British High Speed Railway Project Is Typically British

[K. A. Pital]

Um... Loudness of high speed rail compared to planes seems minimal to me. Plane noise turned entire regions of Frankfurt into ghettoes, but rail noise is usually much less severe and impacts just the immediate surrounding, not a huge area. I can be wrong though, would be nice to read some stdies on noise areas generated by rail.

[Patroklos]

Its also easier to address with walls for deflection and absorption. Even surrounding buildings and trees will help. Good luck doing that for a plane taking off or landing over 25ft or so.

[Thanas]

All of the main projects I listed have either started building already or are currently searching for final bids, except for 1 where they have just finished preliminary planning.

So the money was blatantly already spent previously to engineer them. You don't detail engineer stuff like that in one year.

That depends, part of the projects still have not started, for example the VDE8 Project has not really started.

Sure, right after you provide a actual cost breakdown of what DB Projektbau actually spent for the projects you claim prove the British are massively overspending.

These were a bit harder to find because the Bahn does not publish them in one part and the Government Ministry for Transportation just names both planning and building costs in their official report.

However I was able to find the following:
Engineering and managing costs for Neubaustrecke Wendtlingen Ulm: 270 Millions for 60 km Source - includes both managing and engineering costs and this is part of the stuttgart 21 Projekt and has gone through numerous redesigns.
Katzenbergtunnel (17,8 km Tunnel) : 90 Millions (Source Page 10)
Neubaustrecke Rhein/Main-Rhein/Neckar: 36,9 Millions (so far, page 8 official report), 85 km. This figure is significant because the project planning should have been completed in 2012.

I was unable to find any real costs for the 515 km of VDE8. However, the complete Project Volume is 9.8 bn EUR for 515 km, including 227 km of new High speed rail. So the British figures just seem too much for me, especially considering that VDE8 also involved building in densely populated cities and tunneling through mountains, shifty ground etc.

I'm not doing your work for you. I am very tired of this out of you, you always demand sources from people, and never provide them yourself. I can't find a single reference anywhere to a entirely new 124km right of way being built recently in Germany, and since most German high speed lines have been adaptions of existing rights of way, count me skeptical that it really is one.

Before you accuse me of lying, you might want to look at this.

[Irbis]

That would be DB Projektbau, who do all project management, consulting, coordination, planning as well as building supervision. They employ 4415 people and in 2012 they charged 706,7 per year for all railway projects in all of Germany. Link in German.

Speaking of which, there is Berlin-Szczecin international rail line. Very popular, with a lot of passengers between two largest cities in the region - sadly most of them travel by bus, as 140 km long line has 30 kilometre long zone lacking electricity (entirely on German side, all deficiencies on Polish one were fixed years ago) necessitating either locomotive changes or passengers changing trains twice. It's kind of sad they're too busy to deal with quick cheap fix that doesn't need land purchase or new construction

[Thanas]

Actually, that one got funded and is apparently going to be done in 2020.

EDIT: They also only managed to sign a treaty with Poland regarding this topic in December 2012. Source.

[Irbis]

Actually, that one got funded and is apparently going to be done in 2020.

Eight years for such small thing? Still, it's success, I guess, last year I personally tested German infrastructural problems not finished after eighty years of working on them

[Thanas]

Actually, that one got funded and is apparently going to be done in 2020.

Eight years for such small thing? Still, it's success, I guess, last year I personally tested German infrastructural problems not finished after eighty years of working on them

We'll fix it as soon as you get post-soviet railroad cars on the road to warsaw. The ones I saw at Berlin five months ago looked absolutely crappy.

[Irbis]

We'll fix it as soon as you get post-soviet railroad cars on the road to warsaw. The ones I saw at Berlin five months ago looked absolutely crappy.

I meant Bundesautobahn 99 - started 1938, barely half-finished today. I was on a tour of Bavaria and Austria, and let me tell you, the one system that was supposed to link all the relevant roads together having huge holes caused me to burn quite a few extra Euro in gas. And I was just visiting, what about people who use it daily? Tsk, tsk.

As for railroad cars, first, you can thank our CDU-like right-wingers for completely botched privatisation of Polish railway, second, pray tell, what line it was? If it was economy class operator like TLK, sure, they do have old stock. Their main selling point is cheap travel, not luxury. You want good cars, pick EIC or something.

[Thanas]

I meant Bundesautobahn 99 - started 1938, barely half-finished today. I was on a tour of Bavaria and Austria, and let me tell you, the one system that was supposed to link all the relevant roads together having huge holes caused me to burn quite a few extra Euro in gas. And I was just visiting, what about people who use it daily? Tsk, tsk.

It is Bavaria. Wether Bavaria is a part of Germany is open to debate. I myself like to think they are not. Also, you are supposed to enjoy the extra travel. It is how we enforce both a darwinian selection and will soon make extra money via the CSU-proposed toll. Only enforced on non-German cars, of course, because after all inferior foreigners do not pay German taxes (yet).

As for railroad cars, first, you can thank our CDU-like right-wingers for completely botched privatisation of Polish railway, second, pray tell, what line it was? If it was economy class operator like TLK, sure, they do have old stock. Their main selling point is cheap travel, not luxury. You want good cars, pick EIC or something.

Pfft, do you expect me to remember second-class wagons? Also, you have multiple train lines? How inefficient of you. Over here we have a good old-fashioned monopoly on high-speed rail. Which is awesome because it gives us a convenient target to rail against.

Like those DB guys who require you to go all the way to Hamburg to recover a lost item. Darwinian selection again - only weak people lose items on trains.