beleben

die belebende Bedenkung

The £583 million siesta

with 3 comments

The cost of a 200-metre HS2 captive trainset was £26.5 million (in 2011 prices), according to the March 2012 HS2 Ltd Cost and Risk Model Report.

Providing the Y network’s Leeds — London, Birmingham — London, and Manchester — London services would require 47 captive sets (according to HS2 Ltd).

However, for most of every day, 22 of those would be sitting in sidings (according to HS2 Ltd).

Unfortunately, the £583 million captive train ‘siesta’ is just the tip of HS2’s iceberg of resource waste.

Written by beleben

April 5, 2016 at 9:22 am

Posted in HS2

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3 Responses

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  1. This is another reason why the HSTs and classic should be built to the same heights. That way the train sets can be operated on high speed and classic lines interchangeably and thus do not need separate lines.

    Stephen Cryan

    April 11, 2016 at 9:01 am

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  2. Is this any different to how the rest of the railway works? London commuter TOCs run 12 car trains in the peak but have little reason to do this at other times. All those extra trains will spend most of their time lying around in sidings doing nothing. Transport authorities have been trying to encourage people to travel at other times for decades and it hasn’t worked so far, so how would you solve this? Is there any way to solve it? If no, why is it a criticism of HS2 to have this issue?

    [Comment by Beleben:] Why is it a criticism of HS2 to have this issue? Because the railway is inefficient enough as it is, without having another half a billion pounds of boondoggle trains parked up for most of every day.

    CautiousObserver

    April 17, 2016 at 11:27 pm

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    • So, Beleben, how would you solve this issue? Should we continue to provide much more capacity in the peak than we need in the off-peak? How would you make things more efficient than they are at the moment?

      [Comment by Beleben:] How would I solve the problem of half a billion pounds of boondoggle trains sitting in sidings? I wouldn’t place an order for them.

      For whatever reason, the London commuter TOCs find it profitable to provide capacity in the peak that isn’t used outside of it. Possibly, that is because the profits they gain from operating more peak capacity are more than enough to cover the cost of trains sitting around in sidings most of the day.

      [Comment by Beleben:] The “whatever reason”, is the massive government subsidy given to provide capacity in the peak that isn’t used outside of it. Take away the subsidy, and everything stops straightaway.

      If so, is it really a problem that trains are sitting unused? Unused resources are a problem if there would be some more efficient way of utilising either those resources, or the capital used to acquire those resources in the first place.

      [Comment by Beleben:] For some reason or other, I’m inclined to think that there might well be some more efficient way of using resources, than spending £583 million on trainspotter candy.

      CautiousObserver

      April 20, 2016 at 1:28 am

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