More Delay for HS2, and how should we proceed?

[Jammy Dodger]

More reporting is coming out of the Telegraph, saying that services may be cut from 18tph to 10tph, and line speeds may be reduced

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HS2 train services to be almost halved under proposal to cut costs​

Measures to rein in spending include fewer trains and slower speeds

The number of trains running on HS2 will be almost halved and services will travel more slowly in a proposed shake-up of the £72bn line as ministers scramble to save money.

Whitehall officials are considering reducing the number of trains from 18 to 10 an hour, insiders said.

Meanwhile, plans to run services at up to 360 km/h (224 mph) are in jeopardy as officials weigh whether to reduce maximum speeds.

The proposals are among a series of cost-cutting measures under discussion as part of an overhaul codenamed Project Silverlight and Operation Blue Diamond, as ministers grapple with huge inflationary pressures on Britain’s biggest infrastructure project.

The Department for Transport on Tuesday refused to rule out reducing the frequency and speed of HS2 trains.

A spokesman said: “We do not comment on speculation. Spades are already in the ground on the HS2 programme. It will better connect regions across the UK, provide a greener option of travel and is supporting tens of thousands of jobs.

“We remain committed to delivering the project from Euston to Manchester and continue to work in line with the Integrated Rail Plan.”

It came as the Transport Secretary Mark Harper criticised Labour’s plan to nationalise the railways, describing it as a “soggy sandwich wrapped in a clingfilm of backward thinking”.

 

[zwk500]

I doubt voters in the East Midlands would forget if the link to East Midlands Parkway was cancelled or seriously delayed before the election. Lots of Tory seats around there

Funny how some things stick in people's minds and others get wiped very quickly. Fundamentally the majority of the decision on who to vote for is based on whether or not they feel like they're getting richer or poorer at that moment in time. Cancelled Rail stations don't come into it really.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 7 Feb 2023 ==

More reporting is coming out of the Telegraph, saying that services may be cut from 18tph to 10tph, and line speeds may be reduced

Access Restricted

If they're using spades that explains why it's taking so long! Does the budget not stretch to hiring a JCB, I'd have thought the CEO could do mates rates for the tories

More seriously, given the alignment is already set how much would dropping linespeeds really achieve? London to Birmingham isn't far, you need as many kph as you can manage to get the journey times down. Although good to know they're devoting their time to reading the oppositions plans rather than doing some actual governing themselves, instead preferring to let the people know what they're doing by leaking things through HoC bars.

 

[Jammy Dodger]

Does the budget not stretch to hiring a JCB, I'd have thought the CEO could do mates rates for the tories

If the shambles of the PPE contracts are anything to go by, the JCB's that the tories could rent would likely not have the ability to attach a bucket to them (for those who don't understand - the bit that does the digging)!

 

[Rail Ranger]

Chris Burn is saying on Twitter that the "Financial Times reports that the entirety of the Eastern leg could now be scrapped": https://twitter.com/ChrisBurn_Post/status/1622845926405545984
Also hints from within the industry that the Northern Powerhouse add-ons to HS2 will also be scrapped.
A scorched earth policy by the present Government before they lose the next election?

 

[MidlandMainlie]

More reporting is coming out of the Telegraph, saying that services may be cut from 18tph to 10tph, and line speeds may be reduced

Access Restricted

If the Eastern arm isn’t built and HS2 is only built from Euston to Birmingham and Manchester wouldnt

3tph Euston - Birmingham
3tph Euston - Manchester
2tph Euston - Liverpool
1tph Euston - Lancaster
1tph Euston - Glasgow

EDIT:- Forgot the Macclesfiled service calling at Stoke and joining at Handsacre

 

[Rail Ranger]

A Lancaster could be coupled to a Liverpool (splitting at Crewe) to create a tenth path for the Macclesfield. But if Handsacre is not happening there will be no Macclesfield train.

 

[Jammy Dodger]

If the Eastern arm isn’t built and HS2 is only built from Euston to Birmingham and Manchester wouldn't

3tph Euston - Birmingham
3tph Euston - Manchester
2tph Euston - Liverpool
1tph Euston - Lancaster
1tph Euston - Glasgow

And all of these possibly running at 200kph, meaning the £2bn of state-of-the-art, world leading rolling stock would be wasted on a service that could be run by Pendolino's and IET's! What a f**king joke, just build the damn thing!

Pretty sure Putin would be able to run the construction of HS2 better than the Tories right now, and that's even considering his failures in Ukraine!

(Putin = Satire)

 

[zwk500]

And all of these possibly running at 200kph, meaning the £2bn of state-of-the-art, world leading rolling stock would be wasted on a service that could be run by Pendolino's and IET's! What a f**king joke, just build the damn thing!

Pretty sure Putin would be able to run the construction of HS2 better than the Tories right now, and that's even considering his failures in Ukraine!

(Putin = Satire)

Where has it said they're looking at reducing it to 200kph? Reduction in speed has been mentioned, but not a specific figure AFAICS.

 

[Jammy Dodger]

Where has it said they're looking at reducing it to 200kph? Reduction in speed has been mentioned, but not a specific figure AFAICS.

See below (quotes from https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/02/07/hs2-train-services-almost-halved-proposal-cut-costs/)

With all the focus on speed in the early years of its planning, HS2 was originally designed to run services at up to 400 km/h. This was reduced to an average of 330 km/h and maximum of 360 km/h once contracts to build new trains were awarded.

A journey at these speeds would still be faster than anything internationally with the exception of China, however, the latest review of the HS2 for the Government found.

Up to 10pc of HS2’s building costs could be saved if a requirement for such “super high speeds” was abandoned, according to the 2020 report, which was written by the former HS2 and Crossrail chairman Sir Doug Oakervee.

Lord Berkeley, the deputy chairman of Sir Doug’s review, believes that significant amounts of money could be saved if speeds were reduced to 125 mph.

In a letter to Jeremy Hunt, the Chancellor, and Mark Harper, the Transport Secretary, the Labour peer said that running services at this slower speed would reduce costs by allowing HS2 to better integrate with the rest of Britain’s rail infrastructure and stations.

He said: “Why do you need to get to London 30 minutes quicker when you have Wi-Fi and your laptop on the train?

“I suggest that ministers should look at options for radically cutting the costs of what is left of HS2.”

 

[snowball]

See below (quotes from https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/02/07/hs2-train-services-almost-halved-proposal-cut-costs/)

Those quotes don't mention 200kph. That was zwk500's point.

 

[Jammy Dodger]

Those quotes don't mention 200kph.

200kph = 125mph

 

[snowball]

200kph = 125mph

Sorry, my fault. I missed the bit about Lord Berkeley mentioning 125 mph.

 

[Jammy Dodger]

Sorry, my fault. I missed the bit about Lord Berkeley mentioning 125 mph.

There's no problem with that, words are hard, especially when presented with a wall of text!

 

[najaB]

And all of these possibly running at 200kph, meaning the £2bn of state-of-the-art, world leading rolling stock would be wasted on a service that could be run by Pendolino's and IET's! What a f**king joke, just build the damn thing!

Even by Class 92s and Mk4s.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I could see a case for 250km/h which would allow the existing Class 80x design to be used, but not lower.

 

[Nottingham59]

I could see a case for 250km/h which would allow the existing Class 80x design to be used, but not lower.

250km/h would have been a good national standard to have chosen when HS2 was being designed. But adopting it now for HS2 won't save any money unfortunately. But it would be a good aspiration for ECML and GWML in the future.

 

[Jammy Dodger]

I could see a case for 250km/h which would allow the existing Class 80x design to be used, but not lower.

I'm not aware of a current IET design that allows for >225kph speeds (or at least one that's approved for it). 250kph would definitely be feasible, although it would likely need additional hardware to do so. At that point, the design is getting very close to the existing HS2 design...

 

[Brooke]

Coming from Huddersfield, but working these days in TGV-land, I literally don’t understand the point of HS2 anymore!

If you build a train line from somewhere near London, to Birmingham and nowhere else, slow it to 125 mph and run infrequent trains, then who or what is it for?

It doesn’t speed up anyone’s end to end journey, it hardly adds capacity since presumably you just move the bottlenecks, and it does nothing to improve the economy or communities of the north.

So why not just cancel it altogether and write off the costs?

(Not that I want this outcome, I want a high speed line to the deprived areas of the north, to be clear)

 

[zwk500]

200kph = 125mph

Lord Berkeley isn't the Rail or Transport minister though. He's just a member of the HoL. Nobody actually from the DfT has leaked that they're looking at 200kph.

Even by Class 92s and Mk4s.

A Class 92 won't be doing 200kph. They're max speed 140kph.

I'm not aware of a current IET design that allows for >225kph speeds (or at least one that's approved for it). 250kph would definitely be feasible, although it would likely need additional hardware to do so. At that point, the design is getting very close to the existing HS2 design...

The A-train platform includes contemporary Shinkansen designs that go above 250kph. It wouldn't be hard to adapt the 80x bodyshell for that.

 

[najaB]

A Class 92 won't be doing 200kph. They're max speed 140kph.

Slip of the finger - meant Class 91!

 

[Parjon]

There is no way this line could have had a positive business case based on cost overruns and the removal of the Leeds spur.

It's offensive that the country has been conned into delivering a negative BCR project. And not even remotely remarkable that the remaining project very much resembles what people said 10 years ago were the politically motivated - and only - priorities.

The emerging project bears such little resemblance to what was originally planned that its consent should be null and void.

 

[Jammy Dodger]

Slip of the finger - meant Class 91!

Class 91's can definitely do 200kph, they have a top speed of 225kph (140mph)

 

[zwk500]

Class 91's can definitely do 200kph, they have a top speed of 225kph (140mph)

Design top speed of 225kph, but would need ETCS fitment to run it!

 

[ChrisC]

I doubt voters in the East Midlands would forget if the link to East Midlands Parkway was cancelled or seriously delayed before the election. Lots of Tory seats around there

I don’t think HS2 is any longer a priority in the minds of the voters in the Tory seats of the East Midlands or indeed South Yorkshire. There are now more important matters that will determine how people will vote. With it being truncated just to a spur only reaching East Midlands Parkway it will do nothing to speed up journeys from Nottingham to Sheffield, Leeds, Manchester or anywhere else to the north. It would reduce journey times to London slightly and the big improvement would be Nottingham to Birmingham. However, with completion dates now being mentioned of 2045 or beyond many of the voters will not be around to see it or be too old and infirm to use it. Even for younger voters it may seem too long away to even think about when voting.

 

[Roast Veg]

Could it be that perhaps this is an example of "leaked news" designed to brace us for an eventuality that is bad - but not as bad as the "leak"? For instance if the only scaling back is actually the Birmingham to Nottingham leg, which just remains "paused", then commentators might be more agreeable now that we know what the other possibilities are?

 

[Tezza1978]

The idea floated in that Telegraph article that trains will be limited to 125mph is absolutely laughable. 0% chance that's going to happen.

 

[JonathanH]

The idea floated in that Telegraph article that trains will be limited to 125mph is absolutely laughable. 0% chance that's going to happen.

Why? If a decision maker is told that will save money, they may well make that decision.

 

[zwk500]

Why? If a decision maker is told that will save money, they may well make that decision.

Political egg on face.

 

[HSTEd]

The idea floated in that Telegraph article that trains will be limited to 125mph is absolutely laughable. 0% chance that's going to happen.

It appears part of a desperate attempt to dump the slab track in favour of ballast.

Which might save a little money up front but will hobble the railway for the rest of time.

Just a bunch of gerontocrats desperate to cut spending now so they can have more money to spend on pensions for the next few years, regardless of the consequences.

 

[deltic]

Until there is a change of government shortly ?

No - HS2 will not be a Labour priority

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 7 Feb 2023 ==

But surely bad news will just cost them votes and make it even less likely they'll win again?

Why make unpopular decisions now instead of leaving them to the next government, especially if it's Labour?

Most people are opposed to HS2 - scrapping part of it is a political win