HS2 spiralling costs

TFL absorbs almost as much public money in in a year as Edinburghs trams cost in total – and that is ignoring capital expenditure – thats just the subsidy.

Considering that Edinburgh Trams is a model in piss-poor infrastructure planning and delivery, I’m not sure that talking about their costs is a reasonable comparison.

If anything it’s a more damning indictment of the sheer fiasco that Edinburgh Trams was and is.
The entire Edinburgh Tram system (a single 14km line with 16 stops) cost £776 million. The entire 100km / 93-stop Manchester Metrolink system wasn’t much more than that and it was delivered on-time.

So if you can run a year’s transport system in London comprising 11 tube lines / 273 stations, God-knows how many bus routes, TfL Overground, DLR, a cable car and a hire bike scheme on <£1bn / year, it shows what an utter ****-up Edinburgh Trams was.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jan/24/hs2-politics-boris-johnson

This is a considerably more damning article!

Utterly ludicrous waste of money. New Transpennine route is urgently needed.

Hs2 means sod all to me.

What would make more sense is better local trains and trams.

It’s all very one sided.

Look at it this way. We have 100 billion to spend on rail improvements. What schemes would provide the greatest benefit to the greatest number of people? is it HS2 or is it improvements to existing lines across the north of England?

Chap on telly last night (think it was the One Show or North West Tonight) made the point that HS2 will only be used by 8% of commuters in the north, as 92% don’t touch the west coast mainline.

Over the last 10 years, Londoners enjoyed an annual average of £708 of transport spending per person, while just £289 was spent for each person in the north of England, the analysis found

Yes, but overlay that with the GDP figures for those areas. The money has been spent where it makes the biggest returns. It’s the opposite of the Barnett formula which subsidizes Scotland.

Are you really trying to claim that London needs to suck more money out of the coutry. Are you really trying to claim that bringing all of the northern cities public transport into the 20th let alone the 21st century including a complete new transpennie route would not gain greater benefits?

Define benefit.

HS2 will have the bigger impact on GDP, that’s why it’s being done.

Transpennine routes would create a leveler playing field, which is a harder benefit to quantify.

HS2 will have the bigger impact on GDP, that’s why it’s being done.

If GDP is increased by the mechanism of the rich getting even richer (which is what will happen), it will mean **** all benefit to most people so they are quite entitled to be annoyed by it (and should be, if they have a functioning brain 😂)

It’s willy-waving and TGV envy; the British government wants a TGV-type line because the French have one. The differences are huge; the TGV was opened in 1981 when costs were dramatically lower. France has roughly the same population as England but double the land space so it was much cheaper and easier to build the long straights needed for high speeds.

The services between Birmingham and London are adequate whereas passengers in northern England are still suffering 60s service on poxy trains like Pacers. If this project goes ahead the fabled Northern Powerhouse will never get off the ground.

Yes, but overlay that with the GDP figures for those areas. The money has been spent where it makes the biggest returns.

By that theory, big cars that pay more VED are entitled to more use of the roads, big houses get more public services, businesses such as Facebook or BP should dominate all policy on tax or environment, schools with wealthy parents get more funds, etc.

Until we reverse the constant over investment and attitude in South East that says ‘we get more of the pie beacuse we are bigger’, we won’t make any inroads into the North-South divide. In my view this is one of the structural issues that means we won’t improve deep social, economic and environmental issues in the UK.

I’ll leave the other Scottish continent to answer the Barnet argument (again) properly, but safe to say I’m sure some of the Scottish oil paid for London HQ’s and stock market jobs, leading to that ‘we are bigger’ swagger.

That is not even true TINAS

hs2 will make 60p back for every £ spent according tothe figures in folks postys. Transpennine will give £3 for every £

So spend a lot less on a new transpennine route and get a lot more back

Also, GDP as a measure of success is so narrow.

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!

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/jan/24/chinese-city-wuhan-plans-to-build-coronavirus-hospital-in-six-days

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!

@avdave2

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.