Suppose HS2 was cancelled
Discussion
flatlandsman said:
To be honest the fact that there are 500 odd perm jobs and nearly 800 contract means they have clearly been worried about the place for a while! You only do that to make it damn easy to dump millions in payroll at the drop of a hat when you have to
Alstom (as it is now) and Bombardier (as it was) at Derby have always employed a very high proportion of contract labour and they flex that labour on a weekly basis as and when work load demand requires.When Bombardier failed to win the ThamesLink rolling stock contract about 10 years ago they laid off about 1200 contract labourers within days. When they subsequently won the contract for the Crossrail rolling stock provision they hired people on temporary contracts again. It is the nature of that particular business model and they have always employed plenty of people on weekly contracts who they can fire and hire when they need to. It is not a new model.
Hammersia said:
Chrisgr31 said:
Hammersia said:
Don't understand the question but knowledgeable experts have been saying for many years (at least since 2017) that the HS2 project was completely misconceived, over specced, the wrong route, and doomed to failure.
Colin Eliff for example:
http://highspeeduk.co.uk/index.html
Wasn’t he the guy that went to court to argue against HS2 and had his views and calculations widely discredited?Colin Eliff for example:
http://highspeeduk.co.uk/index.html
Reality is it’s fairly easy to find arguments against HS2. The biggest problems appear to be the requirement of contractors to take all the risk to do with ongoing maintenance which meant it was significantly over engineered, the constant changing of plans and the length of time to go from idea to construction
https://www.christianwolmar.co.uk/2014/02/rail-740...
But my point is with people like Wolmar, and many others, they're not only critics - anyone can pick apart someone else's work. They've detailed better solutions, with constructive arguments.
Plenty of railway engineers have issues with their ideas for spurs which mess up the timetables and are unlikely to pick up enough passengers to keep the trains adequately full.
An interesting read. The associated podcast is good too.
https://www.greensignals.org/why-hs2-phase-2a-to-c...
https://www.greensignals.org/why-hs2-phase-2a-to-c...
DoctorX said:
An interesting read. The associated podcast is good too.
https://www.greensignals.org/why-hs2-phase-2a-to-c...
There are very few people (actually nobody come to think of it) whose opinions/views I would trust more than those of Nigel Harris. He's a friend of mine and speaks his mind very often to people in high places. They should start listening.https://www.greensignals.org/why-hs2-phase-2a-to-c...
DoctorX said:
An interesting read. The associated podcast is good too.
https://www.greensignals.org/why-hs2-phase-2a-to-c...
Yes, interesting. I see no hope of 2A now being salvaged and still wonder if the whole project should have been started at the Manchester (or even Crewe ?) end. That would have show real commitment to The North.https://www.greensignals.org/why-hs2-phase-2a-to-c...
Bonefish Blues said:
The lack of a cost-benefit analysis before cancellation of 2a is idiocy, clearly.
Surely, a professional cost-benefit analysis (if done properly) would take a considerable time - when the likely costs had seemed to be heading wildly out of control for some time already ?Vasco said:
Bonefish Blues said:
The lack of a cost-benefit analysis before cancellation of 2a is idiocy, clearly.
Surely, a professional cost-benefit analysis (if done properly) would take a considerable time - when the likely costs had seemed to be heading wildly out of control for some time already ?The cost inflation happened between the proposal and the detailed design stages. This is the stage at which bells and whistles were added to satisfy all the political stakeholders and soft NIMBYs this is what the process was "meant to do". The actual budget was set in about 2019.
Phase 2A isn't currently under construction and represents a low risk as it is mostly rural.
Talksteer said:
Vasco said:
Bonefish Blues said:
The lack of a cost-benefit analysis before cancellation of 2a is idiocy, clearly.
Surely, a professional cost-benefit analysis (if done properly) would take a considerable time - when the likely costs had seemed to be heading wildly out of control for some time already ?The cost inflation happened between the proposal and the detailed design stages. This is the stage at which bells and whistles were added to satisfy all the political stakeholders and soft NIMBYs this is what the process was "meant to do". The actual budget was set in about 2019.
Phase 2A isn't currently under construction and represents a low risk as it is mostly rural.
Register1 said:
I think the government should cancel the whole lot of HS2
I have always thought that "too many back handers, envelopes under tha table" would send the cost beyond palatable.
Your evidence for this is?I have always thought that "too many back handers, envelopes under tha table" would send the cost beyond palatable.
Corruption that "everybody knows about" happens in countries without robust law enforcement and an independent judiciary. The other safety valve for this sort of behavior is a robust public procurement process whereby losing bidders can challenge the process if the decision making is illogical.
Hence a back hander won't get you a contract at a bloated rate.
The reasons for cost escalation have been presented on this thread and also by various infrastructure commissions and advisor groups. They are in no particular order:
1: The cost of HS2 hasn't particularly inflated; the costs prior to 2015 were basic estimates, post 2015 they have been actually based on design work. The actual final costs were set in 2020 and since that point have only escalated very slightly more than the rate of inflation. The cost benefit analysis of the project was conducted against the 2020 costing and the benefits also go up with inflation too,
2:The cost rise between the early proposals and the 2015 figures were due to the process of consultation about the route. This ended up with the capacity of the line being increased (along with the utility and benefits) with knock on increases in the cost of stations, city access tracks, more rolling stock. This process also resulted in more tunnels and deep cuttings to hide the whole thing from view.
3: As stated above the risk structure meant that contractors are essentially incentivised to over engineer the line as they are responsible for the guaranteeing the line for 30 years and the client will pay for whatever is deemed necessary anyway.
4: The client/DfT kept on changing things, like Euston station which meant that design tasks were conducted multiple times.
5: As alluded to above the cost of HS2 is not directly comparable to many of these examples where a line was substantially cheaper on a per km basis as the HS2 cost figure includes, the intercity line, the approach tracks through city centers (tunnels), the stations, the rolling stock and in some figures quoted the cost of running the line for 50 years! It's akin to quoting the price of your drive per square meter and including the price of the Lamborghini sat on it.
6: The UK construction sector is fragmented with far too many layers of contracting. This is because there isn't rolling programmes for infrastructure that would allow contractors or HS2 themselves to train and employ various skill types over and extended time period.
None of that requires bribery:
"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity"
If you wanted to do high speed rail well set it up as rolling programme that is going to connect the top 20 urban areas to a full network. At the same time commit to using the released capacity to build a comprehensive rapid transit network in those top 20 urban areas. You then have a 50 year programme which suppliers can invest against. You then start that programme with one of the easier routes to build and you learn how to both build the railway and also to do all the "soft stuff" like contract management and apportioning of risk. As part of all this essentially agree an annual budget that gets spent until the whole thing is done and tell treasury to f
k off.Chicken Chaser said:
Will we see a judicial review into this to prevent the project being canned on politicking?
I hope someone seeks an injunction to stop the land being sold off until the next election, not a lot can be done about the legislative bit and I doubt any of the contractors would want to stick their heads over the parapet to challenge the decision itself, despite it being a stshow.hidetheelephants said:
Chicken Chaser said:
Will we see a judicial review into this to prevent the project being canned on politicking?
I hope someone seeks an injunction to stop the land being sold off until the next election, not a lot can be done about the legislative bit and I doubt any of the contractors would want to stick their heads over the parapet to challenge the decision itself, despite it being a stshow.This is the joys of an unwritten constitution!
Potentially this could result in future bills that authorise stuff like railway lines not just authorising them but mandating them too, specifying when they had to be constructed and under what force majeure conditions they could be cancelled or substantially altered.
This wouldn't be unconstitutional, as a future parliament could always cancel the law, what it would stop is major pieces of infrastructure being cancelled in (unsuccessful) bit of knee jerk populaism based on a odd by-election result at a political party's conference without any debate in parliament.
Talksteer said:
There is an argument to be made that given that HS2 went through multiple bills and years of scrutiny it is very odd that the executive can cancel it on the basis of a few people getting together and essentially the say so of a single person with pretty neglible democratic mandate.
This is the joys of an unwritten constitution!
Potentially this could result in future bills that authorise stuff like railway lines not just authorising them but mandating them too, specifying when they had to be constructed and under what force majeure conditions they could be cancelled or substantially altered.
This wouldn't be unconstitutional, as a future parliament could always cancel the law, what it would stop is major pieces of infrastructure being cancelled in (unsuccessful) bit of knee jerk populaism based on a odd by-election result at a political party's conference without any debate in parliament.
This is how it was from the start of the railway age (before, actually - it originated with the canals) right up to the 1962 Transport Act.This is the joys of an unwritten constitution!
Potentially this could result in future bills that authorise stuff like railway lines not just authorising them but mandating them too, specifying when they had to be constructed and under what force majeure conditions they could be cancelled or substantially altered.
This wouldn't be unconstitutional, as a future parliament could always cancel the law, what it would stop is major pieces of infrastructure being cancelled in (unsuccessful) bit of knee jerk populaism based on a odd by-election result at a political party's conference without any debate in parliament.
If you wanted to build a railway you had to get the line approved by an Act of Parliament, which would grant you the legal right to raise the funds (if seeking to form a limited liability company and/or issue shares) and to acquire the land for the route. This stage was where various interests from those in favour of and opposed to the new line would be heard, where changes to the route could be hashed out and where operational commitments could be set in stone. This could include a minimum level of service, perpetual service (until cancelled by a future Act) to a certain named station (or stations) or allowing access rights for trains from another company. Such an Act would also nearly always impose 'construction must start by' and 'the line must be opened by' dates. If these were to be changed, the company would have to go back to Parliament and get an amending act to extend their legally permitted construction time.
If the project was to be cancelled entirely, a motion would have be passed essentially cancelling a previous Act of Parliament, which was no small matter. Since the constructor had, as part of the process of applying for the original Act, lobbied hard to state why there was such an overwhelming case to build its railway (against a range of protests from landowners, other railway companies and so on), Parliament took a very dim view of companies wanting to withdraw from projects without very good reason, and this especially went for major established railways seeking extensions to their network.
For instance, the Midland Railway lobbied long and hard, against considerable opposition from many quarters, to build what became the Settle-Carlisle line. Once it was legally approved, the MR's competitors on the West Coast route (whose obstructions had prompted the start of the whole project) immediately came to the negotiating table. Coupled to a banking crisis that made the Midland petition to cancel the scheme but couldn't convince Parliament that all the other reasons they had put forward for why the railway should be built didn't still apply (ably assisted by parliamentary lobbyists from the Great Northern, the North British and the Glasgow & South Western railways which stood to gain significantly from the Midland's new route without having to pay anything towards it) and so were compelled to carry out the scheme.
The 1962 Act changed that and laid the legal groundwork for the Beeching closures by streamlining the whole process and giving British Railways the legal character of a private operator that was in full charge of its own commercial decisions (and so able to close lines at will provided sufficient notice and consultation was given) rather than as a recognised common carrier with legal rights invested by the Crown that were also contingent on having certain restrictions imposed on them by the same source.
These days the political and legislative situation is somewhat different since railway construction is a much more explicitly political and centrally-driven matter, with funding coming almost entirely from the Treasury rather than out of corporate coffers or private speculation/investment but there's definitely something to be said for having top-level Stop/Go decisions subject to direct parliamentary approval rather than a Chancellor being able to just cancel such things with a stroke of his budget pen.
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