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the link above is the opinion of a journalist writing in the Guardian
its worth watching the Channel 4 Dispatches documentary on HS2. They interviewed a lot of rail industry experts and not one of them believed the Birmingham to Manchester stretch would ever be built. So if thats an opinion, it seems to be a fairly unanimous one
Crazy-legs, you're well informed on this, I'm guessing you're DfT and high speed rail group?
At the end of the day do you want a modern rail network or not, and that doesn't mean just fiddling round the edges. You have to have a basic spine that's fit for purpose now and in the future. If you don't then you accept extra road traffic is necessary. Also you need to accept that any sort of levelling up, from Boris Johnson or anyone else, just got a lot more difficult/unliklely.
I want a modern rail network, HS2 is not it.
Levelling up would have been good but HS2 was designed to bring more money to London.
Improving transport links between cities other than London would be levelling up. Having decent units going between places other than London would be levelling up.
Levelling up would have been good but HS2 was designed to bring more money to London.
HS2 is designed as a Birmingham centric project, always was. HS2 are based in Snow Hill Birmingham and view the project as a city interconnection project, with Birmingham at it's heart. The original plan was to link Leeds, Crewe, Liverpool, Sheffield, London and Manchester all via Birmingham. So why start with London to Birmingham then ? simple it was always the most expensive and complex section of the line, it's also the section which would carry the highest passenger numbers. Euston to West Ruislip has the most compelex twin bore section of tunnelling and vent shaft constructions.
Leeds to Manchester via BHM? yep fabulous idea that.
HS2 is designed as a Birmingham centric project, always was. HS2 are based in Snow Hill Birmingham and view the project as a city interconnection project, with Birmingham at it’s heart.
This^^.
Plus it puts Birmingham Airport within 45 minutes of London which is about the same as Stansted and Luton so it eases congestion around the London Airports if you can shift some of it up to Birmingham.
Which in turn puts places like Manchester, Sheffield, York, Leeds closer to an airport with a greater selection of connections therefore avoiding travel to London.
Quite how much Covid and Brexit combined (along with what will have to be some pretty stringent Decarbonisation targets) have scuppered all that international connectivity remains to be seen...
Leeds to Manchester via BHM? yep fabulous idea that.
No, you'd go via the E-W linkage of Northern Powerhouse Rail which is designed to tie into HS2 at each side (Manchester and Leeds).
No, you’d go via the E-W linkage of Northern Powerhouse Rail which is designed to tie into HS2 at each side (Manchester and Leeds).
Should have started with that if it truly was conceived as a city interconnection project.
Has this section even had the go-ahead?
Has this section even had the go-ahead?
None of NPR has had the go-ahead.
The IRP was supposed to be published in February 2021 (and even that was delayed due to Covid) and off the back of that, Transport for the North was then due to publish it's Strategic Outline Case for NPR.
The routes are basically sorted, there were various options of "least worst", "cheapest viable" and "best" all with various parameters mapped out.
DfT then said that, seeing as the IRP is delayed, hold off the publication of the SOC which was agreed. So the whole NPR programme is sort of in limbo (although there's been a lot of further work on surveys, route optimisation and so on but certainly no planning permission given).
The business case for NPR depends on delivery of HS2 in full since some of the track is shared plus the link-ups at Leeds and Manchester are critical.
Leeds to Manchester at the moment is about an hour on TransPennine Express albeit that you have to use the nightmare platforms 16 at Leeds and 13/14 at Manchester Piccadilly. Since 13/14 are the only through platforms at Piccadilly, all the freight goes through there too so any delays just get exported around the North from there.
https://transportforthenorth.com/northern-powerhouse-rail/
On a related note, there were well-advanced plans for 2 additional platforms at Piccadilly which were shelved by that idiot Chris Grayling. Maybe he didn't realise that in order to run trains, it's helpful for them to have platforms to stop at. Was supposed to be part of the Castlefield Corridor improvements - in the end they built the Corridor for improved services but then didn't add the two platforms to accommodate them so effectively they made the bottleneck worse. Classic British engineering exceptionalism, do half a job.
HS2 has been upgraded to Microsoft Teams....
Cheaper faster and better for the environment.
So why start with London to Birmingham then ? simple it was always the most expensive and complex section of the line,
Hmm, only the bits through Birmingham and London, the majority of it is just countryside.
For me from the outset they should aimed for 150mph and 4 tracks with the standard inner fast outer slow approach to get the increased capacity and fast running. That way it wouldn't need full-on concrete base for the entire distance, along with everything else specced for very-high speed, AND over twice the capacity (slower running means more trains on any given stretch of line.
Hmm, only the bits through Birmingham and London, the majority of it is just countryside.
Kind of sums up the attitude of those in favour of this despicable project really.
Just something inconsequential and irritating in the way of ploughing on with the money making.
Most of the talk in this thread is concerned with the economics, and little with the massive destruction of green spaces that unfortunately I am witnessing all around me on my doorstep.
There was an event near me yesterday actually, marking the felling of a beautiful and historic tree with a blue plaque. The tree wasn't near the actual line, just on land they had 'acquired' and so was clear cut and decimated like every other bit of land they acquire.
It's quite telling that every single compound you see around near me is packed with menacing looking security guards in black helmets guarding against and ready to bring down anyone who gives a shit about the indiscriminate destruction they have at their hands.
You folks up north. If it does indeed come your way, I'd get out now and drink in your beautiful surroundings because I promise you, they're not going to be there much longer.
Devastating.
Dont know if its been mentioned in the past 5 pages, but my understanding is a huge portion of the cost is land purchase. Not purchase of the alignment itself, but in many of places the track splits farms in half.
The Economics of farming are already squeezed to breaking point so plenty of land owners have been bought out wholesale, as the farm becomes entirely unworkable when its chopped in half by an impassable barrier. Presumably those plot of land will be sold off to the neighboring farms on respective sides of the alignment, but i doubt they'll see much money back from it.
Why the focus on airports in many pro-HS2 postings? We need to fly a lot less, not improve access to airports, so why make it easier? Sustainable transport needs to be about linking communities and get away from the emphasis being on designing everything for helping big business. Business needs to travel less; as many have said, Teams is a more effective transport solution. But then, our whole way of life in the west isn't even slightly sustainable anyway and is heading for a very nasty end.....
Since 13/14 are the only through platforms at Piccadilly, all the freight goes through there too so any delays just get exported around the North from there.
I'm pretty sure that people must have died of exposure during the winter on those god-forsaken platforms, waiting for trains that never arrive. They're like a special circle of hell.
On a related note, there were well-advanced plans for 2 additional platforms at Piccadilly which were shelved by that idiot Chris Grayling. Maybe he didn’t realise that in order to run trains, it’s helpful for them to have platforms to stop at.
Those 2 additional platforms would probably have been about 1000 times more effective at improving transport links than HS2 will ever be. But our politicians must have their vanity projects
Why the focus on airports in many pro-HS2 postings?
Because rail takes 20+ years to come to fruition - the original business plan for HS2 was done back in the 90's and it's been bounced around in various guises ever since. Back in the 90's, that was how business was done.
This isn't a problem unique to rail - basically everything in the public domain is 20 years out of date. Defence is the other classic - you're procuring for next-generation fighter aircraft in the 90's for something that will come into service in 2020 so by the time it comes into service, everything it was specced with when the designs were done in 2000 is 20 years old.
Transport is a bit more open, especially rail. Building and investing in rail is generally a good thing since it has the potential to remove vehicles from the roads - even if the original goal is no longer serving airports for business travellers, it's still got a purpose.
It’s quite telling that every single compound you see around near me is packed with menacing looking security guards in black helmets guarding against and ready to bring down anyone who gives a shit about the indiscriminate destruction they have at their hands
There is a bore shaft compound like that behind my parents house, which was high quality green belt land. It is now a massive industrial complex with supporting hard surface roads, buildings, fencing, 24hr lights, vehicle movements and noise. Its all okay though as HS2 have planted wildflowers on some of the surrounding land...
^^ I know it's not in a same ballpark but there was a significant amount of work done on a canal near mine which involved moving a lot of heavy machinery into a neighbouring park, removing a load of vegetation and trees nearby, putting in a hardstanding road for access and then fencing it all off.
Looked terrible, especially in the middle of a lovely park. A year later, you can't really tell anything was ever done.
At the end of the day do you want a modern rail network or not, and that doesn’t mean just fiddling round the edges.
HS2 and a modern rail network are not mutually exclusive. From a long distance perspective rail travel is unaffordable to the vast majority of people. It's even more unaffordable if you're trying to move a group of adults around.
Invest the money in re-opening some of the lines closed by Beeching where the roads are completely saturated; rip out the antiquated signalling infrastructure where men in wooden boxes push levers around; get rid of diesel and invest in battery trains and megawatt charging while the train is in the station.
It's cheaper for me to lease a Tesla than it is to commute to work by train, and I can do it off-peak.
Not worried about HS2 reaching the North East, everything North of Leeds is gradually being rewilded and depopulated, we have a few enclosures that will keep some of the original indigenous tribes and provide them with craft based tasks (Nissarnia) for every tree lost to HS2 down South the North will establish three self seeded courtesy of no one cutting their lawns anymore. The UKs environmental targets will be achieved by turning off all lights in the North East and making cars illegal. The remaining population will be furloghed indefinitely unless employed by Aldi, Lidl or Amazon.
Dont you stress Southern folks we will save you.
Kind of sums up the attitude of those in favour of this despicable project really.
I was specifically responding to someone talking about costs.
Government still making broadly positive noises about it. Still no sign of the Integrated Rail Plan being published though...
lol @ explore Crewe! Have they ever been to Crewe? 😂
Those dalek things look cool af, should go and trigger them multiple times and see what happens?! I'm guessing f all.
The HS2 line is set to cross the M6 in Staffordshire. Be interesting to see how that's accomplished! 🙄😩
Well a HS2 bridge was lifted in over the M42 last August.
This isn’t a problem unique to rail – basically everything in the public domain is 20 years out of date. Defence is the other classic – you’re procuring for next-generation fighter aircraft in the 90’s for something that will come into service in 2020 so by the time it comes into service, everything it was specced with when the designs were done in 2000 is 20 years old.
+1 from my experience working with the MOD, most notably rolling out an infrastructure that had literally been signed off 5 years prior and was full of obsolete kit.
I'm unfortunate enough to have spent a lot of time working in Crewe. Imagine my delight when I replaced that particular portion of my job with a couple of days in Runcorn 😳
Still HS2 will be mega for Runcorn I'm sure 😂😂
Total length of this network is 330 miles(Am I right here)
So divide £107billion by 330 and that gives us a price of £3,030,303 per mile.
Are the tracks going to be made of gold ?.
Your sums are out by a factor of well over 100. Try £324,242,424 per mile
The only winners are contractors, consultants (professional services) and HS2 lawyers.
Just to point out that most Leeds/Manchester (and onwards) Transpennine trains go via Ashton to Victoria now and have done for three years. The stopping trains go to/from the main station at Piccadilly. As far as I am aware few if any TPEs to/from Leeds use platforms 13/14 at Manchester Piccadilly (although the Airports do - albeit after they've already been to Victoria and then round the Ordsall Chord to avoid stitching up Piccadilly throat as they thread across to Ardwick).
Your sums are out by a factor of well over 100. Try £324,242,424 per mile
That was my first answer from googling 107 billion divided by 330, but then i did 1000,000,000 divided by 330 and got the answer i got.
I completely forgot it was 107 billion, not 1 billion 😆
Silly me.
consultants (professional services) and HS2 lawyers.
I would say thats where the majority of the money is going.
@Flaperon - it needs to be subsidised, but we also need much more capacity. And yes, I agree about re-opening Beeching lines but most of those (that I'm aware of) were branch lines or windy little rural ones, the main lines survived - and if you open up more branch lines you'll create even more demand. So you need more backbone lines, there's no question of that IMO.
The industry has tried to turn the network into one big tram system, running short trains more frequently instead of longer ones at less frequent intervals. This set in nearly 20 years ago - see 'Operation Princess'. It culminated three years ago in totally unworkable timetables put together based on what should happen (e.g. assumptions of more trains presenting on time at junctions than is realistic) rather than what actually happens (e.g. train crew time and motion allowances being unrealistic, too few traincrew trained on routes/train type - so inefficient rostering hugely reliant on massive amounts of overtime.
Well the total costs include building at least 4 large interchange stations (including a complete and long overdue rebuild of Euston), a heck of a lot of tunnelling (more than the channel tunnel), quite a few (read: a lot of) viaducts, bridges, about 40 new trains, maintenance depots, all the associated electrical, signalling, drainage, the huge cost of the environment mitigation works that have been required/demanded (about a third of the total) and the contingency fund (which I think is about £15Bn on its own). The railway is designed to have a lifespan of 150 years and the cost which looks on the face of it, eye watering, needs to be factored against overall benefit (economic, social, environnmental, etc.) over its lifetime.
Total projected cost for creating a 150 year piece of infrastructure is about 40% of the yearly NHS budget...BTW, definately not bashing the NHS here, its just important to remember that very big infrastructure projects tend to cost a lot of money. Outside of IT (the failed NHS IT project cost over £10Bn) I'm struggling to think of a bricks and mortar-type strategic infrastructure project from the last 40 years that ended up being a white elephant but would be happy to be corrected/enlightened here.
I dont have a problem with spending money on infrastructure quite the opposite, what concerns me is the centre of gravity and the direction of train lines.
I don't think anyone would not accept that the trans pennine link is at the very best not fit for purpose, yet the chance of it becoming HS pennine is simply not going to happen. The long term vision of HS2 is simply to provide more connections into London (all roads lead etc)
I am pretty sure that this government does not want rail connections that route profit and resources away from London (not quite a conspiracy theory)
This governments policy of levelling up (i know) is not what the redwalls are expecting and HS2 is an example of that in as much that it levels up access (in theory) but provides no local levelling up.
Even if HS3 or whatever its called reached Leeds it will provide some levelling up of opportunity but not locally.
For those of us North of Leeds including Scotland have been excluded even from the fairy-tale of ultimate HS 2,3 whatever.
In short this project means and also will not provide benefits for 80% of this country. Ut simply provides Birmingham on Thames.
If I'd put a bet on the second half being cancelled I'd have probably been able to afford to pay for it... Having said that, I think we all knew it wasn't going to happen.
I don’t think anyone would not accept that the trans pennine link is at the very best not fit for purpose
Until very recently the main line between Sheffield and Manchester (combined population of £1.2m) was served by diesel Pacer trains, not exactly a 21st century transport system.
The delay of the IRP and the cost of Covid plus the inability of Treasury to plan more than a year ahead at the moment feels like the death knell of HS2 east.
Others celebrated the notion HS2 might never reach Yorkshire. Alexander Stafford, MP for the Rother Valley, is among several opponents to HS2 among the Conservatives’ 2019 red wall intake.
He said: “What we need is the money invested in transport infrastructure that might actually bring a tangible benefit to seats like mine. We need a better bus service and better links to Manchester across the pennines rather than a hugely expensive white elephant that is sucking resources out of areas like mine and will only benefit a tiny number of people living in central Leeds.”
Thank your local northern Tory MP for this one.
But our politicians must have their vanity projects
Puerile comment. This kind of complicated, expensive long lead time project is not a politician's vanity project - it takes so long to build that the person who launches it will never get the credit for it. Do you remember who was Transport Minister when the project was first proposed? Or even Prime Minister?
Anyone with anything between their ears knew that what they're building is nothing more than another commuter line into London.
It'll never get north of Birmingham. Its just extending the London commuter belt into the midlands
Thats 'levelling up' for you
This kind of complicated, expensive long lead time project is not a politician’s vanity project – it takes so long to build that the person who launches it will never get the credit for it.
You think any of our present or recent politicians are actually bright enough to realise that? Our present PM is both the master of the vanity project and also taking credit for other peoples. Garden Bridge anyone? Tunnel under the Isle of Man? Boris Island?
Dont you stress Southern folks we will save you.
And for such sentiments, I give you......
Brexit.
Enjoy 😉
It’ll never get north of Birmingham.
Not if Northern MPs and Mayors are against it.
It doesn’t matter what they think. This was a scheme designed in London to exclusively benefit London.
That's patently untrue, as has been shown a hundred times on this thread, but it won't penetrate the Chippy Northerner Forcefield that blames everything on That There London.
Patently untrue? Really?
It’s hardly being a ‘chippy northerner’ to point out we have a two tier economic system. The independent nation state of Londonium and ‘everywhere else’
Will Hutton was pointing it out in the Observer today
first, a vaccine-induced snap back to an economic structure that was malfunctioning beforehand has to be understood as just that. London and the south-east have led the bounce, driven by big spending on construction and leisure, which are also the areas in which most startups are forming, from nail bars to food delivery companies, rather than tech, innovation and export. Moreover, the rest of the country is lagging far behind. Investigations by the National Institute for Economic and Social Research (NIESR) show that the north-east, for example, will not get back to pre-pandemic levels of output until 2024.
But do carry on being casually dismissive and ignoring the actual evidence if you like.
HS2 will never get past Birmingham and will just end up as a hideously expensive commuter line servicing London. Rather than getting any benefit, the north will be disadvantaged yet further by it in this countries crazy lopsided economy
It's just a cluster **** of epic back handers.
It's also obsolete and pointless.
Indeed. If you’re going to spend obscene amounts of money on infrastructure projects then there are about a million better ways of doing it than building an instantly redundant white elephant that will benefit virtually nobody
And if you needed any proof of that then I’d suggest you try to get from Manchester to Leeds or Sheffield for a 9 am meeting. It would probably have been quicker in 1950. They’re still using the same rolling stock
If it shaved 2hrs off maybe.
But if your going that there London for a meeting honestly whats a 20min saving.
The North of England- the ultimate carbon offset scheme.
I’m not a chippy Northerner, though I do live in the North, but HS2 isn’t about levelling up, and never was - that’s just something that’s now being projected onto it to try to make it more popular.
I do agree with politecamera that big infrastructure is hard, and requires a lot of ambition and commitment, but that doesn’t mean HS2 is not a pointless gravy train! The business case was dubious at best even before the pandemic. Rail travel was already starting to see a massive readjustment, as evidenced by steep declines in season ticket sales in the last 10 years. Leisure travellers are coming back, but don’t pay much. Business travellers, who traditionally pay the bills on rail, are most definitely not coming back yet. Whether HS2 sinks or swims depends on your view of business travel in the longer term (as opposed to commuting).
I can only speak for myself (and a lot of people I know). Pre pandemic - between 2 and 4 trips WEEKLY, first class to London from Yorkshire. In last 12 months - 2 trips. Going forwards, not sure but unlikely to be more than 2-4 trips monthly.
I think it’s also important to recognise that the more successful ‘levelling up’ is the worse it will be for the HS2 business case, since London will no longer be the centre of the business universe.
In any event I’ll eat my hat if it ever goes to Leeds. Projects which proceed because they are ‘too big to cancel’ usually result in very poor outcomes.
Finally HS2 seems to change it’s tune to suit. How many people are now banging the capacity drum, now that the conventional rail network is suffering from massive overcapacity?
The real shame is that when it does all unravel, as it surely will, it will put back the cause of infrastructure investment in this country for decades..
Finally HS2 seems to change it’s tune to suit. How many people are now banging the capacity drum, now that the conventional rail network is suffering from massive overcapacity?
No, the problem was that it was badly marketed from the start.
Selling it as knocking 20 mins of a journey here or there is a bit crap because no-one really cares. The UK isn't big enough to *need* 250mph trains and they absolutely don't work as a stopping service anyway.
However, the UK does have a serious capacity issue on its current rail infrastructure thanks to decades of under-investment. Trying to run a mix of fast, stopping and freight services on limited lines means that the "fast" stuff is never as fast as it could be if given a clear run, the stopping service is never allowed to take priority (because the fast stuff needs to get by) and the freight gets the dregs of night-time running to avoid conflict with both of them. It's massively inefficient but the ONLY way to fix it is to build a new high speed line to put all the fast stuff onto that and then use the freed-up existing network to run more stopping services and more freight.
Fixing the current creaking infrastructure, while trying to run the same service, is not possible so you end up with huge disruption and a mass movement of passengers away from the trains with the risk that they'll never come back.
However, HS2 never communicated that (at least, not in a clear manner) so now it looks like the're changing their tune every time to address criticisms.
We are still using railways built 150yrs or so ago, who knows how the HS2 line will be used in 50,100 or even 150yrs time, might be totally redundant or might be the centre of a fast moving transport system, pretty much any comments about its use is at best idle speculation.
The UK isn’t big enough to *need* 250mph trains
If by the UK you actually mean England then I would probably agree. However a fast service all the way to Scottish central belt would make sense, perhaps with trains continuing via standard lines up to Aberdeen / Inverness. That would take quite a few flights out the sky. The current scheme isn't delivering that, but it's a start at least.
Also have all you nay-sayers not been on a high speed train in France, Italy or Spain? They make our system look third-world by comparison. Beyond British pessimism I'm not sure why everyone thinks we're a special case and high speed rail can't work here. Some ambition required!
, but it won’t penetrate the Chippy Northerner Forcefield that blames everything on That There London.
Lovely stuff. Are you seriously (SERIOUSLY?!) arguing that HS2 is not London centric? You must have some type of forcefield around your head - Arrogant/ ignorant southerner forcefield perhaps?
How much has been spent on Crossrail ffs? Nought similar up North nor anywhere else for that manner.
That’s patently untrue, as has been shown a hundred times on this thread,
Nope- just opinions from people who've swallowed the HS2 kool-aid.
Infrastructure good, spending lots fine by me. But HS2 was ill-conceived from the outset and has got worse from then on.
Also have all you nay-sayers not been on a high speed train in France, Italy or Spain? They make our system look third-world by comparison. Beyond British pessimism I’m not sure why everyone thinks we’re a special case and high speed rail can’t work here. Some ambition required!
Not all the people against HS2 are against all high speed trains, we're just against shit ones.
If HS2 went from the North to France then I'd be all for it. But it doesn't, so I'm not. It's just another bloody commuter line into London.
Some ambition required
Yes please!
who knows how the HS2 line will be used in 50,100 or even 150yrs time, might be totally redundant or might be the centre of a fast moving transport system,
Or it might be under 3ft of water due to climate change...
Some ambition required!
I agree - please don't mistake my comment above as being anti-HS2. I think it is very much needed as part of a bigger picture including Northern Powerhouse Rail and also freeing up space for more regional rail services and perhaps tram-train systems.
As usual though, British "ambition" is progressively downgraded from "transformational" to "make do" to "just muddle through". Where we're at now is the worst of all worlds where what is built won't achieve anything like the business cases that were originally put forward, won't develop the areas that were originally basing all their regeneration plans on the hope of a fast train line nearby and won't be able to make the case for any further large-scale infra projects.
Also have all you nay-sayers not been on a high speed train in France, Italy or Spain?
Yes. And you don't have to even talk about wealthier EU countries. The trains in eastern Europe are way better than the trains here. Thats not the point.
The point is that the government is about to spaff over £100 billion+ of taxpayers money to build a pointless white elephant of a commuter line into London from the midlands, which will benefit a tiny amount of people. And all while simultaneously starving the rest of the country of desperately needed transport infrastructure investment for which it's been crying out for decades.
This is the reality of rail travel outside London, and people are banging on about high-speed trains into the capital to save a couple of minutes on a journey time...
It's just a bad idea, badly planned and will no doubt be terribly executed. It should be absolutely nowhere near the top of the list for infrastructure spending in this country, but it is.
the government is about to spaff over £100 billion+ of taxpayers money to build a pointless white elephant of a commuter line into London from the midlands, which will benefit a tiny amount of people. And all while simultaneously starving the rest of the country of desperately needed transport infrastructure investment for which it’s been crying out for decades.
That is so brilliantly written and so depressingly true that I think it needs to be said again...
the government is about to spaff over £100 billion+ of taxpayers money to build a pointless white elephant of a commuter line into London from the midlands, which will benefit a tiny amount of people. And all while simultaneously starving the rest of the country of desperately needed transport infrastructure investment for which it’s been crying out for decades.
Not sure of the latest patronage forecasts are for HS2 but a 2017 report stated 90m per year once both east and west legs are built. For £100bn.
By way of example here in Sheffield we have a light rail system that carries, or at least pre-Covid carried 15m a year. The cost of fully renewing the tram network here is around £400m. So for a fraction of the cost (0.4%) you can carry 17% of the passengers, all of who remain local and hence more directly benefit the regional economy.
Seems a no brainer to me but the money isn’t yet forthcoming.
Totally agree with the point about infrastructure elsewhere. I've been on plenty of those terrible Pacer botched bus-to-train conversions! In an ideal world perhaps they could have started building South from Scotland or something.... but that's not the project that's currently on the table. If HS2 doesn't happen now do you really think the money will get diverted to projects in the North? I reckon we'll kiss goodbye to high speed rail, and just be left muddling through for the next 20 years. The project is a shadow of what it could have been, but from where things stand today I still think it's better to get the thing done, hopefully spurring further extension / investment in the North off the back of it.
If HS2 doesn’t happen now do you really think the money will get diverted to projects in the North?
No because it's ringfenced for HS2.
This is the point that the anti folk don't get. It's not like cancelling HS2 frees up £100bn of money for other infra or hospitals or whatever. It just disappears.
@binners - yes, point well made but it's a tad disingenuous because they have now got rid of the Pacers and most of what is running now are the new 195's and the older 190's on Northern. TPE have quite a few of the Hitachi bi-mode trains on their long-distance routes, they'll do 125mph.
(and yes, I spent many years commuting on those Pacers!)
A mate who actually works on and understands rail infrastructure explained the capacity argument to me many years ago, and I get it and accept it.
However, the rapidly rising costs - I have other friends working on both sides of the land purchase and construction sides - does make me think that yet again the public purse is being ****ed over, and in the light of Covid changing travel the whole thing needs a proper review as to whether some or all of the HS2 cost should be spent on other infrastructure.
Though having just spent £350 on return tickets from Derby to Edinburgh for the four of us, it's not just the public purse being ****ed over.
I think you'll find the "Levelling up the North" press release was missing an important comma.
HS2 seems to be costing about £250,000 per meter.
Any idea on fares? I vaguely recall it started out at a guessed £0.50p per mile but there seems to be some suggestion it will be near or above £1 per mile, now.
Costs is due to Government wanting the whole thing clad in gold-plated guarantees.
Construction Company X builds a cutting - all well and good, everyone knows how to do that. But they want T&Cs built in to say that if it's shifted by >5cm in 30 years, the construction company must bear the full costs of fixing it.
So it's requiring vastly greater amounts of concrete and it's insured to the hilt - partly because Company X may not be around in 30 years time and partly because the costs of fixing it will be similarly astronomical.
The land stuff has been badly managed from the start. Delays to the start of the project (Government dithering) mean that a lot of landowners got fed up of the will-they-won't-they and developed the land anyway and then, when it came to compulsory purchase, the landowner needed much more compensation because they'd built a block of flats on it which then needed knocking down.
The amount of squandered material and labour, not to mention the emissions, in building new stuff that's then been torn down without ever being used is criminal.
That's not entirely HS2's fault, some landowners were doing such stuff deliberately in order to extract more compensation but it should have had better legal protection against those sort of actions.
As usual, it's not the infrastructure that's costing the money, it's the legal stuff in the background.
@crazy-legs - they've been saying they were going to phase those pacers out for about 30 years now and yet they've still been trundling up and down, slowly and uncomfortably, the rails of the north west. If they're finally gone, nobody will miss 'em. Good riddance!
I haven't been near public transport for a while, like most people, for obvious reasons, so I wouldn't know.
But my point is that if you asked anyone other than a London-based consultant where you needed to spend money as a top priority on transport infrastructure in this country, absolutely nobody would give you the answer 'a nice high speed rail line between Birmingham and London'. Nobody!
You'd have a very long list of alternative answers, but that definitely wouldn't be amongst them. But thats what we're all getting (and paying for) whether we like/need it or not
Also have all you nay-sayers not been on a high speed train in France, Italy or Spain? They make our system look third-world by comparison
It's not just high speed I'm afraid.. I have traveled a lot by train in Europe & the far east. It is a pleasant way to travel. Always on time and reasonably cheap compared to our standards. Talking about our standards, our rail is about on par with Australia, well Queensland, but more costly.
We absolutely do need a better rail infrastructure, as pointed out above the current network is at breaking point with no options other than increasing the lengths of the trains to increase capacity.
We need fast straight lines to connect major cities and allow for branching from there. Politically this is a nightmare to do as you end up going through some affluent areas who will object at the earliest opportunity. Let's face it not enough people give a monkeys nut about ancient forests etc. So you end up with a line that becomes compromised and therefore is no longer fast.
Also have all you nay-sayers not been on a high speed train in France, Italy or Spain? They make our system look third-world by comparison
You know when you're driving on a motorway alongside a railway line? M1 and M6 both have a couple of sections paralleling the WCML.
You're doing 70 in the car and a train comes past at maybe 120. Sort of trundles past, only 50mph quicker...
I was driving in France a while ago on a section of [i]paege[/i] that had a 130kph limit (quite rare, most are now 110kph) so I was doing 130kph, 80mph. It was parallel to a TGV line and we got overtaken by something that just went whoooosh whoosh and was gone. It was doing about 200mph. Like you say, makes our trains look positively feeble in comparison.
You can’t really blame Londoners when most of them would prefer Crossrail 2 or a decent orbital railway following the M25 or more destinations in mainland Europe.
Who wants to go to Manchester? Mancunians that think it’s so good that they live and work in London.
There clearly speaks a man who's never experienced the joy of sitting staring in silent wonder at the jewel in the crown of the north...
Wythenshawe
It was doing about 200mph. Like you say, makes our trains look positively feeble in comparison.
But are our cities far enough apart to justify trains going that fast?
There clearly speaks a man who’s never experienced the joy of sitting staring in silent wonder at the jewel in the crown of the north…
Wythenshawe
Growing up in the 70's I used to spend a week of my summer holidays every year in Wythenshawe!
The other week was spent in Blackpool.
Tell that to the kids today and......
Japan's equivalent - $64 billion, 500 kph.
HS2 is £98 billion ($134 billion), 400 kph.
We need fast straight lines to connect major cities and allow for branching from there.
Except that we don't. What we need is for the need to travel to be reduced. This is happening to a degree, and yet we're still hacking the country to bits to provide for a dwindling(hopefully) need.
Except that we don’t. What we need is for the need to travel to be reduced.
Exactly! What the past 18 months has shown us is how much of that travel was totally unnecessary and just down to that 'well thats the way we've always done it' mindset
The world has changed.
"During the pandemic, I've really missed those ludicrously overpriced 6.30am trains from Piccadilly down to Euston" said absolutely nobody, ever.
Even from an employers point of view, why would you want your staff to go back to that? Especially if you're looking at the balance sheet without all those pointless and ridiculous £350 return tickets
As always, the government is way behind the rest of society and firmly stuck in a 1990's mindset.
If you're going to spend £100 billion quid then spend it on building a high speed broadband infrastructure, something that actually benefits everyone, not some bloody white elephant, mired in a 20th (or possibly 19th) century mindset
Even from an employers point of view, why would you want your staff to go back to that?
Because the money sits in London and they like face to face meetings and so the chippy northerners can get on the train
You can’t really blame Londoners when most of them would prefer Crossrail 2 or a decent orbital railway following the M25 or more destinations in mainland Europe.
95% of DoT staff live and work in London, this drives the way that investment need is looked at and why the money goes where it does, essentially to the SE
+1 for Binners on broadband infrastructure.
As I said above I’m actually all for infrastructure, including rail, but a vanity project is still a vanity project. HS2 will do nothing to address the underinvestment in the conventional routes. The rail industry is hopelessly inefficient and ultimately that needs to be resolved. Case in point - want a ‘stop board’ moving 20 yards? This is quite literally a sign stuck in the ground. ‘Of course sir, that’ll be £75,000 please.’ WTF - it’s a sign stuck in the ground - now imagine that thousands of times over and that’s why train tickets are so expensive.
Rail is critical to addressing climate change and the future economy of this country, and as an industry it really needs to get its head out of its backside and start dealing with the issues holding it back.
If you want to see a good example of a basket case infrastructure project you could look at the channel tunnel - long time to build and very controversial, hopelessly optimistic business case, constant financial troubles. Even pre pandemic the tunnel was operating at only a fraction of its design capacity.
Except that we don’t. What we need is for the need to travel to be reduced
Exactly! What the past 18 months has shown us is how much of that travel was totally unnecessary and just down to that ‘well thats the way we’ve always done it’ mindset
That may well be true in your worlds. However, the company I work for is a manufacturer and by its very nature requires people to work in a factory. While I am able to do my job from home the company would like us to start to return to the office which means for me an hour an half in the car. I have no other option but to drive. I would take the train if there was one and it was reasonably priced. You only have to drive up and down the M1 to realise that there is a need for something.