HS2 delayed again?

[Dr Hoo]

I was under the impression that ‘more time’ was needed simply to control the cash ‘burn rate’ (I.e. ‘affordability’ rather than anything to do with engineering or construction challenges.)

 

[hux385]

Is there any indication that this delay is about the OOC-Curzon St section? It was the previous government's idea to start the service off as a shuttle whereas the current government seems more committed to Euston. It's all so vague it's hard to tell what the phasing is within phase 1 and whether they plan to open it all at the same time or whether Euston and Handsacre will be pushed further down the road. Will the extremities of phase 1 be an even further delay?? I'm so confused, but then I think the people in charge are confused too, or just keeping details very quiet?!

 

[The Planner]

I was under the impression that ‘more time’ was needed simply to control the cash ‘burn rate’ (I.e. ‘affordability’ rather than anything to do with engineering or construction challenges.)

Its exactly that.

 

[eldomtom2]

Don't forget so was the Lizzie and indeed "Thameslink 2000" which really became Thameslink 2015ish. However now they're open people love them.

Well, people love them now that all the costs associated with them have been incurred and can't be undone. But projects that go massively overbudget are not only vulnerable to descoping, they also have a negative impact on the ability of future projects to be funded. The government will be very skeptical of future high-speed rail proposals.

There is an important distinction to make. We are capable of the engineering to do it at all, and to do it at a reasonably fast pace (considering 21st century H&S, planning, etc). But we aren’t capable of long term economics that favour funding that fast and overall cheaper pace of work.

Clearly something is badly wrong with infrastructure construction in the UK - British projects are more expensive and take longer than most other countries in the western world.

 

[Brubulus]

I was under the impression that ‘more time’ was needed simply to control the cash ‘burn rate’ (I.e. ‘affordability’ rather than anything to do with engineering or construction challenges.)

What is the issue with this - higher burn rate = quicker project which given inflation means a cheaper project compared to delaying it.

Or is this just treasury neuroticism regarding annual capital expenditure, which I had hoped we would move past given the government's professed support for capital expenditure.

 

[NCT]

What is the issue with this - higher burn rate = quicker project which given inflation means a cheaper project compared to delaying it.

Or is this just treasury neuroticism regarding annual capital expenditure, which I had hoped we would move past given the government's professed support for capital expenditure.

I think for as long as Treasury yields are still in 4-5% region annual expenditure remains a big consideration.

 

[Manutd1999]

Given HS2's track record, there's no guarantee spending more money would actually deliver the project faster. It might just waste money faster....

In my cynical (and uninformed) opinion, HS2 Ltd has saught to make the whole project "too big to fail" from the start. Governments should have insisted on a phased approach which may have allowed lessons to be learnt along the way. We now risk having a white-elephant, delivered years late and many times over budget, which in turn destroys the case for any future investment in high-speed rail.

 

[SynthD]

In my cynical (and uninformed) opinion, HS2 Ltd has saught to make the whole project "too big to fail" from the start. Governments should have insisted on a phased approach which may have allowed lessons to be learnt along the way. We now risk having a white-elephant, delivered years late and many times over budget, which in turn destroys the case for any future investment in high-speed rail.

A phased approach means you have lots of little white elephants, as the various ends to each segment (which would be limited in size, eg 50 miles) has to connect back to the WCML. On top of that, you might try to keep these connections short, which limits the route of the final work (definitely not near the M1). A phased approach that gives rest time to learn lessons would be very slow. Demand for work on any given subject area would be a decade apart.

I don’t see how the current project risks a white elephant but I suspect that’s a difference in disaster imagination than understanding.

 

[Manutd1999]

A 50 mile "bypass" segment alongside the southern WCML (possibly higher speed, but not necessarily do) would have been much better way to start IMO.

Then we could have separately considered the best way to increase capacity at Euston/Birmingham/Colwich/Manchester to enable new services.

Then one day maybe we could have joined everything up, but we wouldn't have relied on it.

 

[Snow1964]

The letter explaining the delays from Mark Wild has now been published

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/685177afcf42a58f50cac99b/hs2-ltd-letter-to-transport-secretary.pdf

Of interest to me is in the Scope section, which states the spurs to phases 2a and 2b have been steered as retains in scope

 

[NCT]

A 50 mile "bypass" segment alongside the southern WCML (possibly higher speed, but not necessarily do) would have been much better way to start IMO.

Then we could have separately considered the best way to increase capacity at Euston/Birmingham/Colwich/Manchester to enable new services.

Then one day maybe we could have joined everything up, but we wouldn't have relied on it.

If HS2 couldn't have been envisaged as a capacity + speed end product offering a step change in outputs while avoiding abortive costs (through micro-phasing), then a case could never have been made for it.

 

[HSTEd]

A phased approach means you have lots of little white elephants, as the various ends to each segment (which would be limited in size, eg 50 miles) has to connect back to the WCML.

The government ends up with considerably less tonnage of white elephant though, because they are free to abort the programme after any one of those phases.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: Wednesday at 15:07 ==

If HS2 couldn't have been envisaged as a capacity + speed end product offering a step change in outputs while avoiding abortive costs (through micro-phasing), then a case could never have been made for it.

You can achieve transformative changes without a sprawling, country-spanning project like HS2's though.
But again, no point litigating that, we are stuck with the mess we have now.

 

[Snow1964]

The Stewart review (Major Transport schemes, Governance and Assurance) is now published

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/685291bf2b367fdd44c15e2b/dft-major-transport-projects-governance-assurance-review.pdf

131 pages so not going to quote it.

 

[Zomboid]

Once the current project is finished (if it ever is), there will be a variety of incremental improvements that could be made in future.
* Hanslope to Crewe
* Crewe to Manchester (or the new Liverpool to Manchester line if that happens)
* Birmingham to East Mids/ MML
* A connection to the Birmingham - Derby line
* East Mids/ MML to somewhere near Clay Cross

And so on. I won't be betting on specifics, but there will be options for making better use of the core section.

 

[HSTEd]

The Stewart review (Major Transport schemes, Governance and Assurance) is now published

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/685291bf2b367fdd44c15e2b/dft-major-transport-projects-governance-assurance-review.pdf

131 pages so not going to quote it.

I do find it somewhat funny that the summary recommendations (4.2 pg12/131) has a section on the necessity of "restoring trust".
Then on the same page a whole section has been redacted on the grounds of "commercial confidentiality".

 

[Snow1964]

Once the current project is finished (if it ever is), there will be a variety of incremental improvements that could be made in future.
* Hanslope to Crewe
* Crewe to Manchester (or the new Liverpool to Manchester line if that happens)
* Birmingham to East Mids/ MML
* A connection to the Birmingham - Derby line
* East Mids/ MML to somewhere near Clay Cross

And so on. I won't be betting on specifics, but there will be options for making better use of the core section.

My Reading of Mark Wilds letter, and Heidi Alexander's statement (link)

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/685177afcf42a58f50cac99b/hs2-ltd-letter-to-transport-secretary.pdf

Resetting the High Speed Two (HS2) programme

A statement outlining the future of High Speed Two (HS2), including new management and a bold reset plan.

www.gov.uk

Is that the cancelled parts need to be reinstated (but only once they have got to grip with issuing new contracts that are more risk and incentivised, rather than cost plus approach that has failed). Reading between lines there are hints either going to spend a fortune to bodge it into existing lines (and phase1 won't really be properly utilised)or going to have to do add on bits (but not in same uncontrolled cost style).

My own thought is the next stages report (due in Autumn) will be looking at optimal outcomes of moving forward, not just minimising cost and wasting huge amounts by having mismatch between high spec phase 1 and an inadequate what happens north of Birmingham.

 

[Brubulus]

My Reading of Mark Wilds letter, and Heidi Alexander's statement (link)

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/685177afcf42a58f50cac99b/hs2-ltd-letter-to-transport-secretary.pdf

Resetting the High Speed Two (HS2) programme

A statement outlining the future of High Speed Two (HS2), including new management and a bold reset plan.

www.gov.uk

Is that the cancelled parts need to be reinstated (but only once they have got to grip with issuing new contracts that are more risk and incentivised, rather than cost plus approach that has failed). Reading between lines there are hints either going to spend a fortune to bodge it into existing lines (and phase1 won't really be properly utilised)or going to have to do add on bits (but not in same uncontrolled cost style).

My own thought is the next stages report (due in Autumn) will be looking at optimal outcomes of moving forward, not just minimising cost and wasting huge amounts by having mismatch between high spec phase 1 and an inadequate what happens north of Birmingham.

A link to the Birmingham-Derby line is likely to happen in my opinion, since it takes 2 paths an hour off the MML, and means that more of the country will benefit from HS2 in some way, while increasing Phase 1 utilisation slightly.

If Liverpool-Manchester is built, there will have to be a link, likely called anything other than HS2.

The "we won't reinstate cancelled sections we can't afford" either means nothing is getting reinstated (likely) or that there will be something reinstated (obviously not the full Y, but at least something towards Manchester)

 

[stuu]

Three years of testing seems quite an outlier, for what will be a very straightforward railway with no interfaces with anything else

 

[jfollows]

£21,900 million in 2011 prices (£38,500 million today by RPI) to probably £100,000 million today for something only going to Birmingham.
Seems like normal public sector civil engineering projects in which the lowest price solution wins the contract, then the contractor throws up their hands in the middle of the project giving the government no choice but to pay out more and more.

Political interference and prevarication has a lot to do with it as well.

 

[NCT]

Three years of testing seems quite an outlier, for what will be a very straightforward railway with no interfaces with anything else

The first thing I picked up on too ...

Though as a brand new railway it's larger in scale than Crossrail, and while there's only one end of transitioning between systems (HS2 and NR) rather than 2 (or 3!) with Crossrail, it could still turn out to be a Crossrail-sized headache ...

 

[FMerrymon]

£21,900 million in 2011 prices (£38,500 million today by RPI) to probably £100,000 million today for something only going to Birmingham.
Seems like normal public sector civil engineering projects in which the lowest price solution wins the contract, then the contractor throws up their hands in the middle of the project giving the government no choice but to pay out more and more.

Political interference and prevarication has a lot to do with it as well.

In 2019 prices, budget for phase 1 is up from 30bn in 2013 to 66bn, with some additional scope as the 66 added some costs of cancellation. Still, a doubling of budget is not good at all.

 

[A S Leib]

How likely is it that an Old Oak Common (Euston?) to Curzon Street service would be brought in before moving Handsacre services across?

 

[stuu]

The first thing I picked up on too ...

Though as a brand new railway it's larger in scale than Crossrail, and while there's only one end of transitioning between systems (HS2 and NR) rather than 2 (or 3!) with Crossrail, it could still turn out to be a Crossrail-sized headache ...

There won't be though, not at first. They can test the transition independently of running OOC to Birmingham. As far as I know it won't have the same level of system integration as Crossrail, where the signalling is linked to the ventilation etc, so there's a lot fewer connections to make talk to each other

 

[FMerrymon]

There won't be though, not at first. They can test the transition independently of running OOC to Birmingham. As far as I know it won't have the same level of system integration as Crossrail, where the signalling is linked to the ventilation etc, so there's a lot fewer connections to make talk to each other

Wasn't one of the issues for Crossrail software? I wonder if that might be a little easier to solve in 5 years time with advancements in AI.

 

[Krokodil]

I wonder if that might be a little easier to solve in 5 years time with advancements in AI.

God help us all...

 

[FMerrymon]

God help us all...

 

[Amalie]

Wasn't one of the issues for Crossrail software? I wonder if that might be a little easier to solve in 5 years time with advancements in AI.

AI does not particularly make it easier. Even so, Crossrail software is especially a place where you want to be careful and do more rather than less checks.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

The letter explaining the delays from Mark Wild has now been published

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/685177afcf42a58f50cac99b/hs2-ltd-letter-to-transport-secretary.pdf

Of interest to me is in the Scope section, which states the spurs to phases 2a and 2b have been steered as retains in scope

That letter is a damming indictment on the previous leadership team where the former CEO was one of the best paid government arms length body leaders but also had in multiple supporting directors on above 300k. Then there were the army of highly paid consultants hired by HS2 to support delivery of the projects and this is what we've got to show for it. Yes people can say it is what it is and we need to move on but this project has done irreparable damage to rails image and denied many other projects access to capital funding to progress but lest hope the ten year infrastructure strategy remedies some of that.

 

[Snow1964]

Three years of testing seems quite an outlier, for what will be a very straightforward railway with no interfaces with anything else

I also thought that, presumably the trains (being UK gauge) can be tested on any ETCS equipped line (even if not at top speed), and as they were expected to go to Manchester and Scotland etc any quiet 25kv equipped line could probably be used for testing as should be built to a UK universal spec (rather than line specific spec), although I realise sign off is line by line.

The signalling is rapidly being installed on multiple lines through Europe, so unless anyone corrupts it should work, and interface with the trains.

The infrastructure (tunnel fans, lights etc) isn't going to need 3 years of testing.

Staff training shouldn't take 3 years either, so allowing 3 years seems excessive, and the 14 months was probably lot nearer. Even if think need couple of months extra, adding 22 months just to be safe seems crazy.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

I also thought that, presumably the trains (being UK gauge) can be tested on any ETCS equipped line (even if not at top speed), and as they were expected to go to Manchester and Scotland etc any quiet 25kv equipped line could probably be used for testing as should be built to a UK universal spec (rather than line specific spec), although I realise sign off is line by line.

The signalling is rapidly being installed on multiple lines through Europe, so unless anyone corrupts it should work, and interface with the trains.

The infrastructure (tunnel fans, lights etc) isn't going to need 3 years of testing.

Staff training shouldn't take 3 years either, so allowing 3 years seems excessive, and the 14 months was probably lot nearer. Even if think need couple of months extra, adding 22 months just to be safe seems crazy.

Mark Wilde is suggesting 36mths in his letter

The durations allowed for activities still to come has been underestimated. We have yet to develop an integrated schedule for the deployment of railway systems and rolling stock. For example, the time allocated to test the railway (14 months) is insufficient. A duration of up to 36 months has been assessed as more realistic based on equivalent completed projects.