HS2 Review ongoing

The Ham · 3 Nov 2019

squizzler said:
I am not sure why they are bothering with the review still. Pay mr Berkley for his time, file the report, such as it is, in the secure paper shredding bin, get some spades in the ground and start building already!

The good thing about the review being delayed is that you get more of the project built and therefore it's less likely to get cancelled.

However given that those opposed to HS2 are now getting less vocal on their posts on Twitter to HS2 Ltd's tweets, I'm not sure that there's going to be such a strong campaign against it.

Interestingly it's more likely to be the haulage industry complaining about the suggestion that HS2 would be good at removing lorries from the roads. Which they wouldn't be doing if they didn't think that it was going to impact them.

Even those who suggest that passenger growth had been falling and therefore we shouldn't be investing in HS2, go quiet when you ask about the numbers of years where there's been less than 1% growth compared to the numbers of years of over 4% growth (both equal distance away from 2.5% growth) as there's been very few at less than 1%. The importance of 1% it's the rate of growth needed until the opening of Phase 2 to be ahead of the predicted growth rate of 2.5% from 2009. Bearing in mind that we've already surpassed the predicted growth rate for the opening of Phase 1 in 2018.

RailUK Forums

The Ham · 3 Nov 2019

LNW-GW Joint said:
I think formal purdah starts when the house is dissolved (Wednesday?).
After that there is no means to publish anything official until the new government is in place.
The DfT officials will be the custodians until then.
Mind you, we might get some clues when the manifestos are published.
I suspect the major parties will try and evade a commitment either way.

I would be VERY surprised if the current government publish the report before the start of purdah.

Class 170101 · 3 Nov 2019

The Ham said:
The good thing about the review being delayed is that you get more of the project built and therefore it's less likely to get cancelled.

But what are they actually building as opposed to demolishing? Hasn't the government withheld the funding at the moment? Thats extremely unlikely to change this side of the election. Indeed see my previous post regards 31 Jan 2020.

quantinghome · 4 Nov 2019

WatcherZero said:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-50280270

If the Hatchet Man things hes being marginalised then thats a good sign for the project.

Indeed. Sounds like he's getting his excuses in early.

AM9 · 4 Nov 2019

Class 170101 said:
But what are they actually building as opposed to demolishing? Hasn't the government withheld the funding at the moment? ...

Good question. I know that there was a moratorium on clearing trees obstructing the route, but to stop all demolition/construction work would cause the contractors to start racking up the delay/cancellation costs, which would be challenged in court as it could prejudice the outcome of the review.

MarkyT · 4 Nov 2019

I've never understood Tony Berkeley's opposition to HS2. The project has great potential to create many new high quality long distance daytime freight paths on the conventional network. That's something I would have thought operators and customers represented by his Rail Freight Group would actually be keen on.

HSTEd · 4 Nov 2019

MarkyT said:
I've never understood Tony Berkeley's opposition to HS2. The project has great potential to create many new high quality long distance daytime freight paths on the conventional network. That's something I would have thought operators and customers represented by his Rail Freight Group would actually be keen on.

Well a drastic expansion in passenger use on the railway would further marginalise the freight industry.
The freight industry currently wields very substantial influence in the rail system.

hwl · 4 Nov 2019

MarkyT said:
I've never understood Tony Berkeley's opposition to HS2. The project has great potential to create many new high quality long distance daytime freight paths on the conventional network. That's something I would have thought operators and customers represented by his Rail Freight Group would actually be keen on.

Tony has retired from RfG...

hwl · 4 Nov 2019

quantinghome said:
Indeed. Sounds like he's getting his excuses in early.

The terms of reference allowed the Chair and everyone else to ignore him. This was very predictable.

Speed43125 · 5 Nov 2019

what do we think different parties( or coalitions of them) winning the election will do to/change this report?

ABB125 · 5 Nov 2019

HS2 Oakervee review delayed until 2020
The deputy chair of the Oakervee Review, Lord Berkeley, has revealed that publication of the government’s independent review in HS2 is set to be delayed until after the general election.

A HS2 decision had previously been expected before the end of the year, but Berkeley claims he has been given no opportunity to look at the final HS2 report.

In January 2012, the Government announced its intention to go ahead with the development of a new national high speed rail network known as High Speed 2 or HS2.

It has been criticised previously by Berkeley for the cost of the project ad warned that the budgets were spiralling out of control.

Berkeley, who previously worked on the construction of the Channel Tunnel, said that the publication of the review has been shelved until after the results of the December general election and the appointment of a new secretary of state.

Tweeting at the weekend, he said:

"My role as dep chair of the Oakervee Report on HS2 finished yesterday. Report not finished and no opportunity to influence conclusions. We are told that, when completed by Doug O [Oakervee] and the DfT secretariat, it will be locked into the DfT vaults for the new S of S [secretary of state] to publish."

The Oakevee review is chaired by Douglas Oakervee, a retired engineer and previous chairman of Crossrail.

http://www.railtechnologymagazine.com/Rail-News/hs2-oakervee-review-delayed-until-2020-

quantinghome · 5 Nov 2019

Speed43125 said:
what do we think different parties( or coalitions of them) winning the election will do to/change this report?

Nothing. All the main parties are in favour.

MarkyT · 5 Nov 2019

quantinghome said:
Nothing. All the main parties are in favour.

Only the Brexit Party Limited and the Greens are explicitly opposed.

PartyOperator · 6 Nov 2019

The SNP would like it to go all the way to Scotland, which I suppose is an important distinction from the others.

option · 6 Nov 2019

The Oakevee review is chaired by Douglas Oakervee, a retired engineer and previous chairman of Crossrail.

another project that's going well...
Wonder if he'll chair a review of Crossrail?

WatcherZero · 6 Nov 2019

MarkyT said:
Only the Brexit Party Limited and the Greens are explicitly opposed.

Likely the same people that thought the best way to protest climate change was to shutdown public transport.

The Ham · 6 Nov 2019

WatcherZero said:
Likely the same people that thought the best way to protest climate change was to shutdown public transport.

The logic on the Jeremy Vine show at lunchtime was "interesting" it was something like this:

We need to invest in public transport so we'll take the £70bn and split it between 140 places (so nowhere smaller than 70,000 will get anything) and give them £0.5bn (over how many years?) as HS2 is having so much money.

At the same time we're going to borrow £100bn to invest in low carbon infrastructure (public transport, renewables, etc.) each year for ten years so that we reduce our carbon emissions. As that's about what we'll need to spend and that's affordable as it's an investment.

Class 170101 · 6 Nov 2019

MarkyT said:
Only the Brexit Party Limited and the Greens are explicitly opposed.

And the Greens I don't understand their opposition either.

PartyOperator said:
The SNP would like it to go all the way to Scotland, which I suppose is an important distinction from the others.

Arguably it should because whilst it creates extra capacity on lines it relieves directly - so between Euston and roughly Wigan North Western and around about HS2 does nothing for the GEML or Southampton to Reading in terms of freight and so how many freight paths created on the WCML and around abouts can actually be used.

SamYeager · 9 Nov 2019

PartyOperator said:
The SNP would like it to go all the way to Scotland, which I suppose is an important distinction from the others.

How is Scotland defined? Glasgow, Glasgow & Edinburgh or just somewhere in Scotland? I believe Nicola Sturgeon represents a seat in Glasgow.

Speed43125 · 10 Nov 2019

SamYeager said:
How is Scotland defined? Glasgow, Glasgow & Edinburgh or just somewhere in Scotland? I believe Nicola Sturgeon represents a seat in Glasgow.

Yeah, they're really looking for HS2 to have the scope of something akin to the Uk Ultraspeed proposal (which btw, was projected by the gov to be about 75% of the current HS2 projection, and projected by the company to be about 40% of what HS2 is looking to cost)

johnnychips · 10 Nov 2019

Speed43125 said:
Yeah, they're really looking for HS2 to have the scope of something akin to the Uk Ultraspeed proposal (which btw, was projected by the gov to be about 75% of the current HS2 projection, and projected by the company to be about 40% of what HS2 is looking to cost)

I had to look this up. Here is an article explaining the project.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK_Ultraspeed

ohgoditsjames · 10 Nov 2019

johnnychips said:
I had to look this up. Here is an article explaining the project.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK_Ultraspeed

A scheme that excludes Yorkshire (population of over 5.4 million), Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and Leicestershire was quite rightly rejected.

furnessvale · 10 Nov 2019

Speed43125 said:
Yeah, they're really looking for HS2 to have the scope of something akin to the Uk Ultraspeed proposal (which btw, was projected by the gov to be about 75% of the current HS2 projection, and projected by the company to be about 40% of what HS2 is looking to cost)

Costings which do not include the "nimby" add ons which have dramatically increased HS2 costings.

Add to that the lack of classic compatibility, meaning it can only ever serve the few stations on its direct line and it quickly becomes far less useful.

AndrewE · 10 Nov 2019

furnessvale said:
Costings which do not include the "nimby" add ons which have dramatically increased HS2 costings.

Add to that the lack of classic compatibility, meaning it can only ever serve the few stations on its direct line and it quickly becomes far less useful.

Not only can not go off-route, it can't take any other traffic off the current rail network either.

Speed43125 · 10 Nov 2019

AndrewE said:
Not only can not go off-route, it can't take any other traffic off the current rail network either.

Was it ever planned for non-HS2 traffic to go on HS2? I don't think so, not even at night as was considered. That in itself is not really a reason to say HS2 is superior.

Ianno87 · 10 Nov 2019

Speed43125 said:
Was it ever planned for non-HS2 traffic to go on HS2? I don't think so, not even at night as was considered. That in itself is not really a reason to say HS2 is superior.

No, it means that the benefit of HS2 is that HS2 trains can leave HS2 infrastructure and serve existing stations enabling many more through high speed journey opportunities than would be possible ..e.g. Ultraspeed could not serve Wigan North Western or Lancaster directly, for example.

Speed43125 · 10 Nov 2019

Ianno87 said:
No, it means that the benefit of HS2 is that HS2 trains can leave HS2 infrastructure and serve existing stations enabling many more through high speed journey opportunities than would be possible ..e.g. Ultraspeed could not serve Wigan North Western or Lancaster directly, for example.

Yes. Never doubted that.
I'm just saying I'm not clear what point AndrewE is trying to make beyond everything that furnessvale has already mentioned

HSTEd · 11 Nov 2019

furnessvale said:
Add to that the lack of classic compatibility, meaning it can only ever serve the few stations on its direct line and it quickly becomes far less useful.

Maglev however gains ridiculous amounts on the journey time stakes, meaning that the apparent inability to go classic compatible becomes almost meaningless.

The utility of classic compatible services is hilariously overblown, they are a political gambit to try and buy regional politicians.
And even then, at least half the paths will be captive to the full HS2 network, and that number will only climb with any future extensions, in terms of numbers of passengers the fraction will inevitably be much higher.

Because the Ultraspeed scheme operates like a metro with all trains stopping at all stations, it can operate effectively as a turn up and go service, which drastically reduces the time lost to changing trains.

It's a fundamentally different operating concept but I think it has many things to recommend it.

But they made the choice they made, and we are where we are now.

The Ham · 11 Nov 2019

HSTEd said:
Maglev however gains ridiculous amounts on the journey time stakes, meaning that the apparent inability to go classic compatible becomes almost meaningless.

The utility of classic compatible services is hilariously overblown, they are a political gambit to try and buy regional politicians.
And even then, at least half the paths will be captive to the full HS2 network, and that number will only climb with any future extensions, in terms of numbers of passengers the fraction will inevitably be much higher.

Because the Ultraspeed scheme operates like a metro with all trains stopping at all stations, it can operate effectively as a turn up and go service, which drastically reduces the time lost to changing trains.

It's a fundamentally different operating concept but I think it has many things to recommend it.

But they made the choice they made, and we are where we are now.

If you look at the journey times and the number of sets proposed (27) you'd be able to run 3tph between London and Glasgow (6 hour round trip including 20 minutes turn around at each end) and 3tph between London and Liverpool (3 hour round trip including 17 minutes turn around at each end).

Which is only just turn up and go frequencies and doesn't allow for any Liverpool to Newcastle/Scotland services to be run.

It should also be noted that for a lot of places the journey time savings would be less than 15 minutes compared to HS2. Those which are more than this are those which are off the HS2 network and/or those which would benefit from Northern Powerhouse Rail and would likely gain journey time improvements to bring them closer to the sub 15 minutes difference.

That would mean that for those places where there's a proposed HS2 service off the HS2 network are probably no worse off with HS2, and it could probably be argued are better off as they have a direct service.

I would argue that actually HS2 is trying to do too much (which is fairly typical due to the way we have to justify rail projects), and that there should have been a strategy for a wider network created. As it's likely that there'll be a need for a second North/South HS line fairly quickly (possibly the potential for it to be suggested by government within 10 years of HS2 being completed).

There's likely to be calls for better SW or South Wales and NE connections, which would require at least electrification to allow such services to run. Whilst a better scheme for improving journey times and increasing frequencies on the existing network would be a new line to Gloucester.

HSTEd · 11 Nov 2019

The Ham said:
If you look at the journey times and the number of sets proposed (27) you'd be able to run 3tph between London and Glasgow (6 hour round trip including 20 minutes turn around at each end) and 3tph between London and Liverpool (3 hour round trip including 17 minutes turn around at each end).

Given that the Phase 1 network only goes to Liverpool and Leeds.... it's not really that suprising.
The fleet for the full scheme would obviously be much larger.

The Ham said:
It should also be noted that for a lot of places the journey time savings would be less than 15 minutes compared to HS2. Those which are more than this are those which are off the HS2 network and/or those which would benefit from Northern Powerhouse Rail and would likely gain journey time improvements to bring them closer to the sub 15 minutes difference.

Assuming you believe NPR will ever actually happen.
But I can't overstate just how critical the intermediate stations become in this model.
You can use the full capacity of your line for every station, so every station ends up with near tube-like frequencies in both directions.

Manchester can potentially many many trains per hour in all three directions proposed for Phase 1 (Liverpool, Leeds, and London) which produces a journey time benefit beyond the superior journey time the maglevs are having.
I'm not exactly sure where the proposed line between Manchester and Liverpool would have crossed the WCML, but you could have proposed a relatively simple interchange station there, and since you would have all the Liverpool-London capacity at your disposal you could create a very quick and easy interchange.

Anxiety about connections dissapears where there is a train every few minutes, as we see on the tube.

HS2 Review ongoing

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