HS2: The UK's Insane $130 BILLION Money Pit

[@stephenreardon2698]

When the French decided not to build a high speed line to the west of Paris straight after building the link south they reserved the rail corridor for potential future use, thus reducing long term costs. When the UK abandons it promises to the North the government announces it is immediately selling off the land it has already bought, mostly at a loss, so the next government couldn't reverse it, and does so without seeking the permission of parliament, who authorised the purchase in the first place.

[@alexmckenna1171]

It's criminal if they sell the land. Heads should roll!

[@michellejones5541]

We have the most corrupt politicians that have ever lived in both the Tory and labour parties

[@NoNameForNone]

@@alexmckenna1171 You can be assured the land will be bought by some smart investors who will know that the line eventually will be built, and sold back at insane prices. This is by design.

[@ChristiaanHW]

@@NoNameForNone it probably gets bought up by someone with connections to the current government (maybe even members of it). long live corruption

[@paulorocky]

@@NoNameForNoneprobably party donors

[@BanjoPixelSnack]

It infuriates me that there is absolutely no accountability or consequences for these people who waste so much public money due to their utter incompetence.

[@henrydemonfreid1985]

strongly agree

[@Andrew-rc3vh]

Jobs for the boys.

[@richardcrook2112]

British average IQ has declined 14 points since Victorian times, that is why our leaders are increasingly incompetent and we can no longer do the things we used to be able to do.

[@Deezenuts19990]

I remember that to even get a job on the vase majority of roles were sourced from job centres, people who had been unemployed or gained qualifications from jail.. i applied for a job on hs2 through the job center and was told that i needed to be unemployed for over 6 months,

[@Andrew-rc3vh]

@@Deezenuts19990 The Job Centre sounds like the Twilight Zone. The jobs that aren't jobs!

[@Nopenopenonono-u3q]

It’s wild that Spain managed to build 3000km of high speed rail for less money than the UK spent to build 68 miles.

[@simonsadler9360]

Wow that's my socialist Spain , probably said before, in my Valencian community 38,450 free University places @ area of Cornwall ,Devon bit of Somerset , no one has come up with the price of Oxford or Cambridge ,as us Spanish say moneyis for spending but Education takes prime place, yep re our H.S.T the offer at the moment , annual payment of €25 , Valencia to Paris on the H,S,T €9.

[@simonsadler9360]

Students free as are student buses ,depending on religion if the youngsters or seniors can't go home a healthy mid day meal free ,a Spanish friend that speaks some English is a cook at one , no fast food , the Spanish know how to cook ,so much olive oil thisyear 2 friends when all processed are giving us 5 l of virgin ,in snobby 250 ml bottles in England £20 . When the Spanish have their mid meal a bottle on the table ,help yourself .4 pink grapefruit €1..Cropper saying come & help yourself to mandarins, no lack of vit C.

[@B-A-L]

Taiwan managed the same too.

[@_peepyopee]

Corruption on show

[@angryfan370]

Spain has a desert in the middle of the country, the rail connected cities on the coast. The rail mostly went through barren flat desert land. The UK has no deserts so the rail went through highly populated areas. It makes sense when you understand that it costs money to demolish buildings vs building on empty flat dry land one would be way cheaper to do

[@longi625]

Having worked on the HS-2 project breifly, I can say the beauacracy there is staggering. It's no wonder it's being cancelled. I worked there as a fire alarm engineeer for a few visits. It took 18 months to organise a visit for me to link 2 of the welfare units together to the main security hut fire alarm panel at Euston becuase 18 different depatments had to approve that on visit. Apparently none of the departments would talk to each other. Then when I did make it there there had to be 5 people there to do the job instead of 2 people - ther person that organised the job had to stand and watch us, myself and the HS-2 fire alarm engineer and, (and this is the best bit!) 2 electricians. one to turn the key and remove the key to isolate the 230v supply the the other electrctrician had to look after the key whilst we did the work which was pointless as the panel supply didn't need isolating. It was like something fromk a comedy. The entire site was like that. So effectively, a 160ft hole was dug there and that's as far as they got along with a complex traffic light system that none of the lorry drivers took any notice of. Well done MACE Dragados! I was on another MACE job recently and it was exactly the same, behind and chaotic and over budget.

[@jakehowie442]

Embarrassing shambles, HS2 and tories have let the north down again

[@red_skies80]

reminds me of that one scene in harry potter

[@benkai343434]

There's a joke I heard once about the state of English jobs involving a guy digging a pit while 30 managers surround him with clipboards. Eventually one of the managers stops the guy digging the hole and says 'sorry, but due to budget cuts we're going to have to let you go'. of course, the hole digging project was cancelled.

[@lesfawcett5245]

Your evidence illustrates the fact that there's no incentive to minimise costs when the bottomless pit of the taxpayers' pocket is financing HS2pid. Rather, an incentive to keep the gravy train running.

[@longi625]

@@lesfawcett5245 I completely concur. We're being run by a bunch of morons, they are self serving idiots. These idiots don't care about how are country is run, only how fast they can fill their pockets and how long they can stay in power for. Inept and incompetent. A fraction of that money would have been better served being invested in the NHS, armed forces and road repairs.

[@Stephen.Bingham]

“Just to slightly reduce travel time between London and Birmingham” - The description of such projects as “high speed rail” has been a communication disaster. Their real purpose is to increase network capacity. By removing long distance higher speed services from the legacy network the density of trains on the legacy network can be substantially increased and hence more people and freight can be transported. This is not about getting there faster on a train, it’s about a train existing at all that serves your local station, and hence not wasting your life sitting in a traffic jam.

[@valmal2659]

It’s still very pathetic, no excuse can justify, China is more then 20 times bigger than the UK and can build hsr in regions quicker than Britain takes to build 200 miles of railway😂😂

[@exnihiloadnihilum5094]

​@@valmal2659Because China has no obstructions of any kind. Their government can just take whatever land they want, without compensation, and you can just sit and spin. Being an authoritarian system always has the benefit of pesky citizens getting in the way of things.

[@XS69]

@@exnihiloadnihilum5094 Then how about the rest of Europe? No authoritarian systems there. And while they take longer than China and are more expensive, compared to the UK they are still far better at this. If you just want capacity, you don't need high-speed rail. You can just improve existing lines and surrounding infrastructure. You build high-speed rails for capacity and reduction in travel time.

[@exnihiloadnihilum5094]

@@XS69 less administrative gobbledygook would be my guess. Brits seem to love permitting, paperwork, and having the right form filled for every nut, bolt, and quarter turn of a wrench. If they can create a bureaucracy out of it, the British will.

[@sihollett]

The notion that it was just about saving 20 minutes between London to Birmingham (the figure is 30 minutes, unless you want New Street station and will walk from Curzon Street) got around the country before HS2 could even get its message's boots on. I'm not saying that HS2 were in any way good at communicating what the line was about, but I will say that deliberate misinformation campaigns were very successful and even competent HS2 communications wouldn't be able to convince the haters from the comfortable lies that had spread like wildfire.

[@chubbyBunny94]

All my friends that worked on HS2, had silly pay, loads of benefits (company cars etc), and hardly worked - they weren’t even high up. I remember saying it would never get finished. I mean why should it? These companies get free money from the government with 0 accountability on how it’s being spent.

[@daydays12]

Well said. That's the truth of it. You just have to look at the Conservative politicians' faces to know that's the truth of it. Grifters like Cameron, who came a little unstuck with Greensill but has been given another chance at graft by multiple millionaire grifter Sunak.

[@David-ud9ju]

I regularly use Euston station and I always count the number of workers who are just standing around not doing anything and it's always 10 to 20 and that's just the ones you can see on a 5 minute walk past the site. They're probably all on 40/50k with crazy benefits as well.

[@charleswillcock3235]

@@David-ud9ju It is the same in Birmingham Most of the "workers" spend most of their time looking at their phones.

[@camelotenglishtuition6394]

I briefly (over a summer) worked for a company who mapped the railway station boundaries for wheelchair access. A team of 8 people to take some basic digital measurements. All of which could have been done by 2 people. We also all got paid for 8 hours (min contract time) and were there around 20 mins. There are a lot of private firms with deep pockets because of the railways.

[@olicool11]

and as a wheelchair user, I can safely guess that nobody with an actual disability would be consulted in the process leading to a half arsed solution

[@camelotenglishtuition6394]

bingo!@@olicool11

[@phueal]

I've been a contractor of this sort as well. I'd just like to point out though that even this kind of wastefulness can make financial sense, since it's still cheaper to hire 8 contractors for a few weeks to accomplish something that two of them could do in a day than it is to recruit, retain, and train permanent staff in order to do one day's work. If the rail company (or whoever) only needs a small and self-contained piece of work done, then paying a contractor 10x the rate of a permie is still often the right financial call.

[@jastat]

Good of you to take the money and not speak up about it until after you got paid for it. What a great person you are

[@camelotenglishtuition6394]

Firstly, how do you know that? Secondly, why attempt to judge someone? Why not just ask and be civil?@@jastat

[@rustyshackleford4918]

As someone who works in facilities in the UK, I can vouch that the higher uppers seem to prefer spending endless time (and money) just talking about things rather than actually achieving anything tangible

[@kiae-nirodiariesencore4270]

Indeed. We live in the Poitou-Charente, about 10 km from the Bordeaux/Paris LGV which was under constriction when we moved here in 2013. Our trip to the supermarket in Ruffec took us past a section of the groundwork. It was amazing to see how they made a deep cutting, built a bridge, laid the permanent way and put in the overhead power in under two years. The new line (300 miles) opened in 2017. We have used it from Poitiers which is now only 1hr 35 mins from Paris (183 miles). I have also used the TGV network to get all the way into Stuttgart in Germany...hammering along at 320 kph through 'le grande est' sitting in the upper deck of the new trains is really something. And all the staff on the train spoke French, German and English...different world.

[@the_9ent]

Facilities Manager?

[@jarimir89]

​​@@the_9ent It broadly speaking takes care of building systems so they work as they are intended. Building services engineer here if I may join the general rant. I also noticed that in the UK people care more about how things LOOK rather than how they WORK. That was also mentioned in the video. This approach is every engineers' nightmare, leading to embedding inefficiency in almost every project. Also maintenance is very often neglected as is being perceived as a "cost", what is a false economy as when the system inevitably breaks down, the cost you now NEED to urgently absorb is few times more what you would spend on proper maintenance...

[@fredmercury1314]

Look, I'm not saying that you're wrong, I'm just saying we should really put together a dedicated team to meet and discuss this issue, and propose solutions.

[@Lodai974]

@@jarimir89 I think you are right, but this evil of the product which shines instead of being effective is a Western problem. We find it in France and others The Japanese are the extreme opposite. Everything is logical and functional. The HSLs are on viaducts, most of the time crossing cities close to buildings, but it is more functional. An HSL in open countryside will need successive access roads so that maintenance can reach all along the line for inspections and repairs.

[@olaflieser3812]

German here: Infrastructure costs growing multi-fold during the building phase of a project are normal elsewhere, too, including right here in the middle of the continent (all countries). Even though we do mostly finish large infrastructure projects: Our latest all-new high speed track routing of about 50 km (Stuttgart-Ulm) was only opened one year ago. Italy is also getting ahead with its stuff. Only very few countries are true masters of railway infrastructure. I believe Switzerland is by far the most capable country there, bar none. I admire what they have achieved and continue to do. Also, the dreadful "nimby" attitude is widespread, making it that much harder to see large infrastructure projects through. But selling the land intended for a future infrastructure build (if it indeed happened in England) is a sin and those folks doing it should be *personally* held liable - not just lose their political office at some point. If some sort of corruption or unjust selling out of state property has taken place, even prison terms should not be out of the question. Without the pressure of personal liability no responsible behaviour by those lowly, mentally corrupted politicians.

[@zekiserifguzel]

Switzerland; tiny, small European country and they are no different than other EU countries. I do not think they are capable of making big mega projects. If you are looking for a true master, currently nobody can win over Chinese on the megaprojects. 65,000 km high speed railyway. Massive, long bridges, tunnels, motorways, etc. I do not think any EU countries and USA can make that kind of projects in that short timeline. Chinese are un-stoppable. I see all of them in KZbin broadcasted by German channel DW.

[@willng247]

Switzerland? You are missing the elephant in the room. Try China ;)

[@johnclapshoe8059]

This NIMBY thing is just so absurd to the point of selfishness. It is the entitled the nature of these overprivileged pricks who live there who say NIMBY to everything including wind farms. They'd prefer to live in paradise while city dwellers are forced to live in turd towns near gas fired power stations. The political class have denyed HS2 of it's viability and thus denying the under class upward mobility.

[@gregwang8628]

How big is Switzerland and how complex is the landscape of it?

[@danhutchins3237]

@@zekiserifguzel Trouble is a lot of Chinese infrastructure is sort of falling down because it's so poorly built... fast, but super low quality... Not everything! But a lot...

[@AnP865]

My friend worked for a local authority in the regeneration department, trying to find ways to build new affordable housing. The team were a lot of very bright talented people, architects and planners. After a few years they had all burned out, quit, the boss got clinical depression. They faced total inertia. Huge email chains and nothing getting signed off. Angry town hall meetings involving months of preparation. Corrupt practices by rich companies. You should do a video about why so few architects in the UK now get work in the public sector - almost all of them survive by doing private gigs.

[@chrishughes3405]

And the levels of corruption between government officers and construction and consulting firms is widespread and common practice. I've done refurbishments, kitchen, bathroom and bedroom replacements and, even extensions for council officers off the books in order to secure contracts. Dodgy tenders don't get flagged if everyone is in on it. And btw I was just a labourer on minimum wage and was naive at the time, if I had realised I would have blown the whistle as loud as possible.

[@MrRandomdancer]

@@chrishughes3405I’d say there’s always time because if it was happening a while back, chances are it still is. We desperately need more people to shine a light into the dark sticky corners of corruption in local authority.

[@christopherconard2831]

In America "affordable housing" is treated as a holy term for municipal planners. In the end it usually translates to apartments that cost (at least) twice as much to build for people that make less than half the income of the neighborhood average. It's as if the contractors know that a private company building something would double check every invoice submitted. But if there are government subsidies and grants involved, no one questions something like a $5,000 refrigerator. If something is declared a Green Project, and government funding is involved, prices will instantly quadruple.

[@shelbynamels973]

@@christopherconard2831 no kidding. The figure currently being thrown around is the cost of an 'affordable housing' apartment in a multi-level apartment building is equal to the market price of an average single family residence. In other words, there would be affordable housing available immediately if govm't would simply buy an existing house and offer it to low-income earners.

[@miscbits6399]

@@chrishughes3405 It's not just there. A county auditor I know was preparing a report on the "very close" relationships between roading contractors and the roading dsepartment management (we're talking family tieups that make Arkansas hillbilly ancestry lines look diverse). He was removed from his post and hit with gagging actions (judging by the fact that the council claims no such reports/investigation existed (I'd seen the preliminary drafts) and his official respose (even after changing employers) is that it's something he can't discuss

[@theyjustwantyourmoney4539]

It's insane how our train fares in Britain are so astronomically expensive to the point where most of us prefer to drive.

[@PanglossDr]

Worse still, the system is not well joined up. It would take me far longer by train than by car to get from home, 40 miles SW of London, to Durham.

[@Stephen.Bingham]

Indeed, but it's important to understand that high rail fares are a consequence of low network capacity. No government will spend money subsidising rail fares when there are sufficient relatively rich people to fill the existing seats anyway. By increasing the network capacity new "high speed" lines are likely to reduce fares overall especially for the local services running on legacy lines that will continue to be used for most journeys.

[@jminsh463]

It would cost me and my partner over £100 to get to Birmingham and back on the train and almost 3hours one way. Driving takes about a 1/4 tank of petrol and around 2 hours or less, with a guaranteed seat. I used to love trains but in the last 5 years or so they have lost both affordability and reliability. Losing one of these would still let me travel by train but having lost both it isn't a feasible form of transport.

[@Hession0Drasha]

I know, driving sucks so much, but we're being priced out of all the better options 😑

[@rafaelcosta3238]

Their not expensive. They have the fair price. In other countries tickets are cheaper when you buy them because everybody was forced to subsidize them via taxes, whether they use the trains, or not. I prefer to pay less taxes.

[@jim40135]

I actually think you've missed the big picture here; the HS2 Project was actually created as a way of siphoning huge amounts of Treasury Money into private hands - in that sense, it has been a complete success. It has been an "early retirement" project for many.

[@ArcanePath360]

Was going to type the same comment. This is not the only "money pit". Every government scheme is a side job for their mates to make money and feed back greasy palms. It's politics 101 in Britain. You scratch my back.... and as the years go on, it gets worse as they get more greedy.

[@IanDouglas-wj4je]

Indeed like any project done by UK govt, its a mates rates party, to do over the taxpayer, from NHS computerisation, the Olympics, Covid, Eco loon etc. They are all the same.

[@berniestar1490]

This is the same formula in Australia 🇦🇺 often wacky projects nobody needs and astronomical cost.

[@woodcote103]

to true many hands were greased by johnson and co for HS2 contracts

[@xuriousmusic8119]

Just like Net Zero, Lockdowns, and the Ukraine war then.

[@jamessteel9016]

Overspend by the government needs to be investigated, why costs got so out of control and where the money has gone.

[@_ob200]

Billions went into compulsory purchase, planning and legal costs as-well as survey and archaeology. I worked on the compulsory purchase and planning side and honestly it’s astounding.

[@patrickokeeffe539]

This reminds me of the locate and trace app.

[@Locutus]

If you watched the video, you would know why there was cost overruns. It was a lot NIMBYs. A lot of politicing. Compulsory purchase orders. Legal challenges. People were constantly legal challenging HS2, which added further costs. The project had to play out in the courts before construction started.

[@sirpatrick187]

​@@Locutusyet didn't mention lobbying and corruption once...there's got to be plenty of that as well

[@KingShaf7]

Yes they will be investigated by themselves and find nothing untoward When was the first or last time the uk government got exposed and made liable for anything? It’s about as corrupt as they come

[@MCMonsterbuilder]

As a german who works in rail construction I see day in day out how inefficient we are and had to learn not to care because it's not my problem because I will get paid anyways. I refuse to imagine how a nation can be that much worse.

[@glynnwright1699]

We regularly do work for Network Rail, the UK rail network is old and nobody has ever had the confidence to trim the bureaucracy that has become culturally engrained within the industry. All the legislation made sense when it was introduced, it was created to prevent accidents based upon experience, but much of it is redundant. As an example, it took us 15 months to get the permissions to install six cameras on two platforms. Every aspect of the design and construction of the cameras had to conform to a special Network Rail process that was more stringent than we have encountered -- even in the Aerospace and Nuclear industries. We were required to have our engineering management team trained one day a week for several months in order to supply equipment that was certified for use on the rail network. It is a working environment that promotes exactly the same inefficiencies that you note. The bright, energetic, engineers move out of the industry because they become frustrated. Even after we went through all the restrictions, we still couldn't install the cameras because the insurance levels required were beyond any sum that our company could sustain, we had to use Network Rail to install the equipment because they were the only entity with adequate insurance. Our cameras incorporate artificial intelligence, their performance greatly exceeds the required specification, they are fully approved by Network Rail to be installed on the network. Yet, when it came to buying a quantity for service the purchasing department of the operator, which is not Network Rail, chose standard, inferior, off-the-shelf cameras from a Chinese supplier because they were cheaper!

[@petergaskin1811]

Welcome to the Brexshit paradise that is Little Britain.

[@glynnwright1699]

@@petergaskin1811 Nothing to do with Brexit, it is a hangover from the nationalised industry era. We work with offshore energy companies which is considerably more dangerous than the rail network, equally challenging environmental legislation, but they have completely different working practices compared with the antiquated methodology of the rail industry.

[@insaneshepherd8678]

Germany's rail construction might not be efficient, the cost per km is still in line with other countries and they've been building high speed rail continuously for decades, with a lot more projects planned. By comparison, what the UK did with this project is an absolute disaster.

[@therealrobertbirchall]

​@@glynnwright1699the proble the UK has with large infrastructure projects is the neo con ideology adopted by both the tories and new Labour. Since 1979 ther has been a purge on the civil service with may former in house civil service roles contracted out, to employers who make a profit by cutting staff and the Ts&Cs of their employees. This idiotic policy, also followed in the USA, has denuded the state of generations of institutional technical expertise, older people with experience were not wanted by the private sector because they were too 'expensive' far more profitable to hire and fire on short term contracts and employ inexpensive new graduates for key roles. You pay peanuts you get monkeys.

[@sqwalnoc]

I've done contracting work on HS2 sites, I can understand exactly why it's costing so much and achieving so little. the amount of red-tape is insane just to go onto a site with no activity to do an hours worth of work, nothing seems to get done. I went over to a site over by the A45 east of birmingham once a month for 12 months. In that time they built a haulage road, dug a big hole and built a 50ft square concrete pad, that's it. but there always seemed to be dozens of "workers" just wandering about doing nothing and several higher ups sitting around in their nice air-conditioned site office complex looking at PCs.

[@benghiskahn3673]

That's basically a description of most of the UK economy.... Immense cost coupled with dire productivity and laughable output.

[@jason-hh6lu]

You see it everywhere. Roadworks on the M25. Miles and miles coned off lanes and about 15 worker in a space of about 4 meters with one digging driving sitting in the digger smoking wile everyone else is standing around on their phones. This can last for weeks.

[@daydays12]

Sounds about right. Jobs for 'the boys'.

[@hx0d]

​@@benghiskahn3673 And why should they bother producing higher productivity when it costs £40 to simply breath here. The country is broken, put it plain and simple.

[@David-ud9ju]

@@jason-hh6lu This is entirely due to unions. Unions run the country and that's why workers don't do anything and why there are so many of them.

[@OfficialRyanx]

I think it’s worth pointing out to those not based in the UK that the idea of HS2 wasn’t originally to make journey times to Birmingham quicker - journey times by train to Manchester and Leeds would have been cut by 1/3 and free up capacity on the east and west coast mainline - the two busiest routes in the UK and connecting London to Scotland. This would have meant more freight trains and more frequent commuter trains to the towns and cities that currently get a small service.

[@mildlydispleased3221]

The busiest rail routes in the UK are the Elizabeth line, the Brighton mainline and the Thameslink core.

[@sihollett]

@@mildlydispleased3221 I think 'Intercity' was missing from the OP's post.

[@OfficialRyanx]

@@mildlydispleased3221 How are you basing that? If frequency and intensity of trains in a relatively short distance, then yes. If passenger numbers, yes. But let’s move ourselves away from this London-centric point of view that has held the UK back from investing in transport outside of London.

[@sIightIybored]

@@mildlydispleased3221 the two lines in the UK (and I think Europe) with the lowest spare capacity are the WCML just south of Birmingham and the WCML just north of Birmingham. They have less trains per hour because they need to accommodate 20mph freight trains and 120mph intercity expresses. Because of the speed required to slow down the expresses require vast distances in front and behind is a void growing where nothing can keep up. The freight trains take an age to get out of the way.

[@mildlydispleased3221]

@sIightIybored The lines listed have a higher number of passangers pet day.

[@nk53nxg]

This goes further than this excellent video. I worked in the Oil & Gas Industry in Scotland in the UK. In the 70's and 80's when the oil fields opened up the Oil Operators like Shell and BP and the Oil Services companies like your Halliburtons and Schlumburger's took on swathes of people with transferrable skills like fishermen, marine engineers, car mechanics, industrial sparkies and so on. These people gained experience, their wages grew as their experience and knowledge gained momentum until they became global experts themselves. Moving into the 90's the oil industry stopped training and became more investor dividend driven, and poached staff off of other local industries instead, the older guys with big wages who started in the 70's and 80's likely made it difficult for newbies to come in as they liked their fat salaries and less competition. They also started to retire and took their knowledge and experience with them. Moving onto now, they do have a lack of trained skilled staff, the last down turn reduced wages which meant it was less lucrative to work in the O&G and the lack of decent training for decades meant a huge gap in skills was starkly obvious. So the UK Oil industry had no real solid planning for the future in a known globaly volatile industry, pathetic future proofing and training for future engineers, technicians, project managers and all sorts of other bad future proofing. In the UK everything was just left to the markets. Big business would rather reward shareholders with big dividends than train local staff if it can get away with it. When staff can be taken from any part of Europe or the world already trained and cheaper it becomes a no brainer for them. And here in lies the biggest problem in the UK, it no longer invests in its own people, and has not done so in a very long time. When business can get already trained staff cheaper in a globalised market they will do it if they get away with it. Countries like Norway take around 51% of all revenue from extracted resources for their sovereign oil fund, the UK allows its resources to be taken by foreign companies with tax breaks?? Norway and other Oil producing countries insist that local staff are trained and developed so that skills and know how stay local, the UK does not give a toss. The people who run the UK have no interest in the people, and this is the problem. For decades our industry has been allowed to rot and decay and all the know how and skills have gone with it, if the political will does not exist to support and nurture industry it cannot possibly survive competition from countries who do support it. If the UK has no real sound industrial, engineering, manufacturing or project managing base it likely cannot run a piss up in a brewery. The O&G industry has made efforts to train and progress staff in the last decade, but usually only University graduates not the coal face workers so to speak, and these people are just as important.

[@34bally]

One hundred percent correct. I work in the civil side of construction in Scotland and what I have found with the industry is that youngsters have no interest doing this kind of work, the ones that do try it, can’t handle the weather, conditions and are more interested playing on a phone which results in them either leaving or being let go. You have more chance in finding an alien than you would someone that’s any good and the gap in age between the older workers and the new starts is getting bigger each year. As for the HS2 project and may I say any other projects in the UK, governments love to spend money that isn’t theirs, it would be a different story if it came out of their own pocket.

[@--enyo--]

Yeah, it seems it’s like that everywhere. Short term profits and benefiting shareholders and the tip of the pyramid rather than long term sustainability and the good of society.

[@nk53nxg]

​@@--enyo--obviously you have been paying attention to what is going on around you. Years ago I wondered why things are the way they are. You do not need to dig deep to know that our economy and financial system have been hijacked by greedy fraudsters working for the super rich to cement themselves into positions of power, not just here but globally. The cracks are already forming for our so called democracy and the way of life we used to call normal, the banditry has taken its toll on our services and society as a whole, with stripping back of workers rights and powers to bargain for fair wages. You do not need to be a conspiracy theorist to think like this, how can we have a falling quality of life compared to our parents or grandparents with the exponential growth in technology and the efficiencies that come with it, simply because all the gains have been socially engineered to go to the top. Which is why inequality is so stark now. Public infrastructure is of no interest to the unelected financial over lords we now have, if they are lending the money to our gutless weak governments for projects that are meant to represent us then they are happy for these projects to go over budget and indebt us even more. The world is not what we think it is anymore, democracy is a charade, governments have not really been in power for 40 years and we now have financial and technocratic over lords. Government has been bought and filled with career politicians that have geared everything to serve big business not the people. Anyone who challenges them is attacked in the media as a dumb clueless crackpot so that they are degraded in the eyes of the public. Global asset companies like Black Rock and Vanguard use their think tanks like the WEF and IMF to guide World government policy in their favour, these are actually your over lords. They are unelected, have all the power and no responsibility. A perfect storm. Sorry for the monologue.

[@dan44zzt231]

I'm a Civil Engineer and can vouch this is pretty spot on. The notion of transferable skills may as well be a foreign language, if you don't have the exact skillset and experience of working on the exact same thing you'll never get a start. Which leaves a handful of graduates and apprentices to fill the void of experienced staff who either retire or leave to do to something easier as they don't need the hassle anymore.

[@IshtarNike]

​@@34ballylol. Did you actually read the comment? You're not in agreement. They talked about the global markets and short termist thinking in management...you're complaining about smart phones which is not the issue. The issue is you can get pretty similar wages doing some BS in tech or high end recruitment, or marketing these days. All our wages and skills have atrophied. It's neoliberal capitalism for you.

[@honestlykyle]

I’m don’t even live in the UK and this absolutely infuriates me.

[@peterdavidson3268]

The HS2 debacle will stand as a monument to British incompetence on an epic scale. I always like to quote the example provided just across La Manche where France designed, constructed and delivered, on time and on budget, two high speed rail lines, similar but not exactly the same in terms of specification to HS2 - trains began running on these two lines, on the same day, July 2017 - these two lines (LGV BPL & LGV SEA) combined constituted a track length in excess of the entire planned HS2 line from London Euston to Manchester Piccadilly - the total capital cost of these two projects; 9bn€ or about one tenth of the estimated cost of its HS2 counterpart. Yes, I know there are some key differences meaning HS2 would be more expensive overall but TEN TIMES THE COST - someone, somewhere is laughing all the way to the bank and it's certainly not the UK taxpayers en-masse!!!

[@exsandgrounder]

It helps that France already has the knowhow in designing, building and acquiring the rolling stock for long distance, high speed railway lines. I also presume they don't suffer from an overabundance of short term thinking

[@triaxe-mmb]

The difference is that the French have 40years of experience now building TGV lines and have gotten pretty good at it...this project is where the TGV was when they built their first real tracks and systems... That cost them an inflation adjusted $31M/mile

[@888ssss]

2008 enters the room.....

[@drscopeify]

I think the #1 issue is the legal system which allows people to go after companies and government and holds back progress in the name of liability. The cost is astronomical to deal with claims and demands and legal battles. Change the system, allow companies and Govnemrent to do as they wish and BOOM prices will fall. Total night and day. Same issue in the US and UK. Legal system allows too much power in the hands of the public.

[@sof5858]

245mill on planning is a fucking worry, money going from one government department to another. Like what the fuck.

[@fringestalin6263]

Very informative and well put together video. My only addition is regarding the point of the UK lacking the expertise. Rob Holden of London and Continental Railways, the company that owns HS1, said he managed to deliver the line earlier and within the budget by only telling a handful of people the true budget, whereas HS2, the budget was well known and thus contractors and consultants began to inflate their prices before even a single piece of track could be laid down because they all wanted the biggest slice of the pie. Holden also has experience with the Elizabeth Line project but later retired. He was told that he had lacked necessary experience for work on HS2 and thus was never consulted, so it seems that as well as the UK lacking a lot of expertise, we also seem keen on rejecting it.

[@dougle03]

Lots and lots of differing agendas were and are at play. That and a seeming lack of any financial responsibility. In the rush to move quickly, the controls on cost management get left behind. As a Programme manager I never tell my contractors how much money I have, it's simply stupid, but fresh faced graduates know better, or are listened to more than they should. Much of HS2 was being contracted on Target cost contracting agreements. These can only work where there is a level of maturity on both sides of the table, this maturity does not exist in the UK contracting world.

[@MorbidEel]

Not enough experts multi-classing into rubbing elbows with the right sorts 🤣

[@TalesOfWar]

We're in a post-expert world, remember. The same people who sold us Brexit are now running the show, and breaking everything else accordingly because they're woefully inept and love a good bit of nepotism. They'll be giving their friends contracts rather than actual experts in any given field. There's some news that came out in the last day or so saying that's essentially what's been going on to some degree, and people who've questioned things have been fired to silence them.

[@sihollett]

The HS1 team have had sour grapes for about 15 years when they didn't get asked to work on the HS2 route. This was compounded by the 2009 route selection saying that HS1's route along motorways created wide corridors of blight that mistake should be learnt from, not repeated... I think Rob is the one still calling for an M40 route, saying it would have meant less tunnelling, ignoring that the M40 pushes against the design standards for a 130km/h motorway alignment due to terrain, let alone a 300km/h HSR alignment! He's right that HS1 was massively helped by, unlike HS2, not having the budget made public meant that bidders weren't trying to get a piece of that pork. He's however perhaps not right that HS1 was delivered within the budget - the NAO said in 2012 that "Although it was delivered within the overall funding available, the £6.2bn overall cost was 18% higher than the contract target". But, of course, being secretive about the budget means that it's easy to keep to it as it's simply whatever was paid for the line!

[@srpacific]

Those highly paid consultants, environmental assessors, and contractors want their piece. It’s unbelievable, and should be investigated.

[@felixhughes780]

I work for the firm that at one point was the largest technical consultant on hs2. We hired 100s of new people for the project due to its scale and our projected earnings. When the project was canned so too were so many of the new employees. It’s things like this people don’t even consider when thinking about how far reaching the ramifications of its cancellation have been

[@Nuvendil]

And it goes even deeper. All those people have now spent all this time pouring labor into something relatively unproductive. They could have instead been doing other jobs in the economy that were more productive and thus added to the economic vitality of Britain. When a project goes sideways like this, the opportunity costs are enormous.

[@TheSheepPimp]

Considering we invented the train and railway it shows how far we have dropped as a country

[@USSAnimeNCC-]

I'm America and I can see that as a massive drop that like having the statue of liberty demolish

[@snakeplissken5480]

yes but government didnt build the original railways

[@zitzong]

Uk is a laughing stock compared to european countries

[@cl4998]

UK's immigration policies is the death nail in the coffin for the country, and its culture.

[@jordanwhite352]

Also, you folks were an expert in building them in the countries you conquered, not your own. 🫠

[@PanglossDr]

The biggest single problem, in my opinion, is the lack of Engineers in senior positions in the UK. The skills needed to become a Senior Manager in the UK are not the skills needed to be a good Manager.

[@mrvwbug4423]

Well the UK de-emphasized STEM education because corporations decided it was cheaper to pay an engineer in Mumbai than one in London. So you get lots of UK students pursuing useless business degrees or equally useless fluff degrees. So, great they spent four years getting a business degree to become a shift manager at a Tesco. Said engineer in Mumbai also probably got their degree from a UK university.

[@Dilbert-o5k]

Possibly also because of the requirements for degrees in the first place. Back when British industry was a big player in the world most of the management worked their way up from the bottom. Thus they knew the business from the bottom up. These days a lot of managers seem to just be cookie cutter MBA ideas, but rarely understand how their company or products work. They don't understand the details of production or logistics or most things really. They think that as they are a manager they can manage everything, whether it be an airline or a factory or a supermarket. However these all have subtle differences that require different approaches.

[@machinainc5812]

Train prices are already absurdly expensive here in UK, i can only imagine with a new track. I pay £19 (with return) for a 25 mile journey to Peterborough. While in Portugal i pay ~£3 for the same 25 mile into the capital Lisbon.

[@miscbits6399]

The stupid part is that london to B'ham was always going to be the most expensive part of HS2 (most estimates had a factor of 10 over the rest of the line) and many were predicting £100B from the outset The line should have started in the north and been built south. By the time they got near the Chilterns the final route into london would have been sorted out. Instead it waited until that route was negotiated and then started at London

[@RyLife]

Agreed, that way it would have forced delivery and the teams would be streamlined to be more efficient

[@miscbits6399]

@@RyLife More to the point it would have enabled high speed travel between northern cities to be operating for at least a decade prior to the London connection - and therefore offseting the building costs. Going round London to HS1 would have also been possible at lower cost (which opens the possiblity of using HS1 for the final leg into the city, but "politics" and "traditional mindsets" Britain is a country where the graft isn't as obvious as other places but it's always beein prevalent to some extent (sometimes more obviously than others). In the last 15-20 years it's become some commonplace that those engaging in it feel so safe they don't bother trying to conceal it anymore

[@rafaelcosta3238]

It makes little sense to start the project between cities like Manchester and Birmingham, which are 75 miles apart and do not even need high speed rail between them if that high speed rail does not go to London, which has more population than the two combined.

[@miscbits6399]

@@rafaelcosta3238 Unless you also link to Leeds, Glasgow and Edinburgh. It makes even less sense to only run a high speed rail line between London and Birmingham - with the ECML/WCML BOTH being the most heavily congested _north_ of birmingham Stop focussing on the "high speed " part and realise that the line was intended to salvage the existing mainlines from grinding to a complete halt

[@rafaelcosta3238]

​@@miscbits6399 the most important part to focus on is precisely the high speed part, because that is what makes the cost so high even if it did not go 1£ above budget. If the idea was to relieve congestion on other lines the plan could be another conventional line. But it wasn't. It was high speed. And high speed rail in the UK only makes sense if it starts in London, because that is where more than 10% of the population live, and where most business travellers (the only people that will use this thing frequently) want to go.

[@ac1455]

It’s even more embarrassing when you consider the UK is the progenitor of modern rail, yet failed so spectacularly.

[@blackdaniels81]

"modern rail" 🤣😂🤣😂 regards to Maggie!!!

[@andromidius]

Honestly most of our rail network of the past was built by Irish migrant workers (nicknamed 'Navvies' or Navigation Engineers - but honestly, said in a way that turned it into a slur). They weren't treated well, were barely paid anything and weren't welcome to stay once they'd done all the hard work. Shameful, really - and explains why we can't do it now. It was literally built via exploitation - and exploitation is more expensive these days.

[@declancotter722]

Hardly modern rail when 99% of it was built by the victorians.

[@johnburns4017]

@@andromidius Irish Navvies also helped build the French network.

[@Blaze8304]

Thanks to privatising the rail system the trains are stupidly expensive, never on time or just cancelled, underdeveloped and on strike half of the year.

[@nighthawk3673]

Trouble is that instead of getting fixed price the politicians are milking the situation to suit their pockets

[@titaniumteddybear]

I wonder if it was ever intended to succeed. Perhaps it was only intended as a severely clumsy way to turn taxpayer money into private profit.

[@nothereandthereanywhere]

It really looks that way. Too much paperwork, too much to work on for zero benefit of the country(or the project). If one person can stop the country in it's tracks, there is something wrong. I guess UK pride is overshadowed by money.

[@Ryan-lk4pu]

It's far more insidious than that. In Manchester, we've been witnessing dozens of posh, expensive sky scraper apartment blocks go up for about a decade. My theory is that MCR would become the new commuter belt for wealthy Londoners, with our airport being their fourth. Those in the know (politicians, business leaders etc) have huge sums invested in this and stand to lose money from it's cancellation. They've even tricked the public into disliking that it's been cancelled when they should, in fact, be rejoicing, because amongst other things, our house prices won't shoot up as much as they otherwise would've done.

[@Snowmunkee]

We have this issue in the US constantly, where politicians support massive projects to get votes, but then never follow through, since once in office it's easy to become wealthy and influential. Just look at what happened in Wisconsin with a massive promised Foxconn factory that the state spent billions on and then it was never even operational.

[@mattevans4377]

​@@Ryan-lk4puExcept the part where we need it to release capacity on the existing network. Go ask Gareth Dennis if you don't believe me, he's a railway expert

[@rickyal9810]

BINGO!! Correct answer!

[@Slavir_Nabru]

Corruption. I live near a HS2 site. For the last year all they've done is move a pile of dirt from one side of the road to the other and back repeatedly. It's a way to funnel public funds to MPs old school friends who are invested in construction companies that received the contracts. They don't want to finish it, they want to keep collecting paycheques for doing sweet FA.

[@jammiedodger7040]

The thing is we don’t need a bloody high-speed railway network we just need our railway network rebuilt to the scale of 1960.

[@jdrissel]

I bet from the perspective of many, HS2 was a roaring success. From their pov it transferred a trainloads of money into their hands, and all it cost was a few grotty buildings in London that can now be replaced with something clean and modern.

[@Teerifficgolf]

Repurposed into over priced swanky flats

[@daydays12]

You are quite right. Lots of filthy lucre for some at the slight cost of concreting over what little natural space is left in England... plus depriving rather a large number of insignificant people of home and livelihood.

[@evilii]

In Finland, city of Tampere, a tram was built to run 15km (9.3miles), and the budged for it, depots etc. included, cause there was none of those to begin with, was mere 300 million euro. The project was built ahead of time and it ended up costing just about 266 million euros. With the prices of UK we would have had like 4.5km worth of tracks...

[@longiusaescius2537]

Name?

[@benghiskahn3673]

In the UK, the whole point of public projects is to create a carcass for private companies to feast upon. It's all about sucking as much money out of the public purse as possible whilst delivering as little as possible. Once you understand this formula, the fact that HS2 has been reduced from London-Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, to sort-of London to Birmingham for 4 times the original price completely makes sense.

[@daydays12]

Indeed it is. Like water privatisation...PPE contracts and the billions 'spent' on 'track and trace' much of which went into consultancy firms ( Tory friends) pockets. @@benghiskahn3673

[@Myles0Harcourt]

300m Euros for a 9.3 mile tram line is shocking value for money.

[@hx0d]

@@benghiskahn3673 You speak nothing but facts.

[@petebreadwards8737]

This has happened on a smaller scale in Honolulu, Hawaii. Billions have been spent on a rail line that doesn't go anywhere and is a decade behind schedule and still unfinished.

[@mrvwbug4423]

And does Hawaii need anything more than maybe a tram line in Honolulu that goes to the airport? The ecological argument actually makes more sense in Hawaii given how much sensitive terrain would need to be torn up to build rail lines around the islands.

[@kwv4865]

Link? Thanks

[@ReyOfLight]

The level of incompetence in the UK is hurting me on a personal level... And I'm Swedish, and I haven't even visited the UK for over 10 years now! 😳

[@firebry23]

They're onpar with American politicians. We've got a corpse running the country and a brain dead idiot running Pennsylvania so🤷‍♂️

[@James-f97]

This is what happens when you have a government party pushing to become more "independent" whilst also neglecting every sector, essentially pushing the boat out whilst forgetting that just floating away isn't going to get you anywhere significant.

[@JohnHohn-pr9vm]

​@James-ed6wq i challenge you to come up with anything the UK is good at? As a Dane who has lived here for 17 years, i am still choked by how self satisfied/diluted so many brits are.

[@miscbits6399]

@@JohnHohn-pr9vm I'm a kiwi who's been here 20 years. Same issue - and I learned in Kiwiland that british migrants were either the most self-deluded entitled and poorly educated chancers/assholes you could get, or the hardest working, and most honest/conscientious workers you could get - almost no middle ground. The latter group absolutely HATE the former group because they migrated to NZ to get away from them in the first place, but the former group are the ones everyone sees as they include the political Machiavellis who build themselves to high places by trampling everyone else

[@teostarmer3478]

@@JohnHohn-pr9vm We have a great go at being a happy people, and trying to stay positive. That time capsule is pretty special!

[@scotgranger7205]

Thank you for this fantastic video. I'm a native Californian where we have a High Speed Rail cost problem too. I am a rail fan but no one seems to be able to figure out how to deliver high speed rail on time or budget here either. The inflated price for our project is virtually identical to HS2 and, at this point, will only be completed in Central California - NOT the San Francisco to Los Angeles line as originally envisioned. There have also been numerous lawsuits throughout the state that have added to the cost. The UK does not have a lock on politicians who like shiny new technology without consideration of it's cost vs. benefit. Also, as a tourist who loves London, it seems silly to cancel the connection to Euston and make the HS2 such a bad choice for residents and tourists alike.

[@mustangthings]

I’m originally from the Central Valley and yeah, the HSR plan as it sits is ridiculous. That stupid bridge across the San Joaquin river took like 5 years to build by itself. The rest of the elevated segments are randomly strewn across the landscape doing nothing but attracting graffiti. This whole waste of time and money would make a lot more sense if you could go from SF to LA, but, that’s not going to happen in any of our lifetimes, if ever.

[@phil4483]

Thank God I moved out of there, much as I loved it. HS Rail in CA was a non-starter from the beginning, the pipe dream of MoonBeam Brown. The Central Valley project sure ate up a bunch of prime farmland.

[@5688gamble]

As an urbanist who hates car dependency things like HS2 and the trams in Edinburgh being messed up so badly whilst they seem to be able to get horrible urban motorways done!

[@5688gamble]

Hey, motorways are generally pretty straight! Why don't we narrow the M6 and ust run the rails along that, far more efficient and fast than a car!

[@jonnmedds]

One of the best advantages I've seen for HS2, was the fact it would free up the slower, congested railway lines to enable more local trains to operate

[@jude_the_apostle]

Exactly. I think the UK has a rail capacity problem, not a speed problem

[@Arltratlo]

@@jude_the_apostle with your old layout, you have plenty of problems and you dont need to pick just one!

[@vylbird8014]

Perhaps part of why it was cancelled. Did you see some of the conspiracy-peddling at the party conference? They have an ideological commitment to cars now, as a symbol of freedom from big government. The US culture-war politics is catching on over here more every year.

[@guyman1570]

If it's just capacity, build more regular rails. It'd cost one-tenth compared to HS2, easily!

[@vylbird8014]

@@guyman1570The issues raising costs for HS2 would apply as much to regular-speed rail though. You'd still have to buy up land, and do expensive tunnelling. Going for low speed just means you could have the track curve a bit more.

[@SD-tj5dh]

I installed drainage pumps for the piling at Euston. After 2 days I got it running just perfect. Never got started. 2 weeks later I went back to pack it all up. They decided to prioritise the welfare block development over the station itself 😂 its a shitshow but every hour I work on the project I can consider a tax rebate.

[@goldenhate6649]

That sounds like modern politicians, those votes from the poor won't buy themselves.

[@minutemanhomestead7214]

@@SD-tj5dh repay the pounds to the brits who paid for your waste you could have easily pointed that out and stood on resignation BUT YOU DIDNT so shut up

[@rog2224]

@@goldenhate6649 I don't think "welfare block" means what you think it means in the context of a railway station.

[@IshtarNike]

​@@rog2224lol, the irony of the people who voted in these clowns complaining incorrectly about benefits would be hilarious it wasn't so tragic.

[@BobSmith-fx9sz]

It cost ~£250,000 a few years back for my local railway station to put some netting above a single platform to try and stop pigeons perching above waiting passengers. It didn't really work as pigeons still managed to get in the rafters!

[@knoll9812]

UK are experts at adding cost and profits that have nothing to do with the actual project. A major problem is that projects go to chums in big companies and not to smaller companies.

[@bennY-lz3wd]

Not just the UK. In Germany we can't even build an airport without spending billions more than planned and be laughably late in completion -> BER Berlin airport. Not to mention the disastrous and horribly expensive energy policies.

[@zhufortheimpaler4041]

the energy mess is due to the 4 consecutive merkel governements crawling up into Putins ass and blocking domestic renewable expansion.

[@mikehindson-evans159]

And BER was constructed on the site of an existing airport!

[@roryfriththetraveller4982]

i work with these projects as an archaeologist - i'm part of some of the pre-construction payout but i'm a biased advocate for it being important lol BUT as someone currently working with an infrastructure project, the amount of bureaucratic incompetence i've witnessed in the past year, including what i've heard from colleagues working HS2 specifically, has been mind boggling and very frustrating. we would be able to do our jobs faster if there wasn't such an issue getting everyone else to do their jobs properly (archaeology is poorly paid so tightly run by necessity, we're a tiny portion of the budget). The amount of time we've all spent sitting on our hands waiting for a piece of legal paper this summer was mind numbing This would've been so much better spent on just looking after our current railways or on JUST the northern section lmao

[@spankeyfish]

As soon as it was announced I wondered how much normal speed rail we could get for the same price.

[@grahamo22]

Sorry mate but archaeology is one the hundreds or irrelevancies that increase costs. Your lot should be given 48 hours to get what you need and the project moves on. You will never find much that we haven’t already got. It’s just rinse and repeat of the same finds.

[@roryfriththetraveller4982]

@@grahamo22 thats fair, we can agree to disagree here! genuinely without being patronising, heritage isn't everyones top priority. just for the record, we really are a tiny fraction of any infrastructure budget and on a flat negotiated sum, and one mandated by law. areas without archaeology are binned off pretty quickly - if its not going to tell us anything we don't need to be there! even with the bureaurocracy stopping us working when we usually would be muddling through in all weathers, we are still out more than the construction workforce. i feel safe working for my company, but even our in house safety team as well as the managers are endlessly frustrated, we don't want to be dragging it out this long either!

[@willhemmings]

Interesting reading a comment from the archaeological angle. When I walked the entire route in 2018, I met several archaeologists on a hill near Southam. That was five and a half years ago; and I don't think investigations along the route have finished yet! If that's the rate of progress I extrapolate completion no earlier than 2030

[@marcoosvald8429]

The EXACT same thing is happening in California with their High-Speed rail between L.A. and San Francisco. Some 17 years after the project began, not a single piece of track is open, and the line isn't anywhere even close to being complete. And now they want to build one between L.A. and Las Vegas.

[@ronclark9724]

California politicians and real estate gold diggers are worst than the NIMBYS. What started off as a HSR line from LA to SF ended up being gold plated to include extending that line to Sacramento and San Diego through urban cities where real estate is the MOST expensive just to win the referendum to build it. California could have followed already state owned land adjacent to I-5 without fighting the NIMBYS and real estate gold diggers while avoiding central numerous stops and cities along CA-99 slicing off easily 30 minutes... The money and passenger traffic is in LA and SF, not Bakersfield and Fresno among others. When you choose to route through the MOST expensive real estate instead of the cheapest, and double the scale of the project, don't be surprised the original cost projections more than quadruple to a huge BOONDOGGLE... Simply put, government bureaucrats could care less about budgets, the more they spend the more they make, whereas private enterprise watch the budget like a hawk and are rewarded with bonuses for staying on time and on budget...

[@HyperactiveNeuron]

The problem of the NIMBY concept is a huge problem here in the US too. It's unfortunate but inevitable because people are stubborn and so many don't care about the overall greater good.

[@Keylevitation]

NIMBYs screwed up the California high speed rail project

[@ISpitHotFiyaa]

There have always been self-interested people that opposed stuff. The problem is the laws that give those people any input. That's what changed. Prior to the Environmental Policy Act in the 1970s we pretty much decided this stuff democratically by allowing elected officials to build the stuff they campaigned on. We don't do that anymore. Now a small minority of people can block overwhelmingly popular projects or make them so expensive that they're no longer possible.

[@christopherconard2831]

​@@Keylevitation Californians screwed up California. From what I've seen they are the kings of NIMBY and using every law in the most insane way to stop construction of anything. Though some people from Massachusetts have learned from California and have become very adept at shutting down anything proposed that might disrupt their lives or views from their property in the slightest. I live in Florida. Construction projects are slightly different here. It's possible to tie one up in court for years. But once it finally starts it gets done. The delays turn into a f*ck you, we're coming through mindset and stuff gets built quickly. So at least there isn't the constant start/stop/restart issue.

[@Letshaveafewbeers]

Thing is what these people don't realise is that once they're dead they can't take the cash with them.

[@kiae-nirodiariesencore4270]

"Even the French!"...you say. The French have been way ahead in high speed rail for decades. The first TGV line opened in 1982 between Paris and Lyon and since then they have kept up a steady plod of building LGV's (Ligne Grande Vitesse) linking the country and refining the trains which run on them. When we came to live in France in 2013 the LGV linking Paris to Bordeaux had been under construction for a year. It was completed in 2017 for a cost of €7.8 bn. The distance between those cities is 500 km (300 miles). North of Poitiers some of the infrastructure was already in place and only need the special track to be laid but the 250 km from Bordeaux to Poitiers was entirely new, cuttings, bridges, overhead power, a completely new permanent way. Here they just crack on and get it done over much longer distances..Sometimes it's really embarrassing being a Brit.

[@Clery75019]

The distance from Paris to Bordeaux is about the same as the distance from London to Edinburgh. It takes 2h30mn to go from Paris to Bordeaux by train and about twice that time to go from London to Edinburgh. Yet the thing is that the generally longer distances between French major cities compared to British ones probably explains why there was a bigger urge to build high speed rail there in the first place.

[@MrPictor]

​@@Clery75019Paris to Bordeaux is 2 hours and 3 minutes.

[@daydays12]

Yes. I too, live in France and was annoyed by that uncalled for and ignorant slur on the French. I agree, too, about the embarrassment! In addition high speed trains the public transport in the city where I live : cycle routes + municipal bicycles, trams, tram-trains, rapid buses on dedicated bus routes, buses, ferries, all cheap and free on the weekends is more than excellent and heavily used which keeps cars out the city centre which is being planted with green spaces etc etc making it a more and more pleasant place to work, live, visit and shop.

[@hx0d]

Because they don't have NIMBYs who moan that their 4x4 track is being cut off.

[@harrydebastardeharris987]

Yes I always say I’m Australian instead of a Brit,abit like Americans say they are Canadian’s.

[@bokmcdok]

An interesting titbit about the HS2: Part of the original route was planned to go through an old farm in Southam. They must have figured they could buy out the farm as it wasn't really being used any more. What they didn't realise was that the farmhouse was actually Codemasters - the biggest independent game developer in the UK. They ended up having to redirect the planned route instead.

[@Pyritie]

codemasters was bought out by EA a couple years back

[@Harrington2323]

Wow, as a German I was surprised that our costs per mile are 1/3 of the british costs. Normally our infrastructure projects are the expensive and unlogical ones. Just look for the BER airport in Berlin or the "Stuttgart 21" railway project but the HS2 seems to be in a class of it´s own!

[@sihollett]

German HSR (I don't think Stuttgart 21 is counted as that) - ditto French - runs from the edge of one urban area to the edge of another. HS2 runs from centre to centre as those urban tunnels removing non-stop trains from existing railways are the most important parts of the project.

[@Lodai974]

@@sihollett Not always, the LGV Atlantique passes in a tunnel between Massy and Paris (at 220kph) under the suburbs, there is the Lille Europe sector, same configuration, and there will be the Marseille sector where an railway underground station and tunnel under the city will be built . We avoid it if possible, but we know how to do it.

[@willhemmings]

I have followed Stuttgart 21 closely and admire the ambition behind it. Elbphilharmonie too, but I would like to say thank you for your deference towards the British that insofar as colossal, ill conceived, hugely expensive, badly managed, partly realised projects are concerned, we are the outstanding leaders in the field. You are too kind

[@Harrington2323]

@@willhemmings 😭😂we could make a contest which Gouvernement burned the most money. I think it's roughly the same. When I hear the real costs of one of this mega projects i'm surprised when it's not 3 times more then the Initial estimated costs. I have even a personal one. In our area were getting fibre-optic cables (like in whole Germany) the projekt should have been completed 02.2022, then 07.2022, .........., ............. Now we have nearly 2024 and the costs are roughly at 225%.

[@Harrington2323]

@@sihollett it was advertised as "Connecting Stuttgart to the HSR Network" but I wouldn't be surprised when this is fake. Stuttgart 21 isn't even a railway station, it's a way station. Railway stations in Germany are only allowed to have a certain slope and because they had to build it barrier-free they couldn't build steps. I think building HSR Tunnels Underground is way more expensive then above ground and that's what Stuttgart 21 stands for.

[@olicool11]

Another issue that you didn't touch on is the issue of chronic short termism in public infrastructure projects due to the 4 year term of MPs and party leadership. Big expenditure often doesn't see positives coming back until after their term is probably up which combined with insane mismanagement, public pressure, cronyism, and all the other issues you mentioned, as well as a lack of accountability results in exactly what we got with HS2. A poorly managed, poorly planned, mess of a project that fundamentally COULD at some point have been a benefit.

[@grahamstrouse1165]

You lucky bastards. Here in the US Congressional reps are only in for two years at a go.

[@jakehowie442]

Party leadership is 5 years, but now it’s a lot shorter since even the parties think their own leaders are shit! We have a PM Rickshaw Rishi that wasn’t even voted into power and yet he makes the decision to to cut HS2…now that is democracy!

[@razor1uk610]

*_Fiscali Fishi Rishi_*

[@splodge561]

​@@razor1uk610how long did it take you to think of that?

[@BlackGriffin195]

Living close to both HS2 and the East -West Rail link there are unspoken domestic disasters plaguing locals. Thousands of historic minor roads, bridleways, cycle paths and footpaths linking hamlets, villages and towns have beed destoyed. Millions of people can no longer walk, cycle, ride or drive efficiently to their destinations. We now have to take ridiculous diversions adding cummulatively thousands of miles to journeys. A journey to visit an old relative used to take 35 minutes. It now takes one and a quarter hours. And it will never get better. That's what knocking twenty minutes off the London to Birmingham rail journey has cost in simple terms....time, fuel and money (and let's not talk about public transport!)

[@pirateadam3686]

I started working for Network Rail shortly before HS2 was announced. We were saying back then that there is no way in Hell it would ever be completed, even with such a long timeline...

[@bfyrth]

Network Rail is just as bad at wasting money

[@jimjam6958]

Government research establishment employee here, it's all about spending the money and putting your hand out for more.

[@StimParavane]

Wow. Who could have predicted it? Apart from everyone...

[@shadeblackwolf1508]

Basically, the way to get good at building rail, is to draw up a plan of all the rail you want built this century, choosing a place to start and keeping that team going. their experience will bring effort and time down

[@srpacific]

What if that team includes mostly management and consultants, who spend more time planning environmental reclamation for a needlessly wide path than actually building the railway

[@shadeblackwolf1508]

@@srpacific then you notice that in the yearly performance cycle, and cut dead weight, hiring more physical laborers in their stead. You can even hire more of those for the same wage bill

[@DeleteTheWeak]

They learnt their lesson when they mothballed our nuclear submarine programme in the late 90s and wiped out the trades and skills capability. They need to learn their lesson here and actually promote hands on skills and engineering then keep them in work

[@lukewiseman9946]

Thank you for this one. I don't know if I can add much to some of the wise comments below. 1) There is ALREADY the alignment of a central moderately high-speed railway line, in the shape of the Grand Central Line. It was comprehensively rubbed out, apart for a few miles near Loughborough, where it is now in the care of a heritage railway, under the Beeching reforms, but could be re-instated and have a link made to Birmingham, as it goes via Rugby, Leicester and Nottingham. (It was built by a railway company from 'the North' as the "London Extension", before being renamed.) 2) I pass a site for the HS2 near Warwick every week. Nothing seems to have actually happened for months. 3) It appears to me (as mentioned by commenters below and also by Simon Whistler) that there are a lot of people involved in the project who are paid huge amounts to do virtually nothing. 4) There are no doubt many people (especially politicians) who are receiving very nice 'sweeteners' for arranging this or that. 5) Some part of me says that this project ALWAYS had a certain amount of 'jobs for the boys' about it. As in "How many of my mates can we give an income to?"

[@miksteruk]

I worked on HS2 supporting its ERP system (accounts, HR, procurements etc) and the stuff i have seen! how to literally burn money..

[@ek8710]

Please, do go on 😮

[@13minutestomidnight]

The problem wasn't the original idea for HS2 - even with a 30 billion price tag - the problem was the mismanagement in the execution and the ridiculous adding of costs. Any infrastructure project can balloon insanely when the politicians cave to unrealistic demands from the people and can't competently manage the project. What really points to government incompetency is that when the costs were spiralling, the government didn't call for a review to investigate and slash unnecessary costs and overhaul the management. That one review they did do did not fix any problems or instigate any solutions, so it failed.

[@petergaskin1811]

More like the other way round. When the poor sods trying to run the Project are subject to constant political interference from those who are able to stick their noses into what shouldn't concern them.

[@chrisball3778]

The original idea was terrible too. The main problem with the existing services isn't their speed (which is actually already very good)- it's the high ticket prices and overcrowding. If the main aim was to boost capacity, then they could just have built a normal rail line rather than a high-speed one, at much lower cost, with more intermediate stops and better integration into the existing network, much better achieving that goal.

[@MorbidEel]

@@chrisball3778 Higher speed does make sense for increasing capacity if you want to minimize the land requirement. To move the same average number of people per day you could have more trains or you could move them around faster. There is also the added convenience of more frequent trains. Trains could also get longer but I have no idea how the scales cost for that. It would require a more powerful engine and more space at the stations but those land requirements is more localized rather than spread along the all tracks.

[@sihollett]

@@chrisball3778 High ticket prices and overcrowding is why you build a new line that provides lots of capacity and has lower operating costs due to doing the journey much quicker...

[@sihollett]

​@@petergaskin1811 Yes - the 5 or 6 redesigns of Euston that the Government have demanded in order to save a few hundred million in construction costs has cost nearly as much as it would save in design, planning, etc costs - and lets not forget the construction inflation from years of delay while the Government works out what it wants...

[@oldcynic6964]

This is not a UK-only problem. In Australia, the government is building a 2200MW pumped storage power station ("Snowy 2.0'") Original 2017 budget was $2 billion. By August 2023 the builder was estimating $12 billion. Current estimates (by independent analysts) are $20 billion. Timeframe keeps going out, and out ..........

[@spaceman081447]

The story of the incrementally creeping cost overruns of HS2 reminds me of a quote from the late Senator Everett Dirkson of Illinois, "A hundred million here and a hundred million there and pretty soon we're talking about real money."

[@daydays12]

nice one!!

[@Harry244ful]

Having worked briefly at HS2 as an apprentice. I have seen first hand how much of a shambles the internal management of this much needed project was! Far too much bureaucracy and nobody willing make a decision!

[@DrWhom]

make any decision in the UK and the pack will turn on you like jackals

[@blackbirdsr71]

Have a friend working on part of it. He organised a delivery van to bring something from one site to another in london. A colleague in the office said something basically like 'that could be terrorists'. He didn't know if it was a joke or serious. Had to cancel the delivery and get some type of security report from the delivery company.. lol

[@lagundafire]

I know you posted these as ‘government officials’ but a huge issue is our infrastructure building is privatised meaning that as long as a company wins the contract they will bloat and drag as much as possible.

[@michaeljohndennis2231]

I’ve been living in Manchester 21 years and I’m very surprised at how bad this has become - I note that Irish Rail is better at its rail projects, although the Irish government made massively wasteful EU funded investments on motorways rather than building new rail lines - indeed, a proposed high speed rail tunnel from Holyhead to Dublin was shelved yet again because private investors were not willing to waste money on a poorly managed project

[@daydays12]

A Brexiter eh? Oh dear.

[@dirtbikerman1000]

Before I watch the video after the intro I'll answer the question. I worked on the railways in my Early 20s 20 men stood around watching one man do a basic task is why the budget is so high. In the summer in Northampton. 12 men travelled from Doncaster, one being me We did this all summer Joined up with the GNER crew in front of the carlsberg factory in Northampton We then proceeded to do foook all and get paid Well we did do a little bit. 20 men took all day to put 3 signs out to slow trains down I could have done all 3 alone in two hours because of the distance between each one I went there for the money but went back to my apprenticeship welding job because I couldn't just standing around passing time Time = money Now you know why the rail industry costs so much

[@andywright1634]

I worked with someone who worked on the rail, along with his brother [who is quite high up now], and they did a lot of piss taking and some dead risky things so they could knock off many hours early.

[@acajutla]

Seems like Thatcher never rooted out the commie spirit

[@phueal]

I'm sure this is true, but then we need to know why it's not true in other countries in Europe. Perhaps we might expect the Germans to be instinctively hard working, but the Spaniards and Italians don't exactly have that reputation.

[@SMlFFY85]

Overpaying for a complete HS2 is far less of a waste of public money than cutting back the project to the stretch that no longer has any reason to exist. The Tories need locking up for the damage they've done to this country.

[@neil1982]

It's indescribable how much rage this matter has caused me over the past 6 years. The money pit that is HS2 continues to cost and cost for NOTHING, whilst essential services in health and local governments continue to have costs and services cut. Who is accountable for it? Absolutely nobody, because this is Britain and our government don't believe in repurcussions, they believe in sliding out of sight with another payout.

[@daydays12]

I so agree...and all to further line the pockets of the already wealthy.

[@charleswillcock3235]

The NHS is extremely good at wasting money, if you know people in middle management the stories I have heard would get you spitting blood.

[@paulnolan6866]

I work on the railway.. Its an absolute shambles. Costs around 5000 a night for 2 guys to take turns cutting grass. About 12 men to operate a petrol strimmer, only 2 or 3 of which actually use the strimmer and only one person at a time. I was on a job once where there were 19 men to change a single bolt. Insane

[@Nomadith]

Yay, private firms taking advantage of a public need :') That's painfully disheartening

[@inbb510]

Yet unions get angry when we start talking about compulsory redundancies...

[@edc1569]

Why it’s cheaper to build a new railway line

[@willhemmings]

This reads like a Monty Python sketch. I probably shouldn't be laughing

[@rogerk6180]

​@@inbb510 these are probably all outside contracted companies doing this. Not the people actually in the union.

[@ognimaeb]

As a UK-dwelling astronomer, I absolutely loved the comparison between the Elizabeth Line and the James Webb Telescope. You have a new subscriber!

[@lukedowdall5172]

The brown envelopes were fat and heavy with this one! Wonder how many friends of friends were supplying ppe and suddenly had consultanting firms doing those 3 day safety courses 🤑🤑🤑

[@joshuarosen465]

As an American I'm jealous of Britain's low low infrastructure construction costs since ours are three times higher. It wasn't always that way. There is a bridge near me over the Merrimac river that was put up during the great depression in about a year. When it came time to repair it a while back it took 10 years. During that time we had to use a rickity temporary bridge. How is it we could build a bridge from scratch in a year in the 1930s and in the 2000s it took ten years to just renovate it.

[@andromidius]

Again, one word - corruption. America is just one step ahead of the UK on that. Public projects are now seen as a cash cow for milking the taxpayers - with no intention of doing it properly, quickly, safely or sometimes at all. Just endless money pits, right into the pockets of political party donors.

[@douglasreid699]

Probably health and safety for one. back in the 30s like we see in the famous pictures of men standing on girders with no harness or safety rope was probably what they were doing to build the bridge. now they need risk assessments, safety gear, safety equipment and machines and so on which costs money and takes time to implement ( need a cherry picker to reach something you got to harness up, get in it and drive it to where you need it, before times it could be done off a ladder or just walk up or climb the girder). part 2 is design. the 1930s bridge was designed for that era and maybe a decade or 2 in the future. now designers and looking to build bridges to last 50 to 100 years so they dont need to change them as often, and also make them look the part either fancy or fit in with local area. a complicated design leads to it taking longer to build. (and in my opinion, designers have there heads up there arse most of the time, they design something and the builders go how the hell am i going to build this? because most designers are out of uni and never lifted a tool or built anything where as here in the uk in the past (this coming from my dad who was a builder most of his life), older builders would move into the design and planning departments so the plans you got could actually be built.) people that are smart enough to be in government and run the country correctly are also smart enough to not go for that job so we end up with idiots that will waste tax payers money on making something fancy when we just want something thats cheap and reliable to work. and politicians that negotiate these deals are weak, they just sign off on it at what ever cost when contractors make bids for work.

[@goldenhate6649]

Road construction safety, steel prices (we burned all the good iron ore fighting WW1 and WW2), cost of living increases, worker safety (OSHA), actually getting paid rather than lining up to die due to a fall, proper bridge supports, bridge designed around reduced maintenance, survivorship bias. The list goes on and on and on. Survivorship Bias is a huge one here. We only see the buildings that lasted, not all the horrible disasters of bridges.

[@MrPossumeyes]

Let's not knock worker safety, folks, as a reason for high construction costs. Please. When a worker dies their partner has a double load plus working, unless their parents are in the picture too. Ultimately it's their children who suffer. A very sad outcome.

[@dorsk84]

OSHA! That's it, and greed.

[@michaelthomas3646]

as the saying goes more money than sense, and HS2 is a very good example of people in power having more money than sense. I wonder if we turned up at parliment and quote £0.01 whether we would get the green light for HS4, only to turn up a week later with a new estimate of 5 billion pound!! and then turn up a couple of years into the build with a new estimate of 5 trillion pound before we even got to Picadilly Circus!!

[@ignitionfrn2223]

1:30 - Chapter 1 - High speed dreams 5:25 - Chapter 2 - The best laid plans 7:55 - Chapter 3 - Lost in (nimby) paradise 11:35 - Chapter 4 - The great british train robbery ? 14:30 - Chapter 5 - Global leader

[@Kaltagstar96]

As a Northerner, I'm not really surprised that the Tories fucked us over, they've got a pretty good track record of promising the world and then just deciding that the North of England just doesn't fucking matter. But it also seems that the people at Euston who's homes and businesses were knocked down for no fucking reason didn't get a much better deal. Also, this is a genuine question: Would HS2 have been any better had those NIMBY's not kicked up a fuss or would it have just been less of a disaster than it currently is?

[@harryaurelian]

Yeah, where do they all live?

[@hellequin.303]

Sunak says you can get the bus it's just as good, so much more efficient for your needs. Have you ever considered horse and cart and going green? Infact walk 😂

[@xerogue]

And yet more people live in the north, so in a democratic environment the north would hold more power...the irony of capitalism and democracy. Enjoy getting poorer. Abolish NHS, we need more capitalism 😅

[@Croz89]

I personally don't think the NIMBYs added all that much. An extra couple billion perhaps, still a lot but not enough to kill the project.

[@alanrobertson9790]

@@hellequin.303 Can the horse and cart exceed 20 mph?

[@nicholasbell6128]

I've worked in infrastructure in the UK and for a moment in time on HS2. this doesn't surprise me. From my experience the approach taken to most problems is to just throw money at the problem, when they should be engineering cost effective solutions, there are lots of people working in senior roles who just aren't sufficiently trained to think critically, only to execute "problems" that they've seen before. I've not been impressed with the state of civil engineering in the UK, probably worth mentioning that the Washington Accord sees things similarly. There is obviously a lot more to it I'm sure.

[@daves1412]

There are a few errors here: the estimates are not in constant pounds. Plus the cost of the Euston re-development and the urban elements of the links are not included in other coutries' estimates of cost whereas they were in the case of HS2. The fundamental issue is we didn't define what it was for sufficiently clearly and stick to that objective. Instead we let an inefficiently complex contracting and subcontracting hierarchy created because of the historical flakiness of successive UK governments strip the value out of a project which was meddled endlessly with by politicians during planning and construction, creating even more cost overruns. It is shameful that my country allowed this to happen. But we should still build it. And attempt to claw back any wasted money that we can.

[@jonevansauthor]

Agreed - we should still build it. All of it, and expand it with more projects. The Channel Tunnel went over budget and I'm sure the Underground did. They've paid off spectacularly well. Granted, I would prefer not to waste money, but the more important thing is having, you know, the thing. We still have Victorian railway infrastructure we're using now. We have Roman sewers. We'd get the economic value over time, and it'll suck but it took until 2006 to pay off our loans from the US and Canada for defeating the Nazis. Worth it.

[@CinemaDemocratica]

I seem to be in a tiny minority with this view so be forewarned, but I'm forever struck anew by the lack of accountability when cost estimates that formed the basis for elected-official approval turn out to be so wrong. If you stole that money from the taxpayers you'd go to prison, so why is it perfectly okay to be responsible for that much taxpayer money to disappear, as long as a construction crew gets it instead?

[@technogong]

That's why we call it 'The Giverment'.... these loopholes are built into the system.

[@filip9587]

As a Londoner, it's been an absolute disaster on the landscape in the Euston area as they had to demolish an entire office tower. Furthermore, the Crossrail project was another disaster, yet provides a great link to both Reading and Sheffield. How come the HS2 can't do what Crossrail did but on a larger and more efficient scale? This country's horrendous politics buffles me.

[@Battleman365]

Crossrail is a resounding success mate. This is parochial British thinking to say so.

[@fuzzylon]

It's a shame there was no mention of the capacity benefits of HS2. Once the fast trains are on HS2 there would be much more capacity on the existing lines for local services. The time savings to Birmingham, Manchester, etc. weren't really the point.

[@jonathanbowen3640]

Correct.

[@MorbidEel]

Hasn't it already been cancelled?

[@niallrussell7184]

and people on the current route lose their high speed trains. HS2 just cuts through rural land, and no station access for the millions that have high speed now. Would have been better in the 1800s.

[@TheLegoTrainStation]

​@@niallrussell7184The minor stations that stand to gain more regional/commuter services though higher capacity, don't have high speed trains as it stands.

[@guyman1570]

If it's just capacity, then build up the regular railways some more instead

[@Baulder13]

In the US, I would not be surprised if HSR from Boston to Miami cost 1 Trillion dollars and still went over budget.

[@Pushing_Pixels]

I've never actually been to the UK, but I've looked at a map of it. As soon as I heard you say the government was hoping to recoup its investment from the southern leg I just shook my head. Even I could immediately figure out that most of the people who were going to use this service were going to be travelling between London and Manchester, and London and Leeds. Unless the tickets cost the same as the normal train, which I somehow doubt, hardly anybody would be using it to go between Birmingham and London. Now that it doesn't even go to London, nobody will be using it. Without the northern legs (and a central London terminus) it will be a white elephant that permanently loses money. The guy that wrote that report was 100% correct; build the whole thing or cancel the whole thing. If you build it, it will cost a fortune but eventually pay itself off and provide a net benefit. If you cancel it, you are never getting any of that money back, but you won't spend any more. Building only the least important leg is the worst of both worlds (you will spend more and not only will you never get any of it back, it will keep costing you money). Funnily, if Labour had been in government it probably would've been a lot cheaper. Why? Because they could've run roughshod over all those country NIMBYs without it becoming a destabilising internal battle. None of those electorates vote for them, so it's no skin off their nose if they're pissed. "Let them whine and we'll just get on with it. The national interest comes first". Or something like that. Yes, they could've tied the government up in the courts for awhile, but those Country Gentlemen and Local Councils would be going broke from the legal costs long before the government would, and they would be offering themselves up as the perfect scapegoats for every cost overrun and delay reported in the media. Oh well. If it's any consolation, Sydney Australia recently blew a couple of billion dollars on a tram line that went way over budget. Not even a train, let alone a fast one.

[@ProbablyNotLegit]

Literally the northern part is probably the most needed. The rest of the money could be used to recommission some lines closed in the 1950s

[@Flynbourne]

My favourite story of HS2 is the £100m bat tunnel built to protect bats located on either side of the line. That’s so indicative of how the costs have blown out

[@MervynPartin]

Less expensive, but a similar scheme- bat bridges are built over new roads because apparently, bats follow the line of hedges. How they ever managed to survive before humans started making hedges baffles me.

[@Flynbourne]

@@MervynPartin they love hedge funds.

[@acajutla]

​@@MervynPartinthose bridges are probably not just built for bats

[@sqwalnoc]

and the newts.. bloody hell.. the damned greater crested newts....

[@MervynPartin]

@@sqwalnocSupposedly endangered yet manage to be found in every building site in the country.

[@checker3694]

Its obvious, 30 years ago 2 people and 1 vehicle went to fill pot holes on the road, Today it takes 8 people and 3 vehicles and 7 out off the 8 people cant bend over to tie their shoes laces. Now multiple that by a 1000 people doing a project that took 150 to do years ago with less productive machinery. And thats why it cost so much, and local authorities have burnt through their yearly budget before the second quarter.

[@stax6092]

There is a huge problem in most governments with pre-planning, If you saw the Chart you would see where I live being above the UK that being Canada. However, the biggest issue is that most of these politicians don't want to get anything done, they just want to sit on their laurels and achieve nothing whilst also receiving the benefits of being in their position of power. So, it is Vital to not only choose with your vote, here in Canada trying to make sure it's a Minority government is best because it forces the parties to actually do stuff if they want to keep their jobs, can't really say how it goes federally for anywhere else. What I am trying to say is that your voice matters and your government should work for you and not itself.

[@john1703]

Does democracy stack up any longer, as a form of govenment?

[@AL5520]

A new extensive study by NYU on public transport costs around the world puts Canada far lower than the UK, still expensive but not as bad as you think. The Vancouver SkyTrain is a great and relatively low cost system. The new REM in Montreal has very reasonable cost and construction time and even when things are not that great you finish them, and you have quite a few projects under construction. There is a problem with Anglo-Saxon countries when it comes to high costs but Canada is actually on the low side (behind Australia).

[@gbphil]

It did sort of make sense when Heathrow was part of the scheme. Being able to utilise Birmingham Airport as Heathrow’s third runway (45 mins away) and give the Heart of the Country access to the world via Heathrow with a direct connection. The wet dream of 250mph trains also drew the political interest. 😎😇

[@mrvwbug4423]

Yet even getting from Heathrow to Euston is a bit of a pain. They could've run an express tube line to connect Heathrow to all 3 of the main inter-city stations, but opted to only run to Paddington and make you take the slow local tube the rest of the way.

[@leightonolsson4846]

Hey Simon, you're not being fair, we are really inept at loads of things (especially for the past 13 years...)

[@cooper8t]

They should have just built the whole HS2. Better to pay a lot for something rather than pay something for nothing. The bit that kills me is if HS2 doesn't get built to Euston, it would be faster to take the older line from Birmingham to Euston than it would to take HS2 and change to continue the journey. I guess at least passenger capacity between the two cities would improve though.

[@TiGGowich]

I am working with another branch of the UK government on a large transformation project... and without giving too much away... but reality is that the public service is just filled with incompetence at every level. Everyone screams for change but does not want to change anything about what they are doing, they don't understand the most basic economic principles, they have no strategy, no competent planning or project authorities... they don't have the capabilities and/or competent staff to deliver the project. It's a nightmare.

[@sw4rmify]

Pls give a hintttt 👀

[@TiGGowich]

@@sw4rmify nah I wish I could but I signed a strict NDA ...

[@sw4rmify]

@@TiGGowichoh fairs. I just wanna get hired bro, whatever it is haha

[@TiGGowich]

@@sw4rmify well I've worked with HMRC, Defra, Department for Education, Department for Transport... and they are all the same in the way the function and operate. So pick your poison lol

[@Dilbert-o5k]

I concur. The upper management seem to be mainly involved with anything but making the job run properly . They love all this diversity and equity stuff and you are bombarded with it from innumerable people. If they want to eventually save some money they are quite happy to not take into account how much aggravation the bit they decided to save causes to other important parts of the business, even if it's pointed out that it will be problematic. Most of upper management seem to be yesmen. They will never push problems upstairs regardless of how much they need to be.

[@benco8888]

I live in Strasbourg in France at the border of Germany. And I can attest that the construction here is top notch. I think in the last 5 years there were 3 new tram stations build with 2 extensions and more on the way, done smoothly and and with not much disruption. Only problem is the building noises at night ^^'

[@bellshooter]

Pre-comment: I was involved in the original 'HS2' Project aims, and objectives, High Speed Passenger rail was NOT the driving requirement. Again, there is little understanding here of the rationale for the project, this was to shift passenger traffic onto dedicated lines to allow for High Speed Freight! The line was only specified as 'High Speed' as the differential cost was near zero from standard speed. Well you were wrong there I hear you scream, but no, the costs are inflated by delay (inflation), mission creep (putting tunnels in Nimby areas) and acquisition costs of the corridor. The unfortunate HS2 name ONLY refers to the fact that it is the second High Speed line in UK, not its intended function or purpose. Lord Adonis had no clue how to do infrastructure, or high speed. We became bad at this due to lack of experience in building infrastructure.

[@WaddedBliss]

How much of England's freight travels by rail?

[@Bmx2live2008]

​@@WaddedBlissa very large amount, you see them more often than passenger trains at all hours of the day in my town

[@WaddedBliss]

​@@Bmx2live2008I was looking for a percentage amount. And wondering what type of freight is carried.

[@jonevansauthor]

@@WaddedBliss 8.6% in 2020. About 26% of our trade with the EU goes through the Chunnel. Not to mention passengers. This will increase in the future with plans to add more routes (currently it mostly goes to London via HS1). But also massive pan-European rail upgrades are happening increasing high speed links across the continent. That will increase rail freight as well as passenger services.

[@WaddedBliss]

@@jonevansauthor Cheers. 8.6% isn't a massive amount. Certainly not worth 130 billion pounds. And HS2 would only make sense if it was linked to the Chunnel. Does that make sense, or have I got it completely wrong?

[@15DEAN1995]

Japan are experts in high speed rail, I'm shocked that the UK didn't hire advisors from there to streamline the process. The trains in Japan are considered late if they're one minute behind, a UK train is early if it's 5 mins late...

[@ytpanda398]

Bangladesh hired japanese consultants for Dhaka and it was quite expensive and they now owe certain privileges to the contractors, but they do now have a class transport system in Dhaka. The UK would not need to rely so much on consultants to require the giving out of so many privileges, so I reckon this would be a fantastic idea

[@marrs1013]

It's twofold: 1, You will never convince an Englishman that somebody in the wolrd might be better at something than him. Living in England for 17 years, the self absorbed arrogance is something hard to get used to. 2, Everything connected to the railways is a money making enterprise. Everything is geared to milk the country dry trough contracts. Service is just not important. HS2 is no exeption.

[@johnclapshoe8059]

@@marrs1013 It's like asking an Englishman whether the UK should leave the EU. I mean, I'm English, those frogs can't tell me what to do! I would've done! We did, now what? I suppose we just twiddle our fingers and muddle our way through a project we have no idea how to complete let alone start and rack up an eyewatering debt in the process. The English are no different from the Americans, and the 1930's German, we wrongly and idiotically consider ourselves superior. Like the Monty Python sketch where the arms are cut off but everything is still ok but it's clearly not a flesh wound. Keep calm and carry on. Stiff upper lip. We would admit to this, but English people aren't honest anymore, they're conservative.

[@marrs1013]

@@johnclapshoe8059 I'm Hungarian, so I can see how it can be done to any nation. No exception.

[@simonbaxter8001]

I think the problem is that as soon as a company gets a government contract, it thinks it's a bottomless pit to milk money out of. There doesn't seem to be any one in government tracking spend (probably because it's tax payers money and they don't care) and no accountability to those companies that seem to 'need' two or three times the amount they actually bid/budgeted for! I suspect if you chased the spends, you'll find for every penny spent, some MP get's a back hand in shares or bungs! If this was financed by independent backers, the amount spent would be analysed every few weeks and any overspend would mean efficiencies and re-evaluation at an early stage of the project as to what was viable and what needed to be re-assesed!

[@daleviker5884]

You say that government "doesn't care since it's taxpayers money", but it's even worse than that. If a department is managing a 10B project it has more cache than a 9B project, so not only do government staff not care if a project costs more than necessary, they can actually welcome it.

[@WarrenKLiu]

Meanwhile in my “3rd world” Indonesia, we went over budget for our HSR (~143km or in banana units 88 miles) by about 2 billion in usd terms to the tune of 7.3 billion USD. There are multiple terrain type involved with about 13 tunnels dug. 130 billion pounds is insane for a line slightly longer than ours. Construction started in 2016, and commercial service started this month on 2 Oct 2023. So we have our first HSR, the 2nd line is already being planned. I think some of our over budget and delays is due to 2 years of covid otherwise we might just our HSR in 2021. It’s ironic that the G7 countries with the exception of Japan, can’t seem to get their infrastructure projects done in a reasonable amount of time and budget.

[@alaindumas1824]

Most of the 12 LGV/HSR projects completed in France, a G7 country, took less than 7 years to be completed at an average cost below $ 20 million/km and were commercially successful. At $ 50 million/km, the Jakarta-Bandung HSR was reasonably expensive given the mountainous terrain but nevertheless needs a large ridership to pay out its loans. Like HS2 termini, Old Oak Commons and Curzon Street, Halim and Tegalluar are inconveniently located. The current 7 return trips schedule can be produced by leaving 9 of the 11 Fuxing trains in storage. Based on French experience, current patronage is less than 5% of the one needed to pay back the Chinese loans. Fortunately these loans came with a 10 year grace period but the KCIC consortium has a mountain to climb.

[@WarrenKLiu]

@@alaindumas1824i don't actually think that the JKT - BDG line will ever be "commercially" successful directly given the ticket price. I think this is probably one of the biggest differences in perspective between how Asians view infrastructure vs how the West views infrastructure. The increase in economic activity and efficiency will more than cover this. A friend of mine just actually told me the story of how he was stuck in traffic coming back from Bandung for 12 hours on the current highway during Lebaran I was going to Bandung before that highway via Puncuk (mountains with tons of tea farms) and it took on average of 4 hours one way. The highway supposedly shaved that down to 2 hours but with traffic, 4 hours again wasn't rare.

[@alaindumas1824]

@@WarrenKLiuStereotypes about the West, G7 or Asia prevent you from understanding the issue. The increase in efficiency is considered when evaluating such projects in the West. We have numbers for the value of time of business and leisure passengers. What characterized the JKT-BDG line is the fact that the ground was broken before the evaluation could be performed. Jokowi rejected the Japanese offer because Japan asked for a governmental guarantee over 50% of the project value. Those who pretended that the line could be commercially successful were Chinese, as Asians as you get. They did not ask for a governmental guarantee. Nominal loan cost was slightly lower ($ 5.5 billion against 6.2 billion with Japan), but overall costs about twice as much given the difference in interest costs over 40 years (3.46% with China Development Bank against 0.1% in Japan). Ridership was projected to be 44000 per day in the opening year 2019. Current ridership is probably less than 3000/day.

[@WarrenKLiu]

@@alaindumas1824 seems like the 44K number isn’t achievable. I just checked local news sources, average train occupancy rate is 86% with highs of 96% at ~11k passengers per day. So either the planned trips per day isn’t at full capacity since it’s less than a month of commercial operations or the projected passengers is much lower than 44k. End of day, over time, this will be a net positive for Indonesia and if we are able to keep up our gdp growth, should be viable. It’s been quite a good trajectory for us in the last 8 years. The other consideration is even if we default, China can’t take it back to China, we’ll still have the train and a restructure only benefits us from a purely financial perspective. However given other infrastructure projects, according to statements from China EXIM which I was in attendance, Indonesia hasn’t missed a single payment in last 30 years to China EXIM but this was a statement made to power plant sector, I’m just extrapolating here.

[@WarrenKLiu]

@@alaindumas1824 oh i forgot. From what I know on the decision process, Indonesia's decision was to ensure we were not beholden to a single foreign country. The Japanese got the MRT, the Chinese got the HSR. There are other factors on the ground here that isn't immediately apparent either which are legacy issues between the countries and our very corrupted past administrations. As for the 50% down, when you can't pay that, you get a higher interest rate from other parties who are willing to do a 100% LTV so that you are able to build. As for interest burden, its a cashflow game anyways. What I'm actually curious about is the difference in maintenance costs between the Chinese and Japanese since I'm pretty sure there is a maintenance and upgrade contract. There is a distinct possibility that the Japanese contract will wipe the savings in interest out. This is something I've frequently encountered in power plant tenders but I have no idea what the numbers are for roads and rails. The TCO for a Chinese power plant over 20 years is on average about 25-40% less than Japanese contractors and today we have real data since we have Chinese built plants on refurb status already so reliability between both China built and Japanese built is more or less the same but of course this is a totally different sector of infrastructure.

[@fsj197811]

I'd LOVE to see an episode comparing this to the California high speed rail that has so far gone... nowhere and cost I don't know how many million or billion dollars.

[@finniganshomestead2956]

Yes, I think the turnips in Californistan are trying to compete with HS2 in a convoluted kind of way

[@philb2820]

California’s HSR could have worked, but they started in the center vs working from the two ends. Had they done the later, they could have opened segments to start attempting to gain revenue. Also didn’t help that the cost over runs and delays in construction were left to run unchecked.

[@awAtercoLorstaIn.]

To be fair, trains/metros are the best way to move lots of people and we desperately need at least one. Heck, Texas and Cali need their own. Flying is a nightmare and it’s horrible for the environment but it’s the only option unless you want to drive 20 hours.

[@glynnwright1699]

And BART, which was so clapped out that it barely functioned the last time I used it. Compare the Elizabeth line with BART, both serving similar cities, the Elizabeth line is vastly superior.

[@rexlevitak1]

That’s mostly propaganda. In USA highways also sees low tens of billions of dollars and are wildly slow to be built . It’s not an USA can’t properly built railways it’s USA can’t built anything without massive spending / stealing

[@NickTheobald]

Very informative and well put together video. I would make the following points: 1. No mention was made of the constant turnover of ministers and Secretaries of State in the dysfunctional DfT - seven SoS in the past 13 years (so averaging less than 2 years each and some as brief as 7 weeks and 10 months with even more rapid turnovers of the minister with specific responsibility for rail - few of whom have any background experience or knowledge of the sector 2. A route following the M25 to include Heathrow Airport would surely have made sense (and wouldn’t this have been a better place to connect with ‘Crossrail’ than Old Oak Common?) 3. HS2 as originally conceived would have served eight of the UK’s 10 largest cities through a Y-shaped network and released large amounts of capacity on the West Coast, Midland, and East Coast main lines, offering significant improvements to local services and more paths for freight trains. In particular, without Hs2, the WCML between Lichfield and Crewe will be a significantly dysfunctional bottleneck, impacting on services (passenger as well as freight) to Manchester, Liverpool, North Wales and Scotland 4. The journey time between Birmingham and Manchester by train is around 90 minutes for 82 miles (av. speed 55mph) with 4-5 interim stops and Birmingham to Liverpool is 88 miles and 100 minutes or so (av. speed 52 mph) with up to 10 interim stops. Birmingham to Leeds is 110 minutes for 92 miles (av. sped 50 mph), again with many intermediate stops. The trains themselves are not up to modern standards for long distance rail travel. Motorways linking these cities are overcrowded and congested. HS2 was designed to very significantly improve the connectivity on these corridors as well as the quality of the trains themselves 5. The limited capacity of UK rail infrastructure (compared with other European countries) requires dedicated high-speed lines right into city centres - increasing costs significantly 6. Public support might have been increased if interim station(s) between Birmingham and London had been included - HS1 set the precedent surely so why was this option never seriously considered? Two possible locations include the A43/Bicester/Banbury/Buckingham and-or A46 Warwick/Leamington/Coventry (why not both?). I recall that in France, the row over the new line from Paris to Lille/Brussels came from Amiens who were so fed up with being by-passed by the new line!

[@johngrantham8024]

Britain always underestimates the cost of infrastructure projects. Always. Whenever I learn of a new projects budget, I always quadruple it! The problem is that having set an unrealistic budget, the government of the day panics when costs spiral beyond it and, as in HS2, they then either cancel it or scale it back. I envy our European cousins who, generally, have greater sticking power. Simon should do a video of the fantastic undersea tunnels project that the Danes completed. In the Faroe Islands, of all places.

[@monkeydank7842]

Reminds me of the Berlin Airport.

[@johnchristmas7522]

Its very straight forward as to why the UK finds it impossible to build infrastructure on time and price is because of the non stop squabbling in public/civil service sectors. Add to that the continuous objections at ever stage and the costs escalate. Plus the bureaucracy within the contractors. In China it costs £21million per kilometre of High Speed Railway, the dearest in the rest of the world (not the UK) is the USA at £59million per kilometre. In the Uk it was running at £200 million per kilometre. The real irony here, is that the Chinese were asked to build it, THEY TURNED IT DOWN!! Why? they to, could see the total horrendous bureaucracy would cost £billions and they were right. In essence Whitehall and Westminster and its contractors could not organise a piss up in a brewery. This has been proved right even more now through the Covid inquiry, total stupidity and common sense and forethought absent . It cost lots of peoples lives AND NOBODY IS RESPONSIBLE. NOT ONE.

[@pineapplesareyummy6352]

It does help that China has basically the whole supply chain making every part that goes into critical infrastructure. 40 years ago, a certain Conservative PM told the UK that mines and industry don't matter - the only thing that mattered was paper GDP growth. If it doesn't make money, then get rid of it, or privatise it. Worked like a charm....

[@johnburns4017]

HS1 came in on time and on budget. Because the man in charge never revealed what the budget was that he was allocated.

[@TrevorWilliams-fq8mg]

That's interesting. I'm told the 32.70 billion budget for HS2 was never a proper budget but a maximum figure that HS2 felt the government would accept.

[@Pabz2030]

I live in Spain and I can assure you one of the reasons here is the lack of obsession with "Health and Safety" which means work can simply progress unimpeded by mountains of nonsense.

[@jwbonnett]

The problem is that nothing moves fast in government, causing old plans to get more expensive over time, due to things like inflation. They just can't plan things, just like the NHS computer system. Too many chefs spoil the broth as they say! Not only that are infulenced too much by people that don't matter, the many outweigh the few!

[@Torashin1]

Well this was depressing af. Remind me - why do I choose to stay in this country again?!

[@fastestmilkman3840]

It's called corruption. 😅 Also if a company gives you a quote and you don't do the necessary due diligence to check and accept the contact.. no one complained about being paid more right?