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Comment by Drunk_Engineer | Hacker News Reader

Clickbait headline -- the error was caught during the design phase. At worst, this will cause a 2-3 year delay in building the trains.

The more interesting thing about the story is how several top government officials were fired as a result. That would never happen in the US, where decade-long delays are commonplace for train procurement.

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>The more interesting thing about the story is how several top government officials were fired as a result

This is false, government propaganda. https://www.antena3.com/noticias/sociedad/despedido-renfe-po...

Only 2-3 years? That’s a disaster what do you mean! People need to be kept on the payroll, etc and the entire schedule will have more consequences. That is a huge expense for something that is literally a few clicks on a keyboard. It’s something that should never have happened.

I think they mean that it is bad, but minor compared to what would have happened in the US or some other countries, where train projects are delayed 10 years without design problems.

without even commenting on the idea that govt bureaucracy is somehow worse in the US than in the romance countries, a 2-3 year delay would still be added on, and is very significant. it's not like a 10 year delay is great because it gives time to make everything else come out right.

> (...) but minor compared to what would have happened in the US or some other countries (...)

That's just speculation to try to mitigate a colossal screwup.

This is not the first time when Spanish railway companies are caught trying to cover up the consequences of massive incompetence. For instance, the infamous Santiago de Compostela train disaster[1] was attributed to a careless train conductor going over the speed limit to impress a girl, which was a very convenient scapegoat to both ADIF and Renfe, but in truth the root cause as that both companies failed to deploy a mandatory speed monitoring and control system, which has been standard for decades.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santiago_de_Compostela_derailm...

> Clickbait headline -- the error was caught during the design phase.

I don't agree. This is a colossal blunder. Train clearance is a very basic trait of each railway line, along with track gauge. Ordering trains that you cannot even operate in your railway lines is perhaps the biggest screwup any railway operator can possibly make.

I'm not sure you fully understand the magnitude of this sort of screwup. Catching the problem in the design stage actually means it took the manufacturer to double-check the contract to realize his client did a gross unrecoverable mistake that resulted in their orders being fundamentally incompatible with their intended use.

The only clickbaity aspect of this article was tacking another notorious episode of Spanish mishaps which was their submarine design being fundamentally broken. It reads more like a cheap jab at Spain than anything else.

Yeah, I’m scratching my head at the British press laughing at them over this, but seemingly not giving two tiny damns that HS2 is now between £4,000,000,000 and £66,000,000,000 over budget depending on whose figures you trust, and counting.

British Press has been on HS2 quite a bit. Specially when you compare it to the endless highway expansion, those don't get criticized.

True - RIS2 is also running £3,000,000,000 over the £25,000,000,000 budget — while also somehow saying that they can’t spend all of the budget on time.

It’s a nonsensical state of affairs.

https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/153/transport-com...

https://www.newcivilengineer.com/latest/transport-bosses-adm...

Reduce the high way budget by 90% and invest add the Leeds part of HS2 back.

HS2 is 100+ year infrastructure that massively improves the complete rail network of all of England and will allow England to go from backwards in terms of trains to having a fantastic overall network.

England is perfect for High Speed Rail, and rail in general. What they are missing is a few more Crossrail style projects (or S-Bahn style as we call it) in cities other then London, and more Crossrail in London.

I am advocating the same in Switzerland. We already have a great rail network, but one High Speed Line right across the major population part can improve overall rail infrastructure by a huge amount.

Switzerland has rail modal share of ~20% and with a new high speed line and a host of other things, that could be raised to 30-40%.

The capacity you gain on all the old lines for regional and cargo travel is huge.

I support HS2 in principle, but the practical outcome is dire - they are having trouble securing rolling stock, and it looks like due to noise concerns they’re only going to run something like four (diesel) trains a day on it, at 60kph - and then they’ll declare it unprofitable and beeching it, most likely.

This is just how public infrastructure projects in the U.K. work, I’m afraid.

I don't believe that. If the lines that get built they will 100% not run diesel trains on it and it will run as often as planned. At least after a few years. And if a project is done for the next 100+ years, then a few years lower utilization isn't a big deal.

Seems to me all the claims made about how it will fall short and be barley better then a old Victorian line is scare mongering to devalue the project and discredit the benefits it gives.

What is really sad is that the Greens are against it, what utter idiots. Hopefully you can elect some government that actually gets behind the project fully again.

> and then they’ll declare it unprofitable and beeching it, most likely

I don't believe that. NetworkRail was unprofitable, made public still exists. Franchise, unprofitable, made public again still exist. So the idea of these lines simply going away isn't really credible.

And that's why I always travel with uBlock.

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