HS2 under review

[martin_wynne]

Anything based on continued growth of anything is unsustainable

 

So how do you think we got here? Invented the wheel? Built the railways which we are now modelling? Decoded the DNA helix?

 

Any volunteers to crawl back into the primordial soup?

[Ron Ron Ron]

Any volunteers to crawl back into the primordial soup?

 

There are plenty down in the town centre on a Saturday night.

 

 

.

[Reorte]

So how do you think we got here? Invented the wheel? Built the railways which we are now modelling? Decoded the DNA helix?

 

Any volunteers to crawl back into the primordial soup?

The idea that because it's been good and possible it will therefore always be good and possible is not one I think holds much water. The main example I was thinking of, although generalising out, was number of people. When there are a few hundred in the world more is good but that doesn't mean that there's no such thing as overpopulation. Economic growth looks good whilst there are the resources to support it (although I'd argue it's more of an effect than a cause, whatever politicians might like to think) but relying on faith that we'll keep finding something to keep that going is dangerous too - it's not even been growing really significantly until relatively recently in terms of human history so thinking that rate of change can be kept up really doesn't feel sensible. And in any case I'm not very much persuaded that it's making the country a better place to live in - as I said in another thread people certainly don't seem to be getting happier. Finally, and I shouldn't need to point this out but sadly always seem to have to, that doesn't mean that I think everything new and every change is bad.

Edited March 25, 2015 by Reorte

[martin_wynne]

When there are a few hundred in the world more is good but that doesn't mean that there's no such thing as overpopulation.

 

It will even out when the population of the planet equals the food supply, with a war or two to decide who gets what. Are you any good at stopping wars? Nor me.

 

In the meantime, we need to spread them out a bit more. More here means less somewhere else, and while they are here they can build HS2, and pay our pensions.

 

And be young and cheerful, full of hopes and dreams. Instead of grumpy about everything, like so many of us -- and your post.

[Reorte]

It may well end up like that, having to balance out and with a few wars - best to exercise a bit of judgment and not let us get there first surely.

 

I used to be full of hopes and dreams, then people and the world kept disappointing me - everything getting duller, busier, more hectic, more stressful, and people cheering that on. There's plenty of good left but I can't be anything other than grumpy when things are changing in a direction that holds precious little appeal.

Perhaps I should go and lay that last siding, track building is therapeutic.

[locoholic]

Committees in both the Commons and the Lords have now said that the case for HS2 hasn't been made, but still the vanity project trundles on.

 

The design of HS2 is a hopeless bodge. Only at the London end will there be proper connectivity with the rest of the rail network (because that's the only place where they're prepared to spend the cash on bulldozing through densely populated areas). Sheffield and Nottingham have to make do with "parkway" stations that will only increase local road traffic, and it misses Leicester altogether, despite the poor service that city currently enjoys.

 

The speed argument has been sidelined, and it's all about capacity now, so spending £50 billion on a 220mph route is very poor value for money. Instead, they should look at building new sections of conventional railway that will add capacity where it's needed, and can be used for diversions, local passenger and freight as well as inter-city traffic.

[Reorte]

Committees in both the Commons and the Lords have now said that the case for HS2 hasn't been made, but still the vanity project trundles on.

I'm getting the impression that it's more of a "not enough information" argument rather than a "no case for it". They certainly don't seem to be doing anything close to saying that there's no case for it.

 

Does the HS part really make it that much more expensive these days?

Edited March 25, 2015 by Reorte

[pete_mcfarlane]

The design of HS2 is a hopeless bodge. Only at the London end will there be proper connectivity with the rest of the rail network (because that's the only place where they're prepared to spend the cash on bulldozing through densely populated areas). Sheffield and Nottingham have to make do with "parkway" stations that will only increase local road traffic, and it misses Leicester altogether, despite the poor service that city currently enjoys.

The Nottingham station is quite well situated for most of the city, which sprawls for miles to the North and West (to the point where some of the suburban stations have hourly services to London so people don't have to travel in to the city centre and back out again). It just won't be ideal for the city centre.

 

As for Leicester, it has 4 trains an hour and the 2 fast ones take just over an hour (1h06m). That's pretty good, and will get better once electrification happens and they raise the line speed on a few more bits of track. So why both routing HS2 that way, when you can serve Birmingham instead?

 

And to be honest, the plan isn't to serve Nottingham and Sheffield. The plan is to take trains from further North off the ECML and WCML to free up capacity there - Nottingham and Sheffield just happen to be served because they're on the way. 

[The Stationmaster]

Committees in both the Commons and the Lords have now said that the case for HS2 hasn't been made, but still the vanity project trundles on.

 

The design of HS2 is a hopeless bodge. Only at the London end will there be proper connectivity with the rest of the rail network (because that's the only place where they're prepared to spend the cash on bulldozing through densely populated areas). Sheffield and Nottingham have to make do with "parkway" stations that will only increase local road traffic, and it misses Leicester altogether, despite the poor service that city currently enjoys.

 

The speed argument has been sidelined, and it's all about capacity now, so spending £50 billion on a 220mph route is very poor value for money. Instead, they should look at building new sections of conventional railway that will add capacity where it's needed, and can be used for diversions, local passenger and freight as well as inter-city traffic.

So it's all very simple then - redesign various parts of HS 2 in order to connect it into other routes (which I think is actually quite a sensible idea) and make it rather more like the French LGVs in that respect.  Reconsider the maximum speed - which might save a  couple of billion and reduce the maximum speed a bit to reduce energy consumption then carry on and build it.  

 

Now the downside of that is that it would inevitably increase the cost but it would have the advantage of still adding capacity where it's needed (the WCML at this stage in the game) and making use of all the detailed planning work that has taken place so far.  There are of course other ways of increasing capacity on the WCML such as an additional pair of running lines south of, roughly, Milton Keynes, full quadrupling throughout between Rugby and Stafford (a simple task-ish), some quadrupling between Rugby and Birmingham (Stechford).  it would be interesting to compare the number of dwellings that would have to be demolished to achieve that compared with the number that would have to be demolished to build HS2 as currently planned - somehow I think a lot more people would have to move home and a  lot more would find themselves living much closer to fast railway line than would be the case if HS2 were to be built as planned.

[martin_wynne]

If we could snap our fingers and undo all the closures since the 60s, would HS2 still be needed?

 

In other words, did this nation once have all the railway capacity it needed, and throw it away?

[Oakydoke]

If we could snap our fingers and undo all the closures since the 60s, would HS2 still be needed?

 

Quite a few would be useful now, but many of those closed lines were not needed then and they wouldn't be suitable today.

Just look at how some were compromised by their routing when first built, due to land and cost issues and such like. Hardly suitable for a modern railway.

We could have done with a few of the more strategic routes that have been lost though.

[Mike Storey]

I see HSBC are moving their HQ to Birmingham. A trend beginning?

 

I can't be bothered to go over all the arguments about HS2 again.  I have read five of the key sections of the report and if I drew the conclusions in any report I wrote that they did from the evidence given, I would be shot. It is unduly partisan towards the protest groups, or their professional advisors, whose views have been given such enormous weight, without any serious challenge, as to make it laughable. Where HS2, DaFT or NR, or other professional or academic witnesses supporting the scheme, are allowed to respond to comprehensively outlandish catch-all statements by anti-s, the report tends to dismiss their arguments as inadequately investigated. I fully support the right of the anti brigade to put their views forward in a democracy (or in this case to a group of unelected representatives) but I would expect balance.

 

For example, where it discusses the general alternative of upgrading existing routes, it states that insufficient investigation has been done into this. When Paul Plummer gives evidence that completely contradicts this, in the form of four separate, weighty reports (by Atkins)  that looked into just that subject, and that such lengthy and complicated works would only provide a third of the extra seats that HS2 would, plus little benefit for other routes, the report draws the conclusion that the costs of these alternative works to travellers is insuffciently understood. Just above this conclusion is a table showing the number of weekend closures estimated as necessary for HS2 (in two phases) and for an equivalent non-HS2 scheme. This tells a story of c.400 closures needed for HS2 overall compared to c.3,000 for classic alternatives! Just what more is it that could reasonably be asked?

 

The Report states that the business case is insuffciently understood primarily because emerging technology effects have not been factored. Despite the evidence given that the use of videoconferencing and home working was predicted to significantly reduce the demand for physical travel over the last ten years, the opposite has occurred and most experts state categorically that such innovations actually stimulate physical travel. The last gasp of the Report then says the business case must be revised downwards to take into account the emergence of driverless vehicle usage, forecast (only by a manufacturer's assoc) to become widespread after 2020. No mention at all of the roads already being full, or that there is no consensus prediction yet of when and by how much this technology will be used - the "expert" suggested it may well just improve connectivity from home or office to the nearest railway station!

 

It recommends the inclusion of alternatives of HS2 at a lower high speed or at current speeds, to reduce costs, ignoring the statements made by witnesses that this would save, at best, 9% of the capital cost, but that would then lose a cost/benefit ratio of 5:1 for the reduced journey times. In other words, not just a pointless saving but a detrimental one (even if you think the CB is too high).

 

Another classic is the continued use of the sum "£50 billion" throughout, when it even acknowledges that only £31 billion will be taxpayer funded, but it still goes on quoting 50 in its conclusions and recommendations.

 

There is much more to suggest this Report is the product of feeble minds, which I cannot believe given the list of eminent standing and co-opted members. So perhaps a committee with a pre-ordained outcome? I very much hope that a full and robust response, from the industry and from the Commons, is allowed to publicly demolish or curtail many of the more unsubstantiated "conclusions".

[Mike Storey]

 

Does the HS part really make it that much more expensive these days?

 

9%, but at a gain of a (contested) 5 to 1 cost benefit over existing journey times.

[Mike Storey]

Committees in both the Commons and the Lords have now said that the case for HS2 hasn't been made, but still the vanity project trundles on.

 

 

 

This Lords EAC Report does not say that at all. Try reading it and then try matching the conclusions to the evidence actually given.

 

Which Commons Committee are you stating that said that? The Transport Select Committee report of 2011 fully accepted the need for HS2 above all alternatives, but asked for more detail on the business case. It issued a follow up report on 2013, following substantial extra work by KPMG, which then endorsed the BC with little criticism. One of its prime recommendations was for an emphasis to be placed on the figure of £29 billion (now £31 billion following the extra tunnelling introduced following consultation) as the taxpayer cost, rather than the £50 billion commonly quoted. The Lords committee has chosen to ignore this. Why?

[JohnH]

 

The Report states that the business case is insuffciently understood primarily because emerging technology effects have not been factored. Despite the evidence given that the use of videoconferencing and home working was predicted to significantly reduce the demand for physical travel over the last ten years, the opposite has occurred and most experts state categorically that such innovations actually stimulate physical travel. 

I won't bore you with the details (unless anyone actually wants them...) but, In my case, this statement is completely untrue.

[Reorte]

If we could snap our fingers and undo all the closures since the 60s, would HS2 still be needed?

 

In other words, did this nation once have all the railway capacity it needed, and throw it away?

I know you're getting at "would you want those but not HS2, and if 'yes' then that's inconsistent" but I don't really think that it's comparing like with like thanks to both the speeds and the type of building involved. If it wasn't high speed, wasn't electrified, and all structures wouldn't be plain lumps of concrete then I'd probably be ambivalent verging towards positive.

 

Also the overall level of built-up country is greater now than it was then (albeit expanding rapidly then) which makes building anything at all far less appealing.

 

Please remember that I'm not saying that there's no case for HS2, I just don't like it. My idea of an increased quality of life is quieter, remoter, more attractive, more characterful and it rather goes against that (life getting busier and faster turns my stomach), and please don't say something like "then move to somewhere like that", as if it was either that easy, or that people should live in a small bubble and not care about anywhere else.

Edited March 26, 2015 by Reorte

[locoholic]

This Lords EAC Report does not say that at all. Try reading it and then try matching the conclusions to the evidence actually given.

 

 

You do not need to read the whole report to know that HS2 as currently planned has poor connectivity in Birmingham, Manchester, Derby/Nottingham, Sheffield and Leeds - in other words, everywhere except London, which makes me question whether HS2 is really designed to benefit the regions or London.

 

History is full of examples of railway lines that failed because their stations were poorly sited and/or lacked connections to other lines. Are passengers expected to be so grateful to have been whisked along at 220mph for a while that they will ignore the inconvenience of getting from the HS2 terminal to their actual destination, in the process losing a fair proportion of the time saved by the high speed section? Crossrail would never have been designed without the connections to other lines, and yet HS2 is badly compromised.

 

History is also full of examples of rail infrastructure projects going over schedule and budget, which is perhaps why the £50 billion figure has more credibility.

 

The other aspect of HS2 that makes me sceptical is the "mission creep", from time saving, to an alternative to Heathrow expansion, to capacity enhancement, to regional regeneration, without any change in the design to reflect these changes.

 

Finally, (and sorry for being flippant) if David Cameron and Ed Miliband both support the project, there has to be something wrong with it.

[Glorious NSE]

One of its prime recommendations was for an emphasis to be placed on the figure of £29 billion (now £31 billion following the extra tunnelling introduced following consultation) as the taxpayer cost, rather than the £50 billion commonly quoted. The Lords committee has chosen to ignore this. Why?

Maybe they are playing the long game (no, really!) - much better to let folk bandy about £50bn and then announce when you finish that it cost only £40bn, so £10bn saved! Than announce it'll cost £29bn, then £31bn, then that's gone up, and this has gone up, and it's now £11bn over budget, which will be moaned about for ever...

[runs as required]

I can't be bothered to go over all the arguments about HS2 again. 

Another classic is the continued use of the sum "£50 billion" throughout, when it even acknowledges that only £31 billion will be taxpayer funded, but it still goes on quoting 50 in its conclusions and recommendations.

Neither have I the inclination and need to read this report (or plough through any other into the pros and cons of HS2 then the HS3 alignments northwards through the "power house").

But I understood from a BBC radio report (either on Today or PM) that the Lords were indignant that of an estimated project cost of £50 billion £31 billion would be "taxpayer" funded.

I think this to be unacceptably excessive public leverage of a project that may well end up wholly owned by the French - in a political context in which we may be outside the EU

 

dh

[Glorious NSE]

of a project that may well end up wholly owned by the French

 

How would it become wholly owned by the French?

[Ron Ron Ron]

How would it become wholly owned by the French?

 

It's almost certain HS2 will be funded and operated as a PPP or totally (or mostly) private concession.

 

Is Runs As Required thinking of this.....?

 

http://www.infrastructure-intelligence.com/article/oct-2014/higgins-considering-french-style-ppp-hs2-phase-two

 

 

 

.

[The Stationmaster]

If we could snap our fingers and undo all the closures since the 60s, would HS2 still be needed?

 

In other words, did this nation once have all the railway capacity it needed, and throw it away?

No - all it did was reduce the surplus capacity so that it had much less surplus capacity and investment could be concentrated on the most intensively used parts instead of piecemeal 'sticking plaster' spending to keep surplus capacity going.  The loss of the Great Central route is of course always the one that comes to mind although rather inconveniently it doesn't go to Birmingham and it doesn't exactly parallel the WCML where the first longer distance multi-traffic crunch is going to come  (however the GWML east of Airport Junction isn't going to be much better without an additional pair of running lines from Acton - as was recommended over 20 years ago, even without Crossrail).

 

I gave a  list above (Post 1619) of what I reckon would be needed to increase WCML line capacity - very little, if any, of that parallels routes which have been closed since the 1960s. 

[edcayton]

A guided busway? 

 

Ed

[Glorious NSE]

The only bit that comes to my mind that would be useful is the GWR route between Birmingham and Wolverhampton, the LMS route is effectively full, but if the GWR route was still there some of today's Cross Country services could be routed that way, freeing up some capacity (albeit at the cost of lost connectivity) at New St also.

But that said, I don't think today's needs were really foreseeable at that time, and that route now does at least have a useful new rail role which wouldn't have been possible if it had been blocked from any development...

[Christopher125]

You do not need to read the whole report to know that HS2 as currently planned has poor connectivity in Birmingham, Manchester, Derby/Nottingham, Sheffield and Leeds

A terminus alongside Manchester Piccadilly, the city's main station on the edge of the city centre, served by train and tram services in every direction has poor connectivity? Unbelievable.