HS2 under review

[Mike Storey]

I wonder what odds I could get on it never being built to anywhere except Manchester/Brum with links to Liverpool?

 

Just as the Chunnel was sold to those of us in the true north by promises of direct services and sleepers, all of which were cancelled almost as soon as it got built.

 

cynical? moi?

 

Mais, oui. Mais tu n'a pas la raison.

 

Long distance Eurostar services were planned long before low cost airlines took a foothold in the UK-Europe market. That killed those plans, not some diabolical conspiracy. Witness the stealthy withdrawal of the plans by the all-conquering Deutsche Bahn to show Eurostar how it should be done, to Koln and Frankfurt....

 

The opposite is true now (even with the extra Heathrow capacity plans). HS2 was originally driven to a large extent by the lack of capacity in UK airspace for domestic flights, as someone else has already pointed out. The new CEO of Network Rail, Andrew Haines, who was head of the CAA for several years (after a decade or so with BR/Railtrack), will be well aware of that. He was party to the major initiative to squeeze more capacity pf the existing Air Traffic Control systems and processes, something which has not delivered its original aspirations. If HS2 Phase 2 is cancelled, for whatever reason, so too will HS3 (or the Trans-Pennine seriously major upgrade, not the imminent face-saving, cobbled together series of minor capacity improvements planned for CP6), as the postponement of parliamentary approvals for HS2 Phase 2 is predicated by the desire to maximise the synergy between the two.

 

Cynicism should be directed at politicians and their supporters who advocate short termist "savings" with ridiculous promises of unachievable and impractical alternative solutions. Building huge new motorways under the Pennines will no doubt gain increasing traction from the free marketeers, despite the fact that the greatest problems with Lancashire-Yorkshire transits are not over Saddleworth in deep winter, but with the enormous congestion all year and all day long, you meet when reaching anywhere near Manchester/Liverpool or Leeds/Sheffield. Just how much more of the North do they expect to be demolished for their wet dreams?

 

Fortunately, the ghastly, relatively richer folk from the Sarf who are invading key parts of the North (the names Jasmin, Hugo and Rupert have suddenly appeared at my grandson's nursery school in Hebden....), and who are used to much better public transport, and have big opinions and the ability and will to use them, will probably ensure a more certain outcome. They cannot park their Chelsea Tractors, so need the trains.

[Mike Storey]

I bet the trains left on the wcml etc will not be fast or direct anything that can get people onto high speed frankly the protestations by HS2 and others do not ring true ,the high fares will deter leisure travellers and I bet regular commuting will be an eye watering activity.  Say what you like high speed is a line to far,  is there a market there ,the existing trains offer a perfectly adequate service that provide connectivity which is what travel is all about.  

 

HS1 domestic services experience, in that tiny bit of Kent where High Speed should be impossible to justify, says you are wrong, wrong, wrong. Despite the "premium", the Javelin trains are seriously busy, commuting has doubled from East Kent, Ashford and Thanet, and conventionally routed services have barely changed. So I will take your bet, and up it by a couple of sovs.

 

The same was true when HST's were introduced on the ECML, when commuters at Peterborough, Huntingdon and St Neots though these had been laid on purely for them. But, despite losing their HSTs (apart from Peterborough to some extent) they have far superior services, in frequency and peak hours journey times, now to those which existed before HST.

 

I believe the same occurred (but do not have the direct experience to be certain) after the WCML Upgrade eventually took place, in the Home Counties along there.

 

Easy money.

 

Thanks.

[lmsforever]

HS1 is a line that domestic high speed services access from traditional routes tapping into an already busy service pattern Ashford is just one stop of many plus it has a stop at Stratford offering a real service.HS2 is just an express service northwards and is no use to the main travellers in the south commuters and travellers to the north and Scotland are well provided for now without the expense and disruption that is to be visited on a large swaithe of an already damaged country.

[Arun Sharma]

HS1 is a line that domestic high speed services access from traditional routes tapping into an already busy service pattern Ashford is just one stop of many plus it has a stop at Stratford offering a real service.HS2 is just an express service northwards and is no use to the main travellers in the south commuters and travellers to the north and Scotland are well provided for now without the expense and disruption that is to be visited on a large swaithe of an already damaged country.

HS2 may well be "an express service" but what it actually does is take end-to-end [i.e., London-Birmingham] expresses and their associated train paths off the WCML and allow those WCML paths to be used for an increased number of freight and stopping services on the WCML.

Thus it is a distortion of HS2's planned utilisation to suggest [as many do] that it is just there so that rich people can get to Birmingham from London in a few minutes less time. 

To my certain knowledge, this designed-in feature of HS2 as a way of generating extra paths on the present WCML has been explained at length several times on this thread.

It seems that perhaps HS2 supporters are condemned to have to repeat this explanation every couple of months in this thread.

 

I suppose it really hinges around whether you believe that the WCML is approaching [or has reached] its design maximum capacity.

Edited January 8, 2019 by Arun Sharma

[black and decker boy]

I think it depends more on if you think that the world is going to end because a 15m wide strip of the Chilterns / Warwickshire is to be turned into an electrified train track (or a tunnel). If you are one such believer then it’s a world of blinkers, perpetual denial, fake news and random rants.

 

No point mentioning the 30m wide strip of the same areas being taken for new trunk roads filled with petrol & diesel fume producing vehicles or the 100m wide strip of Greater London being converted into a runway that will be used in part by fossil fuel burning small jets flying to Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds etc and certainly not worth mentioning the 1 million new homes planned for Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire & the neighbouring Home Counties.

[lmsforever]

HS2 will not be the slightest use to homeowners in the new homes being built and probably the residents will travel by car at every possible opportunity and with changes in work patterns commuting will eventually  not be relavent.

[62613]

HS2 will not be the slightest use to homeowners in the new homes being built and probably the residents will travel by car at every possible opportunity and with changes in work patterns commuting will eventually  not be relavent.

 

Found it!

[lmsforever]

Will look at the new works near me and try and put up some pics if I can make it work!

[Mike Storey]

Interesting piece in today's Observer - https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/jan/13/hs2-may-run-fewer-slower-trains-to-stay-on-budget-and-schedule

 

What is most interesting is that the CEO, Mark Thurston, has confirmed that HS2 has been looking at a number of potential cost saving measures, should they ever be needed, BUT that HS2 are continuing to pursue the original scope within the allotted budget, as per the Act of Parliament. That is key - it implies Parliament must amend the Act for phase 1 if scope must change. That would require the Business Case to be amended and further validated, I would assume.

 

As HS2 have not yet declared an inability to deliver the current scope within the current budget, albeit they have described it as "difficult", I would imagine this will not come to a head until the Act for Phase 2 B (and I presume the grander Trans-Pennine scheme) is put before Parliament later this year (or whenever other matters allow). If the budget request exceeds anything more than an inflationary element, and perhaps a few elements of unknowns at the time of the original Act, I would guess some big decisions will need making.

[adb968008]

As with all grand UK schemes, the first part gets built, the rest gets abandoned.

I’m still awaiting junction 1-7 of the M23 to be built, that was 40 years ago.

 

It’ll get to Crewe then budgets will be cut, its already delayed for a year...

https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/business/business-news/hs2-manchester-delayed-by-year-15110007

 

what is the staffing trend in Manchester in 2018 for this project ?

Edited January 13, 2019 by adb968008

[62613]

O.K., tinfoil hats on, folks. Since Mike Storey has mentioned another bit of politics which might affect things, surely this is the sort of infrastructure-enhancing project that a dynamic, thrusting, forward-looking, post-Brexit U.K. ought to be pushing? No?

[pete_mcfarlane]

It’ll get to Crewe then budgets will be cut, its already delayed for a year...

https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/business/business-news/hs2-manchester-delayed-by-year-15110007

 

 

I did like the quote "High Speed Rail bosses are planning to dig four large ventilation shafts in south Manchester", as if the location of bits of infrastructure is done by people on the board. 

[PhilJ W]

I did like the quote "High Speed Rail bosses are planning to dig four large ventilation shafts in south Manchester", as if the location of bits of infrastructure is done by people on the board. 

They'd probably get confused if you showed them a line of shovels and asked them to take their pick.

[Dava]

Interesting piece in today's Observer - https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/jan/13/hs2-may-run-fewer-slower-trains-to-stay-on-budget-and-schedule

 

What is most interesting is that the CEO, Mark Thurston, has confirmed that HS2 has been looking at a number of potential cost saving measures, should they ever be needed, BUT that HS2 are continuing to pursue the original scope within the allotted budget, as per the Act of Parliament. That is key - it implies Parliament must amend the Act for phase 1 if scope must change. That would require the Business Case to be amended and further validated, I would assume.

 

As HS2 have not yet declared an inability to deliver the current scope within the current budget, albeit they have described it as "difficult", I would imagine this will not come to a head until the Act for Phase 2 B (and I presume the grander Trans-Pennine scheme) is put before Parliament later this year (or whenever other matters allow). If the budget request exceeds anything more than an inflationary element, and perhaps a few elements of unknowns at the time of the original Act, I would guess some big decisions will need making.

The involvement of Mrs Leadsom in anything is rarely good news. The exchange indicates it is unlikely she has elicited any useful information at this point?

[GoingUnderground]

As with all grand UK schemes, the first part gets built, the rest gets abandoned.

 

How right you are.

 

Or the detailed bits to make it work better aren't built, like the southbound M1 to M69 link.

 

Or the way that the mostly 3 lane M67 ends at Mottram and effectively empties into a single carriageway road towards Glossop and Sheffield when it should be the southern relief road for the M62. Oh the queues the last time that I went that way!!!

 

Or......

[62613]

How right you are.

 

Or the detailed bits to make it work better aren't built, like the southbound M1 to M69 link.

 

Or the way that the mostly 3 lane M67 ends at Mottram and effectively empties into a single carriageway road towards Glossop and Sheffield when it should be the southern relief road for the M62. Oh the queues the last time that I went that way!!!

 

Or......

Not much better at the other end if you're going into Manchester; a traffic light-infested dual carriageway A57 as far as the Tameside /Manchester boundary. As explained on the Woodhead thread, the road was designed to join the Mancunian Way.

 

Planning permission and the money have finally been found to extend the M67 by about half a mile, to Mottram Moor. We're still waiting, after 40 years, for it to be completed to the other side of Tintwistle.

Edited January 14, 2019 by 62613

[Mike Storey]

The involvement of Mrs Leadsom in anything is rarely good news. The exchange indicates it is unlikely she has elicited any useful information at this point?

 

Without getting "political" and playing the man, rather than the ball, she has history. That continues with her extraordinary resistance to the proposed strategic rail freight intermodal development, known as Rail Central, near Blisworth, right in her constituency. The argument goes that this is the "wrong place" for such a development, despite it being bang close to the WCML and the Northampton Loop  junction, as well as the M1 and A43. Hey ho.

 

Was "Bandwagon" a film or a musical first??

[Hesperus]

How right you are.

 

Or the detailed bits to make it work better aren't built, like the southbound M1 to M69 link.

 

Or the way that the mostly 3 lane M67 ends at Mottram and effectively empties into a single carriageway road towards Glossop and Sheffield when it should be the southern relief road for the M62. Oh the queues the last time that I went that way!!!

 

Or......

 

http://pathetic.org.uk/unbuilt/m67_manchester_to_sheffield_motorway/

[phil-b259]

Without getting "political" and playing the man, rather than the ball, she has history. That continues with her extraordinary resistance to the proposed strategic rail freight intermodal development, known as Rail Central, near Blisworth, right in her constituency. The argument goes that this is the "wrong place" for such a development, despite it being bang close to the WCML and the Northampton Loop junction, as well as the M1 and A43. Hey ho.

 

Was "Bandwagon" a film or a musical first??

The editor of this months railway magazine draws readers attention to the fact that this is one of FOUR such ‘multimodal’ firefight interchanges all in close proximity to each other and is doubtful that there is enough rail freight (or indeed train paths) to fully utilise them.

 

He notes that by calling them ‘Strategic’ the promoters can by-pass all th local planning regulations and steamroller any objections - and fears that as with so the so called ‘Multimodal’ interchanges at Telford and Castle Donnington (the later having never seen a revenue earning train since it was built) these new sites are basically road serviced warehousing.

Edited January 14, 2019 by phil-b259

[Mike Storey]

The editor of this months railway magazine draws readers attention to the fact that this is one of FOUR such ‘multimodal’ firefight interchanges all in close proximity to each other and is doubtful that there is enough rail freight (or indeed train paths) to fully utilise them.

 

He notes that by calling them ‘Strategic’ the promoters can by-pass all th local planning regulations and steamroller any objections - and fears that as with so the so called ‘Multimodal’ interchanges at Telford and Castle Donnington (the later having never seen a revenue earning train since it was built) these new sites are basically road serviced warehousing.

 

Very good point, and I presume one of those is the proposed expansion at Daventry (which has seen decent levels of rail usage). But the issue has been about the lack of intermodal depots to service domestic or even international rail freight traffic, if the declared ambition of modal shift is ever to be realised. Clearly some developers are switched on to this method of making greenfield megabucks by promising the earth but delivering little, but why isn't our planning system as capable of enforcing the claims made in such proposals about modal share, as they are when it comes to enforcing the same on building sites, or on other major infrastructure schemes? Such restrictions are enforced vigorously, in some planning consents, but not in others. The argument that freight paths are inadequate to facilitate such claims (which is becoming less true further north, due to the reduction in coal and other bulk traffics), should be a natural requirement for the developer to demonstrate evidence to the contrary. Clearly that does not usually happen.

 

However, in this case, the argument is that the local road network is incapable of supporting the additional road movements (both lorries but also commuters - 8,000 extra jobs are allegedly created by Rail Centre), despite the fact that the promoters have changed their scheme to ensure access is only available directly off the A43. It is pure NIMBY across two, well-to-do villages in that respect, even if the fears are reasonably real. I don't doubt the real concerns of locals. What I do doubt is the sincerity of the Leader of the House, in knee-jerk responses, rather than a considered, national perspective.

[Arun Sharma]

Sitting on the Tube on Tuesday i picked up a copy of the Metro. The entire letter section was taken up by missives regarding HS2. Every single letter appears to be based upon a false premise [see my post #2979 on this page]. I have scanned the page and it is attached so you can see for yourselves.

Clearly politicians and the "High Priced Help" responsible for publicity for HS2 haven't quite managed to get the case for building it over to the public......

[Mike Storey]

Sitting on the Tube on Tuesday i picked up a copy of the Metro. The entire letter section was taken up by missives regarding HS2. Every single letter appears to be based upon a false premise [see my post #2979 on this page]. I have scanned the page and it is attached so you can see for yourselves.

Clearly politicians and the "High Priced Help" responsible for publicity for HS2 haven't quite managed to get the case for building it over to the public......

 

Thanks, but I regret it is impossible to read the scan at this size. I have tried enlarging but the text is too distorted to be legible. Any chance of a larger scan size?

[Pacific231G]

O.K., tinfoil hats on, folks. Since Mike Storey has mentioned another bit of politics which might affect things, surely this is the sort of infrastructure-enhancing project that a dynamic, thrusting, forward-looking, post-Brexit U.K. ought to be pushing? No?

Hmmm; I'm old enough to remember "dynamic, thrusting, forward-looking" pre-entry Britain -long term post-imperial decline more like- so am not holdlng my breath.(I stopped believing in unicorns a very long time ago) The only thing remarkable about HS2 is that it's seen in Britain as remarkable. The rest of the world (apart from the USA) is just gettting on with it.

 A lot of its very high cost has to be because so much of it will be in tunnels or deep cuttings. This is despite the fact that the Japanese learned some time ago to make high speed railways quiet enough to run at full speed through cities let alone the countryside of the Home Counties (whose inhabitants seem to have more delicate hearing than their cats if the sound of trains a mile away is going to blight their lives).  

Edited January 17, 2019 by Pacific231G

[Arun Sharma]

Thanks, but I regret it is impossible to read the scan at this size. I have tried enlarging but the text is too distorted to be legible. Any chance of a larger scan size?

I couldn't work out how to persuade flickr to enlarge the picture, and RMWeb doesn't seem to like jpg files anyway so I've typed out the readers' letters!

They are attached below:

 

HS2 boss Mark Thurston says the £56 billion high-speed train may have to run slower in order to come in on budget [Metro, Mon]

The whole point was to get people from London to main cities 15-20 minutes quicker. If the trains have to run slower than their top speed of 225mph, the reason for the destruction of our countryside vanishes. The project should be scrapped

Brita, Witney

 

So they’re saying that they’re already over budget for something that will not even do a better job than current railways? So stupid

Nabeeda, via text

 

What a waste of money and valuable countryside. The project is unwanted and unwarranted. It should be scrapped and the money diverted to upgrading current railway infrastructure.

David Harrison, Rainford

 

I think that running slower and fewer trains on HS2 is ridiculous. It totally ruins the whole idea. It is meant to be a fast commuter service.

Alex, Northamptonshire

 

Countries such as Japan have these types of trains everywhere and fares aren’t extortionate. Somebody must be making a huge profit out of this.

Ella, London

 

We should scrap HS2 which will only cause work migration from the north to the south – and invest in northern infrastructure and regeneration

Pete, Essex

 

If the high speed is reduced to average speed, there is no point in all that cost, disruption and environmental savagery

Brian, Harpenden

 

The HS2 is a white elephant but, of course, it will create jobs in the large population areas during elections…

A fraction of the rising cost could make such a difference to the crummy rail system but there are no votes in that.

Bob, Glasgow

[Dava]

'Vox populi'....if there was a referendum on HS2 you can see how it might go.

 

Meanwhile from an overcrowded, chaotic, mildly squalid daily MML commute experience, existing lines do need investment, new trains, electrification and capacity increased AS WELL AS the strategic longer term speed and capacity uplift from HS2 from the 2030s. Otherwise the UK will just be the branchline to Ruritania for evermore. It's not either/or, it's both/and.

 

Never mind, I'm travelling LNER tomorrow!