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East-West Rail (EWR): Consultation updates [not speculation]

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edwin_m

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DarloRich said:
The problem is that you can very easily end up in a situation such as that described by @bspahh above where the full costs of a project are not know when you authorise physical work at an early stage of the project life-cycle.

At that stage your business case is based on nothing more than a guess, hopefully a good guess, but a guess nonetheless. IF you accept that then your contingency is going to have to be massive as your risk landscape will be very wide ranging and very vague which, of course, impacts on health of the business case. This also means that money has to be provided which (bizarrely but accurately) hopefully sits around doing nothing. That, of course, has a cost both in interest and in lost opportunity elsewhere. You don't even, really, know your scope at such an early stage! What do you do when you run out of money because of the unknown mineshafts, failed earth works or underground water courses that aren't on the maps?

This idea does work for smaller, repeatable projects with relatively fixed and well known costs ( IT being an example) but how could you hope to provide an accurate and reliable cost estimate for a 30 mile long new railway at such an early stage?
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I'm not putting forward a fully-worked-through solution and I agree anything like this would need a lot of detailed thought.

Perhaps the current "optimism bias" could be a basis for defining a contingency amount to be added at the initial stages? The scheme would then proceed automatically if it remained within this funding limit, but if it went above then the funders would have the right to call a halt. This is an incentive to stay within agreed funding, although it may also be an incentive to over-inflate the estimates at the start.

The money wouldn't physically be set aside on day 1 so there wouldn't be a loss of interest or opportunity cost. It would be earmarked for some time in the future, probably for release on a fixed date to aid forward planning and give another incentive to have the scheme developed in time. This is of course committing future goverments to things, which is supposed to be forbidden, but I think that pass was sold long ago with PFI and similar.

I'm not advocating reducing the amount of development work before starting construction - I'm trying to get rid of the long waits at each stage of development while the powers that be decide if it's worth proceeding to the next one. So the risks of unforseen circumstances should be no greater than today - and actually will be lower because it's less likely someone's built a housing estate on your alignment since you did the feasibility study.
 
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Mordac

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The design time isn't really the killer anyway. While there might be some time for tinkering around the edges, as @DarloRich points out, most of that is required. I know he wouldn't agree with me when I say this, but by far the most significant cause of the delay is the endless rounds of consultations our byzantine planning system mandates.
 
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swt_passenger

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I haven’t tried to find it again, but wasn’t there a time when some GRIP stage already declared by the EWR consortium was found to be inadequately done, and NR went back and did it all again?
 
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Bald Rick

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By definition, you can’t clear GRIP3 until all the primary consents are in place.

However you don’t have to have all GRIP products in place to proceed to the next stage, but you do have to recognise and allow for the risks in doing so. If the EWR TWO requires the project to change alignment, or move a station, for example, it’s back to the GRIP3 drawing board for that bit.
 
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Bald Rick

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Mordac said:
The design time isn't really the killer anyway. While there might be some time for tinkering around the edges, as @DarloRich points out, most of that is required. I know he wouldn't agree with me when I say this, but by far the most significant cause of the delay is the endless rounds of consultations our byzantine planning system mandates.
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It’s not delay. It’s planned for and due process in a democracy. All democracies do it. We’re quicker than most.
 
DarloRich

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work-traveller said:
The project is in GRIP 5 (detailed design), whilst also trying to square a complex interface (technical & programme) with HS2 at Calvert at the same time as trying to satisfy a DfT cost review.
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Bald Rick said:
By definition, you can’t clear GRIP3 until all the primary consents are in place.
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and across the programme you could have individual projects at different GRIP stages
 
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Bald Rick

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For those that complain that it takes long time to build things in this country.

Recent news is that FS have decided to build the Brescia - Padua section of high speed line on the Milan - Venice corridor. The first part of this section to be built is the 60km between Brescia and Verona - work starts this year with opening in 2026.

The contractor for this work was selected in 1991.
 
Maltazer

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Probably best not to mention Italy. For example, the Bologna- Florence high speed line is 78km, 73km of which is in tunnel and cost a mere 5bn euros. Puts the price of HS2 (and EWR come to that!) to shame.
 
59CosG95

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Maltazer said:
Probably best not to mention Italy. For example, the Bologna- Florence high speed line is 78km, 73km of which is in tunnel and cost a mere 5bn euros. Puts the price of HS2 (and EWR come to that!) to shame.
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€5bn? There's bound to be a reflection in the quality of the work, and the wages of the workers, in a cost as low as that.
 
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Bald Rick

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Maltazer said:
Probably best not to mention Italy. For example, the Bologna- Florence high speed line is 78km, 73km of which is in tunnel and cost a mere 5bn euros. Puts the price of HS2 (and EWR come to that!) to shame.
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That €5.2bn will be at outturn prices, which is effectively a 2001/2 price base. So you can double that now.

Besides tunnelling is relatively cheap if you just build tunnels, and don’t have to build stations, worry about settlement etc. Which this line didn’t. I don’t know how many TBMs were run concurrently on Bologna-Firenze, but I’m willing to bet some were reused for the shorter tunnels.

More recently, the Gotthard Base Tunnel was about €9bn for 57km.
 
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Maltazer

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Thanks for clarifying those numbers, Bald Rick.

Having travelled that line, I found being in tunnel all the time extremely tedious, although of course the journey was fast for the distance covered.

So if building above ground is actually now becoming more expensive, i think I'd still rather pay it!

Mal
 
kevin_roche

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Maltazer said:
Probably best not to mention Italy. For example, the Bologna- Florence high speed line is 78km, 73km of which is in tunnel and cost a mere 5bn euros. Puts the price of HS2 (and EWR come to that!) to shame.
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I used that line in April, I wish I'd done my research and knew in advance of the tunnel length. It was quite boring. :(
 
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steevp

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hooverboy said:
eurostar is no different.
not much scenery under the english channel. very boring!
thankfully quite fast.
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I travelled on ES on Thursday and mistook the advert for the Virtual Reality application for reality - really disappointed there were no sharks and fish outside :D
 
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Neen Sollars

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The outcome of the public inquiry should be known within the next four or five weeks with the green light for phase 2 to follow shortly thereafter. The attached link is a very good narrated cab ride aboard a class 230 from Bedford to Bletchley. I hope it gives an indication of the engineering work required to bring this line up to 100 mph running, lots of crossings to sort or close and bridges to replace around Fenny Stratford. This is a substantial stretch of track at around 16 or 17 miles and poses the question will this stretch form a phase 3 to be constructed to the outskirts of Bedford prior to a phase 4 Beford to Cambridge?

"
"
 
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swt_passenger

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IMHO it isn’t really helpful to use your own terminology, this has caused a deal of confusion earlier in the thread.

Your “phase 3” is part of Western section phase 2, Bicester to Bedford and is all one project, and should all happen together.
Your “phase 4” is known as the Central Section, Bedford to Cambridge.
 
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Neen Sollars

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swt_passenger said:
IMHO it isn’t really helpful to use your own terminology, this has caused a deal of confusion earlier in the thread.

Your “phase 3” is part of Western section phase 2, Bicester to Bedford and is all one project, and should all happen together.
Your “phase 4” is known as the Central Section, Bedford to Cambridge.
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I stand corrected. So phase 2 will finish probably at the end of the current double track section just outside Bedford pending the outcome of the final route plan between Bedford and Cambridge. Phase 2 is a significant infrastructure project worthy of an accelerated timetable.
 
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eMeS

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Neen Sollars said:
... The attached link is a very good narrated cab ride aboard a class 230 from Bedford to Bletchley. ...
"
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Oh dear!

Good to hear Welshman's name mentioned shortly before the end, but obviously an error for his name to be heard when the video was on the Alan Turing statue etc.
 
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HowardGWR

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Bald Rick said:
It’s several tunnels, the longest is 18km. As you say it was a lot of boring!
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Mind, you don't see a lot from an aeroplane, either. I notice, when I get up to peer across others' windows to get a good view of the Alps or Pyrenees, or Channel boat traffic, that they look up from their computers in astonishment that anyone would want to bother.
Edit: apologies OT, I thought we were now on an HS3 thread, not EW. :oops:
 
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richieb1971

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Neen Sollars said:
So phase 2 will finish probably at the end of the current double track section just outside Bedford
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If I remember right the Bedford Cambridge section splits off somewhere between Kempston Hardwick and the bridge where the MML crosses over. This would make sense since its close to the Wixams site and they want a station as well. Would make sense to have it crossover at the same point.
 
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Tobbes

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richieb1971 said:
If I remember right the Bedford Cambridge section splits off somewhere between Kempston Hardwick and the bridge where the MML crosses over. This would make sense since its close to the Wixams site and they want a station as well. Would make sense to have it crossover at the same point.
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The old route went much further into Bedford, @richieb1971 , to the original site of Bedford (St John's) which is less than 500m from the current St John's station.

This view shows how close the two station sites are: http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/b/bedford_st_johns/index37.shtml
 
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richieb1971

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I know. I've actually ridden the whole cycle path to Sandy.

My point was relating to where the Cambridge section will branch off from the Marston Vale line in the proposed EWR plans. Which is just east of Kempston Hardwick station, heading eastwards towards the MML/Wixams and then crossing past Cardington.
 
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Tobbes

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richieb1971 said:
I know. I've actually ridden the whole cycle path to Sandy.

My point was relating to where the Cambridge section will branch off from the Marston Vale line in the proposed EWR plans. Which is just east of Kempston Hardwick station, heading eastwards towards the MML/Wixams and then crossing past Cardington.
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Fair enough - but I didn't think that the preferred alignment from Bedford to Cambridge had been made public yet? If it has, grateful for a link.
 
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Tobbes

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richieb1971 said:
Yellow had the best BCR.

https://cdn.networkrail.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Engineering-Summary-Report.pdf

Page 5

It went up for review 2 years later (about 6 months ago) where the consensus was that some folks wanted Bedford midland on the route. So it went to a democratic voting system. The results have not been made public yet.
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Thanks - but I thought that we were now discussing these routes: http://www.railtechnologymagazine.c...e-options-for-east-west-rail-project-unveiled, where Route A was substantially cheaper than the others, and most likely to get approved.
 
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richieb1971

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That is the democratic vote.

Option A was the preferred option but Bedfordians kicked up a fuss because it doesn't go through Midland station. Even the Mayor got involved. Route A is actually what I was referring to. As you can see it leaves the Vale line at Kempston Hardwick and ventures east to Bedford South (AKA Wixams) and then ventures passed Cardington.

But the Bedfordians might have made a case for going through Midland Station and heading north passed Oakley and then heading East to St Neots.

Whos knows what will happen. The realists think route A will go ahead anyway.
 
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Tobbes

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richieb1971 said:
That is the democratic vote.

Option A was the preferred option but Bedfordians kicked up a fuss because it doesn't go through Midland station. Even the Mayor got involved. Route A is actually what I was referring to. As you can see it leaves the Vale line at Kempston Hardwick and ventures east to Bedford South (AKA Wixams) and then ventures passed Cardington.

But the Bedfordians might have made a case for going through Midland Station and heading north passed Oakley and then heading East to St Neots.

Whos knows what will happen. The realists think route A will go ahead anyway.
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Thanks - the cynic in me presumes that a popular vote without the funding attached is irrelevant - and that Route A will go ahead because it allows Wixams, and possibly a station on the MoD site at Bassingbourne which is presumably going to become a large housing estate.
 
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