HS2 spiralling costs

Others celebrated the notion HS2 might never reach Yorkshire. Alexander Stafford, MP for the Rother Valley, is among several opponents to HS2 among the Conservatives’ 2019 red wall intake.

He said: “What we need is the money invested in transport infrastructure that might actually bring a tangible benefit to seats like mine. We need a better bus service and better links to Manchester across the pennines rather than a hugely expensive white elephant that is sucking resources out of areas like mine and will only benefit a tiny number of people living in central Leeds.”

Thank your local northern Tory MP for this one.

But our politicians must have their vanity projects

Puerile comment. This kind of complicated, expensive long lead time project is not a politician’s vanity project – it takes so long to build that the person who launches it will never get the credit for it. Do you remember who was Transport Minister when the project was first proposed? Or even Prime Minister?

Anyone with anything between their ears knew that what they’re building is nothing more than another commuter line into London.

It’ll never get north of Birmingham. Its just extending the London commuter belt into the midlands

Thats ‘levelling up’ for you

This kind of complicated, expensive long lead time project is not a politician’s vanity project – it takes so long to build that the person who launches it will never get the credit for it.

You think any of our present or recent politicians are actually bright enough to realise that? Our present PM is both the master of the vanity project and also taking credit for other peoples. Garden Bridge anyone? Tunnel under the Isle of Man? Boris Island?

Dont you stress Southern folks we will save you.

And for such sentiments, I give you……

Brexit.

Enjoy 😉

It’ll never get north of Birmingham.

Not if Northern MPs and Mayors are against it.

It doesn’t matter what they think. This was a scheme designed in London to exclusively benefit London.

That’s patently untrue, as has been shown a hundred times on this thread, but it won’t penetrate the Chippy Northerner Forcefield that blames everything on That There London.

Patently untrue? Really?

It’s hardly being a ‘chippy northerner’ to point out we have a two tier economic system. The independent nation state of Londonium and ‘everywhere else’

Will Hutton was pointing it out in the Observer today

first, a vaccine-induced snap back to an economic structure that was malfunctioning beforehand has to be understood as just that. London and the south-east have led the bounce, driven by big spending on construction and leisure, which are also the areas in which most startups are forming, from nail bars to food delivery companies, rather than tech, innovation and export. Moreover, the rest of the country is lagging far behind. Investigations by the National Institute for Economic and Social Research (NIESR) show that the north-east, for example, will not get back to pre-pandemic levels of output until 2024.

But do carry on being casually dismissive and ignoring the actual evidence if you like.

HS2 will never get past Birmingham and will just end up as a hideously expensive commuter line servicing London. Rather than getting any benefit, the north will be disadvantaged yet further by it in this countries crazy lopsided economy

It’s just a cluster **** of epic back handers.

It’s also obsolete and pointless.

Indeed. If you’re going to spend obscene amounts of money on infrastructure projects then there are about a million better ways of doing it than building an instantly redundant white elephant that will benefit virtually nobody

And if you needed any proof of that then I’d suggest you try to get from Manchester to Leeds or Sheffield for a 9 am meeting. It would probably have been quicker in 1950. They’re still using the same rolling stock

If it shaved 2hrs off maybe.

But if your going that there London for a meeting honestly whats a 20min saving.

The North of England- the ultimate carbon offset scheme.

I’m not a chippy Northerner, though I do live in the North, but HS2 isn’t about levelling up, and never was – that’s just something that’s now being projected onto it to try to make it more popular.

I do agree with politecamera that big infrastructure is hard, and requires a lot of ambition and commitment, but that doesn’t mean HS2 is not a pointless gravy train! The business case was dubious at best even before the pandemic. Rail travel was already starting to see a massive readjustment, as evidenced by steep declines in season ticket sales in the last 10 years. Leisure travellers are coming back, but don’t pay much. Business travellers, who traditionally pay the bills on rail, are most definitely not coming back yet. Whether HS2 sinks or swims depends on your view of business travel in the longer term (as opposed to commuting).

I can only speak for myself (and a lot of people I know). Pre pandemic – between 2 and 4 trips WEEKLY, first class to London from Yorkshire. In last 12 months – 2 trips. Going forwards, not sure but unlikely to be more than 2-4 trips monthly.

I think it’s also important to recognise that the more successful ‘levelling up’ is the worse it will be for the HS2 business case, since London will no longer be the centre of the business universe.

In any event I’ll eat my hat if it ever goes to Leeds. Projects which proceed because they are ‘too big to cancel’ usually result in very poor outcomes.

Finally HS2 seems to change it’s tune to suit. How many people are now banging the capacity drum, now that the conventional rail network is suffering from massive overcapacity?

The real shame is that when it does all unravel, as it surely will, it will put back the cause of infrastructure investment in this country for decades..

Finally HS2 seems to change it’s tune to suit. How many people are now banging the capacity drum, now that the conventional rail network is suffering from massive overcapacity?

No, the problem was that it was badly marketed from the start.

Selling it as knocking 20 mins of a journey here or there is a bit crap because no-one really cares. The UK isn’t big enough to *need* 250mph trains and they absolutely don’t work as a stopping service anyway.

However, the UK does have a serious capacity issue on its current rail infrastructure thanks to decades of under-investment. Trying to run a mix of fast, stopping and freight services on limited lines means that the “fast” stuff is never as fast as it could be if given a clear run, the stopping service is never allowed to take priority (because the fast stuff needs to get by) and the freight gets the dregs of night-time running to avoid conflict with both of them. It’s massively inefficient but the ONLY way to fix it is to build a new high speed line to put all the fast stuff onto that and then use the freed-up existing network to run more stopping services and more freight.

Fixing the current creaking infrastructure, while trying to run the same service, is not possible so you end up with huge disruption and a mass movement of passengers away from the trains with the risk that they’ll never come back.

However, HS2 never communicated that (at least, not in a clear manner) so now it looks like the’re changing their tune every time to address criticisms.

We are still using railways built 150yrs or so ago, who knows how the HS2 line will be used in 50,100 or even 150yrs time, might be totally redundant or might be the centre of a fast moving transport system, pretty much any comments about its use is at best idle speculation.

The UK isn’t big enough to *need* 250mph trains

If by the UK you actually mean England then I would probably agree. However a fast service all the way to Scottish central belt would make sense, perhaps with trains continuing via standard lines up to Aberdeen / Inverness. That would take quite a few flights out the sky. The current scheme isn’t delivering that, but it’s a start at least.

Also have all you nay-sayers not been on a high speed train in France, Italy or Spain? They make our system look third-world by comparison. Beyond British pessimism I’m not sure why everyone thinks we’re a special case and high speed rail can’t work here. Some ambition required!

, but it won’t penetrate the Chippy Northerner Forcefield that blames everything on That There London.

Lovely stuff. Are you seriously (SERIOUSLY?!) arguing that HS2 is not London centric? You must have some type of forcefield around your head – Arrogant/ ignorant southerner forcefield perhaps?

How much has been spent on Crossrail ffs? Nought similar up North nor anywhere else for that manner.

That’s patently untrue, as has been shown a hundred times on this thread,

Nope- just opinions from people who’ve swallowed the HS2 kool-aid.

Infrastructure good, spending lots fine by me. But HS2 was ill-conceived from the outset and has got worse from then on.

Also have all you nay-sayers not been on a high speed train in France, Italy or Spain? They make our system look third-world by comparison. Beyond British pessimism I’m not sure why everyone thinks we’re a special case and high speed rail can’t work here. Some ambition required!

Not all the people against HS2 are against all high speed trains, we’re just against shit ones.
If HS2 went from the North to France then I’d be all for it. But it doesn’t, so I’m not. It’s just another bloody commuter line into London.

Some ambition required

Yes please!

who knows how the HS2 line will be used in 50,100 or even 150yrs time, might be totally redundant or might be the centre of a fast moving transport system,

Or it might be under 3ft of water due to climate change…

Some ambition required!

I agree – please don’t mistake my comment above as being anti-HS2. I think it is very much needed as part of a bigger picture including Northern Powerhouse Rail and also freeing up space for more regional rail services and perhaps tram-train systems.

As usual though, British “ambition” is progressively downgraded from “transformational” to “make do” to “just muddle through”. Where we’re at now is the worst of all worlds where what is built won’t achieve anything like the business cases that were originally put forward, won’t develop the areas that were originally basing all their regeneration plans on the hope of a fast train line nearby and won’t be able to make the case for any further large-scale infra projects.

Also have all you nay-sayers not been on a high speed train in France, Italy or Spain?

Yes. And you don’t have to even talk about wealthier EU countries. The trains in eastern Europe are way better than the trains here. Thats not the point.

The point is that the government is about to spaff over £100 billion+ of taxpayers money to build a pointless white elephant of a commuter line into London from the midlands, which will benefit a tiny amount of people. And all while simultaneously starving the rest of the country of desperately needed transport infrastructure investment for which it’s been crying out for decades.

This is the reality of rail travel outside London, and people are banging on about high-speed trains into the capital to save a couple of minutes on a journey time…

It’s just a bad idea, badly planned and will no doubt be terribly executed. It should be absolutely nowhere near the top of the list for infrastructure spending in this country, but it is.

the government is about to spaff over £100 billion+ of taxpayers money to build a pointless white elephant of a commuter line into London from the midlands, which will benefit a tiny amount of people. And all while simultaneously starving the rest of the country of desperately needed transport infrastructure investment for which it’s been crying out for decades.

That is so brilliantly written and so depressingly true that I think it needs to be said again…

the government is about to spaff over £100 billion+ of taxpayers money to build a pointless white elephant of a commuter line into London from the midlands, which will benefit a tiny amount of people. And all while simultaneously starving the rest of the country of desperately needed transport infrastructure investment for which it’s been crying out for decades.

Not sure of the latest patronage forecasts are for HS2 but a 2017 report stated 90m per year once both east and west legs are built. For £100bn.

By way of example here in Sheffield we have a light rail system that carries, or at least pre-Covid carried 15m a year. The cost of fully renewing the tram network here is around £400m. So for a fraction of the cost (0.4%) you can carry 17% of the passengers, all of who remain local and hence more directly benefit the regional economy.

Seems a no brainer to me but the money isn’t yet forthcoming.

Totally agree with the point about infrastructure elsewhere. I’ve been on plenty of those terrible Pacer botched bus-to-train conversions! In an ideal world perhaps they could have started building South from Scotland or something…. but that’s not the project that’s currently on the table. If HS2 doesn’t happen now do you really think the money will get diverted to projects in the North? I reckon we’ll kiss goodbye to high speed rail, and just be left muddling through for the next 20 years. The project is a shadow of what it could have been, but from where things stand today I still think it’s better to get the thing done, hopefully spurring further extension / investment in the North off the back of it.

If HS2 doesn’t happen now do you really think the money will get diverted to projects in the North?

No because it’s ringfenced for HS2.

This is the point that the anti folk don’t get. It’s not like cancelling HS2 frees up £100bn of money for other infra or hospitals or whatever. It just disappears.

@binners – yes, point well made but it’s a tad disingenuous because they have now got rid of the Pacers and most of what is running now are the new 195’s and the older 190’s on Northern. TPE have quite a few of the Hitachi bi-mode trains on their long-distance routes, they’ll do 125mph.

(and yes, I spent many years commuting on those Pacers!)

A mate who actually works on and understands rail infrastructure explained the capacity argument to me many years ago, and I get it and accept it.

However, the rapidly rising costs – I have other friends working on both sides of the land purchase and construction sides – does make me think that yet again the public purse is being **** over, and in the light of Covid changing travel the whole thing needs a proper review as to whether some or all of the HS2 cost should be spent on other infrastructure.

Though having just spent £350 on return tickets from Derby to Edinburgh for the four of us, it’s not just the public purse being **** over.

I think you’ll find the “Levelling up the North” press release was missing an important comma.

HS2 seems to be costing about £250,000 per meter.

Any idea on fares? I vaguely recall it started out at a guessed £0.50p per mile but there seems to be some suggestion it will be near or above £1 per mile, now.

Costs is due to Government wanting the whole thing clad in gold-plated guarantees.

Construction Company X builds a cutting – all well and good, everyone knows how to do that. But they want T&Cs built in to say that if it’s shifted by >5cm in 30 years, the construction company must bear the full costs of fixing it.
So it’s requiring vastly greater amounts of concrete and it’s insured to the hilt – partly because Company X may not be around in 30 years time and partly because the costs of fixing it will be similarly astronomical.

The land stuff has been badly managed from the start. Delays to the start of the project (Government dithering) mean that a lot of landowners got fed up of the will-they-won’t-they and developed the land anyway and then, when it came to compulsory purchase, the landowner needed much more compensation because they’d built a block of flats on it which then needed knocking down.

The amount of squandered material and labour, not to mention the emissions, in building new stuff that’s then been torn down without ever being used is criminal.

That’s not entirely HS2’s fault, some landowners were doing such stuff deliberately in order to extract more compensation but it should have had better legal protection against those sort of actions.

As usual, it’s not the infrastructure that’s costing the money, it’s the legal stuff in the background.

@crazy-legs – they’ve been saying they were going to phase those pacers out for about 30 years now and yet they’ve still been trundling up and down, slowly and uncomfortably, the rails of the north west. If they’re finally gone, nobody will miss ’em. Good riddance!

I haven’t been near public transport for a while, like most people, for obvious reasons, so I wouldn’t know.

But my point is that if you asked anyone other than a London-based consultant where you needed to spend money as a top priority on transport infrastructure in this country, absolutely nobody would give you the answer ‘a nice high speed rail line between Birmingham and London’. Nobody!

You’d have a very long list of alternative answers, but that definitely wouldn’t be amongst them. But thats what we’re all getting (and paying for) whether we like/need it or not

Also have all you nay-sayers not been on a high speed train in France, Italy or Spain? They make our system look third-world by comparison

It’s not just high speed I’m afraid.. I have traveled a lot by train in Europe & the far east. It is a pleasant way to travel. Always on time and reasonably cheap compared to our standards. Talking about our standards, our rail is about on par with Australia, well Queensland, but more costly.

We absolutely do need a better rail infrastructure, as pointed out above the current network is at breaking point with no options other than increasing the lengths of the trains to increase capacity.

We need fast straight lines to connect major cities and allow for branching from there. Politically this is a nightmare to do as you end up going through some affluent areas who will object at the earliest opportunity. Let’s face it not enough people give a monkeys nut about ancient forests etc. So you end up with a line that becomes compromised and therefore is no longer fast.

Also have all you nay-sayers not been on a high speed train in France, Italy or Spain? They make our system look third-world by comparison

You know when you’re driving on a motorway alongside a railway line? M1 and M6 both have a couple of sections paralleling the WCML.
You’re doing 70 in the car and a train comes past at maybe 120. Sort of trundles past, only 50mph quicker…

I was driving in France a while ago on a section of paege that had a 130kph limit (quite rare, most are now 110kph) so I was doing 130kph, 80mph. It was parallel to a TGV line and we got overtaken by something that just went whoooosh whoosh and was gone. It was doing about 200mph. Like you say, makes our trains look positively feeble in comparison.

You can’t really blame Londoners when most of them would prefer Crossrail 2 or a decent orbital railway following the M25 or more destinations in mainland Europe.

Who wants to go to Manchester? Mancunians that think it’s so good that they live and work in London.

There clearly speaks a man who’s never experienced the joy of sitting staring in silent wonder at the jewel in the crown of the north…

Wythenshawe

It was doing about 200mph. Like you say, makes our trains look positively feeble in comparison.

But are our cities far enough apart to justify trains going that fast?

There clearly speaks a man who’s never experienced the joy of sitting staring in silent wonder at the jewel in the crown of the north…

Wythenshawe

Growing up in the 70’s I used to spend a week of my summer holidays every year in Wythenshawe!

The other week was spent in Blackpool.

Tell that to the kids today and……

Japan’s equivalent – $64 billion, 500 kph.

HS2 is £98 billion ($134 billion), 400 kph.

We need fast straight lines to connect major cities and allow for branching from there.

Except that we don’t. What we need is for the need to travel to be reduced. This is happening to a degree, and yet we’re still hacking the country to bits to provide for a dwindling(hopefully) need.

Except that we don’t. What we need is for the need to travel to be reduced.

Exactly! What the past 18 months has shown us is how much of that travel was totally unnecessary and just down to that ‘well thats the way we’ve always done it’ mindset

The world has changed.

“During the pandemic, I’ve really missed those ludicrously overpriced 6.30am trains from Piccadilly down to Euston” said absolutely nobody, ever.

Even from an employers point of view, why would you want your staff to go back to that? Especially if you’re looking at the balance sheet without all those pointless and ridiculous £350 return tickets

As always, the government is way behind the rest of society and firmly stuck in a 1990’s mindset.

If you’re going to spend £100 billion quid then spend it on building a high speed broadband infrastructure, something that actually benefits everyone, not some bloody white elephant, mired in a 20th (or possibly 19th) century mindset

Even from an employers point of view, why would you want your staff to go back to that?

Because the money sits in London and they like face to face meetings and so the chippy northerners can get on the train

You can’t really blame Londoners when most of them would prefer Crossrail 2 or a decent orbital railway following the M25 or more destinations in mainland Europe.

95% of DoT staff live and work in London, this drives the way that investment need is looked at and why the money goes where it does, essentially to the SE

+1 for Binners on broadband infrastructure.

As I said above I’m actually all for infrastructure, including rail, but a vanity project is still a vanity project. HS2 will do nothing to address the underinvestment in the conventional routes. The rail industry is hopelessly inefficient and ultimately that needs to be resolved. Case in point – want a ‘stop board’ moving 20 yards? This is quite literally a sign stuck in the ground. ‘Of course sir, that’ll be £75,000 please.’ WTF – it’s a sign stuck in the ground – now imagine that thousands of times over and that’s why train tickets are so expensive.

Rail is critical to addressing climate change and the future economy of this country, and as an industry it really needs to get its head out of its backside and start dealing with the issues holding it back.

If you want to see a good example of a basket case infrastructure project you could look at the channel tunnel – long time to build and very controversial, hopelessly optimistic business case, constant financial troubles. Even pre pandemic the tunnel was operating at only a fraction of its design capacity.

Except that we don’t. What we need is for the need to travel to be reduced

Exactly! What the past 18 months has shown us is how much of that travel was totally unnecessary and just down to that ‘well thats the way we’ve always done it’ mindset

That may well be true in your worlds. However, the company I work for is a manufacturer and by its very nature requires people to work in a factory. While I am able to do my job from home the company would like us to start to return to the office which means for me an hour an half in the car. I have no other option but to drive. I would take the train if there was one and it was reasonably priced. You only have to drive up and down the M1 to realise that there is a need for something.