So now the government wants to see if the Chinese would be cheaper

[hozza94]

Presumably SNCF don't actually have the in-house capability to build high-speed lines like Chinese state railways have. But Vinci, Effiage, Bouygues are all French and were awarded phase 1 contracts (as joint ventures) a couple or three years ago. Not sure what the status is of those early contract awards is though.



Financial Times suggest a letter from China Railway Construction Corporation was sent to the HS2 chief a month ago.

I am working for one of the design partners of one of the contractor JV. We are moving onto detail design Q2 this year.

 

[MarkyT]

IDK about signalling, but are we likely to adopt Chinese standards for that? the ORR would have a fit.

The Chinese have adopted a new digital signalling paradigm consciously based on ERTMS funnily enough, although a major difference is their retention of coded track circuits for speed control. I suspect that's mainly a backwards compatibility issue for their vast fleets of older trains though. I read a paper on it a long time ago.

 

[Lucan]

So UK law would be thrown in the bin then, and no-one at all would complain about it?

I know a farmer who employs east Europeans as fruit pickers. I'm pretty sure they are not paid legal wages or live in legal accomodation. However, the HS2 is such a high profile project, and will be under such close scrutiny (not least by its opponents), that it would not get away with it.

... working for third world wages, how else do you get your car cleaned so cheaply or your takeaway delivered so cheaply or your amazon purchase delivered for nothing? and all that while we were EU members, and since when has anyone other than builders worried about how much building site workers of any nationality whatsoever get paid?

I clean my own car (if at all), don't have takeaways, have nothing to do with Amazon on principle, do my own building work/repairs (except for a new roof - I drew the line at that), do my own decorating, repair my own cars, unblock my own drains, cut my own hedges (500 yards of them), and cut my own lawn (3/4 of an acre). Unfortunately I am an anachronism; seems that anyone under the age of 40 just phones for a white van man to do anything harder than cutting their fingernails.

 

[Wolfie]

So UK law would be thrown in the bin then, and no-one at all would complain about it?

The H&S thing might be an issue. Most of the rest could probably be got around by them having Chinese contracts of employment etc.

 

[nidave]

There are plenty of foreign workers in this country already working for third world wages, how else do you get your car cleaned so cheaply or your takeaway delivered so cheaply or your amazon purchase delivered for nothing? and all that while we were EU members, and since when has anyone other than builders worried about how much building site workers of any nationality whatsoever get paid?

"accept Chinese standard H&S" do you seriously think that would be allowed?

Just because it happens does not make it legal. BTW amazon have been taken to court but its 3rd party companies who should be also liable.

 

[Bantamzen]

Why is building a high speed railway infrastucture anything special? My understanding is that the track and OHC will be pretty standard (correct me if I'm wrong), and with earthworks and bridges we seem to have no problem doing those for motorways. The route itself has already been "designed". IDK about signalling, but are we likely to adopt Chinese standards for that? the ORR would have a fit. The trains are a different matter, but I doubt that it would be politically acceptable to build them in China, even if they were a Chinese design.

The only thing the Chinese might bring to the party is project management, but that will only work well if they can use the authoritarian approach which is cultural norm in China itself.

Perhaps they can source materials & equipment for less? In the UK we have spent years bemoaning the cost of infrastructure projects, then when someone suggests a possibility of doing it cheaper, we bemoan that too.

 

[ExRes]

Just because it happens does not make it legal. BTW amazon have been taken to court but its 3rd party companies who should be also liable.

I know full well that it's not legal, but it hasn't stopped these things happening in plain sight for years, under both Labour and Conservative governments, and while we've been a member of the EU, as for Amazon, they've been employing people for years through third parties that aren't even legally in this country and pretending they're totally innocent

 

[Grumpy Git]

Funny how successive governments of all colours have done 'nowt to make these big businesses pay their fare share in tax, (I don't get the opportunity to negotiate with HMRC). All the while allowing UK tax havens to exist. Just who do these tax havens benefit apart from those that are already incredibly wealthy?

You actually couldn't make this sort of crap up, no one would believe you.

 

[Class 170101]

Thousands and thousands of them. But it’s not news when projects are done on time or early.

But for specifics of big projects (other than those above):

Reading - a year early
Waterloo rebuild
New St rebuild
Pretty much every major resignalling
London Bridge - 15 minutes early to a schedule that was set 7 years out for a £2billion project

I would dispute Waterloo given that most of the platforms on the final Sunday before it was finished were closed just to ensure that it was finished on time. It wouldn't have been otherwise.

As for the resignalling need I mention Berney Arms has been closed for at least a year due to problems with the signalling - now only ebing resolved after the commissioning of another signalling scheme, Feltham I believe.

 

[Chrisgr31]

Nigel Harris of Rail magazine tweeted about the cost of HS2 recently https://twitter.com/rail/status/1222812020896141314?lang=en According to him one of the biggest reasons for the cost increase is the fact that the contractors are effectively insuring the work at the same time, and taking all the risk of any future issue. The outcome being a huge increase in cost. I guess that the Chinese govt would effectively self insure such a risk and therefore be able to reduce the price substantially

 

[Bald Rick]

Nigel Harris of Rail magazine tweeted about the cost of HS2 recently https://twitter.com/rail/status/1222812020896141314?lang=en According to him one of the biggest reasons for the cost increase is the fact that the contractors are effectively insuring the work at the same time, and taking all the risk of any future issue. The outcome being a huge increase in cost. I guess that the Chinese govt would effectively self insure such a risk and therefore be able to reduce the price substantially

This is mentioned in the Oakervee review.

However, I’m fairly sure that Mr Harris isn’t an expert on insurance. Fortunately I know a man who is (he insured Crossrail, amongst other things) so will ask him what the score is. I’d be surprised if the premium is more than 1% of the job, although every little counts.

 

[HowardGWR]

They usually are. Sometimes I wonder why I bother!

"Didn't know that you did Major"! (line from Basil in Fawlty Towers)