Thought it time for a new thread. It seems they have just discovered theyll need to spend another 43billion at the ends to make it worthwhile. Not from some focus group, but the actual infrastructure minister. Seemd a bit late to turn the report over to find it has more on the back.
I find it bewildering that India can fire a rocket into space for a couple of million, but we can't build a railway line for a tens of billions. Sure, the health and safety procedures and to make sure we get it right costs lots. But not billions, surely?
Im sure hes probably looking for a bit of publicity..but a quick look over the plans easily shows that you need more than just a fast train to get the full benefit...this 43 billion will probably be the most useful. The train itself is next to pointless.
Plus massively expensive compulsory purchase orders and compensation payouts along the route. Oh, and moving a river.
Road construction workers also get paid fucking loads. I just find it amazing that China is building railways across its county through mountains over rivers etc. Yet we can't seem to build a MUCH shorter railway track.
China also doesn't care about human lives and could not give any less of a fuck if someone dies on the job
China has yet to develop its middle class and the resultant billions going to an endless army of consultants..lawyers..imagineers...pre and post consultants..impact assesors..climate change experts and overseeing firms. They just have workers and people who tell the workers what to do. Seriously I was talking to a guy who was an art teacher from a local university...he had retired and now had a consultancy firm who advised artists on how to claim EU art grants. Basically it was how to bullshit the guy with the money. He was earning 150K a year...and heres the hilarious bit..the EU was paying his firm to do it.
China's middle class is at an all time high, that's why you're seeing so many Chinese students in British universities, they all have ridiculous amounts of wealth behind them. @CorNokZ I don't think the costs that health and safety bring to a project can amount to the difference in price. China's cost that pretty much covers most of China (bar the west) = $112 billion = 38,000 KM Full speed ahead for fast rail network with US$112 billion boost Britain's cost is $81 billion = 530 KM. I mean. Come on. I think @Job is right on this one, there's far too much open corruption which isn't really considered corruption - I know about it in the building trade, it's fucking rampant but it's considered to be 'business'. In China, you'd be executed for the kinda shit that goes on. I'm not saying that China's Government is acceptable by any means, but I'm sure there's more we can do, otherwise we will inevitably allow China to develop way beyond our capabilities because we're too busy fucking around trying to get rich.
How come my sneakers are made in China? What about my clothes? All my electronics?? Why can they produce at a much lower cost than we can?? HOW!? A gazillion poor people with no union, willing to work under any condition regardless of safety and payment. Yes their middle-class numbers are higher than ever, but there are still a fuckton of working-class people. I'm not denying that you're paying overprice, but the Chinese are most certainly paying the bare minimum.
mmm, I dunno, the days of en mass labour to build is going. Sure, factories are pretty bad but building railway tracks usually relies on heavy machinery that requires training.
In china they just use slave labour. I mean, more overtly slave labour than uk workers on shit pay wage slavery...
Kafala system - Wikipedia Qatar's World Cup workers are not workers, they are slaves, and they are building mausoleums, not stadiums China’s Forced Labor Problem
Report alleges that China continues to use forced prison labour to produce exports to the US, in violation of US law and trade agreements | Business & Human Rights Resource Centre
Just like the yanks. And I think the Tories are on about it for here - even though it'll put some law-abiding folks out of jobs...
Yeah but the work that the usa prisoners do is clean the street or make mail bags or something. The chinese use that free labour to make export goods and under cut internal producers in the importing country. As far as i have read any way.
The Chinese forcibly displaced 1.4 million people to build a dam. I would assume not much of a shit is given to people in the way of some rail lines, whereas that kinda thing is frowned upon here.
Number plates, mail bags even playground aparatus (swings and climbing frames etc.) but usually it is for federal or local city use.
They do a lot more than that. Take a look at www.unicor.gov - most of the products sold there are wholly or partly made by prisoners. There’s a shit-ton of stuff. They even have prisoners working in call centres these days.
Is the HS2 rail project in trouble? Is Chris Grayling the only person in this country who actually believes they won't go over budget (£55.5bn) on HS2? Also on the infrastructure front the recent news of Thames Water not making as much profit as last year and a reference to invest £11.7bn over 5 years made me think of the Thames Tideway project. London has grown massively over the decades and yet we've allowed Thames Water to dump 39,000,000 million tonnes of sewage every year into the Thames via 57 CSOs, London is undoubtedly going to continue to grow and by the time the whole project is finished by 2023 it'll surely still require the dumping sewage into the Thames with weak fines for doing so.
China's middle class is three times bigger than the whole population of the UK. What they don't have is a government that's accountable to that middle class. So, sure, chuck out democracy and you can really get things done!
That should be 39 million tonnes not 39,000,000 million, still a hell of a lot of wet wipes and shit going into the Thames.
Personally I prefer our system, however I would still argue it needs streamlining since I tend to believe too much bureaucracy can be quite deadly to democracy.
Here we go. Let it go way over budget or we'll slow it down. Surely this joke is nearing cancellation. HS2 may run fewer, slower trains to stay on budget and schedule
Holy shitballs, I didn't realise HS2 isnt going to be completed till 2033. So add on the real world and its 2036. I can't even...
Another thinktank ripping HS2 a new one. HS2 would widen UK 'north-south' divide and should be axed, says report
