Tag Archives: Hs2

Crazy anti-HS2 campaigner of the week. No 36…

27 Tuesday Jun 2023

Posted by in 'Green' madness, Hs2, Politics, Uxbridge

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

, , , ,

Yes – it’s back! It’s been increasingly difficult to find candidates for this feature as there’s so few people left pretending they can stop HS2 and the ones that are would all (in one way or another) qualify for this title. But one does stand head and shoulders above the others at the moment, and helps illustrate a wider political problem. Step forward Sarah Green, long-time anti HS2 timewaster and fantasist and the new Green party candidate for the forthcoming Uxbridge and South Ruislip by-election. This is the seat vacated by that narcissistic sack of custard, former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who abandoned it in a hurry when his lies caught up with him.

In their ‘wisdom’ the local Green Party chose Green as their candidate, replacing another no-hoper and anti HS2 fantasist Mark Keir (blogs passim), who failed to get anywhere in the 2019 election. He came 4th with just 2.2% of the vote way behind Johnson who won with 52.6%. Both Keir and Green have stood (and been rejected) for the Council several times in the past. I’ve no doubt this record will be maintained.

This time the election’s an even more crowded field as this candidate list from Wikipedia shows.

The favourite to win is the Labour candidate, Danny Beales, a local lad who’s currently Camden Counciller. Labour have always come second in the constituency and with the levels of disgust at both the Tory party and Johnson the predictions are they’ll win (albeit narrowly) this time.

Sarah Green will get nowhere, just like the greens candidate (Carolyne Culver) in the Amersham and Chesham by-election in 2021. Culver managed to decrease the green party’s vote in Amersham and I have a suspicion Green may well do the same in Uxbridge. Why?

Green is running a hopeless single-issue campaign that’s entirely focussed on her personal opposition to HS2. It’s a horribly ‘nimby’ and parochial campaign (just like the one Culver ran) based on nothing but scaremongering and exaggerations on the supposed damage HS2 just might do to the area’s rivers and pollution to the Chiltern aquifer that supplies some of London’s drinking water. There’s just one teeny, tiny problem here. None of this scaremongering has ever come true. No streams have been polluted by HS2 and London’s drinking water remains unaffected. A few minor spills of Bentonite (inert drilling mud) and several sinkholes (embarassing, but with no real impact on anything) do not a pollution incident make. Meanwhile, the piles for the Colne valley viaduct (something else Green spread scare stories about) were all sunk without incident and the two tunnel boring machines launched from the South Ruislip portal continue to bore their way Eastwards – away from the aquifer! Of course, none of these inconvenient facts have stopped Green spreading her scare stories, but like the boy who cried wolf, people are getting increasingly bored of hearing them. Even dragging out Jenny Jones from the House of Lords to join in the scaremongering – sorry – ‘campaigning’ hasn’t had the desired effect as the replies to Jones’s Twitter posts have been anything but supportive. As usual, that led the notoriously touchy Jones reaching for the block button even more. Jones really doesn’t like being challenged by anyone – especially people in possession of facts! She is so infamous Greens4HS2 used to sell a T-shirt which said ‘blocked by Jenny Jones’! Here’s a recent bit of nonsense they’ve put out on Facebook. Note the £100m a week figure, which has been plucked from thin air. Also note that they’re protesting about building a green electric railway – outside a green electric railway station that Jones used to get to there from the Lords! Ironic, eh? – only these people don’t do irony (or self-awareness).

Needless to say, people locally and elsewhere seem to be less than impressed, hence Green’s crowdfunder bombing. With only two days left to go it’s stuck on 25% of its modest £2500 target.

5th July funding update. Greens crowdfunder closed on the 29th of June, having raised no more than the £630 (or 25%) shown here. Way short of the £2,500 they wanted.

Whilst Green doesn’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell, there is a wider issue here – which is the Green party’s inability to put forward credible candidates due to their structure. Why aren’t the Greens (unlike their EU counterparts) seen as little more than a repository for protest votes?

Probably because the Green party of England and Wales (the Scots are much more sensible – and independent of GPEW) are not a credible political party. At best they’re a semi-anarchic protest movement who’ve had the luck to get a single MP elected – although that luck may not hold now that Caroline Lucas has announced she’s standing down from her Brighton seat at the next election. Her personal popularity has helped her get elected but if the local party put forward someone of the caliber of their usual candidates, that could change…

Green party members don’t like being told what to do. They’re an undisciplined and contradictory bunch and that’s how they like it. Their problem is – voters don’t, which is why GPEW have never broken through on the national stage and never will. Oh, it’s OK to have some local councillor posturing and prancing around with a placard but people (in general) expect their MPs to have more credibility. Yes, I know some of the Tories 2019 intake have proved to be a bunch of clowns (especially in ‘red wall’ seats) but they’re heading for extinction at the next election. Does anyone in Uxbridge really look at Sarah Green and see someone who they think can represent their best interests in Parliament (never mind Government)?

Greens aren’t bothered by that. Because most of them would never want to be in power anyway as it would mean putting their money where their mouth is. In that respect they’re like a lot of people on the left, they value ideological purity more than making compromises to actually get anything done.

There’s another problem that’s prevalent within the GPEW. Nimbyism. The BBC recently carried an article illustrating how many ‘green’ Cllrs oppose things like solar farms – often on the flimsiest of pretexts. The irony (and hypocrisy) of a party that’s always telling us we’re in the midst of a ‘climate emergency’ but that constantly opposes ways of tackling it (HS2, solar and wind farms) isn’t lost on a lot of people. This is a classic case of Greens ignoring the science by suggesting solar panels should be on roofs not in fields, ignoring the fact that you can’t build the utility scale of solar we need on rooftops. But hey ho – what do experts know compared to green party members? It’s HS2 all over again.

I’m not alone in being frustrated with GPEW, there’s quite a few decent party members who see the problem too, but the way the party is constituted means there’s no way to change things without root and branch reform and there’s no way the majority of the membership would countenance such a thing – which is why – if you really want to see a green future, it’s a waste of time voting green. There’s more chance of stopping climate change than there is getting GPEW to reform.

I’ll watch the result of the Uxbridge by-election with interest. Still, there’s on bright spot on the horizon. Unlike last time, voters will be spared the pantomime sight of former @stophs2 ‘Campaign Manager’ Joe Rukin dressing up as a tree!

5th July update.

More analysis has come out about the campaign which shows why the Green and the greens are barking up the wrong tree as usual. Ben Walker from ‘Britain elects’ has written this very interesting piece in the New Statesman which suggests local issues may well mean it’s not the cakewalk that Labour are anticipating. But that local issue isn’t HS2 – it’s London’s ULEZ (the Ultra Low Emission Zone) proposed by Boris Johnson but enacted by Labour Mayor Sadiq Khan. This offers no help to the Green as she’s entirely focused on HS2 and if pressed would support the ULEZ.

The bookies aren’t impressed by her either. Here’s recent odds on the various parties.

Green and the greens are 300/1 – behind the Reclaim Party, which is the vehicle for failed actor and right-wing bandwagon-jumper Laurence Fox!

I’ve a small favour to ask…
If you enjoy reading this or any of the other blogs I’ve written, please click on an advert or two. You don’t have to buy anything you don’t want to of course – although if you did find something that tickled your fancy that would be fab! – but the revenue from them helps me to cover some of the cost of maintaining this site (which isn’t cheap and comes out of my own pocket). Remember, 99% of the pictures used in my blogs can be purchased as prints from my other website –  https://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/

Or – you can now buy me a coffee! https://ko-fi.com/paulbigland68312

The PAC oral hearing on HS2. More like the ‘dunno show’ than getting to the bottom of things…

26 Wednesday Apr 2023

Posted by in Euston, Hs2, London, Politics, Railways

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , ,

On Monday the Public Accounts Committee of MPs took oral evidence on the pause of HS2 construction at Euston station. Anyone expecting any real answers as to how we got to this sorry state will have been sadly disappointed at the session as it was more the ‘dunno’ show than generating any real insights. It was also curious for what was not said or discussed as much as what was.

For some reason the Committee decided to focus exclusively on Euston station itself and ignore another vital piece of that jigsaw. The Euston tunnels, which are essentially separate to the station but they’ve been paused too – as has construction of phase 2a from Handsacre Junction North of Birmingham as far as Crewe.

Now, Euston station is undoubtedly a mess but that’s no reason to postpone building the Euston approach tunnels. Plus, the tunnels are ‘critical path’ work. Without the TBMs for the Euston tunnels being launched from the Old Oak Common station box you can kiss goodbye to opening the HS2 station at Old Oak that’s now being talked about as a ‘temporary terminus’ for HS2 in London. Plus, if you don’t build the tunnels you won’t be running any HS2 trains into Euston – whatever final design’s cooked up!

The PAC session was billed as asking “how the risks to value for money are being managed” yet the session was all about the money and not about the value. We got bogged down in the minutiae of how much it would cost to secure the Euston site (even talking about hoardings) but nothing about the REAL value of money questions – such as how much the delays to building Euston would affect railway capacity and passenger usage of the truncated HS2 line to Old Oak Common. Nor was anything asked about the environmental costs of delaying HS2 – which are also financial – or the economic impact on ‘levelling up’.

Instead, what we heard from Dame Bernadette Kelly (Perm Sec at DfT), Alan Over (DG of High Speed Rail Group and SRO for HS2 at DfT) and Mark Thurston (Chief Exec at HS2 Ltd) was a sorry tale of government delay and dither and what happens when you let a Committee design something. Think of the problems with the Great Western Main Line electrification where everyone sticks their ‘pennorth’ into the specification so the costs keep rising.

Reading between the lines of what was being said at the Committee, this is what happened at Euston. Costs kept rising as Government changed its mind on the size of the oversite development (which impacted on the rail design), a new ‘partnership’ was established which added other priorities and considerations and the whole thing grew so that the agreed 2019 budget hopelessly was unrealistic when the wish-list was presented to the construction team who were meant to wrap it all up into a final, costed design that they could build.

I suppose you could describe it like this. You want your dream kitchen so you and all your family set an unrealistic budget, then you pore over an out of date catalogue whilst accepting suggestions from your neighbors and relatives on what’s needed. Then you call the builder. The builder weighs everything up, itemises it, sucks his teeth and tells you exactly how much that little lot will cost in the real world today.

Now, I have sympathy with the idea that Euston had to be paused. It’s clear the existing wish list (I won’t grace it with the name of ‘plan’) was far too expensive and that the dither and delays had added to the costs. Remember, Euston was originally expected to open at the end of 2026 with the rest of phase – despite what Kelly and Merriman have previously claimed, which I dealt with here. Plus, in the original plan we were going to get more (11 platforms) for less money. As we’re now 1/3 of the way through 2023 and there’s still no viable plan and in the intervening time we’ve seen rampant inflation, cost pressures due to Covid, the Ukraine war and Brexit so it’s hardly surprising costs have increased.

Some of this was touched on at the hearing, some of it wasn’t. Was was studiously ignored was the Government’s involvement in this expensive fiasco. Obviously, the witnesses were going to have to tread carefully (if you’re a civil servant criticising this Government can be very bad for your career) but not all the PAC members were Tories and could have asked awkward questions. The bizarre thing is none did. The nearest we got was Labour’s Nick Smith MP, who did ask some direct open questions and didn’t take fuzzy replies as an answer. But otherwise, it was a very poor show. Many questions were asked about ‘exactly’ how much the shutdown was going to cost and all three witnesses gave the same answer – ‘dunno’ – because no-one’s worked it out yet! The decision was only taken around 4 weeks ago and no-one’s looked at all the implications and crunched the numbers – which makes the Transport Minister Mark Harper’s initial claim that this was being done to ‘save’ money look even more ridiculous.

Mark Thurston did shed some light on what happens next. £2bn has been spent on the Euston area since the project began in what he describes as ‘no regrets’ investment (meaning its needed whatever the new station plans are). This includes all the preparatory and enabling work, all the works in the surrounding areas (like building new homes) and the work to the London Underground. A further £220 million will be spent on completing the TfL vent shaft and substation, the new construction skills centre and the station facilities block. This work will run to the autumn when the Euston station site will be secured and shut down. Ctte Chair Dame Meg Hillier questioned how long this would mean the site would be shut down as the timescale Thurston was suggesting was less than 2 years, or was it? Thurston explained that he expected the site to reopen in Spring 2025.

Alan Over did make two things clear in response to questions. One was that there’s no way the savings being asked for can be made without cutting the ‘wish list’ that’s been included in the final Euston design that the builders costed (which came in at £4.8bn) . the other was that, depending on what final ‘wish list’ is agreed by all parties, the Government may need to cough up some more money.

After 2 hours of being none the wiser on costs or timetables and with not having asked any of the really big question on value (never mind costs) the Ctte wound up. I can only hope they return to these matters having thought about the ‘big picture’ stuff and the real implications of the delays to HS2 and don’t get bogged down in the minutiae of mothballing building sites, but I won’t hold my breath…

Looking down on the Euston HS2 construction site in October 2021 at the bit no-one at the PAC talked about. The Euston tunnels…

I’ve a small favour to ask…
If you enjoy reading this or any of the other blogs I’ve written, please click on an advert or two. You don’t have to buy anything you don’t want to of course – although if you did find something that tickled your fancy that would be fab! – but the revenue from them helps me to cover some of the cost of maintaining this site (which isn’t cheap and comes out of my own pocket). Remember, 99% of the pictures used in my blogs can be purchased as prints from my other website –  https://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/

Or – you can now buy me a coffee! https://ko-fi.com/paulbigland68312

Thank you!

24th April picture of the day…

24 Monday Apr 2023

Posted by in Calder Valley, Flora and Fauna, Hs2, Musings, Photography, Picture of the day, Railways

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , ,

Today’s been an odd start to the week. I was full of determination to hit the ground running after a lovely weekend and the day started well as I hit all my targets for exercise, then spent several hours working in the office getting paperwork and pictures organised. I even managed to tear Dawn away from her computer so that the two of us could go for a walk together. Then, all of a sudden my batteries drained, leaving me completely out of energy. It happens to me maybe once or twice a year and I’m assuming it’s down to doing too much whilst running on a nearly empty stomach (although I’d have thought a gut full of porridge would have kept me going). Poor Dee was quite concerned as it’s never happened when we’ve been together before.

As a supermarket shop was part of the plan I had a short sit-down whilst Dee stocked up on various bits which included cereal bars – one of which I soon scoffed in order to give me the boost I needed to get home. It seemed to work although it was a couple of hours before I felt energised enough to get my last couple of thousand steps in to hit my daily target.

Now I’m having a relaxing evening at home. Dawn’s been fabulous and sorted out jacket potatoes with tuna, mayo and a side-salad whilst I’ve been ‘busy’ watching the Public Accounts Committee hearing on the debacle of the HS2 station at Euston which has been ‘paused’ for a couple of years whilst the Govt and DfT work out what to do. I’ll blog at greater length about this when the transcript is published. I took copious notes but there’s nothing like having it verbatim.

My take from the hearing is that this really is just a pause and HS2 will make it to Euston. The railway’s an expensive white elephant without Euston as Old Oak Common simply doesn’t have the capacity to be the London terminus. Mark Thurston made it clear that whilst contractors are being stood down, the contracts haven’t been ended, there’s merely an agreement to pause them. Plus, some work at Euston (to the tune of £200-220m) will continue until the autumn as the TfL substation, skills centre and Euston station facilities block will be completed whilst the station site is made secure. So, in theory, the ‘pause’ could be as little as 18 months – if people can come up with a viable new station design in that time, although the depressing thing seems to be the focus on cost, rather than anything else – like what we need the station to actually do.

Interestingly, what wasn’t mentioned at all was Bernadette Kelly’s claim at the Transport Select Ctte hearing that opening Euston later was the plan all along.

Right, onto the picture of the day and another sign that spring is here – seen in our local woods earlier…

Hopefully my batteries will be recharged by the morrow as I’ve lots I want to do this week…

I’ve a small favour to ask…
If you enjoy reading this or any of the other blogs I’ve written, please click on an advert or two. You don’t have to buy anything you don’t want to of course – although if you did find something that tickled your fancy that would be fab! – but the revenue from them helps me to cover some of the cost of maintaining this site (which isn’t cheap and comes out of my own pocket). Remember, 99% of the pictures used in my blogs can be purchased as prints from my other website –  https://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/

Or – you can now buy me a coffee! https://ko-fi.com/paulbigland68312

Thank you!

Ministers and civil servants rewrite the history of HS2 at Euston.

21 Friday Apr 2023

Posted by in Dame Bernadette Kelly, Hs2, Huw Merriman MP, Politics, Transport Committee

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , , , ,

OK, no-one actually expects the Tories tell the truth anymore. Let’s face it, they’ve spent years blatantly lying to Parliament and the public and it’s been from top to bottom. MPs, Junior Ministers, Cabinet Ministers and even Prime Ministers no longer feel the need to tell the truth and will tell the most awful whoppers if they think they can get away with it (and they often do). That’s what happens when you elect as Prime Minister a man twice sacked for lying during his career. Yes you Boris Johnson.

Johnson may have gone but the culture remains only now it seems that culture of rewriting history has spread to senior members of the civil service who really should know better.

On Wednesday 19th April the Transport Select Committee had an oral session where they heard evidence on transport matters (including HS2) from Rt Hon. Mark Harper MP, Secretary of State for Transport and Dame Bernadette Kelly DCB, Permanent Secretary, Department for Transport. You can read the transcript of the session here.

It was an awkward session for Harper as he had to admit that delaying sections of HS2 wouldn’t save money as claimed, the whole rai​son d’être the government had given for the decision. Embarrassingly, it was the rabidly anti HS2 MP and fellow Tory MP Greg Smith (MP for Nimby Bucks) who made Harper squirm on this point!

But it’s the answer to Question 556 when Bernadette Kelly interjects that things get very odd. Here’s what she said;

“The last thing I would say is to the point you made at the beginning about pressure on other parts of the network. It was always anticipated that Old Oak Common would open in advance of Euston and that there would be a gap between the two stations being operational. That’s always been a factor in the planning for HS2″.

Eh? This is blatantly untrue!

Anyone familiar with the history of HS2 from the beginning will know that Euston was planned to accept HS2 trains from day 1 of phase 1 opening. It was a given in all the business cases, environmental statements and plans right up to the Oakervee review published in February 2020. Oakervee’s report addressed the mess Euston had become and suggested Old Oak Common as a temporary terminus whilst Euston was sorted out. Kelly must know this as the Oakervee review happened on her watch!

Piecing together the evidence for the truth is difficult as some of the original HS2 documents have ‘disappeared’ – especially appendices to larger documents which contained timelines, but plenty still exist to prove that Euston was always meant to open from Day 1. Here’s a selection.

In 2014 the then Chairman of HS2, Sir David Higgins gave an interview to the magazine Transport Intelligence. It makes interesting reading, not least because it contains some graphs, including one of the original timeline for building HS2’s Euston station.

Meanwhile, here’s a link to the 2013 strategic case for HS2. Where does it mention Euston is to open ‘later’ than Old Oak Common? It doesn’t. Exactly the opposite in fact. Look at the first sentence here.

And there’s more. Here’s a link to a February 2018 Government press release that also confirms Euston was expected to open at the same time as the other 3 phase 1 stations (Old Oak Common, Solihull and Curzon St).

Now, I’m sure if I spend another day digging I can find lots more evidence of the fact Euston station was planned to open as part of phase 1 from day 1, but there’s already enough here to establish that. But, if anyone would like to help by forwarding links to reports or charts I’ll be happy in include them and expand this blog.

So, what’s Kelly playing at? Kelly has been permanent secretary for the Department for Transport since 18 April 2017. It’s inconceivable that she wasn’t aware that Euston was always planned to open the same time as the rest of phase 1, so how can she justify misleading the Transport Select Committee on this matter?

If if Kelly’s misinformation wasn’t bad enough, on the 17th April Shadow Transport Minister Louise Hague tabled a written question of the secretary of state for transport, Hugh Merriman MP.

“To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if he will make an assessment of the potential impact of recent changes to the construction schedule for High Speed Rail 2 on passenger demand for Elizabeth Line services; and whether his Department plans to take steps to address potential changes in demand”.

Merriman’s reply repeated the misinformation about Euston.

“As has always been planned, Old Oak Common will act as HS2’s temporary London terminus prior to the opening of the High Speed station at Euston”

As has been shown, this is blatantly untrue and now we have Ministers indulging in rewriting the facts. As this was a written question I’m unclear if this can be classed as misleading Parliament. That used to be a serious offense, a resigning matter before this Tory government came along. Now, to be fair to Merriman, he’s only been in post for a short time, so could be forgiven for not knowing the full history of HS2. So, who fed him this line?

What are Ministers and civil servants playing at here? The shambles that the Government has made of Euston is clearly an embarrassment and one that makes the UK look pathetic on the world stage. ‘World – beating’? Oh, please, we can’t even build a bloody railway in one piece!

I’ve a small favour to ask…
If you enjoy reading this or any of the other blogs I’ve written, please click on an advert or two. You don’t have to buy anything you don’t want to of course – although if you did find something that tickled your fancy that would be fab! – but the revenue from them helps me to cover some of the cost of maintaining this site (which isn’t cheap and comes out of my own pocket). Remember, 99% of the pictures used in my blogs can be purchased as prints from my other website –  https://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/

Or – you can now buy me a coffee! https://ko-fi.com/paulbigland68312

Thank you!

More significant progress on building HS2.

13 Thursday Apr 2023

Posted by in Hs2, London, Rail Investment, Railways

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , ,

Yesterday HS2 Ltd announced that they’d launched yet another Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM) but this one had a couple of important differences to the five that are already in service.

Launched from the Atlas Rd construction site in North London by the Skanska Costain STRABAG joint venture (SCS JV), ‘Lydia’ is an upcycled TBM formerly known as ‘Ellie’. The TBM dug two sections of the Crossrail tunnels in the Capital – from Limmo Peninsula in Canning Town to Royal Victoria Dock, and between Pudding Mill Lane and Stepney Green completing a total of 2.23 miles.  

Made redundant from that task the Shield head and cutting wheel along with other components were refurbished by the builder Herrenknecht. The 847m long TBM will now spend the next six months driving an 853 metre long tunnel to the Old Oak Common construction site. The TBM has an 6.2 metre internal diameter. Starting drilling at a depth of 5 metres below ground it will reach a maximum depth of 20 metres. 4,264 concrete segments will be used, forming 533 tunnel rings. The segments, each weighing over 3 tonnes, have been produced by Pacadar in Kent.

The new service tunnel will have two uses. The first is to be fitted with a conveyor belt that will connect with an existing conveyor at the Atlas Rd site to transport spoil to the HS2 London Logistics Hub at Willesden Euro Terminal where the spoil will be moved onwards to sites in Kent, Cambridgeshire (Foxton) and Rugby by rail. The second use will be to transport 8,010 tunnel segment rings to construct the HS2 tunnels from Old Oak Common to Euston. These segment rings are being manufactured by STRABAG in Hartlepool. Both sets of segments will be moved to sites by rail. HS2 Ltd estimate that the new service tunnel will save 70,000 lorry journeys being added to London’s roads. It’s an impressive commitment to making HS2 construction as green as possible, using rail and on-site services as much as possible to minimise disruption elsewhere.

The significance of this is that construction of the HS2 tunnels from Old Oak Common to Euston is still proceeding as planned – despite the delay to building Euston station itself. Let’s face it, if you’re not going to build Euston, you’re not going to need to build the expensive Euston tunnels!

Workers checking over ‘Lydia’ before yesterdays launch (pic c/o HS2 Ltd).

I’ve a small favour to ask…
If you enjoy reading this or any of the other blogs I’ve written, please click on an advert or two. You don’t have to buy anything you don’t want to of course – although if you did find something that tickled your fancy that would be fab! – but the revenue from them helps me to cover some of the cost of maintaining this site (which isn’t cheap and comes out of my own pocket). Remember, 99% of the pictures used in my blogs can be purchased as prints from my other website –  https://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/

Or – you can now buy me a coffee! https://ko-fi.com/paulbigland68312

Thank you!

Crazy anti-HS2 campaigner of the week. No 35.

12 Wednesday Apr 2023

Posted by in Crazy anti Hs2 campaigner of the week, Environment, Hs2, Mark Keir

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , ,

There’s a double-bill of these coming shortly. This shouldn’t have been the first, but no matter as it was posted on social media today. Step forward serial liar Mark Keir! Keir is well-known to readers of this blog as I’ve highlighted his habit of telling the most enormous whoppers several times. One such occasion when he pants were so ablaze it would have taken most of the London Fire Brigade to put ’em out was when he claimed he was watching HS2 workers cutting down the actual tree Roald Dahl visited and wrote about in his story ‘Fantastic Mr Fox’. It was an outrageous lie of course. That tree was in a completely different wood – and it blew down years ago – as I documented in this blog. I’ve plenty of other examples of him making stuff up, this is just two examples.

Keir’s a serial fantasist who’s hung around anti HS2 camps for years, having infested various ones, starting with the Harvil Rd camp. For some bizarre reason some people hang on his every word, despite his long (long) history of failure and humiliations – including in Court. After Harvil Rd Jones’ Hill woods was another of his last stands. It’s a place he still hangs around, apparantly, but not enough to help remove the useless tip of an abandoned protest camp in Jones’ Hill woods which ‘eco-warriors’ like him have left to rot and pollute the wood. Their presence has pretty much destroyed the woodland floor leaving it barren – unlike the nearby woodlands.

This make’s Keir’s tweet even more hypocritical. Here’s what he posted.

All dead after 2 years? Really? No. It’s a bare-faced lie. How do I know? Simple. I visited this site on the 1st April and the only fool here is Keir.

In contrast to the aerial shot Keir’s deliberately used as it shows no detail I took dozens of pictures of the trees growing on the site. If any have died (and some will have), they’ve been replanted. They’re still small, so you can’t see much of them outside their protestive cardboard sheaths, but there’s plenty that you *can* see with the naked eye from the perimeter fence. This is why Keir lying like this is so dumb. Anyone passing can see he’s not telling the truth. But – as usual – his adoring (but gullible) audience fall for it.

You can find all my pictures from Jones’ Hill woods in this gallery – they’re all clearly labelled. Here’s a sample. These young trees are by the boundary fence, so hardly invisible to the naked eye! Give it another couple of months and this area will be a riot of colour.

It’s about time those opposed to HS2 woke up and smelled the coffee to realise that people like Keir have been lying to them for years. Did it stop HS2? Of course not…

I’ve a small favour to ask…
If you enjoy reading this or any of the other blogs I’ve written, please click on an advert or two. You don’t have to buy anything you don’t want to of course – although if you did find something that tickled your fancy that would be fab! – but the revenue from them helps me to cover some of the cost of maintaining this site (which isn’t cheap and comes out of my own pocket). Remember, 99% of the pictures used in my blogs can be purchased as prints from my other website –  https://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/

Or – you can now buy me a coffee! https://ko-fi.com/paulbigland68312

Thank you!

Rolling blog. HS2-ing and fro-ing, pt 2…

01 Saturday Apr 2023

Posted by in Hs2, Photography, Rail Investment, Railways, Rolling blogs, Transport, Travel

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , ,

08:00.

Hooray! The rain’s stopped here in the Chilterns. Instead (according to the forecast) we’re in for a day full of dull cloud and no sunshine. Looking out of the skylight in my room in the pub we stayed in last night that certainly seems to be the case. Even so, there’s plenty of HS2 sites to see in the area and as we travel Northwards so I’ll post a few pictures through the day as we visit places. But first, it’s time for breakfast then to find somewhere to charge up Penny’s electric car. Charging EVs is a logistical exercise in itself and adds a whole new dimension to travel planning.

As well as HS2 construction sites one thing we’ll be looking at is the ecological work and mitigation planting. If you believed the scaremongering nonsense the opponents of HS2 put out tree planting either doesn’t happen or the ones planted are all dead. Nothing could be further from the truth. Here’s a (large) site on the South edge of the West Hyde construction site that we visited yesterday. Do these look imaginary or dead to you?

I’ve many more close-up shots of the impressive growth of this recently planted (2017) wood that I’ll add to my Zenfolio gallery on HS2 construction.

11:10.

Well, we’re not doing much exploring righ now but I am learning a lot about the pros and cons of electric cars! We’re currently in the car park at Morrisons in Aylesbury, waiting for the car to charge. There was no charging point at the pub, so we couldn’t charge the car overnight so we only had 30 miles left on the battery. Not enough to get anywhere. The nearest chargers were in Aylesbury. Then it’s a question of finding a fast (50kw) charger and pray no-one else is using it. So, you spend a lot of time faffing around because the last thing you want to do is run out of juice in the middle of nowhere. You can’t exactly walk with a Jerry can to the nearest garage for a bucket of electricity! Penny’s car is currently charging at 1 mile oer minute. There’s another complication. This charger has 3 charger cables. Only two are compatible with the car and one of them (the fastest) is knackered. It’s a common problem apparently. So, if you don’t want to suffer ‘power anxiety’ – buy a hybrid. This car (a Renault Zoe) has a real maximum range of +/- 200 miles so 100 miles range out and back before you need to think about finding a charging station. Oh, and that’s without driving too fast or using stuff like heaters etc..

Time to sit and compose a few emails and blog whilst watching the miles build up.

19:30.

Another day that didn’t quite go to plan but was still an excellent one anyway. Well, until I ended up on a train full of pissed-up Stoke City fans on their way back from Coventry (but more of that later).

Having charged up the car enough to do what we wanted to do (with a margin of error) we headed back to the infamous Jones’ Hill wood, scene of some of the most dishonest anti HS2 protests. I’ve blogged before about the lie that the wood had anything to do with Roald Dahl. This area (between Wendover and Great Missenden) is ‘nimby central’, not that any of their scaremongering achieved anything but it’s very interesting to compare the reality with the hype.

Whilst a Western edge of Jones’ Hill woods has been sliced off to make way for HS2 there’s a huge amount of new tree planting to the East which is doing really well. This will link the isolated Jones’ Hill with nearby woods to create a much larger wildlife habitat.

One of two ponds on the new mitigation planting site at Jones’ Hill woods with the wood in the background and new planting in the foreground. Behind me is another wood which the planting will link to Jones’ Hill. The HS2 trace is below Jones’ hill to the left .
The Southern edge of Jones’ hill wood. Part of the wood had to be taken to build HS2. This picture was taken from the middle of the haul road. A footpath crosses the road and security staff let you across when it’s safe to do so.
Looking North from Bowood Lane along the route of HS2 towards Wendover. So much for the ‘outstanding natural beauty’ of the Chilterns! To the left is the noisy A413 whilst the row of ugly pylons stretches the length of the valley. In contrast, when HS2’s completed most of it will be hidden from view.

Ironically, the ‘eco-warriors’ who were supposedly ‘protecting’ Jones’ hill woods have left their abandoned camp cluttering the woods.

Moving on from Jones’ Hill we headed back to Wendover to look at HS2 construction work nearby. Quite how HS2 was meant to cause so much disturbance to the village when it’ll pass in a green tunnel with the incredibly noisy A413 and Chiltern railway in-between has always been one of life’s mysteries. At the moment work isn’t as advanced as on other parts of the route so it’s hard to make out the trace of HS2, although this will change over the course of 2023. Funny, the local Nimbys have never complained about the unsightly line of high-voltage pylons that parallel the HS2 route in these parts!

Odd how those who tell us the Chilterns AONB is pristine and stunning fail to mention this row of plyons that dominate the valley between Gt Missenden and Wendover – or mention the persistent traffic noise from the A413! Here’s the view from above Wendover (off to the left) looking South towards Great Missenden. The trace of HS2 is starting to take shape. It will pass between the two nearest pylons, having crossed over the A413 and Chiltern railway at the bottom of the valley here.

Another place we visited was the small Wendover memorial wood for people who passed away at a local hospice. You may remember HS2 antis and media opportunists exploited this place in a disgraceful attempt to smear HS2 for desecrating a “childrens memorial” when it was nothing of the sort.

To be honest, it’s a sad, neglected place that looks pretty much abandoned. The memorial trees are too densely planted and look awful as no-one ever looked after them once they were planted, which is why many have their protective sheath still wrapped around them long after they matured. The place is unkempt, overgrown and covered with litter and other detritus. There’s little sign of the work HS2 carried out there, other than what likes a narrow path through some of the trees. The place doesn’t look like many people visit.

Moving on we bypassed Aylesbury and headed towards Quainton, stopping en-route to admire another mitigation site where (on first glance) tree- planting appeared to be less successful than other sites. On closer examination this proved to be untrue as many trees had been replanted, they simply hadn’t stuck their heads above their protective tubes yet! The trace of HS2 was very evident at this point.

North of Quainton we crossed the former route of the Great Central railway which (until recently) carried waste trains and HS2 construction trains as far as Calvert. Now the sites been transformed into a construction site as the old road bridge is being replaced and the road diverted (pics later).

The view from Whitehills bridge looking towards Quainton. The Calvert binliners and HS2 materials trains used this part of the old Great Central until recently. In the foreground excavations have begun for the piles for the replacement for the bridge I’m standing on.
Whitehills bridge looking North towards Calvert.

Our final visit was to Calvert itself. The place has changed a lot since my last visit with the E-W rail line embankments taking shape either side of the HS2 overbridge. Several other E-W bridges are being replaced as part of the same contract whilst roads are being diverted and the site of the HS2 Infrastructure Maintenance Depot (IMD) is being laid out. Whilst we were here we were blessed with some lovely low sunlight whic made a real change from the dull day we’d had up to that point.

The site of the old Calvert station looking South. HS2 tracks will occupy this site in a few years time.
Looking North from the same bridge. This site was a major railhead for bringing HS2 construction material in by rail.
The new E-W rail overbridge at Calvert under very moody skies.
The site of the Calvert HS2 Infrastructure Maintenance depot is beginning to be laid out. To the right is the route of E-W rail whilst the new bridge in the background is the remodelled Addison Rd.

Both of us would’ve loved to have lingered longer but when I checked train times back home we realised we’d need to make a dash for Banbury in time for me to make a sensible connection. This got a bit fraught when we got into Banbury as their was traffic chaos because the police had the main road towards the station blocked off. Instead Penny drove back to Leamington where I made my train by the skin of my teeth – but only because it was running five minutes late.

I was breathing a sigh of relief and considering staying on this Cross-County service all the way to Manchester until we pulled into Coventry where my coach was invaded by Stoke City fans. Their behaviour was appalling. They kept up a stream of foul-mouthed, misogynistic and borderline racist chants all the way to New St, at which point I’d had enough of too much testosterone and too few brain cells (as had many others in the coach). I baled and caught my original connection, the 19:03 Cross-Country service direct to Leeds. This is much quieter and far more pleasant – and neither sight nor sound of a football bore.

I’ve a small favour to ask…
If you enjoy reading this or any of the other blogs I’ve written, please click on an advert or two. You don’t have to buy anything you don’t want to of course – although if you did find something that tickled your fancy that would be fab! – but the revenue from them helps me to cover some of the cost of maintaining this site (which isn’t cheap and comes out of my own pocket). Remember, 99% of the pictures used in my blogs can be purchased as prints from my other website –  https://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/

Or – you can now buy me a coffee! https://ko-fi.com/paulbigland68312

Thank you!

Rolling blog. HS2-ing and fro-ing, pt 1…

31 Friday Mar 2023

Posted by in Hs2, Photography, Rail Investment, Railways, Rolling blogs, Travel

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , ,

06:30

Another silly o’ clock start. I’ve been up for an hour getting ready to head South to meet up with my ‘partner in crime’ for a couple of days exploring HS2 railway construction and mitigation sites, but first I’ve got to get to Banbury. The weather’s looking bleak. The rain’s already started here in the Calder Valley so Dawn’s being a star and giving me a lift to the station so that I don’t get a soaking from the off! I’ll be blogging throughout the day, so feel free to keep popping back to see what I get up to…

07:30.

Thanks to Dee I arrived at Halifax station dry and in plenty of time. Having bid Dawn au revoir I caught the 07:14 Halifax-Hull, an earlier train than planned which gives me an extra 6 minutes in the bank. As it’s starting from Halifax it’s also far less crowded, despite being worked by a 2-car Class 158 today. No doubt that situation will change once we’ve reached Bradford and beyond.

Even so, I’ve bagged a table seat, plugged my phone into the USB socket to keep it charged and begun to catch up with the waking world.

Almost as soon as we left the cheerful Guard conducted a ticket check. With the train being quiet we swapped cheeky banter as I asked when the trolley service came round!

07:40.

As I predicted, the train filled up at Bradford Interchange. My bay and the opposite table are now full. There’s a young businessman of Indian extraction sat opposite whilst the rest of the seats have been taken by a mother and daughters – also of Asian extraction but further South and East. I haven’t heard them speak so I can’t tell where they hail from originally.

Now we’re heading towards Leeds on a miserable day weather-wise. The sky’s a monotone grey, producing the light drizzle that soon has you soaked as it has the ability to permeate almost any clothing.

08:25.

My time at Leeds was brief, just 15 minutes. I hardly had time to get the camera out but then there wasn’t much of interest to photograph on such a grey day. Making my way to platform 15 I waited for Cross-Country’s 08:11 to Bristol Temple Meads which arrived spot on time. Consisting of two four-car Class 220s the service was reasonably busy. The was plenty of custom for it at Leeds, although several were only going as far as our next stop at Wakefield Westgate where we exchanged them for more long-distance travellers. The cross-country network is all things to all people. Some use it for short hops as the timings are convenient whilst others appreciate its reach and use it for far longer journeys – students and senior travellers especially.

Cross-country may not be the biggest operator but it’s certainly the most far-reaching. Although the network’s been cut back from its height its tendrils radiate from Birmingham afar as Penzance and Aberdeen. What a shame the dept of transport have no idea what to do with it other than cut its train-fleet by forcibly retiring their high-speed train fleet with no plan for replacement. Their capacity is desperately needed in the summer, especially now passenger numbers have bounced back and the state of the economy’s forcing more people to holiday in the UK.

11:00.

My trip to Birmingham was uneventful, although it gave great views of the HS2 construction sites at Washwood Heath and Curzon St, where the pillars for the elevated station deck are springing up like mushrooms. I filmed this as we passed.

Building HS2’s Curzon St station.

Birmingham’s wet. Very wet, so I was glad to seek shelter on Chiltern Railways 10:55 from Moor St which will carry me to my rondezvous in Banbury.

In a sign of the times I popped into a shop in New St which sells baguettes. It was always a busy place. For years the filled baguettes cost 99p and made a cheap and tasty meal. Then, post Covid they increased to £1.20. Today they’re £2.20. It may have been the time of day but the shelves were full but the shop empty. I was the only customer.

20:15

Apologies for the gap in blogging but we’ve been busy. I’m about to get something to eat then I’ll come back and fill in the gaps. In the meantime, here’s a few pictures to tease..

We were here at the Chiltern tunnels South portal where one of the ‘porous portals’ is being constructed now the area is cleared and the TBMs are over half way to the North portal. This one is over the London-bound track.
Progress on the Colne Valley viaduct is impressive. It’s really come on since my last visit. Here’s a view of the launching girder ‘Dominique’ seen from the Denham waterski club site.
One of the thousands of precast bridge segments that have been made on site at West Hyde is moved along the completed bridge to the launching girder ‘Dominique’ where it will be lifted and then turned before being dropped into position. The segments are made on site then moved from the factory along an internal haul road and onto the viaduct.

23:25.

Right, time for bed. It’s been a busy day although the latter part was foiled by the weather when the skies opened and stayed open, making photography next to impossible. Even so, we reconnoitered a few more HS2 construction sites which will allow us to pop back tomorrow when the weather’s improved before moving on to look at others.

I’ve a small favour to ask…
If you enjoy reading this or any of the other blogs I’ve written, please click on an advert or two. You don’t have to buy anything you don’t want to of course – although if you did find something that tickled your fancy that would be fab! – but the revenue from them helps me to cover some of the cost of maintaining this site (which isn’t cheap and comes out of my own pocket). Remember, 99% of the pictures used in my blogs can be purchased as prints from my other website –  https://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/

Or – you can now buy me a coffee! https://ko-fi.com/paulbigland68312

Thank you!

30th March picture of the day…

30 Thursday Mar 2023

Posted by in Hs2, Photography, Picture of the day, Rail Investment, Railways

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , ,

Wow – the penultimate day of the month already – and spring is here. Well, I’m not too sure about that last bit as the temperature here in the Calder Valley has been up and down like a brides nightie! Plus, it’s been wet – very wet. But, the garden’s bursting into life which means the seasons really must’ve changed. Having been abroad for much of winter I get confused!

Today’s been one spent at home sorting out the logistics of the next few days. That wasn’t easy as arrangements kept changing although that was no fault of mine or my fellow explorer, Penny McGregor, whom I’ll be meeting up with in Banbury tomorrow to begin our formal visit to the largest HS2 construction site at West Hyde (where the Chiltern tunnels and the Colne Valley viaduct are built from) before free-styling it for the next couple of days. Unfortunately the weather’s not looking brilliant tomorrow which may cramp my style photographically but I’m sure I’ll manage somehow.

Apart from logistics I kept occupied with paperwork and pictures as I’ve still a backlog of images to sort out from the Community Rail Conference at the beginning of the week. The images are tweaked enough that I should be able to finish them off whilst I’m travelling tomorrow – although expect a rolling blog about the trip at the same time. I’ll be travelling Halifax- Leeds-Birmingham (change stations) – Banbury which could be interesting on a Friday…

Now it’s time to call it a day. I popped out to do some shopping and get some exercise earlier and now Dawn’s being a star and preparing the side of Salmon and assorted salad veg I returned with so we can eat heartily and have an evening together before I go away for the night tomorrow.

So, what’s the picture of the day? Good question! I’ll be visiting various HS2 construction and mitigation sites, so here’s how West Hyde looked 2021 before the 2nd TBM was launched just for comparison.

On the 13th July 2021 ‘Cecilia’ was just beginning her journey boring the 2nd of the 10 mile long Chiltern tunnels. She’s now way past the half-way mark. In the background are the factories making the tunnel segments and the sections for the Colne Valley Viaduct. I’ll be here again tomorrow to see this and much more…

I’ve a small favour to ask…
If you enjoy reading this or any of the other blogs I’ve written, please click on an advert or two. You don’t have to buy anything you don’t want to of course – although if you did find something that tickled your fancy that would be fab! – but the revenue from them helps me to cover some of the cost of maintaining this site (which isn’t cheap and comes out of my own pocket). Remember, 99% of the pictures used in my blogs can be purchased as prints from my other website –  https://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/

Or – you can now buy me a coffee! https://ko-fi.com/paulbigland68312

Thank you!

Crazy anti-HS2 campaigner of the week. No 34.

06 Monday Mar 2023

Posted by in 'Green' madness, Crazy anti Hs2 campaigner of the week, Hs2, Railways, StopHs2

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

, , ,

It’s back after a break over over a year – the crazy anti HS2 campaigner of the week! To be honest, at this stage in the game it would be fair to say that those left pretending they can somehow stop HS2 all fall into this category, so whilst the talent pool is more of a puddle, they all stand a chance of being featured. But this one is so deliciously bonkers as well as being a great illustration of how that’ll say anything it’s hard to beat. It’s actually Pythonesque! You’ll see why later…

A small new group has sprung up called ‘Greens against HS2’. It’s a panicked response to the success and growing influence of ‘Greens for HS2‘ who’ve done a very credible job influencing green party members by presenting them with reasoned and logical arguments. The difference between the two groups couldn’t be more marked. Those for HS2 stick to the facts and science around railways and climate change, reference their arguments and contain many experts in their fields. Those against rehash the same tired and trite disinformation and seem to be little more than individual party members with no experience or expertise in either climate science or transport or in some cases, reality!

The panic is due to the fact the Green Party is having its annual conference next week and (yet again) there’s a motion being put forward that the party ditches its hypocritical stance of supporting a new North-South high speed line ‘in principle’ but opposes it practice. That’s clearly crazy, but that’s not why I’m writing this blog. There’s something far more batshit and it’s dug up former Stop Hs2 organiser Joe Rukin to spin like a decaying top once more.

Take a look at this!

As usual, Rukin just can’t stop lying! A ‘chemical process’? What chemical process – unless you call mixing mud with water a chemical process as the slurry concerned is just that.

The leak at Ruislip was caused as a tunnel boring machine was tunnelling beneath an old borehole. Someone had forgotten to cap the borehole and a small amount of slurry foam escaped. The TBM was halted for a couple of hours whilst checks were made, then continued on its way. The borehole was sealed from the inside when the next ring of tunnel lining segments were put into place. It was a minor (if slightly embarrassing) moment. Note that the slurry escaped upwards to the surface, not outwards. The idea that this will pollute the aquifer and poison London’s drinking water is hysterical nonsense.

Here’s a link to the emergency motion, calling for “all HS2 operations around the Chiltern Aquifer to be paused”

‘StopHS2’ even tweeted out this handy little diagram pointing out where the incident allegedly occurred.

There’s one big problem they’ve neglected to mention. Guess which way these two TBMs are heading? Eastwards – away from the aquifer towards South Ruislip!In fact, by now they’re almost certain to be outside that blue coloured area! They’ve never been a credible threat to the aquifer, and now they’re even less of one! The emergency motion will be redundant before it’s even debated! Oops…!

Problem number two is that this ’emergency motion’ is nothing more than posturing. Even if the Green party accept it and even agree it, it’s nothing more than hot air. It’s as meaningful as Monty Pythons spoof ‘Popular Front for the liberation of Judea’ resolutions!

Let’s talk realpolitik for a minute. Truth be told, no-one really cares what the Green Party’s stance is on HS2 as the Green Party will never, ever hold the reins of power. They can pass as many resolutions as they like, but as long as they have no way of making them reality is it’s a waste of everyone’s time. The party has 1 MP and will never have any more. Opinion polls give them a rating of 5% nationally but that doesn’t reflect the reality of our First Past The Post (FPTP) electoral system which means they don’t stand a chance of beating anyone in any other seat. Sure, they may get a few more local Councillors in the May elections, but this is way above their political pay-grade.

If the Green party do finally change their hypocritical posture on HS2 the only thing it will do is give them back some of the credibility they’ve lost (especially with transport professionals) with their mad policy – and may attract back some of the members who’ve abandoned them in frustration over it. No-one’s stopping HS2 – construction of phase 1 is well advanced and no-one’s ever abandoned a project of this magnitude at this stage of the game, so why have a policy saying you’ll stop the unstoppable when all it does is make you look incredibly stupid. The ‘green’ party is in great danger of becoming known as the anti rail party as it’s allowed its headbanging wing to morph opposition to HS2 into opposition to Northern Powerhouse Rail also (see some of the nonsense put out by greens against HS2 for evidence of that).

Meanwhile, two other HS2 TBMs are now well over half their way through boring the 10 mile long Chiltern tunnels without any serious incident and with no pollution to any aquifers in the nearly 2 years they’ve been tunnelling. The other scare story HS2 antis trotted out was that sinking the piles for the Colne Valley viaduct ‘could’ have polluted an aquifer. There’s one problem there. That work’s been completed with all piles successfully sunk – without any problems. No Londoners have keeled over through drinking ‘poisoned’ water and no lakes and streams have been polluted. Soon the various Nimbys and faux ‘greens’ are going to have to cast around for new things to scaremonger about.

I’ve a small favour to ask…
If you enjoy reading this or any of the other blogs I’ve written, please click on an advert or two. You don’t have to buy anything you don’t want to of course – although if you did find something that tickled your fancy that would be fab! – but the revenue from them helps me to cover some of the cost of maintaining this site (which isn’t cheap and comes out of my own pocket). Remember, 99% of the pictures used in my blogs can be purchased as prints from my other website –  https://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/

Or – you can now buy me a coffee! https://ko-fi.com/paulbigland68312

Thank you!