#whyHS2

For the 2023 Conservative party conference, in Manchester, the government decided to cancel the last* remains of High Speed 2 were cancelled, including the leg to... Manchester.
Here's the full video of an interview I gave for radio, answering a range of questions on the subject you may have on this baffling and destructive decision!
*Birmingham Interchange to Curzon Street is still left, and they could cut that!
Enjoyed this? Please do consider supporting me at / garethdennis or throw loose change at me via paypal.me/gare.... Join in the discussion at garethdennis.c....

[@GarethDennisTV]

wait, is YT even capable of not snarling perfectly good videos any more? good grief

[@TalesOfWar]

KZbin has always mangled audio with their rather harsh compression.

[@hosedevil]

If memory serves, the original Shinkansen line was horrendously over budget, yet now it is indispensable and helped make Japan the power that it became.

[@TalesOfWar]

They apparently had a government that could plan. We haven't had a plan for anything beyond the next quarter in this country since 2010, and even the next quarter bit is debatable. It says so much that the only big infrastructure projects we even have or have had in this country in the last 20 years, were all with the previous government who hasn't been in power for 13 years.

[@iainsear7830]

To be fair Japan has had stagnant economy for 30 years and I wonder if a lot of that will be due to poor/inefficent infrastructure choices. It would be interesting to see the overall economic impact of the investment in HS rail for Japan, especially the revenues from exporting the technology.

[@mjolnir1981]

@@TalesOfWar not just the government, the people too. The UK is at the state it is because of the government and the people. Take a good look at yourselves apart from the government.

[@DaRkLoRd-rc5yu]

​@@iainsear7830you say the last 30 years but the shinkansen is 59 years old. So the massive expansion in the 70's 80's and 90's can also be credited partially to the shinkansen. Not just the period of decline since the early 2000's

[@iainsear7830]

@@DaRkLoRd-rc5yu This is fair commentary (Japan did grow spectacularly in the 70s and 80s before the crash in the early 90s) and Im sure the development of HS rail was beneficial, difficult investment decisions, there is an argument as long as you are investing in something it doesn't matter too much as to what it is but there has to be some consideration as to how efficient the investment is, and I worry big grand schemes get an easy pass when it comes to scrutiny of their business cases because politicians want a legacy, Im amazed we dont have a Boris Island airport for example. Arguing against myself though is the Croxley rail link, or Portishead reopening and now the East West Rail, things that on the surface should have been small scale, quick and cost effective turned out to be not viable or have multi million/billion overruns. Really not sure on the answer! Feel its all a bit depressing, The Evergreen project upgrades to the Chilten line or the Borders line reinstatement gave me some hope but not sure on why some projects worked and others get bogged down and cost a fortune.

[@Gideonsmythe]

Sadly this lack of investment and long-term planning is repeated across the public sector. This country is a mess and pretty much everything can be blamed on political ideology and myopia within Westminster.

[@elftax]

Sunak needs to find £10billion to cut inheritance tax, he’s sacrificing levelling up & HS2 to pay for it.

[@mattpotter8725]

@@elftax Which is shocking in itself and nothing to be applauded. The north suffers because of some rich people living mainly in the south I expect.

[@mastertrams]

It's like the list I put together the other day. People think HS2 only benefits London, Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds, but it actually benefits all the places whose trains run into those stations. Therefore, the list of places that benefit (south of Leeds and Manchester, as HS2 trains share tracks north of there) includes: Watford, Milton Keynes, Rugby, Northampton, Nuneaton, Lichfield, Holyhead, Llandudno, Wolverhampton, Worcester, Hereford, Newport (Wales), Cardiff, Coventry, Leicester, Bournemouth, Southampton, Reading, Oxford, Shrewsbury, Aberystwyth, Walsall, Nottingham, Great Malvern, Chester, Sheffield, Buxton, Hadfield, Stoke-on-Trent, Bristol, Carmarthen, Swansea, Norwich, Huddersfield, Halifax, Harrogate, York, Wigan, Knottingley, Ilkley, Plymouth, Exeter, Hull, Lincoln, Bradford, etc. And then when you add in that it also relieves St. Pancras and Kings Cross, you can add places like Derby, Chesterfield, Kettering, Bedford, Grantham, Newark, Doncaster, Cambridge, etc. to the list of places that benefit.

[@phphph6022]

So, again, those of us north of Leeds get sweet FA. Everything in this country stops at "the north" but actually those of us in the proper north of England and Scotland get nowt. Shit rail links, crap road networks, poor local transit systems. So, I'm sorry if you live in Manchester or Leeds and are not disappointed in not getting HS2 but I'm not bothered.

[@mastertrams]

@paulhetherington6022 Now, the reason I didn't include anywhere North of Leeds is because HS2 shares tracks with mainline trains north of Leeds and Manchester. But that isn't true for places such as, for example: Settle, Sunderland, Middlesborough, Blackpool, Carlisle, the Borders Railway, and everywhere North of Glasgow and Edinburgh, all of which could still benefit from HS2.

[@thesenamesaretaken]

Didn't the government's own modelling find that the construction of HS2 was a net negative to the economy of Wales?

[@mastertrams]

@@thesenamesaretaken I know the Welsh have been trying to claim that, but that's because HS2's classification messed up some of Wales' funding. I'll have a look at whether the UK Government has found that or not. Certainly, if they have, it's an incorrect conclusion. Sure, Wales won't be getting high-speed trains like Scotland will, but Wales stands to benefit far more from the unlocked capacity than Scotland does.

[@mastertrams]

@@thesenamesaretaken Yeah, done a quick scroll through Google, and all the sources claiming HS2 will harm Wales' economy are Welsh sources. The UK Government has never said anything of the sort. The reason Welsh sources are pushing this claim so hard is that HS2 is classified as an "England and Wales" project, meaning Wales has missed out on £5bn of Barnett Formula consequentials (that formula is a load of rubbish anyway, but that's how Government decide how much money to give each nation). So Wales want HS2 to be classified as "England only", so that they get funded properly, but due to capacity released primarily at Birmingham New Street and Manchester Piccadilly, HS2 will far from harm Wales. Wales stands to benefit greatly from it.

[@Rail_Focus]

The whole debacle is utterly depressing.

[@ajs41]

They should have followed the original advice from UK Ultraspeed, which was to build a MagLev system along the sides of motorways.

[@Rail_Focus]

@@ajs41 no, no they shouldn't. Just a nonsense idea

[@SunbathinginAntarctica]

​@@ajs41you have any idea how much a maglev system would cost?

[@jamesgilbart2672]

Totally agree with your commentary! Rolling back HS2 is the decision of a weak government with no ambition or forward vision. Removing both Leeds and Manchester from the project renders it pointless. It is strange that when HS1 was finally given the go-ahead, it was built on time and within budget and is now a valuable asset - why is HS2 so different??

[@mattpotter8725]

Maybe I'm misremembering things but I remember when the Channel Tunnel was completed it was high speed rail through France and then almost something akin to bring on a line as you got to Kent so whilst it may have been built on time to budget from when it finally passed the planning stage it was a laughing stock we have it in place for when we finished the Channel Tunnel. As far as HS2 is concerned the massive extra cost is the fact that it has to go through tunnels through the Chilterns because of nimbyism in Tory held constituencies, that and getting it into Central London, which is exactly why it should have been built from the north going southwards not the other way around. If this has been the case and we'd been well on the way from Leeds and Manchester to Birmingham we'd at least have joined that up to the rest of the network in Birmingham and I doubt those in Westminster would have had the gall to cancel it in the way they're doing now. As usual the north suffers whilst those in London get all the spending on projects like Crossrail which goes ahead whatever the cost increases and delays in getting it finished.

[@mattpotter8725]

So HS1, having just looked it up, was completed in 2007, which was a full 13 years after the opening of the Channel Tunnel, which I think says it all about infrastructure planning in this country. The cost of the line from London to the Channel Tunnel also cost £51m per mile compared to the £22m per mile on the other side of the Channel. The fact that the private operator went bust in 2009 and had to be brought under government control I think says that even HS1 wasn't exactly that much cheaper and was also beset with problems. Also wasn't HS1 supposed to have a link to HS2 offering access to the continent for those of us in the rest of the country? Major infrastructure projects in this country are just so badly planned from the outset, probably because we don't have the expertise and have these major projects either side of decades of nothing of this sort and so the skills needed to build these lines need to be learnt as you go. It's a joke.

[@simoncroft9792]

Also the Guy in charge of HS1 -Mike Holden - on time and under budget was refused the job dojng HS2 - vetoed by senior at DfT. According to the Independent today.

[@biscuit715]

Every day I become more and more pessimistic about this country

[@JohnFromAccounting]

HS2 was necessary infrastructure to take the UK into the 21st century. Singapore built the world's best public transport network in 30 years. In that same time, the UK has failed to make significant improvements to theirs. It is humiliating for the government to cancel the only important project that have taken part in.

[@TalesOfWar]

It took 40 years to build sodding Crossrail. And that directly benefitted London, so you can imagine how much worse it is everywhere else.

[@SunbathinginAntarctica]

​@@TalesOfWarThe UK is way too overcentralised. Time to devolve once and for all...

[@Andrew-rc3vh]

@@TalesOfWar We will have to work out how to work much faster.

[@frongus47]

​@@Andrew-rc3vhrealistically we ciuld have done better we coould have had 1 contractor istead of so many also done more research and avoided as much tunneling because tunnels are more expensive also last time l checked all the motoways dint have to pander to the environmentalists so why should a electric railway do that

[@Andrew-rc3vh]

@@frongus47 My personal choice would have been to contract MTR. They are big and have a very good track record, plus they offered to do it for half the price with faster trains. When a Chinese firm quotes you, that is what you pay. They are honest in business. Of course if you change the plan half way through they will change you for the extra work, but surely you don't. You make up your mind first!

[@markgr1nyer]

So its gone from taking pressure of the ECML, MML, WCML and Chiltern (4 for the price of one) to just the Chiltern corridor (as there won't be a direct link to WCML in the west midlands). What a wasted opportunity. Even back to the more original plan with the extension to Leeds it was a huge missed opportunity with the missing link to HS1

[@BCrossing]

Don't forget about the Cross-Country ML. Birmingham to Sheffield/Leeds/York/Newcastle (and potentially beyond)

[@eannamcnamara9338]

Leave it to the Brits to invent something, pioneer it for decades, and then just forget about it and refuse to learn how to do it again.

[@krnlg]

It's not just rail they don't want to do, it's pretty much anything good at all. They don't even want to fund repairs to school buildings, let alone public transport. Or the NHS, or...

[@grenfellroad8394]

On GWR we are running trains that are absolutely rammed, yet the government tell us ‘no-one is travelling’!

[@ajs41]

The main attraction of the project was that you'd be able to get on a train in Leeds, Manchester, B'ham, etc, and get off in Paris, Amsterdam, Brussels, without having to change trains. About 20 years ago there was a massive advert outside Birmingham Airport advertising precisely this possibility. The advert was there for ages and I used to get excited thinking about the idea of making that journey sometime in the future.

[@Rick2009h]

You would have had to change train in London as HS1 didn’t connect with HS2.

[@jakethadley]

Maddening and saddening

[@JacoHere]

Officially entering my anti-car era 😤

[@VishalSharma-wu5ln]

Indonesia today inaugurated 150 miles long HS rail from Jakarta - Bandung in 7 Billion USD. India is making 550 Km long HS rail in 1/10th of the HS2 money and in 1/4th time. Infra projects have cost escalation but it can not be 30 Billion to 100 Billion unless there is massive corruption.

[@tanithrosenbaum]

Ugh that terrible news. I'm so very sorry. And now I finally understand why HS2 is so expensive (on paper) relative to our high speed lines here in Germany, something I've been wondering about. (The Munich-Ingolstadt-Nürnberg line, which is about the same length, was about 10bn in today's money, but, as you said, it did not include any additional inner-city infrastructure, depots, nor construction for new stations other than the two new ones that are on the line itself, etc etc etc)

[@Stephen.Bingham]

The Tories have form. In 2016 (if I remember correctly) there was considerable disruption (months of replacement buses) to main line services through Bath - and enormous expenditure - as the track was lowered and bridges raised to make space for electrification. Then suddenly it was cancelled. Trains from London now go to Chippenham (just east of Bath) and then chug along under auxiliary diesel power for the final 15 miles or so to Bristol. Basically every train carries the weight of a diesel engine 90% of the way along the route which takes more energy, and limits acceleration and hence speed.

[@tomwatts703]

Not to state the obvious but at this point the Tories absolutely must be kicked out next election, they've made it painfully clear that they don't give a toss about the railways, the environment or the future at all. HS2 may have it's issues but any rational government would work to solve them rather than chucking it all in the bin for the lame excuse of 'saving money' that public infrastructure will likely never see a £ of now.

[@GTAuron]

The problem with this video is that it makes too much sense for this (and probably the next) government to actually listen to it.

[@eirinym]

If this government isn't gone by the end of the year, HS2 will be HS gone. All the work going on now, it'll just stop, pack up the equipment and go home.

[@mdhazeldine]

Very interesting explanation of how European countries cost their projects differently. If we costed HS2 in the same way, and just looked at the cost from just outside London to just outside Birmingham, how would the price per mile or kilometre compare with say, France or Spain? I was under the impression that the high cost was due to having to do a lot of tunnelling and expensive land acquisition, plus the chopping and changing of plans. But what you said here seems to contradict or ignore that.

[@mastertrams]

Yes, we do have a higher cost per mile because of those things like tunnelling, indecision, redesigning, gold plating, etc. but it's nowhere near as much higher as it would be if we costed projects the same way. And on the gold plating bit, we didn't need a 400mph railway. A 360mph railway would have done fine, and been cheaper. But of course Government wanted a world-beating railway, as opposed to a world-leading railway.

[@mdhazeldine]

@@mastertrams I think you mean kph. Mph would be record breaking!

[@mastertrams]

@@mdhazeldineMaybe I do, but either way, it would still be record breaking. I know that the Government wanted to it to be the fastest high-speed line in the world. ... Actually, thinking about it, yes, I do mean kph.

[@mdhazeldine]

@@mastertrams Don't think we'll beat the Japanese. At this rate, their Maglev line will be done before any train runs on HS2

[@mastertrams]

@mdhazeldine No, we won't, but the Government wanted to, which is part of the reason why HS2 costs so much.

[@ce1834]

Should have been built decades ago, instead in our typical fashion, we botched some tilting trains as a workaround. This whole debacle shows appeasing NIMBYs never works, the amount of tunnelling, noise barriers, environmental assessments is bordering on insane. Think most of us will keel over before it reaches Manchester or Leeds, even with Labour

[@TalesOfWar]

The thing is, had the original Labour plan been properly followed that they put into law in 2009, we'd have built half of it already, and it would have connected directly with HS1 too. The original plan was to have a mega station under Euston, St Pancras and Kings Cross that allowed Eurostar trains to effortlessly join HS2, so you could have got on a train in Manchester and got off the same one in Brussels.

[@thesenamesaretaken]

ah tilting trains, one of those classic stories of UK engineering: try to make a thing, give up on the thing because there's no vision, then buy it from someone else who does.

[@TalesOfWar]

@@thesenamesaretaken And in this case, the someone else we bought it from used the patents and tech we sold them to make it.

[@FishyAltFishy]

Its amazing how a project can mess up worse than California High Speed Rail.

[@SunbathinginAntarctica]

Yep, we didn't even need an egomaniacal billionaire trying to sabotage the project with his own bullshit project.

[@BirdStephenJohn]

Needs to go to Crewe at least - But priority should be to get 19th century railway into 20th century. For example by building a single rail hub at Bradford and a single rail hub in Wakefield enabling more people to make short/medium journeys by rail.

[@DavidShepheard]

Booo! Stupid Tory cuts!

[@mattpotter8725]

Great insight into what's going on with HS2 you just don't hear anywhere else, sadly (which is part of the problem)!!! I had been wondering why you'd not done a full Rail Natter on the latest ongoings so thanks for this. You're probably as fed up and dismayed by everything that's going on I don't you for not doing one, and in fairness to you you could probably just point people to the previous video you did the Eastern Leg was scrapped as it's practically the same arguments in favour of building it.

[@ajs41]

The interesting thing is how the Elizabeth Line has, by contrast, been such a success. As far as I understand, it's possible the enormous cost of it may be paid off in just 20 years or so, because so many people are using it.

[@123chris0]

There's not many videos I comment on or hit the like button on, but this gets both.

[@jermainetrainallen6416]

The easiest way to get out of this situation is for the Government to just commit to the Western leg and give us the infrastructure and hence capacity that we need.

[@DavidShepheard]

Trouble is we need the Eastern Leg, as well as the Western Leg. By shaving lots of bits off of the HS2 project, the government is reducing the return on investment every time.

[@rogergregory7190]

The benefits accruing from the building of HS2, s I see them, are training a new cadre of skills in the younger generation (which will enrich other projects after HS2 is completed). Also, passengers who save time travelling between these major cities will probably reduce the cars on the motorways. Need I mention reducing the burning of fossil fuels? The longer these rail links are delayed, the more they will cost when they eventually HAVE to be made!

[@garethking1639]

I’m British but I live in Spain, we have a choice of 4 operators running from Madrid to Barcelona. It can take as little as 2 and a half hours and I’ve bought several return tickets for around 35 euros recently. I know Britain is densely inhabited etc etc etc but it’s about priorities. All other major European states have high speed rail, why are we aping US republican populist rubbish, demonizing public transport, 15 minute cities, trans people etc etc. By God Britain has lost its way, we are a total joke.

[@corrigenda70]

HS2 is only and wholly about capacity. It uses higher speed technology simply because that is current technology world wide and which is in use in over 40 nations with which the UK needs to compete. In the UK we have a disastrous relic in rail engineering such that much line maintenance currently requires London stations to be closed. We have an urgent need to expand all UK port facilities and this is now nearly complete with (for example) stations like Southampton and much E-W freight being expanded to accommodate greater freight capacity. If that is to operate sensibly and be expandable in the future there is a need to further separate freight and passenger traffic. THAT is the purpose behind HS2". That is the reason a start was made in the South. That is why Manchester and the North of the UK were considered less essential at the outset. To abandon HS2 is to risk beggaring the UK economy. Those who advocate abandonment are really voting to ruin the UK economy and to perpetuate the North South divide and worse, by an absence of an alternative which would have Scottish businesses viable. People are so daft. The South wins over the North YET again and all because of silly thinking.

[@CNERail]

Devastating

[@SteveBrelsford]

Hi Gareth, keep up the good work! I would like to hear Andy Burnham explain how "Great"er Manchester has completely trashed what amounted to an orbital rail network, which actually existed. It's not just about funding, it's also strongly about strategic vision, which you rightly identify. If the strategic vision is there for anything in life, then finding a way to make it happen is about slotting the pieces together, pursuing any and all options that contribute. Sooner or later enough comes together to make things happen. Most of the significant towns around Manchester had orbital rail connections, as can be seen on old maps. The trams have their issues, and I think London is way ahead in forging its orbital lines. Yes it got the funding, but I bet that was after years of good strategic planning.

[@gwrydd]

If the new line to Manchester is cancelled, maybe it’s time to upgrade the freight line that’s via bank quay low level to bring back passenger trains

[@normhanson981]

Pathetic government.

[@edc1569]

Why would you expand a business in this country?

[@iAnton3000]

Great analysis and deciphering the myths about HS2.

[@CaveSpiderRider]

Also, for the next few decades whenever HS3/4/5 etc are proposed, people will point out how useless the half of HS2 we will end up with will have been, when it will have had the potential to be brilliant if they would have stuck with it..

[@clivejohnson6468]

The better transport strategy was the proposed tunnel under the North Sea from A14 over to Rotterdam for all the EU import/export Just in time. Brexit killed that. Sunak says he makes long term decisions -for who?

[@MS-19]

As someone who has lived for 12 years in an area very close to the path of HS2, and knows people whose lives, homes and businesses have been blighted by the project and by the work already begun on constructing it, I have to declare an interest, and exceedingly mixed feelings. I was against HS2, not in principle but in practice. I don't agree with Nigel Farage about everything, but I found myself nodding when he said, as leader of UKIP, that the issue with rail transport in the UK is not speed but capacity. The argument is made that HS2 will improve capacity by relieving some of the burden on existing lines, of course, but surely it would be simpler to make existing lines more efficient by investing in more rolling stock - after all, the modern DMUs and EMUs have fewer carriages and less space for passengers and luggage than the old Intercity rolling stock; why not have longer trains again? And why not help both TOCs and businesses alike to incentivise travel at earlier or later times, if that is possible? As one comedian (Jack Dee?) put it, there's an alternative to HS2 in which the government spends no money at all and passengers still get where they need to go sooner: it's called "catching the earlier train..." Even if all that is pie-in-the-sky, HS2 is still flawed by the fact that it wasn't done longer ago and wasn't started in the right place. It should have been constructed at the same time as HS1, and it should have been started up in the North / Scotland, working down the country to connect with HS1 and deliver the benefits of high-speed rail much sooner to the nation as a whole. Starting it decades after HS1, and working northwards from London, meant that there was a greater risk to the North of not reaping the rewards if any problems arose - as indeed has now happened - whereas beginning it in the North would have created a greater incentive to finish it, overcoming any hurdles along the way. It's worth noting here that the European high-speed rail network shortens the travel time between major cities that are far more widely spaced than in the UK - as a crude example, the distance from Paris to Lyon is more akin to the distance between London and Glasgow than London and Birmingham, therefore UK high-speed networks should have been conceived along that kind of scale to begin with. By cancelling the northern leg of the project, the government has trashed all the potential good that this project had, and in the process given a kick in the guts, not only to Northerners who will rightly feel betrayed and bereft at having the link pulled from under them, but also to those Southerners and Londoners whose lives, homes and businesses have been wrecked for much less gain than was originally pointed out.

[@Rick2009h]

I wonder if developers thought a much reduced HS2 would better suit redevelopment of Euston Stn. It is located on valuable land and investors will be eager to develop it for apartments, offices, shops - like the transformation of Battersea Power Station.

[@RichardFraser-y9t]

No connection to the WCML? Madness

[@mattpotter8725]

Surely if cancelled they will have to link it up to the WCML at Handsacre just north of Birmingham. The whole thing should have been built from the north going southwards. That way these weasels in power wouldn't have had the guts to cancel it at this stage. But as usual everything has to be done benefiting London first and sod the rest of the country.

[@Andrew-rc3vh]

The faster you build it the more money you make overall. Borrowing costs are high for the money spent on infrastructure which is not generating revenue and the disruptions create costs themselves because the way you run such a project is by scheduling it all in order to minimise cost, and so your scheduling will be out if you are scheduling a moving target.

[@northlondonmodels]

It would have also freed space on the WCML for increased railfreight potentially reducing the number of lorries on the road and pollution reduction and where I live Crossrail2 would have brought great benefits

[@johndavison7691]

Reading the Beleben blog, Handsacre wcml link stays. Handsacre to Birmingham gets de scoped.

[@GarethDennisTV]

Never read the Beleben blog. About as reliable a source as Nadine Dorries.

[@JohnFromAccounting]

Sunak should resign for this.

[@TalesOfWar]

He should have resigned for everything else he's done too.

[@mattpotter8725]

Problem is that if he resigns we probably get Truss back or equally bad so that's not a solution. We need a new government not just a new leader of the Conservative Party.

[@TalesOfWar]

@@mattpotter8725 Do we even need a Prime Minister? I mean, what real difference would it actually make at this point with the rest of the muppets running the show?

[@mattpotter8725]

@@TalesOfWar Were you paying attention when Truss was PM? I want Sunak out of Downing Street but not for the likes of Truss or Braverman. And to answer your question we do need a PM, but one that actually cares about the people in this country, not the charlatans that the Tories have on their benches.

[@TalesOfWar]

@@mattpotter8725 I mean right now, given the rest of the people running the government. Would it actually make a difference if we had one or not? I mean we didn't really have one last summer while Boris refused to leave and went on holiday.

[@grahamstubbs4962]

Well, as Suella Braverman is that keen on Rwanda, then build a southern extension. 🙂

[@rogergregory7190]

LOL

[@10thdoctor15]

It's just ridiculous 😡

[@mattevans4377]

You can ask him whatever you like, he'll always just deflect and pretend to be doing good, despite every single thing hes done being a catastrophe. And yet, some will still jump to his defence and claim he's in some sort of impossible position and we should feel sorry for him, even though he's part of the problem.

[@jimsouthlondon7061]

ASLEF calling a Strike during the Tory Party Conference didn’t help HS2 did it ?

[@DIEMLtdTV]

I caught a train at peak evening time from Euston to Liverpool on the day, a Friday, before the last strikes. The train wasn't busy. I travel a lot on this route. It's rarely busy. Looking across the country, there's talk about connecting Liverpool to Hull. Does anyone travel this route. I've worked a lot over the years in Leeds and the train is busy at Liverpool, empties at Manchester and is quiet until Huddersfield, when it's sardines again until the train empties at Leeds. Let's get people to where they want to go, which is mainly locally rather than build a grossly over engineered new line that only stops at 9 stations. So, whilst your town has a really poor bus service, a train whizzes past a 200mph that you'll never travel on.

[@f.g.9466]

Funny enough whenever I get a train off-peak at Euston to Manchester it's always busy, at peak times it's sardines in a can. But I digress. You missed the point of HS2. Most of the mainlines are congested with mixed traffic (locals, freights, long distance) so there isn't much space (any at all in some case) to add more local services. Having fast long distance trains mixed with slow local trains also takes away a lot of capacity because of the bigger gaps left between trains. Building a new segregated line for long distance services creates a lot of capacity for more local services in the existent lines. And if there's one thing that often puts people off from public transport outside of the big urban centers is the poor frequency. Provide more reliable frequent services and the passengers will increase. Gareth has explained this numerous times, HS2 was a boost to the capacity of all of our railways, not a vanity project for tourists from London, the media and the tory gov never realised that.

[@DIEMLtdTV]

@@f.g.9466 If so it's a shame it couldn't keep to budget. I've seen photos of basically whole HS2 construction sites being stood down and outside caterers being brought in for safety awareness days. Whilst safety is paramount, getting what the chap described as "top quality caterers" that you'd get at a wedding, seems to be a prime example how money has just been burnt on the project. Having worked for WCRM for nearly a decade, I thought the rail industry had learned its lessons on how not to run a project.

[@Ridersonthestorm2]

I have heard they might be privatising the hs2 line, like the hosptials in the 90's. Or the latest thames sewer network. Private finance to pay back at extortionste prices later. Typical tories kicking the can down the road for the younger generations. Get that rotten lot out.

[@owenblank4247]

This video makes HS2 seem like the second coming. The best line is the one about inflation not mattering. I guess in the long run we’re all dead. I mean I love infrastructure projects, but this video made me laugh. I was hoping for like good information on it after following the suggestion. Oh well.

[@GarethDennisTV]

what do you think happens to both benefits and costs if inflation goes up? maybe you aren't well informed because you don't pay attention to videos like this

[@peterjaniceforan3080]

😢

[@GeraldParchester]

It's all about London. They get everything they want... Nowhere else matters....

[@GeraldParchester]

The Nottingham bit has also been cancelled. They with their friends will have bought up devalued buildings, streets and land in Birmingham. They will make profit. Factor greed into the equation and look what pops up! Even the word 'conservative' loosely translates to 'greedy'. Weseen this tactic on 'Homes under the hammer'

[@f.g.9466]

Rich commenting that, in a video where it's mentioned that one of the reasons of the escalation of costs is the works at Euston, after Crossrail 2 was cancelled by the government. And ironic, since people in London and the Southeast do want better commuting journeys along the WCML and better long distance travel to the rest of the UK so most Londoners (and most londoners have roots elsewhere in the country) want HS2 fully developed. But yes, let's bicker with each other fighting north vs south while the tories laugh at our expense.

[@True_NOON]

1)But gareth, we also did this with HS1 , just that london-EUROPE was enough to build trough stratford and into pancreas cancer 2)[3:14] as an even further southener than devon(around hanover there abouts) , no, they are not second class brits , tho theyve been shafted and shafted that their stuff is at lesser than the south, wich ig was thatchers idea tbf 3)4:09 also it does litteraly end at the M25, the uckfield line from (iirc) tunbridge to uckfield (tiny branch)was not given 3rd rail electrification till 1994 4) also i once watched a 350 run from glasgow to manchester , and the 2 and some hours therr were like 3/4 trains , nothing else , and its ridicolously empty

[@neilcrawford8303]

Look at the £85m+ wasted on the Ordsall Chord to link Man Vic with Piccadilly and to the airport. The government pull the funding for improvements on the through platforms (13 & 14) at Piccadilly and the Castlefield corridor, meaning there isn't the capacity for the Victoria trains via the chord. Currently it's just one train per hour on the route, and that's a TPE service, so don't pin your hopes on that showing up. It was meant to be frequent regular services to link Victoria and Piccadilly. HS2 is going to be the same. Much of what already has been done will be wasted and won't be used to its full potential. The contractors involved must be pulling their hair out. It can't help the project costs that construction plant now has to use white diesel, not duty rebated red. There's a lot of earth to be moved and plant like excavators, dozers and ADTs (articulated dump trucks, Volvo A25s - CAT 740s etc) each get through hundreds of litres of fuel in a 12 hour shift.

[@chrisb3830]

Why have the costs spiralled?

[@GarethDennisTV]

They haven't?

[@chrisb3830]

@@GarethDennisTV WOW!!

[@GarethDennisTV]

@@chrisb3830 They've increased for all sorts of reasons like inflation and scope changes from government, sure, but "spiralled" is just not a valid description. Compared to what? Prices have only increased perhaps 15% above inflation, that's nothing.

[@anainbed]

Hoping to move from this country when I can lol

[@jimsouthlondon7061]

Rishi has scaled back Net Zero and Woke and hard on the Immigration boats and he’s now jumped 10 points behind Labour . Rishi and Sir Kier both eying up HS2 for the chop. Rishi gonna order another mini Oakaby review into the Brum /Leeds / Manc HS2 extension ? So what is Sir Keir gonna do about HS2 if he want to win back the red wall ?

[@AaronLaw92]

:(

[@ds1868]

HS2 will run into Euston.

[@WeatheredPeach]

Yay content, boo the news!

[@A-Trainspotter-From-Berkshire]

Is HS2 a labour idea?

[@commorevpenguin9602]

It was first talked about by Browns government then approved by Cameron's.

[@mattpotter8725]

It's not the idea that's the problem but the implementation and the insane delay in building it. It's funny how Crossrail with all its delays and overruns in cost was never talked about being cancelled the way HS2 is.

[@A-Trainspotter-From-Berkshire]

@@mattpotter8725 Becuase Crossrail was a lot closer to finishing.

[@mattpotter8725]

@@A-Trainspotter-From-Berkshire I lived in London when it was being built and it took years longer to be finished than was expected, and costs escalated on the project as well. It was never going to be scrapped whatever the cost or delay.

[@A-Trainspotter-From-Berkshire]

@@mattpotter8725 I live on one of the branches of Crossrail, the delays only started in 2017 which was down to testing and other stuff and fitting out of Bond Street. It was far later in the construction when delays started showing up and also the HS2 delays all seem to be after COVID-19 where as crossrails they were mostly before COVID-19.

[@Satters]

they should have reopened the great central & other closed lines instead of wasting such a huge amount on a new line with limited stops, which will be useless with no connection to HS1 or going beyond old oak common to London Euston, or Birmingham northwards, add maintenance is bieng slashed across the railway & electronics replacing reliable systems, there's going to be disasters, Britain is done for

[@DavidShepheard]

HS2 is reusing the best bit of the Great Central route. And the southern end of the Great Central route (Marylebone) is kind of useless. It's got just one TfL connection (the Bakerloo Line) and that hasn't been modernised to use lifts. The Great Central approach to London is right next to the Metropolitan Line and there is no way to widen that. So you would end up needing to go somewhere better (like Euston) and doing it in a tunnel, anyway. And you would end up with a slower railway that didn't compete with domestic flights. What we really need is to extend Eurostar and our own high speed services from London to Edinburgh and Glasgow. (And then from London to Cardiff.)

[@simoncroft9792]

Does make you wonder if HS2 would have been needed if Beeching had not been done.

[@clivejohnson6468]

Stopping at Old Oak will be OK, hs2 can run into Paddington instead.

[@stevieinselby]

There's no capacity at Paddington, even with a massively reduced HS2 network.

[@stuartfitch7093]

HS2 was always going to be a vanity project and a waste of money. It's a project that should never have even made it past the ideas stage. It was never going to deliver it's priority goal of levelling up. In fact, it would have done the exact opposite and any skilled, qualified people that live here in the north would just have found jobs down south. No southerner is going to catch a high speed train north to do a job for half the wage they already get in London. I believe it's less of a north vs south argument and more of a city vs town and village argument. There's supporters and opponents of HS2 in the north and south. If you notice though, almost all those high profile people that are pro HS2 are city MPs and mayors whether it be Bojo, Cameron, Sadiq Khan, Andy Burnham, Tracy Brabin and so on. These people all live and work in cities in the north or south. They look out their office windows and see twenty buses and ten trains go by and think everywhere in the country is like where they live and work. They are trapped in a city bubble mentality that makes it impossible for them to see the realty outside of their city bubble. They are wanting many people in the north to run before we can walk. I have lived all my life in a deprived northern town of less than 90,000 people. In the local area there's outlying towns and villages only a few miles apart from each other that don't even have a connecting bus service let alone a train station and a train station. We lost the train services decades ago under the Beeching cuts. The priority for those people living in my town and the surrounding area is to have good local transport services. They don't want to go to London every day. What they desperately need is buses to get the 5 miles to work at 5.30am when they need to go and do their manual jobs that can't be done at home. The first needs to local people is a viable alternative to the motor car. The money wasted on HS2 could have been much better spent by distributing the funds to the northern regions and then let them concentrate upon local public transport projects such as filling potholes and laying on more bus services by subsidising the local private bus companies.

[@GarethDennisTV]

that's nice for you, but nobody is going to read all of that

[@f.g.9466]

You lost us with your first sentence. Imagine in 2023 coming into a Gareth Dennis' video to comment such ignorant non-sense about HS2, completely ignoring all the valuable explanations about the project that he provided along the years, including this very same video. Must feel good to be on the same side of Sunak.

[@LLLLLLLLLucas]

You do realise that the UK contibutes less than 1% to global emissions? Anything we do as a country in regard to carbon emissions is irrelevant. HS2 either build it in its entirety or not at all.

[@GarethDennisTV]

go away, you are a fool

[@1669Python]

That bit “through fields” 🙄. You people will concrete over everything! Carlisle is getting an unnecessary £200 million link road. Some parts of our green land just don’t need levelling up. Manchester is like Manhattan these days, massive growth. Warrington - London Euston is 1 hour 49 min. That’s commutable! What do you people want?

[@NTL578]

Its about capacity

[@1669Python]

@@NTL578 Back before the privatisation of the railways, we had 10 - 14 carriage trains. Now we are down to less than half that on the Cross country routes. Improve that, and you will start to regain your capacity. Add more rolling stock to existing sets on the ECML and the WCML, again this will help.

[@tanithrosenbaum]

Capacity. Also yes, 1:49 is commutable, but only if you resign yourself to not doing _anything_ other than working, eating and sleeping during the week. With the extra bits to and from the stations on both ends, you'll end up with a total of 4.5 to 5 hours of commuting time per day. That's pretty borderlineish in terms of commutability. You'll be outside your house for 13 to 14 hours per day. Add to that 8 hours of sleeping and two hours of necessary personal maintenance (showering, doing laundry, cooking, buying groceries, exercise), and that's your 24 hours per day gone.