For boondoggle, please sign here

HS2 would ‘fail a rigorous cost benefit analysis’ and ‘always had a low economic return compared to other projects’, according to Lord Macpherson of Earls Court, who ‘initially signed off the project’.

So why did he sign it off?

It shaw looks grim

‘Early designs’ by Grimshaw and Glenn Howells Architects for a revamp of Birmingham’s Moor Street railway station ‘to get it ready for HS2’ have been slated by readers of the Birmingham Live website.

One of the highlights of the Grimshaw / GHA ‘vision’ must surely be the tragi-comic ‘alien spaceship’ footbridge, which would extend over the Moor Street platforms, and link to the adjacent Curzon Street high speed rail station.

Design of the Curzon HS2 terminus has also been entrusted to Grimshaw and GHA, with equally incongruous results.

In essence, it resembles a Barlow trainshed, but with all of the sense of arrival eliminated by a concrete deck built right over the platforms.

This was the best of the designs submitted?

HS2 can rely on Lilian

Following media coverage of the March 2019 NEF report on HS2, high speed rail stalwart Lilian Greenwood MP took to twitter to claim ‘If passengers undertaking intercity journeys transfer onto HS2 it frees capacity on the existing network for more reliable stopping services & freight enabling modal shift’.

Really? Where is any actual evidence that HS2 would

(a) free any worthwhile capacity on the existing network,

(b) make stopping services more reliable,

(c) enable freight modal shift?

For example, would Winsford’s one stopping train per hour become ‘more reliable’ after £60 billion has been sunk into HS2? If so, how much ‘more reliable’?

People’s rail versus vanity rail

The government’s planned HS2 high-speed railway would make the UK even more divided and should be cancelled in favour of boosting services in the less well-off parts of the country, the New Economics Foundation said, in a report published on 20 March.

The report, which was commissioned by Friends of the Earth England, Wales and Northern Ireland, was also covered by The Times.

And the Daily Express.

The analysis looks strong on the big-picture issues, but there is the odd blooper / WTF (for example, on page 14, it says “the capacity of Pendolino Class 390 trains is around 390”).

[A RAIL NETWORK FOR EVERYONE | PROBING HS2 AND ITS ALTERNATIVES, NEW ECONOMICS FOUNDATION, 20 Mar 2019]
[…]
Following a shambolic 18 months on the railways, with disastrous timetable
changes, the wrong kind of weather, and the cancellation of planned
electrification schemes, the government has launched a ‘root and branch’ review.
However, the review is missing some key roots and branches, two of them being HS2 and the latest package of maintenance and upgrades agreed with Network Rail. These have been deemed out of scope but should be included.

There are two fundamental problems with the railways in the UK that, in the interests of ensuring immediate and long-term value for public money, need
addressing before the much-needed major investment is committed. The first is the absence of an overarching rail or transport strategy, which leaves HS2 looking like the solution to a problem that has not yet been defined. It is what many in the rail industry call an engineering-led project rather than something that enjoys strong strategic or economic justification. The second fundamental problem is the chaotic ownership and management structures that will almost certainly lead to the squandering of investment capital.

The next train from platform minus one

Absurdity writ large

‘Northern powerhouse rail’ would mean “a greater number of people living within sensible distances of their jobs, fuelling productivity and economic growth”, according to the Confederation of British Industry twitter feed.

Eh? Wasn’t Northern powerhouse rail intended to allow ‘people living in Bradford to commute to work in Manchester’ (etc)?

Meaning the ‘idea’ behind NPR is more like the antithesis of having a greater number of people living within “sensible distances of their jobs”.

Obviously, the whole NPR concept is unworkable fantasy, and has nothing to do with local transport in the north. 

Why is the CBI putting out this drivel, and why is it reminiscent of the misinformation put out a few years ago by the Westbourne ‘Campaign for High Speed Rail’?

The Edgeley straw man

The ‘inventor of the world wide web’, Tim Berners-Lee, has his own anxieties about its future, the BBC reported on 11 March. He said, “I’m very concerned about nastiness and misinformation spreading”.

To see examples of ‘online nastiness and misinformation’, one need look no further than the #HS2 Twitter stream. The unrelenting torrent of abuse emanating from an account controlled by the ‘official photographer’ for the High Speed Rail Industry Leaders Group led to Twitter shutting it down (but of course the perpetrator is back again, using a different name).

Much of the misinformation about HS2 posted on social media seems to take the form of intentionally misrepresented propositions, such as the ‘Edgeley straw man’ offered by ‘@CEaston66’.

Why anyone would want or need to ‘widen the approach to Stockport Edgeley station for extra tracks’, is a bit of a mystery. The station’s existing platforms could accommodate intercity trains seating more than 700 passengers (for example, a 10-car Hitachi IEP, or a 200 km/h version of the Stadler Class 745). And if there were ever a need to reduce the number of movements at Edgeley, there would be numerous options for routeing trains via other lines.

A whole load of extra spin

Transport secretary and serial bumbler Chris Grayling MP visited Cheshire on 7 March, to confab with local Tories. At a photo-opp at Winsford station, he claimed that ‘by moving express services that don’t stop in mid Cheshire off the old network and on to HS2, it would create a whole load of extra space for local services’.

[Transport secretary claims HS2 will mean more commuter services for passengers in Cheshire, Stephen Topping, signal1.co.uk, Friday, March 8th, 2019]

[Mr Grayling] insists HS2 will bring new opportunities to improve local services for Cheshire’s passengers.

He believes that by moving express services that don’t stop in mid Cheshire off the old network and on to HS2, it would create ‘a whole load of extra space for local services’.

He said: “There will be people in this area who think ‘why on earth are we getting HS2? It’s not going to help the area at all’.

“But actually, we are standing at a station [Winsford] that gets an hourly commuter service either way.

“If you take the express trains off this line, put them on to a new route, suddenly you’ve got a commuter railway that can do far more.”
[…]

According to the government’s PFM v7.1 assumptions report, the service level at Winsford, after spending £60+ billion on HS2, would be unchanged, at one train per hour in each direction.

Mr Grayling’s nonsensical claims are another reminder that HS2, and Northern powerhouse rail, are irrelevant to everyday transport needs in the north.

Mythlands Rail Hub

This week’s cognitive dissonance suppression awayday for HS2 took the form of a get-together in Westminster, hosted by Turner and Townsend engineers on behalf of the ‘HS2 East’ special interests blobette.

According to Rail Professional’s write-up of the event, “The eastern leg of HS2 is a high-speed connection between Birmingham, Toton in the East Midlands, Sheffield, Leeds and Newcastle, and will improve journey times up to Scotland.”

This is misinformation. The eastern leg would only reach Church Fenton (not Newcastle), and would not link Sheffield to Leeds. Under current plans, all HS2 trains to Scotland would be routed via Crewe.

At the Westminster event, Midlands Connect chief Maria Machancoses ‘implored colleagues and peers to get out into [the] community to talk to people against HS2 based on misleading BBC Panorama and C4 Dispatches programmes’.

On the subject of ‘misleading media messages’, why is the Midlands Connect head of PR claiming that HS2 ‘under #midlandsrailhub’ would mean 24 extra passenger trains per hour on the Midlands network?

Home on the range