HS2

[Ron Ron Ron]

Machinery gathering in the depths of the Chilterns.

 

[woodenhead]

With regards the Manchester leg, it's still being planned for by HS2 even if the Government may be wavering.

 

Visited my late father's empty flat today to check for any leaks, letter to the occupier from HS2, they are doing test bores nearby.  He lived near central Manchester, told me HS2 was going under his flat and he used to swear he could hear them tunnelling...seems he was not so wrong after all, just they hadn't actually begun to bore anything yet.  Maybe I should make a complaint to HS2 about vibrations and ask them to buy the flat, might be a quicker sale, it's been up for sale for 12 months

[Ron Ron Ron]

An update on the Chilterns Tunnels TBM progress.

 

Florence now about 1.1 km in, with 14.9 km to go.

Cecilia now over 0.5 km in, with 15.5 km to go.

 

 

 

 

 

 

.

Edited August 23, 2021 by Ron Ron Ron

[Flittersnoop]

https://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/news/local-news/hs2-birmingham-leeds-extension-through-5817506?fbclid=IwAR0VBQxqFwX5qArDxP5o0OyjhmIIKoV3D5-Lv5I8KEqukueKA82ZsrcHtlM

 

Not entirely surprising.

[Ron Ron Ron]

6 hours ago, Flittersnoop said:

https://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/news/local-news/hs2-birmingham-leeds-extension-through-5817506?fbclid=IwAR0VBQxqFwX5qArDxP5o0OyjhmIIKoV3D5-Lv5I8KEqukueKA82ZsrcHtlM

 

Not entirely surprising.

 

This story has been carried by the national press and other media organs, for the last couple of weeks.

I think it's also been mentioned in this thread, a couple of pages back perhaps?

So not really news as such.

 

 

.

[Flittersnoop]

15 hours ago, Ron Ron Ron said:

 

This story has been carried by the national press and other media organs, for the last couple of weeks.

I think it's also been mentioned in this thread, a couple of pages back perhaps?

So not really news as such.

 

 

.

That's how controversial government decisions seem to be announced these days, though - leaked in order to dilute the backlash, whilst retaining the option to U-turn and deny.

[Fenman]

3 hours ago, Flittersnoop said:

That's how controversial government decisions seem to be announced these days, though - leaked in order to dilute the backlash, whilst retaining the option to U-turn and deny.

“These days”? It’s been going on for decades — and if you’ve only just realised then you haven’t been paying attention. 
 

“Yes Minister” is more than 40 years old and that was just reflecting what was then already long-established practice. 
 

Paul

[Pandora]

"Yes Minister  ,   No Minister"

A piece in the "Canary" website about HS2 concerning the ministerial code and parliament

 

 

https://www.thecanary.co/exclusive/2021/08/26/exclusive-cabinet-office-wont-investigate-ministers-who-broke-the-ministerial-code-over-hs2-scandal/

Edited August 28, 2021 by Pandora

[Hibelroad]

I must say I am no big fan of HS2 but I am appalled at the ever spiralling cost, pushing 150bn now. The original estimate was 33bn and I remember some head of HS2 recently saying something like it will not go a penny over 48bn or strike me dead. Surely if there was ever a business case it has long gone. 

So my prediction, it will not go beyond Birmingham and other works will be abandoned by a future government. It will never be high speed, just a relief line which gets sold off to private investment  for a £1. Time will tell. 

[corneliuslundie]

But I can't determine the basis of these recent predictions. Are they real or are they being produced by individuals or organisations which want to shoot down HS2 and actually are fiction? There will have been significantly increased costs because of Covid, and continual government dithering has also increased costs but not as much as is now being suggested. And I am sure that those planning the route allowed for great crested newts etc.

Of course all these figures include a large contingency sum insisted on by the Treasury so do not represent the actual cost.

And just yesterday I had to explain to my daughter that it is about extra  all=-day capacity not ten minutes faster to Birmingham or because of increased commuting. As she said, it is still being touted as High Speed.

And as an aside, what would be the total cost, including that for disruption, of adding two lines to the WCML? I suspect that it would make HS2 look cheap whatere it eventually costs - and upset far more people.

Jonathan

[jamie92208]

Are they starting to lump in the cost of the new trains plus 30 yr maintenance  contract.

 

Jamie

[Edwin_m]

36 minutes ago, corneliuslundie said:

And as an aside, what would be the total cost, including that for disruption, of adding two lines to the WCML? I suspect that it would make HS2 look cheap whatere it eventually costs - and upset far more people.

The WCML upgrade came in it about £10m at 2000 prices, and added hardly any track.  For a start, think of the number of houses that back onto the WCML in all the places it passes through, and how many of those would need compensating or buying out.  HS2 deliberately avoids any significant settlement or tunnels under if unavoidable, so the impact on people is tiny by comparison.  

Edited August 28, 2021 by Edwin_m

[jamie92208]

15 minutes ago, Edwin_m said:

The WCML upgrade came in it about £10m at 2000 prices, and added hardly any track.  For a start, think of the number of houses that back onto the WCML in all the places it passes through, and how many of those would need compensating or buying out.  HS2 deliberately avoids any significant settlement or tunnels under if unavoidable, so the impact on people is tiny by comparison.  

Agree totally except it was Billion not million.  I believe that the HS2 business case looked at that option and rejected it very early on.  However the antis will never let facts get in the way of their arguments,

 

As an aside, I drove round part of the M25 on Thursday and saw the special exit and the roofs of all the buildings at the tunnel/viaduct worksite.  Great to see it.

 

Jamie

[62613]

1 hour ago, Hibelroad said:

I must say I am no big fan of HS2 but I am appalled at the ever spiralling cost, pushing 150bn now. The original estimate was 33bn and I remember some head of HS2 recently saying something like it will not go a penny over 48bn or strike me dead. Surely if there was ever a business case it has long gone. 

So my prediction, it will not go beyond Birmingham and other works will be abandoned by a future government. It will never be high speed, just a relief line which gets sold off to private investment  for a £1. Time will tell. 

Anyone quoting a figure for the final cost is peddling fairy stories, to be honest. There was a figure, quoted in an article in The New Civil Engineer a couple of pages back, of between £74 and £95 billion, including contingencies.

[Mark Saunders]

Too much short term thinking and ignoring the long game!

 

Ask anyone who’s put off buying a house recently only to see the prices rise well beyond inflation!

[Phil Parker]

1 hour ago, corneliuslundie said:

And as an aside, what would be the total cost, including that for disruption, of adding two lines to the WCML? I suspect that it would make HS2 look cheap whatere it eventually costs - and upset far more people.

 

This is always the problem - can anyone think of the cheaper way to add significant capacity to the existing network? I mean, you could increase the number of lines though Leamington as the cost of demolishing hundreds of houses and a college in town. If there were a cheaper way, then the government would have taken it some time ago.

 

Mind you, there is a cost saving to be made. One local village is getting an outdoor gym from HS2 Ltd. I don't suppose it will be the only one - how much could cutting these gestures save?

 

1 hour ago, corneliuslundie said:

And just yesterday I had to explain to my daughter that it is about extra  all=-day capacity not ten minutes faster to Birmingham or because of increased commuting. As she said, it is still being touted as High Speed.

 

Touted by who? The name is HS2, but I've not seen anyone advertising it as a specifically high- speed line except the BBC, who hate all forms of public transport.

[RJS1977]

And I'm not sure adding extra tracks alongside an existing route would have been ideal anyway. Any major issue affecting the existing route (flooding, medium-scale signal failure, suspect terror activity, fire in a nearby building, etc), would be likely to afffect both the original and new tracks, whereas following a different route mitigates against this. 

[woodenhead]

Grumble grumble Great Central, grumble grumble Woodhead, grumble grumble Leeds New Line, grumble grumble Waverley Route, grumble grumble Chinley to Matlock grumble grumble grumble.

 

 

ps I'm not anti HS2, just we could have done with keeping all these routes....

[John Tomlinson]

6 hours ago, Pandora said:

"Yes Minister  ,   No Minister"

A piece in the "Canary" website about HS2 concerning the ministerial code and parliament

 

 

https://www.thecanary.co/exclusive/2021/08/26/exclusive-cabinet-office-wont-investigate-ministers-who-broke-the-ministerial-code-over-hs2-scandal/

 

Isn't this just trying to put off the evil day when those in power have to account for the decision to approve any of this project and why they got it so wrong. If you were Boris you'd want to bluster for as long as possible, certainly till you'd packed your bags and followed Cameron into earning mega bucks elsewhere, so someone else can take the flak.

 

John.

[Grovenor]

Its taking so long to build HS2 that the annual cost is hardly significant, compare it with the cost of 'track and trace'. The downside is that few of us will live to see it finished, and everyone has to live with the congestion while waiting. How many miles of HS line have the chinese built while we have thought about it?

[Trog]

42 minutes ago, woodenhead said:

Grumble grumble Great Central, grumble grumble.......................................

ps I'm not anti HS2, just we could have done with keeping all these routes....

 

By the time you had built a new line to bypass sharing the old Met tracks into London,  a connection into Brum from somewhere south of Rugby and opened up all the tunnels and bridges to a suitable loading gauge what would the likely saving be? Probably very little and you would end up with a slower lower capacity line.

[woodenhead]

6 minutes ago, Trog said:

 

By the time you had built a new line to bypass sharing the old Met tracks into London,  a connection into Brum from somewhere south of Rugby and opened up all the tunnels and bridges to a suitable loading gauge what would the likely saving be? Probably very little and you would end up with a slower lower capacity line.

Didn’t say they should be part of HS2 but part of the reason we need HS2 is precisely because these lines closed and removed capacity albeit a long time ago and in a different era.

[Satan's Goldfish]

Did I imagine it, or was part of the reason for the rising costs the amount of track that's in tunnels rather than on the surface? I know some of that is unavoidable but wasn't a lot of the tunneling to keep the nimby's and anti HS2 'you're spending too much and destroying the countryside' lot happy?

[corneliuslundie]

I know i contributed to the above, but really at this stage since we really do not know what will happen in the future might it be best to stick to reports of what is happening on the ground?

Most of the above posts is only a rehash of what was already a rehash of what had been said before. The rumour mill will keep turning but I prefer facts.

Jonathan

[Pandora]

4 hours ago, Edwin_m said:

The WCML upgrade came in it about £10m at 2000 prices, and added hardly any track.  For a start, think of the number of houses that back onto the WCML in all the places it passes through, and how many of those would need compensating or buying out.  HS2 deliberately avoids any significant settlement or tunnels under if unavoidable, so the impact on people is tiny by comparison.  

One of the earliest costings to  create WCML  capacity had figures of  £9bn to upgrade the existing  WCML,  or £12bn to build an entirely  new railway. How times have changed!