HS2 delayed again?

mike57 · 15 May 2025

HSTEd said:
over a half empty two track HS2.

Which brings us rather neatly to the elephant in the room, we have spent probably close to £100bn for an Old Oak Common to Birmingham high speed railway, had that money been invested in other parts of the network what would we have got?

I still dont understand the decision to go for 400km/hr. Even in China who are now world leaders in high speed rail and where distances are much greater seem to have settled on 350km/hr as a service maximum, and are building lines with a 250km/hr maximum where usage doesn't justify anything faster. Even if the original objectives of Manchester and Leeds had been reached you are only looking at ~200 miles, which with a 300km/hr/190mph top speed would would be probaly 80 minutes from London, maybe a bit less.

The sad thing is I think in 60 years 'HS2' will be seen in the same light as the 'Beeching cuts' (I use the word Beeching in the wider sense) of the 1960s. Its done a huge dis-service for rail development in the UK. As well as sucking up huge sums of money it has pretty much meant that no politician, of any party, is going to sign up to a major rail project because of the history for a very long time.

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FrontSideBus · 15 May 2025

IMO if HS2 is not going all the way to Scotland via Manchester then it's completely pointless. Either go all the way or scrap the whole thing.
Admittedly I did recently travel to London via Birmingham but only because I wanted to go on Chilterns Mk3's into Marylebone, otherwise it will be the WCML even when the HS2 leg to Birmingham is open! Id rather go direct instead of having to change.

31160 · 15 May 2025

FrontSideBus said:
IMO if HS2 is not going all the way to Scotland via Manchester then it's completely pointless. Either go all the way or scrap the whole thing.
Admittedly I did recently travel to London via Birmingham but only because I wanted to go on Chilterns Mk3's into Marylebone, otherwise it will be the WCML even when the HS2 leg to Birmingham is open! Id rather go direct instead of having to change.

Well I agree with that, the thought now all we will get is the very expensive bit with lots of expensive tunnelling to placate a small number of loud MPs, yet everyone who pays there taxes who lives north of brum gets absolutely nothing from this at all, worst of all worlds

jfowkes · 15 May 2025

HSTEd said:
Having a three quarters empty four track HS2 provides no additional benefits over a half empty two track HS2.

I think there's been confusion. @FMerrymon wasn't saying add two more tracks to HS2, they were saying compare the cost of HS2 to the cost of adding two more tracks to the ECML/WCML. That's how I read it anyway.

WAO · 15 May 2025

Adding two tracks would not be that expensive for much of the route where it passes through open country. That is after all how HS1 was built, parallelling both the SEML South of Ashford and the M20/M2/A2 to the North.

The built up areas would be a problem where the railway is confined, but so were the Chilterns, where much tunnelling had to be employed. There would also need to be some new alignments for speed. What told against this optimum plan was the contracting morass of the privatised railway with its disruption costs.

The long term objective should still be Scotland, although making best use of/improving existing alignments.

I would just settle for a single "Lancashire Parkway" stop for Liverpool and Manchester.

WAO

FMerrymon · 15 May 2025

jfowkes said:
I think there's been confusion. @FMerrymon wasn't saying add two more tracks to HS2, they were saying compare the cost of HS2 to the cost of adding two more tracks to the ECML/WCML. That's how I read it anyway.

Yes, precisely that.

mike57 · 15 May 2025

WAO said:
The long term objective should still be Scotland

Trouble is its now its so long term that its going be decades not years. My own thinking is it will be 2040 at the earliest before any further HS rail is even back on the drawing board, so maybe 2060 before anything is operating beyond what is currently under construction.

Its going to take at least two political cycles to sort out both the national issues, and also the bad taste from HS2 overspend and cutbacks, and there is no knowing what the political landscape will look like in 10 years, its more fluid now than I have ever seen it.

I will be honest I dont think there will be any long term objectives now, just get out from under the current mess at lowest cost to exchequer, and then try and spin it as a win.

WAO · 15 May 2025

mike57 said:
Trouble is its now its so long term that its going be decades not years. My own thinking is it will be 2040 at the earliest before any further HS rail is even back on the drawing board, so maybe 2060 before anything is operating beyond what is currently under construction.

Its going to take at least two political cycles to sort out both the national issues, and also the bad taste from HS2 overspend and cutbacks, and there is no knowing what the political landscape will look like in 10 years, its more fluid now than I have ever seen it.

I will be honest I dont think there will be any long term objectives now, just get out from under the current mess at lowest cost to exchequer, and then try and spin it as a win.

We started the L&M in 1830 (The Middleton in 1758!) so a few decades shouldn't scare us!

WAO

AeM · 15 May 2025

Worth noting that WCML modernisation was originally programmed in at £2.5 billion, and ended up at ~9 billion, delivering a significantly reduced scope from the orginal basis.

stuu · 15 May 2025

31160 said:
Well I agree with that, the thought now all we will get is the very expensive bit with lots of expensive tunnelling to placate a small number of loud MPs, yet everyone who pays there taxes who lives north of brum gets absolutely nothing from this at all, worst of all worlds

They get half an hour or so off journeys to London, less than promised but still a noticeable benefit

furnessvale · 15 May 2025

FrontSideBus said:
IMO if HS2 is not going all the way to Scotland via Manchester then it's completely pointless. Either go all the way or scrap the whole thing.
Admittedly I did recently travel to London via Birmingham but only because I wanted to go on Chilterns Mk3's into Marylebone, otherwise it will be the WCML even when the HS2 leg to Birmingham is open! Id rather go direct instead of having to change.

Current plans indicate two trains an hour from Lime St and Runcorn using HS2 to London.

Which bit of Merseyside do you inhabit that currently has through trains to London that will not be serviced by these two stations?

mike57 · 15 May 2025

AeM said:
delivering a significantly reduced scope from the orginal basis.

Its the reduced scope even more than the ovespend that I think sticks in the mind long term, if you get the full scope, and see a reasonable improvement then the overspend gets forgotten, but a half baked outcome is with you for ever and continues to haunt for years or decades.

FMerrymon · 15 May 2025

irish_rail said:
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.

If that were the case, then there wouldn't be an issue running 200m trains. In any case, you're talking of seat capacity not track capacity which is the primary aim.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 15 May 2025 ==

mike57 said:
Its the reduced scope even more than the ovespend that I think sticks in the mind long term, if you get the full scope, and see a reasonable improvement then the overspend gets forgotten, but a half baked outcome is with you for ever and continues to haunt for years or decades.

Euston to Crewe is really the minimum viable product.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 15 May 2025 ==

stuu said:
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

The NAO reported that the slab necessitated extra earthworks and the lower depth of the line caused some issue for the ground conditions.

There was also discussion in the TSC (some time around Oct 2023) about the tolerances being overspecified and the contractors piling more than necessary. So perhaps it has added more than it appears. Slab wasn't confirmed until 2016.

HSTEd · 15 May 2025

FMerrymon said:
Euston to Crewe is really the minimum viable product.

If so, then this raises serious questions about the phasing of the scheme.

Phase 2a was not even created until relatively late in project development.
It was going to be either Handsacre or Manchester/Leeds etc.

FMerrymon · 15 May 2025

HSTEd said:
If so, then this raises serious questions about the phasing of the scheme.

Phase 2a was not even created until relatively late in project development.
It was going to be either Handsacre or Manchester/Leeds etc.

It was brought forward in November 2015 as phase 1 alone doesn't give the capacity release north of Birmingham and it could achieve the benefits earlier. At least Crewe allows services to disperse better and gives a lot more for freight.

Krokodil · 15 May 2025

styles said:
£37.5bn Brown estimated in 2009 would be £59bn today.

So an 86% increase, nearly double still, despite massively scaling back.

What does that include though? I've noticed how the press will use an old figure that doesn‘t include rolling stock to compare with a current figure which does for example. You're going to need new rolling stock anyway, the Pendolinos will be life-expired.

irish_rail said:
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.

Are you suggesting that some destinations lose their direct services in order to increase frequencies on the likes of Manchester-London?

The southern WCML is congested infrastructure. That is an undeniable fact.

mike57 said:
I still dont understand the decision to go for 400km/hr.

Because SNCF advised future-proofing the design to avoid being unduly restricted when technology improves.

FrontSideBus said:
IMO if HS2 is not going all the way to Scotland via Manchester then it's completely pointless.

Through services to Scotland will be faster, longer and more frequent as a result of HS2.

WAO said:
I would just settle for a single "Lancashire Parkway" stop for Liverpool and Manchester.

Seriously?

WAO · 15 May 2025

AeM said:
Worth noting that WCML modernisation was originally programmed in at £2.5 billion, and ended up at ~9 billion, delivering a significantly reduced scope from the orginal basis.

IIRC, the modernisation came in about on target, the rest was for virtual rebuilding because of its poor state after 30 years of unsprung traction motors and maintenance holidays.

Krokodil said:
Seriously?

Probably! Much of its premium traffic might come from the wealthy areas along the Wirral to Altrincham belt and a city centre departure would be less necessary. A single station, perhaps at the M56, would save a bomb over Manchester access and dry many tears on Merseyside!

I would also aim for the straight route at Standish, North of Wigan rather than Bamfurlong to the South.

HS2 primarily needs a geographical target, only secondarily a financial one.

WAO

FMerrymon · 15 May 2025

Krokodil said:
What does that include though? I've noticed how the press will use an old figure that doesn‘t include rolling stock to compare with a current figure which does for example. You're going to need new rolling stock anyway, the Pendolinos will be life-expired

That figure did include rolling stock. It was 32.2bn for the construction, in q3 2009 prices. The other two estimates from 2010 and 2012 are more well known without rolling stock. Just depended on which journalist saw the figure first before the rest copied.

Krokodil said:
Because SNCF advised future-proofing the design to avoid being unduly restricted when technology improves.

Yes, and 400kmh is the alignment speed not design speed (360). The French build to alignment speeds of 350kmh these days. In my opinion, its been incorrectly blamed for the costs.

HSTEd · 15 May 2025

WAO said:
Adding two tracks would not be that expensive for much of the route where it passes through open country. That is after all how HS1 was built, parallelling both the SEML South of Ashford and the M20/M2/A2 to the North.

The built up areas would be a problem where the railway is confined, but so were the Chilterns, where much tunnelling had to be employed. There would also need to be some new alignments for speed. What told against this optimum plan was the contracting morass of the privatised railway with its disruption costs.

The tunneling seems to be one of the few things that has gone well, although I question various aspects of the tunnel design choices.
I think, honestly, we would have been better off using more tunnel, reducing the number of points that the line comes into contract with the population.

Fighting locals for a handful of vent shaft locations wouldn't generate anything like the mess we've had to deal with.

Of course, with more tunnels we could have adopted a HS1 like approach, resulting in a fundamentally different scheme to the one we ended up with.

Attempting a conventional line upgrade would be enormously disruptive and leave us with a railway that is still crippled by Victorian loading gauges and design practices.

WAO said:
I would just settle for a single "Lancashire Parkway" stop for Liverpool and Manchester.

I don't see any point in doing that, given that there doesn't seem much point in pushing much beyond Liverpool and Manchester on the west coast as it is.
After Manchester there are few people until you reach the Scottish central belt.

The only population centre of note between Lancaster and the Central Belt is Carlisle, which is hardly enormous.

It might be the "fastest" way to scotland, but it would just result in an empty line with noone aruond to use it.

Any high speed route or major route upgrade to Scotland has to switch to the East Coast if its going to get enough passengers to justify the enormous cost.

Sorcerer · 15 May 2025

WAO said:
I would just settle for a single "Lancashire Parkway" stop for Liverpool and Manchester.

I said this in the thread about Canadian high-speed rail, but Parkway stations should not be used in lieu of a city centre one. They can work alongside one, but they are not absolutely essential in comparison. For HS2 specifically it would do no good for Liverpool and Manchester to share a single Parkway stop, especially not Manchester which is among the busiest and most profitable InterCity routes in the country. I'm not even sure you'd get the same kind of passenger traffic between the two cities (as in Manchester would be more business passengers than Liverpool). For the proper benefit of HS2, trains need to run into the city one way or another.

irish_rail · 15 May 2025

Krokodil said:
The southern WCML is congested infrastructure. That is an undeniable fact.

As is the GWML between Reading and London but what is being done about that? Nothing , except a new station that will further swallow up the capacity. With hindsight, HS2 would have been binned and the money distributed evenly to ALL the routes that are bursting at the seems. But we are where we are.

Sorcerer · 15 May 2025

irish_rail said:
As is the GWML between Reading and London but what is being done about that? Nothing , except a new station that will further swallow up the capacity. With hindsight, HS2 would have been binned and the money distributed evenly to ALL the routes that are bursting at the seems. But we are where we are.

The money that was used for HS2 was only available for that specific project, so the redistribution isn't happening. It's easy to undervalue HS2's capacity relief factor when the project has been scaled back as much as it has, but in it's full form that included the eastern legs it would have reduced congestion on all three mainlines heading north of London, which is considerably better than how it is now, and as much as you might not like it, better than investing in the GWML alone. Of course nobody is saying that the Great Western shouldn't receive investments, but just because it isn't doesn't mean HS2 shouldn't either. Ideally we'd have a long term plan for both.

WAO · 15 May 2025

Sorcerer said:
The money that was used for HS2 was only available for that specific project, so the redistribution isn't happening. I

It's in the Transport Budget and adding to the Public Sector Borrowing Requirement so is squeezing out other schemes or raising taxes.

WAO

FMerrymon · 15 May 2025

WAO said:
It's in the Transport Budget and adding to the Public Sector Borrowing Requirement so is squeezing out other schemes or raising taxes.

WAO

What schemes that could be delivered right now are being squeezed out? There's still a large amount of investment going on with TRU, EWR and other schemes.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 16 May 2025 ==

Sorcerer said:
The money that was used for HS2 was only available for that specific project, so the redistribution isn't happening. It's easy to undervalue HS2's capacity relief factor when the project has been scaled back as much as it has, but in it's full form that included the eastern legs it would have reduced congestion on all three mainlines heading north of London, which is considerably better than how it is now, and as much as you might not like it, better than investing in the GWML alone. Of course nobody is saying that the Great Western shouldn't receive investments, but just because it isn't doesn't mean HS2 shouldn't either. Ideally we'd have a long term plan for both.

Not just the three mainlines heading north of london, but the crosscountry mainline as well. Then many of the lines joining/branching those mainlines and the lines into the cities where hs2 was to build new platforms and approaches, most are bottlenecks on those routes. The released capacity has always been under appreciated.

irish_rail said:
As is the GWML between Reading and London but what is being done about that? Nothing , except a new station that will further swallow up the capacity

Not as if the great western hasnt had improvements, with the Elizabeth line providing more frequency, more passenger capacity, more connectivity between Reading and London, the electrification, removal of the bottleneck at Reading, new intercity and regional stock with more seats. Ooc won't affect capacity if most services stop there.

Sorcerer · 16 May 2025

FMerrymon said:
Not just the three mainlines heading north of london, but the crosscountry mainline as well. Then many of the lines joining/branching those mainlines and the lines into the cities where hs2 was to build new platforms and approaches, most are bottlenecks on those routes. The released capacity has always been under appreciated.

Yes indeed, you are correct. I forgot about the CrossCountry routes but having a Birmingham to Manchester and/or Leeds service would've definitely freed up capacity, and with actual 200/400m long trains instead of the Voyagers that have consistently had issues with overcrowding. Our management of HS2 will truly go down in railway history as one of our worst mistakes; what started as a new trunk railway providing capacity relief on classic routes and encouraging a modal shift from air to rail has practically become a shuttle between London and Birmingham falling short of it's true potential. It's even worse when you consider the fact Japan successfully pulled that exact thing off in the 1960s.

FMerrymon · 16 May 2025

Sorcerer said:
Yes indeed, you are correct. I forgot about the CrossCountry routes but having a Birmingham to Manchester and/or Leeds service would've definitely freed up capacity, and with actual 200/400m long trains instead of the Voyagers that have consistently had issues with overcrowding. Our management of HS2 will truly go down in railway history as one of our worst mistakes; what started as a new trunk railway providing capacity relief on classic routes and encouraging a modal shift from air to rail has practically become a shuttle between London and Birmingham falling short of it's true potential. It's even worse when you consider the fact Japan successfully pulled that exact thing off in the 1960s.

Couldn't agree more. Potential was huge. There's been a lot of political intrigue around this, many misconceptions and most of the public still doesn't get it. Its revealed a number of issues in the country, but unfortunately I don't think we are going to learn any lessons due to those misconceptions and poor analysis by the media.

Sorcerer · 16 May 2025

FMerrymon said:
Couldn't agree more. Potential was huge. There's been a lot of political intrigue around this, many misconceptions and most of the public still doesn't get it. Its revealed a number of issues in the country, but unfortunately I don't think we are going to learn any lessons due to those misconceptions and poor analysis by the media.

Even if we did manage to get the cancelled phases off the ground again we'd run into the exact same issues based on how we approach infrastructure, consultation and management. I know China might be the easy example as to how high-speed rail can be done much cheaper and faster than we can do it, but Spain is even better. They have not only managed to become the masters of high-speed rail with the largest network in Europe and the world outside China as well as gauge-changing trains, but they have even managed to export their expertise abroad such as Saudi Arabia with the Haramain High Speed Railway. Truly a sad reflection that we don't have the political will to do the same.

Yew · 16 May 2025

31160 said:
Well I agree with that, the thought now all we will get is the very expensive bit with lots of expensive tunnelling to placate a small number of loud MPs, yet everyone who pays there taxes who lives north of brum gets absolutely nothing from this at all, worst of all worlds

I think this highlights the issue that there are probably too many people having vetoes, as opposed to be able to put their view to an arbitrating authority.

Perhaps a good example would be the "bat tunnel" - where not a single bat death would be tolerated by a vetoing authority, essentially placing an infinite value on bat lives.

I wouldn't advocate a more French approach of "it's happening, if you don't like it, move away" - but would advocate moving a couple of notches in that direction.

poffle · 16 May 2025

I think a lot of the cost issues with phase 1 are really due to the wrong route being chosen. Going through a rural AONB may have delivered the shortest route but not ultimately the most economic one once all the tunneled sections, new roads are coated in.

Ironically many of the later phases don't have anything like the same level of risk but they're the bits thrown out to pay for phase 1.

HSTEd · 16 May 2025

Sorcerer said:
The money that was used for HS2 was only available for that specific project, so the redistribution isn't happening. It's easy to undervalue HS2's capacity relief factor when the project has been scaled back as much as it has, but in it's full form that included the eastern legs it would have reduced congestion on all three mainlines heading north of London, which is considerably better than how it is now, and as much as you might not like it, better than investing in the GWML alone. Of course nobody is saying that the Great Western shouldn't receive investments, but just because it isn't doesn't mean HS2 shouldn't either. Ideally we'd have a long term plan for both.

The problem was the backers of HS2 allowed a lofty, far off, vision to distract them from the work in front of them.

Their proposal might be optimum in a world where the sprawling HS2 system they envisaged was completed in full, but it made no allowance for cancellation partway through.

The project phasing is a complete mess, producing what is now claimed to be a non viable product from the first phase. And the minimum viable product now claimed wasn't even a phase boundary until quite late in the scheme's development (phase 2a was not in the original plan, but was invented later).

HS2 then assumed that its supply of political capital was infinite and that it could design an "optimum" scheme (using its predetermined terms of reference) and it would be able to ram it through no matter the opposition. These assumptions have proven to be catastrophically flawed.

The original proposal was simply unworkable, but HS2 proceeded regardless.

Phase 1 should have been a scheme that could stand alone, and maximise its benefits without assuming tens of billions of later construction would definitely happen. SNCF didn't compromise the design of LGV Sud-Est to allow LGV Méditerranée to be more efficient. Japan didn't compromise the design of the Tokaido Shinkansen to make the Sanyo Shinkansen more efficient etc etc etc.

I do not think a new trunk line from London to the West MIdlands, which may or may not become the core of a new high speed network, would look anything like this scheme.

HS2 delayed again?

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