HS2

[Fat Controller]

Just now, Lantavian said:

 

Gosh. I'd forgotten about that. Thanks for reminding me.

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-35521040

 The 'Osprey' of its day

[4630]

1 minute ago, Lantavian said:

 

My personal feeling is that once (if?) HS2 is ever built -- especially if it gets to Scotland -- people will love it and forget all the angst that came before.

 

 

Which is, IMHO, pretty much the experience with HS1

[4630]

Sure.

 

But the country is not noted for consistently having the collective political will or vision to undertake and successfully see-through projects of the scale required.

 

And that is as far as I'm prepared to go pursuing this particular line.

 

 

[billbedford]

44 minutes ago, 4630 said:

Sure.

 

But the country is not noted for consistently having the collective political will or vision to undertake and successfully see-through projects of the scale required.

 

 The HMG has been know for not doing very much and doing it very well. 

[Edwin_m]

3 hours ago, runs as required said:

Existing public transport in West Midlands cannot be described as integrated in the way London has been fortunate to have survived since Deregulation. Were I Mayor, it would be my highest priority.

Car parking has always so far been regulated by charges. In my view car use should be regulated by metering and monthly d.d, based on roads used.

 

3 hours ago, Siberian Snooper said:

 

The tram system is to extend to Curzon street and will probably be there before HS2 opens. They certainly seem to be shifting along with the extension to Edgebaston.

There are some very ambitious plans for improving the pretty desolate public transport network in the West Midlands, which probably had (and may still have) a good chance of going ahead considering Andy Street is a Conservative and the Tories were pinning their reputation on improving things outside the south-east.  The same factors count in favour of HS2.  

 

Even if local access to New Street isn't great today, by having a HS2 station nearby all improvements will improve access to the city centre as well as to HS2.  If the only HS2 station is on the outskirts then it needs its own network of local access services so you're either spending to do that twice or getting something not as good.  Birmingham is fortunate in having the Curzon Street site close to the city centre, large enough for a station, and with an open corridor to the edge of the city allowing the line to run mostly on the surface.  

1 hour ago, Mattc6911 said:

Meh its firewalled  and as the cleaner has been furloughed its covered in dust. . . "I see a very misty future" 

Shouldn't you have been able to foresee the need to take it home the day before the office closed?  

[Matt C]

1 minute ago, Edwin_m said:

 

 

Shouldn't you have been able to foresee the need to take it home the day before the office closed?  

 

 

Ahh but you see you are making the same mistake most others do, that CB gazing and tea leaf reading is an exact science ! . I did foresee in the Crystal ball that great changes were coming, involving much less travel and a need to take something from work home with me, so I nicked all the toilet rolls !

[Zomboid]

1 hour ago, Lantavian said:

 

I still think it is embarrassing that, more than HALF A CENTURY since the first Bullet Train ran in Japan, it's still quicker to get from London to Paris or Brussels by train than it is to get from London to Edinburgh or Glasgow.

 

 

Is that really fair? Brussels in particular is a notably shorter distance, and from a glance at a map, the straight line London to Paris wouldn't get you to the Scottish border either.

[runs as required]

51 minutes ago, Lantavian said:

I was reading the Railway Executive's Report of the Committee on Types of Motive Power, published in 1951, and was amused to find that one form of competition to rail that the authors expected was fast inter-city helicopters.

Probably explained by this:

I worked for Norman & Dawbarn (of "what form shall we make the BBC Television Centre ?" fame) 

The consultancy of architects, engineers, planners, based in Brixton made its name advising the Southern Railway on its airline business  (as part of Airwork). Gatwick emerged from it, as did Shoreham and lots of Empire airfields and flying boat stops until the 1970s. (I got a PPL with them in E Africa)

Its biggest misreading of the CB  White Elephant was forecasting Swanley as the successor to Croydon rather than Heathrow. It resulted in the Southern  hugely over investing in sidings just south of the  Otford/Maidstone East branch junction east of Swanley station - eventually obliterated by the far more land-hungry M25 junction.

[Northmoor]

2 hours ago, corneliuslundie said:

I understand that there was briefly in the 1930s a regular helicopter service between various destinations in Wales. And of course the "Automobile Palace" in Llandrindod Wells still has aeroplanes advertised as one of the products, firmly set in the parapet of the building. For sale to local farmers I believe.

Jonathan

As Sikorsky flew the first practical helicopter in 1939, that would have been very innovative of the Welsh operator.  It may have been a fixed wing air service.

[Fat Controller]

38 minutes ago, Northmoor said:

As Sikorsky flew the first practical helicopter in 1939, that would have been very innovative of the Welsh operator.  It may have been a fixed wing air service.

There was the Railway Air Service, which operated a number of routes. They were owned by the 'Big 4', operating DH89 Rapides pre-WW2, and Dakotas immediately afterwards.

[Zomboid]

1 hour ago, Lantavian said:

 

Fair points.

 

But it's still pretty embarrassing though that we don't have a Shinkansen- or TGV-style line to Edinburgh/Scotland 56 years after the first Bullet train service started.

 

 

I don't know that there's truly the traffic for a dedicated HSL all the way, but I would agree that we've been way behind the times on such matters up to now.

[Phaeton]

18 hours ago, 96701 said:

Fine, but with no crystal ball, all the pontifications on future scenario merely sounds like news hounds spouting stuff to fill some space. What does this have to do with HS2 as a project? It will either happen or it won't. Nobody knows at this stage.

 

 

Because it has never been needed, it's not needed now & it won't be needed in the future, it's a vanity project to put money into the Governments friends whose wallets are the only thing that is going to benefit. Last estimate was 120 Billion wasn't it? which means it won't come in under 200 Billion, the UK Government after this pandemic will just not have that kind of funds to give to their friends or sell to them for a peerage.

[mdvle]

13 hours ago, runs as required said:

My six pennorth on HS2: is that it will be considered 'shovel ready' to go ahead - but maybe shorn of the Central London and Brum portions. So that (like after WW II)  the Property Developers.will swing into post-panD action adjacent to Euston to offset costs - Remember how Property Development enabled the Ludgate Hill rail overbridge/Holborn Viaduct terminus line  to be 'undergrounded' . There will more uses than simply offices that will be competing for the land flanking Euston.

And West Midlands Integrated Transportation will get heavy investment - along with rail rather than road linkages northwards.

 

Unlike the past, property development today takes years before being "shovel ready" between design and planning approvals.

 

Add in the cost of large developments (which is what anything around Euston or the Birminghmam), combine with the uncertainty immediately following this - large levels of unemployment that nobody knows what will happen - and the property developers will be playing a wait and see game for anything that isn't already in the "we have large amounts of borrowed money spent and so we have to finish so we can stand a chance to pay the interest charges"

 

Thus the combination of the Curzon Street and Euston stations being necessary parts of the project, and developers in no hurry to create new projects (and be honest, without the HS2 Curzon Street station the developers will quickly lose interest in developing in that portion of Birmingham), and those stations will go ahead.  (and don't forget to add in that few governments are willing to annoy developers, and given what has likely already been spent on the assumption of the Birmingham station those developers will be very upset with a cancellation at this point).

[The Stationmaster]

19 hours ago, Northmoor said:

Where do people get the idea that companies employ lots of people in offices for fun?  While there are lots of reports of people "successfully working from home", I look forward to some of their employers assessments of productivity after a few months.  Remember how many of those writing about working from home are paid to, err, write while working from home.  The proportion of retail employees who don't work in a shop, warehouse or lorry, are pretty small.  Armed forces, emergency services, manufacturers; none can work from home.  All those people will still need to travel to work.

 

Financial services is one industry that is assumed could work partly from home, because people only seem to be sitting in offices looking at a screen.  But can you imagine the security controls required if 75% of staff in banks, insurance or investment companies were accessing and processing personal data using a laptop on their kitchen table?  Implementing firewalls on the IT is the easy part; knowing who might be looking over the shoulder of a junior member of staff in a flatshare would be almost impossible to police.  Many years ago I stayed with a friend whose father was a regional manager for Midland Bank.  I was told very firmly NOT to get up and go downstairs in the morning until I knew others were up and about.  If I'd set off the alarm, it would be assumed the householders were being targeted and there would have been armed police surrounding the house very quickly.  If more people worked from home that sort of thing would need to be routine and the costs would be eye-watering.

As it happens I called my travel insurers about 10 days back with a query (why have you charged me twice) and it was superbly dealt with by a chap working from his living room including the need to remote access his company's data.  The proof of the pudding will be when the cash goes back into our bank account.

 

And back to HS2.  New guidelines for working on construction sites during the lock down and social distancing period were issued by the Construction Leadership Council on 23 March and these include some flexibility in relation to the '2 metre rule' depending on various conditions being complied with on site.

Edited April 6, 2020 by The Stationmaster

[The Stationmaster]

4 hours ago, Fat Controller said:

The Fairey Rotodyne?

An amazingly noisy thing.  I used to regularly hear it here - more racket than a Boeing 707 (and the latter was passing overhead, not just taking to the air 12-15 miles away)

[Mark Saunders]

Going back in history, there would have been no need to build any new roads after the Romans left as they were adequate for the needs of the population!

 

Planning for the needs of today ignores that tomorrows will be greater.

 

Procrastination gets you in a bigger hole than you started with!

 

[Pete the Elaner]

36 minutes ago, Phaeton said:

 

Because it has never been needed, it's not needed now & it won't be needed in the future, it's a vanity project to put money into the Governments friends whose wallets are the only thing that is going to benefit. Last estimate was 120 Billion wasn't it? which means it won't come in under 200 Billion, the UK Government after this pandemic will just not have that kind of funds to give to their friends or sell to them for a peerage.

 

Clearly you've not travelled on the WCML in the last 20 years.

Or if you have, it is after being blindfolded, tied up & dumped in the DVT/luggage vehicle.

 

6 minutes ago, Lantavian said:

 

Passenger numbers have surged since privatisation. Trains are crowded. How do you propose to create extra capacity on existing main lines from London to Scotland? 

 

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:GBR_rail_passengers_by_year_1830-2015.png#/media/File:GBR_rail_passengers_by_year_1830-2015.png

 

The last part of the graph echoes my own experience from travelling on the WCML over the past 20 years: a steady increase in the amount of passengers sharing the same trains. 20 years ago, I usually got a block of 4 to myself on my way home from work. Now, with more trains (some of them 12 coaches after having had platforms extended), I usually cannot get a seat.

 

Corona may slow the growth for a little while, but that is a relatively short term problem & the demand for travel will soon recover & grow again.

[mdvle]

1 hour ago, Phaeton said:

Last estimate was 120 Billion wasn't it? which means it won't come in under 200 Billion, the UK Government after this pandemic will just not have that kind of funds to give to their friends or sell to them for a peerage.

 

While it had crossed the £100 billion mark I don't think it had reached £120 billion - and while detailed estimates of how the money would be spent weren't provided I believe there were indications that the figure included a substantial amount of "just in case" budgeting which was one of the big reasons for the massive cost estimate increases.

[corneliuslundie]

Memory lapse. It was definitely helicopter so it must have been in the 1950s.  I knew about Railway Air Services and it was definitely nothing to do with that. Now to find the reference in one of my books - but which one?

Google is your friend:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/wales/entries/cd541dfc-7659-3f61-bee6-efb03b0a2958

Jonathan 

[black and decker boy]

34 minutes ago, mdvle said:

 

While it had crossed the £100 billion mark I don't think it had reached £120 billion - and while detailed estimates of how the money would be spent weren't provided I believe there were indications that the figure included a substantial amount of "just in case" budgeting which was one of the big reasons for the massive cost estimate increases.

And the cost of the train fleet (£9Bn allowance IIRC).

 

Construction of phase 1 in terms of the tracks etc was just over £10Bn IIRC

[class26]

1 hour ago, mdvle said:

 

While it had crossed the £100 billion mark I don't think it had reached £120 billion - and while detailed estimates of how the money would be spent weren't provided I believe there were indications that the figure included a substantial amount of "just in case" budgeting which was one of the big reasons for the massive cost estimate increases.

 

No , it hasn`t reached 120 billion yet someone a few posts up thread has just claimed 200 billion !!!!

That`s how rumours start.

 

Pick a number, a large number and multiply by anything you think. 

Edited April 6, 2020 by class26

[Matt C]

2 hours ago, Phaeton said:

2 hours ago, Pete the Elaner said:

 

Because it has never been needed, it's not needed now & it won't be needed in the future

 

 

Despite all arguments put forward this is YOUR belief,  many others would STRONGLY disagree.  Dont suppose you think the earth is flat do you ? (Just in case your not sure, yes that WAS an attempt at a joke)

 

Edit to add I somehow managed to bejigger the quote from Phaeton into a quote from Pete,  my apologies to Pete 

Edited April 6, 2020 by Mattc6911

[caradoc]

8 hours ago, 4630 said:

Sure.

 

But the country is not noted for consistently having the collective political will or vision to undertake and successfully see-through projects of the scale required.

 

But hopefully constructing HS2, in its entirety, and HS3, 4 etc will (eventually) resolve that !

 

[lmsforever]

Dont  think the Scottish Govt has the cash for extension they have problems with schools health service and we wont cough up any cash for them.Home rule is the be all and end all in Scotland HS2 if its built should at least go to Carlisle .Maybe the cross pennine HS3 could go there as well now that would offer real connectivity but I am still not convinced by the line and have no confidence in the company.

[Trog]

9 hours ago, Lantavian said:

 

I still think it is embarrassing that, more than HALF A CENTURY since the first Bullet Train ran in Japan, it's still quicker to get from London to Paris or Brussels by train than it is to get from London to Edinburgh or Glasgow.

 

 

 

I did a quick Google search on railway from Euston to Curzon Street Birmingham, and apparently it was already at the planning stage in the 1830's. When that nice Mr Stephenson was promising trains that would go like a Rocket, and here we are 190 years later still arguing about it.