HS2, whats the current status ?

[nc107]

robinessex said:

This happens because the Government has a privatisation policy for everything. Thus, with no government paid civil servants to administer this, they're stuck in the clutches of the greedy, crooked and basically corrupt private sector, headed by the big accountancy and management agencies.

Unfortunately there are hundreds of civil servants administering this. Any decision of consequence, and most of little consequence has to go through a multi layered approval process dreamt up by the civil servants and with them at the apex. An earlier poster alluded to their experience of recruiting; I have had similar experiences on the technical side - I could not believe the bureaucracy involved. And it all terminates at a civil servants desk; the time lag is extraordinary and I suspect is a significant reason for some of the costs quoted.

I can certainly foresee that by the time they've signed off the ZX Spectrum the world will have moved on to iPads!

This process is in place precisely because of the civil servants (who are petrified of being criticised or making a decision- they see it as a source of protection). However the layers upon layers of bureaucracy and the byzantine procedures provide many hiding places for those that see the opportunity to milk a few quid.

[Downward]

gothatway said:

Downward said:

Now I have 20 years plus experiance in engineering, manufacturing, new builds in contra t management.

...

Rather than getting people into posts based on their background and experiance rhey are trying to shoehorn people into posts which they have vacant (although they dont know what these vacant posts are managing)

Call me old fashioned but being intrviewed by someone with no experiance apart from university education going off a pre scripted list doesn't fill me with any confidence at all.

Hopefully you put more effort into your job application (particularly in terms of spell-checking) than you do into posting on here ?

Yes sadly I don't have a computer at home so its a mobile phone out of work hours which is fiddly !!

[Downward]

BlackLabel said:

“Former Carillion boss takes reins of UK's HS2 project”

www.thelondoneconomic.com/news/former-carillion-bo...

Carillion won a contract for some work on HS2 didn't they ?

[abzmike]

I appreciate the Mail is not generally a great source, but it reports today that a pretty strong cabal of ministers are getting the balls together to shut down the project. Interesting to see what happens, even as a diversion from other issues.

[anonymous-user]

abzmike said:

I appreciate the Mail is not generally a great source, but it reports today that a pretty strong cabal of ministers are getting the balls together to shut down the project. Interesting to see what happens, even as a diversion from other issues.

Great it's a good job they and the many short sighted generally nimby ranters
weren't about when the GWR, LNER and other railways were built or we might be a bit foooked nowadays.
Sooner it is built and the fast trains foooked off onto it we can get more frequent and reliable local/regional services and freight onto the old railway.

[abzmike]

speedyguy said:

Great it's a good job they and the many short sighted generally nimby ranters
weren't about when the GWR, LNER and other railways were built or we might be a bit foooked nowadays.
Sooner it is built and the fast trains foooked off onto it we can get more frequent and reliable local/regional services and freight onto the old railway.

I’m all for progress and modernisation, but the penny seems to be dropping that the economic value simply does not match the progressively increasing price.

[CoolHands]

How comes when they built this type of stuff in the old days it didn’t cost the equivalent of £100 billion. It’s just insane

[foxbody-87]

CoolHands said:

How comes when they built this type of stuff in the old days it didn’t cost the equivalent of £100 billion. It’s just insane

Your answer can be found in many of the navvie graveyards following the route of the railway!

[CoolHands]

I’m not sure the £100 bill is being spent on raw labour costs

[Tryke3]

CoolHands said:

How comes when they built this type of stuff in the old days it didn’t cost the equivalent of £100 billion. It’s just insane

Surelly you dont live under a rock ?

[essayer]

https://facebook.com/STOP.HS2/photos/pcb.228398346...

Renders of proposed designs for the Amersham-Wendover section were presented by Kier yesterday. Pretty oppressive. Obviously hasn’t gone down well with the locals (as if it ever could!)

Edited by essayer on Friday 7th September 07:21

[JB!]

essayer said:

https://facebook.com/STOP.HS2/photos/pcb.228398346...

Renders of proposed designs for the Amersham-Wendover section were presented by Kier yesterday. Pretty oppressive. Obviously hasn’t gone down well with the locals (as if it ever could!)

Edited by essayer on Friday 7th September 07:21

Looks like a viaduct.

At least they're tying to make it interesting by adding lighting.

[Sheepshanks]

Looking at some of the images it's hard to believe they're not taking the piss.

[Vaud]

Sheepshanks said:

Looking at some of the images it's hard to believe they're not taking the piss.

I guess there are only so many ways of building a bridge at that scale?

[Talksteer]

foxbody-87 said:

CoolHands said:

How comes when they built this type of stuff in the old days it didn’t cost the equivalent of £100 billion. It’s just insane

Your answer can be found in many of the navvie graveyards following the route of the railway!

The most basic answer is that building the railways did actually cost ~ £100 billion.

Using the consumer price index simply tells you how many groceries the lines budget would buy in 1845. Just looking at wiki the 8000 miles of track authorised in the railway boom had a projected cost equal to the UK GDP. That would work out as about £200 million per mile today, about £50 million per mile if you adjust for population.

Those line are not in any way comparable to a modern line which has to incorporate a lot more requirements in terms of reducing impact on local communities and also needs to be considerably straighter.

Construction has not achieved the same levels of productivity growth as other sectors, having been pretty flat since becoming fully mechanised in the 1960's. Thus your money goes much further on other products and construction is proportionally more expensive.

This is the same reason why government expenditures go inexorably up, most of the things they do we don't actually want efficiency improvements in e.g. increasing class sizes or fewer doctors.

That's enough excuses, the whole project is also pretty terribly thought out and run too!

It's a 20th century infrastructure heavy solution that will be out of date before it is opened.

[Rovinghawk]

CoolHands said:

How comes when they built this type of stuff in the old days it didn’t cost the equivalent of £100 billion. It’s just insane

Could you please confirm what the 'correct' cost should be, and why?

Statements such as "much less than 100Bn" aren't really proper answers, btw. I'm curious as to an actual price which you can show as being correct.

I accept that there is waste & probably massive gravy-train riding but still consider that a project of this nature won't be cheap.

[CoolHands]

I like the pictures (genuinely) and want it built. I also own a flat near a HS2 station so it’s all good to me. £100b just seems like a lot. I imagine much will go to various crap like consultants that do fk all and are probably on PH with big cars.

[spaximus]

To compare the railways from the past to now is pointless but even then they could have done a cheaper job, just look at the magnificent viaducts and stations they built, but this was all done with private funding not the public purse so it was their choice to do what they did.

The other thing was there was clearly a need then to develop the network as there was none and as a result we became world leaders in yet another field.

So far there has been no real justification for building HS2 in the first place, other than saying a developed country needs a high speed network. In a country as small as ours the difference in time of journeys isn't that huge and at a time of technological advancements may well be out of date when finished.

As I have said before if it is such a good idea private companies would build it in a heartbeat yet from what I have read none of the contractors are willing to give fixed prices as they know whatever is budgeted now will be massively over at the end.

[Rovinghawk]

spaximus said:

the difference in time of journeys isn't that huge

Again- it's not all about the journey time, it's about freeing up capacity for slower stuff.

[spaximus]

Rovinghawk said:

spaximus said:

the difference in time of journeys isn't that huge

Again- it's not all about the journey time, it's about freeing up capacity for slower stuff.

Then if that is the case, build cheaper slower lines for freight, and build a road at the same time next to it for trucks to use. Everyone wins then, more capacity on the slower routes, more trucks of the roads.