Hs2 Amendment

[Morat]

 

I can't imagine why anyone with a car would dream of using the train for anything other than a simple journey. I need want to go to Swanage in September and I just looked at the fares out of interest. For 2 adults and a child the minimum comes to a little under £100 - it takes 3.5 hours and needs 2 changes... the nearest station is Wareham so we'd need to get bus or taxi from there. It's 130 miles by car ... and I'm getting about 58 mph so call it 5 gallons return - works out under £30 and we'll arrive a lot less flustered - no argument in my book.

 

Absolutely. Unless you're travelling to London the train is pretty much pointless.

[b0atman]

Surely HS2 is private Railways de nationalised so why does government need to spend any of our money ? That we do not have.

[Athy]

 

I can't imagine why anyone with a car would dream of using the train for anything other than a simple journey. I need want to go to Swanage in September and I just looked at the fares out of interest. For 2 adults and a child the minimum comes to a little under £100 - it takes 3.5 hours and needs 2 changes... the nearest station is Wareham so we'd need to get bus or taxi from there. It's 130 miles by car ... and I'm getting about 58 mph so call it 5 gallons return - works out under £30 and we'll arrive a lot less flustered - no argument in my book.

Aye, lots more cars on the roads, that's what we need.

[Machpoint005]

Aye, lots more cars on the roads, that's what we need.

 

There's plenty of room on the roads at 3am.

[Jess--]

 

There's plenty of room on the roads at 3am.

Dammit... now I've got KLF : 3AM Eternal stuck in my head

[Ray T]

Quite so. I can't remember how many billions of pounds HS2 is supposed to cost. It may be similar to the amount that the government intends to save on benefits and other such expense. Can someone at Whitehall perhaps add 2+2?

Mrs T writes:

 

As someone whose house is blighted in Burton Green, Kenilworth, here are the scores on the doors:

 

Began as £19bn.

Then went up to £26bn.

Then £42bn was bandied around.

Now it is an unknown quantity, estimated by some in the Action Groups as upward of £60bn.

 

Burton Green housing is currently one third owned by the government - and it won't stop there. Some of the properties purchased are deemed "uninhabitable" having been bought from retired people and left to rot. Under normal circumstances they would be sold as "in need of modernisation", snapped up by builders and refurbished and sold quickly (as used to happen prior to 2010). Now they are left to the mercy of the elements as all services tend to be disconnected. I know as this is happening to the property next to mine.

 

Still the residents are NOT offered market value when they offer their property to the government. A year ago my neighbour accepted an offer for her property at LESS than mine was valued for probate in 2003 !!!!! They are virtually identical properties.

 

A vanity project which will overrun and cost billions this country does not have. In fact during the last parliament Cameron went cap in hand to the Chinese asking them to finance it - they declined. So how is it being financed ?

 

And more to the point, when built, who will be able to afford the fares ? My brother lives in Guildford and worked in the City. His season ticket almost doubled in 5 years so he changed jobs and moved out of the city. So much for adding capacity - only subsidised corporates will be able to afford the fares.

 

I am not a Nimby, just pay me the proper market value for my house and you can have your stupid HS2.

 

Mrs T

aka Disgusted of Burton Green

[NilesMI]

 

I can't imagine why anyone with a car would dream of using the train for anything other than a simple journey. I need want to go to Swanage in September and I just looked at the fares out of interest. For 2 adults and a child the minimum comes to a little under £100 - it takes 3.5 hours and needs 2 changes... the nearest station is Wareham so we'd need to get bus or taxi from there. It's 130 miles by car ... and I'm getting about 58 mph so call it 5 gallons return - works out under £30 and we'll arrive a lot less flustered - no argument in my book.

 

Coincidentally, when I had a car, the majority of my mileage was Nottingham to Lancaster and back, a 260 mile round trip. I used to weigh up the car vs train costs based on pence per mile for the full cost of having the car (depreciation, road tax, insurance, maintenance, interest on loan...). That worked out at about 40p/mile so for a 260 mile round trip that would be £104, not the £30 which is only the cost of the fuel.

 

Buying advance/saver tickets, the train cost between £30-40 return, depending on time of day. In the end I decided to sell the car, take the train and save the £60+ per return trip. Now I just rent a car for journeys where the train is impractical or I need to haul stuff.

 

I'd like to be able to say that over the years all those £60 savings have mounted up to a nice pile of cash in the bank, but of course I own a narrowboat. You know the rest...

[Graham Davis]

there does seem to be a lot more freight being moved on trains these days (compared with what I remember from my youth) and the amount would seem to be increasing further with new Rail-Served distribution depot's appearing.

 

however this increase is having an effect on the rail network, as an example there is a level crossing near to stamford (I forget the name) which carries 3 tracks, in the past (about 10 years ago) the most the barriers were down was around 15 minutes in an hour during busy periods, these days if you time getting to that crossing wrong you can be waiting up to 45 minutes for all three tracks to be clear enough for the crossing to open.

 

current usage on that crossing seems to be 1 track carrying high speed passenger traffic, 1 track carrying lower speed passenger and freight traffic and the third track with nothing but slow moving freight

 

Exactly!

8 years ago when I started as a signaller we had no more than 6 freight trains a day, when I was last at work we were getting double that.

HS2 is NOT about speed. HS2 is about freeing up "space" on the current tracks, which are now at about 99% capacity. The current lines cannot take any more, so a new line has to be built.

[NilesMI]

I am currently at the mercy of a poor internet connection and can't search very well but I thought there was a proposal to link them, or has that gone by the wayside in the amendments?

 

The problem with an HS1/HS2 link is that with the UK being outside the Schengen arrangements, and the UK Border Service refusing to carry out passport checks on board the train, everyone would have to get off the train at some specific point (Euston?), go through passport control and customs and then get back on again. It would be number 1 in the list of pointless through train services.

 

Failing that you would have to have passport controls at every station on HS2 and designated platforms for the "Continental Trains" which would not be accessible for journeys between the intermediate, domestic UK stations, thus knocking seven bells out of the economics of running a high speed train from Manchester or Leeds via Brum and London through to Brussels, Paris or Frankfurt.

[IanM]

Exactly!

8 years ago when I started as a signaller we had no more than 6 freight trains a day, when I was last at work we were getting double that.

HS2 is NOT about speed. HS2 is about freeing up "space" on the current tracks, which are now at about 99% capacity. The current lines cannot take any more, so a new line has to be built.

Just what I said, but then people told me that I was wrong.

[Machpoint005]

Why does the additional line have to be high speed (and therefore more expensive, as well as more controversial)?

[Guest]

 

The problem with an HS1/HS2 link is that with the UK being outside the Schengen arrangements, and the UK Border Service refusing to carry out passport checks on board the train, everyone would have to get off the train at some specific point (Euston?), go through passport control and customs and then get back on again. It would be number 1 in the list of pointless through train services.

 

Failing that you would have to have passport controls at every station on HS2 and designated platforms for the "Continental Trains" which would not be accessible for journeys between the intermediate, domestic UK stations, thus knocking seven bells out of the economics of running a high speed train from Manchester or Leeds via Brum and London through to Brussels, Paris or Frankfurt.

I thought that already happened on some Eurostar services coming back to the UK. Travellers disembark for passport checks in France and re board.

 

Or am I wrong?

Edited June 24, 2015 by MJG

[NilesMI]

Why does the additional line have to be high speed (and therefore more expensive, as well as more controversial)?

 

It does not have to be high speed. You could increase capacity with a new line operating at conventional speed, 160-200kph.

 

But for the same footprint (land area) you can get more capacity (bums on seats per hour) by running at high speed. You also get a better payback in terms of benefit versus cost per bum (passenger) as even the marginal time saved per journey adds up in terms of productive tax paying hours for the millions of journeys which will be made over the time in which the investment will be paying back in to the governments coffers. The higher speed does have a higher initial capital cost but overall it is the best value.

 

So I'm in no doubt that if new capacity is justified it should be provided at 300-350kph to get the most bang for the buck in terms of value for money for the taxpayer. I remain to be convinced that it should be engineered for 400kph, which is what HS2 is. There are no off the peg systems (traction, signalling, track, comms, power supplies) which currently run at that speed in Europe. On the other hand the additional cost of laying out the geometry (of the track) and structures (bridges, viaducts, tunnels) for that speed is not likely to be a massive extra cost, even if the trains and the rest of the infrastructure is provided to run at 320 kph initially. If done that way theree is an element of future proofing.

 

The alternative "improve the existing railway" argument simply does not fly. The West Coast Route has already been upgraded and is on practically on the limit of what can be squeezed out of it. Even billions spent on increasing some speeds here and there, cab signalling and so on would only add a handfull of paths (trains) per hour at the end of years and years of disruption. With demand for track space rising faster than the extra capacity being supplied, it would seem a futile wast of money.

 

There is the "do nothing" approach which notionally "spends" the billions of HS2 money on something else entirely. But the £40+bn or whatever it turns out to be, spent over 20-30 years is probably less than a billion a year once the increased income from HS2 (through taxes) is figured in. And a billion a year is, by NHS standards, just a drop in the ocean. People expecting fantastic new road infrastructure or government funded giga speed broadband to every village pump if HS2 is cancelled are deluding themselves. If doing those things was actually that cheap, we would have done them already.

 

 

I thought that already happened on some Eurostar services coming back to the UK. Travellers disembark for passport checks in France and re board.

 

Or am I wrong?

 

There was a thing called the "Lille loophole", whereby a pssenger could buy a ticket from Brussels to Lille(Europe) and board a Eurostar train bound for London. Because their journey was within the Schengen area there were not subject to a passport check either by Belgian police or by UK Border Agency when leaving Brussels. The loophole was that they could stay on the train and get off in London, evading any passport check at all.

 

The solution is additional passport checks on arrival into London from the specific trains which set down passengers in Lille. Of course that inconveniences everyone travelling legitimately who has already had their passports checked in Brussels. I don't think they actually make people get off and back on the train en-route though that might have happened short term between the loophole being discovered and the extra checks at St Pancras being introduced.

[DHutch]

 

I can't imagine why anyone with a car would dream of using the train for anything other than a simple journey.

 

The not having a car at the other end is an issue, and I use my car for a lot of my moving around as the boat is often not by a station, neither is my parents, etc.

 

However if I am going to to my a freinds for a weekend in say weston-s-mare for instance, or anywhere in London, I will normally use the train.

 

Station at this end is easy walking distance, short run up to Stoke or Derby and the world is your oyster. I can jump on one of Branson best, down to Bristol, one more change and I am there, walking distance again or hi picks me up. Similar trip time, similar cost, and instead of getting stuck in Friday evening traffic round Bristol after a long weeks work I can get two hours kip or doze listen to music,

 

 

Daniel

[jollymoggy]

HS2 is a waste of money. Invest it on high speed internet for everyone. More home based working rather than commuting to sit in an office all day. Pathetic.

[Locksprite]

 

Buying advance/saver tickets, the train cost....

Those are generally taken up by regular travellers, students, rail buffs and retired people with lots of time on their hands. It's even cheaper if people want to go into the labyrinth of splitting journeys and having the guard/ticket collector as bemused by its legality as ordinary travellers. The system has been turned into a competition; crack the code, steep yourself in the lore, wallow in the small print and have photocopies of permissibility blown up into 48pt to fend off the shaking heads, and you too can get from A to B at a reasonable price.

 

On the other hand, if you need to be somewhere the day after tomorrow, dig deep! No way to run a transport network IMHO.

[Athy]

Those are generally taken up by regular travellers, students, rail buffs and retired people with lots of time on their hands.

You say so? Yesterday, through the "Train Line" web site, I booked tickets from March to Brighton and return, for a part business/ part pleasure journey. The options were clearly displayed so that I could choose times and fares, and I ended up paying only £43 for the entire journey. I have a senior rail card, so add a third to that to make it up to the full amount and you get £65. I then looked at the National Rail Enquiries web site and found similar results.

 

Nor are these low fares confined to web sites. earlier this year, on a trip from March to Stamford, I was delighted when the ticket lady at March station told me that by "splitting" the tickets I could save several pounds on the advertised price, which I duly did.

[KevMc]

 

Coincidentally, when I had a car, the majority of my mileage was Nottingham to Lancaster and back, a 260 mile round trip. I used to weigh up the car vs train costs based on pence per mile for the full cost of having the car (depreciation, road tax, insurance, maintenance, interest on loan...). That worked out at about 40p/mile so for a 260 mile round trip that would be £104, not the £30 which is only the cost of the fuel.

 

Buying advance/saver tickets, the train cost between £30-40 return, depending on time of day. In the end I decided to sell the car, take the train and save the £60+ per return trip. Now I just rent a car for journeys where the train is impractical or I need to haul stuff.

 

I'd like to be able to say that over the years all those £60 savings have mounted up to a nice pile of cash in the bank, but of course I own a narrowboat. You know the rest...

 

That's OK if you can dump the car altogether but if you have the car then you are paying the depreciation, insurance, tax etc anyway so not using it for such a journey means you are paying those costs just to have a pretty bird toilet sitting on the drive/street

Aye, lots more cars on the roads, that's what we need.

 

Isn't that what the roads are for?

[Athy]

 

 

 

Isn't that what the roads are for?

No, they are for getting from one place to another. You only have to look at city streets, or indeed the M25, at rush hour to realise that a surfeit of cars means that no one gets anywhere in a hurry. I realise that there is spare capacity at 3 a.m. but driving at that time would not suit the majority of people.

 

However, running goods trains at 3 a.m. should not be a problem. So, rather than waste billions of pounds on the undesirable HS2, why not utilise the wee small hours for more goods train movements?

[MoominPapa]

The elephant in the room with HS2, surely, is the fact that it's being built with public money. The Channel Tunnel was built with private money, indeed I believe the parliamentary bill made it illegal for it to be subsidised. Of course the investors all lost out, big time, and subsequently HS1 had to be bailed out several times by the government to make it happen at all. The privatisation of BR, later, can't be seen as anything other than a way to reduce the power of the rail workers and line the pockets of the franchisees, since the subsidy to the rail industry is vastly bigger, now, than it was in BR days.

 

As even a majority Conservative government seems to have accepted the fact that the only way we've going to get new rail infrastructure is if we all pay through taxes, the question surely is "Who gets the benefit of that tax spend?" If you want more freight on the railways, then build more freight lines. If you want fewer cars on the road, then reduce ticket prices and improve services: open previously closed lines and stations. (Middlewich has a railway line, but no station, Oxford to Cambridge would be hugely popular, to take two examples I've come across personally in the last few months.) If you want to improve the lives of London-based commuters and allow them to live in cheaper, nicer, houses further from the capital, build HS2.

 

MP.

 

[adam1uk]

You say so? Yesterday, through the "Train Line" web site, I booked tickets from March to Brighton and return, for a part business/ part pleasure journey. The options were clearly displayed so that I could choose times and fares, and I ended up paying only £43 for the entire journey. I have a senior rail card, so add a third to that to make it up to the full amount and you get £65. I then looked at the National Rail Enquiries web site and found similar results.

 

Nor are these low fares confined to web sites. earlier this year, on a trip from March to Stamford, I was delighted when the ticket lady at March station told me that by "splitting" the tickets I could save several pounds on the advertised price, which I duly did.

 

You'll have paid fees on the Train Line. Much better to use sites which don't charge fees -- such as many of the rail company websites (www.southernrailway.com for example). All the same fares are available everywhere.

[Machpoint005]

>> The elephant in the room with HS2, surely, is the fact that it's being built with public money. The Channel Tunnel was built with private money, indeed I believe the parliamentary bill made it illegal for it to be subsidised. Of course the investors all lost out, big time, and subsequently HS1 had to be bailed out several times by the government to make it happen at all. <<

 

 

The Channel Tunnel was underwritten by the European Economic Community, which is public money, but Mrs Thatch's pals conveniently ignored that. ANd as you correctly say, we ended up footing the bill anyway because there was no viable economic model.

 

HS2 is a waste of money. Invest it on high speed internet for everyone. More home based working rather than commuting to sit in an office all day. Pathetic.

 

If you had bothered to read NilesMI's post no.38 (in answer to my question) you would have seen a lucid explanation of why universal high speed internet is not a genuine alternative in cost terms.

[KevMc]

No, they are for getting from one place to another. You only have to look at city streets, or indeed the M25, at rush hour to realise that a surfeit of cars means that no one gets anywhere in a hurry. I realise that there is spare capacity at 3 a.m. but driving at that time would not suit the majority of people.

 

 

 

That's because employers insist that people commute to an office and sit on their chair at their desk using their computer rather than allowing them to sit at home doing exactly the same job - 19th century solution - we need 21st or even 22nd century solutions.

 

 

If you had bothered to read NilesMI's post no.38 (in answer to my question) you would have seen a lucid explanation of why universal high speed internet is not a genuine alternative in cost terms.

 

It didn't give any costs for high speed internet apart from saying it would cost more

[Athy]

 

You'll have paid fees on the Train Line.

Yep, 75 p fee plus £1 for postage (the tickets arrived this morning, so not a bank-breaker. Plus I saved by not having to go to the station (eight miles away) to book.

[Machpoint005]

 

It didn't give any costs for high speed internet apart from saying it would cost more

 

But he did say "If doing those things was actually that cheap, we would have done them already" which is a valid point.