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![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Well, maybe Holyrood should start planning their own High-Speed Rail network? Don't rely on Westminster, do it yourself.
Well, that's not going to happen unless our engineers build the thing all the way down to wherever HS 2 was supposed to end up in London. Because it's not much use if it stops at Gretna Green - the runaway marriage market isn't all that strong anymore. 
The problem with the whole HS 2 farrago was that there was a complete absence of joined up thinking at the top end - and too much pandering to the NIMB Ys in England who didn't want that kind of thing being done in their backyard. As far as I'm aware the proposed route suffered many changes due to that odious influence. That's quite apart from the project's Achille's Heel, or should I say Achille's Whole Leg up to the Waist - no terminus in Scotland.
Edit. We are building a new stretch of high speed rail between Glasgow and Edinburgh, due to be completed by 2024. At least according to the project's Wikipedia page.
edited 30th Jun '16 2:14:12 AM by TamH70
Also Scotrail is getting GWR's table scraps HS Ts when the 800s finally come on stream.
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Who said that the railway needs to meet up with any railway south of the Border? 
Not that it's anything new to British railways — the same happened back in the 1860s. Hence railway stations being built a few miles out from the towns they serve, or railways diverted because a landowner didn't want a railway built across his land...
edited 30th Jun '16 2:34:24 AM by Greenmantle
Keep Rolling On
That's true, but we don't have to keep making the same mistakes as the past. We're supposed to be better than our ancestors or else there's no point to civilization.
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Then the alternative is to reject any and all objections and carry straight on, China-style? That hasn't flown since the 1960s, after the Roskill Commission gave their findings.
Keep Rolling On
Compulsory purchase orders for a fixed-maximum fee, with no comebacks to the Supreme Court. But only as a last resort when all other scenarios have failed, particularly when some NIMBY is solely dragging out the process to get more moneyz. And only if the route CANNOT work without the land - there's a shedload of land in this country that could possibly be used for railways that's just in some asshole supermarket's land bank.
But none of this matters unless the people at the top aren't as stupid as that prick who said that there was no economic case to extend HS 2 to Scotland. When we heard about that up here we were extremely pissed. And some of us still are /points at self.
Yeah, I live about half a mile from where HS 2 makes its Down approach to the proposed Birmingham Interchange station. The amount of protest stickers around the village is kind of ridiculous.
"Yup. That tasted purple."
There's just been a major train accident in Italy, near the town of Corato. Apparently 23 fatalities and over 50 injuries. Frontal collision of two trains on the same single track line.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Does Italy not use a form of absolute block working then?
"Yup. That tasted purple."
Signal passed at danger is a thing down there as well. Also, it's been less than 24 hours ago. Investigations in disasters are not so quick.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
So how does Italian signalling handle single track working? Is it some form of token block, or something else?
"Yup. That tasted purple."
Italy and Switzerland both use light signals. And signal passed at danger has caused incidents in Italy and Switzerland before - the Solignano incident in June 2000 was caused by a red signal being ignored and there were two non-fatal accidents for this reason in 2015 in Switzerland.
Although the Tiefencastel incident of August 2014 - a train being thrown out of the track by a landslide and plunging into a gorge - are probably more scary.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Those aren't necessarily exclusive; British signalling is mostly colour-light based but single-track sections use train staves, or physical or electronic tokens to give drivers authority to enter the block.
"Yup. That tasted purple."
I've never seen such a procedure being applied here, anyway. Probably because it's too time consuming in places where single line tracks are interrupted by stations at many points - which is a substantial amount of our rail network.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
"Just as planned."
Just going up to DBL - that section of the line uses telephone block colour-light, although there are plans to make it double line and thus remove that issue.
Most of the actual signals in that area though are mostly single-light with filters applied over them to change colour.
(I forget the term now and my Google searches return nothing, so hopefully I make sense.)
edited 12th Jul '16 4:28:40 PM by RatherRandomRachel
"Did you expect somebody else?"
I guess this video covers most of what I said. Even if it is nearly thirty years old.
Death toll from the incident is now 26 fatalities and may rise still. One of the drivers is dead and the other one badly injured.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Crap. That sucks that the crash killed that many folks. Thoughts to the families.
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Then again, my view on that is that the same thing would have happened on a nationalised railway. Blame the DfT.
Now:
Keep Rolling On
Now that's Thomas the Tank Engine without his face, unless I'm very much mistaken.
Well, it seems then that I was very much mistaken. ![[lol]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/lol2v12_4863.png "[lol]"){kind=small}
Thanks for the clarification.
HS 2 wasn't going to solve those problems in Scotland. We were going to wither on the vine without a modern fast train service to London. It may have helped in England but I repeat the line's main function, without a connection to Glasgow Central, was as a revenue and talent drainer from the Midlands and the North. It only made sense as a transport solution with termini in both England and Scotland. Absent either one of those it made as much sense as a chocolate fireguard.
Maybe the next time they try it they'll get a clue and connect both countries properly with a high-speed passenger and rail freight line which is even more necessary now trade within the UK is going to take a bigger priority post-Brexit because Johnson and his racist, bigoted, hate-filled cohorts have shat the bed with their European trading partners.