HS2, whats the current status ?

[Downward]

Earthdweller said:

anonymous said:

[redacted]

Fascinating stuff Tonker

It’s what ph is about

And the fact that the lines into New street carry both the fast Virgin trains and the stop every 2 minutes trains on a 2 track system.
There are 82 trains a day doing the Litchfield to Redditch cross city line

[Talksteer]

Roman Rhodes said:

Talksteer said:

I'd say the precise opposite,

1: Tesla have the route to incrementally develop self driving, their fleet is hundreds of thousands strong and the amount of miles of data is growing exponentially. Since it is a drive assist feature the regulatory issues are minimal they essentially build self driving and at a certain point they have enough data to build the safety case for taking the human out of the loop.

2: Elon Musk tunnels under LA/Vegas will demonstrate that grade separated autonomous cars are ready now. The cost to bore the LA tunnels was $10 million per mile. At that rate we could easily replicate HS2 using that method for a tiny fraction of the price before ripping up most of the railways and replacing them with grade separated routes for autonomous vehicles.

Grade separated autonomous vehicles will be substantially more flexible than rail in terms of journeys, running them grade separated means that they can exploit their ability to run at high speed and short or near zero headways which they cannot do on the roads where manually driven vehicles are.

The Hindhead tunnel (1.2 miles) cost c. £300m. A mile of motorway costs on average £30m. Your business case is based on pure fantasy.

Your argument is based on pure dogmatism, those examples are public works built by the conventional construction industry as part of a multi-tiered contractor quagmire. Construction is an industry which has bucked the trend for exponential improvement that has happened in most industries and actually become less efficient in the last 50 years. You might as well say and Austin Allegro is crap therefore all future cars will be crap.

The Boring Company is running a completely different playbook, it is vertical integrated and has a tech company organisational structure and tools. Not only that it is a fully integrated vision where the new tunnel is then populated by vehicles made by the same company and what route planning and signals are required are also supplied by them.

While I'm sure Elon Musks claim of $10 million per mile of tunnel bored is not based on fully audited actuals from the pilot tunnel I suspect that it is not far off what they will achieve with Pruefrock their first fully own design TBM.

I'd fire back and say:

1: If I have a highly robotised 10 ft TBM system that requires very few operators and goes somewhere between 4-10 times faster than a conventional why shouldn't I be able to bore tunnel at $10 million per mile?

For reference each Hindhead tunnel has 15 times the frontal area of a Boring Company tunnel and was built pretty much entirely manually as opposed to a pretty much entire robotized machine laying only standardized components. By cubic meter of excavation the Boring company only need to be 4X as well as the Hindhead tunnel to hit $10 million and their tunnel doesn't have to deal with manually drive petrol burning cars.

2: If my vehicle is a battery operated single unit design that is autonomously controlled and can stop in around 230m. I now don't need electrification or much in the way of signaling my track bed is some polished concrete. Why shouldn't this be orders of magnitude cheaper to fit out than a regular train line?

3: If the system is mostly tunneled much of the need for above ground planning is removed and given the scale of the TBMs and similar it is likely possible that above ground works will be much smaller and easier to hide. You don't have to go too deep to avoid virtually all human built infrastructure bar coal mines, access would be via lifts and may be merely close to existing stations. Why shouldn't I be able to build this with a fraction of the public consultation and easements?

4: The vehicles will be capable of coming to a dead stop in the region of 230m and should be able to follow each other with headways measured in cm if necessary.

5: With small van sized vehicles carrying 12 people per car the headway in a single tunnel would need to be only 0.6 seconds to match the full capacity of HS2. Not that many tunnels are actually required. Given that close running is being developed in the test tunnels right now why shouldn't we be able to have vastly greater capacity and flexibility in these comparably small diameter tunnels?

That's far from comprehensive I'm sure you could fill dozens of PhD theses with all the various factors associated with the impact of autonomous electric vehicles on tunneled mass transit. But I would ask before throwing st at the above please spend 30 seconds thinking about how you would solve the problem you are going to highlight.

Edited by Talksteer on Monday 22 July 20:27

[CoolHands]

I’m in the pure fantasy camp. Do you really think a tunnel is 3 x cheaper than laying a road on top of the earth?

Also, how are you going to get these thousands of vehicles in and out the tunnel without creating logjam? Ever been to the channel tunnel? Or up and down escalators for the tube? Even getting fully-autonomous(!) walking pedestrians in and out is hard enough.

[Lily the Pink]

Talksteer said:

... lots of interesting stuff

Presumably the concept has a design speed for the vehicles. Any idea what the max speed would be ?

[Talksteer]

CoolHands said:

I’m in the pure fantasy camp. Do you really think a tunnel is 3 x cheaper than laying a road on top of the earth?

Also, how are you going to get these thousands of vehicles in and out the tunnel without creating logjam? Ever been to the channel tunnel? Or up and down escalators for the tube? Even getting fully-autonomous(!) walking pedestrians in and out is hard enough.

Did you not read my last sentence?

Who said the vehicles have to come out of the tunnels, particularly in city centers.

The passengers can access said tunnels by lift shafts, those lift shafts might come up in numerous buildings because the end station(s) might be spread over quite an area. The cars have a small footprint and tight turning circles, this isn't going to resemble a train platform.

On the cost front at $10 million per mile results in a cost of around $800 per 1m3 of evacuated rock. That this would be considered ridiculously cheap just indicates how low productivity normal civil works are.

Secondly a motorway is effectively custom designed for every metre of its length with all sorts of things like cuttings and drainage and environmental mitigation it is then built by hand, very slowly.

A tunnel that is build out of mass produced standard parts by automated machines should be cheaper.

As an aside the Chinese have constructed a number of high speed train lines on elevated bridges because that enabled them to mass produce and standardize the construction of the line with only the height of the pillars changing.

This is completely counter intuitive to most civil/railway engineers in the west who would rule such an idea out because they would price up the bridge as expensive. The effect of standardization allowed most of the work content to be shifted to factories and this effect more than countered the additional cost of all the concrete used to make the bridges.

Edited by Talksteer on Tuesday 23 July 01:29

[mcdjl]

Talksteer said:

Did you not read my last sentence?

Who said the vehicles have to come out of the tunnels, particularly in city centers.

The passengers can access said tunnels by lift shafts, those lift shafts might come up in numerous buildings because the end station(s) might be spread over quite an area. The cars have a small footprint and tight turning circles, this isn't going to resemble a train platform.

On the cost front at $10 million per mile results in a cost of around $800 per 1m3 of evacuated rock. That this would be considered ridiculously cheap just indicates how low productivity normal civil works are.

Secondly a motorway is effectively custom designed for every metre of its length with all sorts of things like cuttings and drainage and environmental mitigation it is then built by hand, very slowly.

A tunnel that is build out of mass produced standard parts by automated machines should be cheaper.

As an aside the Chinese have constructed a number of high speed train lines on elevated bridges because that enabled them to mass produce and standardize the construction of the line with only the height of the pillars changing.

This is completely counter intuitive to most civil/railway engineers in the west who would rule such an idea out because they would price up the bridge as expensive. The effect of standardization allowed most of the work content to be shifted to factories and this effect more than countered the additional cost of all the concrete used to make the bridges.

Edited by Talksteer on Tuesday 23 July 01:29

So now that we have hundreds of 'stations' in the city centre we need slow loops, and lots of turn is allowing cars to stop without blocking the other ones that aren't stopping. To ensure the speed is kept up we also need acceleration/ deceleration space from each of those or we'll show everything down even more- even with an autonomous system optimising everything distance well be needed. Then you have to find space to put those lift shafts in. Which buildings in London currently have space? In places the clearance between crossrail and other train tunnels is measured in cm. Then there's sewers, phone, electricity..... Underground in a city is very crowded.
The rest of your points I agree with.

[Blue62]

I have a couple of loose connections to HS2 in the form of businesses that have been heavily compensated to relocate. The whole saga has been a nightmare for them, especially with the added uncertainty over Brexit, so it's little surprise to see that the businesses have gone backwards. There was a sudden surge in activity (after 5 years of stasis) a couple of years ago and the construction of new sites started, but it's been slowing again as of late and the contractors have threatened on more than one occasion to leave site as payments are delayed.

They are genuinely fearful now that the whole thing will grind to a halt again, leaving them in limbo, with a number of informed sources suggesting that the eventual figure is looking likely to be over double the original estimate. I feel sorry for anyone caught up at the wrong end of this utter waste of time and money. The business case was marginal when the figure was £58bn, so how on earth there will be any value at @£130bn is anyone's guess.

[Googie]

Interesting article in article on this link-

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/nils-pratley-o...

[Digga]

The government will never borrow money more cheaply. A lot of the cost is already incurred and the country clearly needs investment in the transport infrastructure. Roads should also be invested in if we want to keep goods, services and trade moving.

[snake_oil]

Pie.

https://youtu.be/lQUglnEmhOc

Really rather entertaining, and straight to the nub as per.

On another point. At what point do the govt say this is too expensive? Figures of 85-100bn are being talked about now!

[BlackLabel]

"The prospects for survival of the high-speed rail line HS2 look slimmer after the prime minister, Boris Johnson, appointed an arch-critic as transport adviser.

The journalist Andrew Gilligan, who was cycling tsar in Johnson’s London mayoralty, has long opposed what he says is a “disastrous scheme”, arguing for a slower, cheaper line to be built instead.

Gilligan’s reports, first for the Telegraph and later the Times newspapers, have included exposés of cost overruns and interviews with whistleblowers."

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/jul/26/bo...

"Boris Johnson: HS2 will cost more than £100bn but I don't want to scrap it"

https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-new...

Edited by BlackLabel on Saturday 27th July 16:12

[lord trumpton]

As Boris has 'committed' to build a HS rail line from Leeds to Manchester now I'm left confused as to the following..

Will this section be the route already planned as part of existing HS2 network?

Will said route be a totally separate route independent of existing HS2 network and therefore giving him to option to build that bit, keep Burnam and co happy but shelve the HS2 proposal in its entirety?

[Blue62]

lord trumpton said:

As Boris has 'committed' to build a HS rail line from Leeds to Manchester now I'm left confused as to the following..

Will this section be the route already planned as part of existing HS2 network?

Will said route be a totally separate route independent of existing HS2 network and therefore giving him to option to build that bit, keep Burnam and co happy but shelve the HS2 proposal in its entirety?

The original HS2 route was due to split after Brum and head towards Leeds and Manchester, I think a link across the Penine's would be a completely new project.

Osborne made similar noises a few years ago and given how much HS2 is costing I think it'e just a bit of electioneering by Doris, I doubt very much that there's any genuine substance to his pledge.

[rover 623gsi]

The trans penine route is not a new idea - it has been promoted by Northern Powerhouse Rail and aims to take advantage of the improved rail links that will arrive through HS2.

https://transportforthenorth.com/northern-powerhou...

Although, in true Boris style it is not clear whether he is talking about something new or just making a comittment to an already existing plan. It's possible he intends to scrap Phase 2a and 2b of HS2 and use the money to fund a new Manchester to Leeds line. Who knows? Probably not even Boris himself.

[TeaNoSugar]

Blue62 said:

lord trumpton said:

As Boris has 'committed' to build a HS rail line from Leeds to Manchester now I'm left confused as to the following..

Will this section be the route already planned as part of existing HS2 network?

Will said route be a totally separate route independent of existing HS2 network and therefore giving him to option to build that bit, keep Burnam and co happy but shelve the HS2 proposal in its entirety?

The original HS2 route was due to split after Brum and head towards Leeds and Manchester, I think a link across the Penine's would be a completely new project.

Osborne made similar noises a few years ago and given how much HS2 is costing I think it'e just a bit of electioneering by Doris, I doubt very much that there's any genuine substance to his pledge.

That was my reaction too. If he's going to use things like this to gain votes in northern constituencies in an imminent GE, and then wriggle out of it or water it down later on, thats standard form but then I thought he'd gone a bit too "all-in" to easily row back on this "pledge".

Having said that, I wouldn't trust him as far as I could throw him, even amongst politicians he's a particularly self-serving opportunist. I especially don't trust him when he's saying anything positive about any location north of Brent Cross, so I suppose the exact words he used need to scrutinised carefully and there will probably be some significant wriggle-room or vagueness in what he said or committed to. I doubt that'll be lost on the likes of Andy Burnham or Dan Jarvis though, they're not stupid, so I really do hope these regional mayors in the Gt. Manchester and West/South Yorkshire areas keep up the maximum amount of pressure on this issue because once the election is done, getting Boris pinned down on funding it will be like trying to nail a Jelly to the wall!

[Talksteer]

mcdjl said:

So now that we have hundreds of 'stations' in the city centre we need slow loops, and lots of turn is allowing cars to stop without blocking the other ones that aren't stopping. To ensure the speed is kept up we also need acceleration/ deceleration space from each of those or we'll show everything down even more- even with an autonomous system optimising everything distance well be needed. Then you have to find space to put those lift shafts in. Which buildings in London currently have space? In places the clearance between crossrail and other train tunnels is measured in cm. Then there's sewers, phone, electricity..... Underground in a city is very crowded.
The rest of your points I agree with.

I think the answer is that solutions will be tried and the best ones kept. The key beauty of the grade separated autonomous car is that it is so much more flexible without points and timetables it doesn't have the effect that any hard or software change effects the whole network or that every piece has to be compatible with every other piece.

Perversely in the other direction if you want to add capabilities or new standards these can delivered out by OTA updates.

In terms of what the network will look like as the vehicles travelling in it are cars and people will be expected to sit the allowable g forces will be much higher than trains. Hence they will only need ~400m slip roads to get to 150mph.

Trains large turning circles, poor hill climbing ability and large vehicle size delivering hundreds of people to a discrete location mean that it needs large stations close to the surface which means dodging other tunnels.

Thus in dense cities I'd expect frequent narrow lift shafts (maglev lifts so no winding gear) popping up private buildings. Not Elon Musk's car lift.

The actual tunnels would be much lower to avoid existing infrastructure with different speed tunnels at different levels. They key bit is that it is relatively easy to change if you get things wrong compared to a subway.

All this will have to be trialed in LA before somewhere like London would even consider it.

[Tuna]

Talksteer said:

I think the answer is that solutions will be tried and the best ones kept. The key beauty of the grade separated autonomous car is that it is so much more flexible without points and timetables it doesn't have the effect that any hard or software change effects the whole network or that every piece has to be compatible with every other piece.

It's hard to explain just how inefficient high numbers of separate, low occupancy vehicles make a network. Musk's plans are essentially picking up on the idea that it's cheaper to dig a sewage tunnel than a fully serviced, safe train tunnel (for obvious reasons), and then assuming that so long as you stuff enough fast cars in a sewage tunnel, you'll end up with an efficient transport network.

The Boring Company's costs are exactly in line with standard tunnelling costs (there's no secret sauce there), using cars is the most inefficient use of a tunnel (because 90% of a car's structure is only there to deal with non-tunnel problems - like visibility, side impact, rough roads, tight corners etc.), and all of his current proposals on getting passengers and/or cars into the system don't take a moment's scrutiny to see they deliver terrible throughput, negating just about any benefit of a tunnel system.

Like solar powered roads, this is all covered up with talks of 'innovative infrastructure' and 'intuitive' (but wrong) assumptions about how networks and large systems work.

[steveT350C]

'HS2: Review to examine costs and benefits of rail project'

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-49420332

[stuckmojo]

Fingers crossed they'll can it

[Digga]

steveT350C said:

'HS2: Review to examine costs and benefits of rail project'

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-49420332

Amazing. Crossrail was waived through, but spending away from the capital seems to be a sticking point for MPs.

At least one firm has gone bust gearing up for the colossal plant requirements of HS2:

https://www.constructionenquirer.com/2019/02/25/ha...

https://www.constructionenquirer.com/2019/02/25/ha...