HS2 spiralling costs

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!

Hs2 for all!

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.

They’d spiral a wee bit less if HS2 didn’t have to provide security for every metre of land they rip up

Don’t fall for that newest of utter ballcocks HS2 are spouting.
People aren’t protesting for a laugh. Much of what HS2 are doing is illegal but sanctioned. The security is to stop this being recorded/witnessed/reported.
It doesn’t take much looking to find them ignoring laws put in place to protect habitats of species at risk. For instance, they’re not allowed to work within so many metres of badger setts. There’s video around if you can be arsed of them breaking this blatantly, and even using machinery with longer reach so that technically, they are outside that boundary.

Many councils and contractors were also made to sign non disclosure agreements.

The cost isn’t spiralling because of protests by a few people who GAF and recognise this project for what it is, it’s spiralling because it’s utterly ill-conceived, entirely corrupt and monumentally poorly implemented.
Look at the recent highlighting of corrupt practises in requisition of PPE during the start of the pandemic. This isn’t any different. Seriously, protestors are not responsible for the spiralling costs. Ridiculous claim.

I have sites all around me in Warwickshire and I’ve been up to a few of the encampments to offer support, firewood, tools etc where I can and the amount of people there compared to the hired in mob and police security presence is just insanity.

There’s just no doubt, they do not want people to see what they are doing. Get in quick, raze everything to the ground and destroy everything before anyone can get anywhere near.

Frankly this pandemic has been a gift for this project as it meant that they could go ahead and do whatever the F they wanted while we are all looking the other way.

The trouble with a project like this is that an awful lot of people are not directly affected and so it’s difficult to get them to GAS.

Here in Warwickshire, we are severely affected sadly. They really have f’ed up my nearby countryside profoundly.

I imagine a lot of you who are in favour might think differently if you were witness to what’s happening in your own ‘back yards’.

Ever continuous expansion and growth just isn’t sustainable. This project is a travesty, it really is.

@kayak23

Maybe I should have put “a wee bit less” in bold.
I live within 1 mile of the route nr the Chilterns, so it does and will effect me but a lot of the complaining I see coming from the local nimbys who otherwise have zero concern for the environment.

It’s the biggest money pit this country has ever witnessed, & probably ever will witness.
Disgusting.

esselgruntfuttock

It’s the biggest money pit this country has ever witnessed, & probably ever will witness.
Disgusting.

Should this post have gone in the Brexit thread? 😉

National Infrastructure Commission report out today, the Rail Needs Assessment.

Summary of it on the BBC: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-nottinghamshire-55303978

The actual Assessment itself:
https://nic.org.uk/app/uploads/RNA-Final-Report-15122020.pdf

What its done is present a series of options to Government to allow them to decide on which option(s) to fund. However it’s favouring regional and local connectivity in the North over and above HS2 (although a lot of that regional connectivity kind of relies on HS2 being there as well). Be interesting to see what the responses are. I already know the responses from the east of the Pennines and they’re not happy at all. Was only 9 months ago that Boris was promising to build all of HS2 in full (although we all know that a Boris Promise is, in the great quote from Snatch “Spurious. Not genuine. And it’s worth… ****-all.” )

It’s catch 22 – I don’t believe they were ever going to build it all in full. It was never affordable in the first place. But you have to build it in full to deliver the benefits that were supposed to be there. Now it really is unaffordable as the passengers have disappeared and they ain’t coming back any time soon. But never mind, it’s made a few people very rich in the meantime, as well as tearing up irreplaceable countryside.

When John Armitt says it won’t be built there is no chance….

Only mention of economics as usual. Nothing about the irreparable environmental devastation and loss of habitat it’s causing.
Kin humans man. 😡

It’s more and more laughably obvious what this whole thing was about all along, as if any further indication were needed.
**** this government.

Just wanted to say my local Aberystwyth to Shrewsbury service is 75 miles in 2 hours so beat that! They also have the latest European rail traffic management system.
I’m actually in favour of HS2.
It’s not just faster, but will increase volume and therefore (in theory) reduce congestion.
Obviously, if you live along the route, you may disagree!
I’d rather go by train than car.

Obviously, if you live along the route, you may disagree!

******* right!
That’s the trouble really. Those that don’t, have no idea of the destruction, can’t directly relate to it and are unlikely to give a shit either.
The world has changed and must change.
Increasing capacity and movement isn’t the answer. Reducing it has to be.
There’s other routes to increase existing capacity and this is nothing to do with some humble attempt to improve things for everyone.
It’s a ******* gravy train.
Deplorable and irreversible.
Glad I’ve not got kids that’ll inherit all this.
I really despair how anyone can support this.

Glad I’ve not got kids that’ll inherit all this.

What, a decent rail network?

The big issue with the destruction of wild habitats, by the way, isn’t that they are being destroyed, it’s that there are so few of them in the first place. So reserve your anger for the fact that habitats are not being restored or created.

It’s the biggest money pit this country has ever witnessed, & probably ever will witness.

You’re going to be shocked when you hear about brexit.

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?

I suspect you might be right @binners.

There’s a rather unassuming paragraph in a TfL Board Report (for their meeting on 3rd Feb) which says: (my bold)

We continue to provide input into the DfTled study on proposals for Euston following publication of the Oakervee Review in 2020. The DfT has recently instructed HS2 to proceed with further design development for one of the options, which provides a solution based around 10 HS2 platforms, a single stage build and increased oversite development. However, the impact on our infrastructure, operations and passengers needs further consideration. We are therefore working alongside other key stakeholders, including HS2 Ltd, Network Rail, London Borough of Camden and Lendlease, under the umbrella of the newly formed Euston Partnership, to assess the proposals and refine early scheme designs, and to assist with work on affordability to ensure investment delivers best value.

Which translates to: Cutting Euston capacity means cutting a route somewhere else on the network – this is the precursor to binning off the Eastern Leg or similar.

So much for levelling up the North, this more or less tells The North that as far as the Tories are concerned, it’s a blank space on the map between Birmingham and Scotland.

Meanwhile protestors have literally ‘dug in’ underneath part of the route.

Fair play to them, but all I see happening is minor delay whilst protestors removed, private contractors claim additional costs for delay, project goes on at slightly increased cost, contractors profit.

Well, It looks like HS2 has had its complete White Elephant status absolutely nailed on now. It won’t be going North of Birmingham, as predicted by pretty much everyone who knew what they were talking about

But the project to spend £100 billion on a badly planned commuter line from the Midlands into London, leaving environmental devastation in its wake, carries on regardless. This is what ‘levelling up’ really looks like for the north. We won’t be getting any of the desperately needed rail investment while the financial black hole of HS2 sucks in tens of billions to build a commuter line to service the capital.

"Britain’s new high-speed railway will not – repeat: not – get to the north of England. It will go back and forth from London to the Midlands and its chief beneficiaries will be London commuters. All else is political spin."#HS2 #StopHS2https://t.co/0YQvVmlAcP

— Stop HS2 (@stophs2) July 30, 2021

Its difficult to see any useful purpose for this ridiculous nonsense other than to line the pockets of the parties involved, particularly in a post-covid world where the need to jump on a train to go for a meeting in London has been replaced, quite rightly, by the Zoom call

I don’t live to far from the Warwickshire end if this mess. As others have posted it’s borderline criminal destruction.
It was never going past brum at all.. everyone knows it. It was just about commuiting to London from the posh parts of Warwickshire for 3 days in the office.
Should have spent the cash from stoke up on community and work prospects

It was never going past brum at all.. everyone knows it.

Yeah but no but yeah…
The plans and overall aim are actually pretty good and some of the promises, especially in the early days were quite well…promising.

But it’s been beset by the standard British ingredients of ineptitude, legal wrangling, incompetence and dithering at almost every level. Should have got the Chinese to build it. It’d be up in Edinburgh by now and already running 10 fast trains an hour.

Government are delaying the already long-delayed Integrated Rail Plan publication which is supposed to be outlining rail for the next 100 years in the UK. Cynically, you’d say this is because it absolutely knackers the North completely (the North already being about 25 years behind in rail investment) and they’re putting off the outrage for as long as possible but who knows. It’s leaving complementary projects in limbo – stuff like Northern Powerhouse Rail and a lot of other local planning that is predicated on HS2 being delivered.

As for environmental stuff, yeah, it’s problematic becasue it’s one massive project. However the current £27bn RIS2 roads investment plan destroys far more ancient woodland than HS2 as well as building in embedded carbon for centuries (unlike HS2 which is a very efficient mode of transport). However because it’s being done in small packages (a road widening here, a bit of new bypass there, a reworked junction somewhere else), it’s unfortunately not sparked anything like the same levels of complaint from environmental activists which is a massive shame.

We absolutely need to be pushing rail, freeing up capacity on regional and local lines especially for freight but the messaging on HS2 has been wildly out of kilter with that. Plus as I say the standard management and Government incompetence.

106 billion!
You could buy 424 royal yachts for that.

It’s leaving complementary projects in limbo – stuff like Northern Powerhouse Rail and a lot of other local planning that is predicated on HS2 being delivered.

This. The plans for Sheffield Midland, NPR, tram train extensions are all predicated by the plans for HS2 (or the slow speed equivalent which is what it really is on the spur) happening. It just means we can’t plan anything even in the relatively near future and also makes funding the renewal of the existing tram system even more problematic. Dogs dinner on a grand scale.

Where’s it stated the project is not going past Birmingham ? the link above is the opinion of a journalist writing in the Guardian.

I looked, couldn’t find an official “it’s cancelled” statement. Just an update by the “Infrastructure Projects Authority” who have marked it as “Red”

The red rating means: “Successful delivery of the project appears to be unachievable. There are major issues with project definition, schedule, budget, quality and/or benefits delivery, which at this stage do not appear to be manageable or resolvable. The project may need re-scoping and/or its overall viability reassessed.”

So is it fake news or not? Our local loop and woods will be significantly impacted by the hs2 running near Swynnerton near Stoke.

It’s going to Manchester. HS2 are currently submitting the Hybrid Bill for Stage 2B.

I looked, couldn’t find an official “it’s cancelled” statement. Just an update by the “Infrastructure Projects Authority” who have marked it as “Red”

Yeah, the article is a bit misleading, it IS just an opinion column. Politically, cancelling it to Manchester would be a disaster and as @coconut says, the Hybrid Bill is going through Parliament anyway.

Cancelling the eastern leg up to Sheffield and Leeds is probably a bit easier politically although still a disaster for the overall project. I can see it being kicked into the long grass though in some sort of “well we’re not cancelling it but we’re not building it yet” statement.

Boris Johnson has got himself into a bit of a pickle over this. He promised ages ago that HS2 would be built in full (not that a BJ promise is worth anything) and he’s promised a great levelling-up agenda, albeit in a speech that was utterly incomprehensible and widely ridiculed. So cancelling part of HS2 wouldn’t look great although again, he’s rarely worried himself about stuff like that, he just says whatever comes to mind at the time.

They can cancel the East Midlands bit, will destroy our local off road riding. There’s a trail runs through what will be the Toton hub.

More seriously, I get the need to increase rail capacity and usage. I’m just not sure £106bn couldn’t have been better spent to do that. Maybe a billion put to one side for cycle infrastructure, is it £10 billion for road repairs, pretty sure £95bn would have done a lot of rail infrastructure and levelling up….

They can cancel the East Midlands bit, will destroy our local off road riding. There’s a trail runs through what will be the Toton hub.

Toton yard is being cleared now to make way for the redevelopment for HS2. There are still some things not quite planned for the area, so an estimate is that it will be 10 years before it gets there. I know someone working on the planning side for it.
That article is rubbish. There may, eventually, be no dedicated line north of Brum, but there are lots of other works happening that will enable fast running north of Brum. Crewe Station plans are well advanced now, the current thoughts are a fast, new line to Crewe, then upgraded current lines for the last 30 miles to Manchester.
The East Mids section is undergoing review as to the best options.HS2 may not be the best option, so current lines may be the best option.