Re: Stuttgart 21 protests

[Alan Mackenzie]

Hi, Alex.

Alexander Terekhov <terekhov@web.de> wrote:

> Alan Mackenzie wrote:

> [... S21 ...]

>> I'd say about 50-50.  Incidentally, are you aware that Deutsche Bahn
>> (German Railways) have put the project on hold for now?

> That was done to limit the amount of monetary damages (the current
> estimate is 1.5 billion euros at minimum) the land will have to pay
> Deutsche Bahn if the new government will be moronic enough to actually
> achieve cancellation of S21. I hope they are not that stupid.

Well, there's no point throwing good money after bad.  The land is
committed to payments of several or many billion euros, however this
decision goes.

The project was sharply criticised by the conciliator, Heiner Geissler,
in every aspect.  He made many recommendations for improvement, and in
the end said the only reason he was saying the project should go ahead
was the cost of stopping it.

As yet, there's no sign of Deutsche Bahn following Geissler's
recommendations, and several signs of their defying them.

Interestingly, Cologne main station is a through station with ten
platforms (not eight).  Some long distance trains are now bypassing this
station, forcing passengers to take local trains to or from Koeln-Deutz.
We would surely expect to see the same thing in the planned S21 station.

I don't know which way this decision will go.  You hope the project will
continue, I hope it will be cancelled.  We'll see.

> regards,
> alexander.

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).