High Speed 2 Update - likely route revealed

[Hammer]

There's no doubting the massively over budget and late WCML upgrade was a complete fiasco, but that's a factor of how it was carried out, rather than a question of it being needed. Indeed it was desperately needed.

But that's all history now and hopefully some harsh lessons have been learned.

 

The consensus appears to favour a new line rather than massive disruption to existing services, but the massive cost does beg the question of whether we can really afford it and to what detriment to other rail provision when budgets are inevitably cut.

One comment I've read from someone who's done the figures (I don't know if they're realistic or not), suggests at £30 billion (for the whole Y shaped proposal) it would cost the equivalent of £500 for every man, woman and child in this country, but in terms of those who would use it, it would cost the equivalent of £6000 for every passenger who uses the line !!!!! That's without any cost over-run.

 

???????

 

 

.

 

For what we'd be getting, I think £30 Billion could be a pretty good deal. In perspective, it's just a wee bit more then the Scottish Government's budget for 1 year and about 1/14th of the UK budget as a whole. Of course, we won't be paying for it in one year and there will likely be private investment involved to cover some of the cost. It's not actually that expensive in terms of state-level finance.

I wonder how much the ECML or the WCML would cost to build from scratch nowadays?

 

Of course, it needs to be ensured that the new train fares are cheaper then planes, otherwise the whole exercise is futile.

[Glorious NSE]

One comment I've read from someone who's done the figures (I don't know if they're realistic or not), suggests at £30 billion (for the whole Y shaped proposal)

 

Ernst & Young put the figure to actually build the thing and some trains to run on it at £19.3bn including plenty of room for contingencies - quite a bit less than £30bn (makes you wonder where all the rest goes doesn't it - anyone want a duck island?!)

 

From 2027 money starts coming back in again from track access and franchises - they reckon by 2033 the government will have £240m p.a. rolling in - whilst this doesn't cover the cost by any means it does challenge the thought that this money just gets spent then goes away again.

 

it would cost the equivalent of £500 for every man, woman and child in this country

 

That comes down to £315 using the above figures.

 

So - descending to your commentators level for a moment, is a vast improvement in rail services across a large swathe of the country with the capability to expand further, causing a step change in UK transportation and giving the North-South divide a serious slap in the face with a wet haddock worth the cost of a widescreen telly?

 

but in terms of those who would use it, it would cost the equivalent of £6000 for every passenger who uses the line !!!!!

 

Rough workings backwards here to try and unpick this:

 

£30bn div by £6000 = 5m people

 

Working that back forwards with the £19bn construction figure gives you £3869.40 per 5m people.

 

But i'm not convinced at that figure either - the report suggests 20,000 per day will use the "core" section in the middle from day 1 and that figure will gradually increase (for comparison the 2008 figure for the equivalent bit of WCML is 45,000 so I think that sounds reasonable)

 

20,000 per day is 7.3m passengers a year. Over a 30 year asset life that's an extremely conservative estimate of 219bn passengers.

 

£19.3bn divided by 219bn passengers is 9p each.

[Fenman]

20,000 per day is 7.3m passengers a year. Over a 30 year asset life that's an extremely conservative estimate of 219bn passengers.

 

£19.3bn divided by 219bn passengers is 9p each.

 

I was never very good when numbers started getting lots of noughts after them, but surely 7.3m x 30 years = 219 million (not billion).

 

£19.3bn / 219m = c.£87 per passenger, rather than 9p.

 

Or have I failed a maths question again?

 

Then again, 30 years is a conservative life and the numbers of passengers are likely to grow very substantially, so the price/passenger is likely to plummet.

 

Paul

[JohnR]

I agree, and think that Network Rail's proposal which does go all the way to Scotland is therefore prefrable, although having branches to termini at Birmingham and Manchester rather than having through stations at these places may be a mistake as it would put a greater strain on capacity on HS2 south of these places. Extending to Scotland (as in Network Rail's plan) would, in my opinion, be a better option than extending to Leeds (as in the recent anouncment) as pepole are more likely to take domestic flights over longer distances, therefore the High Speed rail link needs to travel a longer distance to cut into the air travel market. I would have proposed having the line run through Manchester and Birmingham to Glasgow, with a possible diversion via, or branch to, Liverpool. Leeds and Edinbourgh would be served by the ECML, upgraded to 150-160 mph (some of the line is already 150mph capable) with diversions round the most restrictive line-speeds where the limit is due to sharp curves that cannot easily be straightened without diversion (excepting line-speeds near major stations like York). I also agree that work on the High Speed line should begin earlier than currently planned, or if it is to wait till 2017 electrical generation facilities should be constructed in the meantime to power it, and the GWML when it is electrified, using renewable energy. The generation facilites should be provided by tidal power in the river Severn, NOT with a wildlife habitat destroying bararge but with one of the alternative solutions, that would likely be out of site beneath the water for much of the day and therefore not be controvertial like wind farms are. By the way, I personally think some designs of wind turbine are quite attractive in the right places, but certain areas should be proteted from turbines.

 

I quite agree that the Network Rail proposals were better, although the terminal stations werent considered to be a major problem in that report, I think the additional cost of both entry AND exit through a city centre was what ruled it out.

 

On a seperate point - wasnt the section from Birmingham south to London 4 tracked in the Network Rail proposals.

[Glorious NSE]

DOH! - sorry, I was obviously even more confused by the noughts than you were.

 

You're right also that 20,000 and 30 years is being very conservative though, but the cost of rolling stock was part of that figure and that probably will need renewing sometime after that.

 

 

[Bruce Depot]

Well having spent a while looking at the approach into Birmingham, it appears to cross the land that Saltley PSB is standing on at present,

looks like RIP to my old work place!

 

cheers

Keith

[alcazar]

It's very interesting to see that this has been released just before an election which is very much in the balance. We talk about it.

 

Meanwhile, across those 21 miles of water, the French have SIX more schemes under way, putting huge sums of money into their economy, employing thousands of people building the lines and the stations, even the trains, which, of course, are French.

 

Shame we can't show the same commitment.

[Glorious NSE]

Shame we can't show the same commitment.

 

A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step...

[Glorious NSE]

Just found where the 30bn figure is from - that's including the extensions to Manchester and Leeds.

[Hammer]

It's very interesting to see that this has been released just before an election which is very much in the balance. We talk about it.

 

Meanwhile, across those 21 miles of water, the French have SIX more schemes under way, putting huge sums of money into their economy, employing thousands of people building the lines and the stations, even the trains, which, of course, are French.

 

Shame we can't show the same commitment.

 

I read the other day that China are proposing to build high speed raillines across Russia and the Asain sub-continent to provide direct rail travel from Europe to Asia. Parts of it are already underway

 

Telegraph story on it

[Guest Max Stafford]

It's quite frustrating and embarrassing to see how other countries just get on with the job, compared with all the tutting, teeth sucking and empty talk that comes from the thieving, inept donkeys who run this island.

 

Dave.

[Ron Ron Ron]

As I said Martyn, i didn't know if the figures were realistic or not...and yes, all those zero's are mind boggling.

 

The nominal guestimated figures given above (£88 per passenger journey) are based on that £19.3 bn figure and not the £30 bn+ estimated cost in the report. If it's being presented as £30 bn today on expenditure that will substantially occur between 7 and 25 years from now (notwithstanding the prevailing economic conditions in the future, financing, interest rates etc); cynically I'm inclined to think it will only get more expensive over time.

Even so, the same calculation adjusted from £19.3 bn to £30 bn increases that £88 per passenger journey to £137

But all that assumes a cost spread over a nominal time period that may have no correlation with true costs and their associated financing and write down period.

 

I believe the figures I referred to also looked at the equivalent cost per user rather than per journey, based on 5 million individuals out of the total population who would use these services.

That's where he got his £6000 per person figure from.

 

Having a rough stab at it, I think it reads like this....probable wrong

 

Based on 80,000 passenger journeys a day - 25 million per annum - 750 million over 30 years

The cost of building the line at £30 billion equates to a minimum of £40 per passenger journey (£80 per return trip)

 

Assuming a customer base of 5 million customers and 750 million passenger journeys over 30 years, that allows for an average of 150 journeys each, i.e. 5 per year.

Build cost of £30 billion divided by those 5 million customers = £6000 each

Divide that 150 into £6000 and it also comes out at £40 per passenger journey

 

Of course none of these figures include the cost of running a single train or incurring any operating costs whatsoever.

Ohhhhh my brain hurts. I'm not going on with this.

 

Whatever, it will cost a lot of money to build the line and fares won't be cheap.

 

I'm actually in favour of it, but not at the expense of any significant cutbacks in much needed investment elsewhere on the network and I find it hard to believe there won't be cuts and scaling back elsewhere.

 

 

 

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[Glorious NSE]

Just to clarify - £19.3bn is London-Birmingham, that figure is quoted as the cost in the financial report on the DfT site. 30bn i'd suggest is the guesstimate for London-Birmingham/Manchester/Leeds - so what they have announced the route of here is worth £19.3bn - the other 10 and a bit billion I guess you regard as HS2 phase 2

 

So - those figures make sense Ron, i'm just not sure I agree with the theory that only 5m people out of the UKs 61 (or so) million (8.5% ish??) will ever benefit from it!

 

I'd suggest the person writing will have assumed that I will not benefit from it as I live nowhere near the route, let alone a station - but sooner or later i'm bound to use part of it on my travels.

 

In a similar way a proportion of my taxes go to fund the M1 which as a piece of national infrastructure isn't an awful lot of use to a person living in Exeter (and to be honest not much more useful when i've tried to use it!)

 

There's 2.8m rail journeys made in the UK every day, and if you take the full £30m including Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds routes then i'd suggest a fair percentage of those journeys will be affected by this change - every single day - as in it's full guise it provides a capacity boost on not just the WCML but also the XC core section, the MML and the ECML - the only area's of England with no direct benefits will I think be East Anglia & the South coast/South West!

[7013]

What is happening to the proposed electrification of the Paddington to Bristol route? I thought that was on the cards with possible extension to South Wales. Quite frankly I believe that a HS route from London to the West Country should be considered to boost access to an area which is one of the most popular holiday destinations in the UK. Millions from the UK and Europe visit Devon and Cornwall every year, a HS link would cut journey times by about two hour and make train travel to the West Country easier and popular again.

Why are we waiting till 2017? just enough time to give a Tory govt. time to shelve it. Britain is the poor relation when it comes to Railways in Western Europe, it will only be auccessful if it is Nationalised again....woops forgot if we get a Tory govt. they would never stand for that

[Ron Ron Ron]

Why are we waiting till 2017 ?

just enough time to give a Tory govt. time to shelve it.....

This question is being asked all over the place (forums, newsgroups, news website comments pages etc.).

In fact 7 years is better than expected. It was previously announced by the government (last year) that they expected the protracted and complicated UK planning process would take anything up to 10 years to complete, based on the the length of time it took for HS1. That's why they then decided to kick start this long proposed project and formed the HS2 group to look at it, simultaneously instructing Network Rail to do likewise.

 

Everyone knows the UK's planning process is terribly long winded and inefficient; even the politicians admit it, but it seems there's no political will to do anything about it by any party.

The myth being bandied around amongst all the complaints about this situation, is the claim that other countries just get on and do it. Well from what I've read, their planning processes for similar schemes are almost as slow. The difference is they generally take a long term strategic view on stuff like infrastructure and start the process off much earlier.

 

 

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[Ron Ron Ron]

So - those figures make sense Ron, i'm just not sure I agree with the theory that only 5m people out of the UKs 61 (or so) million (8.5% ish??) will ever benefit from it!

 

There's 2.8m rail journeys made in the UK every day, and if you take the full £30m including Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds routes then i'd suggest a fair percentage of those journeys will be affected by this change - every single day - as in it's full guise it provides a capacity boost on not just the WCML but also the XC core section, the MML and the ECML - the only area's of England with no direct benefits will I think be East Anglia & the South coast/South West!

I think 5 million may be on the high side Martyn.

Inter-City rail journeys are a very small proportion of total rail traffic by passenger numbers. The figures show that the vast majority of rail travellers rarely use inter-city trains. Many have never used them.

Of course rail travel only represents a small proportion of total non-local journeys made anyway.

 

 

However you are absolutely right that the benefits extend well beyond those afforded to the potential users of the HS lines. As you describe, the overall network benefit off the HS network will be quite significant. Which takes us back to the prime reason for these proposals - providing more capacity and not so we can just have flashy fast trains like Johnny Foreigner.

 

 

p.s. To illustrate the point about how small inter-city traffic actually is as a proportion of total rail traffic (in terms of the number of passenger journeys), here are some of the official 2008 figures published by the ORR last year (2009). These are based on the actual total ticket sales.

This is a sample from the data expressing the number of rail journeys between and within each region, as a percentage of the total number of individual rail journeys, e.g. All journeys between region X and region Y represent 5% of the total number of journeys etc.

 

Between London and:

 

West Midlands 0.4%

East Midlands 0.4%

North West 0.3%

North East 0.1%

Yorkshire & Humberside 0.3%

Scotland 0.1%

South West 0.5%

Wales 0.1%

 

The total number of rail journeys between London and those regions represents a mere 2.2% of all rail journeys made in 2008

 

Journeys between those individual regions are almost all given as 0.1% or less, with the exception of between the NW and Yorkshire & Humberside (0.3%)

Note that I haven't included the East or South East, or journeys contained within each region.

 

 

 

 

 

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[buckdancer]

GloriousNSE said "Just to clarify - £19.3bn is London-Birmingham, that figure is quoted as the cost in the financial report on the DfT site. 30bn i'd suggest is the guesstimate for London-Birmingham/Manchester/Leeds - so what they have announced the route of here is worth £19.3bn - the other 10 and a bit billion I guess you regard as HS2 phase 2"

 

I've recently watched a program on the South Korean High Speed Railway and there were all sorts of problems with tyre wear where the High Speed Railway connects with a conventional railway.

Normally rail profiles are very different.

 

So if the station in B'ham is a terminus will there be a seperate London to Manchester line?

Or will the terminus be converted to a through station at some expense?

Or will there be another B'ham station outside the city?

If London to B'ham is 19bn I would expect the rest to be more than 10bn.

I presume B'ham to Manchester and Leeds would go through Derbyshire?

[bmthtrains - David]

And don't forget this is an investment in the nation's infrastructure - not simply "build a railway and pay for it through the fares", the driving force is to provide both capacity on the network and provide the opportunity for growth in the country. In Japan, the HS network has effectively made the entire island within commutable distance of London, and the hope is the same for the UK. You could live in the Midlands and have a shorter journey to work than if you lived in Sussex. Equally, with Birmingham closer to Euston than some parts of London are by tube, it means you don't have to base your business in london to be accessable, benefiting the rest of the country

 

I strongly support high speed rail, but I understand why some are sceptical, though am so far surprised no one has loudly shouted 'my house is in the way!' given the plans are on the dft website!

 

From a purely 'railway interest' point of view, some of the structures will be pretty impressive, especially that flying junction at Water Orton where the Brum and 'future' north east lines split off among all those motorways!

 

David

[bmthtrains - David]

So if the station in B'ham is a terminus will there be a seperate London to Manchester line?

Or will the terminus be converted to a through station at some expense?

Or will there be another B'ham station outside the city?

If London to B'ham is 19bn I would expect the rest to be more than 10bn.

I presume B'ham to Manchester and Leeds would go through Derbyshire?

 

The line to Curzon st peels off the main line just after a new B'ham international station, so the main line then heads north, splitting to a potential north east line, while the west line merges with the WCML in the trent valley

 

The Bham station will always be a terminus

 

The cost is huge for the start as the bulk of the costs will be tunelling out of London, rebuilding Euston, the huge interchange at Old Oak Common, the incredible ammount of complex viaducts and junctions near Birminham, tunelling again in Brum, then another huge temrinus in the city centre. The costs are a lot lower for the northern 'open' run.

 

David

[Ron Ron Ron]

So if the station in B'ham is a terminus will there be a seperate London to Manchester line?

With this proposal, the line will divide just outside Birmingham. A spur will run into the Birmingham Terminus, with the main line continuing on northwards.

Trains leaving Birmingham will be able to turn south for London and later when the line is extended, North for Manchester, Leeds etc.

 

 

will the terminus be converted to a through station at some expense?

No.

 

 

will there be another B'ham station outside the city?

Yes. The interchange alongside Birmingham Airport, the NEC and M42.

 

 

London to B'ham is 19bn I would expect the rest to be more than 10bn.

The tunnels under central, west, outer London and under the Chilterns will be very expensive, plus land costs are very high.

The Old Oak Common interchange is another very large project, as is the redevelopment, or rather complete re-build of Euston.

I don't know if the Euston project comes out of this budget, or is entirely separate, but it is quite substantial and involves purchasing a large amount of real estate in order to extend the station footprint by a significant amount. The engineering itself will be hugely expensive as the present day Euston is being completely taken away and a new station is going to be built, extending from 2 stories underground, upwards.

Acquiring all that property will be mega-expensive at central London property prices.

Also as David has said, the Birmingham tunnels, flyovers and Terminus come out of the budget for this phase.

 

 

presume B'ham to Manchester and Leeds would go through Derbyshire?

North of Birmingham, the proposed extension to HS2 will split into two routes. One going on to Manchester (with a possible later extension to Glasgow via the west coast); the other route will route via the East Midlands to Sheffield and Leeds (with a possible later extension to Newcastle and Edinburgh). There isn't yet a detailed plan for north of Birmingham, but a trans-Pennine section isn't included; however the Eastern route will pass through or near the Derby area.

 

 

I strongly support high speed rail, but I understand why some are sceptical, though am so far surprised no one has loudly shouted 'my house is in the way!' given the plans are on the dft website!

If you look around on the web, there a very large numbers of complaints already. This proposal isn't being received well by the British public, if those posting are any guide to opinion at large.

A number are already objecting to the route going through the Chilterns, but just wait for the various campaigns to start.

 

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[APOLLO]

It will never get built folks - too expensive and we, as a nation are BROKE.

 

Behind the scenes are plans are afoot to CLOSE lines, downgrade services, uplift fares. Believe it or not.

 

Why invest when you can "Squeeze the existing asset", and make obese (subsidised) profits. If your trains are full, why build extra ones when you can just increase the fare, AND keep the existing trains full. Thats how modern business works.

 

I wish it wasn't so. But unfortunately, the men in suits don't want to invest, they want money, profit, any which way they can.

 

If work does start, take out a mortgage on an advance ticket. The Existing walk on return fare Wigan to London - From £250 !!!

Don't get me wrong - I would dearly love to see work start - but I live in the real world.

 

Brit15

[David Rickard]

Private business on its own won't build this. Or build much of anything. It requires Government intervention to push it through, and hack through all the legal issues and red tape. It could very easily happen, I think, it just relies on the will of Gov't to push it through.

[Glorious NSE]

A number are already objecting to the route going through the Chilterns, but just wait for the various campaigns to start.

 

Ha - I used to work in Amersham, and I'm not at all surprised at all that the residents have reacted as if the government had announced a toxic waste dump - despite most of the track in the area being below ground...

 

<Maude Flanders> "Won't somebody think of the children!" </Maude Flanders>

[Hammer]

BTW, It's worth noting that that HS2 in Scotland is a reserved matter. The Scottish Government have to fund it themselves and there are already calls for the Government here to move ahead with HS plans before the line gets to the border.

[298]

As mentioned on a SM32 forum, the main media froth is from residents in the Chilterns (although the line follows an existing line and will be in tunnels for alot of the route), yet the real impact will be the new alignment through Warwickshire. Having fought off the proposed Superpit, expansion of Coventry & Birmingham Airports and the proposed Super Heathrow near Rugby, this has come as a bit of a surprise for the Nimby's. Having a Highspeed route skirting some of the most desirable villages & suburb of Coventry won't be a welcome addition, especially since there won't be provision for a station in the area and Euston is only an hour from Coventry anyway.

 

One forgotten point tho is Birmingham Airport & Station are more readily accessible for residents in Coventry & surrounding area than the those living in Birmingham and to the north.