We're just building a new major high speed line in the UK, and you'd be surprised how often you hear people say that it shouldn't be built because the technology will be superseded by the hyperloop, or autonomous cars, or whichever. It's one of the major talking points, even if it isn't one of the major blocks.

Meh. The imminency of "Major New Technology Just Around The Corner" has always been a favourite argument for the anti-progress crowd.

EDIT to add: Before Hyperloop, it was Maglev.

And frankly, a significantly better argument against HS2 is that it's an impossibly expensive boondoggle.

> a significantly better argument against HS2 is that it's an impossibly expensive boondoggle.

Nah, it connects most of England's largest cities, and will be 2/3rds of the network which will connect all of the cities of the North of England into something approaching a single labour market. Liverpool, Leeds, Sheffield, Manchester, Birmingham will be all be within 30-50 minutes of each other, with London within an hour and a half, with trains running between destinations 2 or 3 times an hour. The value of that is enormous.

The main point of HS2 is that it will relieve congestion on the existing tracks, and allow more commuter services to run:

https://www.railengineer.uk/2014/01/03/the-capacity-benefits...

http://www.citymetric.com/transport/hs2-isnt-about-north-eng...

The idea that it will turn a load of separate cities into one big city is basically fantasy, as i understand it - this is about HS3, but the analysis is much the same:

http://www.citymetric.com/transport/crossrail-north-really-b...

And yes, i do get all my information from CityMetric, since you ask. It's basically Buzzfeed for transport policy, i love it.

It would have been politically a LOT easier of they'd built a Birmingham-Newcastle leg first

Perhaps. There would also have been political costs incurred due to the overcrowding on the southern end of the WCML and that then being apparently a lower priority than providing a quicker link between two cities.

And yes, I realise the XC trains around Birmingham (inc. to Newcastle) are frequently overcrowded, but there's a comparatively cheap solution to this: buy more trains.

and probably better for the long term economy as well; the last thing Birmingham needs is a reason why London is a good base for doing business in Birmingham.

This is a pet peeve of mine. It hurts not just the other cities in the UK, but London as well. We don't alleviate overcrowding in London by making it easier to move to London. We alleviate overcrowding in London by making more other locations economically stronger.

That should mean strengthening a region around Birmingham, faster links connecting the Leeds - Sheffield - Manchester triangle + tack on Liverpool, and a wide orbital around London improving connections between the towns around London that now are reduced to feeder/sleeper towns. There are towns around London that has decent direct rail tracks, but where the fastest rail route is a 2x-3x longer journey in to a London terminal and back out again. Actually run direct trains, and you suddenly have new viable commuter regions that bypass the centre.

Only after that should we think about making the links between these centres faster.

The problem of course is that many of these will need to be run at substantial losses for years before enough companies etc. will move/get established to change transport patterns, and it's so much easier to justify building more expensive routes where there is existing overcrowding.

Never mind that doing so just attracts more people.

Same here in India. People oppose hsr train as a waste of money in favor of centuries old infrastructure. The same people also believe that if we should move to a new technology, it should be hyperloop, rejecting maglev on the way. They either want current infrastructure to be maintained, or pie in the sky dreams.

its things like these which make it seem like a clever ploy. However cool a technology hyperloop seems like. it is nothing more than a research project with a great marketing stunt.

Yes, I think this is it. I don't buy into any "clever political ploy" theory, but this type of stuff does get into people's heads. The rise of Uber and Lyft are already being used in arguments against mass transit.

It's not competition from Hyperloop that's in consideration. It's the diversion and absorption of public demand and political capital. If people think Hyperloop is in the works, they are less likely to ask for high speed rail. And politicians are less likely to become banner carriers for high speed rail in such a situation.

Not taking a side here, but it doesn't seem useful make fun of the parent comment for what, on its face, seems to me as a pretty apt comment.

These two gentlemen stand to gain from the failure of mass long distance transit. So, why are they spearheading any kind of Hyperloop project? It's a valid question, and the suggestion about their motive is not farfetched for a couple of successful business magnates.

> Practically anything could be "a clever political ploy", but where's the evidence for this?

I mean, Musk's initial announcement regarding the hyperloop was about how California high speed rail shouldn't be built. These are the first lines of his blogpost announcing the hyperloop[1]:

> When the California “high speed” rail was approved, I was quite disappointed, as I know many others were too.

We can debate Musk's motivation, but the fact remains that the hyperloop is being used to argue against high speed rail construction, and has been since it was first announced.

[1] https://www.tesla.com/blog/hyperloop

> Just as a thought experiment, could HN user daemin's comments be part of a clever ploy to invent a fake persona to distract from a SECRET AGENDA? ;)

If that were the case it would be one hell of a troll, set up an account for many years just for this one incident!

Exactly.