High Speed Two (HS2) discussion

[PR1Berske]

Again that figure is what the cost will be in money terms in 2030 based on inflation not the cost today. That's like saying I won't buy a chocolate bar today at 60p because in 2030 it will cost £1.20 and that will be very expensive. In 2030 £73bn will seem like £43bn today because the cost of everything will have gone up. That's how inflation works.

What could be done to the WCML for the same cost?

 

[The Planner]

I work in west coast planning...

Sounds like a competition, I have done too, what do I win?

 

[Dave1987]

What could be done to the WCML for the same cost?

What you aren't getting is that by building the new line you get far far more benefits than trying to eek out every last bit of capacity on the WCML.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Sounds like a competition, I have done too, what do I win?

Lol you will probably know him as well then

 

[PR1Berske]

What you aren't getting is that by building the new line you get far far more benefits than trying to eek out every last bit of capacity on the WCML.

As I said above, and elsewhere, if the only benefit you can come up with is faster journey times, I suggest to all the commuters being used as justification for HS2: just board an earlier train.

 

[Dave1987]

As I said above, and elsewhere, if the only benefit you can come up with is faster journey times, I suggest to all the commuters being used as justification for HS2: just board an earlier train.

Actually the main benefit I have said is freeing up paths on the WCML for freight and more services to the Watford gap. I said that the speed was just another bonus....

 

[PR1Berske]

Actually the main benefit I have said is freeing up paths on the WCML for freight and more services to the Watford gap. I said that the speed was just another bonus....

You can free up paths by focusing resources at the worst places on the WCML, rather than building an entirely new London-centric network. For less money. And with results in a handful of years rather than 20/30+.

 

[NotATrainspott]

As I said above, and elsewhere, if the only benefit you can come up with is faster journey times, I suggest to all the commuters being used as justification for HS2: just board an earlier train.

Even if HS2 were limited to 125mph it could take at least 20 400m-long double-decker trains an hour, each having a capacity several times that of an 11-car Pendolino. Unless you spend decades rebuilding every single inch of the current track you're never going to have single trains with as much capacity as that.

 

[NSEFAN]

As I said above, and elsewhere, if the only benefit you can come up with is faster journey times, I suggest to all the commuters being used as justification for HS2: just board an earlier train.

Are we really going over this point again?

HS2 increases the capacity on the WCML. It does this by removing the long-distance express services and leaves room for more stopping trains. The speed is a bonus and isn't aimed at commuters.

Short of tearing up the whole WCML to add the extra running lines and allow Berne gauge stock, there's no other way to add the step capacity required.

Even if commuting does change in the next 30 years, the population will have risen and people will still need to travel. Once the railway is there it can be maintained to run for as long as we want it to.

 

[AndyLandy]

As I said above, and elsewhere, if the only benefit you can come up with is faster journey times, I suggest to all the commuters being used as justification for HS2: just do with half-an-hour less time at home with your family every day.

There we are. Fixed that for you.

 

[PR1Berske]

Are we really going over this point again?

HS2 increases the capacity on the WCML. It does this by removing the long-distance express services and leaves room for more stopping trains. The speed is a bonus and isn't aimed at commuters.

Short of tearing up the whole WCML to add the extra running lines and allow Berne gauge stock, there's no other way to add the step capacity required.

Even if commuting does change in the next 30 years, the population will have risen and people will still need to travel. Once the railway is there it can be maintained to run for as long as we want it to.

HS2 does nothing of the sort. It enables the kind of office workers who might not exist in 30 years time to get into London 15 minutes earlier than usual, leaving travellers in, say, Stoke or Norwich with the same (or even slower) stopping services robbed of vital investment because HS2 gobbled it all up.

Spend less money, more wisely, and get better results.

 

[Metrailway]

I didn't read the Sunday Times today but according to the websites of The Guardian and The Daily Telegraph, Maria Eagle, the shadow transport secretary, has told the Sunday Times that she has placed a cap of £50 billion on HS2.

From the Telegraph:

Labour say they will scrap HS2 if it costs more than £50 billion

Labour has placed a £50 billion cap on the cost of the High Speed 2 rail line and threatened to block the project if the bill spirals out of control.

Maria Eagle, the shadow transport secretary, said her party’s support for the scheme was conditional on keeping costs in check. Her comments came as the head of HS2 warned that the railway project would not be viable without cross-party support.

Ms Eagle’s intervention represents the latest refinement of Labour’s position on the multi-billion project which was conceived under the previous Government. Senior Labour figures including Lord Mandelson and Alistair Darling, the former chancellor, have attacked the rising cost of the plans.

Ed Miliband’s aides insist that Labour supports a new rail route linking London with the North but last week Ed Balls, the shadow chancellor warned he would not write a “blank cheque” for HS2.

Ms Eagle told the Sunday Times: “I am not willing to see this project start draining money from other vital rail projects – it’s got to be delivered within the current budget. Nobody who is delivering it should be under any illusions that I will allow it to go up and up. that would put our commitment to it at risk. It shouldn’t be going up above that £50 billion cap.”

(read more)

Similar story in The Guardian:

Labour puts £50bn cap on HS2 budget

Shadow transport secretary insists high-speed rail link must be delivered without 'draining money from other vital projects

Labour has threatened to withdraw support for the HS2 rail project if the bill rises above £50bn. The shadow transport secretary, Maria Eagle, said her party's backing depended on costs being kept under control.

The party's leadership insists it still believes HS2, which would use 225mph trains to link the north and south of England by 2026, is vital, but party figures including Lord Mandelson and Alistair Darling have attacked the rising cost.

The shadow chancellor, Ed Balls, warned last week that he would not write a blank cheque for the scheme.

Eagle told the Sunday Times: "I am not willing to see this project start draining money from other vital rail projects – it's got to be delivered within the current budget. Nobody who is delivering it should be under any illusions that I will allow it to go up and up. That would put our commitment to it at risk. It shouldn't be going up above that £50bn cap."

(read more)

 

[tbtc]

Capacity issues are at the London end. Why not look to reduce the need for people to travel to and from London? Carry on as we are and the capacity of London as a whole becomes a serious issue.

Job creation, house building, local transport spending. Spread out the capital spending and wealth generation to regions. Do that and and you reduce the demand for travel to and from London.

That's a radical solution. But with a Westminster bubble holding the purse strings, making decisions, and dressing them up as being in the national interest, when they are anything but, then we will continue to have large capital projects centered on the interests of London rather than the country as a whole. 8.1 million people live in London. 54.6 million people don't.

Ideally, but how do we stop people from wanting to work in London? Look how expensive its been to transfer a few BBC jobs out of the capital?

We've lots of empty houses in the UK - they were selling them for a quid in Stoke on Trent recently because there's no demand to live in some areas (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-stoke-staffordshire-22247663) - reality is that demand is to work in London.

Connecting the rest of the UK to the Capital better, so that people can stay living in Yorkshire/ Lancashire (when they see a well paid job in London) is one way of healing the disparity. I'm not sure what other realistic ways there are - unless we force jobs out of London (which I'm not suggesting)

1) By the completion date of 2030, the reality of commuting would be so different as to make the sole justification for HS2 irrelevant

*It's centered on an idea of office work which by its 2030 completion date would be wholly outdated

As I've said a couple of times recently, I reckon most white collar workers have had internet access since the railways were privatised.

Has demand for 9-5 commuters at London Terminals gone up or down since then? We have video conferencing, we have home-working, we have fast internet connections - we've had these things for some time in fact - and demand for commuter trains in London goes up and up despite it.

Unless you *know* how things will be in 2030?

2) Workers could always just take an earlier train

Aha!

All that overcrowding solved in an instant! Why didn't the Government think of this ages ago?

the Westminster Bubble HiveMind

Good old "Northern" conspiracy mode

*The initial London-NotQuiteBirmingham expressway avoids dozens of towns and cities and millions of potential customers who will not be able to use a service which a) they've paid for, and b) runs through where they live

High speed railway doesn't stop in every village?

As I've explained before, there are hundreds of services running non-stop through places like Buckinghamshire at the moment - diverting them onto HS2 will allow "millions of potential customers" to use the capacity freed up by this - like making Milton Keynes to London a "turn up and go" service, like more fast trains through Northampton.

How would you serve these dozens of towns/ cities and millions of people btw?

*It's London-centric
*It does nothing for the millions of people who travel in Wales, SW England, Scotland and the East, and almost nothing for northerners above Manchester

Leeds is north of Manchester btw.

Since services from London to Edinburgh/ Glasgow/ Newcastle are going to run on the faster HS2 tracks, it will mean they get a faster service to London (and to Birmingham etc too).

Can't remember whether Holyhead sees some HS2 services?

*The costs have already increased to £73bn (Treasury Figures)

In 2032 terms - £73bn in 2032 is the same as something like £40bn in 2013 - it sounds bigger and scarier (until you realise that most prices double every generation, so it's nothing like £73bn in today's terms)

*The work robs the rest of the existing national network of the regional specific infrastructure improvements it needs

I could have bought into that argument, were it not for CP5 and the hundreds of miles of electrification/ thousands of new carriages etc being built.

Reality is, HS2 comes from a different pot of Government money - the same one that Crossrail is paying for (and if we don't spend it on HS2 then it's not going to be there for other rail projects)

By simply fixing the WCML within Birmingham

Simply?

How? The suggestions on here for capacity improvements are pretty thin on the ground

*It will be completed so far in the future that many of the assumptions made about those who will benefit would have been radically altered

With that mindset, we'd never have built motorways or any other long term infrastructure.

 

[Dave1987]

You can free up paths by focusing resources at the worst places on the WCML, rather than building an entirely new London-centric network. For less money. And with results in a handful of years rather than 20/30+.

There are people on here who are a lot more clued up on the dynamics of the track on the WCML but as I understand it yes we could pump another £10/£20/30bn to iron out every single problem on the WCML but there is only so much you can do with the WCML. The last wave of updates to it did an awful lot towards making it as good as it going to get. It would require a vast amount of money to upgrade it further for nowhere near as much benefit as you get from building a brand new high speed line that could be built to a loading gauge where you could run double decker trains.

 

[Ironside]

Two things:

1) By the completion date of 2030, the reality of commuting would be so different as to make the sole justification for HS2 irrelevant
2) Workers could always just take an earlier train.

.

1) would be interested to see you to back that statement up. Countries like Korea have very fast Internet that would support video conferencing but they are using and building high speed rail.

2). As the numbers of passengers increases that will not be practicle as the railway needs a certain amount of time over night for maintainance. Having to leave hours before you would currently have to is hardly practicle or good for society.

It's also interesting that your two points conflict, is demand for passenger travel going to go up or down?

 

[NSEFAN]

HS2 does nothing of the sort. It enables the kind of office workers who might not exist in 30 years time to get into London 15 minutes earlier than usual, leaving travellers in, say, Stoke or Norwich with the same (or even slower) stopping services robbed of vital investment because HS2 gobbled it all up.

Spend less money, more wisely, and get better results.

I fear that we are all going round in circles.

You say that HS2's about saving time. What about all those office workers who don't live in Birmingham, but near the stations further south? They won't necessarily be getting trains that are any faster, only more trains and a better chance of getting a seat.

If you're worried that HS2 will be diverting funds from other more important projects, take a look at the planned upgrades in place for Control Periods 5 and 6. Also, don't forget that even £73 billion spread over 20 years is not a lot of money from the perspective of the national budget.

 

[PR1Berske]

I fear that we are all going round in circles.

Arguing on the Internet usually ends up like that

I'm happy to see Labour's "cap" now appearing. I suspect they will move into full opposition as the election approaches, so hopefully the project will be scrapped by 2015.

 

[tbtc]

I'm happy to see Labour's "cap" now appearing. I suspect they will move into full opposition as the election approaches, so hopefully the project will be scrapped by 2015.

Sounds like a clever move from Labour to limit the spiralling compensation claims and to reassure people that costs aren't going to get as silly as some people have suggested.

Hopefully that'll draw a line under the "eleventybillion pounds" arguments (by the time the IEA have added in the costs of Crossrail Three too!)

 

[Dave1987]

Arguing on the Internet usually ends up like that

I'm happy to see Labour's "cap" now appearing. I suspect they will move into full opposition as the election approaches, so hopefully the project will be scrapped by 2015.

Are you now accepting that your £73bn price tag is nonsense?

May I also remind you that nearly 1/4 of the current budget is a contingency fund. The only think that is going to drive costs up and up is the 51M court action. But I think that is the whole idea of their action.

 

[PR1Berske]

Are you now accepting that your £73bn price tag is nonsense?

May I also remind you that nearly 1/4 of the current budget is a contingency fund. The only think that is going to drive costs up and up is the 51M court action. But I think that is the whole idea of their action.

That figure of £73bn comes from Treasury sources quoted in the Financial Times, so take it up with them.

 

[CalderRail]

The only way it could cost £70bn (or even £50bn) is if inflation skyrockets. Of course, if Labour get into power unrestrained inflation skyrocketing is quite likely. Self-fulfilling prophecy there I think.

Also, I note people are still rolling out the "London <> Birmingham commuters" falsehood. How many people make a regular commute between two major cities? No, HS2 takes long-distance travellers, such as those heading to & from the London airports and the channel tunnel, away from the WCML. In doing so it frees up capacity and time on the WCML for those actual daily commuters who live in the 1-hour zone around London.

 

[Dave1987]

That figure of £73bn comes from Treasury sources quoted in the Financial Times, so take it up with them.

Yes and that is a 2030 figure based on inflation. I've already commented on that.

 

[Ironside]

Sounds like a clever move from Labour to limit the spiralling compensation claims and to reassure people that costs aren't going to get as silly as some people have suggested.

Hopefully that'll draw a line under the "eleventybillion pounds" arguments (by the time the IEA have added in the costs of Crossrail Three too!)

Definitely an opportunistic move. it appeals to those that are worried about the the media reports of rising costs of HS2 on the the one hand whilst those that want HS2 know it won't cost that much. It also an attempt to criticise the coalition and differenciates themselves from the other parties before the next election.

 

[6Gman]

That figure of £73bn comes from Treasury sources quoted in the Financial Times, so take it up with them.

The £42b is based on present day prices

The £73b is based on 2030 prices

(to put it crudely)

Apples and pears!

 

[Bonemaster]

Eurostar is probably the best example of a premium offering, and even that has low fares available.

Headline lowest fares with the fastest operator are £9 to Birmingham at 7.9p per mile, and £12.50 to Manchester at 6.8p per mile. Eurostars best offering is £69 return at 12.2p per mile.
Showing Eurostars best deal at 78% more a mile than Virgins current offering.

That assumes there will still be a reasonable slower choice.
Chiltern might just manage to provide one for Birmingham but the through "ICWC Classic" services to Manchester and the like will not be able to absorb any significant number of end to end passengers without becoming dangerously overloaded.

They will not be the "fastest" option, they will be the "only practical option".

Will there not be more trains on the classic lines, which is one of the pro HS2 groups key arguements, even when we say the WCML is almost totally full how, from Birmingham passengers have three choices all are practical and we have a full railway. To pretend classic line capacity is going to collapse with HS2 to show yourself to be right is crazy, this just is not the plan, or the argument in favour.

Actually I spent a great deal of time considering the value calculations for HS2 and I agree with most of them with minor exceptions in that I consider their growth model to be far far too conservative.

Well current actual growth numbers in ICWC passengers would provide such growth in under 20 years.
And that is without the journey times on the important routes being cut effectively in half.
I believe the growth model is incredibly conservative and does not account for the social changes that will be expected over the very long life time of the project.

So why dodge a very simple question with, I need to do the maths, it is obvious you have no faith in HS2s numbers, you say so above. Now may well be the time to point out that HS2 growth predictions were double what Network Rail, and DfT said in there own reports, and you believe these are conservative, making statements like this destroys your credibility as an informed opinion, as they stomp all over what three separate groups of "experts" say. I trust you have no experience of how forecasting any kind of growth works.

Nope, the total number of staff will fall.
The number of staff per passenger will collapse.
Using the highly simplified assumption that demand from each passenger for catering service increases in proportion to journey length (there would be no time for a sit down meal on the Birmingham run and it would be probably very pushed to fit into the Manchester run), you can provide twice as many passengers with refreshments with the same catering staff if the journey time halves.
You can also provide almost twice as many journies with each catering crew.

That gives you four times as many passengers carried with the same on board catering team.

I'm afraid you make such an incorrect assumption, supply will leap overnight, demand will (or may not) rise over time, as such you have at least a short term impact, where the staff costs per passenger km go skywards.

Haha, oh deary me. You think train fares in this country will ever go down?

They quiet simply wont, HS2 will charge what the market will bear, the market works quiet nicely today, and with more of the proportion of railway costs being passed from the taxpayer to the passenger, this will only continue, expect revenue maximisation techniques.

Indeed we're are different from Germany. We, for instance, have the advantage of having a number of defined conurbations that mean linking them with high speed rail has a lot of advantages unlike a country like Germany where the population are rather more spread. The likes of SNCF and DB would love to have the definition that our population centres do.

It's meant to be a high speed railway line, quickly connecting our cities, not another metropolitan railway connecting small towns and suburbs.

Yes we have large defined conurbations that are critically very close together. HS passes close too but does not directly link to, or fails in its ability to serve 7 of the 20 largest conurbations in the country. Actually serving 3 of those 7 is exceptionally easy, as well as another in the top 30, as simple as adding in a station to the existing design, which is much easier now, than deciding mistakes were made in 30 years time, and have to add them in afterwards.

The quality of debate goes from bad to worse.

Given the capacity problems on the WCML in 2013 (no room to fit in a couple of extra Virgin services to Shrewsbury, TOCs complaining about unreliability of the line) and the big increase in population we'll see by 2033, we need extra capacity.

That's regardless of how other countries do things, but most comparable countries are building High Speed lines - just like they were building "motorways" around the same time that we were building new fast roads to take pressure of our busy A-roads.

This was actually a very good point, not quiet the words I would have chosen, simply "keeping up with the Jones'" is not a credible arguement, and nor is increase in the population, it is the economically inactive who are set to increase the population.

 

[Tobbes]

Arguing on the Internet usually ends up like that

I'm happy to see Labour's "cap" now appearing. I suspect they will move into full opposition as the election approaches, so hopefully the project will be scrapped by 2015.

PR1B

I've waited until now to wade into this discussion, but despite your trenchant opposition, you've not made any concrete suggestions about how to deal with the capacity issues on the WCML, especially at the southern end. (Other than telling people to leave earlier....:roll

So, I'd be grateful if you could answer some specific questions:

(1) How much capacity you think will be needed on the WCML by 2040?
(2) How you would go about providing it?
(3) How much this will cost?
(4) How much disruption and for how long will these works take?
(5) If you wanted to reduce demand to meet the available capacity, please say so.
(6) If you have to reduce demand (presumably through ticket costs) what the broader macroeconomic impact will be (a) of any region outside of the M25 and (b) of the UK as a whole.

This is the quality of the debate that the antis- need to pony up. And no, I'm not for HS2 at any cost, but I am for it for £42bn because of the capacity benefits and future proofing it provides - as well as the fact that it will impact on existing services far less than any remotely comparable option.

Tobbes

(PS, Parenthetically, I also assume that if there is a parkway station provided in the Chilterns - possibly near Wendover - then the increase in house prices would rapidly swing support locally... Chilterns Parkway to Canary Wharf with one change at OOC in 30 mins? Yes, that could bump up house prices a bit...)

 

[PR1Berske]

I would focus money on where it matters - Manchester, Birmingham - and spend that money wisely. I would look at advances in signalling technology and intelligent timetabling.

 

[jon0844]

Many residents want to secure compensation and I'm sure can be easily bribed. And to ensure they are bribed, they need to kick up a fuss. (for clarification, I don't mean illegal bribing!)

I have no doubt HS2 will be approved and go ahead, and these people will drop their objections. Or the highly influential people, with their large amount of land and nice stately homes, will get what they want and then leave the others in the cold - having simply used them.

 

[PR1Berske]

From The Independent (source http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/editorials/the-hs2-sums-just-dont-add-up-8784222.html)

Aside from Labour unease, one problem facing backers of HS2 is that grands projects in transport are not as fashionable as they were. France has cancelled a planned TGV line from Paris to Nice after a crash outside Paris revealed the neglected state of suburban rail lines. AVE bullet trains have transformed rail travel in Spain, but criticism is growing there, too. In Britain, this argument has the potential to become toxic because it is not clear how Scotland, Wales or the West Country can expect to benefit from a high-speed line to the Midlands.

If the objection to HS2 is to be countered, it is imperative to reinforce vague talk about creating “thousands of jobs” with firmer economic data. It is not enough to write off the opponents of the scheme as a mishmash of Luddites and Nimbys. If supporters of HS2 cannot state their case more clearly than they have done, it will fail, and it will deserve to

Nobody can answer the point about all the towns and cities across England, let alone Wales and Scotland, not having access to the London/NotQuiteBirmingham Expressway. And that might be the detail which sinks the whole scheme.

 

[Tobbes]

I would focus money on where it matters - Manchester, Birmingham - and spend that money wisely. I would look at advances in signalling technology and intelligent timetabling.

Which answers none of the questions I asked, but is typical of the anti-HS2 lobby's waffle.

Taking your points one at a time. First, I suspect that everyone wants to spend the money wisely.

Second, the area where it "matters" in capacity terms is overwhelmingly London - Birmingham, but in any event you haven't told us what you would do in Birmingham or Manchester, so it is impossible to compare it with HS2.

Third, you aren't clear what difference signalling can make, how much it would cost (presumably you know that ERTMS moving block isn't ready, that you'd have to retrofit the entire fleet to work with it, and that the failure of moving block was the death knell for the Railtrack upgrade of the WCML) or how disruptive it would be to resignal the WCML, or indeed what this cost / disruption would deliver?

Other than that, many thanks for your helpful input to the debate. :roll:

Tobbes

 

[PR1Berske]

Which answers none of the questions I asked, but is typical of the anti-HS2 lobby's waffle.

Taking your points one at a time. First, I suspect that everyone wants to spend the money wisely.

Second, the area where it "matters" in capacity terms is overwhelmingly London - Birmingham, but in any event you haven't told us what you would do in Birmingham or Manchester, so it is impossible to compare it with HS2.

Third, you aren't clear what difference signalling can make, how much it would cost (presumably you know that ERTMS moving block isn't ready, that you'd have to retrofit the entire fleet to work with it, and that the failure of moving block was the death knell for the Railtrack upgrade of the WCML) or how disruptive it would be to resignal the WCML, or indeed what this cost / disruption would deliver?

Other than that, many thanks for your helpful input to the debate. :roll:

Tobbes

Imagine spending money where it matters - the South West, into/out of Liverpool, into/out of Manchester. Now imagine how quickly and value for money that work would be, and how soon results would be shown, and how positive those results are.

You can get from Wakefield to London in about 1hr 57minutes. Why spend -- if you insist - £20bn on making it 1hr 30?

Working on resignalling WCML would of course be disruptive, I understand that, but better to work on what we've got than creating an entirely new London-centric expressway for a 15minute time saving for only commuters and management to enjoy.