Building HS2 to Euston and Crewe could pay for itself, analysis finds

[FMerrymon]

You imagine wrong.
2019 prices means exactly what is says, that's the cost at 2019 prices. You have to add 5 (and counting) years of inflation to that.

Its not a rise in real terms and, at some point, the cost is present values will exceed the end outturn since parts will have been built at earlier years' prices.

 

[Grimsby town]

You imagine wrong.
2019 prices means exactly what is says, that's the cost at 2019 prices. You have to add 5 (and counting) years of inflation to that.

Yes but the cost overruns above the inflation metric will be account. Its not my main area of expertise but look at Transport Apraisal Guidance (TAG) suggests that costs above the GDP deflator value should be accounted for in a 2019 estimate. If I'm wrong and you have more expertise I'd be interesting in understanding it more.

 

[Nottingham59]

most of the cost is being driven by the urban construction.

Who says? HS2 have never released detailed breakdowns of the costs that they have incurred.

The Chiltern Tunnel is 16km (x2) long, same length as the main crossrail tunnel.

The civils construction contract (C1) to actually build the Chiltern Tunnel and the Colne Valley viaduct was award to ALIGN for the princely sum of £985 million. At 22km (14mi) for both structures, that's £72 million per track mile. Even allowing for an outturn cost of £100 million per mile, that's small compared to the total cost per track mile that HS2 has spent. Where did all that money go?

ALIGN Joint Venture awarded key HS2 Lot | VolkerFitzpatrick

VolkerFitzpatrick, as part of the ALIGN joint venture with Bouygues Construction and Sir Robert McAlpine, has today been awarded the £965m Chilterns Tunnels and

www.volkerfitzpatrick.co.uk

"the ALIGN joint venture with Bouygues Construction and Sir Robert McAlpine, has today been awarded the £965m Chilterns Tunnels and Colne Valley Viaduct main works civils contract by HS2. This is a key section of Phase One of the HS2 high-speed rail network between London and Birmingham."

There isn't a significant difference between 2a and EWR on a cost per mile basis.

They're both hypothetical costs produced by organisations that know that unless they produce a cost projection that is a gross underestimate then they will not get authority to proceed and they will all be out of a job.

I imagine that number already includes the impact of the very high inflation and that's why costs have gone up.

I bet it doesn't.

2019 prices doesn't mean that they aren't considering any cost rises since 2019

It's a very convenient way for HS2 to hide the cost rises since 2019.

 

[YorkshireBear]

But of course the benefits are increasing at the same time as cost increase because of factors such as wages rising meaning the time savings are greater. The WCML is also becoming increasingly full with new open access services meaning increasingly unreliable.

If you listen to the experts on BCRs they'll say that BCRs aren't really made for large projects like HS2 and that they should be used to compare solutions rather than being used to say whether or not to go ahead with something. If we do everything off BCRs we'd not build much and build everything in London. The country needs more rail capacity to meet its strategic goals on climate change the economy. The question is how to achieve that not whether we should do it.

Take Stockport's new bus station. The BCR struggled to get above 1 and the bridge connecting the station would have been considered a complete white elephant. Yet its made a world of difference to the town and is encouraging a lot more development.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 12 Dec 2024 ==


Most of HS2 is being built through open country side but most of the cost is being driven by the urban construction. 2a and EWR Bedford to Cambridge are the best comparisons. There isn't a significant difference between 2a and EWR on a cost per mile basis.

Green signals had an interesting podcast on the HS2 BCR where it was discussed that the benefits are calculated over a shorter period than the lifespan of the infrastructure that is being built (i.e 120year design life but benefits are 30-60 years).

 

[Nottingham59]

Green signals had an interesting podcast on the HS2 BCR where it was discussed that the benefits are calculated over a shorter period than the lifespan of the infrastructure that is being built (i.e 120year design life but benefits are 30-60 years).

Great Central Railway only lasted 64 years from 1899 to 1963

 

[FMerrymon]

It's a very convenient way for HS2 to hide the cost rises since 2019

Odd way to hide a cost rise by making the cost rise appear double what it actually is.

 

[YorkshireBear]

Great Central Railway only lasted 64 years from 1899 to 1963

Yeah it's a fair point. But the East Coast Main Line has lasted 1850s to now as has the Midland Main Line (1860s) and the West Coast Main Line (1830s).

So I don't think that in itself is a reason to do that. If people believe it will be gone in 60 years for the purpose of benefits, why use 120years for costs...

 

[GRALISTAIR]

Great Central Railway only lasted 64 years from 1899 to 1963

I don't think that is a fair comparison.

 

[YorkshireBear]

Green signals episodes 2 and 6 really should be listened to by anyone with any interest positive or negative in HS2 as there are lots of breakdowns and explaining of fairly complex economic mechanisms.

 

[Grimsby town]

Who says? HS2 have never released detailed breakdowns of the costs that they have incurred.
go?

There were some breakdowns of cost given to parliament but I don't have them to hand. But let's take some of the costs talked about in this thread.

• £4.8bn for Euston
• £1.2bn for the Euston tunnel
• £1.7bn for Old Oak Common

That's £7.7bn so getting on for 20% of the whole phase 1's costs.

They're both hypothetical costs produced by organisations that know that unless they produce a cost projection that is a gross underestimate then they will not get authority to proceed and they will all be out of a job.

This a bit conspiratory. The people producing the cost estimates won't be the same people who build it anyway. The DfT have undertaken independent cost estimates that aren't significantly different to HS2s.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 12 Dec 2024 ==

Green signals had an interesting podcast on the HS2 BCR where it was discussed that the benefits are calculated over a shorter period than the lifespan of the infrastructure that is being built (i.e 120year design life but benefits are 30-60 years).

Because of discount rates, values in the far future aren't worth much so it won't have a significant impact. A bigger issue is some of the assumptions in the demand modelling. Demand isn't assumed to grow at all after a certain date, I think its sometime in the 2030s. Cost of car and flights is modelled as decreasing while rail ticket increases at above inflation levels and there's very little consideration of released capacity benefits.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 12 Dec 2024 ==

Well the reliability issue would be solved by simply not assigning paths that don't really exist to Open Access operators!
Whilst the WCML might be fuller than it has been, we are still not operating the route in a manner to maximise capacity.

Avanti still operates a peak fare policy that renders lots of highly desirable trains almost empty, etc etc. Fares and timetables on the route are still set based on an apparent attempt at revenue maximisation through a market segmentation strategy rather the one that maximises capacity maximisation. The list goes on.

HS2 also doesn't tackle many of the primary southern WCML load centres - which is why it will remain half empty (or worse!) unless a huge country spanning system of lines is developed to funnel non WCML traffic onto it.

So we can't have anymore rail services essentially? That's going to help growth and modal shift.

Yes fares could be changed but its tinkering around the edges. HS2 is about the future and delivering a better railway not just maintaing the status quo.

I don't see the WCML remaining empty. Milton Keynes is likely to see significant growth and the government is looking to build houses. A capacity relieved WCML is a great way to facilitate that. Of course it needs phase 2a to make the most of the capacity and allow services to carry on to Stoke and Crewe for onward connections.

Even leaving aside that abandoning BCR would give us no qualitative framework for deciding what projects to fund..... I'm not sure HS2 is the project you would build if you were diverting resources to the railway for the purpose of meeting climate objectives.
The primary climate challenge is not the need for na ultra fast railway to compete with domestic air travel - which is largely already defeated or beyond the reach of HS2 anyway (Belfast and connecting flights etc).
The enemy is the ICE car.

BCRs have a place but they aren't the be all end all. Deciding what the country should fund should be based on problems that need solve or objectives that government has. You then use the BCR to compare options alongside their contribution to strategic objectives. I think people forgot or don't know that BCR is one part of a business case process.

HS2 makes a decent contribution to modal shift from car. The speed is needed to make suburb to suburb journeys competitive by train and compete with car. Released capacity modal shift isn't even included in the HS2 figures.

 

[Nottingham59]

Without anyone spelling out what the benefits are (in financial terms for comparison with the massive costs) it’s rather hard to form a view.

What are they (officially)?

In 2013, the benefits of HS2 were assessed in the Economic Case for HS2 as




From https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/hs2-economics

 

[Mikey C]

HS2 2A ought to have a much better financial cost benefit ratio though than Phase 1, which is why it's hard to believe that something similar won't get built eventually. It would be like back in the 1920s and 30s building an expensive Tube Tunnel through London, and not then building the cheaper surface sections out in the suburbs to connect to it, for financial reasons.

 

[HSTEd]

So we can't have anymore rail services essentially? That's going to help growth and modal shift.

No, we can't expect a blank cheque to chase that objective.

Yes fares could be changed but its tinkering around the edges. HS2 is about the future and delivering a better railway not just maintaing the status quo.

Then we have to get into a discussion about what a "better" railway is.
I would argue that we have to deliver the most transport services we can, at the lowest possible cost to society (be that be obtained through farepayers or taxpayers).

HS2 does not seem to aid this objective, as it does little to reduce the enormous cost base issues that the conventional railway has.

I really don't want to relitigate this, but if we look at to Japan as an example, they utilise high speed rail to achieve reductions in the cost of the overall railway system by replacing old infrastructure.

I don't see the WCML remaining empty. Milton Keynes is likely to see significant growth and the government is looking to build houses. A capacity relieved WCML is a great way to facilitate that.

The WCML won't remain empty.
It is HS2 that will remain half empty, because without the sprawling system included in Phase 2, it can't possibly be filled.

Meanwhile the WCML will have to retain the bulk of its existing timetable for connectivity reasons.

We will end up with a half full HS2, next to a WCML that remains heavily loaded (so no reduction in fixed costs will be possible), but will have lost a huge portion of its revenue.
HS2 will siphon off the lucrative flows and leave the associated costs with the classic railway.

The result will likely be a net worsening of the railway's financial position.

If we want to provide capacity to Milton Keynes or other cities on the southern WCML, we should serve them.
Time and again, it has been shown that railways that want to be succesful have to go where the customers are.

HS2 decides to ignore all the establish load centres (one of which, MK, is the biggest single flow by passenger count out of Euston) on the southern WCML to go cut through an AONB instead.

Of course it needs phase 2a to make the most of the capacity and allow services to carry on to Stoke and Crewe for onward connections.

Well yes, but thats mostly because the phasing on HS2 has been really badly done.
There seems to have been very little consideration given to what happens if the government doesn't fund the later phases.

For an example, Phase 1 deciding to randomly terminate <20km short of Colwich, creating a bottleneck that could have been avoided for comparatively little additional spending.

Then again, Phase 2A didn't even exist until later. In the original plans it was Handsacre or Golborne!

 

[Palmerston]

The civils construction contract (C1) to actually build the Chiltern Tunnel and the Colne Valley viaduct was award to ALIGN for the princely sum of £985 million. At 22km (14mi) for both structures, that's £72 million per track mile. Even allowing for an outturn cost of £100 million per mile, that's small compared to the total cost per track mile that HS2 has spent.

I've seen so many comments saying HS2 is too expensive because of the Chiltern tunnels and I never knew they're fairly small beer - £985m - in the context of HS2.

 

[Nottingham59]

I've seen so many comments saying HS2 is too expensive because of the Chiltern tunnels and I never knew they're fairly small beer - £985m - in the context of HS2.

Yes. That only covers the civil engineering costs, and you still have to lay tracks and OHLE and signalling. But it's a small amount compared to the total costs per mile that HS2 have incurred.

And the contract would have been linked to inflation, and I suspect it was a cost-plus contract, so the outturn price will be higher than the quoted figure. But it's not enough to explain where all the rest of the money has gone.

Same goes for the £100 million bat tunnel. At 1km long that's only £160 million per track mile. It's a distraction from the real question of how much the rest of HS2 is costing.

 

[HSTEd]

HS2 makes a decent contribution to modal shift from car. The speed is needed to make suburb to suburb journeys competitive by train and compete with car. Released capacity modal shift isn't even included in the HS2 figures.

I am extremely skeptical of this.

Sure, a very fast journey might make people less likely to drive from Birmingham to London or similar, but it does comparatively little for the large number of people driving on the M1 corridor wiht journeys that don't easily translate onto HS2.

I think, although this would have to be broken out into a separate thread to go into detail, that an alternative scheme could have been far more effective at meeting the modal shift objective.

 

[FMerrymon]

I am extremely skeptical of this.

Sure, a very fast journey might make people less likely to drive from Birmingham to London or similar, but it does comparatively little for the large number of people driving on the M1 corridor wiht journeys that don't easily translate onto HS2.

I think, although this would have to be broken out into a separate thread to go into detail, that an alternative scheme could have been far more effective at meeting the modal shift objective.

East branch would have taken people off the M1, the rail alternative in that area is currently poor. It would be the additional services on the existing lines through released capacity that would have the biggest impact on roads.

 

[Nottingham59]

There were some breakdowns of cost given to parliament but I don't have them to hand. But let's take some of the costs talked about in this thread.

• £4.8bn for Euston
• £1.2bn for the Euston tunnel
• £1.7bn for Old Oak Common

That's £7.7bn so getting on for 20% of the whole phase 1's costs.

Sure. And let's add in the 8 miles from Ruislip to Old Oak Common (civils contract S2 for £1.1 billion) and the 6 miles from Water Orton to Curzon Street (half of contract N1: £1.3bn / 2), and that gets you to £9.5 billion for the entirety of the urban construction sections. Which is still only 20% of the £49 billion at 2019 prices that HS2 is going to cost.

HS2 contracts signed

Contracts have now been signed for £6.6bn of HS2 construction work at an official signing ceremony.

www.theconstructionindex.co.uk

So where has the other 80% of the cost been spent on?

EDIT:
For info, the 2013 Economic case gives the following breakdown of costs to build phases 1 and 2, which shows that the tunnels and civil engineering and station account for well over half the cost of building the railway.

 

[Grimsby town]

Sure. And let's add in the 8 miles from Ruislip to Old Oak Common (civils contract S2 for £1.1 billion) and the 6 miles from Water Orton to Curzon Street (half of contract N1: £1.3bn / 2), and that gets you to £9.5 billion for the entirety of the urban construction sections. Which is still only 20% of the £49 billion at 2019 prices that HS2 is going to cost.

HS2 contracts signed

Contracts have now been signed for £6.6bn of HS2 construction work at an official signing ceremony.

www.theconstructionindex.co.uk

So where has the other 80% of the cost been spent on?

On the other 100+ miles of HS railway line? The rollingstock, depots, stations in Birmingham need to be included too. In the other figures you've provided the depots and stations account for around 20% of the cost alone. So you can take 20% off the cost per mile straight away. Its why phase 2a comes out at a far more reasonable cost and close to something like TRU or EWR on a per mile basis (although that's still not a like for like comparison).

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 12 Dec 2024 ==

I am extremely skeptical of this.

Sure, a very fast journey might make people less likely to drive from Birmingham to London or similar, but it does comparatively little for the large number of people driving on the M1 corridor wiht journeys that don't easily translate onto HS2.

I think, although this would have to be broken out into a separate thread to go into detail, that an alternative scheme could have been far more effective at meeting the modal shift objective.

Without going too off topic HS2 doesn't reduce that many journeys but the journeys it does remove are long journeys. Spending £10s billions on trams would reduce the number of car journeys than HS2 but each of those car journeys would be 20 times shorter than the journeys stopped by HS2.

 

[Jimini]

Euston is far from being the worst area of London but it could still do with some redevelopment especially as it acts as the Gateway to London for may visitors and the current station is about the worst first impression that the city could hope to give

You should have seen it 30 years ago chap!

 

[FMerrymon]

Sure. And let's add in the 8 miles from Ruislip to Old Oak Common (civils contract S2 for £1.1 billion) and the 6 miles from Water Orton to Curzon Street (half of contract N1: £1.3bn / 2), and that gets you to £9.5 billion for the entirety of the urban construction sections. Which is still only 20% of the £49 billion at 2019 prices that HS2 is going to cost

Northolt tunnel is 3.3bn. Old oak is 1.7bn and I'm unsure what the land cost. Land for euston was 2bn. Euston tunnel is 1.2bn.

All 2019 prices.

 

[38Cto15E]

An Avanti Pendolino currently has a best time of around 65 minutes for non stop between Euston and Lichfield, what will be the normal time for non stop HS2 expresses between the same two locations?

 

[Bald Rick]

So where has the other 80% of the cost been spent on?

Those are the contractors headline costs. They exclude client held risk (which will be almost all of it), all the feasibility, design, consents work etc., land purchase, all the mobilisation and enabling works, all the clients Project & Programme Management costs, ancilliary works, and so on. In the multi-discipline projects I’ve managed, the main contract costs were rarely more than 60-70% of total costs. And in this example the contract costs quoted are just for the main civils.

 

[Peter Sarf]

I suspect both apply. If the original cost estimates had been realistic, the benefit-cost ratio would have been assessed even worse than it was, and the project would almost certainly never got the go-ahead.

But I'm sure that political meddling has driven costs way above what they could have been. Just look at how much of the route is now in cuttings and underpasses (such as the A38 in Lichfield) rather than the much cheaper original plan for a simple viaduct over the top.

Yes. If the goalposts are moved too close together then the temptation is use a smaller ball !.

A better effort to sell the virtues of HS2 would have made a more realistic estimate bearable.

I think the biggest disaster with HS2 is not just that it is now a shadow of the original plan, which was to my mind a good one, but that it has effectivley derailed(!!) any other major rail infrastructure projects in the UK. Northern Powerhouse Rail is now killed off, whatever local politicians try and spin otherwise. Nobody in Westminster is going to promote it or take any steps beyond lip service. Other large scale projects as well, e.g. reopenings of closed lines beyond those started, dead in my opinion. Large scale electrification, dead... HS2 has burnt though all the money, and left such a bad taste that no politician is going to promote rail projects for a good few years.

This is something I worry about. The UK railways have incurred a PR disaster. It is interesting that similar problems on road projects do not attract such national news coverage however ?.

Talking amongst acquaintances of mine those who have no interest in rail either do not care at all or think the railways are a waste of time and money anyway. Pro rail people I know just feel it is embarrassing and are resigned to failure. So I think - sadly the majority do not care about HS2 and cannot fathom why it was started. A better job of selling HS2 to the people of the UK would have been prudent.

The railways could try harder on the PR front by boasting more abut Crossrail (Elizabeth Line). It has soacked up a lot of passenger and quicker than expected. That is despite Covid19 reducing demand on the rilways generally.

There's a lot of drama with HS2 costs that seem to suggest that HS2 is some how both ridiculously expensive by UK standards and massively increasing in cost more than other schemes. I don't think either is true.

Costs need to come down on all UK transport infrastructure costs, HS2 is hardly unique in its cost. Crossrail's central section cost well over £1 billion per mile. The Northern line extension was £500 million per mile. The Stockport Metrolink extension is being talked about as £1 billion project making it over £300 million per mile, although I imagine that will include new trams too. Its not just rail based transport either, the Lower Thames Crossing is approaching £1 billion a mile. Comments that HS2 has ruined rails reputation to deliver projects cheaply is rubbish. We've not delivered cheap projects in the UK for years. Essentially we either accept high costs of infrastructure or we don't build infrastructure. I don't see the latter being an acceptable option.

I don't think HS2 is increasing in cost at vastly higher rate than other infrastructure projects either. What a lot of newspapers, politicians etc. ignore is that HS2s cost were always going to rise from the initial estimate because of inflation, particularly given the long time periods involved. Yet everybody seems to act surprised when this happens. Yes costs are rising quicker than general inflation but construction inflation is very high. We need to have a less sensationalist conversation about HS2 and not constantly frame cost increases as some sort of flaw of HS2 (although clearly there has been issues).

Some of the increased costs will be due to building the Southern end of HS2 through a crowded part of the country. But tunnels are not really that expensive. Laying the tracks, adding signalling etc are a bigger cost apparently. Then there is all the stock, staff and stations.

Costs have risen and I have got the impression that the construction industry has witnessed a higher rate of inflation than the national rate of inflation. Raw materials and labour have been in short supply I read once. Possibly this was because the low cost of borrowing was encouraging too many building projects ?.

No, we can't expect a blank cheque to chase that objective.


Then we have to get into a discussion about what a "better" railway is.
I would argue that we have to deliver the most transport services we can, at the lowest possible cost to society (be that be obtained through farepayers or taxpayers).

HS2 does not seem to aid this objective, as it does little to reduce the enormous cost base issues that the conventional railway has.

I really don't want to relitigate this, but if we look at to Japan as an example, they utilise high speed rail to achieve reductions in the cost of the overall railway system by replacing old infrastructure.


The WCML won't remain empty.
It is HS2 that will remain half empty, because without the sprawling system included in Phase 2, it can't possibly be filled.

Meanwhile the WCML will have to retain the bulk of its existing timetable for connectivity reasons.

We will end up with a half full HS2, next to a WCML that remains heavily loaded (so no reduction in fixed costs will be possible), but will have lost a huge portion of its revenue.
HS2 will siphon off the lucrative flows and leave the associated costs with the classic railway.

The result will likely be a net worsening of the railway's financial position.

If we want to provide capacity to Milton Keynes or other cities on the southern WCML, we should serve them.
Time and again, it has been shown that railways that want to be succesful have to go where the customers are.

HS2 decides to ignore all the establish load centres (one of which, MK, is the biggest single flow by passenger count out of Euston) on the southern WCML to go cut through an AONB instead.


Well yes, but thats mostly because the phasing on HS2 has been really badly done.
There seems to have been very little consideration given to what happens if the government doesn't fund the later phases.

For an example, Phase 1 deciding to randomly terminate <20km short of Colwich, creating a bottleneck that could have been avoided for comparatively little additional spending.

Then again, Phase 2A didn't even exist until later. In the original plans it was Handsacre or Golborne!

My bold. The purpose of HS2 was to relieve the WCML of the longer distance services. Thus allowing for more semi-fast etc services on the WCML. Therefore HS2 was intended to avoid places like Milton Keynes. Otherwise would have had to resort improving the existing WCML and that did not go well last time and cost quite a lot. HS2 is not meant to be cluttered with too many intermediate stations.

---

Overall I find it incredibly sad that not building Old Oak Common to Euston and not building Phase-2a was even considered. It is odd that Phase-2a was not part of Phase-1 really. The lack of Phase-2a or the lack of Euston undermines each other and also undermines the whole point of HS2.

The elephant in the room however is that I fear the UK is broke - seriously broke financially.

 

[A S Leib]

HS2 is not meant to be cluttered with too many intermediate stations.

Was that part* of the rational between the Lancaster terminators as well, so that Euston – Scotland services could just stop at Crewe and Preston south of Carlisle?

*I'm guessing part was so extra capacity to Crewe could be added without 400 m platforms at Liverpool Lime Street, by splitting at Crewe.

 

[Peter Sarf]

Was that part* of the rational between the Lancaster terminators as well, so that Euston – Scotland services could just stop at Crewe and Preston south of Carlisle?

*I'm guessing part was so extra capacity to Crewe could be added without 400 m platforms at Liverpool Lime Street, by splitting at Crewe.

Yes. There were to be trains splitting at Crewe iirc. Also Crewe is seen as a good place for interchange onto other non-WCML services. Personally I think Birmingham is more important for interchange but good luck tinkering with Birmingham New Street to get more capacity !.

 

[HSTEd]

My bold. The purpose of HS2 was to relieve the WCML of the longer distance services. Thus allowing for more semi-fast etc services on the WCML. Therefore HS2 was intended to avoid places like Milton Keynes. Otherwise would have had to resort improving the existing WCML and that did not go well last time and cost quite a lot. HS2 is not meant to be cluttered with too many intermediate stations.

HS2's design avoids intermediate stations to optimise for chasing after long distance traffic from the ECML et al, but that is not inherent in the concept of high speed rail.

Modern trains are of such high performance that a train could stop regulary and still handily beat the classic railway.

Saying that the only options are HS2 as it has turned out or a WCML upgrade is a false dichotomy.

Overall I find it incredibly sad that not building Old Oak Common to Euston and not building Phase-2a was even considered. It is odd that Phase-2a was not part of Phase-1 really. The lack of Phase-2a or the lack of Euston undermines each other and also undermines the whole point of HS2.

A cynic might suggest that the phasing was designed to make it harder to cancel Phase 2.
Remember that Phase 2A originated several years after the scheme was largely designed in outline.

The fact that HS2 is of very limited usefulness unless a bunch of later phases are built just demonstrates the flaws in the conception of the scheme.
Expecting the government to commmit to Phase 2 regardless of performance on Phase 1 is insane - it's effectively demanding a blank cheque.

 

[Peter Sarf]

HS2's design avoids intermediate stations to optimise for chasing after long distance traffic from the ECML et al, but that is not inherent in the concept of high speed rail.

MOdern trains are of such high performance that a train could stop regulary and still easily beat the classic railway.

Saying that the only options are HS2 as it has turned out or a WCML upgrade is a false dichotomy.

It is when one starts to think about the alternatives to HS2 or improving the WCML that it seems to become apparent that since a new line is effectively required then it might as well steer clear of conurbations as much as it can. That might be how we ended up with the HS2 route and I am comfortable with that, otherwise HS2 would have been trying to achieve too many conflicting goals.

A cynic might suggest that the phasing was designed to make it harder to cancel Phase 2.
Remember that Phase 2A originated much later than the originally planned scheme.

I do wonder if those planning HS2 got the gamble wrong ?.

 

[HSTEd]

It is when one starts to think about the alternatives to HS2 or improving the WCML that it seems to become apparent that since a new line is effectively required then it might as well steer clear of conurbations as much as it can. That might be how we ended up with the HS2 route and I am comfortable with that, otherwise HS2 would have been trying to achieve too many conflicting goals.

AS it is, we now have a line that will never utilise its, enormously expensive, capacity. Meanwhile the WCML will cost almost as much as it does now, but will have been deprived of a large fraction of its operating revenue.

A high speed rail scheme in this corridor was our opportunity to escape the limitations of our ancient and cramped infrastructure - and I find it hard to escape the conclusion that it's been squandered.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

The civils construction contract (C1) to actually build the Chiltern Tunnel and the Colne Valley viaduct was award to ALIGN for the princely sum of £985 million. At 22km (14mi) for both structures, that's £72 million per track mile. Even allowing for an outturn cost of £100 million per mile, that's small compared to the total cost per track mile that HS2 has spent. Where did all that money go?
n

What we don't know is the outturn cost of completing the Chiltern tunnel and Colne Valley viaduct, against those figures.
If they were cost-plus contracts the end result could be much greater than the original contract estimate.
My impression was that the Chiltern tunnel was completed somewhat earlier than planned, and the Colne Valley viaduct somewhat later than planned.
By comparison the Channel Tunnel construction was pretty much delivered to the planned timescale, but with much bigger costs than planned, because of the changes needed to maintain progress in more difficult ground conditions than expected. They then lost a lot more time and money building the actual railway system in the completed tunnel.

I got the impression that the Chiltern work was efficiently managed, but the Colne Valley work had some significant problems along the way.
Either way, the Align contract might turn out to be more efficient than other parts of the project.
But the Northolt tunnels seem to have been more troublesome, and who knows what costs have been sunk into the OOC box to date.
Then there's the £100m bat box...
And the new railway contracts, placed post-inflation...