Why is HS2 treated so differently by some Enthusiasts?

[tbtc]

Why is HS2 treated so differently by some Enthusiasts (compared to conventional infrastructure schemes)?

On the recent “NHS or HS2” thread, I’ve seen a few interesting comments about HS2.

• We don’t need it because passenger numbers are reaching their peak (so no additional capacity required to deal with future demand).
  
• We don’t need it because in the future we’ll all be working from home (so nobody will need to commute to work).
  
• We don’t need it because one day we’ll never have to leave the house to shop, we can just create things with 3d printers, so no need to go to a physical shop to buy physical things.
  
• We don’t need it because it doesn’t matter if a businessman can get somewhere half an hour faster (always a man – we need to smash the patriarchy…).
  
• We don’t need it because it doesn’t benefit Yeovil, Sunderland, Dundee and Norwich.
  
• We don’t need it because the new-fangled internet means we can just email each other, we can Skype each other, we never need to meet up with other human beings.
  
• We don’t need it because Government projects can go over-budget or get delayed.
  
• I’ve also seen (on other threads) the point that HS2 isn’t a great idea because it’ll only directly affect a low percentage of overall UK journeys (i.e. the number of people currently travelling from central Manchester and central Birmingham to central London).
  
• There’s even been mention that “we don’t need HS2 because of driverless cars”.

…yet none of these reasons come up when someone suggests increasing capacity on existing routes or re-opening some long-abandoned branchline somewhere else in the UK.

I’m yet to see Skype used as a justification why we shouldn’t improve capacity between Liverpool and Manchester.

I’ve not noticed anyone use 3d printers as a reason why we shouldn’t reinstate some Beeching cut in rural Wales.

Nobody seems to have a problem with the fact that the Borders line didn’t directly benefit the people of Yeovil.

The idea of "businesspeople getting somewhere faster" would be see as A Good Thing on the Forum if that businessperson were shaving a few minutes off their journey due to improved linespeeds in Cornwall or the Highlands.

Driverless cars aren’t cited as a reason not to extend the Uckfield line.

Most people see projects like grade separating junctions or building additional platforms as positive moves even if they only directly affect 1% of the total journeys in the UK.

The fact that the majority of heavy rail infrastructure projects take too much time or too much money isn’t used as a reason not to do other heavy rail schemes (although rail enthusiasts seem to damn the prospects of any more guided busways or tram routes after the experience in Cambridgeshire and Edinburgh – despite both being popular and efficient once actually in operation).

So why does HS2 attract those kind of comments?

Is it because we can perceive the next ten years being broadly similar to the previous ten years, but the minute we hit the 2030s (when HS2 will be properly running) sci-fi becomes real and there are no such thing as rush hours because we’ll all work from home and print off anything we need (and presumably be holidaying on the moon)?

Is it because HS2 doesn’t directly follow an alignment that was closed in the 1960s? I’ve long suspected that it’d be a lot more popular with enthusiasts if only there had been a LTMR (London Toton & Meadowhall Railway) into which Victorian speculators sunk their fortunes, only to be closed under a British Rail “rationalisation”. The same people who go misty-eyed at the idea of one day running direct services from Waterloo to Plymouth via Okehampton (or from St Pancras up the S&C to Glasgow) would be demanding that the Government built HS2 (so we could get one over old Dr Beeching).

Threads demand that we have direct London services for Huddersfield/ Blackpool/ Cleethorpes etc for the prosperity of these places and the unquantifiable economic benefits that a service to the capital will bring, but improving connections from Birmingham/ Manchester etc to London via HS2 is A Bad Thing because it’ll suck jobs out of those cities?

The people who complain that HS2 will make the countryside noisy or cut through farms seem perfectly happy to build other railways through rural Britain (as long as they follow some Victorian alignment).

Any other reason? Is it because HS2 is too big for people to support, and we only like niche projects that have a simpler case? Is it because HS2 wouldn’t be built by Network Rail and people don’t like a project that’s taking place outside of the conventional railway industry? A case of “Not Invented Here” (or “Not Invented By Victorians”)?

Is it because people buy into the argument that these trains (up to four hundred metres long) will only be used by businesspeople, so will be of no use to “regular” passengers since nobody paying for their own tickets will be able to afford HS2? That argument seems to be a popular one (even though HS2 will be operationally simpler/cheaper to run on a “seat by seat” basis – one driver and one guard for a train twice as long as current ones). No other “new” line has tried to recoup sunken infrastructure costs over the first few years – e.g. we didn’t see crazy prices on Airdrie – Bathgate, nobody suggests that the Ordsall Chord needs to recoup all of its infrastructure costs in the first ten years of operation, nobody proposing a line through the Peak District assumes that the costs of doing so would wholly fall on the passengers using it.

Some of the complaints about HS2 I can understand. It’s such a big sum of money that I can appreciate why some people can think of other schemes that it could be spent on instead. It could be better integrated with other existing stations (albeit at a cost). It’s a lot of money. It doesn’t tick every box. In an ideal world we’d see more things in scope (link to HS1 in London, link to the “Bristol” lines at Birmingham etc, though I can understand why they have tried to control the budget by limiting the project creep). Like IEP, HS2 is a “least bad” plan rather than a “perfect” one. I’m well aware of the negatives to this project. I just don’t always understand why people raise complaints about it that never get mentioned in threads about other schemes.

(this isn’t intended to be yet another “HS2 – Good Or Bad” thread – we’ve had plenty of those - I’m interested in why your attitude to HS2 is different to conventional infrastructure projects, or why you feel other people have different attitudes to HS2 so that they bring up obstacles that aren’t raised as objections to conventional infrastructure projects)

 

[quantinghome]

This is an interesting area for discussion - thanks for posting it.

There are probably a number of underlying reasons why there is more negative response to HS2 than other rail schemes, but I think the main issue has to do with English romanticism and (small c) conservatism.

Older railways have long been an accepted and even cherished part of the British landscape (the initial protests against them being long forgotten), and fit into a particular nostalgic or 'romantic' view of nature promulgated by Wordsworth and others. The popular view of the Beeching cuts is part and parcel of this, so if a line is proposed for reopening it is viewed as 'a good thing' as a Restoration Of That Which Was Lost.

 

[najaB]

I think the main issue has to do with English romanticism and (small c) conservatism.

I agree that it is this more than anything. The conservative ethos is increasingly dominating everyday life - I think as an instinctive response to the pace of change in society since WW2. Increasingly people want things to be 'like they used to be' (a common theme in both the Brexit referendum and the recent US election).

Restoring a closed line feels better than building a new one, and you'll notice that several of the anti-HS2 posters on the forum seem to have based their opposition on emotion rather than logic. It would be interesting to find out if there's an correlation between age and attitude towards HS2.

 

[Roast Veg]

If HS2 were marketed as "High Speed Great Central" that might change a few people's minds...

 

[The Ham]

If HS2 were marketed as "High Speed Great Central" that might change a few people's minds...

That or Grand Central 2, linking some of the key points on the original Grand Central, but bypassing the bits that are still in use (like at the London end) and retaining the original thought process of designing it to accommodate European sized trains. The only thing missing is the due plans to have a direct link to the continent.

 

[Camden]

From a perspective of being against HS2:

The short answer is because people know that it is a project based on lines drawn by politicians rather than solutions designers.

Because they remember that it was only adopted as a serious project during an election campaign, subsequently admitted that it was adopted by the introducing party only because they were desperate for ideas, and later kept by another party only because they feared the political fallout from cancelling it (enemy of the north, blah blah blah).

Because blatantly flawed rationales have been concocted around it, and because those rationales change from time to time when they are overly noticed to be bunkum.

Because the project was so utterly predetermined from the outset by politicians that one of our biggest cities was effectively bypassed altogether under a claim now proved to be false that it was uneconomic to connect it, and yet which has railway hardware so old that it recently sent 200 tonnes of it crashing down closing off that entire city's main station, being only lucky that hundreds of people didn't die.

Meanwhile we're told there is no way to add more carriages to commuter trains into London, and so that means HS2 is vital, even if it does nothing to fix the above (and while the electrification of the Midland Mainline looks in jeopardy).

Might be because of that, plus other reasons.

From a perspective of being for HS2:

Trains.

 

[Moonshot]

This is an interesting area for discussion - thanks for posting it.

There are probably a number of underlying reasons why there is more negative response to HS2 than other rail schemes, but I think the main issue has to do with English romanticism and (small c) conservatism.

Older railways have long been an accepted and even cherished part of the British landscape (the initial protests against them being long forgotten), and fit into a particular nostalgic or 'romantic' view of nature promulgated by Wordsworth and others. The popular view of the Beeching cuts is part and parcel of this, so if a line is proposed for reopening it is viewed as 'a good thing' as a Restoration Of That Which Was Lost.

This is so true.

To add to the above , imo the reason that enthusisasts are attracted to the industry is its " quirkiness ". There are still areas of 19th century infrastructure knocking about ( eg semaphore signalling ) being used to run the service in the 21st century. Of course this restrains the capacity needed for todays world - it never ceases to amaze me just how inefficient the network is in some areas. Of course HS2 is a clinical state of the art hightly effiicient design ( no level crossings etc ), and will do exactly what it says on the tin.

If railways per se had not existed until today and a network had suddenly been built overnight, it would look radically different from what it does now.

 

[Trog]

That or Grand Central 2, linking some of the key points on the original Grand Central, but bypassing the bits that are still in use (like at the London end) and retaining the original thought process of designing it to accommodate European sized trains. The only thing missing is the due plans to have a direct link to the continent.

Which happens not to be true.

 

[AndrewE]

[/B]
To add to the above , imo the reason that enthusisasts are attracted to the industry is its " quirkiness ". There are still areas of 19th century infrastructure knocking about ( eg semaphore signalling ) being used to run the service in the 21st century..

and on top of that, the new lines are "airlines on wheels" without even the variety of planes which keep a parallel field of enthusiasts happy! At least HS1 has some freight to relieve the monotony.

 

[The Ham]

Which happens not to be true.

Shhh... don't let facts get in the way of people's perception of what it did.

 

[The Ham]

From a perspective of being against HS2:

The short answer is because people know that it is a project based on lines drawn by politicians rather than solutions designers.

What would be a better solution then? Basically, any other scheme would have to provide something getting on for double the capacity on the WCML, the ECML and the MML to match HS2. it would also need to make the business case for Crossrail 2 better (something else that HS2 does, which then will benefit places like Southampton, Portsmouth, Salisbury, Guildford and Basingstoke as well as stations to the north east of London, possibly including Cambridge). It would also need to improve journey times on the core XC network (HS2 means that travel from Reading to Manchester would be faster at circa 2.5 hours via Old Oak Common and HS2 vs 3.5 hours using the "direct" XC services)

Because they remember that it was only adopted as a serious project during an election campaign, subsequently admitted that it was adopted by the introducing party only because they were desperate for ideas, and later kept by another party only because they feared the political fallout from cancelling it (enemy of the north, blah blah blah).

Very rarely are big projects not political, what does it matter why the politicians are proposing it or even going ahead with it, does it do what we need it to do which is provide extra capacity on our rail network? Does it mean that journey times are shorter? Does it mean that long distance trains on the likes of the WCML and ECML which don't stop at many stations can be replaced with trains that call at more locations making it easier to get to/from the smaller stations on those lines?

Because blatantly flawed rationales have been concocted around it, and because those rationales change from time to time when they are overly noticed to be bunkum.

The business case for HS2 is based on rail growth of 2.5% per year, the average for the years since HS2 was announced is much closer to 5%. Therefore, even allowing for some elements of the business case being based on bad science, chances are by the time it is fully open in 2033 the extra number of passengers that will be using trains will offset those flaws.

Those who cite Rail Package 2 as an alternative forget that there is no scope for extra rail passengers after those works have been done and we end up needing to build a new line anyway, but then on a much busier rail network.

Because the project was so utterly predetermined from the outset by politicians that one of our biggest cities was effectively bypassed altogether under a claim now proved to be false that it was uneconomic to connect it, and yet which has railway hardware so old that it recently sent 200 tonnes of it crashing down closing off that entire city's main station, being only lucky that hundreds of people didn't die.

Liverpool doesn't have a new line in to it but services from there would still be able to make use of HS2 allowing journey times to fall from 128 minutes to 96 minutes. Yes this isn't as good as Manchester which will see journey times fall from the same 128 minutes to 68 minutes, not Preston which would see a fall to 84 minutes (also from 128 minutes). As such Liverpool will still benefit from HS2.

Meanwhile we're told there is no way to add more carriages to commuter trains into London, and so that means HS2 is vital, even if it does nothing to fix the above (and while the electrification of the Midland Mainline looks in jeopardy).

See my point above about Crossrail 2 having a better business case due to HS2, which benefits a lot of London bound commuters to the south west of London and potential a fair few to the north east of London as well.

 

[Jordeh]

Really good thread, enjoyed reading it.

I am also amused by the whole "Skype" and various other internet arguments negating the need for High Speed 2. These were used as arguments in the 1990s, and now we have video conferencing technology and far better internet speeds etc has it dampened demand for train or air travel? Absolutely not, they've both continued to grow alongside the technologies.

The value of person-to-person interaction cannot be underestimated.

 

[Camden]

As such Liverpool will still benefit from HS2

Thanks for the straight off the hymn sheet parroted comment. I really felt your overly long and diffuse post helped support my reading of the blindly loyal support that HS2 can evoke in some:

From a perspective of being for HS2:

Trains.

 

[Moonshot]

One of the things that a lot of enthusiasts also fail to grasp is such terms as " wider economic benefits " , cost benefit ratios " opportunity costs " etc......these are not easy to understand for the average layman. The whole project is spread over a good number of years and control periods, but to what extent it will be a roaring success eventually is anyones guess. For all we know , we could be in a post brexit apocalyptic state 15 years from now.....or could be riding the crest of a wave with every single big business in the world looking to locate here because of the complete lack of corporation tax on profits!!!!!

 

[Geezertronic]

Thanks for the straight off the hymn sheet parroted comment. I really felt your overly long and diffuse post helped support my reading of the blindly loyal support that HS2 can evoke in some:

And on the other side of the coin, some of the anti-HS2 hymn sheet comments which are blindly, naively and incorrectly mentioned a lot of times are as follows:

• White Elephant
• Vanity Line
• For fat cats only
• Why shave 20 minutes off a journey to Birmingham
• NHS not HS2
• No business case
• No environmental case
• No money to pay for it

 

[Snapper]

One of the things that a lot of enthusiasts also fail to grasp is such terms as " wider economic benefits " , cost benefit ratios " opportunity costs " etc......these are not easy to understand for the average layman.

A very valid point. Many on forums like this will see Hs2 as purely a railway line. It isn't. Have a look at the regeneration schemes in cities like Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds that will happen on the back of Hs2. This is far more than just a railway.

 

[yorksrob]

One of the things that a lot of enthusiasts also fail to grasp is such terms as " wider economic benefits " , cost benefit ratios " opportunity costs " etc......these are not easy to understand for the average layman. !!!!!

Oh, many of us enthusiasts are all too aware of "wider economic benefits" which is why we're often so dismayed when our own more modestly costed projects fall by the wayside because no one can be bothered to attempt to cost them.

I'm reminded of the 2008 study into the reopening of Uckfield - Lewes which included a table totting up the various economic costs and benefits. The line for "wider economic benefits" has a zero next to it.

Incidentally, the OP himself has frequently decried the idea of wider economic benefits as being woolly and undefinable on many threads previously, so I wonder out loud what his views are on the purported wider economic benefits of this project are.

From a personal point of view, I use the train for journeys all over the place almost everyday. IC journeys are far and away the most comfortable sector to travel on, so it seems strange to be spending so much money on already good services, rather than the others with inadequate services.

 

[absolutelymilk]

Meanwhile we're told there is no way to add more carriages to commuter trains into London, and so that means HS2 is vital, even if it does nothing to fix the above (and while the electrification of the Midland Mainline looks in jeopardy).

Are you implying that there is an easy way to get more than 12 carriage trains out of Euston?

 

[Bald Rick]

From a perspective of being against HS2:

The short answer is because people know that it is a project based on lines drawn by politicians ....

I must have dreamt of drawing the lines on the map back in 2005 then.

(Ps, I'm not a politician).

 

[Voglitz]

Are you implying that there is an easy way to get more than 12 carriage trains out of Euston?

Depends on what "easy way" means. Getting "more than 12 carriage trains out of Euston" is a daily occurrence.

 

[absolutelymilk]

Depends on what "easy way" means. Getting "more than 12 carriage trains out of Euston" is a daily occurrence.

You said

Meanwhile we're told there is no way to add more carriages to commuter trains into London

I read this as implying that you think we don't need HS2 as we could add more carriages to commuter trains. Could you explain how you think this would be done? From what I understand, adding further carriages would foul junctions and require platform extensions.

 

[Bald Rick]

Depends on what "easy way" means. Getting "more than 12 carriage trains out of Euston" is a daily occurrence.

Four times daily to be precise. From 2 of the 3 platforms that can take them.

 

[Camden]

I must have dreamt of drawing the lines on the map back in 2005 then.

(Ps, I'm not a politician).

Well if you're confessing to being the person responsible for the "choices" made in where to build to and not to build to, then there are a number of people in Liverpool who would very much like to ask you a lot of questions.

Perhaps I could put you in touch?

 

[Altfish]

And on the other side of the coin, some of the anti-HS2 hymn sheet comments which are blindly, naively and incorrectly mentioned a lot of times are as follows:

• White Elephant
• Vanity Line
• For fat cats only
• Why shave 20 minutes off a journey to Birmingham
• NHS not HS2
• No business case
• No environmental case
• No money to pay for it

Welcome to the 19th century

 

[Voglitz]

You said

Meanwhile we're told there is no way to add more carriages to commuter trains into London

Where did I say that?

If that's true, someone should tell the people doing the Waterloo and South West Upgrade that "there is no way to add more carriages to commuter trains into London".

 

[The Ham]

Where did I say that?

If that's true, someone should tell the people doing the Waterloo and South West Upgrade that "there is no way to add more carriages to commuter trains into London".

Yet those works are only really to get the railway to where it should have been a few years back, in the next decade the will need to be a whole lot more done, probably with an announcement on Crossrail 2 and/or a whole load of other works (Woking Junction, Basingstoke Junction, more platforms at Guildford, Southern Approach to Heathrow, etc.). I wouldn't be surprised if by 2033 if improvements that benefit the SWML add up to £18bn, but with a whole lot less capacity than if a new twin track railway had been built (which could have also benefited the GWML in terms of capacity as well).

HS2 could reduce (when paired with the Southern Approach to Heathrow) the need for people to travel through the central London termini in that it would be quicker to catch a stopping service to Paddington via Heathrow from Guildford and change at Old Oak Common to head to Birmingham and beyond than it would be to change at Reading for a XC service. It would also be much faster than going to Waterloo fighting across London and getting a train back out other side.

To give you an idea of how much faster it would be a journey from Guildford to Nuneaton takes about 3 hours, to do so with HS2 in place would take broadly the same (but probably a little less with good connections) if you went via HS2 and doubled back.

With the Western Approach to Heathrow resulting in a similar switch for passengers who can change at Basingstoke for services to Old Oak Common (from Basingstoke to Birmingham would be a close race going via HS2 compared with using XC).

If you can draw a few percent or more off of the trains heading into Waterloo then it means that there is more capacity for those that have to go that way. However, a few percent less passengers through a station that has about 100 million passengers is going to be the same as adding at least 4 extra full length trains a day (1 million passengers switch) but could be the same as adding 1 extra full length train an hour during the busiest twelve hours (3 million passengers). That may not sound much, but given what it would cost to add just one extra path an hour into Waterloo, it will all help.

I for one would see that as HS2 benefiting the South East by releasing capacity into London. Using the above, it could well be that passengers from Yeovil could see a benefit (even if they are only going to London) from HS2 being built.

It's when you start looking at the changes to journey times like those that you start to realise that HS2 will benefit far more people than just those going between stations served by HS2, in fact it could benefit people (just purely in journey time savings) travelling from stations no where near HS2 going to stations being bypassed by HS2.

 

[The Planner]

Well if you're confessing to being the person responsible for the "choices" made in where to build to and not to build to, then there are a number of people in Liverpool who would very much like to ask you a lot of questions.

Perhaps I could put you in touch?

So Liverpool is not getting a quicker or improved service out of HS2? They get 1tph currently which doubles with HS2.

 

[Ianno87]

So Liverpool is not getting a quicker or improved service out of HS2? They get 1tph currently which doubles with HS2.

Exactly, a key consideration for the choice of route for HS2 would have been where connections could be provided onto the existing network to provide through services to places like Liverpool, recognising that the size of their markets warrants provision of HS2 services. So Liverpool is far, far from having been ignored.

I don't get why some people seem to struggle with the concept of HS2 services running through onto the existing network - it is still viewed by some as a self-contained London-Birmingham-Manchester/Leeds railway. People also sometimes don't seem to grasp how fast HS2 services will be and the step change in journey times that will be offered to places on and off the route - in some heads all that's being done is sticking existing Pendolinos along a new line into Euston.

 

[D365]

Where did I say that?

If that's true, someone should tell the people doing the Waterloo and South West Upgrade that "there is no way to add more carriages to commuter trains into London".

Are they 'adding' more than twelve carriages to their trains?

 

[47802]

I think the idea of some enthusiasts or restoring old lines is basically to restore it something like a preserved rail line but used on a regular basis, I guess the restored Waverley was something of a disappointment for many in that respect

In my view many parts of the railways are still in the dark ages and a bit of a joke and if they are to become a much more important part of the transport system in this country they need massive transformation not only with HS2 but also the non HS2 network.

My own view of HS2 is it should have been built 30 years ago but I think there are still strong enough arguments to build it today, but I do think HS2 need to work more on showing some of the other benefits to HS2 not just the improved journey time on the HS2 route.

The comment about driverless cars is interesting, its not going to help congestion in cities or many of the motorway routes only make it worse, but it could make some bus and rail routes redundant in more rural areas.