In other project / infrastructure news, the Chinese are building a Coronavirus treatment hospital in Wuhan in six days. Imagine having that on your project management CV!
As for the HS2 shitshow I live in the North and work mostly from home / London but I'd take improved M62 corridor connections in an instant. I have no issues getting to an from London as it is - it's a doddle.
HS2 just appears to be a good idea dogged by 20th century thinking. Instead of getting something that can form the back bone of a more sustainable country we have a faster way of throwing resources into the black hole that is London. It would seem farcical we're setting up a situation where we'll need to have to pipe water to the SE to keep up with usage.
privatise the profit, publicise the cost
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-51443421
Not sure I've ever seen a Government report that's been so widely leaked, commented on, re-leaked....
Sort of sums up the fiasco of the entire project. Don't get me wrong, overall I think it's a positive but it's been mismanaged from the start.
Sort of sums up the fiasco of the entire project. Don’t get me wrong, overall I think it’s a positive but it’s been mismanaged from the start.
And so the excuses start... 😉
'It was a brilliant plan, but unfortunately didn't survive contact with reality' etc. Coming soon: the Boris bridge between N.Ireland and Scotland which is apparently under consideration by Number 10.
privatise the profit, publicise the cost
It feels exactly this, plus a reluctance from polititians based in SE, contractors with HQ in SE, bankers with banks in SE, London generally which is in SE to actually look up at the real world in West, South West, North and more...
Overall public transport is a really good thing and we need some hard decisions made about it. We just are not getting it right....yet.
The most important bit of the statement about HS2 is that the 2nd stage, taking it north of Birmingham "will be reviewed at a later date".
At which point it will be shelved.
What they're actually doing is building a 100 billion quid commuter line from the Midlands to London. They're just pretending they're not, for the time being, and wrapping it up in this right load of old bollocks about 'rebalancing the economy'
HS2 will never get north of Birmingham. On the recent Channel 4 Dispatches documentary on it, not a single rail expert believed it ever would.
That grauniad write up is completely spot on. you could easily free up capacity on the WCML by replacing the local services that jam the system with buses that have dedicated bus lanes and junction priority at a tiny fraction of the cost.
They've already spend 8billion on plans. sake.
One thing that occurred to me (and many others it seems) is that the project has been planned arse about face from the start and still doesn't let go of the idea that London is the centre of the universe.
Phase 2; the Leeds-Manchester "Northern powerhouse" bit should either be done first or split off and built at the same time as the Brum-Lon bit...
I do think it's a shame that we in the UK focus too much on the cost and never on potential benefits.
Personally I don't think anyone in the Midlands or above is desperate to commute to London, but better linking up city's in the Midlands and North has value, maybe it's worth letting the bankers have a high speed line to the bullring if there are some aligned benefits for other parts of the country.
My bigger worry (before todays announcement) was that HS2 would be binned and nothing would replace it letting wider UK rail infrastructure slip further behind need (not that today guarantees phase 2)...
HS2 isn't ideal but it's something, and I'd rather we were building railways than more motorways, but that's just me.
That grauniad write up is completely spot on. you could easily free up capacity on the WCML by replacing the local services that jam the system with buses that have dedicated bus lanes and junction priority at a tiny fraction of the cost.
Trust me on this, no it's not.
To replicate one commuter train, even a basic Pacer, you need 8 buses minimum.
To remodel thousands of miles of roads to accommodate dedicated bus lanes isn't feasible. You can't replace rail with road. And then you're still left with a bunch of Victorian infrastructure that can't accommodate high speed.
You need to build new high speed. Then leave the existing infrastructure to the slower commuter stuff.
Do we know how much a peak time London to Brum ticket will cost?
If you have to ask, you can't afford it.
HS2 isn’t ideal but it’s something, and I’d rather we were building railways than more motorways, but that’s just me.
I'd rather we were building more cycleways. The government has committed to a massive 250 miles of them. A joke.
Personally I don’t think anyone in the Midlands or above is desperate to commute to London
It's not about people commuting to London. It's about putting businesses up north closer to London clients so they can better compete for London money. Why do you think the South East is so rich? Cos businesses being close to each other generates more business. HS2 will bring businesses closer.
The same argument applies to making Northern cities closer to each other, of course, which is why we also need better rail links up there too.
Question for those involved in the rail industry: Will the money spent on HS2 also benefit HS3, 4, 5 etc? Will we get 'better' at building high speed rail?
A quick question to all.
Do you prefer HS2 to be driverless?
HS2 is proven technology, though you still have to implement it properly to work. Driverless is it seems feasible but I wouldn’t say proven technology yet and maybe some time away. When I say proven I mean not running the odd test vehicle but running thousands at the same time. I would hope by the time HS2 is complete you’ll be stepping of the train for a driverless electric car to take you to your destination.
Of course I may not live long enough to see either
Coming up next... Cummings has convinced Boris to make Brum the English capital in 5-10 years. HS2 will never go north of Brum, it will "cost too much."
For all those bemoaning lack of UK infrastructure spending and the electorate repeatedly voting in a succession of tory governments and tax cuts for 30 of the last 40 years?
Personally I don’t think anyone in the Midlands or above is desperate to commute to London
To be fair, I'm in London every other week, it's less than 90 minutes from New Street to Euston right now - not sure what I'd do with the extra time!
Driverless is it seems feasible but I wouldn’t say proven technology yet and maybe some time away. When I say proven I mean not running the odd test vehicle but running thousands at the same time.
Thank you for the response.
How about others?
What do you think if HS2 is driverless? Good or bad idea?
‘It was a brilliant plan, but unfortunately didn’t survive contact with reality’ etc. Coming soon: the Boris bridge between N.Ireland and Scotland which is apparently under consideration by Number 10.
That'll get canned once the architects have got their £50m to 'plan' it.
Chewkw - not bothered about the driverless aspect either.
Chewkw – not bothered about the driverless aspect either.
Please don't feed the troll.
Chewkw – not bothered about the driverless aspect either.
Thank you for your response.
I am just trying to find out if people will accept driverless train.
I am not working for HS2 by the way.
Please don’t feed the troll.
Someone actually suggested (insisted) that driverless train should be the way to proceed.
I have no opinion on this matter but simply trying to understand the public opinions.
I asked if they have actually considered the British public opinions but they simply said that is the best way to proceed so I ask STW.
On driverless I was thinking you were referring to driverless cars as an alternative to rail. As in without people behind the wheel so you could have vehicles actually collaborating to allow a much better flow of traffic
As for driverless trains a much better idea than driver only ones.
Molls... don’t be so hopelessly naive. There isn’t going to be any HS3,4 or 5
HS2 will end up as a hideously expensive commuter line to London from the Midlands. There’s no serious intention for it to be anything else. Everyone knows this, unless they really are hopelessly deluded. Everything north of Brum ‘still to be reviewed at a later date’
Yeah... I think we all know what that means
Everywhere north of that will be stuck with the same 40 year old rolling stock trundling down crumbling Victorian infrastructure.
Rebalancing the economy?
Northern powerhouse?
My arse!
breatheeasy
‘It was a brilliant plan, but unfortunately didn’t survive contact with reality’ etc. Coming soon: the Boris bridge between N.Ireland and Scotland which is apparently under consideration by Number 10.
That’ll get canned once the architects have got their £50m to ‘plan’ it.
I'll let you into a little secret. The architects won't be making much money, it'll be the multi-disc engineers that clean up.
I would bet that HS2B and other rail schemes referred to in johnson's grandiloquence will either:
- not proceed
or
- if they do, will be so scaled back and downgraded that they bear no relation to what was talked about today.
UK civil engineering has a dismal track record of capturing lessons learned and building on them in future schemes.
Comment from Leo Quinn of Balfours today about how positive etc with picture of him grinning as if he's just received a blank cheque from the gov; oh wait, he has.
As for who'll make the money, referring to aP above, tier 1 contractors, Arup, WSP, Jacobs and the like.
HS2 will absorb so much civil construction resource that costs of other schemes will rise and delivery will be late - a bit like HS2.
We’ve heard it all before.
Remember in the election they never expected to win, Dave and Gideon promised billions of investment in northern rail infrastructure?
Then once they won, it was all quietly shelved. The sum total of **** all of the promised investment. As the recent Northern Rail debacle has shown
Same old, same old...
Went to London on Thursday, came back Friday. Manchester Piccadilly to Euston, 2 hours 15 minutes there, 2 hours 5 mins back, pretty fast compared to driving, Google Maps says 3 hours 40 mins, flying would be similar city centre to centre. Can't see how it being much faster would make it any better or make sod all difference to the Northern economy. In contrast Manchester to Leeds is an hour on the train, 43 miles vs 208 miles to London.
Can’t see how it being much faster would make it any better or make sod all difference to the Northern economy. In contrast Manchester to Leeds is an hour on the train, 43 miles vs 208 miles to London.
It's not about the speed. Well, not ALL about the speed.
You HAVE to free up WCML, ECML and tie HS2 in with Northern Powerhouse Rail. The "revised" Phase 2b stuff is being sort of rebranded as "High Speed North" (an acknowledgement that HS2 is rather a toxic brand in itself) but the whole lot is part of the same project.
You can't fit true High Speed on the existing lines. You can't accommodate any more services on the existing lines (especially if you want to add in freight). You HAVE to build a whole new line, put all the fast passenger stuff onto that and then fill in the extra capacity that you've created elsewhere with more regional stopping services and more freight.
HS2 combined with HSN (which massively cuts the jouney times across the Pennines) does all that.
Part of the problem with HS2 (and this is more a media problem really) is it's been very badly explained, they've fixated on knocking off 20 minutes here, 30 minutes there whereas to most poeple, that time really doesn't matter. I couldn't care less about the times (so long as it's not like, 8hrs). I tend to just go to sleep.
Of course if we had a vaguely functional Government, they'd have been getting on with this sort of stuff 20 years ago alongside a rolling programme of full electrification, station improvements, infrastructure modernisation and rather better franchise agreements but I guess the voters get what they deserve.
It’s not about speed it’s about increased capacity elsewhere on the network. But £106b could be spent better.
Works well if you're city centre to city centre. Try Amersham to Knutsford - reliable 3 hours door to door by car, 5.5 hours by public transport if you're lucky as it's hub and spoke.
Sure it's pretty fast. But is it always that fast, every single time, rain or shine, inside the morning peak, on Sundays or when it's snowing? HS2 predicts a high level of reliability and resilience.
Just another day in a mid-apocalyptic wasteland that is Warwickshire just now.
You really couldn't make this up.
Ecologically sensitive area. Keep out!
Only, this ecologically sensitive area has been flattened by the ***** who put the sign up. 😠
It's terrible all of this. I don't understand how it can be allowed to be happening, I really don't.
I also don't understand how there's just nothing in the media. It's not really even current on here. 😥
The destruction around where I live and ride locally is just terrible. It's not even like it's just a ten metre wide strip going through the countryside. The devastation reaches far beyond the actual track in access and service roads and God knows what else.
Heartbreaking...
Yep heart breaking. Just watched Planet of the Humans and am feeling quite cynical about the real reasons its being built.
Another day, another despicable shit show.
HS2 now destroying a children's memorial garden in Wendover.
Yay HS2!
The business case (which was already tenuous at best) evaporated 6 months ago. The really scandalous thing is that those in charge of this monstrous waste of taxpayers money are now intent on spending as much as possible, and doing as much damage as possible, as quickly as possible, so as to make it uncancellable.
It isn’t criminal, but it really should be.
The business case (which was already tenuous at best) evaporated 6 months ago.
I disagree, the business case remains the same, Covid will pass and we will revert back to train travel again. I agree the costs are spiralling.
WFH is to a large degree here to stay imo.
Isn’t the general consensus amongst experts that it will never get past Birmingham as the costs will be so astronomical by that point they’ll just scrap the northern section?
When they did the Dispatches documentary On HS2 that opinion was pretty much unanimous
So we’ll just end up with a £150 billion commuter line from the Midlands into London?
Meanwhile investment in the rail infrastructure in the north over the same period will be £13.27
Levelling up, eh?
agree the costs are spiralling.
They'd spiral a wee bit less if HS2 didn't have to provide security for every metre of land they rip up - it's going ahead now, protests and demonstrations aren't going to change that. We are still mostly using and benefitting from victorian railway infrastructure in the UK, who knows how HS2 will be used in 150yrs time.
It's already uncancellable - besides you'd end up with a situation where the bulk of the destruction is done but there's no benefit anywhere from it!
And re the comment about levelling up the North and rail infrastructure there. Northern Powerhouse Rail is absolutely dependent on HS2 being built in full. The economic benefits (measured in the traditional Government Green Book way) for NPR are tenuous at best but a lot of that is because the Northern economy is far lower anyway.
There's a digressionary tack there about how Government analysis of Cost/Benefit has favoured the SE over the last 30 years; more investment makes it more profitable which generates higher BCR which drives more investment...
Meanwhile in the North, lower investment means the area declines, that stymies any further investment so it declines more...
So the NPR economic case rests on delivery of HS2. If the North has any hope of levelling up, it needs HS2.
Does anyone else think they will build this thing just in time for Hyperloop to be perfected and it will be blown out of the water?
Hyperloop to be perfected
Yeah and some of these.
