It’s a short blog from me tonight as it’s been a long old day and it’s time for bed! This morning I was at the HS2 construction site at Old Oak Common in London to see the Rail and HS2 Minister, Huw Merriman MP, start the new conveyor belt that will carry the London clay being excavated from the HS2 station box across to the former Willesden Eurotunel sidings where the spoil will be removed by rail. Eventually, the 1.7 mile long conveyor system will link three HS2 construction sites to Willesden.
Here’s Huw pressing the button to start the conveyor.
There a whole series of pictures showing construction progress in my dedicated HS2 gallery on my Zenfolio website. You can find them by following this link.
I’ve a small favour to ask… If you enjoy reading this or any of the other blogs I’ve written, 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 me to cover some of the cost of maintaining this site (which isn’t cheap and comes out of my own pocket). Remember, 99% of the pictures used in my blogs can be purchased as prints from my other website – https://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/
It’s not often nowadays that I have the opportunity to fillet so much dishonest and fact-free nonsense about HS2 in the media nowadays, but I’ve been given the rare threat thanks to two people who’ve been writing trash about HS2 for years. Yesterday it was Andrew ‘transcription error’ Gilligan, one of the Tories client journalists who for many years was embedded in the heart of the Tory party as one of Boris Johnson’s coterie.
Today it’s the turn of the dyspeptic Simon Jenkins, whose penned his latest fact-free polemic in the Guardian, which you can find here. It’s up to his usual standard, loads of assertions with no facts to back it up and made-up numbers for the ‘true’ cost of HS2. I’ve examined Jenkins troubled relationship with facts before in this blog.
However, Jenkin’s goes one further than Gilligan and claims that ALL of HS2 should be cancelled immediately – even Phase 1 where construction is well advanced. To support his claim, Jenkins says this;
“A New Jersey governor, Chris Christie, famously halted a rail tunnel under the Hudson river by simply ordering the contractors to fill in the hole”.
There just one teeny problem with this claim. It’s complete and utter bollocks. Jenkins has made it up, and the reality shows Jenkins example of the ARC demonstrates that his idea is short-sighted and stupid in the extreme.
Here’s the reality. Chris Christie does exist. He was the Republican Governer of New Jersey between 2010 and 2018 when he lost to his Democrat challenger. He’d put his hat in the ring for his party’s Presidential nomination, he got nowhere, but Donald Trump did, Christie endorsed him and joined his team, and the rest, as they say, is history.
But what about this tunnel? That didn’t exist. There *were* plans to build one (there still are). Known as ‘Access to the Regions Core’ (ARC) the plan was to build two new tunnels from New Jersey to Manhattan and a new railway station next to Penn Station which was at capacity. The original cost of the project was estimated at $8.7bn. Preparations for building the tunnels began in 2009 with a completion date of 2018, but in 2010 Christie effectively cancelled the project by withdrawing his part of the funding, citing ‘concerns’ about cost overruns. By the time the project was cancelled in October 2010 all that was built was the Palisades ‘tunnel’, an underpass under Tonnelle Ave in North Bergen. Contracts *had* been let for tunnelling, Skanska had won the design and build contract for the full Palisades Tunnel on May 5, 2010, just 5 months earlier but tunnelling proper hadn’t even begun.
That wasn’t the end of the story. The decision was controversial and Christie became embroiled in a series of legal actions over where the money went – especially Federal funding towards the project. The federal government demanded repayment of funding received by New Jersey Transit for the project. After litigation, an agreement was reached where part of the funds were returned while other monies were used on transit-related projects.
That wasn’t the end of the story. Christie’s administration was later investigated and fined $400,00 for diverting funds from the project to subsidise various roads projects. Plus, some of New Jersey’s funds earmarked for ARC were eventually diverted to the state transportation trust, normally funded by a gasoline tax, one of the lowest in the United States. This was believed by many to be a cynical attempt to subsidise motoring by avoiding raising gas tax,
In March 2012, the Government Accountability Office (GAO), a federal agency, published a report entitled Commuter Rail Potential Impacts and Cost Estimates for the Cancelled Hudson River Tunnel Project,which concluded that Christie’s basis for cancellation was a misrepresentation and that he misstated the estimated costs, cost over-runs, and New Jersey’s obligation to pay them (see link)
So, was anything ‘filled in’ as Jenkins claims? No, because the project never really died because it was still needed. This need became ever more evident after 2012’s Hurricane Sandy caused damage to the existing 100 year old rail tunnels which led to flooding of the New York subway. It’s estimated $5bn damage was caused to the rail systems. Some of the completed design and engineering work has been used by Amtrak to develop the Gateway Programme, which will build yes – you’ve guessed it – new tunnels under the Hudson! The Gateway Project was unveiled on February 7, 2011, just 4 months after Christie cancelled ARC.
So, the project Jenkins cites isn’t dead at all. Nothing was filled in and the delays and political shenanigans have cost taxpayers dearly! The original ARC project was budgeted at $10 billion and was due to open in 2018-20. The Gateway programme’s 2022 projected cost of the tunnels and related projects is $16.1 billion.
What Jenkins completely fails to mention is cancelling a project where no main construction works and no Tunnel Boring Machines (TBMs) were running is a very different kettle of fish to HS2, where the Chiltern tunnels are already over 8 miles long, the Long Itchington Tunnel has one of the 1-mile-long tunnels completed and at West Rusilip there are two more TBMs already boring East into London. Oh, and that’s without the 3.5km long Colne Valley viaduct which is already well underway! Add in all the other civil engineering work along the phase 1 route and we’re talking of 10s of billions already spent or committed. To claim this can just be cancelled or ‘filled in’ is nothing more than idiocy. But then when did Jenkins ever deal in reality when it comes to HS2? The most amusing thing about Jenkins using the Hudson tunnels as an example of how you could scrap HS2 (apart from the fact it was bollocks) is it’s exactly the opposite. It’s a classic example of why you shouldn’t cancel these vital projects and how doing so comes back to bite you on the arse!
Unlike Jenkins US tunnel which was never started much less ‘filled in’. here’s one of the HS2 Chiltern tunnels under construction. This is now over 4 miles long, as is its next door neighbour. The Long Itchington tunnel is half-complete and the West Ruislip tunnels already have two TBMs running. That’s over 9 miles of tunnels bored already…
I’ve a small favour to ask… If you enjoy reading this or any of the other blogs I’ve written, 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 me to cover some of the cost of maintaining this site (which isn’t cheap and comes out of my own pocket). Remember, 99% of the pictures used in my blogs can be purchased as prints from my other website – https://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/
Today the right-wing press and a few other media outlets are falling over themselves to report of the latest right-wing nonsense about HS2 from the secretive political lobbyists at ‘Policy Exchange’.
But who are ‘policy exchange’? none of the media bothers to ask.
Like other right-wing lobbyists, PE claim to be an educational charity. They bill themselves as “the UK’s most influential think tank”, an appellation awarded to them by the right-wing newspapers who lap up whatever they report. Yep, that’s the reason they’re ‘influential’. Their friends in the media push their agenda and the organistion has a revolving door with Tory Governments, with many of its members having been part of Tory administrations at advisory or Ministerial level!
How you can be an educational charity when it’s plain to anyone who does the slightest research that they’re actually political lobbyists is a sad indictment of the laws around charities and political lobbying. Sadly, the Charity Commission is both weak and feeble when it comes to allowing overtly political lobby groups to get away with claiming charitable status and availing themselves of the tax breaks that bestows. PE is also the opaquest of all the ‘think-tanks’ when it comes to revealing who funds it. You can read more about that here on the ‘Teacher Toolkit’ website.
PE was set up in 2002 by prominent Tories including Nicholeas Boles as its first Director. Micheal Gove as Chairman and also Francis Maude. There’s a long list of familiar names associated with the right-wing and PE, including one who wrote the latest hatchet job on HS2. Step forward, Andrew ‘transcription error’ Gilligan! Former advisor to Boris Johnson (both when he was Mayor of London and Prime Minister). Gilligan’s long had antipathy towards HS2, so his fingerprints being on this report ‘HS2: The kindest cut of all’ are hardly a surprise.
So, what does Gilligan claim? Nothing new at all, so no change there then! In fact, the report is just the usual rehash of old claims about HS2 the libertarian right have been bandying around for years. Gilligan has a long history of rehashing knocking copy about HS2, as I’ve blogged about in the past.
“By cancelling all sections of HS2 where main construction has not yet started, we can save around £3bn a year by 2027/8, and £44bn or more in total.”
And the evidence for this is? There’s none, apart from a few back of a fag-packet calculations and assumptions, each one is caveated with the phrase “likely to be an underestimate“. Well, he would say that, wouldn’t he? How is this meant to ‘fill’ a supposed black hole in the Government’s current budget? It can’t – obviously, this is pure spin on the part of the media who’re reporting on this. Not only would it not fill any holes in Government coffers, but Gilligan’s suggestion also to stop work at Euston would actually COST money as contracts would be cancelled and compensation paid and workers (who’re currently paying tax) would be laid off.
Whilst admitting it’s not possible to scrap phase 1 of HS2 are construction is already well underway and the costs and penalties would be astronomical he does suggest scrapping the line from Old Oak Common into Euston. What Gilligan completely ignores is the fact Old Oak Common can’t be used as a replacement for Euston station as it’s far, far too small and would hamstring any possibility of running a full service on HS2, thus rendering the project pointless. This is classic penny-pinching and either not understanding (or deliberately ignoring) why a 10-platform station at Euston is being built in the first place. Gilligan claims people can change onto the Elizabeth line and use that to get to Central London instead. In that he contradicts himself as earlier in the report he claims that to cope with the extra passenger numbers HS2 would bring to Euston we’d need Crossrail 2’s capacity. Yet Crossrail 1 (which wasn’t designed to cope with HS2 passengers) can somehow fit everyone on regardless! But then, consistency has never been Gilligan’s forte. Gilligan grudgingly admits that “Old Oak will, admittedly, be less convenient than Euston for passengers seeking to continue their journeys by taxi, car or foot, or going to the Eurostar terminal”. But he completely ignores another dimension and reason Euston was chosen as the HS2 terminus. It not only has East-West connectivity, but it also has something Old Oak doesn’t have – North-South connectivity, Euston serves the whole of London in a way Old Oak never could – even if it had the platform capacity! That a former transport advisor to the Mayor of London doesn’t understand this (or more likely, choses to ignore because it doesn’t fit his narrative) tells you a lot about Gilligan.
Building HS2 at Euston in October 2021. Gilligan completely ignores the reasons Euston was chosen as the terminus (connectivity) and the fact the railway systems are designed and developed, it’s only the oversite development where plans are in a state of flux.
We see other bald assertions such as “HS2’s real benefit-cost ratio may be somewhere between 0.4 and 0.7 – even at the official price” (note the word ‘may’ doing some very heavy lifting there’s no evidence for this claim is offered at all). Gilligan often quotes the BCR as being lower than 1, occasionally he admits this excludes the wider economic impacts (WEIs) but completely ignores the fact the WEI’s are woefully underestimated because they don’t include real environmental impacts such as tackling Climate Change. Transport is the biggest single emitter of carbon in the UK, but Gilligan hardly even mentions the environment in his ‘report’ except when he makes this evidence free assertion “Per pound spent, almost literally any other public transport project imaginable could achieve greater modal shift and CO2 reduction than HS2; that it takes vast sums away from such projects is another of its environmental harms”. Yet again we see the fabrication that HS2 is taking money “away” from other things. The truth? Cancelling HS2 wouldn’t release any money for anything else: the money just doesn’t exist until the government issues the bonds for it. Oh, and let’s not forget the fact that (just as they did with HS1) the government can make money from selling the operating concession, which you can’t do if you don’t build it, or only build a rump of HS2 that makes the whole project pointless (which is what Gilligan wants).
Gilligan makes much play about the conservative %’s the Government use for modal shift from other modes of transport to HS2. As usual, these percentages have no context, saying what they’re percentages of. 3% of 100 is tiny, 3% of (say) 100 million is a very different proposition. Plus, what are the carbon savings by moving from high carbon travel (domestic air) to high-speed rail? Gilligan ignores that as it’s inconvenient. It’s also worth noting that whilst Gillian rubbishes any official figures he doesn’t like, the takes the governments modal shift numbers as holy writ, yet the Government’s forecast method is known to be weak. It specifically excludes any factors that favour rail over car or air. Plus, mainland Europe high-speed rail has much higher from-air percentage than the UK Governments figures All the UK modal shift claims are ridiculously low compared to what has actually happened with high-speed rail elsewhere – for which empirical evidence exists.
Reading the report it’s clear that Gilligan’s ignored the most important reasons for building HS2 (rail capacity and the environment) in order to focus solely on what always drives these libertarians. Money and ideology. He offers no alternatives to HS2 because that would mean admitting the central reasons for building it. Instead, he dismisses it purely on the grounds of cost with the spurious arguments that we ‘can’t afford’ HS2 and that the money can be used to fill holes elsewhere – even though that money doesn’t actually exist until it’s borrowed. There isn’t and never has been a big pot of money sat in the Treasury labelled ‘for HS2’ just waiting to be rebadged and spent on other things.
No doubt the usual suspects will fawn over Gilligan and his recycled report, despite it being the usual rehash he’s made a career out of. Will it stop HS2? Of course not. He never has. Because even this Government is starting to realise that it’s these ‘think-tanks’ and their loony libertarian thinking that doomed Truss and got the Tories into the mess they’re in now. If a ‘black hole’ does exist, it’s because of the ‘think tanks’ that Truss listened to! Cancelling HS2 would add another nail in the coffin of their reputation of economic competence and leave the UK looking even more like a laughing stock, unable to build infrastructure because the swivel-eyed loons on the right want small government (and tax cuts).
I’ve a small favour to ask… If you enjoy reading this or any of the other blogs I’ve written, 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 me to cover some of the cost of maintaining this site (which isn’t cheap and comes out of my own pocket). Remember, 99% of the pictures used in my blogs can be purchased as prints from my other website – https://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/
Welcome to November folks! Apologies for the sparseness of blogging during October. That was due to two things. The first was our fortnight long holiday in Greece where I made the conscious decision to step back from social media and have a bit of a detox. However, the last few days absence has been due to the fact that I’ve been down with some sort of lurgi. It wasn’t Covid (I did a test) but some of the symptoms were similar and I felt like death warmed up! I’ve been confined to bed since Sunday and now seem to be making a recovery. The aches, pains, sore throat have eased but my energy levels still aren’t back to normal, so I’ll be taking it easy at home for the rest of the week. Not that that’s a problem as I’ve plenty to do at Bigland Towers. Whilst I’ve spent most of my time sleeping, I have been editing pictures during some of my waking hours in an effort to clear the massive backlog of images I have going back as far as September. Tonight, I managed to get all the shots from our Greek trip onto my Zenfolio website. You can find those ones here. I’ve also been wading my way through images of my visit to the HS2 construction sites at West Ruislip, Denham and Calvert on Thursday. I’ve added them to this gallery. Now all I’ve got to do is complete editing pictures from September’s trip to Germany, which are beginning to appear here. The other major bit of work I have to do is finish writing the 3rd part of my round Britain trip for RAIL magazine. I’d hoped to have had it done by now but being ill has rather got in the way. Once that’s done I’m free to start thinking about other things – and catch up with writing some blogs on my various HS2 site visits.
November promises to be another busy month with various jobs in the pipeline and places to visit, but I’m determined to get back to blogging too. I’ve missed it – and I hope some of you have done too!
In the meantime, here’s a return of the picture of the day. This one’s from Thursday’s trip to attend the launch of the 2nd HS2 Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM) to begin its journey under London – and the 5th HS2 TBM all told. That makes 5 of the 10 machines launched now. It was quite a privilege to be aboard ‘Caroline’ when the button was pressed to start her up – and to have a tour of the machine whilst she was running. Here’s what she looks like from just behind the cutting head.
Mike Lyons, HS2’s Civils Director (left) and Michael Greiner, Head of Tunnelling for Skanksa JV discuss the intricacies of ‘Caroline’ as she begins her 5 mile long journey under London. The pistons you see above them push the TBM forward off the first ring of segments. The plate in the foreground lifts the 8 tonne segments into place after they’re delivered into the bowels of the machine. This happens every 2 meters. Individual pistons are retracted to create space for a segment, then pushed back into place before the next segment is added. Seven segments make up each ring.
If you want to learn more about how a TBM works HS2 Ltd have produced this excellent video graphic.
I’ve a small favour to ask… If you enjoy reading this or any of the other blogs I’ve written, 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 me to cover some of the cost of maintaining this site (which isn’t cheap and comes out of my own pocket). Remember, 99% of the pictures used in my blogs can be purchased as prints from my other website – https://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/
I’m on the last leg of my trip home after what’s turned out to be a fun-filled day – although it didn’t initially feel like that when my alarm went off at 06:30!
However, as I made my weary way from my friends flat to Clapham Junction station, I was treated to one of those spectacular sunrises that literally brightens your day. Sadly, I didn’t have time to grab more than a camera phone shot from the station as I had an appointment to keep. Making my way across central London via the ‘tube’ I pitched up at Marylebone station for the short train trip out to West Ruislip, the location of today’s press event. HS2 Ltd are launching two Tunnel Boring Machines (TBMs) from a site adjacent to the railway. The TBMs will spend the next 2 years tunnelling South to bore 5 miles of tunnels. The first machine (Sushila) was launched a couple of weeks ago and is already 70 meters underground. We were here to see the launch of the second machine, named ‘Caroline’. I’ll blog about this in detail later, but for now, here’s a few pictures from the event.
Looking down on ‘Caroline’ (nearest the camera) and ‘Sushila’, who’s already 70 meters into her journey. Behind the fence in the background id the Chiltern railway line to Birmingham. The HS2 site is rail connected as the tunnel lining segments will be brought in by train from a factory at the Isle of Grain in Kent.Suited and booted for the job. Not a bad way to spend my birthday as very few people get to see the inside of a TBM.Here’swhat’s behind me. The tail of ‘Caroline’ with a ring of 7 tunnel segments already loaded.Inside ‘Caroline’ just behind the cutting head. A ring is already in place and the TBM’s pistons are pushing the machine forward off them. The machine in the foreground is a rotating drum that picks up the individual 8 tonne segments and puts them in place once the individual rams blocking the way are retracted. Each ring is 2 meters wide and consists of 7 segments.
I’ve a small favour to ask… If you enjoy reading this or any of the other blogs I’ve written, 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 me to cover some of the cost of maintaining this site (which isn’t cheap and comes out of my own pocket). Remember, 99% of the pictures used in my blogs can be purchased as prints from my other website – https://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/
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…
I’ve a small favour to ask… If you enjoy reading this or any of the other blogs I’ve written, 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 me to cover some of the cost of maintaining this site (which isn’t cheap and comes out of my own pocket). Remember, 99% of the pictures used in my blogs can be purchased as prints from my other website – https://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/
After such a long day yesterday I must admit I slept like a log, falling asleep as soon as I lay down. Now, refreshed, I’m ready for another busy day – and a warm on to boot. It’s not a heatwave, but 22 degrees is plenty warm enough when you’re wandering around a construction site in full PPE! Right now it’s time for a coffee before heading out to meet an old friend who’s staying nearby before we head of to the HS2 green tunnel construction site near Chipping Warden. I’ll update the blog as and when…
13:30.
Sorry for tge delay with updates but it’s been a busy few hours. We were given an access all areas tour of the Chipping Warden green tunnel site, including access to the Birminham bound bore. Here’s a few phone pictures (for now) until I can add proper ones and details of tunnel construction.
Looking at the tunnel from the Birmingham side. This section of the tunnel is being built first as the nearby road will be diverted over the top (at the far end). As a consequence, those segments are the slightly bigger type 2 ones.
The twin bores seen from the London end. Both are having steelwork and concrete fitted that will form the tunnel floor and guide barriers either side of the rails.
Me with the route of HS2 to Birminghsm behind me. The green tunnel will finish by those portakabins just to the Right of my head.
17:40.
Sorry, another long interlude! Our visit finished by 13:00 – bang on the expected time which gave us the opportunities for some informal chats before we departed the site. Whilst my colleagues headed off to catch their trains I was met by a friend who took me Northwards to Leamington, stopping to examine several HS2 construction sites on the way (pics later). Right now I’m back on the rails, heading for Birmingham. Leamington was teeming with people who are here for the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham. whilst folk were flooding off the staion after a day out at the games, many more were heading into the city.
My brief visit to Leamington delighted me for a different reason. The wonderful old buffet on the Birmingham bound platform closed down during Covid. To be honest, it had become a shadow of its former self so wasn’t that much of a loss. Now it’s been reopened under the aegis of the people who run the excellent ‘Centenary Lounge’ on Birmingham’s Moor St station. I popped in for a chat. They’ve been busy restoring the woodwork and other fittings but that’s just the start. Soon they’ll replace the furniture with something far more sympathetic and introduce the excellent choice of food and drink they offer in Birmingham. I’ll report back when they do!
19:30.
I’ve just left Sheffield on the penultimate leg of my journey home. We were late into Birmingham as earlier delays were exacerbated by being held outside the station to wait for a platform. Thankfully, my connection was also running behind time so the dash between platforms still gave me the chance to grab a few pictures en-route.
The Edinburgh service I was catching was being cut back to Newcastle due to staff shortages but that’s not going to affect me. It’s still a busy train as (like most Cross-Country trains) it serves different markets en-route. Looking around my coach now I’m one of only a handful who were on at Brum.
20:20.
The last leg! I managed to get some work done on the train and get all today’s pictures downloaded before we arrived at Leeds where I had a twelve minute turnaround. Now I’m heading home on one of Northern’s 3-car class 195s which is busy but not enough that I couldn’t find a free table where I could set up the laptop to start key bashing! It’s a glorious summer evening in Leeds although I really noticed the difference in temperature as soon as I stepped off the train. Yorkshire’s several degrees cooler than Warwickshire. Still, it’s going to be lovely to be home after such a hectic few days – although the pace won’t slacken I won’t be walking miles with a heavy camera bag on my back or sweating away in PPE!
I’ve a small favour to ask… If you enjoy reading this or any of the other blogs I’ve written, 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 me to cover some of the cost of maintaining this site (which isn’t cheap and comes out of my own pocket). Remember, 99% of the pictures used in my blogs can be purchased as prints from my other website – https://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/
I’m back in the road (or rather, rails) again for the next few days as I’m heading South to check out work on building our new high-speed railway, HS2. It’s been an unconscionably early start as I’ve a lot of ground to cover before I end up in Banbury this evening where I’ve a hotel booked for the night before taking part in a morning media visit to a nearby HS2 site, but more of that tomorrow. Feel free to keep popping back to see where and what I get up to today…
Right now I’m on the 06:00 train from Halifax to Leeds to begin my journey South to London. This morning’s walk to the station was one of the quietest I’ve known for some time, despite it being a lovely morning – although the amount of broken branches lying on the roads suggests we had anything but a calm night. Even the dog walkers seemed to have taken the day off as the only people I passed were a handful of people cocooned in their metal boxes as they drove to/from work.
The 06:00’s not normally a busy train but this mornings loadings are looking good, especially now that it’s left Bradford Interchange. It’s between 25-30% full, mostly with early shift workers.
07:30.
My journey to Leeds was quick and easy as was my transfer to LNER’s 07:00 to London. The service originates at Bradford Forster Square and reverses at Leeds before calling at Wakefield Westgate, then running non-stop to London Kings Cross. It consists of two 5-car Class 801/1 ‘Azuma’ units which are normally busy with a mix of business travellers and families who’ve secured cheap tickets for a day out in London. Today’s no exception. The beauty of this service is that it’s times to arrive at Kings Cross at 08:59, which is ideal if you’ve an early meeting in London. Despite all the fuss made in some quarters about ‘Zoom’ meetings it’s obvious that a lot of business people still want face-to-face meetings.
08:40.
My trip South has been (so far) hassle-free. The change in the seasons is made obvious by the amount of hay bales in the fields we’ve flashed past as farmers are busy bringing in the harvest. Something else that’s noticeable is how dry the land looks the further I get towards London. We’ve had many days of rain up in the Pennines which has left the landscape lookin very lush, which is a marked contrast to the scorched landscape of Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire. The weather’s clouded up ‘darn sarf’ but there’s no sign of rain…
As we’re within spitting distance of London I’m making sure all by gadgets and gizmos are charged up using the multitude of available sockets on the train. One gadget I don’t have to worry about anymore is my Fitbit. I’ve talked about how the new Charge 5 has an excerable battery life. It it went for 48 hours without needing recharging it was a miracle. Well, recently Fitbit did a software update which appears to have cured the problem. I’ve not charged the thing since (3-4 days ago) and I’ve still got 48% left. I’m going to see how long it lasts before I need to plug it in again.
09:45.
I’ve been in London less than an hour. My inbound service from Leeds was 3 minutes early – as it often is. Say what you like about the Azumas but they can’t half shift! At King’s Cross an earlier East Coast racehorse was waiting for me. 91127 in its revised BR livery with an LNER twist…
Oh, I say…
Staying long enough to grab a picture I scuttled off to Marylebone via a quiet Metropolitan line. It may be one of the capital’s smallest mainline termini but it’s buzzing nowadays. A far cry from BR days when it was dead outside of rush-hours. Now there’s trains departing every few minutes and a constant stream of passe gers using its expanded services to the likes of Oxford and Bicester shopping village (a favourite of foreign tourists).
I caught the 09:44 to Gerrards Cross worked by this old ‘Thames Turbo’.
12:00.
Phew! The weather may be cloudy but it’s certainly warm down here. I’m currently in Denham having a look at sites associated with what will be one of the most visible and iconic structures on HS2, the Colne Valley viaduct which will stretch for 3.5km. The viaduct will cross a series of lakes (former quarries) which makes construction interesting as haul roads have to be built across the lakes to the site of each pier to enable construction vehicles to get to from the sites. I’ll add pictures later. I did visit one contentious site. According to local anti HS2 activist Sarah Green the Hs2 haul road is blocking the grand Union canal as the engineers are “incompetent” and build the road too low. There’s only one problem with her claim. It’s a complete fabrication. Here’s where HS2 viaduct will cross the Grand Union canal. The canal isn’t blocked by any haul road – because there isn’t one. Green knows the truth because she only lives a few minutes away along the canal. She lied.
14:45.
Double phew! Having spent time exploring the route of the Colne Valley viaduct I wandered up to the Northern end which is where construction has been launched from. The massive South Hyde site contains two temporary factories. One names the tunnel segments for the Chiltern tunnels pushing North whilst the other makes the viaduct sections heading South. So meet ‘Dominique’, an expat from Hong Kong who’s now at work building the Colne Valley viaduct.
Here’s more up close and personal…
16:30.
Oops! I stopped off to get some pictures and a spot of lunch but soon regretted it as my next Banbury bound train turned out to be an absolutely rammed 2 car set working to Birmingham. 2 cars all the way to Brum, seriously? Yes, sadly so…
The vestibule I’m stood in at the front of the train contains me, a pram, a woman with a suitcase and a chap looking after 2 bikes as his partner’s found a seat. No-one’s complaining, even though the bikes are blocking off the front compartment and have to be juggled every time we stop.
21:30.
Time to bring today’s rolling blog to a close. I’ve had a long day and walking 15 miles with a fully laden camera bag has certainly given me a bit of a workout. When I arrived in Banbury the first thing I did was make a beeline for my hotel which was on the opposite side of town and and enjoy a nice warm shower! Suitably refreshed I went for a wander around the town which I’ve not visited for over 20 years. I was quite a depressing experience. Banbury should be a thriving market town in an affluent part of the country but the reality is rather different. I was amazed at the numbers of street homeless and vagrants panhandling around the town centre. There’s some lovely buildings here, but many of the shops are derelict. When you see that even ‘Burger King’ has closed its doors you can start to appreciate the problem. On the plus side, there’s some excellent Eastern European supermarkets – and quite upmarket ones at that. I’d be interested to know what the demographic is around here as they’re obviously catering for someone, and the Slavic languages are often heard in the street. In contrast, the vagrants are nearly all white English. Maybe I need to do some digging as it’s not what I expected. Still, I have a great room in a family run B&B and tomorrow I’ll be meeting up with various friends and colleagues to be given a tour of the HS2 cut and cover green tunnel at Chipping Warden, so expect another rolling blog tomorrow as I’ll be checking out a few other HS2 construction sites as I make my way back up North. But, for now – goodnight…
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I’ve had another mixed-bag sort of day here at Bigland Towers. It’s been one that’s never really taken off as the weather’s been so unpredictable. The heatwave of the other week seems like a false memory now as we’ve had so many wet days since. I’d been toying with having a day out but the forecast put the mockers on that as I soon realised I’d be wasting my time as I’d plenty of things to clear the decks with at home that will free me up for some adventures next week. One of the days achievements has been to tidy-up my recent picture-taking and get stuff I hadn’t catalogued onto my Zenfolio picture website. You can find what I’ve added (and where) by following this link. There’s still some more pictures to add but they should be cleared over the weekend.
Another exercise was trying to find the details of the court case results that saw some anti HS2 protesters jailed earlier this week. I’ve managed to update yesterday’s blog with the results but finding and linking to the original court papers is difficult – especially on a Friday! I’ll get there in the end as they’ll eventually be published in full. In the meantime I’ve had to spend a lot of time chasing details through informed people.
Right, it’s time to get into the weekend spirit so I’ll leave you with today’s picture which was taken in our garden this morning. Most days recently I’ve looked out of our living room window to notice the raindrops beading on the Iris’ outside. I kept thinking what a good picture it would make. Finally I got around to taking it.
I’ve a small favour to ask… If you enjoy reading this or any of the other blogs I’ve written, 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 me to cover some of the cost of maintaining this site (which isn’t cheap and comes out of my own pocket). Remember, 99% of the pictures used in my blogs can be purchased as prints from my other website – https://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/
It was always going to end this way and today it did. Five of the young men involved in the farcical and futile anti HS2 tunnel protest in Staffordshire that ended in June have been sentenced at Birmingham Crown court over the past two days. A copy of the High Court directions order can be found here.
Two other people (Rory Hooper and Leanne Swateridge) gave undertakings under which they are now prohibited from trespassing on any HS2 land and interfering with the project in any way. These undertaking are valid for 2 years.
Yesterday one protester was jailed for a total of 331 days. I haven’t seen this person’s identity confirmed as yet but there’s only one name missing out of the seven defendants listed on the Directions order…
Two others received prison terms of 184 days and 156 days, suspended for two years, plus fines and court costs. These are William Harewood (aka ‘Satchel’) who also received a £3000 fine and Liam Walters who received a £2000 fine.
A fourth, David Buchan (aka David Holiday) who wasn’t in the tunnels but who was present on injuncted land was sentenced to 100 days in prison, plus a £1500 fine and court costs. He’d refused to turn up to court, with the inevitable consequences.
Today, the final protester and repeat offender, Elliott Cuciurean will be sentenced. I’ll update this blog when I have confirmation of his sentence.
Apart from wasting time, money and their own lives these people have achieved the sum total of zero. The Hs2 ‘Rebellion’ collapsed some time ago without stopping HS2 in the slightest. They may be seen as ‘martyrs’ by some but the truth is most people won’t even notice. The court cases have attracted minimal publicity, just like the 47 days they wasted holed-up in a pointless tunnel. The world’s moved on and so has HS2, which has reached several construction milestones (and will see several more) whilst these people languish in prison. It’s been very telling that the moribund anti HS2 Facebook and other social media pages are mostly ignoring the court case. It seems clear that hardly anyone’s turned up to protest outside, which is another obvious sign of just how their campaign’s collapsed.
Now there’s no more active camps left, just an ineffective handful of people who’ve been allowed to camp on a farmer’s land near Jones’ Hill wood (the one the protesters lied about having a connection with Roald Dahl) which is futile as all the tree-clearance work was completed long ago and now construction of the HS2 trace is well underway.
It’s noticeable that the Facebook pages of some of the protesters have suddenly vanished. Hardly surprising as they helped provide evidence of their contempt of court! ‘Drew Robson’ (Andrew McMaster) who was one of the most prominent and gobby of the protesters has taken his down.
‘Drew’ with one of the posts from his vanished Facebook page. Like all his other boasts, it didn’t age well!
Not that it matters as the hopeless protest movement really is all over now. These cases are hardly going to encourage other people to be as foolish as the likes of Harewood and Cuciurean. The money’s dried up, the volunteers have dried up – and so has the media interest. So much so that another High Court case in London on the 28th March slipped under the radar. HS2 ‘rebellion’ kept quiet about it too – for obvious reasons – as it shows how many of their high-profile protesters have been neutered.
This case involved some of the protesters from another futile tunnel protest, this time the one at Euston. It involved decades long failure to stop anything, Larch Maxey – along with Daniel Hooper (aka ‘Swampy’), Isla Sandford, Juliet Stevenson-Clark and Bethany Cooke, who all ate humble pie, as the wording of the judgement explains. It also makes clear that if it wasn’t for HS2 Ltd agreeing to their grovelling, they would have been jailed.
“The Defendants apologised to the court for their actions and undertook not to trespass on land which is being used for the HS2 project, to obstruct or interfere with the Claimant’s operations or to train others to do so. This outcome was acceptable to the Claimant and, in the light of this and for the reasons explained in the judgment of Linden J, the court was persuaded, albeit reluctantly, that it should make the order applied for.”
Both these court cases (along with others) show how the small band of people who made up the hardcore of the anti HS2 protests are now out of the game. The pool of activists was always more of a puddle. Now that puddle’s dried up.
Now the focus swings to the huge amount of progress being made on building HS2….
UPDATE (29th July).
Elliott’s case was adjourned until September with no date fixed for the case to be heard, so the saga drags on until then.
I’ve a small favour to ask… If you enjoy reading this or any of the other blogs I’ve written, 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 me to cover some of the cost of maintaining this site (which isn’t cheap and comes out of my own pocket). Remember, 99% of the pictures used in my blogs can be purchased as prints from my other website – https://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/
Paul Bigland 