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Government announces independent review into HS2 programme

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Meole

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Its clear that cancellation is going to be the result, window dressing to justify a decision already made.
There will be some suggestion about upgrading existing lines and Manchester/Leeds and most people in the UK will lap it up.
The money is needed elsewhere in the economy with tax breaks etc promised.
 
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xotGD

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A relief line between Birmingham and London is all that is really needed. If the project is scaled back to deliver this, with the rest of the cash diverted to deliver trans-Pennine improvements, this will be a good thing in my view.
 

Comstock

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Or maybe another chance to consider whether £55bn is the right amount of money for dubious benefits? Government is always criticised for wasting money, this is a chance for them to stop before it's too late.

My view is it's too late already. Too much money has already been spent.
 

underbank

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Five, how would Shapps explain cancellation to the Mayors, and indeed the people, of Birmingham, Greater Manchester and Merseyside?

If he promises something better and more appealing to the people of those towns, then it'd be a vote winner there. HS2 will have very little benefit for huge numbers of locals in Manchester who desperately want better local services for commuting/shopping/schools, etc. Plans to improve the existing local public transport in the short term will make the locals far happier than a 10/15 year plan for high speed trains to London.
 

Scott M

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I don’t really feel like there is a need to spend a fortune to make another predominately southern rail link (at least until phase 2 comes to fruition), when the existing WCML is highly regarded and when northerners are still carting around in pacers and having our Sunday services cancelled on a weekly basis.
 

HSTEd

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Wouldn't cancellation require primary legislation to extinguish the statutory powers?
Otherwise the next government could immediately reinitiate the scheme.

Also HS2 Ltd has produced an unmanageable scheme that was never going to be buildable on the budgets they gave.

They should have focussed on a simpler scheme, even if it was more expensive.
 

oversteer

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Cancelling HS2, or the threat thereof, is likely to be a very popular suggestion amongst the core vote that this administration needs to secure to guarantee a majority in the next General Election.
The highest rated comments on the BBC’s current headline article should give some general idea on the public view ;)
 

diffident

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Wouldn't cancellation require primary legislation to extinguish the statutory powers?
Otherwise the next government could immediately reinitiate the scheme.

Yes, and there is also the very thorny issue of contracts worth eye-wateringly large amounts of money that are already signed which have hefty get out clauses.

The other thing that gets me is that comments are turning up on the news, and on other websites about how HS2 should be scrapped and the money put into other rail projects.

I can guarantee that if HS2 is cancelled, the DfT will not see a penny of the money.
 

YorkshireBear

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I don’t really feel like there is a need to spend a fortune to make another predominately southern rail link (at least until phase 2 comes to fruition), when the existing WCML is highly regarded and when northerners are still carting around in pacers and having our Sunday services cancelled on a weekly basis.

Pacers already on their way out with new trains being introduced. Despite the cost of HS2 this is happening.

Please can you explain how cancelling hs2 will help the lack of agreement for staff to run trains on Sundays?
 

Comstock

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Does anyone know how much exactly has already been spent?

The BBC gave a figure of 'billions' but weren't more specific than that.
 

irish_rail

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Johnson was always going to get this cancelled come what may, so all the Boris supporters out there you can pat yourselves on the back.
 

Aictos

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If he promises something better and more appealing to the people of those towns, then it'd be a vote winner there. HS2 will have very little benefit for huge numbers of locals in Manchester who desperately want better local services for commuting/shopping/schools, etc. Plans to improve the existing local public transport in the short term will make the locals far happier than a 10/15 year plan for high speed trains to London.

Apart from freeing up platforms for more regional and local services, HS2 does nothing for Manchester...
 

Glenn1969

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Boris is yet to prove he can command a Commons majority. A no deal Brexit may well bring him down because with a majority of 1 it wouldn't take much of a rebellion. HS2 supporters like me might need to hope that happens
 

quantinghome

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How does this improve connectivity for the South West? Still no quicker to get to Birmingham via old oak than it is jumping on a cross country at Taunton.

It doesn't. What it does do is improve connectivity between the cities in the midlands and north and:

West London
East London (via Crossrail)
Heathrow
Central Southern England (as far west as Swindon)
 

ExRes

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Good to see how many members of the Cabinet are forum members, I guess the PM might be a bit miffed that you're giving away all the decisions that have been made though :rolleyes:
 

SamYeager

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Dropping to 125 is probably not a great idea, but I would support dropping it to be a standard European LGV i.e. 300km/h or 186mph. That could reduce costs significantly without making it all that much slower. The environmental case for faster than that is also poor.

140 would also be tolerable (could save rolling stock costs by using Pendolinos or 80x), but I'd prefer standard LGV speeds as noted. It's worth noting that the domestic services on HS1 are only 140mph.
Reducing the speed to 300 km/h or maybe 320 km/h sounds perfectly reasonable to me. It would be on a par with TGV and Eurostar speeds so existing train designs already meet the requirement. I believe there were already doubts as to how realistic regular running at 400 km/h would have been anyway.

Announcing the review gives hope to those in tory constituencies affected that HS2 might be cancelled, useful in the case of an early GE, whilst deferring the decision until later. As others have said above it seems likely that at least phase 1 will go ahead for various reasons.
 

The Ham

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Anyone wishing for HS2 to be cancelled need to provide the answer to the question of the extra passengers which are using the WCML compared to the predictions.

London to NW sure have been ~10 million trips per year at the opening of Phase 2a yet in 2018 it was ~11 million. If you compare 2018 actually & 2018 predicted the numbers are much more stark. 2018 actual ~11 million 2018 predicted ~ 8 million, so about 3 million extra passengers (or getting on for 50% more than expected).

View media item 3340
That's just on 1 of the flows which would benefit from HS2.

With the extra services proposed by First on the ICWC franchise it's likely that growth will continue.

This sort of data is that which the review will be aware of and without an argument against it those opposed to HS2 aren't going to get very far in HS2 being cancelled. Even with higher costs, as there's extra people using the services.

It's also why the likes of Coventry aren't going to see the decimation of its rail services (not that it ever was, just that the model assumed 1/3 IC services and said nothing about the existing non IC services).
 

Bletchleyite

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I beg to differ as it has been explained multiple times but since you insist on being so ignorant about the benefits to local areas as well, let me explain as I understand it how HS2 will improve the Birmingham area as a former resident.

At Birmingham New Street, Virgin Train has the xx:24 terminator from London Euston which sits in a platform until it forms the xx:50 to London Euston now that's 26 minutes in total.

26 minutes in total so that's on average 4 local services that could use the platform that is freed up by not having a Virgin Trains hog the platform for that length of time, 4 local services which instead of being spread over numerous platforms would have a cascading effect in that the former platforms they used to use would now be available for more local services.

Now by removing the 2tph that Virgin Trains terminates at Birmingham New Street and that comes to 52 minutes in every hour that platforms aren't being hogged by a VT which seeing how busy New Street can be and which needs every bit of capacity it can get, that freed up capacity can be used for more regional and local services.

Now try to explain how HS2 wouldn't improve the Birmingham area....

I'm not sure that's a great argument in favour - you could achieve the same by adding an extra EMU into the diagram and sending it to Wolves to terminate (or indeed Walsall, which it seems they are going to do). The benefit to Birmingham is the faster service to London which will also be more punctual and reliable.

The one place that will really suffer (and I can only think of the one) is Coventry, but Coventry is a bit like somewhere like one of the smaller Merseyrail stations (e.g. Aughton Park or Town Green) in having an excellent service purely because it is operationally convenient to give it; it can't justify 3 fast trains per hour to London on its own, really, though it probably would justify one fast per hour plus additional locals, which I suspect is what it will see.
 

Railguy1

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I think Phase 1 will likely still go ahead. Bits and pieces of the later phases will be scrapped in my opinion.
 

HSTEd

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You could trim phase 2 without losing major connectivity, for example with the new eastern alignment that takes HS2 close to Doncaster you could axe the York section for a shorter spur to the ECML there.
 

The Ham

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Reducing the speed to 300 km/h or maybe 320 km/h sounds perfectly reasonable to me. It would be on a par with TGV and Eurostar speeds so existing train designs already meet the requirement. I believe there were already doubts as to how realistic regular running at 400 km/h would have been anyway.

Announcing the review gives hope to those in tory constituencies affected that HS2 might be cancelled, useful in the case of an early GE, whilst deferring the decision until later. As others have said above it seems likely that at least phase 1 will go ahead for various reasons.

How much would it save? Probably not a lot.

However slower trains would mean needing more rolling stock.

Currently Virgin trains to Manchester, assuming a 5 hour round trip per set and a 9+9+11 mix of units, requires 145 coaches.

Under HS2, assuming a 3 hour round trip per set and 3x16 coach units, requires 144 coaches.

Slow the journey and the number of coaches goes up or you have to have tighter turn arounds at each end, which comes with its own risks.
 

Bletchleyite

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If he promises something better and more appealing to the people of those towns, then it'd be a vote winner there. HS2 will have very little benefit for huge numbers of locals in Manchester who desperately want better local services for commuting/shopping/schools, etc. Plans to improve the existing local public transport in the short term will make the locals far happier than a 10/15 year plan for high speed trains to London.

It would certainly be interesting to see if Manchester would choose, if it got the choice, Metrolink expansion/an S-Bahn-Manchester[1] over HS2. I'm really not sure. It does already have an excellent service to London.

That sort of thing would be a far better target for a r*fer*nd*m than the one we had that got us here! :)

[1] By that I mean electrification of all the local routes around the city and new high capacity EMUs to operate them - a bit like what Leeds has - and frequencies upped to Merseyrail style levels - oh, and P15/16.
 

Kendalian

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Phase 1 and 2a to be merged and completed.

Phase 2b both parts scrapped.

Hope I’m wrong but that’s my prediction!
 

Dave1987

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Well it would go down in history as one of the biggest projects cancelled at such an advanced stage. Surveys, consultants, contract tenders all had money spent on or money committed. It would be incredibly foolish to axe it but then again with this Government they seem to be trying to outdo the stupidity of the previous.
 

Bletchleyite

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Phase 1 and 2a to be merged and completed.

Phase 2b both parts scrapped.

Hope I’m wrong but that’s my prediction!

I think that, plus a speed reduction to 300km/h, would deliver the best value for money, really. You could lop it to Brum but that will just move some of the congestion elsewhere.
 

mrmatt

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My hunch is that the capacity argument on WCML South means that Phase 1 survives intact (lots of Tory commuter seats would not welcome the failure to transform capacity into Euston). Phase 2a integrated into NPR/HS3/nom du jour can be repackaged, allowing the dropping of the East Midlands route in exchange for MML electrification.

One of the easiest ways to counter the it doesn't help the North argument would be this in my opinion. Reduce HS2 down to the western leg with NPR getting a bigger budget to take over some of the connections to Manchester/Merseyside and getting to Leeds that way. I believe an extra 5 minutes was quoted by the consultancy who proposed something similar recently on the Leeds timings this way.

Coming from the East Midlands I've always found the arguments for the eastern leg to be fairly weak compared to the western leg and NPR.
 

Bletchleyite

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Coming from the East Midlands I've always found the arguments for the eastern leg to be fairly weak compared to the western leg and NPR.

If I lived in the EM I suspect I'd rather have more money spent on EMR (for instance more stock to allow all trains to be 10-car at all times plus rolling electrification) and lower fares than a Parkway in the middle of nowhere I have to drive to to take HS2 and EMR itself neglected.
 
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