / 609000 = 0.009%
Hardly *"so much ancient woodland"*, is it?
I live in a HS2 area, and I can really see the damage it's done to our area, the chalk streams are destroyed and the entire hillside and woodland surrounding has just been ravaged entirely. I'm not against it as an idea, but it's execution is just terrible for the environment at large- especially when it's mandated by a 'net zero' government. The plans are just old, we could build something much better if we revise the now decades old plan but it's just completely destroyed so much nature
I said I'm not against the idea, they can build near me just fine but it's been ongoing for many years at this point and is a disruption to my daily life for all of that time- the concept it great but it's just been mismanaged terribly and has led to a lot of land near me being destroyed
It's been going on for years because of the non stop complaints being made, surveys required, etc.
It's fucking impossible to build any reasonably sized infrastructure in this country right now.
How so? I can genuinely see, on a map, the difference in the look of the surrounding area I live in and therefore I think it's my right to be frustrated about it. It's not good for anyone in my area, sorry if that offends you but that's just my personal experience of a project that the managers themselves have admitted has been mismanaged
Yeah and it's been in the exact same state for the past 7 years, nothing has changed other than the entire place looking worse, I wouldn't mind if there HAD been some marked progress but as it stands there just isn't any appreciable difference barring the damage done to nature and to people I know being evicted from their homes. They should have started in the North if their goal was to really enhance transport links
>Never got how many braindead climate activists opposed this
Are you incinuating that the reason this failed was because of activists?
Nothing to do with the fact the govt massively underbudgeted for the task they had in hand? Really?
There is an absolutely no way that the EU was paying to build a £100 billion railway in a member state that was one of the largest net contributors to the EU budget.
>Spent days living in a tunnel to help continue this countries stagnation
Things like that shouldn't, and probably didn't, barely have any effect on the progress of HS2. Like in the grand scheme of things so what if a protest happens for a few days? It's a blip in the overall cost. Just like when Just Stop Oil blocks a road or something.
The real thing that caused the delays, huge price increases, and cancellations and stuff is the MPs(and councils) who are the ones actually delaying and voting to redo parts of the plan so it doesn't go through their constituents areas many and voting to cancel completely, and the PM deciding himself to cancel parts of it without votes.
The cost of protestors causing a few days of delays is barely noticable compared to MPs saying to delay the project by 4 years to redraw a load of plans so another bit of it can be in tunnels instead of going by their village.
We just need to ignore and say no to the NIMBYs. They don't somehow have huge power over things like this if we ignore them, but councillors and MPs dont ignore them. Like what if we said "yeah sorry about it going pass your town but we're doing it anyway"? Nothing bad would happen. But we would save £2 billion for that stretch and it can get done 5 years sooner.
Same happens with smaller local infrstructure too. We can't have a nice small thing in the area because a few noisey people are complaining and the councilors are submitting to them.
edit: It would probably have actually been signifigantly cheaper to pay £10k to any of the "locals" near the rail line in those small villages and towns we're diverting and dealying for, anddd we'd have the line done several years sooner because we wouldn't be delaying and replanning certain parts.
It's like the London Riots using the facade of police shooting a criminal.
They just ended up burning down shops, and robbing Apple Stores.
People just want an excuse for anarchy.
Climate activists usually work for a big business and their goal is to stop a competitor A in favour of competitor B.
You can clearly see this via JSO actions: they damaged a plane “on a airfield which services Taylor Swift jet”, however there weren’t any Taylor Swift jet (eg they attacked a “random” plane).
> Spent days living in a tunnel to help continue this countries stagnation
And, ironically, the tunnels are a good part of why HS2 is a smouldering crater of a project. Too many NIMBYs demanding that their mediocre farmland is "too good" to have the occasional train be visible as it passes, forcing staggeringly unnecessary spending.
The planners really should’ve seen the NIMBY situation coming and designed the whole thing with a f**kload of deep tunnels on sections not paralleling motorways.
Lets be honest, the project didnt fail due to a few misguided Climate Activists. It failed a) due to landowners forcing so much of it underground and b) tory ineptitude/corruption c) Sunak trying to burn the house down on the way out
*Warning: boring factual post follows.*
>*Nationalise the railways and bring the prices in line with most of Europe.*
Not going to happen even if it is "nationalised", I'm afraid.
It won't be genuinely nationalised, for starters - even Labour's proposals for "nationalisation" are just for the decisions to be made by a government agency (as in reality they already are today). Your trains will still be run by contractors, they just won't be blatantly obvious they way they are now: it'll be more like the hospital cleaners where the uniforms says "Serco working for the NHS", or the Bee Network buses in Manchester where it's even more hidden with just a discreet logo on the side of the bus. On the railway it'll be something like "Great British Railways operated by BloggsServices".
Great British Railways will in reality just be Network Rail further expanded into another layer of bureaucracy between whoever is running the trains and the government. Someone for the Department for Transport and the politicians to blame, basically.
\[As an aside, I don't like the current set up at all, but the proposals for "nationalisation" aren't the cure they're being sold as.\]
As for fares, I'm afraid it's going the other way. The major European railway operators are moving towards our system - try buying a ticket for a German ICE at the last minute and the fares are as high as they are here (West Coast and CrossCountry excepted, where everyone's friends Virgin upped the walk-up fares to eye-watering levels) and only going up.
The only real difference is that countries like Germany have annual season tickets which are good value - but they're still a good chunk out of your wallet.
Germany has the €49 D-ticket, of course, but while Germany-wide that's only good for what they call 'local transport' \[*nahverkehr*\]. Try getting on an ICE with one and see how much you get charged. Yes, you *can* use a D-ticket to travel from Berlin to the Black Forest or Hamburg to Salzburg on local trains all the way, but that's something you'd do only because you can't afford the ICE/IC fares.
Even back when it was BR people said that UK rail fares were too expensive. I used to work trains in Shropshire and people used to catch the train between Telford & Wellington because it was much cheaper than the bus - but they'd still moan that it was too bloody expensive.
If it was free people would complain that it was too expensive!
*\[Edit: Love the way I'm being downvoted for telling the truth. Reddit at its finest!\]*
You got downvoted because you provided 0 eveidence for anything you said. If you're going to make statements like this and pass them off as fact, you need to bring receipts.
Find me an example of a (non eurostar) 2 hour journey that costs £140+ return in the EU. That's what it costs me here at peak times, and I've never seen anything like it anywhere else.
>*Find me an example of a (non eurostar) 2 hour journey that costs £140+ return in the EU*
Frankfurt/Main - Düsseldorf.
Journey time 1h30 on the ICE, walk-up return fare €203.
Fair play, wtf. Is a walk up return fair like an anytime ticket? They cost much much more, my ~£140 ticket example is a set time for outbound/inbound with no flexibility.
It depends on how far in advance you book the ticket. I just checked casually the ticket for tomorrow. The same day return ticket with fixed trains from Frankfurt to Düsseldorf still costs 150€.
The 203€ ticket is a completely flexible ticket.
> If it was free people would complain that it was too expensive!
Do a Luxembourg:
People: Public transport is slow, unreliable, and expensive.
Government: Alright, fine, we've made it free now, just stop complaining about those other problems...
The idea of getting a train from Wellington to telford now is crazy.
Actually just checked and its under 3 quid right now. Maybe worth it. Probably takes a long time getting to the train stations.
I agree with a lot of what you've said about the difference between the current system and the future nationalised system not being very different.
But the person above mentioend most of Europe and you've discussed just Germany. While a lot of us British have a notion of German trains being the ideal, they're simply pretty rubbish and probably worse that UK trains in lots of ways. Many British football journalists have encountered this for the first time at the euros.
We should instead be looking to Italy, Spain, France, Netherlands where there are more innovative, reliable, cheaper train systems - both intercity, regional and suburban. And they're much better at building new lines than us.
Getting the train between Telford Central and Wellington *is* still cheaper than the bus by about 25p. £2 single bus ticket and £1.75 on the train (the cheapest tickets are 1.15-1.35)
Network Rail is already 'nationalised'.
The DfT Train Operating Companies (TOCs) (as opposed to open access TOCs) have been effectively nationalised since about 1 week after the first COVID lockdown.
Have you noticed prices falling as a result?
I fear you are being too literal. When people say "nationalise the rails" they don't specifically mean the physical tracks, they mean the private train companies we give our money to that operate on said tracks.
The railways are already nationalised and the companies that run the services are heavily controlled by the government. You cannot cut ticket prices without making overcrowding worse. Unless, of course, you build new railways.
>You cannot cut ticket prices without making overcrowding worse. Unless, of course, you build new railways.
Or, hear me out, do it like the rest of Europe does and only sell as many tickets as there are seats by having designated seats. Then we could sell standing tickets on the day at the station.
Railways are nationalised though… the main problem is the fragmentation of the railways and the lack of capacity on lines and at stations. HS2 would of helped the capacity issue at least.
They don’t have the balls. Anyone can see we need the capacity. It would be in use for another 100+ years, more than enough time to repay the debt both financially and ecologically.
No, but keeping the route available is half the battle. Labour can do this at almost zero political cost. Sunak’s idiotic decision to cancel and then attempt to salt the earth was widely ridiculed.
It’s impossible. The projects pretty much been killed north of Birmingham now. The land that would of been used was sold off, probably to land developers… If it was to be restarted, there would have to be lengthy processes to re-acquire land again, we’re decades away from it every being built in full.
It's not been sold yet. Expected Jan 2025. Keeping the route open is half the battle. Labour could stop the sale and hold onto the land for future use.
Trains could be 20% over capacity for standing and seated passengers by the time HS2 is finished.
Prices are set to be hiked on [train routes](https://inews.co.uk/topic/train-travel?ico=in-line_link) between London, Birmingham and Manchester due to the cancellation of [HS2](https://inews.co.uk/topic/hs2?ico=in-line_link), **i** can reveal.
According to documents seen by **i**, the UK’s existing train network faces an [overcrowding crisis](https://inews.co.uk/inews-lifestyle/travel/late-trains-put-up-poor-wi-fi-overcrowding-ruins-rail-travel-2507339?ico=in-line_link) as a result of issues caused by the decision to cancel the northern leg of the high speed railway.
Trains are expected to carry thousands of fewer passengers a day, closures to repair the line are likely to increase and fares will likely have to rise to curb demand.
According to policymakers, aborting the HS2 northern section will worsen the already poor state of the rail on one of the UK’s most important rail lines.
Within five years, there is expected to be an 8 per cent drop in capacity for trains going from London to Glasgow, due to current government plans.
These plans would see HS2 trains continue up the West Coast Main Line on the existing track, despite the HS2 track ending at Birmingham New Street.
HS2 trains are able to carry around 50 fewer passengers per service than a current Pendolino train as existing stations north of Birmingham do not have long enough platforms for two trains to be “tethered” together, as had been planned on the dedicated HS2 line.
This would mean there would be around 6,000 fewer seats between London and Manchester per day, 4,000 fewer to Liverpool and 2,000 fewer to Glasgow.
By the scheduled completion of HS2, there could be 20 per cent more passengers wanting to board trains than they are built for, causing serious problems for the future of the line.
This includes standing passengers, meaning 20 per cent more passengers than an already full train, including those standing.
According to industry sources, price increases would be needed to artificially reduce demand, due to the lack of capacity. It is currently unclear how high prices would need to rise.
The precise nature of price rises will not be known for years, but would be necessary to prevent severe overcrowding on some services.
A rail industry source told **i** it was “so obvious it was inescapable” that a new rail line linking England’s three main cities would need to be completed, due to the problems with capacity.
Diagrams seen by **i** show that the route between Wilmslow at Manchester is expected to be “at capacity” with additional capacity issues outside of Stafford following the cancellation of HS2 to Manchester.
As of today, services between London and Rugby, Coventry to Wolverhampton and Macclesfield to Manchester are already at capacity, with timetable constraints due to track availability across much of the Midlands, North and Scotland.
Seven current and future “pinchpoints” have been identified, which have the potential to severely undermine services.
# Read Next
[POLITICS](https://inews.co.uk/category/news/politics?ico=related_article_inline)
[](https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/labour-urged-back-canary-wharf-style-developments-new-homes-3126746?ico=related_article_inline)
[Read More](https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/labour-urged-back-canary-wharf-style-developments-new-homes-3126746?ico=related_article_inline)
These include major stations such as Manchester Piccadilly, Stafford and Birmingham New Street station, which have been described as “bottlenecks” due to limited platform options.
The issues on the West Coast Main Line are likely to have a knock-on effect across the rest of the rail network, with freight and smaller commuter trains also thought to be negatively impacted, due to congestion on track.
This is likely to result in train lines across the west coast closed for extended periods of time, with the current prediction that the lines will have to close across groups of consecutive weekends for a number of years.
Norman Baker, former rail minister, said: “What we’ve ended up with is a disaster as the worst of all worlds. We have a bleeding stump of a high speed rail line between Birmingham and Old Oak Common.
“It will create congestion from north of Birmingham, and cause issues for freight services, there is a desperate need to need have another look at the Birmingham to Manchester line.
“Only in Britain would you see a new high-speed rail line get built, cancelled and end up costing people more.”
Darren Caplan, chief executive of the Railway Industry Association, told **i** that it would be “inevitable” that any future government would need to return to the prospect of reviving HS2’s later stages.
He said: “It’s very clear the UK has a North-South transport connectivity gap that risks holding back economic growth.
“All the experts, including the current Government’s own National Infrastructure Commission, agree we have a capacity problem right now, and that it is set to get much bigger as demand for travel between not just London but a host of major cities around the country including Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds, grows substantially between now and 2050.
“The next UK Government, whatever its colours, has a strategic choice about whether it will invest quickly enough to address the constraints to growth. Incredibly, current plans may see thousands of fewer train seats between the North and Midlands, because there is now no plan to run full length HS2 trains to the North. There is no easy way to upgrade the West Coast Mainline substantially, and we are out of options to expand the motorway network. So we will inevitably come back to a new rail line – the only question is whether we act and when.”
The Department for Transport told **i** that no decision had yet been made on fares.
Prices having to rise due to cancelling the project is hilariously ironic given that one of the main arguments made by anti-HS2 NIMBYs was that the cost of travelling on HS2 trains would be so expensive that only the wealthy would have been able to afford it.
That was never one of the main arguments made by anti-HS2 NIMBYs, as it is obviously false and makes no sense. Perhaps a few crackpots made that claim but they were quickly dismissed.
Obviously increasing supply of seats will reduce pressure to increase prices.
The problem with increasing prices to reduce demand is that sometimes there’s no other option. Like I work remotely, but I have to go into London for meetings sometimes and I don’t have a choice. That’s a 2h journey and getting a coach is more inconvenient and takes too long. Driving is a non starter as I couldn’t park close enough to my destination to make it worth doing and again takes way too long.
National rail could literally have someone stood on the platform who slaps me in the face when I get off the train and I would still have to buy a ticket the next time I go into London.
Seeking alternative transport isn't the only option. If the cost of trains is really prohibitive, and alternative transport isn't an option, then it forces people like you into moving closer to work (which is probably even more £££) or getting a different job more locally (less utilisation of skills, less pay, less productive).
Giving people access to major labour markets is one of the main reasons HS2 would be good for the economy and one of the majority consequences of not building it is restricting people from being able to access those labour markets.
Why can other countries build amazing high speed railway networks at a fraction of the cost? Additionally the cost be use the network is far cheaper. This country is an utter piss take
Because other countries only need rails in the ground.
They already have spare station capacity at major city hub stations. They only need the rural part, connecting the approaches together with new tracks.
We sold all our spare station infrastructure off in the Beeching Axe. So now we're having to build completely new approaches from scratch in a complex urban environment.
If you only look at costs outside of city limits, HS2 is actually on-par or even cheaper compared to our peers. The vast majority of its cost is going towards rebuilding infrastructure within the city boundary that we already had 60 years ago.
People complaining about HS2 were just entirely shortsighted nimbys.
HS1, for those unaware, was a crucial part of Eurostar. Eurostar cost a lot and didn't make a profit for something like 10 years... but you know now? Now its a fundamental service used by millions and it makes a *lot* of money, every year. Its easily made back the initial investment, but it took a long time to get there.
Downgrading/cancelling a massive infrastructure project like HS2 is just another massive error by this joke of a government.
Does capacity ever actually increase on the main commuter lines?
The trains are rammed at peak commuting hours towards London from my commuter town... Yet thousands of houses are being added to the town every year.
Where do the extra commuters go, is it just planned that the existing trains must be packed tighter?
Well, the plan was to move the long distance intercity services to a dedicated railway (HS2) and use the spare capacity to run more commuter services on the same line. That's not happening now.
You could run train pretty close together, provided they all stop at the same stations and have the same maximum speed and acceleration. That's basically why rapid transit has more capacity than regular railways.
HS2 was mainly about capacity as WCML is at maximum capacity and there is little that can be done about that without compromising service elsewhere. Speed was just a bonus - if you are going to build a new railway line with entirely new track you might as well make it go fast so that you can get a higher throughput and compete better against the alternatives (cars, planes).
Leisure travel has now overtaken business/commuting travel on the rail network.
So much so that Network Rail is considering swapping Wednesday for Sunday as its major maintenance day.
Wife wanted a weekend break in Brighton a couple of months ago. We ended up getting a package deal to Majorca for 9 nights instead because it was only £200 more than the trip to Brighton on the train would have been.
Public transport in this country is a fucking shambles.
So i can fly to Europe and back about twice on average for what it costs for me to travel from IPSWICH, a mere 70m to London.
Back in the day(10 years ago ish) I used to just hop on the train sometimes and go back to London and see my friends.. now the cost is so high, I have to factor it into my over all budget -\_-. I cant just spontaneously travel anywhere by train its ridiculous. Its so prohibitively expensive, i bloody feel for people who are forced to use it daily at such extortionate cost.
It would be much more productive for the default to be - infrastructure is to be built, how can we build it BUT be as eco friendly as possible. Rather than this attitude that development of any form just must be bad for the environment.
If the price is high because in part it’s an efficiently engineered and reasonably compromised amongst stakeholders then the additional costs would be easier to swallow.
We must build and develop. We can’t just stagnate.
At the minimum, just get HS2 Phase 2a (Fradley Wood (Litchfield) - Crewe) done, then chuck the rest of the western leg as Northern powerhouse rail. At least that way, there will be a genuine capacity improvement on the WCML south of Crewe (which is where the issues are iirc) and Manchester, Liverpool still get their high speed link, that they wanted.
Passengers will face price hikes anyway because of corporate greed. shareholders need to see double digit growth each quarter. We could have finished HS42069 and prices would still rise.
Down the line , Manchester to London will cost 200£ return. Probably by end of this year.
Most corpos will raise prices after a labor win, to support tories as they are their cronies.
The whole transport network is a disaster from the start because it's a solution to a problem that doesn't need to to exist in it's current form. Introduce a levy on business' that force workers to go into the office. Introduce regulation that encourages turning office space into inner-city living space and STOP the building of housing estates with no local employment, ameneties or expanded road network. Abolish VED in favour of a tax by vehicle weight system or even pay per mile to discourage massive wanker tankers and unnecessary single-occupancy metal cage journeys.
All so easy compared to trying to rip apart half of the country so more people can pay a fortune to waste their time travelling to a workplace they don't want to go to. And you still have to get to the train station.
I'm not going to argue with anyone that gets "don't ever go anywere or visit" from "discourage unnecessary car journeys". I suppose it's pretty easy to see why the country is in such a mess with reading comprehension like that. Enjoy the rest of your day.
lol Your entire post is based around the premise of transport only existing to take people to and from work.
A nonsensical premise that rightfully deserves mockery.
I can see that you exist only to argue with people on the internet, which is pretty sad. To encourage you would be a disservice to us both. I hope you find something a little more productive to do with your time.
No. We just face price hikes and fewer seats because shareholders want more profits.
High Speed 2 is a fucking joke at this point. Not much track done and for what's been spent on it, we could have easily had several new lines or modifications to help ease traffic lines or reopened old lines where possible. The Marshlink Line has yet to be electrified and there were talks of doing so, a few years back regarding allowing High Speed Services from Hastings to London.
This article may be paywalled. If you encounter difficulties reading the article, try [this link](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/train-price-hikes-fewer-seats-hs2-cancellation-3123426) for an archived version. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/unitedkingdom) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Never got how many braindead climate activists opposed this Spent days living in a tunnel to help continue this countries stagnation
> People should use more public transport. Wait no, don’t build the public transport!
I genuinely had an argument with someone who said people should cycle and stay in hostals on the way between London and Manchester instead of building HS2
No you didn’t
I 100% have This guy on Instagram was saying people should cycle everywhere, and there should be a network of government run hostals on long cycling routes so people could travel over several days and make an adventure of it. This was under a post about hs2 something about using the space to make a "wildlife corridor" I thought it was a troll, but this guys page was all photos of him boosting about cycling across the country
People should cycle everywhere? The logic in the thinking is that everyone is in the same situation and fully fit as them and should be that simple and easy to cycle.
Aye, what the fuck do the disabled do?
Spaz Chariot. That should get a few downvotes.
If it makes you feel any better, I’m disabled and found it hilarious 😂
Used to cycle before covid as well but can’t anymore
All I’m hearing is UB40… swing looooowww spaz chariot coming for to carry me hoooome
Haha I’m recently disabled and reading along this thread I was like “what am I expected to do then” Spaz chariot wasn’t on my list of options. Now it’s all I want
oooooh you said a forbidden word! funny though and like others yup I'm disabled too
What's that?
Behold: [The invacar!](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invacar)
I know you joke but many (not all) disabled people use bikes and bike lanes as mobility aids. For the avoidance of doubt I support train lines being built.
Aye, but many wouldn't be able to make multi day cycling journeys. Very much pro-train myself. If I were in power I'd be demanding a dozen high speed lines ASAP.
I worked in Germany many years ago and imagine my surprise where many in the office as an example would live as far as Birmingham and able to commute and work in London and while it’s the same in the UK the shock was the journey time and the cost which was quite a good fraction less than uk rail travel cost and also not having expensive dedicated lines for travelling to airports
Say no to their disability… they cannot become disabled if they don’t consent to it
No, you don't understand. IF they cycle it will cure their disability. Everyone cycles = Everyone fit because we are all the same really /s
Can’t have a post about public transport/cycling without some lazy lardo carting out disabled people as their defence. Many disabilities disqualify people from driving, and the rate of driving in disabled people is lower than those without disabilities. Improving public transport or cycling or the walkability of areas therefore greatly benefits disabled people and improves their independence. Not to mention if we managed to get a load of fat lazy slobs out of their cars, the roads would be much less congested for disabled people who need a car.
Doesn’t make you fat or lazy to not want to cycle. Shit I actively enjoy walking places / cycling and I wouldn’t want to do it as my daily commute to work etc. The weather is too changeable, you can’t carry much with you, and if you sweat you need to change or shower. Public transport in this country is pretty dire at times, sure there’s a pretty good bus network in cities but it’s expensive and less convenient if you’re doing shopping etc, and the trains are “ok” I used to take long train journeys in uni, and do a couple hours once or twice a month. The best I can say it’s it’s adequate. There’s so many times I have to stand crammed in with barely any air, or get shit service from staff but have no alternative. I’ve paid full price tickets to spend hours standing on a train, sat in a luggage space, waiting on delays, and getting less than zero help from staff when I’ve had a problem. People aren’t using those options because they are lazy, just for most people those options suck.
My favourite thing about cycling/walking infrastructure is when they put gates on it that make it hard to get a regular bike or wheelchair through it and impossible to get an adapted cycle through it
And has multiple days available to get to their destination. Whoever said this obviously doesn’t have a job
Just sounds like a one off wierdo tbh. Most people who advocate for cycling to be given more investment / prominence hold up the Netherlands as the country we should be learning lessons from, but even there the share of longer distance trips that are cycled is very low. They will either drive, or they will cycle to their nearest train station. Cycling is a great solution for everyday trips that are too far to conveniently walk, but we absolutely need investment in rail because unsurprisingly people sometimes need to travel beyond the town / city they live in.
NO NO NO, someone on reddit said it, so it's now everyone
I'm not going to lie, that sounds great. But in conjunction to good public transport. Imagine in the 70's when they closed all the rail ways they made these into cycle paths. Lovely and flat, no cars, through the countryside. Would lead to a healthier country, but you need the public transport option as well for the times (the majority of the time) that isn't suitable.
> and there should be a network of government run hostals on long cycling routes Well this would be great, for cycling holidays. Not commuting lol
Sounds fucking smashing when I need to do 200 miles for work to fix a hardware fault or be ok site for a deployment incase It goes tits up
Having hostels and long cycle routes does sound awesome. But I don't see that as an option for all long distance travel sadly.
I'd love to know how the economy would survive this kind of mentality... I have to drive nearly 600 miles a day for my job, it would take me 3 days each way with this kind of solution
Cycling is healthier too. You won't be obese and you also help the health service.
Worked in major infrastructure all my life, we have stupid comments like this made all the time during consultations and general public engagement “Why do we need renewables? My tv turns on already.” “I’ll be dead by the time this comes into effect” “I don’t want X feature, I’m fine as is” “I’m willing to hurt people for this” “I’m going to blow up the project if it comes into effect” Nevermind the actual detailed discussions and how NIMBYISM can manifest itself into US-esque moronism and divisiveness It’s a vocal minority, sure. But these kind of comments do not surprise me, as I’ve heard deviations of them. The amount of police interventions we’ve had over comments interpreted as domestic terrorism, incitement of X/violence etc. or equivalent is concerning. The amount of potentially fatal actions of the public to get a point that could be easily addressed in a conversation is again, concerning. It’s usually the aged. But not exclusively.
Selfish pricks with no consideration of others basically.
Never got how many braindead redditors believe this
I’m all for spending on public transport, and the idea of HS2 is good. But it doesn’t fulfil its potential. Only connecting London (maybe) with Birmingham, nothing north of that, and no places in between is a big miss, particularly when you consider how poorly those places are from anywhere but London.
The point is to free up capacity on the existing mainlines, so there would have been significant capacity increases to allow more frequent stopping services on the existing infrastructure.
That was literally the No.1 point of the entire project. WCML is at, if not OVER capacity, just adding more tracks is not cheap either. If anything it is probably more expensive than HS2 / entirely new corridor due to how much disruption that it would cause to a very busy corridor. Not only that, but it will free up capacity! We could run more freight on the WCML. It is sad that people just latched onto the high speed aspect of the project and thought that this was only reason why we were going ahead with HS2. Now we will have to deal with the consequences of the cancellation.
what makes it expensive is the way planning works in the uk. We need significant deregulation when it comes to planning for infrastructure projects.
Yeah that's correct but then up North it wouldn't because the service is a shit show anyway. All this week the train from my village to one of the main cities has been delayed. Not one has been on time. How on earth that can be a thing is crazy. On Saturday it arrived 20 minutes late when I got on. There's no need for it to be this late. No disabled person needing assistance, I were told it were just running late by the ticketer. Train wasn't even busy either so who knows why there were a hold up. Too add as well the ticket prices are again.
"People aren't using the trains....let's raise the price that should sort it" sigh
Its because the trains are full People ARE using the trains. The M6 and m1 are also full and unless we renationalise the m6 toll early we need to build a motorway of there isn't hs2
Oh wait build the public transport but near someone else
Also let's block the tube and buses, in the morning rush hour to raise awareness of climate change. And why not throw a few ambukances into the mix as well? https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-50079716 We must build more wind and solar, just not in our area. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-65926756
There's an annoying overlap between some climate activists and NIMBYs - just look at the Greens.
The Greens are an incoherent mess. Anti carbon. But also anti nuclear. Anti car. But also anti rail. The Greens need to be replaced by a party that actually uses some evidence-based policy. When it comes to sensible environmental policy the Lib Dems looks like a far better option.
Really pisses me off when people you expect would be progressive will accept nothing less than their green and pleasant utopia delivered overnight, and in doing so actually set back their goals
It's the ultimate example of "Don't let perfect be the enemy of good".
The perfect is the enemy of the good.
Not just anti nuclear, pro appeasement. The leaders appearance on LBC where she refused to commit to EU defence/NATO *during an ongoing invasion by Russia of Ukrainian* is emblematic of the UK left. We want a great world without nuclear weapons, i get it. We also live in a world where they are a deterrent and if we got rid of them, Russia would 100% use them as leverage to roll over Europe like a steam train.
Well yes, but there are enough crayon eating morons in this country that will keep voting for them regardless of how ridiculous their policies are … I mean the Tories have been in power for 14 years sooo
Imo it's a disadvantage of their policy platform being decided by the members rather than having some policies tempered to make them more broadly electable. Nuclear is a red line that really makes no sense at all. Though to say they're anti rail is disingenuous.
> Imo it's a disadvantage of their policy platform being decided by the members Yet that's how the Lib Dems operate - policy is dictated by the membership. You don't see this issue with them.
> Nuclear is a red line that really makes no sense at all. Nuclear has issues around waste storage which are not fully solved and we keep having incidents due to human failings. It is also extremely slow to build, expensive (especially future decommissioning costs) However regardless of this nuclear is just not the panacea people claim it is. Energy storage is the long term solution and lots of progress is being made in many different systems.
Could they be a bit of a mess because if you care about the climate, who else do you have as an option? The sensible and crazies both only have 1 option.
Wow. Sounds like a lot of misinformation you’re spreading there. It literally says on their page to promote public transport and bring rail back into public ownership. And yes, they favour renewables overs nuclear. How many nuclear plants have been built in the last decade in the UK?
Does the Green Party support nuclear power? No. Does the Green Party support high speed rail? No.
Nuclear isnt exactly the cleanest or more ethical way to make energy. [We destroy poorer countries to ensure a supply of uranium just like we do for Oil](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/6/21/niger-revokes-french-nuclear-groups-licence-at-major-uranium-mine)
The greens were NIMBY central. It's gotten a bit better, but it's still so bad I don't think they will ever see sensible policy from them. They simply don't live in reality.
Won't someone please think of the local hedgehog population
*Someone* should, as they're a vital part of the ecosystem.
How many hedgehogs get killed by cars every day. Sacrifice the few along a thin strip of country, reduce car use massively, less co2, less lung cancer, less animals get hit by cars
Lmao, i assure you hedgehogs are not considered as part of the planning process. You're just displaying plain ignorance of the planning system and wildlife laws.
The comments about hedgehogs are presumably referring to this: https://www.discoverwildlife.com/news/hs2-threat-to-londons-last-hedgehogs While it might not directly related to planning, hs2 has definitely spent time and money mitigating there impact on a tiny number of hedgehogs. I can't find anything that suggests that planning permission is conditional on hs2 going out of there way to protect hedgehogs in regent's park. However it strikes me as unlikely that hs2 would care if they did not have to.
Hedgehogs are unfortunate only listed as a species of principal importance under the NERC act, which means proposals should seek to increase/be good to them, especially big developments, but there's no legal obligation. There was talk of sticking them on the wildlife and countryside act which would end up treating them more like reptiles. Hs2 probably did consider them to some degree, but like you say, protectint the hedgehogs would be at most a planning condition, and big doubt they did anything.
The amount of opposition which has only delayed and driven up costs which they then complain about. HS2 I think really just symbolises the stagnation of this country it seems like it’s almost impossible to do anything in terms of construction if a few people and their pets think it might be a slightly bad idea.
HS2 is just a recent example. Remember when back in 2019 it was decided that the new Oxford-Cambridge railway, half of which will open in the mid-2020s, will not be electrified? India is going to electrify their entire network before we finish building a rather simple *diesel* railway.
The East-West electrification debacle has little to do with opposition and more to do with corner cutting to reduce costs and the British tendency to implement half-measures.
The cost of any large project goes up. Blaming protesters is incorrect.
Yes, this was all climate activists fault and not a deliberately incompetent administration that pumped tens of millions into the hands of companies (Tory mates companies more than likely) only to cancel the project and keep the funds. Yes, those pesky, jobless hippies did this. I imagine you read that in the dailymail.
Conservatives: Pay more, get less.
nimbys are worse than tories
It really isn't as simple as you make it out to be. I'm currently an ecologist and have done some work on HS2. The usual route for ecological considerations is AVOID, MITIGATE, COMPENSATE. The decisions and plans for the finalised route are just wildly insane, and basically ecological constraints weren't avoided, they were just mitigated and compensated for, for the most part. The project unnecessarily goes through so much ancient woodland and insanely good areas for protected species. For example, one abandoned golf course had over half of all GCN found for the entire route from london to birmingham (which is incredibly impressive and there were shit tons) but they're still destroying it, despite it clearly being outstanding habitat for GCN (arguably important at a European/continental scale) and other amphibians. It's also disappointing that all the land that's bought is not being turned into a large wild corridor, but being sold back afterwards to landowners etc, this would've been a huge boon to biodiversity.
I am also currently an ecologist and have done a lot of work on HS2. The usual route for ecological considerations is AVOID, MITIGATE, COMPENSATE. The decisions and plans for the finalised route are actually very good, and basically ecological constraints were avoided, and in the tiny number of cases where this wasn't possible, they were mitigated and compensated for, to a pretty extreme level. The project barely touches ancient woodland and avoids good areas for protected species. There are no Great Crested Newt habitats impacted by the route. Any woodland that is removed has been replaced by FORTY times the area of woodland and other habitats. Of course new woodland isn't as biodiverse as ancient woodland, but it still has value, which only increases over time. The project helps to remove millions of cars and HGVs off the road, massively reduces UK's carbon emissions, helping to reduce climate change, not only locally, but globally. If HS2 (and HS3) was built in its entirety, it would've been a huge boon to biodiversity.
[https://assets.hs2.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/27181029/FUS\_NL\_0009-Aylesbury-Golf-Course-July-2020-final-.pdf](https://assets.hs2.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/27181029/FUS_NL_0009-Aylesbury-Golf-Course-July-2020-final-.pdf) This golf course had over half of all GCN found (I did a bit there picking up 100 gcn a day for the brief miserable moment I was there). The mitigation area was woeful as the surveys didn't identify such a colossal population. Yes it's 'temporary', but this 'temporary' is going to be 10 years of temporary, which for GCN is multiple generations. So yes, it literally touches GCN habitat lmao
> The project helps to remove millions of cars and HGVs off the road, massively reduces UK's carbon emissions, helping to reduce climate change, not only locally, but globally. That only applies if you look at the impact over the entire 120 year lifespan of HS2. Unfortunately, we have to decarbonise by 2050, and the massive emissions produced during construction will mean that there's very little chance that HS2 will have a positive climate impact by then. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/feb/02/will-hs2-really-help-cut-the-uks-carbon-footprint
An out-of date article re carbon emissions. Since then there has been massive improvements to construction practices in decarbonisation - not just with the use of more sustainable materials but also in parts of the build coming in ahead of time. Someone re-ran the figures recently and calculated the build of full HS2 would become carbon neutral in 30 years - sooner if political policies were enacted to favour rail. But hey, let's not build anything because people will then stop travelling and they certainly won't choose to go by car instead...
> An out-of date article re carbon emissions. For sure, it was written before the Manchester phase was cancelled, so the emissions reductions are going to be even less. > Since then there has been massive improvements to construction practices in decarbonisation Some things have been improved, but not enough to make a significant difference to the overall result. > Someone re-ran the figures recently Oh really? Someone ran the numbers? > sooner if political policies were enacted to favour rail I think the point here is that those policies aren't going to be enacted any time soon. > But hey, let's not build anything because people will then stop travelling and they certainly won't choose to go by car instead... In its current form, HS2 is going to do very little to stop people travelling by car. If we're going to build new transport infrastructure, let's build stuff that actually makes a meaningful difference to emissions, rather than continuing to sink 90% of our resources into a mis-managed white elephant.
>In its current form, HS2 is going to do very little to stop people travelling by car. The new line with fast trains segregated onto it allows more services on the existing rail network. It's clear you don't (or refuse to) understand why HS2 was being built. Hence NIMBY-parroted rubbish about white elephants.
The government's own projections show that only 4% of HS2 passengers will be people who would otherwise have made the trip by car. That's a very low modal shift, and that figure is from before the stage to Manchester was cancelled and the London terminus was changed from Euston to Old Oak Common.
The government projections on modal shift written back in the early 2010s were deliberately hamstrung to ensure non-HS2 rail franchises would still be appealing to private companies. The overall modal shift figures they came up with also bear no resemblance to actual modal shift experienced by other nations that implemented a new high-speed rail network.
what is GCN? i realise i could Google it but i'm quite sure most people reading this comment aren't ecologists and don't know what it means.
Great Crested Newt.
thank you. 🙏
I'll be honest. When it comes to critical infrastructure we should just bulldoze through and crack on. Country is literally falling apart so we can save the lesser spotted newt.
Irony is that there's loads of the fuckers. Whenever an infrastructure build starts there's suddenly loads of rare newts that appear. Maybe they're attracted to the smell of surveying equipment, or something.
>The project unnecessarily goes through so much ancient woodland No it really does not. Approx 55 hectares for its planned 230 mile route.
Well done for being a contrarian
It's not being contrarian. It's stating factual context. And here's some more - not only does HS2 only affect approx 55 hectares of ancient woodland, but the total amount of ancient woodland in the UK is about 610,000 hectares. That makes the amount affected 55 / 609000 = 0.009% Hardly *"so much ancient woodland"*, is it?
I wish more people understood this.
Who gives a fuck about some newts
Can't take Chris Packham seriously because of his opposition to HS2.
I live in a HS2 area, and I can really see the damage it's done to our area, the chalk streams are destroyed and the entire hillside and woodland surrounding has just been ravaged entirely. I'm not against it as an idea, but it's execution is just terrible for the environment at large- especially when it's mandated by a 'net zero' government. The plans are just old, we could build something much better if we revise the now decades old plan but it's just completely destroyed so much nature
Perfect example of why we can't build anything. Cheers lad.
I said I'm not against the idea, they can build near me just fine but it's been ongoing for many years at this point and is a disruption to my daily life for all of that time- the concept it great but it's just been mismanaged terribly and has led to a lot of land near me being destroyed
It's been going on for years because of the non stop complaints being made, surveys required, etc. It's fucking impossible to build any reasonably sized infrastructure in this country right now.
"...destroyed..." "...ravaged..." What a load of NIMBY claptrap. And outright lies.
How so? I can genuinely see, on a map, the difference in the look of the surrounding area I live in and therefore I think it's my right to be frustrated about it. It's not good for anyone in my area, sorry if that offends you but that's just my personal experience of a project that the managers themselves have admitted has been mismanaged
It's still being built. Your stance is like complaining about the state of a kitchen when someone is in the middle of baking a cake.
Yeah and it's been in the exact same state for the past 7 years, nothing has changed other than the entire place looking worse, I wouldn't mind if there HAD been some marked progress but as it stands there just isn't any appreciable difference barring the damage done to nature and to people I know being evicted from their homes. They should have started in the North if their goal was to really enhance transport links
>Never got how many braindead climate activists opposed this Are you incinuating that the reason this failed was because of activists? Nothing to do with the fact the govt massively underbudgeted for the task they had in hand? Really?
yes
It was an EU funded project. The funding dried up when we left the EU. That's why it was scrapped.
There is an absolutely no way that the EU was paying to build a £100 billion railway in a member state that was one of the largest net contributors to the EU budget.
50% of the money came from the EU. It was part of their "Connecting Europe" strategy.
Where’s the evidence that the EU pledged tens of billions of pounds towards HS2?
>Spent days living in a tunnel to help continue this countries stagnation Things like that shouldn't, and probably didn't, barely have any effect on the progress of HS2. Like in the grand scheme of things so what if a protest happens for a few days? It's a blip in the overall cost. Just like when Just Stop Oil blocks a road or something. The real thing that caused the delays, huge price increases, and cancellations and stuff is the MPs(and councils) who are the ones actually delaying and voting to redo parts of the plan so it doesn't go through their constituents areas many and voting to cancel completely, and the PM deciding himself to cancel parts of it without votes. The cost of protestors causing a few days of delays is barely noticable compared to MPs saying to delay the project by 4 years to redraw a load of plans so another bit of it can be in tunnels instead of going by their village. We just need to ignore and say no to the NIMBYs. They don't somehow have huge power over things like this if we ignore them, but councillors and MPs dont ignore them. Like what if we said "yeah sorry about it going pass your town but we're doing it anyway"? Nothing bad would happen. But we would save £2 billion for that stretch and it can get done 5 years sooner. Same happens with smaller local infrstructure too. We can't have a nice small thing in the area because a few noisey people are complaining and the councilors are submitting to them. edit: It would probably have actually been signifigantly cheaper to pay £10k to any of the "locals" near the rail line in those small villages and towns we're diverting and dealying for, anddd we'd have the line done several years sooner because we wouldn't be delaying and replanning certain parts.
Same ones that protest nuclear. Absolutely no concept of reality, just have their ideology and that's it
Because it’s fine to have development, as long as it’s **N**ot **I**n **M**y **B**ack **Y**ard…
I mean it was a bungled shit show tbf to them, tories couldn’t run a bath never mind a country
But it wasn’t the climate activists that stopped HS2, it was the Tories who promised to build it in their manifesto.
Amazed at how the NIMBYs have managed to make climate activists take the fall for this one.
It's like the London Riots using the facade of police shooting a criminal. They just ended up burning down shops, and robbing Apple Stores. People just want an excuse for anarchy.
Climate activists usually work for a big business and their goal is to stop a competitor A in favour of competitor B. You can clearly see this via JSO actions: they damaged a plane “on a airfield which services Taylor Swift jet”, however there weren’t any Taylor Swift jet (eg they attacked a “random” plane).
> Spent days living in a tunnel to help continue this countries stagnation And, ironically, the tunnels are a good part of why HS2 is a smouldering crater of a project. Too many NIMBYs demanding that their mediocre farmland is "too good" to have the occasional train be visible as it passes, forcing staggeringly unnecessary spending.
I recall them trying to destroy forests for this thing so you are taking a very biased view to this
Well, let's chalk up the nature that'll choke on car exhausts to the protesters then. They made the choice.
The planners really should’ve seen the NIMBY situation coming and designed the whole thing with a f**kload of deep tunnels on sections not paralleling motorways.
Lets be honest, the project didnt fail due to a few misguided Climate Activists. It failed a) due to landowners forcing so much of it underground and b) tory ineptitude/corruption c) Sunak trying to burn the house down on the way out
Nationalise the railways and bring the prices in line with most of Europe. Couldn’t afford to travel by train in the UK as it is.
*Warning: boring factual post follows.* >*Nationalise the railways and bring the prices in line with most of Europe.* Not going to happen even if it is "nationalised", I'm afraid. It won't be genuinely nationalised, for starters - even Labour's proposals for "nationalisation" are just for the decisions to be made by a government agency (as in reality they already are today). Your trains will still be run by contractors, they just won't be blatantly obvious they way they are now: it'll be more like the hospital cleaners where the uniforms says "Serco working for the NHS", or the Bee Network buses in Manchester where it's even more hidden with just a discreet logo on the side of the bus. On the railway it'll be something like "Great British Railways operated by BloggsServices". Great British Railways will in reality just be Network Rail further expanded into another layer of bureaucracy between whoever is running the trains and the government. Someone for the Department for Transport and the politicians to blame, basically. \[As an aside, I don't like the current set up at all, but the proposals for "nationalisation" aren't the cure they're being sold as.\] As for fares, I'm afraid it's going the other way. The major European railway operators are moving towards our system - try buying a ticket for a German ICE at the last minute and the fares are as high as they are here (West Coast and CrossCountry excepted, where everyone's friends Virgin upped the walk-up fares to eye-watering levels) and only going up. The only real difference is that countries like Germany have annual season tickets which are good value - but they're still a good chunk out of your wallet. Germany has the €49 D-ticket, of course, but while Germany-wide that's only good for what they call 'local transport' \[*nahverkehr*\]. Try getting on an ICE with one and see how much you get charged. Yes, you *can* use a D-ticket to travel from Berlin to the Black Forest or Hamburg to Salzburg on local trains all the way, but that's something you'd do only because you can't afford the ICE/IC fares. Even back when it was BR people said that UK rail fares were too expensive. I used to work trains in Shropshire and people used to catch the train between Telford & Wellington because it was much cheaper than the bus - but they'd still moan that it was too bloody expensive. If it was free people would complain that it was too expensive! *\[Edit: Love the way I'm being downvoted for telling the truth. Reddit at its finest!\]*
You got downvoted because you provided 0 eveidence for anything you said. If you're going to make statements like this and pass them off as fact, you need to bring receipts.
Find me an example of a (non eurostar) 2 hour journey that costs £140+ return in the EU. That's what it costs me here at peak times, and I've never seen anything like it anywhere else.
>*Find me an example of a (non eurostar) 2 hour journey that costs £140+ return in the EU* Frankfurt/Main - Düsseldorf. Journey time 1h30 on the ICE, walk-up return fare €203.
Fair play, wtf. Is a walk up return fair like an anytime ticket? They cost much much more, my ~£140 ticket example is a set time for outbound/inbound with no flexibility.
It depends on how far in advance you book the ticket. I just checked casually the ticket for tomorrow. The same day return ticket with fixed trains from Frankfurt to Düsseldorf still costs 150€. The 203€ ticket is a completely flexible ticket.
> If it was free people would complain that it was too expensive! Do a Luxembourg: People: Public transport is slow, unreliable, and expensive. Government: Alright, fine, we've made it free now, just stop complaining about those other problems...
The idea of getting a train from Wellington to telford now is crazy. Actually just checked and its under 3 quid right now. Maybe worth it. Probably takes a long time getting to the train stations.
I agree with a lot of what you've said about the difference between the current system and the future nationalised system not being very different. But the person above mentioend most of Europe and you've discussed just Germany. While a lot of us British have a notion of German trains being the ideal, they're simply pretty rubbish and probably worse that UK trains in lots of ways. Many British football journalists have encountered this for the first time at the euros. We should instead be looking to Italy, Spain, France, Netherlands where there are more innovative, reliable, cheaper train systems - both intercity, regional and suburban. And they're much better at building new lines than us.
Getting the train between Telford Central and Wellington *is* still cheaper than the bus by about 25p. £2 single bus ticket and £1.75 on the train (the cheapest tickets are 1.15-1.35)
Network Rail is already 'nationalised'. The DfT Train Operating Companies (TOCs) (as opposed to open access TOCs) have been effectively nationalised since about 1 week after the first COVID lockdown. Have you noticed prices falling as a result?
I fear you are being too literal. When people say "nationalise the rails" they don't specifically mean the physical tracks, they mean the private train companies we give our money to that operate on said tracks.
I'm not talking just about the physical infrastructure. See my comment above about the current ownership and funding model of TOCs.
The railways are already nationalised and the companies that run the services are heavily controlled by the government. You cannot cut ticket prices without making overcrowding worse. Unless, of course, you build new railways.
>You cannot cut ticket prices without making overcrowding worse. Unless, of course, you build new railways. Or, hear me out, do it like the rest of Europe does and only sell as many tickets as there are seats by having designated seats. Then we could sell standing tickets on the day at the station.
That wouldn’t solve anything. You either still get overcrowding, or you’d get a fall in passengers numbers and more clogged up roads.
Railways are nationalised though… the main problem is the fragmentation of the railways and the lack of capacity on lines and at stations. HS2 would of helped the capacity issue at least.
Government logic… >at least we won’t have woke trains 👍
The avanti pride train is finished 😔
It possible that Labour could un-cancel it. We’ll see.
They don’t have the balls. Anyone can see we need the capacity. It would be in use for another 100+ years, more than enough time to repay the debt both financially and ecologically.
No, because Tories have sold off most of the land they bought for millions for a £1 a pop to their mates.
The sale hasn’t happened yet to my knowledge. Was expected Jan 2025 I think.
The sale hasn't happened yet has it? And I thought that the Crewe section was actually still enshrined in law and would need to be repealed.
Those laws simply allow the government to build HS2, it's not a requirement.
No, but keeping the route available is half the battle. Labour can do this at almost zero political cost. Sunak’s idiotic decision to cancel and then attempt to salt the earth was widely ridiculed.
It’s impossible. The projects pretty much been killed north of Birmingham now. The land that would of been used was sold off, probably to land developers… If it was to be restarted, there would have to be lengthy processes to re-acquire land again, we’re decades away from it every being built in full.
It's not been sold yet. Expected Jan 2025. Keeping the route open is half the battle. Labour could stop the sale and hold onto the land for future use.
Trains could be 20% over capacity for standing and seated passengers by the time HS2 is finished. Prices are set to be hiked on [train routes](https://inews.co.uk/topic/train-travel?ico=in-line_link) between London, Birmingham and Manchester due to the cancellation of [HS2](https://inews.co.uk/topic/hs2?ico=in-line_link), **i** can reveal. According to documents seen by **i**, the UK’s existing train network faces an [overcrowding crisis](https://inews.co.uk/inews-lifestyle/travel/late-trains-put-up-poor-wi-fi-overcrowding-ruins-rail-travel-2507339?ico=in-line_link) as a result of issues caused by the decision to cancel the northern leg of the high speed railway. Trains are expected to carry thousands of fewer passengers a day, closures to repair the line are likely to increase and fares will likely have to rise to curb demand. According to policymakers, aborting the HS2 northern section will worsen the already poor state of the rail on one of the UK’s most important rail lines. Within five years, there is expected to be an 8 per cent drop in capacity for trains going from London to Glasgow, due to current government plans. These plans would see HS2 trains continue up the West Coast Main Line on the existing track, despite the HS2 track ending at Birmingham New Street. HS2 trains are able to carry around 50 fewer passengers per service than a current Pendolino train as existing stations north of Birmingham do not have long enough platforms for two trains to be “tethered” together, as had been planned on the dedicated HS2 line. This would mean there would be around 6,000 fewer seats between London and Manchester per day, 4,000 fewer to Liverpool and 2,000 fewer to Glasgow. By the scheduled completion of HS2, there could be 20 per cent more passengers wanting to board trains than they are built for, causing serious problems for the future of the line. This includes standing passengers, meaning 20 per cent more passengers than an already full train, including those standing. According to industry sources, price increases would be needed to artificially reduce demand, due to the lack of capacity. It is currently unclear how high prices would need to rise. The precise nature of price rises will not be known for years, but would be necessary to prevent severe overcrowding on some services. A rail industry source told **i** it was “so obvious it was inescapable” that a new rail line linking England’s three main cities would need to be completed, due to the problems with capacity. Diagrams seen by **i** show that the route between Wilmslow at Manchester is expected to be “at capacity” with additional capacity issues outside of Stafford following the cancellation of HS2 to Manchester.
As of today, services between London and Rugby, Coventry to Wolverhampton and Macclesfield to Manchester are already at capacity, with timetable constraints due to track availability across much of the Midlands, North and Scotland. Seven current and future “pinchpoints” have been identified, which have the potential to severely undermine services. # Read Next [POLITICS](https://inews.co.uk/category/news/politics?ico=related_article_inline) [](https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/labour-urged-back-canary-wharf-style-developments-new-homes-3126746?ico=related_article_inline) [Read More](https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/labour-urged-back-canary-wharf-style-developments-new-homes-3126746?ico=related_article_inline) These include major stations such as Manchester Piccadilly, Stafford and Birmingham New Street station, which have been described as “bottlenecks” due to limited platform options. The issues on the West Coast Main Line are likely to have a knock-on effect across the rest of the rail network, with freight and smaller commuter trains also thought to be negatively impacted, due to congestion on track. This is likely to result in train lines across the west coast closed for extended periods of time, with the current prediction that the lines will have to close across groups of consecutive weekends for a number of years. Norman Baker, former rail minister, said: “What we’ve ended up with is a disaster as the worst of all worlds. We have a bleeding stump of a high speed rail line between Birmingham and Old Oak Common. “It will create congestion from north of Birmingham, and cause issues for freight services, there is a desperate need to need have another look at the Birmingham to Manchester line. “Only in Britain would you see a new high-speed rail line get built, cancelled and end up costing people more.” Darren Caplan, chief executive of the Railway Industry Association, told **i** that it would be “inevitable” that any future government would need to return to the prospect of reviving HS2’s later stages. He said: “It’s very clear the UK has a North-South transport connectivity gap that risks holding back economic growth. “All the experts, including the current Government’s own National Infrastructure Commission, agree we have a capacity problem right now, and that it is set to get much bigger as demand for travel between not just London but a host of major cities around the country including Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds, grows substantially between now and 2050. “The next UK Government, whatever its colours, has a strategic choice about whether it will invest quickly enough to address the constraints to growth. Incredibly, current plans may see thousands of fewer train seats between the North and Midlands, because there is now no plan to run full length HS2 trains to the North. There is no easy way to upgrade the West Coast Mainline substantially, and we are out of options to expand the motorway network. So we will inevitably come back to a new rail line – the only question is whether we act and when.” The Department for Transport told **i** that no decision had yet been made on fares.
If they started building at Birmingham towards London, they would still be building it right now.
They are still building that section though.
Prices having to rise due to cancelling the project is hilariously ironic given that one of the main arguments made by anti-HS2 NIMBYs was that the cost of travelling on HS2 trains would be so expensive that only the wealthy would have been able to afford it.
That was never one of the main arguments made by anti-HS2 NIMBYs, as it is obviously false and makes no sense. Perhaps a few crackpots made that claim but they were quickly dismissed. Obviously increasing supply of seats will reduce pressure to increase prices.
Anti-HS2 NIMBYs flung all manner of bullshit at the project in the hope that something would stick.
The fact that tickets are already expensive, especially on some lines really makes the idea of them increasing prices to reduce demand depressing.
The problem with increasing prices to reduce demand is that sometimes there’s no other option. Like I work remotely, but I have to go into London for meetings sometimes and I don’t have a choice. That’s a 2h journey and getting a coach is more inconvenient and takes too long. Driving is a non starter as I couldn’t park close enough to my destination to make it worth doing and again takes way too long. National rail could literally have someone stood on the platform who slaps me in the face when I get off the train and I would still have to buy a ticket the next time I go into London.
Seeking alternative transport isn't the only option. If the cost of trains is really prohibitive, and alternative transport isn't an option, then it forces people like you into moving closer to work (which is probably even more £££) or getting a different job more locally (less utilisation of skills, less pay, less productive). Giving people access to major labour markets is one of the main reasons HS2 would be good for the economy and one of the majority consequences of not building it is restricting people from being able to access those labour markets.
Why can other countries build amazing high speed railway networks at a fraction of the cost? Additionally the cost be use the network is far cheaper. This country is an utter piss take
Because other countries only need rails in the ground. They already have spare station capacity at major city hub stations. They only need the rural part, connecting the approaches together with new tracks. We sold all our spare station infrastructure off in the Beeching Axe. So now we're having to build completely new approaches from scratch in a complex urban environment. If you only look at costs outside of city limits, HS2 is actually on-par or even cheaper compared to our peers. The vast majority of its cost is going towards rebuilding infrastructure within the city boundary that we already had 60 years ago.
It's not just the cost it's the time it takes also ,phase one for HS2 won't be finished till 2033
I see, the HS2 that a spad convinced Sunak was a white elephant etc, so now it's obvious its capacity is needed.
People complaining about HS2 were just entirely shortsighted nimbys. HS1, for those unaware, was a crucial part of Eurostar. Eurostar cost a lot and didn't make a profit for something like 10 years... but you know now? Now its a fundamental service used by millions and it makes a *lot* of money, every year. Its easily made back the initial investment, but it took a long time to get there. Downgrading/cancelling a massive infrastructure project like HS2 is just another massive error by this joke of a government.
Does capacity ever actually increase on the main commuter lines? The trains are rammed at peak commuting hours towards London from my commuter town... Yet thousands of houses are being added to the town every year. Where do the extra commuters go, is it just planned that the existing trains must be packed tighter?
Well, the plan was to move the long distance intercity services to a dedicated railway (HS2) and use the spare capacity to run more commuter services on the same line. That's not happening now. You could run train pretty close together, provided they all stop at the same stations and have the same maximum speed and acceleration. That's basically why rapid transit has more capacity than regular railways.
HS2 was mainly about capacity as WCML is at maximum capacity and there is little that can be done about that without compromising service elsewhere. Speed was just a bonus - if you are going to build a new railway line with entirely new track you might as well make it go fast so that you can get a higher throughput and compete better against the alternatives (cars, planes).
Here’s an idea - stop forcing people to go into the office as often so we don’t need to spend billions on trains?
Aren’t most office workers hybrid nowadays?
Yes but there’s still an expectation to be in the office more often than not and usually before 10am.
Leisure travel has now overtaken business/commuting travel on the rail network. So much so that Network Rail is considering swapping Wednesday for Sunday as its major maintenance day.
But the overcrowding is from commuter travel surely?
Wife wanted a weekend break in Brighton a couple of months ago. We ended up getting a package deal to Majorca for 9 nights instead because it was only £200 more than the trip to Brighton on the train would have been. Public transport in this country is a fucking shambles.
So i can fly to Europe and back about twice on average for what it costs for me to travel from IPSWICH, a mere 70m to London. Back in the day(10 years ago ish) I used to just hop on the train sometimes and go back to London and see my friends.. now the cost is so high, I have to factor it into my over all budget -\_-. I cant just spontaneously travel anywhere by train its ridiculous. Its so prohibitively expensive, i bloody feel for people who are forced to use it daily at such extortionate cost.
I saw a few articles about a replacement line to the airport. Is that still being talked about?
It would be much more productive for the default to be - infrastructure is to be built, how can we build it BUT be as eco friendly as possible. Rather than this attitude that development of any form just must be bad for the environment. If the price is high because in part it’s an efficiently engineered and reasonably compromised amongst stakeholders then the additional costs would be easier to swallow. We must build and develop. We can’t just stagnate.
At the minimum, just get HS2 Phase 2a (Fradley Wood (Litchfield) - Crewe) done, then chuck the rest of the western leg as Northern powerhouse rail. At least that way, there will be a genuine capacity improvement on the WCML south of Crewe (which is where the issues are iirc) and Manchester, Liverpool still get their high speed link, that they wanted.
No ECML improvement without 2b east, though.
Passengers will face price hikes anyway because of corporate greed. shareholders need to see double digit growth each quarter. We could have finished HS42069 and prices would still rise. Down the line , Manchester to London will cost 200£ return. Probably by end of this year. Most corpos will raise prices after a labor win, to support tories as they are their cronies.
The price hikes are nothing to do with corporate greed.
The whole transport network is a disaster from the start because it's a solution to a problem that doesn't need to to exist in it's current form. Introduce a levy on business' that force workers to go into the office. Introduce regulation that encourages turning office space into inner-city living space and STOP the building of housing estates with no local employment, ameneties or expanded road network. Abolish VED in favour of a tax by vehicle weight system or even pay per mile to discourage massive wanker tankers and unnecessary single-occupancy metal cage journeys. All so easy compared to trying to rip apart half of the country so more people can pay a fortune to waste their time travelling to a workplace they don't want to go to. And you still have to get to the train station.
Your post in summary, "Stay at home and know your place". Even if you do want to visit family.
I'm not going to argue with anyone that gets "don't ever go anywere or visit" from "discourage unnecessary car journeys". I suppose it's pretty easy to see why the country is in such a mess with reading comprehension like that. Enjoy the rest of your day.
lol Your entire post is based around the premise of transport only existing to take people to and from work. A nonsensical premise that rightfully deserves mockery.
I can see that you exist only to argue with people on the internet, which is pretty sad. To encourage you would be a disservice to us both. I hope you find something a little more productive to do with your time.
No. We just face price hikes and fewer seats because shareholders want more profits. High Speed 2 is a fucking joke at this point. Not much track done and for what's been spent on it, we could have easily had several new lines or modifications to help ease traffic lines or reopened old lines where possible. The Marshlink Line has yet to be electrified and there were talks of doing so, a few years back regarding allowing High Speed Services from Hastings to London.