HS2 - Something Different?

I was intrigued to read about the proposed Hyperloop passenger transport system and that a prototype is to be built in California next year. It is being backed by Elon Musk, the PayPal billionaire and is being crowd funded. Available details are sparse, but a description is given in today's Daily Telegraph.

The basic idea is for the trains to run in tube from which the air has been partially evacuated, at speeds of up to 800mph, although the short prototype track will only allow them to reach about 200mph.

Whether it is feasible or not, only time will tell, but if it is, it seems that the Americans will have an entirely new type of ground transport whilst we are still arguing over HS2. We were the inventors of the steam railway and led its development all over the world, but it seems that now we have lost all appetite for new innovations and are happy to build our new high speed line using technology which is already considered out-of-date in Japan and China.

I wish the Americans good luck with this project, it is nice to see that innovation there does not depend on government funding and that people are willing to put up money to give it a try. Clearly the pioneering spirit is still alive.

The New Year

I've been trying to come up with a review of the past year and thoughts of the future, but not very successfully. On a personal front, nothing much seems to have happened other than the fact that we, and our family, are all a year older, and our grandson has started school.
Because I was feeling unwell part of the time, we didn't get a worthwhile holiday. Feeling somewhat better, we considered a cruise in the Caribbean, but quotes for holiday insurance for a fortnight's cruise, in the order of £1000 for the two of us, made us think again. So this year it looks as if any travel will be restricted to Europe, although we still would like to go and visit friends in Australia. Other friends of ours went this year and didn't bother about insurance; cruise ships demand details of your insurance before you sail, airlines don't. But it is still a bit of a risk!

Outside the home, on the political front, very little seems to have happened. There have been a considerable number of "storms in teacups", loved by politicians but ignored by normal people. OK, the economy is said to be improving, but many might put it down to luck rather than any specific government action. Indeed, most actions taken by the government seem to have been of the "fire fighting" type, forced on them by circumstances rather than choice. The government still seems to be spending as if there was no tomorrow, almost every week, there is an announcement that the government has "found" a few millions to spend on this, that or the other, usually desirable but not essential expenditure.
What's happened to the "Bonfire of Quangos"? They all still seem to exist, and those that don't were effectively either merged with another or brought back into a government department. Where are the cuts? The deficit is still rising, and cuts aren't so much cuts as reductions in budgeted increases. We still have threats to build the HS2 in spite of the country being broke, but in areas that matter, like electricity generation, nothing seems to be happening in spite of warnings from the experts that we could face major outages. Paying companies not to use electricity between certain hours is not a viable long term solution, merely an unnecessary waste of money.

Apart from events like the death of Margaret Thatcher and the birth of Prince George, there were two highlights on the political front, if that is what they can be called.
Firstly, Parliament awoke from its normal inert state to prevent us getting involved in any form of war in Syria and secondly, the only government action that seems to have been taken from choice rather than from necessity, the introduction of "Gay Marriage", which is hardly likely to be a vote winner amongst Conservatives.
And as for the EU, promises of a referendum remain just that, simply promises hedged in with so many "if"s, "when"s and "but"s as to be totally meaningless.

I'm sorry, but nothing that the government has done is enough to dissuade me from voting for UKIP, something which I fully accept could land us with a Labour government.

I wish a Happy and Prosperous New Year to my select band of readers.

Stop HS2

We live about five miles or so from the planned route of HS2, and up to now it has always seemed that we would not be directly affected either by the construction or by the subsequent operation of the line. Nevertheless, I have always been firmly against the construction, as I believe that it will never serve its intended purpose and will have been superseded by other modes of travel by the time it is completed.

I have also been unconvinced by the government's financial case in favour of the construction in that, among other reasons, they have quantified as income the savings in time being made by the users of the railway. No public company would be able to do this, no auditors would accept time being saved as income, all they are interested in is money. Nor will the government be able to pay back its loans with "time saved", the creditors want cash! Neither, as an engineer, do I believe the construction costs which are, I suspect, simply a guess at what might be considered acceptable. If the money runs out part way through the project, we will be faced with the usual argument that "all the money we have spent will be totally wasted if we don't now spend what is required to finish the job". If they can't run a computer project to time and on budget, what hope do they stand with a major civil engineering project where there are far more unquantifiable contingencies.

I am pleased that today a Telegraph/ICM survey published today confirms that the majority of the public think the same with just 3% believing that the project will be delivered on budget and on time. Only 5% believes that it is "Essential for Britain" and more than two-thirds want to scrap the plan.

What I hadn't appreciated until now was the huge amount of damage that the construction will cause. Ancient woodlands will be destroyed, as will 310 miles of hedgerows. Seven major rivers are to be diverted and around 1,180 buildings will be demolished. Although I won't still be around, it seems that the Chilterns Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty will still be experiencing “moderate adverse effects” in 2086, 60 years after the line opens!

It now seems that we might be directly affected in that the more detailed “water resources assessments” raise deeper questions over the impact on drinking water supplies. For this area, HS2’s impact on water resources is described as “major”, the effect as “very large” and the duration as “permanent”. Finally, the sting in the tail. I quote from the Telegraph:

The Government is also quietly giving itself the power to allow massive building development, including on Green Belt land, bypassing normal planning controls. Ministers will be able to order the compulsory purchase of any land where they believe HS2 creates “an opportunity for regeneration or development”. 

So, at any location along the route of the line, or within a reasonable distance of it, the government is planning to compulsorily purchase land for development. This could of course be anything between a small industrial estate to a whole new town, but as usual with this sort of thing, one has to be highly suspicious of the unknown.

The official documents relating to the development now extend to some 55,000 pages and it will be a very conscientious MP who is able to spend time studying the documentation before a vote in Parliament. But perhaps that is the objective, to swamp the system with paperwork and to hope nobody notices some of the "nasties". What we really need is a genuine enquiry into possible alternatives, which are simply dismissed by the government as "We have assessed the alternatives; they simply don’t give the increase in capacity needed.” This assessment hasn't been published, so the public, and our MPs, have no idea as to what alternatives were considered. However one looks at it, it is difficult not to believe that if the same amount of money was spent improving our transport systems elsewhere, far more people would benefit and the "time saved" would be far, far greater.

Edinburgh's Trams and HS2

The Telegraph reports that

Edinburgh's trams 'will be running by May'

We are also told that the original estimate of £375 million more than doubled at £776 million as did the planned time-scale of three years which became six. The original plans for the trams to run from Edinburgh Airport to Newhaven in the north of the city, were scaled back due to problems, and they will now only run to the City Centre.
So they've got less than originally proposed at twice the cost and twice the time-scale.

I would suggest that there are "lessons to be learnt" in respect of HS2. With far higher estimated costs and longer time-scales, I would argue that both are  likely to more than double before the line is finished, and that it will never get beyond Birmingham.

High Speed Rail

I was idly reading a blog about HS2, and I didn't immediately realise what it was about as I had read it as H2S.
Then I realised that there was no real difference between HS2 and H2S, they both stink!