High Speed 2 (HS2)

[nito]

Apologies for the lack of updates on this thread. There have been a few events that have happened that boggle the mind. As you may recall, HS2 was broken into several phases, so let’s do a quick run-through as to what is happening and what has been cancelled/mothballed.


Image sourced from Department for Transport: https://assets.publishing.service.go...nement-web.pdf

Phase 1
Original Plan: This comprised a section from London Euston with stops at Old Oak Common (in west London) and then Birmingham Interchange, whereafter the line splits, with one branch going to Birmingham Curzon Street and the other branching north creating a second bypass line to the West Coast Main Line (WCML).
Current Plan: The section from Old Oak Common to Birmingham Curzon Street is well under construction, with a giant hole at London Euston. The question mark however is what form London Euston will take; the London terminus project has been badly mismanaged with costs rising from constant design changes and a bizarre take from the Treasury that all above station development shouldn’t count towards the project, despite the OSD being at fault for the constant design changes. Originally specified as an 11-platform terminus station, there is speculation that it will be built out with just 6-platforms which would permanently limit the scope to provide the original service pattern of up to 17tph even if all the original phases are built out.

Phase 2a
Original Plan: From Birmingham Interchange, the route heads north-west towards Crewe where the line would split.
Current Plan: Work has already commenced on this section with many bridges and redirection works have already commenced. As per the announcement by Rishi Sunak, this section has been cancelled. HS2 services heading north-west will instead rejoin the WCML and carry on their journey to Manchester, Liverpool and Glasgow.

Phase 2b East
Original Plan: From Crewe, this section would have headed towards Manchester, splitting in two with one branch heading via a tunnel to Manchester Airport and then new adjacent platforms at Manchester Piccadilly. The other branch would head towards Wigan where it would rejoin the WCML onwards up to the north of England and Scotland
Current Plan: This was cancelled by Rishi Sunak, with some cruel irony at the Conservative Party Conference which was held in Manchester.

Phase 2b West
Original Plan: North of Birmingham Interchange, this would have been a new line heading up to Totton (in-between Derby and Nottingham), with a short loop branch via Sheffield, before branching up to a new station adjacent to the main Leeds station and a branch up to York and the Newcastle.
Current Plan: This was cancelled last year as costs started to rise.

Channel 4 News – HS2 Part-Cancellation
• Video Link

Going Forward
HS2 is one of the few projects which had cross-party consensus with all previous Prime Ministers and multitudes of former cabinet ministers in support. In the original proposed form, 48tph would have operated across a network spanning 530km, with 400m long trains travelling at 360kph. The capacity relief would have been transformational, particularly for the WCML, the East Coast Main Line (ECML) and Midland Main Line (MML); with each of these lines able to provide a massive increase in commuter, regional, rural and freight frequencies.

By March of this year, intercity travel had returned to 86% of pre-pandemic levels, despite strikes and Avanti West Coast (the largest intercity operator) struggling to provide a full service (amazingly due to unprecedented driver shortages) and is likely to rise above pre-pandemic volumes by the end of the calendar year. That makes the delivery of HS2 even more critical, as the absence of which will be severe congestion. Just in the last few days there have been reports of some trains refusing to depart until passengers get off because the services are so overcrowded.

As it stands, the only true benefit will be unlocked between London and Birmingham – the section which incurred the highest costs – whilst the lower cost sections to Leeds (which the highest returns) and Manchester (the second highest returns) have now been discarded. It is tantamount to economic sabotage and will make future works to provide nationwide capacity far more costly. An incredibly expensive expansion of the ECML will now need to be looked at, and the level of disruption far higher.

A general election is due to be held next year. The Tories who currently have a majority are likely to be wiped out, with Labour coming in on a massive 100+ seat majority which would give them a lot of control to enact their manifesto. Could they go back to building HS2 as originally intended? Not implausible, but the incoming Labour administration need to say something now to dispel any ideas of rapid land disposals. There are also question marks around the state of the economy and availability of funds, but as an infrastructure project which has nationwide productivity gains, borrowing shouldn’t be a problem. Another point to consider is that the biggest beneficiaries from HS2 would be Labour’s northern heartlands which are constrained by intercity traffic taking up existing tracks and platforms at key mainline stations. Furthermore, HS3 (or Northern Powerhouse) which would be a new high-speed line running from Liverpool to Leeds via Manchester would piggyback off HS2 Phase 2b East.

In a way, HS2 should really have been called High Capacity Rail; high speed services being a perk, but the focus ought to have been on the capacity relief for existing mainline corridors for new commuter services across the country, displacing road freight and allowing for the removal of domestic short-haul flights.


HS2 Project Update – September 2023
• Video Link

Work beings on HS2’s longest Green Tunnel
• Video Link

Production of HS2 London tunnel segments
• Video Link

Colne Valley Viaduct
• Video Link

Chilterns Tunnel Progress
• Video Link

London Tunnel Progress
• Video Link

Copthall Green Tunnel
• Video Link

[nito]

Originally Posted by jmecklenborg

You have to wonder if some interest in Birmingham has acted behind the scenes to keep this service to itself.

I seem to recall that some criticism of the plan was that at full build-out Birmingham would have to reduce its use of HS2 to accommodate the northern trains.

No, this is Sunak blindsiding everyone, tearing up successive manifesto commitments, Tory policy and cross-party agreements.

The full delivery of HS2 would have seen even more services running into Birmingham, not less. Birmingham would have been at the centre of the network, with Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds and London all accessible in <60mins.

Originally Posted by ih8samson

Not likely. The Tories have stated they intend to sell off the properties acquired for the HS2 right of way and use the proceeds to fund their other transportation priorities. Salting the proverbial earth. In a few years they'll complain the Labour government has failed to deliver transportation infrastructure. This is politics now.

It isn’t quite straightforward, particularly as the route to Crewe has Royal Ascent, contracts awarded and works have already commenced on some sections of the route. The bigger issue is that the stop-start approach pushes up costs (across all UK infrastructure projects) as contractors will push for a premium for these sort of eventualities.

[Busy Bee]

Thank you for the summary update.

What is the likelihood that with a new election a new governing majority could reverse Sunak's cancellation entirely? It's no surprise the Tories would likely get creamed. Is it true that some home counties Conservative MP's want to give the land back that has already been assembled for HS2? That is madness. That feels like the sort of "own the libs" insanity that has become the norm in the US.

[nito]

Originally Posted by Busy Bee

Thank you for the summary update.

What is the likelihood that with a new election a new governing majority could reverse Sunak's cancellation entirely? It's no surprise the Tories would likely get creamed. Is it true that some home counties Conservative MP's want to give the land back that has already been assembled for HS2? That is madness. That feels like the sort of "own the libs" insanity that has become the norm in the US.

There is a degree of insanity. Boris Johnson, David Cameron and Teresa May (Sunak’s predecessors as PM) have come out to say that Sunak is being an absolute idiot. Typically you get a post-conference bounce in the polls, except this time they fell.

The Home Counties are generally defined as the area around London, sort of analogous to a London metro area, albeit without the rampant sprawl. As it stands, Phase 1 through the Home Counties, specifically that through Buckinghamshire is well under construction. The legal quagmire is whether land compulsory purchased for Phase 2a (from Birmingham to Crewe) which runs through several Conservative seats is sold off. There are a few question marks around judicial reviews and other legal hurdles put up to try and stop a fire sale.

At the Labour Party Conference yesterday, the Conference reaffirmed (see below) long-term support for full delivery of HS2, not just to Manchester, but Leeds as well. That isn’t a cast iron guarantee, and the Tories have really fudged the economy, but it is a shovel ready project for Labour to just pick up and carry on with.



The problem for Labour is that if they don’t commit to HS2 in full, they will need to look at drastic interventions on the WCML, ECML and MML. A previous costly and highly disruptive upgrade of the WCML saw the capacity gains used up in under a decade, hence the work to deliver a new line (HS2) and avoid replicating those problems on the ECML, MML and other parts of the WCML. Northern Powerhouse Rail wouldn’t be deliverable either in the absence of the western stretch of HS2 into Manchester.

The context is that whilst commuter traffic is still recovering to pre-pandemic levels, discretionary travel is at 130% and intercity travel has most likely already recovered to pre-pandemic levels. Before the pandemic, more journeys were made on the UK’s intercity network than in Germany (ICE) or France (TGV and Intercités). More people were using intercity services on the ECML than the entire Spanish AVE network. HS2 was needed two decades ago.


Another last note, Keir Starmer’s – the leader of the Labour Party – constituency of Holborn & St Pancras includes Euston which would have/could be the HS2 terminus. At the moment it is a giant hole in the ground, stuck in development purgatory. HS2 for him isn’t just a national issue, it’s a local issue as hundreds of residents were evicted and businesses closed down to allow for demolition of what would have become the western HS2 platforms. A view of Euston from the other day taken by Jack Boskett on Twitter: https://twitter.com/jackboskett/stat...79352839037382

[jmecklenborg]

^"making sure freight...."

What are the freight rail issues in England? I can't imagine that there is much transformative potential there since the distances are short and the cities are all very close to the coast, unlike the United States, where dozens of mile-long trains travel in each direction each day on many railroads.

Much of the freight rail activity on the US railroads east of the Mississippi River is, ironically, related to the production of automobiles. The lack of excess capacity on said railroads means Amtrak isn't able to carve out a service that can compete with driving personal automobiles on the interstate highways that often parallel the freight railroads. The nascent electric car business is going to bring even more activity to the railroads, as the very heavy EV batteries are poised to be shipped from factories to car assembly plants via rail.

[nito]

Originally Posted by jmecklenborg

^"making sure freight...."

What are the freight rail issues in England? I can't imagine that there is much transformative potential there since the distances are short and the cities are all very close to the coast, unlike the United States, where dozens of mile-long trains travel in each direction each day on many railroads.

Much of the freight rail activity on the US railroads east of the Mississippi River is, ironically, related to the production of automobiles. The lack of excess capacity on said railroads means Amtrak isn't able to carve out a service that can compete with driving personal automobiles on the interstate highways that often parallel the freight railroads. The nascent electric car business is going to bring even more activity to the railroads, as the very heavy EV batteries are poised to be shipped from factories to car assembly plants via rail.

The rail network in the UK (like much of Europe) is far more orientated towards the movement of passengers than freight compared to the setup in North America. There are of course freight movements, and there has more of a drive to shift to rail freight, including more intermodal depots to take lorries off the road, but most freight is moved by lorry.

The below diagram is simplified, but in general, most rail freight is focus on moving goods to/from the southern ports at Southampton, London Gateway, Felixstowe and the Channel Tunnel, Milford Haven in Wales, and up north, the ports of Liverpool, Immingham and Teeside. The relevance to HS2 is that the WCML (in purple), the MML (in light blue) and ECML (turquoise) are the main north-to-south freight corridors; HS2 takes the intercity services off those lines, and the result is lower but more consistent speed services that allows for more trains to operate, whether commuter, regional or freight. Without HS2, you end up with several thousand extra lorry movements every day.


Image sourced from Network Rail: https://www.networkrail.co.uk/wp-con...idors-2023.pdf