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Talked to my nieghbour who works onHS2  the main work at the moment is the haul road for trucks this will please the local nimbys .The road has to be complete and then construction of the track bed will start  he implied that our bridges will start next year. think quite a few people went to the church site at Stoke when many local places were open the other weekend. 

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The report points the finger mainly at the DfT rather than HS2, I notice, especially regarding Euston. At least the statements by the chair and deputy chair do. I have better things to do than read the full report. We can be sure to get a completely garbled version from the press anyway.

Jonathan

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3 hours ago, Pandora said:

Here is a link to the Public Accounts Committee report of 22nd September 2021 for  Project Groundnuts HS2:

https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/127/public-accounts-committee/news/157649/no-clear-end-in-sight-to-hs2-cost-or-delays-with-many-difficulties-ahead/

 

In that case here's one MP's version:

https://www.thenational.scot/news/19600863.hs2-wont-start-running-services-2041-tory-mp-andrew-bridgen-claims/

 

Quote from news item:

 “Can we have an extended debate on the impact of HS2 on Government’s energy policy and the level of subsidy this loss-making project will have to be supported with annually if it is ever built?"

 

Obviously not up to date on what's currently going on.

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Reading the full Report, the PAC has taken an  objective stance,, they report that since the reset when the much-denied  truth came out, ( HS2 stopped telling lies about costs and timescale)  and HS2 is in a better state than before, however, the PAC do not mention the Business Case for HS2, a Business Case which is very flawed

 due to the major errors in costings of  HS2.

Here is the summary verbatim by copy and paste

"  

Summary

The High Speed 2 programme is one of the single most expensive taxpayer funded projects in the UK. This committee and our predecessor committees have been watching the costs for some years and been critical about the lack of transparency over costs and some of the decisions taken by management. The increase in costs have dented public confidence, but the project does appear to be in a better place following the reset last year. Significant concerns remain however, around key parts of the programme that if unaddressed will lead to further costs and disruption. With construction of Phase one underway and plans for Phase 2a approved by Parliament, the current estimated cost of completing High Speed 2 is between £72–98 billion (2019), an increase from the original budget of £55.7 billion (2015 prices) in 2015. While HS2 Ltd consider these estimates to be realistic, uncertainty remains, particularly when a substantial amount of the Phase One programme is still to be procured and HS2 Ltd is already reporting cost pressures of £0.8 billion from activities such as delayed enabling works and Euston station. HS2 Ltd is also unable to quantify the final cost of the impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic but estimates the cost to be between £300 million and £400 million at the end of 2020. If these costs are validated, they will need to be covered by the government-retained contingency of £4.3 billion.

Having warned in May 2020 that the Department and HS2 Ltd’s lack of transparency about the scale of the issues facing the programme risked undermining public confidence, we are encouraged that HS2 Ltd is now able to provide us with a clearer account than we have heard previously of what it has spent so far and what it expects to spend during the rest of Phase One. However, we are increasingly alarmed by the lack of progress in developing Euston station. Despite Euston being a key part of Phase One, the Department is yet to make key decisions on the design and approach to construction. Government also still needs to decide how Phase 2b – the northern sections of the route – will integrate with other parts of the railway and transport system. Both Euston and Phase 2b are complex and risky parts of the programme, but they are critical to the delivery of the promised benefits from High Speed 2. Urgent action is needed if the whole programme is to be delivered on time.

HS2 Ltd and the Department also need to do more to address the concerns of people, communities and businesses near the route, and to make sure that the benefits they have been promised are delivered. The volume of complaints about disruption and environmental damage from construction is rising and is expected to increase as the programme progresses. HS2 Ltd has an opportunity to get on the front foot and engage with communities earlier and more successfully than it has done so far. Government has promised a range of benefits in addition to building the new railway, including providing local jobs. Yet the Department and HS2 Ltd are unable to tell us how they will ensure these are delivered. We expect the Department and HS2 Ltd to have established a strategy to monitor and evaluate the benefits of the programme when we next revisit High Speed 2.

  "

Edited by Pandora
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I can't see any major criticism of HS2 there apart from telling HS2 to up the game on PR and communicstions generally.   The  potential cost overruns are about 1.2 billion with a contingency of 4.3, so not horrendous.  There is however still ogoing critcism of the DfT and the Government  in general for delays in decision making.  Thst is not the fault of HS2.

 

Jamie

Edited by jamie92208
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15 minutes ago, Pandora said:

From the PAC Report:

 

"We expect the Department and HS2 Ltd to have established a strategy to monitor and evaluate the benefits of the programme when we next revisit High Speed 2."

 

What does the above statement by PAC  actually mean in plain English?


Taken on it’s own it does sound a bit odd - however in the context of the two sentences in front of it, it makes sense. They are saying that the Government has promised additional benefits including increased local jobs but the Department and HS2 have not been able to quantify these additional benefits. So the PAC expects them to establish a strategy to monitor and evaluate the benefits (I take it they mean more fully, to include these ‘additional’ items). 

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11 minutes ago, MidlandRed said:


Taken on it’s own it does sound a bit odd - however in the context of the two sentences in front of it, it makes sense. They are saying that the Government has promised additional benefits including increased local jobs but the Department and HS2 have not been able to quantify these additional benefits. So the PAC expects them to establish a strategy to monitor and evaluate the benefits (I take it they mean more fully, to include these ‘additional’ items). 

It has always been my main concern about HS2 that like a lot of major projects, the "additional benefits" take a disproportionate amount of attention and eventually, the cost.  The focus should always be on delivering the primary benefits - the extra capacity on the WCML - not the primary school three miles from the railway that got a free playground, because the construction lorries went past them for six months.  It seems the critics (usually MPs) so often complain that their areas don't see the benefits and when they get the "compensation", complain the programme's cost is excessive.

I was recently discussing HS2 with a colleague who believed it should be built to a lower spec as the construction costs were driven by the high speed requirement.  I did point out that a 150mph railway is almost as straight as a 225mph one, while the requirement for tunneling has much more to do with environmental mitigation (or probably, house price preservation) than the need to keep the railway level.  TGV line in France are like roller coasters because they don't go through hills, they go over them.  Quite apart from land being relatively cheap in Northern France, that has got to cost a lot less to construct per mile than HS2.

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3 hours ago, Northmoor said:

It

I was recently discussing HS2 with a colleague who believed it should be built to a lower spec as the construction costs were driven by the high speed requirement.  I did point out that a 150mph railway is almost as straight as a 225mph one, while the requirement for tunneling has much more to do with environmental mitigation (or probably, house price preservation) than the need to keep the railway level.  TGV line in France are like roller coasters because they don't go through hills, they go over them.  Quite apart from land being relatively cheap in Northern France, that has got to cost a lot less to construct per mile than HS2.

This is a very valid point, simulations show   the HS" trains taking  a very long   time to both accelerate to, and brake from, the high linespeed proposed,  a reduction in designed linespeed may save considerable costs of construction and still deliver a fast embark to disembark journey time. 

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11 minutes ago, Pandora said:

This is a very valid point, simulations show   the HS" trains taking  a very long   time to both accelerate to, and brake from, the high linespeed proposed,  a reduction in designed linespeed may save considerable costs of construction and still deliver a fast embark to disembark journey time. 

You will need more trains for the same seating capacity per hour

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1 hour ago, Pandora said:

This is a very valid point, simulations show   the HS" trains taking  a very long   time to both accelerate to, and brake from, the high linespeed proposed,  a reduction in designed linespeed may save considerable costs of construction and still deliver a fast embark to disembark journey time. 

You've missed my point; reducing the line speed wouldn't reduce construction costs by very much at all because the route followed and percentage of tunneling reflects a desire to avoid planning blight (and perceived long term impact on views/noise in affluent areas) and very little to do with the need to go in a straight line at a constant speed.  A High Speed train with almost 10MW of power could just go over the Chilterns at 1 in 30 gradients without slowing, rather than under them.

A 150mph line is pretty straight already, so you might as well go faster and offer a more competitive point-to-point journey time.

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One thing I don't remember having been mentioned in the discussion of maximum speed is knock on costs. 

If from your initial design you reduce the maximum speed of the trains you will need more units to provide the same service. This has been commented on.

However, those units will require staff, so your staff costs increase throughout the life of the railway.

You will also need extra maintenance facilities, not for major overhauls necessarily but for overnight servicing. This will also need more staff.

You should not, I think, need to increase  station capacity.

What I don't know is how the increased capital cost (more units) and increased day to day costs would compare with the reduction, if any (remember there are more trains) in electricity costs. 

Jonathan

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4 hours ago, Pandora said:

This is a very valid point, simulations show   the HS" trains taking  a very long   time to both accelerate to, and brake from, the high linespeed proposed,  a reduction in designed linespeed may save considerable costs of construction and still deliver a fast embark to disembark journey time. 

It doesn`t save very much, it`s almost the same price to build for 140mph as 200 mph  

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8 hours ago, Northmoor said:

It has always been my main concern about HS2 that like a lot of major projects, the "additional benefits" take a disproportionate amount of attention and eventually, the cost.  The focus should always be on delivering the primary benefits - the extra capacity on the WCML

 

Do you really think that upgrading the WCML has not been considered? It has probably been raised at every level & dismissed as not affordable or scalable. Do not forget that upgrading a line causes massive disruption for a long time.

 

The WCML was upgraded about 15 years ago. Tracks were re-laid, stations were simplified, signalling was upgraded. That is relatively recent in railway terms.

Paths are already extremely tight on the WCML because it has to deal with quite large volumes of 4 different types of traffic:

Long distance, high-speed services

Semi-fast services

Local passenger traffic

Freight.

 

The last 2 can co-exist because the local services are faster but can accelerate & decelerate more rapidly. It is still not easy for them to co-exist, but it is manageable unless an incident occurs, then everything gets affected.

Fast services use the fast lines.

Semi-fasts are somewhere in between. Without careful planning, they will hold up the high speed services. They need to sometimes use the slow lines, but here they will get held up by the locals & freights.

1 delay puts everything out of sync.

So how exactly can the WCML be upgraded? Speeding up the (twisty) fast lines will not help the semi-fasts to go any faster & the fast services will then simply catch them up & have to slow down to maintain distances.

 

The only way to provide significantly extra capacity is to move a set of traffic away. The local trains server towns & villages along the route s you cannot move these off. These co-exist with freight so a dedicated freight route would not help either.

The only option left is to move the fast trains off. Why do these need to WCML when a different route will do?

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43 minutes ago, Pete the Elaner said:

 

Do you really think that upgrading the WCML has not been considered? It has probably been raised at every level & dismissed as not affordable or scalable.

YES, I KNOW! 

That's why I said this should be the almost undivided focus of HS2 because creating capacity on the WCML is what HS2 is intended to do.

 

Sorry, I didn't realise the point I was making was going to be misconstrued, by those with opposite views! 

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1 hour ago, Northmoor said:

YES, I KNOW! 

That's why I said this should be the almost undivided focus of HS2 because creating capacity on the WCML is what HS2 is intended to do.

 

Sorry, I didn't realise the point I was making was going to be misconstrued, by those with opposite views! 

 

Sorry, I just mis-interpreted your post. :(

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On 24/09/2021 at 20:58, melmerby said:

 

In that case here's one MP's version:

https://www.thenational.scot/news/19600863.hs2-wont-start-running-services-2041-tory-mp-andrew-bridgen-claims/

 

Quote from news item:

 “Can we have an extended debate on the impact of HS2 on Government’s energy policy and the level of subsidy this loss-making project will have to be supported with annually if it is ever built?"

 

Obviously not up to date on what's currently going on.

And did he get the completion dates for the different phases confused when he claimed that phase one wouldn't be finished by 2041? (ie the (possibly imaginary) whistleblower told him that phase 2b was being put back a few years, which is entirely plausible)

 

It looks like Jacob Rees-Mogg wasn't very impressed with him. 

 

 

Edited by pete_mcfarlane
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