Shapps "promised to scrap HS2 Golborne spur"

[HSTEd]

Not convinced with this argument TBH. Your favoured option would still require lots of tunnelling in London and would need to contend with built up areas along the M1 causing no end of difficulty. And the route via Old Oak Common does so much more than just serve Heathrow. It opens the entire Thames Valley region to quick and easy rail travel to/from the North and gives a much easier connection to West and East London.

A straight line from OOC to the east side of Birmingham is much closer to the M1 than the selected route is.

 

[Bletchleyite]

A straight line from OOC to the east side of Birmingham is much closer to the M1 than the selected route is.

Though it's much easier to build a line through open countryside than it is to have to dig up the series of towns along the M1 to fit it in.

The tunnel through the Chilterns was unnecessary and was just to placate the whiners at huge cost.

 

[quantinghome]

A straight line from OOC to the east side of Birmingham is much closer to the M1 than the selected route is.

Really?

 

[Shrop]

Really?

View attachment 115898

What does this prove? The better objective is to serve Sheffield and Leeds, not Birmingham!

 

[HSTEd]

The tunnel through the Chilterns was unnecessary and was just to placate the whiners at huge cost.

The tunnel might have been unnecessary in engineering terms [we could have just built the entire line on a massive series of earthworks with virtually no tunneling at all if pure construction cost was the main concern]

But it was most certainly necessary in the political battle to get the line built.
We do not live in a dictatorship, like China, where dissenters can just be disappeared or beaten into submission, and building massive railway lines through comparatively undeveloped terrain was never going to be popular.

 

[quantinghome]

What does this prove? The better objective is to serve Sheffield and Leeds, not Birmingham!

Pretty clear I was responding to this specific claim:

A straight line from OOC to the east side of Birmingham is much closer to the M1 than the selected route is.

My reply was not related to the overall choice of route.

 

[The Ham]

Not convinced with this argument TBH. Your favoured option would still require lots of tunnelling in London and would need to contend with built up areas along the M1 causing no end of difficulty. And the route via Old Oak Common does so much more than just serve Heathrow. It opens the entire Thames Valley region to quick and easy rail travel to/from the North and gives a much easier connection to West and East London.

Not just the Thames Valley, but also quite a section of Southern (central part) of England, including Southampton and to a lesser extent Portsmouth.

 

[sjm77]

Used to be.
Edinburgh leapfrogged Glasgow around five years and continues to grow faster.

Unfortunatley this is not really comparable if it is local authority data. City of Edinburgh covers the majortiy of the continuos Urban area centred on Edinburgh itself. City of Glasgow does not and much of the continuos urban area overspills into East Renfrewshire, North Lanarkshire and Dunbartonshire. However, Edinburgh is far more attractive when travelling from England for connections Northwards beyond Edinburgh/Glasgow becuase you connect in the same station. Also Edinburgh has a far stronger pull for visitors (although I personally love a night out in Glasgow)

 

[fat_boy_pete]

That's only Grayrigg and the southern Shap bank.
There are 3 other banks - northern Shap and both sides of Beattock (northern sides not as steep).
It certainly needs more dynamic loops.
Acton Grange-Wigan, and the slow routes through Preston and Carlisle also need improving.

The DfT announcement makes clear that anything is possible within the £96 billion IRP funding envelope.
Essentially the Rostherne-Golborne money can be spent elsewhere (unless NR and HS2 Ltd have overspent it elsewhere).
15 miles-worth of HSL credit won't go far on a Weaver Jn-Carstairs upgrade.

Government takes action to ensure Scotland receives best possible HS2 service

Intention to remove Golborne Link from HS2 Bill announced with alternative options to be explored.

www.gov.uk

At the risk of getting the crayons out, a chord from the WCML to the Wigan-Bolton line ( historic rail routes appear to be clear of development) and a West to North chord at Bolton (cut and cover along Great Moor street, as the historic route is blocked by the Bus station), would allow the Clitheroe, Hellifield, Settle, Carlisle route to become an electrified dedicated freight route. This removes freight from the northern WCML, allowing simple infrastructure interventions to speed up HS2 and other passenger services. As the 400m of chord at Bolton would be the only pricey bit, got to be cost competitive to capacity upgrades Wigan-Carlisle.

 

[The Planner]

At the risk of getting the crayons out, a chord from the WCML to the Wigan-Bolton line ( historic rail routes appear to be clear of development) and a West to North chord at Bolton (cut and cover along Great Moor street, as the historic route is blocked by the Bus station), would allow the Clitheroe, Hellifield, Settle, Carlisle route to become an electrified dedicated freight route. This removes freight from the northern WCML, allowing simple infrastructure interventions to speed up HS2 and other passenger services. As the 400m of chord at Bolton would be the only pricey bit, got to be cost competitive to capacity upgrades Wigan-Carlisle.

Why do all that when you can just do something at Farington? Id also like to see how you get wires and W10/12 through Blea Moor tunnel...

 

[Mikey C]

Though it's much easier to build a line through open countryside than it is to have to dig up the series of towns along the M1 to fit it in.

The tunnel through the Chilterns was unnecessary and was just to placate the whiners at huge cost.

The Chilterns is an area of beautiful countryside, an AONB.

The M1 isn't a direct route between London and Birmingham anyway, seeing that it doesn't go anywhere near Birmingham

 

[paul1609]

Out of interest on average how many freight trains a day run between Preston and Carlisle between say 0800 and 2000? actual trains v theoretical
paths

 

[P Binnersley]

Out of interest on average how many freight trains a day run between Preston and Carlisle between say 0800 and 2000? actual trains v theoretical
paths

14 ran 08:00 to 20:00 yesterday (Wed 8th June) - Timings at Oxenholme.

Realtime Trains | Departures from Oxenholme Lake District between 0800 and 2000 on 08/06/2022

Train information at Oxenholme Lake District between 0800 and 2000 on 08/06/2022. From Realtime Trains, an independent source of train running info for Great Britain.

www.realtimetrains.co.uk

It seems to vary between 10-15.

 

[Bletchleyite]

The Chilterns is an area of beautiful countryside, an AONB.

And already has railways and roads through it.

 

[Mordac]

And already has railways and roads through it.

Judging by the NIMBYs' whinges, you'd think it was unspoilt wilderness like Yellowstone or Yosemite.

 

[boabt]

Unfortunatley this is not really comparable if it is local authority data. City of Edinburgh covers the majortiy of the continuos Urban area centred on Edinburgh itself. City of Glasgow does not and much of the continuos urban area overspills into East Renfrewshire, North Lanarkshire and Dunbartonshire. However, Edinburgh is far more attractive when travelling from England for connections Northwards beyond Edinburgh/Glasgow becuase you connect in the same station. Also Edinburgh has a far stronger pull for visitors (although I personally love a night out in Glasgow)

City of Edinburgh population within the data set is around 20% less than City of Glasgow and still has a larger GDP.

If you want to add in Lanarkshire etc, fair enough, but that's not where the growth is.

 

[camflyer]

The tunnel might have been unnecessary in engineering terms [we could have just built the entire line on a massive series of earthworks with virtually no tunneling at all if pure construction cost was the main concern]

But it was most certainly necessary in the political battle to get the line built.
We do not live in a dictatorship, like China, where dissenters can just be disappeared or beaten into submission, and building massive railway lines through comparatively undeveloped terrain was never going to be popular.

It would also have made the view from the train much nicer than having to see the inside of a tunnel!

 

[jayah]

The tunnel might have been unnecessary in engineering terms [we could have just built the entire line on a massive series of earthworks with virtually no tunneling at all if pure construction cost was the main concern]

But it was most certainly necessary in the political battle to get the line built.
We do not live in a dictatorship, like China, where dissenters can just be disappeared or beaten into submission, and building massive railway lines through comparatively undeveloped terrain was never going to be popular.

There is scarcely anyone outside politics or the railway who thinks HS2 is a good use of £100bn of public money.

The fact it is even being built doesn't say much about the state of democracy.

 

[JonathanH]

There is scarcely anyone outside politics or the railway who thinks HS2 is a good use of £100bn of public money.

Isn't the taxpayer expecting to make a return on that money? It isn't as if the taxpayer pays £100bn and never sees any of it again.

£83bn of interest payments isn't a good use of public money either but we seem happy to pay it.

 

[Shrop]

It would also have made the view from the train much nicer than having to see the inside of a tunnel!

Sadly the view from the train was deemed as unimportant many years ago, when someone thought it would be a good idea to align most train seats up against opaque plastic, rather than against windows as they once always were.

 

[camflyer]

There is scarcely anyone outside politics or the railway who thinks HS2 is a good use of £100bn of public money.

The fact it is even being built doesn't say much about the state of democracy.

Is there anyone outside of politics or the railway who knows enough about the issues to make an informed judgement?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 11 Jun 2022 ==

Isn't the taxpayer expecting to make a return on that money? It isn't as if the taxpayer pays £100bn and never sees any of it again.

£83bn of interest payments isn't a good use of public money either but we seem happy to pay it.

Does the taxpayer expect to see a return from any infrastructure development? The point is to enable further economic growth not make a direct profit

 

[MarkyT]

Does the taxpayer expect to see a return from any infrastructure development? The point is to enable further economic growth not make a direct profit

Economic growth should result in higher tax receipts though.

 

[jayah]

Isn't the taxpayer expecting to make a return on that money? It isn't as if the taxpayer pays £100bn and never sees any of it again.

£83bn of interest payments isn't a good use of public money either but we seem happy to pay it.

No the taxpayer doesn't get a return. If it did there would be a financial case.

The cost benefit revolves around quantifying non financial benefits being x2 the net financial loss (HS2 doesn't even manage this). Far and away these benefits are time saved by users, who are a very small subset of the population and mostly existing rail users.

If these benefits actually existed, the gap could be closed by charging higher fares. But if they tried this, there would be no hiding place when people refused to pay £40ph to save their own time...

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 11 Jun 2022 ==

Is there anyone outside of politics or the railway who knows enough about the issues to make an informed judgement?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 11 Jun 2022 ==



Does the taxpayer expect to see a return from any infrastructure development? The point is to enable further economic growth not make a direct profit

The absolute state of democracy where you think it is OK to waste £100bn of other people's money because they are too uninformed to decide how to spend it themselves. Classical theory holds people are better at spending their own money than politicians.

I don't think you could argue the taxpayer has been left out of pocket by the road network? It is also absolutely essential, unlike the railways which can safely be ignored for a week as the RMT are about to find out.

 

[plugwash]

Not just the Thames Valley, but also quite a section of Southern (central part) of England, including Southampton and to a lesser extent Portsmouth.

Currently southampton and portsmouth are served from Waterloo not Paddington, so unless there are plans to rearrange those services I'm not sure how old oak common helps travel to them.

 

[camflyer]

No the taxpayer doesn't get a return. If it did there would be a financial case.

The cost benefit revolves around quantifying non financial benefits being x2 the net financial loss (HS2 doesn't even manage this). Far and away these benefits are time saved by users, who are a very small subset of the population and mostly existing rail users.

If these benefits actually existed, the gap could be closed by charging higher fares. But if they tried this, there would be no hiding place when people refused to pay £40ph to save their own time...

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 11 Jun 2022 ==


The absolute state of democracy where you think it is OK to waste £100bn of other people's money because they are too uninformed to decide how to spend it themselves. Classical theory holds people are better at spending their own money than politicians.

I don't think you could argue the taxpayer has been left out of pocket by the road network? It is also absolutely essential, unlike the railways which can safely be ignored for a week as the RMT are about to find out.

Normally I would agree. People are better at spending their own money than the government when it comes to most things. However, people can't build infrastructure - rail, roads, energy networks etc with their own money. That needs government (taxpayer or borrowing) funding.

Infrastructure spending doesn't guarantee economic growth but growth is generally impossible without the infrastructure to support it.

 

[Cowley]

This is all getting a bit off topic now. Could we stick to the Golborne spur HS2 discussion from here please.

Thanks!

 

[Sonik]

If this is scrapped and nothing built in its place, then yes this would be an outrage (though a future government could always reinstate it)

On the other hand, if this has been scrapped to be replaced with a different and potentially better scheme, then it might then be seen as the right decision.

I agree

There is a lot of speculation on this thread, but it seems to me there are quite a number of possibilities that could amount to a better scheme with much wider connectivity benefits.

However as others have mentioned it's likely that the details will be kept under wraps until the scheme is better developed, to ensure that there is wide support on the basis of the additional benefits to numerous areas, to set against the inevitable protests that will ensue in the communities along the new route.

This seems to me like an entirely sensible approach.

 

[Shrop]

If this is scrapped and nothing built in its place, then yes this would be an outrage (though a future government could always reinstate it)

On the other hand, if this has been scrapped to be replaced with a different and potentially better scheme, then it might then be seen as the right decision.

Believing promises of this Government is a huge risk, especially with transport unfortunately. While this is no new thing for politicians, Boris has firmly instilled his own method of thinking into his senior ministers, like Shapps, which is to blandly and easily promise things he has little or no intention of delivering, knowing he has an escape route of finding tried and trusted ways to delay and delay until the public are fed up with asking. You only have to look at Partygate to understand how successful this tactic has been. Rail investment is one of the first things to suffer if ministers suddenly need money for "other things", because it's relatively easy to dress up these "other things" as more important, and more likely to win votes.

When HS2 Eastern Leg was scrapped, it was announced with a promise of something even better. The reality is already proving to be one delay after another, with just enough background work to convince people that something is still happening, but without genuine intention of actually delivering anything. This is in the full knowledge that either this Government will be voted out before the really serious question get asked, or that at very least Shapps and Johnson will no longer be in a position to be accountable by the time people realise how hollow their promises were. Of course we MIGHT end up with something to replace the Eastern Leg, but then I MIGHT win on the Lottery, which could be anything between £10 and the jackpot. It follows that something to replace the Goldborne Spur is subject to a similar risk, and eventual fate.

To anyone who might think I’m being unreasonably cynical, sadly this just comes with experience.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

I think the only fixture in present government policy is that £96 billion (a huge sum) is allocated for rail enhancements.
There will be fights as to how it's spent, and the railway itself has a habit of consuming funds without delivering all that was expected of it.
10% inflation doesn't help.
All the significant design and planning effort that has gone into the eastern and Golborne legs has just been wasted.
Not to mention Castlefield corridor improvements and other abortive projects.

 

[Purple Orange]

Believing promises of this Government is a huge risk, especially with transport unfortunately. While this is no new thing for politicians, Boris has firmly instilled his own method of thinking into his senior ministers, like Shapps, which is to blandly and easily promise things he has little or no intention of delivering, knowing he has an escape route of finding tried and trusted ways to delay and delay until the public are fed up with asking. You only have to look at Partygate to understand how successful this tactic has been. Rail investment is one of the first things to suffer if ministers suddenly need money for "other things", because it's relatively easy to dress up these "other things" as more important, and more likely to win votes.

When HS2 Eastern Leg was scrapped, it was announced with a promise of something even better. The reality is already proving to be one delay after another, with just enough background work to convince people that something is still happening, but without genuine intention of actually delivering anything. This is in the full knowledge that either this Government will be voted out before the really serious question get asked, or that at very least Shapps and Johnson will no longer be in a position to be accountable by the time people realise how hollow their promises were. Of course we MIGHT end up with something to replace the Eastern Leg, but then I MIGHT win on the Lottery, which could be anything between £10 and the jackpot. It follows that something to replace the Goldborne Spur is subject to a similar risk, and eventual fate.

To anyone who might think I’m being unreasonably cynical, sadly this just comes with experience.

I think you’re spot on with considering the likelihood of anything new to replace the eastern leg of the Golborne spur.

A question that some people who are genuinely ‘in the know’ might be able to answer, but I appreciate that they may not be able to say, is whether there is any serious design work taking place on NPR or HS2 east, now that phase 2b west legislation is making its way through parliamen?