HS2

[Phil Himsworth]

12 hours ago, Arun Sharma said:

It seems there is a Press Association statement today saying that the Dept. of Transport wants to get 75% more freight onto the railway.

The target was 95% until something happened recently. A 75% increase by 2050 - over 26 years away - is a very low bar to clear.

[Northmoor]

3 hours ago, Phil Himsworth said:

The target was 95% until something happened recently. A 75% increase by 2050 - over 26 years away - is a very low bar to clear.

Slightly more than 2% growth p.a.  I believe general road traffic has grown significantly faster than that for decades, so the expectation is that rail should in future get a declining proportion of new freight traffic.

[Ron Ron Ron]

The first span of the Delta Junction viaducts, at Water Orton, has been completed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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[Ron Ron Ron]

 

 

 

 

A map of the Delta Junction layout, showing the route of HS2 on it's way from London (bottom) to "the north" (top), with the branch to Birmingham going off to the left.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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[jamie92208]

A short video of the OOC  station site. 

Jamie

[jamie92208]

And another one about tunnelling progress. 

 

Jamie

[4630]

Interesting piece in the Sunday Times today about the cost implications of a variation order to the contract to build the HS2 rolling stock.

 

The piece isn’t available to read on the website unless you’re a subscriber, so I can’t post a link.

 

The gist of the printed article is that “…the carriages were being designed with one set of doors per side, as opposed to the conventional for inter-city carriages of two sets (one at each end), are now having to be re-designed due to concerns about the impact on dwell time at stations”.

 

 

[The Stationmaster]

1 hour ago, 4630 said:

Interesting piece in the Sunday Times today about the cost implications of a variation order to the contract to build the HS2 rolling stock.

 

The piece isn’t available to read on the website unless you’re a subscriber, so I can’t post a link.

 

The gist of the printed article is that “…the carriages were being designed with one set of doors per side, as opposed to the conventional for inter-city carriages of two sets (one at each end), are now having to be re-designed due to concerns about the impact on dwell time at stations”.

 

 

That says something (very uncomplimentary) about the twit who specified them and/or the one who accepted the tender. Must be DafT - surely no one else is that stupid (I hope)?

[4630]

19 minutes ago, The Stationmaster said:

That says something (very uncomplimentary) about the twit who specified them and/or the one who accepted the tender. Must be DafT - surely no one else is that stupid (I hope)?

As mentioned in the article;

 

”But who on earth in HS2 thought it was remotely credible to do this?”

[DenysW]

Please re-read the history of the Lickey Bank, on the Gloucester-Birmingham Railway in the 1830s/1840s.

 

If you set an absolute cost limit based on what (is predicted) can be afforded, you get the least stupid answer that comes in under the limit. In the case of the Lickey Bank this triggered 150 years of trains stopping at the bottom to pick up 1-4 banking engines, and, in the other direction,  at the top to check the brakes. And no third set of tracks to let the banking engines coast back to Bromsgrove for the next tour of duty.

 

Met the budget: Yes. Sane: not so much. In the case of the Lickey Bank the engineer wasn't going to be paid unless his estimate came in at/below budget, following peer-review. Was the designer for the HS2 coaches under similar pressure?

 

And that's before you decide (on the that same railway) whether the cost-based decision to bypass Worcester was really such a good idea.

 

Of course, one alternative is to use dodgy, 100%-optimism costings to get approval, and then try and blag you way through the true costs when reality sets in and everyone seems fully committed to completing the scheme. Also familiar?

[Northmoor]

29 minutes ago, DenysW said:

Of course, one alternative is to use dodgy, 100%-optimism costings to get approval, and then try and blag you way through the true costs when reality sets in and everyone seems fully committed to completing the scheme. Also familiar?

Well that's the technique used for pretty much any Ministry of Defence procurement programme that I ever worked on.  The Nimrod upgrade was the only major one I remember that ever got canned because the combination of overspend and non-delivery had got so ridiculous (and there was no obvious resolution plan).  Perhaps this technique is applied to major projects in all government departments?

[melmerby]

49 minutes ago, DenysW said:

no third set of tracks to let the banking engines coast back to Bromsgrove for the next tour of duty.

Why was that needed?

There is a central siding where banking locos can wait until a suitable gap in the timetable and return.

[Northmoor]

35 minutes ago, melmerby said:

Why was that needed?

There is a central siding where banking locos can wait until a suitable gap in the timetable and return.

Yes, but they might have been sat waiting a significant time for a downhill path just when they were needed to start banking an uphill train.  Banking engines are useless at the top of an incline, they need to be available at the bottom as often as possible.

 

Four tracks on the Lickey would have been incredibly useful; a slow, banked freight could have been overtaken by expresses getting a run at the climb, while freights descending with pinned down brakes (and which would be moving slowly into the loop at Bromsgrove, taking up a lot of time), could similarly be overtaken.

[jjb1970]

On 24/12/2023 at 17:58, Northmoor said:

Well that's the technique used for pretty much any Ministry of Defence procurement programme that I ever worked on.  The Nimrod upgrade was the only major one I remember that ever got canned because the combination of overspend and non-delivery had got so ridiculous (and there was no obvious resolution plan).  Perhaps this technique is applied to major projects in all government departments?

 

Sadly it's not just the MoD, government procurement encourages all sorts of gaming and a culture of bidding low and then either relying on variation orders or that the government will need to make it work somehow so it'll hopefully work out in the end. The other handy tool is that contract specifications often introduce scope for some benefit, such as inappropriate environmental conditions. Many people highlighted that the sea water temperature defined for one class of Warship was too low but were dismissed because to increase it would increase cost. The entirely predictable result has been chronic problems and unreliability whenever they try and go anywhere with warm water.

[Stoke West]

On 24/12/2023 at 18:55, Northmoor said:

Yes, but they might have been sat waiting a significant time for a downhill path just when they were needed to start banking an uphill train.  Banking engines are useless at the top of an incline, they need to be available at the bottom as often as possible.

 

Four tracks on the Lickey would have been incredibly useful; a slow, banked freight could have been overtaken by expresses getting a run at the climb, while freights descending with pinned down brakes (and which would be moving slowly into the loop at Bromsgrove, taking up a lot of time), could similarly be overtaken.

Bankers followed trains down under permissive working . The only short trains that would not need banking would be stoppers calling Bromsgrove anyway , there was a 40mph limit through Bromsgrove for both up and down trains

[Michael Hodgson]

On 12/12/2023 at 20:02, Ron Ron Ron said:

Yes, it’s definitely the TBM previously named Dorothy.

The names are really just a bit of PR fluff.

Maybe giving it a new name serves some new local PR purpose?

If I were running the project, I'd pick more appropriate names for boring machines .... Rishi, Boris, Sir Keir 😁

Edited December 26, 2023 by Michael Hodgson

[Michael Hodgson]

On 24/12/2023 at 18:55, Northmoor said:

Yes, but they might have been sat waiting a significant time for a downhill path just when they were needed to start banking an uphill train.  Banking engines are useless at the top of an incline, they need to be available at the bottom as often as possible.

 

Four tracks on the Lickey would have been incredibly useful; a slow, banked freight could have been overtaken by expresses getting a run at the climb, while freights descending with pinned down brakes (and which would be moving slowly into the loop at Bromsgrove, taking up a lot of time), could similarly be overtaken.

Wow!   We could have had Big Bertha and the U1 running side by side up the hill showing heavy trains.  What a sight - and sound - that would have been.

[melmerby]

7 hours ago, Michael Hodgson said:

Wow!   We could have had Big Bertha and the U1 running side by side up the hill showing heavy trains.  What a sight - and sound - that would have been.

There was enough spectacle when an LMS Garratt hauled freight was being banked by the U1 when it stalled, Bertha was duly assigned to get the whole ensemble moving again.

[Northmoor]

8 hours ago, Stoke West said:

Bankers followed trains down under permissive working . The only short trains that would not need banking would be stoppers calling Bromsgrove anyway , there was a 40mph limit through Bromsgrove for both up and down trains

OK, but permissive operation could have continued with four tracks, with descending freight (and banker) able to be overtaken and still freeing up capacity.  If Bromsgrove station had been built for four tracks it could well have had a faster approach anyway.

[melmerby]

6 hours ago, Northmoor said:

OK, but permissive operation could have continued with four tracks, with descending freight (and banker) able to be overtaken and still freeing up capacity.  If Bromsgrove station had been built for four tracks it could well have had a faster approach anyway.

And the whole shebang could have been avoided if the Birmingham & Gloucester had opted for Brunel's surveyed route, further to the east, instead of the alternative survey over the Lickey.

 

However had that happened it might have changed everything, as it would more than likely been built broad gauge instead of standard and run into Snowhill completeing a fully broad gauge route Birmingham to Bristol.

Thus becoming a GWR proxy instead of being swallowed by the Midland along with the BG Bristol & Gloucester.

[jamie92208]

Another video of the section from Fleet Marston to the Thame Valley viaduct has been posted. 

 

Despite it being difficult to work out which canal is going to become the trackbed in the early section, things are getting done and several spans of the viaduct are now in place. 

 

 

Jamie

[rockershovel]

On 06/11/2023 at 13:08, Ron Ron Ron said:

 

 

4 points.

 

1. Stop thinking of HS2 being the same sort of railway as the classic network. HS lines are a different type of beast.

It's also being built to the larger UIC GC gauge.

 

2. As originally conceived, i.e. the full route(s) to Manchester and Leeds, HS2 was to be a predominantly closed network, with its own captive train fleet.

The additional capacity made available on the HS2 line, was meant to allow some services to run off and beyond the end of HS2, to Scotland, Liverpool and a limited number of other destinations.

A second, "classic compatible' fleet was to ordered, to serve those "off-HS2" destinations, as well as being used as the initial operational HS2 fleet, until the whole route was completed.

 

3. All that has changed, with Phase 2A, Phase 2B and the eastern branch (which also came under Phase 2B, originally), being cancelled.

The curtailed route is now only going to be provided with a "classic compatible" train fleet.

These are the only trains that have been ordered and they are being designed ....and production is being planned, right now as we discuss this.

They are electric only.

 

4. The HS2 Phase 1 route is still being built to UIC GC, that allows for wider and taller trains to be used, than can be operated on the classic network.

The platform heights are designed to a hybrid standard, that can accommodate both UIC GC gauge trains and the "classic compatible" fleet, as well as meeting the latest standards for level boarding and accessibility.

Additionally, platform edge doors will be used at the intermediate stations ......now limited to only OOC and Birmingham Interchange.

That's before the signalling and route control issues are added to the equation.

In essence, trains designed to run on the classic network, e.g. Class 390 Pendolinos, or Class 805's, will not be compatible with HS2.

 

 

All this further emphasises the complete b*ggers muddle, the government, the DafT and the Treasury have created, by cancelling HS2 beyond Handsacre.

 

 

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.... which brings us back to the key problem with HS2, that it is a relic of the EU, which never worked for us on that level. 

 

Germany is, above all a creature of the railways, which enabled the development of the Federal Empire of minor states with contiguous borders and a common culture. Italy was unified the same way; Napoleon's structure for France predated the railways but made effective use of them. 

 

European countries also made great use of large-scale river transport. 

 

European countries are also accustomed to minor states like Belgium (and not-so-minor ones like Germany) whose borders are elastic over time. 

 

The creation of a unified state bound together by effective communications between REGIONAL capitals is an organic development of European geopolitics over a long period of time. It works for them, because it provides a workable structure in which resources transcend boundaries. 

 

Britain doesn't work that way. It is also bisected by the Pennines over much of its length. Journeys of much over 100 miles are rare. The European model of regional technocrats operating with little regard for central government was killed off by the 2004 Regional Devolution referenda. After 2004, government settled on a policy of exporting jobs and importing cheap labour, and we can see where THAT has led. 

 

Right now, we are building a water infrastructure to support a 25% population increase in an area bounded by the A1, Humber and Orwell. Hinkley Point is lumbering along, to provide grossly overpriced electricity from Devon. There are further water infrastructure works in the North. 

 

We face great challenges as a nation; but travelling from Birmingham to London, 20 minutes quicker at costs few can afford, isn't one of them or ever was

[rockershovel]

On 24/12/2023 at 17:23, DenysW said:

Please re-read the history of the Lickey Bank, on the Gloucester-Birmingham Railway in the 1830s/1840s.

 

If you set an absolute cost limit based on what (is predicted) can be afforded, you get the least stupid answer that comes in under the limit. In the case of the Lickey Bank this triggered 150 years of trains stopping at the bottom to pick up 1-4 banking engines, and, in the other direction,  at the top to check the brakes. And no third set of tracks to let the banking engines coast back to Bromsgrove for the next tour of duty.

 

Met the budget: Yes. Sane: not so much. In the case of the Lickey Bank the engineer wasn't going to be paid unless his estimate came in at/below budget, following peer-review. Was the designer for the HS2 coaches under similar pressure?

 

And that's before you decide (on the that same railway) whether the cost-based decision to bypass Worcester was really such a good idea.

 

Of course, one alternative is to use dodgy, 100%-optimism costings to get approval, and then try and blag you way through the true costs when reality sets in and everyone seems fully committed to completing the scheme. Also familiar?

Yes; but the Lickey Bank was cutting-edge technology at the time. It served a railway using converted horse drawn carriages pulled by 4-2-0 locomotives. 

 

The design issues involving placement of carriage doors are rather better understood these days. 

[Compound2632]

3 hours ago, rockershovel said:

Hinkley Point is lumbering along, to provide grossly overpriced electricity from Devon.

 

I fear your weak geography undermines your argument!

[Northmoor]

3 hours ago, rockershovel said:

We face great challenges as a nation; but travelling from Birmingham to London, 20 minutes quicker at costs few can afford, isn't one of them or ever was

A good job that wasn't the reason for building HS2 then.