HS2

[jamie92208]

6 minutes ago, Ron Ron Ron said:

Long Itchington tunnel news…….

 

TBM “Dorothy”  had completed 1230 metres of the 2nd bore by last Thursday (2nd March), with only 250 metres left to go.

 

At the present rate of progress, even allowing for a much slower rate as it nears the south portal, Dorothy should have completed its work at Long Itchington in just a few weeks time.

 

Once dismantled and removed from the tunnel portal area, work can progress on completing the “green tunnel” covered extension to the southern end of these tunnels.

 

Dorothy will be taken apart and moved to Water Orton, to be overhauled and rebuilt, with a new cutting head, before starting work on the 2nd of the Bromford tunnel bores, towards Washwood Heath.

 

 

.

Yes, good to see progress. Dorothy is doing an average of 16.7 metres per day with just 250 to go. At the current rate it will be done by Easter. However there has been no update on the southern pair, Sushila and Caroline since 2nd February. They should now be through the shallow ground and well into their stride.

 

Jamie

[Ron Ron Ron]

25 minutes ago, jamie92208 said:

Yes, good to see progress. Dorothy is doing an average of 16.7 metres per day with just 250 to go. At the current rate it will be done by Easter. ……..

Bearing in mind, that progress report was 5 days ago, at the rate you have calculated, Dorothy will have less than 170 metres to go by today (7th March).

 

IIRC and without going back to check, the total length of this particular TBM rig is something like 130 meters.

 

.

[The Stationmaster]

13 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

Thanks. For the avoidance of doubt, my comment was very much tongue-in-cheek, based on the previous installations at Birmingham International.

I noticed. (if nobody else did)

[St Enodoc]

11 hours ago, Ron Ron Ron said:

 

I think you’re at crossed purposes with the conversation.

The reference was to the bribery scandal surrounding the F-104 Starfighter orders to various NATO air forces. This didn’t  involve or have anything to do with the UK and RAF.

Another member got this episode mixed up with the UK F-111 order and had since corrected himself.

 

 

.

Perhaps two themes got conflated earlier. I was just pointing out that the cancellation of TSR2 and its aftermath involved F-111s but not F-104s. Anyway, enough on aircraft - there's a separate thread for that!

[4630]

I'm sure there'll be more to this story over the next few hours and days.

 

BBC - HS2 Construction to be delayed to save money

[Ian Hargrave]

With so much construction work seemingly advancing at pace and much in evidence here in Staffordshire,just what does this mean ?  As I posted a few days ago, new speed restrictions are only just in place on the A38 ? Does it mean a cessation of construction work,a go slow or a stop at a certain point in the middle of prime agricultural land…..yes this is a rural county. So then one of the world’s largest construction site an earth bound Marie Celeste in perpetuity .

Surely not. This is not good news and has potential for untold local upset. How bad must the situation be to have prompted this bombshell ?  Having seen locally only two days ago the progress being made ,I am stunned.

 

[Phil Parker]

6 minutes ago, Ian Hargrave said:

This is not good news and has potential for untold local upset. How bad must the situation be to have prompted this bombshell ?  Having seen locally only two days ago the progress being made ,I am stunned.

 

Since there will be plenty of locals upset that the very existence of HS2, I doubt it will make much difference. In fact if cancellation was announced, they would be delighted. Yes, vast amounts of money have been spent, and cancellation would probably cost as much as finishing the thing, but they would have WON, and that's all that matters. I despair of this country sometimes.

[corneliuslundie]

But isn't this the BBC recycling a story from a couple of days ago. We all know that the BBC doesn't like HS2 and sometimes I am afraid that its bias shows. Bring on Gary Lineker.

Jonathan

 

[woodenhead]

The cynic would say all they ever wanted was a railway from London to Birmingham for extra capacity, in order for it be voted in they had to extend it, make it grandiose so that MPs further north would vote and stop it being voted down by the southern MPs in the affected constituencies.

 

They've got that railway now, it's too far gone, so bit by bit the other elements are being kicked into the long grass.

 

All the levelling up, HS3 talk is just that, they couldn't even let Manchester have a bit of extra capacity through a central corridor that basically turned a new curve into a white elephant let alone a new high speed line connecting the cities in the north.

 

HS2 should have been the start of a big shift, but it will just end up as further evidence that only London matters.

 

 

[Phil Parker]

17 minutes ago, woodenhead said:

The cynic would say all they ever wanted was a railway from London to Birmingham for extra capacity, in order for it be voted in they had to extend it, make it grandiose so that MPs further north would vote and stop it being voted down by the southern MPs in the affected constituencies.

 

The super-cynic would say that no one in Government can do long-term planning beyond working out what to do after lunch, never mind anything with years of forethought.

 

18 minutes ago, woodenhead said:

HS2 should have been the start of a big shift, but it will just end up as further evidence that only London matters.

 

It should have been. We shouldn't need internal flights in the UK, it's just not big enough and HS2 should have seen them off. But it won't.

[Compound2632]

44 minutes ago, Phil Parker said:

The super-cynic would say that no one in Government can do long-term planning beyond working out what to do after lunch, never mind anything with years of forethought.

 

Policy is currently driven by the need to appease the Borisite party members - nothing to do with the National Good.

[jjb1970]

If only if it was as simple as blaming the Borisites, the British government has been a temple of short termism and ineptitude all my adult life.

 

That said, given the state of finances, it's been obvious for a long time that government (of whichever political persuasion) faced brutal choices.

[Grovenor]

In terms of the national finances the annual spend on HS2 is trivial. That total figure that is always the headline is over something more than a 20 year period half of it already in the past. IMHO its reached a point now where significant savings are impossible. But the scope for increasing cost and time is more or less infinite.

Edited March 9, 2023 by Grovenor

[frobisher]

1 hour ago, Phil Parker said:

We shouldn't need internal flights in the UK, it's just not big enough and HS2 should have seen them off. But it won't.

 

Being resident in Scotland for most of my life I would beg to differ...

[jjb1970]

I used to go to Aberdeen regularly when I lived in Milton Keynes. I always wanted to use the sleeper, nothing against Aberdeen but I could have had the evening at home, gone down to Euston and woke up in Aberdeen and in effect had a night at home rather than having to choose between staying away overnight or getting up at early-o-clock for a taxi to Heathrow for the first flight. However, every time I tried to do it the ticket prices were crazy as my trips tended to be at fairly short notice, so I flew up and often stayed overnight as it was still cheaper.

[Lambton58]

1 hour ago, jjb1970 said:

I used to go to Aberdeen regularly when I lived in Milton Keynes. I always wanted to use the sleeper, nothing against Aberdeen but I could have had the evening at home, gone down to Euston and woke up in Aberdeen and in effect had a night at home rather than having to choose between staying away overnight or getting up at early-o-clock for a taxi to Heathrow for the first flight. However, every time I tried to do it the ticket prices were crazy as my trips tended to be at fairly short notice, so I flew up and often stayed overnight as it was still cheaper.

A few years back, we had some trips planned to Scotland (Montrose and Glasgow) from Milton Keynes.  All my colleagues suggested flying as Easyjet from Luton were cheap and indeed we used them for business trips to Scotland.  Fortunately we had time to book well ahead so the cost of  train tickets for a family of 4 was sensible.  On the face of it, more than the plane tickets though, but by the time we took into account the additional costs of getting to Luton Airport and /or parking for the duration, plus costs for hold luggage, the costs of getting from the Scottish airports to our destinations and then the same costs for the journey home the train worked out cheaper.  "Ah, but what about the time it will take ?" my colleagues asked.  Again taking into account the time to get to & from the airports, check in times, baggage retrieval etc etc the train was quicker!  
And that's the point, I think, a functioning rational rail system should be providing services from one end of this country to the other that are timely and cheaper than air travel.

 

Ralph

[woodenhead]

Bit of a stink in parliament, the media has been briefed on HS2 changes and road changes but no annoucement to parliament.

 

The only headline so far, Hs2 Birmingham to Crewe delayed by 2 years, nothing so far on the other elements.  A local Tory MP is now asking though if HS2 north of Birmingham is dead and if HS2 will be making good the damage to land...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-64901985

[APOLLO]

Oh Mr Sunak what will I do

They've turfed me out at Birmingham and I want to go to Crewe

Take me back to Old Oak Common as quickly as you can

Oh Mr Sunak wat a silly girl I am !!!

[woodenhead]

Yes, I expect changes to the plan to save more money will emerge, Old Oak to be the terminus because ‘’passengers prefer’ the Elizabeth line.  Classic line running to Crewe and Manchester, HS3 will be four tracking the Standege route and OHLE on the CLC.

[Ian Hargrave]

1 hour ago, woodenhead said:

Bit of a stink in parliament, the media has been briefed on HS2 changes and road changes but no annoucement to parliament.

 

The only headline so far, Hs2 Birmingham to Crewe delayed by 2 years, nothing so far on the other elements.  A local Tory MP is now asking though if HS2 north of Birmingham is dead and if HS2 will be making good the damage to land...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-64901985

 

1 hour ago, woodenhead said:

Bit of a stink in parliament, the media has been briefed on HS2 changes and road changes but no annoucement to parliament.

 

The only headline so far, Hs2 Birmingham to Crewe delayed by 2 years, nothing so far on the other elements.  A local Tory MP is now asking though if HS2 north of Birmingham is dead and if HS2 will be making good the damage to land...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-64901985

A stink ..to put it mildly….occurs here too

[Ravenser]

1 hour ago, woodenhead said:

Bit of a stink in parliament, the media has been briefed on HS2 changes and road changes but no annoucement to parliament.

 

The only headline so far, Hs2 Birmingham to Crewe delayed by 2 years, nothing so far on the other elements.  A local Tory MP is now asking though if HS2 north of Birmingham is dead and if HS2 will be making good the damage to land...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-64901985

 

As matters stood , trains would have been terminating at Old Oak Common until 2035 (date for opening Euston)

 

And as has previously been discussed at length, OOC has hopelessly inadequete capacity to act as a terminus for HS2....

 

Quite how anyone envisaged running a full service to the North West and Birmingham from Old Oak Common between the opening of the Crewe section (previously intended for 2034) and the opening of the high speed platforms at Euston (2035) I don't really see...

 

Pushing back completion of Phase 2a Litchfield/Crewe to 2036 may have an element of bowing to the inevitable. It gives them a chance to work up the new Euston , and phase in the HS2 sets for services to the North West gradually , initially running via the Trent Valley from 2035 , before initiating the full service via HS2 to Crewe the next year. Any slippage in opening Euston would also be less disruptive

 

BBC references to possible effects on some of the design teams for Euston hints there might be thoughts of doing the new high speed station at Euston in two phases - say 6 platforms for 2035 , and expanding to the full 10 platforms by 2041-3 . You wouldn't need the full capacity until you are routing all the Midland services into Euston, and I wonder if connections from the two nearest platforms of the current Euston onto HS2 might be contrived so that existing services can be routed onto HS2  - ie a de facto 8 platform terminus for HS2. I suspect not all the platform capacity released at Euston by moving the long distance services over to the new high-speed platforms would be required as early as 2035...

 

Mr Fabricant seems to be hoping that Phase 1 from Birmingham Interchange to Litchfield is going to be abandoned, and HS2 will demolish the works and pay for them to be returned to green fields . That is not what's being announced...

[phil-b259]

23 minutes ago, woodenhead said:

Yes, I expect changes to the plan to save more money will emerge, Old Oak to be the terminus because ‘’passengers prefer’ the Elizabeth line.

 

Except as many of us have pointed out the 6 platforms being built at Old Oak is far too small to terminate trains.

 

So to do what you suggest you MUST either:-

 

(1) permanently half the number of trains HS2 can carry from around 18tph to 9tph (thus wrecking the business case for HS2 well and truly)

 

(2), acquire loads more land at Old Oak and redesign it to have 10 platforms  (which basically means finding somewhere else to build another crossrail depot* and spending huge amounts of money redesigning everything plus modifying whats already under construction

 

* Why do you think the old oak site was selected for this - answer its the ONLY large site on the crossrail route big enough to build one!

[woodenhead]

@phil-b259 I’m not against HS2 going to Euston, but I suspect any delay allows bean counters to find ‘novel’ ways to save money.

 

Using Manchester again as an example; building a new curve but not adding the capacity onto the Oxford Rd corridor to make use of it fully.  Then expecting magic to happen that will miraculously create capacity, which so far has not happened.

[jamie92208]

I doubt that Old Oak will remain as the terminus.  The TBM's for the drive to Euston have been ordered and no doubt the lining segments. The construction contract has been awarded.  The embarrasment of having millions of pounds worth of completed tunnel may keep the construction  of the new Euston platforms on track.

 

Jamie

[4630]

I don’t know, perhaps it’s just been a long and tiring day, or may be I’ve just reached that stage in life where none of this really comes as much of a surprise anymore.

 

It would seem as though in a few short years starting from a positive, optimistic vision of a new high speed railway line with frequent trains from central London to Birmingham and Manchester with a separate leg to Leeds, the best that is likely to be achieved now is effectively a glorified shuttle service between a west London suburb and Birmingham. 

 

What a truly sad state of affairs.

 

Sometimes I really do despair at what this country appears to have become. 

 

Hopefully everything will look better in the morning, but some how I doubt it.