HS2 Six Monthly Report Dec 24

[Nottingham59]

Exactly how much would extending platforms at any of the major city stations cost? New St alone would entail demolition of half the city centre.

Good question. I think I need to reply to this in the Speculative section. I'll post a link when I've done that.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

Thatchers administration authorised plenty of schemes for BR and certainly the biggest expansion of electrification since the modernisation plan. It was also the Torys again that authorised more electrification schemes in the 2010s but the rail industry failed to capitalise on it.

Correct.

Good question. I think I need to reply to this in the Speculative section. I'll post a link when I've done that.

Great idea.

 

[JamesT]

Good question. I think I need to reply to this in the Speculative section. I'll post a link when I've done that.

Wasn’t there an examination of alternatives such as platform lengthening in at least one of the reports presenting options before HS2 was approved?

 

[Grimsby town]

But I don't see any pressing strategic goal that is achieved by building Phase 2A.

Well they will still be limited by other bottlenecks, just at a slightly higher value.

It's an awful lot of money to spend for a small handful of extra paths per hour.
It might be "better value" than Phase 1, but that is just because Phase 1 has turned out to be awful value for money.

How is it awful value for money. Considering a couple of billion has already been spent on phase 2a, with most being spent on 2a, it'd be realistically another £7bn at most phase 2a. How many additional paths? Looking at Network Rail's strategic advice for the West Coast South it allows for around 6-7 additional paths per hour. Full use of those paths might require further investment further north but its not significantly more than £1 billion per extra path.

NR West Coast South Strategic Advice

Compare that to other schemes.

The ECML upgrade is costed at £1.2 billion and hasn't delivered any additional paths yet. It might deliver an extra 1.5 services per hour when done.

TRU is costed £11bn and I believe is generally expected to deliver 2 fast paths, 1 slow path, and 1 freight path per hour between Manchester and York. It might deliver more paths in some places and less in others. So there's over £2 billion per path delivered. Yes the schemes have other benefits such as reliability and speed improvements but phase 2a also has this.

 

[slowroad]

Looking at the pictures of the first motorway, the BCR must have been well below 1 but the strategy was to link places by fast roads with greater capacity so the investment was to kick-start a network and that has been successful. Whether the idea behind the strategy was right is a different matter.
Taken to the extreme, early man digging out a cave didn’t have a positive BCR until it could be used as, until it was useable as a shelter, it was a waste of time and effort. Having built the cave, extending it would have been a good use of resources as more family could be sheltered and protected from predators and food could be stored.
Likewise with high speed lines, the greatest benefit comes with a network but you have to start somewhere.

I don’t think we know what the BCR of the first motorway would have been. But with hindsight it would have been reasonable to estimate future demand and include that, which would probably have produced a high BCR. Traffic growth was not caused by construction of the motorway network - the trend predated that. And studies have shown that capacity increases explain only a very small share of traffic growth.

 

[themiller]

I don’t think we know what the BCR of the first motorway would have been. But with hindsight it would have been reasonable to estimate future demand and include that, which would probably have produced a high BCR. Traffic growth was not caused by construction of the motorway network - the trend predated that. And studies have shown that capacity increases explain only a very small share of traffic growth.

Traffic growth was not caused by construction but it enabled it by giving the opportunity for independent bodies to encourage mobility for tourism, and an increase in commerce for example. Where would the logistics business be with their hubs if they were reliant upon winding narrow country roads?

 

[Class 170101]

I don’t think we know what the BCR of the first motorway would have been. But with hindsight it would have been reasonable to estimate future demand and include that, which would probably have produced a high BCR. Traffic growth was not caused by construction of the motorway network - the trend predated that. And studies have shown that capacity increases explain only a very small share of traffic growth.

Disagree slightly. The motorways were built and they came (the demand)

The railways can be the same - look at the Elizabeth Line.

 

[HSTEd]

Traffic growth was not caused by construction but it enabled it by giving the opportunity for independent bodies to encourage mobility for tourism, and an increase in commerce for example. Where would the logistics business be with their hubs if they were reliant upon winding narrow country roads?

They would still be approximately where they are, they would just operate somewhat less efficiently.

Road haulage will still prevail over rail without the motorways, it's advantages are simply too overwhelming

 

[Nottingham59]

Exactly how much would extending platforms at any of the major city stations cost? New St alone would entail demolition of half the city centre.

If capacity were the only consideration then perhaps running everything as 12 car 110mph EMUs would be the solution, but I doubt it would be a popular one

Good question. I think I need to reply to this in the Speculative section. I'll post a link when I've done that.

I reckon it would cost perhaps £10bn to add 5000 seats per hour to WCML capacity using 520m long trains. Half the capacity of HS2 for one fifth of the cost. New thread here:

Longer trains on WCML - How much capacity would they have added, compared to HS2?

In an Alternative Universe, how much capacity could have been added by running longer trains on the WCML, instead of building HS2? To get the most capacity out of HS2 Phase One, it will be necessary to build 420m platforms at Crewe and Preston and Carlise, to allow more HS2 services to run...

www.railforums.co.uk

 

[kevin_roche]

DfT says revised HS2 business case is delayed over a year to 2026

In a post yesterday on the New Civil Engineer Website (paywalled).

An updated business case for the revised programme of works for High Speed 2 (HS2) will not be published until 2026 – more than a year later than originally planned.
The delay came to light in a letter dated 27 February from Department for Transport (DfT) permanent secretary Bernadette Kelly addressed to House of Commons Public Accounts Committee (PAC) chair Geoffrey Clifton-Brown.


In the letter, Kelly provided updates on the recommendations by the PAC from its reports into the future of the HS2 project and how to bring it under control.

and

In her 27 February letter, Kelly said that while the DfT had originally set targets to publish the business case in 2024, “In light of developments in the HS2 programme and the need to reassess policy following the election of a new government, I need to revise the target implementation dates for the recommendations.”


She said, among a list of five recommendations in total, the two above relating to the business case specifically would have revised “target implementation” dates of “early 2026” rather than the original date of “during 2024”.


“Before producing an updated business case, the programme needs to be reset and the secretary of state has tasked the new chief executive of HS2 Ltd, Mark Wild, to review the remaining scope, the cost and schedule needed to complete phase 1 and advise the government on what is required,” Kelly said.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

I doubt this is new news.
It just reflects the decision to "reset" the "out of synchronisation" project, as presented to the Transport Select Committee by Lord Hendy and Mark Wild.
HS2 Ltd will be under great pressure to deliver a new plan later this year.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

I doubt this is new news.
It just reflects the decision to "reset" the "out of synchronisation" project, as presented to the Transport Select Committee by Lord Hendy and Mark Wild.
HS2 Ltd will be under great pressure to deliver a new plan later this year.

Labour have just largely supported what Torys had already decided so no real reason for the delay but its somewhat irrelevant what its says now as the project is too far gone to change anything.