Why are people opposed to HS2? (And other HS2 discussion)

[hwl]

There's two keep points, rail has already been having an impact on the number of air passengers, with flights between Manchester and London being significantly reduced since the upgrade to the WCML.

The second point is that the cost per seat of HS2 is likely to much reduced compared to existing trains, allowing ticket prices to be lower.

As an example the TOC' costs are broadly 1/3 train leasing, 1/3 staff costs and 1/3 other costs. If we look at the number of coaches needed to run the London to Manchester trains these are a mixture of 9+11 coach trains. Even on 9+9+11 coach trains each hour (however it's likely to be a few more 11 coach trains than this allows for due to the mix of the fleet) where it takes two hours each way with a half turn around at each end (5 hour round trip time) this needs 145 coaches.

Now with HS2 you need more coaches per train to get 400m long trains. If we assume 25m coaches that's 16 coaches. With no journey time savings that would clearly mean that you'd need more coaches to run the same service. However that's not the case with HS2 is it?

London to Manchester will be reduced to 1 hour each way with a half hour turn around at each end that gives us a round trip time of 3 hours, that then requires 144 coaches.

As such you've got a much larger train with many more seats for broadly the same cost as you have currently for the existing trains.

That then means that 1/3 of the costs haven't increased even though the number of seats on a train have doubled (9 coach 390 had 469 seats and a 11 coach 390 had 589 seats, that totals 1,048 Vs the expected 1,100 on a HS2 train).

Now if we look at the staff costs then for drivers they currently take 5 hours to do the round trip, with HS2 that falls to 3 hours, that means that each driver can run more services, this then reduces your staff costs.

Likewise guards and whilst you may wish to have more catering staff due to the size of the trains these would be mostly paid for by sales. As such you're staff costs are going to be lower than they currently are. However again that would be for trains with double the capacity.

If you fill all the seats on the train the HS2 breakeven operating cost per seat will be about £10 for Euston - Manchester, anything above that will help repay infrastructure construction costs.
Faster journey times and more mile per train per day have a big effect on the economics.

Revenue maximisation techniques with ticketing look very different when you have that much capacity!

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Javid has to get behind it. You don't get millions of pounds in donations to fight an election without a nice big contract at the end of it.

This is looks like a pretty serious (albeit vague) allegation of corruption - and if you have any evidence that what you are saying is true, you will of course be going straight to the police with that evidence.

But I'm guessing you actually don't have any evidence, and you're just making this up.

I think you need to think carefully about what you write, because this isn't the first time you've thrown out this kind of allegation on here. If you don't have any evidence, then what you're doing amounts to making up fake news.

 

[HSTEd]

I'm not sure HS2 trains on the Captive system even need catering.

68 minute journey has a hell of a lot less catering demand than a 128 minute journey.

 

[Roast Veg]

Indeed, the captive services (in whatever form they end up taking in the decades to come) will be best served by the many outlets at the start and end stations, and possibly a trolley.

 

[Robertj21a]

This is looks like a pretty serious (albeit vague) allegation of corruption - and if you have any evidence that what you are saying is true, you will of course be going straight to the police with that evidence.

But I'm guessing you actually don't have any evidence, and you're just making this up.

I think you need to think carefully about what you write, because this isn't the first time you've thrown out this kind of allegation on here. If you don't have any evidence, then what you're doing amounts to making up fake news.

Well said.

 

[krus_aragon]

Indeed, the captive services (in whatever form they end up taking in the decades to come) will be best served by the many outlets at the start and end stations, and possibly a trolley.

I broadly agree, though doing that for the classic-compatible journeys probably won't be as practical. If there's still different rolling stock for each type of route, no problem.

 

[CdBrux]

A £60bn budget overrun has an impact. Either that's £60bn not available for something else, a £60bn tax rise, or £60bn quantitative easing.
.

I would say yes and no. Yes on the simple face of it your are right. No in that the additional cost (so far) has become evident at very different stages of the project and with very different spending horizons of a few months vs 2 decades. I don't therefore think you can compare HS2 budget increase with various electrification projects budget overruns. Both though are concerning,

 

[Aictos]

This is looks like a pretty serious (albeit vague) allegation of corruption - and if you have any evidence that what you are saying is true, you will of course be going straight to the police with that evidence.

But I'm guessing you actually don't have any evidence, and you're just making this up.

I think you need to think carefully about what you write, because this isn't the first time you've thrown out this kind of allegation on here. If you don't have any evidence, then what you're doing amounts to making up fake news.

It’s also classed as libel which can result in legal action being brought against the originators of said libel.

 

[6Gman]

I couldn't give a chuff about the shareholders, I want the manufacturing jobs here and any profits taxed in the UK, not some other country, or god forbid a tax haven.

Without the shareholders you have no business. How else do you fund a business?

 

[Freddy2468]

Hi All, I'm new to this thread so please don't troll me.
Whilst I have no objection in principle to HS2, I'd like to know the likely costs of tickets on this system, if the fares are within the reach of normal working class people i.e. those on less than £35Kp/a then fine, go ahead, build using public funds, greener, more efficient travel for all, never a bad thing. If however as I suspect this system is going to prove to be a mode of travel only the wealthy can afford e.g. 'Concord on rails', in other words an elite travel system for the wealthy, overly entitled who think of themselves as an elite class, then the funds to build said system should come from these over privileged individuals and not from public funds, I will not hold my breath waiting for the latter to happen and only time will tell if my suspicions are correct, in that this will become Concord on rails, paid for by those who will not be able to afford to use this system. I end by saying this is only the humble opinion of a small working class man and you may well strongly and adamantly disagree with me, as is your right, but I suspect my later comments will be proved to be accurately prophetic, only time will tell.

 

[jfowkes]

Hi All, I'm new to this thread so please don't troll me.
Whilst I have no objection in principle to HS2, I'd like to know the likely costs of tickets on this system, if the fares are within the reach of normal working class people i.e. those on less than £35Kp/a then fine, go ahead, build using public funds, greener, more efficient travel for all, never a bad thing. If however as I suspect this system is going to prove to be a mode of travel only the wealthy can afford e.g. 'Concord on rails', in other words an elite travel system for the wealthy, overly entitled who think of themselves as an elite class, then the funds to build said system should come from these over privileged individuals and not from public funds, I will not hold my breath waiting for the latter to happen and only time will tell if my suspicions are correct, in that this will become Concord on rails, paid for by those who will not be able to afford to use this system. I end by saying this is only the humble opinion of a small working class man and you may well strongly and adamantly disagree with me, as is your right, but I suspect my later comments will be proved to be accurately prophetic, only time will tell.

Hi Freddy, welcome to the forum!

Rail fares, more or less, follow the rules of supply and demand. At the moment, there is not enough space on the trains for everyone who might want to travel. The response is raising prices, otherwise even more people would want to travel on trains that are already full. This is rather euphemistically called "demand management".

Because HS2 provides so much more capacity (supply), then prices should be low enough to be considered accessible. Let's say 16 trains per hour per direction, 1100 seats per train, that's 17,600 seats per hour per direction. To maximise revenue, the TOC will want to fill those seats so the prices need to be at a level to encourage people to buy them.

Better people than me have done the maths elsewhere on this thread. But as @hwl says a few posts up:

If you fill all the seats on the train the HS2 breakeven operating cost per seat will be about £10 for Euston - Manchester, anything above that will help repay infrastructure construction costs.
Faster journey times and more mile per train per day have a big effect on the economics.

 

[Roast Veg]

I broadly agree, though doing that for the classic-compatible journeys probably won't be as practical. If there's still different rolling stock for each type of route, no problem.

Indeed, the classic compatibles will require much more in the way of catering, since they will serve stations with less provision and over longer journeys.

 

[Ianno87]

Hi All, I'm new to this thread so please don't troll me.
Whilst I have no objection in principle to HS2, I'd like to know the likely costs of tickets on this system, if the fares are within the reach of normal working class people i.e. those on less than £35Kp/a then fine, go ahead, build using public funds, greener, more efficient travel for all, never a bad thing. If however as I suspect this system is going to prove to be a mode of travel only the wealthy can afford e.g. 'Concord on rails', in other words an elite travel system for the wealthy, overly entitled who think of themselves as an elite class, then the funds to build said system should come from these over privileged individuals and not from public funds, I will not hold my breath waiting for the latter to happen and only time will tell if my suspicions are correct, in that this will become Concord on rails, paid for by those who will not be able to afford to use this system. I end by saying this is only the humble opinion of a small working class man and you may well strongly and adamantly disagree with me, as is your right, but I suspect my later comments will be proved to be accurately prophetic, only time will tell.

Put it this way. If we *don't* build HS2 to provide capacity, the only way to manage growing demand on the existing railway will be to repeatedly raise fares significantly above inflation.

Building HS2 avoids the need to have to make that decision.

 

[158756]

If you fill all the seats on the train the HS2 breakeven operating cost per seat will be about £10 for Euston - Manchester, anything above that will help repay infrastructure construction costs.
Faster journey times and more mile per train per day have a big effect on the economics.

Revenue maximisation techniques with ticketing look very different when you have that much capacity!

I understand some of HS2's costs will be lower than existing lines (though against that it'll use more power and have colossal construction costs to repay), but how are they going to be so low as to break even at £10 per seat, bearing in mind the West Coast franchise charges £360 return London-Manchester but is subsidised to the tune of £100m p/a.

Put it this way. If we *don't* build HS2 to provide capacity, the only way to manage growing demand on the existing railway will be to repeatedly raise fares significantly above inflation.

Building HS2 avoids the need to have to make that decision.

Fares have risen above inflation for years already. Much of the population have long since been priced off, hence they have no interest in providing even more funding for a mode of transport primarily used by the comfortably well-off.

 

[Robertj21a]

Put it this way. If we *don't* build HS2 to provide capacity, the only way to manage growing demand on the existing railway will be to repeatedly raise fares significantly above inflation.

Building HS2 avoids the need to have to make that decision.

Is it really the *only* way ?

 

[HowardGWR]

Hi All, I'm new to this thread so please don't troll me.
Whilst I have no objection in principle to HS2, I'd like to know the likely costs of tickets on this system, if the fares are within the reach of normal working class people i.e. those on less than £35Kp/a then fine, go ahead, build using public funds, greener, more efficient travel for all, never a bad thing. If however as I suspect this system is going to prove to be a mode of travel only the wealthy can afford e.g. 'Concord on rails', in other words an elite travel system for the wealthy, overly entitled who think of themselves as an elite class, then the funds to build said system should come from these over privileged individuals and not from public funds, I will not hold my breath waiting for the latter to happen and only time will tell if my suspicions are correct, in that this will become Concord on rails, paid for by those who will not be able to afford to use this system. I end by saying this is only the humble opinion of a small working class man and you may well strongly and adamantly disagree with me, as is your right, but I suspect my later comments will be proved to be accurately prophetic, only time will tell.

Good points. That was indeed the case with Concorde. I suppose we plebs will always be able to take the Pendolino on the classic line, and I suppose that will become slower (due to more stops) but cheaper.

 

[Roast Veg]

Is it really the *only* way ?

No, you could

• Leave passengers behind at stations all day every day and offer some lovely accommodation at every station while they wait
• Stop selling tickets a certain amount of time before the day of travel
• Put on a massive fleet of excess capacity buses
• Invite people to exchange their ticket for a taxi along the M6
• Close the WCML, removing the problem entirely

I think there are many other ways to "manage" the problem, but as far as I can tell ticket increases are the most economically sensible of all the not-HS2 solutions.

 

[Noddy]

I understand some of HS2's costs will be lower than existing lines (though against that it'll use more power and have colossal construction costs to repay), but how are they going to be so low as to break even at £10 per seat, bearing in mind the West Coast franchise charges £360 return London-Manchester but is subsidised to the tune of £100m p/a.



Fares have risen above inflation for years already. Much of the population have long since been priced off, hence they have no interest in providing even more funding for a mode of transport primarily used by the comfortably well-off.

Not sure where you’ve got the £100 million p/a subsidy figure from. As I understand Avanti are paying a premium of 1.6 billion between now and 2026.

 

[hwl]

I understand some of HS2's costs will be lower than existing lines (though against that it'll use more power and have colossal construction costs to repay), but how are they going to be so low as to break even at £10 per seat, bearing in mind the West Coast franchise charges £360 return London-Manchester but is subsidised to the tune of £100m p/a.

Pre booking on particular services you'll pay far less on Avanti (/Virgin as was) 1/10 of what you quote for single is not uncommon.
The subsidy probably doesn't touch London - Manchester services much (think Holyhead, Wolverhampton off peak etc).
The break even cost I quoted is before repaying construction costs with full trains. As others had already pointed out HS2 will have ~125% extra seats per service (2x200m units), similar staff headcount to currently (plenty self service coffee venting machines) and be about 20% more energy efficient at the same speed as pendos, cover 50-75% more miles per day per unit, the cost and revenue opportunities are radically different to currently on a per path basis.

The lower fare limit in reality will be what minimises loses on residual WCML services with higher per seat costs! (which leads to more stopping to increase revenue opportunities and #paths per hour on the WCML)

 

[nlogax]

Is it really the *only* way ?

@Roast Veg has hit the nail on the head. HS2 is the only realistic answer to our capacity problem. I mean..you could remove the need for people to travel up and down the country but I'm not quite sure how..

 

[Neen Sollars]

Hi Freddy, welcome to the forum!

Rail fares, more or less, follow the rules of supply and demand. At the moment, there is not enough space on the trains for everyone who might want to travel. The response is raising prices, otherwise even more people would want to travel on trains that are already full. This is rather euphemistically called "demand management".

Because HS2 provides so much more capacity (supply), then prices should be low enough to be considered accessible. Let's say 16 trains per hour per direction, 1100 seats per train, that's 17,600 seats per hour per direction. To maximise revenue, the TOC will want to fill those seats so the prices need to be at a level to encourage people to buy them.

Better people than me have done the maths elsewhere on this thread. But as @hwl says a few posts up:

Yes, Welcome Freddy, sadly you have be prepared to be trolled if you make anti HS2 statements or are vaguely critical. But thanks jfowkes for posting the potential passenger/capacity numbers. It really is staggering isn`t it 17,600 seats per hour in each direction! They don`t even fill the current trains! Only time will tell regarding % of seats filled on these trains. But you can bet they will not be cheap because the govt will want a return on the 100 or 110 or 120 billions of £££s it is going to spend. I simply cannot see how the govt can fund an HS2 organisation that has been shown and will be shown not to capable of controlling costs. Taxpayers money.

 

[Mogster]

bearing in mind the West Coast franchise charges £360 return London-Manchester

That’s just gouging of business travellers.

 

[class26]

That’s just gouging of business travellers.

Market forces. If no one would pay then the price would come down.

 

[Grumpy Git]

Yes, Welcome Freddy, sadly you have be prepared to be trolled if you make anti HS2 statements or are vaguely critical. But thanks jfowkes for posting the potential passenger/capacity numbers. It really is staggering isn`t it 17,600 seats per hour in each direction! They don`t even fill the current trains! Only time will tell regarding % of seats filled on these trains. But you can bet they will not be cheap because the govt will want a return on the 100 or 110 or 120 billions of £££s it is going to spend. I simply cannot see how the govt can fund an HS2 organisation that has been shown and will be shown not to capable of controlling costs. Taxpayers money.

Hear, hear.

Some people here act as if their favourite child was at risk of instant death should HS2 not go ahead.

It is and will continue to be a massive amount of taxpayer cash. Unfortunately for railway lovers, the majority of the populace couldn't give a toss about the trains. I dont include myself in the latter, but I do question where all the cash is going?

 

[PartyOperator]

Good points. That was indeed the case with Concorde. I suppose we plebs will always be able to take the Pendolino on the classic line, and I suppose that will become slower (due to more stops) but cheaper.

Perhaps, although Pendolinos are not particularly well suited for the job so would hopefully be replaced with a much higher capacity 'commuter' EMU reasonably quickly, or at least a radical interior overhaul. Thameslink's 12-car trains are about as long as an 11-car Pendolino but they can cram in 1000 people standing in addition to the 650-ish seats. That's what you want for journeys like the 35 minutes from Milton Keynes to Euston or the 20 minutes from Coventry to New Street. Running heavy, space-inefficient 125mph tilting trains with kitchens and buffets and first class carriages on the WCML would mean throwing away much of the benefit of HS2.

 

[Robertj21a]

No, you could

• Leave passengers behind at stations all day every day and offer some lovely accommodation at every station while they wait
• Stop selling tickets a certain amount of time before the day of travel
• Put on a massive fleet of excess capacity buses
• Invite people to exchange their ticket for a taxi along the M6
• Close the WCML, removing the problem entirely

I think there are many other ways to "manage" the problem, but as far as I can tell ticket increases are the most economically sensible of all the not-HS2 solutions.

So, nothing at all about identifying *why* people need to travel, what would encourage them to change peak time travel, could employment opportunities be changed so as to help reverse movements etc etc - nothing at all ??

 

[krus_aragon]

Whilst I have no objection in principle to HS2, I'd like to know the likely costs of tickets on this system, if the fares are within the reach of normal working class people

Rail fares, more or less, follow the rules of supply and demand. At the moment, there is not enough space on the trains for everyone who might want to travel. The response is raising prices, otherwise even more people would want to travel on trains that are already full. This is rather euphemistically called "demand management".

Because HS2 provides so much more capacity (supply), then prices should be low enough to be considered accessible. Let's say 16 trains per hour per direction, 1100 seats per train, that's 17,600 seats per hour per direction. To maximise revenue, the TOC will want to fill those seats so the prices need to be at a level to encourage people to buy them.

A converse example is CrossCountry trains: they're operating short (four or five carriage) trains that aren't big enough to carry all the passengers that may want to travel on them. CrossCountry can't make more money by carrying more passengers, so their only solution is to increase ticket prices as much as they can for the busy services, and only offer cheaper* advance tickets on the services that have empty space.

*or "not quite as expensive" tickets

 

[HSTEd]

I understand some of HS2's costs will be lower than existing lines (though against that it'll use more power and have colossal construction costs to repay), but how are they going to be so low as to break even at £10 per seat, bearing in mind the West Coast franchise charges £360 return London-Manchester but is subsidised to the tune of £100m p/a.

Well for one ICWC has horrendously inefficient trains that consume huge amounts of energy because of their enormously heavy tilt bogies, move slowly so have awful productivity in terms of round trips per day and have huge crew complements due to the catering offer.

HS2 will enable trains to make twice as many trips, probably operate with a single crewmember for 1100+ passengers (most of the time), and consume about the same amount of energy despite the greater speed.

Until you bump against infrastructure limitations, adding more seats is actually very cheap in this situation, so the best way to maximise revenue is to drop the price to the point that you trigger enormous uptake in demand.

EDIT:
Avelia Horizon costs €28m or so per set, can carry up to 740 people.
So the capital cost of an extra seat on a trainset is ~€38000.

3hr round trip to Manchester, so can probably manage 1500 round trips in a year.

So even if the train is required to pay off it's capital cost in a year, the capital cost component of an extra seat of capacity is on order of €26.
Energy costs and maintenance will add to that, but still.

Given these trainsets will have lifespans of well over a decade.......

 

[jfowkes]

Good points. That was indeed the case with Concorde. I suppose we plebs will always be able to take the Pendolino on the classic line, and I suppose that will become slower (due to more stops) but cheaper.

Concorde isn't a comparable example. There were 14 Concordes in commercial service, each with ~100 seats. That's an extra 1400 seats, so basically 3 extra 747s. It didn't change the basic economics of flying at all.

For comparision, when Avanti get their new trains they'll will be running 13x5-car and 7x10-car AT300s on the WCML. Let's say 350 seats for the 5-car, 700 for the 10-car. That's 11550 seats total.

HS2 will be running at least 54 1100 seat trains (assuming that they're all full length, not sure about that). That's 59400 extra seats, over five times of what will be running on the current WCML fasts.

 

[Ianno87]

So, nothing at all about identifying *why* people need to travel, what would encourage them to change peak time travel, could employment opportunities be changed so as to help reverse movements etc etc - nothing at all ??

Like it or not, business travel in the UK (and the consequential benefit to the UK economy) is always going to be dominated by folks travelling to London in the morning for a meeting, returning in the afternoon. You can spread demand a tiny bit through pricing, but only so much whilst still having an effective business day and getting home at a reasonable time.