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Stuart Nathan
Features editor
Railroaded
Yesterday’s announcement of the approval of HS2 made sure that an engineering-related topic dominated the news programmes. The news broadcasts, newspaper coverage and television reports sought comment from political observers, environmental campaigners and economists but, oddly, there didn’t seem to be much comment from the people who will actually make the proposals into reality. You know. Engineers.
That’s quite an anomaly, if you think about it. The history of the railways — a very British history — is punctuated by the engineers who made it possible. Trevithick, Watt, Stevenson and, of course, Brunel: the visionary engineers who drove the permanent way and its mighty engines across the country. These days? It seems that the media are more interested in bemoaning the lack of such mighty men of technological wisdom and charisma than actually trying to find someone to comment on it.
It might actually do them some good. The HS2 line has been replanned with more tunnels, including a three-mile one under London and several through the green and pleasant lands of the Chilterns. They’ve pushed the price of the project up, but they’ve mollified some of the concerns of the MPs for those constituencies and the Mayor of London. The cynics among you will notice which party all these politicians belong to.
More to the point, they’ve made the engineering of the line more difficult. More than half the length of the line will pass through tunnels or cuttings. How robust are the costings for these? Are they likely to come in on budget? And who carries the can if they don’t?
Around The Engineer, we remain unconvinced about the benefits of the first stage of HS2. Without that fast link into the North and to Scotland, it’s hard to see where the suggested economic benefits are going to come from. The government costs the entire new high-speed network at £36billion and says it will bring in £47billion over 60 years, but these figures are so mind-bogglingly huge that they’re difficult to grasp and near-impossible to analyse.
But the most important thing to keep in mind is that the project is, in the final analysis, an engineering task. Do we have the skills in place to start the project? Do we have the education and training pipleine in place to make sure we have all the different engineering disciplines to keep the project running through its lifetime and solve the problems which will inevitably arise along the route? Is there someone with the drive and discipline to keep the project going and prevent it becoming an albatross hanging around the neck of subsequent transport ministers?
We haven’t got a Brunel anymore. But it’s engineers who are going to drive this project, and the fact that their voices aren’t being heard — or even sought — doesn’t bode well for the UK’s biggest rail project for more than a century.
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Readers' comments (39)
Anonymous | 11 Jan 2012 2:37 pm
I would want a better return on £36B over 60 years then a mere +£47B it does not even keep up with inflation.!!!! I might have been slightly impressed if it had been +£147B.
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Roy Masters | 11 Jan 2012 2:42 pm
Once again we spend a ludicrous amount of money on a red herring. Since a new station is to be built in Birmingham to take this line the actual time saved travelling from London to the centre of Birmingham will be approx 15 minutes. If people are that busy that 15 minutes will make a difference they need to change their life or maybe get one. Also if half the journey is through tunnels or cuttings you'll get better views driving on the M1 or maybe using the current line. There must be far more rewarding ventures we could be spending this money on.
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Robin Wolfendale | 11 Jan 2012 3:24 pm
Surely the argument for HS rail is to provide a more sustainable option to short haul aviation. There is a minimum journey length where on-one would consider flying and the options become train vs car. This decision is less about speed than convenience. This suggests to me that HS rail only makes sense where the journeys are long enough to capture the time benefit over flying, as they are in Europe. This cannot be the case for short links like London to Birmingham. HS2 will only make commercial sense when it is extended to the North.
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brian M | 11 Jan 2012 3:48 pm
Looking at the governments own figures of 36 Billion costs and 47 Billion return over 60 years. Wonder if they have allowed for interest, overruns, maintenance etc, and of course the possible under usage due to cost or change in society/technology!
One can't help thinking massaged figures. In 60 years technology will have moved on dramatically not to mention society. This is old technology, for a demand that might not exist.
Money would be better spent on engineering projects we really need, replacement of sewers, improved water collection and storage including a trunk grid system. Proper green energy projects such as tidal barrages (Bristol) and the like. We can live without HS2 but not without these!
Oh and to answer your question why we are not hearing from the engineers - they are keeping quiet for very sensible reasons - they have won, so best to say nothing!
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ken | 11 Jan 2012 4:10 pm
Not a lot of interest because we all know that the work will be given to French, German and Italian companies to show that we are still commited softies, sorry, Europeans.
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Tony Essex | 11 Jan 2012 4:30 pm
What I want to know is who's going to use HS2? I can't afford to travel by train now and I can't see this being a cheap service!
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Robert Carpenter | 11 Jan 2012 5:18 pm
I hope The Engineer has complained to the BBC. I certainly will. Given the recent Bombardier debacle, how could they ignore the engineering angle to this story.
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John Hadfield | 11 Jan 2012 5:47 pm
36 billion could build 240,000 council houses at £150,000 each. If I were the PM, I would build the council houses and stay in office for three or more elections.
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Rodney Harrap | 11 Jan 2012 6:54 pm
According to BBC’s Newsnight (10/01/12) the £36 Billion cost includes a 60% overrun in costs therefore the current projected cost is actually £14.5 Billion.
Politicians are stupid, why when they were building HS1 from the Channel to London plus Crossrail, WHY didn't they prepare for this HS2 project. The skilled men who tunnel and prepare Civil Engineering could be working in continuous employment NOW on the HS2. Then the links forward to Manchester, Leeds and Scotland could continue until complete.
Stop arguing about time saved on the journey, as that is in business terms irrelevant. The existing railways have insufficient CAPACITY not only for passengers but especially freight. It's like reducing all Motorways to single lane if you argue against capacity. Hence, we have M40 to supplement M1's capacity - now if they scheduled roadworks to one highway and left other two open it would be Godsend for A1/M1/M40. Yes, a dual carriageway to Scotland would also be nice for North East England.
A monorail system would be great for speed but the vehicles are not interchangeable with existing system and you would get into the 19th Century Gauge wars. Brunel's superb 7 foot gauge would have meant wonderful capacity per carriage and high speed stability of the train plus great ride quality; but it was thrown out because of standardisation (in spite of the track mileages). The Business case is for extra capacity therefore freight at night could go on high-speed line to suit operational requirements when one line is shut for “Engineering Work”.
Architects retain recognition by association with a project. Best use of money? We should have built the Severn Barrage before the Channel Tunnel without delaying the Chunnel.
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Anonymous | 12 Jan 2012 7:14 am
The reason Labour always supports Rail so strongly and the Conservatives so rarely is that it is merely a matter for creating vast numbers of highly paid yet largely unskilled jobs. People talk about this being an Engineering led project, but it is hardly cutting edge, and offers little progress beyond the technology of the fifties. At a thrid of a billion pounds a mile, and an effective £2,500 a ticket subsidy for businessmen to save 30 minutes on a journey, it is probably the most expensive white elephant in history.
One could have expected Blair and Brown to jump on board- or preferably in front of the train, but not the Tories . As nothing offered yet in terms of economic benefit stacks up to any form of analysis, one hopes that some benefits will become clear before the costs start the inevitable escalation to five or ten times the current figures.
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