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

[Grimsby town]

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.

I doubt the government will want a return on money spent. HS2 should roughly pay for itself through improved tax revenues, increased productivity and economic growth. Debt is recorded in terms of GDP so if HS2 improves growth then debt will be paid off this way.

As far the price of a ticket, it is likely that prices will be similar to now as others have said. A lot of rail operators revenue maximise currently. This means that people who's demand is elastic get lower prices than passengers with inelastic demand. Elastic demand means that a small change in price is likely to reduce the likelyhood of travelling a significant amount. Examples include leisure and people who have easy access to other modes. Inelastic demand means that the travellers can't avoid travelling by train. This mainly business travellers travelling from city centre to city centre at short notice.

This pricing system is unlikely to change so prices will be similar but the significant increase in capacity is likely to mean that there are more cheap advanced tickets available and for longer periods e.g. up to a couple of days before. Flexible and on the day travel is likely to remain expensive as it makes sense to use the inelastic demand to subsidise the cheaper fares / make money.

 

[Neen Sollars]

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

There is another simple solution. Don`t run four or five carriage trains. Run 6 or 7 or 8 carriage trains. I think we all know that all stations XC call at will hold these longer trains. If the govt wants to make a sensible investment in railways - buy more coaches!

 

[Ianno87]

There is another simple solution. Don`t run four or five carriage trains. Run 6 or 7 or 8 carriage trains. I think we all know that all stations XC call at will hold these longer trains. If the govt wants to make a sensible investment in railways - buy more coaches!

But XC have got to cover the cost of carting those extra carriages up and down the country all day long, to solve crowding that is fairly localised around Bristol, Birmingham, Derby etc, by people using cheap tickets on relatively local journeys.

 

[HSTEd]

Remember there is also the political imperative that the line be successful and be seen to be successful.

Full trains on the ultra expensive new route make good news for the government.

 

[krus_aragon]

There is another simple solution. Don`t run four or five carriage trains. Run 6 or 7 or 8 carriage trains. I think we all know that all stations XC call at will hold these longer trains. If the govt wants to make a sensible investment in railways - buy more coaches!

Very true, but that isn't a route the current franchisee can take unilaterally, hence their reliance on yield management.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

There is another simple solution. Don`t run four or five carriage trains. Run 6 or 7 or 8 carriage trains. I think we all know that all stations XC call at will hold these longer trains. If the govt wants to make a sensible investment in railways - buy more coaches!

I totally agree that XC ought to have longer trains with more seats. But that really has very little to do with HS2. Providing twice as many seats between Birmingham and Bristol will do precisely nothing to help capacity (and speed) between London and Birmingham/the NorthWest - which is what HS2 phases 1 and 2A primarily address.

More XC seats would also help capacity between Birmingham and Manchester, but not by nearly as much as HS2 will - and by themselves, more XC seats does nothing to solve the ridiculously slow journey times between Birmingham and Manchester - which HS2 solves nicely!

 

[Mogster]

......

 

[HSTEd]

I've gotta imagine that after this mess NPR/HS3 is rapidly retooling proposals to put as much as possible in tunnels.

I think this will be the last surface railway line or major road ever built in Britain.

 

[HowardGWR]

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.

That wasn't the point he was making. He was making the point about social justice. I agree one would expect that with so much capacity being provided by HS2, the price per seat should be lower than the WCML current prices. We'll see.

 

[JonathanH]

I've gotta imagine that after this mess NPR/HS3 is rapidly retooling proposals to put as much as possible in tunnels.

I think this will be the last surface railway line or major road ever built in Britain.

Is all of the UK land mass suitable for tunnelling? Surely there are some parts of the country where a tunnel is geologically impossible to construct. (However, on the point about NPR / HS3, the Pennines wouldn't be one of those places.)

 

[Mogster]

Is all of the UK land mass suitable for tunnelling? Surely there are some parts of the country where a tunnel is geologically impossible to construct. (However, on the point about NPR / HS3, the Pennines wouldn't be one of those places.)

You can build a tunnel through almost any sort of substrate. Soft you push a shield into the earth and line the tube to hold the earth up. Hard rock you move forward blasting in sections.

 

[HSTEd]

Is all of the UK land mass suitable for tunnelling? Surely there are some parts of the country where a tunnel is geologically impossible to construct. (However, on the point about NPR / HS3, the Pennines wouldn't be one of those places.)

That depends on how much money you have and time you are willing to take.
For example you can grout soil to make it stronger to make it easier to tunnel in.

But given the massive backlash over building anything on the surface, its almost certainly going to be the path of least resistance not to ever do it again.

We will probably end up with tunnels throughout and semi submerged station "boxes" with minimum footprint, with the concourse and possibly parking directly over the platforms.

 

[6Gman]

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.

The difference to Concorde is that the plane had a very small capacity and high running costs and therefore had to be a premium product.

HS2 trains will have a huge capacity (arguably excessive) and moderate running costs and there is therefore no requirement for them to charge a large premium.

There may be a modest premium along the lines of the HS1 services to Kent. From my experience of HS1 it's certainly not restricted to "over privileged individuals".

 

[miami]

Only legitimate complaints I've heard in Cheshire involve
1) Spoil from Crewe planned on being driven up a single carriageway A road through a bunch of villages rather than up the M6/M56 or on rail (why not on rail?)
2) Concerns about the details of rerouting roads (how much disruption and for how long)

These are the sorts of things that I have full sympathy with. If the campaign is "mittigate HS2 to minimise local effects" things would be far better.

Still some local grumbles about "we should improve services through Stockport to Manchester rather than building HS2". Sigh.

 

[6Gman]

Yes, Welcome Freddy, sadly you have be prepared to be trolled if you make anti HS2 statements or are vaguely critical.

I don't see any trolling of Freddy - just people responding to his questions and explaining some of the issues involved.

 

[Freddy2468]

Thanks all for your input to my comment, you've all given me lots of points to research, perhaps you're right perhaps you're wrong, as I said only time will tell if this system will prove to be an affordable worthwhile effort, we could always pick this up in a few years time if or when it's up and running, statistics are statistics however and maybe a cautionary reminder from the past is relevant, I'll not insult you by quoting, lastly opinions, especially informed opinions are never wrong, don't be afraid to voice yours, for without difference of same how can we have reasonable debate.

 

[HSTEd]

I wouldn't be suprised if the total capital-investment cost for a new seat of capacity on HS2 is less than the marginal cost of keeping the pendos going as they are

They don't really carry many people.

 

[158756]

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.

Clearly HS2 will offer more capacity than the existing WCML fast service, but 54 HS2 trains vs Avanti's new trains is not a good comparison because Avanti will also still have the Pendolinos.

Is 54 the number of trains HS2 will need based on the original 18tph or the lower capacity it now appears HS2 will actually have?

 

[Tetchytyke]

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

Not if it's true.

And it is. Robert McAlpine Ltd, for instance, are long-standing Tory donors and have hoovered up plenty of HS2 contracts.

 

[Freddy2468]

Thank you HowardGWR, it is a social issue, as I stated I'm not, in principle, opposed to HS2, I do however have concerns over who will foot the bill and it's possible usage, and I'm sorry but in my opinion the argument of supply and demand, stated earlier, as a reason for the high pricing of tickets is, at best, spurious in my opinion, especially when parliament are extremely open about wanting people out of cars and onto public transport, again another idea I support in principle, however the solid evidence is abundant that a decent, efficient and affordable nationwide, and for the majority local, system does not exist at this time (there may be some localised exceptions) and probably will not exist for decades because that same parliament seems extremely reticent to invest in same at the local level for one, I'm based in south Manchester where frankly public transport is a joke and I'm sure those of you who know the area will to some extent agree, there is no alternative for those who work somewhere between the core hours of 7:30am and 6:30pm, other than to sit in rush hour traffic unless they extend their working day by about 2 hours either way, (not an option for families with young or school aged children) when the roads are usually clearer, yes I know there are arguments for pedal power but in Manchester? in my opinion, almost a suicidal endeavour, nor does it address the public transport issues/deficiencies, call them what you will.
I know that to some extent I've answered some of my own points in this comment, this cannot be helped when attempting to put across a reasonable position and I look forward to reading your replies.

 

[Ianno87]

Not if it's true.

And it is. Robert McAlpine Ltd, for instance, are long-standing Tory donors and have hoovered up plenty of HS2 contracts.

"Major construction firm sometimes wins construction contracts". What a headline.

 

[The Planner]

Not if it's true.

And it is. Robert McAlpine Ltd, for instance, are long-standing Tory donors and have hoovered up plenty of HS2 contracts.

Has he? I can only see one which is a joint venture with Bouygues Volker Fitzpatrick for the Colne Valley viaduct and Chiltern tunnels. That comes to less than 10% of the total let so far.

 

[Mogster]

It really is quite a stretch to cast HS2 as a Tory plot to line the pockets of their rich friends... The HS2 project was started under the last Labour government, support has always been stronger on the left than the right.

Labour pledged to build HS2 in full and carry on to Scotland at the last election...

 

[hooverboy]

But XC have got to cover the cost of carting those extra carriages up and down the country all day long, to solve crowding that is fairly localised around Bristol, Birmingham, Derby etc, by people using cheap tickets on relatively local journeys.

indeed,so some form of doubling up through the existing core seems to make sense.More sense in fact than running a longer consist.
2*4 car through the heart of the country is deperately needed.4 or 5 car as a single entity is terrible if you've ever tried to board these at coventry/new street/derby/sheffield.it's nowhere near sufficient.

split the trains at the peripharies(ie bristol,manchester,leeds) to "improve service", more routes and so on.

that way you aren't carting around too much fresh air,and the real revenue generating part of the route has sufficient capacity to keep people happy due to much less overcrowding

 

[The Ham]

Clearly HS2 will offer more capacity than the existing WCML fast service, but 54 HS2 trains vs Avanti's new trains is not a good comparison because Avanti will also still have the Pendolinos.

Is 54 the number of trains HS2 will need based on the original 18tph or the lower capacity it now appears HS2 will actually have?

22*9 coach trains and 35*11 coach trains provide 31,000 seats Vs the 54,000 seats.

However as I've pointed out before each seat will be able to be used more.

Take the example of the Manchester services, over the course of a day (say 15 hours as it makes the maths easier) there's currently 23,805 seats in each direction, however to provide that you need 7,935 seats.

In the future that rises to 49,500 seats in each direction, however you only need 9,900 seats to provide that capacity.

As such you more than double capacity but only need 25% more seats.

I would guess the the reason that the existing class 390's weren't included was because the poster was showing the level of capacity increase a few extra trains would provide (23 units, so hardly an insignificant number of trains).

 

[Ianno87]

indeed,so some form of doubling up through the existing core seems to make sense.More sense in fact than running a longer consist.
2*4 car through the heart of the country is deperately needed.4 or 5 car as a single entity is terrible if you've ever tried to board these at coventry/new street/derby/sheffield.it's nowhere near sufficient.

split the trains at the peripharies(ie bristol,manchester,leeds) to "improve service", more routes and so on.

that way you aren't carting around too much fresh air,and the real revenue generating part of the route has sufficient capacity to keep people happy due to much less overcrowding

Yes, XC would fulfill its core role much better if it left the majority of the network beyond Exeter / York etc to GWR / LNER etc and focused capacity and frequency in the core and provide a better service overall for the majority of its passengers.

 

[6Gman]

Not if it's true.

And it is. Robert McAlpine Ltd, for instance, are long-standing Tory donors and have hoovered up plenty of HS2 contracts.

Doesn't mean it's improper.

 

[The Ham]

indeed,so some form of doubling up through the existing core seems to make sense.More sense in fact than running a longer consist.
2*4 car through the heart of the country is deperately needed.4 or 5 car as a single entity is terrible if you've ever tried to board these at coventry/new street/derby/sheffield.it's nowhere near sufficient.

split the trains at the peripharies(ie bristol,manchester,leeds) to "improve service", more routes and so on.

that way you aren't carting around too much fresh air,and the real revenue generating part of the route has sufficient capacity to keep people happy due to much less overcrowding

I would guess you'd struggle to find many who wouldn't agree with you.

 

[TrafficEng]

Hi All, I'm new to this thread so please don't troll me.

Never be afraid to ask a question. There are no stupid questions, only stupid answers.

...'Concord on rails'...

You've actually picked a very apposite example there.

Concorde was a political project pretending to be an engineering project. Don't get me wrong, the engineering achievement of Concorde was phenomenal.

However, it was conceived at a time when the world was changing and the promoters firmly believed that the future would be about people travelling faster. But a change in the demand for travel and concerns over the environmental impact meant the requirement was changing. Commercial success required big slow aircraft to move people long distances en-masse, and lots of smaller aircraft to move the masses over much shorter distances. The future was in fact going to be about capacity and efficiency.

However the French and British Governments had committed to the project and stubbornly continued with it even when it was obvious that it was a very clever technical solution looking for a problem to solve.

The reason Concorde ended up being the preserve of the rich was because having spent eye-watering sums developing it, the governments couldn't scrap it. So it became a luxury (and expensive) alternative to slumming it on other parts of that particular transport mode.

One of the problems we have is governments never learn from the mistakes of previous governments.

 

[hooverboy]

Never be afraid to ask a question. There are no stupid questions, only stupid answers.



You've actually picked a very apposite example there.

Concorde was a political project pretending to be an engineering project. Don't get me wrong, the engineering achievement of Concorde was phenomenal.

However, it was conceived at a time when the world was changing and the promoters firmly believed that the future would be about people travelling faster. But a change in the demand for travel and concerns over the environmental impact meant the requirement was changing. Commercial success required big slow aircraft to move people long distances en-masse, and lots of smaller aircraft to move the masses over much shorter distances. The future was in fact going to be about capacity and efficiency.

However the French and British Governments had committed to the project and stubbornly continued with it even when it was obvious that it was a very clever technical solution looking for a problem to solve.

The reason Concorde ended up being the preserve of the rich was because having spent eye-watering sums developing it, the governments couldn't scrap it. So it became a luxury (and expensive) alternative to slumming it on other parts of that particular transport mode.

One of the problems we have is governments never learn from the mistakes of previous governments.

interesting take, but I have a feeling that mantra is a fashion that has changed somewhat.
The cost/efficiency argument is still there for sure, but if capacity was still an issue the A380 would have beaten the 747 hands down.it is a commercial flop though.

speed is definitely back in fashion now.Connectivity is also a big deal(aka time is money).
The ability to go further without stopping(within bounds of human fatigue) is also key these days.

I think perhaps the same is true with rail v car.
the car is slower,but enables you to go from point a to point b directly.
The train you are dependent on timetables and linking with follow on means of transport at each end,which eats into the overall journey time.

HS2 i see as being the battle for short distance travel between rail and flight.
Rail potentially has the edge if done right.Via land,