LOL The Irony
On Moderation
And the WCML? Are we just going to keep widening it?
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Why are people opposed to HS2? (And other HS2 discussion)
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The key word there is “believe”.
People believe all sorts of things. There’s someone I know, who usually seems to be a well adjusted individual, that believes no-one should vaccinate their children because God will protect them. (I’m not comparing you to this belief by the way, I’m just using it as an extreme example!)
However it is much better to make decisions based on research, evidence, facts and analysis.
Why not?
LOL The Irony
On Moderation
Hmm yes, let's rebuild every station on the WCML and demolish hundreds of houses. Then let's do it all over again in 50 years time. It would be better to just build a new line and leave room for it's expansion.
Surely not, it must be better to make decisions that give you a nice warm fuzzy emotional feeling inside, at least that is how a lot of people appear to make decisions. If people were primarily influenced by research, evidence, facts and analysis, we would have sorted anthropogenic climate change by now, and the Daily Express and Daily Mail would cease to exist due to lack of sales.
Because you’d have to close it every weekend for years. As happened when it was widened for a 15 mile section between 2004-2008.
Because bitter experience has shown that is a stupid plan.
HS2 will demolish houses, as you well know.
LOL The Irony
On Moderation
But we won't have to go back in 50 years and demolish more.
ChiefPlanner
Established Member
A relatively straightforward job in (mostly) open country too. Camden to (say) Hemel Hempstead would be interesting , I would love to see any practical options for getting through Berkhampstead. (canal and listed Ancient Monument) ....etc etc.....
Aictos
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Could always either divert the canal elsewhere and fill in the existing canal to reuse it for the railway but seriously I too would like to know the answer to the question you posted.
People forget that when the Trent Valley was widen from two tracks to four tracks, it meant no weekend services for a few years and longer journey times as trains were diverted via the West Midlands but they also seem to be blind to the fact that building infrastructure is easier when you don't have other services using it at the same time you're trying to expand it for example:
It's far easier and less disruptive to build a new line (HS2) then it is to expand a existing line (WCML) and work around existing services and for these who say we could expand the WCML instead of building HS2, are they suggesting years of disruption with no weekend services and maybe no night services during the week?
When I last checked, HS2 was going to have at least two ends, and not all of them in London. Unless perhaps Birmingham is considered to be a London suburb these days? Or a connection to London is a disbenefit to a place - oh yes I understand your point now
!It's almost like any WCML online-upgrade would require tunnels along most of it all the way from the Euston throat to the Vale of Aylesbury. That sounds familiar...
There's a difference in order of magnitude though, even with tunnelling new WCML tracks under London and the Chilterns - funnily enough the land along the WCML developed significantly. HS2 goes through mostly-empty countryside between Wendover and Birmingham Interchange. The WCML has several towns and villages built around it between Tring and Birmingham Airport, making new tracks difficult without demolition, or greater cost!
ChiefPlanner
Established Member
Thus indicating that the HS2 route planners had just some idea of finding the optimum route for demolition minimum. Much as Stephenson and Locke etc did in the 19thC - ( I am not expecting someone to come up with the usual "what about the Great Central ?" tosh , or worse - "how about a West Midlands route starting at Snow Hill to Wolverhampton Low Level. (and onto Birkenhead via Wrexham and Chester")
Why should anyone lose their home for the railway?
ForTheLoveOf
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Why should anyone lose their home for a road either? Or, whilst we're at it, for an airport, or some urban redevelopment, or a canal, or....
There are a million and one reasons why, much as it is unpleasant for the person(s) afflicted, it is in the greater public good for someone to have their property compulsorily purchased.
In that case, forget about virtually all the improvements on NPR.
Benefit/cost to society is more important than benefit/cost to any one individual.
It is very difficult to impossible to expand existing infrastructure without the unfortunate side effect of taking someones home or land, so if you were to insist that no-one should suffer such side effects, that effectively means trying to manage with a growing population with the same infrastructure which was built over 100 years ago. Is that really going to be better in terms of the bigger picture than expanding the infrastructure to cope with demand and a tiny fraction of the population having to be rehoused?
Alternatively, you could try and persuade the majority of the population to choose their homes and workplaces to be walking or cycling distance apart, then there wouldn't be so much demand on the roads and rails to require expanding the transport networks as frequently, good luck with that.
quantinghome
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Geezertronic
Established Member
We seem to be having the same discussions we did years ago. I for one would not look forward to years of weekend closures if @PR1Berske had their way and widened the WCML throughout its length. The pain from the last time that occurred is still scarred in the memory, and whilst the build of HS2 will be disruptive (I live 10 minutes from the site of Interchange, and travel to Balsall Common, Coleshill and Water Orton very regularly), it is still massively less disruptive than widening the WCML
It will. But in Leeds or Manchester that translates as a couple of extra two or three car trains. That's not going to drastically change anywhere. Partly that's because there simply isn't the demand for new capacity on anywhere near the scale of London, because the regional economy is in the toilet, permanently.
In London it means massive commuter capacity increases on all three main lines north, and crush-loaded 400m trains arriving at Old Oak every 3-4 minutes in the morning peak. Rebalance the economy it will not. You may of course believe it is the right thing to do anyway - our economic policy, such that it exists, is that regardless of whether HS2 is built or not, anyone who wants a job in the future will somehow have to get to London, so of course demand will increase beyond the capabilities of existing lines.
SideshowBob
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If there isn't to be a high-speed line between Liverpool and Hull, then when the North & South Transpennine and Calder Valley lines have had the kind of money thrown at them that the WCML has in recent times, I'll get back to you with an answer to that.
SideshowBob
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Fair enough. It's a fact that the WCML has had vastly more money spent on it in recent times than either the North & South Transpennine or the Calder Valley lines have. I use the North Transpennine route regularly - it is beset by delays and problems ultimately caused by poor and inadequate infrastructure.
It is also a fact that London is the biggest city in Europe. Its population is larger than that of Scotland (by approx 2m). There are more jobs and opportunities there than anywhere else in the UK. The rail links between London and the provinces are already some of the best and fastest in the UK. The spending per head on public transport in London itself is around 4 times that of Manchester. The London economy is already the biggest in the UK. Why is an already comically expensive high-speed rail link from a regional capital to the national capital needed in addition to the fast rail links that already exist, and how will it help to rebalance regional economies? What evidence is there that these existing rail links have helped the economies of Darlington and Doncaster to develop in a way comparable to London? I'm not saying we should get rid of the existing rail links; I'm saying if we're serious about rebalancing regional economies and improving the transport infrastructure in those areas, let's spend some serious money predominantly in those areas, instead of always prioritising London and connections thereto. Not everyone starting in Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds wants to go to London. Large numbers of them want to go to Leeds, Manchester and Birmingham. But because those places aren't London, they don't seem to matter. I'm not the only one who's tired of it.
Because it would :
1. Be more disruptive
2. Quite possibly be more expensive
3. Result in a lower quality end result
4. Require much more demolition
I live and work about an hour from London and what happens is that something like 10% of people work in London with quite a significant percentage working within a few miles. Those that work locally are able to be in London for 9am for meetings by leaving at about 7:30 (allowing for some tube travel to get to where the meeting is).
In doing this the staff only go to London when needed (more time at home), benefit from cheaper housing and can benefit from a suburban/semi rural area. Whilst the companies benefit from lower staff costs (which the staff are accepting of due to their lower costs) and cheaper rents.
Once HS2 is fully built companies could be located in Manchester and do a similar thing but with the major city advantages (for those that want them) but without the high costs of London.
You often have to bear in mind that there's often several other staff for each person who attends the meetings in London. As such by being located where the cost of the likes of admin and cleaning staff is lower (or even it is possible to get them) can be quite a big advantage.
What is the source for the four times the spend per head in London?
The reason for asking is that if it is the gross amount of government spending that doesn't consider the what the net amount is (i.e. what it looks like once all the income has been generated.
Likewise infrastructure spend is often cited, yet doesn't take into account the levey paid for Crossrail. Likewise it counts all spending on any project where there's some siding by Government, even if this may be very small and mostly it's a private sector scheme. As that means that the amount being paid out of general taxation may well be much more comparable.
DynamicSpirit
Established Member
That may just possibly have something to do with there being vastly more people who use the WCML every day than use the Transpennine or Calder Valley lines.
Several issues in there. Firstly, you seem to be arguing as if the only purpose in building railways is to re-balance the economy. It isn't. We build railways in order to achieve many different outcomes. Balancing the economy better is one useful outcome. Others are to make it easier for people to get to where the jobs are, to get cars off the road, to reduce pollution and congestion, to enable more mobility, etc. etc. And also - importantly - to attract enough new custom to pay for itself. You need to consider how railway investment impacts all of those. I would suspect (without knowing any calculations) that HS2 wouldn't do as much to rebalance the economy as say NPR on its own (if that were possible) would do, but because it frees up so much capacity along very well used and overcrowded routes, will do far more £ for £ for all the other aims.
Secondly, you seem to be implying that there hasn't been much rail investment in the North. Maybe you're unaware of the vast expansion in Manchester Metrolink recently, or of the extensive electrification in the Manchester/Liverpool/Blackpool area. Or of the new train fleets that both Northern and TPE are in the process of introducing. Or of the significant frequency increases that are happening across much of the Northern network (some of them postponed until later this year because of the timetable meltdown last May). Or of the new links that have been/are being built to run services Liverpool-Runcorn-Chester and Manchester-Burnley-Blackburn. Or of the electrification of the Chase line. Or of this little thing called Northern Powerhouse Rail that is being worked on (and which is likely to depend on HS2). Of course, there are good arguments for doing a lot more than that, but making out that places that are not London don't seem to matter for rail investment is just miles away from reality.
Thirdly, you also seem to have missed that HS2 will - once phase 2b is built - enable much faster and more frequent journeys between cities in the North/Midlands. Birmingham-Leeds for example is likely to go from a 2-hour journey to less than 1 hour. Sheffield-Leeds and Manchester-Birmingham are also likely to become much quicker, while the new line into Manchester will take pressure off the overcrowded Manchester-Stockport corridor.
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LNW-GW Joint
Veteran Member
[pedant corner]
It's also not true.
Istanbul (15 million) and Moscow (13 million) are bigger than London's 9 million.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_European_cities_by_population_within_city_limits
[/pedant corner]
SideshowBob
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I'm afraid I don't understand the point you're making here, or how what you're saying relates to the point I was making. Please could you clarify or explain further?
Six and-a-half times. Sorry, my mistake!
(To be fair, this article from 2016 is talking about a projected spend over the following four years and only refers to "The North" rather than Manchester specifically, but I would say that my point is still valid! )https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...chris-grayling-crossrail-london-a7177656.html
The Independent said:
Halfway through that period, and it's already double...
https://www.manchestereveningnews.c...manchester-london-transport-spending-15440344
Manchester Evening News said:
I'm no statistician or mathematician, and no expert on these matters; just a layperson. There will be more scientific analyses available, no doubt, but hopefully these sources serve to illustrate my point. The MEN article does concede that there has been an increase in transport spending in the North. The difference is still appreciable, though.
jagardner1984
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Wouldn’t an interesting way to deal with this to be something like the Barnett formula. I.e. If X Million is spent on improving connectivity to Birmingham, then Y million must be spent in Cornwall. Effectively have a quota of spend per parliamentary constituency ?
I live many miles from the end of Hs2, but can see it’s strategic benefits.
I wonder whether one of the mistakes they’ve made is to focus the arguments in their PR on speed rather than capacity. It’s handed on a plate to those opposing it the argument “Who cares it only gets to Birmingham 20 minutes quicker ?” Rather than saying “At current rate, all full length trains to Birmingham will be full by 2030 (or whenever it is). So where is the next capacity coming from ?” Without huge disruption to most mainlines simultaneously, significant capacity improvements from existing infrastructure seem to be hard to come by. We seem to struggle in 2019 with the concept of full electrification, let alone the mass widenings, platform lengthenings, infrastructure upgrades this would require.
Ultimately, the costs of this are so eye wateringly high because of the failure of successive governments for 30 years to do any strategic development of the network (note I very carefully use the word network, rather than rail services, which I acknowledge have grown hugely). I’m talking about the big decisions European neighbours have taken to grow large scale high speed rail across their countries.
Even if/when this is done, there will be vast swathes of the country not any closer to seeing a train above 125mph in their area, nor any additional capacity.
That’s a fundamental Problem HS2 and the politicians have failed to engage with.
I live many miles from the end of Hs2, but can see it’s strategic benefits.
I wonder whether one of the mistakes they’ve made is to focus the arguments in their PR on speed rather than capacity. It’s handed on a plate to those opposing it the argument “Who cares it only gets to Birmingham 20 minutes quicker ?” Rather than saying “At current rate, all full length trains to Birmingham will be full by 2030 (or whenever it is). So where is the next capacity coming from ?” Without huge disruption to most mainlines simultaneously, significant capacity improvements from existing infrastructure seem to be hard to come by. We seem to struggle in 2019 with the concept of full electrification, let alone the mass widenings, platform lengthenings, infrastructure upgrades this would require.
Ultimately, the costs of this are so eye wateringly high because of the failure of successive governments for 30 years to do any strategic development of the network (note I very carefully use the word network, rather than rail services, which I acknowledge have grown hugely). I’m talking about the big decisions European neighbours have taken to grow large scale high speed rail across their countries.
Even if/when this is done, there will be vast swathes of the country not any closer to seeing a train above 125mph in their area, nor any additional capacity.
That’s a fundamental Problem HS2 and the politicians have failed to engage with.
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