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Mismanagement aside, HS2 required 8000+ different permits along its route [1], as well as years of opposition and legal battles from environmental groups and NI

by Dennip 2y ago

Mismanagement aside, HS2 required 8000+ different permits along its route [1], as well as years of opposition and legal battles from environmental groups and NIMBYs. This is a significant portion of the cost, huge amounts of 'green tunnels' and cuttings are being created where they are not needed. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/nov/07/cost-of-shed-to-protect-bat-colony-near-hs2-has-topped-100m-chair-says https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/nov/07/cost-of-shed...

tharmas 2y ago
Im sure Regular rail like WCML would've been much cheaper and less disruptive.
- growse 2y ago
  Not sure if this is sarcasm. Assuming not.... No. The premium cost on the project related to its running speed is not significant. Planning and engineering a brand new 125mph railway doesn't cost much less than planning and engineering a brand new 250mph railway.
  - TheOtherHobbes 2y ago
    If the ultimate goal was to bypass freight - none of which travels at 125mph - wouldn't it have been cheaper to build a new freight line and upgrade the speed and capacity of the WCML? Or does a 75mph freight railway cost as much as a 250mph passenger railway? A reminder that the cost of the project, even unfinished, with none of the benefits of the lines to Manchester and Leeds, is of the same order as NASA's current moonshot budget.
    - growse 2y ago
      Performing major works on an existing line to upgrade its speed (which, given alignments might not even be possible) is probably the worst-case scenario in terms of cost and disruption. For the WCML specifically, _we already did that_ in the form of the modernization program (early-2000s) which was over 10 years of disruption, and massively expensive. And HS2 isn't just for freight, it's also for providing higher capacity and frequency of local stopping passenger trains. The WCML already connects the population centres, so the local stopping trains have to stay there. The thing that really kills capacity is the co-mingling of 125mph and lower speed (90/75) traffic. Remove the 125mph traffic (onto, say, a dedicated high-speed single-mode line) and you _massively_ increase capacity on the existing line. > A reminder that the cost of the project, even unfinished, with none of the benefits of the lines to Manchester and Leeds, is of the same order as NASA's current moonshot budget. This is not a railway problem. This is a government problem.
    - avianlyric 2y ago
      > upgrade the speed and capacity of the WCML? Do you really think that hasn’t already been tried. We’ve already spent billions upgrading the WCML, and endured decades of disruption (where do think the meme about bus replacement services comes from?). There’s simply no getting away from the fact that the WCML is a hodgepodge of some of the world’s earliest rail lines glued together. Rail lines that when originally designed, steam was still the high technology, it would have been utterly inconceivable for the original builders to imagine 200mph electric trains then. The design of the WCML, from its alignment, radius of bends, size of tunnels, heights of bridges etc all reflect the century it was originally built in, which is over 200 years ago (the core part of the WCML
    - lmm 2y ago
      > Or does a 75mph freight railway cost as much as a 250mph passenger railway? No, it costs more. The most expensive part of building anything in the UK, by far, is getting it through the local planning process, and as hard as that is with a sexy passenger railway that local residents can see a direct benefit from, it's much harder for a freight railway. Also freight railways need a much flatter route, which makes the route more constrained (increasing planning costs) and means more need for bridges and tunnels (increasing everything costs).
  - alimw 2y ago
    The article suggests that the flexibility of route afforded by slower speeds would have reduced cost significantly.
    - growse 2y ago
      This is wishful thinking at best. The route is not expensive because of speed. The route is expensive because the powerful NIMBYs wanted a huge amount of it tunnelled. No amount of mild wigglyness leeway gets around that fact. For all the howling, I've yet to see any specifics about how and where the route could have been changed if it were only built for 125mph running, and how that would have saved any significant cost.
      - alimw 2y ago
        Well I'll only repeat what's said in the article: "Christian Wolmar told CNN Travel ... the route could have followed existing highway corridors.”
- stuaxo 2y ago
  They already tried upgrading WCML at massive disruption over years and the gains weren't particularly much. It was realised that new track was the way to go.
seabass-labrax 2y ago
I'm afraid it is not as simple as that, and there is a lot of misinformation about HS2 that should be addressed. Firstly, the 'bat shed' (officially SWBMS) is expected to cost £100m. This is neither expensive nor wasteful for a structure nearly 1 kilometre long and "designed to accommodate up to 36 high-speed trains passing through the structure every hour of operation for 120 years, plus frequent conventional rail traffic in addition" as reported by Architects' Journal[1]. One should also refer to Natural England's own press release on the subject[2]. The first paragraph is worth quoting verbatim: "Natural England has not required HS2 Ltd to build the reported structure, or any other structure, nor advised on the design or costs. The need for the structure was identified by HS2 Ltd more than 10 years ago, following extensive surveying of bat populations by its own ecologists in the vicinity of Sheephouse Wood." It is absurd to think that Natural England would want to build a kilometre-long structure beside a forest if they didn't think it was of net benefit to the environment, yet that is the spin that most newspapers are putting on it. Additionally, Louise Haigh is, as far as I can tell, a genuinely pro-rail minister. She is for instance the only cabinet member to have filed any significant MP's expenses for rail travel. However, it should also be remembered that the current Labour government's publicity strategy has consistently been to depict all projects started by the previous Tory governments as wasteful or corrupt; thus, we should take any of her communications with a pinch of salt. I am very excited about HS2, which is being built to standard European loading gauges and will allow for high-capacity double-decker train services. Yet this does not have to be at the expense of local ecology, and these cuttings and tunnels are necessary to support both goals. [1]: https://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/news/transport-secretary-100m-for-moxons-hs2-bat-shed-is-tip-of-the-iceberg https://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/news/transport-secretary... [2]: https://naturalengland.blog.gov.uk/2024/11/08/natural-england-role-in-high-speed-2/ https://naturalengland.blog.gov.uk/2024/11/08/natural-englan...
- blibble 2y ago
  > "Natural England has not required HS2 Ltd to build the reported structure, or any other structure, nor advised on the design or costs." yes, they didn't strictly require them to do it, but if they hadn't done it (or something very similar) they wouldn't have removed their objection to the planning application standard quango double speak > Yet this does not have to be at the expense of local ecology the opportunity cost of this bat tunnel is massive you could do a lot of good with £100 million of taxpayers money, vs. some giant concrete 1km long structure additionally, it will be years after construction before the trains start running, and bats will inevitably end up roosting in the structure...
MichaelZuo 2y ago
This is what I find really bizarre, huge sums spent on hypothetical risks based on pure conjecture, e.g. the bat shed, with apparently not even any compelling evidence presented for such risks.
Closi 2y ago
I suspect over-engineering and being allowed to generally spunk money up the wall was the main culprit. The £100m bat shed isn't a sign to me of over-zealous environmentalists, it's a sign that the project was mismanaged because there wasn't enough pushback on spunking £100m up the wall with a mindset of "oh well, it's a big project, I guess £100m isn't much in the scheme of a project in the tens-of-billions things!.
- growse 2y ago
  > The £100m bat shed isn't a sign to me of over-zealous environmentalists, it's a sign that the project was mismanaged because there wasn't enough pushback on spunking £100m up the wall with a mindset of "oh well, it's a big project, I guess £100m isn't much in the scheme of a project in the tens-of-billions things!. The "£100m bat shed" is in the news precisely because the chair of HS2 brought it up. The point they're making is that something as fairly straightforward as an environmental protection structure is seized upon by a myriad of competing interests, all with their own demands and ability to block progress, which ultimately makes everything hugely expensive. HS2 may well have a cost laissez-faire problem, but the bat shed is not evidence of it.
- fmajid 2y ago
  Unnecessarily high speeds to show up the Continental duffers raised costs exponentially, then every Tory rural constituency claiming the line would disfigure their pristine arcadia had to be appeased with hugely expensive tunnels. But HS2 Ltd was also incredibly mismanaged. They made sure to rule out the manager of HS1 (successfully delivered under budget) as he would stop the gravy train (pun intended). https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/hs2-rishi-sunak-tory-conference-b2422922.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/hs2-rishi-sun... This was confirmed independently to me by a fellow alumni who worked on the project.
tacker2000 2y ago
This is a hilarious but also somewhat enlightening article.

by Dennip 2y ago

tharmas 2y ago

Im sure Regular rail like WCML would've been much cheaper and less disruptive.

growse 2y ago
Not sure if this is sarcasm. Assuming not.... No. The premium cost on the project related to its running speed is not significant. Planning and engineering a brand new 125mph railway doesn't cost much less than planning and engineering a brand new 250mph railway.
- TheOtherHobbes 2y ago
  If the ultimate goal was to bypass freight - none of which travels at 125mph - wouldn't it have been cheaper to build a new freight line and upgrade the speed and capacity of the WCML? Or does a 75mph freight railway cost as much as a 250mph passenger railway? A reminder that the cost of the project, even unfinished, with none of the benefits of the lines to Manchester and Leeds, is of the same order as NASA's current moonshot budget.
  - growse 2y ago
    Performing major works on an existing line to upgrade its speed (which, given alignments might not even be possible) is probably the worst-case scenario in terms of cost and disruption. For the WCML specifically, _we already did that_ in the form of the modernization program (early-2000s) which was over 10 years of disruption, and massively expensive. And HS2 isn't just for freight, it's also for providing higher capacity and frequency of local stopping passenger trains. The WCML already connects the population centres, so the local stopping trains have to stay there. The thing that really kills capacity is the co-mingling of 125mph and lower speed (90/75) traffic. Remove the 125mph traffic (onto, say, a dedicated high-speed single-mode line) and you _massively_ increase capacity on the existing line. > A reminder that the cost of the project, even unfinished, with none of the benefits of the lines to Manchester and Leeds, is of the same order as NASA's current moonshot budget. This is not a railway problem. This is a government problem.
  - avianlyric 2y ago
    > upgrade the speed and capacity of the WCML? Do you really think that hasn’t already been tried. We’ve already spent billions upgrading the WCML, and endured decades of disruption (where do think the meme about bus replacement services comes from?). There’s simply no getting away from the fact that the WCML is a hodgepodge of some of the world’s earliest rail lines glued together. Rail lines that when originally designed, steam was still the high technology, it would have been utterly inconceivable for the original builders to imagine 200mph electric trains then. The design of the WCML, from its alignment, radius of bends, size of tunnels, heights of bridges etc all reflect the century it was originally built in, which is over 200 years ago (the core part of the WCML
  - lmm 2y ago
    > Or does a 75mph freight railway cost as much as a 250mph passenger railway? No, it costs more. The most expensive part of building anything in the UK, by far, is getting it through the local planning process, and as hard as that is with a sexy passenger railway that local residents can see a direct benefit from, it's much harder for a freight railway. Also freight railways need a much flatter route, which makes the route more constrained (increasing planning costs) and means more need for bridges and tunnels (increasing everything costs).
- alimw 2y ago
  The article suggests that the flexibility of route afforded by slower speeds would have reduced cost significantly.
  - growse 2y ago
    This is wishful thinking at best. The route is not expensive because of speed. The route is expensive because the powerful NIMBYs wanted a huge amount of it tunnelled. No amount of mild wigglyness leeway gets around that fact. For all the howling, I've yet to see any specifics about how and where the route could have been changed if it were only built for 125mph running, and how that would have saved any significant cost.
    - alimw 2y ago
      Well I'll only repeat what's said in the article: "Christian Wolmar told CNN Travel ... the route could have followed existing highway corridors.”
stuaxo 2y ago
They already tried upgrading WCML at massive disruption over years and the gains weren't particularly much. It was realised that new track was the way to go.

seabass-labrax 2y ago

I'm afraid it is not as simple as that, and there is a lot of misinformation about HS2 that should be addressed. Firstly, the 'bat shed' (officially SWBMS) is expected to cost £100m. This is neither expensive nor wasteful for a structure nearly 1 kilometre long and "designed to accommodate up to 36 high-speed trains passing through the structure every hour of operation for 120 years, plus frequent conventional rail traffic in addition" as reported by Architects' Journal[1]. One should also refer to Natural England's own press release on the subject[2]. The first paragraph is worth quoting verbatim: "Natural England has not required HS2 Ltd to build the reported structure, or any other structure, nor advised on the design or costs. The need for the structure was identified by HS2 Ltd more than 10 years ago, following extensive surveying of bat populations by its own ecologists in the vicinity of Sheephouse Wood." It is absurd to think that Natural England would want to build a kilometre-long structure beside a forest if they didn't think it was of net benefit to the environment, yet that is the spin that most newspapers are putting on it. Additionally, Louise Haigh is, as far as I can tell, a genuinely pro-rail minister. She is for instance the only cabinet member to have filed any significant MP's expenses for rail travel. However, it should also be remembered that the current Labour government's publicity strategy has consistently been to depict all projects started by the previous Tory governments as wasteful or corrupt; thus, we should take any of her communications with a pinch of salt. I am very excited about HS2, which is being built to standard European loading gauges and will allow for high-capacity double-decker train services. Yet this does not have to be at the expense of local ecology, and these cuttings and tunnels are necessary to support both goals. [1]: https://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/news/transport-secretary-100m-for-moxons-hs2-bat-shed-is-tip-of-the-iceberg https://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/news/transport-secretary... [2]: https://naturalengland.blog.gov.uk/2024/11/08/natural-england-role-in-high-speed-2/ https://naturalengland.blog.gov.uk/2024/11/08/natural-englan...

blibble 2y ago
> "Natural England has not required HS2 Ltd to build the reported structure, or any other structure, nor advised on the design or costs." yes, they didn't strictly require them to do it, but if they hadn't done it (or something very similar) they wouldn't have removed their objection to the planning application standard quango double speak > Yet this does not have to be at the expense of local ecology the opportunity cost of this bat tunnel is massive you could do a lot of good with £100 million of taxpayers money, vs. some giant concrete 1km long structure additionally, it will be years after construction before the trains start running, and bats will inevitably end up roosting in the structure...

MichaelZuo 2y ago

This is what I find really bizarre, huge sums spent on hypothetical risks based on pure conjecture, e.g. the bat shed, with apparently not even any compelling evidence presented for such risks.

Closi 2y ago

I suspect over-engineering and being allowed to generally spunk money up the wall was the main culprit. The £100m bat shed isn't a sign to me of over-zealous environmentalists, it's a sign that the project was mismanaged because there wasn't enough pushback on spunking £100m up the wall with a mindset of "oh well, it's a big project, I guess £100m isn't much in the scheme of a project in the tens-of-billions things!.

growse 2y ago
> The £100m bat shed isn't a sign to me of over-zealous environmentalists, it's a sign that the project was mismanaged because there wasn't enough pushback on spunking £100m up the wall with a mindset of "oh well, it's a big project, I guess £100m isn't much in the scheme of a project in the tens-of-billions things!. The "£100m bat shed" is in the news precisely because the chair of HS2 brought it up. The point they're making is that something as fairly straightforward as an environmental protection structure is seized upon by a myriad of competing interests, all with their own demands and ability to block progress, which ultimately makes everything hugely expensive. HS2 may well have a cost laissez-faire problem, but the bat shed is not evidence of it.
fmajid 2y ago
Unnecessarily high speeds to show up the Continental duffers raised costs exponentially, then every Tory rural constituency claiming the line would disfigure their pristine arcadia had to be appeased with hugely expensive tunnels. But HS2 Ltd was also incredibly mismanaged. They made sure to rule out the manager of HS1 (successfully delivered under budget) as he would stop the gravy train (pun intended). https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/hs2-rishi-sunak-tory-conference-b2422922.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/hs2-rishi-sun... This was confirmed independently to me by a fellow alumni who worked on the project.

tacker2000 2y ago

This is a hilarious but also somewhat enlightening article.