The Economist : HS2 Railroad to nowhere

[amcluesent]

Plans for a new high-speed rail link rest on mistaken assumptions about Britain’s economic geography

"The £32 billion at its disposal might well yield a higher return if it were spent on less glitzy schemes, such as road improvements and intra-city transport initiatives. If the aim is to regenerate “the north”, the current plan might prove a high-speed route in the wrong direction."

 

[brianthegiant]

yes but if you apply this sort of short term economic test you'd never build any hospitals, schools, prisons, etc....

 

[exile]

Not really. The Economist is only talking about how to spend the transport budget.

 

[Get-Pulled-Off]

Plans for a new high-speed rail link rest on mistaken assumptions about Britain’s economic geography

"The £32 billion at its disposal might well yield a higher return if it were spent on less glitzy schemes, such as road improvements and intra-city transport initiatives. If the aim is to regenerate “the north”, the current plan might prove a high-speed route in the wrong direction."

I'm sure Nigel Harris and Paul Bigland will describe The Economist as a bunch of NIMBYS!

yes but if you apply this sort of short term economic test you'd never build any hospitals, schools, prisons, etc....

What short term economic test is that? The article refers back to 1981 and the opening of the French high speed line. How long are we talking about before the North recieves the regeneration promised?

 

[Clip]

What short term economic test is that? The article refers back to 1981 and the opening of the French high speed line. How long are we talking about before the North recieves the regeneration promised?

You could actually start it whilst at the same time as building the thing by giving businesses incentives to open up, up there and by the time its finished the regeneration will have started and thus transport between cities will be then widely used then just building it and hope they come.

 

[Greenback]

I'm probably alone in this but I think the article raises some interesting points about places like Stoke on Trent and Coventry.

 

[Get-Pulled-Off]

There already are many schemes to get business to open up "ooop North", primarily business rates reductions or even completely writing them off for several years in certain areas. And as anyone who runs a business will know, business rates cost a blooming fortune But you still won't be trampled on in the rush to open a business in the North, and HS2 won't change that, it will just suck investment away from provincial towns that area away from the proposed line.

I'm probably alone in this but I think the article raises some interesting points about places like Stoke on Trent and Coventry.

You're certainly not. Apart from London, HS2 will be largely detremental to most towns/cities along the route and at best neutral to Birmingham and Manchester. For every business that would benefit from quicker links to London, another one will think it's worth relocating to the capital because Manchester and Birmingham are now quicker to get back too...

 

[IanXC]

I'm probably alone in this but I think the article raises some interesting points about places like Stoke on Trent and Coventry.

I think the key is that reductions in service to locations such as these are reductions in frequency and not speed. A service that takes 2 hours, and is every 2 hours is much more useful than an hourly service which takes 3 hours.

Having said that, if service levels fell in the way that ICEC did to Hull then I'm sure that it wouldn't be too long until an Open Access Operator turned up to provide a service.

 

[WatcherZero]

You're certainly not. Apart from London, HS2 will be largely detremental to most towns/cities along the route and at best neutral to Birmingham and Manchester. For every business that would benefit from quicker links to London, another one will think it's worth relocating to the capital because Manchester and Birmingham are now quicker to get back too...

When travel time is eliminated they will locate wherever its cheaper to do business, and being 10-20% cheaper 'oop North' means few will relocate south and pointlessly increase their overheads.

 

[Metrailway]

I think the key is that reductions in service to locations such as these are reductions in frequency and not speed. A service that takes 2 hours, and is every 2 hours is much more useful than an hourly service which takes 3 hours.

But it will be a reduction in speed. For instance Coventry is likely to get a slower service to London, than current. The current IC service is for that there is only one intermediate stop between Coventry and London. After HS2, this would likely to be several intermediate stops as speed is no longer a prime consideration due to HS2. Intemediate towns may benefit as they get a better service, but major towns/cities like Coventry which are not on HS2, lose out.

 

[Snapper]

I'm sure Nigel Harris and Bigland will describe The Economist as a bunch of NIMBYS!

No, I'd describe them as being overly cautious and publishing an article that is so full of if's and but's that it doesn't really tell us anything new.

It also ignores a large chunk of the argument regarding HS2 - which is capacity on the WCML. Building new roads won't do anything to relieve that, nor does is make sense environmentally. Even the Tories have finally realised that building more and more roads doesn't make sense anymore.
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But it will be a reduction in speed. For instance Coventry is likely to get a slower service to London, than current. The current IC service is for that there is only one intermediate stop between Coventry and London. After HS2, this would likely to be several intermediate stops as speed is no longer a prime consideration due to HS2. Intemediate towns may benefit as they get a better service, but major towns/cities like Coventry which are not on HS2, lose out.

So the rest of the country shouldn't have the benefits of HS2 because of fears that Coventry might lose out?

 

[LE Greys]

But it will be a reduction in speed. For instance Coventry is likely to get a slower service to London, than current. The current IC service is for that there is only one intermediate stop between Coventry and London. After HS2, this would likely to be several intermediate stops as speed is no longer a prime consideration due to HS2. Intemediate towns may benefit as they get a better service, but major towns/cities like Coventry which are not on HS2, lose out.

Well Stevenage just lost out because of the ECML timetable shakeup. So should that not have happened? Certainly not! It was very useful to the vast majority of the passengers using the ECML. The end justifies the means in this case.

 

[Schnellzug]

I think it would be useful as a relief line for the WCML and allow that to cater for freight and intermediate passenger traffic, but I do think some of the things that have been said about it - "it will create 14 Million Jobs!" {or 14 Million jobs depend on it, something wild like that anyway}, do sound rather like the kind of promises Politicians make, and I don't know how seriously most people would take them. And as people have remarked, what capacity enhancements - doubling of just about every line that was singled under BR, quadrupling of double track, perhaps reconstructing useful lines that were closed in the 60s, - could the amounts that are envisaged to be spent on this pay for? Not to mention how many lines could be electrified, new rolling stock built [maybe even they could finally get rid of the Pacers!]

 

[NSEFAN]

In my eyes, HS2 has always been about increasing capacity on a busy line with having as little effect on the day-to-day operation of the WCML as possible. I'm sure that nobody wants to go back to the days of Railtrack's WCML Upgrade episode!

As the Economist says, current services will stop more often as a result, but that is inevitable. Yes journey times will increase for some, but the pay off is that many places other can get a more frequent service as a result. You don't get owt for nowt, as they say.

The idea that £32 billion just exists to spend on anything the government wants is absurd. I agree that many other places need investment as well (small electrification schemes, redoubling, new trains, etc) but getting equivalent funding is much more difficult for lots of small scale projects as opposed to a single large scale one.

 

[Buttsy]

I feel that HS2 just starts to show the short termisim in the Beeching years in surrendering the GCML to the weeds. If this had been retained as a freight route to the north, I've no doubt we'd have not heard anything about HS2, but lots about quadrupling the GCML.

All in all, HS2 is about increasing capacity to the north and that's how it should be viewed. Places will lose out on fast services because of HS2 (Coventry, Stoke, Derby, Sheffield etc.), but overall there will be an improvement in rail services. Some places may actually gain as there is a lot of talk about getting an Aylesbury Vale station on HS2 to relieve the current Chiltern Line.

 

[CosherB]

Yes, it's about capacity and reliability. The present service between Manchester and London is (on the face of it) fast and frequent, but it suffers two major problems that can only get worse, not better:

1) It is overcrowded, especially at peak times.

2) It can be unreliable because of the the old infrastructure, despite a massively expensive WCML upgrade a while ago.

HS2 will address both of these by adding considerably to capacity, and by providing a relaible all-new infrastructure. It's true that Stoke may lose out, as indeed will my native Wilmslow. At present I can get a sub-2 hour train from Wilmslow direct to Euston (as long as there are no failures!) wereas when HS2 is in place it will undoubtably take longer and probably involve a trip to Manchester to pick up HS2.

But that is a small local objection that has to be balanced against the bigger picture.

Pete Waterman has it; "We cannot NOT build HS2!".

 

[Snapper]

And as people have remarked, what capacity enhancements - doubling of just about every line that was singled under BR, quadrupling of double track, perhaps reconstructing useful lines that were closed in the 60s, - could the amounts that are envisaged to be spent on this pay for? Not to mention how many lines could be electrified, new rolling stock built [maybe even they could finally get rid of the Pacers!]

Capacity enhancements are already happening on conventional lines. Don't fall into the trap of thinking that if we don't build HS2 there will suddenly be all this extra money for the conventional railways - Government economics don't work that way.
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I feel that HS2 just starts to show the short termisim in the Beeching years in surrendering the GCML to the weeds. If this had been retained as a freight route to the north, I've no doubt we'd have not heard anything about HS2, but lots about quadrupling the GCML.

Rebuilding and reopening the GC route is an enthusiasts pipe dream that has no place in the 21st century. It certainly wouldn't be a viable substitute for a new HSL.

 

[CosherB]

Don't fall into the trap of thinking that if we don't build HS2 there will suddenly be all this extra money for the conventional railways - Government economics don't work that way.

This is so very true. There seems to be an idea around that this money is on the table for investment in rail, and if HS2 isn't built it could be spent on uprading the existing network. As Snapper says, it's not like that.

The government will fund major infrastructure projects like HS2 because it is a step change from where the railways are now; it is something the rest of the world has done or is doing and is seen as the rail equivalent of building a motorway system in a country where there are only ordinary roads. It's something any country should have by now.

If it's not built, then rail in UK will go into decline. Probably a lot of that money will go into new roads instead of rail as there is no getting away from the fact our current transport infrastucture can't cope, and that will get worse as populations increase.

 

[Greenback]

So the rest of the country shouldn't have the benefits of HS2 because of fears that Coventry might lose out?

Not necessarily. but part of the arguments put forward for HS2 is that it will provide economic benefits. It is only right to point out that the economic benefits may not be universal. My own feeling is that the economic effects of the new line will be to increase long distance commuting to London, and further centralise regional economies in Leeds and Manchester.

In my eyes, HS2 has always been about increasing capacity on a busy line with having as little effect on the day-to-day operation of the WCML as possible. I'm sure that nobody wants to go back to the days of Railtrack's WCML Upgrade episode!

That is the strongest argument for HS2 in my opinion.

I feel that HS2 just starts to show the short termisim in the Beeching years in surrendering the GCML to the weeds. If this had been retained as a freight route to the north, I've no doubt we'd have not heard anything about HS2, but lots about quadrupling the GCML.

All in all, HS2 is about increasing capacity to the north and that's how it should be viewed. Places will lose out on fast services because of HS2 (Coventry, Stoke, Derby, Sheffield etc.), but overall there will be an improvement in rail services. Some places may actually gain as there is a lot of talk about getting an Aylesbury Vale station on HS2 to relieve the current Chiltern Line.

There are bound to be winners and losers. It appears to me that the winners will be Leeds and Manchester, and the losers will be those places like Wakefield, Stoke and Derby which are some of the towns and cities that really need an economic boost.

 

[Schnellzug]

Where does or will this £32 billion come from, incidentally? Has it been set aside already, or will it come from that old favourite device, putting up to fares to "pay for improvements"?

 

[stanley T]

It is quicker and less disruptive to build new lines than upgrading/widening old ones, as HS1 showed. Widening bridges is particularly troublesome, to modern building standards and 25kV clearances you usually have to build a new one, which disrupts existing road traffic as well as rail.

The positive however is that widening does not incur the NIMBY resistance and long planning delays. New lines which speed between big population centres without stopping are of no use to local people who are affected, hence the paradox that new roads face less opposition than high speed lines, although they are more environmentally disruptive. High speed lines (300km/h or better) cannot even curve as much as motorways, so any route through crowded England is going to destroy housing, or else involve very expensive tunnelling + pressurised trains like HS1.

The other point is the economics of really high speed is that a 200mph train requires nearly three times the energy of a 125mph one, whereas it is only 25% more for 140mph. Energy ain't going to come cheap again, and we have a looming capacity problem with electricity generation.

Having gone through the pain of rebuilding the WCML, with new signalling new wiring and power supplies, new track, there really is no excuse for unreliability. Anyway what do you do with those Pendolinos, which have another twenty years life at least? Stoke/Macclesfield/Stockport could be served from a loop from HS2, but Milton Keynes and Coventry could not. And you still could not get from London to Glasgow in three hours, because no way would HS2 be justified beyond Lancashire.

Oh, and the country is bust.

The problem is freight capacity. Doubling the Chiltern line was supposed to solve that, but given all the new passenger trains that has created a new bottleneck, which is Moor Street - Aynho junction.

The real capacity crunch is south of Rugby. My suggestions:

NO to HS2.
YES to overlaying ERTMS on the signalling all the way from Watford to Carnforth, so Pendos can do 140mph nearly all the way
YES to reopening the GCML south of Rugby as a freight line. It's intact and hardly any building on it. Only problem is you would probably need a tunnel under Rugby, as it crosses the WCML at right angles in the middle of town. It can connect to the Chiltern line at Ashenden junction. There is little opposition to reopening old lines.

You could electrify it at low incremental cost, but wonder if there is the demand, as 66s run freight apart from Freightliner.

 

[Schnellzug]

This is another question, yes; where would the additional power come from? Don't forget that the GWML and others will be electrified by then, theoretically. Surely the increased demand could only be catered for by nuclear power; and that would hardly be likely to go through without protest.

 

[Buttsy]

Rebuilding and reopening the GC route is an enthusiasts pipe dream that has no place in the 21st century. It certainly wouldn't be a viable substitute for a new HSL.

Wasn't suggesting it be rebuilt, just using it as an example of short term thinking, which most objectors to HS2 are doing with regard to HS2.

 

[stanley T]

Wasn't suggesting it be rebuilt, just using it as an example of short term thinking, which most objectors to HS2 are doing with regard to HS2.

Reopening the GCML as a freight line to relieve the capacity constraint is not nostalgia, it is cheaper and easier than a new line.

 

[Metroland]

This is another question, yes; where would the additional power come from? Don't forget that the GWML and others will be electrified by then, theoretically. Surely the increased demand could only be catered for by nuclear power; and that would hardly be likely to go through without protest.

Apart from the railways are an extremely modest demander of the overall power supply (less than 2%), surely freeing up classic routes allows more railfreight which is 5-10 times more energy efficient than road freight. Plus with modal shift from cars and planes in general, as well as freeing up more classic routes for commuters, I suspect in terms of overall primary energy demand HS2 saves power!

The same arguments could be used for the 30 million plus cars people are expecting to run 'off the grid' (hardly the capacity for that, compared to a few thousands rail vehicles) and as far as I know there are no real solutions to heavy lorries.

The problems with the economists article is they are expecting 'business as usual', when we do need more rail capacity in this country. Not everything can go by train, but it is starting to be realised that more capacity would be very useful in this crowded island where there are already 24 times more roads than railways and zero real solutions as far as I can see in maintaining mobility into the 21st century (very important for maintaining any sort of standard of living) apart from wishful thinking and pipedreams. People may argue for re-opening branch lines, but these are not very cost effective and certainly not as energy efficient per passenger than something rail is good at - high speed inter-urban travel over 50-500 miles.

 

[Snapper]

The other point is the economics of really high speed is that a 200mph train requires nearly three times the energy of a 125mph one, whereas it is only 25% more for 140mph.

No. It doesn't.

I'm curious as to where you got these figures from. Perhaps you should have a look at this example:

http://www.uic.org/apps/presentation/lukaszewicz.pdf

Having gone through the pain of rebuilding the WCML, with new signalling new wiring and power supplies, new track, there really is no excuse for unreliability. Anyway what do you do with those Pendolinos, which have another twenty years life at least? Stoke/Macclesfield/Stockport could be served from a loop from HS2, but Milton Keynes and Coventry could not. And you still could not get from London to Glasgow in three hours, because no way would HS2 be justified beyond Lancashire.

Oh, and the country is bust.

For a start, the country isn't bust - and the business case for HS2 already sees the route going beyond Lancashire. As for the Pendolino's, they can stay on the WCML.

The problem is freight capacity. Doubling the Chiltern line was supposed to solve that, but given all the new passenger trains that has created a new bottleneck, which is Moor Street - Aynho junction.

No. The problem is capacity full stop - not just freight. The Chiltern project was never meant to solve the problems on the WCML. It's a different scheme entirely.

YES to overlaying ERTMS on the signalling all the way from Watford to Carnforth, so Pendos can do 140mph nearly all the way YES to reopening the GCML south of Rugby as a freight line. It's intact and hardly any building on it. Only problem is you would probably need a tunnel under Rugby, as it crosses the WCML at right angles in the middle of town. It can connect to the Chiltern line at Ashenden junction. There is little opposition to reopening old lines.

How many times does it have to be pointed out that yet another modernisation of the WCML simply doesn't provide the capacity that HS2 does? It's a sticking plaster solution.

There's no point in spending money to reopen the GC South of Rugby as it doesn't achieve what is needed. Plus, what happens to those freights when they get onto the existing lines South of Aylesbury? The beauty of HS2 is that it will be built to European loading gauge, you could run EU sized freights along it at night just the way DBS are starting to do with HS1. You could never to that on any of our existing lines.

It's an idea that really hasn't been though through exepct as an excuse to reopen the GC.
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Reopening the GCML as a freight line to relieve the capacity constraint is not nostalgia, it is cheaper and easier than a new line.

I'm afraid it is nostalgia as it really makes no sense - as I pointed out in my other post.

 

[WatcherZero]

Where does or will this £32 billion come from, incidentally? Has it been set aside already, or will it come from that old favourite device, putting up to fares to "pay for improvements"?

Currently £2bn per year is set aside by the government to fund Crossrail, this project starts the year after Crossrail finishes (2018) and will take just over 8 years (2025) to complete the first £17bn phase, the second phase costing £15bn will take from 2026 to 2033 (8 years). I will leave you to guess where the budget is coming from.

 

[Snapper]

Indeed. Government's don't need to amass a big pot of money at the very start for projects like this. It's a fundamental misunderstanding of how the finances work.

In fact, for the first 5 years of the project, the amount of money needed is in the millions, not the billions.

 

[Get-Pulled-Off]

No. It doesn't.

I'm curious as to where you got these figures from. Perhaps you should have a look at this example:

http://www.uic.org/apps/presentation/lukaszewicz.pdf

And how many times do you need to be told that the environmental case for high speed rail is far from clear cut.

http://http://www.uctc.net/access/37/access37_assessing_hsr.pdf

It's nice to know that an objector has not been deemed a NIMBY for a change. Of course they are wrong, because they don't agree with RAIL magazine propaganda, but still, it's a start!
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When travel time is eliminated they will locate wherever its cheaper to do business, and being 10-20% cheaper 'oop North' means few will relocate south and pointlessly increase their overheads.

That's not true. There is more to the location choice of a business than time travel and costs. Despite being a proud Northerner, I have to concede that if I was a high value, high skill company, the bias would be towards investing in the South. The reasons for this are many, but primarily geared towards the recruitment of highly skilled staff. I'm not talking about someone having a few A-Levels as being highly skilled but rather the kind of people who are recruited internationally because they are best in their field.

The unfortunate fact is that London and the South has more of these than anywhere in the country. Also, if you're the type of company that attracts people from around the world, you are more likely to recruit members of staff if you are based in London, because it's a city where people want to live. If you're an American, being head-hunted by a UK company, would you be more likely to take the job if they were based in London, or Wolverhampton? Or put it the other way, two companies have headhunted you because of your proven track record in your field. One is based in New York, the other is based in Lincoln, Nebraska? Which do you choose (assuming salaries are similar)?

And that is before we start to acknowledge that most contacts are based in and around London. So there are many reasons why London would be the preferred base for most companies despite an increase in costs. Make Birmingham and Manchester closer and it's likely that companies will relocate away from these centres because they are easier to get back to.

 

[Snapper]

And how many times do you need to be told that the environmental case for high speed rail is far from clear cut.

http://http://www.uctc.net/access/37/access37_assessing_hsr.pdf

Do you seriously think no-one knows about this and you've stumbled on a secret? Network Rail are way ahead of you and have already looked into this.

This doesn't however, undermine the case for HSR. In fact, far from it. The document you've linked to points out that the study is in relation to the specific conditions for HSR in California. Yet, it still ends with this:

"Life-cycle assessment shows that high ridership coupled with planning for system-wide energy and emission reductions are necessary for a high-speed rail network to improve the environment and human health"

Hardly something earth-shattering, or new....