I’m out and about both sides of the Pennines today, starting off with a trip to Leeds. Sadly, it’s hardly a vintage day weather wise but that won’t affect either assignment as neither is about sesxy landscape shots. My walk into Halifax was fun. Passing the Piece Hall where the new Marvel comics ‘Avengers’ film is being shot I noticed the film industry’s answer to this problem towering over the area. Bring your own sun!
Here’s the ‘little’ brother of the other rig…
I’ve not bumped into any of the actors but Samuel L Jackson posed for selfies with locals outside a nearby restaurant the other day. Halifax seems to be much in demand by the media at the moment as another TV series of ‘Happy Valley is being shot here at the same time.
Leaving the bright lights (literally!) of the film industry behind I’m now on a Northern train to Leeds via Bradford. Passenger loadings are pretty good and seem to be recovering from the latest Covid knock. I’ll be interested to see how Leeds looks compared to my last visit.
14:30.
Well, that was an interesting interlude! I was being coy about where I was going as I didn’t want to draw attention to the fact that I was going to turn up to the anti HS2 farce (don’t you mean ‘day of action’? Ed) in Manchester’s Piccadilly gardens which was due to kick off at 12:00. It took me a while to find it as it was tiny! Just 10 people, a child and two others dressed as a white elephant where there. They were outnumbered by members of the media who patiently waited for them to assemble their banners and elephant before they set off on a circuit of part of Piccadilly Gardens. Their shouts were led by one Karen Wildin, an XR protester from *checks notes* Lreicester! In fact, I doubt any of the were actually from the city they were trying to prevent gaining green infrastructure, regeneration and thousands of jobs. It’s always been noticeable that there’s never been a single organised stopHS2 ‘action’ group in the whole of Manchester – hence them having to draft in people from elsewhere. I’ll do a separate blog about this whole farce, which lasted less then two hours before they traipsed back to Piccadilly station before catching their trains home to whence they came. The attitude of Manchester? Meh! Meanwhile, this afternoon, the HS2 phase 2b Crewe – Manchester Hybrid bill has been deposited in Parliament. It will get its 2nd reading in February, when it will fly through the vote as the opposition to HS2 has collapsed.
Here’s a picture of their farcical demonstration.
Somehow, I don’t think MPs will be quaking in their boots. I’ve seen more people turning up to protest about parking restrictions!
19:30.
I’m now on the train back across the Pennines after an interesting and certainly varied day. After attending the farcical and futile protest I spent a bit of time editing pictures and getting other images off to a client before their deadline, then had a wander around Manchester. I have to admit, the weather wasn’t exactly what you’d want for such perambulations but hey – this is the North in January after all. I did manage to bag a few more library shots which will appear on my Zenfolio picture website soon. After that, it was time for a trip to Chinatown to pick up some more edible goodies. I love mooching around the Chinese supermarkets as I always discover something new that I have to resist the urge to buy as – more likely than not – It’ll end up sitting in a cupbord as I don’t really know what to do with it.
Right now I’m on Northern’s 18:58 from Manchester to Leeds made up of a pair of 2-car Class 195s. It’s surprisingly quiet, not that Victoria station was. That was buzzing with hundreds of young people off to a gig at the Arena (just don’t ask me who was playing as I’ve no idea!).
Welcome to my first blog of 2022! I’m opening the year with a light-hearted look at an old subject which is unlikely to feature much this year as the anti HS2 ‘campaign’ (and I use that word very loosely indeed) now resembles Monty Python’s famous parrot!
With all the protest camps on phase 1 of HS2 having been evicted or abandoned (despite what the @hs2rebellion website claims) there’s just a solitary camp in Staffordshire remaining – although that’s living on borrowed time. The tiny handful of regular occupants are good at bluster (claiming their campaign is growing) and wringing Crowdfunded money from mugs who fall for their spin, but what they’re not good at is doing anything to impede – never mind stop – HS2, as their latest pantomime demonstrated.
Their normal stunt is to turn up at a local HS2 compound, film themselves failing to stop any work, then buggering off back to camp before they get arrested. Their gullible followers on social media fall for this and throw money into the bucket to keep them in food and fags for another few days.
Over the Christmas holiday they tried a different stunt which went woefully wrong!
The M42 motorway was closed between Xmas eve and New Year’s eve in order to prepare groundworks for the ‘Marston box’, a bridge which will carry HS2 over the M42.
The protesters decided it would be a cunning plan to try and disrupt this work, so a few Bluebell occupants, a well-known but equally useless Extinction Rebellion activist from Nottinghamshire and a couple of youngsters from who knows where headed over to the work on the 29th. Quite how this one man and his dog operation (there was only about 6-7 of them) was meant to stop such a huge project is a mystery, but most of their actions are purely for the sake of the cameras nowadays anyway.
It went badly. Three of them ended up getting arrested, including the gobby but hopeless character who calls himself ‘run away Jim’ who was nicked for sitting atop a wagon for a little while. Their friend from Notts, Karen Wildin* also got nicked for breaching her bail conditions. The video’s were farcical as they showed just how useless the protest had been, and also how small. One young protester hadn’t even got a clue where she was and kept claiming she was blocking the ‘M25 North’!
Wildin was seen on film protesting that the police refused to tell her why she was being arrested, despite the fact it’s clear from her commentary (and subtitles) they’d told her it was because she’d breached her bail conditions – conditions which would have been clearly explained to her at the time. But then Wildin isn’t the sharpest tool in the box. In another video she can be heard unthinkingly spouting the usual XR propaganda, including the claim that HS2 is merely a ‘shuttle service’ between airports. Any enquiring mind might ask, “why on earth do you need a shuttle service between airports? Who flies in to Heathrow to fly out of Birmingham, or vice versa”? It’s one of the most intellectually vacuous of all the anti HS2 claims, but enquiring minds are as rare as rocking-horse sh*t when it comes to these protesters.
Oh dear, poor Karen, your own words show you knew exactly why you were being arrested (again).
So, how much disruption was caused by this laughable protest. The sum total of zilch! The M42 was meant to reopen by 21:00 on New Years Eve, but as the local paper, the Coventry Telegraph reported, the work finished early – by 16:00! In fact, torrential rain caused more disruption to the work than the protesters!
After being released on bail the hapless protesters returned to their camp (or Notts, as Wildin’s bail conditions ban her from land owned by HS2) but they won’t be there for long as the camp is living on borrowed time and HS2 bailiffs and security will soon be arriving to take possession. Like all the other camps it won’t be much of a fight.. Soon all that’ll be left is another woodland full of crap and detritus left behind by the hopeless protesters. This will bring to an end the pathetic tale of the protest camps, none of which stopped a thing.
As for the claims that their campaign is ‘growing’, their own social media accounts belie these claims. Time and time again they carry tales of protesters who’ve given up and moved on elsewhere, often to other hopeless causes. Their final acts are often to try and bum more money in the process…
The support they get in some of their new protests is in marked contrast to their claims. “Digger Down” was one of the occupants of the pointless Euston tunnels, now he’s protesting about trees in London, with the same levels of success and support!
The @hs2rebellion pantomine has had its last season. Most of the actors in this tiny troupe are now ‘resting’ (one way or another) and don’t expect a summer performance either! With the rate things have gone they’ll be lucky to fill a phone box in 2022. The only appearances they’ll be getting booked for are those in Court…
Happy New Year!
*Wildin has a track record of failure as Extinction Rebellion ‘cannon-fodder’ Having sat up trees on the HS2 route only to be turfed out toot-suite she tried her hand at sitting atop a biomass train at Drax power station. That went as well as expected! She also ignored ‘lockdown’ to pitch up in Euston to film herself at the tunnel protest. The expression ‘rebel without a clue’ springs to mind…
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/
Another year that I won’t be sad to see the back of to be honest, despite the fact it wasn’t all bad – although did any of us expect the year to end in the way it has? After the year beginning in a lockdown did we seriously think we’d be be seeing the year out with record numbers of Covid cases, even if it does seem that Omicron is less lethal a strain? The amount of my social media friends and real relations that I’ve seen report contracting Covid has been sobering to say the least, but at least Dawn and I have managed to dodge infection so far – and plan to stay that way!
I’d hoped 2021 would see me finally being able to escape the clutches of ‘Brexit island’ and head back into Asia. I’d planned to do so early in 2022 but Omicron looks like it’s put the mockers on such dreams for now at least. Instead, I’ll be stuck here, watching the UK’s international reputation continue to disintegrate as Johnson and his Government lurch from farce to scandal and back again on what looks like an endless loop. A year on from leaving the EU the realities are becoming obvious. Far from getting Brexit ‘done’ Johnson’s embroiled us in a protracted blame war with the EU in order to detract from the fact the Brexit unicorns and ‘sunny uplands’ were always a fantasy. Covid’s helped him in that but he can’t hide from the reality forever and it seems (according to polls) even many Leave voters have come to realise what “Caveat Emptor” means. Sadly, far too late and the shambles will continue for years to come…
We may have the ‘fun’ of the Tories ditching Johnson in 2022 in order to save their skins in the 2024 election, but let’s face it – the field to replace him is hardly attractive. I mean, Liz Truss? Seriously?
Workwise, 2021 has been enjoyable. The gradual wind-down of restrictions meant that press trips and events resumed so there was plenty for me to photo or write about and the COP26 Climate Change conference in Glasgow in November kept me very busy indeed. I also added a mixture of 7,924 new pictures and old slid scans to my Zenfolio website, the most I’ve ever achieved in one year which beat last year’s previous best of 6200 plus so Covid’s proved to have some benefits. I’m now well on course to have all my old slides scanned in 2022 a mere 33 years after I first switched to that medium! 2022 promises to be an exciting year on the photographic and journalistic front as the construction of the HS2 high-speed railway will be in full swing. Over 20,000 people are working on the line at the moment and next year will see work start in earnest on the section from Birmingham to Crewe. Phase 1 is already well underway with three tunnel boring machines in action, the huge Colne Valley Viaduct under construction and work started on the stations at Euston, Old Oak Common and Birmingham Curzon St. There’s far too many landmarks to mention but HS2 Ltd have put out this helpful video which showcases much of what’s happening.
We’re ending the year as we began it – at home. We’re having a quiet one just to ourselves, enjoying good food, a drink and time to relax – ready to hit the ground running in 2022 as we’ve both got a lot of things we want to achieve next year. Let’s see how that shapes up.
In the meantime, thank you to all the people who either keep popping in to read my rambles in these blogs or who visit my Zenfolio picture website. I’ll be keeping both well-stocked in in 2022.
All that remains is for me to wish you all a very happy and prosperous new year and let’s all look forward to one where we finally cast off the madness and tragedies of Covid and return to a much more normal life. Onwards to the next challenge – whatever that may be….
This article has appeared in the latest Rail Director magazine. I’m reproducing it here with extra pictures taken during my visit.
HS2 Euston visit.
On the day that HS2 Minister Andrew Stephenson announced that Euston station was to have only 10 HS2 platforms but the whole station would be redeveloped in one phase I was on a site visit looking at progress on this massive project. The visit began with a briefing from Tom Venner, Managing Director of the Euston Partnership. The partnership (established in July 2020) brings together all the stakeholders and delivery partners to enable Euston to be developed together as a single scheme, under a board chaired by Network Rail’s Sir Peter Hendy. Tom updated us all on the Partnerships strategic aims whilst outlining the complexities of redeveloping the 5th busiest station on the national network, integrating it with HS2 and meeting the aims and aspirations of the local communities who have many different (and sometimes competing) priorities.
The task is vast in scale and fraught with challenges. 60 acres of the Euston area is under Government ownership and incorporated in the scheme. It’s the largest real-estate development in the capital that will take many years to complete – hence the desire to minimise disruption to local residents and users of the station by completing the scheme in one phase rather than two, even if these competing ambitions mean the Hs2 station’s platform numbers are a sub-optimal solution. It’s a difficult balancing act. Whilst the £2.6bn redevelopment will now be constructed in one long project it’s still being broken up into elements. Phase 1 is the concourse, 2 is the trainshed and 3 is opening up the Eversholt St side of the station with commercial development. The Somers Town side of Euston has always seemed to have had its back turned to this deprived area of London and the Euston masterplan is determined to address this deficiency and give the whole station more permeability
Because of all these changes a revised concept design for the new Euston won’t be available before the end of the year, so none of us yet know what the new Euston may look like in the future.
Our briefing in the HS2 office in the podium was held against the competing background noise and vibration from heavy machinery breaking up the foundations of the old Grant Thornton tower block outside. This site will become part of the expanded London Underground station that will take the HS2 strain off the existing cramped concourse. Across Melton St’s the HQ of the Royal College of General Practitioners where every GP in the country visits to sit their exams. As a considerate neighbour, HS2 has agreed to halt noisy work like this when these crucial events take place. It’s a good example of the balance that needs to be struck.
The remains of Grant Thornton house seen from our briefing room in the Podium. The cellar levels are gradually being excavated and cleared.
Our inspection tour began on the site of the HS2 platforms on the Western side of the current station that’s been cleared of residential and commercial properties – plus the 50,000 bodies exhumed from the former St James’ burial ground which will be re-buried at Brookwood cemetery near Woking. It’s now one vast open area that exposes the footprint of the new station.
This will be the site of the HS2 platforms, albeit below present ground level. In the background you can see the old London Underground station entrance and the grey clad building that covers the current work to build the new Underground Traction Sub-Station (TSS) which will replace it. A view looking North showing the piles installed to build the new Western Wall of the HS2 station. Beyond the grey HS2 offices and hoardings are the Hampstead Rd and some of the new homes built to replace those demolished to make way for HS2.
Here the first permanent structures are appearing in the shape of some of the 161 piles for the foundations of the station’s Western boundary wall. There’s much work to do yet. Another 7-10 metres comprising 820,000m3 of earth has to be dug out to reach basement level and negotiations are ongoing on the best way of removing the earth from site in a manner that will have the least impact on the roads and neighbourhoods around Camden. The HS2 platforms will be built 8 metres below ground level In a concrete box 90 metres wide and 500metres long. To prevent blocking nearby roads there will be a basement below which will have road access for service vehicles and staff parking as well as containing equipment rooms.
A completed section of the Western boundary wall of the new HS2 station with the old station in the background.
Meanwhile, the London Underground Traction Sub-Station (TSS) in the former station building on Melton St is being relocated with work expected to be complete in 2024 when it will be replaced by ‘the sugar cube’. Work’s currently taking place under a temporary building to lessen the noise impacts on neighbours such as the GPs college. During site clearance a Victorian cobbled Rd was found near the site of the former Maria Fedelis school. This was identified as Little George St which featured in the very first Sherlock Holmes novel (A Study in Scarlet) written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in 1887.
Forming the boundary at the North end of the station site is the Hampstead Rd bridge which will be reconstructed and extended to allow HS2 to pass under the busy A400. Like the TSS, this work is expected to be completed in 2026, removing the last constraint to completing the new tracks into Euston. This is another complex operation due to the need to provide sufficient clearance for HS2 tracks.
Our next stop was the new multi-storey site offices located on Stanhope St opposite the former Euston Downside carriage shed. There’s an excellent viewing platform atop the site which gives grandstand views South across Euston and central London and North to where the HS2 tunnel portals are to be built. The birds-eye view lets you appreciate the sheer size of the site and the amount of activity taking place as well as the proximity to the existing Euston station throat, which presents its own challenges. Opposite, we could see the truncated Granby St bridge, another crossing which will be extended to allow HS2 to pass beneath. Alongside Park Village East the original brick retaining wall is being reinforced to prevent movement by the insertion of ground anchors. Fixed in double or single rows, these are between 12-20 metres in depth. This work will continue until March 2022. The site is squeezed in the middle by the Western abutment of Mornington St Bridge, a delicate site as one of the HS2 tunnels will exit at this point. To make exit from the cramped Northern part of the site easier a wagon turntable for road vehicles is to be installed.
A view of the North end of the old Euston Downside carriage shed site. Looking back towards Euston station from atop the HS2 offices on Stanhope St.Granby Terrace bridge has been severed (for now) but it will be extended over the HS2 tracks. A general view of the old Downside site wit North London beyond.
Currently piling’s taking place to build the walls which will support the roof over this part of the site, as plans for the future include building homes above the tracks – some of the 1,700 that the scheme will provide at Euston.
The piling work with temporary sheet-metal piles in place as protection.
The site will also include the three-storey Euston Cavern Headhouse which will provide emergency access to the HS2 tunnels with access from Park Village East. When built the roof will also shield local residents from noise whilst the tunnel entrances are constructed. These piles have been constructed using the innovative “zero trim pile technique” which involves sucking out excess concrete while still wet using a new vacuum excavator. Traditional piling sees concrete overpoured before workers have to break out the excess. The old method can cause many health problems, including hand-arm vibration syndrome, hearing loss and silicosis, not to mention the noise, dust and disturbance caused to those living nearby. One of our guides for the tour was Lee Piper of the Skanska Costain STRABAG joint venture (SCS JV) who worked with colleague Deon Louw from Cementation Skanska to develop the pioneering approach. SCS will be installing around 2,000 piles over the next three years in the Euston area with all but 15 using the new technique. The new method will bring benefits in terms of reduced carbon, noise reduction and safer ways of working. Chatting to Lee it was clear to see his pride in the new technique which he told me had cut 38 weeks from the piling programme, a major saving. He also told me that the zero trim pile technique was to be trialled on the Old Oak Common box where it had the potential to make huge savings in time, money and carbon on the construction of the 1.8 km long diaphragm walls. The piles finished using the method stand out because they look pristine. The rebar remains upright and undamaged whilst the base of the pile is a neat circle. Anyone who’s seen the mangled remains of piles that have been broken in the traditional method out can’t fail to notice the difference! Accompanying the concrete piles are a row of sheet piles driven into the ground to give support. These will be removed once the concrete piling is complete.
Here’s how piles produced by the zero trim pile technique look. Pristine!
Seeing the work at Euston move on from utility diversion and demolition to the start of construction makes one appreciate the length of the task ahead. The station isn’t currently scheduled to open until sometime between 2031-36 which gives an idea why the Partnership is anxious to prove itself to be a good neighbour that leaves a positive legacy. Rebuilding Euston’s going to a long process, but – if it’s done right – the long overdue redevelopment has a real opportunity to be a showcase for city redevelopment and transport integration. Time will tell…
You can view many more pictures of HS2 construction work at several sites along the route on my Zenfolio website. Link here.
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/
Supposed ‘eco-warriors’ Extinction Rebellion have a simple slogan. It’s “tell the truth”. There’s only one slight problem with such a slogan. XR wouldn’t know what the truth is if it bit them! Far from telling the ‘truth’ they’ve got a long and nasty habit of making up stuff to feed to their gullible supporters, not all of whom are fooled. Here’s an example from Tuesday, when XR members in the North pulled yet another stupid stunt involving trains to/from Drax power station.
For a while now, @hs2rebellion and XR have been trying to claim that trees chopped down to build the new High Speed 2 (HS2) railway are being chipped and sent to Drax as biofuel. It’s cobblers of course, Drax use trains to move massive amounts of wood chippings from the ports of Liverpool, Immingham and Hull. These trains, weighing in at 2,400 tonnes each carry 1600 tonnes of biomass and operate nearly 30 services A DAY into Drax. The idea the power station needs or requires this to be supplanted by a few hundred tonnes of green woodchips moved by road from scattered sites across the route of HS2 is laughable, but that’s HS2Rebellion for you. The truth is what you make up.
Here’s what those biofuel trains look like. These are the services from Liverpool Docks to Drax which use very high capacity hopper wagons (wood-chip being light, but bulky). All biomass to Drax is moved in long trains of hopper wagons similar to this.
Now have a look at this nonsense and bluster from XR North via one of the useless anti HS2 protesters in Staffs who bills himself as ‘Run Away Jim’!
Their claims are a complete fiction for several reasons. 1. That’s not a biomass train. 2. That silly person didn’t stop anything as a few seconds into the video the train starts pulling away, leaving the bemused protester looking very stupid indeed as she delivers an intellectually incoherent ramble to camera. It’s an incredibly stupid stunt. Believe me, as someone who’s held the PTS (Personal Track Safety) qualification, I can tell you trackside near moving trains is a very dangerous place to be even if you’re fit, active and trained to be there. For a clueless elderly person it’s a potential death-trap. By encouraging such dumb actions XR are putting people’s lives at risk. Plus, it’s no fun (at all) for the railway staff and emergency services who might (literally) have to pick up the pieces. You can watch the whole, ridiculous video on the XR North Facebook page (link).
The comments on the XR FB page show that some people weren’t fooled and knew this wasn’t a biomass train. XR North doubled-down on the lie by pretending its a ‘local’ service bringing in woodchip – which is utter rubbish, because there aren’t any.
How do I know this? Easily. Can I prove it? Yes, of course.
What idiot protesters like XR don’t understand is that even freight trains operate to timetables and those timetables and details of the train types are available online. So, what was that train? Well, it’s very distinctive because of those ‘Interbulk’ container tanks atop flat wagons. It’s actually ash from Drax which only runs on a Tuesday and Thursday when it’s worked from/to sidings at South Milford North of Leeds before travelling down to Appleford near Oxford where the ash is disposed of. Here are the copies of the actual (real time) timetables for Tuesday. Now, I can’t tell which of the two trains this is, but one of the little revelations is neither the inbound or outbound working was delayed at all by that silly protester. Oh, another thing to note. Look at the weights of each train. It went into Drax empty and came out loaded – exactly the opposite of what a biomass train does!
The train was seven minutes late leaving Milford and seven minutes late arriving at Drax. Some ‘delay’.The train was seventeen minutes late leaving Drax and clearly suffered no extra delays around Drax!
There you have it. Extinction Rebellion caught out lying and then when questioned they double-down on the lie. It’s time people started seeing these people for whom they really are – untrustworthy, dishonest and who couldn’t ‘tell the truth’ if their lives depended on it. Which (allegedly) they do…
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/
Whilst all the recent news about HS2 has been about the Eastern leg to Leeds being mothballed it would be easy to forget that the rest of the new railway is still being built – especially Phase 1 from London to Birmingham and beyond (which contains the most impressive structures on the line) – and Phase 2a to Crewe, although that’s still in the early stages of utilities diversions and site clearances as part of the preparatory works, before full construction begins next year.
It’s often difficult to get a sense of the progress being made on the project as much of the route is in the countryside and not always visible, unless you happen to stumble across it. It’s why drone footage such as this latest one by Michael Warner is so useful.
You can really see the enormous progress being made building the route of HS2 in open country, as well as some of the ecological mitigation that’s being put in place in many locations. It’s all the stuff the opponents of HS2 deliberately ignore. Of course, much of the route looks like an open scar at the moment due to the sheer amount of landscaping work that’s being done as part of the project. HS1 looked very similar, but you’d be hard put to identify any of the sites that were used in its construction. HS2 is very much a work in the early stages of progress with the earthworks, which is why it looks this way. Once those earthworks are complete and bridges and tunnels are in place and the land’s been landscaped, this scene will look very different. It’s another reason why drone footage like this is valuable, we’ll be able to look back at in future years and see the changes as the route’s developed from a few trail bores and test pits to a completed railway.
Another useful ‘go-to’ for information on ecological work is a farmer, Penny McGregor (@Penmcgregor on Twitter). Penny used to be anti HS2 and joined the protests against it but has come to realise that campaign was based on falsehoods. Now Penny (who’s become a critical and unbiased supporter of HS2) often tweets pictures showing how the ecological planting is becoming established, and indeed even thriving. This is the antithesis of HS2 antis who always ignore these inconvenient facts and try to pretend this stuff’s been a disaster. Here’s two of Penny’s most recent tweets.
I’m hoping to spend more time looking at the work on the ecological mitigation (as well as the construction sites) myself shortly, but as you can imagine, there’s a heck of a lot of ground to cover. In the meantime, why not follow Penny on Twitter as she’s much closer to the work than I am.
One thing conspicuous by it’s absence in this drone footage (or anything else) is evidence of any protesters or genuine attempts to stop HS2. That’s because the anti HS2 campaign’s dead in the water. The eviction of the last protest camp on Phase 1 at Wendover (and the lack of publicity that received) has effectively killed it off. Add in the advent of winter and the fact there was only ever a few dozen hardcore protesters pretending they could close down over 300 active worksites spread over a huge geographical area and you can see why their claims always were laughable.
Now, the only place left where there’s any regular protests are at Swynnerton in Staffordshire on the Phase 2a route to Crewe close to the ‘Bluebell’ camp as the protesters call it. It’s the only refuge the protesters have left (not that it’ll last long). Here a continually revolving door of (normally) less than a dozen people are pretending they can stop Hs2 by trying (and failing) to block a single site access gate!
You have to laugh! ‘New’ camps? There aren’t any. Not a one, ‘bluebell’ is all that’s left and that was established ages ago. “Grows ever stronger”? Oh, my aching sides! In this picture you have a rag-bag of people who’ve been evicted from elsewhere, or are Phase 1 Nimbys, like the woman on the far left of the lower picture, the hilarious self-publicist Caroline Thompson-Smith of…Calvert, In Buckinghamshire, who pitched up in Staffs for a few hours one day. Caroline is (in)famous for this nonsense about ‘Black Alder’ trees, one of a long series of things she just can’t help making up. Interestingly, several of the old faces have never put in an appearance at Swynnerton as it’s too far from London for them to get to. Mind you, I expect many of the old bangers they drive would never make it there and back anyway!
Quite how failing to block even a single gate on a single site is going to stop Hs2 is a mystery. This seems more like a desperate effort to appear relevant in order to get more gullible people to donate (hence the ‘gofundme’ link included in the post). Sadly for the protesters, the mugs money is running out and they’re increasingly reliant on mysterious large (three figure) donations from an anonymous source. Still, you know what they say about fools and their money. No amount of cash is going to bring the anti HS2 campaign back from the dead!
Now the weather’s turning wintery I don’t expect to see many more of these pointless stunts, and in the New Year this camp will be living on borrowed time as an eviction is inevitable – and unstoppable. 2022 is going to be a huge year for HS2 as construction will be in full swing with several Tunnel-Boring Machines (TBMs) working on different sites, the Colne Valley viaduct taking shape and also major works at Euston, Birmingham Curzon St and Old Oak Common. I’m looking forward to having lots to write about!
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/
This morning the final two useless anti HS2 protesters came out of the pointless Wendover tunnel. Oh, you didn’t know that three had given up earlier in the week? Neither did the rest of the world as it received no media attention – much to the chagrin of HS2rebellion and the rest of the protesters! The world’s moved on and the fact a tiny bunch of people were holed up in a tunnel that wasn’t even on the route of HS2 so couldn’t possibly stop any work wasn’t in any way newsworthy.
Now the final two, a lad who calls himself ‘Satchel’ plus the much better known but equally useless ‘Swampy’ have given up after being cornered by the bailiffs.
So much for all the bluster about staying underground for months! They made 28 (pointless) days, whilst the whole eviction took 32. Whilst they’ve played troglodyte the former camp above their heads has been demolished and gradually cleared by bailiffs – which has beeb a major task due to the massive amounts of crap these supposed ‘environmentalists’ have dumped on the site. It was a shit-tip, as these pictures from inside the camp show.
Of course, it was only a matter of time before the inevitable happened and those underground were forced to give up.
And the sum total of what they’ve achieved is? Zip. Nada. Nothing. Sweet FA.
Not a single days work building HS2 has been lost because of the stupid actions. At the end they didn’t even get the media attention they craved as no-one from the mainstream news agencies could be bothered with them. This whole (non)event ended with a whimper. The protesters weren’t even arrested as it’s not a crime to seal yourself in a tunnel where you couldn’t possibly get in the way of HS2 construction (as the court case against the Euston protesters established). Criminally stupid, yes, but not illegal. Of course, the protesters are trying to claim this as some sort of ‘victory’, but it’s obvious to anyone with half a brain it’s anything but!
So that’s it. No ‘protection’ camps survive on the phase 1 route of HS2, every single one (and there were only a handful) ended in failure.
The fat lady’s sung….
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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 we’re two weeks into the eviction of the final Hs2Rebellion shit-tip – sorry, ‘protection camp’ I thought I’d give you a brief update of what’s been going on as even the tunnelers supporters have got bored and stopped turning up on a regular basis.
Three days ago the bailiffs gained access to the single tunnel’s down shaft and continue with the preparations to remove the handful of occupants. There’s no rush, because the useless tunnelers aren’t in anyone’s way as the tunnel isn’t anywhere near an active HS2 worksite!
Despite all their bluster and braggadocio it seems pretty clear that the penny’s dropped with the muppets in the tunnel and they’ve twigged that protests against HS2 have been a complete waste of time. Now they try and make out that their protest is more about new Government legislation and well, ‘stuff’. It’s reminiscent of Marlon Brando in the film ‘The Wild One’ where Mildred asks his character (Johnny) “Hey, Johnny, what are you rebelling against?” and Johnny replies “Whaddya got?” These people are serial protesters who have a rag-bag of ’causes’ which they switch between without any intellectual coherence or real understanding of the issues. It’s one of the reasons they’ve always been so ineffective.
Talking of ineffective, our old fantasist friend Mark Keir finally turned up again to record an overlong diatribe (12 minutes of repetition, deviation and hesitation) from outside the camp. Keir’s latest obsession was the fact that piling work was to be carried out adjacent to the Chiltern railway running alongside the site of the squatters old camp. Keir couldn’t see any piling rig, so in a masterpiece of pointless speculation decided that the work must have been called off by HS2 Ltd due to the proximity of the tunnel and its occupants, but how dare they still keep the railway closed as this would inconvenience the locals! As usual, this has left Keir with enough egg all over his face to have fed the tunnelers all weekend!
Hmm, 46 shares. Not exactly setting the world of social media alight, are they?
Why? Because the piling rig was already parked up a few hundred metres away. Work’s begun on schedule and is progressing without any interruption, as one local resident’s pointed out. Poor Keir, he just can’t help himself! The rule of thumb now is that as soon as he asserts something you know the opposite will happen!
Meanwhile, HS2 contractors continue to clear up the mess these ‘eco-warriors’ have created (as highlighted by @bucksmart) although this will take some time as there’s tonnes of the stuff – as I illustrated in my last blog on the subject.
Bereft of anything positive to report and keep their bored followers entertained the protesters Facebook and other social media channels are being filled with as much crap as the Wendover camp was! Part of their problem is the tiny group in the tunnel (estimated at 4 in number) aren’t producing any content as they’re completely cut-off from any outside support so are running low on battery power and any other form of resupply. Instead, pre-recorded, garbled messages of justification are mixed with short snips of new footage of them trapped like rats (see above) or other stuff that has absolutely nothing to do with the HS2 protests at all, just adverts for other causes. At this rate GBNews (‘the gammon channel’) will have more viewers than HS2Rebellion!
So, the farce drags on. The fat lady’s gone for a fag and a wee between acts, but the finale can’t be long coming…
24th October UPDATE.
Bailiffs have been busy and broken into the protesters useless tunnel from a separate shaft, leaving the handful down there hopelessly compromised and with nowhere to go. The fat lady’s reaching for the throat-spray…
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/
After my travels of the past few days I’ve been very much ‘valley bound’ today – despite the temptation to stray as the weather’s been absolutely glorious with wall to wall sunshine! However, I’ve had far too much to do with editing the several hundred pictures that I’ve taken so far this week as well as preparing the ground for the articles I’ll be writing as a follow-on. This has meant I’ve been stuck in the office staring at a screen for hours at a time. I did manage to escape for a couple of hours this afternoon for my daily constitutional and wandered down into Sowerby Bridge to pick up some shopping, then strolled back along the canal before walking back through the woods. It was a complete contrast to the hustle and bustle of London. That said, I did really enjoy being back in my former home of 25 years. Despite my love of the countryside and the Calder Valley, I’m a city boy at heart! It’s why I can feel at home in some of the worlds great conurbations like Bangkok, or Delhi…
Having spent so much time in the company of others one of the first things I did when I got back was take a lateral flow test to ensure I wasn’t bringing home anything unexpected. The new rise of Covid is a concern. I’m praying that we don’t f*ck it up again, but the way many people behave (as if it’s all over – just because restrictions have been relaxed) worries me. I want to get travelling again in the new year but I’m worried that the UK is going to be seen on the world stage as ‘plague Island’ – as if being a laughing stock because of Brexit and our useless government isn’t enough!
Anyway, from a personal perspective it’s not been a bad day. As I’ve been penning these words the last batch of pictures from my travels has been uploading to my Zenfolio website (yep, I’m still working at 21:50) you can find the railway and travel ones by following this link to my ‘recent’ section which will show you what galleries the pictures have been added to. But, if you’re interested in the ones from my visit to the HS2 construction sites at Euston, you can find those here. I’ve several other visits to different HS2 sites lined up over the next few months, so expect a lot more blogs and articles about that. You won’t be reading much about the HS2rebellion protests as they’ve literally run into the ground!
So, on to the picture of the day. What to choose? There’s hundreds of new pictures taken over the past few days and dozens of old slide scans that I’ve not had chance to finish editing just yet. Hmm, OK, how about this? It’s a picture from the HS2 construction site and a perspective that very few people get to see…
Doesn’t look like much, does it? Just a hole in the ground. Except that in several years time this hole will be the site of the 10 HS2 platforms at Euston. A few years ago, this was the site of one of the biggest archeological digs in the UK as this was St James’s Gardens – which was previously a graveyard that contained around 50,000 burials, including Captain Matthew Flinders, the first person to circumnavigate Australia. This works changed the skyline of Camden and also London. See that building sticking up just to the left of the trees? That’s ‘the shard’ which you’d never have seen from here before.
Oh, and this isn’t the end of things. The site is to be excavated at least another 10 metres from the level you see here as there’s service passages and rooms to be built below the actual levels of the HS2 platforms. It’s a massive, massive job on a site that covers 60 acres of central London. I’ll be writing about it in detail for some magazines, so this is all you’re getting for now. Personally, I find it fascinating on so many levels (if you’ll pardon the pun).
Right, that’s enough for now. Enjoy your Friday folks…
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 realy 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/
Paul Bigland 