Suppose HS2 was cancelled

[Sheepshanks]

Was on local news during the week that linking up to Manchester is looking like 2045 now.

[Speed1283]

Sheepshanks said:

Was on local news during the week that linking up to Manchester is looking like 2045 now.

If that's what it turns out to be it's crazy.

They are seemingly cracking on with the new trains procurement... But the moment they stray off any HS2 structure they'll be on the old west coast infrastructure and arguably slower than the existing west coast services. The new HS trains would be 10-15 years old if Manchester is really in to the 2040's.

[abzmike]

I just can’t get my head around a project with that sort of timescale. Imagine being the guy in that presentation and saying ‘… which we expect to complete in 22 years time… comments?’ … and then looking round the room at the faces.
There will probably be a railway on Mars before a new railway gets to Manchester. If this is the best idea they have then they need another one - it’s mad.

[biggles330d]

Chrisgr31 said:

Essarell said:

Rail passenger numbers are down massively

That depends on your view of massively. In November according to DfT figures rail passengers were regularly over 90% of pre-pandemic figures. They fell in December but there were multiple strike days.

The DfT also published figures saying that June to sept 2019 there were 306.1m franchised ordinary tickets. June to Sept 2022 that was 310.4 so an increase. Admittedly season tickets were down 139.4m to 46.9m. The income would be interesting as the average ordinary ticket value might have gone up with people buying peak day fares not season tickets.

It seems to me on my commute 4 or 5 days a week that Charing Cross and London Bridge are busy in peak hours, except Fridays.

I strongly suspect we are being fed old data.

Down massively.... I wonder if the victorians who were planning much of the infrastructure we are still getting benefit from today bothered too much about what the rail passenger numbers might be in 100 years time. This is the problem. This is very very long term infrastructure and basing it on trends over the last few years it utterly pointless. You either want it as a long term future solution, or not.
I very much doubt anyone planning the M6 had endless meetings about whether there would be any distribution centre business to put next to it and use it.
The infrastructure is the enabler for this stuff, not the solution to something else.

It really isn't any surprise none of this stuff gets delivered. Just GTF on with delivering it.

[MarkwG]

LotusOmega375D said:

I have never understood the claim that international airline passengers transiting Heathrow somehow helps the UK economy. It only helps the corresponding airline and Heathrow. The vast majority of these people never set foot outside of the airport.

I don’t think an HS2 station in Heathrow would make much difference to this and would only lengthen the rail journey further, thus defeating the object of the project.

Long haul passengers don’t think “let’s fly to Heathrow, queue for passport control, collect our bags, get a train to Euston, struggle with our luggage on the long walk to St. Pancras, check-in again, queue for Security and then take a train to Paris or wherever”. They just want to transfer to the plane to their destination.

Apologies for the delay responding, don't normally bother with train related but: it's not the passengers, it's the flights they generate, which in turn provides the cargo holds they're sitting on top of: since air travel began, the passenger load is a relatively small but significant part of the equation - the money earner is the cargo hold. In numerical terms, 20% of UK goods by value uses Heathrow. That's why during lockdown, there were still flights operating.

[bigpriest]

Speed1283 said:

Sheepshanks said:

Was on local news during the week that linking up to Manchester is looking like 2045 now.

If that's what it turns out to be it's crazy.

They are seemingly cracking on with the new trains procurement... But the moment they stray off any HS2 structure they'll be on the old west coast infrastructure and arguably slower than the existing west coast services. The new HS trains would be 10-15 years old if Manchester is really in to the 2040's.

If HS2 frees up capacity it will create more pressure on local routes. Manchester also needs other major rail infrastructure projects to be in place (Oxford Road re-design, Piccadilly platforms 13/14 and Castlefield corridor, Trafford Park Freight Terminal). We can probably pencil those in for 2080

[Essarell]

biggles330d said:

Down massively.... I wonder if the victorians who were planning much of the infrastructure we are still getting benefit from today bothered too much about what the rail passenger numbers might be in 100 years time. This is the problem. This is very very long term infrastructure and basing it on trends over the last few years it utterly pointless. You either want it as a long term future solution, or not.
I very much doubt anyone planning the M6 had endless meetings about whether there would be any distribution centre business to put next to it and use it.
The infrastructure is the enabler for this stuff, not the solution to something else.

It really isn't any surprise none of this stuff gets delivered. Just GTF on with delivering it.

No one disputes the business case or long term benefits to high speed rail, we are a small island and North - South high speed rail from the Scottish Central belt to London using the East and West of the country would radically transform travel.

First touted by Labour in 2007 but unlikely to connect Manchester till 2041!!!!!!! It’s a shambles and as the years go by HS2 actually gets smaller and makes less sense (although the HS2 website still promotes the Leeds connection???)

As a country our infrastructure is embarrassing, Scottish Island cut off as the replacement Ferries rot on the Clyde, 100’s of millions over budget, cities clogged by local authority madness and a government that can’t build another runway at Heathrow or a pretty basic train set. We deserve better than this, no one will be surprised in the coming months when HS2 is once again scaled back, I very much doubt it will ever connect to Euston.

[alscar]

biggles330d said:

Down massively.... I wonder if the victorians who were planning much of the infrastructure we are still getting benefit from today bothered too much about what the rail passenger numbers might be in 100 years time. This is the problem. This is very very long term infrastructure and basing it on trends over the last few years it utterly pointless. You either want it as a long term future solution, or not.
I very much doubt anyone planning the M6 had endless meetings about whether there would be any distribution centre business to put next to it and use it.
The infrastructure is the enabler for this stuff, not the solution to something else.

It really isn't any surprise none of this stuff gets delivered. Just GTF on with delivering it.

I get those points but HS2 appears to be a vanity project solution based on original numbers being made up and in trouble of exceeding the budget from almost day 1. Add in Covid and the current cost estimates to finish and then the minor fact that GBUK is bust and literally cannot afford it and the more comments I see from HMG that “ we are totally committed to it “ the more convinced I am that it won’t actually happen !
It can’t be delivered because the money isn’t there and no one can predict what the payback would be like
but I guess the answer to that is simply never.

[4.7AMV8]

I travel a lot in France by rail.
Usual journey is Lyon to Marseille I do after visiting one of our factories to return to another where I am based whilst in France.

Typical cost on the TGV, is around, converted from Euros £54. And that's for a 1st Class ticket. Journey is around 196 miles and takes approx 1hr 30mins.

So I looked on a journey in UK similar for same miles and that's Leeds to London at 195miles.
Price for 1st Class is £83 and would take 2hrs 13mins.

France has been doing this HS2 style of travel for a fair bit with their TGV trains and last Thurs night I saw on my app we were doing 180mph on the way to Marseille. I just dont see HS2 being able to do it for that price and still not matching the time of the TGV. One thing I do see a lot in France is the movement of road trailers on rail wagons.




The whole train travel bit in France is done really well and I am sure the reasons why were do not have been written in this thread but I feel we have left it too late.

[Hammersia]

4.7AMV8 said:

I travel a lot in France by rail.
Usual journey is Lyon to Marseille I do after visiting one of our factories to return to another where I am based whilst in France.

Typical cost on the TGV, is around, converted from Euros £54. And that's for a 1st Class ticket. Journey is around 196 miles and takes approx 1hr 30mins.

So I looked on a journey in UK similar for same miles and that's Leeds to London at 195miles.
Price for 1st Class is £83 and would take 2hrs 13mins.

France has been doing this HS2 style of travel for a fair bit with their TGV trains and last Thurs night I saw on my app we were doing 180mph on the way to Marseille. I just dont see HS2 being able to do it for that price and still not matching the time of the TGV. One thing I do see a lot in France is the movement of road trailers on rail wagons.




The whole train travel bit in France is done really well and I am sure the reasons why were do not have been written in this thread but I feel we have left it too late.

It probably is too late, 70 years too late, but without banging on about it too much the chosen route for HS2 was always completely insane. To have a third of it in tunnels is absurdly costly, the French are laughing at us. Bear in mind these tunnels have to accommodate the air pressures from 200mph running, so come out at 9m in diameter:



HS2 should have just run straight up the M1 / M6, even some overhead sections would have cost less than this farrago.

[aeropilot]

Hammersia said:

It probably is too late, 70 years too late, but without banging on about it too much the chosen route for HS2 was always completely insane. To have a third of it in tunnels is absurdly costly, the French are laughing at us.

France have it much easier, as they only have about 15% more population for about twice the land area........so, they don't have anything like the NIMBY problems we do for major infrastructure projects like high speed rail.....plus SNCF is state owned, and the EU is already investigating the SNCF freight division regarding breaching of EU state aid rules.....(not that anything will come of that, because well, France)

[Hammersia]

aeropilot said:

Hammersia said:

It probably is too late, 70 years too late, but without banging on about it too much the chosen route for HS2 was always completely insane. To have a third of it in tunnels is absurdly costly, the French are laughing at us.

France have it much easier, as they only have about 15% more population for about twice the land area........so, they don't have anything like the NIMBY problems we do for major infrastructure projects like high speed rail.....plus SNCF is state owned, and the EU is already investigating the SNCF freight division regarding breaching of EU state aid rules.....(not that anything will come of that, because well, France)

Absolutely not querying that at all, and North of Paris the countryside is very unremarkable so no one is going to mind surface running.

But down to Lyon, Toulouse, Marseille etc. in beautiful countryside their TGVs still operate above ground, only 6% of their whole network is underground.

"Paul Cézanne: The railway painter.
Conventionally, it is told that since Paul Cézanne (1839–1906) was the painter who loves nature, he escaped from a noisy, modern Paris that developed rapidly and painted instead amid the pure nature of Aix-en-Provence, his country hometown. Although this discourse is true to an extent, it has failed to capture Cézanne’s entire essence; if his life and works are correctly investigated without prejudice, it becomes clear that Cézanne is “a painter of modern life” as well as “a painter who loves nature.”

....... who painted The Ferry at Bonnières (summer of 1866), topicalizing the railway station, telegraph pole, and electric wires, was the first among impressionist painters to depict the steam railway. In other words, among impressionist painters, Cézanne had the most acute sensibility with regard to the steam railway, which was the typical subject of “modernité” (modernity) in those days.

Actually, Cézanne moved around France on a steam train from the 1860s to his later years. Camille Pissarro’s letter to his son Lucien on January 20, 1896, shows that Cézanne took a train on the Paris-Aix line to travel between the two points.

Moreover, Aix, which was Cézanne’s base throughout his life, is a railway town. In fact, the railway station near the main street of Aix connected three train lines."

Edited by Hammersia on Monday 6th March 14:14

Edited by Hammersia on Monday 6th March 14:15

[Essarell]

Announcement today that HS2 will be further delayed in an effort to save money…….!!!!!!!

[Bonefish Blues]

Linky?

[Essarell]

Bonefish Blues said:

Linky?

https://www.independent.co.uk/business/government-expected-to-confirm-hs2-delays-to-cut-costs-report-b2297235.html

That leaves Old Oak Common to Birmingham as a realistic chance of completion

[spitfire-ian]

Bonefish Blues said:

Linky?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-64901985

[abzmike]

Tediously inevitable news.

But this Old Oak Common thing - Seems that will be the new 'central' London destination - Won't having to change trains to the Elizabeth line into actual central London, and access to the tube etc, waste all the time saved, actually making a journey even from Brum conisderably longer? Why not just run the trains all the way through to Paddington?

[aeropilot]

Essarell said:

Announcement today that HS2 will be further delayed in an effort to save money…….!!!!!!!

It doesn't actually save money though, it ends up costing more.

This isn't about saving money, its about delaying spending it, to spread the extra costs over a longer period of time (largely due to the massive cost increases across the construction industry in past 12-18 months)

But by the time you end up doing those delayed bits, the costs for those have increased again over what it would be to do them when you originally wanted.

The MOD are very good at doing the same thing (and then get slated for projects overspending and not being delivered in time)

[Essarell]

abzmike said:

Tediously inevitable news.

But this Old Oak Common thing - Seems that will be the new 'central' London destination - Won't having to change trains to the Elizabeth line into actual central London, and access to the tube etc, waste all the time saved, actually making a journey even from Brum conisderably longer? Why not just run the trains all the way through to Paddington?

Sadly yes, this completely decimates any perceived journey time savings and notional passenger numbers. Presumably HS2b? is still going ahead? That does give a theoretically good link towards Leeds and the ECML?

[Bonefish Blues]

aeropilot said:

Essarell said:

Announcement today that HS2 will be further delayed in an effort to save money…….!!!!!!!

It doesn't actually save money though, it ends up costing more.

This isn't about saving money, its about delaying spending it, to spread the extra costs over a longer period of time (largely due to the massive cost increases across the construction industry in past 12-18 months)

But by the time you end up doing those delayed bits, the costs for those have increased again over what it would be to do them when you originally wanted.

The MOD are very good at doing the same thing (and then get slated for projects overspending and not being delivered in time)

...and the (re)start-up inertia is ever greater, presumably