The government has revealed details of the Phase One contracts for High Speed Rail 2 (HS2) and confirmed plans for the line to be extended to the north-west, East Midlands and Yorkshire.
Phase one will consist of two stages, the first of which involves design and construction preparation, and is already underway. Stage 2, set to commence in 2019, will see the main body of construction work take place, delivering the tunnels, bridges, viaducts and embankments for the new London to Birmingham line. While Phase One is due for completion in 2026, it has also been announced that work extending the line from the West Midlands to the West Coast Main Line south of Crewe should be completed by 2027, six years earlier than previously planned. The complete HS2 project should carry around 300,000 passengers a day, relieving pressure on local rail services.
“HS2 will deliver vital links between some of our country’s biggest cities, helping to drive economic growth and productivity in the north and midlands,” said transport secretary Chris Grayling. “As well as providing desperately needed new seats and better connecting our major cities, HS2 will help rebalance our economy.”
Contracts for the two stages of Phase One are worth an estimated £6.6bn and are expected to directly support 16,000 jobs. According to the government, the project will also present 7,000 contract opportunities in the supply chain, of which about 60 per cent should go to SMEs.
“This is a huge day for the HS2 project and for the country,” said David Higgins, chairman of HS2 Ltd. ”These contracts will support 16,000 jobs here in Britain and will create opportunities for thousands of SMEs.”
“HS2 was always designed to be much more than just a high speed railway and today we can see the opportunities it brings right around the country – spreading prosperity, acting as a catalyst for investment and rebalancing our economy 10 years before the railway even opens. Business now has the surety to invest with confidence to build a legacy for Britain.”
Manufacturers’ organisation EEF welcomed the announcements, but urged the government to remain ambitious in its plans for rail investment, and build on the expertise acquired in recent years through major projects such as Crossrail.
“Manufacturers also want to see significant investment in commuter rail lines across the country as an opportunity to widen access to the talent pools they need for their business,” said Chris Richards, head of Business Environment Policy at EEF.
“The government and new metro mayors must urgently press ahead with these lines, such as High Speed 3 linking Liverpool with Hull, to balance national connectivity with regional ones”. “This will help ensure all parts of Britain have ready access to the talent, supply chains and export gateways that a post-Brexit Britain will need.”
Alongside the contracts for Phase One construction, invitations for tender for the design of the four new stations have now also been released.
Details on the winning bids for Phase One are:
Area South
Euston Tunnels and Approaches – SCS JV (Skanska Construction UK Ltd, Costain Ltd, STRABAG AG)
Northolt Tunnels – SCS JV (Skanska Construction UK Ltd, Costain Ltd, STRABAG AG)
Area Central
Chiltern Tunnels and Colne Valley Viaduct – Align JV (Bouygues Travaux Publics, VolkerFitzpatrick, Sir Robert McAlpine)
North Portal Chiltern Tunnels to Brackley – CEK JV (Carillion Construction Ltd, Eiffage Genie Civil SA, Kier Infrastructure and Overseas Ltd)
Brackley to South Portal of Long Itchington Wood Green Tunnel – CEK JV (Carillion Construction Ltd, Eiffage Genie Civil SA, Kier Infrastructure and Overseas Ltd)
Area North
Long Itchington Wood Green Tunnel to Delta Junction and Birmingham Spur – BBV JV (Balfour Beatty Group Ltd, VINCI Construction Grands Projets, VINCI Construction UK Ltd, VINCI Construction Terrassement)
Delta Junction to WCML Tie-In – BBV JV (Balfour Beatty Group Ltd, VINCI Construction Grands Projets, VINCI Construction UK Ltd, VINCI Construction Terrassement)
Well the construction companies will be happy. But it is going to be another government white elephant. So it can carry 300,000 passengers a day. are there that many people who require this service? Other lines will suffer as how can it possible relieve pressure on local services as the HS2 is not designed as a local service for commuters traveling a few stops.
The only country, to my knowledge, that has made a success of a high speed rail system is Japan.
HS2 is the answer to a problem that doesn’t exist. I’m not anti-rail, the HS2 route comes nowhere near me, but I do not like waste, and I see this as a big waste of resources, money time etc.
Taiwan High Speed Rail (THSRC) is another successfully run High Speed Rail project – the trains are comfortable and run almost full most days. High Speed Rail in China is also very well patronised. If UK really wanted to make a substantial difference, then it should take the existing network and upgrade it to high speed rail capability, but it would be a very slow process. So maybe building a new High Speed network is the right answer. It also injects large amounts of money into the system much quicker, which in turn gets recycled into taxes and the nett result is more wealth.
All too late and out of date before it will be started never mind finished! Whatever happened to Eric Lathewaite’s linear motor technology from the 1960’s – oh ignored for years and then given away abroad, we could have been world leaders. Yet another example of lack of investment in British Engineering.
This is an expensive and unrealistic project which will inevitably come in over budget. Having originally been based on capacity issues and then “connectivity” (Plymouth to Norwich?) this is just a complete and utter waste of money. But hey! it is only taxpayers money again. It is an ill- conceived legacy project. The same amount of money could be spent on electrifying and modernising the rail network at a national level (assuming Network Rail and the DfT are not involved. The GWR fiasco is an indictment of their total incompetence). An electrified railway system would be a better generator of national economic wellbeing than HS2. Re-opening and electrifying lines, for example from Derby to Manchester, would offer additional capacity and a relief route if the West Coast Main Line is compromised. Achievable at a fraction of the cost of HS2. What odds on HS2 being delivered late and massively over budget? Those whom the gods intend to destroy they first make mad.
Why so much non-UK content in the construction contracts?
Are proper damages for late delivery included in the contracts?
Who is in the frame for rolling stock and electrification contracts?
China, guaranteed. All the steel required for this job and they refused to rescue the last steel plant…
We haven’t had any information about who’s being considered for rolling stock, but Bombardier and Hitachi Rail Europe have both told us they’d be interested in putting in bids.
Given press reports of the weekend that an independent costing for the DfT projected the costs £1,25 Billion per mile for the first 6.6 miles from Euston, surely some MP will have the guts to demand a cost/benefit analysis. That said, it is not unreasonable to suggest majority opinion considers the project to be a massive waste of taxpayer’s money. Mrs Maybe might regain a modicum of respect — and opinion poll points for showing some common sense — if she announced the cancellation of the project immediately before yet more money is wasted on this Gordon Brown-Lord Adonis pipe dream.
Can somebody please tell me why the hell we need this white elephant ? Another waste of tax payers money that could be spent on hospitals, the Police Force and educating our children. Who’s sitting there rubbing their hands together and getting richer at our expense?
We had faster trains 30 years ago & that was scrapped eventually. By the time this system is finished it will be out of date. Europe will have maglev type systems up & running by then!
It seems to me like a complete and utter waste of money for the sake of knocking a few minutes off journey times! It will be well over budget and time as with all of these projects and as for the “benefits” we in Cumbria won’t see them like a lot of other people. I liked the comment about Eric Laithwaite by the way. I was at one of his lectures about linear motors and I thought then what a brilliant idea but heard no more about it in this country.
Have to look at the bigger picture and keep up with our global competitors. Have traveled on the HS train in Taiwan years ago and It was always full and could have a meeting in Taipei and home back in Kaohsiung by tea time. Same objections to the canals and steam railways years back.
It should be pointed out that canals and (steam) railways were set up for freight – with passengers being an inconvenience – especially the localism issue (i.e. the locals could use the railway that passed nearby).
I believe HS1 has resulted in, for many, longer journey times & higher prices. Other countries have realised that HS does not live in isolation; a basic understanding of networks will be worthwhile considering (cf Serpell Report)
And a freight orientation for infrastructure would relieve the roads and increse prosperity for neglected non-urban areas.
Will the 300,000 passengers who transfer to the HS2 be replaced with 300,000 passengers who want “local” services? Once again we see an accountancy/stats hand here making brave assumptions that may, or may not, be achieved. By the time it is finished, and actual numbers can be measured and all those in the “planning” stage will have their rewards and be long gone, in much the same way the contaminated blood enquiry is stifled by Dame Dr Diana Walford saying ‘the passage of time’ meant she was ‘not in a position to assist the inquiry’.
The only bright spot is that, from the artist impression, they are to bridge the canals with enough headroom for the boats to continue to run !!
Other than that, the trains from the Southwest could do with some major investment.
From reading the above who’s in favour of HS2? Doesn’t look like many engineers are.
HS2 is the only way to go to increase capacity across the whole network.
Existing rail services are already operating at near peak capacity. Re-engineering these and electrifying would certainly be possible but the incredible levels of disruption required to implement would be prohibitive and inflate costs enormously.
HS2, with appropriate regional connections, provides the fall-back resilience our network lacks. Modification works elsewhere should be made possible by shifting passengers on to HS2, HS3… HSn and allowing entire sections of rail to be taken off line and modified, which is quicker and cheaper than maintaining operations during the works.
Furthermore, it should also allow the segregation of fast regional and slower local and freight services, thereby increasing capacity on existing lines and permitting regional services to operate at higher speeds.
Personally I would like to see HS2 loop round London with spurs in to the city for those willing to travel there. The UK is relatively well provided for with routes in to London but many, if not most of us, want cross-country travel, which presently is quite restricted. It is not coincidence that business runs North-South in the UK, rather than East-West. Improved cross-country connections would surely bring significant growth to the country.