HS2 under review

[RedgateModels]

4 minutes ago, Rugd1022 said:

throwing more money at the NHS isn't the answer either, it needs reforming from top to bottom.

 

Couldn't agree more, but not really the subject of this topic  

[Rugd1022]

1 hour ago, RedgateModels said:

 

Couldn't agree more, but not really the subject of this topic  

 

Quite so, but I was just answering one of Andrea's points 

 

[black and decker boy]

The NHS, schools & defence thing has also been done to death.

 

HS2 is £56bn (2015 prices) over 15 years. So let’s average that for simplicity. That’s £3.7bn per year.

 

the current years budget for the NHS alone is £114bn with committed rises of £20bn per year under the published budget.

 

cancelling HS2 sounds like a big saving but in reality, as an annual cost, it’s loose change (under 0.5% of the annual expenditure). The overall U.K. government budget is over £800bn per year.

 

£9bn has already been spent. The future cost will also include the new stock. By the late 2020’s, that new stock is required with or without HS2 so that money is still needed. The pendolini will be nearing end of life by then.

 

 

Edited August 23, 2019 by black and decker boy
Added thoughts about new stock

[brack]

Surely post October the NHS will be overflowing with cash from cancellation of other projects. In those glorious sunlit uplands I cant see how we couldnt afford to build HS2 three times over, never mind needing to cancel it to prop up our schools and hospitals.

 

Theres only so many times you can pull the plug on programs of huge present and future public benefit and claim you're doing it to shower money over our hospitals before even the average Sun reader realises it's a massive lie.

[ardbealach]

And interest rates for any government borrowing are at an all time low right now.  HS2 is basically a one of capital cost spread over a number of financial years - ignoring the on-going maintenance of infrastructure and rolling stock.  (AM)

[jamie92208]

2 hours ago, melmerby said:

I suspect that wasn't the only occasion a graveyard was ploughed up in the name of progress.

The eastern approach to New Street cuts diagonally across a former graveyard.

Was it sensitively done? I doubt it, It was unbridled Victorian private enterprise at work.

When the North Eastern Railway built the link across the centre of Leeds from Marsh Lane, to the current station in the mid 19th Century they also went over the graveyard for Leeds Parish Church.   They just moved the gravestones and tipped soil on top of the graves to build the current embankment.  The graves and their contents are still there.

 

As to the Midland and St Pancras, they not only had to move a graveyard they also evicted the tenants from Somers Town Housing without any compensation to the tenants and they had to find their own new accommodation.   The landlords got the compensation under the compulsory purchase. I'm quite glad that things have changed.

 

Jamie

[brack]

32 minutes ago, ardbealach said:

And interest rates for any government borrowing are at an all time low right now.  HS2 is basically a one of capital cost spread over a number of financial years - ignoring the on-going maintenance of infrastructure and rolling stock.  (AM)

Like many of these large infrastructure projects we keep cancelling and putting off, the need will remain and we'll end up having to do it anyway in a few years time, but at significantly higher costs.

[APOLLO]

Yes by all means start to build HS2 in Wigan and Manchester ---- just don't build it to London  - build it east to Yorkshire ! - far more use to the millions 'ooop 'ere, handy also for the Rugby League matches over the Pennines !! We have an excellent Pendolino service to London (and Glasgow / Edinburgh) already.  Fastest train Wigan - London stops only at Warrington then non stop  to Euston - a tad over 2 hours - 187 miles. That will do for most, certainly for me.

 

Brit15

[mdvle]

17 minutes ago, APOLLO said:

Yes by all means start to build HS2 in Wigan and Manchester ---- just don't build it to London  - build it east to Yorkshire ! - far more use to the millions 'ooop 'ere, handy also for the Rugby League matches over the Pennines !! We have an excellent Pendolino service to London (and Glasgow / Edinburgh) already.  Fastest train Wigan - London stops only at Warrington then non stop  to Euston - a tad over 2 hours - 187 miles. That will do for most, certainly for me.

 

Again, to be the broken record, HS2 isn't about speed but capacity.

 

Will you still be happy with your Pendolino service when fares are 4x as expensive (to discourage use because demand is 4x the available seats and there are no more paths to add additional trains/seats)?  Or alternately you need to book your ticket 12 months in advance?

 

With no ability to add more trains to the existing lines, something will have to give as demand increases with time.

 

 

[phil-b259]

33 minutes ago, APOLLO said:

We have an excellent Pendolino service to London (and Glasgow / Edinburgh) already....

 

 

Except when they are full and standing because there is no capacity to run any more!

 

Granted it may be the ones to / from Scotland which call at Warrington are don't seem totally full -  but the same is not true at stations further south (or east / west - i.e. Liverpool / Manchester) towards London.

 

I emphasise the project needs to be judged by what it achieves nationally - not whether you personally are going to gain, lose or be unaffected by it.

 

The top speed of HS2 is about the ONLY thing which is still up for legitimate debate - the need for the extra capacity HS2 provides or the route selected out of London cannot!

Edited August 23, 2019 by phil-b259

[John Tomlinson]

4 hours ago, Ravenser said:

 

So if you take air and road off the table for eco-warrior reasons what's left as the only available means of transport ? 

 

Rail .

 

And if the only way left to move between the North, the Midlands and the SE is rail - you need to build HS2 to replace the M1/M6 when they are empty after cars are banned, and to replace Manchester and Glasgow Airports when they are shut down by law "to save the planet"

 

(Of course that scenario means anyone living outside a major conurbation is stuffed - you have rail links between major cities, and suburban rail for their suburbs - but live in Norfolk or Cumbria or Devon or Lincolnshire  or most of Wales and both any kind of travel and all movement of supplies literally becomes impossible. Fine for hipster eco-warriors who normally live in cities - but the people they hate, who live in rural Britain, are totally ruined. Not a co-incidence)

 

Putting the wrecking ball through the South East as a society and economy to make life there impossible and force massive population displacement will not create any prosperity in the rest of the country.   And 20+ million people whose lives the Govt would be trying to wreck will inevitably (and quite correctly) stage an all-out uprising through the political system to protect themselves. If you think the Brexit Party is a shock , that would be populism cubed, and recubed....

 

The "eco-warrior" vision means that life outside major conurbations would become near impossible and everywhere outside those conurbations would effectively be abandoned and left to be "re-wilded" (They don't like agriculture either) as the population was retracted into urban redoubts. If you live your whole life in Camden or Shoreditch  or Salford Quays and do everything online it seems a "cool" vision...

Hi Ravenser,

 

I'm really rather flattered by this as I've never thought of myself as any kind of warrior, and certainly not remotely cool! I did live and work in London for 18 years, 1978 - 1996, a small part of it in the distinctly uncool part of Islington near Stoke Newington, much of it in "Daily Mail" reading conservative Beckenham, and now I've been in deeply conservative rural Rutland for over 20 years, very happily I might add, and I'm certainly not going anywhere else.

 

I think you've rather exaggerated what I said. I can't imagine a society without private cars, although they might in the future be electric, and along with lorries we'll still have roads and motorways to drive them on. Equally the world isn't suddenly going to be grounded, with the tiny few going back to crossing the Atlantic on ocean liners. What is open to change, and indeed needs to change, is the sheer volume of travel. Stand back and think for a moment. It's frankly idiotic for people to spend an hour or probably more driving round the M25 to get to work, plus back again in the evening, just as it's idiotic to have complex supply chains for industry that require lorries to trek half way across Europe and back. I was listening a few weeks ago to the MD of Toyota, whose factory in Willington receives 50 lorry loads a day from the Continent. As there isn't a big heap of lorries in south Derbyshire we must assume they make a return journey. It's close on 200 miles from Dover to Willington, so do the maths, even if you assume operation only on 240 days a year thats 4.8 million lorry miles a year, happily along the M20, M25 and M1. Moreover thats just in the UK, quite possibly its a lot more in total if the consignment is from central or eastern Europe. Is this really necessary, or could some of the stuff be made a few miles down the A38 in Brum?

 

As far as the Southeast goes, as Stationmaster accurately pointed out, it's cheerfully choking itself anyway. What you could do is to move a lot more government out, and have taxation of enterprises that remain, with perhaps equal and opposite incentives to firms elsewhere to encourage moving out, so the net effect is revenue neutral. That won't wreck anything, but it might make London a better place to live, and also by reducing pressure on housing make it more affordable and socially just.

 

The other thing I would add, is that it amazes me that with technology advancing by leaps and bounds, business still finds it necessary to physically travel more and more, both within the UK and globally. In my earlier life, I was FD for a medium size multinational. Every year at budget time people submitted bigger pitches for global travel, despite the fact that communication by 'phone was totally reliable and indeed conference calling was already available (it was the 90's). Now things are way, way more advanced, and yet we're told more and more travel is essential, hence the daft idea of another runway at Heathrow. I'm sorry, I don't believe a word!

 

Yours, in warrior spirit,

 

John.

[APOLLO]

Yes we DO need HS2, but a high speed link from Lancashire to Yorkshire is also needed - build both concurrently.

 

Brit15

 

 

[phil-b259]

26 minutes ago, APOLLO said:

Yes we DO need HS2, but a high speed link from Lancashire to Yorkshire is also needed - build both concurrently.

 

Brit15

 

 

 

A noble sentiment - but there are only so many construction workers / firms in the country - and the skills / equipment necessary to build HS2 are not that different to building roads or housing estates!  When it comes to workers / firms that are geared up to do railway specific things like signalling or OLE the situation is even worse....

 

It also doesn't help that a fair number of those currently employed in said sectors come from overseas, particularly within the EU and a certain event which is due to happen at the end of October is predicted to only exasabate the shortage.

 

The GWML electrification programme showed what happens if you try and take on too much too fast with an insufficient skills base (those skills that the UK construction industry acquired during the construction of HS1 would have come in very handy) - but in true British fashion there was no political will to use HS1 as a springboard to grater things and all that expertise was lost.

 

Hopefully HS2 will survive the review - and as workers / contractors build up the skills base it will allow future phases / projects to be delivered more quickly and simultaneously.

 

 

 

 

Edited August 23, 2019 by phil-b259

[Ravenser]

3 hours ago, Siberian Snooper said:

So far we have ruled out air, rail and road, but one avenue not yet explored is taking freight off the railway and roads and putting it back on the Grand Union Canal,  which already links London and Birmingham, it also has a cross London connection with the Regents Canal. The only downside is whatever  means of propulsion used coal, oil or horse, they all cause pollution.

 

Hat and sunscreen and making for the door.

 

 

 

You can't use horses . The Greens won't allow it - methane pollution . Hence the attempts to ban meat-eating on environmental grounds. Cows are destroying the planet

 

These people are nuts...

[jjb1970]

42 minutes ago, APOLLO said:

Yes we DO need HS2, but a high speed link from Lancashire to Yorkshire is also needed - build both concurrently.

 

Brit15

 

 

 

I always thought that people in Lancashire and Yorkshire wanted a new Roman wall with electric fences and machine gun towers between their two counties to keep the other side out? 

[Siberian Snooper]

4 hours ago, Siberian Snooper said:

So far we have ruled out air, rail and road, but one avenue not yet explored is taking freight off the railway and roads and putting it back on the Grand Union Canal,  which already links London and Birmingham, it also has a cross London connection with the Regents Canal. The only downside is whatever  means of propulsion used coal, oil or horse, they all  cause pollution.

 

Hat and sunscreen and making for the door.

 

 

 

14 minutes ago, Ravenser said:

 

You can't use horses . The Greens won't allow it - methane pollution . Hence the attempts to ban meat-eating on environmental grounds. Cows are destroying the planet

 

These people are nuts...

 

To be fair,  I did say that the horse was also a polluter, along with the steam engine and various types of oil burner.

 

 

 

 

[Ravenser]

38 minutes ago, John Tomlinson said:

Hi Ravenser,

 

I'm really rather flattered by this as I've never thought of myself as any kind of warrior, and certainly not remotely cool! I did live and work in London for 18 years, 1978 - 1996, a small part of it in the distinctly uncool part of Islington near Stoke Newington, much of it in "Daily Mail" reading conservative Beckenham, and now I've been in deeply conservative rural Rutland for over 20 years, very happily I might add, and I'm certainly not going anywhere else.

 

I think you've rather exaggerated what I said. I can't imagine a society without private cars, although they might in the future be electric, and along with lorries we'll still have roads and motorways to drive them on. Equally the world isn't suddenly going to be grounded, with the tiny few going back to crossing the Atlantic on ocean liners. What is open to change, and indeed needs to change, is the sheer volume of travel. Stand back and think for a moment. It's frankly idiotic for people to spend an hour or probably more driving round the M25 to get to work, plus back again in the evening, just as it's idiotic to have complex supply chains for industry that require lorries to trek half way across Europe and back. I was listening a few weeks ago to the MD of Toyota, whose factory in Willington receives 50 lorry loads a day from the Continent. As there isn't a big heap of lorries in south Derbyshire we must assume they make a return journey. It's close on 200 miles from Dover to Willington, so do the maths, even if you assume operation only on 240 days a year thats 4.8 million lorry miles a year, happily along the M20, M25 and M1. Moreover thats just in the UK, quite possibly its a lot more in total if the consignment is from central or eastern Europe. Is this really necessary, or could some of the stuff be made a few miles down the A38 in Brum?

 

As far as the Southeast goes, as Stationmaster accurately pointed out, it's cheerfully choking itself anyway. What you could do is to move a lot more government out, and have taxation of enterprises that remain, with perhaps equal and opposite incentives to firms elsewhere to encourage moving out, so the net effect is revenue neutral. That won't wreck anything, but it might make London a better place to live, and also by reducing pressure on housing make it more affordable and socially just.

 

…..

Yours, in warrior spirit,

 

John.

 

I'm afraid you are being naïve about how far the eco-warriors will go. Yesterday a House of Commons  Select Committee recommended that private cars - whether electric or not - will need to be abolished by 2050 "to meet climate change targets"   MPs call for cars to be banned  Extinction Rebellion want it to happen inside 6 years, and suggest that democratic government probably needs to go to make that happen...

 

Certainly climate change campaigners are targeting air travel aggressively and the more militant do want civil aviation largely shut down. People are already suggesting domestic air services should be banned - so no more Glasgow/London flights. International flights are next on the hit-list. Certainly substitution of shorthaul air by high-speed rail for reasons of climate change is very much on the left- liberal technocrat agenda . I suspect that in 10 years time it will be seriously suggested air travel should be rationed and tightly restricted and people will have to get a permit to fly - say 1 short haul return flight every 2 years , if you keep your nose clean, and long-haul flight permits will only be for the lucky few who have earned special priviliges

 

Deep sea shipping is also being aggressively targeted by eco-campaigners who want to reduce container shipping as far as possible. The simple eco-solution to Toyota Burnaston is simply to ban cars and close the place down...

 

If you think I'm joking about a "retreat to conurbation redoubts" just look at the Guardian which has a separate category under world news of "Cities" and a whole satellite planning/ demographics website "CityMetric"

 

Islington near Stoke Newington is quintessential hipster country now. You can rely on the tube and buses , hop to Paris or Brussels by Eurostar, other European cities by cheap flights - you don't need to venture outside the M25 , so you don't need a car. From that perspective , Norfolk or Lincolnshire (or Rutland) is history and needs to be swept into the dustbin as fast as possible "to save the planet"

 

As for

 

Quote

What you could do is to move a lot more government out, and have taxation of enterprises that remain, with perhaps equal and opposite incentives to firms elsewhere to encourage moving out, so the net effect is revenue neutral. That won't wreck anything, but it might make London a better place to live, and also by reducing pressure on housing make it more affordable and socially just.

 

You're advocating deliberately taxing out of existence viable businesses to fund subsidies to set up unviable businesses in preferred parts of the country . That won't be revenue neutral - as the "unwanted" businesses fold the tax revenues dry up leaving the subsidies... There is no housing in the rest of the country  to take 2-3 million economic refugees from London and deliberately destroying the regional economy will not make the lives of those who lose their jobs as a result better. The end of coal mining and rationalisation of steel may have been necessary, but nobody - not even Norman Tebbit being controversial - ever claimed that it made S Yorkshire " a better place to live, and also by reducing pressure on housing make it more affordable and socially just."

 

If we destroy the economy and reduce everyone to an 18th century existence we won't need extra high-speed rail capacity. But policies that replicate the effects of a limited nuclear war on Britain aren't the way to go.

[phil-b259]

4 minutes ago, Ravenser said:

 

I'm afraid you are being naïve about how far the eco-warriors will go. Yesterday a House of Commons  Select Committee recommended that private cars - whether electric or not - will need to be abolished by 2050 "to meet climate change targets"   MPs call for cars to be banned  Extinction Rebellion want it to happen inside 6 years, and suggest that democratic government probably needs to go to make that happen...

 

Certainly climate change campaigners are targeting air travel aggressively and the more militant do want civil aviation largely shut down. People are already suggesting domestic air services should be banned - so no more Glasgow/London flights. International flights are next on the hit-list. Certainly substitution of shorthaul air by high-speed rail for reasons of climate change is very much on the left- liberal technocrat agenda . I suspect that in 10 years time it will be seriously suggested air travel should be rationed and tightly restricted and people will have to get a permit to fly - say 1 short haul return flight every 2 years , if you keep your nose clean, and long-haul flight permits will only be for the lucky few who have earned special priviliges

 

Deep sea shipping is also being aggressively targeted by eco-campaigners who want to reduce container shipping as far as possible. The simple eco-solution to Toyota Burnaston is simply to ban cars and close the place down...

 

If you think I'm joking about a "retreat to conurbation redoubts" just look at the Guardian which has a separate category under world news of "Cities" and a whole satellite planning/ demographics website "CityMetric"

 

Islington near Stoke Newington is quintessential hipster country now. You can rely on the tube and buses , hop to Paris or Brussels by Eurostar, other European cities by cheap flights - you don't need to venture outside the M25 , so you don't need a car. From that perspective , Norfolk or Lincolnshire (or Rutland) is history and needs to be swept into the dustbin as fast as possible "to save the planet"

 

As for

 

 

You're advocating deliberately taxing out of existence viable businesses to fund subsidies to set up unviable businesses in preferred parts of the country . That won't be revenue neutral - as the "unwanted" businesses fold the tax revenues dry up leaving the subsidies... There is no housing in the rest of the country  to take 2-3 million economic refugees from London and deliberately destroying the regional economy will not make the lives of those who lose their jobs as a result better. The end of coal mining and rationalisation of steel may have been necessary, but nobody - not even Norman Tebbit being controversial - ever claimed that it made S Yorkshire " a better place to live, and also by reducing pressure on housing make it more affordable and socially just."

 

If we destroy the economy and reduce everyone to an 18th century existence we won't need extra high-speed rail capacity. But policies that replicate the effects of a limited nuclear war on Britain aren't the way to go.

 

If he bulk of the UK population were really concerned about environmental issues then  we would have far more Green party MPs and councillors than we do now. Parliamentary select committees can say what they like but if its too unpalatable for voters then the committee members won't be around for long...

 

 

 

 

[Phil Parker]

11 minutes ago, Ravenser said:

 

I'm afraid you are being naïve about how far the eco-warriors will go. Yesterday a House of Commons  Select Committee recommended that private cars - whether electric or not - will need to be abolished by 2050 "to meet climate change targets"

 

In a country where the suggestion that motorists might like to stay within the law is greeted with a Daily Mail headline "War on the motorist", I think they are wasting their time.  It might even be that the loony plans are put there just to discredit the environmental agenda...

 

[melmerby]

4 hours ago, woodenhead said:

Come the cultural revolution at the end of October we will all be riding bicycles everything.

But will we be able to afford the tyres (made from imported rubber)?

[Ravenser]

49 minutes ago, phil-b259 said:

 

If he bulk of the UK population were really concerned about environmental issues then  we would have far more Green party MPs and councillors than we do now. Parliamentary select committees can say what they like but if its too unpalatable for voters then the committee members won't be around for long...

 

 

 

 

 

I hope you are right , and that democratic control over such nonsense can be maintained. (The real extremists want it imposed top-down by some kind of climate-change emergency dictatorship)

 

But in Europe as a whole there is a clear agenda of developing high-speed rail to displace short-haul air. It is one of the few eco-demand that are fairly practical, anmd in many ways we've been going that way already for 30 years, so in the medium term I suspect some kind of ban on domestic flights between London and Manchester/Glasgow will happen. There might also be a determination to restrict flights to Schipol : big lumps have already been carved out of the London -Paris market by rail without any need for market rigging.

 

Clearly that will require additional rail capacity.

 

On the other hand trying to ban the car would crucify everywhere outside major conurbations so it shouldn't be allowed to happen. But it is a project that has significant support amongst "citizen of anywhere" young urban liberals, and we shouldn't assume it won't be pushed, hard

 

Even 5 years ago you would have told me it was absurd to propose banning internal- combustion engine driven cars. Now it's been agreed production will be stopped in 15 or years time. We didn't get a vote on that - it was agreed over our heads.

Edited August 23, 2019 by Ravenser

[APOLLO]

1 hour ago, jjb1970 said:

 

I always thought that people in Lancashire and Yorkshire wanted a new Roman wall with electric fences and machine gun towers between their two counties to keep the other side out? 

 

Best of friends actually - EXCEPT on the rugby field !!!!!!!

 

Brit15

[APOLLO]

Just a thought (and often mentioned) Why does HS2 have to be a 250 mph railway if freeing up capacity on existing lines is such a high priority ?

 

I would have thought 150 - 180 mph would be OK, and a lot cheaper to build. Come think of it just rebuild the Great Central up to Sheffield & over Woodhead to Manchester, with a branch to Leeds & the ECML, Also a branch to Birmingham as proposed.

 

250 mph to Bamfurlong then 60 mph through the sharp(ish) S bends at Wigan North Western just does not make sense, and this bit cannot be straightened. Will HS2 trains tilt ? - they will need to north of Lancaster.

 

I hope the review will make sense, and not abandon the project altogether. Sense and government are two words that never coincide.

 

Brit15

[Andrea506]

Well I did put "the cat among the pidgeons" didn't I. I still say it isn't needed, not wanted and a colossal waste of money! Has it occured to anyone that with the advance of technology in 20 years time face to face business meetings will be a thing of the past? We already have Skype. Office accommodation in London is hideously expensive, far more people will work from home. I call it "Camerons Folly". If a high speed railway is so necessary put it in the middle of the M1 and remove the outside lane, after all we won't want cars when we can use a fancy train! 

 

[APOLLO]

Thing is, when I see a London bound Pendolino stop at Wigan North Western there's very few "Business types" in suits with brief cases etc boarding amongst the (sometimes) many that do. Certainly no (or a miniscule number) of commuters.

 

I wonder what the mix of pleasure / business customers is ? - It will be different for Manchester, and (perhaps) Liverpool though. Glasgow businessmen will fly.

 

Brit15