I apologise for that. I spent too many years in 'academia', and am accustomed to 'hedging around' with subordinate clauses and conditionality (like a poltiician, maybe ...). I have too much time on my hands!
No problem, I too often type with deliberate conditionality.
It depends on what your intended outcome is. Short-term it is a saving, long-term it isn't. A good accountant knows how to spend wisely, a bean counter is reluctant on any expenditure even if it costs them long term.
I am an enthusiast for rolling programmes, eg electrification, tunnel-boring? Stop-go doesn't help that. GW electrification failed because rail investment had for along time been on 'stop'; enthusiasm to spend meant starting with insufficient site investigation, needing to stop intermittently for consequential redesign and thus also consequentially running out of time, money and political support (all those being prerequiisites for success). The consequences of those consequential cutbacks and loss of enthusiasm, confidence, funding and teams will, sadly, be felt for a long time yet.
This is true.
The UK needs to make sure the money spent does not just patch up problems but prevents those problems (for example health). Building railways expands the economy so that more can be afforded. Without growth we will stagnate. Long term there is a limit to economic growth - the size of the planet !.
HS2 is one of the reasons the cost of concrete noticeably shot up. Annual production of concrete is 20M tonnes, and HS2 estimates phase 1 will use 13M t, although other estimates say 20M t. You can't just magic up consumption without changing the price for them and the rest of the market.
Not disputing that HS2 is a factor, but the build phase for HS2 1 is about 10 years all told, so even the higher estimates aren't moving consumption by more than 10%. HS2 has also provided its own plant for making concrete in a lot of places, as well as running its logistics, so the impact is much reduced.
Presumably this is also a good reason why significant construction projects should not run concurrently.
Building will take 10 years, but the period of peak concrete consumption will be much less than this.
A cost of 'stop-go'. I don't see the Infrastructure Commission (or whatever it's called) micro-managing projects to smooth out the call on concrete, or any particular shortage skill, at any time; maybe ash flow. Watch this, or another, space when the Housing programme kicks in.
Well.. it's not really 10 years - 2020 the holes began to be dug, 2021 onwards concrete probably started in volume, and by 2027, would surely expect the significant concrete to have finished as they'd surely be putting track down.. big pours at the early end, ie. now..
... and for slab track/concrete sleepers nearer the later end?
I'm not sure the contracts for slab track have yet been awarded.
I believe it's not allowed for high speed railways, as they cause too much flying stone.
It is allowed, HS1 is ballast. However on HS2 they’d end up having to re-ballast very frequently
I seem to recall that for high speeds such as HS2, slab should overall be cheaper as ballast would have to be replaced so frequently with all the associated disruption.
Trouble is that relies on long term thinking (probably not very long term). Someone is going to get a bonus/promotion for coming up with an idea that saves money now even if it costs more in the medium to long run.
if the contract is already let, it may well not save any money to switch from slab track to ballasted track.
ICBW but I think part of the reason HS2 was so expensive was there *has* been long term thinking and penalties were set for maintenance downtime which means it all got priced into the initial build price
This will be the only unnavoidable reason for not trying to cut corners. Except where a pause happens long enough that the contract HAS to be swept aside and replaced - no doubt costing more than just plodding on. But remember things are bad enough right now that contracts will be stopped regardless of common sense. The bean-counters only care about spending less now or nearly now.
Bad idea except in the point of view people supplying the money who, as I said, have no long term view.
I agree it will have upped the price. And the pressure now will be to down the price regardless.
Well there's another issue.
Most likely there will be a breakpoint in the contract.
I guess it is too much to hope that a government that claims to be committed to building infrastructure would actually do that.
Building Infrastructure covers a very wide spectrum and it is only on threads such as this that which applies to railway infrastructure is seen as being the main recipient of such a stated commitment.
Even if they were going to, they wouldn't be saying so at this point. They will wait until after spending reviews are complete
They did not wait until after the spending reviews were completed to ensure that most of the pensioner's winter fuel allowance would have the proverbial axe taken to it, ensuring at least £10 billion was not needed to come out of the available finance.
The "axe" falling for so many on the Winter Fuel Allowance indicates to me how financially tight things are in the UK.
Still, it will be a modern line between the first and second cities of the land.
The worst part is that they do not appear to be planning to utilise it as a shuttle.