School me on HS2

Wolftone

How is £80bn justified on building the HS2 rail line when there are clearly more pressing issues? Some questions amongst many;

• If it's going to bring that much wealth, why aren't private companies lining up at the door to fund it instead of the Government?
• How will an hour off the travel time of a businessman bring all that wealth?
• If the Government is truly 'green', then why don't they invest in faster, better and technological methods of communication instead of transporting people around the country? Surely they should be reducing travel miles for the future?
• Who will benefit?

My own view is that, in these days of austerity, we need to be addressing the social issues such as the lack of affordable housing and kicking the NHS back into shape.

I worked out that the Government could build 1.6 million houses for the same money. That building scheme would take the heat out of the housing market by increasing availability. It would ultimately lower the cost of living as rent/mortgage costs would be less. It would fire up the flagging construction sector and provide many jobs. It would provide stability for many families which would lead to heightened happiness and better social conditions.

How far off the mark am I?

I'm probably talking crap as a consequence of my crass ignorance, socialist leanings and utopian aspirations. 

Set me right dudes......
 

stickyfiddle

It's a vanity project designed to help politicians from the north get to Whitehall a bit quicker. Nothing more, nothing less. They're saying it'll help connect the north to the south, encouraging businesses to move further north as they'll still be 2 hours from London or whatever. In reality everything will still be London-centric, but the commuter zone will be that bit bigger. 

Complete waste of money.

gilby

Can't argue against much of that tbh. You don't need to do business face to face, if the firm I worked with had strategy meetings with their American owners via Skype why can't Londoners and brummies do the same.
I'm extremely cynical about our current "leaders". I feel there are a lot of individuals going to make themselves very very comfortable in their retirements if this goes ahead.
How about a state owned nuclear power station in Britain rather than a French one? Even if their electricity was no cheaper than the others I'd rather put my money in something that reinvests in Britain.

Roland

There is going to be all kinds of rubbish talked about HS2 as politicians and lobby groups try to influence public thinking. Much will be made of "the money could be better spent elsewhere (ie on MY pet project)", all sides will rubbish each others "facts", and emotive cliches like "businessman" will be used.

The fundamental point behind HS2 is that our current road and rail transport systems are steadily running out of capacity.  Given the lead times on such larger projects we need to start thinking now about what transport we will need in 30 to 50 years time.  If not then our trains will become even more overcrowded, and displaced traffic will gum up the motorways.

Jalapeno

A White Elephant dreamt up by trainset fanatics.

It is going to suck cash in huge quantities from the rest of the network (as it has done in France).

I'm all for better / longer trains, but this is a very expensive way of doing it. Far from opening up the North, it will suck more to the South. It also ignores the appalling GWR, South of London, Wales and Scotland.  It does precisely nothing to alleviate over-crowding on commuter routes - which is a problem TODAY.  Does not link to the airports (with the exception of the Wormwood Scrubs International interchange for a branch line to Heathrow).

A vanity project.

Roland

Wolftone said:

If it's going to bring that much wealth, why aren't private companies lining up at the door to fund it instead of the Government?

No private company can afford to borrow that kind of money.

Wolftone said:

How will an hour off the travel time of a businessman bring all that wealth? 

It's not about saving a few minutes per traveler.  It's about having the passenger and freight links to enable people to make the journey.  In the last hundred years those towns and cities which are not on the current rail network haven't grown as quickly as those which are.

Wolftone said:

If the Government is truly 'green', then why don't they invest in faster, better and technological methods of communication instead of transporting people around the country? Surely they should be reducing travel miles for the future?

 

Would you vote for a government which addressed the transport capacity problem by saying "thou shalt not travel".  How would you get to work, visit your parents, or go on holiday?  I fully support improved communications which allow me to work from home, and have video calls with friends and work colleagues around the world, but I still have to meet people face to face sometimes.

Wolftone said:

• Who will benefit?

Our children and grand children.

Wolftone said:

My own view is that, in these days of austerity, we need to be addressing the social issues such as the lack of affordable housing and kicking the NHS back into shape.

I worked out that the Government could build 1.6 million houses for the same money. That building scheme would take the heat out of the housing market by increasing availability. It would ultimately lower the cost of living as rent/mortgage costs would be less. It would fire up the flagging construction sector and provide many jobs. It would provide stability for many families which would lead to heightened happiness and better social conditions.

That's why it is such a difficult decision, but the alternatives have their own problems.  How do we decide what is the appropriate level of health spending?  Where do we build all those houses, and how do you give them transport access to the rest of the country?

stickyfiddle said:

It's a vanity project designed to help politicians from the north get to Whitehall a bit quicker. Nothing more, nothing less. 

Many of them fly, or work on the train and are happy for the break if provides.

Jalapeno

Roland;69520" said:

It's not about saving a few minutes per traveler.  It's about having the passenger and freight links to enable people to make the journey.

Trouble is there are  no freight provisions, and the costs do not include rolling stock.  The whole capacity argument is a sham - you cannot run more trains per hour with faster trains - they still have to slow down and stop, the safety margins go up !

The old Central England Line is what they should use for freight.

VimFuego

we have a perfect opportunity to really upgrade and improve the rail network. Sadly, we will instead waste that opportunity on a politicians vanity project. hey ho.

Bucket

I live in a part of Buckinghamshire which will be badly affected - IIRC until the route was slightly changed it looked like the village of Little Missenden (only about two or three miles from me) would have a sodding great train line running all the way through it.

Everyone round where I live is up in arms, we all hate it. I can't say my opinion is any different.

Not only is it a pointless vanity project which will cost far too much money for not really enough benefit, it would also be pretty devastating for the area I live in. I'm glad the project is starting to hit difficulties in Parliament, and I hope they decide to scrap it.

ICBM

Roland said:

In the last hundred years those towns and cities which are not on the current rail network haven't grown as quickly as those which are.

Exactly - so the money should be spent on reversing some of the damage Beeching did by not understanding that loss-making feeder lines are necessary to make the profitable parts of the network actually profitable. HS2 links cities which are already linked and hence will not benefit those places which are not on the new network - in fact a study has just been done which suggests that it may actually damage them. (That includes places which HS2 passes through but without access to it - double whammy.)

The Edinburgh to Melrose line is already being rebuilt. More of this needs to be done - it's even relatively cheap compared to building a new railway since most of the large civil engineering is still in place. It's unfortunate that a road has been built along the line south of Melrose so it's prohibitively expensive to take it any further at the moment.

stickyfiddle

Roland said:

The fundamental point behind HS2 is that our current road and rail transport systems are steadily running out of capacity.  Given the lead times on such larger projects we need to start thinking now about what transport we will need in 30 to 50 years time.  If not then our trains will become even more overcrowded, and displaced traffic will gum up the motorways.

Agreed, but HS2 isn't about increasing capacity. There are far better ways to spend £80b on the existing network if that's the goal.

Phil_aka_Pip

Roland said:

Would you vote for a government which addressed the transport capacity problem by saying "thou shalt not travel".  How would you get to work, visit your parents, or go on holiday?  I fully support improved communications which allow me to work from home, and have video calls with friends and work colleagues around the world, but I still have to meet people face to face sometimes.

Yes. I'd say live where you work, and don't expect other people to put up with you travelling past their houses just because you want to live somewhere different to where you work. Applies mainly to rich city boys living out in the sticks and pushing up the house prices so that local workers on low wages can't afford to live there and they leave for the slums in the big towns.

Visiting family/friends, going on holiday = luxuries, not necessities. Same with flying. Your insistence on flying (well, that of a lot of other people as well) denied me a decent night sleep for all of the time I lived near Egham, and it's why I won't live near any airport now.

Travel is not a god-given right. Once upon a time you did it at your own risk and it was your own hassle. You risked the rigours of a stagecoach journey or sailing in a wind-driven ship. Now you expect comfy airport lounges and all conveniences laid on and you don't give a shit about the people whose roofs you fly over, yet they are the ones who suffer because you think your travel should be quick and easy.

/rant

ICBM

As you probably know I'm not a Torygraph reader by inclination, but this is spot on:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/journalists/andrew-gilligan/10406562/HS2-now-Labour-look-at-an-alternative-scheme.html

johnnyurq

@Phil_aka_Pip I couldn't agree more.

The continuing exodus of wealth and jobs to the SE corner of the UK is not a force for good.

Among the many factors for local businesses and firms going to the wall local wealth has disappeared year on year, this cannot be a good thing.

I see it like this those who chase the pound, status and want to live in the SE have to work within the current parameters. people like me who chose to stay in our local area have to accept lower wages and a host of other factors good and bad.

The point I am making is both are a choice and it used to be folks accepted the negatives if they feel either path is best for them, now there is a sense of self entitlement that is to me arrogant and more than a little bit selfish.

The insinuation is we are creating all the wealth so we deserve better or else. This is a microcosm of what is wrong with the UK today at local level, regional level and in the wider world.

Wealth seems to gravitate to one area of the UK and then a fair bit of it is going abroad never to come back, I believe decentralising and devolving the jobs and the wealth around the country and UK PLC owning important utilities for resilience is the only way to reverse this process. But it already seems it is too late.

The Scottish devolved government decentralised a few big organisations like SNH which was the biggest which brought jobs and wealth to ares that needed it badly. Most were semi QUANGO's and under the government auspices, but a few private companies joined in too.

Re HS2 I do not believe it has any larger merit and it is nowhere near me but it is interesting to note a fair few cities/regions around the North of England and in Scotland are judged to be losing economically and some of them in the high £100 millions.

I don't understand the mechanism but this comes from a fair few think tanks and eminent analysts (except maybe MAGS ) and it is of concern.

Undoing a lot of beeching's mistakes as @ICBM and @jalapeno stated would be e far better way, especially for job starved areas like the West Country and further down there, because it has been proven a lot of damage was done there due to these cuts. I am sure there are more areas around the UK similarly affected. We have hindsight for this now and it is hard to deny.

We also have a couple of projects (funded by the community and sympathetic businesses) to re-lay some routes, already some areas are benefitting from this and heritage railways too.

For me it seems like desperation and a knee jerk after many years of successive governments hoping the issues will go away, knee jerk and poorly thought out.

What could possibly go wrong?

Plus our track record on big projects going woefully over budget and horrendously over the allotted time means the chances of it coming in on or under budget is slim to F all.

/rant no2

Fretwired

ICBM said:

As you probably know I'm not a Torygraph reader by inclination, but this is spot on:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/journalists/andrew-gilligan/10406562/HS2-now-Labour-look-at-an-alternative-scheme.html

The only problem with that route [which the government looked at] is that much of the route is now used by ramblers and cyclists. It's estimated it could take 20 years going through the courts as interest groups block progress. It happened where I live when the rail network wanted to build a new viaduct - it was killed off by NIMBY's so when you travel north on the east coast line you often get held up at Digswell viaduct.

The arguments about this are dumb as we need more rail capacity - short haul flights will be banned before long [EU policy] so we need to connect our cities with high speed high capacity railways. I doubt HS2 will get built but this country is fast heading down the toilet through a lack of investment. Our road and rail networks are a joke compared to most of Europe as is much of our infrastructure from power stations to water and gas storage facilities.

I travelled through Europe on a clean high speed train two weeks ago. A zillion times better than anything in the UK. No over crowding, clean carriages very fast punctual service.

You can't get anything built in Britain any more - too many self interest groups.

VimFuego

no one is doubting we need more rail capacity. What people are questioning is whether HS2 will deliver what we actually need.

Fretwired

VimFuego said:

no one is doubting we need more rail capacity. What people are questioning is whether HS2 will deliver what we actually need.

It won't as it will never be built. If the government proposed what we really need the world would end. HS2 is just the usual fudge of governments which prefer to kick the can down the road. It will be too easy to block through the courts anyway so nothing will happen for years.

VimFuego

oddly enough (while I agree with you on the kicking the can) I think it will go ahead. This govt have U turned too much now, I reckon they've really pinned their flag to this one, it'll be too embarrassing for them to back out.

johnnyurq

@Fretwired

Agreed we need upgrades but having ignored the issues for many years we need a proper solution proposed that is for the good of the country and not a wee bit of it.

Given the epic prevarication to date an extra bit of time to debate a fuller and better option would be time and money well spent.

But yes I agree that NIMBY-ism, cronyism, lobbying groups and various other stupid factors have not helped in this, but it is no excuse to throw the baby out with the bath water.

Phil_aka_Pip

I'm in general agreement with @johnnyurq but I do think that Beeching saved rural Suffolk from urbanisation. Undoing his cuts might not give us a better landscape to live in. Decent broadband would help us to ply an on-line/digital trade while them that are good at working the land can still have land to work on, instead of it being dug up for roads, railways, and office blocks. We still need food, and I'm happy to see it still grown here.

ICBM

Fretwired said:

ICBM said:

As you probably know I'm not a Torygraph reader by inclination, but this is spot on:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/journalists/andrew-gilligan/10406562/HS2-now-Labour-look-at-an-alternative-scheme.html

The only problem with that route [which the government looked at] is that much of the route is now used by ramblers and cyclists. It's estimated it could take 20 years going through the courts as interest groups block progress.

How could it possibly take any longer than the same thing over the HS2 route? It's exactly the same problem, just a different set of people. If one is feasible to get done, the other is…

They didn't want to pursue the Great Central route because they want their new high speed vanity project, nothing more. Simply reopening the existing line wouldn't be high speed, and re-engineering it for high speed would have been as expensive as building a new line.

As pointed out in the article if the issue is capacity and not speed, high speed trains are the wrong way to go about it anyway - slower trains can carry more people on a given line than faster ones. The money needs to be spent where it will benefit the largest number of people most quickly and most in the long term, and that's on the conventional rail network. The distances between our cities simply aren't large enough to justify the vast cost for the small advantage of high speed rail.