What Went Wrong With HS2?

[@Clickworker101]

It’s astonishing that Britain has lost the majority of its automotive industry and still has arguably worse rail than Germany.

[@AnthonyMcGowan]

most of the UK railway dates from the 1800's America paid for not only Germany but most of European Railways to be rebuilt from the rubble post 1945 via the Marshal fund, UK elected a socialist ie Labour Government so got very little aid from the marshal fund with the additional argument being we won and didnt get flatend like Germany

[@jamesau4296]

@@AnthonyMcGowanOf course the US president can then argue that British got more Good time in History than Germany, considering How much more colonies did Britain have

[@Fab666.]

It’s got a worse railway than any modern European country, Italy and France particularly are miles ahead. Frecciarossa was finished not long ago and hs2 is a mess

[@sheilah4525]

It’s England, now lost as a nation.

[@sheilah4525]

@@Clickworker101 one has nothing to do with the other.

[@StefanWithTrains]

You should really do some research. No, California High Speed Rail didn't spend 100 billion US dollars, but it is estimated to cost that much. They have to date only spend 17 billion dollars on the projects under the megaproject. The reason why it is going this slow is because they don't have a good funding source from the state or the federal goverment to support the construction of the entire project.

[@sunroad7228]

The music killed it. Education and documentaries by physics torture - ha ha ha.

[@john1703]

This video ably demostrates the enormity of the lies spoken by politicians and of their utter incompetence.

[@djlondon7956]

Especially in China

[@catherinebarber3510]

Making trains compete with planes, for speed, is absolute folly.

[@ronsmith3554]

HS2 was clearly a project that was not well thought through or at least not well communicated if it was. The project and how it fits in to a larger longer term strategy do not appear to have been explained. Government led projects never seem to be very successful and often go way over budget. I always compare with the days when the UK was a railway pioneer. 200 hundred years ago The Liverpool and Manchester Railway project was created. It had a clear "case" to provide something that was definitely useful with overall benefit, but as far as I know was not led by central government in any way but by business leaders. I am sympathetic with the view "how can the cost possibly be justified when all it does is provide a better rail service between Manchester and London". I have a rail line only walking distance from my home where modern & efficient trains pass every 15 minutes that I cannot board because the station was demolished many years ago. The site still remains vacant and the station could likely be rebuilt for a few million. Maybe the decision makers need to get a better understanding of the actual transport needs and what provides best value for money as well as return on investment? It's not just about getting to/from London quicker.

[@johnburns4017]

Liverpool needs an extra train each hour - *_urgently._* Liverpool is the only major city underserved to London while neighbour Manchester is overserved. This needs addressing urgently. All the rest on the network can wait until the government has some money. That includes a WCML Stafford bypass and HS2. Even Network Rail realize this: _Reduce rail journey times and increase rail capacity between Scotland and London, the Midlands and North West England by upgrading the West Coast Main Line north of Crewe_ - Union Connectivity Review _the two-track section of the WCML between Winsford and Weaver is heavily congested which leads to reliability issues._ - Integrated Rail Plan The power lines need ugrading *_immediately,_* as they are not man enough to get a second train per hour to Liverpool. Then make the WCML four track from Crewe to Windsford to improvements even further for Liverpool and Scottish trains. These upgrades also improve the freight to Liverpool's large port.

[@jamesau4296]

Pretty much predicted as most western country don't have plentiful supply of blue collar labour(or being expensive), something labourous as construction project would be much slower and more expensive. You can't compare UK and Chinese speed of construction given the cost of labour difference.

[@martinsloman6905]

This video is obviously relying on a lot of biased sources and makes some illogical comments. How can tunnels, often constructed to preserve landscapes (including one mile long tunnel constructed to avoid cutting down ancient woodland) be described as 'highly intrusive?' How can the self-publicist Chris Packham justify his claim that this is the most destructive project ever? Think about it - 345 miles (both phases) of narrow rail route compared to 2,200 miles of much wider motorway. The huge amount of environmental work carried out by this project (which adds considerably to its footprint) is unprecedented in UK infrastructure. As for carbon emissions, the whole route of HS2 in construction and 120 years of operation will produce less carbon than one month's emissions of the UK road network. HS2 will reduce UK emissions by encouraging modal shift from road and air transport and free up considerable passenger and freight capacity on the existing rail network.

[@johnburns4017]

@@martinsloman6905 But HS2 was unnecessary so no destroying woods, etc, if not built at all. Upgrading the existing network, like electrifying the Chiltern mainline, removing bottlenecks on the WCML & ECML, building the Stafford bypass, etc, and reopening parts of the Gt.Central was all that was needed. If they had planned all that 12-13 years ago it would have all been done by now. Road vehicles do produce harmful emissions for sure, but two wrongs do not make a right.

[@peterwilliamallen1063]

@@johnburns4017 Oh John Burns like your mate James Munks, you talk absolute twaddle about HS2, HS2 is neccesary as there have been two failed upgrades on the Southern Half of the existing WCML to try and raise the speed to 140MPH so that the Pendolinos could oprate with tilt at 140 MPH on the Southern Half of the WCML, tthe government and Network rail gave up due to the cost and regular closures of the WCML to do these upgrades only to get the speed raised from 110 MPH to 125 MPH which 50 year old HST Inter City 125 trains have been doing on Britains Rail Network for 50 years with out any tilt mechanism, so as high spee trains and freight trains do not mix it was decided that the only way round it was to build HS2, Electrifying the Chiltern line run by DB only runs between London Marelabone and Birmingham Snow Hill so would not rid the West Coast Main line of any congestion, nd trying to remove botlenecks on the WCML and ECML which actually do not realy exist would not again help the existing rail network out and the last one of reopening parts of the old Great Central railway is an all time joke, First the Great Central Railway goes no where near Birmingham which is the major point of HS2 and the only places the old Great Central exists is arround Nottingham and Loughbourgh run and owned by a private Steam Railway and the rest has ben totaly wiped out by nature and destruction and the only places it is still in existance is from Bicester to Marelabone and a short section joining to the old Great Western Route to Birmingham Snow Hill operated by Chiltern Railways, so not it would not of been done by now as even if they could of utilised the old Great Central Route it would of had to of been totaly rebuilt to take modern high speed trains

[@johnburns4017]

@@peterwilliamallen1063 This babble is so incorrect it it not worth dissecting.

[@martinsloman6905]

​@@peterwilliamallen1063Good analysis. If you look at the Engineering Route Options report for HS2, it goes through the large number of possible routes that were looked out and then discarded for various reasons. It was an exhaustive study and the GCR will have been amongst the routes studied. As you say, it was too far from the target market for HS2.

[@jeremybarker7577]

Absolutely correct. For example, there have been no legal battles over the route because it was all decided by an Act of Parliament which effectively puts it beyond legal challenge. Two major problems not mentioned were that costings were produced before design was anywhere near complete and the contracting companies are being paid on a cost-plus basis (i.e. a guaranteed profit margin on top of their costs) with only minor penalties for any cost overruns.

[@DB-su5qp]

Having been part of the process (in a very minor way) I concluded that England is mostly not suitable for high speed rail it is too beautiful and precious. The nature is there, the settlements are there. The cities are too close. The reason for "connecting" the north and south forgets that the northern cities were once totally self contained and prosperous (admittedly a long time ago). AT one time you would hardly meet a Geordie or a Brummie outside of their cities unless they were in infrastructure construction, army or a top university. Many other cities than London provided excellent jobs. Not now. But no one (not least Politicians ego's and the civil services utopian dreams) would have accepted a new conventional rail to add the much need capacity. A slower rail could have wound along avoiding many impacts and connected many more places. But like self driving cars everyone believes in "progress" at any cost. An intercity railway has to be HS in these people's minds. The sleeper to Edinburgh is a lovely way to travel and 9 hours is perfect. None of these mega infrastures actually increases the productivity of labour or lowers its costs. That would require investment in skills, and a drastic cutting of the tax on Jobs (just put up massively by the Labour Government). However Italy and Spain have shown how to lower costs on high speed although France and Germany have also had spiralling costs. Spain has a capital in the middle that needs to be connected to the nice places to live on the coast to justify its existence. Italy has the jobs in the North and the home regions of workers in the south (and the best weather) as well as a poor capital in the centre. China has to dominate its interior for political purposes and bring in the workers (who have no rights to live in the coastal cities) to the factories in the east. Bear in mind that only 2 or 3 HS lines in the whole world make a profit on ticket sales. These are land value, economic development and political projects. None of these are relevant in the UK, least of all England.

[@DB-su5qp]

I should add that the EU has a policy to eliminate short haul flights for Climate Change policy with HSR yet I fail to see how it would ever beat air for most trips. Better to develop a sustainable aviation fuel. The embedded CO2 in concrete in HS2 is estimated to have a break even time in replaced journeys of 80-110 years! Long past when we are supposed to be dead from floods or heat stroke.

[@yournotjokinggovernment]

So currently if they just focused on Stage phase 1 London to Birmingham currently. Open that and with what you get from that put it back into HS2 to complete the whole project.

[@lrsabellano2004]

That's the problem of the rotting democracy.

[@LawpickingLocksmith]

Lol, lol, lol the industrial age and England lol.

[@IainHC1]

HS2 IS good for the country! Although its original destinations have been cut by narrow minded politicians! BUT Watch out for HS3 to complete the cancelled HS2 journey!! This IS gonna happen!!

[@jimbo1001-u9q]

The west coast main line trains london to crewe...run half empty

[@rbra9611]

Can somebody calculate 79 pounds to real money?

[@gissie391]

Its a lot more expensive than £99. To London.

[@Fab666.]

Uk has a worse railway than any modern European country, Italy and France particularly are miles ahead. Frecciarossa was finished not long ago and hs2 is a mess in every sense of the word

[@martinsloman6905]

In terms of new high speed railway, almost certainly yes (and other things such as city tram and metro networks where we definitely lag behind continental railways). Even London, which gobbles up a huge share of transport investment pales in comparison to Paris with its huge RER network. On the other hand, Britain has hundreds of miles of existing routes with linespeeds of 200kph (125mph) and, in the case of the Great Western and East Coast Main Lines, this has been true since the 1970s. I think the problem is the short-termism of our politics. Why construct a railway whose benefits will be years away when you can get more publicity filling in a couple of potholes in London? In planning and engineering terms, there is not much wrong with HS2 (except that it could be more extensive) but costs have been inflated by government interference, inefficient procurement, a lack of an ongoing programme of work and far too much pandering to local interests at the expense of the national interest.

[@Ottakring-us3xi]

the uk has no idea about effient building a railway the only moan

[@martinsloman6905]

@@Ottakring-us3xi I don't think anyone has ever built a railway like this before. High speed railways are being constructed all over the world but how many are required to be hidden from view over most of their length? So much expensive engineering work is devoted to cuttings, tunnels etc that aren't required by the topography. There are even embankments with cuttings inside them so nobody can see or hear the trains. Huge areas of farmland are being bought up for new woodlands, grasslands and aquatic habitats to compensate for the minimal footprint of the railway. Protecting the environment and reducing CO2 emissions is extremely important but energy and land efficient high speed railways are one of the best ways of achieving this aim and don't need all this 'mitigation'.

[@Clickworker101]

Why no leg from Manchester to Leeds?

[@johnburns4017]

NPR will cover that.

[@1samstar1]

Because the idea was to reduce the travel time between London and other major cities like Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds. Connecting Leeds to London via Manchester would take nearly as much time as it currently takes (just over 2 hours)

[@johnburns4017]

@@Clickworker101 The ECML and MML are shorter routes to Leeds from London. These are being upgraded giving similar times to HS2. The east coast has two mainlines, one to Leeds, the MML. The west coast will have a second to Crewe once they build HS2 phase 1 and the WCML Stafford bypass. Sorted.

[@gorgu08]

@@1samstar1 I it won’t 120 mins versus two hours

[@slimchris113]

@@johnburns4017 Not sorted at all, you havent tackled the huge bottleneck of Leicester, Derby and Nottingham or Sheffield bottleneck which HS2 Y shape would've tackled.

[@sheilah4525]

Trains, as a solution to climate change, which we ALL WANT TO FIGHT, is as awful an example of wasted effort as EVs. The best use of HSR is in regional applications, not national ones. Witness the SUCCESSFUL IMPLEMENTATIONS IN FLORIDA AND TEXAS, PRIVATE INDUSTRY VENTURES. Then compare those results to the mess in California. Do it regionally, let private (AMERICAN) industry build it, then enjoy it.

[@martinsloman6905]

I'm not sure what point you are making here. National distances in European countries equate to regional distances in the USA. Whilst a high speed railway from New York to Los Angeles would be totally uncompetitive with air travel, there are many US cities that are close enough to make HSR viable. What determines this is journey time. A rule of thumb is that a rail journey between city centres of three hours or less is competitive with air travel. You can see this in the North East Corridor - even though the Acela is relatively slow. I understand that Californian HSR is a tortuous process but it is being built - if only the easier sections. Obviously, terminii at San Francisco and Los Angeles are needed but a start has been made. New railways are generally publicly funded nowadays, which reflects economic realities. The very early London Underground lines were all privately funded and made profits for their shareholders. However, by the time the Victoria Line was constructed in the 1960s, construction costs were so high that competitive fares would never pay off the debt. So, a benefit:cost analysis was used factoring in cost savings due to reduced journey times, less congested roads, fewer accidents etc. Now the Victoria Line is bursting at the seams with 40 trains per hour.

[@sheilah4525]

@@martinsloman6905 ummm, my friend, that IS my point and you are agreeing with me. HSR is best implemented REGIONALLY in the USA. My point is to suggest where it IS viable (regionally) and where it is pie in the sky, illogical and foolish (nationally).

[@martinsloman6905]

@@sheilah4525 I am agreeing with you that the concept of a national high speed network in the USA is impractical due to the distances involved. However, I am not aware of any serious intention to build such a network. Californian high speed rail may not fit your concept of 'regional' but it would allow a very competitive sub-three hour journey time between San Francisco and Los Angeles. By the way, though touted as a purely private sector venture, the Brightline route in Florida is funded through tax exempt Public Activity Bonds (PABs) so there is a fair amount of state involvement - as there needs to be on large infrastructure projects with a clear public benefit.

[@sheilah4525]

@@martinsloman6905 my concern is not about the practical implementation of useful rail. It lies with the simplistic mindset of certain train enthusiasts, many from European nations, who fail to realize the USA is not Belgium or the UK, and that there are sane limits on what is practical and achievable. Too many go overboard regarding new projects and thus does failure result. Consider EVs. Nothing wrong there except EVERY ASPECT OF LOGICAL PLANNING AND IMPLEMENTATION. (First you build the infrastructure and develop the “new and NON POLLUTING POWER SOURCE. THEN YOU BRIG ON THE CARS. YOU DON’T PLACE THE “CART BEFORE THE HORSE, RIGHT? NOT IF YOU WANT IT TO WORK.) Too much of HSR runs at a deficit and is a national “look at me” project. We can do better. We can see their mistakes. We can apply HSR wisely and where it works in a cost effective basis. Less grandiosity tends to function better. WE DO NOT HAVE TO PULL A FERDINAND DELESSUPS just to please Euros. We can do what, if anything, WE WANT HERE. (BTW, thanks for the update as I was under the view that a lot or most of the Florida funding was private capital, whereas you now advise it is public funding.)

[@martinsloman6905]

​@@sheilah4525Who is saying that the US should build high speed rail to please Europeans? You build it where it makes sense and all of the serious projects currently being planned or implemented seem to fit that criteria. The economics of transport are very wide ranging so whether or not a new line makes a profit isn't the only reason for building it. For example, the US builds these enormous freeways that generate more and more traffic resulting in more and more lanes being added, which seldom solve the problem. A high speed railway can free up a huge amount of road space so conferring benefits on people who never use the train, whilst saving the cost of continual highway expansion. Electric cars are another issue. Build more transit and high speed rail and they may become less important.

[@Rogelio_Inzunza]

Well…… ain’t Capitalism just the greatest thing since sliced bread?

[@JohnSmith-xl8cb]

It’s full of C🤬🤬🤬🤬

[@Danji_Coppersmoke]

9:16 likely 1860 miles..

[@djlondon7956]

Of course in China if you want to build a rail network, you can literally knock down anyone's home and build it where you want... And you don't need to pay much heed to disturbing the natural environment. HS2 is in FACT progressing well and built to a high standard whilst respecting nature responsibly. You're welcome. ❤

[@rppacademic]

In Germany there was once a Chancellor Ludwig Erhard who created "Sozialbindung des Eigentums".

[@rppacademic]

What a difference to Spain and France!

[@qwill8254]

The irony ... Yes i am indian . And yes i believe the english empire was a blessing in disguise for my land .

[@Titot182]

Shout out to Barnet FC @ 2:55

[@cleicivonelmicuanski7533]

Eb u