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The final paragraph: "Objects that have been unearthed will be preserved and many will eventually be displayed in museums. But larger finds will be bulldozed t

The final paragraph: "Objects that have been unearthed will be preserved and many will eventually be displayed in museums. But larger finds will be bulldozed to make way for the new rail line." So much destruction and expense for what increasingly seems like a vanity project.

kmlx 4y ago
> So much destruction i don't want to be too philosophical about this, but: i love history and it's lessons, but at the same time i prefer the future. we tend to cling to the past, historical lessons, historical figures, but this usually hides our own insecurity about the future. i think there is a lot less to be learned from our past that can improve our future than many people believe. but we continue digging up our past, hoping to learn more about ancestors, when in fact we simply don't know the future, and this scares us. > what increasingly seems like a vanity project "climate change", "people working from home", "less cars", etc etc
- Singletoned 4y ago
  > "climate change", "people working from home", "less cars", etc etc https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/hs2-will-never-be-carbon-neutral-in-120-year-lifespan-wk3s29pkl https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/hs2-will-never-be-carbon-... It doesn't look as if HS2 will help towards climate change, even in the long run...
  - mojzu 4y ago
    Not sure if the linked articles covers it due to the paywall, but according this article [1], the estimate that carbon emissions to build it would exceed emissions is possibly overly pessimistic. Such as predicting that air and car travel will get cheaper over time and rail travel more expensive Although if the estimate is accurate I would still hazard a guess that it could be a net positive if it successfully increased capacity/speed to the point where people considered it a viable alternative to air/car journies and it was combined with policies to reduce the costs of rail travel/discourage air and car travel where possible [1] https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/feb/02/will-hs2-really-help-cut-the-uks-carbon-footprint https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/feb/02/will-hs2-rea...
    - dkarl 4y ago
      I wonder if studies are systematically underestimating modal shift because it's impossible to quantify the cultural shift from a generation that saw car travel as a sign of upward mobility to a generation that sees unnecessary car travel as tasteless and harmful.
philjohn 4y ago
It's not a vanity project though. It's to take load of the existing train lines to enable better (more frequent, faster) local services with longer distance services bypassing these lines.
- smcl 4y ago
  Yes, one hundred thousand times this! The national government desperately want to cut bits of it to save money, so there's a concerted effort to paint it as an unnecessary boondoggle, and a lot of people are buying that. And they always say "why don’t we focus on increasing capacity on the existing lines?" - which is insane because HS2 is doing precisely that. Or it would if they didn't keep cutting bits from it (cough)golborne spur(cough)
  - FreezingKeeper 4y ago
    On the Golborne Link, I think they had a fair bit of help from the NIMBYs too
    - smcl 4y ago
      Very helpful too that one of the NIMBYs is a local MP who happened to be overseeing the no-confidence vote in Boris.
  - andyjohnson0 4y ago
    (I wrote the grandparent "vanity project" comment) I do understand that hs2 is about adding capacity, not speed. And I agree that we need more non-car and non-aviation capacity. What i disagree with is provisioning that capacity in the form of a single railway line that goes nowhere near almost all of the country. I described it as a vanity project because politicians (particularly the current pm) like being associated with big, impressive, expensive infrastructure developments. An alternative world in which we spent the hs2 budget on improving the capacity and throughput of existing rail lines and rolling stock could deliver similar objectives while benefitting more of the country. And by being more distributed, it would be more fault tolerant. But it probably wouldn't create photo ops for politicians in hiviz jackets, or translate into votes. And i hate the landscape and habitat destruction inherent in building hs2. Too much damage has been done already. My taxes help pay for this thing. I dont think my scepticism and disgust is uninformed.
matthewmacleod 4y ago
So much destruction and expense for what increasingly seems like a vanity project. It's frustrating to hear this view being shared flippantly after such a long time. It's of course fine to have various views as to whether or not the project is worthwhile or not, but a blithe dismissal as a "vanity project" means you've not really seriously considered it. I'd encourage you to read this article (from a few years ago now, but still applicable) which I think is a good summary as to the importance of the project generally. Even if you disagree, it will hopefully lead to more informed discussion: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/hs2-logistics-financial-benefit-controversy-a8937936.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/hs2-logistic...
- andyjohnson0 4y ago
  > it's frustrating to hear this view being shared flippantly after such a long time. It's of course fine to have various views as to whether or not the project is worthwhile or not, but a blithe dismissal as a "vanity project" means you've not really seriously considered it. I wouldn't say it was blithe dismissal. See my later comment up-thread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31770221 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31770221
billyruffian 4y ago
I live in a smallholding. When the Milford Haven gas transit pipeline was being layed just by the corner of my field they found a henge. Yep, a stone circle, or the remains of it burried right in my back garden, along with countless Beaker People artefacts. The archeologists came, measured and sampled, and the pipeline now runs right through the middle of it. (It did make a curve around a badger sett though). This is a little but old island. Spit and you'll hit history which is pretty awesome but you've got to build for the folk who are living here now.
- gnu8 4y ago
  That really is awesome. How big is a smallholding? I have several acres of trees in the states and there is almost nothing interesting out there. Some trash from hikers is the most I ever see.
Latty 4y ago
As a reminder, the Japanese ministers who set up the bullet trains resigned in shame when the project overran, it was described in a similar way and generally derided, and is, of course, now a symbol of the nation and vital to the economy and general life for a lot of people there. Infrastructure is expensive, hard, and takes a long time. It always will be, but that doesn't mean it isn't worth doing. I'll take what little infrastructure that isn't car-centric we can get.

kmlx 4y ago

> So much destruction i don't want to be too philosophical about this, but: i love history and it's lessons, but at the same time i prefer the future. we tend to cling to the past, historical lessons, historical figures, but this usually hides our own insecurity about the future. i think there is a lot less to be learned from our past that can improve our future than many people believe. but we continue digging up our past, hoping to learn more about ancestors, when in fact we simply don't know the future, and this scares us. > what increasingly seems like a vanity project "climate change", "people working from home", "less cars", etc etc

Singletoned 4y ago
> "climate change", "people working from home", "less cars", etc etc https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/hs2-will-never-be-carbon-neutral-in-120-year-lifespan-wk3s29pkl https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/hs2-will-never-be-carbon-... It doesn't look as if HS2 will help towards climate change, even in the long run...
- mojzu 4y ago
  Not sure if the linked articles covers it due to the paywall, but according this article [1], the estimate that carbon emissions to build it would exceed emissions is possibly overly pessimistic. Such as predicting that air and car travel will get cheaper over time and rail travel more expensive Although if the estimate is accurate I would still hazard a guess that it could be a net positive if it successfully increased capacity/speed to the point where people considered it a viable alternative to air/car journies and it was combined with policies to reduce the costs of rail travel/discourage air and car travel where possible [1] https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/feb/02/will-hs2-really-help-cut-the-uks-carbon-footprint https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/feb/02/will-hs2-rea...
  - dkarl 4y ago
    I wonder if studies are systematically underestimating modal shift because it's impossible to quantify the cultural shift from a generation that saw car travel as a sign of upward mobility to a generation that sees unnecessary car travel as tasteless and harmful.

philjohn 4y ago

It's not a vanity project though. It's to take load of the existing train lines to enable better (more frequent, faster) local services with longer distance services bypassing these lines.

smcl 4y ago
Yes, one hundred thousand times this! The national government desperately want to cut bits of it to save money, so there's a concerted effort to paint it as an unnecessary boondoggle, and a lot of people are buying that. And they always say "why don’t we focus on increasing capacity on the existing lines?" - which is insane because HS2 is doing precisely that. Or it would if they didn't keep cutting bits from it (cough)golborne spur(cough)
- FreezingKeeper 4y ago
  On the Golborne Link, I think they had a fair bit of help from the NIMBYs too
  - smcl 4y ago
    Very helpful too that one of the NIMBYs is a local MP who happened to be overseeing the no-confidence vote in Boris.
- andyjohnson0 4y ago
  (I wrote the grandparent "vanity project" comment) I do understand that hs2 is about adding capacity, not speed. And I agree that we need more non-car and non-aviation capacity. What i disagree with is provisioning that capacity in the form of a single railway line that goes nowhere near almost all of the country. I described it as a vanity project because politicians (particularly the current pm) like being associated with big, impressive, expensive infrastructure developments. An alternative world in which we spent the hs2 budget on improving the capacity and throughput of existing rail lines and rolling stock could deliver similar objectives while benefitting more of the country. And by being more distributed, it would be more fault tolerant. But it probably wouldn't create photo ops for politicians in hiviz jackets, or translate into votes. And i hate the landscape and habitat destruction inherent in building hs2. Too much damage has been done already. My taxes help pay for this thing. I dont think my scepticism and disgust is uninformed.

matthewmacleod 4y ago

So much destruction and expense for what increasingly seems like a vanity project. It's frustrating to hear this view being shared flippantly after such a long time. It's of course fine to have various views as to whether or not the project is worthwhile or not, but a blithe dismissal as a "vanity project" means you've not really seriously considered it. I'd encourage you to read this article (from a few years ago now, but still applicable) which I think is a good summary as to the importance of the project generally. Even if you disagree, it will hopefully lead to more informed discussion: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/hs2-logistics-financial-benefit-controversy-a8937936.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/hs2-logistic...

andyjohnson0 4y ago
> it's frustrating to hear this view being shared flippantly after such a long time. It's of course fine to have various views as to whether or not the project is worthwhile or not, but a blithe dismissal as a "vanity project" means you've not really seriously considered it. I wouldn't say it was blithe dismissal. See my later comment up-thread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31770221 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31770221

billyruffian 4y ago

I live in a smallholding. When the Milford Haven gas transit pipeline was being layed just by the corner of my field they found a henge. Yep, a stone circle, or the remains of it burried right in my back garden, along with countless Beaker People artefacts. The archeologists came, measured and sampled, and the pipeline now runs right through the middle of it. (It did make a curve around a badger sett though). This is a little but old island. Spit and you'll hit history which is pretty awesome but you've got to build for the folk who are living here now.

gnu8 4y ago
That really is awesome. How big is a smallholding? I have several acres of trees in the states and there is almost nothing interesting out there. Some trash from hikers is the most I ever see.

Latty 4y ago

As a reminder, the Japanese ministers who set up the bullet trains resigned in shame when the project overran, it was described in a similar way and generally derided, and is, of course, now a symbol of the nation and vital to the economy and general life for a lot of people there. Infrastructure is expensive, hard, and takes a long time. It always will be, but that doesn't mean it isn't worth doing. I'll take what little infrastructure that isn't car-centric we can get.