What do you think of HS2 only going to Birmingham

I feel sorry for all those people who have had their lives on hold for a decade or more with shall we shan't we planning. Imagine not knowing if your house was going to be repossessed then it is, then it's not! The fact the HS2 service has stopped at Birmingham is no surprise.

It is still the eternal problem of not enough tax revenue (public money) to service basic public services to keep pace with replacement of worn out infrastructure. All available money gets shifted around like a merry go round. We have also had huge revenue payouts for covid and energy price rises.

Every Govt of the day operates short term, not longer term planning - There is a list of perpetual priority such as paying housing benefit, paying pensions, paying universal credit, aero concrete replacement, public service wages etc etc - If no one works there is no money for anyone, not the NHS, not the Police, not the armed services, not the refuse collectors.

Finally when the money runs out guess what is left at the bottom of the pile? Road repairs, gas mains replacement, sewage infrastructure replacement, t etc etc

I expect the money saved from not pouring continual shed loads of money into the bottomless pit of grandiose pie in the sky projects such as HS2 will now go to repairing the low life expectancy of aero concrete (yet another short term cheap fix) Short term cheap fixes come back to bite us (as in other countries) We lurch from crisis to crisis.

Reply 2

The absurdity is that critics of HS2 pointed out when it was first proposed that there was a weak economic case for HS2 and the money would be better spent improving decrepit rail infrastructure in Northern England.

It has only taken a decade and billions spent on waste for conservatives to recognise this reality.

Reply 3

Rakas21

21

Original post by harrybrown101

I personally think if the money is going to be used to improve roads, bus services and other rail infrastructure, then it is a good idea but the trouble is can you trust the current government to deliver.

I was supportive of HS2 because of phase 2b which would have connected Leeds-Sheffield-Nottingham-Birmingham so i would have used it. Since that was abolished in 2021 i continued to support HS2 but less so since it won't directly benefit me.

I do think there are a few flaws in its design though..

1) The Y route adds needless cost. Personally, I would have gone straight from London to Leeds (ideally Newcastle or Edinburgh actually and actually i'd have started in Southhampton as largest city in Hampshire) and then simply spurred off like centimetre lines going up a ruler to Birmingham and again from Sheffield to Manchester and Liverpool (the spur back being Manchester-Leeds) as a more or less straight line route could go through Nottingham and Sheffield anyway. You would require less track. There are also stupid choices like removing its connection to HS1 or having two London stations (you should connect Old Oak Common to Stratford directly and bin Euston).

2) One of the reasons for the additional cost vs comparable European projects is accounting. French and Spanish and German projects for example seperate the railway line itself from the stations which are considered local projects. This means that instead of accounting for ~£20bn in stations as things stand, the government would simply deduct money from future local government budget increases, making the comparison with other nations like for like and making the media impact more paletable.

3) Length. In a bid to sound grandeos both the Brown and Cameron budgets developed a full project plan (ambitious, yes) when the reality is that such projects take longer to fufil than the government is in power. HS2 should have been a single phase be that London-Birmingham or London-Manchester via Birmingham (or as said, ideally Southhampton-London-Edinburgh). It should then be for future governments to propose the extensions such as the link from Old Oak Common to Stratford, from Birmingham to Notthingham or Birmingham to Bristol/Cardiff/Swansea. You can still have an eventual large project but with the hippies and nimby's delaying the start of construction until 2017 (8 years after the initial proposal - decades and counting for Heathrow), you need to ask yourself how to make the project sustainable in our political environment.

In short, i would like to see it come back but probably much more peicemeal. Propose a 220mph connection from Southampton to London via Reading and Heathrow, a Swansea-Cardiff-Bristol (future projects can send Bristol-Birmingham) or likewise Liverpool-Manchester-Leeds/Sheffield.

Reply 4

Saracen's Fez

Volunteer Section Leader

The issue with the discussion around HS2 (and politicians are also to blame here) is that it's focused entirely on speed improvements and not capacity improvements. Fundamentally it might be nice to travel around a bit quicker, but for plenty of people it's hardly a dealbreaker if journey times don't reduce, hence the HS2 scepticism we see, including in this thread.

What it needs to be seen as is as a West Coast relief line, because the existing Mainline is running at capacity: there are only so many trains an hour that you can run along the tracks, and there's no space to add any more. So the real benefit of HS2 is increased frequency rather than quicker journeys. By reverting to the existing WCML after Birmingham, the issue of line overcrowding isn't solved and the service improvements (for both long-distance services and local services out of Euston) can't be provided.

I do wonder if it had been sold initially as a relief line, we'd be building the whole thing but reducing it to existing (125mph) line speed. That's still an embarassment (what must Chinese politicians be thinking next time they meet UK ones?!) but at least it would solve the problem.

(Incidentally I saw – only on Twitter but this would seem to follow – that HS2 trains will actually run slower on the WCML than the existing Pendolinos (110mph rather than 125) because they won't have the tilting capacity to reach that speed with the bends on the line! :rolleyes:

)

Reply 5

Rakas21

21

Original post by Saracen's Fez

The issue with the discussion around HS2 (and politicians are also to blame here) is that it's focused entirely on speed improvements and not capacity improvements. Fundamentally it might be nice to travel around a bit quicker, but for plenty of people it's hardly a dealbreaker if journey times don't reduce, hence the HS2 scepticism we see, including in this thread.

What it needs to be seen as is as a West Coast relief line, because the existing Mainline is running at capacity: there are only so many trains an hour that you can run along the tracks, and there's no space to add any more. So the real benefit of HS2 is increased frequency rather than quicker journeys. By reverting to the existing WCML after Birmingham, the issue of line overcrowding isn't solved and the service improvements (for both long-distance services and local services out of Euston) can't be provided.

I do wonder if it had been sold initially as a relief line, we'd be building the whole thing but reducing it to existing (125mph) line speed. That's still an embarassment (what must Chinese politicians be thinking next time they meet UK ones?!) but at least it would solve the problem.

(Incidentally I saw – only on Twitter but this would seem to follow – that HS2 trains will actually run slower on the WCML than the existing Pendolinos (110mph rather than 125) because they won't have the tilting capacity to reach that speed with the bends on the line! :rolleyes:

)

Amusingly it's a little worse because the entire country is getting signal upgrades to increase maximum speed to 140mph.

Unfortunately, we lack a long term rail strategy. We actually have parts of the Cross Country line (Bristol-Birmingham-Sheffield-Leeds-York) that are not even maximum speed. All our mainlines run over things like level crossings and slow down (granted HS2 would have basically replaced this for 2b north of Birmingham).

We really need to decide what we want from the railways and whether we want to repair or replace as a general strategy.

Reply 6

Hilarious that some of the projects cited as alternative infrastructure projects as now not happening because they are merely “illustrative”.

I take it the Conservative commitments to fiscal responsibility, low taxes, low immigration, etc. are also illustrative.

Anyone wish to explain why they still support this party?

Reply 7

Muttly

Original post by Gazpacho.

Hilarious that some of the projects cited as alternative infrastructure projects as now not happening because they are merely “illustrative”.

I take it the Conservative commitments to fiscal responsibility, low taxes, low immigration, etc. are also illustrative.

Anyone wish to explain why they still support this party?

I don't particularly support any party - but please tell me where all the money comes from in a bankrupt UK to fund this badly planned, out of control financial grandiose nightmare? And for what? Labour just gets the credit cards out and borrows stupid amounts of money we can never ever pay back. Beholden to who?

Reply 8

Original post by Muttly

I don't particularly support any party - but please tell me where all the money comes from in a bankrupt UK to fund this badly planned, out of control financial grandiose nightmare? And for what? Labour just gets the credit cards out and borrows stupid amounts of money we can never ever pay back. Beholden to who?

I’ve previously challenged your claim that the UK is bankrupt. You chose not to respond.

So here is another opportunity. What data are you using to determine that Britain is bankrupt?

I await your erudite response but I won’t hold my breath.

(edited 12 months ago)

Reply 9

minpum

6

Original post by harrybrown101

I personally think if the money is going to be used to improve roads, bus services and other rail infrastructure, then it is a good idea but the trouble is can you trust the current government to deliver.

the country ran out of steel because we are arming Ukraine.

That's the truth

Reply 10

Muttly

Original post by Gazpacho.

I’ve previously challenged your claim that the UK is bankrupt. You chose not to respond.

So here is another opportunity. What data are you using to determine that Britain is bankrupt?

I await your erudite response but I won’t hold my breath.

That depends on your dictionary definition of 'bankrupt'

Reply 11

minpum

6

Original post by Muttly

That depends on your dictionary definition of 'bankrupt'

We're not bankrupt, we're incompetent

Everyone knew it would fail.
Everyone doubted it.
Everyone said the price would double.

Sadly they were right.

Reply 12

Original post by Muttly

That depends on your dictionary definition of 'bankrupt'

This is not an answer.

If you had any genuine formal education in economics, you'd know there is no case where one can claim Britain is bankrupt. A nation is bankrupt when it starts to default on its sovereign debt. Britain is not defaulting, nor is it close to defaulting.

Poor economic literacy is why too many people fall for the nonsense claims of politicians we saw it with the false promises of HS2, we saw it with the false promises of Brexiters, and we saw it with the false promises of austerity.

Reply 13

hotpud

18

Original post by minpum

the country ran out of steel because we are arming Ukraine.

That's the truth

There was plenty of steel in my local B+Q. And all the building sites in Manchester are still going full steam ahead. And I saw a train full of steel coming through Cardiff station from Port Talbot the other day. We also import lots of steel. Are you sure?

Reply 14

imlikeahermit

14

I was against HS2 from the start and still obviously am. But the most damning thing of this entire saga is that nobody in mainstream politics seems to point out that the north does not end in Manchester. Throw Newcastle under the bus to start with and no one bats an eyelid. Cancel a leg to Manchester, hell on.

Reply 15

Napp

22

Lets be honest it was a gross white elephant to start with, now its one without a real purpose. His reason for killing it is sound its a disgusting waste of money that could never break even but as the op said, the idea we can trust the government to use the supposed savings well just wont happen.
Over all, its a real shame with the only good bit being the party will likely suffer for it in the election for years to come.

Reply 16

The land purchased for £205 million is set to be sold in a fire sale for an estimated £100 million to prevent any future government from revisiting the scheme.

I suspect they’ll be Conservative Party donors looking to get their grubby hands on the land.

Reply 17

Muttley79