Ever had one of those days where you get to the stage of saying “right 2020, you can just f*****g do one now”? I’ve finally reached that stage.
I knew today was going to be a struggle but I did my best to remain positive. Looking at the the heavy rain battering the bedroom window and listening to the high winds whipping the leaves off the trees I tried to put a positive spin and brave face on the pair of us self-isolating by saying “well, with weather like this, who really minds being stuck indoors?” After all, I had plenty to do and the day’s not been unproductive. I’ve managed to declutter the office, get some writing done and restart scanning old slides – with the intention of having the final batch of UK rail pictures done in the next couple of weeks. There’s only one problem. I don’t have any options as my freedoms have been eroded by Covid. And I do mean Covid, I’m not blaming the shambolic response to it from our kakistocratic Government (easy as it would be) because other countries citizens are in the same boat. We just happen to have a bunch in power who’re adding insult to injury. It’s the pandemic that’s the root of so many problems.
So, there was me plodding along, thinking ‘ho hum’ when I received the news of the death of an old and valued friend. Not from Covid, but from cancer. Major John Poyntz, formerly of Her Majesty’s Railway Inspectorate has passed away. In the next few days I’ll write more about John, right now I’m too upset to go into details. I first met John around 15 years ago and he and I and a small group of valued friends had many an adventure in Germany and the UK. You often hear the expression ‘they don’t make ’em like that anymore’ but in John’s case this is absolutely true – because of the times John lived through and the things he experienced through his military service in Malaya (as it was then) and later in West Germany during the cold war. He was a wealth of stories, has a wicked sense of humour, was always very dapper and – God – could he drink!
So, today’s picture of the day is in memory of John. I took it on the Harz railway in Germany on the 10th February 2007 and for me, it encapsulates who John was and why we both loved and respected him. Here he is at the train window, balancing a class of Glühwein on his notebooks as we trundle through the winter snow.
Rest easy Major.
Circumstances may rob us of our chance to pay our last respects to you for now, but be assured that, when the time is right, we’ll get together to raise several glasses in your memory and tell a few tales…
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Since the 24th October through till the 1st November the railway through the Calder valley has been severed in both directions to allow for some very important work to take place at Todmorden. A £3.7m Great North Rail Project investment is seeing the 1840-built Grade II listed structure grit blasted to its bare metal to allow structural repairs to take place.
180-year-old bridge designed by railway pioneer George Stephenson is a skew bridge over the Rochdale canal. The single 31 m (102 ft) cast iron span, consists of a pair of bowed ribs with vertical hangars projected above the ribs in an ornamental Gothic arcade. The abutments are semi-octagonal castellated turrets. The whole structure looks very grand and must have been incredibly impressive in its day, projecting the power of the new railways.
Meanwhile, Taylors bridge, which carries the railway over Rose Bank Road just to the West of Todmorden station has been completely reconstructed with two disused sections permanently removed as part of the same investment.
Sadly, due to other commitments and the lousy weather we’ve been having, I didn’t have chance to visit and record the work until Friday 3oth, by which time Taylors bridge had been replaced, with all the old spans removed and the new ones dropped into place by a huge crane (which had already left the site. Network Rail and its contractors were busy replacing the track, ready for services to restart. Here’s a selection of images from my visit.
Trains from Leeds were terminated at Hebden Bridge where there’s a crossover that allows them to reverse and work back ‘right line’. Here’s 195128 which was preparing to do exactly that after depositing me. From Manchester, services were terminating at Rochdale, whilst a rail replacement bus service worked between the two points. My rail replacement bus was this ex-Transport for London vehicle which I many well have used when it worked on the capital’s route 25!With Todmorden station in the background, ‘team orange’ are replacing track over the new Taylors bridge. Concrete sleepers had been put into place earlier and the engineers are busy clipping new rails into place over them.The days of moving rails using teams of men have largely disappeared. Nowadays the work has been mechanised. Here, a road rail vehicle (RRV) has been fitted with a special extendable arm to move lengths of rail. A few hours later the rails have all been installed and the RRV has changed tools. Now, fitted with a bucket, it’s being used to spread ballast over the new sleepers before a tamping machine arrives to consolidate the stones and adjust the line and level of the new track to ensure its fit for passenger service on Monday morning.Meanwhile, here’s George Stephenson’s 1840 bridge over the Rochdale canal at Gauxholme. Most of the bridge has been cocooned in sheeting to protect the workers from the elements but also to cut down on noise and dust from the grit-blasting. As you can see, people are living very close to the work. A closer look at the Todmorden end of the bridge. Track has been removed to allow inspections to take place whilst the parts of the bridge facing the track have already been grit-blasted and treated whilst the line’s been closed as it would be impossible to carry out this work with trains still running.
Despite the awful weather we’ve been having whilst the work’s been going on (including this weekend, there high winds and heavy rain as I’m writing this on Sunday evening!) it’s expected that the railway will be open to traffic on Monday morning.
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Apologies for the absence of a picture or my usual ramblings yesterday but I was otherwise engaged and simply ran out of time! I’ve been pretty much desk-bound this week as the weather’s so bloody awful. We’ve had lots of torrential rain and gusty winds, so my exercise regime’s gone to pot too. Apart from my birthday it’s been a funny old week. Maybe it’s the ‘Covid blues’ but I’ve really struggled to build up much enthusiasm for anything over the past few days. Perhaps that’s due to the uncertainties and the feeling that life’s on hold at the moment as we all stare a new lockdown (in whatever form it takes) in the face. I’m trying to keep on top of work and be productive but there are occasions when my motivation needs jump-starting. If only hibernation was an option for us humans. Or perhaps I could take a leaf out of Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy’s Hotblack Desiato and spend a year dead for tax reasons…
Hopefully my mood and motivation will recover in the next few days when it finally stops bloody raining and I can escape these four walls!
To be fair, the pair of us did last night in order to spend some time with friends. Being law-abiding souls, the ‘6 from the 6’ as we call ourselves met up in a friends garden, where he’d been busy having an enclosure built that could protect us from the elements whilst allowing social distancing. It worked a treat although it was sorely tested by the awful weather. Even so, it was lovely to be able to spend a few hours together laughing and joking. Who knows when we’ll be able to do it again?
Ironically, as I’ve been typing this, I’ve just heard the news that West Yorkshire moves into Tier 3 from Midnight on Sunday, so that answers that question. Oh, deep, deep joy. It’s going to be a long winter…
Right, on that happy news it’s time for a picture of the day. Today’s choice is something different. Back in 2000-2001 I was travelling in India. Lynn and I had visited friends in Goa for Xmas and New Year, after which Lynn flew back to the UK and I stayed on to visit the Gujarat in Northen India to get travel pictures. I also hoped to find the last Indian steam locomotives operating on the national network. Broad Gauge steam had already disappeared, but there was a last outpost of metre gauge steam operating out of the evocatively named Wankaner Junction! I arrived there at the beginning of February 2000 but I was weeks late. The last locomotives has run at the end of January. However, Wankaner locomotive depot was still littered with engines. Their fires had been dropped and the place left deserted with the last locomotives and the remains of others that had been cannibalised over the years to keep them running. Here’s a picture I took inside the shed early on the morning of February 13th 2000.
YG Class 2-8-2’s No’s 3318 (left) 3437 & 3360 (nearest the camera) illuminated by the sunrise inside Wankaner Junction shed.
You can find more shots from the series, along with many other Indian rail pictures in this gallery. I was sad to have missed them but thankful that I’d seen Indian steam in action several years before in 1985-86 and 1991-92. What a different world it seems now!
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Sorry there was no picture yesterday, I was too busy with other stuff and having some quality time with my wife, so I thought you could go one day without one.
The pair of us had various things planned today but the weather forecast was less than accurate. What was meant to be a mostly sunny day turned into a mostly wet one – so plans changed. The fact the new washing machine was arriving today cramped our style too, leaving me stuck in the house all day. Said white goods is now safely installed but it wasn’t without problems as the young chaps who did it hadn’t connected the water pipe properly, which caused a bit of a drama until I sorted it out. I’m not going to criticise them. It’s an easy mistake to make and they’re working against the clock as they’re self-employed. As the old expression goes – all’s well that ends well…
So, whilst the wind howled and the rain blew, I stayed indoors and sorted out yet another tranche of old rail slides and assorted memoribila to add to eBay before writing more of Part 3 of my travels for RAIL magazine. The latest batch of old slides contains some historical items like this from Dover, when we still had a cross-channel train ferry as the tunnel was yet to open. Here’s a look at the picture without having to click on the link.
The day was a Brexiters fantasy. “Fog in the channel – Europe cut off”…
Whilst keeping busy in the office I’ve kept one eye on the car-crash that passes for the anti HS2 (High Speed 2 railway) campaign. They’re not having a good time. In fact, things go from worse to worse. They really should stay away from courts! The other day Joe Rukin made an expensive mess, today 14 protestors have by ignoring a High Court Injunction! I’ll publish the court ruling when it’s available, but here’s what Mark Keir (one of the 14) put on Facebook earlier today.
Poor Keir! An ‘undemocratic use of law’? Riiigghhtt. He never was that au fait with either institution – which you think you’ve above at your peril. When you ‘Clash’ with the law, there’s only going to be one winner…
OK, let’s move on to the picture of the day. Now, where shall we go today? Ah, I know – one of my favourite places. India. I took this picture in November 1997 at Enakulam Junction in Kerala.
Lynn and I were on our way South after spending a couple of months in Goa at the start of our 18 month trip around the world. Our train had pulled in opposite this long-distance express. In this neck of the woods some trains took 48 hours from point to point. I once did Trivandrum (as the capital of Kerala was called then) to Calcutta, which took that long. Now, when you’re on a train that long in India it gets dusty, and sweaty. These passengers took the opportunity to bail out of their train at the station where it had a layover and utilise the water pipes normally used for topping up the trains toilets and kitchen car for an impromptu shower – and why not? This is why I’ve always loved India – there’s always something to see and photograph. In fact, this picture was used in one of the UK newspapers when I used to do travel photography for a living. It was the Times I think. For me it encapsulates a different world and one I have fond memories of. My, did the pair of us have a ball for that 18 months!
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As we slowly descend through autumn towards winter the anti HS2 campaign follows a similar trajectory from failure into farce. All the protesters bluster that bloomed in the Spring as they set up new ‘protection’ camps has blown away like dandelion seeds. The name ‘protection’ camp was always an oxymoron as they never protected anything. From a peak of eight camps they’ve gradually been whittled down to five, some of which are now redundant, whilst others are just refuges for the remaining rag-bag of protesters as many have already buggered off home.
I wrote about their early financial shenanigans and internecine warfare in this blog. That warfare has continued as HS2Rebellion never did account for the £36,000 plus that was raised through crowdfunding. Instead, they came over all pained and ignored the calls to be open and accountable. But (to their credit) some activists in the camps wouldn’t let the matter drop.
This week was meant to be HS2rebellion’s ‘big push’, both on social media and outside Parliament, as this daft poster explains.
*Narrator* – only they didn’t rise up, few participated and the decisions are made by an anonymous few…
Anyone on social media like Twitter could be forgiven for missing their ‘online action’ as it was as big a flop as when The Hs2 Action Alliance (remember them?) once tried to organise a ‘Twitterstorm’. A handful of teenagers Tweeting stuff they don’t understand and who react badly to being challenged does not an ‘action’ make.
Worse was to come outside Parliament an online yesterday. Their ‘big event’ attracted just a few dozen people, many of whom were the same old faces, Middle-Class Nimbys from the Chilterns who’ve nothing better to do and a few self-styled ‘eco-warriors’ who think posting overly long rambles where they just make stuff up on social media actually changes anything.
“What are we doing here? Shouldn’t we be up trees – or something?”
Then the excrement hit the air-conditioning live on the HS2 rebellion ‘livestream’ when one of their controllers got into a public spat with a camp protester.
Asking where the £35k plus went is classed as a “ridiculous conspiracy theory” apparently, because the person blocked was no other than Hayley-Marie Pitwell (see my other blog for the lowdown) – as she explains herself…
It seems HS2Rebellion and many of the protesters are breaking out into bit of good, old-fashioned class warfare! The ‘posh boys’ (and girls) who make up much of the hierarchy of groups like Extinction Rebellion and HS2Rebellion do seem to have a knack of alienating some of the troops like Hayley-Marie! Now, I may disagree profoundly with her on HS2 as well as her world view, but I have to admire her persistence in following the money on a matter of principle.
As you can imagine, battle-lines were soon drawn as supporters of either side rallied around. If you so desire, grab some popcorn and browse the HS2 rebellion and associated Facebook pages to watch the fun. It’s better than many TV soap operas!
Whilst the farce unfolded on social media and outside Parliament you may be forgiven for asking the question “whilst they’re parading around outside Parliament, who’s actually trying to stop HS2”? It’s a question some of their activists were asking too. Here’s several rather revealing examples. Firstly, this one about the hopeless and hapless Denham ‘protection’ camp which is rapidly becoming redundant as the National Grid crack on with preparations for installing their new High-Voltage pylons.
It’s very true. All that’s coming out of Denham nowadays is a stream of videos showing what the protesters have utterly failed to stop. It’s akin to the old TV game show where the presenter used to tease losers with “here’s what you could’ve won!”
Meanwhile, over at Crackley camp, a lone protester managed to get atop a digger for a bit and sent this, which rather neatly encapsulates the futility of what they’re doing.
No ‘ground support’ means that she was on her own. What did she achieve (apart from getting arrested and having bail conditions imposed?). Nothing. More was to follow…
Does this sound like the ‘growing’ campaign HS2Rebellion like to bluster about? This was rather revealing too as reality is finally starting to sink in to some people
I suspect ‘holiday’ is a euphemism for people sodding off back home as many won’t return. Looking at some of the early photos the protesters used to post of their gatherings in the spring/summer is a bit like looking at old photographs of soldiers from WW1 where the dead, wounded or missing in action are labelled, only in this case it’s injuncted, arrested or gone home! With this rate of attrition and with the onset of winter I can’t see the protests achieving anything other than becoming more and more of a farce, especially as HS2Rebellions rhetoric and daft lies becomes more and more out of step with reality. The cognitive dissonance is strong there. You might compare their PR tactics to those of Goebbels, the bigger the lie, the more people will believe it. In truth, they’re more Comical Ali than Goebbels!
Remember when Joe Rukin and StopHs2 were a thing? Until Extinction Rebellion came along, they *were* the anti HS2 campaign. Now they’ve all but disappeared. Joe Rukin’s phone still rings on the odd occasion a friendly media outlet need a quote, but that’s it. Their website tells the sorry tale. Compared to the heady days when there could be several posts a day and dozens a week there’s been one since early September, and that’s a very brief one to tell people where the remaining protest camps are!
Politically, the anti Hs2 campaign (and I use that word loosely) is finished. All that remains is a dwindling rag-bag of protesters who’re spending more and more time on infighting. How anyone thought this bunch could stop the largest construction project in Europe (spread over 140 route miles) is a mystery and an exercise in just one thing. Hubris.
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The pair of us have had another day working from home at Bigland Towers, which hasn’t been much of a hardship as for much of the day the weather’s been crap with low grey cloud and heavy rain showers dominating the valley.
On the bright side, sitting in the office all day has allowed me to get all of yesterdays pictures edited and on my Zenfolio website as well as catch up on some paperwork. I had to stay in anyway as an engineer was due to call around to fix a problem with our American-style fridge, which has been playing up. Sadly, that didn’t go to plan as when he did arrive – he didn’t have all the correct parts! Ho hum…
I’m hoping for better luck tomorrow. We’ve a new washing machine being delivered as our old one’s given up the ghost after 13 years, so another day of type-swiping and waiting for the phone to ring beckons. Hopefully, I’ll have one last chance to get out on Friday before Manchester (and now South Yorkshire) go into Covid Tier 3 restrictions. Will we in West Yorkshire be far behind? I haven’t got a Scooby Do! Sense and Sensibility left the field of play quite some time ago.
If restrictions do kick in here then I’ve plenty of things to keep me occupied, which is a plus. The fact the nights are drawing in and I’ll have nowhere to escape to less so. The Covid blues were bad enough in the summer. Winter’s a whole new ball-game.
On that note I’ll move on to the picture of the day, which reflects the seasons. The trees around here have suddenly cottoned on to the fact it’s autumn and are shedding leaves by the truckload. The colours are stunning, so I’m hoping for a bit of sunshine over the next few days to be able to capture scenes like this, which I took Westwards down the Calder Valley in Todmorden, West Yorkshire on the 15th November 2018. In the picture a local Northern train service leaves the station to cross the viaduct that straddles the centre of the town, whilst the surrounding hills are awash with a range of autumn colours. With the rapid rate the leaves are dropping at the moment, I doubt the scene will look similar this November.
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/
Hmm, what a strange day it’s been. I wanted to escape the office today as all the omens are that I’ll be spending a lot of (involuntary) time stuck at home over the winter months, so I’m making the most of what freedom I have whilst I have it.
Anyone reading the political runes over the past couple of days could see that there was a political dog-fight brewing over Covid, the Government’s tier system and the elected Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham. Today it came to a head. With this on the horizon I decided to take a trip into Manchester to document how this is affecting the railways, but also to stock up on some cooking ingredients that we can’t get locally. If I’m going to be stuck at home then cooking is one of my therapies, so having the raw materials that allow me to recreate South-East Asian dishes means a lot as there’s bugger-all chance of me getting out to that part of the world until 2021 at the earliest.
Manchester city centre and the railway stations that serve it were the quietest I’ve seen them for months. It seems that the message is already getting through to a lot of people who’re already staying away. I headed to Chinatown to buy the herbs and other ingredients I needed but the place was pretty much deserted – which felt very surreal for what’s normally a bustling area of the city.
Having got most of what I wanted I made my way back through Victoria station, which brings me on to a very topical picture of the day…
A solitary passenger checks his phone as he waits for the 15.33 to Newcastle at Manchester Victoria, 90 minutes before the Prime Minister was due to make a televised announcement over what Covid tier Manchester was going to be placed in after a very public spat with the elected Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham.
Personally, my feelings are that right now we’re becoming increasingly ruled by Downing St diktat as the democratic institutions of this country are ignored – be they Parliament or local politicians. Meanwhile the PM’s office has developed a standard tactic of blaming everyone else for Johnson’s failures – be that the EU, Parliament, local Mayors or other devolved institutions. This is only going to get worse as the clock (inexorably) ticks down to January 1st.
Welcome to Britain in 2020…
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I’m currently on my way back to West Yorkshire after escaping the latest London ‘lockdown’ as I stayed over in the capital after my trip to the isle of Wight – or ‘littler Britain’ as it could be called. To be honest, it was a lovely trip with perfect weather and a blog about the unique Isle of Wight railway will follow later in the week. In the meantime, here’s a taster. This was the view from my hotel window yesterday morning. We couldn’t have asked for better weather either!
What was also good about the break was that it was planned just before the latest local and national shutdowns were introduced, as it may be some time before we can do such a thing again – because I have no trust in the Government to come up with anything resembling a coherent strategy to deal with Covid. It reminds me of the anarchic 1970s American sit-com ‘Soap’ where the trailer for each episode would include a plot recap and end with the words “Confused? You will be – after the next episode of Soap!” – only in this case substitute Government briefings for Soap…
Leaving London was weird. I stayed in Clapham so wandered down to the Junction to get a train into the city. I’ve never seen the place so quiet on a Saturday. It was the same when I caught the Northern line tube from Waterloo to Euston. This picture was taken on my train between Charing Cross and Leicester Square which is normally on of the busiest parts of the route on a Saturday as its teeming with tourists who don’t realise how close together the two stations are and the fact it’s far nicer to walk!
At Euston I took time to have a look at progress on the High Speed 2 (HS2) railway work around the station and the ridiculous and totally ineffective ‘protection’ camp in nearby Euston Gardens. You’ll be able to find the pictures in this gallery in the next 24 hours.
Right now I’m heading back (stage by stage) up the West Coast main line via LNW trains. Sadly, the weather’s nowhere near as good as it was in the Isle of Wight, but even so, I’ve managed to get some useful library shots and hope to get more when I reach Manchester. Leaving London the trains were very quiet but the further we get from the capital the more people are joining us. Even so, the numbers are abysmal compared to pre Covid levels.
16:38.
After changing trains at Crewe I’m now on my wat to Manchester. Crewe was eerily deserted. The new lockdowns are obviously taking their toll on passenger numbers which had grown over the past few months as restrictions were relaxed. Sadly, as I’ve headed further North I’ve seen more people (almost all young) ignoring the regulations on mask wearing. You can easily spot the stereotype they conform to. Either young girls made up to the nines or ‘chavvy’ young men, both too arrogant and ignorant to consider others.
18:10.
I’ve just walked across central Manchester from Piccadilly to Victoria stations, which was an instrutive experience. The city centre was busier than parts of London! The majority of folks out and about were young and the pubs were doing a steady trade. One thing I noticed was couples where the woman was wearing a mask but the man wasn’t. Is this some bizarre macho thing? On the plus side, more people of all ages were masked as they walked around compared to a month or two ago – so the message is getting through – albeit slowly. Another thing I noticed was more folk up North use disposable masks whilst in the South the pattern is for people to have washable ones where they can also express some dress sense or individuality through the patterns and designs.
Watching people’s behaviour makes me think we’re not going to be out of the Covid woods for some time yet. How much damage it will cause economically, socially and healthwise in the meantime is a question I don’t think anyone can answer.
Sitting on my 3-car train from Manchester to Halifax I can’t help noticing it’s busier than many trains I’ve used today- but then it’s half the size! Even so, there do seem to be more folk travelling in the North.
20:00.
Home again! Now it’s time for me to relax and put my feet up before sorting and editing the hundreds of pictures I’ve taken over the past few days and getting them on my Zenfolio website. Here’s one last taster. Whilst I was at Clapham Junction I caught one of SouthWestern Railways new Bombardier built Class 701 trains out on test. The company has 60 ten-car and 30 five car trains on order which are intended to replace their old BR built fleets. Only they’re late. Very late – and they’re proving troublesome – so when they’ll actually enter service is anyone’s guess right now.
701002 approaches Clapham Junction on its way to London Waterloo. This was the first set to be delivered by Bombardier in June 2020. The whole fleet of 750 vehicles was meant to have been in service by the end of 2020. To date, none have entered public use.
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I decided against writing a rolling blog of today’s travels as it would detract from the other things I needed to do today – but also my enjoyment of the here and now. So, where am I? Folks who follow me on twitter @PaulMBigland will know already, for everyone else – I’m in Ryde, on the Isle of Wight. I’ve ducked the latest lockdown bullets (just) to spend a day on the oldest trains on the national rail network before they retire.
These trains were built by Metropolitan-Cammell, Birmingham for the London Underground in 1938. They’ve operated on the Isle of Wight since 1989, but now their days are numbered.
I made my way over here on another old technology – only one far less successful. As far as I’m aware, I arrived on the only remaining commercial hovercraft service.
I’ll blog more tomorrow, right now it’s been a long day since leaving West Yorkshire…
But, hang on – what’s the actual picture of the day you ask. Well, it’s this one, which combines the other two.
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/
Blimey! I’d hoped to write monthly updates but pressure of other work means my last one was in July, so there’s a lot to report! Construction of HS2 has continued to pick up speed as work on the ground continues and a whole host of contracts have been signed that have created jobs around the country. This isn’t an exhaustive list as I’m bound to have missed things, but I hope it’s a useful round-up of major events.
On the 27th July a major milestone was reached on the OLd Oak Common site. After 2 years of demolition and clearance work, the site was handed over to main contractors, the Balfour Beatty VINCI SYSTRA Joint Venture, who will be building the massive 14 platform station.
At the end of July HS2 Ltd highlighted the fact Lydney based Mabey Bridge Ltd had won a contract to supply 10 modular bridge to the project. Mabey employs 130 people at its head office and factory in Lydney, with many local people working on the HS2 contracts. Extensive preparatory works are now underway to allow for piling activities and the construction of the diaphragm wall for the main HS2 station, which will be built 20 metres below ground.
All pictures used in this blog are courtesy of HS2 Ltd.
On the 9th of August the M42 motorway reopened 24 hours early after a 2,750-tonne bridge structure was carried along the motorway on a self-propelled modular transporter and fixed into place. The 448-wheel transporter took just one hour and 45 minutes to move the bridge span 150 metres. This was the first major new structure that’s been installed as part of the HS2 project. Later this year a similar bridge will be installed over the A446, ahead of two more bridge structures being installed which will span the new high-speed railway line.
The next day (8th August) the race began to find contractors to install the railways high-voltage power supply systems. The winner will be responsible for the design as well as manufacture, supply, installation, testing, commissioning and maintenance of the HV power supply systems.
Approximately 50 traction sub-stations will be built alongside the line between London and Crewe in order to deliver power from the National Grid to the trains. The contractor will also deliver a dedicated HV non-traction power network that will provide power to stations, shafts, portals, depots and railway systems along the route. The contract is worth an estimated £523m.
On the 11th August HS2 released the winners of the competition to name the first two Tunnel Boring Machines (TBMs).
The names – Florence and Cecilia – were suggested by students at Meadow High School in Hillingdon and The Chalfonts Community College, Buckinghamshire, inspired by female scientific and medical pioneers.
Around 4,500 people from across the UK took part in the poll to select the final names, with Florence taking 40% of the vote and Cecilia a close second with 32%. The schools that suggested the names are close to HS2’s South Portal site, from where the first tunnel boring machines will launch early next year.
The pace didn’t slacken and the next day HS2 highlighted the success of Port Talbot based Wernick Buildings in manufacturing, transporting and installing office and welfare accommodation to the M25 site where the TBMs boring the Chiltern tunnels will be launched from.
On the 20th August the striking design for the new Amersham vent shaft headhouse was released.
HS2 say “The circular single-storey building will be surrounded by a spiral shaped weathered steel wall designed to echo the shape of the site and the natural tones of the surrounding landscape. Robust and durable, weathered steel fades naturally over time to a dark brown colour. In order to let light through, the upper parts of the wall will be lightly perforated with a pattern inspired by woodland foliage”.
Below ground level, a 18 metre deep ventilation shaft will reach down to the twin tunnels below, with fans and other equipment designed to regulate air quality and temperature, remove smoke in the event of a fire and provide access for the emergency services.
On the 25th August the 1st of an estimated 15,000 freight trains that will carry spoil and construction materials ran. Operated by GBRf, the train delivered aggregates to the HS2 site at Washwood Heath. Over the next four months, more than 150 trains will bring up to 235,000 tonnes of stone from quarries in the Peak District, equating to keeping an estimated 13,000 lorry movements off the road.
A peak of around 17 trains per day will serve the Phase One programme beyond 2022. Other sites include HS2’s Rail Logistics Hub at Willesden which will welcome up to eight freight trains a day between 2020 and 2024. These will haul a total volume of around six million tonnes from the Euston approaches, including excavated material from tunnel boring machines – saving the equivalent of up to 300,000 lorry movements.
The next day Solihull Borough Council approved planning permission for the new landmark HS2 Interchange eco-station.
Next month, on the 4th September, the (largely symbolic) formal start of construction was announced, which generated a lot of media interest and certainly rained on the parade of the dwindling number of protesters who were still pretending they could stop HS2!
Throughout September several announcements were made about educational and technical tie-ups with groups and universities, all contributing to the growth in skills and employment that HS2 is helping generate across the UK.
On the 15th September a more tangible milestone was marked with the completion of structural work on the temporary pre-cast factory which will produce wall sections for the 10 mile long Chiltern tunnels. The 1000s of tonnes of steelwork for this and other buildings is being supplied by specialist steel fabricators, Caunton Engineering, from their base near Moorgreen, Nottinghamshire.
As well as the precast plant, family owned Caunton Engineering are also delivering structural steelwork for the general warehouse, workshops, soil treatment plant and the viaduct pre-cast plant. In total, around 2,400 tonnes of steelwork will be delivered from their factory in Moorgreen, Nottinghamshire, on the site of the former colliery. You can read more here.
On a more spiritual note, the next day HS2 announced that the company, working with the Archbishops’ Council of the Church of England, had agreed with Brookwood Cemetery in Surrey for reburials as a result of excavations at St James’s Gardens to take place there. Some of you may have seen the BBC2 TV programme that documented the archeological work at both Euston and Curzon St. If you haven’t, it’s a fascinating delve into the past and the history of the industrial revolution in Birmingham and well worth viewing.
If you’ll excuse the pun, there was more concrete news (literally!) on the 22nd September, when details were released of the new low-carbon Vertua Classic Zero concrete that was being trialled at the HS2 site at Euston. This provides a reduction of 42% in CO2 in comparison to a standard concrete. HS2 has set a carbon reduction target of 50% target for its contractors on construction baselines for Phase One civil assets (such as tunnels, viaducts and cuttings), stations and railway systems. You can read more here.
Continuing with the theme of carbon-cutting, on the 25th September HS2 announced it HS2 had trialled solar and hydrogen powered welfare cabins across its work locations run by enabling and main works civils joint ventures CSjv (Costain, Skanska) and SCSjv (Skanska Costain STRABAG) including Camden, West Ruislip and Uxbridge. HS2 say that data gathered from 16 Ecosmart ZERO cabins over a 21 week period on HS2 sites in Camden, Ruislip and Uxbridge showed that 112 tonnes of carbon were saved – the equivalent of what would be absorbed by over 3,367 trees over a whole year. In comparison, a standard diesel generator running would have used 40,000 litres of diesel fuel. You can read more here.
On September 29th details of a £36m contract awarded to Booth Industries of Bolton, which will supply high-pressure safety doors for the internal passages linking the high speed rail project’s tunnels. more than 300 units manufactured at a new purpose-built facility in the town, and create up to fifty jobs over the next ten years.
OCtober got off to a bang when on the 5th HS2 revealed that the contract for the modular slab track system for Phase One and 2a had been awarded to a partnership which includes PORR UK Ltd and Aggregate Industries UK. The deal will see the slab track segments manufactured at a new factory near Shepton Mallet in Somerset helping to create up to 500 jobs over the life of the contract. The deal – worth £260m – will see the PORR consortium manufacture all of the track (excluding tunnels and some specialist structures) between London and Crewe, where HS2 joins the existing west coast mainline. More here.
OK, that’s the round -up for now. You can find more announcements at the HS2 website, but this will give you an overview of just what’s been going on and the progress being made building HS2. In the next few weeks expect to see more announcements, including a real landmark – the arrival of the first Tunnel Boring Machines (TBMs) from Germany.
If you want to read more about HS2’s progress I can recommend two links. This one to HS2’s media centre, and also this one, to the company’s ‘HS2 in your area’ webpage. The page has a wealth of detailed information on programmes, events, consultations and schedules of work covering all the HS2 routes.
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