HS2 under review

[The Stationmaster]

HS2 construction will start somewhere (probably Manchester and Leeds) in 2017 and not be finished until 2032. The civil work will start but the line won't be installed until much later. That sounds like years of disruption to me.

 

The HS2 line passes through employment areas or those planned as employment areas thus destroying thousands of jobs. It also destroys the environment. None of this has been included in the costs.

 

The line will not all be in tunnels where it passes through areas of population. There are 500,000 homes within 1 mile of the line (HS2 figures). Those people will lose anything between £30,000 and £200,000 in property values. They will not benefit from HS2 in any way. They will get no compensation. Again, none of this has been included in the costs.

 

Frank

I cannot think of any railway line in this day and age which has taken 15 years to construct - those figures sound like total nonsense, unless they are going to do the earthworks with picks & shovels and use my little cement mixer to knock out the concrete a barrowful at a time!  It could, I agree take several years between work starting on site at point A and the line opening to traffic but the actual groundwork phase affecting the immediately surrounding land is only going to take 2-3 years in most places and not much longer in the more complex areas - HS1 shows just how long construction on complex sites can take as do the mainland European HS routes.

 

As for the impact on 500,000 (really??) homes so what - house prices have gone up & occasionally down for years and are subject to a wide range of factors running from disturbance (e.g. ranging from traffic to unruly neighbours) and quite honestly what difference does £20,000 make apart from making the house more affordable for the next buyer? Just why are we so fixated with house prices when in reality all our concern need be is how much the house is costing us - if you look at the long term costs of a mortgage you will find that the actual cost is umpteen times more than the headline amount you paid for the house and frequently more than you could ever sell it for.  

 

And a mile from the line - in most places if you are a mile from it you won't even know it's there!

[fallen]

I am not arguing that we should not invest in new rail infrastructure. I am arguing that HS2 is the wrong railway.

 

It has been designed for speed above all else. As a result it cannot be routed to avoid impact on people, jobs, communities, and the environment. This maximises the damage it does in what is already a crowded island. Also it does not stop very often, so few places will benefit. And it costs a lot as well.

 

This is exacerbated by the refusal to provide adequate compensation for those affected, or indeed the refusal to provide any at all in most cases. As a result, a lot of the costs will fall disproportionately on a large number of individuals who will not benefit from the line.

 

Frank

[Rivercider]

It is going to be one of the topics on the Jeremy Vine Show (hosted by Vanessa Feltz) on Radio 2 today.

 

I hope the discussion will generate more light than heat...........

 

cheers

[pete_mcfarlane]

HS2 construction will start somewhere (probably Manchester and Leeds) in 2017 and not be finished until 2032. The civil work will start but the line won't be installed until much later. That sounds like years of disruption to me.

 

The published timescales for HS2 have construction of the  Leeds/Manchester sections starting in 2022. It's the southern section from London to Birmingham is what is starting in 2017.

 

From your comments about disruption, loss of property value and lack of compensation I'm getting the impression that HS2 is going to go quite close to your house and you are worried about the impact.

Edited October 29, 2013 by pete_mcfarlane

[melmerby]

It has been designed for speed above all else. As a result it cannot be routed to avoid impact on people, jobs, communities, and the environment. This maximises the damage it does in what is already a crowded island. Also it does not stop very often, so few places will benefit. And it costs a lot as well.

 

 

Frank

Wrong

 

It is much about removing one type of service from an overcrowded route as anything else.

By taking the virtually non-stop and limited stop London - Birmingham & Manchester etc. traffic off the WCML people living along the WCML will get a vastly improved service.

 

Keith

[fallen]

Pete,

 

The new HS2 chairman announced last week that he wanted to start construction in 2017 at the northern ends ie Manchester and Leeds.

 

Keith,

 

The line is designed for high speed which means the line of the route cannot curve very much. So it cannot avoid communities, employment sites, or environmental sites, but ploughs straight through them. If it was designed for a lower speed it could bend to avoid these.

 

Incidentally, Wilmslow for example will benefit from being near to the HS2 station at Manchester Airport. However it will lose its current direct service to London on the WCML. Given the likely higher costs of HS2 tickets, this may not be seen as an improvement.

 

Frank

[melmerby]

We had the 'anti' guy talking to Vanessa Feltz using the same old tired argument about the main line from Euston being underused!

 

The problem that most of these folks don't appreciate that two of the tracks (fast lines) from Euston have very little in the way of stopping traffic and no diverging routes until Rugby some 80 miles out.

 

The train headways may be less at Victoria or Waterloo but they don't have a continuous stream of 125 mph trains running one after the other without (m)any stops along the same 80 miles of track.

Taking these trains off the WCML is the main and should IMHO be the only reason that HS2 should be built to get the extra capacity to allow more fast trains stopping along the route.

 

The same guy said that there would be no advantage to freight as the trains usually run at night! - Isn't that because they can't be fitted in amongst all the passenger trains during the day?

 

Keith

[cunningduck]

 

Incidentally, Wilmslow for example will benefit from being near to the HS2 station at Manchester Airport. However it will lose its current direct service to London on the WCML. Given the likely higher costs of HS2 tickets, this may not be seen as an improvement.

 

Frank

 

Will it? WIlmslow currently has 1 train an hour direct to London, so with HS2, with direct Manchester to London traffic taken by HS2, more Pendowobbbles could stop at Wilmslow, running 'semi-fast' effectively. As HS2 is designed for the direct traffic, in my understanding.

[DavidH]

my bold

 

The only reason anyone is complaining

 

If someone has  house where the constructions knocks £200 000 off the value of their property  I would suggest they have a  very good life and maybe should literally take one for the team

If someone has a house that is so "blighted" by the railway they feel it isn't worth living there any more, I am willing to take that one for the team and swap my house in Tyneside, with easy links to trunk road, Metro, train, airport and ferry, which however has no planning blight, for the blighted house in the Cotswolds or Home Counties.

 

The offer is good for 6 months or until self-interested MPs scupper the project, whichever comes sooner.

[SwissRailPassion]

When you build a new line it is no good building a curvy line with only 100 mph potential. Build a line for today's trains and tomorrow. Do what Germany and Spain have been doing for the last 20 years. China and Asia are building new lines and all over the world new rolling stock and lines are being built? Either we do HS2 properly, or we turn the country into a railway museum that the Chinese may visit and laugh at.

Edited October 29, 2013 by SwissRailPassion

[The Stationmaster]

I am not arguing that we should not invest in new rail infrastructure. I am arguing that HS2 is the wrong railway.

 

It has been designed for speed above all else. As a result it cannot be routed to avoid impact on people, jobs, communities, and the environment. This maximises the damage it does in what is already a crowded island. Also it does not stop very often, so few places will benefit. And it costs a lot as well.

 

This is exacerbated by the refusal to provide adequate compensation for those affected, or indeed the refusal to provide any at all in most cases. As a result, a lot of the costs will fall disproportionately on a large number of individuals who will not benefit from the line.

 

Frank

Have you ever travelled on a high speed line (by which I mean, in this context, line speed of =150mph plus)?  If you have you will see that it can be built with more severe gradients than a traditional fast line and curvature is not a particular problem - no different really from what it is on any long existing fast line.  Greed you can't build in tight curves but then that has been teh case with railway construction around the world for a very long time, including Britain.

 

The problem is that we are in many respects a crowded country and thus whatever you build there could be something in the way which might have to be moved.  The line has been designed for high speeds but that is how it's done nowadays as it helps increase capacity and reduce resource costs - what speed would you suggest as an alternative, possibly 125 mph (which I don't think would be that much different in many aspects of the total infrastructure geometry).

[fallen]

Mike,

 

You may be right, but that is not what the HS2 route engineers tell us.

 

Frank

[Christopher125]

I think the following blog from James Landale is worth quoting in full - Is Labour really going to oppose HS2?

 

Is Labour really going to oppose HS2?

 

Is Labour on an inexorable path towards opposing HS2? That appears to be the consensus at Westminster. But I am detecting a whiff of revisionism within Labour ranks, a sense that the party might have over-reached itself in its expression of doubt about the project. Here is why:

 

1. Ed Miliband is a supporter of HS2. His spokesmen say this. His friends say this. His shadow cabinet ministers say this. Yes, he wants the scheme to provide good value for money. But they say he is a conditional supporter of HS2, not an opponent looking for a way out. It was only in March of this year that the Labour leader told the Coventry Telegraph: "I am convinced by the business case and I am convinced by the economic and social case... the economic case is, we need a country that is connected... and the social case is, we are just way behind other countries in not having high-speed rail."

 

2. Ed Balls' aides insist that no decision has been made and there is an open debate to be had and that if there is no other way of creating more capacity on the railway, if the new chief executive keeps the costs down, then Labour will support HS2. The shadow chancellor, they admit, might be more sceptical than others in the shadow cabinet but they say he has a "constitutional duty" to worry about money. That is his job. It is also worth noting that in Mr Balls' conference speech - no, not this year's, but last year's, he said that it would be "ridiculous" for Tory MPs to block HS2. "No wonder business is fast losing confidence in this government's ability to make long term decisions." So that's clear then.

 

3. All sides accept that the shadow cabinet is divided on this. And that is true of the rest of the Labour Party, whether MPs or council leaders in the north of England. And that means that any decision to vote no to HS2 would be hard fought and not without cost.

 

4. Concern about whether the current plans for HS2 will provide value for money would be a legitimate worry for any shadow chancellor. They have been echoed by the National Audit Office and the Treasury select committee. But if you have convinced yourself that you are going to become the actual chancellor in less than two years, you don't want a £16 billion spending commitment to spiral out of control. In other words, Ed Balls might actually mean what he says.

 

5. Mr Balls can be sceptical and display what he sees as his fiscally-prudent tail feathers without actually killing off HS2. Simply by keeping the doubt and uncertainty about HS2 going for months, if not years, he can remind viewers in every interview how prudent he is being. To use his current phrase, he wants to be seen as a "proper steward of public money", which is not an office-of-profit-under-the-crown that means you have to resign from Parliament, but a name a politician gives himself when he knows that people have yet to trust him to spend their taxes wisely.

 

6. Talk of a £16bn pot of cash hanging there for Labour to spend on other stuff is overblown. If Labour opposes HS2, the government will cancel the project. The Treasury will then re-allocate the cash elsewhere. If Labour came to power, it would still have to switch spending priorities. And Labour officials readily admit that if they did kill HS2, they would have to use most of the £16bn on an alternative rail project to deal with the capacity crisis. What money was left, they say, they would have to spend on capital projects, not day-to-day spending.

 

7. Labour once marched to Peter Mandelson's tune. But no more. So when the former cabinet minister stands up in the House of Lords and denounces HS2 as a "political trophy project", not everyone will follow him.

 

8. The north of England matters to the Labour Party. Yes, opinion is divided and some Labour figures in the north see HS2 as a way for rich people to get to London quicker. But many other Labour folk in Manchester, Newcastle, Leeds, Sheffield and Nottingham see the line as a potential driver of economic activity in their patches. To scrap HS2 would not be very One Nation, so to speak.

 

9. Killing HS2 would open Labour up to accusations that it is anti-business, anti-investment, anti-growth, a party that is willing to play politics with long term infrastructure investment. Whatever the fairness or not of those accusations, it would be an unnecessary distraction when a substantial part of your strategy is to try to convince voters that you have something meaningful to say about the economy.

 

So will Labour definitely oppose HS2? I think the case is not yet proven.

 

And do not expect a decision soon. Some say Labour will decide before the spring when legislation giving the government the legal authority to start building HS2 comes before parliament, just before the local and European elections. But I am told that Labour could make up its mind even later, closer to the election in 2015.

 

So this story will run a while yet.

 

Chris

Edited October 29, 2013 by Christopher125

[PhilH]

Another one today

 

I am seriously beginning to doubt whether anybody, on either side of this argument, has the first idea of what they are talking about, have any concrete facts or figures or are doing anything other than telling lies just to bolster their case.

 

It's a shambles.

[Ravenser]

I think the following blog from James Landale is worth quoting in full - Is Labour really going to oppose HS2?

 

Chris

 

 

I  suspect that what they are actually going to do is send smoke signals to one side that they're going to pull the plug on the project, and give off the record briefings from anoymous sources to friendly journalists indicating that actually they're really supporting it to please the other side. All these things are entirely deniable after the event, ("Ah but I never said that - it was just some journalist's story") which is the whole object. If the present Government put up a bill, they will vote against it , to cause political damage while deploying more briefings to signal that actually they'd build the thing if they got into power  (thus signalling "We won't let the Tories build HS2 so if you want it you've got to put us in office")  

 

I wouldn't expect them to take any position which couldn't be denied on the subject till they publish their election manifesto

 

If elected at the next election, they will then spend the next 5 years giving the green light to HS2 without anything actually happening on the ground , thus keeping both sides of the argument happy

 

We've been here before - nuclear power stations, aircraft carriers, Thameslink 2000, Crossrail, Heathrow 3rd runway etc etc

[Christopher125]

HS2 construction will start somewhere (probably Manchester and Leeds) in 2017 and not be finished until 2032. The civil work will start but the line won't be installed until much later. That sounds like years of disruption to me.

 

The HS2 line passes through employment areas or those planned as employment areas thus destroying thousands of jobs. It also destroys the environment. None of this has been included in the costs.

HS2 will start construction on London-Birmingham, likely beginning with the Euston rebuild and tunnelling work as that will take the greatest amount of time - as the impact of HS1 along the route was far less than people feared I see no reason to think HS2 will be any different, and it should have minimal impact on millions of rail passengers, but if we are going to cater for rising demand than someone somewhere is going to be disrupted.

 

The line will not all be in tunnels where it passes through areas of population. There are 500,000 homes within 1 mile of the line (HS2 figures). Those people will lose anything between £30,000 and £200,000 in property values. They will not benefit from HS2 in any way. They will get no compensation. Again, none of this has been included in the costs.

Clearly most of those will be in urban areas where HS2 is predominantly built alongside existing rail lines and will operate at comparable speeds. There is no reason why they should see any long term negative impact on house price. I wouldn't be surprised if that figure also pre-dates the tunnel between Old Oak Common and Northolt.

 

I am not arguing that we should not invest in new rail infrastructure. I am arguing that HS2 is the wrong railway.

 

It has been designed for speed above all else. As a result it cannot be routed to avoid impact on people, jobs, communities, and the environment. This maximises the damage it does in what is already a crowded island. Also it does not stop very often, so few places will benefit. And it costs a lot as well.

It has been designed for speed above all else. As a result it cannot be routed to avoid impact on people, jobs, communities, and the environment. This maximises the damage it does in what is already a crowded island. Also it does not stop very often, so few places will benefit. And it costs a lot as well.

It has been designed for maximum economic value, it's as simple as that - we need another pair of tracks between Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds, and building them for high speed operation doesn't just outweigh the relatively minor difference in cost but allows a single line via Birmingham to relieve all three north-south mainlines.

 

As for saying it cannot be routed to avoid people, jobs, communities and the environment, you can't then criticise it for not stopping very often - the existing network between London, Birmingham, Leeds and Manchester already boasts hundreds of well sited stations, better than any new line could provide at a sensible price.

 

What they need are more trains to stop; HS2 effectively 6-tracks the WCML, with two for long distance non-stop services, two for fast/semi-fast services, and two for slow and freight trains, reducing conflicts, increasing reliability and allowing far better use of what we have.

 

Chris

[The Stationmaster]

Another one today

 

I am seriously beginning to doubt whether anybody, on either side of this argument, has the first idea of what they are talking about, have any concrete facts or figures or are doing anything other than telling lies just to bolster their case.

 

It's a shambles.

I think you're probably right Phil (especially so having not only come across the detail of such figures in a past life but also being familiar with how those who concocted produced them did so.  In reality the situation is, I think far simpler with anything like this  and it is -

1. Do we have a good reason or need to do it/build it?

2. How much will it cost (approximately equivalent to asking the length of a piece of string before any detailed survey & design work is done).

3. How will someone (else) pay for it?

4. How will we justify it in financial terms or headlines that even dumbos can understand?

5. How do we do No.4 in a way which convinces people?

6. Having built it how do we explain that our figures weren't correct/were an underestimate/were an over estimate and how doe we make sure we explain that it cam ein on budget without giving away details of what we cut out to save money?

 

So basically the decision to do it is really all about the will to do it - and not much else.

[jjb1970]

I don't think the opposition really has anything to do with line speed. If the project was for a high intensity inter-urban line with a short station spacing serving every sizable town on the route I think there would still be the same complaints. If people think building a new railway will cause disrution it is nothing compared to rebuilding an existing line. And if the cost of a new railway is high the costs of rebuilding existing infra-structure tend to be higher. This is a huge problem for the UK, it is not just railways, the UK is not a low cost economy, we are no longer an especially highly skilled economy. We need every competitive aid we can get, a creaking quasi second world infrastructure with no signs of any commitment to improve it is hardly an encouragement to anybody to invest here. If we aren't interested in investing in our own future why should anybody else. HS2 may not be perfect, there may indeed be better ways to invest the money however I have no confidence that any other ideas for improving our national transport infra-structure would meet with any more approval.

[PhilH]

Will there be / is there a premium for using HS lines, as in higher ticket prices. I ask because ,naively, one of the things I thought I'd do in the early days of my retirement (8 days to go) was to hop on a train and go to York. I nearly dropped a chip when I saw how much it would cost me.

 

Will (normal) people be able to afford train fares when this line, if it goes ahead, is completed? 

[scorpion]

like any travel, book in advance for cheap fares, retired, free and easy, just pick a date next month and enjoy

 

in the ratrace, got to get there today, it will cost you

[Clay Country]

The government has totally failed to explain the true costs of this project. The actual budget for the infrastructure for phases 1 and 2 is £28bn, plus a £14bn contingency. That's half the cost of Crossrail, and you have to wonder how much would actually have to go wrong before the last penny of that has been spent.

 

Nobody in government has challenged the assertions currently fixated on by the media - that HS2 should somehow sail past £28bn, through all of its £14bn contingency, and on into the Treasury's £73bn, the IEA's £80bn, or any of the other figures plucked from the air by the project's opponents.

 

I think there needs to be more discussion of how we would get from the £28bn to £42bn and what the actual risks are of exhausting the contingency or going beyond it. The debate about costs is pitched at such a hysterical level that there isn't enough scrutiny of the government's quoted figures and what they really mean.

[Edwin_m]

The government has totally failed to explain the true costs of this project. The actual budget for the infrastructure for phases 1 and 2 is £28bn, plus a £14bn contingency. That's half the cost of Crossrail, and you have to wonder how much would actually have to go wrong before the last penny of that has been spent.

Crossrail is about £15 billion. 

[SwissRailPassion]

The politicians are saying many amusing things and, unfortunately, the presenters and journalists know little about the railways. Alistair Darling has just said on C4 news that if we abandon HS2 we could upgrade other lines including the line to Bristol! Obviously he hasn't noticed the GW electrification project. With that sort of grasp any balanced debate is doubtful.

 

Only David Higgins can rescue this mess and provide a new focus. Only he can make this an engineering triumph. Today's news of a slightly lower BCR rate was billed by the BBC as "HS2 benefits down" another bungled shot from the PR people and evidence of bias at the Beeb.

At least Mr Landale's report offers a balanced insight into the shameful machinations of Labour and the political calculations likely before the election.

 

The stationmaster muses that the line is due to take a long time to build. With modern techniques we should be able to better than 12 years. In the 1840s they could build a double track mainline between York and Scarborough (40 miles) in 11 months from first sod to first train. I'm sure many forum users will know better examples too.

J

The time allocated for the project has affected people's views as the benefits are a long way off. If the timescale was a mere 7 or 8 years the scheme would be much more effective. I think that it would be prudent to build both parts at the same time for maximum benefit.

Edited October 29, 2013 by SwissRailPassion

[The Stationmaster]

Will there be / is there a premium for using HS lines, as in higher ticket prices. I ask because ,naively, one of the things I thought I'd do in the early days of my retirement (8 days to go) was to hop on a train and go to York. I nearly dropped a chip when I saw how much it would cost me.

 

Will (normal) people be able to afford train fares when this line, if it goes ahead, is completed? 

You need to do a bit of advance ticket searching Phil - East Coast seen to be forever advertising some very cheap fares on the telly, try their wedbsite.

 

BTW I don't think HS2 fares will be much adrift from the alternatives when it opens as the best way to get bums on seats is competitive fares - end of.f

[Christopher125]

Will there be / is there a premium for using HS lines, as in higher ticket prices. I ask because ,naively, one of the things I thought I'd do in the early days of my retirement (8 days to go) was to hop on a train and go to York. I nearly dropped a chip when I saw how much it would cost me.

 

Will (normal) people be able to afford train fares when this line, if it goes ahead, is completed?

The business case for HS2 does not assume any premium, nor would one make much sense - after all HS2 will produce a huge increase in capacity.

 

As for Labour's support for the project the 'media narrative' does appear to have changed today, with Newsnight reporting a backbench meeting of 40 MP's demanding the leadership stop playing about and the following story in the Guardian:

 

HS2: Labour to support rail project if costs brought down

 

Ed Miliband recruits Lord Adonis – founding father of HS2 – to advise him on how party can back high speed rail line

 

Ed Miliband is to throw Labour's support behind Britain's first high-speed rail line north of London if the project's incoming chairman, Sir David Higgins, is given a free hand to bring down the £42bn cost.

 

The Labour leader has drafted in a founding father of the HS2 project, Lord Adonis, to advise him on how the party can back the scheme.

 

Senior Labour sources claim the move is a sign of Miliband's "determination not to play games with the national interest" and say that the party will take its lead from Higgins.

Chris

Edited October 29, 2013 by Christopher125