Fantasy: If you could re-design HS2 ...

[MTR380A]

Given that the final figure can now be as high as 103b, would it be more cost-effective to build the whole Phase 1 underground using primarily TBM? No mitigation would have been required. The rail link won't be affected by weather, trespassers or trampolines in the future.

 

[SynthD]

Perhaps a good couple of examples would be not having to dig a twenty odd mile tunnel to shut a few hundred conservative voters up? Or maybe providing a very expensive bat cave to shut the tree huggers up.

Within their construction area, planning consent would be automatic. Problem solved!

In both cases you’re solving political problems with political solutions. That shows how it’s not construction that matters, it’s UK law and custom. My garden is my kingdom, pay me a million to spoil it.

Am I just ranting and wrong?

I think you’re ranting with the right answer. The people don’t want these projects to have an easy ride. The politicians are only doing what they’re told, it’s no good insisting they can do something else.

No mitigation would have been required.

The headhouses would need planning permission, but that is easy going. There would be much more spoil, carted over to build a far larger nature reserve in the Thames Estuary.

 

[The Ham]

That does not absolve the project of the overspend and delays it has encountered.

Budget: Original Budget of £32bn (£42bn in today's prices) is now somewhere from £90bn to more than £100bn. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cz6e0vplgldt
Time:

https://www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/High-Speed-Two-A-progress-update-Summary.pdf

Now partial opening is 2033-36 and Full opening of Phase 1 2040-43. So we are talking about being 3-9 years late, with significant delay between the partial and full overlap when those windows originally overlapped.

Whichever way you cut it, these are catastrophic failings.

Where did I say that it would absolve those things, rather that whatever other large project (say HS2 following the M1) would have likely ended up with the same issues and similar delays and similar overspending (maybe a few months quicker/slower and a few billion more/ less).

Yes indeed, but all of this is highly embarrassing when talking to engineers from almost all foreign countries where HSR has been developed far more successfully.

It's pretty well led from the top - you only have to watch PMQ to see just where priorities lie in the mindset of a worryingly large proportion of MPs. Most of them, especially those at the very top, will do anything for a cheap joke, it's far more important to most of them than genuinely advancing the UK economy is. In turn this is all too often reminiscent of the UK culture, it certainly sets an appalling example.

Most of the media is no better, distorting at will just for a cheap biased headline. Meanwhile most business leaders are focussed almost exclusively on their own profits, often placing little or no importance at all on the success of the project they have been appointed to serve - unless it's for the sake of appearance.

People in other countries seem to have a far, far better understanding of the need to be genuinely loyal to their country. The tendency of people in the UK is too often to simply be self-centred. So yes, we have many issues in the UK, but because of the way that our culture is, sadly we're probably doomed not to change any time soon.

Am I just ranting and wrong?

In answer to your question at the end, no.

You see it all the time.

I don't want my taxes spent on...

Buses, even though if those using buses drive it would add more congestion to their journey

Trains, as above

Libraries, even though that may inspire a kid of a family in a deprived area to want to aim to be an engineer, doctor, etc and mean that when that child is an adult they are more likely to have a job, even if it's not what they dreamed off as a child

Leisure facilities and cycle lanes, even though a fitter population don't need to have as much spent on providing healthcare

Lower council tax and pay for the services you use, even though there's a good chance that the amount many pay for those other services is now than the extra taxes they could be paying.

Objecting to new houses add it will cause congestion, even though it's not uncommon for them to be retired and so are significantly less likely to be driving in the peak hours

 

[Krokodil]

My garden is my kingdom, pay me a million to spoil it.

It's not just the bribes it's the dragging out of the legal process.

Objecting to new houses

While complaining that their kids can't get on the ladder.

 

[FMerrymon]

Budget: Original Budget of £32bn (£42bn in today's prices) is now somewhere from £90bn to more than £100bn. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cz6e0vplgldt
Time:

Not the original budget. Original budget was 50.1bn in 2011 prices set in 2013. Not convinced by their inflation conversion either.

 

[martin butler]

My view is that HS2 is an exercise in how not to build a railway,

it's wrong on every level, the entire route should have been purchased and planned from day one, before a single bit of earth dug,

It should have included a chord line linking it with HS1, possibly with an interchange station, so that passengers could change, if necessary, between transcontinental services and domestic, so that some services can run without having to stop at a London terminus,

The line should have been a high-speed route between England and Scotland, and depending on Route taken, if east coast, direct to Scotland, If it instead used a Westerly route, had a branch to Cardiff, could have linked the Wesh capital also,

My preferred route would have been a route across the Chilterns, then westward, along the west side of the UK, a HS3 line going to Cardiff, whilst the HS2 ran up towards the Scottish border then into Edinburgh, and Glasgow.

I don't know much about the landmass, how much would need to be tunnelled, of where the main centres of population are en- route but apart from key places enroute, does it really need to call anywhere other than the main destinations that are not already covered by the UK rail network?

 

[zwk500]

Not the original budget. Original budget was 50.1bn in 2011 prices set in 2013. Not convinced by their inflation conversion either.

Was that for the section up to Crewe as well?

 

[FMerrymon]

Was that for the section up to Crewe as well?

For the full y network.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Better to reply here I think.

How long would it be reasonable to completely shut the WCML for whilst this work happened?

What about freight?

Capacity is not just about "number of seats", it's about paths. Putting some more seats on a Euston express doesn't buy you any more Northampton paths.

An interesting question is just how many Northampton paths you actually need - that is, how much will commuting grow now? With remote work being more feasible I'm not sure to what extent it will.

I think it's probably reasonable to say that if you binned off the 350s and made the south WCML 100% 730/2 (i.e. order more), and ran all Birmingham services as 10.730 instead of mostly 8.350, you'd get all the local capacity you needed. I also suspect you could probably manage to path an extension of the MKC stoppers to Northampton if you needed extra capacity to there specifically, and there are already paths for an hourly Northampton fast as it runs in the peak hours.

Certainly the south WCML is busy path-wise, but train lengths aren't maxed out.

You could even do some of the HS2 stuff without building HS2, that is build some 400m classic line platforms at selected stations and run longer IC trains. The other thing you could do is wire Chiltern and get that all to 240m on the Birminghams rather than half that as it is now.

 

[The Ham]

Better to reply here I think.



An interesting question is just how many Northampton paths you actually need - that is, how much will commuting grow now? With remote work being more feasible I'm not sure to what extent it will.

I think it's probably reasonable to say that if you binned off the 350s and made the south WCML 100% 730/2 (i.e. order more), and ran all Birmingham services as 10.730 instead of mostly 8.350, you'd get all the local capacity you needed. I also suspect you could probably manage to path an extension of the MKC stoppers to Northampton if you needed extra capacity to there specifically, and there are already paths for an hourly Northampton fast as it runs in the peak hours.

Certainly the south WCML is busy path-wise, but train lengths aren't maxed out.

You could even do some of the HS2 stuff without building HS2, that is build some 400m classic line platforms at selected stations and run longer IC trains. The other thing you could do is wire Chiltern and get that all to 240m on the Birminghams rather than half that as it is now.

With the local plan for Northampton having a target of 33,000 new homes by 2043, that's a likely population increase from 253,000 to 319,000 (+26%) that's likely to use up a good amount of the +46% capacity increase from the HD class 350's to the 730's.

 

[MatthewHutton]

My view is that HS2 is an exercise in how not to build a railway,

it's wrong on every level, the entire route should have been purchased and planned from day one, before a single bit of earth dug,

It should have included a chord line linking it with HS1, possibly with an interchange station, so that passengers could change, if necessary, between transcontinental services and domestic, so that some services can run without having to stop at a London terminus,

The line should have been a high-speed route between England and Scotland, and depending on Route taken, if east coast, direct to Scotland, If it instead used a Westerly route, had a branch to Cardiff, could have linked the Wesh capital also,

My preferred route would have been a route across the Chilterns, then westward, along the west side of the UK, a HS3 line going to Cardiff, whilst the HS2 ran up towards the Scottish border then into Edinburgh, and Glasgow.

I don't know much about the landmass, how much would need to be tunnelled, of where the main centres of population are en- route but apart from key places enroute, does it really need to call anywhere other than the main destinations that are not already covered by the UK rail network?

Linking to HS1 really isn’t very useful.

Is running two trains a day from Manchester to Paris really worth it? And you’ll get French delays imported as well - more importantly perhaps we will import our delays to France.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 21 May 2026 ==

The line should have been a high-speed route between England and Scotland

We already have a pretty fast line to Scotland.

The reason the Japanese did e.g the Kyushu Shinkansen is that the existing line between Hakata and Kagoshima averaged 40mph on the express service so the time savings were huge.

The West coast mainline already averages 80mph between Glasgow and Preston and the East Coast mainline between Edinburgh and Newcastle averages over 90mph.

 

[The Ham]

Linking to HS1 really isn’t very useful.

Is running two trains a day from Manchester to Paris really worth it? And you’ll get French delays imported as well - more importantly perhaps we will import our delays to France.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 21 May 2026 ==


We already have a pretty fast line to Scotland.

The reason the Japanese did e.g the Kyushu Shinkansen is that the existing line between Hakata and Kagoshima averaged 40mph on the express service so the time savings were huge.

The West coast mainline already averages 80mph between Glasgow and Preston and the East Coast mainline between Edinburgh and Newcastle averages over 90mph.

Indeed, although there are two things which would be helpful for both.

In the future, there's could be further HS lines which could be used to create a better link between HS2 at Old Oak Common and HS1 at Stratford as well as a HS East outer station. Either by (say) HS Walesand West not having a London terminus made possible by sending all services around the edge or by sending some around the edge and HS1 doing likewise.

Likewise, there's scope to improve some lower speed sections of the East and West cost sections to get to (say) 140mph. As if those sections were 90mph or less that's going to increase the average speed more than those sections already faster than 110mph.

 

[MatthewHutton]

Indeed, although there are two things which would be helpful for both.

In the future, there's could be further HS lines which could be used to create a better link between HS2 at Old Oak Common and HS1 at Stratford as well as a HS East outer station. Either by (say) HS Walesand West not having a London terminus made possible by sending all services around the edge or by sending some around the edge and HS1 doing likewise.

Likewise, there's scope to improve some lower speed sections of the East and West cost sections to get to (say) 140mph. As if those sections were 90mph or less that's going to increase the average speed more than those sections already faster than 110mph.

Going west of Paddington I think the best would be to get rid of the freight at least as far as Maidenhead and the Heathrow express. That would give you more capacity on the existing line. Plus I suspect you could also further increase speeds above 200km/h on the existing route.

On the east coast if you can turn a train around in 40 minutes at King’s Cross like st Pancras you have enough capacity for a pretty aggressive service to all the eastern destinations. So you could then build a relatively conventional TGV line for a sensible budget to Alexandra palace.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 22 May 2026 ==

Where did I say that it would absolve those things, rather that whatever other large project (say HS2 following the M1) would have likely ended up with the same issues and similar delays and similar overspending (maybe a few months quicker/slower and a few billion more/ less).

A TGV/HS1 line would presumably have landed up with similar costs to HS1.

 

[FMerrymon]

With hindsight that phase 2 would be cancelled and only getting the southern section, Phase 1 would likely look quite different. I do wonder had that been the brief what it would have consisted of.

The delta junction could just be a junction from south to west.
You wouldnt likely build a new urban section of line for 3 trains an hour so perhaps connect to water Orton line and build two 400m platforms alongside the approaches to new street on the Curzon St site, but as an extension of Moor St.
10tph wouldn't need slab track.
Less room required at Euston
Still have an issue of what to do past or at handsacre.

 

[blimmo]

With hindsight that phase 2 would be cancelled and only getting the southern section, Phase 1 would likely look quite different. I do wonder had that been the brief what it would have consisted of.

If HS2 had only been phase 1 from the beginning it never would've been approved. Phase 2 was required to make the cost benefit ratio good enough for the treasury.

 

[FMerrymon]

If HS2 had only been phase 1 from the beginning it never would've been approved. Phase 2 was required to make the cost benefit ratio good enough for the treasury.

Not as designed, but there is much of phase 1 that was required for phase 2. Take the elements out such as the branch to Birmingham, reduces the cost you'd have a better bcr.

 

[HSTEd]

A 360km/h high speed line fitted with a locally commutated linear synchronous motor, developed for maglev systems, could achieve near maglev levels of performance.

(A linear synchronous motor is a motor "unwound" along the track, in this case with the coils on the trackside and only magnets on the train)

You'd have trains effectively composed of trailers with acceleration limited only by passenger comfort. If you used Talgo coaches you could even use tilt for curve radius limitation.

You'd have to fit emergency friction and airbrakes but the synchronous motor would enable very high capacity.

Obviously not an off the shelf solution though.

 

[The Planner]

With hindsight that phase 2 would be cancelled and only getting the southern section, Phase 1 would likely look quite different. I do wonder had that been the brief what it would have consisted of.

The delta junction could just be a junction from south to west.
You wouldnt likely build a new urban section of line for 3 trains an hour so perhaps connect to water Orton line and build two 400m platforms alongside the approaches to new street on the Curzon St site, but as an extension of Moor St.
10tph wouldn't need slab track.
Less room required at Euston
Still have an issue of what to do past or at handsacre.

If Phase 1 was only ever the plan, Delta would be still the same. You wouldn't not connect it to the WCML at some point. Handsacre isn't an issue, its known what's happening there and has been for years.

 

[Mike Machin]

A 140mph railway were the existing Pendolinos could operate to their full potential and where any new rolling tock could be compatible with the existing West Coast Main Line. Some trains non-stop to Birmingham, with the others making just the one stop at a decently-connected motorway super-hub parkway station for the South Midlands/Northern Home Counties.

Freight at night with a giant inland 'container port' near to the parkway station to take advantage of the excellent new road infrastructure.

The money saved could have been used for further upgrades to the WCML, with perhaps a few high-speed (140mph) 'bypass' lines to create additional capacity, allowing for additional small time savings to be made and to ensure better reliability and punctuality. Most people I'm sure would have preferred a faster, but more reliable and punctual integrated railway than the prospect of a blisteringly fast line maybe one day in the future at vast expense.

If any further savings had been created by a scheme such as I have suggested, the money could have been directed towards finishing the Great Western electrification properly and extending/tidying-up the electrification on the Midland Main Line.

 

[WAO]

As we're being creative, I would look tentatively at mixed gauge ( i.e. including Brunel's 2140mm gauge) where captive stock is to be used. This would give greater stability (perhaps even higher speed), also capacity and economy with wide bodied trains.

WAO

 

[The Ham]

A 140mph railway were the existing Pendolinos could operate to their full potential and where any new rolling tock could be compatible with the existing West Coast Main Line. Some trains non-stop to Birmingham, with the others making just the one stop at a decently-connected motorway super-hub parkway station for the South Midlands/Northern Home Counties.

Freight at night with a giant inland 'container port' near to the parkway station to take advantage of the excellent new road infrastructure.

The money saved could have been used for further upgrades to the WCML, with perhaps a few high-speed (140mph) 'bypass' lines to create additional capacity, allowing for additional small time savings to be made and to ensure better reliability and punctuality. Most people I'm sure would have preferred a faster, but more reliable and punctual integrated railway than the prospect of a blisteringly fast line maybe one day in the future at vast expense.

If any further savings had been created by a scheme such as I have suggested, the money could have been directed towards finishing the Great Western electrification properly and extending/tidying-up the electrification on the Midland Main Line.

I'm not sure that there would be the savings you perhaps think that there would be.

For starters, by running slower you'd need more rolling stock and more staff, that's before you consider that the 390's aren't able to get anywhere near the capacity of the 400m HS2 rolling stock, so you'd have to run more trains per hour to get the same seating capacity.

Whilst there's been criticism of the speed, the resent change to save costs is a practical one (in that it allows the 360kph to be delivered at a later date but not be essential to starting operations), a lot of theother factors for costs are associated with political interference and not having the required planning reforms in place so that councils could refuse planning for something as mundane as 60 lorry movements over a 12 week period (to put that in perspective our household refuse is 36 lorry movements over the same timeframe and will continue at that rate for a lot longer than another 52 weeks).

 

[Nottingham59]

a lot of theother factors for costs are associated with political interference and not having the required planning reforms in place so that councils could refuse planning for something as mundane as 60 lorry movements over a 12 week period

I think that planning decision should have been "called in" to be determined by central government.

 

[FMerrymon]

If Phase 1 was only ever the plan, Delta would be still the same. You wouldn't not connect it to the WCML at some point. Handsacre isn't an issue, its known what's happening there and has been for years.

Nothing was due to go north on delta until phase 2b and the delta enabled West to East also. I hope some day that complexity could still be used, but if you're only building phase 1 and that's it, delta junction isn't needed, just a connection from South to West.

Not suggesting at all not to connect back to wcml, but if starting from scratch and only building phase 1, you want to avoid the bottle neck at Colwich somehow.

 

[Trainbike46]

I think that planning decision should have been "called in" to be determined by central government.

Agreed, it should have been sorted as part of the original legislation. When it turned out it wasn't, every HS2-related planning decision should have been called in, especially if the council was behaving unreasonably or obstructively.

 

[The Planner]

A 140mph railway were the existing Pendolinos could operate to their full potential and where any new rolling tock could be compatible with the existing West Coast Main Line. Some trains non-stop to Birmingham, with the others making just the one stop at a decently-connected motorway super-hub parkway station for the South Midlands/Northern Home Counties.

Freight at night with a giant inland 'container port' near to the parkway station to take advantage of the excellent new road infrastructure.

The money saved could have been used for further upgrades to the WCML, with perhaps a few high-speed (140mph) 'bypass' lines to create additional capacity, allowing for additional small time savings to be made and to ensure better reliability and punctuality. Most people I'm sure would have preferred a faster, but more reliable and punctual integrated railway than the prospect of a blisteringly fast line maybe one day in the future at vast expense.

If any further savings had been created by a scheme such as I have suggested, the money could have been directed towards finishing the Great Western electrification properly and extending/tidying-up the electrification on the Midland Main Line.

If freight is running at night, when are you maintaining it?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 25 May 2026 ==

Nothing was due to go north on delta until phase 2b and the delta enabled West to East also. I hope some day that complexity could still be used, but if you're only building phase 1 and that's it, delta junction isn't needed, just a connection from South to West.

Not suggesting at all not to connect back to wcml, but if starting from scratch and only building phase 1, you want to avoid the bottle neck at Colwich somehow.

You would still build it to go Birmingham northwards. Just because its written that wouldn't happen until 2b doesn't mean it doesn't change. The train service spec has changed more times that I have had hot dinners, and will change again

 

[Zomboid]

A 140mph railway were the existing Pendolinos could operate to their full potential and where any new rolling tock could be compatible with the existing West Coast Main Line. Some trains non-stop to Birmingham, with the others making just the one stop at a decently-connected motorway super-hub parkway station for the South Midlands/Northern Home Counties.

Freight at night with a giant inland 'container port' near to the parkway station to take advantage of the excellent new road infrastructure.

The money saved could have been used for further upgrades to the WCML, with perhaps a few high-speed (140mph) 'bypass' lines to create additional capacity, allowing for additional small time savings to be made and to ensure better reliability and punctuality. Most people I'm sure would have preferred a faster, but more reliable and punctual integrated railway than the prospect of a blisteringly fast line maybe one day in the future at vast expense.

If any further savings had been created by a scheme such as I have suggested, the money could have been directed towards finishing the Great Western electrification properly and extending/tidying-up the electrification on the Midland Main Line.

I think the bulk of the cost is associated with building a railway. Building it single track for freight only with a 60mph maximum speed wouldn't save all that much.

 

[BogiePicker]

As we're being creative, I would look tentatively at mixed gauge ( i.e. including Brunel's 2140mm gauge) where captive stock is to be used. This would give greater stability (perhaps even higher speed), also capacity and economy with wide bodied trains.

WAO

Possibly, but you've got to remember that the limiting factor in the loading gauge still won't be the track gauge, it'll be the structure gauge. GWR trains weren't all that much wider than the rest of the trains in the UK network, so if you specifically wanted substantially wider trains along that corridor I reckon you would be better off building a brand new high speed line to Bristol rather than having to basically rebuild the entire route

Standard gauge already allows for fast trains of up to 3.6m width, in Scandinavia, Japan/China do 200mph with 3.3m. If you really want to maximise the width, I believe the eurotunnel stock are 5.7 x 4.1m wide, this is probably the biggest ever done in standard gauge. This is used for 100mph max apparently under the sea but no idea how they would fare in crosswinds lol.

In the age of steam there was a case for being able to have slung heavy drive gear etc between the wheels, but with more compact electric traction, standard gauge may be good enough for all you need.

Though I dont doubt the ride would be better, if they judged interoperability and cross compability to be important back then, when the wider track gauge had a more definite advantage, the case for maintaining standard gauge is probably better.

 

[Krokodil]

I think that planning decision should have been "called in" to be determined by central government.

Did they have the power to do that, once the legislation had failed to centralise planning? Or would they have had to wait for the lengthy process of bringing in a planning inspector?

 

[HSTEd]

Possibly, but you've got to remember that the limiting factor in the loading gauge still won't be the track gauge, it'll be the structure gauge. GWR trains weren't all that much wider than the rest of the trains in the UK network, so if you specifically wanted substantially wider trains along that corridor I reckon you would be better off building a brand new high speed line to Bristol rather than having to basically rebuild the entire route

Standard gauge already allows for fast trains of up to 3.6m width, in Scandinavia, Japan/China do 200mph with 3.3m. If you really want to maximise the width, I believe the eurotunnel stock are 5.7 x 4.1m wide, this is probably the biggest ever done in standard gauge. This is used for 100mph max apparently under the sea but no idea how they would fare in crosswinds lol.

In the age of steam there was a case for being able to have slung heavy drive gear etc between the wheels, but with more compact electric traction, standard gauge may be good enough for all you need.

Though I dont doubt the ride would be better, if they judged interoperability and cross compability to be important back then, when the wider track gauge had a more definite advantage, the case for maintaining standard gauge is probably better.

A train five or more metres wide would be possible with a wider track gauge though.
Making the passenger space more rectangular would have definite efficiency benefits, and you could probably make the train much taller.

 

[Krokodil]

None of this will push costs up, I'm sure...