Hs2 - Time To Cut Our Losses?

[ToraToraTora]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-50995116
apparently it'll reduce travel times to the north by 20 mins, is that worth the moolah?

[ToraToraTora]

ZM: I think that's the point it's a parallel line with stations and station upgrades which is why, no doubt it's costing £107bn.

[Zacs-Master]

I don’t think Leeds is being upgraded or a new station tho.

[mushroom25]

//Do the stations have the capacity? //

the problem with Leeds isn't the station, per-se, but the 2 track railway immediately to the east - see this map:-
https://www.opentraintimes.com/maps/signalling/y2_1#LINK_3

if it gets as far as Leeds, the HS2 works provides for the station to be expanded to the south.

[Zacs-Master]

The new Leeds station won’t be ready until 2032, apparently. And there’s controversy about the Hilton hotel and other stuff being demolished.

[Zacs-Master]

Mush, are the green lines the new tracks on your link?

[mushroom25]

no. the map shows the station in real time, and lines highlighted in green shows the routes set by the signal centre in York for departing or arriving trains.

[AuntPollyGrey]

The north is NOT Leeds! what a waste of money this whole Hs2 has been,yes scrap it.

[mushroom25]

//The north is NOT Leeds! //

Leeds is the 3rd busiest station in the UK, outside London. it forms a hub for much of what constitutes the north, including Manchester & Liverpool, York, Tees-side and Newcastle, as well as Bradford, Halifax, Wakefield, Sheffield and Airedale/Wharfedale.

[Zacs-Master]

Thanks, Mush. Amazing that you can see such things on line. Bit like flight radar for trains.

[emmie]

if it;s scrapped who is going to compensate those who have lost their homes, businesses already, especially around Euston station.

[mushroom25]

//if it;s scrapped who is going to compensate those who have lost their homes, businesses already, especially around Euston station. //

compensation has already been paid in that respect - although the National Audit Office found that in a lot of instances it was badly managed. it was months before the landlord of the Bree Louise got a single penny.

http://camdennewjournal.com/article/its-soul-destroying-say-bree-louise-landlords-as-hs2-forces-pub-to-close

[lady-janine]

Scrap this asap and use the money to improve present rail travel. Would it have been necessary to constantly increase fares if this has been put in the bin as son as some nincompoop devised it and other nincompoops approved it.

[New Judge]

If the UK is to have any ambitions of competing in the modern world it needs to get its act together regarding railways. Apart from “HS1” (the Channel Tunnel Rail Link) there has been no main line railway constructed in the UK since 1899. This was the Great Central Railway’s “London Extension” which ran from Nottinghamshire to join the Metropolitan Railway’s line from London at Quainton Road in Buckinghamshire.

Even HS1 was a shambles. In France a high speed line was constructed and in place for the tunnel’s opening in 1994. In England, upon the tunnel’s opening, trains ran from a “temporary” terminus constructed at Waterloo over conventional tracks (maximum speed 100mph and only then in parts) sharing the lines with commuter and other domestic services. This arrangement also necessitated Eurostar trains being “dual equipped” to run under overhead high voltage supply cables as well as Southern Region's third rail 750v supply. This incurred considerable additional costs in the construction of the trains.

It was not until 2003 that the first section of HS1 opened from the tunnel to Fawkham Junction near Longfield in Kent. Trains still had to use the old commuter lines to get from there into London. It was not until 2007 that the final stage of the line was opened to London St Pancras so thirteen years had elapsed since the tunnel’s opening during which time trains which ran at 185mph in France and Belgium were slotted in between stopping trains from Victoria to Kent.

Construction of the line was bedevilled with cost overruns, financial problems and insolvencies. As far as this question is concerned, there were plans to run direct services - known as “Regional Eurostar” - between other parts of England (initially Glasgow, Manchester, Plymouth and Cardiff) and the continent. Station signs appeared in the North promoting the services, a depot was built in Manchester to service the trains and “intercontinental” lounges were built on some stations. Apart from a few special one-off services (including a freight train which travelled from China to the UK in 2017) no services beyond London from the continent have materialised and unless and until HS2 is built they never will. Reasons given for the abandonment are many and various but a principle cause is that there are simply insufficient paths to run such services over existing lines.

HS2 is in danger of being abandoned because of the customary ineptitude which accompanies any large scale infrastructure project in the UK. It is needed not simply to cut 20m off the journey time from London to Birmingham but to facilitate the type of service I mention above. This country needs to build more railways. There should not be an "either HS2 or spend on existing services" argument. Both are necessary.

[mushroom25]

//Scrap this asap and use the money to improve present rail travel. //

upgrades of existing routes can take years due to the need for services to keep running. the last upgrade of the West Coast route took 20 years and was never completed as envisaged because the money ran out. if HS2 isn't built, the upgrade required to take its place would involve works so extensive it could well take 30 years to complete, and could also cost as much in the end as HS2 due to the protracted timescale. and all the while during those 30 years the situation will deteriorate as the availability of fuel for petrol cars becomes scarce, and the infrastructure for electric replacements fails to keep pace.

[jourdain2]

Me - scrap it and for goodness' sake get at least the existing lines working. I've given up on trains. Younger sprog's 40th b'd'y party was due to beheld in Leeds - got changed to York because of train difficulties. I checked on trains from the East - but ended up driving in because of the number of cancellations and the cost of parking etc.. As it was, several people had to share a taxi because the train was cancelled going west from York to Leeds.

Safest from here is to drive to Malton and train from there because the train is so often cancelled and buses only supplied from York to Malton. This still leaves me miles from where I would park at Seamer if I went from my nearest station. Just not worth it.

We desperately need a reliable service with what we've got - which is pretty lousy. Any route to The North needs to go well past Leeds anyway.

[New Judge]

//Me - scrap it and for goodness' sake get at least the existing lines working.//

As I said, it's not "either or". Both are urgently needed.

[douglas9401]

It's actually "the south", but anyhoo a drunken idea one night that went too far.

See Edinburgh tram. :-)

[ludwig]

Cut our losses. That seems to be what they're wanting to do, which is why they ordered the review.

[Ellipsis]

> HS2 is in danger of being abandoned because of the customary ineptitude which accompanies any large scale infrastructure project in the UK.

That's the nub of it.

[AuntPollyGrey]

I reiterate Leeds is no where near far enough North to be of any use. As Jourdain states its a nightmare going north east or west out of Leeds. The problem is there is no suitable large station 'up North' on the west side and I would suggest an upgrade to Carlisle station or even a new one would have served better as Carlisle has a fairly good rail network east into the areas where people travelling for business would actually want to be, Tyneside for example.
However, my main concern is that once you get past Manchester is there any need for a high speed train service? Surely making the East Coast line better, with better services to the west from the main stations on this line would have been a better choice.