HS2 in the press

[Voglitz]

Well, it links London with Birmingham and Manchester which is quite useful.

It would link London with Birmingham and Manchester, which would be quite useful for 1 in every 250 rail journeys, if the existing lines couldn't cope with additional customers.

 

[6Gman]

Source? My reading of the HS2 report is that it was neutral about where the Hub would be or even if there would be one at all. As long as the Hub design is done well before Phase 2 is finalised, there would be no problem in tweaking the tunnel to get the portal in the most suitable place.

You can't 'tweak' the tunnel portal. You really can't!

It's currently the subject of a major consultation exercise following a substantial redesign.

Crewe station (whether on Nantwich Road or at Basford) cannot be south of the portal.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Unless Weston Road is upgraded to be a dual carriageway and part of the industrial estate to the right of the station is demolished to allow both the road improvement and the provision of a gigantic car park, I don't see how a rebuilt Crewe station at the existing site could be made to serve as a hub for the Cheshire, Shropshire and Staffordshire region. The main car park for the present station is on the wrong side of the station (both to the north and to the west) and is woefully inaccessible for anyone except residents of mid and north Crewe. Traffic congestion from a "hub" station would cause gridlock if the main car park was kept at its present site.

What does a "hub station" even mean?

 

[deltic]

Source? My reading of the HS2 report is that it was neutral about where the Hub would be or even if there would be one at all. As long as the Hub design is done well before Phase 2 is finalised, there would be no problem in tweaking the tunnel to get the portal in the most suitable place.

Suggest you look again at para 23 in the Exec Summary - "Network Rail have continued to consider these options, and has today issued a summary of this work which recommends that, if the Crewe Hub scheme is to be taken forward, it should be located at the site of the existing station. The Government
supports this conclusion"

 

[HSTEd]

The main car park for the present station is on the wrong side of the station (both to the north and to the west) and is woefully inaccessible for anyone except residents of mid and north Crewe. Traffic congestion from a "hub" station would cause gridlock if the main car park was kept at its present site.

Surely a road bridge could be provided to improve access?

 

[edwin_m]

Suggest you look again at para 23 in the Exec Summary - "Network Rail have continued to consider these options, and has today issued a summary of this work which recommends that, if the Crewe Hub scheme is to be taken forward, it should be located at the site of the existing station. The Government
supports this conclusion"

Thanks, must have missed that bit.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

You can't 'tweak' the tunnel portal. You really can't!

It's currently the subject of a major consultation exercise following a substantial redesign.

Crewe station (whether on Nantwich Road or at Basford) cannot be south of the portal.

The report talks about leaving the portal where it is for the time being, until the Hub situation is sufficiently clear for it to be correctly located to suit the prefrerred design. As long as it stays within railway land it's not a major issue for consultation as the portal and resulting tunnel alignment changes don't have much impact beyond the boundary. I assume any consultation would be rolled up into the consultation for the Hub itself.

 

[cheshire_cat]

Unless Weston Road is upgraded to be a dual carriageway and part of the industrial estate to the right of the station is demolished to allow both the road improvement and the provision of a gigantic car park, I don't see how a rebuilt Crewe station at the existing site could be made to serve as a hub for the Cheshire, Shropshire and Staffordshire region. The main car park for the present station is on the wrong side of the station (both to the north and to the west) and is woefully inaccessible for anyone except residents of mid and north Crewe. Traffic congestion from a "hub" station would cause gridlock if the main car park was kept at its present site.

Do not fear, Cheshire East Council are in the process of purchasing a plot of land on Weston Road. (adjacent to Cowley Road) At 1.4 acres, I wouldn't call it a gigantic site for a car park, but they are certainly paying a high price for it (circa £740k) for bare industrial land. So there certainly seems to be a will to allow a potential site for an entrance to a new station at this location. When added to the neighbouring council property of Scope House, and the adjacent open car/ lorry park, that could almost certainly be purchased for a similar price on the open market. This creates a total site area of 6.5 acres.

 

[itwasntme]

Do not fear, Cheshire East Council are in the process of purchasing a plot of land on Weston Road. (adjacent to Cowley Road) At 1.4 acres, I wouldn't call it a gigantic site for a car park, but they are certainly paying a high price for it (circa £740k) for bare industrial land. So there certainly seems to be a will to allow a potential site for an entrance to a new station at this location. When added to the neighbouring council property of Scope House, and the adjacent open car/ lorry park, that could almost certainly be purchased for a similar price on the open market. This creates a total site area of 6.5 acres.

I'm glad to see the Council are thinking ahead. Not to forget the large Car Park currently available at the Crewe Alexandra Stadium (454 spaces) and several other smaller ones just off Nantwich road which are less than a 5 minute walk to the Station. The two newly opened trunk roads from the A500 provide good connectivity to the areas immediately south of the station and thus avoid having to use the dreaded Nantwich Road bridge and roundabout.

As read from the announcement:

Allow for
more HS2 services to stop at Crewe, including services between
Manchester and Birmingham, to provide Crewe with both northbound and
southbound high speed connectivity

Construct a connection back from the WCML onto the HS2 network north of
Crewe, to enable northbound high
speed connectivity from Crewe

I've always been disappointed that there is currently no provision for any high speed services between Crewe and Manchester. It could be brought down from a fastest journey time of 32 minutes to a time of around 15-18 minutes and a journey to Manchester Airport somewhere in the region of 10 minutes. This would increase the pull factor of Manchester for places like Chester, Wrexham, Shrewsbury and Derby.

Let us hope that the provision of a Crewe Hub turns into a reality.

 

[MancMetro]

This a bit late, but last month there were reports of Sir David Higgins, the HS2 chairman, taking a part-time role as chairman of Gatwick Airport.

HS2 chairman takes job at Gatwick

HS2’s chairman, Sir David Higgins, is to become chairman of Gatwick next month, leaving the £55bn high-speed rail project with an increasingly occupied figurehead and no permanent chief executive.

Higgins, who also spends time working in Australia as a director of the Commonwealth Bank, will take over from Sir Roy McNulty on 1 January at the Sussex airport.

He is paid £240,000 for three days a week at HS2 and is understood to be remaining in post as chair for up to a year, until a replacement is found and as the search for a new chief executive continues.

The previous chief executive, Simon Kirby, whom Higgins brought over from Network Rail on a salary of £775,000, announced his departure in September for a more lucrative role at Rolls-Royce.

Earlier this week Higgins told the transport select committee that HS2 should consider offering loyalty bonuses to ensure its top people stayed in the job.

He told MPs on Monday: “It is always difficult to talk about bonuses in the public sector … but we should look at some sort of bonus over a period of years that encourages people to stay – it is something we should consider.”

Higgins was chief executive of the Olympic Delivery Authority from 2005-11 and ran Network Rail from 2011-14.

Gatwick is continuing to invest and remains poised to push its claim for a second runway should Heathrow’s planned expansion be blocked by parliament next year.

Higgins said Gatwick had made “remarkable progress” in recent years: “Whilst the case for Gatwick expansion in the future remains very strong, the challenge for Gatwick now is to continue to invest so it can maximise the use of its existing facilities and so can do even more for Britain in the coming years.”

HS2 said the extra work would not affect or conflict with Higgins’s current role at HS2.

Is this correct that he will be leaving this year (highlighted in bold)? Seems like bad news for HS2 if so, as he's been a strong public voice against all the negativity.

 

[Chris125]

Is this correct that he will be leaving this year (highlighted in bold)? Seems like bad news for HS2 if so, as he's been a strong public voice against all the negativity.

He was always going to leave at some point so later this year seems a good time as the project evolves from planning to delivery, with most of the big decisions made and spades hitting the ground.

 

[The Planner]

New HS2 CEO announced today, Mark Thurston.

 

[Class 170101]

Who is he?

 

[Altnabreac]

Who is he?

CH2M Europe Director, lots of Project Management background, oversaw lots of the civil work for the London Olympics.

Seems a good choice, they wanted a Brit but who had a very strong project management and cost control background. He seems to tick all the boxes.

 

[willsmadeit]

In the week when the disastrous HS2 project achieved Royal Assent, is it too late to ask that there might be a reality check carried out at the top levels of Government? The original rationale for this Utopian abomination was to take 20 minutes off the journey time between London and Birmingham; much later Higgins dreamt up the capacity argument. What is the point of a railway that cuts the countryside in half and yet those affected by it are unable to get on the wretched thing?

There are those of us vehemently anti-HS2 but, in this case, it is because I see first hand the misery it is causing to farmers, land and property owners in Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire. Little comfort for them.



Funny how they don't mention an alternative series of upgrades to the WCML will cause far more disruption to existing passengers [/QUOTE]

 

[nidave]

In the week when the disastrous HS2 project achieved Royal Assent, is it too late to ask that there might be a reality check carried out at the top levels of Government? The original rationale for this Utopian abomination was to take 20 minutes off the journey time between London and Birmingham; much later Higgins dreamt up the capacity argument. What is the point of a railway that cuts the countryside in half and yet those affected by it are unable to get on the wretched thing?

There are those of us vehemently anti-HS2 but, in this case, it is because I see first hand the misery it is causing to farmers, land and property owners in Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire. Little comfort for them.



Funny how they don't mention an alternative series of upgrades to the WCML will cause far more disruption to existing passengers

[/QUOTE]
Yawn... we have heard this all before. This is needed for extra capacity.
"the misery it is causing to farmers, land and property owners in Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire." - This reeks of sour grapes.. not offered enough money or not offered any money?? You are a NIMBY of the highest order.

 

[dviner]

In the week when the disastrous HS2 project achieved Royal Assent, is it too late to ask that there might be a reality check carried out at the top levels of Government? The original rationale for this Utopian abomination was to take 20 minutes off the journey time between London and Birmingham; much later Higgins dreamt up the capacity argument. What is the point of a railway that cuts the countryside in half and yet those affected by it are unable to get on the wretched thing?

There are those of us vehemently anti-HS2 but, in this case, it is because I see first hand the misery it is causing to farmers, land and property owners in Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire. Little comfort for them.



Funny how they don't mention an alternative series of upgrades to the WCML will cause far more disruption to existing passengers

[/QUOTE]


Let's see:

...disastrous HS2 project...

...Utopian abomination...

...cuts the countryside in half...

...wretched thing

Not really setting up for reasoned debate here.

You missed out "white elephant", "boondoggle", and "waste of taxpayer's money".

In brief:

• It's quicker to build new
• It's less disruptive to the existing to build from new
• If you're building new, the extra cost to make it high speed is comparatively negligible
• It will have less of an impact than a motorway
• It will relieve congestion on the WCML
• Trying to implement improvement works on the WCML without shutting the whole thing down for extended lengths of time will cost many, many, times the projected amount that the new build will cost
• From the outset it's been stated that the funding for HS2 will be raised to fund HS2 - it's not a pot of cash that can be spent on something else if HS2 gets canned.

 

[Voglitz]

It's quicker to build new

It's quicker to build new, than what?

It's less disruptive to the existing to build from new

It's less disruptive to the existing [?], to build [?] from new, and for what purpose?

If you're building new, the extra cost to make it high speed is comparatively negligible

And the evidence for that is, where?

It will have less of an impact than a motorway

Who is advocating building a motorway?

It will relieve congestion on the WCML

How?

Trying to implement improvement works on the WCML without shutting the whole thing down for extended lengths of time will cost many, many, times the projected amount that the new build will cost

And your evidence is...where?

From the outset it's been stated that the funding for HS2 will be raised to fund HS2 - it's not a pot of cash that can be spent on something else if HS2 gets canned.

Whatever has 'been stated', the claim is nonsense. There is always an opportunity cost.

 

[The Planner]

And your evidence is...where?

Schedule 4 payments that NR have to pay operators for disruptive possessions, Watford re signalling was going to be a complete block of the WCML over a week, the compensation payable for that was nearly as much as the cost of the job itself and the block was changed because of that. Multiply that across Euston to Birmingham then it adds up.

 

[AM9]

It's quicker to build new, than what?



It's less disruptive to the existing [?], to build [?] from new, and for what purpose?



And the evidence for that is, where?



Who is advocating building a motorway?



How?



And your evidence is...where?



Whatever has 'been stated', the claim is nonsense. There is always an opportunity cost.

Why don't you go back and read post #945 which specifically mentions the HS2 vis a vis upgrading the WCML. The line:
"Trying to implement improvement works on the WCML without shutting the whole thing down for extended lengths of time will cost many, many, times the projected amount that the new build will cost"
is a clue.
Strangely enough, the thread with its title "HS2 in the press" is also a bit of a giveaway.

If you still don't understand because as your ID suggests you are not a native English speaker then I apologise unreservedly.

 

[najaB]

The original rationale for this Utopian abomination was to take 20 minutes off the journey time between London and Birmingham...

It wasn't. Now go away, we don't feed trolls here.

 

[swt_passenger]

There are those of us vehemently anti-HS2 but, in this case, it is because I see first hand the misery it is causing to farmers, land and property owners in Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire. Little comfort for them.

Funny how they don't mention an alternative series of upgrades to the WCML will cause far more disruption to existing passengers

Is the bit I've bolded supposed to be a quote from someone else?

As others have said, an alternative series of upgrades has been analysed and found ineffective. But it isn't at all clear from your post whether you are suggesting it, or agreeing that it is a waste of time...

 

[Voglitz]

Why don't you go back and read post #945 which specifically mentions the HS2 vis a vis upgrading the WCML. The line:
"Trying to implement improvement works on the WCML without shutting the whole thing down for extended lengths of time will cost many, many, times the projected amount that the new build will cost"
is a clue.
Strangely enough, the thread with its title "HS2 in the press" is also a bit of a giveaway.

If you still don't understand because as your ID suggests you are not a native English speaker then I apologise unreservedly.

No matter how many times anyone reads post #945, they aren't going to find any information supporting the claim that implementing improvement works on the WCML without shutting the whole thing down for extended lengths of time will cost many, many, times the projected amount that the new build will cost.

There's simply no evidence.

As others have said, an alternative series of upgrades has been analysed and found ineffective.

The government commissioned Atkins and Network Rail to produce 'evidence' to support their pre-existing policy to build HS2.

While they was not independent in any meaningful sense, the HS2 alternatives 'analysis' showed that even a poorly-chosen set of upgrades could increase capacity, and were better value for money.

 

[Altfish]

No matter how many times anyone reads post #945, they aren't going to find any information supporting the claim that implementing improvement works on the WCML without shutting the whole thing down for extended lengths of time will cost many, many, times the projected amount that the new build will cost.

There's simply no evidence.



The government commissioned Atkins and Network Rail to produce 'evidence' to support their pre-existing policy to build HS2.

While they was not independent in any meaningful sense, the HS2 alternatives 'analysis' showed that even a poorly-chosen set of upgrades could increase capacity, and were better value for money.

I give you TV4 - i.e. the widening of the Trent Valley section of the line to 4 tracks. 11 miles cost IIRC c£350 in 2008

 

[Bletchleyite]

Precisely how do people propose that work could be done on the south WCML, i.e. the Milton Keynes Central to Euston section, to add the required capacity without building HS2?

You'd need another pair of "superfast" lines. Which is basically what HS2 *is*. It's just easier to build them somewhere else, a bit like the Northampton loop vs. Weedon.

 

[najaB]

I give you TV4 - i.e. the widening of the Trent Valley section of the line to 4 tracks. 11 miles cost IIRC c£350 in 2008

I see your TV4 and raise you every single project that has involved working alongside or on the existing railway!

It is simply not possible to work alongside an open railway as quickly and cheaply as it is to build a completely new one.

 

[Voglitz]

I give you TV4 - i.e. the widening of the Trent Valley section of the line to 4 tracks. 11 miles cost IIRC c£350 in 2008

I think adding the 4th track cost about 1 million times more than you wrote. But there again, I don't see how that would support the view that implementing improvement works on the WCML without shutting the whole thing down for extended lengths of time will cost many, many, times the projected amount that the new build will cost.

Precisely how do people propose that work could be done on the south WCML, i.e. the Milton Keynes Central to Euston section, to add the required capacity without building HS2?

You'd need another pair of "superfast" lines. Which is basically what HS2 *is*. It's just easier to build them somewhere else, a bit like the Northampton loop vs. Weedon.

To start with, it would be helpful to determine what "the required capacity" means.

No-one seems to have a clear idea.

 

[najaB]

I think adding the 4th track cost about 1 million times more than you wrote. But there again, I don't see how that would support the view that implementing improvement works on the WCML without shutting the whole thing down for extended lengths of time will cost many, many, times the projected amount that the new build will cost.

They aren't directly comparable but it gives a rough idea of the difference between working on a live railway and new build.

TV4: 11 miles, £470M (converting to 2017) = £43M/mile
Borders railway: 30 miles, £323M = £3M/mile

Obviously they were built to different spec, but it still gives an idea of the difference in cost.

Not in the UK, but the TGV line from Paris to Strasbourg cost £22M/mile.

 

[dviner]

No matter how many times anyone reads post #945, they aren't going to find any information supporting the claim that implementing improvement works on the WCML without shutting the whole thing down for extended lengths of time will cost many, many, times the projected amount that the new build will cost.

There's simply no evidence.

You skipped over a key word in there.

implementing improvement works on the WCML without shutting the whole thing down for extended lengths of time will cost many, many, times the projected amount that the new build will cost.

 

[Voglitz]

It is simply not possible to work alongside an open railway as quickly and cheaply as it is to build a completely new one.

That is not at all correct. If it were, the government would be building an all-new railway from London to Cardiff (and so forth).

They aren't directly comparable but it gives a rough idea of the difference between working on a live railway and new build.

TV4: 11 miles, £470M (converting to 2017) = £43M/mile
Borders railway: 30 miles, £323M = £3M/mile

Assuming the 2017 cost is as you say, TV4 cost ~£43m per track mile.

At £18000m (excluding contingency, 2015) HS2 phase 1 works out at ~£60m per track mile.

 

[Trog]

What is the point of a railway that cuts the countryside in half and yet those affected by it are unable to get on the wretched thing?

To carry people between the cities at each end, as that is where there is the demand for travel. :roll:

 

[Trog]

That is not at all correct. If it were, the government would be building an all-new railway from London to Cardiff (and so forth).

Have you not read the thread on GWR electrification, and all the problems with that just to electrify? Not half the work that would be required to do a meaningful upgrade of the WCML. Bearing in mind the WCML was upgraded at vast expense for little gain under the WCRM project only a few years ago so all the easy wins have already been done.