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Online Friend's avatar

Nice argument, but I like the noise and smell a diesel train makes when leaving a station. After all, it's not the fuel source that's the problem, it's the amount of traffic on the road that needs to switch to the railway.

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Julian Le Vay's avatar

Interesting. We're often told our much higher costs of infrastructure projects is down to the elaborate planning system and cost of land but surely neither apply to electrification of existing lines?

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Matthew Hutton's avatar

Land cost is like £10k a hectare. Yes its higher, yes if you are building a cycleway it’s meaningful. But when you are spending £10m/km or more its not particularly relevant.

With planning a good first step would be to constructively engage with the people affected rather than just steamrolling them as HS2 have done.

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