Northern Powerhouse HS2/3

[jfy1999]

I note your comments jfy1999, but have to disagree. It was noted by many along the Phase 1 route how HS2 Suddenly activated work in January 2019 on every site already cleared and left barren for around a year or more, knowing the decision to cancel was possible.

No, it really wasn’t possible without a complete U-turn from the government. That’s my whole point. Government let the London-Birmingham construction contracts in 2017. Demolition had been going on since that time. They had every opportunity to cancel that process. Instead they chose to pass the Hybrid Bill for the Birmingham-Crewe line in January 2018. again, they could have chosen not to do that.

What suggestions were there that HS2 could be cancelled in January 2019? Boris Johnson didn’t announce he would have HS2 reviewed until June 2019, when he hadn’t yet won party leadership.

Tory leadership front-runner Boris Johnson sets up review of HS2

Boris Johnson has asked former Crossrail boss Douglas Oakervee to lead a review of HS2 - but says he would have to 'think very hard' about cancelling it entirely

www.birminghammail.co.uk

 

[HPsauce]

Boris announced live on TV that the project was to be reviewed, with a final decision in February 2020 ( I said 2019 previously, which was incorrect). HS2 suddenly started the work after New Year holiday January 2020. This doesn't address the upheaval and devastation that future generations will have to deal with.

 

[jfy1999]

Boris announced live on TV that the project was to be reviewed, with a final decision in February 2020 ( I said 2019 previously, which was incorrect). HS2 suddenly started the work after New Year holiday January 2020. This doesn't address the upheaval and devastation that future generations will have to deal with.

right, January 2020. But in your previous post it states that they made it much harder to cancel by moving men and machinery onto site. How would that have made it harder to cancel? If a contract is cancelled - I’ve seen this happened on other building sites - they could simply leave again without building anything.

I will address your other points later

 

[A400]

All I can say is that it’s a massive promise that has been broke in the North of England. And surely if they’re encouraging greener travel then surely this is needed for that?

Yet again failing the north and only caring about London!

 

[JENNYJET]

Once the Hybrid bill became law and the court challenge was disposed of, nothing but a complete repeal of the enabling Act of Parliament giving authority to construct can stop the project. Even then, it would probably cost just as much in compensatory settlements and associated costs so the best course is to do the British thing and muddle through and work with what we end up with. The Europeans must be in stitches at the British
approach to infrastructure whilst fast trains are commonplace in the continent.

 

[White Heather]

All I can say is that it’s a massive promise that has been broke in the North of England. And surely if they’re encouraging greener travel then surely this is needed for that?

Yet again failing the north and only caring about London!

They aren't failing the North West, as they get HS2, plus a high speed line from Warrington, and even the only part of the Transpennine line to go high speed, is also in Greater Manchester.
It's Yorkshire that is losing out, in particular Leeds which loses HS2 completely, and Bradford that remains a railway dead end. Somehow Sheffield goes from not being on the HS2 line (other than Meadowhall), to being the terminus instead of Leeds, although from East Midlands to Sheffield is on the usual Midland Mainline.

West Yorkshire has been well and truly shafted by the Government. And York, Hull, Newcastle and everywhere North of that can forget it.

As for the improvements, I don't believe they will add up to much at all. Unless the lines have more tracks, there won't be faster trains, unless the slow trains that stop at the various towns and villages are axed to get them out of the way. For much of the Transpennine route there isn't the space to increase the tracks to allow this, particularly through the tunnels.under the Pennines. Railway experts are already saying it's just more lies.

 

[jfy1999]

So here are my thoughts about building on the countryside,

Firstly, the huge swathes of bare earth around HS2 that we see now won’t look anything like the finished product. Here’s pictures of HS1 during construction and completed. Only a small fraction of the land being dug up is for concrete/track to be laid on it. The rest is either for temporary construction compounds in fields which get restored to their original state afterwards, or for embankments which are similar to fields in appearance.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1427894549356154881

In addition, they are turning fields into woodland using soil relocated from the woods through which HS2 is being built, like this one at Cubbington:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1460975863160315917

So i realise that just because we can turn farmland into new woods, that doesn’t justify compulsory purchasing of people’s property and running HGVs through villages for building absolutely anything over the countryside.

However, I think building new railways is justified if they enable increased local trains that reduce the demand for new roads. The proposed Oxford-Cambridge highway has been cancelled partly because East-West Rail is being built as an alternative:

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/...e-plans-for-improving-transport-in-the-region

Unfortunately (in my opinion) this government is planning to dig up the countryside in a lot of other places for bypasses, ring-roads and road widening.

Road Investment Strategy

maps.dft.gov.uk

As White Heather points out, the government’s plan to upgrade the railways we already have will mean local train services being disrupted which will increase car use. A lot of this road building is in the Northern areas that would have seen improved local train services under the original plan to build HS2 and NPR all the way to Leeds, instead of stopping HS2 in the East Midlands and NPR at Marsden.

Maybe there is another alternative to road building besides new railways, although I’m not sure what that would be, as COVID doesn’t seem to have halted the growth in road traffic.

 

[KARFA]

The loss of HS2 to Leeds I am not so bothered about tbh.

However, what is clearly needed and would clearly demonstrate the governments idea of levelling up would have been HS3, a high speed new line connecting Liverpool-Manchester-Bradford-Leeds-Hull. It wold be transformational for the region economically and shown a willingness to deliver top class new infrastructure for a project which doesn't touch London. It may have even helped to keep congestion increases on the M62 to a minimum as people actually had a viable alternative to driving across the Pennines.

Instead we now get the usual watered down solution of a bit of electrification, some short sections of higher speed line, and a few upgrades. Is it any wonder that people in the north fell let down.

 

[HPsauce]

HS1 is not comparable with HS2 as it operates on a smaller gauge track. Therefore it is not compatible to link between the two. Pictures of before/after on HS1 do not take into account the removal of green countryside and habitat. The claims that woodland etc will be replaced are frankly laughable and clearly designed to taken in by gullible people. Saplings that HS2 have planted in Warwickshire were found to be 85% dead just a year later. To say HS2 Ltd have been economical with the truth doesn't even touch it.

 

[KARFA]

HS1 is not comparable with HS2 as it operates on a smaller gauge track. Therefore it is not compatible to link between the two. Pictures of before/after on HS1 do not take into account the removal of green countryside and habitat. The claims that woodland etc will be replaced are frankly laughable and clearly designed to taken in by gullible people. Saplings that HS2 have planted in Warwickshire were found to be 85% dead just a year later. To say HS2 Ltd have been economical with the truth doesn't even touch it.

Are you sure? How did the regional Eurostars ever operated on the east coast of HS1 gauge was not the same as UK gauge?

EDIT: answered my own question. HS1, HS2 as planned, and UK domestic is all standard 1435mm.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

4ft 8 1/2 inches (1435 mm) is the standard-gauge for the UK's railways.

When Brunel set about engineering the Great Western Railway (Bristol Temple Meads to London Paddington) in 1835 he decided on a 7 ft 1/4 inch (2,140 mm) gauge that came to be known as the broad-gauge. He believed such a gauge would be smoother for passengers and would allow faster trains. The Great Western Railway continued to roll out the broad-gauge as it expanded.

Most other railway companies in Britain built their lines to what became known as the standard-gauge. (Ireland was and remains different - it has two gauges, one in the South at 5ft 3 inches/1,600 mm and one in the North at standard-gauge). A 'gauge war' broke out and a Royal Commission was set up that led to the Gauge Act in 1846 that ruled that all future railways should be built to the standard-gauge.

The Great Western Railway though was allowed to construct further broad-gauge lines in its territory but many miles of mixed gauge operations were also installed to permit through running to standard-gauge lines.

Eventually the Great Western threw in the towel and in 1892 ripped up all its broad-gauge tracks.

Evidence remains of the broad-gauge in the size of many bridges and tunnels in the Great Western territory (the iconic Box tunnel near Bath being a spectacular example). If Parliament had gone Brunel's way all those years ago a lot more land would have been needed for Britain's railways.

 

[deepdale2]

4ft 8 1/2 inches (1435 mm) is the standard-gauge for the UK's railways.

When Brunel set about engineering the Great Western Railway (Bristol Temple Meads to London Paddington) in 1835 he decided on a 7 ft 1/4 inch (2,140 mm) gauge that came to be known as the broad-gauge. He believed such a gauge would be smoother for passengers and would allow faster trains. The Great Western Railway continued to roll out the broad-gauge as it expanded.

Most other railway companies in Britain built their lines to what became known as the standard-gauge. (Ireland was and remains different - it has two gauges, one in the South at 5ft 3 inches/1,600 mm and one in the North at standard-gauge). A 'gauge war' broke out and a Royal Commission was set up that led to the Gauge Act in 1846 that ruled that all future railways should be built to the standard-gauge.

The Great Western Railway though was allowed to construct further broad-gauge lines in its territory but many miles of mixed gauge operations were also installed to permit through running to standard-gauge lines.

Eventually the Great Western threw in the towel and in 1892 ripped up all its broad-gauge tracks.

Evidence remains of the broad-gauge in the size of many bridges and tunnels in the Great Western territory (the iconic Box tunnel near Bath being a spectacular example). If Parliament had gone Brunel's way all those years ago a lot more land would have been needed for Britain's railways.

 

[deepdale2]

As far as I know the whole of Ireland is at 5ft 3in, apart from a few short narrow gauge preserved railways ( mainly in Eire. )

 

[TheLocalYokel]

As far as I know the whole of Ireland is at 5ft 3in, apart from a few short narrow gauge preserved railways ( mainly in Eire. )

You're quite right. I did the post without checking first. I had this feeling that Northern Ireland had the standard-gauge. I must have mis-read something in the past and it stuck. I should have realised that was not the case because only a few years ago I travelled by train from Dublin to Belfast and there was no obvious mixed gauge working.

My knowledge of mainland British railways especially the Great Western is better but, just to be sure, I've now double-checked with references the whole of my post that was submitted from memory to make sure that I hadn't slipped up elsewhere.

Many thanks for the correction.

 

[Aviador]

Local taxpayers will have to foot part of £2bn bill for West Yorkshire Mass Transit System

Just £100m of new money towards the estimated £2bn cost of the proposed new West Yorkshire Mass Transit System is budgeted for in the Government's controversial Integrated Rail Plan.

www.yorkshirepost.co.uk

So people of Yorkshire not only have to foot the bill for their own rapid transit system, they also have to contribute towards the multi billion pound HS2 to improve connectivity between London, Birmingham and Manchester. With the Barnett Formula looking after Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Yorkshire, the North East and the South West have been firmly positioned at the bottom of the pecking order when it comes to government support.

 

[A400]

Why should we? They should pay for it useless pieces of human beings. For letting Yorkshire down!

 

[Silvercity]

The NPR project looks further away than ever. That's if you ever believed there was any substance in it at all, and more to keep the voters happy.

Rishi Sunak shelves Liz Truss's pledge to beef up Northern Powerhouse Rail to 'full' version

Ex-PM’s pledge to reverse Government cuts and build a £43bn new high speed Leeds-Liverpool line via Bradford is put on ice amid economic pressure

inews.co.uk