To ask who benefits from HS2?

[Rosehip345]

And if you do benefit, how?

I thought Boris Johnson’s dad had done very well out of HS2

Those on the current line out of Euston given the additional capacity so that long distance trains don't get in the way of trains to places such as Tring or Northampton.

It's the big construction companies who will make billions out of destroying the countryside to cover it with concrete and steel.

The rich and privileged will be the only ones benefiting from HS2.

But it's not THEIR money that will be paying for it.

It's a massive no here in South Yorkshire. All the "project" has done so far is devalue a lot of people's houses. They can't even decide where the station is going to be to service Sheffield.

I don't believe that anyone is bothered about shaving 10 minutes off a journey to London either.

Financiers and construction companies feathering their own pockets.
A rail link that serves only the southern end of the country??

@TigerOnATrain but which rich and privileged? I personally can’t see it benefiting any (other than Boris and his dad?)

9000 are currently employed through the supply chain

People in Leeds who can’t be bothered to get up 20 minutes earlier to catch an earlier train to London. Otherwise... no-one at all.

@Comtesse but am I right in thinking this during building it and not once it’s running?

Can't imagine anyone brave enough on here to try and defend HS2. There are massive benefits of course, but the question is more 'could we get the same benefits for less money'?

London. Always London. As soon as you make it easier for people to travel to London, that's what they do. People from London don't then start commuting out to other places.

@Leafyhouse what are the massive benefits please? I honestly can’t think of a single one, it just seems like a completely pointless exercise to me.

everyone on the trains which are currently over crowded with the longer commuters on them. will free up capacity on the rest of the lines.

It's going to cost £100 billion to make it 15 minutes quicker to get from London to Birmingham. It would be cheaper to demolish Birmingham and rebuild it somewhere in North Oxfordshire.

It won't free up capacity. Just like the M25 has never noticeably freed up any capacity on other roads. It will just encourage more people to travel more often.

when parts of the m25 are closed off the other roads are an absolute nightmare , ive had hours added to journeys to get out amd away from London

It benefits my nephew who works on it.

It won't benefit the north. Apart from anything else if they continue to starve our local services of investment the way they have been we won't be able to get to the sodding HS2 line in the first place.
The Transpennine Express cancelled so many trains this year I regularly had 2 hour waits to get the 25 minute train home. Shaving 15 minutes off the train to London if I am then going to have to wait at Leeds or York for hours isn't really going to signify.

London, obviously.

HM Treasury only ever spends vast amounts of taxpayers’ money on projects which benefit London. HS2 will make it (marginally) quicker and easier to travel from ‘the provinces’ into London, thereby sucking ever more people, resources and business into London. The rest of the country exists only to service London.

The rest of the country exists only to service London.

Well seeing as London basically funds the rest of the country, that seems only fair. He who pays the piper calls the tune and all that.

OK, I'll try. But I'm very reluctant, because there's such an emotional hatred of HS2 here, and I'm sure I'll get flamed from every angle. But there has to be a reason why £50bn has been thrown at this, it can't purely be a vanity project. So please, don't all tear into me at once.

The thing is, the Northern railway lines are desperately low on capacity. A high-speed train has a minimum safe gap between trains of at least 5 miles. What you find is that within that gap, you can fit 4 suburban trains. So if you put the fancy high-speed trains in their own track, instead of running 1 train per hour from Macclesfield to Manchester, you can run 3 or 4.

Of course, there are other ways of boosting capacity. Run longer trains, for example. But then you need to increase platform lengths. Improve the signalling systems, so trains can run closer together. Actually that's not a bad idea, and they're also doing that. Build more railway lines in the North? That's expensive and controversial. You think building one line brings out an army of protestors, try building 10. Upgrade existing railway lines? Not so effective if the train has to sit in a siding waiting for the Inter-City to come thundering through.

Broadly speaking, I'm a supporter. But fuck me, the cost is eye watering. I'll get my hard hat.

The companies involved in its construction, no doubt massively overcharging, lying about completion date, then charging loads more. Can't see anyone else is bothered. I can think of so many better uses for that money.... how about SOME form of public transport for those of us in rural areas, improving broadband, again for rural area (2Mb where I live), etc etc, services that would bring much more useful benefits.

'The thing is, the Northern railway lines are desperately low on capacity. '

Which northern railway lines? Ours currently has one train an hour. You mean the lines that are part of high speed north-south routes? There are other lines in the north too!