HS2....who/what should we believe?....

[teamsaint]

I am reminded of the charms of C++

you get many of those, inspector? Winkeyeye thing.

B - - always seemed SO much better !!

[aeolium]

This article puts the folly of the HS2 project in the context of a disastrous and ideologically driven policy for rail (and other utilities). The absurd proposal to reprivatise the East coast main line despite the transparent success of the state operation compared with previous private operators of the franchise is just one example of skewed rail policy. Increasingly, large parts of the network are operated by the state railways of other countries - Deutsche Bahn effectively runs the railway, Arriva Trains, that I generally use. And any profits from these franchises are repatriated for the benefit of other countries' rail systems. Could anything more ludicrous be devised (leaving aside the security issues around allowing foreign countries including China to own and operate large parts of vital infrastructure)? HS2 is just one more example of a transport policy that has totally failed to examine what is needed and how it could best be provided and operated in the interests of the nation as a whole and of transport users.

[ahinton]

I'm no fan of HS2 (as I've already stated elsewhere) but where on earth do these estimated costs come from and why are they so incredibly high and likely to get higher as work progresses (if ever it were to commence in the first place)? Here's a piece about similar projects in France; do the French know something that the Brits don't or are these estimates just absurdly unrealistic? - http://www.connexionfrance.com/Borde...w-article.html

[Ferretfancy]

As I'm a bear of little brain, can anyone explain to me the advantage of running empty first class carriages up and down the country?

[aeolium]

As I'm a bear of little brain, can anyone explain to me the advantage of running empty first class carriages up and down the country?

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/10/21/mps-expenses-quarter-charged-first-class-rail-travel-taxpayer_n_1995713.html

[Dave2002]

Agreed, (apart from the renationalisation part). This whole HS2 project seems to me to be a "big boy's toys" scenario. There is no need for it and the money would be far better spent on our existing transport infrastructure.

We really don't need it in this country. We are small island. Nowhere is so far from anywhere else. To cross Europe, yes, but to get from London to Birmingham 20 minutes more quickly?

Just get an earlier train......the result will be the same....

Mmmm...
Manchester to Liverpool - around 30-35 miles depending on how you measure it. Train service fairly rubbish - typical train time around 50 minutes, and the rolling stock can be rather rough.

Machester to Sheffield around 35-40 miles depending on how you measure it. Train service fairly rubbish - typical train time around 50 minutes, and the rolling stock can be rather rough.

There are many cross country services which could be improved drastically, and which would improve the transport system very much more, and which it should be possible to improve much more quickly than waiting for HS2 to be built, whether one agrees with the project or not.

OK - the Tories have started to notice this, and they claim that they are putting more funds in, but where is the evidence? I suspect that most places north of Watford won't see significant investments/improvements for a very long time, if ever. Probably the same applies to other parts of the country too - such as the south-west.

The latest propaganda effort is to suggest that improving the existing lines to the north from London will take 15 years, and not be as effective as HS2, but isn't this a straw man argument, as it puts up yet another suggestion which seems comparable to the current proposal, yet equally may not be needed?

I suppose someone will come out and say that there's not the demand for traffic from X to Y, where X and Y are places like Liverpool, Manchester, Hull, Sheffield, Leeds etc., but perhaps the reason that there's not the demand is that most people who need to travel have discovered that for them driving is a better alternative. Sad - even though driving can be a total pain, in some parts of the country the public service alternatives are so poor that driving is the only way to get around. Public transport really should be improved, and at least some of the traffic should be diverted to bus/rail, but why should people change when the services are so poor?

Lastly, the idea of using a hub model (dare I say it - centred on London) for transport in this country is barking mad. Going into London in order to get to places like Birmingham from places slightly north of London is really dumb. Going round two sides of a triangle with a fairly acute apical angle is not usually a sensible way to travel - or to construct an infrastructure system. Not only does it not make sense in terms of total distance travelled, but it also increases congestion at the hub in areas which are already very congested.

[Dave2002]

I'm no fan of HS2 (as I've already stated elsewhere) but where on earth do these estimated costs come from and why are they so incredibly high and likely to get higher as work progresses (if ever it were to commence in the first place)? Here's a piece about similar projects in France; do the French know something that the Brits don't or are these estimates just absurdly unrealistic? - http://www.connexionfrance.com/Borde...w-article.html

I don't quite see your point here, or at least not with the data given in that article. Are you arguing about costs or construction times? The times for construction of these proposed lines actually don't seem particularly quick. The Bordeaux to Tours section is under construction, and should open in 2017. TGVs already travel from Paris to Bordeaux, but not all of the line is LGV (high speed). Actually this is possibly quite impressive, though I don't know when it was started. The distance from Tours to Bordeaux is about 300 km, or 185 miles, which is not quite twice the distance from London to Birmingham. The other lines are to be completed in 2024 (Bordeaux to Toulouse), 2027 (Bordeaux to Dax) and 2032 (to the Spanish border) which seem more like British time scales than what we think the French can achieve.

However, the costs given are interesting. No cost is given in the article for the Tours to Bordeaux section, but it's about twice the distance from Bordeaux to Dax for which a cost of 3.2 bn Euros is given. This would suggest that a doubling, plus an allowance for underestimating, to 7 bn Euros would be feasible for a line comparable in length to London to Birmingham - i.e the first part of the HS2 project. Perhaps the terrain makes things easier in France, and there might be little need for tunnels, but even so 7 bn Euros is a lot less than our projected (and rising) £32-40 bn project.

[Richard Barrett]

Aside from cost considerations (and as for tunnels, I would imagine the Japanese ans Swiss have a much more difficult terrain to cope with than the UK, and they both have modern and efficient railway systems), it seems to me ludicrous to put any resources at all into reducing the journey time between London and Birmingham when the entire system is crumbling duo to underinvestment and fantastically expensive due to profiteering and the magically vanishing state subsuidies paid to rail companies.

As you say, Dave,
I suppose someone will come out and say that there's not the demand for traffic from X to Y, where X and Y are places like Liverpool, Manchester, Hull, Sheffield, Leeds etc., but perhaps the reason that there's not the demand is that most people who need to travel have discovered that for them driving is a better alternative. Sad - even though driving can be a total pain, in some parts of the country the public service alternatives are so poor that driving is the only way to get around. Public transport really should be improved, and at least some of the traffic should be diverted to bus/rail, but why should people change when the services are so poor?

No British government since the 1970s has cared about the quality of public transport.

[An_Inspector_Calls]

Dave2202
I don't think the prospects for the north are as gloomy as you suggest.

http://www.networkrail.co.uk/improvements/northern-hub/

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/road-and-rail-transport/9403296/Rail-network-improvement-how-will-if-affect-me.html

These initiatives, with the completed east-caost electrification, should improve things markedly. We could do with the Wensleydale railway re-opening though.

[Dave2002]

Dave2202
I don't think the prospects for the north are as gloomy as you suggest.

http://www.networkrail.co.uk/improvements/northern-hub/

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/road-and-rail-transport/9403296/Rail-network-improvement-how-will-if-affect-me.html

These initiatives, with the completed east-caost electrification, should improve things markedly. We could do with the Wensleydale railway re-opening though.

AIC

Thanks for that. There are still some bits missing - for example west of Birmingham, and down to the south-west. Also not much scheduled for improvement going up to the borders with Scotland, though perhaps there are other reasons for that.

If these improvements do happen, and if some of them happen quickly - surely they don't all have to wait until 2019 - then that could be a really good thing.

If anyone else has travelled on the line between Manchester Airport and Sheffield and seen how crowded the trains are - and .... also .... quite a lot of people have luggage (I wonder why - perhaps they are flying somewhere ...) and there are also people with bikes (why - perhaps it's nice to cycle round Derbyshire ...) and then watch what happens when the man with the refreshment trolley tries to get it onto the train, they might have a good idea of the sort of service on our national rail networks I have seen not too long ago. If you haven't seen it with your own eyes and read about it you'd probably imagine the story was made up.

We are not talking about 8 car trains or even 4 car trains as in the London area, but 3 carriage trains. One does not have to be a genius to work out how to increase capacity.

There are times when I really can't take this country seriously!

[ahinton]

I don't quite see your point here, or at least not with the data given in that article. Are you arguing about costs or construction times? The times for construction of these proposed lines actually don't seem particularly quick. The Bordeaux to Tours section is under construction, and should open in 2017. TGVs already travel from Paris to Bordeaux, but not all of the line is LGV (high speed). Actually this is possibly quite impressive, though I don't know when it was started. The distance from Tours to Bordeaux is about 300 km, or 185 miles, which is not quite twice the distance from London to Birmingham. The other lines are to be completed in 2024 (Bordeaux to Toulouse), 2027 (Bordeaux to Dax) and 2032 (to the Spanish border) which seem more like British time scales than what we think the French can achieve.

However, the costs given are interesting. No cost is given in the article for the Tours to Bordeaux section, but it's about twice the distance from Bordeaux to Dax for which a cost of 3.2 bn Euros is given. This would suggest that a doubling, plus an allowance for underestimating, to 7 bn Euros would be feasible for a line comparable in length to London to Birmingham - i.e the first part of the HS2 project. Perhaps the terrain makes things easier in France, and there might be little need for tunnels, but even so 7 bn Euros is a lot less than our projected (and rising) £32-40 bn project.

I did indeed refer to the costs only, not the construction time, although the Tours/Bordeaux section does at least appear to be running to schedule (as one hopes will the trains that use in once consruction is complete!) and seems not (yet, at least0 to have gone over budget as so often seems to happen with such massive projects in UK.

[Serial_Apologist]

As I'm a bear of little brain, can anyone explain to me the advantage of running empty first class carriages up and down the country?

To be fair this was also true under British Rail, as I well recall, making my late-arrival way through one near-empty half to the front, jam-packed, part smoke-filled half of the Paddington to Bristle trail in the 1970s and '80s.

[ahinton]

To be fair this was also true under British Rail, as I well recall, making my late-arrival way through one near-empty half to the front, jam-packed, part smoke-filled half of the Paddington to Bristle trail in the 1970s and '80s.

When first class train fares are often (though by no means always any more) so very much more expensive than standard class ones so very little extra value, it's hardly a wonder that, outside rush hours, the available first class capacity is often quite considerable; add to that the fact that the sheer complex maze of fare structures is simply too Byzantine for most prospective train travellers and many of them therefore do not know how often it is possible to purchase first class fares that are consierably cheaper than the maximum, this situation becomes even less surprising.

[An_Inspector_Calls]

AIC

There are still some bits missing - for example west of Birmingham, and down to the south-west. Also not much scheduled for improvement going up to the borders with Scotland, though perhaps there are other reasons for that.

Those are difficult areas. The lines north and eastwards from Aberystwyth (both barely used) and I presume the Carlisle-Settle line. The latter would be very difficult to electrify

[Dave2002]

Those are difficult areas. The lines north and eastwards from Aberystwyth (both barely used) and I presume the Carlisle-Settle line. The latter would be very difficult to electrify

Electrification isn't the only way to effect an improvement.