Why are people opposed to HS2? (And other HS2 discussion)

[AndrewE]

Of you look at the NR accounts for the last financial year they have spent circa £4bn on "Enhancements" (this is in addition to their other spending). This is more than at any time since 2009.
Since 2009 they have spent about £25bn on Enhancements (again in addition to their other spend).

Don't forget that "Enhancements" nowadays includes basic items like the long overdue relaying on the Cumbrian coast...
https://www.networkrailmediacentre....d-faster-journeys-on-the-cumbrian-coast-line# which is really only maintaining what Railtrack inherited rather than ignoring it while it goes down the pan. Why do they expect applause for stopping neglecting a bit of our railway?

 

[The Ham]

When GW electrification gets to Bristol Temple Meads and Swansea get back to me.

The MML electrification is now going all the way to, er, Kettering.

Sounds like a cut to me!

The scope of works during CP5 have been scaled back due to cost overruns, that's not to say that they won't ever happen.

However what's the main reason for those overruns?

Trying to work on a live railway.

Those risks are very much reduced by building the extra pair of lines away from the existing track as much as possible.

You also don't need to use specialist contractors for a lot of the works, for instance do some earthworks alongside a railway and you need NR or an approved contractor. Build it away from the railway and you can use S Pade & co and pay a much lower cost.

Let's for argument say HS2 does cost £150bn and creates 18 new paths between London and Birmingham, 6 paths between Birmingham and Manchester, etc.... All capable of carrying between 500 and 1100 people seated.

What's the £10bn on the GWML got you? A few extra paths carrying 315 to 630 people seated and electrification. On that comparison HS2 looks good value to me.

 

[The Ham]

Don't forget that "Enhancements" nowadays includes basic items like the long overdue relaying on the Cumbrian coast...
https://www.networkrailmediacentre....d-faster-journeys-on-the-cumbrian-coast-line# which is really only maintaining what Railtrack inherited rather than ignoring it while it goes down the pan. Why do they expect applause for stopping neglecting a bit of our railway?

OK, I'll deduct 0.1% from the enhancement budget from last year to cover that item.

P.S. that's assuming that you can prove that it's not being dealt with under the refresh budget.

 

[Aictos]

When GW electrification gets to Bristol Temple Meads and Swansea get back to me.

The MML electrification is now going all the way to, er, Kettering.

And as been pointed out to you, the reason the Govt pulled the plug was not because of HS2 no matter how much you try to convince yourself of this or others but because the GWML electrification went over budget which is why Chippenham to Bristol Temple Meads, Cardiff to Swansea, Lakes, Kettering to Sheffield and Nottingham etc all got pulled.

Until Network Rail can prove it can deliver such projects on time and on or under budget then future electrification of existing routes are at risk but seeing as the UK doesn't have a good record in wiring up the network ie so few miles were done from early 90s to today it's no surprise that this has happened.

 

[AndrewE]

OK, I'll deduct 0.1% from the enhancement budget from last year to cover that item.

P.S. that's assuming that you can prove that it's not being dealt with under the refresh budget.

https://www.networkrailmediacentre....d-faster-journeys-on-the-cumbrian-coast-line# says it's part of "the Great North Rail Project" and "By 2022 the Great North Rail Project (GNRP), part of Britain's Railway Upgrade Plan, will have delivered a multi-billion pound package of improvements for customers across the north of England."
I was just pointing out that bringing the track back up to 1930s standards hardly counts as an enhancement, an upgrade or an investment. Someone else has said here that most work across the Northwest is being badged as part of this, even if it's really just maintenance.

 

[Tetchytyke]

However what's the main reason for those overruns?

Trying to work on a live railway.

Those risks are very much reduced by building the extra pair of lines away from the existing track as much as possible.

I'd say the overruns were more because NR were trying to use new and untried technology to do the electrification as much as anything, but I do agree with your point. A new build is easier to achieve without so much disruption.

Which is why the plans for Euston are so bizarre. Euston will be a building site for five years or more and paths in and out will be dramatically cut. The WCML is going to be in chaos for years. Cut the cost and terminate at OOC surely?

 

[Ianno87]

Which is why the plans for Euston are so bizarre. Euston will be a building site for five years or more and paths in and out will be dramatically cut. The WCML is going to be in chaos for years. Cut the cost and terminate at OOC surely?

That's a heck of a lot of people to squeeze onto Crossrail....

18x Up to 400m trains per hour (7.2km of train per hour) squeezing on to 24 x 200m trains per hour (4.8km of train per hour). Plus people from Heathrow etc. already on Crossrail. That'll work...

 

[The Planner]

Which is why the plans for Euston are so bizarre. Euston will be a building site for five years or more and paths in and out will be dramatically cut. The WCML is going to be in chaos for years. Cut the cost and terminate at OOC surely?

Nope, all the paths stay on 16 platforms.

 

[Aictos]

Nope, all the paths stay on 16 platforms.

Just wondering but did Network Rail cut paths into London Waterloo while they brought the former International platforms into use for SWR services or did Network Rail cut paths into Kings Cross when they remodelled the approaches to Platform 0 and 1 as well as build Platform 0 as new built?

Or even when they remodelled the platform lengths at Kings Cross did they cut the number of services as they did two platforms at a time I believe?

Equally more to the point when Network Rail remodelled Reading a few years ago, did they cut the number of services using it?

 

[MarkyT]

Both London stations are important for HS2, providing different sets of connections and spreading the load. Euston is within easy cab or bus reach of the city and west end; a reasonable walk even to parts of the latter. Imagine the cost of a cab and the journey time from Old Oak Common. Of course people could change onto The Liz before taking their cab/bus from a central station, but it's all adding time and inconvenience which is going to adversely affect the attractiveness of the service compared to existing routes at their traditional Euston Road terminals. Having a peripheral call at an edge city hub like OOC as well as a city centre terminal is good practice internationally for large distributed settlements like London and is also a feature of Shinkansen operations in Tokyo. The edge city hub, in addition to providing its own range of public transport connections, can also be promoted as the preferred 'parkway' location for London based customers to avoid city centre congestion.

 

[DerekC]

What's daft about the London high speed setup is that we can have two stations about half a mile away from each other with no provision for moving people rapidly and easily between them and no realistically usable connection between the two routes. That's what is silly about Euston.

 

[MarkyT]

What's daft about the London high speed setup is that we can have two stations about half a mile away from each other with no provision for moving people rapidly and easily between them and no realistically usable connection between the two routes. That's what is silly about Euston.

I think that some form of dedicated interconnection will be provided in the long term, even if that is 'just' a much improved surface pedestrian route. The direct distance between the closest parts of St. Pancras and Euston is around 500m. I reckon that if and when Crossrail 2 is ever built, people will begin to use the subterranean link via its platforms to transfer between the terminals if their ticket/card allows it, especially when it's raining. The daft thing is that official advice so far seems to be take the tube for one stop, but the walk involved to get to and from the LU platforms at each end will be as far as the surface pedestrian route, so whats the point of fighting through the crowds and waiting for a train?

 

[6Gman]

What's daft about the London high speed setup is that we can have two stations about half a mile away from each other with no provision for moving people rapidly and easily between them and no realistically usable connection between the two routes. That's what is silly about Euston.

But what practical solution is there?

 

[si404]

What's daft about the London high speed setup is that we can have two stations about half a mile away from each other with no provision for moving people rapidly and easily between them and no realistically usable connection between the two routes.

(I'm guessing you are talking about Euston and St Pancras, rather than the travesty that is the issue of TfL not rerouting the Overground to serve OOC station directly.)

'No provision'? Other than 6 tracks of London Underground (so a train every 40 seconds), a quiet-streets walking route and a main road walking route, you mean?

Which is significantly better than Waterloo - Blackfriars, Liverpool St - Cannon St, Moor Street - New Street, etc.

Sure, an all-weather walking route with travelators would be the ideal situation (far better than a track connection between the two high speed lines due to not treating non-High Speed lines at Euston and St P as irrelevant*, at far less cost), but the walking option is not overly horrendous now, and mere modest improvements can make it so that it's not horrendous at all.

*Maidstone - Milton Keynes, Crewe - Crawley, Birmingham - Brighton would use it, as well as it doing the North-Continent stuff like Preston - Paris or Liverpool - Lille better than a direct track link would.

 

[MarkyT]

But what practical solution is there?

I'd suggest working closely with local authorities towards providing a wide, safe, obvious dedicated pedestrian path between the northern station entrances with a minimum of road crossings. Any road crossings that would remain should give absolute priority to pedestrians. People should be allowed to take station luggage trolleys between the terminals via this path and an assistance service across the link should be available. People should also be allowed to use the subterranean Crossrail 2 platfrom route without charge to avoid bad weather and if necessary additional intermediate level passageways from one end of the station to the other should be provided to allow this. Travelators might even be provided for part of the distance to speed up the transfer.

 

[Clip]

The original estimate was £40bn, now it's £75bn and construction hasn't even started

I thought clearing/Enabling works were all part of a construction project ( video shows the clearing of the former carriage sheds)

 

[underbank]

But what practical solution is there?

How about a bridge/walkway like the one connecting Manchester's T1, station and T2 that includes moving walkways.

 

[Ianno87]

Just wondering but did Network Rail cut paths into London Waterloo while they brought the former International platforms into use for SWR services or did Network Rail cut paths into Kings Cross when they remodelled the approaches to Platform 0 and 1 as well as build Platform 0 as new built?

Or even when they remodelled the platform lengths at Kings Cross did they cut the number of services as they did two platforms at a time I believe?

Equally more to the point when Network Rail remodelled Reading a few years ago, did they cut the number of services using it?

Waterloo = About a third of the service removed, but with 10 platforms of 24 and 4 approach tracks of 8 missing (much, much bigger footprint than Euston, but only 3 weeks of this) during the 1-4 extension works in 2017.

The International station works just involved re-loss of Platform 20, and one or two peak Reading trains accordingly.

King's Cross/Reading: Full TT, just retimed and flexed to fit the individual stages.

 

[camflyer]

But what practical solution is there?

There was a report from Arup on the feasibility of a people mover/monorail type connection between Euston and Kings Cross/St Pancras

https://webarchive.nationalarchives...i/highspeedrail/proposedroute/apm/pdf/apm.pdf

Once Crossrail 2 arrives with a station called "Euston St Pancras " the three stations will effectively be a single mega-station anyway.

 

[MarkyT]

There was a report from Arup on the feasibility of a people mover/monorail type connection between Euston and Kings Cross/St Pancras

They demonstrated technical feasibility but I think it would likely be difficult to get an elevated system approved above streets and overlooking residential property.

Once Crossrail 2 arrives with a station called "Euston St Pancras " the three stations will effectively be a single mega-station anyway.

True but they say there"s going to be no special facilities provided in the CR2 station for transfers but even with a descent to and ascent from platform level I predict there will be some use of the route by people whose ticket or card will get them throuh the TfL barriers, especially when it's raining.

 

[Class 170101]

I'm guessing you are talking about Euston and St Pancras, rather than the travesty that is the issue of TfL not rerouting the Overground to serve OOC station directly.)

But what services would you re-route to Old Oak Common? The only route that I can see that may be possible would be the Barking (Barking Reach) to Gospel Oak service given that Stratford to Richmond or Stratford to Willesden services being diverted would probably not be popular. The Gospel Oak Bay Platform would become little used however as this cannot be used by services heading onto the North London Line.

 

[The Ham]

https://www.networkrailmediacentre....d-faster-journeys-on-the-cumbrian-coast-line# says it's part of "the Great North Rail Project" and "By 2022 the Great North Rail Project (GNRP), part of Britain's Railway Upgrade Plan, will have delivered a multi-billion pound package of improvements for customers across the north of England."
I was just pointing out that bringing the track back up to 1930s standards hardly counts as an enhancement, an upgrade or an investment. Someone else has said here that most work across the Northwest is being badged as part of this, even if it's really just maintenance.

It may be part of a large project which is about upgrades, however it talks about renewals.

It doesn't confirm which budget those works are being paid for from.

It's entirely possible that the overarching project has a number of schemes with finding coming from one or other or both budget pots.

Yes it should have been done before now, however that's the nature of where we are at, some things are left so that other projects can go ahead.

However, this had little to do with HS2, as unless we do everything that's needed before we do anything new then we'd never get very far.

In fact there's an argument that by building a new pair of lines that much of the work which should be done can be done without causing as much disruption.

For instance, let's say you wanted to do some major works at Watford, you could bypass a lot of the passengers onto HS2 with a lot of the others being able to be routed via other routes and still ending up at Euston without needing to use the tube by then changing at OOC from trains which run through Reading.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

But what services would you re-route to Old Oak Common? The only route that I can see that may be possible would be the Barking (Barking Reach) to Gospel Oak service given that Stratford to Richmond or Stratford to Willesden services being diverted would probably not be popular. The Gospel Oak Bay Platform would become little used however as this cannot be used by services heading onto the North London Line.

You'd basically need to rebuild about a mile each of the North London and West London lines so they are routed over (or under) Old Oak Common station. Either that or plan to build OOC a bit further either to the East or to the West of where it's currently planned to build it. Of course, re-building those lines would add to the cost (an amount that would be huge for TfL's budget but probably peanuts in comparison to the entire cost of HS2). I appreciate that HS2 don't want costs added because of project creep. But at the same time, not rebuilding the North and West London lines to provide a decent interchange seems extraordinarily short sighted to me. Especially when the current proposals from TfL are to rebuild/re-route a section of the West London line anyway, but still leaving the new station on it 600m away from OOC).

Ditto the Central line, which passes very close to OOC but won't have any interchange at all. So we'll end up with a brand new and very heavily used station that provides a gateway to HS2, but which only provides direct connections to 2 of the 5 other rail lines that pass very close.

Somewhat detracts from the argument that HS2 represents good strategic planning to my mind (but I still strongly believe building it is still better than not building it).

 

[Bletchleyite]

Which is why the plans for Euston are so bizarre. Euston will be a building site for five years or more and paths in and out will be dramatically cut. The WCML is going to be in chaos for years. Cut the cost and terminate at OOC surely?

Which would render it pointless; people would just use classic line services to Euston instead.

It is utterly ridiculous to have a high speed railway that doesn't go to the centre of the capital city of the United Kingdom but instead terminates in a suburban rathole (2019)/shopping centre (202x). It would be exactly like terminating the GEML at Stratford, which would be beyond stupid.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Both London stations are important for HS2, providing different sets of connections and spreading the load. Euston is within easy cab or bus reach of the city and west end; a reasonable walk even to parts of the latter

Now it's back in favour and the nasty New York theme park that is Canary Wharf much less so, the City is spreading back towards Holborn with some quite nice new developments. An office I often visit is 15 minutes' quite pleasant walk through the back streets from Euston. It's a quite useful location.

 

[Bletchleyite]

What's daft about the London high speed setup is that we can have two stations about half a mile away from each other with no provision for moving people rapidly and easily between them and no realistically usable connection between the two routes. That's what is silly about Euston.

What, like, for instance, the new entrance to the Circle/H&C/Met lines station that is, about 70 years or something late, being built directly outside Euston? It's a pleasant walk, anyway, I quite enjoy it.

I wouldn't mind if they had sent it into St Pancras, to be honest, and there are good arguments for that. But it would have been much more expensive as they'd have had to go underground.

 

[Bletchleyite]

station luggage trolleys

The 1980s called and they want their station luggage trolleys back. When was the last time you saw anyone using one of those? Wheeled suitcases are available in all shapes and sizes and they are what people use these days, and they can, er, be wheeled quite happily along any walking route. It could be made a lot nicer, though, I agree, but it would require knocking a few blocks of flats down to do that.

Regarding using the Crossrail tunnel, a system could no doubt be put in place whereby if you touch in with Oyster/contactless at one end and touch out at the other end within say 10 minutes without having used any other validator you would not be charged nor get an unresolved journey. For those without Oyster they could I guess sell paper platform tickets at a fee.

 

[liam456]

The original estimate was £40bn, now it's £75bn and construction hasn't even started. How much will the final bill be? Being Nostradamus, I'll join in the hat eating if we get change from £150bn, and that's taking into account the proposed reduction in build quality.

What I meant was exactly that; anybody thinking HS2 will cost what the Treasury is saying it will now is being disingenuous at best.

 

[si404]

There's this thing called inflation...

The value of the pound with the 40bn figure was before the BoE and HMT spent 5+ years seeking to reduce the value of the pound (with the IMF still saying it was overvalued in 2015) and then further devaluing by the markets since then. That £75bn figure is with pounds that are worth roughly 80p of the ones making the initial budget. That drops it down to £60bn if using the same pounds as the £40bn value.

Additionally, construction prices across Europe have inflated faster than the general inflation. Rather than nearly being a doubling, the difference between those two budgets is much more modest when the mere factor of inflation is taken into account - much nearer 9% than 90%.

Oh, and construction has started (OK, mostly building the work sites so far), with the first tranche of construction contracts that have been signed coming in under the budget allocated for them (as is to be expected given the budget was set with a 95% chance it would be at- or under-budget).

 

[EM2]

The 1980s called and they want their station luggage trolleys back. When was the last time you saw anyone using one of those?

They're used a lot between King's Cross, St Pancras and Euston, to the point that every now and then, St Pancras hire a van to take all the ones back to Euston that belong there, and pick up all the ones that belong to St Pancras and King's Cross.
St P and KX also do 'trolley swaps' every night.