Despite the government's announcement, should HS2 be cancelled?

[MarkyT]

Quite, but anyone driving round those areas in rush hour is normally stuck in awful traffic jams. Which begs the question, if you really want to boost the local economy do you put all your eggs into the HS2 basket, or would you maybe trim it back to ensure there's still some funds available for improving the local transport infrastructure of the Midlands. Parked up in stationary traffic looking out onto a HS2 construction site, I have wondered how much better the local economy would be if you could get around the Midlands more easily.

HS2 will remove the fastest Pendolino trains from existing tracks in the West Midlands, on their awkward 3 tph pattern, releasing significant capacity that can be used by other local, regional, and freight services. The existing tracks pass conveniently through the largest settlements en route, which developed around the stations, so offer the best routes for local service improvement; more so than the new fast tracks of HS2 which, by deliberately not having any intermediate local stops, can largely avoid densely populated areas between their principle stations.

 

[Bald Rick]

that it's far from certain whether HS2 will ever get north of Birmingham

It is absolutely certain that HS2 will get north of Birmingham, as it is already being built north of Birmingham.

Quite, but anyone driving round those areas in rush hour is normally stuck in awful traffic jams.

I wasn’t today!

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Cancelling it now would be utterly rediculous for reasons that have been discussed dozens of times.
Imagine if Crossrail was cancelled in 2010?

I don't think Crossrail construction had properly started in 2010, but Osborne was very keen for work to start, despite the recession.
That project got the GW wires to Maidenhead, so it then became an easier decision to extend them first to Oxford and Newbury, and then Bristol and Cardiff.
Still waiting for the Oxford and Bristol TM wires of course.

By contrast HS2 has 5 TBMs beavering away, 4 stations and several viaducts are under construction, so there would be a lot of holes to fill if it was cancelled.
It's also key to the levelling up agenda as long as it reaches at least Crewe.

 

[Wyrleybart]

Parked up in stationary traffic looking out onto a HS2 construction site, I have wondered how much better the local economy would be if you could get around the Midlands more easily.

To be fair that was BNRR was to do. It does it very well if you want to pay nearly seven quid for the 19 mile privilege.

 

[Bald Rick]

It does it very well if you want to pay nearly seven quid for the 19 mile privilege.

Nearly £8! (£7.60 7am-7pm weekdays).

 

[JonathanH]

I don't think Crossrail construction had properly started in 2010, but Osborne was very keen for work to start, despite the recession.

As the piece in the Express that I quoted above said, "Mr Gilligan claims that stopping HS2 in its tracks would prove popular". That probably wasn't the case for Crossrail in 2010 but we have a government looking for popular policies.

 

[Xavi]

2022/23 HS2 spend at 2019 prices is £5.7 bn (0.5% of total govt). Cancellation would make no difference to other services or budgets. The economy would take a hammering: 29,000 jobs lost, flow down (not trickle) including tax lost and no low-carbon high-speed railway to give further economic growth.

The cancellation talk is all far—right think tank driven, they never support any capital investment and are throwing around data that’s completely unfounded. The treasury ‘gap’ is £50bn a year and their story pushed through the media is that cancelling a £71bn railway (Manchester to London at 2019 prices) built over 15 or more years will save the day. Total nonsense and the polar opposite of what any government should do when a country is facing recession.

Phase 2a won’t get delayed or cancelled (unless they bin everything), it’s relatively cheap at £5-7 bn (2019), straightforward with no urban areas and gets HS2 to the north.

 

[Starmill]

Well, a 250km/h bypass (a bit more like Colwich than HS2) would do it a heck of a lot cheaper than a 400km/h one!

If this had been that design when the plan was first placed before Parliament, i.e. prior to July 2017, then that's very possible.

However, now, when the current route is authorised and funded, preliminary work has been ongoing for more than a year, and main works bids are already being assessed... any wholesale revision of Phase 2a would cost several billion pounds and put at minimum 6 years delay on the project. Realistically it would set the project back more like 8 - 10 years while 2b Western is also redesigned.

 

[Wyrleybart]

Nearly £8! (£7.60 7am-7pm weekdays).

Obviously gone up a few times since i last used it !!!!

 

[AlbertBeale]

Well, a 250km/h bypass (a bit more like Colwich than HS2) would do it a heck of a lot cheaper than a 400km/h one!

I've long been a proponent of the German/Swiss Neubaustrecke model over the French style model HS2 is largely following, to be fair. 400km/h is profligate and unnecessary.

Absolutely - and the 400kph is one of the reasons (along with the concomitant engineering spec to enable it) that HS2 is an environmental disaster in the current emergency, rather than "just" being environmentally very unhelpful. On balance, Jenkins is right that going as far as possible towards scrapping it is the best solution financially and planet-wise.

Quite, but anyone driving round those areas in rush hour is normally stuck in awful traffic jams. Which begs the question, if you really want to boost the local economy do you put all your eggs into the HS2 basket, or would you maybe trim it back to ensure there's still some funds available for improving the local transport infrastructure of the Midlands. Parked up in stationary traffic looking out onto a HS2 construction site, I have wondered how much better the local economy would be if you could get around the Midlands more easily.

Yes - in terms of the ease of living of most real/regular people, and in environmental terms, putting the resources into local public transport provision is far better than mega-projects, however exciting they might be for some of us.

HS2 also creates a lot of jobs in the supply chain, a worker for a quarry and aggregates company is going to be pretty annoyed when a major client is terminated. And the boss will also be pretty annoyed when their customer looses a client.

It doesn't just affect the firms contracted by HS2, the contracts normally taken by the big firms can be taken by smaller ones as the larger company is busy with HS2 work.

But the jobs created per £ (and the type of jobs) in a larger amount of lower-spec public transport, rather than one big project, is far better socially and economically.

.

The cancellation talk is all far—right think tank driven, they never support any capital investment and are throwing around data that’s completely unfounded. The treasury ‘gap’ is £50bn a year and their story pushed through the media is that cancelling a £71bn railway (Manchester to London at 2019 prices) built over 15 or more years will save the day. Total nonsense and the polar opposite of what any government should do when a country is facing recession.

As it happens, all the many people I know who are critical of HS2 are left-leaning - so it's certainly not ALL right-wing like you say. Though I don't claim that my associates are necessarily representative...

 

[357]

Lots of talk about the cost to cancel and return things to how they were....

What would be the cost of cancelling and leaving as is, such as was the case with the pre-metro in Charleroi?*

*Even though in this country there would be large ongoing security costs associated with this option

 

[philosopher]

By contrast HS2 has 5 TBMs beavering away, 4 stations and several viaducts are under construction, so there would be a lot of holes to fill if it was cancelled.
It's also key to the levelling up agenda as long as it reaches at least Crewe.

I suspect the end result will be that stages 1 and 2a get built in full, perhaps with a few savings such as slower trains. Stage 1 is too far progressed to cancel and stage 2a will get built so the government can say it reaches the north. However stage 2b I reckon will be put on hold indefinitely.

 

[Starmill]

What would be the cost of cancelling and leaving as is, such as was the case with the pre-metro in Charleroi?*

The costs in phase 1 would be about the same whether it is built or not, because most of the work is already contracted, so this doesn't really arise.

In phase 2a nothing like the Charleroi metro has been built yet.

The reason for the costs wouldn't really be for un-doing works, it would be for work that the contractor is paid for whether they do it or not.

 

[ChewChewTrain]

Cancelling it now would be utterly rediculous for reasons that have been discussed dozens of times.

Pretty much this. I was against HS2 from the start, given that the same money could have relieved many dozens of bottlenecks instead. But this is not some reckless gambling spree (even if it may sometimes seem like it); the sunk costs fallacy doesn’t apply here. At this stage, the only thing worse than building HS2 would be not building it.

 

[Ex-controller]

It is absolutely certain that HS2 will get north of Birmingham, as it is already being built north of Birmingham.

Part of the Glasgow Airport rail link was built

 

[Bletchleyite]

HS2 will remove the fastest Pendolino trains from existing tracks in the West Midlands

That's one thing it won't do. All the post HS2 WCML proposals I have seem involve 2tph fast on the classic line, albeit with MKC and either RUG or WFJ stops (so one extra stop per train).

The classic line "Avanti" service will look pretty much exactly as it does today, except swap Liverpool for an hourly Chester and Glasgow for a second Brum.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 14 Nov 2022 ==

It is absolutely certain that HS2 will get north of Birmingham, as it is already being built north of Birmingham.

Which parts of 2A have already started construction?

 

[TreacleMiller]

A 1990s pipedream, with a 1980s business case.

This project should never has seen the light of day and should be scrapped as soon as possible. Regional rail and real improvements to existing lines at significantly reduced cost to the taxpayer should be the real focus.

 

[Xavi]

As it happens, all the many people I know who are critical of HS2 are left-leaning - so it's certainly not ALL right-wing like you say.

To be more specific, I was referring to the source of data e.g., 90p to £1 benefit Gilligan story which is completely unfounded - he inflated the costs (2019 prices will always be less than actual cash spend) but didn’t inflate the value of the benefits, in fact he conveniently slashed some without any justification.

The Telegraph itself recently reported that “Scrapping the second phase of HS2 would go a long way to filling the £50 billion black hole in the public finances..”. Total nonsense as outlined in my earlier post.

Jenkins in The Guardian is clinging to a similar line and there will, as you suggest, be those of all political persuasions who always dislike infrastructure investment.

 

[HSTEd]

This project should never has seen the light of day and should be scrapped as soon as possible. Regional rail and real improvements to existing lines at significantly reduced cost to the taxpayer should be the real focus.

How many catastrophically failed and massively overbudget upgrade programmes will it take before people stop claiming that upgrades are cheap?

Upgrades that achieve even half of the transformative effect of HS2 would cost way more and take decades longer.

 

[Bletchleyite]

A 1990s pipedream, with a 1980s business case.

This project should never has seen the light of day and should be scrapped as soon as possible. Regional rail and real improvements to existing lines at significantly reduced cost to the taxpayer should be the real focus.

Rather than tunnelling 2B into Manchester you'd probably gain more from an S-Bahn tunnel and electrification to go with it or a regional tunnel. Though of course this is about not spending.

A new NPR line from Liverpool to Manchester would allow the CLC and Chat Moss a Merseyrail style local service. HS2 2B, costing more, would allow that at a load of rural stations which probably don't justify more than what they have plus Cheadle Hulme (fair enough), Levenshulme and Heaton Chapel (which might be best off closed and replaced with Metrolink down the A6).

Admittedly HS2 2B plus Golborne would help with the Weaver Jn issue, but are there other options to fix that?

 

[Starmill]

Which parts of 2A have already started construction?

Wasn't it just being pointed out that Handsacre is further north than West Midlands county?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 14 Nov 2022 ==

Yes - in terms of the ease of living of most real/regular people, and in environmental terms, putting the resources into local public transport provision is far better than mega-projects, however exciting they might be for some of us.

Better for whom? How do you know that the government are wrong and these unspecified alternatives would be better value for money?

 

[Bletchleyite]

Wasn't it just being pointed out that Handsacre is further north than West Midlands county?

Ah, so this is the Phase 1 to Trent Valley link? De minimis non curat lex

 

[Tezza1978]

To be more specific, I was referring to the source of data e.g., 90p to £1 benefit Gilligan story which is completely unfounded - he inflated the costs (2019 prices will always be less than actual cash spend) but didn’t inflate the value of the benefits, in fact he conveniently slashed some without any justification.

The Telegraph itself recently reported that “Scrapping the second phase of HS2 would go a long way to filling the £50 billion black hole in the public finances..”. Total nonsense as outlined in my earlier post.

Jenkins in The Guardian is clinging to a similar line and there will, as you suggest, be those of all political persuasions who always dislike infrastructure investment.

Agree with all of this.

The agenda being pushed by these opinion pieces is clear, and is from people who have been rabidly opposed to HS2 since it was first proposed.

Far too much utter nonsense being written - by idiots such as Esther McVey too - as if there is a giant safe labelled HS2 that we can just crack open to spend on hospitals and schools if it isnt built (!!) Most of the money simply doesnt EXIST if it isnt built. The idea that the government is going to greenlight other rail projects if HS2 is curtailed/cut back is for the birds. Politically speaking , not completing phase 2A and 2B would be a complete car crash for the govt and an open goal for Labour - Sunak isnt stupid, he knows this.

HS2 offers huge benefits and is a long term project to free up capacity. The scenes I saw at Euston on Saturday just gone show the demand is there - leisure travel is already over 100% of pre pandemic levels at weekends on many lines. Its typical British short sightedness and frankly NIMBYism to call for a major project like this to be scrapped. The number of times road projects, industrial projects, aerospace projects, nuclear power stations have been repeatedly postponed for short term reasons since say 1950 is nothing short of scandalous - and makes us a laughing stock internationally. We would be in far better place economically and energy security wise if these projects had been built and would have an economy far broader (like Scandinavian countries and Germany) - rather than pathetically dependent on house prices and personal consumption.

 

[MarkyT]

That's one thing it won't do. All the post HS2 WCML proposals I have seem involve 2tph fast on the classic line, albeit with MKC and either RUG or WFJ stops (so one extra stop per train).

Fair enough, but at least they'll be on a 30m interval that should more easily fit in with other local/regional services on 15m or 30m intervals on the double track sections. Also I suspect they might not be formed of the current rolling stock by the time HS2 services start.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Fair enough, but at least they'll be on a 30m interval that should more easily fit in with other local/regional services on 15m or 30m intervals on the double track sections. Also I suspect they might not be formed of the current rolling stock by the time HS2 services start.

The plan from Dec is, or would be if there were enough staff, to move the fast Avantis and the LNRs onto a clean 2tph each plus the Avanti semifast randomly slotted in, plus 2tph International stopper, the TfW and 2 XCs. That's about as good as it's going to get, it's really quite neat.

HS2 will remove precisely one train from that - the Avanti semifast, which could well end up continuing as a LNR service.

 

[Starmill]

Ah, so this is the Phase 1 to Trent Valley link? De minimis non curat lex

It's a possibility that it was a reference to access works or archeology or various other bits and bobs for phase 2b, though it read as just the main connection from phase 1 to me.

 

[Hadders]

HS2 offers huge benefits and is a long term project to free up capacity. The scenes I saw at Euston on Saturday just gone show the demand is there - leisure travel is already over 100% of pre pandemic levels at weekends on many lines. Its typical British short sightedness and frankly NIMBYism to call for a major project like this to be scrapped. The number of times road projects, industrial projects, aerospace projects, nuclear power stations have been repeatedly postponed for short term reasons since say 1950 is nothing short of scandalous - and makes us a laughing stock internationally. We would be in far better place economically and energy security wise if these projects had been built and would have an economy far broader (like Scandinavian countries and Germany) - rather than pathetically dependent on house prices and personal consumption.

This.

HS2 is about capacity. We had exactly the same arguments about HS1 when it was being built. Nowadays does anyone seriously think we shouldn't have built it.

 

[Roast Veg]

Has anyone put "we can save £100 billion by cancelling HS2, let's fund the NHS instead" on the side of a big red bus yet?

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

I suspect the end result will be that stages 1 and 2a get built in full, perhaps with a few savings such as slower trains. Stage 1 is too far progressed to cancel and stage 2a will get built so the government can say it reaches the north. However stage 2b I reckon will be put on hold indefinitely.

Agree that Phase 1 is too far gone now that to stop and remediate won't save anything, Phase 2a could be stopped but more than likely will be pushed back a few years to so they can reduce spend over next few years and 2b will put into "we need re-evaluate the best way to deliver the outputs" before committing to it. Gives them the opportunity to massage spending in future years which lets be honest are fantasy land for governments as even the ones that have continuity are constantly re-wiriting the long term spending plans.

 

[MarkyT]

The plan from Dec is, or would be if there were enough staff, to move the fast Avantis and the LNRs onto a clean 2tph each plus the Avanti semifast randomly slotted in, plus 2tph International stopper, the TfW and 2 XCs. That's about as good as it's going to get, it's really quite neat.

HS2 will remove precisely one train from that - the Avanti semifast, which could well end up continuing as a LNR service.

That's great news. I'm pleased they're moving to a regular 30-minute interval pattern for the fasts. That should make it easier to slot in some additional local West Midlands trains on the Rugby/Coventry axis at regular intervals. The 'semi' might eventually be balanced by a similarly timed LNR on the other half-hour.