You give them too much credit. Most of Birmingham-Manchester is 110mph.
Not quite correct. HS stock has such rapid acceleration they could still do 125mph.
I think the linespeed is substantially 110mph, though, isn't it? I haven't really got the energy to look through the Sectional Appendix after a pint and a half of Cotswold Voodoo cider, but a quick google suggests that Coven-southern Stafford and Sandbach-Cheadle Hulme are 125mph, and the rest is 110mph or less.
Surely even Sunak wouldn't be mad enough to pretend he could send trains through HS trains through Coven. You'd have to path them through New Street or build tracks round it, both of which are about as plausible as Dominic Cummings having an intelligent idea on any given topic.
I am 100% serious in suggesting that @Keir_Starmer announce that HS2 will be built to Manchester and that Labour will rename it the King Charles Railway
Ugh. We could name it after someone who's done something better for the country. Brunel, Pankhurst, Lineker, Austen. Anything but some fucking sausage-fingered monarch.
Stephenson or Smeaton would make sense.
Make it Stephenson G and John Locke *together*. They did the Grand Junction Railway (Brum to L&M). Smeaton was a canal chappie wasn't he?
A great civil engineer, if not a railway engineer. Northern lad too.
I am 100% serious in suggesting that @Keir_Starmer announce that HS2 will be built to Manchester and that Labour will rename it the King Charles Railway
Ugh. We could name it after someone who's done something better for the country. Brunel, Pankhurst, Lineker, Austen. Anything but some fucking sausage-fingered monarch.
Stephenson or Smeaton would make sense.
Make it Stephenson G and John Locke *together*. They did the Grand Junction Railway (Brum to L&M). Smeaton was a canal chappie wasn't he?
A great civil engineer, if not a railway engineer. Northern lad too.
Locke was great too. Especially for the shareholders. IIRC he didn't make the screwups Stephenson G and Brunel IK sometiomes did.
I am 100% serious in suggesting that @Keir_Starmer announce that HS2 will be built to Manchester and that Labour will rename it the King Charles Railway
Ugh. We could name it after someone who's done something better for the country. Brunel, Pankhurst, Lineker, Austen. Anything but some fucking sausage-fingered monarch.
Stephenson or Smeaton would make sense.
Make it Stephenson G and John Locke *together*. They did the Grand Junction Railway (Brum to L&M). Smeaton was a canal chappie wasn't he?
Smeaton was one of those annoying people who was good at everything. Around Newark he is known for building 'Smeaton's Arches' - a raised section of the Great North road which crosses the Trent floodplain. But he also built canals, bridges, harbours, mills and lighthouses as well as devising some of the equations which would eventually help the Wright Brothers to take to the air. A remarkable and largely unsung hero of the industrial revolution.
I am 100% serious in suggesting that @Keir_Starmer announce that HS2 will be built to Manchester and that Labour will rename it the King Charles Railway
Ugh. We could name it after someone who's done something better for the country. Brunel, Pankhurst, Lineker, Austen. Anything but some fucking sausage-fingered monarch.
Stephenson or Smeaton would make sense.
Make it Stephenson G and John Locke *together*. They did the Grand Junction Railway (Brum to L&M). Smeaton was a canal chappie wasn't he?
Smeaton was one of those annoying people who was good at everything. Around Newark he is known for building 'Smeaton's Arches' - a raised section of the Great North road which crosses the Trent floodplain. But he also built canals, bridges, harbous, mills and lighthouses as well as devising some of the equations which would eventually help the Wright Brothers to take to the air. A remarkable and largely unsung hero of the industrial revolution.
I must find a decent biog of him - I seem to have one of most of the others.
I am 100% serious in suggesting that @Keir_Starmer announce that HS2 will be built to Manchester and that Labour will rename it the King Charles Railway
Ugh. We could name it after someone who's done something better for the country. Brunel, Pankhurst, Lineker, Austen. Anything but some fucking sausage-fingered monarch.
To Manchester? Not Austen. Name it after the Manchester based author of North and South: welcome to The Mrs Gaskell Line.
Cranford “The railway is coming!” Manchester “No it isn’t!”
I am 100% serious in suggesting that @Keir_Starmer announce that HS2 will be built to Manchester and that Labour will rename it the King Charles Railway
Ugh. We could name it after someone who's done something better for the country. Brunel, Pankhurst, Lineker, Austen. Anything but some fucking sausage-fingered monarch.
Stephenson or Smeaton would make sense.
Poor old Joseph Locke, who actually built the line from Birmingham to Manchester and north to Glasgow, being unfairly neglected yet again.
I am 100% serious in suggesting that @Keir_Starmer announce that HS2 will be built to Manchester and that Labour will rename it the King Charles Railway
I am 100% serious in suggesting that @Keir_Starmer announce that HS2 will be built to Manchester and that Labour will rename it the King Charles Railway
Ugh. We could name it after someone who's done something better for the country. Brunel, Pankhurst, Lineker, Austen. Anything but some fucking sausage-fingered monarch.
Stephenson or Smeaton would make sense.
Poor old Joseph Locke, who actually built the line from Birmingham to Manchester and north to Glasgow, being unfairly neglected yet again.
I am 100% serious in suggesting that @Keir_Starmer announce that HS2 will be built to Manchester and that Labour will rename it the King Charles Railway
Ugh. We could name it after someone who's done something better for the country. Brunel, Pankhurst, Lineker, Austen. Anything but some fucking sausage-fingered monarch.
Stephenson or Smeaton would make sense.
Make it Stephenson G and John Locke *together*. They did the Grand Junction Railway (Brum to L&M). Smeaton was a canal chappie wasn't he?
Stephenson didn't build the Grand Junction. He was fired as chief engineer before building commenced for incompetence.
I am 100% serious in suggesting that @Keir_Starmer announce that HS2 will be built to Manchester and that Labour will rename it the King Charles Railway
Ugh. We could name it after someone who's done something better for the country. Brunel, Pankhurst, Lineker, Austen. Anything but some fucking sausage-fingered monarch.
Stephenson or Smeaton would make sense.
Make it Stephenson G and John Locke *together*. They did the Grand Junction Railway (Brum to L&M). Smeaton was a canal chappie wasn't he?
Stephenson didn't build the Grand Junction. He was fired as chief engineer before building commenced for incompetence.
I did remember something of the sort but not the details so thanks!
I am 100% serious in suggesting that @Keir_Starmer announce that HS2 will be built to Manchester and that Labour will rename it the King Charles Railway
Ugh. We could name it after someone who's done something better for the country. Brunel, Pankhurst, Lineker, Austen. Anything but some fucking sausage-fingered monarch.
Stephenson or Smeaton would make sense.
Poor old Joseph Locke, who actually built the line from Birmingham to Manchester and north to Glasgow, being unfairly neglected yet again.
I know just how he felt.
Poor old Carnyx, the man who first mentioned Joseph Locke on this thread, being unfairly usurped yet again.
I think Sunak is going to have to reveal his plan in advance of the speech - how can he possibly do a leader's speech AND do a pitch of his new plan for Northern infrastructure at the same time? Will he do a powerpoint? He almost needs to do two speeches.
(((Dan Hodges))) @DPJHodges · 20m Large numbers of people leaving Tory conference tonight because there are no trains tomorrow. Thereby missing the PM’s speech announcing the axing of the Manchester rail upgrade. Historians will write entire chapters on the events of the past two weeks…
What’s Rishi going to say that will get the audience to its feet?
Except perhaps, “the last train to London leaves in fifteen minutes….”
I am 100% serious in suggesting that @Keir_Starmer announce that HS2 will be built to Manchester and that Labour will rename it the King Charles Railway
Ugh. We could name it after someone who's done something better for the country. Brunel, Pankhurst, Lineker, Austen. Anything but some fucking sausage-fingered monarch.
Stephenson or Smeaton would make sense.
Poor old Joseph Locke, who actually built the line from Birmingham to Manchester and north to Glasgow, being unfairly neglected yet again.
I know just how he felt.
Poor old Carnyx, the man who first mentioned Joseph Locke on this thread, being unfairly usurped yet again.
(Is that a good enough crawl?)
It's a serious point though that Brunel gets all the attention and Stephenson G too, but look where the Locke shareholders ended up.
I am 100% serious in suggesting that @Keir_Starmer announce that HS2 will be built to Manchester and that Labour will rename it the King Charles Railway
Ugh. We could name it after someone who's done something better for the country. Brunel, Pankhurst, Lineker, Austen. Anything but some fucking sausage-fingered monarch.
Stephenson or Smeaton would make sense.
Make it Stephenson G and John Locke *together*. They did the Grand Junction Railway (Brum to L&M). Smeaton was a canal chappie wasn't he?
Stephenson didn't build the Grand Junction. He was fired as chief engineer before building commenced for incompetence.
I did remember something of the sort but not the details so thanks!
As I recall the last straw was the Penk Viaduct, which he had estimated would cost £5,000 but for which the lowest tender received was slightly higher than his estimate for building the whole section of line he had been allocated.
You give them too much credit. Most of Birmingham-Manchester is 110mph.
Not quite correct. HS stock has such rapid acceleration they could still do 125mph on the WCML. Indeed, the current Hitachi 801s can, and I think the 745s can as well, although they're not currently allowed to.
The much bigger problem being there would need to be several changes:
1) There's no link at Birmingham. The link is at Handsacre near Lichfield. So there would need to be major and rather expensive changes to the layout of Curzon Street;
2) The section to Crewe has already been authorised and construction begun so primary legislation would be needed to halt it - the debate might be embarrassing for the government;
3) Without HS2 even the farcical IRP can't be honoured, revealing Grant Shapps to be an even bigger and more incompetent liar than we already all thought he was. That might lead to him being kicked out of Parliament (we can but hope. Makes Johnson look honest).
Don't follow 1. Birmingham was always on a branch off the main HS2 and will remain thus. No Hs2 trains were ever going to run through Brum to Manchester. Handsacre was always on the route to Manchester, now it will be where HS2 ends and ties in to existing WCML.
On 2 I'm not aware that any phase 2a work has started. That was paused months ago.
Considering OGH's many contributions AND ongoing struggles of UK to connect with itself, respectfully pray, that when my long-standing dream of a Pneumatic Tube connecting Woolwich with Wick in less than ten minutes - WOOSH! - that the Bedford way station be named the Smithson Spout.
Comments
I suspect she wouldn’t, but I sure as hell don’t want to put that to the test.
We have to remember that politicians who trade on “saying the things others won’t” have done rather well for themselves globally in recent years…
In a way, 'incompetent Nazi' feels like a positive outcome of all this.
You have the ones who despair at his antics and are concerned that they will not win because he cannot win and will drag them down.
Then you have the ones who go 'No, he could win, and that's the problem'.
(Is that a good enough crawl?)
Don't follow 1. Birmingham was always on a branch off the main HS2 and will remain thus. No Hs2 trains were ever going to run through Brum to Manchester. Handsacre was always on the route to Manchester, now it will be where HS2 ends and ties in to existing WCML.
On 2 I'm not aware that any phase 2a work has started. That was paused months ago.
The Conservative party under Truss.