HS2 high-speed London-Birmingham route rail project - discussion

[teuchter]

Ah yes, those driverless cars, available 20 to 200 years from now, which are going to solve all those problems. Which problems do they solve, again?

 

[teuchter]

Maybe we just shouldn't build ill-conceived and unnecessary forms of transport designed to funnel ever more economic activity towards London, confounding many of the environmental and social issues this causes.

Imagine what we could do for the rest of the network with 100 billion quid. Trains could once again be a thing working class people could afford to use, as well as a reliable option for people commuting to anywhere that isn't London, which they're not at present. That, not HS2, is what's needed to get more cars off the roads.

Are you arguing for improvements to the network north of, say, Birmingham / Manchester, allowing for better connections within that area, whilst leaving the network south of Birmingham/Manchester as it is, raising commuter fares there to supress demand, and substantially raising fares for journeys between the north of England and London/SE, in order to supress demand for those journeys too?

And, abandoning the opportunity to remove freight traffic from the road network throughout the UK?

 

[BigTom]

I’m not really up on all the nitty gritty detail of the for and against of this project but as a casual observation...

Is approx 100bn not the same as the reduction in budget deficit the country has been under ‘austerity’ for the last decade?

You're way off base on this I think.
The current UK deficit is was ~£45bn in 2018/19 financial year. It was around £120bn in 2009/10 (or 2008/9). The total national debt is around £1.8trillion pounds.
The deficit is an annual figure. Every year the govt. spends this much more than it has in income.

The £100bn is a one off spend, spread over 20 or 30 years - iirc the line should be open around 2030 but there's been at least 10-20 years of planning, feasability studies and such like already, I'm assuming that £100bn is the total cost of the scheme and a fair amount of that has already been spent. Over the past 10 years, the deficit has been cut by £80bn/yr so if this was an even reduction over time the govt. will have spent something like £500bn less than it would have done if it maintained spending at the 2010 levels. Over the next 10-15 years this will be over a trillion pounds even if no further spending cuts happen.
So the £100bn being spent on HS2 is an order of magnitude too small to cover cuts.

Even if there was a logic to the idea that not building HS2 would have meant lower cuts in other govt. spending, it would not even touch the sides of the annual reductions in spending that occured.
But there's no logic to that idea. Austerity is being used to attack social spending and if there was no HS2, that would still have happened to exactly the same extent.

Opposition to Austerity at an economic level is generally based around Keynesian ideas to resolving recessions, which involve spending on large infrastructure projects - things which the private sector won't sink costs into, which is largely a one-off spend so doesn't leave govt. hooked into ongoing costs when the private sector picks back up, and ideally which can actually be profitable and return a surplus to govt once it's up and running. The last is not likely to happen with HS2 but council houses provide a good example of where this can work.

So for me, opposition to austerity and support for HS2 are united aims, not ones working against each other.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Are you arguing for improvements to the network north of, say, Birmingham / Manchester, allowing for better connections within that area, whilst leaving the network south of Birmingham/Manchester as it is, raising commuter fares there to supress demand, and substantially raising fares for journeys between the north of England and London/SE, in order to supress demand for those journeys too?

And, abandoning the opportunity to remove freight traffic from the road network throughout the UK?

With 100 billion quid to splash around, it would hardly be an either/or situation.

And you could suppress demand for commuter routes into London by improving the economic prsopects of everywhere else. Infrastructure investment is a no-brainer way of achieving this.

As for freight, there's a one-word answer to that issue, and the word is 'canals'. Canals are more energy efficient than any other means of transporting freight over land, whilst also providing new habitats and increasing biodiversity. A well-designed canal system can also help reduce flood risks, and flood defences are something that will need major investment in the near future as storms of the century are now happening two or three times a year. Canals would also change the pace of economic activity to one which lent itself to long term planning, and questions about what is really necessary. I believe a canal renaissance could be the symbolic change we need to help guide us to a saner, greener economy and a better way of life.

 

[teuchter]

Opposition to Austerity at an economic level is generally based around Keynesian ideas to resolving recessions, which involve spending on large infrastructure projects - things which the private sector won't sink costs into, which is largely a one-off spend so doesn't leave govt. hooked into ongoing costs when the private sector picks back up, and ideally which can actually be profitable and return a surplus to govt once it's up and running. The last is not likely to happen with HS2 but council houses provide a good example of where this can work.

I don't think there's an expectation for HS2 to be "profitable" as such, but it will bring in revenue once in operation, so not all of the £100bn simply disappears.

 

[teuchter]

With 100 billion quid to splash around, it would hardly be an either/or situation.

Yes it is. Do you want to sort out capacity issues south of Birmingham/Manchester, or don't you? If you do, then we have to build HS2, and it'll cost money.

 

[teuchter]

As for freight, there's a one-word answer to that issue, and the word is 'canals'. Canals are more energy efficient than any other means of transporting freight over land, whilst also providing new habitats and increasing biodiversity. A well-designed canal system can also help reduce flood risks, and flood defences are something that will need major investment in the near future as storms of the century are now happening two or three times a year. Canals would also change the pace of economic activity to one which lent itself to long term planning, and questions about what is really necessary. I believe a canal renaissance could be the symbolic change we need to help guide us to a saner, greener economy and a better way of life.

Go on then - what size of canals do we need to build, to provide equivalent capacity? Will they pass through any ancient woodland? They will be built to all the major container ports, right?

 

[SpookyFrank]

Go on then - what size of canals do we need to build, to provide equivalent capacity? Will they pass through any ancient woodland? They will be built to all the major container ports, right?

You wouldn't have to replace rail capacity though would you? Two modes of transport gives you more capacity than one, because of maths.

 

[teuchter]

You wouldn't have to replace rail capacity though would you? Two modes of transport gives you more capacity than one, because of maths.

It has to provide the extra capacity that would have been provided by HS2. So, how big are these canals?

 

[BigTom]

I don't think there's an expectation for HS2 to be "profitable" as such, but it will bring in revenue once in operation, so not all of the £100bn simply disappears.

Yep - I am meaning profitable in terms of running operations though, I expect HS2 will run at an operating loss.
When looking at govt. finances at overall profitability it's a really complicated question because HS2 might run at an operating loss, but the govt. also gets some of the wage costs back directly as income tax/ni and picks up more tax income from the wider economic benefits of the construction and running of HS2 so overall the thing can be run at a loss but still be profitable for the govt.

 

[Teaboy]

Fuck me. Teleconferencing, driverless cars and canals.

Why has no one else thought of these things? Just need to add in teleportation devices and planes being powered by 100% renewable magic and we'll be carbon zero and have all our transport needs met.

 

[SpookyFrank]

It has to provide the extra capacity that would have been provided by HS2. So, how big are these canals?

How much capacity will HS2 provide in places where it isn't, ie most of the country?

I honestly can't believe we've got people supporting spending 100 billion quid on a train line that nobody will be able to afford to use and still somehow I'm the idiot.

 

[Winot]

How much capacity will HS2 provide in places where it isn't, ie most of the country?

I honestly can't believe we've got people supporting spending 100 billion quid on a train line that nobody will be able to afford to use and still somehow I'm the idiot.

It frees up capacity on the existing lines.

 

[SpookyFrank]

It frees up capacity on the existing lines.

Yes I got that bit, but try answering the actual question: how much capacity does it free up in places where it isn't? South west or north east England, Wales, Scotland? In what possible universe is HS2 going to have any effect on carrying capacity in those places?

Bearing in mind those places I've listed contain some of the most economically deprived areas in the whole country?

 

[skyscraper101]

That's why Rees Mogg's against it isn't it. There's no benefit to Somerset other than for northerners to get to the south west easier via Old Oak Common.

 

[teuchter]

How much capacity will HS2 provide in places where it isn't, ie most of the country?

I honestly can't believe we've got people supporting spending 100 billion quid on a train line that nobody will be able to afford to use and still somehow I'm the idiot.

At the moment, if you want to run a freight train from, say, southampton to leeds, you need to use the existing, congested lines through the midlands. Same if you want to export something by rail from say Scunthorpe to continental Europe. If you can't fit those trains through those congested areas, it goes on the road. It goes on the road all the way, including all the bits outside of those central corridors, the ones on which HS2 will free up a bunch a capacity. Yes, you also need to improve capacity on routes within the north of england, but improving that is no good for long distance freight unless the freight can go somewhere. And rail freight works best for long distances.

 

[SpookyFrank]

By the time HS2 reaches London the local infrastructure there will have gone vastly over capacity anyway. The tube is so busy as to be a public health hazard for several hours a day as it is. Crossrail might make a temporary dent in it but it's all just playing catch up. What the whole country needs, including London, is some jobs that aren't in London. HS2 does the opposite of addressing that.

 

[SpookyFrank]

At the moment, if you want to run a freight train from, say, southampton to leeds, you need to use the existing, congested lines through the midlands. Same if you want to export something by rail from say Scunthorpe to continental Europe. If you can't fit those trains through those congested areas, it goes on the road. It goes on the road all the way, including all the bits outside of those central corridors, the ones on which HS2 will free up a bunch a capacity. Yes, you also need to improve capacity on routes within the north of england, but improving that is no good for long distance freight unless the freight can go somewhere. And rail freight works best for long distances.

Ah, so the problem is centralisation of infrastructure and the inevitable bottlenecks that result from that. I can see now how the solution to that is a single, central, infrastructure project. That would definitely address the root cause of the problem.

 

[skyscraper101]

By the time HS2 reaches London the local infrastructure there will have gone vastly over capacity anyway. The tube is so busy as to be a public health hazard for several hours a day as it is. Crossrail might make a temporary dent in it but it's all just playing catch up. What the whole country needs, including London, is some jobs that aren't in London. HS2 does the opposite of addressing that.

What they need is to start making the riverboats more competitive. If it didn't cost a bomb I'd be on a boat every day from Blackfriars to Putney instead of squeezing onto an SWR train with everyone else. In other cities like Sydney, getting on the ferry is included in your travelcard zones. It's a seriously underutilized mode of transport.

 

[pseudonarcissus]

if you want to export something by rail from say Scunthorpe to continental Europe.

I really don't think we need concern ourselves with these archaic notions in the brave post-Brexit world.

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

I really don't think we need concern ourselves with these archaic notions in the brave post-Brexit world.

Quite. £100bn would build Boris Island. Goods can be shipped in from the colonies to the Thames estuary, then placed on a plane and sent back to the country of origin having been taxed 300%. Worked before...

 

[Artaxerxes]

By the time HS2 reaches London the local infrastructure there will have gone vastly over capacity anyway. The tube is so busy as to be a public health hazard for several hours a day as it is. Crossrail might make a temporary dent in it but it's all just playing catch up. What the whole country needs, including London, is some jobs that aren't in London. HS2 does the opposite of addressing that.

The summer time tube is a literal circle of hell.

But still Central line air con in 10 years!

 

[alex_]

Maybe we just shouldn't build ill-conceived and unnecessary forms of transport designed to funnel ever more economic activity towards London, confounding many of the environmental and social issues this causes.

Imagine what we could do for the rest of the network with 100 billion quid. Trains could once again be a thing working class people could afford to use, as well as a reliable option for people commuting to anywhere that isn't London, which they're not at present. That, not HS2, is what's needed to get more cars off the roads.

That’s not what the greens are saying though - unless ancient woodlands only exist in a straight line between London and Birmingham.

But yes, hs2 should be starting from the north - high speed transpennine express should be first or at the same time.

alex

 

[SpookyFrank]

I meant when all the complaints start flowing in, from passengers on already overcrowded trains out of Paddington when they are further piled in on from northerners going to the Westcountry via OOC, and existing commuters are complaining their journey times are taking longer than before.

But it'll be quicker to get from Manchester to Exeter on the existing direct service than going to London on HS2 and getting onto the Paddington train which, if memory serves, stops a lot more often than the aforesaid West Coast Mainline from Manc to Exeter.

e2a: Looks like Wolverhampton, Macclesfield and Stafford stops have been added since I last used that route. Obviously this has been done deliberately to slow services down artificially and thus bolster the case for HS2.

 

[Teaboy]

HS2 may or may not work out to be a good investment. Its an incredibly complex situation. What has become obvious though is that there are aliens on planets in star systems we have yet to discover who have a better grasp of the pros and cons than you SpookyFrank

 

[SpookyFrank]

HS2 may or may not work out to be a good investment. Its an incredibly complex situation. What has become obvious though is that there are aliens on planets in star systems we have yet to discover who have a better grasp of the pros and cons than you SpookyFrank

So my concerns that this project will do nothing to help those regions of the country most in need of investment do not need to be addressed, OK cool. The fact that nobody can even afford to use the trains we've already got, never mind whatever an HS2 ticket will cost, that also doesn't need to be addressed. The fact that a national project focussed on London can only exacerbate the problems of the entire economy being skewed towards London doesn't need to be addressed. Just call me an idiot.

If you're not already working for Boris Johnson, you should be.

 

[cupid_stunt]

The fact that nobody can even afford to use the trains we've already got...

Yet, train travel is at record levels, hence we need new lines.

 

[teuchter]

Ah, so the problem is centralisation of infrastructure and the inevitable bottlenecks that result from that. I can see now how the solution to that is a single, central, infrastructure project. That would definitely address the root cause of the problem.

They went and put a load of infrastructure where the most people want to make the most journeys between the places where the most people live. Like, kind of central to where it's all needed. Madness! Or conspiracy!

 

[teuchter]

It has to provide the extra capacity that would have been provided by HS2. So, how big are these canals?

Not going to get an answer from SpookyFrank so here is a clue.

The netherlands have modern canals that carry significant amounts of freight. Here's one of them next to a 4-track mainline railway.



The Netherlands is basically a river delta. So, it's dead flat, has lots of natural waterways and is connected to a couple of the biggest navigable river systems that reach deep into continental Europe.

A bit like none of the UK.

(Don't get me wrong, if you can get any freight onto canals that's great. But it's not a sensible solution for transporting a large quantity of stuff through the majority of the UK)

 

[teuchter]

What they need is to start making the riverboats more competitive. If it didn't cost a bomb I'd be on a boat every day from Blackfriars to Putney instead of squeezing onto an SWR train with everyone else. In other cities like Sydney, getting on the ferry is included in your travelcard zones. It's a seriously underutilized mode of transport.

I think in reality the capacity it can offer wouldn't make much of a dent in the bigger picture. The bigger Thames Clipper boats take about 200 passengers, and I think that in practice you can't run them more frequently than every 10 minutes or so (because of the time it takes to approach the pier, tie up, let people on and off over 1 or 2 gangplanks and so on). So maybe you can move 1200 people per hour. Compare with a tube train which can take 1000+ passengers and operate every 2 minutes. So you are moving 30,000 people per hour.