Quote:
Originally Posted by hereward
Disruption, privatisation, can't think why these posts made me think of HS2. Has HS2 been discussed on here, I can't recall it. An Eurosceptic said it was an EU directive, they want a high speed system across Europe in order to rapidly deploy troops in case of an uprising. Have the experts any opinions?
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Some interesting points there.
Purely my opinion, but I think it's to do with 'Interoperability' (horrible word). The EU is all about having 'one standard' across all countries. And for railways it's a very sensible idea - that any train can operate on any system in any country throughout Europe.
But I read that it has has very high standards, which makes infrastructure projects very expensive. If I understood it correctly, HS2 would be expected to provide width/height measurements to EU standards that are way beyond the UK loading gauge, and this is an enormous waste of money. (Shame really, as I deeply believe that we MUST have double-decker trains, and the sooner we start building infrastructure for it, the better. However, I digress).
As we've discussed here before, European trains don't operate through the Channel tunnel
into our standard system, so Interoperability is irrelevant in the UK. But the EU wouldn't budge.
I won't get into the politics of Brexit here, whatever anybody believes is their right and their business, but it does seem a shame that the EU won't bend over this. Perhaps when/if we come out of Europe, we can at last do things to UK standards.
And as an afterthought, I wonder if ERTMS - the European in-cab signalling system (which is due to be installed here but is already significantly delayed), will be dropped in favour of a Heath Robinson lash up. Which is what 'Make do and mend' Britain always does ?
Just my cynical opinion. Feel free to demolish it if you want.
BW
PS: Apologies to aussiesteve for hijacking his thread> Sorry Chap! ;-)