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HS2

I would like to see some numbers on how Covid changes the value we will get from HS2.

The demand will change in the short term, but will it change by the time the line is open? I say that as someone who went down to our London office from Lancashire most weeks. I've been able to complete most of my activities via Zoom etc during lockdown and don't see any reason to travel as much after this passes.

Airlines are laying off huge numbers of staff, retiring planes and abandoning runway slots. I'd like to understand the picture for rail.

"It's not about speed, it's about capacity" - that argument made sense to me before, but not sure it does now. If someone does the math and it still stacks up, fair enough - but I'd like to see.
 
Rick said:
I would like to see some numbers on how Covid changes the value we will get from HS2.

The demand will change in the short term, but will it change by the time the line is open? I say that as someone who went down to our London office from Lancashire most weeks. I've been able to complete most of my activities via Zoom etc during lockdown and don't see any reason to travel as much after this passes.

Airlines are laying off huge numbers of staff, retiring planes and abandoning runway slots. I'd like to understand the picture for rail.

"It's not about speed, it's about capacity" - that argument made sense to me before, but not sure it does now. If someone does the math and it still stacks up, fair enough - but I'd like to see.
Click to expand...
I don't know if anyone has looked into it or not to be honest. The way I see it is that the majority of journeys (~80%} are made by car, and the majority of freight goes by truck. There will be less travel due to coronavirus, but on the other hand measures to cut road and air travel further will lead to more people using the railways. Same with freight, there needs to be more capacity for it, and I can't see demand for freight reducing due to coronavirus. So while overall travel demand will no doubt be lower (at least for a bit), I still think demand for rail will rise.
 
Overall demand for rail might rise (in certain circumstances, on certain lines), but I am still not convinced HS2 is the answer to that, Covid or no Covid.

Plus, at the risk of rewinding six pages, I still really dislike the notion that you can take your average medium distance car journey in the North and make a decision to go by train instead, it oversimplifies the whole thing. If I take my last 2 car journeys where I was going sufficiently far that I could take a train (thank you Google... - stalker).
  • Took the dog to the beach - 22 mins each way in the car, £3.50ish in fuel
    or … 35 minute walk to the station, or 5 minute drive with £12 parking, £8.90 return on the train - 70 mins door to door
  • Went to the office - 28 mins each way in the car, £5ish in fuel
    or … 35 minute walk to the station, or 5 minute drive with £12 parking, £11.20 return on the train + 20 minute walk to the office - 95 mins door to door
I am with the spirit of what you want, but I just don't think it's practical in this country, with the current direction of travel, including HS2. If I lived within the M25, that would be very different, but I don't.
 
Living 35 minutes from a station, the car will be more convenient for you but I still believe there is a lot of untapped potential, mainly in reopening lost lines, trams, and increased railway subsidies for both passengers and freight. HS2 is a good step, as it creates more capacity for new local services to run (and hopefully serve reopened stations and lines).

Also it's a shame they charge for parking at your local station - stations are one place where parking probably should be free. My local station is.
 
Thirty years in the planning, ten years since the project was confirmed and went ahead...
Dead.
High speed one and a half anyone?
 
It's an absolute shit show. Billions wasted already, for a project that is 30 years to late. And now cancelled.

I regularly travel from Birmingham to Manchester with work. The M6 is a nightmare. There is not enough capacity on the rails.

And they say there is no north south divide. A joke. We need an election to make change. Enough is enough.
 
We were promised that it would connect the north to London in about an hour. We are getting a line that connects the south to the south at the cost of £1bn per mile. Since yesterday the failure is, of course, not the Conservatives but:
- The Labour party who had no approval or oversight of the project
- Covid
- Immigrants
- Trans people in hospitals
- The Human Rights Act

I live in the North and have family in London. A standard return from Preston - London is over £350 - for a 2 hour journey. It equates to about £1.50 a minute. Why is it always cheaper (and quicker) to drive?
 
Tories gonna Tory.

Sunak is basically throwing the ball to Labour to deal with. So they'll spend the 5 years after the election having to try and clear up the mess that's been made, not be able to do so and then the Tories get voted back in.

Infrastructure situation in this country is so far behind the curve.
 
Don't forget, all the northern communist railways staff get strict instruction from the prime minister...
You go on lengthy strikes, we won't give you nice shiny new track to play with.
Poor people will just have to get real jobs and buy nice capitalist cars.
 
rob666 said:
Don't forget, all the northern communist railways staff get strict instruction from the prime minister...
You go on lengthy strikes, we won't give you nice shiny new track to play with.
Poor people will just have to get real jobs and buy nice capitalist cars.
Click to expand...


The only thing this is now stopping these strikes from happening, is the government. All parties involved in dealing with the negotiations with unions around all the issues )not just pay) have been resolved so everyone is happy. The government however will not sign off because of reasons. It's known by the railway industry that the government plan for the railways doesn't work financially.

I have a feeling the Rishi's oil masters are pulling these strings.
 
So has HS2 been wholly cancelled? Or have they just scrapped the Birmingham to Manchester leg, as was said before?
 
As much as I thought HS2 was a daft idea to start (in terms of cost) with I think it’s even more daft to now scrap this last leg given how much investment has been ploughed into it.

I always thought the money would have been better spent upgrading the existing lines and rolling stock, and improving connections from east/west and links from rural areas into city centres to lower the reliance on cars. There are still a lot of lines to electrify which would have resulted in extra capacity and speeded up transport times.

We seem to be totally unable to build anything in this country in a timely manner and without excessive cost. When you look at countries like Japan who rebuilt a motorway in a week after an earthquake it really puts us to shame.

ScottishChris said:
I live in the North and have family in London. A standard return from Preston - London is over £350 - for a 2 hour journey. It equates to about £1.50 a minute. Why is it always cheaper (and quicker) to drive?
Click to expand...

….. or fly. When I visit Edinburgh it costs me £28 each way with SqueezyJet and takes 1 hour. Trains would take me over 8 hours and cost around £300. I’m not even guaranteed a seat for that and multiple changes.
 
GaryH said:
I always thought the money would have been better spent upgrading the existing lines and rolling stock, and improving connections from east/west and links from rural areas into city centres to lower the reliance on cars
Click to expand...
HS2 is upgrading the existing lines, there is nothing more that can be done with the west coast mainline, except building more track, which is exactly what HS2 does. Then once the fast intercity services move to the new tracks they can run more stopping services on the existing lines which improves connections in rural areas.
 
Not to mention this latest scrapping is on top of links to Liverpool and Leeds (and beyond) also being cut earlier.

The fast west to east connection of Liverpool to Hull also requires the HS2 line to Manchester Airport as part of the network.

The fact is if they ever intended to build it to the north of England (and there's a good argument that Liverpool, Manchester, and Leeds isn't really the true north) they'd have started building the lines from up north instead of Birmingham to London.
 
John_P said:
The fact is if they ever intended to build it to the north of England (and there's a good argument that Liverpool, Manchester, and Leeds isn't really the true north) they'd have started building the lines from up north instead of Birmingham to London.
Click to expand...

Can I remind you that from just above the north of Sheffield is the south.
 
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Of course he softens the blow by promising a load of other projects that will inevitably not happen. Electrifying a 105 mile long railway line with relatively low usage is a strange choice. The government's recent attempts at electrifying lines have been a bit of an embarrasment with lots of delays, budget overruns and cutbacks.
 
I used to get the overnight coach from Digbeth coach station Brum, north in the middle of the night, on many occasions in my youth.
Concrete and a smell of wee, reminded me of Blackpool.
Lord save my soul.
Is it still there?
If god gave the world an enema, the tube would go in Digbeth coach station.
 
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