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Author Topic: HS2 - Government proposals, alternative routes and general discussion  (Read 393911 times)
eightf48544
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« Reply #420 on: August 28, 2013, 10:32:28 »

I am still on the fence about HS2 (The next High Speed line(s)) whilst I love high speed trains there is no point in building and expensive LGV (Large Goods Vehicle) if it doesn't provide better faster through transport.

Take London to the Birmingham it's to a Terminal Staion away from New Street which is the hub of the Network. I believe it's the same in Manchester and Leeds terminal stations isolated from the existing Hbf.

So if I'm travelling from say Wolverhampton am I going to change and waste time in Birmingham and get HS2 to save 30 minutes or stay on a Pendelino on the WCML (West Coast Main Line)? Even if I'm starting from a local West Midlands station am I going to change from New Street to Curzon Street rather than just at New Street.

Or will I be forced to change as there will be no through trains from Wolverhampton/ Birmingham New Street to London?

What will the fare structure be? Will it be premium service? In which case the competing TOCS are likely to offer lots of cheap fares for their slower journies. Are there really that many business travellers from London to Birminghm?

Or am I raising stupid questions, lets just build the line and watch the passengers flock to it!
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TonyK
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« Reply #421 on: August 28, 2013, 10:36:20 »

I may have given the impression that I'm off the fence as far as HS2 (The next High Speed line(s)) is concerned - I'm not. For visceral rather than logical reasons, I'll probably wait for Adonis, McLoughlin and FT, N! change to change their minds before I join the anti camp.

Having said that, I do hope HS2 limited are just keeping their PR (Public Relations) powder dry at the moment - because they don't seem to be on the front foot. It is very frustrating that when the press gives blanket coverage to the risible Dr BeechWellings, HS2's response seem to be a muffled whimper.

You can cross me off the list, because if Adonis and McLoughlin decide against it, I shall trample the weak in the rush to grab a parachute. My opinion is largely informed by theirs.

Like Electric Train, I don't think a PR offensive by HS2 would do any good at all. The detail of the project is theirs to explain, the vision behind the route and the justification for it is entirely the responsibility of Government and DafT. This a Government requirement, answering a need identified by Government, and paid for by the Government on our behalf. They have work to do when Parliament reconvenes, and other major distractions may occupy MPs (Member of Parliament) for some large part of the first session
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« Reply #422 on: August 28, 2013, 12:00:37 »

Fair point - I should have said 'the pro-HS2 (The next High Speed line(s)) lobby'.

As to things the next Parliament may have to think about; let's hope the monkey knows how to handle a hand grenade - else all bets may be off.
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« Reply #423 on: August 28, 2013, 14:10:11 »

I think the pro-HS2 (The next High Speed line(s)) lobby have conducted themselves pretty well over the last couple of years. Pete Waterman, all credit to him I think has been doing a pretty good job popping up on BBC2 news etc and not being afraid to take the fight to the Nibbies who are against HS2.

A perfect example of this was when Pete Waterman was in a debate on a tv show against someone opposed to HS2.  The anti-HS2  lobbiests dont like it when you show how misleading some of their arguments are. As for any costs increasing, the whole legal cases againts HS2 are  one reason why.

I will be glad when construction on HS2 starts maybe then we start looking at HS3 which can bring some relief to the GWML (Great Western Main Line) which I suspect will be one of the next  mainlines needing extra capacity due to large increases in freight and passenger traffic.
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« Reply #424 on: August 29, 2013, 19:36:57 »

Fair point - I should have said 'the pro-HS2 (The next High Speed line(s)) lobby'.

As to things the next Parliament may have to think about; let's hope the monkey knows how to handle a hand grenade - else all bets may be off.

I may have done myself a disservice in my use of the word "informed". I read every argument, on both sides and in the middle, and hope I do so relatively impartially. Even discounting my bias towards rail, though, I find their arguments - and Pete Waterman's - to be persuasive above the others. The transport portfolio seems to be special in Government, in that it can breed long-term interest and even expertise in the right incumbent, far beyond the usual ministerial span of attention.
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« Reply #425 on: September 01, 2013, 19:09:21 »

From The Guardian:

Quote from: The Guardian
Osborne 'passionate' about HS2 (The next High Speed line(s)) project despite protests

Chancellor refuses to speculate on potential overspending, but says ^42bn budget includes 'a big contingency'

George Osborne has said he is "passionate" about the multi-billion pound HS2 project because it will change the "economic geography" of Britain and make sure the north and Midlands benefit from an economic recovery.

The chancellor would not be drawn on whether spending on HS2 could rise higher than the ^42bn budget, but insisted contingency costs had been built in to plans.

He told BBC1's Andrew Marr Show: "We have set the budget for ^42bn for the construction costs. That includes, by the way, a big contingency.

"As we demonstrated with the Olympic Games, we can deliver these big projects actually sometimes under budget."

He added: "I think we have got a good budget, which has got a very big contingency in it.

"I'm passionate about this project because time and again, we have this debate in our country about how we're going to bring the gap between north and south together, about how we're going to make sure that our growth is not just based on the City of London.

"High Speed 2 is about changing the economic geography of this country, making sure the north and the Midlands benefit from the recovery as well."

Osborne's comments came in the wake of high-profile calls for the project to be scrapped.

The Institute of Directors, Institute for Economic Affairs and former Labour chancellor Alistair Darling have all called for HS2 to be scrapped, while former Labour industry secretary Lord Mandelson has expressed reservations.

There have also been reports that the Treasury was working on a figure as high as ^73bn for the project, whose first phase, London to Birmingham, is scheduled to be completed around 2026.

The project, which cuts through Tory heartlands in the Chilterns, will then involve the construction of a Y-shaped scheme to take the rail line to north-east and north-west England around 2032.

And:

Quote from: The Guardian
HS2 can change UK (United Kingdom)'s economic geography, says George Osborne

Chancellor says he is passionate about high-speed rail project, dismissing speculation that government is losing interest

George Osborne has moved to dismiss speculation that the government is losing interest in the high-speed rail line between London and Birmingham, saying he is "passionate" about the project that would close the gap between north and south.

Amid reports that the Treasury is concerned about the escalating costs of the project, which have now reached ^42.6bn, the chancellor hailed the chance to change the "economic geography" of Britain.

Osborne told the Andrew Marr Show on BBC1: "I'm passionate about this project because time and again we have this debate in our country about how we're going to bring the gap between the north and the south together, how we're going to make sure that our growth is not just on the City of London. High Speed 2 is about changing the economic geography of this country, making sure the north and the Midlands benefit from recovery as well."

The chancellor, who sits for the north-west seat of Tatton, through which the proposed line runs, defended the ^42.6bn budget on the grounds that it contained a contingency of ^14bn. He said: "We have set a budget for ^42bn for the construction costs. That includes, by the way, a big contingency, right? As we demonstrated with the Olympic Games, we can deliver these big projects actually sometimes under budget. That's why we have that contingency."

The intervention by Osborne will please the HS2 company, responsible for building the new line, which has watched political support slip away in recent weeks. Senior Treasury officials told the FT last month that the line between London and Birmingham, which is due to be the first stage of a new north-south link, could cost ^73bn.

The intervention by unnamed Treasury officials prompted the former chancellor Alistair Darling, who approved the project in government, to say he had changed his mind and the time had arrived to scrap the project. Quoting the late economist John Maynard Keynes, Darling wrote in the Times last month: "The facts have changed. The case for HS2 was just about stateable in 2010. I don't believe that it is today."

The Labour party is still officially committed to the high-speed line. But Ed Balls, the shadow chancellor, criticised the government's "totally chaotic" handling of the project as he told the BBC» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page): "There's no blank cheque from a Labour Treasury for HS2, it's got to be value for money."

The remarks by Darling were followed by a report by the Institute of Directors which called on the government to abandon the "grand folly" of HS2. A survey of IoD» (Institute of Directors - about) members found that only 27% believed that HS2 was value for money and 70% thought it would have no impact on their business.

The chancellor dismissed claims that the recent signs of economic recovery were driven by a housing boom. He tried out a new phrase as he said that as things looked up it would be wrong to let up.

Osborne told the Marr show: "I think we've got a quite broadly based recovery. But of course it's in its early stages and although things are looking up, we mustn't let up. We've got to absolutely go on doing the things necessary to fix what went wrong in our economy and this government's got an economic plan to do that."
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« Reply #426 on: September 01, 2013, 20:46:58 »

Quote
"High Speed 2 is about changing the economic geography of this country, making sure the north and the Midlands benefit from the recovery as well."
Bad choice of words there. If HS2 (The next High Speed line(s)) is about economic benifits not about capacity then I too will climb off the metephorical fence into the metephorical camp of the anti-HS2 brigade.

If you have read George Monbiot's article, "The Open Veins of Wales" maybe you will understand what I mean. If your only objective is to tackle the ecconomic north-south divide then, in my view, you create (either by upgrading or building new lines) a conventional Intercity railway like the GWML (Great Western Main Line), WCML (West Coast Main Line) and ECML (East Coast Main Line) (with maximum speeds no faster 125/140mph, if you even need that) from Liverpool to York via Manchester and Leeds. I can only guess, wildly, but I suspect that would do more for the ecconomic suituation (if transport links really effect that at all) for alot less cost than HS2.
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« Reply #427 on: September 01, 2013, 20:52:45 »

"We have set a budget of ^42bn....."

No, George it's ^42.6bn for the phase one and two construction costs. But what's ^600 million between Govt. and taxpayer?  Roll Eyes

No mention whatsoever of the ^7.5bn for rolling stock. Again.

Still, this is only the Chancellor of the Exchequer communicating to the public how much the project will cost in total (currently...), can't expect him to give accurate figures. Can we?
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« Reply #428 on: September 01, 2013, 21:28:39 »

"We have set a budget of ^42bn....."

No, George it's ^42.6bn for the phase one and two construction costs. But what's ^600 million between Govt. and taxpayer?  Roll Eyes

No mention whatsoever of the ^7.5bn for rolling stock. Again.

I am normally the first person to attack the chancellor, but I think you are being unfair here. 

OK so he rounded the numbers.

He was however quite clear that this was the budget for construction costs (he did not say it included rolling stock).

He was also quite clear that it included contingencies. 

Still, this is only the Chancellor of the Exchequer communicating to the public how much the project will cost in total (currently...), can't expect him to give accurate figures. Can we?

A budget that includes contingencies.  So he is saying this is not just the current cost it is the total budget for construction.  That is what a budget is.  It has to include all those extra things that you think will be added.  That is what a budget is.

You may think that HS2 (The next High Speed line(s)) will not work to the budget - but the Olympics was completed on budget (budget ^9.29bn cost ^8.77bn (source http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/olympics/20041426).  The mistake is not to include a contingency sum.


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« Reply #429 on: September 01, 2013, 22:33:27 »

I was taught that 0.6 should be rounded up if rounding is to be used. So if George was rounding then he should have said ^43bn.

Consistently leaving out the cost for rolling stock for HS2 (The next High Speed line(s)) is just wrong. I fail to understand why ministers and civil servants continue to do so. Every time a layman sees the figure ^42.6bn for HS2, I contend that that is what they will think is the total cost.

If HS2 Ltd and it's supporters want to get people on side, one of the first things they can do is be upfront about all the projected costs.

As for the Olympics, the budget was ^9.29bn including contingency of just over ^1bn (I'm correctly rounding down there) and just under half of that ^1bn has, to date, been spent. There's a large land sale contract worth over ^400 million that has not yet been signed off and the Olympic Delivery Authoirty is holding, "unreleased contingency against future cost pressures and a quantitative risk assessment of issues that may arise during the delivery of the remaining programme and final dissolution."* So it's to early to say definitively that the Olympics were in budget, or that all of the contingency will not be spent.

*Olympic Delivery Authority Annual Report 2012-2013 (.pdf)


Olympics contingency was approximately 11% of total budget. HS2 contingency is 33% of the total budget. Academic studies show that contingency is expected to be expended. One third contingency may well have been arrived at by expert analysis of similar projects in the UK (United Kingdom) and elsewhere, but I'm struggling to find any examples. The closest comparison is probably HS1 (High Speed line 1 - St Pancras to Channel Tunnel). That had an 18% contingency, all spent, with a further ^357 million spent by the DfT» (Department for Transport - about) on Temple Mills depot, the cost of which was outside the original contract.

http://www.nao.org.uk/report/the-completion-and-sale-of-high-speed-1/
« Last Edit: September 03, 2013, 00:35:22 by bignosemac » Logged

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« Reply #430 on: September 01, 2013, 22:49:51 »

I never thought I would be supporting George Osborne but on this occasion I thought he was being unusually transparent for a politician.  Yes in science we were always told to round numbers to the nearest integer, but politicians are not scientists (regrettably). 

I don't know if you have ever run a capital programme but the idea is that you set a contingency based on the risks. The earlier in the design and planning process you set the budget the higher the risks will be. 

Academic studies by whom?  I am sorry, but I have no confidence in so called experts in something else meddling in things they do not understand or have even tried to understand, but get credibility just because they have Prof of Dr in front of their name or work for something called and institute.  The recent report by the IEA is a classic example of this.

You say that budget will always be spent. If the contingency is based on risk perhaps that is a sign of good budgeting. 

I am sorry you have no confidence in my profession to work to a budget.  Just because Railtrack failed that does not mean that civil engineering projects cannot be done to a budget.  They committed themselves to a scheme without working out the scope.  They decided that they were an asset management business. Unfortunately no one has decided what that means yet. So they decided that accountants and economist were quite capably of running a hugely complex technical business.

Network Rail and HS2 (The next High Speed line(s)) on the other hand is very well staffed with Civil Engineers. 


The main problems with public sector projects is that politicians (and others) try and meddle with the specification too late in the process.  Sometimes they think they are trying to save money as it would be a shame to have to pay to change something later. When in fact that would be the cheapest thing to do. 



 
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« Reply #431 on: September 02, 2013, 01:23:43 »

The current projected cost for construction would actually be ^42bn and not ^42.6bn if it weren't for an alleged change to the route costing ^600million so that it avoided a more affluent part of one MPs (Member of Parliament) constituency.

That constituency? Tatton. The MP? George Osborne.

Could of course be a total coincidence that the proposed route was changed in this way, adding six miles of track. But the dogleg in the route to Manchester is rather curious, particularly when you note that the area to the south and east of the dogleg is sparsely populated. Going from Crewe between Knutsford and Wilmslow to Manchester is straighter (folks in the area of Phase 1 were told the line had to be straight) and shorter. Instead there are two massive curves taking the line to the very west and north edges of Mr Osborne's constituency.
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« Reply #432 on: September 02, 2013, 17:18:48 »

That constituency? Tatton. The MP (Member of Parliament)? George Osborne.

Coincidence can be so fortuitous sometimes.
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eightf48544
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« Reply #433 on: September 03, 2013, 08:31:40 »

Interresting nobodies's answered my question regading the Wolverhampton passenger will they expected/forced to use HS2 (The next High Speed line(s)) because of lasck fo through trains to London?

What about Derby Nottingham to London passengers are they expected to drive to Toton Parkway when they might live quite close to town stations. I used to go to Derby a lot and catch a bus down London Road to the computer centre. Would I have gone HS2 and be dumped at Toton for sake of a shorter journey which even with a taxi the time saving would have been eaten up by the extra time for the onward journey.

Beggining to have my doubts!

 
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« Reply #434 on: September 03, 2013, 09:44:49 »

Interresting nobodies's answered my question regading the Wolverhampton passenger will they expected/forced to use HS2 (The next High Speed line(s)) because of lasck fo through trains to London?

What about Derby Nottingham to London passengers are they expected to drive to Toton Parkway when they might live quite close to town stations. I used to go to Derby a lot and catch a bus down London Road to the computer centre. Would I have gone HS2 and be dumped at Toton for sake of a shorter journey which even with a taxi the time saving would have been eaten up by the extra time for the onward journey.

Beggining to have my doubts!

 

I don't think all the detail has been worked out yet, after all we are still a long way a way from Phase 2 in 2032 regarding your Toton question. I think I did read somewhere that the Nottingham Tram system could/would be extended to Toton Parkway, but I can't find a link.

There is some interesting work coming out from Network Rail regarding the integration of HS2 with the existing network:

http://www.networkrail.co.uk/improvements/high-speed-rail/


This is good bedtime reading, but they are all worth a read. If you look at the "Better Connections",  then go to the tables starting on page 18 you start to see some of the thinking and some of the concerns raised seem similar to your own.

On page 25 it notes:

Quote
Aspiration for improved connectivity (potentially Derby and Nottingham heavy rail shuttle solution) at East Midlands Hub (Toton).

I think for the next few years it will be a question of 'Watch this Space' as connections and new/revised services are worked out and refined. You might even end up with a Wolverhampton to Derby direct train!!


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