HS2 seriously sucks

I have no idea what "seriously sucks dude" means, and it's not a "transit" but a transport system; but there has been considerable opposition in Britain to HS2, on various grounds but mainly environmental destruction, planning blight, sheer cost and no credible need.

Its intention, apart from being the Governmental vanity-project many think it, is to encourage businesses to invest in the Midlands and North of England. I think it will merely extend London's commuter land even further out than it already is.

If the politicians, of whom few would even know a "locomotive" from a "train", genuinely want a new railway to help Northern England a dedicated fast goods line might be far more useful, especially if with connections to the Channel Tunnel route.

I think one idea is to reduce excessive flying. That is valid, but it may be hard to persuade those who imagine flying at their companies' customers' expense is the fastest way to travel 200-300 miles, since the time in the air is a small part of the overall journey time!

That so, the projected HS2 time is largely irrelevant, making the London-Birmingham time not much less than the fastest conventional trains now, but for what benefit? None, really. Nor even if the HS2 trains runs at 200mph (320km/h).

More significantly than the wants of the Canary Wharf crowd, would be investing that money in the country's railways generally, as also commonly called-for by those opposing HS2.

Trouble is, privatising the railways meant the tracks and stations being still state-owned but one huge slew of the passenger and goods services are now owned by the German nation, and another lot by the Edinburgh-based First Group, whose primary purpose is keeping its shares so high (£104 yesterday)! First hides its rail owner-ships under several pretend companies like South Western Railways, Docklands Light Railway and yes, even HS2. So we are always at the mercy of remote money-shufflers - God knows who is "investing" in HS2, China probably, and none of the HS2 Board Directors even seem to be Chartered Engineers or railway managers; so there is no guarantee of HS2 ever being profitable or valuable for the nation.

Me? I oppose it too, for all the reasons above.


Incidentally, although the Metric System is compulsory for virtually everything else in the UK, the Statute Mile is still the legal unit for road and rail distances and speeds.

They took down an ancient forest too.
Nature weeps