Tag Archives: Hs2

The end of another farcical anti HS2 petition.

30 Wednesday Oct 2019

Posted by in Anti Hs2 mob, Hs2, Hs2 petitions, Politics, Railways

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At midnight, yet another StopHs2 petition turned into the inevitable pumpkin. After a frantic last minute ‘surge’ (well what passes for one in their eyes) it staggered over the finish line with 24,075 signatures, having gained less than 80 in the final 24 hours! The 2018 one managed 28,938. To say this is pathetic is an understatement, especially when you consider this is a national figure. The UK’s current population size is reckoned by the UN to be 67.53 million (as there’s been no UK census since 2011), which rather puts this figure into perspective, it’s just 0.03%. So much for HS2 being a ‘national’ issue! I’ll crunch the numbers here as they make interesting reading when you compare them to the results of the last time Joe Rukin tried one of these petitions back in 2017. I’ll analyse them in detail shortly, but first, let’s look at what conclusions we can draw.

StopHs2 really is just a ‘Nimby’ campaign

Yes, I know they’ve spent years denying this, pretending there’s widespread national opposition to HS2, but these petitions provide the statistics to prove that’s simply not the case. It’s why I love it when Rukin starts yet another one as they provide empirical evidence, not just rumour. These petitions log the number of signatures by Parliamentary constituency, giving a running total and percentage. Here’s the map for England. Those constituencies with the most signatures appear in a darker colour. Now, looking at that map, have a wild guess where Phase 1 of HS2 runs?

Sure, there’s signatures from other parts of the UK, after all, various Green groups and the Brexit party have publicised it amongst their supporters, but they’re statistically insignificant. The fact 4 people in Banff & Buchan in Scotland or 2 in West Tyrone in Northern Ireland have signed is neither here nor there, because 49.64% of all the petition signatures have come from just 9.6% of the UK’s 650 constituencies, the 63 that HS2 just happens to pass through…

Their ‘Grassroots’ campaign is dying

Their 2017 petition managed 28,398 signatures, this one’s only managed 24,075. As you’ll see from the numbers from the different phases, whilst the phase 1 signatures have decreased, the ones for phase 2a and the two phase 2b legs have collapsed. In some cases dramatically.

In reality, this petition is a last gasp from the Chilterns and other areas on phase 1 where minds have been focussed by the fact that workers and machinery are already on the ground, preparing for construction.

Another reason for the collapse is that – because this is essentially a ‘Nimby’ campaign, many of its supporters have been bought out and moved away in the past few years. HS2’s no longer an issue for them. This was always going to happen, but it’s accelerated as the number of homes purchased has increased. One only has to look around Euston where the new homes built to house the people displaced by Hs2 works are now occupied and the old ones are being demolished. This is reflected in the number of signatures to the petition.

Once Phase 1 construction is fully underway, the StopHs2 campaign will fracture and what’s left of its national organisation will collapse

In many ways, this has already happened. Of the three ‘national’ groups, two have already collapsed. AGAHST (Action Groups Against HS2) went to the wall in 2015 and the HS2 ‘Action Alliance’ gave up in 2016. Both were Chiltern based. That leaves ‘StopHs2’ which is a bit of a joke to be honest. It’s Campaign Manager (and I use that term loosely) Joe Rukin runs it from his flat in Kenilworth, Warwickshire, whilst its Chair (of what? Ed) Penny Gaines now lives in Bournemouth! It has little relevance away from Phase1 other than to provide a few campaign materials and Joe’s occasional ‘rent a quotes’ to the national media. In the real world, they never had any involvement in the Phase 2a petitioning process, nor will they have in the phase 2b process when that finally gets off the ground. As much of their funding comes from Phase 1 Nimbys, we can expect that to dry up too. Of course, someone might be foolish enough to offer Joe Rukin a proper job, but he’s been looking for years, and his CV isn’t exactly scintillating. Meanwhile, many local ‘action’ groups went to the wall years ago, leaving Facebook and Twitter littered with their remains like an old battlefield.

They still have no political support

10 years on, HS2 still commands enormous cross-party political support. In fact, this has grown, as can be seen the way Northern and Midlands leaders have become an increasingly loud voice in campaigns to ensure that HS2 is built in its entirety. Added to their are the powerful voices of business leaders up and down the country.

In contrast, what do StopHs2 have? A handful of MPs, mostly the same old faces like Cheryl Gillan, the Green Party and now The Brexit party, who are likely to emulate the ‘success’ of their leader’s last chariot for his ego – UKIP – who never managed to get a single MP – even by standing in the Chilterns…

Remember, all these people, along with ‘celebrity’ environmentalist Chris Packham encouraged people to sign this petition. Packham alone has 356,000 Twitter followers, the Green Party 284,000 and the Brexit party 202,000 – yet they were all spectacularly unsuccessful in getting people to sign the petition. This is why, despite all the bluster you’re seeing from some Nimbys in the run up to the general election, HS2 simply isn’t an election issue.

Right, let’s crunch some numbers!

These are comparisons of the signatures between yesterday and when the last petition closed after 6 months in March 2018. First up – phase 1. I’ve highlighted the increases on 2018.

The interesting thing here is that many of the increases are from such a low base number they’re insignificant, especially when you consider what percentage of constituents they are! Their ‘best’ result is in Chesham and Amersham, where long-standing opponent of HS2, Dame Cheryl Gillan MP holds sway. Even there they can’t get beyond 1.9% – and these are meant to be their heartlands! Kenilworth & Southam is their next best number where they have 1.6%, but as this is where Joe Rukin is that’s amazingly poor. Buckingham gets 1.5%, after that the numbers really start to drop.

2,570.105 live in the 23 constituencies phase 1 traverses. Just 0.36% of them have signed the petition – and these constituencies are meant to be the hot-bed of the Stophs2 campaign! Meridian’s the only interesting one, where their number have increased by 256%, but that’s still only 250 signatures and the total’s just 0.32% of all constituents!

Now for the phase 2 routes. First up is the leg to Manchester. This contains 18 constituencies and includes phase 2a to Crewe.

Their numbers here have plummeted by over 27%, in one notable case (Tatton) they’ve dropped by half! Tatton is one of the few places on the Manchester leg where there’s ever been an active ‘action’ group (Mid Cheshire) but even here they’re obviously struggling! Their ‘best’ result here is in Tatton, with a miserly 0.3%. It’s the only constituency off phase 1 that’s highlighted on the map in a darker colour.

Out of all 1,811.397 constituents, a measly 0.08% have signed the petition, down from 0.12% in 2018. Just like the other phases of HS2, it’s worth noting that what these figures show is that the StopHS2 ‘campaign’ get the vast majority of it’s tiny support from rural areas and has virtually bugger-all influence in the cities. There’s never been a single ‘action’ group in urban Birmingham, Leeds or Manchester.

Next up, the 18 constituencies on the phase 2 leg to Leeds, which produces some very interesting results…

The numbers signing have collapsed from 4793 in 2018 to just 1246 now. That’s a huge drop of 74%! Not a single constituency has registered a raise. Look at Rother Valley, down from 1650 to just 121, a drop of 92.6%! Hemsworth’s dropped by 73% and Bolsover by 69.1% whilst NW Leics is down 69.89%.

The route to Leeds was always an interesting one as the anti Hs2 campaign on that leg was always fractious and also full of bluster. They spent a lot of time fighting amongst themselves as some wanted Hs2 cancelling whilst others actually wanted Hs2 but fought against the final route selection. It also suffered from a fair few personalities who could best be described with the old expression, “all mouth and no trousers”! How quickly the ‘action’ groups have collapsed on the Leeds leg has surprised even me, but they’d sown the seeds of their own destruction right from the start.

So, what’s next for the stophs2 ‘campign’? Limbo. Now that a general election’s been called the Oakervee review is almost certainly going to be put on ice until afterwards. Of course, they could always resurrect their daft ‘no votes for you with HS2’ Twitter hashtag, but they’re firing blanks. They’re no political threat to anyone and the electorate has rather more pressing matters to vote on than building a new railway!

For reference, you can find a previous blog looking at the long failure of StopHs2 petitions here. There’s also this blog which crunched the numbers in their 2017-18 petition.

The latest anti HS2 dross from the Adam Smith Institute.

09 Wednesday Oct 2019

Posted by in Adam Smith Institute, Adrian Quine, Hs2, Railways

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It’s been several weeks since the last load of rubbish about ‘alternatives’ to HS2, so the right-wing lobbyists, sorry ‘think tank’, at the Adam Smith Institute have dug up rail commentator Adrian Quine to cobble together the latest one. It’s a bit like Frankenstein’s monster, it’s made up of loads of old parts from previous ‘alternatives’ plus some new stuff that’s completely made up – as you’ll see shortly.

But who is Adrian Quine I hear you ask? Good question, I had to ask that too but information is thin on the ground. On Twitter he bills himself as a “Thought leadership consultant” (Gawd! Ed) as well as an ex-BBC broadcaster & “occasional Telegraph columnist”. Apparently, he does say he once worked as a signaller for Network Rail on a “short fixed term contract”.

Quine’s long, cobbled-together piece can be found at this link. Titled “Don’t railroad it through: Rethinking HS2” ere’s a few examples. This is from the opening page.

” Under HS2, a number of key northern cities destinations will lose direct trains to London, including Lancaster, Carlisle and Durham”

Really? And what evidence is offered to support this claim? A link to an HS2 document on the Crewe hub that contains an illustration of a possible service pattern that’s used for modelling purposes and that’s clearly labelled as such, and err – that’s it…

Now, you might expect Quine to know that any timetable and stopping pattern on HS2 and the East and West coast main lines won’t be decided by HS2 Ltd. It will be decided by the Department of Transport, along with input from Network Rail. So this claim is demonstrably false with no evidence to back it up.

There’s more…

“There are still sections of railway where 4 tracks are reduced to 3 or even 2 creating bottlenecks and severely limiting further growth. The mainlines do not directly serve cities such as Birmingham, Manchester or Leeds, requiring the use of slower regional connecting lines that halve speeds for the final 20-40 miles.“

Leaving aside the fact that the line from London to Birmingham is the original main line (not a ‘regional connecting line’) and that Hs2 will be running into Curzon St, the site of the original London & Birmingham railway station, Quine has shot himself in the foot. This isn’t an argument against HS2, it’s an argument FOR it. The idea that you could four-track the line from Rugby to Birmingham through Coventry except at massive expense, disruption and destruction is risible – and 4-track a live main line whilst it’s still in daily operation? Oh, please!

Next we have this:

“maximising current infrastructure by targeting bottlenecks on conventional lines, including building flyovers at key junctions, upgrading the Chiltern route to Birmingham or reopening the southern section of the Great Central railway, raising line speeds to at least 125mph;”

Not these old chestnuts again? “targeting bottlenecks” is like playing ‘wack-a-mole’, all you do is move the problem elsewhere, as those involved in the Staffordshire Alliance work at Norton Bridge know only too well. You’d think a railway expert would too, but that’s the problem with Quine’s work. There’s lots of airy statements about ‘solutions’ but no serious attempt at analysis of them. He’s clearly not talked to anyone who was involved in these projects, hence the equally daft claim that you can upgrade the Chiltern route. A few minutes talking with any of Chiltern’s Management team would soon have put him right on that one. Unfortunately, the document is no longer available on line, but back in (around) 2012-13. Chiltern Railways wrote to the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on High-Speed Rail in support of HS2. They pointed out that the Chiltern route could never be a substitute for HS2 as it didn’t have the capacity along the route, it was impossible to four track all of it and that there was no space left for extra services at Marylebone. Since then there’s even less as Chiltern have opened the new line to Oxford via Bicester. This is a complete non-starter, as any real ‘rail expert’ should know.

As for reopening the Great Central – give me strength! I blogged about that nonsense at length here. On page 23 Quine adds an extra dimension to this lunacy by suggesting that an “existing spur” between the WCML at Rugby and the Great Central at Rugby could be “reopened”

“Reopen the southern section of the Great Central railways far north as Rugby where it would connect with the WCML and a new or upgraded existing spur at Rugby from the WCML to Birmingham via Coventry and Birmingham Airport.”

What “existing spur”? The two lines were never ever linked! Will someone please buy Quine a map? Here’s the area surrounding Rugby station and I’ve highlighted the route of the old Great Central in Red. How on earth are you going to build a Southbound link between the two without demolishing large parts of Rugby? Oh, and if you did by some miracle manage to get it built, how are you going to deal with the fact several miles of the route is now designated as SSSI’s? Get past them and there’s the teeny little problem there’s no capacity left (and no space to build any more platforms) at Marylebone. The idea’s a complete non-starter.

On page 22 we’re told…

“The Euston Express proposal is designed to fully integrate both HS2 and classic WCML services into the existing station, rather than HS2 having a standalone station alongside”.

However, experienced rail expert William Barter tweeted this.

There’s much more. On page 11 Quine opines that,

“HS2 has unnecessarily used 400kph (250mph) speeds in its modelling to promote more impressive ‘end to end’ journey times.”

This is complete nonsense of course, and yet again William Barter (a man who knows a thing or two about such modelling) puts Quine right.

In fact, once Quine tweeted a link to this nonsense, a number of rail professionals and Journalists have jumped in and picked his rubbish to pieces. Here’s just a few examples.

You can find more at the #HS2 hashtag on Twitter. Suffice it to say, this rehash of failed ideas and fantasies is going nowhere. I could spend most of the day tearing it to pieces, but you get the gist. There’s all the usual nonsense about how digital signalling removes the need for HS2 (without the slightest analysis of how this works, especially on a mixed traffic railway), and just about every other excuse you can find. None of which are actually analysed or referenced. Many of the references listed in Quine’s article aren’t from academic sources or journals but from sources that you wouldn’t touch with a barge-pole! They include many media outlets like The Spectator and the Daily Mail, and those paragons of truth and accuracy, the Taxpayers Alliance!

But then Quine is hardly independent, as a few minutes browsing his Twitter account (@adrianquine) shows. He’s singing from the same libertarian, pro-Brexit, anti Hs2 song-sheet as the people he retweets, the odious Julia Hartley Brewer, the IEA’s Richard Wellings, Kate Hoey MP, Brexit Party funder Richard Tice and many others. This makes his next statement on page 26 rather hypocritical.

“The rail industry is notoriously incestuous and is run almost entirely by engineers and career railway people rather than innovators”

Yet again the right-wing lobbyists try to turn their fire on HS2. Yet again they turn out to be using pop-guns….

UPDATE 6th January 2019.

This blog was amended to include the information that Quine mentions in a Telegraph article that he once worked as a signaller for Network Rail on a “short, fixed term contract”

Sunday blues…

29 Sunday Sep 2019

Posted by in Belgium, Hs2, Musings, Politics, Railways, Travel

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I’ve had little time for blogging today as (for once) we actually had a lie-in. After a week of getting up at 06:00-07:00 it was lovely not to have the alarm set. Mind you, we also had a fairly late night as a small group of us went to a friends for a meal last night. Forget the Tories Brugges group, this was a chance for a select six of us to get together and have a lovely meal at Tony Allan’s and chat about our own visit to that fair city.

We had a lovely evening and didn’t miss much by getting up late as the morning was (literally) a washout due to the weather. It’s yet another day where it’s chucked it down, so much so that I didn’t get out for my constitutional stroll until this evening when the wet weather abated. Instead, the pair of us have spent most of the day getting on with chores, not exactly the rock and roll lifestyle, but when needs must…

What I have had chance to do is catch up on the news and seen that the much hyped anti HS2 demonstration led by Chris Packham at Euston yesterday failed to set the world on fire. Sure, it got media attention because of Packham but only a few dozen people turned up. Most of the media photos are tightly cropped to show Packham and a couple of demonstrators with him. The ones that zoom out show just how few folk actually bothered coming along. Of course, all this is a sideshow, the main event is up the West Coast Main Line in Manchester where the Tory party conference is happening. What’s not happening is any StopHs2 presence. Several years ago they would have had a stall inside all the party conferences. Now their campaign’s on its uppers they can’t even be bothered to turn up and leaflet outside.

This evening, whilst Dawn’s been cooking some fabulous Indian curry I’ve been busy delving through the picture archives thanks to a friend who jogged my memory . Earlier today Anthony Roberts posted a picture from Belgium showing one of their Cass 62 diesel locos. This set me thinking, and searching my Zenfoilio site. I realised that I’d never added old pictures from some Belgian tours I did back in 2006. I used to have them on my old Fotopic website, but when that went tits-up I lost a lot of caption details as I’d never added it to the original files (which I still have). So this evening has been spent hunting down info to try and rebuld the collection on my Zenfolio site. You can find the resurrected gallery here. Thank God for websites like six bells junction, which has allowed me to check the details of the tour. I’ve more pictures to add but that’s going to have to wait until later in the week. It’s taken me 8 years, another few days won’t make any difference! Here’s a couple of samples. I must admit these pictures have triggered a real bout of nostalgia for what were some wonderful times with a great bunch of people. I used to go over on these tours with a group of friends from the Gloucester area under the banner of Pathfinder railtours. You’ll see some of them in the pictures.

The view from the cab of Class 62 no 6250 as we travel across Holland
A line-up of Railion Class 204 locos at Terneuzen. Holland. 4.11.06.

The UK’s ‘green’ movement isn’t fit for purpose.

17 Tuesday Sep 2019

Posted by in 'Green' madness, Green madness, Hs2, Railways

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It’s been one of those days where just opening a single newspaper has highlighted why the UK’s ‘green’ movement simply isn’t fit for purpose. They’re more part of the problem, not the solution. I say this with a huge amount of regret as I see myself as someone with a real concern for the environment with a fear of what we’re doing to the planet, but the past few years has seen me look at these groups with fresh eyes.

Let me explain. I saw a paper copy of yesterday’s Guardian earlier. On one page it carried a story reporting on a new report from the Office of National Statistics that says traffic on our roads has increased by 33% in the past 30 years. Here’s a link.

The article by Gwen Topham quoted someone called Jenny Bates, from (what are supposedly) ‘Friends of the Earth’, who said “Despite noise made by vehicle manufacturers about cleaner petrol and diesel technology, transport is still the most climate-polluting sector and it’s clear petrol and diesel sales have to stop as soon as possible…The only way to stop transport from leading us to further climate breakdown is to drastically cut the miles travelled by car. Cleaner options such as bicycles, buses and trains need to be made more accessible and more affordable” .

Perhaps FoE could explain exactly how they propose we can do this when they actively oppose building the high-speed 2 railway (HS2), the only way our increasingly overcrowded rail network will ever be able to cope with a modal shift from road to rail?

To add insult to injury and highlight just how much environmental groups in the UK have totally lost the plot, the opposite page carried a piece on how the Woodland Trust have secured delays to clearing some of the tiny pockets of UK woodland that will have to be cut down to make way for HS2!

I mean, seriously? They’re going to take the fundamentalist approach that ignores the bigger picture? Every single tree and patch of UK woodland is inviolable. Forget tackling global climate change if it means a single hectare here has to be sacrificed for the greater good…

This is why I’ve no time for UK environmental groups like the Woodland Trust or ‘Friends’ of the Earth. They’re not part of the solution, they’re part of the problem. They’ve no real answers to anything. In fact, they oppose the only workable solution we have to vastly increase capacity on our railways and tackle Co2 emissions from transport! This is through the looking-glass stuff! The road lobby and oil companies must be pissing themselves laughing at the way ‘Green’ groups are doing their job for them. What annoys me is the mealy-mouthed statements we get from these groups, where they say “Oh, we’re not opposed to high-speed rail in principle” (just don’t ever try to build it in practice, because we’ll scream blue murder!).

I’ve written about the hypocrisy of the Woodland Trust in this matter before here. Since then, myself and a few other people have been doing some digging and it turns out their hypocrisy verges on the downright dishonest. I’ll be blogging about that in greater detail soon. So, next time you get bombarded with requests for money from these people via Facebook or whatever, just pause for a moment and wonder, are they really offering any solutions, or are these campaigns just a cynical way to raise more money?

Meanwhile, here’s an illustration of the problem. These are the Medway viaducts in Kent, where the M2 crosses next to HS1.

The M2 requires two massive viaducts, each one far wider than that used by HS1. In the background you see an electric train capable of 140 mph that can carry 352 people seated (and many more standing). Unlike the 60-70mph vehicles on the motorway, it can be carbon-neutral. Yet (supposedly) green groups oppose this as a way to link our major cities! Madness, utter madness…

Analysing another load of anti Hs2 tosh…

10 Tuesday Sep 2019

Posted by in Hs2, Railways

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Regular readers may know that I’ve a cynical streak when it comes to academics. Sadly, there’s a number of them who seem to think their undoubted expertise in specific fields makes them a sage on all things, including complex subjects they know absolutely nothing about – not that this stops them pontificating!

The latest to come to my attention was this load of unmitigated tosh from Professor Dieter Helm, who’s an economist and lecturer at the University of Oxford and also an advisor to the Government.

Sadly, the professor seems to think that his knowledge of economics means that he doesn’t need to do any proper research when it comes to writing about the railways and HS2. If he had, he would have been very quickly dissuaded from writing the nonsense he’s produced. He starts badly, then rapidly goes down hill from there!

Here’s his opening stance:

“What is the question or questions to which HS2 is supposed to be an answer?” Do go on? “When it comes to HS2, the search for a justifying rationale has gone through many episodes. Only one, the original idea, has some merit, but HS2 is no longer an answer to it.” Really? And that original idea was what, exactly? “The original idea, the good one, was to integrate the UK into a European increasingly interconnected high-speed network” Err, Professor, if you’d bothered to do the slightest bit of research you’d have known that’s complete cobblers. Helm is talking about the link between HS1 and HS2 that was dropped by the Higgins review back in 2014.

In fact, that was never “the original idea” at all. HS2 came about because the then Labour Government asked Network Rail to look into the need for new rail capacity. The study, “Meeting the capacity challenge: The case for new lines” was published in 2009. Here’s a link to it. But the idea wasn’t new even then. An earlier feasibility study by W.S. Atkins was commissioned by the Strategic Rail Authority in 2001.

the 2009 Network Rail study considered four corridors and came to the conclusion that the best value option and the one that addressed future capacity constraints was a new high-speed route from London to Scotland.

Note that there was no mention of a link between the new line and HS1. This came about later.

The Network Rail study was the basis for HS2. It was taken forward by the Labour Government under Lord Adonis who’d already set up HS2 Ltd. HS2 Ltd reported back at the end of December 2009 and the then Transport Secretary, Andrew Adonis, published the Government’s response in a Command Paper, ‘High Speed Rail’, in March 2010. It was only then that a possible HS1-HS2 link was suggested as an option. It was never the “original idea” at all. That year, Labour lost power and the new Government confirmed the HS1-HS2 link as a firm proposal, until it became obvious it was a non-starter.

So, Helm’s fallen at the first hurdle. Let’s have a look at some of his other claims. Having got the first one badly wrong he claims that

” First, it is not true that the existing lines could not be upgraded and carry more capacity. Railways are basically empty for almost all of the time, and the distance between and number of trains depends upon stations and signalling.  Standing on a mainline station platform at say Didcot Parkway, staring at the empty lines, reflects the fact that for most of the time there are no trains”.

Where to start with this nonsense? No-one has claimed that existing lines can’t be upgraded. Clearly, Helm has no idea that we spent £9bn upgrading the West Coast Main Line just 12 years ago! The point is that upgrading the Victorian network is complex, expensive and disruptive and it adds very little extra capacity compared to building a new high-speed line!

The next one’s even more laughable! Railways are “basically empty for almost all the time” Are you serious? This is weapons-grade nonsense. As for standing On Didcot Parkway, what on earth is that meant to prove? The levels of ignorance of how railway capacity actually works here is stunning. It would be laughable from an ordinary member of the public, but this man’s an Oxford Professor!

OK, let’s have a look at those ’empty railways’ in the real world. Here’s a copy of today’s actual train workings from ‘real time trains’ for Roade, which is on the two track section of the West Coast Main line South of Rugby. This is the section that phase 1 of HS2 is designed to relieve. This is what passed between 07:00 and 08:00 this morning. A note for those unfamiliar with this, the times in the two right hand columns show first the working timetable times, then the actual time the train passed.

There were 31 trains out of 32 scheduled, as one was cancelled. There’s 16 trains heading for Euston alone, that’s roughly one every four minutes. Some “mostly empty” railway, eh? Right, let’s have a look at the next bit of nonsense.

“Few mainlines carry trains less than 10 to 15 minutes apart. Existing lines could be upgraded, and they have the great merit of already existing and require much less extra land and demolitions that the new line must have. For £100 billion, the existing rail network could be upgraded almost everywhere, with comprehensive modern signalling, station enhancements and a coherent fibre enabled communication system to run it“

Yet again the Prof falls flat on his face in the first sentence. How many other main lines do I need to provide real-time running information to expose this nonsense on stilts? Has the Prof any idea of how much of our railway network HAS already been upgraded over the past few years, or how the fact Network Rail’s spending record amounts doing more?

How does any of this remove the need for HS2? It doesn’t. For example rebuilding Reading at a cost of £1bn a few years ago has done nothing to add capacity to the WCML, only HS2 can do that. OK, let’s plough on.

“Far from dispersing growth to the north from the south, it could easily work the other way around. Furthermore, it is not obvious that the economic growth problem in the north is caused by lack of connection to London, or that the £100 billon spent on HS2 is the best way of increasing the northern growth rate”.

Here we see the usual obsession with London, ignoring all the other places HS2 connects. But let’s tackle this one head on as I’m a perfect example of why this is a fallacy. I live in West Yorkshire but I often work in London. Where do I spend the money I earn in London? Most of it in West Yorkshire, where I live, not where I work. When I get the morning Express to London and home in the evening there are hundreds of other Yorkshire folk doing exactly the same, only now it’s getting increasingly difficult to work on the trains as they’re full. If I get the Grand Central service from Halifax to Kings Cross I’ll be lucky to get a seat, even in First Class, making me less productive. This is the difference between economic theory and reality. Right, next..

“Promoting the economic growth prospects in the north is much more about connectivity within the north” The Prof seems blissfully unaware this is exactly what HS2 does. If we take “the North” as being out of the M25! The current rail services between Birmingham, Leeds and Manchester are slow and not fit for purpose. HS2 will cut journey times between B’ham and Manchester by 52% and B’ham and Leeds by 58%! It will make a huge difference in connectivity between those major cities – and many more.

“In transport, there are two main alternative options. The money could be spent on upgrading the existing rail network, with smart signalling and metering, and smart system coordination, better smarter stations, better access to stations, more and better stations, and better rail lines”.

Frankly, some of that doesn’t even make sense. What on earth is “smart signalling and metering“? If he’s referring to digital signalling like ATO, he’s clearly unaware of the limited capacity gains it offers on mixed traffic railways like the West Coast Main Line (the busiest in the EU). It’s estimated by signalling experts that digital signalling could offer around 15% extra capacity on mixed traffic lines. At the current rate of growth, that would be eaten up in just a few years. Then what? We’re back to square 1. In contrast, HS2 offers a massive capacity increase by moving non-stop express trains off the existing lines onto dedicated lines where digital signalling really can help because all trains are running at the same speeds. It also frees up lots of capacity on our existing network. Not just on the WCML but also on the East Coast and Midland main lines.

” If autonomous electric vehicles develop, controlled by smart systems, and powered by low carbon electricity generation, then roads may be better than rail in the future, having greater flexibility and able to take denser traffic.”

“If”? We need solutions now, not play wait and see! As it is autonomous vehicles have been overhyped and underachieved. I may not see eye to eye with the commentator Christian Wolmar on HS2, but he’s done some excellent work debunking the hype around driverless cars. Even “if” they did arrive there’s no way we’d be seeing what the Professor is suggesting as every vehicle on the road would need to be autonomous before you’d see this pipe-dream happen. But just say it did. Electric vehicles are still far more polluting than trains. Oh, and how an electric car carrying a max of 5 people and limited to 70mph will be ‘better’ than a 200mph train carrying 1100 is stretching reality to breaking point. This is no ‘alternative’ to HS2.

Finally, we get this old cherry.

“If the counterfactual is the infrastructures more generally, then the first candidate would be fibre and broadband. This would cost less than £100 billion to complete and one of its impacts would be to reduce the need to travel and hence the demand for travel.”

Really? As we’ve had fibre and broadband for many years now, perhaps the professor could say when it’s ever reduced travel demand? Rail passenger numbers are still growing and hitting record numbers. Here’s West Coast operator Virgin trains figures. Virgin has grown passenger numbers from 30.4m in 2012-13 to 38.3m in 2017-18, an increase of 25.98%!

Here’s the statistics for the other West Coast operator, West Midlands Trains. They’ve grown numbers from 60.5 million in 2012-13 to 74.9 million in 2017-18, that’s a growth of 23.8%. So much for broadband reducing travel…

In fact, it’s arguable that improved wireless communication and technology has helped increase, not cut, travel as less and less people are tied to their offices – hence so many people working on trains! OK, next…

“It is hard to avoid the conclusion that the future is more likely to be cars and vehicles than trains”

No, it’s really, really not, this is more nonsense on stilts. High-speed rail is the land transport of choice in the 21st century, which is why so many countries are investing in it. China has built 25,000 km already in just a few short years. Now we have Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Russia and Morocco added to the list. Soon there’ll be Indonesia, India, Thailand the USA and many others.

Like the professor, I could go on, but there’s little point. I think my job here is done. It’s a great shame when academics get so carried away with themselves they trot out stuff like this. I could call it badly-researched, but it’s not. It’s hard not to draw the conclusion that he’s done no research at all.

HS2. Opening dates extended and the budget’s revised, but nothing’s been cut.

03 Tuesday Sep 2019

Posted by in Allan Cook, Railways

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As widely trailed in the media, today, the Chairman of Hs2 Ltd, Allan Cook has published his report and advice about the deliverability of Hs2. You can find the report here. Despite much of the media speculation and froth on social media, the report contains no surprises. The review has looked at what’s been happening since the project was first launched back in 2009 and updated plans in the light of events. It’s no admission of failure, merely a pragmatic response to changes in circumstances due to a whole range of issues. It’s also taken on board valuable lessons from the difficulties at Crossrail and other major projects. There’s little that’s new. For example, the question of extending the construction timetable was suggested quite some time ago by the National Audit Office.

Here’s some of the more important points from it.

“As such (HS2) is an integral part of the plans of Transport for the North, Northern Powerhouse Rail (NPR) and Midlands Connect, providing 50% of the new lines needed by NPR. However, the scale and the complexity of the task, as well as the transformational benefits it will deliver for the country and its regions were under-estimated in the original business case.
The original plans did not take sufficient account of the compound effect of building a high-speed line through a more densely populated country with more difficult topography than elsewhere – and doing so whilst complying with higher environmental standards.
Equally, the existing cost/benefit model, which was designed for smaller scale schemes, has proved inadequate in capturing the full transformational effect of HS2, particularly on changing land values. This transformation is already being demonstrated in Birmingham.
Therefore, the budget and target schedule for the programme have proved unrealistic, while at the same time the benefits have been understated”.

Cook goes on to say that..

“Phase One from Birmingham to London is already under way and should be completed as planned. HS2 conducts its business as a cost-conscious organisation with value for money playing a huge factor in decision-making. Though much work has been done to date to drive down costs through independent reviews and pilot studies, the cost is likely to rise from £27bn1 to a range of £36bn to £38bn; and the target delivery date of December 2026 should become a more realistic, manageable and cost effective staged opening between 2028 and 2031.
Phase 2a, from Birmingham to Crewe, is currently near the end of its legislative process in Parliament. That process should be completed and amalgamated with Phase One and delivered to the same timescale. Its cost is likely to rise from £3.5bn to a range between £3.6bn and £4.0bn”

So, phase 1 and 2a will open together. And phase 2b?

“The hybrid Bill for Phase 2b running from Crewe to Manchester and Birmingham to Leeds is currently being prepared and is, therefore, the least mature of the Phases. Given its early stage and its essential role in delivering Northern Powerhouse Rail, Transport for the North and Midlands Connect, there is an opportunity to fully integrate the plans for each region and deliver them in smaller, more manageable sections as part of a rolling programme of investment in the Midlands and the North. In line with the experience of Phase One, the cost of Phase 2b is likely to rise from £28.6bn to a range of £32bn to £36bn with target delivery moving from 2033 to between 2035 and 2040″.

Moving on beyond the executive summary there’s some very interesting details in the report. What’s now proposed is the have a phase 1 ‘soft opening’ where trains will be run as a captive service, staying on Hs2 metals and not running onto Network Rail tracks.

“The target date for Phase One services is set at December 2026 in the Development Agreement, with Baseline 6.1 (described on page 17 below) introducing the concept of staged opening (3 trains per hour (tph) between Old Oak Common and Birmingham Curzon Street in December 2026 and 10tph between Euston and the North West in December 2027).
The staged opening approach, with an initial captive service with no interaction with the existing rail network, follows good practice of introducing services gradually and minimising integration risks while operational experience and reliability are built up. As a captive service, this can be introduced when the systems are ready and proven (a “soft start”) and does not require a change to national timetables“

One of the reasons for postponing the opening date is keeping costs down on embankment building, as the report explains.

“allowing additional time for ground settlement in preference to costly ground stabilisation prior to installation of high-precision concrete slab track” (pge 15).

The report goes on to mention that one of the reasons for the extension of the opening date of phase 2b is the Parliamentary timetable.

“The opening of the full HS2 “Y” network was considered, in 2014, achievable in around 2033. As well as being a long-term forecast, this was based on Royal Assent by 2020 for a Phase Two hybrid Bill.
In Baseline 1, Royal Assent was to be in October 2022 (with Bill deposit in September 2019). And in the emerging schedule, Royal Assent is set at Dec 2023 (based on a Bill deposit in June 2020).”

Yet again, this is just a pragmatic view and reflection of events in the real world. So, what about all those crazy figures that we’ve seen thrown around by opponents of the project? Is the cost of Hs2 really estimated at £100bn now? No. It’s between £72.1bn to £78.4bn (pge 33).

There’s a lot else in the report, which needs to be read in detail, but it produces some interesting figures, although a lot of sensitive commercial detail is (of course) redacted. How important Hs2 is to the delivery of Northern Powerhouse Rail is made clear in this observation.

“Elements of the HS2 design incorporate several NPR touchpoints. NPR could use c.80km of HS2 lines into Manchester and Leeds as part of its current designs. This represents more than 50% of the total new lines needed for NPR” (pge 38).

When Hs2 was first conceived, NPR didn’t even exist, so it’s hardly surprising that phase 2b is being reconsidered in the light of what’s now happening in the North. Yes, the delays can be considered frustrating, but the important thing is to get the two projects properly integrated and get it right.

There’s also some new points, such as this, which suggests HS2 are looking at the possibility of reducing the number of platforms they need at Euston. Notice reduce, not scrap going to Euston!

“The project teams are also considering whether reducing the project’s physical footprint in certain locations is feasible, for example at Euston”. (pge 41).

There’s a lot to go at in the report, so this is just me picking out the highlights and a few snippets. What conclusions can we draw from the report? I’d suggest it gives those opposed to the project very little ammunition that they’ve not already fired at HS2. Yes, the timescale has changed. Yes, it will cost more in the light of changes and the famous Harold Macmillan quote about “events, dear boy, events”! One thing the report does is what I suggested in my comment piece in the latest copy of RAIL magazine. “If not Hs2, then what”? Because the report makes crystal clear the need for Hs2 which is something those opposed to it always try and ignore. Also, nothing has been suggested to be cut. Not Euston, nor the Leeds leg, both of which have been speculated upon at length.

The report spells out the headache for Boris Johnson. What could he cut? The answer is – nothing that makes sense.

Cut phase 1? Then you leave the West Coast Main Line with sclerosis. The project’s already ready to go so you cause a lot of pain across the construction sector and send entirely the wrong message about UK competitiveness and capability. Oh, and without pause 1 there’s no point in building phase 2 as there’s nowhere to run the trains to as the WCMLs full and Birmingham Curzon St is part of phase 1!

Scrap phase 2? Ah, but as the report points out, mode than half of NPR track is actually HS2! Reneging on very public commitments to the North would go down like a cup of cold sick! Nor would you be helping to rebalance the economy, so that’s not going to go down well either.

Cancel either of them and you can throw your international commitments to tackle climate change out of the window too!

Mind you, as I write this it seems the Tories have just lost their Parliamentary majority, so Johnson may have other things on his mind!

No doubt this report will set the tone of the Oakervee review of HS2. I expect it to be endorsed by the real players on that committee, who will be asking exactly the same question I have. I’ve no doubt Hs2’s detractors will try to make hay out of the report. It’s likely at least one well-known rail commentator will stick the word “damning” in front of the word report, but in truth it’s anything but. It’s an honest look at the difficulties and challenges of building such a major infrastructure project in the 21st century. Now let’s see what the Oakervee review comes up with…


The Oakervee Hs2 review panel’s announced. Here’s a look and some thoughts

21 Wednesday Aug 2019

Posted by in Hs2, Politics, Railways

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On 21st August the Transport Minister, Grant Shapps MP announced the composition of the Oakervee Hs2 review panel. The deputy chair will be Lord Berkeley whilst the panel will consist of Michele Dix, Stephen Glaister, Patrick Harley, Sir Peter Hendy, Andrew Sentance, Andy Street, John Cridland and Tony Travers.

The members are both pro and anti Hs2, politicians, rail leaders and academics who’ll examine all the claims and counter claims made. It’s a well-balanced panel as academia will be tempered by real world experience and those who understand the issues and need to deliver results on the ground.

Progress will have to be rapid as their report is expected in the Autumn. I expect to see off some of the wilder claims and ‘alternatives’ and focus on why we’re building Hs2 in the first place. I also expect the claims that HS2 can be terminated at Old Oak Common seen off once and for all. I believe that making Lord Berkeley, a man who’s been a constant critic of HS2 whilst proposing a number of impractical ‘alternatives’ himself as Deputy Chair to be a clever move as he’s going to have to sign up to the report’s conclusions.

Let’s have a look at the panel in greater detail.

Doug Oakervee

Oakervee has decades of experience in delivering major civil engineering projects. A former President of the Institution of Civil Engineers, he was the Executive Chairman at Crossrail from  Dec 2005 to May 2009 and non-Exec Chairman of Hs2 Ltd from March 2012 until December 2013.

Michèle Dix

A Chartered Civil Engineer and former board member of construction company Halcrow, Michele joined Transport for London in 2000 where she had responsibility for the congestion charge. In 2007 she became Managing Director of Planning. She was responsible for leading the planning strategy on the future transport needs of London. In February 2015 Michèle left Planning to become the Managing Director of Crossrail 2 and is now responsible for developing Crossrail 2 and gaining funding and powers for it. Her depth of understanding of the impact of Hs2 in London and its transport network will be extremely valuable.

Professor Stephen Glaister

Glaister is Professor of Transport and Infrastructure in the Centre for Transport Studies at Imperial College London. He’s a long-standing advisor to government on transport issues and economics and contributed to the Eddingtom report. He’s a ‘soft’ critic of HS2 who tends to see both sides of an argument without reaching any firm conclusion. He was interviewed by Halligan for his ‘Dispatches’ hatchet job on Hs2. Halligan asked him “is it (Hs2) good value”? Glaister replied “nobody knows”! I expect Glaister will offer the same non-committal advice to this committee.

Councillor Patrick Harley

Harley is a Conservative Cabinet Member at Dudley MBC and former Council Leader as well as a member of the West Midlands Combined Authority. He’s been a backer of transport initiatives in the West Midlands, including Hs2, which is very important to the area. Harley’s a strong supporter of Midland Metro and has highlighted links it will provide to HS2

Sir Peter Hendy CBE

Hendy needs little introduction. Currently the very active Chair of Network Rail he’s a former bus man, having started his career in the public transport industry in 1975. He was appointed to the position of Managing Director of Surface Transport for Transport for London in 2001. In 2006 he was appointed Commissioner of Transport for London before moving to Network Rail in 2015. Peter has enormous experience of running the sharp end of public transport and understands the need for a strategic vision for both London and the UK.

Andrew Sentence

Sentence is a business economist. Formerly Senior Economic Advisor to PWC from 2011 to 2018, previously he was an external member of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee from 2006 -2011. He’s also a former head of economic policy and director of economic affairs at the CBI who has an interest in the low carbon economy. Amongst other things he’s a former member of the Commission for Integrated Transport (2006–10). I suspect he’ll bring a balanced look at the economics and Hs2’s potential to tackle carbon emissions.

Andy Street

Andy’s a former MD of John Lewis who’s currently the Conservative Mayor of the West Midlands and a strong pro Hs2 voice in the Tory party. He’s an unabashed ambassador for the West Midlands and the positive economic benefits better transport links like HS2 bring to the area.

John Cridland

John’s a former Director of the CBI (an organisation that supports HS2). He’s currently Chair of Transport for the North (TfN) and well placed to know the real issues. TfN have made it clear that HS2 phase 2 is essential to delivering Northern Powerhouse Rail.

Professor Tony Travers

Tony’s another academic. He’s currently Visiting Professor in LSE Department of Government and Director of of the London School of Economics who’s advised the Government on a number of occasions. A critic of HS2 but someone who focusses on costs of the project rather than the practicalities of it. Hardly surprising, as that’s the beauty of academia, you can ‘umm and ahh’ safe in the knowledge that it’s not your neck on the line.

The review’s remit

Importantly, each member will focus on a specific area, feeding into and being consulted on the report’s conclusions, without having a right of veto. I expect the academics to do what academics do – and the politicians and business leaders to draw up the conclusion. After all, it’s the elected politicians whose necks will be on the line, and there’s plenty of experienced people on the panel to pose the question, “if not Hs2, what’s your plan B, and you’d better come up with it PDQ!”

I would be surprised if the review delivers a major policy change on HS2. The phase 1 project is too far down the line to be sent back to the drawing board as that would result in chaos on the railways at huge additional cost. On the (potential) eve of Brexit it would also deliver entirely the wrong political message. Don’t expect Hs2 to be cut back to Old Oak Common either, the technical problems with such an idea are huge.

What could be possible is for elements of phase 2 to be changed. Imagine if some of the funding for the sections around Leeds and Manchester was diverted to Transport for the North to deliver (at an earlier date) the elements of Hs2 that would be integral to Northern Powerhouse Rail? This budget reallocation wouldn’t stop Hs2, but it would address some of the cost issues and politically, it would show a real commitment to the North that the Prime Minister has already stated. Then, when Hs2 phase 2 is built it can simply link up with existing NPR infrastructure. Of course, all this is entirely speculative. We’ll have to wait until the autumn to see what the review decides.

The Woodland Trust can’t see the woods for the trees!

20 Tuesday Aug 2019

Posted by in Environment, Hs2, Railways, The Woodland Trust

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The past few weeks have seen the charity The Woodland Trust finally break cover and come out in opposition to Hs2. This is due to the fact they’re very much a single-issue campaign who really can’t see the woods for the trees. Forget the wider issues of climate change, they’re all about woodland, and Hs2 will cut though some ancient woodland which simply can’t be avoided except at huge cost. For the WT, cost doesn’t come into it. In their view ancient woodland should be protected at any cost. But then, when it’s not your money you’re spending, that’s easy to say!

When I’ve challenged the WT on their opposition to HS2 they’ve come over all pained and said that they don’t object to HS2 ‘in principle’ – only in practise! Frankly, this hypocritical stance doesn’t fool anyone. They want to see HS2 delayed, or cancelled, as their latest campaign makes clear. According to them “Any transport system that destroys irreplaceable habitats such as ancient woodland can never be called ‘green'”.

Notice the use of the word “destroys”? There’s a lot of emotive hyperbole in their writing about HS2. They also describe it as “smashing” through ancient woodland. If you believed their rhetoric you could be forgiven for thinking HS2 was more like Genghis Khan and the Mongol hordes sweeping across the country rather than engineering companies that are building something and have to adhere to strict environmental standards that are legally enforceable.

There’s also another problem. Exactly how much is HS2 allegedly “destroying”, and how? You won’t get any firm answers from the WT, they’re extremely coy when it comes to detail other then headline figures, as this tweet demonstrates.

What exactly does “facing damage” mean when it’s at home? It’s meaningless. Emotive, but meaningless. Look at this statement from their latest petition against HS2.

“It’s a terrible situation – we could lose many of our greatest national assets for no reason at all”

“Many”? really? Let’s try and get some perspective here and I’m using the Woodland Trusts own figures to supply it.

The WT estimate that there’s 450,000 hectares of ancient woodland across the UK.

That’s 450,000 hectares out of a grand total of 3.19 million hectares of woodland across the UK. OK, so how much ancient woodland is HS2 going to affect? The Woodland Trust’s own figure is 40.2 hectares but they don’t define what ‘affected’ is. We don’t know what percentage of that is cut down, or what HS2 might come near and supposedly “damage” in passing. It’s all very nebulous and the WT refuse to come clean over what any of this actually means in practise. So, here’s the numbers crunched. If there’s 450,000ha of ancient woodland and only 40.2ha is affected by HS2, that’s just 0.008%. Now, what was that the WT said, oh yes “lose many of our greatest national assets” 0.008% is “many”? Someone’s not being honest with people here…

Talking of not being honest, the Woodland Trust list noise and dust as part of the “damage” HS2 will cause to ancient woodland. Yet one of their own fact sheets on HS2 talks about woodland making good noise and dust barriers! How’s that for hypocrisy. Here’s a link to their information sheet. Here’s part of what it says.

Another awkward question the Trust refuse to answer is how can they be so precise with their figures, like the 40.2ha claim when they admit themselves that they don’t actually know the size of the areas of woodland on Hs2 Phase 2b that will be affected? This is taken from their website.

The WT admit they don’t know how much of the wood will be affected, so how can they make such precise claims? This isn’t the only wood where they admit they’ve no idea either…

Today, the Woodland Trust have been tweeting out this latest exaggeration. They’re no longer claiming 40.2ha of Woodland’s affected by HS2, they’re now saying it’s 57.8ha. So where’s the evidence for this new claim? There’s none. Nothing at all. As I’ve already shown, it’s impossible for them to substantiate such a claim – even their own website admits that – because no-one knows what will happen on phase 2b until the plans are finalised and the Petitioning process is completed. They’re deliberately misleading people.

There’s also one very large elephant in the room that the WT point-blank refuse to see. If we’re serious about cutting carbon emissions from transport the only way we can do that is by vastly increasing our rail capacity to cope with the modal shift needed to get lorries and cars off our roads. That means building HS2 (which the WT oppose). If we don’t do that, it won’t just be ancient woodland affected by climate change, it will be all 3.19 million hectares of UK woodland. The WT really can’t see the woods for the trees. The sad truth is that – like many single-issue campaigns – the WT’s blinkered approach is part of the problem, not part of the solution.

Today’s West Coast/Hs2 franchise award exposes Joe Rukin’s lies yet again

14 Wednesday Aug 2019

Posted by in Anti Hs2 mob, Hs2, Joe Rukin, Railways, StopHs2

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A few days ago, StopHs2 ‘Campaign Manager’ Joe Rukin was given a platform by the Independent newspaper to spout his usual dishonest rubbish about Hs2 without the slightest challenge. There was no interview, just a polemic written by Rukin. In it, he doubled-down on some of his old lies, such as the claim that there will be billions of pounds worth of service cuts on the conventional network to fund Hs2. Here’s the quote.

rukin

Rukin knows this is a lie as it’s been pointed out to him over many years by many people. But he can’t resist retelling it, just like his many others, because Rukin will never admit his dishonesty and dishonesty is all he’s got left now their ‘campaign’ is up shit creek without a political paddle. I first exposed it here way back in February 2015. Of course, in those days, Joe claimed it was only £8.3bn! Here’s what I wrote at the time.

“Joe’s totally unsubstantiated claim that this means “£8.3 billion of cuts to classic services” might be considered suspect by the most innocent of readers. And they would be right. It is true that in the Economic Case analysis (table 9 on page 78) is a figure of £8.265 billion, labelled “classic line savings”. So what’s that all about? Well first, it refers to the full network in Phase 2, not Phase 1. Then, it’s a Present Value, that is, 60 year’s worth of annual sums all rolled into one. So the annual figure relevant to Phase 1 will be a lot – and I mean a lot – smaller. Which is why Joe doesn’t quote it.

But whatever it is, is Joe right to paint this as “cuts”? Got it in one, no he isn’t. Go back to the beginning, and remember that, apart from the new Curzon St services, the HS2 service for Phase 1 is basically the present Virgin pattern unplugged from the WCML at Handsacre and plugged into HS2 to Euston instead. So we have, for instance, an HS2 train every hour that runs from Liverpool, calls at Runcorn and Stafford, and then on to Euston on HS2. The cost in terms of fuel, maintenance, crew and fleet leasing should be charged to HS2, no-one would dispute. But that train replaces a Virgin service that calls at Runcorn and Stafford, then to Euston on the WCML. So of course the saving from replacing that train with the HS2 service should be deducted from the cost of running the HS2 train. Same stations, same destination, and faster. What has been “cut”? Nothing.”

Since Rukin first told this lie many new rail franchises have been let. Most recently the Greater Anglia, Northern Rail, SouthWest Rail, Transport for Wales, East Midlands Rail franchises and from today – the new West Coast partnership which will cover the west Coast Main Line and phase 1 of HS2 as the new franchise will run until March 2031.

So, where are Joe’s cuts? Not a single franchise that has been let since HS2 was first mooted has contained ANY service cuts. Exactly the opposite in fact, they’ve all introduced new services and new trains. In the case of Greater Anglia they’re replacing their entire train fleet! It’s the same with many others, who are expanding, not contracting their fleets! So, where are the cuts, Joe? Take this snippet from todays West Coast announcement. Some of these new services will be run by brand-new bi-mode trains!

wc

Whichever way you look at the evidence, it’s clear that Rukin’s a serial liar who will say anything. Oh, you might have noticed something else. This new franchise covers the West Coast Main Line and HS2 phase 1 until 2031. Why would the Government let a franchise for a new railway that it’s about to cancel?

Joe has a big problem, he can lie as often as he likes about these things, he can ignore the facts – but the facts keep coming back to expose him for what he is – a man whose pants are perpetually on fire!

Rebuild the Great Central instead of building HS2? Here’s why it’s utter nonsense.

03 Saturday Aug 2019

Posted by in Abandoned railways, Anti Hs2 mob, Hs2, Railways, Spectator magazine, The Great Central railway

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Every so often, an article appears in ‘The Spectator’ where the sole intention is to knock HS2. Don’t be fooled into thinking the ‘speccie’ is somehow a magazine of independent mind. It’s the house journal and propaganda sheet for the far-right of the Tory party. It’s also famous for producing fiction masquerading as fact. It has a long history of getting it wrong on events around HS2. In fact, if you believed everything you ever read in the rag, HS2 should have been stillborn.

The latest mountain of rubbish comes from one Ross Clark, a man who’s clearly a stranger to knowing anything about the subject, or even bothering to do the slightest research on it. He’s come up with this nonsensical piece called “There is a far better option than HS2, and it already exists.

Yes, you’ve guessed it, he’s blathering on about re-opening the Great Central railway! For some reason, the Great Central is one of those totemic issues to people of a certain age, not all of them are railway enthusiasts, although many of them are. It’s symptomatic of England being stuck in the past rather than looking positively to the future, ‘cos for a ‘bright’ future, all we have to do is bring back the past, obviously! You can see this bonkers thinking in the whole Brexit shambles. Anyway, I digress. Let’s have a look at some of Clark’s claims.

ross

I’m struggling to find a single factual statement in this. Where to start? It takes the same route as HS2? No, it doesn’t. The nearest to Birmingham the GC went was Rugby, after which it headed North to go to Leicester, Nottingham and Sheffield. There’s a clue in its name! Its viaducts and bridges are ‘unused’? Well, ignoring the fact many of them have been demolished, that would be news to the good citizens of Nottingham, as much of the city centre formation of the GC has been incorporated into the new tramway, and the site of Nottingham Victoria is now a shopping centre. Here’s an illustration of the scale of changes in Nottingham.

DG171163. Tramway over the station. Nottingham. 16.2.14.crop

This shot was taken in 2014. It shows the new tram route crossing over the centre of the remaining Nottingham station. It’s built on the course of the Great Central, which crossed the station in exactly the same spot, only that was demolished years ago. This bridge now links the two separate sections of the NET tramway. Remove this and you cut the new tram network in half. Not only that, but the remaining formation of the GC is used by NET in the background. The GC’s ‘almost totally intact’? Pfft!

This website has a great selection of pictures documenting the demolition of the Great Central around Nottingham.

As you can see, the idea that the tracks were ripped up 53 years ago, leaving the formation untouched until the present day is just a load of cobblers, frankly. For example, much of the GC’s route through Leicester was demolished by the beginning of the 1980s whilst the famous bowstring bridge was dismantled in 2009. Here’s a fascinating website that documents the demolition of the Great Central’s infrastructure around Leicester. It blows Clark’s claims out of the water.

At Rugby, the huge ‘birdcage’ bridge that used to carry the GC over the West Coast Main line was demolished in 2006. There’s also a large industrial estate to the north now. It’s the same with the 223m long viaduct at Brackley, which was demolished in 1978.  There’s also the small matter that a couple of chunks of the GC around Loughborough are now part of the preserved Great Central railway. They had to reinstate the bridge over the Midland Main Line at great expense and any battle to reclaim the route from them would be rather expensive I imagine! Oh, talking of Blackley, William Barter’s sent me this link, which proves Clark couldn’t even get the bit about reopening the GC not affecting any SSSI’s right. Part of the GC route IS an SSSI!

The GC had ‘the fastest expresses in the country’? That’s a new one I’ve never heard before and I notice he offers no evidence for that claim. The GC had no ‘racing’ stretches like the LNER did on the East Coast main line, or the Great Western had on Brunel’s ‘billiard table’, it just had few stations on the London extension.

Then we get the age-old nonsense that the GC’s London Extension was built to ‘continental loading gauge’. No. It wasn’t. The most common guff you hear is that it was built to ‘Berne gauge’ – only Berne gauge wasn’t established as a standard until a 1912 conference (yes, you’ve guessed it  – in Berne!) and wasn’t adopted until 1914, long after the GC London extension was opened. Yes, it does have a slightly more generous loading gauge than many other UK railways built earlier (but only on the London extension), but that’s not equal to any of the standards accepted in Europe and it certainly isn’t the same as the UIC standards trans-European railways like HS1 are built to. It’s also worth noting that many EU railways like Belgium, Germany and the Scandanavian countries use a loading gauge that’s far bigger than Berne.

Another howler is the claim that the GC London extension built as a high speed railway. Firstly, define ‘high-speed’? In the era the GC was built, 75mph was ‘high-speed’, it’s not now. The idea that to can just reinstate a few bridges, relay the track and whizz trains up and down it at 140mph as Clark asserts is just another fantasy.  Of course, there’s a subtle irony about these high-speed claims. The London extension was high-speed because it was built as straight as possible through open country and had few intermediate stations so that expresses weren’t slowed down. All these are things opponents of Hs2 object to!

Here’s some more guff from Clark.

clark 2

Right, we’ve already exposed the “almost totally intact” nonsense, but let’s really put that one to bed. The line remains ‘clear’ at Brackley? I’ve already mentioned the demolished viaduct there, but here’s a screengrab from Google maps showing the town itself. I’ve marked the old GC route in red.

brackley 2

If the line’s ‘clear’ at Brackley, what’s that big industrial estate towards the bottom of the picture then? I could produce map after map showing how little is actually left of the GC route on the ground, rather than in Clark’s imagination. Plus, does Clark seriously think that the residents of the new housing estate would welcome the idea of the place being cut in two by re-opening the GC? Nimbyism would be rife along the route, just as it has been with HS2, where plans to reuse part of the GC formation in Bucks met with opposition from Nimbys!

Now lets look at Rugby. There was never a connection between the Great Central and the LNWR at Rugby that faced towards Birmingham. THE GC passed over the LNWR on the famous ‘birdcage bridge’. To build any such connection now you would have to demolish a large part of the town! It’s utterly bonkers but then these people never let facts get in the way of their flights of fancy. Can you imagine the uproar in Rugby if anyone seriously suggested this? Here’s a map to illustrate the issue. I’ve drawn on the old route of the GC so you can see the problem.

Rugby

Now let’s address the ‘question’ of the London end, which Clark poses but glibly ignores answering. Run into Marylebone? You’re having a laugh! Since the 1966 closure of the GC Marylebone’s fortunes have changed completely, once proposed for closure itself its now a very busy station run by Chiltern trains who added two more platforms in 2006 to cope with all the extra trains they run. There’s simply no spare capacity there, nor on the Metropolitan line tracks the route shares with London Underground heading up through Rickmansworth to Amersham. As for running into Paddington. that’s just as laughable, it’s yet another London terminus with no spare capacity. In the 50 years since the GC closed rail services have grown massively, a point totally ignored by Clark. He also mentions Euston but neglects to mention the fact HS2 is having to build a lot of new platforms there to cope. Here you see the beauty of being a writer who’s untroubled by reality, you can airly solve these problem with a few taps on your keyboard. In the real world however…

It’s time that we finally put to bed this fiction that re-opening the Grand Central is either possible, or desireable. We need to stop indulging in these flights of fancy into the past and start dealing with the reality of the future. One last point. The weather. Unless you’ve had your head buried in the sand these past couple of weeks you can’t have failed to notice that the weather is getting more extreme. Our Victorian rail network was built for an age when Climate Change wasn’t even considered. Now we know the truth. HS2 has been designed and will be built to cope with those ‘once in a century’ events that are now happening almost every year. We cannot rely on Victorian infrastructure forever.

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