High Speed Two (HS2) discussion

[AndyLandy]

To be honest, I find it remarkable that there would be any easy wins left to increase capacity on the WCML. After all the trauma we've been through to upgrade it, they must've grabbed every improvement that was on the cards.

There may be some further step-capacity improvements that could be made, but they'll only forestall the inevitable. It wouldn't surprise me to see the entire fleet of Pendolinos eventually taken to 11-car sets, for instance.

 

[Wyvern]

Just had a thought . London - Birmingham - Derby - Leeds - York is how it all started out in 1840. What we need now is another George Hudson.

 

[Dave1987]

To be honest, I find it remarkable that there would be any easy wins left to increase capacity on the WCML. After all the trauma we've been through to upgrade it, they must've grabbed every improvement that was on the cards.

There may be some further step-capacity improvements that could be made, but they'll only forestall the inevitable. It wouldn't surprise me to see the entire fleet of Pendolinos eventually taken to 11-car sets, for instance.

I remember seeing on the news all the time the "misery" faced by the travelling public as the possessions needed to do the previous upgrade work shut the line over many weekends and bank holidays. I really don't see how the upgrades to the WCML proposed by 51M wouldn't cause the same misery and for far less benefit than HS2. Plus NR is struggling to maintain the WCML at the present time so how on earth they would manage with an even more intense service is beyond me.

 

[AndyLandy]

I remember seeing on the news all the time the "misery" faced by the travelling public as the possessions needed to do the previous upgrade work shut the line over many weekends and bank holidays. I really don't see how the upgrades to the WCML proposed by 51M wouldn't cause the same misery and for far less benefit than HS2. Plus NR is struggling to maintain the WCML at the present time so how on earth they would manage with an even more intense service is beyond me.

I remember the misery well. As a WCML traveller, I had the joys of experiencing it first-hand. To this day, I'm still twitchy about taking the train at weekends, especially Sundays.

I can only assume that any of these suggested upgrades were already bombed out during WCRM as not being worth the effort. I'll be astonished if there are any actual 'easy wins' left to be had.

I wonder if there are any capacity improvements to be had on the MML that would allow running London-Manchester expresses that way instead, a la Project Rio, potentially freeing up WCML capacity for other routes. Of course, it would probably just mean causing chaos and misery to passengers on the MML instead, hardly an improvement.

 

[Dave1987]

I remember the misery well. As a WCML traveller, I had the joys of experiencing it first-hand. To this day, I'm still twitchy about taking the train at weekends, especially Sundays.

I can only assume that any of these suggested upgrades were already bombed out during WCRM as not being worth the effort. I'll be astonished if there are any actual 'easy wins' left to be had.

I wonder if there are any capacity improvements to be had on the MML that would allow running London-Manchester expresses that way instead, a la Project Rio, potentially freeing up WCML capacity for other routes. Of course, it would probably just mean causing chaos and misery to passengers on the MML instead, hardly an improvement.

51M are very very keen about up grading the chiltern mainline to the same standard as the WCML which I have admit isn't a bad idea but it still wouldn't provide the necessary capacity improvements seeing as it is only a 2 track line and has a high amount of stations close to Marylebone.

 

[edwin_m]

51M are very very keen about up grading the chiltern mainline to the same standard as the WCML

What would they say about all the London-Birmingham traffic using the Chiltern line and therefore passing through the various towns on the route insead of avoiding them like HS2 would?

 

[Bonemaster]

You're telling me that there are lots of cheaper simpler alternatives to HS2, but you won't tell me what they are?

I've looked into some of the plans for the WCML that are discussed on here like Stafford (and for similar schemes on the ECML like Welwyn) and they generally seem like a lot of disruption for little real gain - and don't add capacity at the southern end of the route.

Taking the DC services out of Euston (either diverting onto the NLL or replacing them with Bakerloo services) would add capacity at the southern end, but that's about it.

Oh well, guess you're not going to tell me then.

If you know something that others on here don't then please share it with us. Share links, ideally to the original data and not a newspaper report.

I've said the name of the document, I suspect it was a document that was seen to be produced not produced to be seen, a study by Atkins for DfT on alternatives to HS2. Its quiet obvious that a large number of people who are arguing pro HS2 don't even know what alternatives have been considered, and the recommended option went further than the 51M optimised solution.

I have seen the alternatives out forward in the 51M and none of them cure the main problem. The alternatives are a sticking plaster and a mortal wound. They may marginally increase capacity in the short term but none of them address the key capacity problems on the WCML and none of them provide a solution for the extra freight traffic. And this is the key point the anti argument might be perfectly plausible as a short term solution but what happens in ten years time when all the alternatives have been done. A lot of money has been spent but the WCML is now full and any new line would take a decade to build. HS2 doesn't just offer a solution to the problem of capacity at the current time, it gives plenty of extra capacity to ensure that we should be ok for another 40-50 years.

But traditional freight is forecast to decrease with an increase in higher speed freight which is faster than a stopping service, there are plenty of diversionary routes that freight can take to avoid mainlines in the busiest sections, e.g. further diversions away from the NLL and via Leicester from Felixstowe and London Gateway, or the ever mooted joint line upgrade. I will ask the question for about the 5th time, how much capacity do we need by the 2030s? Three studies have come up with 3 different answers, either DfT is wrong, Network Rail is wrong, or HS2 Ltd is wrong, although it could be argued two of them are within statistical margin of error.

How does adding one extra carriage upgrade capacity by 62%?
That doesn't even make any sense.

Capacity constrained services are already 11-car, even adding all the Pendolinos up to 12 cars is unlikely to increase capacity by 62%?
(9-car Pendo has 439 seats, a 12-car Pendo would have at most add 51% extra seats, and a rather large part of the fleet is already 11-car).

Your including first class that I'm excluding, and my maths takes the 11 cars into account.

12% extra services?
That comes out at 1.1 Pendolino an hour or something extra doesn't it effectively?
I have demonstrated that HS2 adds capacity of roughly 30 11-car Pendolinos per hour.
So you get 3% of the cost to pay for this entire upgrade project, which is only about a billion pounds, and the cost of the rolling stock alone would eat up a substantial portion of that. (That is going to need 7-8 extra sets of 11 cars each, which is going to be approaching a hundred vehicles, costing ~£230m by DfT figures).

That kind of capacity increase is taking a neutron bomb to crack an egg.

So pinch point removal for £770m? Including disruption payments.
That sounds like its going to be hard to achieve.

Disruption payments included at 10%

12% of capacity growth from pinch point removal gets you a handful of years at best.
The capacity is the best part, the speed is just icing on the cake.
£40bn is not that much considering its a tiny fraction of the national economy and because government debt is so absurdly cheap at the moment. (In real terms the debt would actually shrink due to inflation thanks to the low bond yields).

Plus operational subsidies, HS2 simply can not have a blank cheque written for it. Please put a number of the table at which HS2 becomes a scheme that should not go ahead. I suspect if pushed you may say that HS2 should go ahead whatever the price.

And yet the DfT pursues HS2... this tells you something.
But I think they must just all be party to the conspiracy.

There is no conspiracy, there is a model that states if schemes should be considered and a political system that decides on the political merits, over the electoral cycle, as we all know all three can change very quickly.

 

[NotATrainspott]

If we were stupid enough to cancel HS2, wouldn't we end up closing or reducing the services to many of the local stations along the southern WCML to try to create enough paths for the more important ICWC services? Wouldn't that have a more drastic effect on the property values of the area than any new HS line?

 

[The Decapod]

....I am pro high speed rail, I strongly believe the HS2 proposal is hugely flawed, and would love to be proved wrong. Therefore I would be a sceptic rather than an anti

Regarding "hugely flawed":

250 mph line speed, they say.
Long sections of the route in tunnels, they say.
So....250 mph in tunnels?
I doubt it very much!

 

[HSTEd]

Your including first class that I'm excluding, and my maths takes the 11 cars into account.

Why? First class seats are still seats.
That is rather disingenuous.

That kind of capacity increase is taking a neutron bomb to crack an egg.

And?
You can generate enormous demand increases by dumping the excess tickets in the short term and then increasing the fares back to current levels as the demand increases to reach the new supply level.

Demand is to a degree elastic.

Plus operational subsidies, HS2 simply can not have a blank cheque written for it. Please put a number of the table at which HS2 becomes a scheme that should not go ahead. I suspect if pushed you may say that HS2 should go ahead whatever the price.

Operational costs, lets see:
1. Staff costs are absolutely less than conventional railways (drivers scale by the number of trains run, the catering staff is similar or smaller and also scale by trains), the simple nature of the infrastructure will reduce the number of control staff to one control room for the entire Y.
2. Energy costs are a very minor part of railway operation costs and will easily be swamped by almost any increase in demand for travel.
3. Maintenance Costs will probably increase, but again they are not a catastrophically large factor in costs, and the adoption of innovations of things like double deck vehicles and jacobs bogies should keep this increase under control.
Also note there will be no need to maintain complex tilting mechanisms which is almost certainly a major cost, such that XC went to great lengths to escape it.
So overall it is probably a wash. Considering there will be fewer total trainsets due to the reduced cycle times.


So overall, it appears in absolute terms the operation costs will be comparable to today but that the capacity will be very very much increased, such that the operations cost per passenger will tend to drop drastically.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Regarding "hugely flawed":

250 mph line speed, they say.
Long sections of the route in tunnels, they say.
So....250 mph in tunnels?
I doubt it very much!

Welcome to the world of TBMs, you just have to increase the diameter slightly and you can allow very high speed running.

The cost of tunnels is no longer strongly related to volume of removed material, but primarily to the length of the tunnel drives and only weakly to tunnel diameter.

 

[bnm]

It's not £40bn each, it's £40bn in total. No wonder it looked expensive.

To put things in context, £40,000,000,000 is £667 per person in a country of sixty million people. Over twenty years of construction, that's £33 per person per year. Suddenly these big national figures don't look quite so scary - I can see why the "anti" mob want to focus on the big figure though.

(am sure someone'll be along to correct my maths)

Maths is correct. Original figure isn't. It's £50.1 billion for phases 1 and 2 and rolling stock.

The £7.5 billion for rolling stock is often left out of the total cost but I contend it should be included. After all you can't have a railway without trains.

And whilst I agree with the pro- camp that the IEA figure of £80 billion is somewhat fanciful because of all the irrelevant costs they've attributed to HS2, it's worth pointing out that the Financial Times this week quoted 'senior Treasury figures' who are putting the cost of HS2 at £73 billion.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/1f331cde-0988-11e3-8b32-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2cvOTzwjw

When the Treasury starts questioning figures it really is time for the pro- camp to up their game. And I'll pre-empt criticism of a press report citing unnamed sources. It's common for politicians and civil servants to talk with the press on the understanding that the information they are imparting is not attributed to them. I have no reason to doubt the veracity of the FT article.

I remain on the fence, but further reading today has seen me move from leaning toward the anti- camp to having one foot in it.

As I don't have answers to the capacity issues I can't be fully anti. But on cost alone, with every revision on costs being upward since the project was announced, and with the DfT using an outdated model to forecast the project's economic benefits, I remain to be convinced the country can afford it.

 

[bnm]

It's not £40bn each, it's £40bn in total. No wonder it looked expensive.

To put things in context, £40,000,000,000 is £667 per person in a country of sixty million people. Over twenty years of construction, that's £33 per person per year. Suddenly these big national figures don't look quite so scary - I can see why the "anti" mob want to focus on the big figure though.

(am sure someone'll be along to correct my maths)

Maths is correct. Original figure isn't. It's £50.1 billion for phases 1 and 2 and rolling stock.

The £7.5 billion for rolling stock is often left out of the total cost but I contend it should be included. After all you can't have a railway without trains.

And whilst I agree with the pro- camp that the IEA figure of £80 billion is somewhat fanciful because of all the irrelevant costs they've attributed to HS2, it's worth pointing out that the Financial Times this week quoted 'senior Treasury figures' who are putting the cost of HS2 at £73 billion.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/1f331cde-0988-11e3-8b32-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2cvOTzwjw

When the Treasury starts questioning figures it really is time for the pro- camp to up their game. And I'll pre-empt criticism of a press report citing unnamed sources. It's common for politicians and civil servants to talk with the press on the understanding that the information they are imparting is not attributed to them. I have no reason to doubt the veracity of the FT article.

I remain on the fence, but further reading today has seen me move from leaning toward the anti- camp to having one foot in it.

As I don't have answers to the capacity issues I can't be fully anti. But on cost alone, with every revision on costs being upward since the project was announced, and with the DfT using an outdated model to forecast the project's economic benefits, I remain to be convinced the country can afford it.

 

[Donny Dave]

:roll:

I love it when people just go "Oh, you're trolling"

The line is ADVERTISED as a link to London from Birmingham, that's the context in which I use the term. Ministers use that as a term too. That map shows the link goes TO as well as THROUGH Birmingham.

And how typical, btw, that pro-HS2 cheerleaders close ranks. "Oh you're trolling, bye", is a cop out.

Stage 1 goes to Birmingham. Stage 2 goes to Manchester and Leeds. Even this "anti" knows this much!

Yes, I am against HS2 as it stands, despite the stage 2 announcement. However, despite having not stated my case for a while (some of the regular posters in this thread will know my views), I shall hold my peace until stage 3 is announced.

PS. Your signature is full of bull excrement as well.

 

[Bonemaster]

Demand is to a degree elastic.

Commuter travel is given as one of the most inelastic demand examples going. If you are talking about creating a new commuter belt, you are adding in price inelasatic growth, whereas leisure travel can be argued either way. Dumping of cheap seats to the extent to believe will not happen for two reasons

1) HS2 will be a premium product over classic lines, you dont see premium car manufacturers dumping cars at the price of budget models to use excess supply as it devalues the product.
2) HS2 as a premium high speed product will set its cheaper prices above those of its competitors

If you think a high speed line will lead to an increase in cheap advance fares think again.

Operational costs, lets see:
1. Staff costs are absolutely less than conventional railways (drivers scale by the number of trains run, the catering staff is similar or smaller and also scale by trains), the simple nature of the infrastructure will reduce the number of control staff to one control room for the entire Y.
2. Energy costs are a very minor part of railway operation costs and will easily be swamped by almost any increase in demand for travel.
3. Maintenance Costs will probably increase, but again they are not a catastrophically large factor in costs, and the adoption of innovations of things like double deck vehicles and jacobs bogies should keep this increase under control.
Also note there will be no need to maintain complex tilting mechanisms which is almost certainly a major cost, such that XC went to great lengths to escape it.
So overall it is probably a wash. Considering there will be fewer total trainsets due to the reduced cycle times.

I was being specific to capital costs, if the price rises to £60bn would you believe it offered bad value for money or would that be £80bn or £200bn, or HS2 should be built at any cost? Oh and what increase in demand are you expecting.

BTW by adding in extra capacity with any slack, will increase opex per passenger km unless all of the extra capacity is used from day 1.

 

[DDB]

While channel surfing I caught a part of the paper review on sky news and was pleased and surprised to see the two pundits reviewing the papers actually get the reason for HS2.

Specifically one of them was explaining to the presenter that it is all about capacity and freeing space on the classic network for freight and local trains. He even went on to make the subtle point that speeding up time for truly long distance (London to Newcastle/Edinburgh) would then make it really competitive against air travel.

Maybe there is hope for sensible discussion about HS2 yet!

DDB

 

[HSTEd]

1) HS2 will be a premium product over classic lines, you dont see premium car manufacturers dumping cars at the price of budget models to use excess supply as it devalues the product.

But the marginal cost of extending trains is so low that they are still better off if they "devalue" the product.
It is not necessarily going to be a "Premium" product because the per seat operating costs are so low that that will not give the best return.
Its cost for providing a seat will in fact be lower than classic railways.
The Classic lines can't cut costs to compete because they simply won't be able to afford to lay on the extra seats, they will be forced into using shorter trains more appropriate to the intermediate station demand.

If you think a high speed line will lead to an increase in cheap advance fares think again.

Why wouldn't it?
The best way to get good returns is to pile em high and sell em cheap.
Not maintain some sort of "premium product"?
Where will the trains on the classic lines come from for people to use?
You seem to be assuming that hte conventional ICWC timetable will be able to continue to support vast numbers of passengers flowing to Birmingham and Manchester but it clearly won't.

Otherwise there would be no point.

I was being specific to capital costs, if the price rises to £60bn would you believe it offered bad value for money or would that be £80bn or £200bn, or HS2 should be built at any cost?

But it won't cost that much?
Would you believe that HS2 was evil if it cost £1?
I would have to do new calculations based on my projected economic and social benefits from the construction of the line.
That would take some time that I do not commit lightly.

Oh and what increase in demand are you expecting.

I expect Manchester and Birmingham demand to approximately double, with almost total modal shift to HS2 since the fast classic trains will be reconfigured to suit the lower demand environment for long distance classic trains.

Shorter EMUs being portion worked on the southern WCML.
Leeds is peculiar as the fast trains to London are also the London Midland analogue trains serving intermediate destinations but I expect the classic service to be reduced to an hourly all EC stops to London train.

BTW by adding in extra capacity with any slack, will increase opex per passenger km unless all of the extra capacity is used from day 1.

Not that significantly.
The primary costs will be staffing, which does not change depending on if the set is 200m long or 400m long.
The reduction in catering crew sizes due to the reduced number of sets in circulation (due to reduced cycle times) and the reduced demand for catering service (due to drastically reduced journey times - who wants a meal on a 45 minute service?) will drastically cut staff costs per seat.

Overall there will still be fewer staff employed, and the extra energy costs for running the longer trains are minimal, and any increases in capital costs for having a set of uniform 400m trains can be heavily offset by the reduction in operational complexity relating to coupling and uncoupling the Captive sets in service.

 

[WatcherZero]

Regarding "hugely flawed":

250 mph line speed, they say.
Long sections of the route in tunnels, they say.
So....250 mph in tunnels?
I doubt it very much!

The main issue with tunnels is the compression of the pressure wave of the train entering and leaving the tunnel can cause a sonic boom, nowadays this is solved by building an extension to the tunnel portal with with holes like a Flute that allows the pressure wave to dissipate gradually rather than suddenly.

 

[Bonemaster]

But the marginal cost of extending trains is so low that they are still better off if they "devalue" the product.
It is not necessarily going to be a "Premium" product because the per seat operating costs are so low that that will not give the best return.
Its cost for providing a seat will in fact be lower than classic railways.
The Classic lines can't cut costs to compete because they simply won't be able to afford to lay on the extra seats, they will be forced into using shorter trains more appropriate to the intermediate station demand.

Why wouldn't it?
The best way to get good returns is to pile em high and sell em cheap.
Not maintain some sort of "premium product"?
Where will the trains on the classic lines come from for people to use?
You seem to be assuming that hte conventional ICWC timetable will be able to continue to support vast numbers of passengers flowing to Birmingham and Manchester but it clearly won't.

Otherwise there would be no point.

I'm afraid you are away with the fairies on this point, the concept that the fastest operator operates a premium service as opposed to the slower operators is a really simple concept, with dozens of current examples within the UK, Europe and Worldwide.

But it won't cost that much?
Would you believe that HS2 was evil if it cost £1?
I would have to do new calculations based on my projected economic and social benefits from the construction of the line.
That would take some time that I do not commit lightly.

It really wasn't meant to be such a difficult question, the last part of your answer suggests that given the way you consider things, you have not thought about whether the current budget offers any value for money. It also suggests that you have no confidence in the maths already done to justify HS2.

I expect Manchester and Birmingham demand to approximately double, with almost total modal shift to HS2 since the fast classic trains will be reconfigured to suit the lower demand environment for long distance classic trains.

On what basis do you expect this, its not even in the league of any of the estimated numbers from any source.

Not that significantly.
The primary costs will be staffing, which does not change depending on if the set is 200m long or 400m long.
The reduction in catering crew sizes due to the reduced number of sets in circulation (due to reduced cycle times) and the reduced demand for catering service (due to drastically reduced journey times - who wants a meal on a 45 minute service?) will drastically cut staff costs per seat.

I think you may be missing the per passenger km bit when you have a step change in supply. Its all very simple averages.

 

[AndyLandy]

I'm afraid you are away with the fairies on this point, the concept that the fastest operator operates a premium service as opposed to the slower operators is a really simple concept, with dozens of current examples within the UK, Europe and Worldwide.

You are correct that HS2 will be the more premium service, but that doesn't mean that the prices will be exorbitant. I expect that the price differential will be more down to the WCML regional operator offering cheap through fares. HS2 fares should be a direct follow on from the current Any Permitted fares.

 

[Bonemaster]

You are correct that HS2 will be the more premium service, but that doesn't mean that the prices will be exorbitant. I expect that the price differential will be more down to the WCML regional operator offering cheap through fares. HS2 fares should be a direct follow on from the current Any Permitted fares.

I dont disagree with you at all, I would expect regulated fares to be at the current fares level, taking into account inflation, plus a small relaxation of around 5% after HS2 opens. I would expect the classic line operators to be slashing prices. It is on the unregulated fares I would expect HS2 to charge a premium, rather than any stack it high sell it cheap, the days of £7.50 each way tickets on the fastest operator between London and Birmingham will be consigned to history.

 

[jon0844]

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

SouthEastern can give a hint of what a service to Birmingham could be like, although I'd expect a better interior trim and first class, and although there's a premium on that - it's primarily to penalise local users (longer distance users can buy tickets valid on HS1 at no extra charge) and is also a monopoly from just one TOC.

This makes me think HS2 will spark a bit of a price war, not see huge premium fares and loads of empty seats. For the customer willing to stick to the current trains, fares would also become cheaper too.

 

[HSTEd]

I'm afraid you are away with the fairies on this point, the concept that the fastest operator operates a premium service as opposed to the slower operators is a really simple concept, with dozens of current examples within the UK, Europe and Worldwide.

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".

It really wasn't meant to be such a difficult question, the last part of your answer suggests that given the way you consider things, you have not thought about whether the current budget offers any value for money. It also suggests that you have no confidence in the maths already done to justify HS2.

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.

On what basis do you expect this, its not even in the league of any of the estimated numbers from any source.

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.

There are plenty of examples of this elsewhere, for instance see the Forth Road Bridge thathas had such a short service lifetime primarily because it has been loaded to its end of life projected demand for most of its life.

I think you may be missing the per passenger km bit when you have a step change in supply. Its all very simple averages.

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.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

This makes me think HS2 will spark a bit of a price war, not see huge premium fares and loads of empty seats. For the customer willing to stick to the current trains, fares would also become cheaper too.

Remember that the Pendos will be off to the cutter's torch not long after Phase 2 opens (33 year life is about as long as the 225s are probably going to manage).
Which means the replacement fleet will be the one competing with HS2-2.

A fleet set up to provide capacity for intermediate stations, not to compete with HS2 pointlessly.
So it is likely there will be only one practical choice for the vast majority of passengers since the slimmed down classic ICWC successor (if that franchise has avoided being folded into the West Midlands franchise) will be unable to take them even if they wanted to.

 

[jon0844]

A new fleet built in 2030 onwards is going to have more comfort and features in standard than we have in first class today. It won't be a bad place to be!

 

[digitaltoast]

Before you proclaim to know that the costs of building the line have doubled and know that the line is pointless and think the costs will triple...... Get your facts right.

OK, let's assume all those people previously in favour, in government or otherwise, who have now come or are coming out against it now having had access to the figures, are wrong.

Let's also assume that all the original projections are correct in that no-one ever does any work on the train nor will do and that every commuted minute is a dead minute as forms a key part of the HS2 calculations.

Let's forget about those money-sink projects liked the BBC's £100m loss on a digital platform or any of the government £10bn IT projects for which they've got nothing to show.

Instead, I've put a reminder in Google Calendar for this day in the year 2035 to check this thread.

Now, I'd reckon there was a Good chance that this forum, Google, the internet as we know it, working patterns, population etc will be very different in 22 years. Unlike the "everything will be the same" calculations of HS2.

You seem extremely clear that you have some kind of insider knowledge and access to calculations that make it work, that the rest of us don't.

The layman, though, will read something like the following from The Independent's article on the £80,000 PER MONTH that the Govt is paying Westbourne Communications to lobby in favour of HS2 (including "a scathing assessment of the use of Westbourne and film-maker Tomboy Films. The latter was paid £86,000 to produce two short information videos").

And then he or she will look at the unfinished Edinburgh Tram project, greatly shortened, running between the wrong places, with a current cost of £1bn or £125m per mile. Anyway...

The government says its proposals "assume a fares structure in line with that of the existing railway" and that HS2 could generate sufficient demand and revenues without needing to charge premium fares. It estimates fare revenues of up to £34bn over a 60-year period.

So, this layman and taxpayer sees a £43bn-£73bn figure to build it over 20 years, and a hopeful statement of £34bn fare revenues over a 60-year period. Triple the build time to raise half the build costs. I've got some questions involving inflation and interest payments for a start.

But anyway, enough from me for now. Let's check back in 2035 and see who was right.

Meantime, I'd be delighted if you could show your workings that explain the enormous benefits and ROI you believe this project would bring.

 

[jon0844]

It's HS2. The SECOND high speed line. Rather than compare against trams, IT contracts and so on, how about comparing against that and how much over budget it was, or not.

 

[PR1Berske]

This makes me think HS2 will spark a bit of a price war, not see huge premium fares and loads of empty seats. For the customer willing to stick to the current trains, fares would also become cheaper too.

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

 

[Dave1987]

OK, let's assume all those people previously in favour, in government or otherwise, who have now come or are coming out against it now having had access to the figures, are wrong.

Let's also assume that all the original projections are correct in that no-one ever does any work on the train nor will do and that every commuted minute is a dead minute as forms a key part of the HS2 calculations.

Let's forget about those money-sink projects liked the BBC's £100m loss on a digital platform or any of the government £10bn IT projects for which they've got nothing to show.

Instead, I've put a reminder in Google Calendar for this day in the year 2035 to check this thread.

Now, I'd reckon there was a Google chance that this forum, Google, the internet as we know it, working patterns, population etc will be very different in 22 years. Unlike the "everything will be the same" calculations of HS2.

You seem extremely clear that you have some kind of insider knowledge and access to calculations that make it work, that the rest of us don't.

The layman, though, will read something like the following from The Independent's article on the £80,000 PER MONTH that the Govt is paying Westbourne Communications to lobby in favour of HS2 (including "a scathing assessment of the use of Westbourne and film-maker Tomboy Films. The latter was paid £86,000 to produce two short information videos").

And then he or she will look at the unfinished Edinburgh Tram project, greatly shortened, running between the wrong places, with a current cost of £1bn or £125m per mile. Anyway...



So, this layman and taxpayer sees a £43bn-£73bn figure to build it over 20 years, and a hopeful statement of £34bn fare revenues over a 60-year period. Triple the build time to raise half the build costs. I've got some questions involving inflation and interest payments for a start.

But anyway, enough from me for now. Let's check back in 2035 and see who was right.

Meantime, I'd be delighted if you could show your workings that explain the enormous benefits and ROI you believe this project would bring.

The £80bn quoted by a think tank that is viciously against HS2 included the cost of Crossrail 2! That is still just an idea. HS1 came in on budget because the construction was all very well managed. They have said that they learned lessons on how to make the building of HS2 even more efficient. The only thing that is driving up the costs of this project is the 51M court action.

 

[jon0844]

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

Yes, on routes with a lot of competition. Not necessarily elsewhere, including congested commuter routes.

But increase the capacity and suddenly even that can change. A lot of high peak fares are just as much about controlling demand as making profit.

 

[Metrailway]

It's HS2. The SECOND high speed line. Rather than compare against trams, IT contracts and so on, how about comparing against that and how much over budget it was, or not.

HS1 came in on budget because the construction was all very well managed.

Despite the denials of many members on this forum, I've mentioned in the past HS1 was over budget. 57% over budget in fact according to this case study:

http://www.omegacentre.bartlett.ucl.ac.uk/studies/cases/pdf/UK_CTRL_2P_080911.pdf

 

[bnm]

The £80bn quoted by a think tank that is viciously against HS2 included the cost of Crossrail 2!

Where in digitaltoast's post did he mention £80bn, the think tank or Crossrail 2?