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The construction of HS2, a high speed rail link between London and the north of England, has been approved. The announcement was made by Boris Johnson yesterday. Phase 1, due for completion in 2028 at the earliest, will be between London and Birmingham; Phase 2, due in 2035 at the earliest, will be two separate lines onwards to Manchester and Leeds.
The trains will travel at up to 250 mph. They will otherwise be conventional, and will take electrical power from overhead catenary. The line will have connections with existing ones, enabling some trains to continue at lower speeds to further destinations, such as Liverpool and Scotland.
The routes will be broadly parallel with existing ones, which are generally running at full capacity. Rail passenger travel in the UK has greatly increased in recent years and this, rather than the reduction in journey times, is the main driver for the project.
Note : It is called HS2 because it is the second high speed line in the UK, HS1 being the link from St. Pancras International railway station in central London to the Channel Tunnel.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday February 14 2020, @03:38AM
Yeah I don't really know the answer. Just musing. It seems like we've already built and are maintaining the highways and roads, so that's a wash. Spending extra billions on high speed rail when the other things are about to render it mostly moot doesn't seem as necessary as it did a few years ago.
For coast-to-coast travel, or to hop over the big ponds I'd prefer lighter-than-air travel in zeppelins to trains or ships. I know I'm a bit of an oddball on that one but I really, really hate 747s. For anything from New York to the upper Great Plains I'd take a self-driving EV before a high speed train because I wouldn't have to bother switching modes and could stop off and see stuff along the way; a lot of people consider the middle of the country empty "Flyover Country," but there's so much cool stuff you'd never get to see except by car, like the Lake Superior Highlands, the Indiana State Dunes, Great River Bluffs State Park, and so on.
That's hard to say also. I imagine most people would charge their cars at night, when the 24-hr spot prices for grid power are lowest. Utilities typically run at a loss then and make it up during peak in the afternoon and early evening. So people charging at night would probably only bring that cost curve up to break-even. In some places it's even possible to time-shift your billing such that you charge up batteries at night when rates are lowest and run off batteries during peak. Utilities don't mind that so much because they get to minimize their losses at night and don't have to work so hard to make sure they have enough capacity to handle spikes during peak.
But that's with things as they are now. Renewables, though, are coming on strong. Solar has already reached grid parity in something like 35 states. Eventually home owners will figure that out and become their own mini power plants. So that will affect rates also. And the higher grid power rates go up, the more financially advantageous it becomes to go solar.
Washington DC delenda est.