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Arguing Against High Speed Rail in Britain

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[quote user="Phoebe Vet"] " I think there is a world market for maybe five computers. " Thomas Watson IBM He was from my home town. My uncle has a Bundy time clock hanging on his wall.  Bundy, being one of the companies that merged into the newly formed International Business Machines. The point that I was making was that the author in the news article was claiming that NOBODY wants the HSR in England.  I doubt that he has asked EVERYBODY. [/quote] Irrespective of what probably was a one-off statement, perhaps taken out of context, Watson went on to lead arguably the most successful computer company in the world. Moreover, you left out Jobs, Gates, and the hundreds if not thousands of others who were prescient enough to see the role computers would eventually play in the world.  Not that this has anything to do with high speed rail in GB. Having re-read the original post, as well as the supporting article, I don't see any comments about no one wants high speed rail in the UK.  This is the only statement that I could find that reflects the author's views of public opinion: Never mind the public; all this doesn’t appear to be convincing even the businessmen it is aimed at. Polls show they are rapidly turning against the idea, seeing it as a gargantuan waste of money.  The author is correct regarding the escalating cost of the California High Speed Rail Project and its likely impact on ticket prices. The project was originally estimated to cost approximately $33 billion before financing.  The original estimate mushroomed to nearly $98 billion before someone did a project sanity check and scaled the project back to an estimated $68 billion. This too is before financing, which depending on the terms, could double the cost of the project. Cost overruns are not restricted to U.S. high speed rail projects. According to the Institute of Economic Affairs, the latest cost estimates for the British high speed rail project is approximately $80 billion, which is a significant increase over the original cost estimate. It is not clear from the supporting article whether this cost estimate includes financing.   I have no reason to doubt the authors claims regarding the cancelled high speed rail projects in Europe.
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