Should HS2 be scrapped?

[thomalex]

mod note - split from:

More Delay for HS2, and how should we proceed?

It may only be in the Sun, reported by the BBC, but pressure is mounting to cap spend on HS2 because of high cost inflation. Delay to the Euston section or to the whole project, is in the air, to keep within present annual budgets. I'm not sure I believe the possibility of axing the Euston...

www.railforums.co.uk

Think it might be time to put it out its misery and invest elsewhere.

Scrap the whole thing.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Think it might be time to put it out its misery and invest elsewhere.
Scrap the whole thing.

Not realistic.
Too many contracts signed, too much concrete poured, 6 TBMs at work and 5 more being assembled.
150 work sites, 30 000 people working (on and off site), big money being spent across the UK on supplies and labour.
20 miles of tunnel completed (out of 55).
Half of the Colne Valley viaduct built, key bridges in place, many viaduct piers emerging elsewhere.
Rolling stock ordered, station construction started.

 

[fishwomp]

Not realistic.
Too many contracts signed, too much concrete poured, 6 TBMs at work and 5 more being assembled.
150 work sites, 30 000 people working (on and off site), big money being spent across the UK on supplies and labour.
20 miles of tunnel completed (out of 55).
Half of the Colne Valley viaduct built, key bridges in place, many viaduct piers emerging elsewhere.
Rolling stock ordered, station construction started.

It would still be cheaper to cancel all phases.. there is a lot of money still to be spent on phase 1. Whether that's good value or not is a different question.

What a pity that £2.3bn on Phase 2 couldn't have found £100M(?, £200m?) for speeding up the 25 (?)mph at Stone on the Birmingham - Manchesters. Must be worth 2 mins of journey time.. which per minute saved would surely trump HS2 by a hell of a margin. Little improvements delivered sooner.. short term always trumps an uncertain long term

 

[Bletchleyite]

It would still be cheaper to cancel all phases.. there is a lot of money still to be spent on phase 1. Whether that's good value or not is a different question.

What a pity that £2.3bn on Phase 2 couldn't have found £100M(?, £200m?) for speeding up the 25 (?)mph at Stone on the Birmingham - Manchesters. Must be worth 2 mins of journey time.. which per minute saved would surely trump HS2 by a hell of a margin. Little improvements delivered sooner.. short term always trumps an uncertain long term

HS2, once again, is about freeing up classic line capacity for improved local services and freight, not about speed.

 

[The Planner]

It would still be cheaper to cancel all phases.. there is a lot of money still to be spent on phase 1. Whether that's good value or not is a different question.

What a pity that £2.3bn on Phase 2 couldn't have found £100M(?, £200m?) for speeding up the 25 (?)mph at Stone on the Birmingham - Manchesters. Must be worth 2 mins of journey time.. which per minute saved would surely trump HS2 by a hell of a margin. Little improvements delivered sooner.. short term always trumps an uncertain long term

Depends if you can timetable the journey time saving.

 

[6Gman]

mod note - split from:

Think it might be time to put it out its misery and invest elsewhere.

Scrap the whole thing.

And leave all sorts of stuff half-built?

And I doubt any money "saved" would be invested elsewhere on the railway.

 

[irish_rail]

HS2, once again, is about freeing up classic line capacity for improved local services and freight, not about speed.

Yes there are nice to have positives,but I'd argue not essential and much cheaper alternatives exist. The detrimental effect it has on the Western (Old Oak) and other downsides including the mind boggling costs, make it not worth doing. Needs nipping in the bud sooner rather than later before anymore money is wasted.

 

[Energy]

much cheaper alternatives exist

Like what? There isn't many cheaper alternatives for WCML South.

150 work sites, 30 000 people working (on and off site), big money being spent across the UK on supplies and labour.

Any government cancelling it will have to deal with the fallout of the tens of thousands of jobs lost and the loss of work for big and many medium size contractors.

HS2 taking up the massive civil engineering firms has also allowed many medium size firms to take bigger jobs. And jobs within the HS2 supply chain.

It also doesn't look good for "levelling up" if the bit which gets canned is the section to Manchester.

 

[Sorcerer]

While the project has been so badly mismanaged, I think the ultimate end goal still justifies it's construction. As well as freeing up capacity on existing lines for more local trains and more freight, we also need alternatives to domestic air travel in the age of a climate crisis as well as alternatives to long-distance car travel. We cannot do that without both providing faster services and more services which can only be done with a new line to compliment the old one. It's regrettable that so much has been cut back and we've seen so many delays, but I expect a similar result to the Elizabeth Line where it will ultimately end up doing more good than harm.

 

[cle]

I can see it 'ending' at Crewe, although inshallah we will have a government change in the not-too-distant who actually like the north (rather than deceiving them for votes) - and things can be reversed.

 

[stuu]

Ridiculous notion

It's been appallingly mismanaged, and the ludicrous amount of environmental mitigation has pushed costs way up, but the whole scheme, or something like it, will be built eventually

 

[Bletchleyite]

Yes there are nice to have positives,but I'd argue not essential and much cheaper alternatives exist.

Can you advise a cheaper way to remove six trains per hour from the south WCML to allow an improved local service, improved East West Rail service and more freight?

 

[Railsigns]

Scrap the whole thing.

Would you be happy to land taxpayers with a multi-billion-pound bill to repay the money that's been borrowed to fund its construction to date, since a half-built project won't generate a penny's return on that investment? Keep in mind that the revenue from HS2 when operational will exceed the cost of construction, so as well as losing out financially, we'd lose the capacity benefits on the existing railway and consequently the environmental benefits of modal shift.

Opposition to HS2 is a product of the same mentality as opposition to the UK's membership the EU, both being founded on sheer ignorance, misinformation, and a refusal to acknowledge the wider benefits. Is anyone seeing a single benefit from Brexit yet?

 

[Sorcerer]

Opposition to HS2 is a product of the same mentality as opposition to the UK's membership the EU, both being founded on sheer ignorance, misinformation, and a refusal to acknowledge the wider benefits. Is anyone seeing a single benefit from Brexit yet?

Similarly the alternatives proposed are straight-up unrealistic or have a worse cost-benefit analysis. Notably the "invest in current infrastructure instead" even though the best theoretical improvements in the current WCML is 140mph running with new in-cab signalling that would lead to significant disruption and wouldn't be that much better in terms of spare capacity when completed.

 

[matacaster]

As I always said on railforums, this project was always about extending commuter belt from Birmingham to London from a political point of view. They just needed the north to agree to partially fund it.

 

[swt_passenger]

As I always said on railforums, this project was always about extending commuter belt from Birmingham to London from a political point of view. They just needed the north to agree to partially fund it.

…and the south. Waving from Southampton.

 

[RobShipway]

Yes there are nice to have positives,but I'd argue not essential and much cheaper alternatives exist. The detrimental effect it has on the Western (Old Oak) and other downsides including the mind boggling costs, make it not worth doing. Needs nipping in the bud sooner rather than later before anymore money is wasted.

Please provide evidence of the cheaper alternatives and costings of those alternatives?

Can you please also state as from where the alternatives have from, by providing links to the sites of where there is details of those alternatives with costings?

 

[Bletchleyite]

As I always said on railforums, this project was always about extending commuter belt from Birmingham to London from a political point of view. They just needed the north to agree to partially fund it.

It really wasn't. There aren't many commuters from Birmingham to London not because it's slow (because with Avanti it isn't really, it's under an hour and a half, which is comparable with several places on the South Coast which do have significant commuting) but because it's expensive. Much as HS2 could result in cheaper fares due to it more than doubling the Birmingham-London fast capacity, it isn't going to result in penny fares.

The purpose of HS2 Phase 1 has always been to relieve the south WCML by removing six (seven if you count the not-yet-in-existence second Liverpool) fast trains from the WCML south of MKC, and thus making that capacity available for increased local service and freight. If anything the biggest beneficiary was always going to be Milton Keynes despite the majority of residents being unlikely to ever travel on it. Commuting has reduced and so the need for that has reduced a bit (just extending all existing services to 12-car and rejigging Euston a bit so all platforms fit that would give a lot of the capacity needed now) but there's still other stuff that would be enabled by it.

 

[devon_belle]

Cancelling it doesn't feel like good value for money. How much has already been spent? How much would be spent on cancelling it alone?

We should be lobbying for both HS2(+3,4,...) and improvements/reopenings/investments into the classic network. If that is unrealistic under the current government, we can use our votes to change the government.

 

[Tezza1978]

Given the anger from people like Burnham over this "exclusive" story in the Independent and Sky News, the fact that phase 1 is over 40% complete and the catastrophic optics of theoretically cancelling phase 2 in terms of "levelling up" in the North, and the fact that Labour have committed to building 2b and the Eastern Leg in full - they arent going to cancel this with an election approaching.

I expect more waffle about "rephasing it" and more pointless studies/redesigns......

 

[ChrisC]

Cancelling it doesn't feel like good value for money. How much has already been spent? How much would be spent on cancelling it alone?

If it was cancelled how much would it cost to restore the landscape in the locations where construction has already begun. I couldn’t believe the vast swathe of devastation of the countryside when I drove through parts of Warwickshire last summer. I know when you look now at HS1 that after a few years things are looking ok again and new trees etc have grown. If it’s cancelled will the countryside be restored or will there be a great unfinished blot on the landscape which no one will take responsibility for and pay to put right. All that destruction of the countryside for nothing!

I don’t think it could be cancelled now.

 

[greyman42]

HS2, once again, is about freeing up classic line capacity for improved local services and freight, not about speed.

Correct, but until the media get to grips with this fact, the general public will still think it is just about speed.

Regarding scrapping it; the Conservatives will not do so in the run up to an election and Labour, if they end up in power, will not dare do so.

 

[adamedwards]

HS2 has to get to Manchester and (rather than Golborne) Balshaw Lane Junction so it joins the WCML where there are 4 tracks to Preston. That ensures the maximum benefit to the north west of England in freeing up capacity for more local trains, especially into Manchester Picadilly.
Labour should also commit to the Eastern arm. I'm agnostic as to whether Leeds is reached via Nottingham or via Shefield, but it needs to reach the ECML near York so the north east of England benefits to the max.
Anything less is a betrayal of the north of England and Scotland and will I am sure be damaging to the Govt in the Red Wall seats as symbolic of leveling up being lies to win votes.

 

[Philip]

HS2, once again, is about freeing up classic line capacity for improved local services and freight, not about speed.

In this case why not build the line to 'normal' line speeds (like 125mph) with 125mph trains? This would surely be cheaper than the high speed rail and high speed trains they're going for.

 

[Sorcerer]

I remember when originally planned, HS2 was due to be open in about two years time. Now that very idea would simply mean you're living in cuckoo land, but furthermore there's now talk of halting the second phase to Manchester or even straight up scrapping it to cut back on costs. I'm honestly lead to wonder whether or not we'd have been better off consulting the Spanish rail authorities since they've not only built a whole network of high-speed trains since the 1990s but at a cost efficiency that not even China has been able to match. This level of mismanagement is why people can't bring themselves to support HS2 despite how much we need it.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I remember when originally planned, HS2 was due to be open in about two years time. Now that very idea would simply mean you're living in cuckoo land, but furthermore there's now talk of halting the second phase to Manchester or even straight up scrapping it to cut back on costs. I'm honestly lead to wonder whether or not we'd have been better off consulting the Spanish rail authorities since they've not only built a whole network of high-speed trains since the 1990s but at a cost efficiency that not even China has been able to match. This level of mismanagement is why people can't bring themselves to support HS2 despite how much we need it.

I'm not sure there's much to consult the Spaniards on. It's pretty obvious what to do - provide the funding and make the legislative approach designed to ease construction of such projects.

 

[The Ham]

As I always said on railforums, this project was always about extending commuter belt from Birmingham to London from a political point of view. They just needed the north to agree to partially fund it.

Having regularly worked for companies within an hour's travel from London, it makes working on projects within London viable (be that with with other companies or actually on construction projects within London).

With the lower office costs within regional towns and cities the cost of paying a few key staff to travel to London over paying the office space for a lot of staff soon becomes worth the extra travel costs.

As such it gives regional business access to projects which otherwise are only open to those within London and the South East.

The reality is that HS2 could allow business to operate from places like Manchester like they do from places like Basingstoke, without needing to have large numbers of people travel every day to work within London.

…and the south. Waving from Southampton.

Southampton to Newcastle journey times (before the Eastern leg for cut) were due to reduce by about an hour - in doing so quite probably removing the need for that domestic flight (as it would put the rail journey time at about 4:10 hours, which is 1:40 Southampton to Paddington, 2:20 Euston to Newcastle and a 10 minutes extra allowance for changing trains at OOC) as it currently operates twice a day each way, so there's a fair chance that much of a modal shift would render that route (at least) less attractive.

Whilst there will still be some who wish to fit the early start/missing the whole day would put people off if they could travel at a more convenient time for them (say leave at about 10 and arrive at about 2). Also it's not uncommon for people from further north (like Winchester, Basingstoke, Farnborough and the like) to use Southampton to fly from, by being that much closer to OOC their journey time comparison is going to significantly favour going by train (30 minutes to Southampton would mean that whilst there journey time from there to Newcastle is only 30 minutes faster, the air route would also be 30 minutes longer making the gap smaller).

 

[camflyer]

Not realistic.
Too many contracts signed, too much concrete poured, 6 TBMs at work and 5 more being assembled.
150 work sites, 30 000 people working (on and off site), big money being spent across the UK on supplies and labour.
20 miles of tunnel completed (out of 55).
Half of the Colne Valley viaduct built, key bridges in place, many viaduct piers emerging elsewhere.
Rolling stock ordered, station construction started.

Not to mention the cost of tidying up all of the construction sites already in place

Cancelling the whole thing would be many times worse for the construction industry than the Carillion collapse and it would be a long time before the sector ever trusted the government with another big infrastructure project.

 

[Floul1]

it would be a long time before the sector ever trusted the government with another big infrastructure project.

It would be a long time, if ever, before another major infrastructure project is commissioned by any government. Any opposition to large projects would be galvanised by the fact that all they need to do is delay it long enough and shout loud enough, that it's no longer viable.

 

[Chester1]

HS2 has to get to Manchester and (rather than Golborne) Balshaw Lane Junction so it joins the WCML where there are 4 tracks to Preston. That ensures the maximum benefit to the north west of England in freeing up capacity for more local trains, especially into Manchester Picadilly.
Labour should also commit to the Eastern arm. I'm agnostic as to whether Leeds is reached via Nottingham or via Shefield, but it needs to reach the ECML near York so the north east of England benefits to the max.
Anything less is a betrayal of the north of England and Scotland and will I am sure be damaging to the Govt in the Red Wall seats as symbolic of leveling up being lies to win votes.

My bet is that phase 2a to Crewe will go ahead along with the spur to East Midlands Parkway. The rest and its budget could be passed onto TfN and merged into NPR. Whether it then gets cancelled isn't central government's political problem.