How pathetic that anyone running a forum would ban people for opposing views.
I find it disappointing if people are unable to express their views openly, part of the beauty of the country that we live in, is that we can have these kind of debates.
Look at the length of this thread - with many opinions on both sides (and some meeting in the middle) and to the best of my knowledge,
nobody has been banned.
What does happen here is that we seem to get waves of people coming on and being very active (usually with almost identical arguments against HS2, as if there's a collectively maintained database of reasons to be against - like the rich MPs on expenses, it only being to Birmingham, it costing a gazillion pounds and probably will overrun and overspend beyond that etc) and then disappearing again, for someone else to take over.
That is because many of the points have never been answered, personally I return periodically out of interest, I would expect nothing less than an 80-20 pro split on a railway forum. There is only so far you can go to expose your points of view.
Of course, if they were a little bit more honest about their concerns, or could come up with fair and logical alternatives - or even compromises - then I'd gladly listen. I've never suggested the current plans are absolutely perfect, but I do know we need to build it one way or another.
Different people object for different reasons, I've always made perfectly clear that my objections are around 1) connectivity (and thus damage caused) to additional cities, 2) poor station locations, 3) high speed destroying green credentials and enforcing destruction of more key sites than are necessary, and 4) a lack of cohesiveness into a sound transport strategy.
Of these HS2 Ltd, supported by all main political parties, and totally dismissed the speed point as non negotiable. If as is now claimed this is about capacity, more is gained by slowing the route down and serving more locations, than running at such high speeds.
You only have to look at suggestions made on the HS3 thread, with suggestions of as many as 5 stations within a distance that HS2 say is too close together to operate, to understand that our conurbations are close together much more so in almost the rest of the world that has high speed rail.
If this is about capacity now, and not speed as originally planned we must go back and design the line based around this requirement, and not that of speed. I want a new line, I support high speed rail what I cant support is spending £50bn plus on a bad plan, which will fail to bring the benefits promised as much less capacity is removed from the classic lines than is being sold, it really doesn't take a genius to work out that if you remove one train per hour out of Birmingham New Street, that major increases in services and capacity can occur, it is pure nonsense.
Of the issues that I have 1,2, & 3 are all speed related and now bear no relation to the restated purpose of the project, and if you solve 4 we identify what we actually need to serve this country properly, and many of those against will fade away.
That said some of the anti arguments are more destroying to me coming from my view point, actually knowing that they are not based in fact, are emotive clutching at straws, and deflect from some of the real challenges that should be placed on HS2, but as I have said before the battle for hearts and minds was lost, and why? because the whats in it for me question was answered with nothing.
