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HS2, is it right for the UK?
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Does the £42bn at todays best guess include the trains or will they be an additional cost to be leased by the operator in the future. A bit like hospitals having scanners with no budget for staff to operate them or aircraft carriers with no planes to put on them.
Using the aircraft carrier example will we decide half way through that we want to change the specification and will now need steam catapults installed at a massive rework cost and then decide we will use more costly jump jets instead.
We then realise we can't afford 30 jets and will go with 20 instead.
Having gone with 20 we then realise we don't have any spares to cover maintenance and unforeseen breakdowns but can lease some at a penal cost from the supplier just managed to build a couple alongside ours at "negligible" cost (to them) ready for this "unforseen" eventuality.
The original budget for cross rail was £300m if the inflation calculator I used was correct that is £2.7bn today. Actual cost closer to £16bn. No doubt scope creep impacted this somewhat.
NB it was the BOE calculator so the figures are probably totally wrong.
HS2 will probably terminate in some field close to Buckingham."If you act like an illiterate man, your learning will never stop... Being uneducated, you have no fear of the future.".....
"big business is parasitic, like a mosquito, whereas I prefer the lighter touch, like that of a butterfly. "A butterfly can suck honey from the flower without damaging it," "Arunachalam Muruganantham0 -
Yes, the benefits to the UK are far too great to ignore.grizzly1911 wrote: »Does the £42bn at todays best guess include the trains or will they be an additional cost to be leased by the operator in the future. A bit like hospitals having scanners with no budget for staff to operate them or aircraft carriers with no planes to put on them.
The £42 billion cost doesn't include the trains (it might include the maintenance trains - I'm not sure). In the same way, when the government builds a road, it doesn't also buy everyone a car to use it.
I assume it will happen in the same way as the current franchising system. A rolling stock company (ROSCO) will be tasked to procure the stock (including financing it), presumably through tender. A train operating company (TOC) will then lease the stock from the ROSCO at a price already agreed by the government. This would be part of the franchise requirement for the TOC. The TOC may approach the ROSCO itself for more stock if the business calls for it, but later use of this extra stock wouldn't be guaranteed so there would be business risk involved.
I imagine there were some large changes in the scheme between 1974 and 2005. I'm not sure what they are but the Abbey Wood branch is my guess.grizzly1911 wrote: »Using the aircraft carrier example will we decide half way through that we want to change the specification and will now need steam catapults installed at a massive rework cost and then decide we will use more costly jump jets instead.
We then realise we can't afford 30 jets and will go with 20 instead.
Having gone with 20 we then realise we don't have any spares to cover maintenance and unforeseen breakdowns but can lease some at a penal cost from the supplier just managed to build a couple alongside ours at "negligible" cost (to them) ready for this "unforseen" eventuality.
The original budget for cross rail was £300m if the inflation calculator I used was correct that is £2.7bn today. Actual cost closer to £16bn. No doubt scope creep impacted this somewhat.
NB it was the BOE calculator so the figures are probably totally wrong.
HS2 will probably terminate in some field close to Buckingham.
One point on change of scope, though. Once the 2005 scope and £15 billion cost was established (ie the start of the project in its current form), measures were taken to limit the impact of scope creep. It is now very difficult to change to scope of this project (I'm not sure how - not my area), and this has led to very little in the way of change and thus cost increase. (Whisper it quietly, but we may be learning from mistakes made in the past!)0 -
Built to the Bern gauge, used to keep the country going during WW2, closing this line was a triumph of "car" thinking in the 1960s.
Type Main Line System National Rail Network.
Status Mostly closed.
Locale London, South East England, East Midlands, South Yorkshire, Manchester.
Termini Marylebone station, London & Manchester London Road Station.
Operation Opening 1899 Closed 1966-1969 .
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Central_Main_Line
Why can the French and Germans build high speed rail lines for a fraction of the estimate for HS2 ?
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We pity the madnesses that swept through Communist China like the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, but on the small scale we had our own cultural madnesses.
Closing train lines, scrapping trams, failing to build metros in new towns, (hello MK with your large american-style sprawl).
We were failry unique as I see good transport systems inside cities and betwen cities over large chunks of Europe especially the north.
How in the world we got governed by these oxbridge chumps for so long last century and trusted them to "modernise" our country is baffling.There is no honour to be had in not knowing a thing that can be known - Danny Baker0 -
John_Pierpoint wrote: »closing this line was a triumph of "car" thinking in the 1960s
At the time, 'car' thinking made perfect sense, and it still remains the case that road users pay relatively little towards the cost of their network, whilst rail users have to pay the entire price.
Why can the French and Germans build high speed rail lines for a fraction of the estimate for HS2 ?
I read something earlier this week which said that Germany has concentrated on improving the general network rather than building high speed tracks, because their cities are not sufficiently far apart to benefit from the small reductions in journey time which high speed trains would be able to offerWe pity the madnesses that swept through Communist China like the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, but on the small scale we had our own cultural madnesses.
Closing train lines, scrapping trams, failing to build metros in new towns, (hello MK with your large american-style sprawl).
We were failry unique as I see good transport systems inside cities and betwen cities over large chunks of Europe especially the north.
How in the world we got governed by these oxbridge chumps for so long last century and trusted them to "modernise" our country is baffling.
Arguably, it would be a new form of cultural madness if we were to pour £50billion pounds into an outdated transport system such as rail.
It might be better to spend the money on yet more motorways, and massive underground carparks on the edge of every city.
TruckerTAccording to Clapton, I am a totally ignorant idiot.0 -
Yes, the benefits to the UK are far too great to ignore.Arguably, it would be a new form of cultural madness if we were to pour £50billion pounds into an outdated transport system such as rail.
It might be better to spend the money on yet more motorways, and massive underground carparks on the edge of every city.
TruckerT
The increasing use of railways despite fares increasing above inflation rather gives the lie to it being "outdated" and is the reason we need a new railway. How will you get all those people from the car parks outside Brum and London to the bits of Brum and London they want to get to?0 -
The increasing use of railways despite fares increasing above inflation rather gives the lie to it being "outdated" and is the reason we need a new railway. How will you get all those people from the car parks outside Brum and London to the bits of Brum and London they want to get to?
Like the energy suppliers, the reason why the railways can get away with their unreasonable price rises is because their 'customers' have no alternative.
The railways occupy stupidly large areas of land within London, and I would guess that there is a similar picture in other UK cities. Ride the line from Willesden to Clapham and you will see what I mean. There is plenty of space for car parking, and onward travel would be not a lot different from what we have already (tubes and buses).
The railways are outdated because they offer no meaningful link to the road network, which is nearly everybody's preferred mode of travel. It ought to be possible to extend the BorisBike concept into the BorisBuggy concept, with an automated vehicle control system which would not be restricted to an inflexible rail layout.
TruckerTAccording to Clapton, I am a totally ignorant idiot.0 -
No, it's a waste of money and it could be better spent elsewhere.This HS2 is absolute madness. Much far better value to spend 42 billion making this country the most high tech country in the world like replacing millions of miles of copper cables with fibre.....0
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This HS2 is absolute madness. Much far better value to spend 42 billion making this country the most high tech country in the world like replacing millions of miles of copper cables with fibre.....
much of the telecoms network is fibre already
fibre continues to be replacing copper
I'm a little unsure how this will increase employment, create more profitable industries and increase exports although amazon has done very well0 -
much of the telecoms network is fibre already
fibre continues to be replacing copper
I'm a little unsure how this will increase employment, create more profitable industries and increase exports although amazon has done very well
How will "faster" luxury train travel create more profitable industries and increase exports?
Why will it had a big increase in employment outside the build stage and service workers on line?"If you act like an illiterate man, your learning will never stop... Being uneducated, you have no fear of the future.".....
"big business is parasitic, like a mosquito, whereas I prefer the lighter touch, like that of a butterfly. "A butterfly can suck honey from the flower without damaging it," "Arunachalam Muruganantham0
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