High Speed Two (HS2) discussion

[digitaltoast]

HS2 will still be doing what it does when airfares and cars become hideously expensive. Think of it as an investment in future proofing our infrastructure. When the M1 and M6 were built, the massive outlays for the amount of traffic they saw would have been seen as ridiculous. Without the motorways, where would travel be now?

As environmentalist George Monbiot concedes:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jul/02/peak-oil-we-we-wrong

Peak oil hasn't happened, and it's unlikely to happen for a very long time.

Maugeri's analysis of projects in 23 countries suggests that global oil supplies are likely to rise by a net 17m barrels per day (to 110m) by 2020. This, he says, is "the largest potential addition to the world's oil supply capacity since the 1980s"

HS2 is predicted to be complete by 2032. In the last 10 years, broadband has gone from £30 for 2mb/sec and a 2Gb cap to £18 for 40 mb/sec virtually unlimited. There are very few places in the country I can't pull over and hook up to 2mb/sec wirelessly for a tenner a month.

I did a 101 mile journey in my plain ol' diesel Ecomotive last month and got over 82mpg across the journey. Fuel efficiency increases mean that it costs me the same now to drive my Ecomotive, as it did to drive my Cortina in the late 80's when fuel was 35p/litre. Yes, fuel is 4x as expensive now as when I first drove, but it costs me in fact LESS to drive as I pay no road tax. And it's not even a fancy hybrid.

So, what would cause cars and planes to be "hideously expensive", while trains suddenly drop in price? The fuel to power the train still has to be generated somehow. If it's 100% nuclear, by then everyone will have electric cars anyway, charging overnight on cheap rate or in the day on surplus wind capacity. If it's fossil fuel, trains will still be subject to the same fuel price increases, direct or indirect, as cars. Right now, jumping on a train from Birmingham to Oxford would cost me at least £45. I can do that journey for £14 in my car. I'd be nuts to drive that journey, but some don't have that choice. What makes you think the situation is going to reverse in the next 20 years?

As for the M6 - well, let's just hope you're not travelling on it when someone decides to light a fake cigarette

And what about the regeneration benefits it has unlocked (the Olympics, say)?

You've completely lost me there. What regeneration benefits does the Olympics have? It's a 2 week long taxpayer-funded corporate advertising deal providing jobs for overseas companies and workers, as for the "legacy"... http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b016wzs5

I'm not making the connection between the Olympics and the price and method of commuting in 20 years time. Please, enlighten.

 

[HSTEd]

Like I said HS2 tickets could be cheaper than conventional tickets.

I predict London-Manchester AP tickets at roughly £15 return if the system is done properly.
Properly in this case meaning "pile em high, sell em cheap" with DOO, ATO and 1300 seat trains.

 

[The Ham]

So, what would cause cars and planes to be "hideously expensive", while trains suddenly drop in price? The fuel to power the train still has to be generated somehow. If it's 100% nuclear, by then everyone will have electric cars anyway, charging overnight on cheap rate or in the day on surplus wind capacity. If it's fossil fuel, trains will still be subject to the same fuel price increases, direct or indirect, as cars. Right now, jumping on a train from Birmingham to Oxford would cost me at least £45. I can do that journey for £14 in my car. I'd be nuts to drive that journey, but some don't have that choice. What makes you think the situation is going to reverse in the next 20 years?
.

There is a good chance that with HS2 freeing up capacity there will be more advance tickets for the existing E/WCML services, due to the rules of supply & demand. As at present because there is overcrowding of peak hour trains the TOC's put their peak hour prices up to encorage people to travel off peak.

Also the problem with comparing costs of trains vs cars is often people only look at the cost of the petrol. If you, by using public transport, don't need a second car you can save youself a lot of money. There are now people who even in smaller cities, who by using car club cars some of the time and public transport for their normal day to day trips, for whom it is cheaper to not own a car.

For example you want a second car so you can get to work and maybe a few trips in the evening/weekends, if you were to lease a small car £120/month, insure it £300, service it £150 and tax it £35 that works out at £5 per day whether you use it or not. Compare that to say an all zone all transport travel card for the West Midlands (brought monthly) and it works out at £3.30 per day. Which would mean that you'd have at least £50/month (plus the savings in fuel and parking charges) for journies that you couldn't do with the travel card.

OK there is the downside of having to wait for public transport, but there are delays in owning a car (such as having to take it to be serviced, filling up with petrol, finding a parking space, waiting for it to de-ice on winter mornings, etc.) which we all accept as reasonable use of our time.

More and more people are realising this as for the last 4 years the number of miles driven by cars has either fallen or flat lined when it has always been predicted that car usage would continue upwards for at least some time. This is the reason that we need to invest in increasing our public transport network beyond where it is now.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Why does the driving force behind this insane project have to be a state secret?

One of the arguments given in the Telegraph artical against people wanting to travel to Paris by train is that the flight time is an hour, whilst the train time would be more. This fails to take on board the fact that you have to queue for check in and security and the time it takes to get from your seat on the plane to the front doors of the airport. Add to this that most airports are right pain to get to/from and people do not like having to change (between train, bus, car, taxi and plane and back again).

 

[Metroland]

I also don't understand this prediction we will all travel less because of broadband. As someone that has always embraced new technology I don't see this at all. I was pretty much first to have a smart phone among people I know, get broadband, I work mostly from home etc What all this technology has brought to me is more social and business connections and I've ended up traveling more, not less.

Now most people carry a smart phone, most people have broadband, video conferencing has been about for years, and guess what rail travel is still growing at around 6% per year. Which means in just over 10 years the number of passengers could potentially double. This is while car travel is flat lining and ownership in some demographic areas (especially the under 25s) is plummeting.

No other transport area is growing like rail, domestic flight passenger numbers have declined since the early 2000s.

The question is, or should be, what do we do about this?

The network is relatively small, some towns are not even connected to it. There are some 23 times more roads than railways. Within the rail network, it's still the main lines than carry the most traffic. In other words there is this huge pressure on certain lines to accommodate growth. Many of these lines are mixed traffic, have have to carry freight, commuters and in some cases intercity trains.

Yes we can relieve some pinch points, but there comes a time new capacity needs to be added. Which leaves us with the following options:

1. Price people off trains, in some cases back onto the road, especially in the peak.

2. Re-open some closed lines such as the GCR, but often these lines are heavily built over in urban areas and would be very costly and not offer any time savings.

3. Build brand new capacity, such as HS2.

If we look at other forms of travel:

- Domestic flights carry 21 million people per year, the same as a smallish TOC (Eg EMT). They have been declining since since the mid 2000s and are only relevant on specific flows: Mainly London to Scotland, South coast to Scotland and Midlands to North of Scotland.

- Coach travel. Some people think coaches are an answer, the theories are not reflected in practice. They are slow, suit a certain demographic and carry a relatively small number of passengers. National express carries 17 million people per year, and megabus around 5 milion. Again, in other words the same as a small TOC combined. While the market is growing, rail is growing much faster because on the whole it's a more attractive product.

- Car travel. This is pretty much flat lining, but new motorway capacity is very expensive. One of the reason no new toll motorways have been built is because of cost, more than HSR and usually in excess of 60 million a mile. They tend to create more blight and use more land than HSR.

- Freight. Most people want to see more freight on trains, but the fact is, it also wants to use routes intensively used by passenger trains. 60-75mph freights do not mix well with 125mph plus passenger trains, the same as on the road. Freight is being held back in some areas because of the needs of passenger trains.

HS2 critics need to give very credible answers about what we do if we don't build it. I've heard radio interviews with people claiming in steam days 20 coach trains ran. Yes, very occasionally, but the coaches were much shorter and trains were flighted and ran at nothing like the intensity of today or the speeds.

 

[gordonthemoron]

and the response to the claim by HS2 critics that it would be more cost effective to upgrade existing lines is: WCML upgrade fiasco

 

[Geezertronic]

and the response to the claim by HS2 critics that it would be more cost effective to upgrade existing lines is: WCML upgrade fiasco

Looking at the pure costs of upgrading the WCML, the costs would probably look more attractive than HS2 but that fails to take into consideration the actual financial impact of the actual upgrade to people using the lines, service rescheduling (which should include the cost of rail replacement), and lots of other things that I cannot think of at the moment but I am sure others will add.

All I do know is that (as it was for me with the original WCML upgrade), it would be a total nightmare for anyone that uses the line for the duration of the upgrade

 

[GRALISTAIR]

I am still a little agnostic about HS2 despite being a total rail enthusiast. Let us say all the pros were given a choice -
1) Spend the £26Billion or whatever the projected cost on HS2
2) Spend every single penny of that £26Billion on electrification and other improvements to existing infrastructure, new curves, station etc
What would you choose? I was totally pro HS2 then that question was asked of me this morning and it made me think

 

[brianthegiant]

Metroland is right, the argument ' we dont need more rail lines because with faster broadband people will travel less' is wishful thinking.

To anyone who want to make that point, great, show us some hard evidence

My experience is that corporations have been using web-conferencing for years. but in the same period that web-conferencing became common-place rail travel doubled in the UK.
see my graph here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_transport_in_Great_Britain

So the correlation in the UK between use of web-conferencing and rail passenger journeys is negative...!

As I've said before on this forum, web conferencing has its limits. In any business relationship you need negotiation and you need to build understanding and trust. For those you do at times need eye contact and hand shaking ie face to face meetings. The web-conferencing is only good for the interim catch up discussions which before were done by phone anyway.

 

[Joseph_Locke]

a better solution would be to re-open and wire Sandbach-Stockport via Altrincham, reopening Middlewich station. Wiring the Hartford curve would then allow for stopping services from Crewe-Liverpool via both Winsford & Greenbank, and would allow for Mid-Cheshire line services of greater frequency into Manchester for Northwich, as well as much improved southbound connections at Crewe.

I'm sorry to knit my brow here, but what?

Hartford chord is north to east (ish). Are you seriously proposing a Crewe - Sandbach - Middlewich - (not Northwich) -Greenbank - (not Hartford or Winsford) - Acton Bridge - Liverpool service?

 

[Geezertronic]

I am still a little agnostic about HS2 despite being a total rail enthusiast. Let us say all the pros were given a choice -
1) Spend the £26Billion or whatever the projected cost on HS2
2) Spend every single penny of that £26Billion on electrification and other improvements to existing infrastructure, new curves, station etc
What would you choose? I was totally pro HS2 then that question was asked of me this morning and it made me think

Without HS2 there is no £26Billion (or whatever the projected cost is) so your 2nd choice wouldn't happen anyway as there is no choice to be made.

 

[Holly]

I'm sorry to knit my brow here, but what?
Hartford chord is north to east (ish). Are you seriously proposing a Crewe - Sandbach - Middlewich - (not Northwich) -Greenbank - (not Hartford or Winsford) - Acton Bridge - Liverpool service?

I think he was proposing to include Northwich (reverse).

However, I think at a much lower cost would be electrified Northwich-Greenbank-Acton Bridge (change for Liverpool), Warrington BQ, Manchester (via Chat Moss).
It would solve the problem of infrequent and terribly slow Northwich and Greenbank to Manchester service. It surely would be used by many commuters instead of just a few if it weren't a lot slower than it was 50 years ago with first generation DMUs (it presently is slower than it was then)!
And it would also allow trains from Chester to turn back at Altrincham instead of at Stockport so as to relieve pressure on Stockport.

Goodness, it's only three miles of new OHLE and Northwich has a spare platform face.

 

[WatcherZero]

I would naturally like to see significant investment in the classic network, however the WCML will be full by 2020, no amount of small improvements is going to make up for the inability of people to get a seat to travel between Manchester and London, it would just force people onto the roads.

 

[tbtc]

I think he was proposing to include Northwich (reverse).

However, I think at a much lower cost would be electrified Northwich-Greenbank-Acton Bridge (change for Liverpool), Warrington BQ, Manchester (via Chat Moss).
It would solve the problem of infrequent and terribly slow Northwich and Greenbank to Manchester service. It surely would be used by many commuters instead of just a few if it weren't a lot slower than it was 50 years ago with first generation DMUs (it presently is slower than it was then)!
And it would also allow trains from Chester to turn back at Altrincham instead of at Stockport so as to relieve pressure on Stockport.

Goodness, it's only three miles of new OHLE and Northwich has a spare platform face.

There's spare capacity at Northwich, sure, but where's the spare capacity from Manchester to Warrington and from Warrington down the WCML to Acton Bridge?

 

[BananaRepublic]

you misunderstand, SNCF wants to run TGV postal services to London but the track access charges are prohibitive

If you are referring to the Postal TGV promotion and visit to St. Pancras earlier this year; then this has nothing to do with SNCF or Postal services.

The proposal is by EuroCarex (incidentally, SNCF are a minor partner in the organisation).
It's for airfreight feeder services using HS rail, to/from and between the major European air freight hubs.
If this plan goes ahead, any services to the UK via HS1, will terminate at a dedicated EuroCarex freight terminal in Barking, E London.

The train that visited St. Pancras was simply hired for the promo visit, as it was available and EuroCarex don't have their own trains yet.

 

[Holly]

electrified Northwich-Greenbank-Acton Bridge (change for Liverpool), Warrington BQ, Manchester (via Chat Moss).

There's spare capacity at Northwich, sure, but where's the spare capacity from Manchester to Warrington and from Warrington down the WCML to Acton Bridge?

There is more spare capacity than Stockport-Manchester which is what would be freed up by replacing the present arrangement. A lot of benefits arise from this swap.

 

[brianthegiant]

Without HS2 there is no £26Billion (or whatever the projected cost is) so your 2nd choice wouldn't happen anyway as there is no choice to be made.

Agreed, we've been round this argument a few times on this thread...

Getting parliament AND the treasury AND possibly private finance to open the purse string wide enough for an unprecedented £26B of railway investment is no easy task. If you want the purse string opened that wide it's got to be for something which delivers a step-change in capacity, reliability, journey times AND quality of service. To suggest the same £26B would still be available for endless patch & mend of the victorian lines is very wishful thinking, politics just doesn't work like that.

Lets not forget that the Govt & NR are commited to unprecedented annual investment in classic lines for the foreseeable future (electrification, crossrail, thameslink, northern hub, stations upgrades, gsmr/ertms rollout, signalling centres, level crossing upgrades, linespeed improvements, junction reconfig, etc, etc....).

So I dont think we can say HS2 is starving the classic lines of investment.

 

[PR1Berske]

That's a great post and goes straight to the heart of the argument.

It reminds me of the House of Lords discussions. We can either wait another 100 years for a solution, or we can get on with things now and iron out the problems later.

What we can't do - what we can't afford to do - is bring the whole thing to a halt whilst searching for the absolute, most perfect, most faultless solution ever created under the Sun.

HS2 is vital - hesitation would be economic suicide.

 

[tbtc]

Lets not forget that the Govt & NR are commited to unprecedented annual investment in classic lines for the foreseeable future (electrification, crossrail, thameslink, northern hub, stations upgrades, gsmr/ertms rollout, signalling centres, level crossing upgrades, linespeed improvements, junction reconfig, etc, etc....).

So I dont think we can say HS2 is starving the classic lines of investment.

Ten/fifteen years ago I might have been against HS2 because of the worry that it'd starve "classic" lines of investment (at a time when there were no significant infrastructure improvements on the horizon).

Now, with the schemes that you mention to look forward to, HS2 is a bonus on top (rather than "instead of).

 

[HSTEd]

Ten/fifteen years ago I might have been against HS2 because of the worry that it'd starve "classic" lines of investment (at a time when there were no significant infrastructure improvements on the horizon).

Now, with the schemes that you mention to look forward to, HS2 is a bonus on top (rather than "instead of).

Maybe not now.

What about 15 years from now.... I'm worried.

 

[Chris125]

Maybe not now.

What about 15 years from now.... I'm worried.

No one has a time machine, but if rail investment in Crossrail, Thameslink, the Tube Upgrade, IEP, various electrification projects, Northern Hub and so on can all survive the worst recession in living memory then its hard to see how HS2 - which isnt being funded out of the DfT's rail budget anyway - is going to spell doom for rail investment which is widely considered a good thing for government to spend money on. There's no real reason for that to change, after all the same growth predictions that justify HS2 make investing in the rest of the network a neccesity too.

Chris

 

[The Ham]

Maybe not now.

What about 15 years from now.... I'm worried.

15 years ago the main drive for improving transport was building new roads, then the main drive was improving buses and cycle provision.

However there were problems, such as every time a new road was built it just move the problem along the network and therefore bringing little benefit. With buses as soon as the subsidies were cut the level of bus service got cut and there are only so many cycle routes that can be built within the existing highway network.

At least with trains when a new service route is provided it is very hard for the TOC's to get rid of it all together. This means that once an improvement to the railway is made it tends to have a longer term benefit than investment in other transport facilities.

As such unless some major high profile scheme is built (e.g. cross rail, northern hub, etc) and it is shown to have not have provided the benefit that it was anticipated (and given most rail schemes are based on 2% passenger growth this is reasonably unlikely) then there maybe a risk of rail funding being cut. However if such schemes are built and passenger numbers go through the roof compared to predictions (12% plus i.e. more than double the growth that is recorded currently and 6 times predicted growth), expect much more investment in rail projects.

 

[Deerfold]

15 years ago the main drive for improving transport was building new roads, then the main drive was improving buses and cycle provision.

Really? I don't remember any huge improvements for buses. A few areas had minor improvements but I'd hardly call it the main drive. Cycle provision is hardly widespread in this country either.

I'd agree that there were plenty of new/enlarged roads.

 

[jon0844]

Cycle lane provision is a joke. No, it's a disgrace.

Most councils have to build a certain amount of cycle paths, based on overall miles (or kilometres) built. So, what do we get? Proper off-road cycle paths in some places, usually by wide open roads where it's easier to cycle on the road anyway.

Then we get the pavements getting narrower so they become shared access. Then they disappear and you're back on the road again. In Hatfield, they built a new cycle path from the station to the town, but at a major roundabout which is a danger to cyclists (fast, two lane roundabout) - yes - you guessed it, you went back onto the road! And on the other side, towards the other end of Hatfield? Well, that bit is now two years late and no sign of any work starting yet.

The amount of cycle paths that don't join up are huge, so what's happening is money is wasted on cycle paths that people don't use. Hardly an investment in infrastructure for the future.

Now, building new railway lines is a pretty safe bet. And if you were a business (or private individual) that wanted to invest in something with a fairly secure future, a new railway (or a new motorway or bypass) would probably be a good investment.

If we had buses run like TfL run them in London, you might be able to argue that bus lanes would be a good idea to continue building but they're pretty much like cycle lanes - dotted around in almost random places based not on needs, but the ease of building them and ticking a box. Designed by people who probably had no intention of using them, or caring if they helped anyone or not.

 

[The Ham]

Really? I don't remember any huge improvements for buses. A few areas had minor improvements but I'd hardly call it the main drive. Cycle provision is hardly widespread in this country either.

I'd agree that there were plenty of new/enlarged roads.

It was New Labour's policy early in their term that because you could get new bus routes up and running quickly and cheaply they wouldn't invest in rail if there was a way of improving the buses to meet the need of public transport users.

 

[Deerfold]

It was New Labour's policy early in their term that because you could get new bus routes up and running quickly and cheaply they wouldn't invest in rail if there was a way of improving the buses to meet the need of public transport users.

Was there anywhere they actually did this? I know it's what Ken did in London for quick improvements (although he was planning rail improvements but knew they would take far longer), but that was when he and the Labour party were at odds.

 

[Clip]

Maybe not now.

What about 15 years from now.... I'm worried.

They will still be having the public consultation on this and other projects like new airports and such like.

 

[Padav]

@PR1Berske: "What we can't do - what we can't afford to do - is bring the whole thing to a halt whilst searching for the absolute, most perfect, most faultless solution ever created under the Sun"

Fact is, there is no perfect, faultless solution available - to begin with the scenario is dynamic so you can never expect to predict the future with absolute accuracy. The current planned design will evolve over the extended time period of the project anyway.

More specifically, when it comes to localised environmental impact there will always be some losers, ie. individuals, communities and businesses, adversely affected by a scheme of this scale and nature. No project of this kind can possibly avoid everyone, everywhere without incurring insurmountable financial obstacles. ie. it will just cost too damn much. There is no single zero impact option available.

The vociferous anti-HS2 lobby, almost exclusively located in a narrow corridor directly adjacent to the approved ROUTE3 pathway, knows this all too well but they aren't going to let that particular (stating the bloody obvious) cat out of the bag are they? Their mendacious strategy is clear - stir up public sentiment against HS2 through an unholy mix of selective propaganda, setting of impossibly high standards of instant financial payback and the aforesaid zero impact outcome.

Meanwhile a relentless onslaught of largely obscured attrition on various fronts continues apace; seeking to poison public opinion against the project by suggesting alternatives that miraculously seemingly deliver zero impact and similar benefits to HS2 (even a cursory examination reveals the bogus nature of their plans in this quarter), arguing for ever larger sections of deep core tunnelling (to push up overall costs and hopefully torpedo the project via a back door method), whilst simultaneously lobbying in the corridors of power using the many connections in high places at their disposal - for example check out a company called Quiller Consultants commissioned at no small expense by well heeled anti-HS2 campaigners to whisper sweet nothings in the right ears amongst Whitehall based élites.

The high profile Judicial Challenges are simply very public delaying tactics, designed to buy time - the strategy is clear - delay passage of the enabling Hybrid Bill in order that it fails to receive Royal Assent prior to the next General Election. If the Bill falls so does the momentum behind the project and with it the political will currently driving the entire scheme. Deliver that goal and there is every chance HS2 will have to come back in another guise at the behest of an incoming administration - anti-groups in the Chilterns hope that a revised scheme will use another route, nowhere near them meaning job done as far as they are concerned.

Whether or not any revised scheme costs more money (to the taxpayer) and affects more homes, communities and businesses is immaterial here, because they'll be homes, communities and businesses nowhere near their backyards- and that's the only game in town - removing the threat to the immediate environment posed by the currently approved ROUTE3 pathway.

No one shoud be under any illusion - there is no reasonable compromise possible, there is no constructive engagement available - it's all or nothing in a high stakes poker game.

 

[HSTEd]

Deep Core tunnelling is surprisingly cheap..... since noone is suggesting new tunnels or stations in tunnels it doesn't actually cost very much to extend the existing ones.

 

[Padav]

Deep Core tunnelling is surprisingly cheap..... since noone is suggesting new tunnels or stations in tunnels it doesn't actually cost very much to extend the existing ones.

Really - my information is that the cost per metre for deep core tunnelling is approx 5 fold its equivalent surface construction.

Extending tunnels ad-infinitum is not cost effective (for the taxpayer picking up the bill) and in many cases is not even feasible due to topographical and engineering constraints.

And the anti-HS2 brigade located in Burton Green & surrounding areas are suggesting a new, additional, tunnel

 

[Philip Elliott]

The vociferous anti-HS2 lobby, almost exclusively located in a narrow corridor directly adjacent to the approved ROUTE3 pathway

That is where you are completely wrong, there is widespread opposition around the country and will be a lot more when the phase 2 alignments are announced. I would hardly call Staffordshire County council a bunch of southern nimbies...