There’s a double-bill of these coming shortly. This shouldn’t have been the first, but no matter as it was posted on social media today. Step forward serial liar Mark Keir! Keir is well-known to readers of this blog as I’ve highlighted his habit of telling the most enormous whoppers several times. One such occasion when he pants were so ablaze it would have taken most of the London Fire Brigade to put ’em out was when he claimed he was watching HS2 workers cutting down the actual tree Roald Dahl visited and wrote about in his story ‘Fantastic Mr Fox’. It was an outrageous lie of course. That tree was in a completely different wood – and it blew down years ago – as I documented in this blog. I’ve plenty of other examples of him making stuff up, this is just two examples.
Keir’s a serial fantasist who’s hung around anti HS2 camps for years, having infested various ones, starting with the Harvil Rd camp. For some bizarre reason some people hang on his every word, despite his long (long) history of failure and humiliations – including in Court. After Harvil Rd Jones’ Hill woods was another of his last stands. It’s a place he still hangs around, apparantly, but not enough to help remove the useless tip of an abandoned protest camp in Jones’ Hill woods which ‘eco-warriors’ like him have left to rot and pollute the wood. Their presence has pretty much destroyed the woodland floor leaving it barren – unlike the nearby woodlands.
This make’s Keir’s tweet even more hypocritical. Here’s what he posted.
All dead after 2 years? Really? No. It’s a bare-faced lie. How do I know? Simple. I visited this site on the 1st April and the only fool here is Keir.
In contrast to the aerial shot Keir’s deliberately used as it shows no detail I took dozens of pictures of the trees growing on the site. If any have died (and some will have), they’ve been replanted. They’re still small, so you can’t see much of them outside their protestive cardboard sheaths, but there’s plenty that you *can* see with the naked eye from the perimeter fence. This is why Keir lying like this is so dumb. Anyone passing can see he’s not telling the truth. But – as usual – his adoring (but gullible) audience fall for it.
You can find all my pictures from Jones’ Hill woods in this gallery – they’re all clearly labelled. Here’s a sample. These young trees are by the boundary fence, so hardly invisible to the naked eye! Give it another couple of months and this area will be a riot of colour.
It’s about time those opposed to HS2 woke up and smelled the coffee to realise that people like Keir have been lying to them for years. Did it stop HS2? Of course not…
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As the last few weeks of autumn slip away and we enter the last month before winter (supposedly) sets in we’ve been enjoying a thoroughly foggy time here in the Calder Valley. Visibility hasn’t changed throughout the day, leaving the other side of the valley a memory. That said, it’s hardly a typical autumn. It’s been very wet and very mild. Of course, the usual suspects will claim this has absolutely nothing to do with man-made global warming. The rest of us who’ve lived long enough to have experienced a few decades of weather know that this is not normal. In my garden I still have Lobelia flowering. And Geraniums. There’s a lot of other fcuked-up plants as well. They’ve no idea what season this is meant to be. I suspect there’s quite a few wild animals wondering too.
Will the majority of people ever wake up to the reality of climate change before the damage becomes irreparable? Somehow, I doubt it – especially if it involves making personal sacrifices or lifestyle changes. After all, those gas guzzling SUVs are just so important for the school run, and the four-wheel drive is essential for popping down to Tescos.
You may have gathered I’m in cynical mode. Don’t worry, it won’t last. Well, not for long anyway. But my fuse when it comes to faux greens will always be measured in millimeters. You know the ones, they’re really Nimbys. They oppose any green development that’s going to impinge on their space on the grounds of ‘conservation’. Building HS2’s a classic example. Wind and solar farms are another. As far as they’re concerned, let the Maldives sink, as long as no-one chops any trees down around them whilst they’re alive.
OK, enough of the cynicism for now. I’ll have a full spleen-vent another day. In the meantime, I’ll leave you with a couple of ethereal pictures from today’s stroll around home.
Scarr woods looking rather spooky.There’s a valley down there somewhere…
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Well, it took up some time but I managed to get all of the last few days pictures edited, titled and filed on my Zenfolio website. Follow this link to see which galleries they’ve been added to. Of course the ‘big’ one is the gallery of High-Speed 2 (HS2) construction pictures. If that’s your bag, you can find ’em here.
The rest of the day’s flown. Dawn’s been out for the day to spend time with her folks whilst I’ve been chained to a computer but we’ve both had good times in out own way. I managed to escape later in the afternoon to enjoy a long walk before meeting up with friends in our local pub for a few games of pool. I’m slowly rediscovering the old skills but sometimes my shots are shocking! I blame the fact my glasses have got smaller over the years. Remember Dennis Taylor, the snooker player and the fact he looked like he wore his upside down? That’s what I need! Still, none of us take it seriously. It’s merely an opportunity to have a few beers whilst laughing, joking and doing something other than just propping up a bar. Now the pair of us are back at home for a quiet night in with some home-cooked food and a movie. Not exactly the ‘rock and roll’ lifestyle but it suits us as we’ve got some busy weeks ahead of us.
As it’s nearly showtime I’ll leave you with today’s picture which is one from my trips out earlier in the week. This HS2 environmental mitigation site at Ladbroke in Northants hit the headlines in 2008 when the national media latched on to a story from HS2 opponents that mitigation work was ‘greenwash’. Why? because many of the newly planted trees died in the 2018 heatwave as it simply wasn’t practical or economic to water them. What made more sense was to replace them with new saplings, which is what happened. But, contrary to the anti HS2 hype, not all of them did die. Plus, you don’t know what’s in many of those plastic tubes (used to stop deer eating everything) until you peer into it or the tree makes it to the top.
I visited the Ladbroke site on Thursday. Dead it ain’t…
Oh, and if you’re still unsure, here’s what you see when you peer into some of those ’empty’ tubes…
Unlike the anti HS2 protesters I’ll be visiting sites like this on a regular basis over the next few years in order to document the reality on the ground. Watch this space…
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I’m back on the rails for the rest of the week, travelling across a large chunk of the UK (as you’ll see). Today I’m off to have a look at some of the High Speed 2 construction and mitigation work around Cubbington in Warwickshire.
Thankfully, the weather’s better where I’m going than where I’m coming from. The Calder valley’s a wet and gloomy place this morning as the area’s trapped beneath a low layer of heavy grey cloud that’s shrouding the valley tops. My first train of the day’s Northern’s 06:23 from Sowerby Bridge which is worked by a pair of 2-car Class 195s. I’m taking it as far as Manchester. This should be a Chester service but it’s been chopped back to Victoria for some unknown reason.
08:00.
On arrival at Manchester I made the customary ‘mad dash’ across the city centre from Victoria to Piccadilly on foot. It took me 15 minutes which meant I was in plenty of time to get an earlier train than originally planned. I’m now ensconced on Cross-Country’s 07:27 to Bournemouth. Today the train’s made up of consecutively numbered, 4-car Class 220s (020 and 021 for the number-crunchers amongst you). Despite the earliness of the hour the front unit is very busy with few spare seats after we’d departed Stockport. Thankfully, the cloud levels are lifting and getting thinner the further South I go.
220020 ready to head the 07:27 from Manchester Piccadilly to Bournemouth.
09:20.
My train was packed all the way to Birmingham New St where the vast majority of travellers decamped only to be replaced by a smaller cohort for the continuation of the journey. Some were only travelling as far as Birmingham International and a few more for Coventry. My stop’s in another 20 mins so I’ll be interested to see how busy we are then.
11:40.
Out exploring the route of HS2…
Looking North to Cubbington wood…
19:00.
Apologies for the break in blogging but I’ve spent most of the day exploring the HS2 route and mitigations sites in the company of local farmer Penny McGregor. Penny’s been kind enough to show me around before and having her local knowledge and passion for the environment (tempered with pragmatism) has been invaluable. We’ve pootled around several sites in her little electric car so that I can see and record the changes that have taken place since I was last here in February.Then the woods and ancient woodland translocation sites were dormant. Now they’ve burst into life and are even past their best as many plants (such as Campions) have gone to seed. Even so, it’s easy to see the opponents of HS2 who claim building the railway has created a barren wasteland are talking out of a fundamental orifice. Yes, of course the trace of HS2 looks like a building site – that’s because it is! The margins however, can be very different depending on the age of the planting. Plus, the ancient woodland soil translocation sites are throwing up surprises as seeds that have lain dormant for years under the tree canopy have now been stirred up and have access to light…
I’ll add a selection of pictures shortly. Right now I’m making my way back North. Having bid farewell to Penny after such an interesting day I caught Cross-Country’s 17:15 to Manchester Piccadilly as far as busy Birmingham New St where I swapped sets to catch the 18:03 to Edinburgh as far as Leeds. Both trains afforded me some great views of HS2 construction – especially around Birmingham. Forget the media froth and protesters howls – HS2 is happening! The amount of work to be seen around Curzon St and Washwood Heath is very, very impressive. I hope to return soon to cover some of it.
23:00.
Time to bring this blog to an end. I’ve been at home for the past few hours, preparing for the next 4 days of fun and travels. I’m in London tomorrow morning ready for a press lunch that’s been on hold for several years due to the pandemic. It’ll be a lovely opportunity to catch up with old and new faces from our hots – Siemens – as well as other colleagues from the rail press. As soon as the lunch finishes I have to hot-foot it up to Crewe to join the annual ‘3 peaks by rail’ charity fundraiser in aid of the Railway Children charity. I’ve been a volunteer on this event since 2017. It’s exhausting but bags of fun. So, expect a varied bunch of rolling blogs over the next few days.
But for now I’ll leave you with a picture of this little critter that Penny and I saw in a field next to HS2 earlier today. It’s a silver studded blue butterfly.
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As I’m busy with other things and I’ll be busy reporting on positive progress with building the new HS2 railway I haven’t paid what passes for a campaign to stop Hs2 much attention recently. Mainly because it’s collapsed into a farce. Yes, there’s still four or five people holed up in a tunnel at Wendover, waiting to be dug out by bailiffs. But as they’re not even in the way of HS2 construction and aren’t achieving anything, what’s the point? Their few friends are realising no-one else is interested either, so spend their time trying to drum up support by pretending this self-isolation is somehow heroic rather than what it really is. Dumb and pointless.
The eviction of the Wendover camp brought an end to the protest camp network, depriving those involved of refuges. Now, many of the tiny hard-core have drifted away. The arrival of winter’s speeded up that retreat. Oh, a few still turn up to HS2 compound gates to wave flags and video themselves before buggering off again, pretending they’ve actually achieved something, but it’s painfully obvious to any impartial observer this is just window-dressing as there’s over 300 active HS2 worksites and less than three dozen regular proteters.
So, like StopHS2 before them, HS2Rebellion have little left other than social media. They try to keep up the pretense of actually doing things by posting whatever they can find that’s critical of HS2, or even high-speed rail per se. Because this was never really about ‘green’ issues at all. Like Extinction Rebellion they’re an offshoot of – this is all about politics, not the environment. XR and HS2rebellion are (laughably) all about trying to bring down capitalism and democracy which they want to replace with the ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’ through citizens assembly’s. Or in other words, they want power.
There’s one huge problem. They’re politically inept and hopelessly naïve. Many of them have as little understanding of politics as they do of real environmentalism. Their ideology’s a mess, as is their knowledge of the real world influencers (who aren’t who they think). Here’s an example. Yesterday HS2rebellion published this on their Facebook page.
Apart from the fact this obviously nails their colours to the anti-rail mast, you have to ask, did any of them bother to check who the Cato Institute is, what its beliefs are, or who funds it? Clearly not.
Why, because the Cato Institute is (yet another) right-wing, libertarian lobby group that’s been prominent and influential in spreading climate-change denial! It was set up and bankrolled by the Koch Brothers (Charles and David) in 1977. The brothers are (or were, David died in 2019) some of the richest people in the world. Their company, Koch Industries is the largest privately held company in the USA. It made its money through oil. For decades, the brothers have used their massive wealth to gain political and social influence, shaping American (and thus world) policy on a number of fronts which includes trying to undermine efforts to tackle climate change, opposing public transport projects (like high-speed rail) and pouring money into numerous conservative political campaigns. Friends of the environment they’re not. All this is well-documented and anyone with a real interest in these issues has known about the Koch brothers for donkey’s years.
But not HS2rebellion – who’re happy to promote the ideology of the climate-change deniers and puff their influence through advertising the ‘think-tanks’ they fund!
Mind you, HS2rebellion aren’t alone in this. Many supposed ‘greens’ are happy to promote similar propaganda from the UK version of the Cato, the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), another bunch of right-wing lobbyists masquerading as an educational organisation as a cover for what they really are – a bunch of political lobbyists.
Rather foolishly, the IEA complained about the broadcaster James O’Brien for calling them out. The OFCOM judgement is worth reading as – not only was the complaint thrown out – the judgement exposed the IEA for what they really are. You can read it here.
At the behest of their anonymous paymasters (the IEA refuse to come clean on who funds them) the IEA also engage in trying to undermine action on Climate Change. Here’s an example. This bunch of nonsense has appeared on the website of ‘Transport Watch’.
But who are ‘Transport Watch’? Well, until recently they were one man – Paul Withrington, a retired road planner who was obsessed with the idea that all the UKs railways should be tarmac’d over and replaced by fleets of coaches. It was quite mad and no matter how many times Withrington was challenged on the maths and the physics of the idea he was so obsessed nothing could convince him he wasn’t talking out of a fundamental orifice. Withrington used to turn up at events like Infrarail in the hope of buttonholing Ministers to press his lunacy but most saw him coming and managed to avoid him. Needless to say, Withrington was grist to the mill for the lobbyists of the IEA and fell in with their risibly named ‘Head of Transport’, Richard Wellings – a man who’s never held a proper job in his life – much less had any frontline experience in transport. The pair of them co-authored an IEA paper called ‘paving over the tracks’ in 2015. It’s completely crazy of course, but he who pays the piper…
Withrington died in January 2021 and it appears that he bequeathed his baby to the IEA, because who’s name is on the bottom of that climate change denialism and scaremongering? Yep, one Richard Wellings. ‘Transport Watch’ seems to be a way for the IEA to publish even more loony conspiracy theories in an attempt to undermine the fight against global warming whilst trying to maintain plausible deniability. In fact, the only articles that have appeared on the TW website have all been authored by Wellings. I’m not going to give them the pleasure of a boost by providing a link to their website, but if you’re really curious it’s easy to find and verify everything I’ve said about them.
These are just some examples of why I’ve long held the belief that much of what passes for a UK ‘green’ movement simply isn’t fit for purpose. They’re tone-deaf and utterly unable to tell when they’re being played by the far smarter and much more intelligent right-wing, which would be funny if it wasn’t so dangerous and damaging. The fact UK ‘greens’ are doing the climate-change deniers and oil and roads lobby’s job for them by opposing green public transport shows just how screwed-up this country is nowadays. Their European (and Scottish) cousins are far more savvy. Sadly, we’re lumbered with the dogmatic and disconnected likes of Baroness (“I like trains, me”) Jenny Jones, and the demagogues of Extinction Rebellion gluing themselves to or opposing us building public transport. What a time to be alive…
Meanwhile, we have the fun and games up at COP26, where Extinction rebellion protesters arrived by train. Here’s the ‘Red rebels’ on Glasgow Central earlier this week after arriving from London. These are the very same ‘rebels’ who could be seen protesting at HS2 construction sites.
‘cos dressing up in red rags and opposing HS2 is obviously going to save the planet…
An irony that is completely lost on these people is the very railway they’ve been protesting against would (by slashing Anglo–Scottish journey times) be a viable alternative to Europe’s busiest domestic aviation routes, those from Aberdeen/Glasgow/Edinburgh to the London airports as this graph makes clear.
You can find lots more information on Anglo-Scottish air traffic from Chris Ogilvie (@Ogilvie_CJ) on Twitter.
I’ll be back in Scotland next week for more COP26 rail related activities, so watch out for other blogs. Needless to say – unlike our Prime Minister – I’ll be letting the train, not the airlines take the strain…
I’ve a favour to ask… If you enjoy reading this blog, please click on an advert or two. You don’t have to buy anything you don’t want to of course (although if you did find something that tickled your fancy that would be fab!), but the revenue from them helps to cover some of the cost of maintaining this site – and right now (because of Covid), us freelances appreciate all the help that we can get to aid us in bouncing back from lockdowns. Remember, 99% of the pictures used in my blogs can be purchased as prints from my other website – https://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/
As the final curtain is about to fall on the pantomime that was the HS2 ‘rebellion’ tunnel fun at Euston, another pantomime has opened at Calvert in Buckinghamshire, where a rag-bag of Nimbys and activists have congregated at Poors Piece wood. But first let’s recap and chart each act in the pantomime.
The theatre curtain rose back in January when police and bailiffs moved in to clear the garden at the front of Euston station which had become a refuge for various Exinction Rebellion/Hs2Rebellion ‘activists’ and a cadre of homeless people who found shelter and security in numbers. As a PR stunt the anti HS2 protesters had dug tunnels under the gardens and 9 of them did white rabbit impressions just as soon as the eviction started. Whilst the rest of the rabble were quickly cleared from tents and trees the troglodytes in the tunnels refused to come out at first, but then departed in dribs and drabs over the days. The most famous occupant of the tunnels was ‘Swampy’, an old road protester from the 1990s who was down there with his young son. What most of the media who covered the story neglected to mention was that ‘Swampy’ was a serial failure who never managed to stop anything, but hey – at least he got publicity!
The description here is pure ‘Comical Ali’! A “hugely successful occupation”? This was as much use in trying to stop Hs2 as is Americans sending ‘thoughts and prayers’ to stop school shootings…
On Monday another serial failure (Larch Maxey) gave up after being cornered by bailiffs. Today (day 30) three more of the tunnellers (including ‘Swampy’ and son) gave up and came out of their own accord. According to Hs2 Rebellion the final (anonymous) troglodyte will give up tomorrow after 31 days, bringing the whole farce to an end. Why a farce? Because they never stopped anything! The big joke about the camp in Euston Gardens is that it’s not cost HS2 a single day in construction time because the gardens are nowhere near an active HS2 construction site! It was pure theatre, nothing more. The theatrics have continued with the protesters claiming the event as some kind of victory – although how having 9 protesters holed up in a tunnel where they can’t stop any work is a ‘victory’ is a mystery…
Several of the protesters evicted from Euston gardens later turned up at the abandoned Harvil Rd ‘protest’ camp in Uxbridge, only to be evicted again within days as that camp was cleared and demolished without them putting up a struggle.
All the remaining ‘protest’ camps are feeling the pinch at the moment as HS2 Ltd are ramping up construction and clearance work along the phase 1 route. At the recent National Rail Recovery Conference Hs2’s Chief Executive announced that the company now has 300 separate worksites in operation. Yet the protesters number less than a few dozen hard-core – which is why the same few faces keep popping up time and time again.
This has been true at the latest eviction at Poors Piece this week where another semi-abandoned camp (which had less then half a dozen regular occupants) had an influx of refugees from Euston and Harvil Rd in a desperate attempt to bolster numbers to attract some more publicity, because let’s be honest – they stand no chance of stopping the eviction, far less actually stopping HS2! The same farcical scenes have played out this week when all the protesters bravado and bluster soon came to nothing as tree-houses quickly fell to the bailiffs, police and HS2 workers who promptly moved in to begin clearing up the mess.
In a lovely touch of irony, some of the protesters from the nearby Wendover camp who turned up at Poors Piece for a day were disconsolate on their return to base as they found Hs2 had been busy clearing woodland uninterrupted whilst they’d been away!
The result of the Poors Piece eviction is beyond doubt and I’d be surprised if it lasted more than another couple of days, despite all the bluster and rhetoric from the protesters and a couple of local Nimbys who bolster the protest but who clearly have nothing better to do. In fact, I have a sneaking suspicion that these events are more about egos and publicity than being any serious attempt to stop Hs2. This protest is one of the first of the social media age and it’s becoming obvious that a cross-section of those involved are using the protests to boost their social media status as an ego-trip although a minority are more circumspect and use false names or identities.
In fact, the whole StopHs2 ‘campaign’ has changed direction in the past year. The original (Nimby based) groups like the High Speed 2 Action Alliance (who folded in 2016) and StopHs2 (aka the Joe Rukin show) have faded into the background. Now, the running is being made by a rag-bag of Extinction Rebellion devotees, self-publicists, some old road and fracking protesters and hippies – and a smattering of Nimbys. The real aim of the protests now seems to be to raise support for Extinction Rebellion (and make a few bob).
When Extinction Rebellion first appeared on the scene I was broadly sympathetic. I thought that by raising the profile of environmental issues and the desperate need to tackle climate-change, they might actually do some good. Then I watched in bemused amazement as they started to increasingly dumb things, like attacking public transport. That made me start to examine who they really were and it made me realise that they were just another hard-left (anti capitalist) group who used environmental issues and animal rights to further their political agenda – just like the far right in the shape of Britain First and the BNP have done (as well as the vote Leave campaign).
What a lot of this is really about is two things. Recruiting young people through manipulation and indoctrination – and also using social media tools to raise funds.
I’ve blogged about this before when I highlighted the split between some of the people allied to Extinction Rebellion and the ‘old school’ more anarchic protesters who don’t like XR’s command and control tactics – and stranglehold on the money! Over the past couple of years through various Crowdfund appeals and other donations pages six-figure sums have been raised to fund legal cases or to ‘support’ the protest camps (or even individual protesters!). There’s only one problem. No-one has a clue where the money really goes and no-one ever publishes any accounts! The money just disappears and no-one is held responsible for it. There are several example of this. Here’s one.
Over £42,000 raised. Where’s it gone? No-one knows. There’s no updates and there’s no accounts. There’s not even anyone named as being in charge. This is just one of many such fundraisers that go to prove the old adage that “a fool and their money are easily parted”.
Another example is ‘celebrity’ environmentalist Chris Packham, who ran a crowdfunder to raise money for his vanity legal cases against HS2. They were doomed to failure from the start but the money rolled in. Was all the money spent? Who knows. What happened to any surplus? Dunno – as it’s now a year on and Packham (to my knowledge) has never published any accounts or updates explaining what happened to the money. I wonder if the taxman knows either?
The more I dig into the anti HS2 ‘campaign’ the more it starts to look like a scam. Because, let’s face it – it doesn’t have a hope in hell of actually stopping HS2! How can this tiny bunch of protesters halt the largest construction project in Europe when they can’t even stop themselves being evicted? There’s so few of them now they’re doing little more than fire-fighting, stripping bare the remaining camps of people to try and put up a show at the latest one to be evicted.
Mind you, the Poors Piece eviction is showing another (unpleasant) side to these supposed ‘peaceful’ protesters…
Many of those drafted in to ‘defend’ the camp are young people from middle-class backgrounds who would normally be at college if it wasn’t for Covid. They’re a particularly foul-mouthed group who think nothing of hurling vitriolic personal abuse at anyone involved in the eviction – be it HS2 workers, bailiffs, police or the other emergency services. I’m going to take the gloves off now and say that hearing a bunch of self-entitled kids who’ve probably never done a days work in their lives telling anyone and everyone that they know everyone’s job better than them is a nauseating sight. Many of them throw an absolute strop when an adult has the temerity to say ‘no’ to them, but then that does rather reveal something about their backgrounds. Here’s a fine example.
Middle-Class kid who’s never done a proper day’s work in their life accuses working people of being ‘class traitor scum’. There’s a word for people like that…
There’s plenty more examples of this behaviour on the various videos the protesters stick on their Facebook pages. You can find some of them here. “Peaceful” people my arse! The level of delusion and disinformation coming from these people is weapons-grade. It seems the one thing Extinction Rebellion and the other anti HS2 groups are good at is indoctrination, because the nonsense they get people to spout (and believe) is incredible. Here’s an example from the person who was the founder of StopHS2. This appeared yesterday…
Oh, please…!
That so many of the protesters are (or were) college kids is a fatal weakness of the anti HS2 campaign – and especially now that the Government has mapped a way out of lockdown and return to normal with schools and colleges reopening! Many of these mouthy youths are going to find there’s other more pressing activities that will be taking up their time…
The more digging one does into these protests and the people behind them the more it becomes obvious that this is not really about HS2. It’s not even about the environment – or Climate Change – because if it was they’d be following the science and protesting about the new roads building programme. HS2 is being used by Extinction Rebellion as a tool to increase their influence and raise money – and a lot of fools are parting with it…
I’ve a favour to ask… If you enjoy reading this blog, please click on an advert or two. You don’t have to buy anything you don’t want to of course (although if you did find something that tickled your fancy that would be fab!), but the revenue from them helps to cover some of the cost of maintaining this site – and right now (because of Covid), us freelances need all the help that we can get. Remember, 99% of the pictures used in my blogs can be purchased as prints from my other website – https://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/
I’ve been trying to get around to writing this update for weeks as the last was as long ago as November 25th last year and a huge amount has happened since. I’ve finally found the time but it’s been so long since the last one there’s going to be a lot in this blog. I’ll try and get onto a monthly basis to go forward from here on as the project is really ramping up at the moment. There’s a massive amount of positive news – and one potentially bad one – but more of that later. So, let’s catch-up with news from last year. I’m not going to be able to cover everything so I’ll be cherry-picking and focusing mostly on ‘concrete’ developments rather than some of the more socially orientated announcements.
First off was an announcement on the 16th December when HS2 began the quest for suppliers to provide switches and crossings for the 280km of new track between London, Birmingham and the connection with the existing mainline at Crewe. The contract – worth up to £156m includes the design, manufacture and delivery of around 180 switches and crossings for Phase 1 and 2a of the project, with options to extend for further equipment to cover Crewe to Manchester in phase 2b as well as the maintenance depots. More here.
Two days later HS2 released details of the first dedicated freight train to run. The train – operated by DB Cargo UK and Hanson – delivered 1,650 tonnes of aggregate that will be used in the construction of the temporary Calvert Railhead. Across the whole HS2 project, 15,000 freight trains are planned to be used to haul 10 million tonnes of aggregate to construction sites – taking the equivalent of 1.5 million HGVs off the UK’s roads.
EKFB’s Calvert site’s first freight train delivery at night, with aggregate, and then unloaded by articulated cranes. Copyright HS2 Ltd.
Moving freight for HS2 is providing a welcome boost for the rail industry over the next few years, leading to companies having to source extra traction such as the rebuilding of former Class 56 locomotives with EMD engines, the first of which is currently on test.
On the 22nd December the shortlist of bidders for Track Systems and for Tunnel and Lineside Mechanical and Electrical (M&E) systems. Both sets of contract opportunities cover design and construction between London, Birmingham and Crewe where HS2 trains will join the existing West Coast Mainline. The winners of the Track systems contracts will also take a lead role in managing and coordinating the complex interfaces between the track and other elements of the rail systems. The following were shortlisted for track systems.
Lot 1 – Phase One (Urban – London and Birmingham) – £434m
Balfour Beatty Group Ltd, ETF SAS, TSO SAS (BBVT Joint Venture)
Ferrovial Construction (UK) Ltd and BAM Nuttall Ltd (Ferrovial-BAM Joint Venture)
Colas Rail Ltd
STRABAG AG UK and Rhomberg Sersa UK (STRABAG Rhomberg Sersa Joint Venture
Lot 2 – Phase One (Open Route – Central) – £526m
Balfour Beatty Group Ltd, ETF SAS, TSO SAS (BBVT Joint Venture)
Ferrovial Construction (UK) Ltd and BAM Nuttall Ltd (Ferrovial-BAM Joint Venture)
Colas Rail Ltd
STRABAG AG UK and Rhomberg Sersa UK (STRABAG Rhomberg Sersa Joint Venture)
Lot 3 – Phase One (Open Route – North) – £566m
Balfour Beatty Group Ltd, ETF SAS, TSO SAS (BBVT Joint Venture)
Ferrovial Construction (UK) Ltd and BAM Nuttall Ltd (Ferrovial-BAM Joint Venture)
Colas Rail Ltd
Lot 4 – Phase 2a (Track) – £431m
Balfour Beatty Group Ltd, ETF SAS, TSO SAS (BBVT Joint Venture)
Ferrovial Construction (UK) Ltd and BAM Nuttall Ltd (Ferrovial-BAM Joint Venture)
Colas Rail Ltd
STRABAG AG UK and Rhomberg Sersa UK (STRABAG Rhomberg Sersa Joint Venture)
Rail, switches and crossings and pre-cast slab track will be delivered by separate suppliers – with the Track Systems contractor coordinating the design, logistics and installation. The winning bidders are set to commence work on site once the tunnels, bridges, viaducts and earthworks are complete.
The winner of the estimated £498m Tunnel and Lineside M&E package will be a Principal Contractor, delivering the design, supply, manufacture, installation, testing, commissioning and maintenance (until handover) of the Phase One and Phase 2a Tunnel and Lineside M&E systems.
This includes the tunnel services within the shafts, tunnels and cross-passages, low voltage power services and distribution in the open route. The contractor will also design, supply, install, test and commission the tunnel ventilation systems.
The following organisations are invited to tender for Tunnel and Lineside M&E:
Alstom Transport UK Ltd
Balfour Beatty Bailey Joint Venture (BBB JV) – a joint venture between Balfour Beatty Group Ltd and NG Bailey Ltd
Costain Group PLC
Contracts for Track Systems and Tunnels and Lineside M&E are expected to be awarded in 2022.
HS2 celebrated the end of a momentous year by releasing this update on the project which includes pictures such as one of the tunnel entrance at Long Itchington. Soon this will be occupied by Tunnel Boring Machines (TBMs)
FIlm and photo shoot of the Long Itchington wood North Portal, with apprentice/undergraduate Shehan
2021 started with the announcement that HS2 had received the go-ahead from Birmingham City Council to begin the transformative refurbishment of the Old (Grade 1 listed) Curzon Street Station, built by the London and Birmingham railway. The old building can be seen in the foreground of this illustration which also shows how the grade 2 listed ‘Woodman’ pub will also be incorporated into the area around the station. HS2 have declared that the old station goods yard alignment (and historic roundhouse) be incorporated into the plan.
Birmingham Curzon Street visual, January 2020
On January 25th HS2 announced that preparatory work on the Victoria Road Crossover Box (West of Old Oak Common) was complete and building work would commence.
The huge underground box will house crossovers allowing trains to switch tracks up to a design speed of 62 mph. The box will be 130m in length and 24m deep complete with 1.5m thick walls constructed by diaphragm piling method, with top and intermediate levels of reinforced concrete props. The base slab of the crossover box will be supported by 77 piles installed 20m into the ground below the slab level.
The site at Victoria Road is also currently being prepared to launch the Northolt Tunnel Boring Machines which will bore 3.4 miles North West as part of the construction of HS2’s 8.4 mile Northolt Tunnel. You can learn more here.
Here’s a cross-section of what the construction of the box will look like.
On the same day HS2 released details of new designs for two viaducts near the village of Water Orton in Warwickshire, including new landscaped areas that will provide green public spaces and wildlife habitats. Here’s an artists impression of the landscaped are in between the viaducts which will contain tree planting and new wildlife habitats with an opportunity (subject to local interest) for a community orchard or area of allotments. More here.
The next day it was announced that the first of five headhouses providing ventilation and emergency access to HS2’s ten-mile long Chiltern tunnel had gained planning approval from Buckinghamshire Council. The Chalfont St Peter headhouse takes its inspiration from the style of nearby barns and other agricultural buildings.
Progress continued apace this month with the announcement on the 11th that the bill for Phase 2a to Crewe had received Royal Assent. The 58km (36miles) route will open at the same time as Phase 1 much to the chagrin of those opposed to HS2 as it destroys their claims that HS2 will only ever run to Birmingham and also their mad claim that HS2’s only an ‘airport shuttle’! Royal Assent was no surprise as the bill had sailed through both houses in Parliament, which demonstrated how weak the opposition to HS2 really is. There wasn’t even a vote on the final reading of the Bill in the Lords as it was painfully obvious the bill would pass.
On the 16th February the final design of the Euston tunnel headhouse was announced. Developed in consultation with local residents the 2-stoey building will be clad in engineering brick to enable it to blend into the existing structures. Standing next to the original 10m high retaining wall, the new headhouse structure will extend above the top of the wall, with a green roof, stone-paved courtyard and entrance facing Park Village East. More here.
Cavern Headhouse – Park Village East elevation. The images were created by the Design House team as part of the Schedule 17 application. Copyright HS2 Ltd.
There’s other progress across the route that hasn’t really hit the headlines and a great place to get a flavour of what’s happening right across the route of HS2 is to follow the ‘HS2 in your area’ website which (as the name suggests) goes into detail what’s happening are by area.
One example is the announcement of the start of work on what will be one of the most iconic and visible construction projects on the route – building the Colne Valley Viaduct. Work on piling foundations the piers starts next month. Here’s some details from the HS2 website link.
Another item that’s happening next month is the delivery of the transformers to power the Tunnel Boring Machines that will be digging the tunnels under the Chilterns. These transformers will step the incoming voltage down from 33kV down to 11kV to power the Tunnel Boring Machines at their required levels. Shipped from abroad, the transformers will arrive over the weekends of 13/13 and 27/28 March. The 33kV power supply cable is coming in along the streets of Hillingdon and won’t be ready before June, so don’t expect the TBMs to begin work before then.
To end the round up here’s one of the many people and environmental good news stories. On the 17th February HS2 announced it had taken on its 500th apprentice.
So, as you can see, there’s a huge amount going on and there’s plenty more to come over the next few months. Now that the Government have announced a plan for us leaving Covid lockdown I’m looking forward to being able to get out and about along the route of HS2 as construction ramps up, so expect more blogs over the next few months documenting the chances as HS2’s built.
Oh, I mentioned one bit of (potentially) bad news, which came through Hs2’s Mark Thurston’s comments at yesterdays National Rail Recovery Conference. RAIL’s Richard Clinnick broke the news on Twitter.
This sparked a discussion at the conference which included Jim Steer, William Barter and Prof McNaughton. I questioned Jim about the potential impact of this change. His opinion was that it wasn’t a major issue and that rebuilding Euston station in one phase rather than two was a great improvement as doing it over 20 years as had been planned was a ‘big ask’ of the residents and communities around Euston. The conference continues tomorrow and you can still register (which will allow you to catch-up on what was said).
You’ll notice that i’ve not mentioned the increasingly desperate and failing protests against HS2 in this update. I’ll be covering those next in a separate blog which you can now find here.
Thank God it’s Friday! The week’s been a frustrating one. Nothing seems to have gone right and many of the things I’d hoped to have achieved never came to fruition or are still works in progress. I’m hoping for a much better weekend and a more fruitful week next week. On the bright side, I’m still making progress with scanning old slides although that process has slowed down as a consequence of everything else. This brings me neatly on to the picture of the day, which I took on the 20th February 1999…
This is the magnificent Franz Josef glacier on the West Coast of the South island. The picture was taken from the helicopter that was taking Lynn and myself and a group of other people for a trip onto the middle slopes of the glacier as part of a heli-hiking experience – which was an amazing experience. Seeing a glacier’s magical enough, but having the chance to explore the surface of one is doubly so.
I returned with Dawn in 2019 and I was shocked by what I found (here’s a link to my blog written at the time) Due to global warming the Glacier had shrunk significantly, retreating further up the valley and down off some of the steep mountain sides. It’s a very visible testament to the damage human activity is doing to the planet. I sincerely hope we get our acts together in time to prevent the glacier disappearing completely.
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In my case, today was the discovery of the fact there’s a Bilberry bumblebee!
I’d been on a Zoom call with the friends of Buxton station as part of my role as a Judge for the Community Rail Awards. Buxton has an excellent friends group who’re a great example of the work station friends do in their community beyond their local railway station. Whilst we were talking about their recent achievements Dave Carlisle mentioned that they’d built a huge flower bed outside the station using old railway sleepers donated by Network Rail (and there’s a long story about getting them from Crewe to Buxton during lockdown, but I won’t tell that here), what surprised me was that Dave mentioned 1/3 of the flowerbed was being dedicated to helping a local endangered species – the Bilberry Bumblebee!
Now, I knew there was many species of bee in the UK through working with my former CRA judge, Paul Cook of the Royal Horticultural Society. One of the delights of visiting different stations during the judging was seeing station flower beds literally buzzing with bees, but Bilberry bees? Here’s what Buxton have been up to (in their own words)…
“Buzzing Stations” project – along with Friends of Glossop Station, FoBS initiated this idea that has crossed the whole Peak District to included stations at Buxton, Edale, Glossop, Hadfield, Hope, Bamford, Grindleford & Hathersage.
The High Peak is home to the Bilberry bumblebee, under threat of extinction. Our work aims to help it thrive and survive. We built a huge (2m x 5m) planter unit from recycled railway sleepers (negotiated donation from Network Rail’s Redundant Assets team at Crewe and encouraged long-term partners, DB Cargo to collect them for us!), filled it with donated compost (from SITA/Suez) and plants, mostly donated (some from Morrisons, through their Community Champion, Rob Harrison). The plants were chosen to provide nectar to our bees prior to hibernation.
We are proud that the Bumblebee Express (the name of the planter unit devised as a media vehicle) was built under strict socially-distanced controls during lockdown.
We also intended to run Bumblebee Safaris from the station, but covid ruled this out, so we prepared a Self-guided version in leaflet form – launched on Heritage Open Day to complement their theme of Hidden Nature, 2,000 leaflets were printed. We were very proud when Jimmy Doherty commended our work as part of his recent TV campaign work, Jimmy’s Big Bee Rescue.
Legacy bumblebee artwork takes the form of an interpretation panel, bumblebees of the Peak District “spotters guide” (we negotiated permission to use the artwork directly with the Artist, Becca Thorne), “Make a Bee-line to Buxton” travel promotional poster (we purchased a special Licence to use the 1950’s image by Kenneth Steel) and commissioned a bespoke “special bees on a special landscape” mosaic from local community Artist, Jo Spencer.
It’s great to see the co-operation and information sharing that goes on between station friends groups and the innovative work this inspires. Living in the Pennines in West Yorkshire where bilberries are plentiful and bilberry pies are a local delicacy I was curious to find out if the bees existed here. Sure enough, they do, Here’s an illustration how the bees look from ‘Blooms for Bees’. The fun bit for me is how they remind me of railway workers high-vis!
Copyright Blooms For Bees
You can find out more about this type of bee here from the Bumblebee Conservation Trust.
It’s fantastic to see the work community rail volunteers are doing in so many ways – despite the depravations of Covid and the difficulties that social-distancing and lockdowns have caused.
Perhaps, when all this is over, you might want to pop along and visit one of these stations and see the great work the groups are doing to grow the railways, help the environment and build their local communities. Your visit might even inspire you to get involved…
You can learn much more about the work and world of community rail here – an if you want to learn more about the Friends of Buxton station you can find them on Facebook here.
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Regular readers will know of my growing cynicism around certain conservation charities, especially the single-issue ones like the Woodland Trust who play fast and loose with facts and deliberately exaggerate and distort the effects of HS2 on the environment. These organisations are doing the wider environmental movement no favours at all. People like me should be their natural allies (and donors) but I find there’s now a growing list of them I won’t touch with a bargepole and certainly wouldn’t dream of helping financially. Here’s the latest.
Tomorrow, HS2 is due to take possession of land on the edges of the Calvert Jubilee nature reserve at Calvert, Buckinghamshire to begin the early stages of constructing HS2. The reserve is bordered by the former Great Central main line on the East and the route of East-West rail to the North.
Here was the reaction on Twitter of Estelle Bailey, Chief Exec of the Berks, Bucks and Oxon Wildlife Trust who manage the site in response to unrelated news about the IPA…
“Destroy” the nature reserve? That sounds serious! There’s only one tiny problem, it’s complete cobblers, as looking at a (publicly available) design map of the area shows. Calvert Jubilee is at the bottom of the map (link here)
When challenged about her comments and on being shown the above map, this was Ms Bailey’s response.
A “heck of a chunk”? That’s emotive nonsense and hardly a recognised measurement! The map shows it’s also completely untrue. The HS2 line itself passes the edge of the reserve in a deep cutting to cut down on noise and where that edge is on the nature reserve side the cutting will be constructed of vertical piles to minimise land take. The real impact on the reserve is a small auto transformer feeder station and service road, along with a landscaped cutting to drop the existing road under the E-W railway line, plus a narrow road to allow access to the inverted siphon pipes connecting the existing lake with the new ponds on the opposite side of HS2. “Heck of a chunk” Give over!
Here’s how the area looks now on Google maps.
Notice that for the little bit of the reserve that’s taken there’s massive compensation for wildlife in the fact that the monoculture farmland to the right of the railway on Google maps becomes a huge area of new planting which is ringed by ponds, meaning there’s no net loss of biodiversity. Exactly the opposite!
Of course, this doesn’t stop some of the local Nimbys bemoaning what they say is ‘irreplaceable’ loss, but there’s several huge holes in this argument.
For a start, Calvert Jubilee is a brownfield site. It used to be a brickworks! Calvert brickworks was a massive undertaking and major employer that finally closed its doors in 1991. The website of the Great Moor sailing club which occupies one of the five former clay pits that’s now called Grebe lake contains the history of the site, mentioning that “Pit No.2 was formally opened as a nature reserve on 20th March 1978 by Sir Ralph Verney, a local landowner, and owner of the nearby Claydon House (now run by the National Trust). This 50-acre lake with surrounding 30 acres of land is now run by the Berks, Bucks, and Oxon Naturalist Trust”.
So, this 80 acre site has only existed as a nature reserve for just 42 years, in which time nature has completely reclaimed it – which says a lot about how resilient nature really is. Not bad considering some conservationists insist it’s ‘irreplaceable’ once gone – as it was when the clay pits were dug and the brickworks was in operation (from 1902 -1991). The work HS2 will be doing will be far more sensitively managed and the disturbance it will cause will heal a lot quicker – as we can see from the experiences of High Speed 1 in Kent and Essex.
It’s the doom-laden predictions of ecological disaster by conservationists opposed to Hs2 that really get my back up. Calvert has proved they’re nonsense once and it will do so again. It’s these predictions of disaster that do the conservation movements credibility no good at all. Yes, we should all do our best to ensure these projects have the best environmental mitigation possible, but when you get such dishonest claims bandied around, it really doesn’t help anyone. Here’s an example from Facebook posted by one of the locals.
The only catastrophe here is the use of language! They’ve seen the plans, they know the plans, yet they still peddle scaremongering like this. I’ve been critical of HS2 Ltd’s PR and public engagement policies in the past but I’m using these as example of what they’re up against. No mater how open and informative HS2 is, when you’re up against people who deliberately distort and exaggerate like this, you’re facing an uphill struggle – especially when one of these people is the Chief Executive of a charity who supposedly has a professional duty to tell the truth!
HS2 Ltd have countered this misinformation before. They’re quoted in response to yet more scaremongering in this article in the local Bucks Herald newspaper, where it turns out that the ‘heck of a chunk’ is actually just 20%, leaving 80% untouched!
Of course, there’s another irony here. The old railway line that Hs2 will be reusing at this point is the route of the former Great Central. The very line some of them tout as an ‘alternative’ to HS2 that should be reopened instead. Only they don’t seem that keen on the idea when it becomes a reality! Is there any finer example of hypocrisy?
Let’s see if tomorrows threatened protests actually materalise….
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Paul Bigland 