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

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

In my view, a new highspeed passenger line was never needed

Knocking 30 minutes off a journey from London to Birmingham was never anything to get excited about. Most people won't be bothering anyway until they knock prices of tickets. Even more stupid in the age of video call business meetings.

 

[Sasaferrato]

Knocking 30 minutes off a journey from London to Birmingham was never anything to get excited about. Most people won't be bothering anyway until they knock prices of tickets. Even more stupid in the age of video call business meetings.

Whereas a new freight line would get thousands of lorries off the roads.

 

[Artaxerxes]

It’s not about that and it was very much missold as that at first. It’s main benefit is getting high speed trains off local lines and improving capacity for freight and local trains.

It should also have been done from top to bottom

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

It’s not about that and it was very much missold as that at first. It’s main benefit is getting high speed trains off local lines and improving capacity for freight and local trains.

It should also have been done from top to bottom

Well this immediately makes a lot more sense. Why would you sell it any other way?

 

[alex_]

Knocking 30 minutes off a journey from London to Birmingham was never anything to get excited about. Most people won't be bothering anyway until they knock prices of tickets. Even more stupid in the age of video call business meetings.

All the capacity hs2 frees up on the east coast and west coast main lines is why they’ve built it.

Because the long distance trains move to hs2, you can run a lot more slower trains to places in the middle - which are otherwise blocked by the 125mph long distance trains

 

[Elpenor]

It’s about capacity and train paths, not speed so much. The communication of this has been terrible

 

[davesgcr]

But now falls into the category of 'Too much has been spent to cancel it now'.

In my view, a new highspeed passenger line was never needed, a new dedicated freight line was.

Freight only pays avoidable costs , and could never , ever justify a stand alone line.

High Speed transfers shed loads of capacity off the West Coast main line (trust me , I have both managed operationally the latter , in part) : and been heavily involved in planning the 2004 onwards increase in faster trains on the existing line. It took about 3 years of very stressfull planning to get the compromise timetable , up until COVID knocked back the train services.

The thing about the HS2 , when there , provides a lot of extra capacity for freight , and importantly better regional and local services , not just for London but quite a bit further out. Extra long distance calls at Watford Junction for example (impossibe at the moment , and nice to have increases in services like Watford (and north thereof) to Clapham Junction and South London. The latter is hourly at the moment , but could become half hourly. Etc.

We all want to see less HGV's on the motorways after all.........

The uninformed media , say that HS2 is only for expensive flows , - but the actual commercial model for the French is to provide affordable , high volume trains on the HS lines , ditto the Germans , Spanish etc. Big , long trains take a lot of passengers and it is imperative to fill them.

 

[davesgcr]

It’s about capacity and train paths, not speed so much. The communication of this has been terrible

Agreed - and others above have said that. Thank you.

 

[alex_]

You’ll also notice that the “we don’t need hs2 because we can all use zoom” people are the same people as the “everyone should get back to the office” people

 

[davesgcr]

You’ll also notice that the “we don’t need hs2 because we can all use zoom” people are the same people as the “everyone should get back to the office” people

Of course , the good residents of the Chilterns (for example) had no problem with the M25 and M40 , carving through the area some years ago - very handy after all for getting the 4x4 out to get to John Lewis / Waitrose quicker.

The trouble / grief I had all those years ago , to get 25kV overhead lines as part of the cancelled Crossrail 1 scheme to Amersham / Chesham etc by the likes of the Chesham Society was out of this world. A very special group of people out there.

 

[teuchter]

You’ll also notice that the “we don’t need hs2 because we can all use zoom” people are the same people as the “everyone should get back to the office” people

They are often also the "trains in this country are a disgrace, they are slow crowded and unreliable" people.

 

[Artaxerxes]

Well this immediately makes a lot more sense. Why would you sell it any other way?

Because politicians and newspapers are fucking stupid cunts and getting dumber by the year.

 

[Artaxerxes]

They are often also the "trains in this country are a disgrace, they are slow crowded and unreliable" people.

The greens are very keen on "making sure more local trains are available not HS2" but reluctant to acknowledge HS2 does that or build more local train lines.

 

[davesgcr]

They are often also the "trains in this country are a disgrace, they are slow crowded and unreliable" people.

Yes - we went to Spain , Germany (other countries are available) , and we travelled on a double decker train for less than a penny. Why cannot we have this in Chorleywood , Henley , Harrogate , Milngavie etc..? ......( all nice middle class + places)


One answer is the yearning for Tory tax cuts above anything else , and possibly the way the political football that the railways have been since 1948 , that and privatisation etc. I will stop now.

 

[Sasaferrato]

Freight only pays avoidable costs , and could never , ever justify a stand alone line.

High Speed transfers shed loads of capacity off the West Coast main line (trust me , I have both managed operationally the latter , in part) : and been heavily involved in planning the 2004 onwards increase in faster trains on the existing line. It took about 3 years of very stressfull planning to get the compromise timetable , up until COVID knocked back the train services.

The thing about the HS2 , when there , provides a lot of extra capacity for freight , and importantly better regional and local services , not just for London but quite a bit further out. Extra long distance calls at Watford Junction for example (impossibe at the moment , and nice to have increases in services like Watford (and north thereof) to Clapham Junction and South London. The latter is hourly at the moment , but could become half hourly. Etc.

We all want to see less HGV's on the motorways after all.........

The uninformed media , say that HS2 is only for expensive flows , - but the actual commercial model for the French is to provide affordable , high volume trains on the HS lines , ditto the Germans , Spanish etc. Big , long trains take a lot of passengers and it is imperative to fill them.

Thanks for that. Nice to have expert opinion, even if proves your own musings to be wrong.

 

[teuchter]

Thanks for that. Nice to have expert opinion, even if proves your own musings to be wrong.

It's explained every couple of pages or so on this thread, starting from about ten years ago

 

[teuchter]

It's remarkable how little attention the Silvertown tunnel gets in comparison. Something like £1.5bn for a short tunnel under the Thames adding capacity to the road network (ie encouraging more traffic on the roads instead of the rails) and feeding it through densely populated areas on either side. And it's in London/SE.

 

[davesgcr]

It's remarkable how little attention the Silvertown tunnel gets in comparison. Something like £1.5bn for a short tunnel under the Thames adding capacity to the road network (ie encouraging more traffic on the roads instead of the rails) and feeding it through densely populated areas on either side. And it's in London/SE.

Presume ex Mayor Boris was keen on it......?

 

[T & P]

The shitshow continues...

HS2 construction to be delayed in bid to cut costs

The BBC understands the government will delay building certain sections of the high-speed rail line.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[SpookyFrank]

Ooh, they're gonna need a whole bunch more consultants to sort this out.

 

[hash tag]

Will HS2 ever be completed and will it be this century?

 

[BigTom]

Will HS2 ever be completed and will it be this century?

Yes, but it'll only run between the rebuilt Euston and Old Oak Common stations. As a result, it won't actually be able to go at high speed, so will just use the existing tracks, but we'll call it HS2 anyway.

 

[domestos]

Was there ever any logic to starting the line in the middle? This "Government" aren't just corrupt and nepotistic they are also completely useless.

 

[BigTom]

Was there ever any logic to starting the line in the middle? This "Government" aren't just corrupt and nepotistic they are also completely useless.

It's the most expensive bit so supposedly once you have built this the cost/benefit ratio of going further is so big that it would be stupid not to keep going north.
sadly this has not turned out to be the case.

 

[hash tag]

Yes, but it'll only run between the rebuilt Euston and Old Oak Common stations. As a result, it won't actually be able to go at high speed, so will just use the existing tracks, but we'll call it HS2 anyway.

It will need renaming. Something like EIEI02

 

[Crispy]

Was there ever any logic to starting the line in the middle? This "Government" aren't just corrupt and nepotistic they are also completely useless.

The huge stations on complicated city sites are the "long poles" in the project. So the railway itself was started in the middle and is building outwards to meet the stations at the same time as they are completed.

 

[domestos]

That sort of makes sense but if the stations were built first at least there's something that can have a purpose if it all goes TU. It really is time for a different system for Nationally important projects

 

[Crispy]

Well , we could ask ourselves how the Chinese (for example) manage to build so much high-speed rail for a fraction of what HS2 costs. And the answer is that the CCP gets what the CCP wants, and fuck you if you stand in the way.

Modern construction project costs are mostly due to things like worker safety, environmental protection, community consultation etc. All the "externalities" that would otherwise be swept under the rug. Such things might not be on the project balance sheet in other countries, but the costs still exist. Workers die or get injured, ecosystems are destroyed, communities torn apart, and that can all be accounted for in monetary terms.

(We could save a few billion by just ramming through the Chilterns in cutting and on viaduct, and demolish any awkward villages in the way. But insstead it's tunnels for miles.)

As for over-budget, over-time, it has always been this way. No public works project would get greenlit with genuine costs and schedules. Everyone puts in the "best possible case" figures, and a razor thin margin and then acts all surprised when they go over.

Finally, covid and now inflation really have done a number on the construction industry in general. HS2 was always going to go over budget, but not to this extreme.

EDIT: Finally for real: In terms of the lifetime of the asset, it barely matters. We're currently getting good use out of 150 year-old railway infrastructure and can expect the same or better from HS2. £10bn or 5 years here or there is peanuts on that scale.

 

[hash tag]

The enemy of a project like this is British demogratic politics IE consultation, appeals etc.
Brunel would never have stood for this.
I gather things like this are much quicker in France.
The head of L&G was on the radio this morning and said London is the worst place in the world to invest because it takes 7 years to get from a planning application to start of construction.

 

[Crispy]

It's not quite that bad (count the cranes on the London skyline and tell me it's a bad place to invest in property!), but yes, we do have a pretty restrictive and people-empowering planning system. In some ways it's great, as it can keep inappropriate development at bay. But in other ways it's awful because a handful of NIMBYs can wreck vital infrastructure projects.
France isn't quite the CCP, but they can ram stuff through if they want it badly.