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

[Teaboy]

Just spray a bit water over it to dampen it down.

Still though, £400m. I had a meeting today for a new London hotel. It will have about 26 floors plus 3 levels of basement. The whole thing is costing £180m and that includes the demolition of the existing building. I reckon you could actually decontaminate the entire town of Asbestos* for less than £400m.

*Seriously there is a town called Asbestos. Look it up kids.

ETA: I know Asbestos removal is expensive because of many factors but I just cannot for the life of me think where that much has come from and how they managed to miss it until now.

 

[Cid]

£400m for asbestos removal, the rest is overruns on Euston station.
And there's no detail about how many properties / extra asbestos there is so who knows how padded out that deal is.

also

so technically not increasing the overall cost apparently.

Spending ~1/6th of your contingency this early in any project is not what I'd call a particularly good sign though.

 

[Cid]

Just spray a bit water over it to dampen it down.

Still though, £400m. I had a meeting today for a new London hotel. It will have about 26 floors plus 3 levels of basement. The whole thing is costing £180m and that includes the demolition of the existing building. I reckon you could actually decontaminate the entire town of Asbestos* for less than £400m.

*Seriously there is a town called Asbestos. Look it up kids.

ETA: I know Asbestos removal is expensive because of many factors but I just cannot for the life of me think where that much has come from and how they managed to miss it until now.

Roofing maybe? Landlords are cunts and don't remove it until it really starts to deteriorate. So it's on a vast number of old factories and workshops... Usually less of a problem, being in a safer form, but once you actually have to do something about it, and do it properly I can see it would rapidly add up.

 

[Artaxerxes]

Must be a fair amount of it but it's one of those things that costs a mint to remove, a mint to transport and a mint to dispose.

Big old building to.

 

[Cid]

Must be a fair amount of it but it's one of those things that costs a mint to remove, a mint to transport and a mint to dispose.

Big old building to.

The £400m on Euston and £400m on asbestos are separate things.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Russian oligarchs could learn a few lessons in carpetbagging from these HS2 lads I reckon.

 

[Teaboy]

Roofing maybe? Landlords are cunts and don't remove it until it really starts to deteriorate. So it's on a vast number of old factories and workshops... Usually less of a problem, being in a safer form, but once you actually have to do something about it, and do it properly I can see it would rapidly add up.

Yeah but how did they miss it? The old train sheds at Old Oak Common are probably full of asbestos but anyone with a passing interest in DIY could have spotted that. Someone has been up to something with this project and there is barely a shovel in the ground yet. Same with Crossrail, wasn't it the same guy...?

 

[Cid]

Yeah but how did they miss it? The old train sheds at Old Oak Common are probably full of asbestos but anyone with a passing interest in DIY could have spotted that. Someone has been up to something with this project and there is barely a shovel in the ground yet. Same with Crossrail, wasn't it the same guy...?

Oh I absolutely agree... it’s a massive oversight at best.

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

Yeah but how did they miss it? The old train sheds at Old Oak Common are probably full of asbestos but anyone with a passing interest in DIY could have spotted that. Someone has been up to something with this project and there is barely a shovel in the ground yet. Same with Crossrail, wasn't it the same guy...?

It's almost as if when it comes to these grand schemes that building stuff is secondary to shovelling public money in to private hands. Garden Bridge being the zenith of the genre.

 

[Teaboy]

It's almost as if when it comes to these grand schemes that building stuff is secondary to shovelling public money in to private hands. Garden Bridge being the zenith of the genre.

One thing I will say about this project is that a lot of the money will end up going to British companies and workers. Things like this are massive for the construction industry unlike the garden bridge which was always a bag of shite.

 

[BigTom]

It's almost as if when it comes to these grand schemes that building stuff is secondary to shovelling public money in to private hands. Garden Bridge being the zenith of the genre.

I can see this as an episode of yes minister/prime minister, with humphrey patiently explaining what a marvelous success the Garden Bridge was.. "but we didn't build anything" Jim Hackett would exclaim "exactly" says Humphrey. "normally to shovel millions of pounds into the hands of our friends we have to actually build things, which is a terrible bother, and government architecture is so drab don't you think. Much better not to build anything really"
Kind of like that hospital with no patients episode I guess.

 

[Crispy]

As a Construction Consultant myself, I have to admit the nicest projects to work on are the ones that don't get built.

 

[Teaboy]

I've just had to sign the Non-Disclosure Agreement for this project. Two years after my first meeting. I can no longer talk about HS2 on here in theory though in practice I will spill as many beans as I can find.

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

I can see this as an episode of yes minister/prime minister, with humphrey patiently explaining what a marvelous success the Garden Bridge was.. "but we didn't build anything" Jim Hackett would exclaim "exactly" says Humphrey. "normally to shovel millions of pounds into the hands of our friends we have to actually build things, which is a terrible bother, and government architecture is so drab don't you think. Much better not to build anything really"
Kind of like that hospital with no patients episode I guess.

Baldrick’s turnip. “How did you manage to spend £400m removing some asbestos?”

“Well, I had to haggle.”

 

[SpookyFrank]

As a Construction Consultant myself, I have to admit the nicest projects to work on are the ones that don't get built.

I should get yersen onto the HS2 bandwagon then.

I'd call it a gravy train but that'd be a little bit on the nose.

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

Kind of like that hospital with no patients episode I guess.

Oh, and Nightingale Hospitals...

 

[teuchter]

It's funny how people go all Daily Mail about inefficient spending on public projects, when the public project is one they don't agree with for some separate reason. HS2 clearly needs either to have SpookyFrank, or a bit more private sector ruthlessness and efficiency in charge of things. There'd be no need to shake the taxpayers' magic money tree to get it done then.

 

[SpookyFrank]

It's funny how people go all Daily Mail about inefficient spending on public projects, when the public project is one they don't agree with for some separate reason. HS2 clearly needs either to have SpookyFrank, or a bit more private sector ruthlessness and efficiency in charge of things. There'd be no need to shake the taxpayers' magic money tree to get it done then.

Private sector ruthlessness

The private sector is ruthless in only one field, the field of bilking the general public. Private sector efficiency is a neoliberal fantasy, one created to serve the core aim of bilking the general public.

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

And it starts...

HS2 leg to Leeds downgraded to low priority project

Transport for North slams National Infrastructure Commission report as pitching projects against each other

www.constructionenquirer.com

The National Infrastructure Commission has recommended that investment should be focused on boosting mainline services across the North and the Midlands rather than the full eastern leg of HS2.

The independent advisory body said that government should progress the western route into Manchester, but delay starting the eastern side to Leeds in favour of investment in upgrading existing city rail links.

And once Leeds is dropped they'll drop Manc too.

 

[teuchter]

It should keep people in the "North" happy, who want their own inter-regional services improved, instead of their links to London.

 

[marty21]

Haven't been in the Euston area for about 8 months due to reasons , I had no idea there was a protest camp outside Euston Station

 

[Teaboy]

I wonder how that fits in with the stay at home order.

 

[teuchter]

An aerial view of HS2 construction so far

Take a flight along phase one of the high-speed rail network – from London to Birmingham.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[Brainaddict]

I didn't think that HS2 was necessarily the right project to expand UK rail capacity, and I don't know if the route is the best either, but I still think the energy going into protesting this is crazy. Even if they win, which I don't think they will, what does victory look like? Crap railways with few big improvements for years to come. It just doesn't seem the best use of energy to be putting so much into stopping a railway.

 

[SpookyFrank]

So has phase 2b been scraped or just delayed?

Well, we have our answer. Scrapped. Phase 2a remains in the sunlit uplands of an amber/red feasibility rating.

 

[BigTom]

Well, we have our answer. Scrapped. Phase 2a remains in the sunlit uplands of an amber/red feasibility rating.

If HS2 only goes to Birmingham it's pretty much pointless imo and the whole thing should be scrapped.

WCML badly needs more capacity though, but it needs it all the way to Manchester at least and you only start to get the time saving benefits once you get that kind of distance.

 

[SpookyFrank]

If HS2 only goes to Birmingham it's pretty much pointless imo and the whole thing should be scrapped.

There are too many sunk costs to can the thing now I fear. The consultancy fees alone, utterly insane.

 

[Elpenor]

I have a mate who has been valuing commercial property along the HS2 route and certainly from what he indicates there’s been an open wallet from the govt in buying up property on the route.

 

[MickiQ]

Crewe is my home town, my brother tells me that house prices in Crewe are currently rocketing and thinks people are hoping for a return when HS2 comes.
It looks like the Western leg of 2b Crewe to Manchester is still on but the Eastern leg of Birmingham to Leeds via the East Midlands hasn't officially been cancelled just kicked into the long grass which probably means it has been cancelled but they're not yet ready to say so.

 

[SpookyFrank]

I have a mate who has been valuing commercial property along the HS2 route and certainly from what he indicates there’s been an open wallet from the govt in buying up property on the route.

And I'm sure landowners are aware of that. But none of the 800 consultants invovled were able to predict that this situation would lead to vastly inflated land purchase costs.

Nobody is motivated to control costs. The accountants who are supposed to do it have figured out, as they always do, that failing to do their job makes them more money.