[Petrochemicals (OP)]

Why can we not construct things in Britian for a reasonable ammount of money ? We who started the whole civil engineering construction idea with bridges and canals.  For example

Germany and Denmark construct a 12 mile long tunnel under the sea bed,  consisting of 2 railway lines and 6 lanes of traffic, of components are made on land and floated out to be buried under the sea bed, estimated cost ?6 billion.

Spain has built 2500 miles of high speed rail at a cost of ?60 billion

The gottard base tunnel, 35 miles of high speed train line through solid rock under a mountain for about ?8 billion

Milan built 10 miles of underground tunnel for 1.5 billion, with similar projects in the pipeline (boom boom tish) around Italy.



..........Mean while in the UK,

A tunnel under the Thames, not a very large river, 6 lanes of traffic ?9 billion.

Cross rail, low speed 26 miles of tunnel 73 miles total, 20 billion

The obligatory hs2, 100 billion, 100 miles.


To drag Ireland in too ( for pauls sake), metrolink is costing ?10 billion for 12 miles.


I am not just having a moan, I am in awe of the cost and how anyone would think that this would benefit the countries. It isn't that they have cheap labour, or their capabilities are greater. The engineering required is similar. The environmental conditions for the engineering are either similar or milder in Britian. It is incomprehensible.

[alancalverd]

We no longer train or value engineers and craftsmen in Britain. We don't do Public Works by direct labor or even centrally controlled contracts, but by the taxpayer making extravagant promises to pay whatever it costs regardless of whether the Minister's brother in law actually delivers the goods or merely borrows money from someone else's brother to pay huge dividends, performance bonuses, interest on the capital, and fines for breaches of environmental regulations . This is the land of accountants, lawyers and consultants, so there is no money left to actually do anything by the time you have raised all the objections and paid your dues to the  Conservative Party. We even have a privatised post office that gives money to a fraudulent software company, sues its own employees for the faults in that software,  pays massive bonuses to the scum who organised it all, then demands that the taxpayer compensates the victims.

I blame Margaret Thatcher and all the latterday Thatcherites (name any subsequent Cabinet) whose families and friends have their snouts in the botttomless trough.

[paul cotter]

Petro wants to drag me into the argument too, how dare he!. If you want an example of bad project management in Ireland, have a look at the yet unfinished children's hospital where the expected cost keeps rising and rising.

[alancalverd]

....and architects. Some years back I secured a contract to supply an MRI machine to a new hospital that was being  built under the corrupt Private Finance Initiative. At a project planning meeting I pointed out that the award-winning spiral design of the building would not accommodate an MRI suite as the designated room was too narrow at one end. The chief crook said "can't you make a smaller machine?"

[Petrochemicals (OP)]

Thanks for the answers thus far.

Bad planning Paul does not get to a cost of ~5~ times the cost (hs2 50 times the price per mile than that of Spain).

It does make you think whether there is corruption  or imbecility,  but even corruption has its limits. Tradesmen have been known to rub their chin whilst sharply drawing breath before quoting prices to see if the customer has any idea at all. I do get the idea that this is going on in west minster. We do need an adult in the room when the government are quoted 1000 pounds for changing a light bulb.

[alancalverd]

HS2 has so far taken twice as long, and cost 100 times as much per mile, as flying to the Moon, the differences being that (a) it uses 200-year-old technology (b) it runs along a route that has been travelled by humans for at least 6000 years (c) it cannot reach its planned destination and (d) it still doesn't work.

But the lawyers and bankers have been paid.

[Petrochemicals (OP)]

Architects can drive the price up, but for 5 times the price you would expect something like the palace of versailles. Even with adding in things like wildlife habitat the ratio of costs does not make sense to my brain. Milan is a city like London yet it costs 5 times less to put an underground system in and I'm sure that they also have lawyers bankers and architects in Milan.

And you should really think about making your machines to fit rooms Alan, it is very untidy of you.

[alancalverd]

Unfortunately I have to make my machines to fit people, who are annoyingly untidy and often quite sick and uncooperative.

There are some excuses for the relative cost of London underground works. Milan only has four lines with very few intersections and was designed as a whole from the outset, whereas London attempts to integrate some 15 public lines, mostly built competitively rather than collaboratively 100 years earlier than Milan, along with a legacy network of  sewers, bunkers, rivers, power and private tunnels, some dating back to the Romans, under a very crowded city with rather complex geology, with equally disparate overground railway termini.   Digging a hole in London is an adventure rather than a contract!

[paul cotter]

Do you do mri machines to accommodate the bariatric patient?

[alancalverd]

Yes! I worked on large open and upright MRI systems and we accepted many referrals from hospitals that could not squeeze their patient into a tunnel for all sorts of reasons - deformity, claustrophobia, or sheer bulk (including athletes - the shoulders of a prop forward, weightlifter or wrestler are huge and vulnerable).

The limit is economics. Increasing the space between the poles of a 1 tesla open magnet costs $10,000,000 per inch in R&D, and a fair bit of that in production.   

[Petrochemicals (OP)]

Well the new lines on the Milan underground probably are not linking to existing stations on the whole, extensions rather than intersections, but that I can see is a double edged sword, in london they didnt have to build entirely new stations at all of the stops, knock the wall through and you're good to go. Milan is probably on a similar age range as that of London, with associated legacy costs plus it is also quite large too, the biggest built up area in Italy. 16 billion or 400 percent extra ?

I would think that they are running a covert funding system to shield us from an iminent threat or natural disaster like a Hollywood film, in a few years we hear that hs2 was a clever front to allow the construction of Dr strangelove type living accommodation.

[alancalverd]

in london they didnt have to build entirely new stations at all of the stops, knock the wall through and you're good to go.

I recommend "Secrets of the London Underground" - stream on "U & Yesterday". The rationalisation of the Tube network has been amazingly complicated, and as with all complex systems, complexity increases exponentially with complexity!

London's underground railway began in 1863, 100 years and two world wars before Milan's, and carries 4 times as many passengers per day. The Elizabeth line alone is longer than the entire Milan network.

[paul cotter]

I have watched some of those documentaries and found them fascinating and informative.

[Petrochemicals (OP)]

The Elisabeth line is an above ground railway for the greater part of it's length. 

[alancalverd]

As is the entire 40 km Green Line in Milan.

[Petrochemicals (OP)]

As is the entire 40 km Green Line in Milan.

Is that the new line ?