GoingUnderground

I saw in one press report a quote from an opponent of HS2 reaching Scotland that over 90% of rail passenger journeys in Scotland start and end in Scotland and that alone proved that high speed rail connections were not needed to England. What the person quoted did not take into account was that perhaps there was so little cross border passenger traffic because of the time it took to get by rail to the more popular destinations in England. If journey times come down significantly with HS2 from Glasgow and Edinburgh to Leeds, Manchester, Birmingham and London, then judging by the experience between London and Paris and Brussels then the share taken by rail can only go up. The 90% statistic far from showing that high speed rail connections are not needed actually, to my mind, proves that they are long overdue.

Then the guy from the Aberdeen Chamber of Commerce should, if he's doing his job properly, be lobbying as hard as he can for HS2 to be extended beyond Manchester and Leeds to Glasgow and Edinburgh and through to Aberdeen either as true high speed lines, or as loading gauge enlargement on the existing lines to allow HS2 to reach those destinations, not saying that he's disappointed that "such an important figure" has been left out.

After yesterday's announcement from the Labour Party, all I can say is "HS2 - R.I.P".

But not for those, like me, living to the east of Nottingham. I strongly support HS2 on principle even though I will probably, if I live that long and stay in the present area, still use the ECML as with the recent dualling of the A46 I can get to Newark in 20-25 mins, which is faster than I can to Toton, 40-45 mins by car. However we do have a local station, on the Nottingham-Lincoln line and if more frequent services from there also went to Toton for connection with HS2 then I would be an HS2 user, and would leave the car in the garage.

Much as I think that is a good idea, the business case wouldn't stand up. The potential volume of traffic and hence the benefits will be too low, not to mention the cost of regauging or dual gauging the lines to Belfast and on to Dublin and complying with the Berne Loading gauge on those routes. It is a non-starter financially unless the EU were to make a very major contribution towards the cost on the grounds of greater European integration, but that would go down like a lead balloon in the UK in its current hostile attitude to the EU.

Martin, You've had your fun from somewhere West of the Severn winding up all the HS2 supporters. If we all took your view and waited to see what technology was going to deliver in 5 or 10 or 15 or 20 years time we'd end up waiting forever and never build anything, which if you're against HS2 on principle is what you want. Your objections look to be objections for objections sake, not serious and constructive comments as you haven;t advanced a single serious argument in this debate that IMHO stood up to scrutiny..

Martin, Your hypothetical Exeter to Lincoln passenger may move to an area where they will benefit. But your argument is very, very, very weak IMHO. How did someone living in Lincolnshire benefit from the building of the M5 round Exeter? How does a pacifist benefit from money spent on the army, or a vegetarian on money spent on or dealing with outbreaks of foot & mouth disease, or a person without children on money spent on schools and education, or a pedestrian on money spent on traffic wardens, or a higher rate taxpayer on money spent on unemployment benefit, or someone who has paid National Insurance all their lives, has never been out of work, never fallen ill and dies suddenly before they can draw their state pension? It is/was their money too. You're questioning the whole basis of society and the nation state where we all pay for various bits and pieces some of which benefit us individually to a greater or lesser extent whilst other expenditures benefits others and has no direct benefit for us at all.

So far the incrementalists looking for a bit of nip and tuck to existing lines have not had to justify their arguments with business cases containing detailed figures to back up the costs and benefits to allow us to assess whether their arguments are valid and represent better value for money than HS2. I suspect the hidden additional costs caused by the inevitable disruption and delays to existing services during the upgrade/improvement works would undermine much of their business cases. Also the nip and tuck works would also need some sort of contingency, especially where you are dealing with changes to infrastructure that goes back to the start of the rail era. So any talk of "look what we could do elsewhere with £80bn" gives a false sense of how much is available to be spent on the alternatives to HS2. There was a nicely biased but of reporting on East Midlands Today last night where they focussed on complaints from Leicestershire that HS2 would not benefit Leicester and Leicestershire. I couldn't help thinking that they'd totally missed the point - fre

You need to take better aim with your curved ball. The popular airports are fully used because they serve destinations that folks want to visit. The underused ones are underused because that is the limit of the traffic that wants to use them. There's no point in flying to Inverness if I actually want to go to London. Also there are physical contraints imposed by flight paths which limits the proximity of airports to eachother and on the number of flights from each airport. BEA stopped using Northolt for UK domestic flights because the flight paths were too close to Heathrow and they didn't want the cost of supporting two bases when it was cheaper to have just one, Heathrow. Those planes are either too noisy to meet modern standards, too fuel inefficient, too polluting, have time expired airframes and so are no longer deemed airworthy, are being cannibalised for spares, or are military aircraft that may still contain classified equipment and are awaiting dismantling. These aircraft parks are the knackers yards for aircraft, not showrooms for new models.

You have forgotten that almost every country refused to let SSTs overfly at supersonic speeds which limited them to the trans-Atlantic market as they didn't have the range for non-stop trans-Pacific flights. Also their introduction coincided with a large hike in the price of oil. SSTs were priced as a premium product whereas there is no suggestion that I have seen that HS2 fares will also be more expensive than conventional fares. So your comparison is incorrect IMHO. You would be more correct to compare the induction magnetic trains to SSTs as both represent a step change in technology whereas TGV/ICE/Eurostar/HS2 rolling stock still use conventional steel wheels on steel rails. There are no R&D costs to recover, it is all known conventional technology in use in many other countries.

If what you are saying is true then we'd still be walking everywhere or flying the Atlantic in Bristol Britannias or Lockheed Constellations and not Dreamliners or Airbuses. Why should leisure automatically equate with slow and business with speed? There would be no need for any dual carriageways or motorways. The London to Birmingham Railway was built over 175 years ago and its alignment was appropriate for the technology of its day. It is time we had a new line compatible with modern technology, not one built for the low powered steam engines of the 1830s.

I am surprised that so much of the debate always concentrates on the business benefits. I know that the business benefits provide much of the benefit side of the cost/benefit analysis or business case, but IMHO many travellers on high speed lines seem to be leisure travellers, where electronic communications will have facilitated the journey, booking tickets and hotels etc., but cannot substitute for it.

Despite the Chancellor's recent pronouncement that HS2 was essential, I cannot see it being built. I've just come back from holiday in France, via Eurostar, and here are two viewpoints from my fellow holidaymakers: build it now and stop messing around. total waste of money. The first was from a retired civil engineer who lived in Lancashire and used the WCML, whilst the second was from a retired army officer who lived in Yorkshire and used the ECML. The ECML already have faster journey times than the WCML or MML and the second guy and his wife did not appreciate the disruption that trying to improve the WCML over much of its length would cause. With this "I'm All Right Jack" attitude even from people who benefit and enjoy High Speed rail travel whilst in France I cannot see how there will ever be sufficient support to allow HS2 to go ahead. The Independent Infrastructure commission idea is so sensible, but it takes all the power and decision making over such sexy infrastructure projects away from the politicians that it will turn them all into opponents of any project because It is always easier to oppose than to support. At least if the party in power is in favour you should get support from its MPs, but maintaining party discipline in Westminster over the current crop of MPs makes herding cats look like childs play given the recent vote on Syria!

Ah, Part 2 of my prediction is starting to come true. The politicos running away from HS2 because of the cost. I deeply regret the extreme short sightedness and road transport bias of politicians of all colours, but with the stampede away from HS2 by the political parties can only get worse as the next election approaches. My conclusion is that it will not get built. Yet another fine example of the UK becoming preserved in ice - unable to move forward because the cost of buying off the objectors makes the cost of these essential infrastructure projects too high.

I live on the eastern side of Nottingham, so the new tram works are of no use to me, just like our existing line, though they are desirable for the City as a whole. Much as I love trams, i still think they would do better to replace diesel buses with trolleybuses, but trolleybuses aren't as sexy to the politicos as trams. I still want to see HS2 built as that will benefit many more people and the country as a whole than a lot of small infrastructure projects dotted around the countryside.

Let's Spend The Night Together - The Rolling Stones

The traction motors don't give a damn how the voltage gets to them or the potential of either rail, as long as the difference in voltage is within its design specification. So +420 and -210 is exactly the same as +630 and 0V, or even -630 and 0V. Also the voltage matters less provided the insulation can withstand the higher voltages without breaking down. If you're puzzled about one supply being 0V it is extremely common and you all have that in your own homes at least in the UK. The Neutral terminal in your own home wiring is at 0V. The only difference between that and the Earth terminal is that Neutral provides a low resistance return path whereas the Earth terminal does exactly that, connect to earth. NEVER TRY USING THE EARTH INSTEAD OF THE NEUTRAL OR VICE VERSA OR YOU RISK DEATH BY ELECTROCUTION. The Overground collects from the 3rd rail with the return through the running rails so one side of the traction motor is connected to the bogie chassis and the other to the collector shoe. So the wheel, bogie and probably the chassis and bodywork are all electrically connected. When the Overground switches from 3rd rail to 25 kVA OHLE at Acton Central the process is that instead of the traction motors being connected to the 3rd rail shoe and the bogies, they are instead connected to the outputs from a transformer. The transformer inputs are connected to the catenary and the bogies and through the bogies to the wheels and the running rails. The Underground collects from the 3rd rail with the return through the 4th centre rail. So the traction motor is connected to the respective collector shoes and is totally isolated from the chassis. To convert overground to underground you fit a centre shoe and connect the traction motors to that, taking care that you have isolated the bogies. chassis etc. from the feed to the motors. The reverse happened with Sarah Siddons when she ran on the SR. The connection to the centre shoe was broken and instead was made to the bogies and through them the wheels and running rail. This is not dangerous as the running rails are at 0V. The Standard and 38 Tube Stock on the IoW were similarly converted to run on the Island Line. To run underground stock on the DC lines you bond the centre rail to the running rail. That way Underground Stock still collects through the 3rd and 4th rails where there is a voltage diffierence of 630V. No one has mentioned what happens when the Bakerloo trains pass through the shed at Queens Park and cross from one supply to the other. There is a section of track with no conductors that is longer than the length of a carriage so that linked collector shoes never straddle the two supplies. There is no magic, it's just very simple electrics. The only difficult bit is appreciating that you can have a DC supply where one pole is +ve in relation to ground or 0V and the other side is -ve.

I hate to say that I told you so, but this cost escalation to buy off opponents is exactly what I expected and predicted would happen. The only part missing from my prediction is the politicos now saying that the costs have made it uneconomic to proceed and cancelling it.

Holidays In Eden - Marillion

- The Motors

City To City - Gerry Rafferty

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Livin On The Fault Line - The Doobie Brothers

Trains And Winter Rains - Enya

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