HS2 spiralling costs

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

Not only that, but going around a corner takes up acres and acres of space if you want to go at 200mph in a train. I think the radius for non tilting trains doing those sorts of speeds is about 5km

the company would like us

they’d like… you literally just said you can work from home… how is this not an unnecessary journey 🤔

Of all the many, many things that the money could be better spend on – I didn’t think of broadband but it’s obvious! Give every home/office wired fibre or free 5G or a lifetime sub to Starlink.

Even pre-Covid I thought travelling into the office for routine work or meetings was becoming an anachronism… it just seems **** ridiculous now!

it just sounds **** ridiculous now!

There’s plenty of folks who can’t though…Doctors, lawyers, nurses, reception staff, none of us can really work from home.

HS2 isn’t really about facilitating travel to work though is it? I used to commute from Yorkshire to London, but was very much in the minority. So the number of people who can’t work from home who will be helped by HS2 is I would imagine tiny.

Is a nurse REALLY going to pay £2-300 per journey to travel from Manchester (or Crewe!) to work in London?

There’s plenty of folks who can’t though…Doctors, lawyers, nurses, reception staff, none of us can really work from home.

Reception staff are getting the train to go from Birmingham to London every day? 🤔

I can’t work from home… guess what… I live near my work. Crazy I know. Even if there are people who can’t work from home but must travel, every other person who can make a change helps free up existing capacity (be that train/road/whatever)

Is a nurse REALLY going to pay £2-300 per journey to travel from Manchester (or Crewe!) to work in London?

Thats my point really.

What percentage of this countries population will actually derive any conceivable benefit from a high speed rail line from Birmingham to London? It’s absolutely miniscule. A vanishingly small number of people.

Yet for this tiny number of people we’re seeing truly vast amounts of public money being hosed at it. All while local transport initiatives – which would have potentially hugely more impact on so many more peoples real lives – are being shelved and put on hold indefinitely, while the black hole of HS2 sucks in everything around it (in the case of the environment… literally!)

Its absolutely bonkers

Reception staff are getting the train to go from Birmingham to London every day?

No but a massive broadband infrastructure programme to allow them to work from home isn’t going to help them overmuch either.

They’ll be able to watch higher definition grot, though

See… everyone benefits 🙂

No but a massive broadband infrastructure programme to allow them to work from home isn’t going to help them overmuch either.

except for the obvious point that if it enables other people to WFH then it frees up capacity on existing transport services.

Not only that, but going around a corner takes up acres and acres of space if you want to go at 200mph in a train. I think the radius for non tilting trains doing those sorts of speeds is about 5km

I’m not sure I understand this, how does requiring a long radius curves take up more space than short radius curves. Sure on a curve by curve basis, which is a disingenuous comparison, but over a whole scheme length from point A to point B it’s really not clear cut – it could be either.

It could easily be arguable that long radius curves result in a scheme using less land as you don’t try to zig zag the smaller radius track around obstacles as often which would increase overall length and hence area. Obviously being less selective on alignment brings other disbenefits but it really isn’t clear cut if you pick just one item to interrogate in isolation…

As I said above I’m actually all for infrastructure, including rail, but a vanity project is still a vanity project.

So just to check…

Investment in HS rail in France – not a vanity project
Investment in HS rail in Spain – not a vanity project
Investment in HS rail in China – not a vanity project
Investment in HS rail in Japan – not a vanity project

Investment in HS rail in UK – vanity project

??

What percentage of this countries population will actually derive any conceivable benefit from a high speed rail line from Birmingham to London? It’s absolutely miniscule. A vanishingly small number of people.

TGV in France has made it possible to live in places like Tours or Lyon and commute into Paris. Tours is under 2hrs. If you extrapolate that to HS2 times, it’s still further afield than Manchester or Leeds. Opening up connectivity options is never a bad thing.

crazy-legs
Full Member

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.

That’s… not how money works. Of course it doesn’t “just disappear”. A lot of sunk costs would be lost but the rest can be re-allocated to whatever you like. Ringfencing doesn’t create money, and cancelling a project with ringfenced funds doesn’t break the money.

Of course, the government might not reallocate it, or might allocate it to some other damn fool project or hand it all to the private sector for a failed covid boondoggle that kills people, but that’s a different thing entirely.

asbrooks
Full Member

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.

Sure but reducing demand overall by reducing unnecessary journeys means the existing capacity is freed up for the necessary ones. It improves things for the people who still have to travel. And of course reducing unnecessary journeys doesn’t just mean “working from home”, it also includes “not having everything in London” and “conducting more of your business remotely even if you’re in the office”.

(aside; my mate has been told he has to return to the office in the square mile, even though they’ve been working from home effectively. They never meet clients face to face, that was all remote even before the pandemic. But they “have to have an office in London” to be taken seriously apparently. And also “to attract staff”, even though literally nobody in his office is from London and half relocated from Edinburgh. Taking that out of the city wouldn’t just mean that he wasn’t wasting time and money on a commuter train from surrey, it’d also mean they wouldn’t need cleaners, security/reception, less demand on services like food outlets… Lots of knock-ons)

The tgv was built at a fraction of the cost of HS2 per km and covers a country many times the size.

All for high speed rail myself but if I was in charge I’d have done the London but last. The London to Birmingham bit will only serve to further cement the London centric transport system we have as it starves the rest of the country for investment in transport.

The tgv was built at a fraction of the cost of HS2 per km and covers a country many times the size.

Pretty much every infrastructure project ever done anywhere else is done to twice the standard and half the cost of anything in the UK.

We just seem completely incapable of (a) aspiring to do any better and (b) actually doing any better.

That’s… not how money works. Of course it doesn’t “just disappear”. A lot of sunk costs would be lost but the rest can be re-allocated to whatever you like.

It’s grant-in-aid funding. It’s for HS2, it doesn’t (and can’t) be reallocated to other trains, NHS, deprived areas etc.

There’s a wider conversation about how Government creates and spends money because it’s obviously not like doing household finances or paying your credit card bill but grant-in-aid funding is specific.

they’d like… you literally just said you can work from home… how is this not an unnecessary journey 🤔

Yes logistically I can work from home and have been doing so since last March. I have a home office setup as it is at work. Plus I’m more productive working from. However, the senior management want us to go back to the office.

It has something to do with the factory workforce being unionised and complaining about the them and us culture and the senior management not being strong willed enough to front it out.

I agree it’s a journey that’s totally unnecessary

If you extrapolate that to HS2 times, it’s still further afield than Manchester or Leeds. Opening up connectivity options is never a bad thing.

Yes it is if it is hideously wasteful and done instead of other much more productive changes.

I’m pretty sure most people in Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, Hull etc don’t want to work in **** London. That’s why they have chosen to live where they live. They don’t want a fast train to London to take once a month or once a week or whatever. They want a **** train that takes them to their job in Manchester, Leeds, Hull or Liverpool.

Crazy legs has hit the nail on the head! HS2 is, and always was, about getting people to London faster…

It’s also not true to say that high speed rail in other countries is not driven by vanity. Spain only has high speed rail at all because the French had it! Finances of these lines are notoriously murky, but one thing is for sure – SNCF, DB and Renfe (France, Germany and Spain respectively) are all in seriously deep c**p with their finances and that predates Covid by a long time..

I have just been watching a video of the controversy surrounding Japans maglev line. That is costing half what HS2 will, will go twice as fast, and yet is still massively controversial..

Plus you can’t really compare high speed rail in France like Crazy Legs keeps doing. It’s just different in so many ways to the UK, the main difference of course being space versus population density.
They’ve got far more room to chuck stuff about.
We haven’t. Therefore, other approaches need to happen, such as folks not having to travel hundreds of miles every week for things that could be done online/by phone.

crazy-legs
Full Member

There’s a wider conversation about how Government creates and spends money because it’s obviously not like doing household finances or paying your credit card bill but grant-in-aid funding is specific.

That’s purely accounting, there’s nothing about grant-in-aid that prevents reallocation at the level that originally placed the grant.

How do governments create money? its a myth – they can’t and don’t. They can raise capital and investments, but that is not ‘creating money’ – those who are investing expect a return. They can print money, but even that is not creating money…its just cutting it up into smaller chunks, and the downsides of that are far more damaging in the long run…as we and our kids will find out over the coming decades after the money printing fetish the government has got itself into since 2008. Don’t get too comfortable with that pension you’ve been building up. The Chickens have yet to come home to roost on that.

All governments can do is to create the environment and conditions for which business can thrive and its thriving businesses and the people that work for them that grows the economy and funds the government via taxation. And infrastructure that makes it easier and quicker for people to go about their daily lives and business is a big factor in that.

I’ve no idea about HS2, but seems to me if despite the rest of the nations rail network being in dire need of modernising…which it is…that doesn’t mean we cant also improve the inter city network..it would be like saying “we’re not going to do anything about climate change until we’ve solved the problem of world poverty”.

But one thing I do know is that people who down talk the benefit of 20 minutes saving each way on a train journey clearly don’t travel routinely. Air travellers will change airlines and airports to shave that much time off a flight. Airlines will build dedicated terminals at airports to offer such benefits to their customers. After 15 years of frequent flying on business I’d happily take 20 mins off my journey time if it was up for grabs. For those who don’t value the benefit of that and the additional cost then there is always the existing rail links. If you’re a handsomely paid Lawyer an extra 40 minutes in the office if you’re popping down to HQ in London or visiting a client in Birmingham, is invaluable.

If they build it they will come. Thats for sure.

But one thing I do know is that people who down talk the benefit of 20 minutes saving each way on a train journey clearly don’t travel routinely.
…
After 15 years of frequent flying on business I’d happily take 20 mins off my journey time if it was up for grabs.
…
For those who don’t value the benefit of that and the additional cost then there is always the existing rail links. If you’re a handsomely paid Lawyer an extra 40 minutes in the office if you’re popping down to HQ in London or visiting a client in Birmingham, is invaluable

🤷‍♀️ Did you think you were arguing against everyone else there ?
Yes. It’s for a privileged, expenses-saturated, largely London-based few – yet again being bolstered by the govt at taxpayers’ expense. That’s what ^ they virtually all said

After 15 years of frequent flying on business I’d happily take 20 mins off my journey time if it was up for grabs.

You’re completely forgetting about the real costs of those precious 20 minutes that you’d grab.
As hard as it is to fathom an alternative, your continual growth is simply not sustainable.
We are really starting to pay what it really costs, more and more each year.
When you consider what it costs in real terms, not just monetary terms, as most people seem to struggle to look beyond, then your 20 minutes is going to look well,….I don’t know how to put it to people concerned only with blindly maintaining the unsustainable.

Agreed – but even if you are pro growth & pro business HS2 was the wrong thing to build.

After 15 years of frequent flying on business I’d happily take 20 mins off my journey time if it was up for grabs.

I think you are missing the “we need to travel less. Full stop” part of the issue.

Agreed – but even if you are pro growth & pro business HS2 was the wrong thing to build.

What would be the right thing to build?

After 15 years of frequent flying on business I’d happily take 20 mins off my journey time if it was up for grabs.

You’d have loved pre-9/11 airline travel.

I use to be able to arrive at Heathrow by car, leave the keys with the Purple Parking folk and be on the (international) plane, all in under 30 mins.

I think you are missing the “we need to travel less. Full stop” part of the issue.

I don’t think that is, or will be, accepted as a target. At least in the context of domestic travel. The best we can hope for is switching travel to the least environmentally damaging options, of which electrically powered trains rate pretty highly.

The best we can hope for is switching travel to the least environmentally damaging options, of which electrically powered trains rate pretty highly.

Indeed. Which is why its completely bonkers to be spending billions and billions on HS2, while simultaneously doing this…

Chris Grayling cancelled electrification to save money

As many people have repeatedly pointed out, there are a million more pressing projects that need funding ahead of this nonsense. HS2 is a financial black hole and whether they admit it or not, everything else is being sacrificed so the government can carry on pouring billions and billions into a project that will benefit a tiny number of people and make virtually no impact on the countries transport issues

It takes me twice as long to get from Sheffield to London by train than it does to get across Sheffield by bus. Shaving 20 minutes off getting to London is WAY down the list of public transport things that need improving.

whether they admit it or not, everything else is being sacrificed so the government can carry on pouring billions and billions into a project

I think that’s the fundamental disagreement here. I don’t think HS2 is really a factor in other (arguably more important) improvements not going ahead. If the government wanted to do them they could find the money. But as stated this country is very London-centric and anything North of Birmingham finds it hard to get a look-in. That doesn’t mean HS2 isn’t worth doing.

I don’t think HS2 is really a factor in other (arguably more important) improvements not going ahead.

HS2 is a factor in a lot of stuff actually going ahead!
Northern Powerhouse Rail depends on full completion of HS2 as it hooks into both eastern and western legs. Without HS2, the case for NPR becomes very flaky which then runs the risk of that being cancelled which then means no investment, development and regeneration across a vast swathe of the north of England.
There’s development happening or planned in various Midlands and Northern towns and cities based entirely on the promise of HS2 (and to a slightly lesser extent, NPR)

I’m pretty sure most people in Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, Hull etc don’t want to work in **** London. That’s why they have chosen to live where they live. They don’t want a fast train to London to take once a month or once a week or whatever. They want a **** train that takes them to their job in Manchester, Leeds, Hull or Liverpool.

That really.
.
I lived in the southeast for three years (Reading) and was amazed at the public transport there. Having come from rural Lincolnshire it was a massive eye-opener as to just how much public transport some parts of the country have.
Seems mad to be doing the southern bit first when they already have public transport and a lot of places don’t have any at all.

Crazy legs – sort out the abomination that is Piccadilly for a start off! Everybody says it’s too expensive but it would be pennies compared to HS2. Transpennine route upgrade. Sort the capacity on the ECML which has now been delayed yet again. The list goes on. And of course, sort our woeful broadband. All of these will make a real difference to far more people than HS2 and in reality, rather than the rarefied atmosphere of KPMG derived business cases, they would have far more economic benefits…

Crazy legs – sort out the abomination that is Piccadilly for a start off! Everybody says it’s too expensive but it would be pennies compared to HS2. Transpennine route upgrade.

I don’t disagree (especially because I have stood on the abomination that is Platforms 13/14 at Picc on any number of occasions. TRU is being done (slowly). There were some new bridges finished in Manchester a couple of days ago:
https://www.networkrailmediacentre.co.uk/news/major-16-day-railway-overhaul-completed-in-manchester-as-part-of-the-transpennine-route-upgrade.

Piccadilly is in a bit of a quandary. Depends a lot on HS2 since it’s supposed to have a terminus there. Building Platforms 15/16 now could result in the whole lot being bulldozed again later to build in HS2/NPR. Much as Piccadilly does need sorting (ideally via a small nuclear device to flatten half of Manchester and start over), it needs certainty on HS2 and NPR before sorting the whole lot in one go.

Currently, most transport decisions are made using BCR (Benefit:Cost Ratios). Benefits is based on a whole load of stuff around opening up jobs, connectivity, “the economy”, how many more people will be able to do X if Y is built and so on.

The cost is generally fairly fixed – it costs as much to work on a railway in London as it does to work on one in Newcastle (and Network Rail have a history of vastly inflating costs as well…). The benefits however are very heavily skewed towards the south / London. There are more people, more (and better paid) jobs, greater customer base (ie more people living near your potential new station) and so on so the benefits are huge.

Build CrossRail and X million people will use it per day/week/month/year
Build a Newcastle version of CrossRail and it’d cost basically the same give or take a few million. But you’d only have x hundred thousand using it per day/week/month/year so the benefits are lower.

I’m not saying that’s right, that’s just how it’s done (although the Green Book which is used for transport planning and decisions is being re-written to hopefully balance that out a little).

So nothing gets done up north. The area gets more deprived which stymies any further investment so the area gets more deprived…

Good post crazy legs, very helpful. This is one of my frustrations with HS2 – so much seems to depend on this crazy leviathan that it stymies much needed developments. When it is cancelled, as it surely will be at least in part, then years will have been lost when development should have gone ahead to sort these issues out.

There is one benefit to the aborted scheme though – it will have resulted in the clearance of large parts of urban centres which needed redevelopment anyway, and leave developers with a much more attractive blank canvas than would otherwise have been the case…

Time will tell I guess, in the meantime I’ve seen and heard nothing to lessen my opposition…

Agreed – but even if you are pro growth & pro business HS2 was the wrong thing to build.

What would be the right thing to build

I would start up north. Better connections between Northern cities. Better transport within Northern cities. The UK needs a counter balance to London. Liverpool, Leeds, Manchester should have at least the same amount spent on transport infrastructure as London has had. (I’m thinking Crossrails £20 billion)

I live in South Wales & we are still in Pacers. Electrification was cancelled last time I heard.

I’d love to be able to get to Aberystwyth from Cardiff without going to Birmingham.

A big effort to get more freight on rails even if it means running the system at a loss.

Away from rail:

Masses more cycle paths (of course!)

Also I would be moving government departments up North- I’d move the the whole lot tbh. London will be fine without it and there are places that could really do with the extra jobs.

Following speculation over the last few days the FT has just started reporting that the Eastern leg is pretty much dead.

Looks like they’re finally going to confirm the scrapping of both Notthern Powerhouse Rail and the HS2 link to Leeds. If they ever had any intention of either of those things becoming anything more than meaningless slogans, which I seriously doubt

Wonder how long they’ll wait before they scrap the Birmingham to Manchester leg too?

In the North we know never to trust what the Tories say.

We were first promised Northern Powerhouse Rail 7 years ago. Not a yard of track has been laid, and now it never will be. The Northern Powerhouse was a fraud and Boris Johnson is a con artist.https://t.co/xeIAcNtkFP

— Angela Rayner (@AngelaRayner) November 14, 2021

This levelling up lark is going great, isn’t it?

Following speculation over the last few days the FT has just started reporting that the Eastern leg is pretty much dead.

The three people that believed it would get built must be gutted.