HS2

[Mike Storey]

On 18/12/2020 at 17:59, jamie92208 said:

In the late 50's I lived at Giggleswick on the A65 which is the main road between the West Riding  conurbation and the then thriving resort of Morecambe. Every Bank Holiday weekend there used to be traffic jams several miles long caused by the then narrow bridge at Settle. These all disappeared when the M6, 62 and 61 opened. 

 

Jamie

 

Or that could be also because so many fewer people want to go to Morecambe any more.

 

But, on the size of the tunnels, and of the line radii, one aspect many of you are missing is the (current) requirement that the line be able to take double deck sets in future, which both negates the need to lengthen platforms and loops in future, but also ensures potential and readily realisable extra capacity in the system (something Shinkansen and others seriously wish for, having faded away from double-deckers in the last few years. Only the Chinese are actively promoting it, but without details.). In these Covid times, that seems difficult to comprehend, given the scepticism over likely future demand. As in all things, the proof of that wisdom will come many years hence.

[Ron Ron Ron]

HS2 say there are 3 sizes of tunnel bore.

On the 360km/h sections, 9.1m and 8.8m internal diameter. 

The 230 km/h sections will use tunnels of 7.55m internal diameter.

 

The Chilterns tunnels being the largest. 
I don’t know if that’s just for phase one, or for the whole of HS2 ?

 

 

. 

[Ron Ron Ron]

Long Itchington Wood tunnel, north portal, Warwickshire.

Parts for the first tunnelling machine are being delivered, prior to assembly.

HS2 ltd. photo from a couple of weeks ago.....

 

 

 

 

 

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[Ron Ron Ron]

Progress at preparing the former Eurotunnel site at Willesden.

Spoil from the OOC site and tunnel excavations will be delivered here by a conveyor, for onward removal by rail.

 

 

 

 

 

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[Fat Controller]

54 minutes ago, Ron Ron Ron said:

Progress at preparing the former Eurotunnel site at Willesden.

Spoil from the OOC site and tunnel excavations will be delivered here by a conveyor, for onward removal by rail.

 

 

 

 

 

.

It was never a Eurotunnel site, but Freightliner and then Railfreight Distribution.

[Ron Ron Ron]

1 hour ago, Fat Controller said:

It was never a Eurotunnel site, but Freightliner and then Railfreight Distribution.

 

Sorry, my mistake. HS2 and NR refers to it as...

Willesden Euroterminal,

...which means something different I suppose?

 

Ron

 

 

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[phil-b259]

28 minutes ago, Ron Ron Ron said:

 

Sorry, my mistake. HS2 and NR refers to it as...

Willesden Euroterminal,

...which means something different I suppose?

 

Ron

 

 

.

 

It was named "Willesden Euroterminal" by British Rail and was supposed to be the London terminal for goods from the channel tunnel. The frankly abysmally low level of railfreight through the tunnel quickly saw the site mothballed / used for other operations - the bulk of eventually being leased out for non rail activities.

 

Under the sectorisation model it was allocated to the Railfreight Distribution sector (hence the branding which was applied to the cranes)  - which then went through EWS to DB ownership after privatisation. The name of the site however has remained "Willesden Euroterminal" throughout it all, hence the name is being used to describe the site being used by HS2

 

The

[Fat Controller]

1 hour ago, Ron Ron Ron said:

 

Sorry, my mistake. HS2 and NR refers to it as...

Willesden Euroterminal,

...which means something different I suppose?

 

Ron

 

 

.

It was the former Freightliner terminal, which was upgraded in anticipation with the increase in traffic to and from mainland Europe following the opening of the Channel Tunnel. To be honest, it was a bit of a white elephant; in more recent times, it's served to handle spoil from various public-works projects around London.

[Ron Ron Ron]

HS2 Birmingham Interchange Station, Solihull, adjacent to the M42 and on the opposite side of that motorway from the NEC.

 

Here are some views of progress on building 4 new road bridges that will facilitate the relocation and remodelling of major trunk roads in the area.

The path of the HS2 railway lines can clearly be seen.

 

 

3 bridges seen here. The M42 is in the top left hand corner.

 

 

 

Swinging round to the right, we can see the 4th bridge (top right hand corner)......

 

 

 

A view looking back from the opposite direction (from the north looking south), with the M42 on the right hand side. The NEC is to the right of the photo.....

 

 

 

 

Finally, Birmingham Airport and part of the NEC can be seen at the top left of this view, with the M42 running across L-R in the top quarter of the frame......

 

 

 

 

 

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[Bernard Lamb]

For information.

Bernard

 

 

2021 brings a new HS2 petition (a last chance?). It brings together the
arguments about the Coronavirus crisis changing the overall economic
case, environmental issues and national priorities for re-balancing the
economy. It is being promoted by Michael Mansfield (a prominent QC),
Chris Packham (environmentalist), Doug Thornton (former senior HS2
manager), Esther Mcvey (MP for Tatton) and others. It asks Parliament to
vote to repeal the High Speed Rail Bills, 2016 and 2019, as MPs voted at
the time on misleading information provided by the Dept of Transport and
HS2 Ltd. Here it is - https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/563380
Please forward this email to your friends and contacts and share the
petition on social media. It has past 12,000 petitioners in the last few
days, but really needs to get 100,000 fairly quickly.
 

[Northmoor]

1. Chris Packham has been discussed on here at length.  I think we've established he knows a lot about nature but very little about construction, economics, railways and not a lot about human nature either.
2. I would love to know what Doug Thornton did at HS2, perhaps he's a former employee because he wasn't very good?
3. I used to know a guy who worked at the DSS and sometimes reported to Ian Duncan-Smith when he was SoS (who he described as a bit weird but OK to work with) and Esther McVey when (briefly) she was the Minister.  She, on the other hand, was quite the most unpleasant person he had ever worked with, or for, in his life.

 

Edited January 6, 2021 by Northmoor

[black and decker boy]

Cancelling phase 1 now would be economic suicide for the construction industry of the midlands & Home Counties.

 

hundreds of SMEs have invested heavily in new plant & equipment, new offices, new staff & apprentices ready for the main construction works. I work with many and know they my will be decimated if HS2 is cancelled. There simply isnt any shovel ready replacement for the same extent & duration and our planning system means that no one  can just click their fingers and authorise bee schemes even if they passed the funding BCR required by HM Treasury.

[Ron Ron Ron]

I would bet real money on the fact that many of these people have no idea that the thing is actually under construction and that HS2 is a reality and not just a proposal on paper. 
Do they know that many large earthworks and site preparations have either already been carried out, are underway, or in advanced states of preparedness?

 

By this coming summer, the first tunnelling will have started, viaduct foundation works will be in progress and the extent of large earthworks and civil engineering projects across the length of the route will have multiplied by a fair bit.

 

Have they any idea of how many businesses are already heavily invested in this project and what the consequences of cancellation will do to them and their employees?
There are the tens of thousands of jobs and vast amount of work for British companies over the next 20 years, that they want to throw away, at a time when it’s  going to be desperately needed.

 

Edited January 6, 2021 by Ron Ron Ron

[Zomboid]

9 minutes ago, black and decker boy said:

There simply isnt any shovel ready replacement for the same extent & duration and our planning system means that no one  can just click their fingers and authorise bee schemes even if they passed the funding BCR required by HM Treasury

The objectors don't want that - they're either NIMBYs or BANANAs (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything), and the consequences of cancelling phase 1 of HS2 don't interest them.

 

To be honest, they're probably not naive, phase 1 is realistically past the point of no return, but they could still wreck phase 2.

[lmsforever]

The HS2   project is not for now its for the future when life has returned to normal when thecountry will want to travel again we hope.People like Packham should concentrate their minds on the problems of now and dont forget he is not on tv so often now and has to keep his profile high.The construction is starting to happen so we can see what is planned and how its going to look which is all good.Have not been able to see whats happenning around Aylesbury but assume its going well.

[Michael Hodgson]

So we will be able to travel on it when Covid is over?

[melmerby]

35 minutes ago, Michael Hodgson said:

So we will be able to travel on it when Covid is over?

Only if you have a vaccination certificate

[Ron Ron Ron]

53 minutes ago, Michael Hodgson said:

So will we be able to travel on it when Covid is over?

 

No.

Travel on HS2 will be reserved exclusively for the "elites" and rich, fat businessmen, who will simply use it for no other reason, but to get to Birmingham or London,  20 minutes quicker than they would be able to today.

The fares will also be astronomically expensive, so that "ordinary people" (whatever that's supposed to mean?) will never be able to afford it anyway.

Well, that's according to 90% of all the anti-HS2 stuff I've read or heard over the last few years, so it must be true.

 

 

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[Michael Hodgson]

 

56 minutes ago, melmerby said:

Only if you have a vaccination certificate

 

I've had a few negative tests, but I'm still waiting to be certified.

 

34 minutes ago, Ron Ron Ron said:

 

No.

Travel on HS2 will be reserved exclusively for the "elites" and rich, fat businessmen, who will simply use it for no other reason, but to get to Birmingham or London,  20 minutes quicker than they would be able to today.

The fares will also be astronomically expensive, so that "ordinary people" (whatever that's supposed to mean?) will never be able to afford it anyway.

Well, that's according to 90% of all the anti-HS2 stuff I've read or heard over the last few years, so it must be true.

.

 

Oh dear.  That's no good, even if I win the lottery - I was hoping to get out of Birmingham 20 minutes faster.

 

 

[Trog]

I guess that once HS2 opens it will replace the Up Stour as being the best thing to see in Birmingham.

[Arun Sharma]

3 hours ago, Trog said:

I guess that once HS2 opens it will replace the Up Stour as being the best thing to see in Birmingham.

I thought that the best thing to see in Brum these days was still 46235........

[Pete the Elaner]

4 hours ago, Trog said:

I guess that once HS2 opens it will replace the Up Stour as being the best thing to see in Birmingham.

 

Maybe not. Don't judge Birmingham from what you hear from others who may not have been there for several years. I used New St station every week for a few months so I thought i knew it a little bit.

I went to a beer festival in Birmingham early last year & it was my first visit to the city by train for nearly 30 years.

The platform level of New Street was as dingy as I remembered it but the level above was unrecognisable. Even when I got outside the shopping mall which houses the station, I could not recognise the place. The changes were truly amazing.

 

But back to HS2: It is a similar project to what the Motorways were in the 1950s: a big, expensive project to provide extra capacity & speed as a by-product. Back then, there was lots of opposition to the Motorways claiming we don't need them.

Could you imagine driving between from London to Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool or Leeds today without the M1, M6 or M40?

Apart from a small section of the M6 (Preston bypass - yes the first section of motorway was indeed in the north), the M1 was the first of those to open, just like southern part of HS2 is phase 1.

[Michael Hodgson]

25 minutes ago, Pete the Elaner said:

 

Apart from a small section of the M6 (Preston bypass - yes the first section of motorway was indeed in the north), the M1 was the first of those to open, just like southern part of HS2 is phase 1.

 

... quickly followed by the Lancaster By-pass.  They were great as you could overtake anywhere, but once you got back onto the A6, you were still looking to find a long enough gap to overtake a lorry struggling to maintain 20 up Shap or Beattock, and had to drive through the middle of towns like Carlisle.

 

During the first lockdown I had to drive down the A1(M) to hospital a few times, and the traffic levels reminded me of what motorway traffic was like in the 1950s when my dad was driving on those stretches.  It did indeed seem like over-provision, but Hitler had built similar autobahns before the war.  No 70 mph limit then, but that was about all you could get from the average private car.  Still as safety problem though as there were no seat belts, few crash barriers and vehicles weren't very crash-resistant.

[DY444]

21 hours ago, Zomboid said:

The objectors don't want that - they're either NIMBYs or BANANAs (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything), and the consequences of cancelling phase 1 of HS2 don't interest them.

 

To be honest, they're probably not naive, phase 1 is realistically past the point of no return, but they could still wreck phase 2.

 

I don't think so.  Phase 1 has always been the most politically vulnerable and now it has the advantage of being well advanced and probably has achieved the critical mass to make it unstoppable.  Cancelling Phase 2 would be political suicide for the Government and tbh I just can't see it happening.   

Edited January 7, 2021 by DY444

[Edwin_m]

Phase 1 is essentially a trunk route to get people between London and the Midlands or beyond, so doesn't directly benefit the areas it passes through.  The indirect benefit of allowing better service on the existing routes is hard to sell, especially to people who don't use the train at all.  Nearly every local authority in the North is in favour of Phase 2 and popular opposition seems to be localised in a few areas where it is most disruptive.