HS2 spiralling costs

the link above is the opinion of a journalist writing in the Guardian

its worth watching the Channel 4 Dispatches documentary on HS2. They interviewed a lot of rail industry experts and not one of them believed the Birmingham to Manchester stretch would ever be built. So if thats an opinion, it seems to be a fairly unanimous one

Crazy-legs, you’re well informed on this, I’m guessing you’re DfT and high speed rail group?

At the end of the day do you want a modern rail network or not, and that doesn’t mean just fiddling round the edges. You have to have a basic spine that’s fit for purpose now and in the future. If you don’t then you accept extra road traffic is necessary. Also you need to accept that any sort of levelling up, from Boris Johnson or anyone else, just got a lot more difficult/unliklely.

I want a modern rail network, HS2 is not it.

Levelling up would have been good but HS2 was designed to bring more money to London.

Improving transport links between cities other than London would be levelling up. Having decent units going between places other than London would be levelling up.

Levelling up would have been good but HS2 was designed to bring more money to London.

HS2 is designed as a Birmingham centric project, always was. HS2 are based in Snow Hill Birmingham and view the project as a city interconnection project, with Birmingham at it’s heart. The original plan was to link Leeds, Crewe, Liverpool, Sheffield, London and Manchester all via Birmingham. So why start with London to Birmingham then ? simple it was always the most expensive and complex section of the line, it’s also the section which would carry the highest passenger numbers. Euston to West Ruislip has the most compelex twin bore section of tunnelling and vent shaft constructions.

Leeds to Manchester via BHM? yep fabulous idea that.

HS2 is designed as a Birmingham centric project, always was. HS2 are based in Snow Hill Birmingham and view the project as a city interconnection project, with Birmingham at it’s heart.

This^^.

Plus it puts Birmingham Airport within 45 minutes of London which is about the same as Stansted and Luton so it eases congestion around the London Airports if you can shift some of it up to Birmingham.

Which in turn puts places like Manchester, Sheffield, York, Leeds closer to an airport with a greater selection of connections therefore avoiding travel to London.

Quite how much Covid and Brexit combined (along with what will have to be some pretty stringent Decarbonisation targets) have scuppered all that international connectivity remains to be seen…

Leeds to Manchester via BHM? yep fabulous idea that.

No, you’d go via the E-W linkage of Northern Powerhouse Rail which is designed to tie into HS2 at each side (Manchester and Leeds).

No, you’d go via the E-W linkage of Northern Powerhouse Rail which is designed to tie into HS2 at each side (Manchester and Leeds).

Should have started with that if it truly was conceived as a city interconnection project.

Has this section even had the go-ahead?

Has this section even had the go-ahead?

None of NPR has had the go-ahead.
The IRP was supposed to be published in February 2021 (and even that was delayed due to Covid) and off the back of that, Transport for the North was then due to publish it’s Strategic Outline Case for NPR.

The routes are basically sorted, there were various options of “least worst”, “cheapest viable” and “best” all with various parameters mapped out.

DfT then said that, seeing as the IRP is delayed, hold off the publication of the SOC which was agreed. So the whole NPR programme is sort of in limbo (although there’s been a lot of further work on surveys, route optimisation and so on but certainly no planning permission given).

The business case for NPR depends on delivery of HS2 in full since some of the track is shared plus the link-ups at Leeds and Manchester are critical.

Leeds to Manchester at the moment is about an hour on TransPennine Express albeit that you have to use the nightmare platforms 16 at Leeds and 13/14 at Manchester Piccadilly. Since 13/14 are the only through platforms at Piccadilly, all the freight goes through there too so any delays just get exported around the North from there.

https://transportforthenorth.com/northern-powerhouse-rail/

On a related note, there were well-advanced plans for 2 additional platforms at Piccadilly which were shelved by that idiot Chris Grayling. Maybe he didn’t realise that in order to run trains, it’s helpful for them to have platforms to stop at. Was supposed to be part of the Castlefield Corridor improvements – in the end they built the Corridor for improved services but then didn’t add the two platforms to accommodate them so effectively they made the bottleneck worse. Classic British engineering exceptionalism, do half a job.

HS2 has been upgraded to Microsoft Teams….

Cheaper faster and better for the environment.

So why start with London to Birmingham then ? simple it was always the most expensive and complex section of the line,

Hmm, only the bits through Birmingham and London, the majority of it is just countryside.

For me from the outset they should aimed for 150mph and 4 tracks with the standard inner fast outer slow approach to get the increased capacity and fast running. That way it wouldn’t need full-on concrete base for the entire distance, along with everything else specced for very-high speed, AND over twice the capacity (slower running means more trains on any given stretch of line.

Hmm, only the bits through Birmingham and London, the majority of it is just countryside.

Kind of sums up the attitude of those in favour of this despicable project really.
Just something inconsequential and irritating in the way of ploughing on with the money making.

Most of the talk in this thread is concerned with the economics, and little with the massive destruction of green spaces that unfortunately I am witnessing all around me on my doorstep.

There was an event near me yesterday actually, marking the felling of a beautiful and historic tree with a blue plaque. The tree wasn’t near the actual line, just on land they had ‘acquired’ and so was clear cut and decimated like every other bit of land they acquire.

It’s quite telling that every single compound you see around near me is packed with menacing looking security guards in black helmets guarding against and ready to bring down anyone who gives a shit about the indiscriminate destruction they have at their hands.

You folks up north. If it does indeed come your way, I’d get out now and drink in your beautiful surroundings because I promise you, they’re not going to be there much longer.

Devastating.

Dont know if its been mentioned in the past 5 pages, but my understanding is a huge portion of the cost is land purchase. Not purchase of the alignment itself, but in many of places the track splits farms in half.
The Economics of farming are already squeezed to breaking point so plenty of land owners have been bought out wholesale, as the farm becomes entirely unworkable when its chopped in half by an impassable barrier. Presumably those plot of land will be sold off to the neighboring farms on respective sides of the alignment, but i doubt they’ll see much money back from it.

Why the focus on airports in many pro-HS2 postings? We need to fly a lot less, not improve access to airports, so why make it easier? Sustainable transport needs to be about linking communities and get away from the emphasis being on designing everything for helping big business. Business needs to travel less; as many have said, Teams is a more effective transport solution. But then, our whole way of life in the west isn’t even slightly sustainable anyway and is heading for a very nasty end…..

Since 13/14 are the only through platforms at Piccadilly, all the freight goes through there too so any delays just get exported around the North from there.

I’m pretty sure that people must have died of exposure during the winter on those god-forsaken platforms, waiting for trains that never arrive. They’re like a special circle of hell.

On a related note, there were well-advanced plans for 2 additional platforms at Piccadilly which were shelved by that idiot Chris Grayling. Maybe he didn’t realise that in order to run trains, it’s helpful for them to have platforms to stop at.

Those 2 additional platforms would probably have been about 1000 times more effective at improving transport links than HS2 will ever be. But our politicians must have their vanity projects

Why the focus on airports in many pro-HS2 postings?

Because rail takes 20+ years to come to fruition – the original business plan for HS2 was done back in the 90’s and it’s been bounced around in various guises ever since. Back in the 90’s, that was how business was done.

This isn’t a problem unique to rail – basically everything in the public domain is 20 years out of date. Defence is the other classic – you’re procuring for next-generation fighter aircraft in the 90’s for something that will come into service in 2020 so by the time it comes into service, everything it was specced with when the designs were done in 2000 is 20 years old.

Transport is a bit more open, especially rail. Building and investing in rail is generally a good thing since it has the potential to remove vehicles from the roads – even if the original goal is no longer serving airports for business travellers, it’s still got a purpose.

It’s quite telling that every single compound you see around near me is packed with menacing looking security guards in black helmets guarding against and ready to bring down anyone who gives a shit about the indiscriminate destruction they have at their hands

There is a bore shaft compound like that behind my parents house, which was high quality green belt land. It is now a massive industrial complex with supporting hard surface roads, buildings, fencing, 24hr lights, vehicle movements and noise. Its all okay though as HS2 have planted wildflowers on some of the surrounding land…

^^ I know it’s not in a same ballpark but there was a significant amount of work done on a canal near mine which involved moving a lot of heavy machinery into a neighbouring park, removing a load of vegetation and trees nearby, putting in a hardstanding road for access and then fencing it all off.

Looked terrible, especially in the middle of a lovely park. A year later, you can’t really tell anything was ever done.

At the end of the day do you want a modern rail network or not, and that doesn’t mean just fiddling round the edges.

HS2 and a modern rail network are not mutually exclusive. From a long distance perspective rail travel is unaffordable to the vast majority of people. It’s even more unaffordable if you’re trying to move a group of adults around.

Invest the money in re-opening some of the lines closed by Beeching where the roads are completely saturated; rip out the antiquated signalling infrastructure where men in wooden boxes push levers around; get rid of diesel and invest in battery trains and megawatt charging while the train is in the station.

It’s cheaper for me to lease a Tesla than it is to commute to work by train, and I can do it off-peak.

Not worried about HS2 reaching the North East, everything North of Leeds is gradually being rewilded and depopulated, we have a few enclosures that will keep some of the original indigenous tribes and provide them with craft based tasks (Nissarnia) for every tree lost to HS2 down South the North will establish three self seeded courtesy of no one cutting their lawns anymore. The UKs environmental targets will be achieved by turning off all lights in the North East and making cars illegal. The remaining population will be furloghed indefinitely unless employed by Aldi, Lidl or Amazon.

Dont you stress Southern folks we will save you.

Kind of sums up the attitude of those in favour of this despicable project really.

I was specifically responding to someone talking about costs.

https://www.newcivilengineer.com/latest/hs2-phase-2b-hybrid-bill-scheduled-for-early-2022-05-08-2021/

Government still making broadly positive noises about it. Still no sign of the Integrated Rail Plan being published though…

WTAF?! 😳

The latest #HS2 insanity:
Motion detectors trigger loud sirens and shout at walkers on public footpaths nr #Coventry and #Solihull telling them they have been reported to the police#HS2daleks #ecocide #corruption https://t.co/dGIrZcZSzC

— ((( Choosy Susy ))) (@ChoosySusy) August 6, 2021

lol @ explore Crewe! Have they ever been to Crewe? 😂
Those dalek things look cool af, should go and trigger them multiple times and see what happens?! I’m guessing f all.
The HS2 line is set to cross the M6 in Staffordshire. Be interesting to see how that’s accomplished! 🙄😩

Well a HS2 bridge was lifted in over the M42 last August.

This isn’t a problem unique to rail – basically everything in the public domain is 20 years out of date. Defence is the other classic – you’re procuring for next-generation fighter aircraft in the 90’s for something that will come into service in 2020 so by the time it comes into service, everything it was specced with when the designs were done in 2000 is 20 years old.

+1 from my experience working with the MOD, most notably rolling out an infrastructure that had literally been signed off 5 years prior and was full of obsolete kit.

I’m unfortunate enough to have spent a lot of time working in Crewe. Imagine my delight when I replaced that particular portion of my job with a couple of days in Runcorn 😳

Still HS2 will be mega for Runcorn I’m sure 😂😂

Total length of this network is 330 miles(Am I right here)
So divide £107billion by 330 and that gives us a price of £3,030,303 per mile.

Are the tracks going to be made of gold ?.

Your sums are out by a factor of well over 100. Try £324,242,424 per mile

The only winners are contractors, consultants (professional services) and HS2 lawyers.

Just to point out that most Leeds/Manchester (and onwards) Transpennine trains go via Ashton to Victoria now and have done for three years. The stopping trains go to/from the main station at Piccadilly. As far as I am aware few if any TPEs to/from Leeds use platforms 13/14 at Manchester Piccadilly (although the Airports do – albeit after they’ve already been to Victoria and then round the Ordsall Chord to avoid stitching up Piccadilly throat as they thread across to Ardwick).

Your sums are out by a factor of well over 100. Try £324,242,424 per mile

That was my first answer from googling 107 billion divided by 330, but then i did 1000,000,000 divided by 330 and got the answer i got.
I completely forgot it was 107 billion, not 1 billion 😆

Silly me.

consultants (professional services) and HS2 lawyers.

I would say thats where the majority of the money is going.

@Flaperon – it needs to be subsidised, but we also need much more capacity. And yes, I agree about re-opening Beeching lines but most of those (that I’m aware of) were branch lines or windy little rural ones, the main lines survived – and if you open up more branch lines you’ll create even more demand. So you need more backbone lines, there’s no question of that IMO.

The industry has tried to turn the network into one big tram system, running short trains more frequently instead of longer ones at less frequent intervals. This set in nearly 20 years ago – see ‘Operation Princess’. It culminated three years ago in totally unworkable timetables put together based on what should happen (e.g. assumptions of more trains presenting on time at junctions than is realistic) rather than what actually happens (e.g. train crew time and motion allowances being unrealistic, too few traincrew trained on routes/train type – so inefficient rostering hugely reliant on massive amounts of overtime.

Well the total costs include building at least 4 large interchange stations (including a complete and long overdue rebuild of Euston), a heck of a lot of tunnelling (more than the channel tunnel), quite a few (read: a lot of) viaducts, bridges, about 40 new trains, maintenance depots, all the associated electrical, signalling, drainage, the huge cost of the environment mitigation works that have been required/demanded (about a third of the total) and the contingency fund (which I think is about £15Bn on its own). The railway is designed to have a lifespan of 150 years and the cost which looks on the face of it, eye watering, needs to be factored against overall benefit (economic, social, environnmental, etc.) over its lifetime.
Total projected cost for creating a 150 year piece of infrastructure is about 40% of the yearly NHS budget…BTW, definately not bashing the NHS here, its just important to remember that very big infrastructure projects tend to cost a lot of money. Outside of IT (the failed NHS IT project cost over £10Bn) I’m struggling to think of a bricks and mortar-type strategic infrastructure project from the last 40 years that ended up being a white elephant but would be happy to be corrected/enlightened here.

I dont have a problem with spending money on infrastructure quite the opposite, what concerns me is the centre of gravity and the direction of train lines.

I don’t think anyone would not accept that the trans pennine link is at the very best not fit for purpose, yet the chance of it becoming HS pennine is simply not going to happen. The long term vision of HS2 is simply to provide more connections into London (all roads lead etc)

I am pretty sure that this government does not want rail connections that route profit and resources away from London (not quite a conspiracy theory)

This governments policy of levelling up (i know) is not what the redwalls are expecting and HS2 is an example of that in as much that it levels up access (in theory) but provides no local levelling up.

Even if HS3 or whatever its called reached Leeds it will provide some levelling up of opportunity but not locally.

For those of us North of Leeds including Scotland have been excluded even from the fairy-tale of ultimate HS 2,3 whatever.

In short this project means and also will not provide benefits for 80% of this country. Ut simply provides Birmingham on Thames.

looking more london centric by the day

If I’d put a bet on the second half being cancelled I’d have probably been able to afford to pay for it… Having said that, I think we all knew it wasn’t going to happen.

I don’t think anyone would not accept that the trans pennine link is at the very best not fit for purpose

Until very recently the main line between Sheffield and Manchester (combined population of £1.2m) was served by diesel Pacer trains, not exactly a 21st century transport system.

The delay of the IRP and the cost of Covid plus the inability of Treasury to plan more than a year ahead at the moment feels like the death knell of HS2 east.