HS2 under review

[Mike Storey]

It does go through quite a lot of b*****r-all.. Of the three stations, Frethun and Gare Picardie are similar in concept and size to Ebbsfleet, whilst Lille Europe is roughly equivalent to Stratford 'International'. Gare du Nord is a pale shadow of St Pancras, and to be honest, looks like an afterthought. LGV-Nord has few really significant structures; the most important being a lengthy, but low, viaduct near Wattendam. In contrast, CTRL has the flyovers at Sandling and Ashford station, the North Downs tunnel, the Medway and Thames tunnels, the flyover near Barking, and then the two London tunnels. Many of these structures were built in close proximity to working railways, with minimal interruption to services. IIRC, the works at Ashford International alone involved at least twenty staged weekend possessions, where handback had to be guaranteed for the start of Monday morning services, lest very large penalties be incurred in payments to the TOCs. 

Don't forget that many of the engineering staff on CTRL were French, and that very few teams were not international in character, with Americans, Egyptians, Australians and others alongside the French and British. If the project cost a lot more per kilometre than LGV-Nord, it's not because of any shortcomings of British engineering, but because the line had to be threaded through relatively highly populated areas (with a very vocal population, admittedly) alongside other heavily-trafficed transport arteries. If you want to see the French try something comparable on home territory, wait for the construction of TGV-PACA (from Marseilles to the Italian frontier) to start- if it ever does

 

I agree with all that, except that you don't need to wait that long. The LGV extension from Tours to Bordeaux (which will pass not far from me) does not go through much in the way of heavily populated or heavy traffic areas (until it gets to Bordeaux, where it gets quite exciting) and there are a few substantial bridges and other civils works on the route. The work is interminably slow, has faced several hold-ups and only now is showing some physical signs of progress beyond lumps of earth. So concerned were they, that a big PR event was recently held to celebrate the start of the final pile on the main bridge across the river just north of Bordeaux i.e. not the completion of the bridge, or even completion of the final pile. Admittedly, a longer distance than HS1 although vastly simpler in terms of construction, but the duration, from original proposal to final completion, will have been roughly similar. The physical road diversions, for the various rail over or road over bridges, constructed whilst works took place, many for a year or more, have been absolutely awful, and downright dangerous in many respects - badly lit, badly signed, un-edged, poorly drained, narrow and very sharply curved. There have been quite a few serious accidents related to these over the past year or so. You just would not get away with that in the UK. That is one indication of how things are done more cheaply on these projects. Others are low land values, very limited planning enquiries, minimal compensation payments, and (as far as I can tell) no corresponding costs transferred to the project from disruption to the existing road and rail network during interfacing works. Other than that, they do things almost exactly the way it would be done in the UK, with pretty much the same (parent) companies in many instances. And, it will not benefit anyone along almost all of its route, as there will be no new stations. It won't even relieve the existing main lines, unlike HS2, as they do not run anywhere near capacity, due to the loss of so much freight from rail in France. But it will give the very large city of Bordeaux (and all points south thereof) a vastly improved service to Paris, which it does badly need. 

[Mike Storey]

Perhaps they will open some dedicated train building facilities to employ the new FE graduates

 

or perhaps not

 

Perhaps yes - that is exactly what Hitachi are doing for the IEP contract, although it is more for assembly than full construction. If they also win the HS2 new trains contract, they will be ready. But I would rather someone nearer home won that.....

[SwissRailPassion]

David Higgins knows what he is doing. I worked for him for five years. He dealt cleverly with the budget issues for the Olympics in the early days, because we all knew, as experienced projects professionals, that a strictly time-boxed project was going to cost what it cost, and the arguments were left to politicians and civil servants. We spent our time trying to establish what the scope actually was, whether it would actually achieve what was needed and whether it could be built in time. Only then, with many changes apparent from that process, could you really start the detailed design which gets you to a detailed cost forecast, as opposed to an outline design made up of many assumptions and predictions, with large contingency risk elements added to reach a probable budget requirement. The Treasury then add a further contingency amount (called Optimism Bias), because they always assume every project overspends. Until you get the contingency element down to about 10%, you don't have a cost, you just have a notional budget figure. HS2 is, in my opinion, still somewhere between those two stages at present.  

 

Our mission at 2012 was "sport not transport" to be the headline in the newspapers each day of the Games, and so it came to pass. We still came in, by 2012, around £100m under the 2009 final budget of c.£900m, for the transport infrastructure element, and the sports infrastructure element of the £9 billion total was never fully spent. He then went to run Network Rail for a relatively short period, and transformed the way it did things. If anyone can get HS2 built on time and to budget (whatever that turns out to be), he can.

 

Excellent to hear from an insider Mike.

Sir David Higgins is the only man with the proven skills to bring the project to fruition. He will be bring clarity and purpose.

I think it has been badly managed so far. Birmingham as a first objective was a PR disaster and the railway takes too long to build. Toton and Meadowhall are weak concepts. There is much work to do to refashion the project.

Big infrastructure needs to be in the right place. We need the politicians to go for Boris Island, close Heathrow and build Hs2 from both ends at once.

[Mike Storey]

Excellent to hear from an insider Mike.

Sir David Higgins is the only man with the proven skills to bring the project to fruition. He will be bring clarity and purpose.

I think it has been badly managed so far. Birmingham as a first objective was a PR disaster and the railway takes too long to build. Toton and Meadowhall are weak concepts. There is much work to do to refashion the project.

Big infrastructure needs to be in the right place. We need the politicians to go for Boris Island, close Heathrow and build Hs2 from both ends at once.

 

Thanks but, er.....Even were it desirable, I am not sure the UK could afford the £93 billion plus for Boris Island (which as proposed could not replace Heathrow) let alone the c.£90 billion for building all of HS2 between London and the North East/West and Scotland at the same time (which is what I presume you meant), plus all the new train sets, let alone CrossRail, CrossRail 2, 1,500 km of electrification, Oxbridge re-opening, East-West freight spine etc etc, even if the physical capacity within the industry were available to do it. The Chinese might have the cash, but even they would want a return on their investment, as we haven't any mineral rights they would be after!! Nice try.

 

The Victorians started somewhere, and they started where the greatest demands and returns on investment would come - London Birmingham (after Liverpool Manchester). This is still true today - the displacement value of HS2 to existing capacity will be felt nationally, especially by freight, which is now horribly constrained from expanding as fast as it has done in the last 15 years, let alone local passenger services. This is less true of the rest of the scheme, although still significant and worthwhile. If I have this right, I believe this is the first scheme where the Govt have not deducted the treasury income they would lose from modal shift to rail - that deduction, whereby lost taxation from lower car / petrol usage is taken away from the overall scheme benefits - killed many previous proposals. That modal shift (from road) rarely took place as road theoretical capacity in most conurbations was breached years earlier. Road schemes never suffered the reverse calculation. I am optimistic therefore, that, if they hold their nerve, Parliament of whichever hue, will keep going with rail expansion in the UK for some time yet.

 

Not before time. Ernest Marples (Minister of Transport who commissioned and then directed the Beeching Report, and who placed his shares in a major motorway building company in his wife's name whilst in office), not Beeching, was the greatest destroyer of rail's future fifty years ago. He fled the UK in financial/legal disgrace some ten years later. That's the sort of person who was deciding our future, so beware of calling the present lot whilst they feel able to defend and promote rail expansion at last. Whatever you think of the detail of HS2, at least support the principle. Many of you will know that rail UK is now carrying more people than at any time since the early 1920's (maybe more than that now) but using less than one third of the infrastructure available back then. (This is unlike the LUL/DLR/London Overground, which is carrying record numbers but with over twice the infrastructure it had then.) Demand growth shows few signs of slowing. UK rail cannot carry significantly more people or freight without new lines. Fiddling about with new junctions, route widenings and longer platforms has already not kept up with demand, and doing more of it for the next 50 years will not do it either. Fact.

[Coombe Barton]

Supreme Court rejects HS2 legal bid

 

see http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-25839958

[Joseph_Pestell]

Thanks but, er.....Even were it desirable, I am not sure the UK could afford the £93 billion plus for Boris Island (which as proposed could not replace Heathrow) let alone the c.£90 billion for building all of HS2 between London and the North East/West and Scotland at the same time (which is what I presume you meant), plus all the new train sets, let alone CrossRail, CrossRail 2, 1,500 km of electrification, Oxbridge re-opening, East-West freight spine etc etc, even if the physical capacity within the industry were available to do it. The Chinese might have the cash, but even they would want a return on their investment, as we haven't any mineral rights they would be after!! Nice try.

 

The Victorians started somewhere, and they started where the greatest demands and returns on investment would come - London Birmingham (after Liverpool Manchester). This is still true today - the displacement value of HS2 to existing capacity will be felt nationally, especially by freight, which is now horribly constrained from expanding as fast as it has done in the last 15 years, let alone local passenger services. This is less true of the rest of the scheme, although still significant and worthwhile. If I have this right, I believe this is the first scheme where the Govt have not deducted the treasury income they would lose from modal shift to rail - that deduction, whereby lost taxation from lower car / petrol usage is taken away from the overall scheme benefits - killed many previous proposals. That modal shift (from road) rarely took place as road theoretical capacity in most conurbations was breached years earlier. Road schemes never suffered the reverse calculation. I am optimistic therefore, that, if they hold their nerve, Parliament of whichever hue, will keep going with rail expansion in the UK for some time yet.

 

Not before time. Ernest Marples (Minister of Transport who commissioned and then directed the Beeching Report, and who placed his shares in a major motorway building company in his wife's name whilst in office), not Beeching, was the greatest destroyer of rail's future fifty years ago. He fled the UK in financial/legal disgrace some ten years later. That's the sort of person who was deciding our future, so beware of calling the present lot whilst they feel able to defend and promote rail expansion at last. Whatever you think of the detail of HS2, at least support the principle. Many of you will know that rail UK is now carrying more people than at any time since the early 1920's (maybe more than that now) but using less than one third of the infrastructure available back then. (This is unlike the LUL/DLR/London Overground, which is carrying record numbers but with over twice the infrastructure it had then.) Demand growth shows few signs of slowing. UK rail cannot carry significantly more people or freight without new lines. Fiddling about with new junctions, route widenings and longer platforms has already not kept up with demand, and doing more of it for the next 50 years will not do it either. Fact.

 

That statistic about the railways carrying more people than in the 1920s actually seriously understates the current success of the railways and the strains on them. Not only are more people transported, but they are travelling on average much longer distances. Back in the 20s, only a very small elite had either the money or the time to do much travelling. Even commmuting was over much shorter distances with many of the suburbs of our major cities not yet built.

 

Just take a look at the timetables. There was a 3-hour gap in service on the East Coast MainLine in the early afternoon. Now, half-hourly services to several destinations equals about eight trains per hour throughout most of the day. And it's the same on almost every mainline. Even a sleepy backwater like Salisbury-Exeter manages at least an hourly service (some half-hourly) despite operating over a single track.

 

National planning guidance anticipates a 40% increase in usage from 2011 to 2026. Coping with that extra load on an already crowded network needs some radical investment and building, not just on HS2.

[Joseph_Pestell]

Supreme Court rejects HS2 legal bid

 

see http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-25839958

 

Good news.

[Phil Parker]

Not before time. Ernest Marples (Minister of Transport who commissioned and then directed the Beeching Report, and who placed his shares in a major motorway building company in his wife's name whilst in office), not Beeching, was the greatest destroyer of rail's future fifty years ago. He fled the UK in financial/legal disgrace some ten years later. That's the sort of person who was deciding our future, so beware of calling the present lot whilst they feel able to defend and promote rail expansion at last.

 

To be politically even-handed, it was the "saintly" Labour Barbara Castle MP who having campaigned on a ticket which included saving the railways, then decided when in power to implement the cuts part of the Beeching report.

 

This means it doesn't matter which party we get in power, they will hate rail travel. To her credit, Margaret Thatcher was persuaded against rail privatisation when it was explained that the sectorised system was as efficient as it could be. John Major of course then picked the option on the list put in as a joke when he decided to ignore her.

 

Returning to HS2 - has anyone spotted that the "Have I Got News for You" titles get the satire wrong? They show the line knocking down plebs houses and then stopping at a palace. It's actually the other way around. To expand the current network would (In Leamington anyway) involve knocking down hundreds of normal houses and the college. The people who are compalining, or at least the ones who get on telly, have country pads and don't want the view disturbed.

[pete_mcfarlane]

To be politically even-handed, it was the "saintly" Labour Barbara Castle MP who having campaigned on a ticket which included saving the railways, then decided when in power to implement the cuts part of the Beeching report.

 

And that's the beauty of being an opposition party - you can make these grand sweeping claims without really having to work out if they are financially viable. And then they get in to power and find that there isn't the money to do what they promised. 

 

I do think that Barbara Castle needs a bit more stick over this though. Folk history has Dr Beeching closing down vast numbers of railways at the behest of his evil master Ernest Maples (have a look on Wikipedia - he's been cited as closing lines in the 1950s before he joined BR and of UTA lines in Ulster) when the reality is that both parties enacted pretty much the same policy in the 1960s.

Edited January 22, 2014 by pete_mcfarlane

[Joseph_Pestell]

And that's the beauty of being an opposition party - you can make these grand sweeping claims without really having to work out if they are financially viable. And then they get in to power and find that there isn't the money to do what they promised. 

 

I do think that Barbara Castle needs a bit more stick over this though. Folk history has Dr Beeching closing down vast numbers of railways at the behest of his evil master Ernest Maples (have a look on Wikipedia - he's been cited as closing lines in the 1950s before he joined BR and of UTA lines in Ulster) when the reality is that both parties enacted pretty much the same policy in the 1960s.

 

I don't suppose that it was Barbara Castle who really made the decision. Then, as now, it was the Treasury that made most of these decisions.

 

Marples clearly had a conflict of interest that would not even be allowed at Parish Council level these days.

[Mike Storey]

I don't suppose that it was Barbara Castle who really made the decision. Then, as now, it was the Treasury that made most of these decisions.

 

Marples clearly had a conflict of interest that would not even be allowed at Parish Council level these days.

 

Ha - don't you believe that for one second!! Just read a few Private Eyes (esp. HP Sauce and Rotten Boroughs) to discover the extent of "conflicts of interest" that are present with the current crop of representatives, often hidden using the same method Marples used.

 

But the gist of the last few comments was right, in that the public mood was for closures was rife in the late 50's and most of the 60's and the MP's of the time, of every hue, followed that. Mrs Castle is "saved" in my opinion by her 1968 Transport Act, which then started the new approach to public financing and basically started the slow reversal of such attitudes, when she cleverly transferred the responsibility of local closures to PTE's and PTA's, and people rarely voted for their own line to shut. To balance the books again, I rarely used to agree with the opinions proclaimed by Tory Michael (Choo Choo) Portillo when he was a minister, but he became a "very nice man" when he saved the Settle and Carlisle. Likewise, with this lot of Bullingdoneans, I might not like much of their politics but their transport policy, so far, is terrific. I just hope much of the rhetoric coming out of Labour at present, swinging with the wind on HS2, does not reverse the current trend should they get into power in 2015 (even tho I would like them to for many other reasons) although such a result looks more uncertain each day.

Edited January 23, 2014 by Mike Storey

[Mike Storey]

Supreme Court rejects HS2 legal bid

 

see http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-25839958

 

Great news overall, but a bit worrying that the reading of the Bill is likely to be delayed, due to a c0ck-up by someone in the issue of the EIA statement (hundreds of pages missing which have now been released). More ammo for the anti's.

[lmsforever]

HS2 have given out information on the construction problems that will affect our town (Aylesbury) and it seems for ten years at least three of the main routes into the town will be clogged by the construction.Also the traffic problems will extend into the town as the junction next to my home is listed for major delays,okay we will gain a new railway but our town is due to come to a complete standstill as one accident or roadwork and everything stops! The rail line to Princes Risborough is to be shut and moved for a length of time so commuters and freight will be delayed for ten years,plus at Calvert and just outside Stoke Manderville there is to be a maintainence yard and these sites will have major disruption.This is only in my imediate area,just imagine what its going to be like at Wendover with the tunnel,and viaduct I am not looking forward to the severe inconvenience and I wont even be able to get on a train anywhere around here its not fair!

[pendlerail]

How about this for a plan, sounds a bit optimistic to me , but an Idea for a "could have been" layout?

http://www.transportforleigh.org.uk/TFL/Home.html

 

10/10 for trying tho

[PhilJ W]

How about this for a plan, sounds a bit optimistic to me , but an Idea for a "could have been" layout?

http://www.transportforleigh.org.uk/TFL/Home.html

 

10/10 for trying tho

I thought they were referring to Leigh-on-sea near Southend. 

Edited January 23, 2014 by PhilJ W

[Peter Kazmierczak]

How about this for a plan, sounds a bit optimistic to me , but an Idea for a "could have been" layout?

http://www.transportforleigh.org.uk/TFL/Home.html

 

10/10 for trying tho

Crikey. Looking at the artist's impression it looks like HS2 crosses the Liverpool & Manchester line on the level!

[pendlerail]

Not the best Artists impression I have ever seen, btw the A580 at that point is on an embankment not a Concrete viaduct, and no OHLE either!!

[APOLLO]

Leigh is one of the largest towns in the UK without a railway station. It was never on a main line, and lost its station around 1970. Work has just started on a (mis)Guided Busway from Leigh to Manchester, partly along the old railway, and partly along the busy A580 East Lancashire road, which will loose a lane in each direction for the bus (which will not be guided on this bit). A total farce. (read the comments)

 

http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/work-starts-76m-leigh-guided-6081085

 

 

Leigh interchange with HS2 - no way. Even Wigan & Warrington trains will only go onto HS2 at Crewe. The HS2 trains running on the new line joining the WCML at Golborne just south of Wigan won't stop at Wigan (see the proposed timetable within the plans on the Gov website). They will pass my house though, if I live another 30 years !!

 

I'm neither for or against HS2, too many unknowns. I fear a new HS2 will be at the expense of the rest of the network. I never go to London, and if I did I can go on a Pendolino in just over 2 hours from Wigan, with a current service of a train every hour from 0630 to 2100 (or thereabouts), most 11 cars long, - why do we need HS2 ?

 

Brit15

[pendlerail]

I will be about 1/4 mile from the Depot at Lowton if it arrives, Time will tell, but Interchange station very very unlikely 

[The Stationmaster]

HS2 have given out information on the construction problems that will affect our town (Aylesbury) and it seems for ten years at least three of the main routes into the town will be clogged by the construction.Also the traffic problems will extend into the town as the junction next to my home is listed for major delays,okay we will gain a new railway but our town is due to come to a complete standstill as one accident or roadwork and everything stops! The rail line to Princes Risborough is to be shut and moved for a length of time so commuters and freight will be delayed for ten years,plus at Calvert and just outside Stoke Manderville there is to be a maintainence yard and these sites will have major disruption.This is only in my imediate area,just imagine what its going to be like at Wendover with the tunnel,and viaduct I am not looking forward to the severe inconvenience and I wont even be able to get on a train anywhere around here its not fair!

 

Ten years???  That is absolutely unbelievable - what on earth will they be building that takes 10 years to construct or are they doing it by hand?.  There is of course bags of room at Calvert which shouldn't present too many problems especially if materials come in by rail - which isn't exactly difficult.

 

But I would be very interested to see the 10 years explained as it indicates an incredible level of incompetence somewhere in one process or another. 

[SwissRailPassion]

Informed sources are telling me the construction schedule is to be substantially recast.

[phil-b259]

I'm neither for or against HS2, too many unknowns. I fear a new HS2 will be at the expense of the rest of the network. I never go to London, and if I did I can go on a Pendolino in just over 2 hours from Wigan, with a current service of a train every hour from 0630 to 2100 (or thereabouts), most 11 cars long, - why do we need HS2 ?

 

Brit15

 

Right, sorry if I come over as rude but.....

 

Once again you are falling back into that most English of habits in looking only at yourself / your local area when making statements like this. Yes Wigan may well have an excellent service to Euston and yes the trains from there may well not be over-crowded but this is not the case further south on the WCML. Thinking along the lines of "well I'm all right so there is no need" is one of the reasons why this county remains one of the worst in Europe when it comes to transport infrastructure. 

 

The basic fact though, however much certain people may not like it is the WCML route really struggles to cope with the levels of passenger and freight traffic wishing to use it now - let alone in 10 or 20 years time and taking all factors into consideration HS2 has been judged the best way of solving the problem. In time, I predict that as with HS1 many people will look back and wonder what all the fuss was about.

[pete_mcfarlane]

Has the figure of 10 years come direct from an official HS2 document, or is it what the local media are reporting? 

 

(Not that I'm cynical, but every local paper will have you believe that there's something uniquely apocalyptic about their town's traffic problems and are probably going to exaggerate HS2 traffic issues a little)

[Mike Storey]

HS2 have given out information on the construction problems that will affect our town (Aylesbury) and it seems for ten years at least three of the main routes into the town will be clogged by the construction.Also the traffic problems will extend into the town as the junction next to my home is listed for major delays,okay we will gain a new railway but our town is due to come to a complete standstill as one accident or roadwork and everything stops! The rail line to Princes Risborough is to be shut and moved for a length of time so commuters and freight will be delayed for ten years,plus at Calvert and just outside Stoke Manderville there is to be a maintainence yard and these sites will have major disruption.This is only in my imediate area,just imagine what its going to be like at Wendover with the tunnel,and viaduct I am not looking forward to the severe inconvenience and I wont even be able to get on a train anywhere around here its not fair!

 

Sorry, but this makes no sense whatsoever. The normal maximum, actual, disruptive construction times on individual sites, for even the hardest of topography (involving tunnels or viaducts usually), is two years (unless you are tunnelling under Mont Blanc or the whole of London, which this will not) . That is from initial dig and footings through to capping and snagging. The normal process will be for the bridges/viaducts and tunnels to be constructed first, which causes the maximum disruption to local traffic. Once completed, the necessary road diversions can revert to the original (or permanent) layout. The following civils works to embankments and cuttings plus drainage can involve local road disruption due to construction traffic, but is often more easily completed from remote points away from conurbations. The final stage of track laying, electrification and signalling structures, and then fit out, testing and proving, would involve no road disruption (except possibly at remote points for vehicle access). I have not seen the document on which the "ten years of disruption" is based, but I would suggest the construction programme for the entire build between London and Birmingham has been incorrectly extrapolated by someone to affect one location for the entire period. The only location of which I can conceive disruption lasting anywhere near that figure would be within London, due to all the necessary utility diversions necessary prior to the rail works, and which often take longer than the actual construction. Perhaps this has some bearing on prolonging the Aylesbury situation, but I very much doubt it would be anywhere near the figure given\? Someone will point out that HS1 took longer than planned, but much of that was due to a series of internal and external factors (including national grid power upgrades) causing delays to the programmed start times of various works, none of which (to my knowledge) affected actual build times on individual sites. If HS2 has not learnt from the problems of HS1, it would be very surprising. 

[The Stationmaster]

I had some involvement with various design and SPAD risk assessment work on HS1 and I know from that that all the St Pancras staging for track and signalling was completed on time, and some of that was quite complicated.  Equally our 'first pass' signalling design - where the client greatly extended the remit - went in on time even if the client was frightened so much by teh cost estimates that they, very sensibly, simplified the track layout and signalling from their original ideas down to what is their today.