HS2

What a mess !!!! and what a waste of money.

As you know i do not normally agree with ANDY PANDY (BURNHAM) But his impassioned speech at the week-end really struck a chord with me concerning the failure by this GOV not to build the HS2 line from Birmingham to Manchestr !IT is very true indeed this lot do not give a flying toss about the people up north . IT is an utter insult to us northerners yet again. Yet i have to say myself i have never been an advocate for the whole idea of the plan from the outset , their first figure first quoted were telephone numbers ,but now they are ASTRONOMICAL . So the way things are the country will be a two nation place , One last item to add ,i believe the TORY conference is to take place in all places in the centre of MANCHESTER!!!! I WOULD TELL YOU WHAT I WOULD DO IF I WERE MAYOR , THE MESSAGE TO SUNAK WOULD BE TEK YOUR CONFERENCE BACK DOWN SOUTH YOUR NOT HAVING IT HERE MATE!!!!!!G.B.

GB

There isn’t a consensus on the design of either Piccadilly or Manchester stations. The preferred option locally is for an underground station for which the finished cost is around. £7 billion.
The government has ruled this out on cost grounds and suggests an overground station on a 12 metre high viaduct. This has drawbacks for passengers transferring to other outgoing services. Similarly the proposal for the airport station has passenger transfer problems.
Until these stations have passenger friendly designs there’s no point in building the line.

Why does anybody need to travel from Manchester to London, or vice versa, on a train?

Yet another massive Tory c#ck up

People who need to travel from Birmingham to London will have little incentive to use the remnant Aston to Acton line, as the old ex LNWR line will get them to Central London in less time.

There is a General Election in the offing isn't there....

Sunak will have some dosh to give tax cuts to the better off if he scraps the project: maybe buy the party some votes in the Southern Blue Belt Constituencies who would otherwise possibly be tempted to vote Lib Dem.

Lord Adonis

Like Ena malcup says there is General election coming ,this Tory party will do and say any thing to hold on to power for themselves, not for the uk they will turn it into nasty campaign that's
What they do blame others for there failure

if that rail franchise had started in the north 1st it would certainly have been built . it shows how much the torys care about the north, 1st johnson & now sunak .

Stick your HS2 Where the sun don't shine you Southern Ponce's....

tonker

Not the usual handful who never go out and spend their life everyday moaning about all and sundry on Wigan World!

You've just described yourself to a t OC

your quite right HM .

i was listening to lbc radio yesterday and there was an engineer who works on the train lines on the "phone in" and he was saying that the people who he works with believe HS2 is all a waste of money..... what was interesting with what he was saying that biggest problem on the rail network in the UK was that the railroad signals have not been updated since the 50's and because the drive has to be able to see the line-side signalling; colours then a train can not travel faster then 125 miles per hour And if money would have been put it to updating them than they could put more trains on the lines . And i would believe an engineer who works on the train lines before an MP

This bunch of spivs have taken it to a whole new level

SIGNALING

They did not seem to be so concerned about expense when agreeing to totally unnecessary tunnels on phase 1 route in order to not spoil the view of a few wealthy folk.

Once upon a time, we spoke of putting the cart before the horse, now we can bring the expression bang up to date: PUTTING THE BEECHING BEFORE THE BUILDER!

Vilfredo Pareto (The Pareto principle) suggests that there is a phenomenon indicating that roughly 80% of outcomes come from 20% of causes. In this case the 20% of expenditure to provide the Manchester link must have been expected to deliver 80% of the benefits, as the now oft quoted view is that the Brum to West London remnant will deliver only 20% of the intended outcomes, but will have cost 80% of the resources consumed.

you post stuff from the company Network rail of course it's going to look good but when you read into the uk Signalling market!!!! and you read what it does not say then you get a better picture.... now i understand why you believed nigel farage's bus

Signalling Market Study and the government report [url="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/643e7b888b86bb0013f1b40a/Parties__submission_on_competitive_effects_of_the_transaction_on_TCSF.pdf"]Assessing the competitive effects of
the Transaction on TCSF[/url] TTS look at the dates.....

I posted this earlier on Places.

One of the reasons for the high cost is that HS2 was designed for trains running at 240 mph. On the longest stretch of the line the 90 miles from Old Oak Common to Birmingham the trains would have to slow down before reaching maximum speed.
It’s like Lansleys’ NHS bill, the MPs voted for it without understanding the details.

gaffer, Why would UK have such a problem? Other countries operating high speed trains seem to be able to quickly accelerate up to their operating speed, and similarly manage their needed deceleration.

Were we intending to equip HS2 with wonky trains right from the outset?

so much for protecting taxpayers money .

Ena

The geography of HS2 is totally different the bullet trains in Japan and the tgv in France. They have routes which involve much longer mileages than HS2 ever will.
180 mph max speed would more than suffice for HS2. At that speed Old Oak Common to Birmingham would take little more than 30 minutes.

I still cannot see why over a distance of 90 or so miles, you would have to begin to slow before reaching operational speed.

It would be an extremely poor rate of acceleration if after accelerating for 45 miles you had still not attained operational speed, and had then to be just as dysfunctional in deceleration.

Why comparison with France and Japan when there is so much more mundane high speed rail in many counties now? The infrastructure needs to serve us for many years into the future. In say fifty years time, we may well want to operate faster trains on the line than those used when the line first comes into service.

I do fear we are witnessing a dysfunctional state, on its way to becoming a backward country.

In the early 1970s I used to visit the TMD at Old Oak Common in London in me trainspotting days, although has I have said before, I wasn't really interested in collecting numbers, I just liked trains, and the locos which hauled them, and Old Oak Common was actually the TMD stabling locomotives on the old GWR main line from Paddington to Penzance in the Southwest.
For yoo train buffs who are loco, the Western Region of BR used diesel hydraulic locos, instead of the usual diesel electrics, and I was fascinated at the sight of Westerns(52's). Warships(43s) and Hymeks(35s) on the Old Oak Common turntable

Although it is on the old Western Region of BR, Old Oak Common is only a stones throw away from the WCML, as it approaches London Euston.

To repeat meself, I believe that HS2 died on the day that George Osborne was sacked as Chancellor of the Exchequer, by the incoming new Prime Minister Theresa May, rubber stamped in my opinion, by Theresa Mays decision to divert money for HS2 into the Crossrail 2 project in London.

When the eastern section of HS2 to Leeds was cancelled two years ago, followed by the spur on to the WCML at Lowton, near Wigan, I thought it was only a matter of time before the link from Birmingham to Manchester would be cancelled, and now I ask myself what would be the point of building HS2 from Old Oak Common to Birmingham, because as has already been said, it would be quicker to travel on the present train service from Euston to Birmingham, rather than travel the few miles to Old Oak Common just to catch an HS2 train to Birmingham, but as to what Rishi Sunak has got planned for HS2, I just don't know, but I am sure we will all find out soon

In my opinion and to repeat myself, to increase capacity on the main line rail network in Britain, why not reopen lines closed by Beeching, to take freight trains off the main line networks, and to provision for new local passenger services, and it is being mentioned frequently about the fact that the line across the North of England from Liverpool to Hull and Newcastle, is badly served by rail, and I personally think that the 13 mile route on the old Woodhead line from Hadfield to Penistone, which was closed in 1981, should be reopened to relieve the Hope Valley line, increasing capacity on that line, because the Hope Valley line, is the only way across the Pennines, from Manchester to Leeds

"The cheapest way to get from London to Old Oak Common Station is the No.7 bus which costs £1 - £3 and takes 41 min.
The quickest way to get from London to Old Oak Common Station is to taxi which costs £45 - £55 and takes 9 min."

London My Arse!

TTS

It is services to Sheffield that use the Hope Valley Route.
Most Manchester to Leeds services use Marsden tunnels.

In theory, you can also travel via Todmorden, but I think trains are mostly slow stopping services. I used to use that route when I lived in Littleborough. (back in BR days) However, in recent years, my Transpennine tickets specifically forbid travel by this route.

Ena

I meant Sheffield

I know that when the Woodhead Line was closed in 1981, the coal traffic which was basically the only thing which that line was used for, the coal traffic, was then hauled along the Hope Valley Line, but reopening the Woodhead Route would relieve demand and increase capacity on both of those other two lines, and because it is only the 13 miles to Pennistone, the line to Hadfield, is electrified to 25kv the problem back in the cash strapped 1970s and early 80s, was that those Class 76 1500dc electric locos on the Woodhead Route were knackered and needed replacing, along with converting the OHLE to 25kv and there was just not the money available back then, but now the 1954 Woodhead Tunnel is fully serviceable, having been tarted up by National Grid when they put the electric cables through it, so they could put the railway back through it, and they could cut a new smaller bore tunnel through to take the electric cables, or bore out and fix one of the old Woodhead Tunnels, which they said were too dangerous to carry on taking the cables through to Dunford Bridge

The 25kV catenaries would require much greater headspace than had been needed for the original 1.5kV DC catenaries used by the long lost Woodhead trains. I have read a number of times that it would cost more to upgrade Woodhead Tunnel than to bore a new facility. I do not know if such is true.

The government said that it would be easier to bore a new tunnel, rather than try and use any of the three old Woodhead tunnels, maybe they are right, and this is an interesting article about Woodhead LINK and that article was written when HS2 was going ahead in full, so the business case was for local services only, but if there is not to be an HS2, then that might shift to the possibility of using a reopened GCR and Midland route from Manchester to London, via Woodhead, serving middle England, and giving middle England a direct route to Manchester and the Northwest, without having to catch a connection to the WCML, and has well has improving transport links in the middle of England, along with providing another route for freight trains, that would also free up capacity on the WCML.

how can you increase capacity when you cut the lines they are supposed to run on ? .

Reopen the cut lines, they are mostly still there

Now then.....all that land and properties that were compulsory purchased to facilitate this white elephant...is owned now by who ?....sitting on a fortune in real estate....and making money day by day.....a massive Con.

hang on a minute they have already cut the planned line to the east by johnson & now they plan the same for the north ? . reopen what ? .

Incompetent bunch of self serving spivs, I wonder where the money saved will finish up just prior to an election

Billinge Biker - it'll all go to the likes of Peel Holdings and BCEGI etc., for housebuilding. Very much like the A5225 compulsary purchased land did!

It would be very expensive to reopen the Woodhead line when not only the tracks have been taken up, the track partly built on and two of tunnels have been sealed with concrete while the other one is full of main power cables.

The mistake was made in closing the line, especially when it was a lovely ride along the Woodhead pass to Penistone and Sheffield pulled by one of the Class 76 or class 77 electric locomotives.

The view from the train was not that outstanding, being rather low down in relation to the surrounding terrain.

The views along Longdendale from the road (A628) is far more impressive. The walk along the former trackbed is good, but still does not capture the views as well as when you climb out of the valley and up to the A628.

Try a train ride from Manchester Piccadilly to Edale and then take a walk across the moors to Glossop and catch the train back to Manchester if you enjoy a nice little walk and the views.

You can even do it in reverse as I have done on occasions!

I first walked from Tintwistle to Woodhead Summit when I was five years old. I last walked there about six weeks ago.

For over seventy years, it has remained a favourite walk. There is now a good campsite and a safe car park to create an attractive base for walking Longdendale.

I am dreading come the time when I can no longer drive, and have to depend on trains. They simply are now too inadequate.

Yesterday, I have been planning some rail travel in mainland Europe. Most of the journeys between cities, I can get at prices beginning at less than £20. However, I am tempted to extend my stay, and opt for the rail pass giving me access to the rail network of 33 countries. In UK, I cannot even get a ticket which allows me to use another company's train when the one upon which I am booked lets me down!

Ultimately, I think it is less about high speed: It is a matter of ease of connectivity. If we do not have a healthy rail network, we will see more congestion on our motorways and our roads in towns.

Owd Codger

As regards 'expensive' well nowt's cheep, but a new 3 mile long tunnel, would not cost billions, and I just checked again on google earth, and the track bed from Hadfield to Woodhead and from Dunford Bridge to Penistone, has NOT been built on.

Whupsy

After crossing the Pennines, there are several lines available to go south, but Beeching axed thousands of miles of railway lines, and in planning another route south, it might make more sense to reopen certain sections of the old pre Beeching network, the thing is that there are loads of different options available.

Ena

Did you actually travel on the Woodhead line ?

It closed to passenger traffic in 1970, but in the early 1970s I had a mate who also was a train enthusiast, and he kept meithering me in wanting to go to the Reddish TMD to have a look at the Class 76's, but when looking at pictures of them in me Ian Allen combined volume of train locos, which was the trainspotters bible, I did not like the look of the locos, I knew that the passenger services only went has far as Hadfield, and that would have been on the vilest looking of EMU's, so I wouldn't go, but I wish I had done so now, I did see the line in operation in the late 1970s, all be it from a distance in Manchester.

I do wish though, that I had gone on the Easter Tommy in 1981

ena malcup

Apart from the fares, your last comment sums up the future of travel in the UK in a nutshell.

Massive congestion and grid lock on the roads in abundance.

What a pity, some can't see it coming!

Tommy, yes but I was a child at the time, so more interested in having my yed stuck out of the window (remember when you could do that, in spite of the warning not to) to observe the many long coal trains to be seen at that time.

Prof Eric Laithwaite was at this time still based in Manchester, before he had transited to Imperial College, and a bit of the old Gorton Works saw the very first ever Maglev test strip. (An acquaintance of mine insists it was Reddish : so one of us is right and tuther wrong)

Ena

In those days I rarely sat down on trains, unless it was dark, or it was raining or very cold, I was hanging out of the windows all the time, but I wasn't daft, I only just peeked me beak out of the window, because I didn't want to get my head ripped off.

I remember Eric Laithwaite in the early 1970s, and the linear motor, unfortunately he ended up of being accused of being a scientific heretic, because of his views about the properties of gyroscopes.

I have a train simulator program, and I have the Woodhead Route on it, and one of the scenario's is the Easter Tommy of 1981, and on the Fcn5 button, which is the view inside the carriages, in the Easter Tommy scenario, they have made that into a train spotter mode, you can hang out of the window in the middle of the train, normally you can only do that from inside the loco cab, but those 76s are hard to drive, especially when driving a double headed one, hauling a coal train up towards Dunford Bridge

Yes, before they electrified the line, they had a Beyer -Garratt locomotive bank engine to push the laden coal trains from Wath. I did not note the locations, but there are photos online of trains with five locomotives in total, including both pushing and pulling, hauling the coal west from Wath

Forget HS2 it will only benefit the few and not the many.Get the money spent on something that will benefit everybody

Like for example, the new Class 805 Units for Avanti West Coast designed to replace the Class 221's, the first of which has just been outshopped at the Hitachi Rail works at Newton Aycliffe as part of the badly needed modernisation of our railways by the government and private investment.

I hope Hitachi trains prove more reliable than did their disk drives. The latter have acquired quite a reputation for premature failure.

Thanks Tonks. . .I bet the Treasury will get a big slice !!

why private investment ? . they are bad at best .

Well, the BBC is reporting that Rishi Sunak will be announcing this afternoon that HS2 will not be coming to Manchester

But they will be doing other stuff for the transport infrastructure instead, which can be completed much sooner than HS2, which would not have been completed until the 2040s

I am not putting a link on, until they have said what exactly they are going too doo

Last night they, they being the news organisations, were asking Conservative voters, what they think of the present Conservative government, now that Sunak has been in power for nearly a year, and the consensus was that Sunak and his government are 'Useless'

yes isnt it great & showing how much he loves the north ? . why dont you wise up & see they are not interested in anything or anyone north of watford . how much investment have they showed to the public up here . get real .

Ena

Well Well Well

They are reopening the Woodhead Route (the don valley line)

It seems that they are adopting this LINK Network North

Regarding HS2

benefits from building it

benefits from not building it

but half building it: most of the cost for miniscule benefits

only in Britain, the newly emerging backward country

And there is no more certainty of seeing any of these other options see the light of day than there was for HS2.

My expectation is we will see the continuation of sporadic electrification with a bit of route renewal, but like the forty new hospitals, they will try to rebrand each of these incremental developments as a new railway!

I bet Rishi said to Lord Snooty, "see I told you these dumb northerners would buy a pig in a poke all over again".

Ena

"And there is no more certainty of seeing any of these other options see the light of day than there was for HS2"

Well yes, because these lot are good at coming out with the big ideas, but lousy in actually putting them into practice, as even their own voters say, they are 'useless' but as regards today, I am going to take heart from Sunak's announcement that the Woodhead route is reopening, and for the remainder of today, I am going to wallow in nostalgia, in me train sim program, and you mentioned the steam banking engines which used to push the heavy coal trains up the Worsborough incline towards Dunford Bridge, and one scenario I have is set at night in the snowy cowd winter of 1947, which has one steam loco and two banking engines, hauling a coal train up Worsborough, enroute to Manchester, and if you don't drive them just right, your loco's runs out of water

it.s nothin but a load of hot air . when was the last time we got owt from this lot .

Whupsy

How do you know that, you didn't even watch the speech.

You can't believe any thing the Torys say ,I
Wouldn't hold your breath about his pledges
All broken promises they won't change , he has no respect for people in the north,

Surfer Tom

They are all the same, Labour and Conservative.

TTS
It's time for a change he was not voted in by the people he was made pm by the tory hierarchy we have had five Tory prime minister's and he said in his speech we need a change in direction after he backed them all ,Don't trust him

Today, ministers have nreleased the first artist's impression of the newly proposed HS2 Northern Section .........

yes i did 1stroke & like i said just hot air . it,s like when they pledged to keep the over 75s tv licence which they had in their manifesto & we all know wot happened there . when was the last time the torys invested in the north ? . it,s bullshit from sunak to try & soften the blow i,ll believe it when i see it . and labour & torys arnt the same & now that idiot of a PM is thinking of letting farage back into the party ,i guess they are short of a karaoke singer .

Whupsy

No,, yoo didn't watch the speech, I can tell that, the same way that Fossil said he had watched GB News, when clearly he had not done so.

Folk like yoo Whupsy, and your ilk, should form a new political party called the 'nobhead party'

and folk like you shud form the liars party with your hero farage . yes i did watch it with his wife introducing him & the so-called "new" network rail . all bullshit . and all you do is try to sidetrack people with your bullshit replies .

Although I have supported the concept of HS2 with an eventural all the way route to Scotland in years to come, I now have to question why so much money is being spent on a small section of the proposed route between London and Birmingham and the section to the North West cancelled, especially when there are two motorways of the M1 and M40 connecting the two cities and a exisiting rail line between London Euston and Birmingham New Street?

The other countries that have High Speed Rail lines must be laughing their heads off at what goes on in our country where the planning of rail travel is concerned and the decisions of our governments is concerned.

The M1 and M40 don't connect the two cities of London and Birmingham.

tonker

Do you have be so padantic all the time?

People from London drive to and from Birmingham and vise versa by both motorways even if they do not go into the two cities.

Some will even travel along the M25 and M42 to get on the M1 and M40.

One of the reasons so much is spent on the London to Birmingham part, is due to unnecessarily placing the line in bored tunnels, simply to appease NIMBY constituents in the Home Counties whose votes they were not going to risk!

Only one day after the announcement, and already signs that the government is trying to get developers to build on land that had been reserved for HS2.

Has all the appearance of an unseamly and spiteful endeavour to ensure no future government can reactivate the proposal with a more realistic budget or financing option.

Considering that Sunak thought trying to recover Billions of fraudulently claimed Covid relief was "not worthwhile", I have reached the conclusion that cancelling HS2 is a POLITICAL decision harnessing dubious economic arguments to sell the decision.

Almost parallels Brexit in the way this is the cumulation of a now long running campaign in the far right press and TV.

The alternative projects place us back into a familiar repertoire of re-announced projects were nobody can tell if budgets are new money or what was already in the pipeline.

Now that the Conservative party has abandoned any bid for the centre ground and is tilting to the hard right, who have long indicated their hostility to North levelling up agenda, Sunak is giving them what they have campaigned for.

The cancellation of the Manchester leg of HS2 is probably a reaction to the increase in cost of servicing UK debt. The credit rating agency Fitch is forecasting payments this year of £110 billion, over 10% of government income. With US interest rates forecast to go higher UK debt servicing costs will follow suit. This will entail some difficult public spending cuts in other areas.
Current servicing costs have risen twice as fast as at any other time.
Had the Manchester leg gone ahead there was a risk that costs would exceed the current £36 billion savings arising from its cancellation.

Just another massive Tory c*ck up 13 years of incompetence or worse ,there,s certain to be a few Tory spiv s lining their own pockets

And I bet there will be a few of them in the other lot, Tory Tony and Wife Cherrie in particular!

When there is the chance of a bob or two to be made, Socialist ideals go out of the door!

so why start it in the 1st place .

Good job Beeching is no longer around to scuttle what is now a HS branch line from London to Birmingham!

To put it simply, forget about 'speed' the trains on the upgraded electrified lines are fast enough, and you don't need as many reasons to go to and from London, you can now take part in video conferencing instead.

So instead of speed, concentrate on capacity, by reopening the Beeching era and before lines, in which the track beds are still in situ, and could be brought back into service, for a relatively low price, if you put freight on those lines, and local passenger services, that would free up capacity on the WCML & ECML has well as other main lines, and do it all over the country, including Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland

Allister Heath

Tommy, there are a few parallels between HS2's demise, and closure of Woodhead route.

I know you will see countless references to Woodhead line closure being due to Beeching.

Well, if you actually check it, it is not strictly true.

The Beeching Report recommended closure of the Hope Valley Line to remove duplication. Through passengers usually chose the Woodhead route, it was much quicker, and an hourly service, and popular with passengers. The Hope Valley was a slow stopping DMU service: great if you were one of the passengers using those small intermediary stations, but it was just these small passenger numbers that Beeching closures targeted.

Government(s) of the day concluded that both passenger demands/expectations, and operating practicalities would create pressures to upgrade from the 1.5 kV, and incorporate the line into the 25 kV system which was then underway.

Realising that would be costly, they closed Woodhead route instead, and got away with blaming it on Beeching.

You really cannot trust UK governments.

Levelling up my arris

Old Codger, Yes!

"Some will even travel along the M25 and M42 to get on the M1 and M40."

Aye. That's because they have to. The M6 connects the M1 to Birmingham and the M42, or the M5, connects the M40 to Birmingham,

So, you see, it's not "pedantic" at all. It's factual.

errrrr., lend me three an' fourpence, I'm going to a dance?

Reading the government bumf, surrounding the new 36 billion pound funding for local schemes, they have worded some of it it has "could be" rather than "will be"

"nearly £4 billion through City Region Sustainable Transport Settlements (CRSTS) to ensure all 6 Northern city regions will receive more than double their CRSTS1 funding to improve connectivity in their areas, which 'could pay' for schemes such as the extension of the Manchester Metrolink to Heywood, Bolton, Wigan and Manchester Airport and bus rapid transit corridors in Manchester"

"total of £300 million will ensure the delivery of 9 smaller road schemes, including the A582 South Ribble Distributor, Kendal Northern Access Route and the 'Wigan East-West Route'"

The Wigan East-West Root, is the M58 link road to ??????? (possibly Bolton)

Hey Up

Here we go, it might not be going to Euston after all LINK

So does that mean that the 36 billion will not be spent on the local stuff, unless private funds are found for that too ......

TTS
don't think those who provide private funding will be impressed they will want the full package, meanwhile it's was said on news torys have sold land and property which was meant for hs2 to developers so it can't be used again that's why starmer can't back it ,

TTS
don't think those who provide private funding will be impressed they will want the full package, meanwhile it's was said on news torys have sold land and property which was meant for hs2 to developers so it can't be used again that's why starmer can't back it ,like tonker said peel holdings will own it to do whatever they want

Surfer Tom

No, the tories haven't sold the land they have acquired for HS2 to investors, but it will be sold n the future, because the Department of Transport has said that they won't 'protect' the route by keeping hold of the land acquired for HS2, so that at some time in the future the project could be resurrected, and when the land is released, it is only companies such has Peel Holdings, which own the Manchester Ship Canal and lots of land on either side of the canal, and they own the Trafford Centre, it is only firms of that size which will be able to afford the massive amounts of money which will be required to buy the HS2 land.

Peel Holdings bought the Pemberton (blundells) Collieries site in Highfield, about 20 yrs ago and spent 10yrs making the land safe to be built on, and at the moment they are on with a massive phase of the Pemberton Collieries development, with lots of houses being built and a link road.

i,ll believe it when i see it . they have pledged this before & wot happened , NOTHING .

TTS
ITS on the news they have sold it , Hs2 is not going to happen, it's gone to development

Making sure that a future government (of whatever party) cannot reverse the decision.

No need to do that if the decision had been made on grounds of cost as had been alleged.

He is delivering the political outcome which the hard right have been so obsessively campaigning to achieve.

Sunak enriched himself at the expense of the UK taxpayer. He showed no concern at the sleeze whereby ministers creamed off billions into the pockets of their cronies and proxies. Raised no objections to failed financial management of the project whilst he was chancellor. The man should be in prison, not in charge of our country.

not forgeting his wife either .

And in order to go on the high speed branch line from London to Birmingham, rail pasengers at Euston will have to catch another train to the new station at Old Oak Common and then on reaching Birmingham catch another train to go North.

Or as a alternative, they could get tonker to advise them how to get there quicker by car, not only to Birmingham, but also the North.

If you look in detail at what has happened in all our large scale projects, from defence to aerospace to infrastructure, they have all been financial messes, although this has sometimes been obscured.

The end result is always a fudge.

They can be fudged to complete.
They can be fudged to abandon.

It is a power politics decision.

Everyone has their two penneth worth of opinion concerning what went wrong.

One of my favourite books, it is usually called the book of failures: more correctly it is the Open University Case Book of Systems Failures. It covers from Three Mile Island to Rolls Royce, From Flixborough to Normansfield Hospital Scandal. It is a bit old now though.

There is a dire need for a similar investigation into our recurrent failure to adequately manage large projects.

And we need a very robust policing of the behaviour of our governments.

I suggest some financing be given to LSE. (I say LSE because of its ability to attract international proven talent) to establish a body to enhance compliance with standards which end our repeating the same failures over, and over, and over again.

Or, we could just be resigned to becoming a sleeze ridden backward country.

Lord Smiffy of Leigh, got his degree in economics, from the London Skool of Economics

And Mick Jagger didn't.

So that's how he was so good at feathering his own nest and living in a baronial hall in Atherton as Lord Smith of Leigh.

No Socialist refusing of a peerage by him!

You mean unlike John Prescott, who was all over TV refusing his, but went on to accept it the next day!

Perhaps when elected to political offices, one of the requirements of the job could be that the person be fitted with a personal permanent lie detector for the duration.

(ps before anyone replies: that was an expression of feelings rather than a serious suggestion)

Owd Codger

Old Hall Mill Lane runs from Leigh Road to The Avenue near to Leigh Infirmary. At the Leigh Road end it is a normal highway . From there to The Avenue it is unadopted and little more than a cart track.
When Brian Strett was chair of the hospital trust he tried to get planning permission to have the cart track upgraded to highway standard to become the official road into the infirmary. Brian was also a deputy leader of Wigan council.
The proposal was vetoed by Lord Smith.

I have a feeling that most if not all of those transport projects announced to replace the Manchester section of HS2 will not be built, because I don't think that Labour will go ahead with them when they get into power at the next general election, and if the Conservatives win, then the projects will just be kicked down the road, and left at the planning stage, because I don't think that this country will have the money to build them, Gaffer was on about the national debt the other day, and the massive interest payments the government is making to service that debt, and the same night, Jacob Rees-Mogg was saying exactly the same thing on his TV show.

TTS
That what rushi sunak
Said at the conference thought you watched it .starmer or any other party cant change it if the tory have sold it off for devepment

Surfer Tom

Do you think that the Tories have already sold off all the land on the Manchester section of HS2 ?

Because that is what you keep saying.

So before the project was cancelled on Wednesday, was the land was put up for sale, to which interested parties put in offers for the land, the government, the civil service looked at the offers being made for the land, and they made a choice as to who was the most suitable party to accept an offer from, as in the did the interested party have the funds available to buy the land.

Then after the offers were accepted, were the legal processes started, were contracts exchanged, were certain covenants placed on certain portions of the lands, then were funds exchanged, with the probably billions of pounds being transferred to the British government treasury.

Surfer Tom

Has all that already been done in 'secret' over the last few months, or even years, because that is how long it will take to sell off all of that land.

Or do you mean something else ?

TTS

HS1 and HS2 were to be part of the freedom of movement in the EU for which the EU would throw a few Bob towards the project. It was felt that the high speed lines would reduce the need for air travel. However, post Brexit the EU subsidy was taken off the table.
The land now available will initially be offered to the original owners where homes, businesses and farms are involved.

""However, post Brexit the EU subsidy was taken off the table."
Thanks for clarifying that, Gaffer

Brexit.
It's what you voted for, Tommy.
The chickens have come to roost

HS1 financing is somewhat weird.

It seems that there is a fictitious budget, which is the one that has been made public, and a real budget more than twice the size of the former.

And they love to tell you that the project came in on time: well, so can any endeavour if you build in a stropping the clock clause.

Just been reading that although existing Pendolino services to Manc Pic from the South can do 125 MPH, the non-tilting HS2 trains running on the existing rail will have to have 110 MPH limit imposed upon them for safety reasons.

In his speech rushi said all the money saved on cancelling Hs2 would go on other projects we're is that money coming from ?

better still where is it going , not up here that,s a fact .

I heard the treasury are pawning the crown jewels.

They should sell them the day after they fire all the sponging royal off the payroll

Adolf Braverman could house a couple of thousand immigrants in Buck Pall cost a lot less than some of her other air brained schemes

Adolf Braverman could house a couple of thousand immigrants in Buck Pall cost a lot less than some of her other air brained schemes

TTS

It was Dominic Cummings who was responsible for the scrapping of HS2.

good.

I agree, he was right on HS2 I found this link from 2019 and those figures in the article have turned out to be right LINK

This is from last week.

"My understanding is that, after studying the Prime Minister’s dreadful polling numbers in recent months, Sunak’s close advisers called the exiled Cummings in from the cold. According to a source who works inside No. 10, the advice from Cummings was bracing: shifting the public’s perceptions of Sunak would be incredibly difficult. He made clear that only very big, very noisy moves would have any chance of persuading people that Sunak is an agent of change. No. 10 needed to pick some big public fights; the more blowback from former prime ministers and big business figures the better. Or, as one insider characterised Cummings’s advice: 'Do mental stuff that proves you’re not the Establishment'"

LINK

Perhaps on reflection there never has been any intention to build HS2 beyond Birmingham and just confine high speed rail travel to the south midlands part of the country between London and Birmigham.

What next HS3 to Plymouth, but after a while, confirmation that will end at Bristol?

Oh, and it has now been confirmed that "HS2 branch line" will indeed teminate at Euston without the need for a shuttle service to Old Oak Common.

Report says that the sale of land & property on the Birmingham to Manchester HS2 route should be put on paws LINK

Yet another great Tory success

Number crunching .
£54bn.
Amount the 140 mile london to birmingham leg of HS2 could cost the British exchequer according to new dept of transport figures.
£5bn.
Estimated cost of Rail Baltica a 540 mile project to provide high speed rail connections between Estonia Poland Latvia and Lithuania .





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,

yes yet another feather in the tory cap on spending the taxpayers money .

The wasting of tax payers money being no different than if the other lot was in power and possibly be even worse.

Might even have created hundreds of administration jobs on the railways to complement those created in the NHS when last in power.

Both parties as bad as each other in wasting Tax Payers money in Parliament as the Council are in wasting Council Tax Payers money in Wigan.

The Gallaries being Wigan's version of HS2, be it on a smaller scale!

13 years of Tory mismanagement have brought the country close to its knees and OF criticises labour,get that test took

more so a tory government who think its their,s to do as they wish with .

It took 6 years to build the Channel Tunnel, 8 yrs from signing an agreement with the French to build it in 1986, it opened in 1994.

HS1 a 68 mile long route from the Channel Tunnel to London took 16 years to build, being given the go ahead in 1991 and opening in 2007.

HS2 was proposed as a serious project in 2009 and work started on HS2 in 2020.

They, that being both Labour and Conservative governments, just can't get it done, there being too many legal obstacles in the way, making progress on the project painfully slow and very expensive, to the point where it is not a viable project anymore, which is because of the time scale, because over some 40 years or so, technology has overtaken high speed travel, so what was science fiction in the 1980s is now science fact, in that people can interact with one another in a virtual environment, linked over thousands of miles, by 'high speed' internet, making physical travel unnecessary.

and wots your point ? .

I did pay close attention to the Channel tunnel build, because at the time I was doing a Post Grad Course concerning corporate financing and management accounting. It was one of the case studies we encountered.

Mrs Thatcher announced all would be funded by private investment.

There was a massive demand for shares, amplified by the travel perks shareholders would qualify for.

However, it took no time for the shareholders' investment to be wiped out. Costs far exceeded projections, and leverage (loans from banks) soon left the shareholders as a very minority owners.

When later, to improve the projects indebtedness, banks converted long term loans into shares, the existing shareholders saw their holdings further diluted in value.

The, in theory, no use of public funds has to be seen alongside of sweetheart deals which the government did with banks to secure their cooperation.

As this information was deemed to be a commercial secret, we never know how much money was involved.

The final major beneficial owners were Goldman and Deutsche Bank.

As I have already said: political decisions. Look in detail at any of the large projects, and you will find things are fudged to get the outcome desired by whomsoever is wielding power at the time.

Handsomeminer

Judging by the same daily pathetic comments by yourself and your pal Whups, its you two who need to take a test!

judging by the pathetic stupid replies that you & your mate 1stroke put on here on a daily basis maybe you shud take the same test but take your blinkers off 1st .

He can't help it whups he,s ill

Whupsy

The point or points is in me posting, to many legal obstacles are put in the way of the government (labour or tory) to enable them to complete a project in a reasonable time line, and at a reasonable cost, they just cannot do it,

But it is the government themselves who create the legal framework which they then go on to blame for being such an obstacle.

Tweedledum and Tweedledee decided to have a battle,
Because Tweedledum said Tweedledee had stole his nice new rattle.

There then came down, a monstrous crow, as black as a tar barrel,
Which frightened both our heros so
They quite forgot their quarrel! (Lewis Carroll)

When UK government found it had WW2 on its hands, it had no difficulty acquiring huge swathes of property for military use and similar. I am not aware of any great sense that owners were inadequately compensated. I guess NIMBYs found no audience for their grievances.

If NIMBYs withholding their votes iis a problem, perhaps our infrastructure projects need to be non partisan: ie done in the name of all parties.

I am going to stick my neck out, and opine that historically, the cancellation of HS2 will be seen as just one aspect of the rising kleptocracy who steal all that is not nailed down, and believe taxes should end up in their pockets, not providing services for the populace.

Ena

I would agree with your comments.

the torys cant because there to busy looking after the rich . labour cant do it because there,s nothing left to call british .