Crossrail 2

[Wapping]

Rumour has it that Crossrail 2, the complimentary north/south line to the Elizabeth Line (CrossRail 1) is back on the cards. It’s been stalled for years and would have been a much better use of public money than the hopeless HS2 project.

There again, St Joseph’s Infants School would be a better source of creative enterprise than HS2.

 

[glenn2926]

Neither HS2 or cross rail 2 benefit anyone not down south. I’m pretty sure the money could be better used for the benefit of more of the country.

 

[G&T]

The TV programme, ‘At war with the fare dodgers’, suggests an Oyster card is more valuable than life itself. Some of the behaviour - wow!

 

[Wapping]

Neither HS2 or cross rail 2 benefit anyone not down south. I’m pretty sure the money could be better used for the benefit of more of the country.

That the money squandered and wasted on HS2 could have been better channelled anywhere, rather than on a busted flush, goes without saying.

The Elizabeth Line (Crossrail 1) of course benefits London and Londoners, but (indirectly) it benefits UK plc too and, not least, the millions of visitors to the capital each year. No doubt, CrossRail 1 will do the same.

 

[glenn2926]

That the money wasted on HS2 could have been better channelled anywhere, rather than on a busted flush, goes without saying.

The Elizabeth Line (Crossrail 1) of course benefits London and Londoners, but (indirectly) it benefits UK plc too and, not least, the millions of visitors to the capital each year. No doubt, CrossRail 1 will do the same.

There are more places than London in this country. Many Londoners seem to forget that. I for one have no intention of ever visiting London as a tourist.
I’m going to London next Sunday but into kings cross and out of St Pancras an hour later. We’re touring France by train for a couple of weeks and the railway covers the whole country with high speed trains linking the major cities.
Here it’s all about London to the detriment of almost everywhere else.

 

[Davey B]

When looking at Crossrail 2 (£40 billion ?) and HS2 (£fuck knows)...I wonder how many hundreds upon hundreds of miles of track around the UK could have been upgraded, rolling stock upgraded, old closed down routes reopened or re-purposed and other transport added for the same amount of money? The UK needs to accept that with less space than our continental neighbours and far more expensive real estate, banging in a high speed train for (lets face it, a tiny proportion of the population to use it) was bloody madness. Hey ho, some people around Brum will be able to get to the smoke a bit quicker and some in SW London can get to the office 10 minutes sooner......happy days.

 

[Neil W]

Neither HS2 or cross rail 2 benefit anyone not down south. I’m pretty sure the money could be better used for the benefit of more of the country.

They will throw multi billions at the south east for transport infrastructure yet the final nail has just been put in the coffin to stop plans of duallng the A1 in Northumberland because Labour states it is of no economic benefit to the country

 

[Wapping]

I for one have no intention of ever visiting London as a tourist.

You’ll be missed, I’m sure.



Enjoy the fast transit, London to Paris, on the train. Why didn’t you fly to Paris and miss London out entirely?

 

[Wapping]

They will throw multi billions at the south east for transport infrastructure yet the final nail has just been put in the coffin to stop plans of duallng the A1 in Northumberland because Labour states it is of no economic benefit to the country

One assumes that all the previous governments have drawn the same conclusion.

It’s a feckin’ good job the Romans went there, or there’d be no road at all

 

[LOLGEOFF]

There are more places than London in this country. Many Londoners seem to forget that. I for one have no intention of ever visiting London as a tourist.
I’m going to London next Sunday but into kings cross and out of St Pancras an hour later. We’re touring France by train for a couple of weeks and the railway covers the whole country with high speed trains linking the major cities.
Here it’s all about London to the detriment of almost everywhere else.

It is posted in the South East section of the forum, but welcome anyway.

You seem to dislike the Southeast of the country but want to use our stations, infrastructure and facilities paid for and used by a lot it's inhabitants because they are convenient for you. I'm sure lots of people from this end of the country go up to your part of the country, I have quite a few times, but don't go out of our way to continually run it down, it's nice but I wouldn't want to live there. If it's too much of a fag to come down to the South East can't you get a train to Hull or some other North Sea port and take a ferry to pick up a train on the other side? It would save all that stress putting a dampener on the start of your trip.

 

[AustinW]

IIRC the Treasury has a thing called the green book. This spells out how to evaluate and quantify the benefits of stuff that is otherwise very difficult to assess. It’s been around for donkeys years. It generally overstates the benefits of stuff in the Home Counties by attributing benefits at higher values simply because they are closer to London. The SE is also much more densely populated than much of the North, Wales and Scotland so benefits X population quickly adds up to much bigger numbers.

I think from George Osborne (northern powerhouse etc) onwards various politicians have said they are going to revise this guidance. I’m pretty sure Angela Rayner and others have said they are going to do the same too fairly recently.

 

[LOLGEOFF]

IIRC the Treasury has a thing called the green book. This spells out how to evaluate and quantify the benefits of stuff that is otherwise very difficult to assess. It’s been around for donkeys years. It generally overstates the benefits of stuff in the Home Counties by attributing benefits at higher values simply because they are closer to London. The SE is also much more densely populated than much of the North, Wales and Scotland so benefits X population quickly adds up to much bigger numbers.

I think from George Osborne (northern powerhouse etc) onwards various politicians have said they are going to revise this guidance. I’m pretty sure Angela Rayner and others have said they are going to do the same too fairly recently.

More higher paid working people down south, more money put into the pot?

Southern taxpayers still chip in for the grooming gang trials, industry bailouts and suchlike.

 

[Wapping]

I think from George Osborne (northern powerhouse etc) onwards various politicians have said they are going to revise this guidance. I’m pretty sure Angela Rayner and others have said they are going to do the same too fairly recently.

It was Johnson who bought the votes of the northern tribes, with promises of beads and shiny glass. Like Johnson himself, these lasted all but five minutes. Legged over, I believe the popular expression is and, to cap it all, more than once.

 

[Davey B]

but don't go out of our way to continually run it down, it's nice but I wouldn't want to live there.

It was Johnson who bought the votes of the northern tribes, with promises of beads and shiny glass.

 

[Wapping]

When they pitch it wide of the off stump, it’s only going to go in one direction.

 

[zerax9]

There are more places than London in this country. Many Londoners seem to forget that. I for one have no intention of ever visiting London as a tourist.
I’m going to London next Sunday but into kings cross and out of St Pancras an hour later. We’re touring France by train for a couple of weeks and the railway covers the whole country with high speed trains linking the major cities.
Here it’s all about London to the detriment of almost everywhere else.

This was exactly the reason why HS2 was originally given the go-ahead... appeasement of the Northern electorate. It made ZERO economic sense, BUT was intended to stop people in the North moaning that they never get anything. The irony though... is that not long after it all started, they realised that it would cost tens of Billions more than expected, so the most northern sections were postponed.

 

[OnHellas]

Why do we keep building new stuff instead of using those funds to repair the stuff we’ve already got?

 

[Wapping]

Why do we keep building new stuff instead of using those funds to repair the stuff we’ve already got?

Because a lot of the ‘stuff’ we have got, is really not very good and ill suited to the crowded island we have today. I am sure lots of people criticised Brunel and his railway, when the road to Bristol was rutted and potholed in the 1830’s.

 

[Nin]

Why do we keep building new stuff instead of using those funds to repair the stuff we’ve already got?

It’s easier to raise capital to build new stuff, than allocate revenue to repair old stuff.

 

[OnHellas]

It’s easier to raise capital to build new stuff, than allocate revenue to repair old stuff.

Crazy. The more new stuff we have the more old stuff we have…that we can’t raise revenue to maintain…so we build even more new stuff.

“My bike needs a £500 service…never mind I’ll take out finance for £20,000 and get a new one instead…leaving my old one to rot away in the back garden”