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Britain wants Maglev
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[quote]QUOTE: <i>Originally posted by garyaiki</i> <br /><br />Concorde was a White Elephant if you only consider passenger revenue but where would Airbus be without Concorde? <br />Maglev operating revenue won’t come close to covering expenses but Britain north of London has become flyover country. If Maglev brought some of the prosperity of the south of England to the north of Britain then it wouldn’t be as much a waste of money as say a program to return to the moon. The North votes Labor and maybe this pork barrel project would also pay off politically for Labor. <br />And don’t forget it would one up France. <br />[/quote] <br /> <br />I think Concorde was always a prestige project (the first supersonic passenger jet etc) and making money off the thing was always in second place/ <br /> <br />Land issues will always be a problem with the UK being as crowded as it is. At one point some consortium wanted a high speed freight line running over the former Great Central Main Line, but the project was abandoned i think, so maybe they were thinking of using the ssame route for MAGLEV. <br /> <br />I'm not too keen on the phrase "the north votes labour" - I certainly didn't for one, and whilst I'm always in favour of a new rail link, i'm not sure I want the "prosperity of the south of England" if it comes with the urban sprawl and stress of an overdeveloped region . I'll stick with the flat caps and whippets..[;)] <br /> <br />Plus, this is Tony Blair we're talking about. How many promises has the man made and actually delivered on compared to the many pledges we've been made? And also I think you'll have to take into consideration the amount of time it takes to get a project like this into action. Be it a good thing or otherwise, I doubt Labour will win the next election (the more time you give a politician, the more time he has to p*ss the people off). This last time round the Conservatives were trying to get in on a ticket of lower taxes and government expenditure. If the election came before any work/land buying had actually taken place, would they pull the plug on the project? <br /> <br />As for what's wrong with the existing trains, it's not the trains as such (although Virgin's Voyagers are woefully small - it's a pity they put profit over passenger comfort there), it's the system of privitisation. I'm sure others have gone into depth but it seems to be awash in red tape, politics, blame and general navel gazing from those in authority. Personally, I'd flog the whole lot off to SBB (Swiss Federal Railways) - at least they know how to run trains efficiently, and we'd all get there on time, even if it wasn't on a Maglev...
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