HS2 future northern extensions

[po8crg]

My point is rather that with a very modest tweak to one assumption, you can easily throw the amortisation to twice or half what it was. With a reasonable range of uncertainty, you get a factor of ten or twenty range for fares - at which point, you have to recognise that it's a pointless exercise. Absolute benefit and cost is better than trying to discount, because the discounting rate overwhelms the rest of the calculation.

 

[HSTEd]

Copenhagen and Malmo have been combined into a single economic unit now with the Oresund Bridge, and there are plenty of people commuting from one country into the other now. However, is that enough to make people genuinely consider changing the constitutional status of the countries to match? The number of people for whom HS2 would enable super-long-distance commuting is still tiny in comparison to the population of the country, and if that population believes that independence is the best way forward then that's what will happen.

The percentage of the population of the United Kingdom that would be able to long-distance commuter on HS2 might be tiny. But that is not the issue.
The question is the size of the population of Scotland - which is an order of magnitude smaller.
Polling during the last referendum campaign showed that those who worked in England and their families were far less likely to vote 'Yes'.
Once you consider the people commuting, the relatives of the people commuting and the people who will be working in relatively high value service industries supporting them, you could easily build up a population that is several percent of the entire population of Scotland.

Additionally the Oresund bridge has only be in place for 15 years - these effects are generational in nature and so you would expect to see ~25 years or more before they really start to change anything.
And remember joining something together is entirely different from splitting something apart.

Scotland to London is not an insignificant flow of passengers, and there would still be a justification for building the full captive line even after independence. For one, there's not much point building other captive lines in England without the ability to run captive up to Scotland (e.g. a Birmingham-Bristol line makes no sense if it won't stop Scotland-South West flights).

And who pays for this line?
The only benefits from a Scotland HSL that would accrue to non-Scotland UK are some travel time benefits to places like Carlisle - which while they might be significant for the people who live in those areas they are negligible on a national scale.
The market expansion arguments don't really hold much water due to the tiny population of Scotland and its relatively weak non-petroleum economy.

Other European countries are building high speed rail connections between their cities because the improvement from them is greater than the sum of the individual parts in different countries.

Yes, because those countries are significant markets for the other country - justifying the cost. This is not the case in the case of Scotland-England.
Scotland is a negligible market for England, on par with the Republic of Ireland once the new costs from independence are taken into account.

At the very least, captive running up to Scotland could allow the reliability of HS2 to improve enough that a few more paths could be squeezed out of Birmingham Junction, thus enabling a better service for the North of England without the cost of building a second London-Midlands line immediately.

Well once the Scotland HS2 CC paths are put out to competitive tender (on an open access basis - since why would the DfT franchise trains to another country?) and are inevitably won by additional trains on the existing captive routes in England since they make far more use of them..... there will be no CC trains to Scotland - so building a line there to improve HS2's reliability is a little pointless.

 

[NotATrainspott]

The percentage of the population of the United Kingdom that would be able to long-distance commuter on HS2 might be tiny. But that is not the issue.
The question is the size of the population of Scotland - which is an order of magnitude smaller.
Polling during the last referendum campaign showed that those who worked in England and their families were far less likely to vote 'Yes'.
Once you consider the people commuting, the relatives of the people commuting and the people who will be working in relatively high value service industries supporting them, you could easily build up a population that is several percent of the entire population of Scotland.

However, it's a similar story as with Manchester or other major Northern conurbations, where the size of the area is still stupendously higher than anything HS2 could ever transport in time for work every day. Non-stop timings of 2 hours might be possible, and to get to work before 10am it would leave a realistic window of only an hour or two for commuting services to depart Scotland. Since so many trains would need to arrive in London before 10am anyway, the same 2-3tph limitation will exist as is planned already, and that means in total you could only really shift at most 3300 people a day for work. Getting people to start and end work at different times has been attempted for decades and has never worked, so I can't see how it would be realistic to assume in future that some people would commute to work any later. 3300 people is less than 0.1% of the population of Scotland, and even if their individual employment has an effect on 10 other people it wouldn't be 1% of the entire population. It's certain that many towns of only a few tens of thousands of people in Metroland could and will send more people to work in Zone 1 every day than the entire Scottish nation.

Additionally the Oresund bridge has only be in place for 15 years - these effects are generational in nature and so you would expect to see ~25 years or more before they really start to change anything.
And remember joining something together is entirely different from splitting something apart.

I still cannot see Denmark and Sweden re-uniting under a single monarch any time soon.

And who pays for this line?
The only benefits from a Scotland HSL that would accrue to non-Scotland UK are some travel time benefits to places like Carlisle - which while they might be significant for the people who live in those areas they are negligible on a national scale.
The market expansion arguments don't really hold much water due to the tiny population of Scotland and its relatively weak non-petroleum economy.

The line would be funded in the same way as any other major infrastructure project is funded. Some of it would be from passenger fares, some of it would be standard public investment. There are costs involved for both parties in not building a captive line to Scotland, like the costs of continued air travel into the South East.

Yes, because those countries are significant markets for the other country - justifying the cost. This is not the case in the case of Scotland-England.
Scotland is a negligible market for England, on par with the Republic of Ireland once the new costs from independence are taken into account.

And yet the flows between Scotland or Ireland and London are on par with the flows between London and Paris. If Eurostar can start to justify the construction of the Channel Tunnel and HS1, Scotland can justify completing HS2.

Well once the Scotland HS2 CC paths are put out to competitive tender (on an open access basis - since why would the DfT franchise trains to another country?) and are inevitably won by additional trains on the existing captive routes in England since they make far more use of them..... there will be no CC trains to Scotland - so building a line there to improve HS2's reliability is a little pointless.

I'm sure Network Rail Infrastructure (rUK) Limited would be delighted to be told it had to reserve paths on the WCML for Scotland trains to trundle along. Where else in the entire world has infrastructure been used in this way? It's utter madness, and if you start chucking away the idea of serving Scotland whatsoever a good number of the HS2 design decisions start to make no sense at all. If you're only going as north as Manchester, you really may as well follow a completely different arrangement for the entire line since long distance end-to-end speeds would be somewhat irrelevant when rail is already faster than air within England. The Central Belt of Scotland is roughly equal in population to Greater Manchester or the West Yorkshire built-up area, so it's not an insignificant part of the United Kingdom.

 

[Noddy]

Ironically it's attitudes like that which would lead to Independence by denying. Scotland investment on the grounds that it might seek independence in future.

I agree with you one hundred percent! That's exactly what Salmond wants, and why he's the best political mover in Britain today. However, given that planning would take 5 years minimum we would be well into the next Scottish parliament - Sturgeon will have to make a decision on whether to call another referendum before the end of that parliament (2020/1). If she does decide to proceed then how can the UK government carry on spending billions of pounds on a potential foreign country when other parts of the UK are absolutely crying out for major investment (eg South Wales/Bristol).

Copenhagen and Malmo have been combined into a single economic unit now with the Oresund Bridge, and there are plenty of people commuting from one country into the other now.

Other European countries are building high speed rail connections between their cities because the improvement from them is greater than the sum of the individual parts in different countries.

Yes but in Europe much of the political and economic focus is about synchronising and harmonising states. Unlike in an independent Scotland and rUK which would be diverging. Ultimately many European politicians, on both the left and right, recognise that creating a 'Federal' Europe will result in more growth and prosperity for the citizens of those states, even if it means a loss of so called 'sovereignty'. It's just a pity no British political party has the balls to say so.


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However, it's a similar story as with Manchester or other major Northern conurbations, where the size of the area is still stupendously higher than anything HS2 could ever transport in time for work every day. Non-stop timings of 2 hours might be possible, and to get to work before 10am it would leave a realistic window of only an hour or two for commuting services to depart Scotland. Since so many trains would need to arrive in London before 10am anyway, the same 2-3tph limitation will exist as is planned already, and that means in total you could only really shift at most 3300 people a day for work. Getting people to start and end work at different times has been attempted for decades and has never worked, so I can't see how it would be realistic to assume in future that some people would commute to work any later. 3300 people is less than 0.1% of the population of Scotland, and even if their individual employment has an effect on 10 other people it wouldn't be 1% of the entire population. It's certain that many towns of only a few tens of thousands of people in Metroland could and will send more people to work in Zone 1 every day than the entire Scottish nation.

I'm really not sure what you're trying to say here? Are you saying people from Scotland would only commute to London? What about Manchester (and/or Newcastle/Leeds/Birmingham depending on the route of the line)?

On similar note I think it will be interesting how HS does change working patterns. For instance my wife works for an Engineering consultancy and is currently based in Bristol, but works one or two days a week in Cardiff and two a month in Manchester. Thats probably unusual at the moment but will it become more normal as more HS routes are developed and work patterns change?

 

[NotATrainspott]

I agree with you one hundred percent! That's exactly what Salmond wants, and why he's the best political mover in Britain today. However, given that planning would take 5 years minimum we would be well into the next Scottish parliament - Sturgeon will have to make a decision on whether to call another referendum before the end of that parliament (2020/1). If she does decide to proceed then how can the UK government carry on spending billions of pounds on a potential foreign country when other parts of the UK are absolutely crying out for major investment (eg South Wales/Bristol).

There is only so much investment that can realistically be done though, and if you start rearranging timescales for political ends you easily end up with some pretty terrible decisions being made.

Yes but in Europe much of the political and economic focus is about synchronising and harmonising states. Unlike in an independent Scotland and rUK which would be diverging. Ultimately many European politicians, on both the left and right, recognise that creating a 'Federal' Europe will result in more growth and prosperity for the citizens of those states, even if it means a loss of so called 'sovereignty'. It's just a pity no British political party has the balls to say so.

The independent Scotland the SNP propose wouldn't be trying to shy away from the other parts of the British Isles; instead, it would be trying to work as an equal partner with a proportionate voice. Proper devo-max/federalism/whatever is the only realistic option for the United Kingdom and to be honest, almost every SNP member would be delighted at the chance to have that sort of arrangement first before seeing if full independence would then be worthwhile. The refusal to accept that before the referendum is because of a complete lack of trust in the UK establishment to actually deliver what they promise to Scotland; the complete shambles that is the Smith Commission simply confirms in peoples' minds that the Better Together side were happy to lie about any and all things to get the result they wanted.

I'm really not sure what you're trying to say here? Are you saying people from Scotland would only commute to London? What about Manchester (and/or Newcastle/Leeds/Birmingham depending on the route of the line)?

The largest flow out of Scotland on HS2 would be London, and my argument here is that there is little chance of HS2 diminishing desires for Scottish independence because it could never directly affect enough people to sway a country-wide referendum. Even if you added in every possible commute to the other HS2 cities in England, it still wouldn't be able to make any real difference.

 

[158756]

If you accept fare uprates with inflation the interest rate over 37 years is -0.92% in real terms. That is £580m/yr in real terms, which is ~£50 per ticket at 10m passengers p.a.
But I think that is a very conservative sum. After all that reduces the length of the payment period by half.

Manchester alone could easily pull/push that many day-commuters to/from Edinburgh or Glasgow. (Especially the former as the very high value government and similar jobs setting up there woudl have people who would like to live in a place as shiny as Edinburgh).

Are you suggesting that there could be 10 million passengers per annum just as daily commuters to from Manchester?

If we assume people travel back and forth every day, and work 230 days per year,

10000000/230=43478
43478/2=21379 commuters every day.

Put another that's very nearly as many people as commute by rail on all routes combined into Manchester.
More than the total number of people commuting to Manchester by any means from Wigan, Bolton and Rochdale combined.
Would require 19 fully loaded 400m trains between Scotland and Manchester arriving in time for work.

Even if a 400kph HS line was built and the pie-in-the-sky ' Northern Powerhouse' achieves anything those numbers will never be achievable.

 

[Noddy]

There is only so much investment that can realistically be done though, and if you start rearranging timescales for political ends you easily end up with some pretty terrible decisions being made.

That's the point though - HS2 is clearly being developed from South to North, with Phase 3 being a potential North of England to Scotland line. The SNP plans appear to be suggesting we rearrange this in the next UK parliament so that development (at least part of) Phase 3 happens much earlier. If Westminster doesn't play ball Salmond will no doubt make a political mountain out of it. However my point was that even if Phase 3 was brought forward if there is another referendum in the next Scottish parliament how is that going play politically in other parts of England and Wales if the UK government continue to plough billions into a line to iScotland?

The independent Scotland the SNP propose wouldn't be trying to shy away from the other parts of the British Isles; instead, it would be trying to work as an equal partner with a proportionate voice.

While socially I'm sure there would be little divergence, the economic (and many other) policies proposed by the SNP in an independent Scotland are very different to those proposed by rUK parties for the UK, which is where the divergence would begin to occur (assuming both sides were to get to apply said polices). It clearly wouldn't happen overnight but as iScotland transitions away from an economy with dependence on fossil fuels and into other sectors and areas, it is highly likely to also slowly transition away from economic alignment with rUK.

 

[33Hz]

If it were possible to borrow £30,000,000,000 at 0%, then yes, 600 million trips over 60 years would amount to £50 per one-way journey.

Are we assuming the permanent way has a lifetime of 60 years?

 

[HSTEd]

However, it's a similar story as with Manchester or other major Northern conurbations, where the size of the area is still stupendously higher than anything HS2 could ever transport in time for work every day. Non-stop timings of 2 hours might be possible, and to get to work before 10am it would leave a realistic window of only an hour or two for commuting services to depart Scotland. Since so many trains would need to arrive in London before 10am anyway, the same 2-3tph limitation will exist as is planned already, and that means in total you could only really shift at most 3300 people a day for work.

Plus Manchester trains - of which you could four or five per hour if you wanted because the line will be almost empty. And a couple to Birmingham (as the Northern powerhouse and all that is supposed to turn thsee into significant cities - and Manchester/Birmingham together pretty much match Scotland).
We know that these lines can take 18tph, and at most here will be four london trains running.
2 hour rush hour means 8 London trains (I assume the old Heathrow paths will likely be held for any classic extension to Scotland - 2tph each for Edinburgh/Manchester), 8 Manchester and 4 Birmingham.
16 400m trains can carry a lot more than 3300 people.
Potentially up to 20,000.

Getting people to start and end work at different times has been attempted for decades and has never worked, so I can't see how it would be realistic to assume in future that some people would commute to work any later. 3300 people is less than 0.1% of the population of Scotland, and even if their individual employment has an effect on 10 other people it wouldn't be 1% of the entire population. It's certain that many towns of only a few tens of thousands of people in Metroland could and will send more people to work in Zone 1 every day than the entire Scottish nation.

10:1 is probably about accurate, but 3300 is definitely on the low side.
Metroland reaches Manchester with HS2 - which is half way to Scotland already. The speed and capacity of HS2 is orders of magnitude greater than today.
You could be looking at 100-200k+.
Which is quite a significant fraction of the Scottish population.

I still cannot see Denmark and Sweden re-uniting under a single monarch any time soon.

But uniting is a hell of a lot harder than not fracturing.

The line would be funded in the same way as any other major infrastructure project is funded. Some of it would be from passenger fares, some of it would be standard public investment. There are costs involved for both parties in not building a captive line to Scotland, like the costs of continued air travel into the South East.

The "cost of air travel" to England is negligible - since we are going to be building new airport capacity either way, the marginal cost of the extra slots is tiny.
There will also be a trend towards longer check in times as divergent security policies take effect - reducing the air travel market significantly.
None of this is going to be able to justify rUK spending more than a pittance on such a project. To think otherwise is fantasy.
Scotland would have to foot the entire bill on it's own - and with the collapse in oil revenues appearing to be near permanent I don't think it would be able to afford it.

And yet the flows between Scotland or Ireland and London are on par with the flows between London and Paris. If Eurostar can start to justify the construction of the Channel Tunnel and HS1, Scotland can justify completing HS2.

It can't - Eurostar has been a colossal white elephant in hindsight.
People won't make that mistake again.

I'm sure Network Rail Infrastructure (rUK) Limited would be delighted to be told it had to reserve paths on the WCML for Scotland trains to trundle along.

Firstly - why would NR have to do anything?
NRs primary duty is to operate the railway infrastructure in the UK - control of paths is primarily in the hands of the DfT.
The DfT's primary responsibility is to the people of the United Kingdom - if there are paths available that it wants for services to serve said people then an open access request from a foreign operator can take a hike.
The capacity squeeze on the northern half of the WCML will make it hard to path anything in - and a HSL will be too expensive to be worth the cost.
With the intercity trains to Scotland gone there will be more paths for stopping trains to places like Preston and Lancaster.

Where else in the entire world has infrastructure been used in this way? It's utter madness, and if you start chucking away the idea of serving Scotland whatsoever a good number of the HS2 design decisions start to make no sense at all.

Where else in the world has there been a crowded mainline serving stations on one side of the border and the foreign power has succesfuly demanded that domestic services be hamstrung to allow through their preferred cross-border trains at higher speeds?
I am sure that NR could find Scottish trains a path - just that it would stop at lots of stations and take 5+hrs. To make it easier to slip into the English stopping pattern.

If you're only going as north as Manchester, you really may as well follow a completely different arrangement for the entire line since long distance end-to-end speeds would be somewhat irrelevant when rail is already faster than air within England.

It might be faster - but faster is not good enough.
You have to absolutely crush it.
And once we are building a new line, you might as well make it high speed because it turns out not to cost much more.
We aren't building a high speed line to support some theoretical northern extension - the theoretical northern extension having good travel times is just a bonus.

The Central Belt of Scotland is roughly equal in population to Greater Manchester or the West Yorkshire built-up area, so it's not an insignificant part of the United Kingdom.

It won't be part of the United Kingdom if independence happens - at which point it is just another bunch of foreigners that the British government could care less about. The only way the HSL can get built is if Scotland remains part of the United Kingdom - and the psychological impact of a 2hr journey time will be enormous.

 

[DownSouth]

To an extent I agree with HSTEd that in some ways Cross Border high speed rail could weaken desire for independence. It is to the SNPs credit that they support it anyway.

The reason they do so is that ultimately they see HS2 as important for business competitiveness in Scotland. In particular the relative competitiveness of Scotland and the North of England which is why starting at both ends would be a priority.

HSTed is 100% correct - a megaproject to build a railway linking two opposite ends of a nation is a tried and true method of nation building (in this case, it would be about building Britain, not Scotland), bringing diverse regions closer together and undermining secessionist movements.

The SNP might well be the first secessionist movement in the world to be supporting a cross-national railway instead of opposing it. Whether they are doing this out of a reason which is remotely to their credit would be questionable, they are probably just looking after the business interests of their party base - as you've nailed in the second paragraph I've quoted.

The largest flow out of Scotland on HS2 would be London, and my argument here is that there is little chance of HS2 diminishing desires for Scottish independence because it could never directly affect enough people to sway a country-wide referendum.

The nation building effect of a new railway reaches far more people than the number who directly use it.

 

[Voglitz]

Are we assuming the permanent way has a lifetime of 60 years?

No. The permanent way would not last 60 years.

 

[NotATrainspott]

No. The permanent way would not last 60 years.

I seem to have forgotten how the Stockton and Darlington Railway has had to be built from scratch almost three times over by now. It's a terrible shame when the land has to be sold for a peppercorn and re-purchased at market value, the tunnels filled up and then bored again, the bridges dismantled and then re-erected and the stations razed to the ground and then rebuilt. Are you sure you're right there? If you were right, we would have been on the Berne Gauge bandwagon a lifetime ago and we would be able to run all sorts of double deck trains on our network today.

There will need to be maintenance, yes, and some of that will involve replacing parts of the railway. However, these parts cost almost nothing in the grand scheme of things - the cost of constructing HS2 or any other new line is the cost of building the things which last beyond a lifetime. The Victorians didn't know how much strain their bridges and tunnels would be put under more than a hundred years in the future. On the other hand, the maximum possible strain on the HS2 infrastructure can be foreseen today, since even with the most sophisticated signalling systems there would be very significant physical limits on the possible number of trains per hour. The HS2 tunnels and viaducts are designed to be able to take the forces of 18-20-22tph, each 400m long and fully loaded, for 19 hours a day Mon-Sat and 16 on Sunday.

 

[Haydn1971]

I suspect that McCoy is referring to the track and trackbed - which will need major replacement at some point in the 60yr design life - tunnels and structures typically have longer design lives of 120 years so shouldn't need anything more than comms/power upgrades - earthworks will have a much longer lifespan but will still need to be check and replaced if failure is possible

 

[edwin_m]

Replacement of life-expired track, OLE etc would be classed as routine renewals. This particular discussion started from considerations of repaying the capital, which is something else entirely.

 

[33Hz]

Exactly. The vast majority of the £50bn (why has it crept up again?) is going to be for items such land acquisition, compensation, project management, consultants, tunneling, structures, stations, grid connections, etc etc. The "consumables" such as rail and ballast are way down the list. Network Rail laid it all out in their proposal of a few years ago.

One has to wonder why the French can do this so much cheaper though. Right now the Tours - Bordeaux and Le Mans - Rennes routes, which have a near identical track mileage to HS2, are under construction and budgeted at €7.8bn and €3.4bn respectively - £8bn in total.

 

[Camden]

Reading today's Manchester Evening News, I wonder if a HS2 future northern extension will be from Birmingham to Manchester http://www.manchestereveningnews.co...ion-whether-birmingham-manchester-hs2-8920866

 

[edwin_m]

Reading today's Manchester Evening News, I wonder if a HS2 future northern extension will be from Birmingham to Manchester http://www.manchestereveningnews.co...ion-whether-birmingham-manchester-hs2-8920866

For those that can't see the link, Ed Balls is now suggesting Labour would prioritise HS3 over HS2 Phase Two. As Phase Two has now had about five years of development and HS3 virtually none, that will probably result in everything going back several years. Hopefully he is just shooting his mouth off as he did previously, or trying to annoy Salmond.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

One has to wonder why the French can do this so much cheaper though. Right now the Tours - Bordeaux and Le Mans - Rennes routes, which have a near identical track mileage to HS2, are under construction and budgeted at €7.8bn and €3.4bn respectively - £8bn in total.

This probably has a lot to do with the fact that outside the major cities south and west France is pretty empty so there is much less mitigation needed for settlements, and also much less NIMBYism. Tours to Bordeaux is also pretty flat, not sure about the other one.

 

[Camden]

For those that can't see the link, Ed Balls is now suggesting Labour would prioritise HS3 over HS2 Phase Two. As Phase Two has now had about five years of development and HS3 virtually none, that will probably result in everything going back several years. Hopefully he is just shooting his mouth off as he did previously, or trying to annoy Salmond.
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This probably has a lot to do with the fact that outside the major cities south and west France is pretty empty so there is much less mitigation needed for settlements, and also much less NIMBYism. Tours to Bordeaux is also pretty flat, not sure about the other one.

Why would it annoy Salmond? Looking around I see this in the Newcastle Chronicle http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/labour-build-high-speed-rail-8920241 saying EB wants to build the high speed line to there, so wouldn't this align with Scotland's comments about wanting to have Glasgow to Edinburgh to Newcastle high speed trains?

 

[NotATrainspott]

Why would it annoy Salmond? Looking around I see this in the Newcastle Chronicle http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/labour-build-high-speed-rail-8920241 saying EB wants to build the high speed line to there, so wouldn't this align with Scotland's comments about wanting to have Glasgow to Edinburgh to Newcastle high speed trains?

Alex Salmond doesn't know nor care about the fact that the railway scheme has to run via the West Coast. It makes a good headline, and helps to garner support for the SNP's ideas in 'forgotten' places like the North East of England. It's like how the Tories publicly supported the idea of running HS2 via Heathrow back in the 2010 election campaign: they can say all they like in public from a political point of view but when their mandarins are saying that such a route is genuinely worse for the taxpayer than an alternative they're not going to keep insisting upon it. Every HS2 strategy document so far has put more emphasis on a Western route, and the recent TfN documents show the intention is to terminate any North East leg in Newcastle and no further.

 

[edwin_m]

Why would it annoy Salmond? Looking around I see this in the Newcastle Chronicle http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/labour-build-high-speed-rail-8920241 saying EB wants to build the high speed line to there, so wouldn't this align with Scotland's comments about wanting to have Glasgow to Edinburgh to Newcastle high speed trains?

Salmond is suggesting that HS to Scotland should be a priority and he will throw his electoral weight around to get it. If Balls says the priority is east-west links in Northern England (including Newcastle), rather than North-South links that would be needed connect to Scotland, then it probably plays better with more voters.

Of course HS from Birmingham to Edinburgh via Newcastle might satisfy both of them!

 

[Camden]

Salmond is suggesting that HS to Scotland should be a priority and he will throw his electoral weight around to get it. If Balls says the priority is east-west links in Northern England (including Newcastle), rather than North-South links that would be needed connect to Scotland, then it probably plays better with more voters.

Of course HS from Birmingham to Edinburgh via Newcastle might satisfy both of them!

I would have thought that Salmond would want to prioritise HS from Scotland, not eventually to Scotland.

This would seem to suggest so:
http://www.theguardian.com/politics...me-bargaining-tool-between-snp-labour-salmond

"Let’s say instead of this very, very slow train coming up from London, I think we should start it from Edinburgh/Glasgow to Newcastle"

From a Scottish POV, the speed increase coming from the northern 200 miles rather than the southern 200 miles will be preferable as it also gives high speed access to northern England. If the train trundles at normal speed from Newcastle they've still made the gain.

 

[martynbristow]

Alex Salmond has suggested on the Andrew Marr show today that, if the SNP hold the balance of power after the general election, they would demand a High Speed rail link between Glasgow-Edinburgh and Newcastle as a price for backing a minority Labour budget.

So it seems that the SNP may favour the East Coast route instead of the West Coast route suggested by others.

Alex Salmond says a lot of things!

Currently of my reasons NOT to vote Labour, a coalition with him is topping the list!
He'll give us a Conservative landslide if he's not careful
Anyway, back to trains

 

[Agent_c]

Is there enough demand to/from Edinburgh-Newcastle to justify it being HS on its own? I thought the point in starting it in the south was there was more demand on destinations in the south, like london, that ultimately helps pay for the rest of the network...

Starting it where demand is less likely to pay for it (until those more popular destinations come online) seems to be a way to extend out how much it ultimately costs.

 

[clc]

My guess is the SNP would settle for the Glasgow-Edinburgh high speed line being constructed at the same time as phase one and funded by Westminster. That gives them a relatively quick win economically and politically.

 

[MidlandMainlie]

For those that can't see the link, Ed Balls is now suggesting Labour would prioritise HS3 over HS2 Phase Two. As Phase Two has now had about five years of development and HS3 virtually none, that will probably result in everything going back several years. Hopefully he is just shooting his mouth off as he did previously, or trying to annoy Salmond.

A similar article in the Yorkshire Post

Ed Balls plan to end HS2 and fix east west rail links instead

Ed Balls has said he will not give the go ahead for High Speed 2 until he is satisfied east west rail links are being improved.

The shadow chancellor has said a Labour Government would want to sit down with David Higgins, the HS2 chairman, to discuss changing the “absurd” timetable which sees the London to Leeds and Manchester route built before a so-called HS3 option of improved trans-Pennine links.

Mr Balls comments threaten to bring a halt to the £50bn infrastructure plan backed by many northern council leaders.

Speaking after a new report questioned the economic case for HS2, Mr Balls said: “I think the idea that we wait to do the east west upgrade until after we have done the second phase of north south is topsy turvy. It is a plan with no economic or business logic at all. The label HS3 is absurd, but typical of George Osborne wanting to pretend he has a plan.

“I would want to be discussing how we could improve east west links with David Higgins from day one. That is something we can get on with quickly while we ask big questions about the second phase of HS2.”

Mr Balls added: “I don’t understand this HS3 proposal. Why would you decide to spend 20 years improving north south before finally in the third phase coming to east west?

“I think George Osborne has this all wrong. It should not be HS3, that has to come before the second phase of HS2. East west is the priority. It should not be Manchester, Leeds only, we should link Liverpool, Newcastle and others.”

Asked if he thought the east west links would be a high speed rail project, Mr Balls aid: “We need to look hard at this with Network Rail, It takes so long currently to go from Leeds to Manchester, we can make that faster, there are big questions about what high speed means, but again the idea that you wait 20 years to solve this is just wrong".

"We want good links to London, but there is a big economic case to solve east to west.”

The shadow chancellor added: “The legislation going through the Commons is for the first phase. We accept there are real congestion challenges, but there is no blank cheque. It is very important that the industry knows that the cost has to be under control. We will continue to scrutinise the value for money of this all the way through for the first phase.

“On the second phase there are big questions about whether or not we have the best value for money plan, not just on congestion but on connectivity. David Higgins has told me he thinks we do have to stand back and ask is this the best plan for Liverpool, Hull and Newcastle as well.”

Mr Balls was speaking after a House of Lords economic affairs report said HS2 was likely to bring a bigger benefit to London than the north, a report which saw Labour-led Leeds council forced to once again defend the project.

And Sheffield business and council-backed Local Enterprise Partnership also called for HS2.

Martin McKervey, LEP Board Member, said: “The economic case for HS2 has, in our view, been clearly made and accepted over the last five years.”

http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news...nd-fix-east-west-rail-links-instead-1-7176048

I think the bolded parts are key. As currently planned it would be difficult to integrate HS2 with an East-West HS3 so I can see the point that Ed Balls is making about phase 2.

In my opinion we should press ahead with David Higgins plans to extend HS2 to Crewe by 2027 but the routes north of Crewe and Meadowhall do need to be looked at again so that HS2 stations in Manchester and Leeds can be linked into a East to West HS3 from Liverpool to Hull as well as HS2 from the south.

On a positive note at least he supports HS3
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
And the backlash from Labour council leaders against Ed Balls has already begun

Birmingham leader says HS2 rail link on track despite Shadow Chancellor's claim it should be delayed

City council leader Sir Albert Bore has said that phase two of the high speed rail line from Birmingham to the northern cities is on track whatever Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls says.

But Coun Bore refused to openly join the condemnation of his Labour colleague who earlier this week said that the second phase of HS2 should be put off until after an east-west link between northern cities across the Pennines is completed.

The proposed line travelling from Birmingham splitting in a Y-shape to Manchester in the west and Leeds in the east is due to open in 2031 - five years after the London to Birmingham link is completed.

But now Sir Albert Bore, who is also transport spokesman for the Core Cities group of councils, has said that they welcome Mr Ball’s commitment to a high speed rail network but rebutted his comments, confirming that phase two from Birmingham northwards is the next stage as far as they are concerned.

Coun Bore said: “The Core Cities of Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Glasgow, Newcastle, Nottingham, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester and Sheffield are united in pushing for a radical and comprehensive modernisation of the UK’s rail infrastructure, based on high speed rail.

“The HS2 “Y” network, from London to Birmingham and on to Nottingham and the northern cities is the next stage in that modernisation.

“We are pleased that all three main political parties are now in support of that vital investment and that the Labour Party has repeated that commitment this week.

“But it is not the end of our ambitions. We want to see a complete High Speed network, including the proposed east-west line across the north and further links across the Midlands and to Bristol, Cardiff, Glasgow and Edinburgh.

“If Britain is going to compete in the 21st century it needs the sort of modern rail network that is already taken for granted in much of Europe, Japan and China. Whoever forms the next government must have the ambition to take forward all of these plans as soon as possible.”

Yesterday Prime Minister David Cameron said that Mr Balls comments were a slap in the face for Birmingham and other cities who would see a vital transport link to London delayed.

Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls said Labour would ask “big questions” about whether the second leg of HS2 - linking Birmingham with Manchester and Leeds - made any sense. And said the proposed east-west HS3 line should jump ahead in the queue.

The Shadow Chancellor said: “The idea that we wait to do east west until after we have done the second phase of north south is topsy turvey, It has no economic or business logic at all.”

Labour had previously backed proposals for the government’s controversial HS2 project, which could cost more than £50 billion, even though Mr Balls was known to have doubts about it.

http://www.birminghampost.co.uk/news/regional-affairs/birmingham-leader-says-hs2-rail-8936622

 

[clc]

Article from The Herald:

'The SNP have accused the UK Government of burying a key Whitehall report about a potential extension of the new HS2 (high speed rail) scheme into Scotland.

Scottish ministers have written to the Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin a number of times to press for the findings to be made public. It will not be published before the General Election.

The row comes amid suggestions the SNP would try to make the future of the £50 billion rail scheme a key battleground if there is a hung parliament after May.

Former First Minister Alex Salmond has said that HS could form part of the SNP's demands as part of propping up a minority Labour government if there is a hung parliament in May.

The SNP has now criticised the Conservative-Liberal Democrat government for not releasing the report before the start of the election campaign.

The civil service has new entered the official 'purdah' which restricts what can be published.

Patrick Grady, the SNP candidate in Glasgow North, said: "This report being kicked into the long grass until after the general election simply isn't good enough".

The Department for Transport (DfT) says that the report is now with ministers who are considering the next step.

A spokesman said that the findings would be made public "in due course".

The report into possibly extending HS2 into Scotland was initially launched with great fanfare by the Lib Dem transport ministers.

It had been thought that its findings would be available before the independence referendum.

Delays meant it was not given to Coalition ministers until the end of last year and they have been aware of the report's conclusions since December.

Last month Mr Salmond suggested that the SNP could call for work on an HS2 extension to begin in Scotland, if a Labour minority government was in power after May.

The ex-SNP leader suggested the idea when asked to provide an example of what the SNP might do if a Labour chancellor refused to alter a Labour Budget to meet the SNP's demands.

Mr Salmond suggested his party could propose amendments to the Budget, saying: "Instead of this very, very slow train coming up from London, I think we should start it from Edinburgh/Glasgow to Newcastle and I put that down as a budget amendment."

"It would have substantial support from the north of England and other parties and would carry the House of Commons," he went on to predict.

Last month a group of peers warned that other parts of the UK, including parts of northern Scotland, must not lose out as a result of the £50billion rail project.

A DfT spokesman said that Scottish rail passengers would benefit even if HS2 was not extended north of the border.

The current plans for the line to run to Midlands and then the north of England are forecast to shave time from the rail journey between Glasgow and London.

A DfT spokesman said: "Advice prepared by HS2 Ltd to identify broad options for high speed and upgraded railways to the north of England and Scotland has been completed on time and is now with ministers, who are considering next steps.

"This advice will be published in due course."



http://www.heraldscotland.com/polit...g-high-speed-report-into-the-siding.122461693

 

[clc]

Given the election result it doesn't look like the SNP will be able to influence Tory plans for HSR. What chance now of anything happening with the Scottish link?

 

[edwin_m]

Given the election result it doesn't look like the SNP will be able to influence Tory plans for HSR. What chance now of anything happening with the Scottish link?

Depends if the Cameron government decides it needs to offer concessions to keep Scotland within the Union. Although as far as I'm aware HS2 to Scotland hasn't figured in the campaign or in the SNP's wishlists.

 

[LWB]

I think the rank unfairness of theses last election results will ensure a very quick break up of the Union which then raises the questions;
what responsibility does one country have for building connecting rail links. (The French very kindly built one on the other side of the Channel tunnel but did they have to?) and
would there be an economic incentive for England to build a link up to the border? Personally I think not.

 

[WatcherZero]

Depends if the Cameron government decides it needs to offer concessions to keep Scotland within the Union. Although as far as I'm aware HS2 to Scotland hasn't figured in the campaign or in the SNP's wishlists.

Featured very highly, Salmond in March suggested HS2 starting in Scotland (yeah no idea how that could physically work) would be one of the concessions he would demand. SNP are very very pro HS2.