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In the media, there's been a focus on HS2's ever-growing budget, bulldozing land, and massive delays. These are significant, if not more so than what I'm about

In the media, there's been a focus on HS2's ever-growing budget, bulldozing land, and massive delays. These are significant, if not more so than what I'm about to talk about, but it's worth focusing on an aspect frequently not considered: the positive externality of improving human skills. With Crossrail (now Elizabeth Line) nearly finished under London, the Channel Tunnel, and now HS2 tunnels, the UK is exposing some of its workforce to some great tunnelling projects. The skill these workers must have aquired working on these large-scale tunnelling projects is impressive. The UK could even be developing a comparative advantage in tunnelling. It doesn't solve the factors outlined at the start, but it's a side affect few discuss in public discourse when deciding to fund an infrastructure project like HS2. The positive externalities of SpaceX's work or of NASA's work are not limited to the end goal (the fact we fly something to space), it's also that now we have more people with better skills. This is something that the media doesn't focus on when big breakthroughs happen, whether privately- or publicly-funded, and I think that's a shame.

CodeGlitch 6y ago
Upvoted. The backlash against HS2 is really annoying, yes it is expensive and some people think it won't benefit the country much - but you covered the reasons why we should be continuing with this project.
- Brakenshire 6y ago
  HS2 only connects together the largest city, the second largest city, the third largest city, the fourth largest city, the fifth largest city, the seventh largest city and the ninth largest city in the UK together on a single branched train line which will allow travel between them within an hour and a half. Who cares about such economic frivolity!
  - BlackVanilla 6y ago
    This highlights a flaw with the UK's infrastructure projects. The UK is focused on connecting cities with cities, not connection within cities and towns. Asides from London, plenty of cities and big towns suffer from poor public transport. Getting from one side of town to another without a car should not be a struggle. Right now, I think this should be prioritised above city to city public transport links.
    - ljm 6y ago
      Considering I have to visit Cheshire every now and then to see family, the worst part of the journey isn't the Pendolino up to Crewe, but travelling to the train station out to where I need to be. Some of those stations are completely inaccessible without a car, there's no way you could walk it in decent time or without waiting for an infrequent bus.
      - iso1631 6y ago
        Which stations? Nantwich has a fairly decent service aside from Sundays, Wrenbury isn't too bad either, and both have a fairly decent connection The problem in south west cheshire is many places not only aren't on a rail line, they aren't dense enough to keep a bus service running, even with subsidies
    - M2Ys4U 6y ago
      > This highlights a flaw with the UK's infrastructure projects. The UK is focused on connecting cities with cities, not connection within cities and towns. I agree, but HS2 will provide a huge benefit local and regional rail services rather than what most people assume: Faster travel in and out of London. Frankly we need a lot more investment into light rail (trams etc.) and buses as well as HS2 and NPR.
  - youngtaff 6y ago
    HS2 isn't just about connecting cities it's about releasing capacity for more local services. Midlands Connect say HS2 will improve services to 73 stations, 53 of which aren't connected to HS2 [1] It also introduces capacity gains for commuter lines into Euston (can't find the link for that) I'd encourage everyone to read Rail Magazine's take on why we should build H2S [2] 1. https://www.midlandsconnect.uk/publications/hs2-released-capacity/ https://www.midlandsconnect.uk/publications/hs2-released-cap... 2. https://www.railmagazine.com/research-hub/comment/comment-special-let-s-get-hs2-done https://www.railmagazine.com/research-hub/comment/comment-sp...
    - reallydontask 6y ago
      I could well be wrong but this was never one of the touted benefits of HS2 when it was being (mis?)sold to the British public, which makes me very suspicious. Furthermore, I would guess that the post coronavirus emphasis on remote work would make it less important, only time will tell.
      - gsnedders 6y ago
        > I could well be wrong but this was never one of the touted benefits of HS2 when it was being (mis?)sold to the British public, which makes me very suspicious. At least https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-16485263 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-16485263 talks about capacity a fair bit? > Furthermore, I would guess that the post coronavirus emphasis on remote work would make it less important, only time will tell. It's worthwhile remembering that number of people heading into cities has been rising year-over-year for a long time. Even if we see a 25% decrease in travel, any freed up rail capacity would likely just be taken up by people moving from road to rail. And with a larger decrease, while rail might drop away from being at capacity for a few years it's highly likely to increase again in future.
      - wastedhours 6y ago
        The capacity easing was always the main reason pushed to those in the know, it was easier to sell to the public based on some new top line figures though, so that's the reason that narrative was used. HS2 is almost all about easing local commuter routes.
- oakesm9 6y ago
  The issue with a high speed rail project like HS2 is that the people most affected by it are the ones who don't see much direct benefits from it. If the line is coming past you then you have to put up with the noise from it and the building and land use change issues, but you don't get to actually use it as there won't be any stations for you. It's not possible to add stations mid-line as that would slow down the "high speed" aspect. You can see this in the survey results where regions like the midlands have higher levels of opposition and those at the end of the lines: https://yougov.co.uk/topics/transport/survey-results/daily/2020/01/21/39d16/1 https://yougov.co.uk/topics/transport/survey-results/daily/2...
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - M2Ys4U 6y ago
    > The issue with a high speed rail project like HS2 is that the people most affected by it are the ones who don't see much direct benefits from it. >If the line is coming past you then you have to put up with the noise from it and the building and land use change issues, but you don't get to actually use it as there won't be any stations for you. It's not possible to add stations mid-line as that would slow down the "high speed" aspect. Except that's actually nonsense. Most of the benefit comes from moving the intercity trains off of the WCML meaning more local and regional trains can be run.
    - iso1631 6y ago
      However the line itself runs through expensive Buckinghamshire villages, this line won't relieve the Chiltern main line much. While those in Milton Keynes, Northmapton, Hemel Hempstead etc will love the extra services and space to London, and the increased services and reliability on the Rugby->Wolverhampton and Bimingham-Nottingham corridors will be great, those somewhere like Wendover won't see any benefit.
- adwww 6y ago
  Some of the backlash could be a bit justified, but the various 'green' groups campaigning against it are strangely silent about the Silvertown Tunnel or the £27bn road-building programme...
acallaghan 6y ago
I'm mainly annoyed about the rollout of HS2 because of the government's insistence of all projects starting/ending in London. A new trans-pennine rail tunnel from Liverpool-Manchester-Sheffield under the peaks, and Manc-Leeds-Hull would add vastly more value than a faster connection between already well connected cities. This is planned for 'HS3', but that could be 40+ years off at this rate. The large-scale projects need to srart every 10 years or so... the UK is in desperate need of non-car infrastructure if it wants to be carbon zero by 2050.
- BlackVanilla 6y ago
  That's a fair criticism. Why not both, I guess? I think that criticism goes beyond the government. Parties of all colours have been far too London/South East-centric. I don't know of any infrastructure projects of reasonable size in Wales or the South West for instance. Forgetting about places is a very effective way to keep generating forgotten about places.
  - adwww 6y ago
    > I don't know of any infrastructure projects of reasonable size in Wales or the South West One of Europe's largest construction sites is currently in Somerset - Hinkley Point C.
    - BlackVanilla 6y ago
      You got me! I worded my comment poorly. I should've said I don't know of MANY, not any.
- chrisseaton 6y ago
  > A new trans-pennine rail tunnel from Liverpool-Manchester-Sheffield under the peaks, and Manc-Leeds-Hull would add vastly more value than a faster connection between already well connected cities. I live in this area and do these routes frequently and yes I'd love them to be more connected too. But realistically, like almost everyone else in the country almost all my travel is to and from London, because that's where most things happen.
TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
The UK is exposing very little of its workforce to great tunnelling projects, because very little of HS2 is about tunnelling, and most of the rest of the technology is being bought in anyway. This repeats an old pattern. The UK used to have a nationalised rail system with world-class R&D. The R&D was effectively given away when the system was privatised, and then the technology was bought in when it was needed later - from foreign companies which were now charging the UK for IP it had developed at home. Even if that weren't true, the UK would be competing in a tiny space with even larger projects - like the Brenner Base Tunnel, which is currently burrowing through 55km of solid rock under the Alps. The reality is there is very little real payback in terms of jobs and future opportunities - certainly much less than spending the money on world class broadband infrastructure and technology training. The infuriating thing about HS2 is that it's basically just pork for party donors dressed up as a strategic and patriotic wonder - because the ruling class just can't deal with the fact that the 19th century is over. Meanwhile the strategic areas the UK is actually a significant player in - including plenty of science and technology, and not a little engineering, but also the arts, finance, and law - are being starved of investment, opportunity, and effective management.
- BlackVanilla 6y ago
  Sure, I tried to make the focus of my comment on the rarely talked about benefit of skilling people up as a positive externality, rather than to give credit to HS2 specifically, but I probably didn't do this well enough. Skilling up people in the world of STEM, finance, arts are all as important, if not more so than tunnelling.
- te_chris 6y ago
  The thing that I find most humourous about British Rail - as a non brit, former colonial subject, who lives in London - is that they literally invented high speed rail, then lost the ultimate prize to the French (i.e. France ran ahead with it, electrified it then rolled it out. I find this incredibly amusing as there's still a certain portion of English society with a huge chip on their shoulders vis a vis France).
  - 6y ago
pythonic_caver 6y ago
Why is HS2 going ahead at all now? It is not safe to travel by train anymore given covid-19. Stations are mixing grounds for infection. People are not kept apart with fresh air whilst travelling in the train. Random people constantly pass close by. Investing in shared train infrastructure is inappropriate
- oakesm9 6y ago
  HS2 isn't scheduled to open until at least 2029. The current situation has no bearing on if it should go ahead or not.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
pjc50 6y ago
Civil engineering has long been globalised. My dad and uncle were in the industry all their working lives; his career included the Drogden Tunnel as part of the Sweden/Denmark crossing and a copper mine in Chile, as well as London Underground. A lot of the work is ""remote"" in the sense that it's not at the physical site where the tunnel is dug. Having said that, it's good that the work is happening; nothing is more corrosive to the long-term health of an industry than stopping all projects of a particular type. Some skills are embedded in the organisation rather than the individuals. This lost us much of our rolling stock industry, for example.
bluGill 6y ago
I wish there was more focus on costs. A cheaper project allows more miles to be built with the same money. Obviously quality is tradeoff you need to be careful not to lose with cheap, but evidence is countries that don't speak English do this at much less cost and if anything better quality.
- iso1631 6y ago
  Not neccersarilly, if a project delivers 50% of the benefits for 75% of the money, it's less likely to be built.
  - bluGill 6y ago
    What benefits? Do you count payment to consultants as a benefit - the consultants would. If you define benefits as ability for people to get from point a to point b, often, quickly and safely a lot of costs are not needed. Note in particular I artistic stations are not a benifet to me - some would disagree. We know that by my definition Spain is able to build rail for much less cost. Note that I picked consultants arbitrarily as something to pick on. Unions have been blamed. EPA has been blamed (I'm not sure what the UK equivalent is). Bribes have been blamed. There is plenty more.
    - iso1631 6y ago
      However benefits are defined There are always costs to projects (money spent on wages to UK taxpayers, money spent on imports, environmental damage, political damage from nimby campaigns, opportunity costs from people working on this project instead of another one - say crossrail 2) There are always benefits to projects (money generated from more passengers, benefit of more space on existing lines, movement of freight from road to rail, movement of passengers from air to rail, benefits politically from spending money outside of London) This is the same no matter what project, or who is funding it. Musk presumably includes "being able to go to Mars in his lifetime" as a benefit of starship, as that's his stated goal. You could reduce the cost if you said "we don't need to go to mars", but that would remove the main benefit, and Musk isn't going to put as much as he does into it. Clearly if you can reduce costs without reducing benefits it will increase the viability of a project, but reducing costs on its own does not necessarily increase the viability.
gok 6y ago
> The skill these workers must have aquired working on these large-scale tunnelling projects is impressive. Judging by the cost and speed of tunneling projects of the last century or so, one would have to conclude that we are in fact somehow getting worse at it. Nearly across the world, tunneling is happening slower and at greater cost than previously.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
Someone 6y ago
“the UK is exposing some of its workforce to some great tunnelling projects” Honest question: does this actually involve lots of UK workforce for the core jobs? I would think specialized crews move wherever these tunneling projects go. I know that already happens with specialized concrete pouring in high-rise building construction. That makes sense for both companies, who want to work with experienced personnel, and workers, who do not want to move to lower-paying jobs if there isn’t any tunnel being bored in the UK for a while.
f_allwein 6y ago
Of course, the British were also the pioneers: Thames Tunnel in Rotherhithe was the first tunnel constructed under a river and must have been an amazing feat of engineering back then (1843). There’s an interesting museum there and the tunnel is still used, now by the Overground line. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thames_Tunnel https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thames_Tunnel

CodeGlitch 6y ago

Upvoted. The backlash against HS2 is really annoying, yes it is expensive and some people think it won't benefit the country much - but you covered the reasons why we should be continuing with this project.

Brakenshire 6y ago
HS2 only connects together the largest city, the second largest city, the third largest city, the fourth largest city, the fifth largest city, the seventh largest city and the ninth largest city in the UK together on a single branched train line which will allow travel between them within an hour and a half. Who cares about such economic frivolity!
- BlackVanilla 6y ago
  This highlights a flaw with the UK's infrastructure projects. The UK is focused on connecting cities with cities, not connection within cities and towns. Asides from London, plenty of cities and big towns suffer from poor public transport. Getting from one side of town to another without a car should not be a struggle. Right now, I think this should be prioritised above city to city public transport links.
  - ljm 6y ago
    Considering I have to visit Cheshire every now and then to see family, the worst part of the journey isn't the Pendolino up to Crewe, but travelling to the train station out to where I need to be. Some of those stations are completely inaccessible without a car, there's no way you could walk it in decent time or without waiting for an infrequent bus.
    - iso1631 6y ago
      Which stations? Nantwich has a fairly decent service aside from Sundays, Wrenbury isn't too bad either, and both have a fairly decent connection The problem in south west cheshire is many places not only aren't on a rail line, they aren't dense enough to keep a bus service running, even with subsidies
  - M2Ys4U 6y ago
    > This highlights a flaw with the UK's infrastructure projects. The UK is focused on connecting cities with cities, not connection within cities and towns. I agree, but HS2 will provide a huge benefit local and regional rail services rather than what most people assume: Faster travel in and out of London. Frankly we need a lot more investment into light rail (trams etc.) and buses as well as HS2 and NPR.
- youngtaff 6y ago
  HS2 isn't just about connecting cities it's about releasing capacity for more local services. Midlands Connect say HS2 will improve services to 73 stations, 53 of which aren't connected to HS2 [1] It also introduces capacity gains for commuter lines into Euston (can't find the link for that) I'd encourage everyone to read Rail Magazine's take on why we should build H2S [2] 1. https://www.midlandsconnect.uk/publications/hs2-released-capacity/ https://www.midlandsconnect.uk/publications/hs2-released-cap... 2. https://www.railmagazine.com/research-hub/comment/comment-special-let-s-get-hs2-done https://www.railmagazine.com/research-hub/comment/comment-sp...
  - reallydontask 6y ago
    I could well be wrong but this was never one of the touted benefits of HS2 when it was being (mis?)sold to the British public, which makes me very suspicious. Furthermore, I would guess that the post coronavirus emphasis on remote work would make it less important, only time will tell.
    - gsnedders 6y ago
      > I could well be wrong but this was never one of the touted benefits of HS2 when it was being (mis?)sold to the British public, which makes me very suspicious. At least https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-16485263 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-16485263 talks about capacity a fair bit? > Furthermore, I would guess that the post coronavirus emphasis on remote work would make it less important, only time will tell. It's worthwhile remembering that number of people heading into cities has been rising year-over-year for a long time. Even if we see a 25% decrease in travel, any freed up rail capacity would likely just be taken up by people moving from road to rail. And with a larger decrease, while rail might drop away from being at capacity for a few years it's highly likely to increase again in future.
    - wastedhours 6y ago
      The capacity easing was always the main reason pushed to those in the know, it was easier to sell to the public based on some new top line figures though, so that's the reason that narrative was used. HS2 is almost all about easing local commuter routes.
oakesm9 6y ago
The issue with a high speed rail project like HS2 is that the people most affected by it are the ones who don't see much direct benefits from it. If the line is coming past you then you have to put up with the noise from it and the building and land use change issues, but you don't get to actually use it as there won't be any stations for you. It's not possible to add stations mid-line as that would slow down the "high speed" aspect. You can see this in the survey results where regions like the midlands have higher levels of opposition and those at the end of the lines: https://yougov.co.uk/topics/transport/survey-results/daily/2020/01/21/39d16/1 https://yougov.co.uk/topics/transport/survey-results/daily/2...
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- M2Ys4U 6y ago
  > The issue with a high speed rail project like HS2 is that the people most affected by it are the ones who don't see much direct benefits from it. >If the line is coming past you then you have to put up with the noise from it and the building and land use change issues, but you don't get to actually use it as there won't be any stations for you. It's not possible to add stations mid-line as that would slow down the "high speed" aspect. Except that's actually nonsense. Most of the benefit comes from moving the intercity trains off of the WCML meaning more local and regional trains can be run.
  - iso1631 6y ago
    However the line itself runs through expensive Buckinghamshire villages, this line won't relieve the Chiltern main line much. While those in Milton Keynes, Northmapton, Hemel Hempstead etc will love the extra services and space to London, and the increased services and reliability on the Rugby->Wolverhampton and Bimingham-Nottingham corridors will be great, those somewhere like Wendover won't see any benefit.
adwww 6y ago
Some of the backlash could be a bit justified, but the various 'green' groups campaigning against it are strangely silent about the Silvertown Tunnel or the £27bn road-building programme...

acallaghan 6y ago

I'm mainly annoyed about the rollout of HS2 because of the government's insistence of all projects starting/ending in London. A new trans-pennine rail tunnel from Liverpool-Manchester-Sheffield under the peaks, and Manc-Leeds-Hull would add vastly more value than a faster connection between already well connected cities. This is planned for 'HS3', but that could be 40+ years off at this rate. The large-scale projects need to srart every 10 years or so... the UK is in desperate need of non-car infrastructure if it wants to be carbon zero by 2050.

BlackVanilla 6y ago
That's a fair criticism. Why not both, I guess? I think that criticism goes beyond the government. Parties of all colours have been far too London/South East-centric. I don't know of any infrastructure projects of reasonable size in Wales or the South West for instance. Forgetting about places is a very effective way to keep generating forgotten about places.
- adwww 6y ago
  > I don't know of any infrastructure projects of reasonable size in Wales or the South West One of Europe's largest construction sites is currently in Somerset - Hinkley Point C.
  - BlackVanilla 6y ago
    You got me! I worded my comment poorly. I should've said I don't know of MANY, not any.
chrisseaton 6y ago
> A new trans-pennine rail tunnel from Liverpool-Manchester-Sheffield under the peaks, and Manc-Leeds-Hull would add vastly more value than a faster connection between already well connected cities. I live in this area and do these routes frequently and yes I'd love them to be more connected too. But realistically, like almost everyone else in the country almost all my travel is to and from London, because that's where most things happen.

TheOtherHobbes 6y ago

The UK is exposing very little of its workforce to great tunnelling projects, because very little of HS2 is about tunnelling, and most of the rest of the technology is being bought in anyway. This repeats an old pattern. The UK used to have a nationalised rail system with world-class R&D. The R&D was effectively given away when the system was privatised, and then the technology was bought in when it was needed later - from foreign companies which were now charging the UK for IP it had developed at home. Even if that weren't true, the UK would be competing in a tiny space with even larger projects - like the Brenner Base Tunnel, which is currently burrowing through 55km of solid rock under the Alps. The reality is there is very little real payback in terms of jobs and future opportunities - certainly much less than spending the money on world class broadband infrastructure and technology training. The infuriating thing about HS2 is that it's basically just pork for party donors dressed up as a strategic and patriotic wonder - because the ruling class just can't deal with the fact that the 19th century is over. Meanwhile the strategic areas the UK is actually a significant player in - including plenty of science and technology, and not a little engineering, but also the arts, finance, and law - are being starved of investment, opportunity, and effective management.

BlackVanilla 6y ago
Sure, I tried to make the focus of my comment on the rarely talked about benefit of skilling people up as a positive externality, rather than to give credit to HS2 specifically, but I probably didn't do this well enough. Skilling up people in the world of STEM, finance, arts are all as important, if not more so than tunnelling.
te_chris 6y ago
The thing that I find most humourous about British Rail - as a non brit, former colonial subject, who lives in London - is that they literally invented high speed rail, then lost the ultimate prize to the French (i.e. France ran ahead with it, electrified it then rolled it out. I find this incredibly amusing as there's still a certain portion of English society with a huge chip on their shoulders vis a vis France).
- 6y ago

pythonic_caver 6y ago

Why is HS2 going ahead at all now? It is not safe to travel by train anymore given covid-19. Stations are mixing grounds for infection. People are not kept apart with fresh air whilst travelling in the train. Random people constantly pass close by. Investing in shared train infrastructure is inappropriate

oakesm9 6y ago
HS2 isn't scheduled to open until at least 2029. The current situation has no bearing on if it should go ahead or not.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

pjc50 6y ago

Civil engineering has long been globalised. My dad and uncle were in the industry all their working lives; his career included the Drogden Tunnel as part of the Sweden/Denmark crossing and a copper mine in Chile, as well as London Underground. A lot of the work is ""remote"" in the sense that it's not at the physical site where the tunnel is dug. Having said that, it's good that the work is happening; nothing is more corrosive to the long-term health of an industry than stopping all projects of a particular type. Some skills are embedded in the organisation rather than the individuals. This lost us much of our rolling stock industry, for example.

bluGill 6y ago

I wish there was more focus on costs. A cheaper project allows more miles to be built with the same money. Obviously quality is tradeoff you need to be careful not to lose with cheap, but evidence is countries that don't speak English do this at much less cost and if anything better quality.

iso1631 6y ago
Not neccersarilly, if a project delivers 50% of the benefits for 75% of the money, it's less likely to be built.
- bluGill 6y ago
  What benefits? Do you count payment to consultants as a benefit - the consultants would. If you define benefits as ability for people to get from point a to point b, often, quickly and safely a lot of costs are not needed. Note in particular I artistic stations are not a benifet to me - some would disagree. We know that by my definition Spain is able to build rail for much less cost. Note that I picked consultants arbitrarily as something to pick on. Unions have been blamed. EPA has been blamed (I'm not sure what the UK equivalent is). Bribes have been blamed. There is plenty more.
  - iso1631 6y ago
    However benefits are defined There are always costs to projects (money spent on wages to UK taxpayers, money spent on imports, environmental damage, political damage from nimby campaigns, opportunity costs from people working on this project instead of another one - say crossrail 2) There are always benefits to projects (money generated from more passengers, benefit of more space on existing lines, movement of freight from road to rail, movement of passengers from air to rail, benefits politically from spending money outside of London) This is the same no matter what project, or who is funding it. Musk presumably includes "being able to go to Mars in his lifetime" as a benefit of starship, as that's his stated goal. You could reduce the cost if you said "we don't need to go to mars", but that would remove the main benefit, and Musk isn't going to put as much as he does into it. Clearly if you can reduce costs without reducing benefits it will increase the viability of a project, but reducing costs on its own does not necessarily increase the viability.

gok 6y ago

> The skill these workers must have aquired working on these large-scale tunnelling projects is impressive. Judging by the cost and speed of tunneling projects of the last century or so, one would have to conclude that we are in fact somehow getting worse at it. Nearly across the world, tunneling is happening slower and at greater cost than previously.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

Someone 6y ago

“the UK is exposing some of its workforce to some great tunnelling projects” Honest question: does this actually involve lots of UK workforce for the core jobs? I would think specialized crews move wherever these tunneling projects go. I know that already happens with specialized concrete pouring in high-rise building construction. That makes sense for both companies, who want to work with experienced personnel, and workers, who do not want to move to lower-paying jobs if there isn’t any tunnel being bored in the UK for a while.

f_allwein 6y ago

Of course, the British were also the pioneers: Thames Tunnel in Rotherhithe was the first tunnel constructed under a river and must have been an amazing feat of engineering back then (1843). There’s an interesting museum there and the tunnel is still used, now by the Overground line. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thames_Tunnel https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thames_Tunnel