Politics/HS2

Apologies if there is another thread about HS2 on here but I've looked and can't find anything. Don't want to duplicate another debate
I don't post about politics on here (nor sex, nor religion!) but felt the need to show the attached quote from Merriman (Bexhill Tory) which, for me, perfectly sums up what we're all suffering at the hands of the current bunch of incompetents who are in charge of running the country:

"This is the danger in selling perpetual sunlight and then leaving it for others to explain the arrival of moonlight,"

How apt.

 

This has been the most succinct reaction to today's news (well officially today, but at least a week old in terms of expectations) that I've seen so far.

 

The train arriving at Platform HS2 has been cancelled.

 

I'm glad it's been scrapped. Maybe that caption won't apply to me going to and from work. Sometimes I finish work at 16:30. I walk to Monkhill. I catch the 16:45 to Wakefield Kirkgate. Just missing the stopping train (via Darton) I board the packed Nottingham train at 17:26 hoping for a sympathetic guard rather than a jobsworth. I arrive at Meadowhall at around 18:00. I then have to catch the X78 to Rotherham. As it's after 18:00 there is only one bus an hour either the 140 or the 142. I miss the 18:13 bus to Greasbrough meaning I have to catch the 142 at 18:45. I don't get back in the house until after 19:00. That's from finishing work at 16:30pm 18 miles up the road. Takes me best part of three hours to get home.

 

Move.

 

Yeah I could. My point is. In 2021 it shouldn't take nearly 3 hours to travel 18 miles. When I can get to Manchester in 57 mins or London King's Cross in 1 hour 45 mins. Irony is if I lived in the King's Cross area of London I'd be home quicker.

 

He can't - that's what he's explaining

 

That's how bad the links are.

 

So, who's going to benefit from an upgraded Leeds - Sheffield line? Wakefield AND Barnsley, or just Wakefield? Hmmm, let me have a think!

 

Totally agree with you. It's just been an excuse to waste another umpteen million on tory donators I.e. consultants who are the only people to benefit from this fake promise.

 

57 minutes to Manchester is pathetic too.

 

People who live in Rotherham and Doncaster would too.

 

It'll not go anywhere near Rotherham and Donny; basically upgrading the Thurnscoe line but without any intermedeoary stops (cheapest option).

 

The whole of the northern transport infrastructure has been crap for decades if not for over a century. SD is one amongst countless others who have been wasting countless hours of their lives travelling a few miles on dilapidated, overcrowded, slow unpunctual trains. Absolute disgrace. But for Johnson to lie...again...and then cancel the proposals and then have the audacity to spin it as if we are actually winners really does make one angry.
And yet.... Some will still vote for them....

 

Nothing has officially been announced regarding the upgrades between Sheffield and Leeds today, the document states this route is under further review. The reality will be an electrified Wakefield line to speed up journeys between Sheffield and Leeds, and possibly a bit of new line between Leeds and Clayton. The irony being the North Midland Line would’ve provided this much sooner had a bit more money been spent on it to fix a collapsed viaduct near Royston in the 80’s. The mining subsidence caused too many problems, and railways were losing a ridiculous amount of money back then, however, severing the line and lifting most of it was clearly a mistake.

Barnsley isn’t high on the agenda because it isn’t warranted. It’s a backwater station in an awkward place (in terms of railways) and there’s little demand for travel outside of what we already get. We get decent passenger numbers due to the convenient and quick connections to Meadowhall and Leeds. Sure, a 40 minute direct train ride to Manchester via Woodhead would be amazing, but that’s just not going to happen. Speed and capacity upgrades with better connections at bigger stations is all we can hope for. Electrification of the line would make a difference, and may come eventually.

 

More trains between Leeds and Sheffield would benefit me as I'd get to South Yorkshire quicker. There are numerous bus services between Sheffield and Doncaster via Meadowhall and Rotherham. Just altering train times so that services linked up would be a start. The 16:45 arrives in Wakefield Kirkgate at 17:06. Yet it sits and waits at the junction for the 17:03 stopping service to Sheffield to pass on platform 2.

 

The electrification will make a difference to local journeys, however - should electric rolling stock be used on that line for local services. Rotherham has a terrible service really for a town of its size.