Suppose HS2 was cancelled

[Alickadoo]

Just watched a Youtube video of the construction of some of the HS2 viaducts in the Wendover area.

How much can one see from a car without going on site?

[Register1]

Talksteer said:

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?

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 fk off.

I would just phone the Chinese embassy and say "How much for a high speed line from Brighton, to London, to Birmingham, to Manchester, and finishing in Edinburgh.

Fixed price.
And I want it up and running within 5 years.

Job jobbed.

[abzmike]

Heartening news for London motorists today, as it's announced that 235 million diverted from HS2 will be spent on resurfacing over the next 11 years. Safe to say that people in 'the North' are not best pleased. Also, whilst I'm sure this needs to be done, shouldn't that funding come from an operating not capital budget?

[2xChevrons]

abzmike said:

Heartening news for London motorists today, as it's announced that 235 million diverted from HS2 will be spent on resurfacing over the next 11 years. Safe to say that people in 'the North' are not best pleased. Also, whilst I'm sure this needs to be done, shouldn't that funding come from an operating not capital budget?

It's eff-ing amazing that the posters proudly announcing that London will have its potholes fixed with HS2 funds still bore the 'Network North' logo.

Like the idea to repurpose bodies of Pacer trains (a symbol of the geographical inequalities in infrastructure investment between London/SE and the North) as temporary school classroom buildings - "Northerners! Thought you'd seen the back of the hated trains that only existed because we didn't want to spend money on provincial branch lines 40 years ago? No! Now we can't legally use them on the railways we'll keep them around because we don't want to spend money on provincial school either!"

If the writers of Yes, Minister or The Thick of It proposed either of these farces it would seem too unlikely, too on the nose and too incompetent.

Register1 said:

I would just phone the Chinese embassy and say "How much for a high speed line from Brighton, to London, to Birmingham, to Manchester, and finishing in Edinburgh.

Fixed price.
And I want it up and running within 5 years.

Job jobbed.

I'm sure if the Chinese had to abide by our planning laws, our private property rights, our H&S regulations, our environmental policies and our budgetary accountability they'd probably take just as long and spend a similar amount.

[fourstardan]

Got to love the frogs....they know how to build and run a high speed railway service.

https://www.railtech.com/policy/2024/03/01/kevin-s...

[hidetheelephants]

fourstardan said:

Got to love the frogs....they know how to build and run a high speed railway service.

https://www.railtech.com/policy/2024/03/01/kevin-s...

I'd say that's evidence to the contrary; separation of train and permanent way management is rarely a good idea, it's certainly caused a shambles here. They definitely know how to build a high speed network though and the UK should copy the method.

[Condi]

You couldn't make it up, but the money used from cancelling HS2 should be used.......





To build a new train line!!!

BBC said:

A new railway line between Staffordshire and Manchester Airport is the preferred option to improve connections between the West Midlands and the north, work commissioned by two mayors has provisionally concluded.

Last month Andy Street and Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham unveiled three options, following the scrapping of the planned HS2 link, including improving the West Coast Main Line.

A private sector group provisionally concluded a new line was likely to offer the best combination of costs and benefits.

BBC Article

[Yertis]

Condi said:

You couldn't make it up, but the money used from cancelling HS2 should be used.......





To build a new train line!!!

BBC said:

A new railway line between Staffordshire and Manchester Airport is the preferred option to improve connections between the West Midlands and the north, work commissioned by two mayors has provisionally concluded.

Last month Andy Street and Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham unveiled three options, following the scrapping of the planned HS2 link, including improving the West Coast Main Line.

A private sector group provisionally concluded a new line was likely to offer the best combination of costs and benefits.

BBC Article

I wonder if that would have still been the case had our forebears mothballed railway lines rather than rip them up and build all over the track bed?

[Simpo Two]

Condi said:

You couldn't make it up, but the money used from cancelling HS2 should be used.......





To build a new train line!!!

Perhaps a more appropriate train line and not a white elephant.

Akin to selling the Lambo and buying a Ford Thingy because it makes more sense.

[RustyMX5]

Alickadoo said:

Just watched a Youtube video of the construction of some of the HS2 viaducts in the Wendover area.

How much can one see from a car without going on site?

Depends very much on which road you're on.

On the A404 between Amersham and Aylesbury the spoil is very visible in several places. The viaducts (currently) less so.
However, if you come from the Butler's Cross road into Wendover, the sprawl of works is obvious.

A significant portion of that farmland is now works

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.7592029,-0.75296...

[Stedman]

Condi said:

BBC Article

I wonder if the new line will have slower trains with less capacity, that seems flavour of the month

[Bonefish Blues]

I like the "screw you, we'll build our own railway" attitude

[hidetheelephants]

Stedman said:

Condi said:

BBC Article

I wonder if the new line will have slower trains with less capacity, that seems flavour of the month

The article is silent on that, the little information there is that the proposal is to do largely what HS2 was going to do. What a fkabout.

[CivicDuties]

Bloody hell, wouldn't it be great if we could get more of this "cross party" attitude in our national politics for long term infrastructure projects, and indeed things like the NHS and education.

Well done Street and Burnham, this should be an example to the rest of them to engage with each other and get working together for the good of the country, instead of trying to rip us apart with phoney culture wars.

[Condi]

Simpo Two said:

Perhaps a more appropriate train line and not a white elephant.

Akin to selling the Lambo and buying a Ford Thingy because it makes more sense.

How is HS2 a white elephant?

If a Lambo is only slightly more than a Ford Thingy but offers higher capacity and unlocks more benefits than the extra cost then why wouldn't you buy that? By the time you've built a new line, building a fast one over a slow one is very cheap!

HS2 is much much more of a white elephant going from Old Oak Common to Crewe or wherever it now stops, rather than going from Euston to Manchester, and then linking onto the mainline to Glasgow.

[Stedman]

It'll be a white elephant once you see what you're now getting for your money

[Chrisgr31]

Is not clear HS2 would be a white elephant. Latest rail usage stats released today. Passenger usage up by 20% in the quart Oct 2023/ Dec 2024 compared to Oct 2022 / Dec 2023 and revenue also up 20%.

Passenger use is getting back towards pre-covid use in spite of people not commuting!

[hidetheelephants]

Chrisgr31 said:

Is not clear HS2 would be a white elephant. Latest rail usage stats released today. Passenger usage up by 20% in the quart Oct 2023/ Dec 2024 compared to Oct 2022 / Dec 2023 and revenue also up 20%.

Passenger use is getting back towards pre-covid use in spite of people not commuting!

Even if passenger numbers hadn't bounced back HS2 or similar permanent way development is vital for rail freight expansion; as it is the fkwitted way the govt managed the project and then cancelled it has wrecked WCML freight planning and may well cost the taxpayer a great deal once the lawyers are finished with it.

[Condi]

Stedman said:

It'll be a white elephant once you see what you're now getting for your money

I agree, but that's UK government failure to actually be able to see any major commitment through, and instead ask the bean counters what can we save. Prime example being "slowing" construction so the government can argue that it is reducing borrowing, even though the overall cost is going to be higher due to inflation and revenue coming in later than it would start.

A fast train from central London to Manchester and York unlocks billions of Pounds of benefits for the whole country.

A fast train from Zone 5 in West London to Birmingham doesn't do 25% of what a full line would do but costs 66% as much as the complete line.

HS2, as designed, would be great. HS2, as delivered by the government, will be crap, and I'd bet my mortgage that at some point probably fairly shortly afterwards, the other sections get built at considerably more cost than it would have been to just carry on with the plan as it was, simply because it will be so obvious what a short sighted decision it was to stop at Brum.

[legzr1]

hidetheelephants said:

Chrisgr31 said:

Is not clear HS2 would be a white elephant. Latest rail usage stats released today. Passenger usage up by 20% in the quart Oct 2023/ Dec 2024 compared to Oct 2022 / Dec 2023 and revenue also up 20%.

Passenger use is getting back towards pre-covid use in spite of people not commuting!

Even if passenger numbers hadn't bounced back HS2 or similar permanent way development is vital for rail freight expansion; as it is the fkwitted way the govt managed the project and then cancelled it has wrecked WCML freight planning and may well cost the taxpayer a great deal once the lawyers are finished with it.

This.