Suppose HS2 was cancelled
Discussion
Alltrack said:
What a load of b
ks reporting about HS2 is; rolling stock costs have nothing to do with how much the line costs.hidetheelephants said:
Alltrack said:
What a load of bks reporting about HS2 is; rolling stock costs have nothing to do with how much the line costs.a) The article doesn’t just cover rolling stock. It (for instance) includes very detailed allegations that the cost of buying land for the line was poorly estimated, repeatedly understated, and when better (but higher) estimates were developed they were systematically covered up.
b) The debate and the decision is not about the cost of the HS2 *line*, it’s about the cost of the HS2 project. Rolling stock costs are absolutely part of that - you’re never going to build a train line but have no trains to run on it.
brickwall said:
hidetheelephants said:
Alltrack said:
What a load of bks reporting about HS2 is; rolling stock costs have nothing to do with how much the line costs.a) The article doesn’t just cover rolling stock. It (for instance) includes very detailed allegations that the cost of buying land for the line was poorly estimated, repeatedly understated, and when better (but higher) estimates were developed they were systematically covered up.
b) The debate and the decision is not about the cost of the HS2 *line*, it’s about the cost of the HS2 project. Rolling stock costs are absolutely part of that - you’re never going to build a train line but have no trains to run on it.
Frankly it’s also a function of the state of our NIMBY politics. Huge swathes of HS2 to Birmingham would be covered in some form, and the cost of buying land was clearly eye watering.
Then add the planning, planning appeals, environmental assessments, re-assessments, legal cases, reviews, appeals.
The cost of the paperwork (in most cases - working around NIMBYs) alone is absolutely staggering.
Then add the planning, planning appeals, environmental assessments, re-assessments, legal cases, reviews, appeals.
The cost of the paperwork (in most cases - working around NIMBYs) alone is absolutely staggering.
Vasco said:
I wonder how events might have turned out if they'd started at Manchester and worked south....
Many people said they should have, for exactly this reason! NIMBY-ism is a massive problem in the UK, it's hugely negatively affecting the supply of housing as well, and as you say, drives up costs for everything.
Condi said:
Many people said they should have, for exactly this reason!
NIMBY-ism is a massive problem in the UK, it's hugely negatively affecting the supply of housing as well, and as you say, drives up costs for everything.
I agree, there are a few reasons:NIMBY-ism is a massive problem in the UK, it's hugely negatively affecting the supply of housing as well, and as you say, drives up costs for everything.
dense population in some areas
unsympathetic development where an area is covered in buildings which don't blend in (A5 corridor a great example) or "prospective construction" like the Banbury junction warehouses, similar in Worcester at junction six
housing estates build with no requirement to provide the resulting amenties such as schools, healthcare etc
100SRV said:
I agree, there are a few reasons:
dense population in some areas
unsympathetic development where an area is covered in buildings which don't blend in (A5 corridor a great example) or "prospective construction" like the Banbury junction warehouses, similar in Worcester at junction six
housing estates build with no requirement to provide the resulting amenties such as schools, healthcare etc
And yet, ironically, this comparison with Tokyo makes the UK barely populated! It is an issue of perception rather than reality. dense population in some areas
unsympathetic development where an area is covered in buildings which don't blend in (A5 corridor a great example) or "prospective construction" like the Banbury junction warehouses, similar in Worcester at junction six
housing estates build with no requirement to provide the resulting amenties such as schools, healthcare etc
Condi said:
100SRV said:
I agree, there are a few reasons:
dense population in some areas
unsympathetic development where an area is covered in buildings which don't blend in (A5 corridor a great example) or "prospective construction" like the Banbury junction warehouses, similar in Worcester at junction six
housing estates build with no requirement to provide the resulting amenities such as schools, healthcare etc
And yet, ironically, this comparison with Tokyo makes the UK barely populated! It is an issue of perception rather than reality. dense population in some areas
unsympathetic development where an area is covered in buildings which don't blend in (A5 corridor a great example) or "prospective construction" like the Banbury junction warehouses, similar in Worcester at junction six
housing estates build with no requirement to provide the resulting amenities such as schools, healthcare etc
1: Is that they had the population to deal with and a country where most of the land can't be built on which results in a few coastal megalopolises. By necessity they need to be able to deal with NIMBYs
2: The Japanese view homes as disposable assets, after 20-30 years they knock them down an re-build. Assuming you even own your own home having to move to avoid a railway line is less of a relative hardship.
3: Given that they don't view property as essential to their future and net worth it also means that they are more accepting of "visual intrusion" or similar. When they wanted to roll out broadband they do it by adding wires to utility poles.
Hence the Shinkansen were built on repeatable viaducts which meant that they didn't have to acquire much land or divert many existing utilities. This is how we should have built HS2 rather than trying to hide it.
I often use similar statistics to the above when people claim that the UK is "full" or similar. All the urban areas in the UK with more than 100,000 people in them fit between 37 million people in them, if we increased the density of those settlements to those seen in the following examples we would be able to house the following amounts of additional people:
| City | Population Density (pop/km2) | Extra People in the UK |
|---|---|---|
| Greater London | 5650 | 16.7m |
| Lyon | 10400 | 61.5m |
| Barcelona | 16000 | 114m |
| Paris | 20500 | 156.5m |
| Manilla | 10400 | 373m |
Yes some of those compare densities seen in "cities proper" which may be an urban core within a wider region. The whole urban area of Manilla still has a density of 22,000/km2, the key point is that UK cities are relatively low density by international standards, we could put double the UK population into only our existing large urban areas and have cities with fairly average densities by international standards.
thebraketester said:
Vasco said:
I wonder how events might have turned out if they'd started at Manchester and worked south....
IMO it never would have even got off the drawing board.The correct way to do it would be a massive integrated plan which is argued for and approved at top level with a rolling programme and fixed annual budget to build the system.
thebraketester said:
Vasco said:
I wonder how events might have turned out if they'd started at Manchester and worked south....
IMO it never would have even got off the drawing board.I know it was mentioned earlier, but just because at this early stage the planning paperwork figures are less confused than for HS2 -
For the lower Thames Crossing, £267m spent by the end of last year on planning paperwork. And it's nowhere near spades in the ground as far as I know:
https://www.newcivilengineer.com/latest/lower-tham...
"Owen, who is working with National Highways on its DCO application for the A66 upgrade and has previously worked on the A303 Stonehenge application, said: “These projects are getting more complex in terms of the issues they give rise to and the contemporary issues that we’re having to address, such as climate change, resilience, use of carbon, ensuring biodiversity net gain. All these sorts of things are really big issues and applicants like National Highways are having to deal with them even more upfront more than they have ever had to, because they know that otherwise there will be serious challenges on them.”
Projects on the scale of LTC require more information, which takes longer to attain. When an application takes several years, the applicant may be dealing with a moving target. “The metrics are changing all the time,” Owen said. “Natural England has a metric to measure the biodiversity net gain that a project needs to deliver, and I think in the space of a year we’ve had two or three different versions of that metric – we’re now on metric 3.0. That requires the applicant to remodel to do these full assessments to make sure the application is entirely robust and thought through.”
I live reasonably nearby and this project barely touches anything of great ecological or historical interest.
For the lower Thames Crossing, £267m spent by the end of last year on planning paperwork. And it's nowhere near spades in the ground as far as I know:
https://www.newcivilengineer.com/latest/lower-tham...
"Owen, who is working with National Highways on its DCO application for the A66 upgrade and has previously worked on the A303 Stonehenge application, said: “These projects are getting more complex in terms of the issues they give rise to and the contemporary issues that we’re having to address, such as climate change, resilience, use of carbon, ensuring biodiversity net gain. All these sorts of things are really big issues and applicants like National Highways are having to deal with them even more upfront more than they have ever had to, because they know that otherwise there will be serious challenges on them.”
Projects on the scale of LTC require more information, which takes longer to attain. When an application takes several years, the applicant may be dealing with a moving target. “The metrics are changing all the time,” Owen said. “Natural England has a metric to measure the biodiversity net gain that a project needs to deliver, and I think in the space of a year we’ve had two or three different versions of that metric – we’re now on metric 3.0. That requires the applicant to remodel to do these full assessments to make sure the application is entirely robust and thought through.”
I live reasonably nearby and this project barely touches anything of great ecological or historical interest.
Hammersia said:
I know it was mentioned earlier, but just because at this early stage the planning paperwork figures are less confused than for HS2 -
For the lower Thames Crossing, £267m spent by the end of last year on planning paperwork. And it's nowhere near spades in the ground as far as I know:
https://www.newcivilengineer.com/latest/lower-tham...
"Owen, who is working with National Highways on its DCO application for the A66 upgrade and has previously worked on the A303 Stonehenge application, said: “These projects are getting more complex in terms of the issues they give rise to and the contemporary issues that we’re having to address, such as climate change, resilience, use of carbon, ensuring biodiversity net gain. All these sorts of things are really big issues and applicants like National Highways are having to deal with them even more upfront more than they have ever had to, because they know that otherwise there will be serious challenges on them.”
Projects on the scale of LTC require more information, which takes longer to attain. When an application takes several years, the applicant may be dealing with a moving target. “The metrics are changing all the time,” Owen said. “Natural England has a metric to measure the biodiversity net gain that a project needs to deliver, and I think in the space of a year we’ve had two or three different versions of that metric – we’re now on metric 3.0. That requires the applicant to remodel to do these full assessments to make sure the application is entirely robust and thought through.”
I live reasonably nearby and this project barely touches anything of great ecological or historical interest.
Welcome to the absurd way we now have to do things in the UK in the World Hoop Jumping Championships.For the lower Thames Crossing, £267m spent by the end of last year on planning paperwork. And it's nowhere near spades in the ground as far as I know:
https://www.newcivilengineer.com/latest/lower-tham...
"Owen, who is working with National Highways on its DCO application for the A66 upgrade and has previously worked on the A303 Stonehenge application, said: “These projects are getting more complex in terms of the issues they give rise to and the contemporary issues that we’re having to address, such as climate change, resilience, use of carbon, ensuring biodiversity net gain. All these sorts of things are really big issues and applicants like National Highways are having to deal with them even more upfront more than they have ever had to, because they know that otherwise there will be serious challenges on them.”
Projects on the scale of LTC require more information, which takes longer to attain. When an application takes several years, the applicant may be dealing with a moving target. “The metrics are changing all the time,” Owen said. “Natural England has a metric to measure the biodiversity net gain that a project needs to deliver, and I think in the space of a year we’ve had two or three different versions of that metric – we’re now on metric 3.0. That requires the applicant to remodel to do these full assessments to make sure the application is entirely robust and thought through.”
I live reasonably nearby and this project barely touches anything of great ecological or historical interest.
Ironically, the some of the very people that moan about the huge costs to build things in the UK are often at the heart of creating the massive red tape that creates those huge costs.
Can I ask another 'how long is a piece of' questions?
Roughly what proportion of the total energy usage of high speed rail is represented by the trains themselves running? I've seen the Tender documents and the numbers for usage/km seem quite modest but I've got no sense of how much it takes to run a HS system
Roughly what proportion of the total energy usage of high speed rail is represented by the trains themselves running? I've seen the Tender documents and the numbers for usage/km seem quite modest but I've got no sense of how much it takes to run a HS system
Bonefish Blues said:
Can I ask another 'how long is a piece of' questions?
Roughly what proportion of the total energy usage of high speed rail is represented by the trains themselves running? I've seen the Tender documents and the numbers for usage/km seem quite modest but I've got no sense of how much it takes to run a HS system
If you look at the recent TGV duplex then maximum power for each train is quoted (wiki) 9000Kw for 600 passengers, so 15kW per passenger. Roughly what proportion of the total energy usage of high speed rail is represented by the trains themselves running? I've seen the Tender documents and the numbers for usage/km seem quite modest but I've got no sense of how much it takes to run a HS system
The trains won't use full power, they do use regenerative braking, and on the flip side there will be a lot of transmission losses.
There's a longer analysis here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_efficiency_in...
Looks like 4-500 mpg for well filled high speed trains.
2-300 mpg for well filled buses.
Am sure it has been mentioned before by HS2 is not the only example of a project being fleeced well beyond its timeline and costings. I happen to have to use the A43 near the services at Northampton, and theya re modifying roundabouts there.
No extra lanes, nothing new, just reprofiling and so far taken nearly 8 months, extensive road closures that they just dump you onto a 15 mile diversion, been closed at least 6 times in the last few months.
And still not going to be finished until December, no doubt the 29th.
HS2 is positively sprightly by comparison.
No extra lanes, nothing new, just reprofiling and so far taken nearly 8 months, extensive road closures that they just dump you onto a 15 mile diversion, been closed at least 6 times in the last few months.
And still not going to be finished until December, no doubt the 29th.
HS2 is positively sprightly by comparison.
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