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Will HS2 Fail or Succeed?

Dave Perton
I believe it will do both, it just depends on the measure you use. In an project there are three measures of success or failure, cost, time-scale and outcome and I believe it will fail on two but succeed on the most important and have set out my argument in a blog post here https://communities.theiet.org/groups/blogpost/view/27/231/6920


The project is so complex to think costs will not overrun or timing slip is to be naive, as it is impossible to predict them when the timescales are so long and the complexity so great, but the outcome will be a success
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    The main problem for your average voter is that HS2 is just about a line from London to Birmingham that saves 10 minutes. Both assumptions obviously completely wrong, but the government and industry have never properly managed to win the battle about what this project is. It hasn’t helped that HS2 and the government failed to adequately compensate businesses and households – had they much of the negative campaigning would have been quashed and they could have focused their attention to the details to optimise the design.

    “Fast” speed is another issue. It has only now taken FOI requests and announcements from Stephenson to say that running trains at slower speeds actually costs more money as the reduction in construction costs (-4% v 300kmph lines [Stephenson] or -9% v 200kmph line [HS2 FOI] are outweighed by the loss in benefits of shorter journey times – it’s more than 10 years since this scheme started and this battle is still being fought by anti HS2 journalists and campaigners.

    The biggest failing is connectivity. Network Rail’s early 2000s plan for a new line showed London to Glasgow but with a link via Manchester which would have begun to create fast regional connections. This is still not included in any HS2 plan, even using classic compatible trains. The realisation of this poor northern connectivity is beginning to be tackled as the Northern Powerhouse and northern mayors have had this poor connectivity dumped on their laps. Slowly connectivity is being corrected with plans for a through station at Manchester (and hopefully also Leeds) that allows for extended NPR and running to Scotland. HS2 should never have been regarded as London to somewhere; the benefits should always have been regional cities to other regional cities. Even the proposal by Weston Williamson:
    https://www.westonwilliamson.com/thinking/high-speed-station-square
    for the NIC still lacks an adequate direct connection for future HS2 type trains from Manchester and Leeds to Glasgow (as the station box doesn’t provide this and then such a journey would go south via Manchester Airport), but it is an improvement over today’s plans. At some stage the government will realise that Manchester, Leeds and Birmingham are the keystones of this project and that through stations or provision for such links are absolutely essential.

    In the end this project will succeed, but only after major errors have been corrected, hopefully before construction, or in the years ahead after people start using it and we realise that connections are not optimised for NPR or East West Rail, or for extended off network running to Scotland, or even SW to Bristol (some safeguarding provision for a 1 or 2 mile tunnel from Curzon St to SW Birmingham lines towards the SW should have been considered allowing any northern city fast HS2 journeys through/under Birmingham).

    Fundamentally HS2 is a system and we are dependent on what trains run over the entire network to achieve the highest benefits. Tilting trains on the West Coast Main Line were always a compromise when they were first proposed in the 1960s, yet here we are 60 years later and who honestly believes that another £40bn will be spent on a new line from Leeds to Edinburgh or Manchester/Wigan to Glasgow. So the train selection is as much an essential part of this project as the line itself.

    With the availability of the latest tilting trains from Alstom (Avelia Liberty for Amtrak) and the Talgo Avril (to which a tilt capability can be selected at procurement) then extended running to Scotland using classic compatible HS2 trains would allow HS2 speeds on the dedicated track and up to 300kmph for the Avelia in tilt mode and probably higher with the Avril. With upgrades to the WCML over the next few years for signalling and long passing places, these new trains now make the 1970-80’s plans for 155mph tilt speeds easily achievable north of Preston. Indeed, if there were brand new HSL north of Preston then these trains can operate to those higher speeds as on HS2. This is a compromise that is cheap. No bridges are burned by not selecting such trains (which are due to be decided upon in the autumn this year) and they offer full flexibility and maximum speeds from partial track upgrades, which also could form the basis of the strategy for the NPR upgrades and new lines.

    https://www.heraldscotland.com/opinion/18256341.running-tilting-trains-next-generation-track-bring-benefits-scotland/
    https://www.alstom.com/our-solutions/rolling-stock/avelia-liberty-innovation-and-proven-design-very-high-speed
    https://www.talgo.com/en/rolling-stock/very-high-speed/avril/

    Finally, if we were anything other the “Great” Britain & NI, with a long record of having governments destroying and failing to invest and follow through on our world leading technical ability, then I’d never have proposed HS2 in 2020. We’d have gone and worked with the German’s at Siemens and Thyssenkrupp and done what Japan and China are pushing ahead with – a core 500 to 600kmph maglev line. Essentially Siemens have given away their HSR and maglev technology to the Chinese who in the end will sell it all back to us as our governments’ failed to understand the future.

    https://www.railwaygazette.com/technology/dynamic-trials-start-with-600-km/h-maglev-prototype/56830.article

    It is sad to say, but HS2 will be out of date 20 years after it opens, but we can still optimise it for “our” future with connectivity improvements and procurement of new 350kmph+ tilting trains.

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  • 0
    The main problem for your average voter is that HS2 is just about a line from London to Birmingham that saves 10 minutes. Both assumptions obviously completely wrong, but the government and industry have never properly managed to win the battle about what this project is. It hasn’t helped that HS2 and the government failed to adequately compensate businesses and households – had they much of the negative campaigning would have been quashed and they could have focused their attention to the details to optimise the design.

    “Fast” speed is another issue. It has only now taken FOI requests and announcements from Stephenson to say that running trains at slower speeds actually costs more money as the reduction in construction costs (-4% v 300kmph lines [Stephenson] or -9% v 200kmph line [HS2 FOI] are outweighed by the loss in benefits of shorter journey times – it’s more than 10 years since this scheme started and this battle is still being fought by anti HS2 journalists and campaigners.

    The biggest failing is connectivity. Network Rail’s early 2000s plan for a new line showed London to Glasgow but with a link via Manchester which would have begun to create fast regional connections. This is still not included in any HS2 plan, even using classic compatible trains. The realisation of this poor northern connectivity is beginning to be tackled as the Northern Powerhouse and northern mayors have had this poor connectivity dumped on their laps. Slowly connectivity is being corrected with plans for a through station at Manchester (and hopefully also Leeds) that allows for extended NPR and running to Scotland. HS2 should never have been regarded as London to somewhere; the benefits should always have been regional cities to other regional cities. Even the proposal by Weston Williamson:
    https://www.westonwilliamson.com/thinking/high-speed-station-square
    for the NIC still lacks an adequate direct connection for future HS2 type trains from Manchester and Leeds to Glasgow (as the station box doesn’t provide this and then such a journey would go south via Manchester Airport), but it is an improvement over today’s plans. At some stage the government will realise that Manchester, Leeds and Birmingham are the keystones of this project and that through stations or provision for such links are absolutely essential.

    In the end this project will succeed, but only after major errors have been corrected, hopefully before construction, or in the years ahead after people start using it and we realise that connections are not optimised for NPR or East West Rail, or for extended off network running to Scotland, or even SW to Bristol (some safeguarding provision for a 1 or 2 mile tunnel from Curzon St to SW Birmingham lines towards the SW should have been considered allowing any northern city fast HS2 journeys through/under Birmingham).

    Fundamentally HS2 is a system and we are dependent on what trains run over the entire network to achieve the highest benefits. Tilting trains on the West Coast Main Line were always a compromise when they were first proposed in the 1960s, yet here we are 60 years later and who honestly believes that another £40bn will be spent on a new line from Leeds to Edinburgh or Manchester/Wigan to Glasgow. So the train selection is as much an essential part of this project as the line itself.

    With the availability of the latest tilting trains from Alstom (Avelia Liberty for Amtrak) and the Talgo Avril (to which a tilt capability can be selected at procurement) then extended running to Scotland using classic compatible HS2 trains would allow HS2 speeds on the dedicated track and up to 300kmph for the Avelia in tilt mode and probably higher with the Avril. With upgrades to the WCML over the next few years for signalling and long passing places, these new trains now make the 1970-80’s plans for 155mph tilt speeds easily achievable north of Preston. Indeed, if there were brand new HSL north of Preston then these trains can operate to those higher speeds as on HS2. This is a compromise that is cheap. No bridges are burned by not selecting such trains (which are due to be decided upon in the autumn this year) and they offer full flexibility and maximum speeds from partial track upgrades, which also could form the basis of the strategy for the NPR upgrades and new lines.

    https://www.heraldscotland.com/opinion/18256341.running-tilting-trains-next-generation-track-bring-benefits-scotland/
    https://www.alstom.com/our-solutions/rolling-stock/avelia-liberty-innovation-and-proven-design-very-high-speed
    https://www.talgo.com/en/rolling-stock/very-high-speed/avril/

    Finally, if we were anything other the “Great” Britain & NI, with a long record of having governments destroying and failing to invest and follow through on our world leading technical ability, then I’d never have proposed HS2 in 2020. We’d have gone and worked with the German’s at Siemens and Thyssenkrupp and done what Japan and China are pushing ahead with – a core 500 to 600kmph maglev line. Essentially Siemens have given away their HSR and maglev technology to the Chinese who in the end will sell it all back to us as our governments’ failed to understand the future.

    https://www.railwaygazette.com/technology/dynamic-trials-start-with-600-km/h-maglev-prototype/56830.article

    It is sad to say, but HS2 will be out of date 20 years after it opens, but we can still optimise it for “our” future with connectivity improvements and procurement of new 350kmph+ tilting trains.

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