Talk Morgan Forums Community The Malvern Arms How about cancelling HS2

Agreed. However, isn’t one of the reasons that this option was rejected something to do with the very high traffic levels on the route from Marylebone to somewhere in the Chilterns (not sure where) which was never taken out of service?

One of the old bridges is being reinstated as we type and will re-join Great Central South (Loughborough to Birstall) with Great Central North (from just north of Loughborough to Ruddington).

They have built a few houses over the old tracks in Ruddington but that is not an insurmountable problem. The Nottingham Tram runs along part of the old route. When they put the tram in, they had to reinstate a bridge that was demolished in the 70’s.

The GCR was built to allow quadrupling Peter, but not much was. It came too late. The astonishing thing about where it crosses the Midland route in Nottingham is that it passes directly over the station, which is huge, on a low bridge at rooftop height. The other big problem in Nottingham is that Nottingham Central station was in a deep cutting with a twin bore tunnel at either end. That land is now a shopping centre. There are also obstacles at Chesterfield and to the North towards Sheffield where roads are built on the route, but nothing would be insurmountable. And of course this route links up to the Woodhead Sheffield - Manchester route which should never have been closed either.

With regard to Government IT systems, the systems only come into existence/change in support of legislation eg Finance Act and therefore the data held within the system is restricted directly to fulfilling those legislative requirements hence systems were built in legislative silos of data with only the requisite data being validated to fulfil the legislation, so you might collect home address, DOB but not validate it. which leads to lots of duplicated data that could be different in the different databases.

When I was within the Civil Service over 20 years ago looking at potential IT impact of the proposed introduction of the Euro etc, one of the arguments I put forward was to have a Data Administration Act, which would allow verified data to be shared across Government Departments, which would have a significant impact on the size of the computer estate, most of which was outsourced so therefore 3rd party revenues. Needless to say it was kicked into touch in part because it would have created inter departmental rivalries' over the data collection . validation and control. It does seem that they are sharing more data than in my day.

With regard to HS2 route, there must have been consideration given to the route to ensure that commercial traffic could avail of the increase in capacity and therefore running a network close to potential hubs, would hopefully have figured in the debate. Based on traffic volumes and density of movements places like Atherstone Warwickshire area became an ideal location for UK hubs for commercial traffic clearance and distribution. I would have expected the HS2 to follow the commercial traffic hub location corridor to encourage building connecting sidings to get commercial goods distribution back to the railways as in the days of BRS. One would assume that if the capacity was created, then as long as the HS2 followed national distribution network densities, new hubs would be built along the railway corridor........Sheffield and Nottingham route may not achieve that as its off the density of commercial traffic distribution routes

re Government data sharing.... In the last few years there's been work to enable data sharing across departments. The Cabinet Office only set up a team for it in (iirc) 2021. Post-Brexit border arrangements highlight the benefits - imagine trying to move food from here to there - you're likely involving DEFRA, HMRC, DFT, DBT, Home Office. And the recent introduction of a working identity tool will doubtless in time enable that single verified identity to percolate across departments.

& that there railway?
We should have started with HS3 - the T across the North. The time savings on HS2 are marginal, and making 'time' the rationale is an engineer's fallacy. It's not the only way people measure the value of train travel. They'll factor in everything from comfort, time to do something, carbon footprint, etc.
Yes, north/south rail capacity is an issue, but nothing like the challenge East/West.

Will

Many thanks for that update on data sharing, thank goodness they have started to grow up and manage/access/share data across various departments. It's long overdue.

Yes focus on East/West does make sense, but the North is not the main generator of wealth and taxes in the UK, so often a lower priority on capital spend. Having said that. about 20 years ago I had to get from Lytham St Annes to Petworth to pick up a car. So I caught a flight from Blackpool to Luton, then train into London, changed station via the Underground and onto the train stopping at Petworth, whilst it was a bit fragmented it all was on time. Then my surprise as we approached Petworth they announces we had to move to the first 12 carriages (not first class) to get off at Petworth as the station platform was too short for the size of the train! I dont think much has changed since in the intervening years, so ambitious projects like HS2 were necessary in part to increase capacity, but more probably could have been done to improve the current infrastructure to cope better.

Why couldn't the appropriate sections of the UK canal network be filled in for use as railways, whilst it does still cater for leisure traffic it is underutilised and passing thru major conurbations. This has happened in parts of the Midlands, with canals being filled in and recycled for other uses. I was born in Tipton, once known as the Venice of the Midlands as at one time you couldn't get out of Tipton without crossing a canal, not so today. We seem to ignore the obsolete infrastructure we already have in place that has had its time and should be repurposed.