absolutelymilk
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How many lorries will pass through the town per day?
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HS2 delayed again?
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bobjarred05
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HS2 faces £100bn cost and delay until late-2030s, government told
EXCLUSIVE: Report from HS2 Ltd Chief Executive Mark Wild is part of his preliminary assessment of the project.
www.railmagazine.com
The cost of finishing HS2 between Birmingham Curzon Street and Old Oak Common has soared to £81 billion (at 2019 prices). And the work will not be completed until 2036 at the earliest, with 2039 more likely.
That’s the information presented to ministers in a report from HS2 Ltd Chief Executive Mark Wild, as part of his preliminary assessment of the scheme.
HSTEd
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The design approach for HS1 was very different from HS2 though, from the beginning. Even leaving aside the benefits that the people being disrupted received from the scheme.
I don't think trying to give schemes the ability to sign themselves off for "minor modifications" without resort to further authority would be a good idea.
Such a power would be ripe for abuse.
Vast = 1 per day
mike57
Established Member
If the answer is to compensate those negatively affected during the works how much would this cost v delay and continual to and fro with the local authority
I think a balance need to be struck, looking in from outside I see a local authority opposed to the whole scheme, who are making it as difficult as possible. I dont know if this is individual people, or a more organised opposition, but if a scheme such as this is deemed to be in the national interest then there has to be a way of avoiding these sort of issues, otherwise costs
To be honest this seems eyewatering and barely sustainable. I know it been gone over before but at 2025 prices thats well over £100bn. There will not be any more High Speed rail built in the UK with costs approaching 1bn per mile. I know there are things other than the actual route to consider when talking about cost, but this doesn't even get you into Euston. I bet Mr Starmer wishes Mr Sunak had cancelled the whole thing when he entered No10 in October 2022. I know it was under way then and would have been a hard decision, but how much has been spent since then, and how much more will have to be spent before trains run from Euston to Birmingham?
styles
Member
I thought you may have been exaggerating or joking but it is indeed going down from 2.5 per day to 1 per day..
HSTEd
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Probably not that much money (either that or infinite money!), but I don't think that is necessarily the most effective option.
The most effective option would probably be to design schemes that benefit the people being disrupted as an integral part of their design, as HS1 did and many road schemes do.
If you promise compensation to people, you run the risk that the cynical streak prevalent in the population today will assume the government will wriggle out of the compensation once they have what they want.
I know it is a popular trope that it is the fault of the opposition that the costs on this scheme have spiralled out of control, but I'm not sure how accurate that is.
There has been plenty of cost growth that can't be directly traced to the demands of 'NIMBYs' after all.
styles
Member
The inquiries and reports seem to suggest the bulk of the increases are due to overoptimistic cost estimates, low contingency, inflation - particularly the increase in cost of steel and concrete, scope creep (e.g. the extension on the tunnel through the Chilterns), and worse ground conditions than anticipated.
Some of this should've been managed better, some of it is more difficult to manage.
The scale of the cost changes while simultaneously scaling the project back so significantly, is pretty grim though. At one point the boss of HS2 Ltd suggested it could cost £110bn - triple what Gordon Brown originally estimated and nowhere near the same scale of delivery. At that point it wouldn't even deliver a return on investment.
absolutelymilk
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Is the 2036 date for Birmingham to OOC or Birmingham to Euston?For those who cant see the article, some key partsHS2 faces £100bn cost and delay until late-2030s, government told
EXCLUSIVE: Report from HS2 Ltd Chief Executive Mark Wild is part of his preliminary assessment of the project.
The cost of finishing HS2 between Birmingham Curzon Street and Old Oak Common has soared to £81 billion (at 2019 prices). And the work will not be completed until 2036 at the earliest, with 2039 more likely.
That’s the information presented to ministers in a report from HS2 Ltd Chief Executive Mark Wild, as part of his preliminary assessment of the scheme.
Not triple. The original estimates were in 2009 prices. Adjusting to current prices would be a 65-70% increase.
Grimsby town
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The article says that this OOC to Birmingham. I wonder if wires are being crossed somewhere. Given the progress on construction, it does seem somewhat unbelievable that it's still 11 years from opening.
styles
Member
Fair point on inflation.
£37.5bn Brown estimated in 2009 would be £59bn today.
So an 86% increase, nearly double still, despite massively scaling back.
But I would say they are interlinked. If you're having to build a lot more viaducts and/or tunnels because of NIMBY pressure then you may 10x your concrete and steel needs. Much like gold plating it for 400km/h operation did. Similar with ground conditions - slab track is required over 300km/h from what I know, and slab track has absolutely no tolerance for poor(er) ground conditions.
mike57
Established Member
And even the rump thats left of the original project (what did the 2009 £59bn scope cover?, reaching Manchester?, Leeds? Euston?) isn't finished yet and will probably go further over budget.
FrontSideBus
Member
£100bn to get to Birmingham... How much would it have cost to upgrade the infrastructure on the ECML and WCML to facilitate 150+ Mph?
To be pedantic, that estimate is from 2011 and under the coalition govt. Original budget for phase 1 was set at £30bn if calculated in 2019 prices, in 2013.
Slab track required for 18 trains an hour at high speed. 11 trains per hour would not require it even at 225mph, as per Prof Andrew McNaughton.
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Yeah, does seem a little bizarre that. The original expectation was entire phase 1 to complete in 9 years, so given how much has been done, another 11 years seems a bit much.
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The question should be how much to add another pair of tracks to facilitate extra capacity
jfowkes
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No point upgrading for higher speeds if you just end up stuck behind a stopper that's only doing 100mph.
The southern end of the WCML doesn't need speed it needs capacity.
styles
Member
It's not - it's the Brown government's estimate, in 2009 prices: https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cdp-2021-0168/
Note that I am giving the original HS2 estimate, not the phase 1 estimate.
GRALISTAIR
Established Member
This has been done to death in other threads. Not really feasible. Disruption alone would be really scary.
No, 2009 is the base year, the estimate is from 2011. Its from this paper https://web.archive.org/web/2011081...eedrail.dft.gov.uk/files/hsr-consultation.pdf
Its not the original estimate either, which was 30bn in q3 2009 prices in the march 2010 white paper, though that excluded rolling stock
The 72-98bn quoted in that article is in q3 2019 prices (and a big mistake not including the base year there).
mike57
Established Member
A question, I understand what slab track is, but how does the trains per hour affect the need for it, is it a 'wear rate' or is something else going on?
Tonnage and for phase 1 it's design is for a max of 18 400m trains an hour.
The Prof McNaughton quote:
The 400 km/h design speed means embankments need to be stronger as well, that would definitely have had an impact on costs. The slab track contract is worth £250m or something, it's basically a rounding error on the cost, especially now
HSTEd
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Extra capacity to where though?
The original scheme had to take over virtually all north south traffic to justify one pair of tracks!
The railway doesn't even go near any intermediate population centres, so I can't see much point to adding more capacity to a route that is unlikely to be full for a very long time.
From what I read the tolerances of ground conditions for slab track are much tighter than traditional ballast. But I am not a civil engineer. What I was trying to mean was if the tolerances are tighter on slab concrete - you have to do a lot more reinforcement BEFORE the concrete contractor comes in that otherwise needed?
Are you suggesting the wcml is not full and doesn't have potential for further growth? Speeding up the existing lines doesn't address the situation hs2 was designed to address and would in fact make it worse.
Hs2 doesn't need to go near intermediate population centres to substantially benefit them. Its the primary reason hs2 is being built.
HSTEd
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The two tracks of HS2 will easily empty WCML of any traffic that does not involve the intermediate stations.
This transferred traffic has no chance of filling 18 400m GC gauge trains per hour, at least not for a very very long time
Building extra HS2 tracks won't remove any more trains from the WCML, because all the trains that can be removed will have been.
Having a three quarters empty four track HS2 provides no additional benefits over a half empty two track HS2.
If you wanted HS2 to be full or to try to justify more tracks HS2 would have to directly assume more of the WCML traffic, which it can't do because it doesn't go near any of the intermediate traffic generators.
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irish_rail
On Moderation
When the majority of WCML trains are not full length (ie 11 car pendolino or 12 car 350s) then I'd say there is a good argument that the WCML is not as full as was previously suggested.
The tolerances of high speed rail are already much tighter so there can't be a lot in it. It's also not traditional slab track laid by a paving machine, it's modular segments not unlike a Hornby train set, so presumably a bit more scope for fine-tuning