HS2

[caradoc]

21 hours ago, phil-b259 said:

However with Ms T and her party being anti-rail,

 

Under which administration was the Channel Tunnel cancelled, after construction had started?

 

Under which administration was the Channel Tunnel actually built?

 

 

 

[ess1uk]

So with everyone now looking at how to build the Stafford bypass how much more than phase 2 will that cost?

[62613]

5 minutes ago, ess1uk said:

So with everyone now looking at how to build the Stafford bypass how much more than phase 2 will that cost?

Well, there would be the redesign costs for a start. Phase 2A was the Stafford bypass, as well as the Colwich bypass and the Norton Bridge bypass. Whether it was a total Crewe bypass, I don't know. 36 miles, no major engineering challenges; GET IT BUILT!

[roythebus1]

3 hours ago, caradoc said:

 

Under which administration was the Channel Tunnel cancelled, after construction had started?

 

Under which administration was the Channel Tunnel actually built?

 

 

 

ISTR having this sort of conversation many years ago when I woz a train driver. People were reminded which government approved the WCML wires into Euston, the GE conversion to 25kv, the 3rd rail to Bomo from Worting Junction, the GN electrics... the answer was not the Labour Party. And being an ASLEF branch committee member for a while, I was privy to the list of members who did not make payments to the Labour Party. It was about 3 foolscap pages, quite surprising really considering the supposed militancy of the Waterloo ASLEF branch at the time.

[St Enodoc]

9 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

The difficulty here is that discussion of any aspect of HS2 other than progress with the actual civil engineering works is at present intrinsically political. Short of the mods deleting any post that strays from the civil engineering, I'm not sure how one avoids the politics.

That's true in the broad sense that any matter concerning government is political. I think, though, we need to avoid bringing in personal views of what shade of blue, red, green or other colours we may or may not support.

[Ron Ron Ron]

HS2 begins epic year-long, half-kilometre viaduct deck slide

 

 

https://mediacentre.hs2.org.uk/news/hs2-begins-epic-year-long-half-kilometre-viaduct-deck-slide

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

.

[jamie92208]

That's great to see.  A lot more of the process is explained in Modern Railways.  The rebar cage for the piers has to interlock with the existing rebar in the foundations.  A great low tech solution was found.  They map the foundation rebar onto a large piece of plywood then build the pier rebar on top of the sheet of plywood making sure there are no conflicts. 

 

Jamie

 

[jamie92208]

A video of progress near Aylesbury with the section that innclused the Thame Valley Viaduct. 11 of the 36 pairs of span beams installed. 

 

Jamie

Edited January 13 by jamie92208

[The Stationmaster]

On 11/01/2024 at 19:48, adb968008 said:

Channel Tunnel was only built inspite of the government, and HS1 only happened as it was a national disgrace not having it.

i’m quite sure if it wasnt for pressure Waterloo would still be using Eurostar….

The government wanted nothing to do with HS1 back in 1987.

 

There really wasnt any excuse for HS1 not to have been built at the same time as the tunnel…. And if it had £mns would have been saved.

With hind sight you can see why Governments should have nothing to do with railways… they simply dont get it… each project turns into a political money pit.
it would be far better if they were silent shareholders in private companies and let them get on with it.

 

At Eursortar we used to havea. nice little summary about the overall project

The French built a high speed line to the Chunnel

The British built a carefully designed terminus to handle the trains, and

The Belgians eventually built a half finished terminus to handle the trains and opened it just in time.

 

That of course was an exaggeration because money was spent creating a Eurostar terminal at Gare du Nord although it wasn't of the best - but it does the job, sort of,   The British spent a very large amount of money providing a route from Waterloo and upgrading lines in  south east England to allow 100mph running (plus chucking millions at Regional Eurostar and regional night trains, both as a political expedient).  The Belgians opened their high speed line relatively quickly (but still hadn't finished their Eurostar terminal in Brussels.

 

If any mistake has been made it was to develop an inadequate Eurostar terminal at St Pancras and render it even more inadequate by pulling out of Waterloo.  But that's politics and private enterprise for you.

 

BTW part of the spend in altering Waterloo International (WIT) for UK domestic trains will have been to alter platform edge stepping distances to make them complant.   Technically. WIT stepping distances were not compliant for BR Mk1 stock and we had to get a one-off permission from HMRI to allow the Roy Castle 'Tour of Light'  special train to come into the station.

[Pacific231G]

On 12/01/2024 at 13:35, billbedford said:

 

 

So let's have a bit of fun...

 

If HS2 was finished as a roundy-roundy, say, London - Birmingham - Manchester - Leeds - Nottingham - London, and the London bit called "CrossRail3, " there wouldn't need to be a terminus anywhere, just relief sidings out in the country to allow the trains to change directions. 

OT 

Sounds good until you look at the the London UndergrounD which seems to have given up on the idea on the so-called Circle line. It should probably now be called the Hammersmith, Edgeware Road, City and Edgeware Road Yet Again Line. Thinks: if the subsurface "Underground" lines (Metropollitan, Hammersmith and Circle Lines) were in Germany, would they be an S Bahn or a Ü Bahn?  In any case those lines haven't been the same since the abandonment of  the District's through trains from Ealing (and even Windsor) to Southend, the Metropolitan Railway's Pullmans services and its plan to run from Oxford to Paris! 

Edited January 14 by Pacific231G

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, Pacific231G said:

Thinks: if the subsurface "Underground" lines (Metropollitan, Hammersmith and Circle Lines) were in Germany, would they be an S Bahn or a Ü Bahn?

 

The Elizabeth Line is definitely an S-Bahn or RER. But the Paris Metro has much more in common with the Metropolitan and District Lines than with London's tube network. What's in a name, so long as it works?

[Re6/6]

One has to feel for the first farmer on this piece with the way the Government and HST Ltd have conducted themselves after the disasterous cancellation of the northern link.

 

We can only hope that the route land is safeguarded for a future completion but one has to fear not with the present government.

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001vfkv/countryfile-tamara-way  17 minutes in.

 

[jamie92208]

Cecilia and Florence have reported in. The others haven't reported since 19th December which is very poor PR.  However Florence did 180m last week with just 412m  to go, so potentially about 17 days work to go.  Cecilia is as usual is a bit behind at 15167m  but did 166 last week. 

 

Jamie

 

Edited January 15 by jamie92208

[Ron Ron Ron]

5 hours ago, jamie92208 said:

Cecilia and Florence have reported in. The others haven't reported since 19th December which is very poor PR.  .....

 

 

They have been very poor in updating progress.

However, the Northolt West TBM's, Shushila and Caroline also had updates today.

 

 

 

.

Edited January 15 by Ron Ron Ron

[Ron Ron Ron]

 

 

 

 

.

[Ron Ron Ron]

An aerial view looking east - Jan 2024

 

This shows the eastern half of the Colne Valley Viaduct.

The halfway point of the viaduct is approximately between a quarter and a half of the photo from the left edge.

 

The launching girder has reached the Grand Union Canal - the line of trees and boat marina (left of the launching girder) mark the canal route.

The western portal of the Copthall (green) tunnel, can be seen in the distance, with the realigned Harvil Road passing over the top.

 

The buildings at the bottom right of the photo, are a residential complex on the site of the former Denham film studios.

The London skyline can be seen on the distant horizon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

.

Edited January 16 by Ron Ron Ron

[phil-b259]

13 hours ago, Re6/6 said:

 

We can only hope that the route land is safeguarded for a future completion but one has to fear not with the present government.

 

 

The current Government have been quite clear that they won't safeguard ANY of the land earmarked for phase 2!

 

However although selling back the land acquired for phase 2B (Crewe - Manchester)  is pretty straightforward, there remains considerable doubt that any of the land acquired for phase 2A can be similarly dispensed with because phase 2A has received Royal Assent.

 

For as long as the act of parliament for phase 2A remains in place (and it would need another act of Parliament to remove it) then any sale of land is compromised because the new owner still faces HS2 being built across it at some stage and no sane solicitor would advise of a purchase under those conditions.

 

An early general election would have 'baked in' the status quo and although Labour keep saying they would not reinstate HS2 if they won the mere fact the land / legislation for Phase 2A remains on the statue book gives an element of hope that it one day would come to pass.

 

A later general election does in theory give the Tories more time to try and get legislation through Parliament to kill phase 2B - but with all the other things they want to push through Parliament before facing voters there is still a question mark over whether there is parliamentary time to do so.

 

 

Edited January 15 by phil-b259

[jjb1970]

We're now into election politics in Britain. The next budget will almost certainly be a spend and bribe budget aimed at pleasing the maximum number of voters in key tory seats (not a party political point, standard election politics, not just in the UK) and the opposition will be promising the maximum to the maximum number of voters in their key seats (again not a party political point, standard election politics). How it plays out who knows (a week is a long time in politics as they say) but I'd expect a change of government and a potential reversal on phase 2. However, whether the next government will address the underlying issues which have led to this point who knows, neither party has had a stellar transport record in the BR privatisation era and their last stint in office wasn't especially impressive on railways other than their enthusiasm for electrification which then turned into a bit of a shambles from poor execution.

[ess1uk]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cjjg5z00l3yo

 

ghost village

[big jim]

6 minutes ago, ess1uk said:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cjjg5z00l3yo

 

ghost village

 

Ghost villages where homes needlessly bought by HS2

 I’m no writer but what a pi$$ poor headline, doesn’t make sense to me, surely it needs an end to the sentence such as ‘are left to rot’ or ‘are taken over by squatters’

 

Also I’d say they weren’t exactly ‘needlessly’ bought, they were bought for a reason, the needless bit was caused by the scrapping of that bit of HS2, can’t see highlighting all those empty houses will help keep further issues down, no doubt the copper fairies will suddenly decend on the area now

 

It is a shame to see them left like that though, it’s a nice area around whitmore and when I saw the original plans for the northern leg that was the one bit I did think to myself it will ruin the area even once established

 

 

 

 

[big jim]

Reading that story also gives links to other HS2 related articles. This one from October, when the cancellation was first announced makes me laugh….

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-coventry-warwickshire-67004444

 

Includes these little gems 

 

Judith Cleaver moved to Water Orton for peace and quiet 

 

and 

 

Her asthma has been affected by poor air quality due to the construction works, she added.
 

and 

 

The whole of Water Orton is a tip, it is disgusting, the roads are a mess, the air pollution is awful - it is an absolute tip."

 

let’s take a snapshot of the peaceful picture postcard village of water orton as of 08:30 this morning, I’m sat in hams hall hence the blue dot

If your going for peace and quiet you shouldn’t move somewhere just north of the V of the main junctions of the M6/M42 which you can see is currently pretty much at a standstill as I type, also the A446 Lichfield road is showing red as people commute to the massive industrial estate and distribution centres of Hams hall and coleshill to the east of water orton, it’s not much better on the Minworth side of water orton either, you know the big industrial estate and Amazon distribution centre to the west of water orton but of course none of the above is causing her asthma to flare up, it’s being caused by the construction site 1/2 mile other side of the 10 lane wide motorway

pretty sure that there are also signs on the edge of water orton saying ‘no HS2 construction vehicles allowed beyond this point’ so if the village is a tip then maybe the residents should be looking a bit closer to home to find the cause 

 

Edited January 16 by big jim

[corneliuslundie]

Re what JIB1970 says about government handling of transport, hardly surprising when the transport portfolio has frequently been seen as the last stop before the Chiltern Hundreds. Whatever the party, we haven't actually had any very bright transport ministers for as long as I can remember.

Jonathan

[Ron Ron Ron]

21 minutes ago, corneliuslundie said:

Re what JIB1970 says about government handling of transport, hardly surprising when the transport portfolio has frequently been seen as the last stop before the Chiltern Hundreds. Whatever the party, we haven't actually had any very bright transport ministers for as long as I can remember.

Jonathan

 

The same goes for many government departments.

it's not just the top job in each department (Secretary of State etc), but the other departmental ministers and junior ministers below, which are a constant round of musical chairs.

Amateurs shoehorned into jobs in fields they largely have no experience in. 

Careers moves, with appointments often seen as a short term stepping stone to greater things etc, etc.

 

The whole system is rotten to the core.

This is no way to run the enterprise.

 

.

[Ron Ron Ron]

Progress on all 5 currently active TBM's on the main railway tunnels, was updated yesterday (15th Jan).

 

3 more TBM's are due to start off in the next few weeks.

 

 

[The Stationmaster]

5 hours ago, jjb1970 said:

We're now into election politics in Britain. The next budget will almost certainly be a spend and bribe budget aimed at pleasing the maximum number of voters in key tory seats (not a party political point, standard election politics, not just in the UK) and the opposition will be promising the maximum to the maximum number of voters in their key seats (again not a party political point, standard election politics). How it plays out who knows (a week is a long time in politics as they say) but I'd expect a change of government and a potential reversal on phase 2. However, whether the next government will address the underlying issues which have led to this point who knows, neither party has had a stellar transport record in the BR privatisation era and their last stint in office wasn't especially impressive on railways other than their enthusiasm for electrification which then turned into a bit of a shambles from poor execution.

One 'little' problem - in order for 2A to really deliver value it requires a station to be able to handle the trains in London. And the station in London means Euston as Old Oak wouldn't stand a snowball's chance in the Sahara of being able to sustain and service that level of train turnrounds.  

 

A sort of repeat of St Pancras and CTRL but without the addition of something like the South Eastern services to make further use of line capacity.   I find it rather worrying that we seem in Britan to be acquiring a habit of calling lines 'High Speed' when they are served by an inadequate London terminus - almost as if the latter is a pre-requisite for such lines.