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

[aeolium]

The Green Party is opposed.

http://greenparty.org.uk/news/2014/0...-bad%E2%80%99/

Good for them (I had already decided to support them in the forthcoming elections anyway).

[Serial_Apologist]

Good for them (I had already decided to support them in the forthcoming elections anyway).

I agree with all three of you.

How dismal that Labour has ditched its earlier circumspection about a project it should have vehemently opposed right from the start as only of benefit to those able to afford the fares by taking 20 minutes off a journey which could be otherwise spent working on the train. Another case of the third Heathrow runway, I'm sorry to say.

[teamsaint]

I quite agree, Dave2002. The project seems far more likely just to suck more people and money in to London than to improve any economic prospects of the north. HS1 had no positive impact on the economy of Kent as employment levels have dropped by 3% since it was built.

Why not forget about London altogether and concentrate on improving the inter-city connections of cities in the Midlands and the North (and up to Scotland eventually), as well as other small-scale improvements elsewhere in the country? Transport spend is already ridiculously skewed in favour of London - average spend per head £2700 in 2011 compared with £5 per head in the North-east! It's absolutely crazy to have another highly expensive London-centred project - for that's what it is.

Yet with Labour apparently committing to support the project not one of the main three parties is opposing this project. It's hardly any wonder why people are deserting the mainstream parties.

I agree with you , Dave 2002, and the rest. This is a mad plan.

Somewhere on the web I found a great plan to spend a fraction of the money on connecting the big cities of the North, along with Birmingham and Nottingham, in a northern HS network. I can't find it now, (probably been spike by the government), and can't remember if it included Glasgow/Edinburgh.

And like others, I am in favour of quality public transport, and investment in rail.

For the benefit of the many, not the few. what about some late evening services out of Euston , for a start.

It is very hard to find out the truth about capacity issues on the WCML. As regards speed, you can get from Euston to Manchester in a little over 2 hours. That is really fast enough, given the alternatives, IMO.

[Dave2002]

And like others, I am in favour of quality public transport, and investment in rail.

Making it all join up is often a big problem. Where I live, a few miles from a railway station, there is a need for a car park at the station for commuters,
as the bus service is all but non existant. Thus commuters either get a friend or spouse to drop them off at a station and pick them up again, or they leave cars there all day. A few use bicycles or walk.

Go away for a few days or weeks and problems get worse. Then one is reliant on taxis - not always so reliable - to get to and from the station. It doesn't make much difference if somewhere in a journey there is a relatively high speed train hurtling along, such as London to Warrington in 1 hour 45 mins, but the overall journey time can easily be more than twice that because of much slower links and the need to travel across London to get between mainline stations.

[amateur51]

Honest and thoughtful journalism from Christian Woolmar, a transport expert ...

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n08/christian-wolmar/whats-the-point-of-hs2

[mercia]

this report says that HS1 hasn't had the desired transforming effect on employment in East Kent, if anything the reverse

http://www.iea.org.uk/sites/default/files/in-the-media/files/CCP_HS2_web.pdf

[jean]

Nor will it around these parts - but (according to the IEA) that's because

...The Institute of Economic Affairs points to the great things that were promised for Kent in the wake of HS1.

It uses figures showing employment figures along the HS1 corridor were worse once the line opened.

The think tank also uses Doncaster as an example of a place that was led to expect great things with the arrival of 125mph expresses on the North East line. But nothing has changed.

One of the reasons for this, it says, is partly because of the high level of unqualified people in the east Yorkshire city, demonstrated by its place as 42nd worst in a national index of socially deprived areas.

Worryingly, in that same index, Liverpool is in first place.

The number of unqualified people in our neck of the woods seems too high to attract the likely jobs of the future. Figures quoted give the numbers of people with qualifications at or above NCQ Level 4. In Doncaster it is 23 per cent of the population, Liverpool is 27.7 per cent, compared to a UK average of over 35per cent of people qualified to NVQ4 or above. Manchester’s level, at just under 39 per cent, is higher than the UK average.

“Local populations characterised by low skills, poor education and a lack of entrepreneurship may struggle to exploit the business opportunities offered by improved transport links. Such constraints may also deter firms from expanding or relocating in many areas, says the IEA report’s author, Richard Wellings.

He adds: “Politicians and officials therefore risk misleading the public by claiming HS2 will tackle the North-South divide, rebalance the economy and turn northern cities into world leaders.”

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

If George Stephenson had been from the South East, I doubt whether the railway system would have reached beyond Birmingham. The present planning is indicative of the same.

[Dave2002]

I had a look at the services from London to Canterbury, and also to Folkestone. Since the development of the HS1 route, there are now two routes to these places - one is the old (very) slow route, the other uses the new fast route, which is clearly significantly better, with journey times less than an hour. I was interested to note that the ticket prices were not too dissimilar between the routes, typically slightly below and slightly above £30.

However looking at another route - London to Stafford, this is considerably longer than London to Canterbury, yet some trains to that location are fast enough to allow commuting (1 hour 15 minutes), and sometimes the ticket prices are much lower - around £20.

I remain unconvinced that rail links should be provided to encourage commuting to London. We appear to have an almost out of control model for transport, with roads which in England at least are very frequently highly congested. We are seemingly free to travel almost anywhere by road, with few constraints, and financial constraints don't appear to restrict such travel. Just leaving people (drivers?) to sort out their own mess does not seem to work very well - and driving out of the London area to travel north on Friday afternoons is nearly always very difficult. It is possible to spend 3 hours travelling around the M25, which may be comparable with the total journey time to some destinations at less congested times. Still, we have a democracy, and a "right" to travel, largely unconstrained by other factors, which in our currently rather chaotic model leads to frequent major problems.

One significant improvement could be made if rail systems could take a significant proportion of the lorry traffic off the roads, though in that case would it not make sense if the railway lines could be connected to ports and sources/sinks for the goods which we apparently need to have transported around our countries? If people could be persuaded to use public transport rather than drive, this could be a good thing, but there are many factors. For shortish journeys, cars are usually the best option - where this is possible. However in congested cities, such as London, public transport wins easily, because of congestion issues, and because trying to find a parking space at one's destination may take a long time too. For medium length journeys, bus/coach and rail start to become preferable to cars, though many of us, having already acquired a car, will still tend to use that. For journeys of 200-300 miles rail travel probably wins, if it is cheap enough, though for journeys of over 300 miles air travel is a sensible option if traffic volumes are not too high.

It seems that collectively we have a desire to travel, if not exactly a need. Surely there must be better ways than what we have now. Integrated transport systems? (!!!)

[aeolium]

It's not merely congestion that should provide a strong reason for governments to try to increase travel by public transport, but pollution:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17704116

The recent "Sahara dust" incident in which pollution levels in London in particular were raised significantly obscured the fact that air pollution had reached similar high levels on three previous occasions in the last year without any contribution from the Sahara. Air pollution from traffic is an invisible killer which is ruining cities (not least due to the high proportion of diesel cars now on the roads):

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/apr/29/diesel-engine-pollution-premature-deaths-costs-nhs-billions

[ahinton]

I remain unconvinced that rail links should be provided to encourage commuting to London. We appear to have an almost out of control model for transport, with roads which in England at least are very frequently highly congested. We are seemingly free to travel almost anywhere by road, with few constraints, and financial constraints don't appear to restrict such travel. Just leaving people (drivers?) to sort out their own mess does not seem to work very well - and driving out of the London area to travel north on Friday afternoons is nearly always very difficult. It is possible to spend 3 hours travelling around the M25, which may be comparable with the total journey time to some destinations at less congested times. Still, we have a democracy, and a "right" to travel, largely unconstrained by other factors, which in our currently rather chaotic model leads to frequent major problems.

If the road congestion problems are as you describe them (and they are), why are you nevertheless "unconvinced that rail links should be provided to encourage commuting to [and, by impolication from] London"?

One significant improvement could be made if rail systems could take a significant proportion of the lorry traffic off the roads

But wouldn't this merely shift the congestion problem from road to rail, blocking lines for passenger use? Freight cannot and does not travel by rail as fast as passenger trains do and the more freight that shares rail routes with passenger services the worse that will surely get for the latter.

though in that case would it not make sense if the railway lines could be connected to ports and sources/sinks for the goods which we apparently need to have transported around our countries?

It certainly would in principle, but this would surely mean building new dedicated freight between those ports and sources that you describe.

If people could be persuaded to use public transport rather than drive, this could be a good thing, but there are many factors. For shortish journeys, cars are usually the best option - where this is possible. However in congested cities, such as London, public transport wins easily, because of congestion issues, and because trying to find a parking space at one's destination may take a long time too. For medium length journeys, bus/coach and rail start to become preferable to cars, though many of us, having already acquired a car, will still tend to use that. For journeys of 200-300 miles rail travel probably wins, if it is cheap enough, though for journeys of over 300 miles air travel is a sensible option if traffic volumes are not too high.

Much of this makes sense, but the car option will always have the advantages that (a) it takes travellers from their points of departure directly to their destinations which public transport of any kind can never do and (b) it enables travellers top travel precisely when they want or need to rather than at the specific times when planes, trains and coaches provide services.

It seems that collectively we have a desire to travel, if not exactly a need. Surely there must be better ways than what we have now. Integrated transport systems? (!!!)

More integration would help, to be sure, but I don't see this alone as solving all the problems and, once again, taking significant amounts of freight off the roads, while reducing road congestion and helping to enable and encourage more and somewhat faster car journeys, will inevitably compromise the usefulness of train travel unless such new dedicated freight lines are bilt - and who's going to finance those?

[Dave2002]

Freight cannot and does not travel by rail as fast as passenger trains do and the more freight that shares rail routes with passenger services the worse that will surely get for the latter.

I believe that on some high speed lines in fact freight does go fast. Apparently mixing freight and passenger trains caused significant problems with freight trains being diverted into parallel tracks frequently to allow high speed passenger trains to pass. A solution was found by runing the freight trains at similar speeds, and incidentally this increases the utilisation of the rolling stock and locomotives, as they may be able to do more than one round trip per day, thus increasing throughput.

[ahinton]

I believe that on some high speed lines in fact freight does go fast. Apparently mixing freight and passenger trains caused significant problems with freight trains being diverted into parallel tracks frequently to allow high speed passenger trains to pass. A solution was found by runing the freight trains at similar speeds, and incidentally this increases the utilisation of the rolling stock and locomotives, as they may be able to do more than one round trip per day, thus increasing throughput.

OK, if freight really can be transported by rail at the same speeds as those of pasenger trains - and that will need to be at least 200kph as of now and much faster if HS2 does eventually materialise - then that problem is overcome, provided freight trains don't hold up passenger trains when they leave main lines to get to their destinations.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

George Osborne's new gimmick: HS3. A northern high speed line between Manchester and Leeds, preferably by upgrading existing lines.

Now for those who aren't quite as stupid as G.O. thinks we are, Network Rail is currently planning to upgrade and electrify this line. Times will be cut and capacity increased. But of course dressing it up as HS3 might just stave off the hostility felt by many in the north that they will not see HS until they are very old indeed.

Not that I blame the Tories alone for HS1/2/3 spin. The Labour opposition during their long wait in the wilderness had proposed a line linking London, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, York, Newcastle, Edinburgh and Glasgow. Once in government, they never mentioned it. Soon after this proposal first came to light, I wrote an April Fool for a local newspaper, with a line that took an opposite route, crossing the Humber Bridge, reopening the Scarborough-Whitby and Stainmore lines, passing through Middlesborough, Carlisle and Glasgow, eventually ending in Aberdeen.

Then there is the cheaper Great Central Route, which I support - much cheaper than HS2, as most of the track bed is already there.

[jean]

HS3 is a much better idea than HS2, I will say.