lmsforever Posted July 1, 2022 Share Posted July 1, 2022 I live just down the road in Aylesbury and when I drive past the works on the way to Thame you dont realise the magnitude of them .The works at Wendover are progressing fast and you can see very clearly the start of the road bridge over the london Rd .As you come down off the hills down into Wendover the works are very clear with a large cement work building. 5 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ron Ron Ron Posted July 1, 2022 Share Posted July 1, 2022 The TBM cutting the first of the Long Itchington Wood tunnel bores, Dorothy, is only 200 metres from breaking out into the open. That’s only slightly more than the length of the TBM rig itself. At the current rate of progress, Dorothy should be arriving at the south portal within a fortnight. . 6 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ron Ron Ron Posted July 1, 2022 Share Posted July 1, 2022 . 6 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ron Ron Ron Posted July 1, 2022 Share Posted July 1, 2022 West Ruislip tunnel portal. TBM assembly underway. . 6 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ron Ron Ron Posted July 1, 2022 Share Posted July 1, 2022 The Colne Valley Viaduct starts to take shape.............. . 10 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium melmerby Posted July 1, 2022 RMweb Premium Share Posted July 1, 2022 It's amazing how the part built arch can stay up with only one end. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium jamie92208 Posted July 1, 2022 RMweb Premium Share Posted July 1, 2022 17 minutes ago, melmerby said: It's amazing how the part built arch can stay up with only one end. It's balanced on the other side of the pierwith strengthening cables threaded the whole length I think. Jamie 1 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ron Ron Ron Posted July 7, 2022 Share Posted July 7, 2022 Actual construction work on the Wendover Dean Viaduct, has commenced, with the sinking of piles and construction of pier foundations. . 5 1 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ron Ron Ron Posted July 11, 2022 Share Posted July 11, 2022 (edited) At the Long Itchington Wood tunnel..... HS2 ltd have reported that TBM Dorothy, was within 96m of breaking out into the south portal, on 4th July (that's already 7 days ago). At the rate of around 15m per day, Dorothy should be emerging either today, or tomorrow . If they have slowed down for the final stretch, it could be as late as Wednesday this week. Expect a PR announcement soon. . Edited July 11, 2022 by Ron Ron Ron 4 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ron Ron Ron Posted July 11, 2022 Share Posted July 11, 2022 Meanwhile down under the Chiltern hills..... HS2 Ltd reported that on 5th July (6 days ago) ..... Florence had reached 4894m Cecelia had reached 4619m Almost one third of these tunnels completed. Both TBM's have passed Chalfont St. Giles and are way past the River Misbourne, with no sign of that river having disappearing down a hole, as the environmentalists had predicted. . 7 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ron Ron Ron Posted July 11, 2022 Share Posted July 11, 2022 ....and up in Warwickshire....... . 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ess1uk Posted July 12, 2022 Share Posted July 12, 2022 could someone who knows please educate me as to why the work seems so wide and "wiggly" and not arrow straight? i'm no civil engineer and appreciate terrain etc plays a part, but why do the haul roads zig zag so much? i know it will all be cleaned up eventually and in a couple of years you will not even be able to see most of the earth works but it does look incredibly messy to me right now. 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ron Ron Ron Posted July 12, 2022 Share Posted July 12, 2022 2 hours ago, ess1uk said: could someone who knows please educate me as to why the work seems so wide and "wiggly" and not arrow straight? i'm no civil engineer and appreciate terrain etc plays a part, but why do the haul roads zig zag so much? i know it will all be cleaned up eventually and in a couple of years you will not even be able to see most of the earth works but it does look incredibly messy to me right now. That’s something that’s puzzled me too. The “wiggly” haul roads. I can understand the variations in the local terrain, but in quite a few places, the roads appear to cross what looks like the line of the future track formation.. Presumably, the earthworks are quite wide in places, for a number of reasons. Temporary earth and spoil storage, allowing improved construction access, work site bases, regrading of the adjoining landscape to blend in with the new railway, creating visual and sound mitigating barriers, environmental mitigation projects, such as providing or adjusting land drainage and water storage, creating habitats, ponds etc. . 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Edwin_m Posted July 13, 2022 Share Posted July 13, 2022 I'd guess that it's because the haul roads are slow speed and they want to do the minimum of earthworks for them (to reduce time, cost and impact). So they may have to zigzag to get a reasonable gradient over even minor undulations in the terrain. 2 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ron Ron Ron Posted July 15, 2022 Share Posted July 15, 2022 (edited) HS2 timeline of major events to 2025, provided by the New Civil Engineer online magazine website. https://www.newcivilengineer.com/latest/hs2-timeline-of-major-events-to-2025-revealed-15-07-2022/ HS2 timeline 2022 – 2025 2022 July - Start construction of Old Oak Common’s station for the GWML platforms Contract award for Birmingham interchange station (Note: just awarded to Laing O’Rourke) August- Tunnelling begins on Northolt tunnel (The TBM's are currently being assembled and prepared for testing) September - Contract award for Phase 2a design and delivery partner October - Concept design completed for HS2 trains December - Invitation to tender for HS2 main works (Phase 2a ???) 2023 January - Long Itchingdon Wood tunnelling completed (i.e. The 2nd bore completed. The first bore is almost finished) Contract award for railway track February - Construction starts on Curzon Street station (Current status in July - remaining site clearance underway, removal and/or diversion of utilities completed. Piling and ground work continues) March - Tunnelling starts on Bromford tunnel, on the approach into Birmingham. (TBM sections are already being delivered to the site) May - Contract award for signalling systems October - Contract award for Washwood Heath depot and systems control centre All rail systems contracts awarded 2024 February - Tunnelling starts on Euston tunnel March - Tunnelling completed on the Chiltern tunnel (One third completed in July 2022) April - Old Oak Common west box complete August - Tunnelling complete on Northolt tunnel September - Tunnelling complete on Bromford tunnel 2025 May - Colne Valley Viaduct construction complete June - Euston tunnel complete Align JV completes work September - EKFB JV completes work Major Network Rail interfaces complete in Birmingham city centre . Edited July 15, 2022 by Ron Ron Ron 3 9 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
billbedford Posted July 16, 2022 Share Posted July 16, 2022 Dominic Cummings has has his say about HS2: Quote HS2. This was one of the worst decisions Boris made. In January 2020 the ‘evidence’ was presented to No10. It included a laughable graph that showed exponentially rising demand for rail travel resulting in the entire country either on HS2/HS3/HS4 etc or building them. The best argument the IPA had was: it’s so far advanced that cancelling it would be bad for supply chains. The management of the Department for Transport was appalling and it’s stuck in a culture of doing everything extremely slowly and expensively. It was scheduled to cost ~£35 in this Parliament and over 100B total. Obviously these budgets will keep growing. I don’t know how much has been ploughed into it or how feasible it would be to bin it now but it’s possible that binning the whole stupid thing would be better than being another ‘sunk cost fallacy mega-project’ case study. I assume the project will continue with rubbish management getting ever more expensive and Labour will support this. By the time it operates it will be a global lesson in government failure on mega-projects. Mean while in another part of the Galaxy the Chinese have built ~40,000Km of high speed lines in around 20 years. 9 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike Storey Posted July 16, 2022 Author Share Posted July 16, 2022 1 hour ago, billbedford said: Dominic Cummings has has his say about HS2: Mean while in another part of the Galaxy the Chinese have built ~40,000Km of high speed lines in around 20 years. Very interesting lesson in how this man's mind operates. Everything's cr8p and awful, unless he thought of it first. I would not like to live in there.... 12 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Richard E Posted July 16, 2022 RMweb Premium Share Posted July 16, 2022 I see that social media experts now have the total cost as £200bn or £126bn or, or, or .... Whilst we can see the need to free up capacity on the legacy network by building new infrastructure or upgrading where that is the cheaper option it amazes me how many cannot understand that aspect. I guess they still haven't grasped that the days of cheap oil (and therefore petrol/diesel) are long gone. 6 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Allegheny1600 Posted July 16, 2022 Share Posted July 16, 2022 3 hours ago, Mike Storey said: Very interesting lesson in how this man's mind operates. Everything's cr8p and awful, unless he thought of it first. I would not like to live in there.... Absolutely! It amazes me that anyone ever took him seriously anyway but now? Who gives that man any credence? 1 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
pete_mcfarlane Posted July 16, 2022 Share Posted July 16, 2022 (edited) Hopefully Cummings will now slide off into obscurity, now that his sole remaining purpose (publicly attacking his ex-boss) is no longer needed. Edited July 16, 2022 by pete_mcfarlane 3 4 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark Saunders Posted July 17, 2022 Share Posted July 17, 2022 19 hours ago, pete_mcfarlane said: Hopefully Cummings will now slide off into obscurity, now that his sole remaining purpose (publicly attacking his ex-boss) is no longer needed. There are many politicians that you long to do this but they keep rising from the dead! 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium boxbrownie Posted July 17, 2022 RMweb Premium Share Posted July 17, 2022 20 hours ago, pete_mcfarlane said: Hopefully Cummings will now slide off into obscurity, now that his sole remaining purpose (publicly attacking his ex-boss) is no longer needed. He is still doing it, I don’t think he will stop until his old boss is as obscure as he is, not that he realises that fact. 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
KingEdwardII Posted July 17, 2022 Share Posted July 17, 2022 3 hours ago, Mark Saunders said: they keep rising from the dead! Large pointy stake & piles of garlic required. 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike Storey Posted July 17, 2022 Author Share Posted July 17, 2022 Ok, OK. Enough already. Back to HS2, or at least with some tangential connection to it! Please. 2 4 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium nightstar.train Posted July 19, 2022 RMweb Premium Share Posted July 19, 2022 Another update video from the Chiltern Society. I found it very informative. The guy obviously has been given a lot of access and has produced some great pictures and explanations of how things are being built. 2 1 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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