I know the truth about HS2. It's not about capacity, it's not about speed, it's just about giving London yet more "bling".
Here Here! And I think Bojo "gets that" As I stated before, HS2 should go from Bham Curzon St and Bham International northwards, to integrate with Northern Powerhouse East West HS3. However costs could be reduced by reducing the maximum speed, 250 mph is ridiculous. I think existing new rolling stock is capable of speeds of in excess of 150 mph but limited to 125 mph? The new line needs much better integration with the existing network and Toton station needs an urgent review.[/QUOTE]
As I understand it, the new line is very deliberately being built with limited integration with the current network in the south of England and likewise with very limited stops.
I also understand, after a couple of years reading people's opinions on HS2 that any design will likely fully please a vanishingly small number of people. The rest of us will look at it and, depending on our particular circumstances and requirements, prefer changes, minor or major. There are a number of things I'd change if I was totally in charge and only had to please myself. Should it go north first rather than south from Birmingham? Suits me, I live in the North, I get value when its all done.
Agreed we don't have 100% certainty of the final cost and we don't have 100% certainty of the benefits over the 50 or so years of the benefit case. We don't have 100% agreement from interested parties on whether we should do it at all let alone the detail of where it should run and stop, how fast it should be, what type of mints to sell in the on-train catering outlet. Did I say catering? Don't let GWR operate the trains....
Lets wait until all these things are at 100% before spending a single more penny on this pink elephant...
...Except of course we'd never build it and by extension we'd never build anything.
It's axiomatic of complex programmes that you have 100% certainty on actual cost shortly after you finish. If the programme is well run then your level of confidence in the estimates increases over time. You start with an idea and a guess of costs, get some funding for a bit of design work, come back with a skeleton design and indicative cost, get some more money for more design, revise costs, get serious money for detail design/surveying, revise costs, start digging and find out what the soil is really like... Costs evolve as the programme evolves. Theoretically they could go down but we all know that doesn't happen.
Benefits are treated like a black art. We're not going to know what the bottom line benefit to the UK economy is going to be in 60 years time so we forecast and speculate. We can measure revenue but we don't have a baseline on what we would have earned without the project, we can measure passenger journeys but they are a metric from which we derive a benefit.
Of course we don't all agree on the detail. I'm going to trust that the many, many years and billions of pounds spent developing the programme to this stage has considered all of the options that we've discussed on this forum and that the Oakervee review - and the "red team" dissenting view from Lord Berkley give us a checkpoint to review the design decisions as well as costings and benefits analysis.
I'm also going to recognise that one of my bugbears with the railways is that we don't plan well and keep reacting tactically when something goes wrong - especially when the problem was quite obvious even with foresight rather than just hindsight. HS2 is doing precisely that, looking decades ahead, forecasting where we are going to be, and putting in place a strategic programme of work.
I know that the design isn't perfect, the execution to date has been shambolic in places, the figures based on assumptions and, for sure, in some cases influenced by vested interests, yet still I'm enthusiastic.
Or we can decide that big infrastructure isn't for us as we don't have the appetite for risk, and if we want to see it then we can move to China.