Features editor
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.
As the comment that I made on the previous article for HS2, the politicians & so called experts don’t see beyond their noses for other newer technology. They could jump normal rail & opt for a monorail system. This could be built on top of the original rail tracks thereby not taking up any extra space and spoiling the countryside any further. By the time HS2 is built, the rest of Europe will be way ahead on newer systems.
In terms of costs how does those cost compare to a similar project elsewhere? how does it becnhmark? could you add this to the article?
passing through many tunnel does not make a pleasant travel…
I agree. Why not get the trains to go around the conurbations and thus cut the costs mnassively. the current project is for the benefi of some people in london and Birmingham. Should it not be for the benefit of all the people on this island? If the trains could pick-up and drop carriages off on the fly we would actually get where we want much faster & more economically, as stopping & starting takes an inordinate amount of time & the majority of the energy consumed by trains.
If engineers were not prominent in the media coverage, it’s partly because they are not promoting themselves well enough and making sure they are seen and heard. The media won’t seek out engineers; they will speak to those who come forward with comment and opinion. The big engineering firms need to promote their superstar engineers to the world at large, the way that CEOs are promoted. If no one knows their names, they only have themselves to blame.
I don’t think there is any question about whether we our capable of “engineering” this project, we all know ultimately it will be the Europeans that build it!
I live on the continent and I agree with Martin. high speed rail travel is common place over here and they are looking toward the next generation – which won’t be HS2
The engineering skill is probably not available, but we are in the midsts of a recession and the transferable skills of people from other vocations will bring freshness and new thinking to our discipline. Through the scale of this project we will also be able to inspire and develop a new generation of engineers who will generate a wealth of knowledge and skills for our engineering future. We need these skills and expertise to generate wealth in the future. However my one concern is that the project needs a figure head, a leader who is strong enough an engineer to realise this is at its heart an engineering project. Not a socio political experiment, or a business investment, or a Keynesian investment project. No this is an engineering project and needs to be managed as the great engineers of the past would have managed one.
Concorde, the Chunnel, every mliitary engineering project ever done, the NHS computer system, what massive government project has the governmant ever done that did not run massively over budget? Better to put it all out to private tender from the start including a design competition and the cost estimation! No politician ever comprehended engineering, so it will all doubtless end in an expensive debacle.
Seems to me this was going ahead no matter what cases were made against it. So in true major capital project style, it’s now time to start the “Real Final Cost” sweepstakes – £45 Billion anyone?
There is some inference in this article that the country will be worse off with the lack of a London to Birmingham railway line as part of HS2. The “Greats” have already done their bit – there is already a rail link from London to Birmingham. All the money the Government wishes to spend will link two places already linked. That is why I think this phase is meaningless – far better to connect areas not already connected rather than ones already linked. Capacity increase will not be served by this link.
Totally agree with the first comment. Just one year after the first section of HS2 is complete, in 2026, the Japanese plan to open the first leg of their new Maglev Chuo Shinkansen.
That is a real 21st Century transport system. Forget linking northern cities to london, link them altogether on a single maglev commuter line! (look up UK Ultraspeed which proposes this).
Obviously it is not tried and tested like conventional rail, but as they say ‘no pain no gain’.
I’m not making any direct comment on HS2 only that it is being discussed within a paradigm that no longer exists. We are now in the One Planet World 1=P*C*RI, where resources are constrained. both in absolute and competitive terms.
Transport Infrastructure within this new paradigm must be procured to enable ‘essential’ mobility, rather than discretionary mobility, at decreasing Resource Intensity (RI)
Physical speed within this paradigm cannot be allowed to be an issue when we have almost instantaneous electronic communication over any distance.
I live in South Ruislip. This development has blighted my life for the next 17 years, if I live that long. I will do all I can to thwart, delay, and obstruct this development. Cameron has screwed me – I will do my best to screw Cameron! I used to vote Conservative – but NO MORE!
The question is what is the likelyhood that the contract gets awarded to a non British company!
The Siemens versus Bombardier scenario springs to mind.
So will the Germans/French/Japanese build it better?
I have to ask – what did you expect of journalists? In general, their knowledge of “engineers” ends with the technician who maintains their cars, so why would they seek out a professionally qualified technical expert to comment on a highly technical project?
Why are so many otherwise useful articles devalued by Engineers’ incessant desire to bemoan their lack of recognition. If the effort we put into voicing this particular chip on our collective shoulder, were redirected to promoting our value, then Engineers may just get the recognition we deserve.
Tunnels! I always said it was stupid to brick-up our cross-channel tunnel boring machines. For a start they could have been employed to level-out the A35 in Dorset. Over the years I have suffered the demise of three car engines thanks to those infernal hills. Quite frankly if one is towing it is wiser to take the long way round via Salisbury.
As to railways, high speed needs straight lines, weaving around curves causes excessive wear and tear.
A.W.Borucki. Unfortunately, Mr. Clegg and Mr. Milliban would have “screwed” you too. I fear you will have limited options at the next election!
This HS2 is a gold-plated vanity project. The money needs to be spent around the WHOLE country on making all rail journeys faster. How about a 100 mph blanket speed?
Current example:
Birmingham to Southampton: same distance as B’ham -London but it takes up to FIVE HOURS. Ridiculous.
Where I live the nearest main line station to “up-country” is over fifty miles away. Nevertheless once one reaches Exeter it is possible to travel on a good train such as the Penzance to Dundee Express. Nowadays the stops are as brief as possible, typically a minute or less (or so it seems) The trains have very respectable acceleration and between Exeter St Davids and Bristol Temple Meads an average of about 90mph including stops is achieved. If this isn’t fast enough for some people I can only say that they must be very busy indeed. Do we really have to cater for people who live in York and work in London? OK everyone knows that London property prices are ludicrous but commuting hundreds of miles each day seems rather silly. In such cases HST seems like a form of subsidy for businessmen.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
Monorails and maglev could have been viable if we had kept Derby Technical Centre and continued funding it. Of course in the privatisation frenzy we have once more killed off the goose that could have laid the golden egg. As it is both ideas would be hugely more expensive than a “conventional” HS2 line. However if it was built to the European loading gauge with a link to HS1 (similarly to this gauge) you could operate TGVs straight from the European hubs to Birmingham – surely something that would make much more sense?
Careful about wishing for a figure head engineer to head up this project, we might end up with that Dyson vacuum cleaner guy!
Well every body thinks he’s an engineer!!
May I ask what The Engineer is doing to help the engineers and commentators on this page to get their voices into the mainstream media?
The vast investment in new rail infrastrucuture will not help build our engineering capability in railway track design because the big consultancies have outsourced their permanent way design offices to third world countries such as india, so experienced competent british engineers are being put out of work and long term engineering career opportunities for bright young aspiring engineers are being destroyed by the big greedy consultants for a quick buck. The government bill should carry stipulations that the investment will help build long term engineering capabilities and not just a fast buck for consultants
We’ve all retired, and not been replaced over some 25 years.
There’s a serious shortage of experienced practical engineers at the top of industry, in the media, in the government, and in teaching.
China is building a 500 km/hr train, this high speed London to Birmingham is already out of date, as the blind lead the blind into the ditch.
Aside from the lack of a proper business case, there is the issue of rolling stock.
The line will be built to continental loading gauge. However, if we deploy continental sized high speed trains, they won’t be able to use the West Coast Mainline beyond Birmingham.
If we deploy uprated pendolinos, then these won’t get the full benefit of the wider loading gauge.
Having read the 36 comments above, as well as the considerable opposition to HS2 “out there”, clearly the project must be STOPPED. Whichever way one views this project, there is nothing that can justify it’s existence. It’s a white elephant in waiting.
Long before it is finished, you’ll be able to get in your car, reach the motorway, and have the car drive itself to near your destination, after which you manually drive the rest. It is door to door times that matter. 118 miles by car, and some improved roads = 2 hrs door to door. HS2 will be a white elephant. It does not do door to door.
If there is through running available then once more the Barcelona to Birmingham arterial route is a viable aim (given the information above regarding loading gauge). Birmingham becomes a hub rather than destination with slower express trains distributing passengers further out.