HS2 spiralling costs

but northern rail is not as its too small a project.

Dont be daft I never said that. All this work is needed to keep the industry going. However HS2 provides the scale which enables companies like mine to recruit and train the best talent. Without it we simply wouldn’t be able to employ as many engineers, and then when projects like TRU come along, we wouldn’t have the skills base or the resources to do them. These large mega-projects sustain an entire industry, support the economy, and provide direct practical benefits (like better rail travel) once built.

You just repeat the sentiment in that post.

Iget you point but HS2 is not tbe only possible mega project.  Lots of other large infrastructure projects needed.like 21st century rail in north of england

You have made twom utually wclusive claims.  Both cannot be true

<span>they have pacer trains doing 45 mph on victorian lines</span>

Do keep up. The last pacer was withdrawn 3 years ago. Everywhere has Victorian lines. Some do run ay 45mph, in any part of the Country. Try the North London Line, takes 65 minutes to do  he 18 miles from Stratford to Clapham, a 17mph average. London clearly getting all the money again to fuel their high speed North London Line.

Most rural and commuter lines are pretty slow as they stop at most stations. Main line trains are far faster, as they stop less frequently, and have the benefit of 125mph lines.  Edin-Glas can be done in less than 40 minutes, but they invariably stop at Haymarket and Falkirk, increasing the time to 48 mins. It could be faster, but the amount of traffic on the line limits the high speed running.

See the link below for age of rolling stock. Note Scotrail does not look good as it bought a load of old HSTs (1976-83) for its Inter7city services, however the rest of its stock is pretty new. Merseyrail at the top of the list is having a totally new fleet either this year or next, so it will be at the bottom of that list next year. Northern is mid-table, and TPX is 6th, so ‘Northern’ trains are not too bad at all age wise. TfW is second worst, but, again, like Mersyrail, is having a wholesale change of stock, so will be near the bottom of the table next year or the year after. Trains are typically given a life of 40 years, they have at least one full refurb in that time, and get 3 maybe 4 mini refurbs where seats are changed etc.

https://www.orr.gov.uk/search-news/orr-stats-reveal-oldest-train-fleets-great-britain#:~:text=The%20train%20fleet%20in%20Great%20Britain&text=Some%20of%20the%20oldest%20vehicles,built%20between%201978%20and%201980.

tjagain

Full Member

Dazh – how much profit has ended up in the hands of tory doners?  Thats the issue.  Open your eyes man.  Its all about lining the pockets of the rich

Okay – specifically how much has gone to which Tory donors? Don’t pull an antivaxx “do your own research”, TJ…

Balfour Beatty and Amey – two big contractors on HS2 are tory doners – and got contracts.  Just the first 2 contractors on HS2 I looked at..  thats tories shovelling contarcts to their friends ie putting public money into profits for their doners

Balfour Beatty and Amey – two big contractors on HS2 are tory doners – and got contracts.  Just the first 2 contractors on HS2 I looked at..  thats tories shovelling contarcts to their friends ie putting public money into profits for their doners

Or perhaps, if you remove the tinfoil hat, they’re two of the biggest companies in the UK who provide construction/engineering/infrastructure services so there’s a fair chance that they’ll be the most suitable partners for HS2 to work with?

Not everything that happens can be put down to Tory corruption TJ, despite what you seem to think.

Aye right.  Why do they fund the tories if not to their advantage?  Everyone knows that if you want a public sector contract you need to bribe the tories – and thats what this is – bribes legalisi

A technical question folk on here should be able to answer:

I have red that signalling improvements can increase capacity.  something about in cab signalling and dynamic track blocks ie its a safe zone around each train not one train per bit of track.  Now obviously I do not know enough technically to assess this claim.

So is this bunkum?  Or true but would only give marginal improvements or would increase capacity hugely?

All this work is needed to keep the industry going. However HS2 provides the scale which enables companies like mine to recruit and train the best talent. Without it we simply wouldn’t be able to employ as many engineers, and then when projects like TRU come along, we wouldn’t have the skills base or the resources to do them. These large mega-projects sustain an entire industry, support the economy, and provide direct practical benefits (like better rail travel) once built.

I still find it hard to understand why we should fund a complete industry which relies on being funded to be an industry, so that we have an industry.

As I have suggested before, would all the smaller projects not add up to also employing lots of people?
Should we at some point walk away from havign all these engineers who work on mega projects?

I rarely attempt to comment on threads that turn political but suspect I’m in a similar industry as dazh. We don’t do much for HS2 but have seen a surge in speculative CVS from companies that do..

Also I’m pretty sure Crossrail sparked similar levels of rage and a huge amount of the early engineering and consultant spend was during a labour gov. Balfour were heavily involved on that as well so maybe it’s more they donate to anyone who will give them loads of work? aka the gov.

As a country we are not great at big projects and I’m not sure that can be pinned on either party entirely (although it’s fair to say the Tories have been in power longer so probably mostly there fault :))

Also… HS2 is a genuinely complicated project but anyone who thinks something like a trans Pennine equivalent would be cheaper is kidding themselves. No bloody coal measures to deal with down south at least (I’m ignoring kent sorry).

Our engineering sectors is generally paid worse than other major countries and in some area is facing a potential recruitment crisis with nobody coming through from the universities, so please tell me how canning any kind of big project is good? We need more of this kind of thing not less.

I think we should be doing the whole thing to be honest and also should have started from Manchester but hey.

Also… HS2 is a genuinely complicated project but anyone who thinks something like a trans Pennine equivalent would be cheaper is kidding themselves.

I don’t think anyone is apart from Dazh who claims its too small to keep all the engineers see the quote above

Its just IMO that money would have been better spent on rail in the north of england

I think we should be doing the whole thing to be honest and also should have started from Manchester but hey

My view as well

Aye right.  Why do they fund the tories if not to their advantage?  Everyone knows that if you want a public sector contract you need to bribe the tories – and thats what this is – bribes legalisi

That’s top level bullshit right there.

You really need to give your head a wobble.

A technical question folk on here should be able to answer:

I have red that signalling improvements can increase capacity. something about in cab signalling and dynamic track blocks ie its a safe zone around each train not one train per bit of track. Now obviously I do not know enough technically to assess this claim.

So is this bunkum? Or true but would only give marginal improvements or would increase capacity hugely?

Can anyone answer this for me?  Its a genuine question where I have read conflicting stuff and do not have the technical background to assess what is correct

Lots of other large infrastructure projects needed.like 21st century rail in north of england

It’s not just the north the trains are crap in the south and south west as well. It wouldn’t surprise me if there are plenty of crap train lines in the south east and Midlands as well. It’s not a north thing to have crap infrastructure, infact when I am in the north I tend to find the infrastructure better than most of the south and south west

Crossed – its how the tories operate – legalised bribery.  some labour politicians as well.  follow the money.  Do not be naive.  If you want a public sector contract you have to bribe the tories

Can anyone answer this for me? Its a genuine question where I have read conflicting stuff and do not have the technical background to assess what is correct

Signalling upgrades would give about a 20% uplift in capacity at best.

I’ll find some figures shortly, I’m typing this on my phone.

As a country we are not great at big projects and I’m not sure that can be pinned on either party entirely (although it’s fair to say the Tories have been in power longer so probably mostly there fault :))

I would agree. Whoever is in power gets lobbied (make of that what you will) by the ‘captains of industry’ of that time. Deals are struck and projects agreed.

I dont know how you would do it any other way, at least politicians are listening to the experts rather than just make a decision in a darkened room.

My cousin has been to Downing St on a number of occasions to advise on green policy. He started off putting cleaning filters in ICI plants, then moved on to developing plastics from plants, all stuff he has had conversations with government about which direction to take. His personal politics is very social left wing, but he has hugely benefited personally from a conservative government, but also created and saved 100’s of jobs.

Signalling upgrades would give about a 20% uplift in capacity at best.

I’ll find some figures shortly, I’m typing this on my phone.

Thanks – I don’t need the numbers really – just an informed opinion.  so 20% would be worth having but not a complete solution?

I dont know how you would do it any other way, at least politicians are listening to the experts rather than just make a decision in a darkened room.

Stop the legalised bribery and thus get a more objective decision?

TJ it sounds like if the only way to get a public sector project is to bribe a tory then nothing could get built under a labour gov. I am pretty sure that isn’t what you mean right?

Could definitely argue that lobbying is perilously close to bribery but that applies to pretty much any party in power. When labour win the next election everyone will start trying to get into bed with them for whatever projects that want to green light which will hopefully be nuclear and massive power connection improvements.

Oh yes – some labourr politicians are equally corrupt.  Our whole political system is.  See Streeting and his paid for support for privitisation of the health service.

Its not lobbying – its outright bribery.  Lobbying is presenting your case.  Bribery is paying money to someone to get a contract.  all we have done in the UK is legalise corruption

I still find it hard to understand why we should fund a complete industry which relies on being funded to be an industry, so that we have an industry.

Oh come on. Are you seriously suggesting that any developed nation can do without an engineering and construction industry? We’re always going to need to build things. Roads, railways, power stations, resevoirs, pipelines, sewers, power grids, mains water, office buildings, homes, factories and everything else you see wherever you go. To do that we need an engineering and construction industry.

I don’t think anyone is apart from Dazh who claims its too small to keep all the engineers see the quote above

It’s not an either/or. We need to be doing it all, but we can’t do it all at once. For better or worse decisions were made to do HS2 first, the rationale being that would then boost the economic case for doing the rest of it. I wouldn’t have had a problem with sorting out northern railways first but whether we like it or not, the economic case for doing that before HS2 probably didn’t stack up and it never would have got the investment from central government.

The other thing to consider is that the people making the decisions about which projects to prioritise (ie politicians) need to accept the reality that they can’t just build whatever pops into their heads at any one time. I have no doubt Boris Johnson probably thought we could build a tunnel to Ireland, and it probably is technically feasible (although probably not economically beneficial), but the people who know what they’re talking about would have told him that it requires a decade of work before they get anywhere near spades in the ground and he’d have lost interest at that point.

One of the reasons HS2 probably (I’m speculating as I don’t know the full history) went ahead when it did was because it was at a stage where it could be progressed, and the industry needed a large project to sustain it. That wasn’t the case with northern powerhouse rail, so even if the politicians wanted to do that instead of HS2 it was nowhere near the stage where it could be prioritised.

We could start by running the railways they already have with some kind of efficiency. Even if they build this thing, how are they going to staff this extra capacity?

This thread popped up today, it’s quite something, but apparently, it represents a relatively normal experience with some operators.

I’m not quite sure how to explain what’s happened tonight, because it’s still happening – but here goes…

At 4:40pm I jumped on a train from London to Edinburgh..

It was comfy, it was quiet

In hindsight, too good to last…

— James Nokise (@JamesNokise) September 25, 2023

Nothing works in this country now. Spent half an hour at a Berlin railway station recently, and watching their long distance trains all arrive metronomically on time, with no cancellations or delays showing on the board, was a disheartening experience.

Here we go:

I found this fun diagram showing how much capacity is available on the UK's three main north-south rail lines (not much!). Also some discussion of how the UK currently runs a uniquely messy mix of train types and speeds on the same lines #HS2 https://t.co/nPmXJXW92s pic.twitter.com/E7T4uY7PqU

— Will Petty ?? (@Microlambert) September 25, 2023

The issue is not “the signalling” and “oh we should just upgrade the signalling”.

It’s not the lines and “oh we should just upgrade the lines”.

It’s a combination of absolutely everything. The existing lines and signals, the existing station and platform layouts, the areas surrounding stations, especially urban ones, and the fact that to “just upgrade” xxxx is years of disruption for little real world benefit.

Classic case is the Ordsall Chord “upgrade” that links Manchester Victoria and Piccadilly. To make it work, it needed 2 extra platforms but Chris Grayling, utter **** that he was, refused that “to save costs”. So there are 4 lines converging on the only two through platforms at Piccadilly (platforms 1-12 are terminus, 13/14 are through). So it created more congestion…

Leeds, already over capacity, has an X shape in some of the lines leaving so trains going into/out of some platforms have to cross incoming/outgoing lines for other platforms which means they can’t be used simultaneously – there’s a 3 minute wait while a train crosses the line then the points are reset.
You can’t really get around that without some wildly expensive and disruptive work to dig up everything and re-lay it all (while also rewiring, reconfiguring all the signals).

The basic answer is that a brand new HS rail line is needed to relieve all of that congestion. Nothing else works to anything like the same degree but it’d cost just as much as HS2 for less benefits and years of disruption to the existing railways and surrounding areas.

Nail on the head. Pay attention TJ.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/sep/26/hs2-was-a-good-idea-rishi-sunaks-kneecapped-version-is-not

Other opinions are available.  Opposite view also given in a grauniad article that I linked to

Ta for that Crazylegs

Going slower also increases capacity.

Going slower also increases capacity.

Yes and no. On motorways etc, absolutely.
On rail, if adequately segregated (ie the HS stuff is entirely separate), it actually makes little difference because everything is going at the same speed and you don’t have the current mix of speeds as everything from Intercity to regional/local services to freight tries to use the same bit of line.

The problem is once again related to capacity. The capacity problem reduces speed which makes a separate HS line all the more worthwhile.

Currently the existing “fast” services are sandwiched in between stopping services. You can cure some of the problems by stopping all the HS services at Milton Keynes to open up the gaps a bit but that’s not really a long term solution.

I live in France. I can get on a train that links my southernmost point of France with Paris (& therefore beyond) at 2-300km per hour. It means I can earn decent money as a consultant on an international level and spend it in my local economy.

I cry whenever I read a thread about HS2. It’s absolutely necessary to invest in better infrastructure in the UK properly and without half measures (ie not just HS2). Mainly to unlock the potential of the north but also so that the whole thing can work.

It means I can earn decent money as a consultant on an international level and spend it in my local economy.

I tried to point this out, that money and economic activity can flow both ways on transport links, but the antis didn’t believe me.

<span>I have red that signalling improvements can increase capacity.  something about in cab signalling and dynamic track blocks ie its a safe zone around each train not one train per bit of track.</span>

As stated above, it can increase capacity, however, it isnt a no-cost option, and doesnt give a massive amount of extra capacity. Making radio controlled in-train signalling fail proof is incredibly expensive. It is being installed and tested now on the southern 80 miles of the ECML. It isnt just the lineside equipment, every type of train has to have it tested, to ensure electrical systems on that train do not interfere with the signalling. The IeTs had to have modifications to their transformers when they were tested, as the transformers gave out some electricial feedback, which did interfere with other onboard systems.

Ta

its worth noting that the maximum a company can donate to all political parties in total is £25k/year. If anyone thinks that a £25,000 donation will result in a £25,000,000,000 contract they are being ridiculous.

I do wonder if theres a way of “starting from a clean sheet of paper” when it comes to signalling, capacity and so on. A bus can drive within 2 second of another bus, why do trains need 3 bloody minutes? if its just the stopping distance, would better brakes (rubber blocks directly on the track?) for use in emergencies, or fully automated driving (so the train behind slows down automatically when the one in front does, ala radar cruise control) sort it out?

I live in France. I can get on a train that links my southernmost point of France with Paris (& therefore beyond) at 2-300km per hour. It means I can earn decent money as a consultant on an international level and spend it in my local economy.

france has a much lower population density than we do, making it much cheaper to build tracks, and has a motorway system funded by tolls which (combined with the faster train times) push people onto the trains. I don’t think its directly comparible

the other thing with france is its a thru route IE on the way to somewhere.  Italy, Spain Germany.  the UK is a dead end

why do trains need 3 bloody minutes?

I think reducing train safety as a way of increasing capacity is a non-starter, and that’s putting it very politely. 🙂

the UK is a dead end

High speed rail can be justified wholly on the benefits to the UK population and economy. It simply doesn’t require the extra justification of being a through route to somewhere else. Having said that though in the far off future maybe connecting Ireland via rail would be a beneficial thing to do. Not going to happen though if we don’t connect our own cities.

OH its doesn’t have to be justified as a thru route – its just a reason why UK trains are harder to build high speed lines because there is no thru routes