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LNER A4 4-6-2 "Mallard" - Centre of Attention at the NRM
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Our Chairman responds to articles in today’s press
3 July 2013
High Speed Two is a national project in a national cause. It will strengthen our country and support our economy – but like all big infrastructure projects it is also controversial, will take time and cost money. Like the construction of our motorway network, or the Channel Tunnel, or the London Olympics, there will always be people ready to challenge the economic case and to ask whether the demand is really there. It is a familiar story: a choice between meeting ambition or giving into anxiety. I’ve no doubt that it is ambition which will serve our country best.
This is not to dismiss questions being put by people like Lord Mandelson, who yesterday wrote in this paper about his new doubts about HS2. They are important questions. He is right to ask them.
Do we need HS2 to serve the transport needs of the future? Is the economic case really there? To each of these my answer is yes. I say that not just with the backing of the government but also the opposition which yesterday restated its welcome support.
The reason we need HS2 – indeed the reason the Cabinet of which Lord Mandelson was such a significant part gave its approval – is straightforward. Not speed. Not vanity. But capacity. The demand for travel in Britain and around the world is soaring. Rail traffic has doubled in recent years and our roads are filling up. This will, all forecasts suggest, continue. A growing population and a growing economy make that fact inescapable.
So what do we do about it? One answer is nothing. That won’t just mean congestion. It will mean the withering of links between cities in Britain. Critics of HS2 are right to point out the cost but they are reluctant to set out their alternatives. A country sliced between north and south is in no one’s interest. But already, the west coast mainline, one of the busiest intercity rail lines in the world and Britain’s main rail freight artery, is clogged up.
It would be possible, of course, to put more money into the existing west coast line. Parts of it date from the 1830s; all of it was built to the standards of two centuries ago; rebuilding it is expensive, as the billions poured into the limited upgrade of the 1990s show. Even keeping its ageing structures up to current standards and current operating speeds is a daily battle. Network Rail are right to think a new line, running to modern standards, is a far better answer. It examined strategic alternatives to HS2 such as upgrading other lines and clearly concluded that none of the alternatives could meet the stated objectives of HS2. This issue was raised by the 51M group and examined as part of the judicial review which the Department won earlier this year.
But even people who accept that we need HS2 for capacity may ask about the cost. That’s understandable. At a time when budgets are tight, the latest figures for HS2 raised eyebrows. I could point out that some of this was down to contingency which will affect any transport scheme big or small on road or rail. But the better argument is that it will be money well spent.
Over the next few months we will be publishing further detailed work that will include fresh analysis of the wider economic benefits to the regions of the UK, a fully revised Economic Case that will address the latest research on the value of travel time and will include sensitivity analysis on the demand for HS2. I am committed to making sure that all of that work is complete by mid October 2013 so that MPs and others have adequate time to consider the benefits prior to the introduction of the Hybrid Bill.
I have accepted a target of £17.16bn from the Secretary of State for the delivery of Phase 1 of the railway and the Paving Bill now before parliament provides for expenditure to be scrutinised by Parliament. Our demand forecasts are prudent. We have been open about cost forecasts, which have been subject to detailed scrutiny by HMT as part of setting a budget for HS2 at a level that risk models predict will provide 95% certainty that the budget will not be exceeded.
We know we can get HS2 right – just as we did with HS1 in Kent. Few people, even in Kent where opposition to HS1 was understandably and initially strong, now wish that line had never been built. Now engineers are at work on Crossrail, which will serve London so well. That is money well spent on a scheme essential to the capital’s economic future. What is right for London is right for Britain with HS2.
........
on the other hand.....
Christian Wolmar
Rail 723: HS2 slammed by National Audit Office
I am writing this as dozens of Tory MPs are preparing to vote against the gay marriage bill put forward by their own government. Already Downing Street has been visited by a delegation of grassroots Conservative party activists who were prepared to go on national TV to criticise their own prime minister.
The bill, fortunately, will go through thanks to opposition MPs. Although clearly this piece of legislation has no relevance to the rail industry, I mention it because it demonstrates the power of the backbench MPs who have similar feelings about HS2 as they do about the prospect of Elton John going down the aisle. And they have just been given enough ammunition by the National Audit Office to fire at politicians for years.
The report by the NAO is one of the most damning I have read in years of paging through their documents. The NAO is known for mincing its words, taking a measured line and having gentle pops at those it is criticising. It has improved since the days of Sir John Bourn who featured regularly in Private Eye for the regularity with which he lunched with potential targets of his popgun but nevertheless it tends to moderate its findings which are shown in advance to the government department concerned.
Therefore for the NAO to use such strong language in exposing what it sees as the inadequacies of the preparation for HS2 shows that it is convinced that this is not a well-grounded scheme. The NAO was most critical of the business case which it reckons should have been far more well-developed by now. It also questioned the very need for the line, saying ‘the strategic case contains evidence of general growth in rail travel but has limited evidence on where, and by how much, increases in capacity are needed on the West Coast Main Line’.
In terms of regeneration and breaching the north south divide, the report says that ‘the Department needs to define and, if possible, quantify how High Speed 2 will meet its strategic objective to transform regional economies by delivering growth and jobs’. Indeed. That has always seemed a very vague aim, and there is considerable evidence that the effect will work the other way round, strengthening the already booming London economy. The NAO summed up its critique by saying: ‘Our concern at this point is the lack of clarity around the Department’s objectives’.
Overall, the NAO report shows that the project has suffered throughout from the fact that it was developed in the wrong way round. Instead of a proper examination of the options to improve the rail – and indeed transport – network, HS2 was dreamt up as a solution to perceived overcrowding on the West Coast Main Line and then the project team has tried to develop good reasons to build the line. That is clearly exposed by the NAO report as is the nonsense of time savings for passengers being the key benefit delivered by the line. This supposes that every hour that is saved by travelling faster has a value (the average is £26.73 per hour) and it presupposes that time on trains is all wasted. As the Newsnight report showed, even David Cameron works on trains; that suggests the whole methodology of benefit cost analysis has to be changed.
The weakest part of the NAO criticisms is over the reported shortfall of £3bn in the period 2017/8 to 2020/21. To be so precise at this early stage is a nonsense. Of course costings and the provenance of money are tentative given that construction will not start for a further five years. Nevertheless, there is a lot of work for the supporters of HS2 to convince MPs and the public that the project is worthwhile. The supporters of HS2 would not, if given the choice, have selected Simon Burns to defend their cause. The rail minister is clearly an accident waiting to happen which makes it odd that Patrick McLoughlin, his affable and highly competent boss, did not step forward to defend the project.
Burns has already been forced to take the train rather than the ministerial car to his office from his home in Essex after being exposed by the tabloid press and indeed first came to fame precisely because of an accident when he ran over a cyclist, injuring him badly, while driving out of the House of Commons into Parliament Square without paying sufficient attention.
Clearly more mishaps await Mr Burns. His performance on Newsnight had all the polish of a locomotive in the Barry scrapyard and he always gives the impression of being as semi-detached as the homes of most of his constituents in Chelmsford. His knowledge of the industry is tenuous as best and therefore his defence of HS2 was feeble in the extreme. He suggested that the NAO report was based on an old analysis and yet, as followers of the scheme’s progress well know, the business case has being getting worse, not better, over time. He merely said that ‘we do not accept the figures banded about or their conclusions’ because the NAO was using data that was out of date. Then, when he was questioned about the methodology used to justify the business case, he merely said it was used around the world to back up schemes. He was clearly parroting words put in front of him by civil servants – and even then not doing it properly.
It was a performance befitting of those of my football team this season (QPR for non regular readers!). As Nigel Harris keeps pointing out, the HS2 promoters need to improve on their PR and putting up Mr Burns for interview is not the answer.
But, of course, more than good PR is needed to ensure the scheme goes through. To counter the fundamental criticisms in the report, the NAO says that a much more detailed business case is needed, encapsulating the whole Y shape rather than merely the first section. Moreover, it needs to be updated and include a wide range of options, rather than the very limited one so far presented. The big question overhanging this, however, is what if even after all this work is carried out, the case still does not stack up? The case for HS2 has been fundamentally undermined by an official body. It will need a very coherent and detailed response to restore confidence in the project.
Subterranean Railway (Atlantic Books, 2012)
A social history of the tube
The Subterranean Railway celebrates the fantastic achievement of the Underground’s pioneers who created a transport system that was not only unique in the world but also was vital in creating the London we know today. Read more >>
www.parliament.uk
Opening statement....
Mrs Louise Ellman (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab/Co-op):
The redevelopment of Birmingham New Street station is an immense project...
Foxx sworn in as 17th U.S. transportation secretary
Contract negotiations resume between BART, two unions
Alabama port terminals turn 85
STB boots up 'litigation alternatives' web page, seeks rail-shipper council candidates
Crossing improvement projects advance in Ohio, Montana
Chicago Mayor Emanuel visits CTA's Red Line South project
CenterPoint Properties acquires Houston buildings near UP terminal
LACMTA schedules information sessions on SR-710 alternatives
Alstom-led consortium wins Cuenca tram project in Ecuador
The Alstom-led CITA Cuenca consortium has secured a €70m contract from the Cuenca in Ecuador to deliver 14 Citadis trams.
Network Rail invites bids for Edinburgh-Glasgow electrification project
UK infrastructure manager Network Rail has invited bids for its £400m project to electrify the Edinburgh Waverley - Glasgow Queen Street line.
Walsh/Shea Corridor Constructors wins $1.27bn Crenshaw/LAX transit corridor project
The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro) in California, US, has awarded a $1.2bn design-build contract for the Crenshaw/LAX transit corridor project to Walsh/Shea Corridor Constructors.
This is not to dismiss questions being put by people like Lord Mandelson, who yesterday wrote in this paper about his new doubts about HS2. They are important questions. He is right to ask them.
Do we need HS2 to serve the transport needs of the future? Is the economic case really there? To each of these my answer is yes. I say that not just with the backing of the government but also the opposition which yesterday restated its welcome support.
The reason we need HS2 – indeed the reason the Cabinet of which Lord Mandelson was such a significant part gave its approval – is straightforward. Not speed. Not vanity. But capacity. The demand for travel in Britain and around the world is soaring. Rail traffic has doubled in recent years and our roads are filling up. This will, all forecasts suggest, continue. A growing population and a growing economy make that fact inescapable.
So what do we do about it? One answer is nothing. That won’t just mean congestion. It will mean the withering of links between cities in Britain. Critics of HS2 are right to point out the cost but they are reluctant to set out their alternatives. A country sliced between north and south is in no one’s interest. But already, the west coast mainline, one of the busiest intercity rail lines in the world and Britain’s main rail freight artery, is clogged up.
It would be possible, of course, to put more money into the existing west coast line. Parts of it date from the 1830s; all of it was built to the standards of two centuries ago; rebuilding it is expensive, as the billions poured into the limited upgrade of the 1990s show. Even keeping its ageing structures up to current standards and current operating speeds is a daily battle. Network Rail are right to think a new line, running to modern standards, is a far better answer. It examined strategic alternatives to HS2 such as upgrading other lines and clearly concluded that none of the alternatives could meet the stated objectives of HS2. This issue was raised by the 51M group and examined as part of the judicial review which the Department won earlier this year.
But even people who accept that we need HS2 for capacity may ask about the cost. That’s understandable. At a time when budgets are tight, the latest figures for HS2 raised eyebrows. I could point out that some of this was down to contingency which will affect any transport scheme big or small on road or rail. But the better argument is that it will be money well spent.
Over the next few months we will be publishing further detailed work that will include fresh analysis of the wider economic benefits to the regions of the UK, a fully revised Economic Case that will address the latest research on the value of travel time and will include sensitivity analysis on the demand for HS2. I am committed to making sure that all of that work is complete by mid October 2013 so that MPs and others have adequate time to consider the benefits prior to the introduction of the Hybrid Bill.
I have accepted a target of £17.16bn from the Secretary of State for the delivery of Phase 1 of the railway and the Paving Bill now before parliament provides for expenditure to be scrutinised by Parliament. Our demand forecasts are prudent. We have been open about cost forecasts, which have been subject to detailed scrutiny by HMT as part of setting a budget for HS2 at a level that risk models predict will provide 95% certainty that the budget will not be exceeded.
We know we can get HS2 right – just as we did with HS1 in Kent. Few people, even in Kent where opposition to HS1 was understandably and initially strong, now wish that line had never been built. Now engineers are at work on Crossrail, which will serve London so well. That is money well spent on a scheme essential to the capital’s economic future. What is right for London is right for Britain with HS2.
........
on the other hand.....
Christian Wolmar
Rail 723: HS2 slammed by National Audit Office
I am writing this as dozens of Tory MPs are preparing to vote against the gay marriage bill put forward by their own government. Already Downing Street has been visited by a delegation of grassroots Conservative party activists who were prepared to go on national TV to criticise their own prime minister.
The bill, fortunately, will go through thanks to opposition MPs. Although clearly this piece of legislation has no relevance to the rail industry, I mention it because it demonstrates the power of the backbench MPs who have similar feelings about HS2 as they do about the prospect of Elton John going down the aisle. And they have just been given enough ammunition by the National Audit Office to fire at politicians for years.
The report by the NAO is one of the most damning I have read in years of paging through their documents. The NAO is known for mincing its words, taking a measured line and having gentle pops at those it is criticising. It has improved since the days of Sir John Bourn who featured regularly in Private Eye for the regularity with which he lunched with potential targets of his popgun but nevertheless it tends to moderate its findings which are shown in advance to the government department concerned.
Therefore for the NAO to use such strong language in exposing what it sees as the inadequacies of the preparation for HS2 shows that it is convinced that this is not a well-grounded scheme. The NAO was most critical of the business case which it reckons should have been far more well-developed by now. It also questioned the very need for the line, saying ‘the strategic case contains evidence of general growth in rail travel but has limited evidence on where, and by how much, increases in capacity are needed on the West Coast Main Line’.
In terms of regeneration and breaching the north south divide, the report says that ‘the Department needs to define and, if possible, quantify how High Speed 2 will meet its strategic objective to transform regional economies by delivering growth and jobs’. Indeed. That has always seemed a very vague aim, and there is considerable evidence that the effect will work the other way round, strengthening the already booming London economy. The NAO summed up its critique by saying: ‘Our concern at this point is the lack of clarity around the Department’s objectives’.
Overall, the NAO report shows that the project has suffered throughout from the fact that it was developed in the wrong way round. Instead of a proper examination of the options to improve the rail – and indeed transport – network, HS2 was dreamt up as a solution to perceived overcrowding on the West Coast Main Line and then the project team has tried to develop good reasons to build the line. That is clearly exposed by the NAO report as is the nonsense of time savings for passengers being the key benefit delivered by the line. This supposes that every hour that is saved by travelling faster has a value (the average is £26.73 per hour) and it presupposes that time on trains is all wasted. As the Newsnight report showed, even David Cameron works on trains; that suggests the whole methodology of benefit cost analysis has to be changed.
The weakest part of the NAO criticisms is over the reported shortfall of £3bn in the period 2017/8 to 2020/21. To be so precise at this early stage is a nonsense. Of course costings and the provenance of money are tentative given that construction will not start for a further five years. Nevertheless, there is a lot of work for the supporters of HS2 to convince MPs and the public that the project is worthwhile. The supporters of HS2 would not, if given the choice, have selected Simon Burns to defend their cause. The rail minister is clearly an accident waiting to happen which makes it odd that Patrick McLoughlin, his affable and highly competent boss, did not step forward to defend the project.
Burns has already been forced to take the train rather than the ministerial car to his office from his home in Essex after being exposed by the tabloid press and indeed first came to fame precisely because of an accident when he ran over a cyclist, injuring him badly, while driving out of the House of Commons into Parliament Square without paying sufficient attention.
Clearly more mishaps await Mr Burns. His performance on Newsnight had all the polish of a locomotive in the Barry scrapyard and he always gives the impression of being as semi-detached as the homes of most of his constituents in Chelmsford. His knowledge of the industry is tenuous as best and therefore his defence of HS2 was feeble in the extreme. He suggested that the NAO report was based on an old analysis and yet, as followers of the scheme’s progress well know, the business case has being getting worse, not better, over time. He merely said that ‘we do not accept the figures banded about or their conclusions’ because the NAO was using data that was out of date. Then, when he was questioned about the methodology used to justify the business case, he merely said it was used around the world to back up schemes. He was clearly parroting words put in front of him by civil servants – and even then not doing it properly.
It was a performance befitting of those of my football team this season (QPR for non regular readers!). As Nigel Harris keeps pointing out, the HS2 promoters need to improve on their PR and putting up Mr Burns for interview is not the answer.
But, of course, more than good PR is needed to ensure the scheme goes through. To counter the fundamental criticisms in the report, the NAO says that a much more detailed business case is needed, encapsulating the whole Y shape rather than merely the first section. Moreover, it needs to be updated and include a wide range of options, rather than the very limited one so far presented. The big question overhanging this, however, is what if even after all this work is carried out, the case still does not stack up? The case for HS2 has been fundamentally undermined by an official body. It will need a very coherent and detailed response to restore confidence in the project.
Subterranean Railway (Atlantic Books, 2012)
A social history of the tube
The Subterranean Railway celebrates the fantastic achievement of the Underground’s pioneers who created a transport system that was not only unique in the world but also was vital in creating the London we know today. Read more >>
www.parliament.uk
Rail 2020
Mrs Louise Ellman (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab/Co-op):
I am pleased to have this opportunity to debate the Transport Committee’s Rail 2020 report, which we published in January. The report sets out our vision for the railway to the end of the decade. Our main focus was considering the Government’s plan to achieve efficiency savings of £3.5 billion by 2019, and its implications for passengers and taxpayers. Currently, the railway costs the taxpayer around £4 billion each year. These issues are highly relevant to today’s consideration of the departmental estimates.
It is important to put today’s debate into context. In many ways, the railway has been a success. The number of passenger journeys has almost doubled since privatisation from 735 million in 1994-95 to 1.6 billion in 2011-12; passenger miles travelled have doubled over the same period to 35.4 billion; and rail freight has expanded by over 60%, with 11.5% of freight now conveyed by rail. There has been investment in major projects such as Crossrail and Thameslink in London, with more ongoing or planned work to electrify 800 miles of track and improve rail services in the north with the northern hub.
The name's Bond... Street
The £14.8 billion Crossrail project involves a phenomenal amount of tunnelling work, as might be expected of a new rail link crossing a major metropolis like London.Haymarket’s tenfold expansion
Scotland’s railways are a success story with passenger traffic increasing by 47% in the 15 years up to 2012.Manchester Victoria: A key interchange again
When talking with colleagues about Victoria Station Manchester, built in 1844, the invariable response is: “That’s the station with the longest platform in the UK, isn’t it?” Which, of course, used to be true.Upheaval!
How grit and determination has driven the railway's recovery from the Hatfield Colliery landslip, bringing its reopening ahead of expectations.Read the whole magazine online
CONTRACTS worth a total of $US 214.7m have been signed for a new 10.5km light rail line in Cuenca during a ceremony held in the Ecuadorian city's Old Cathedral..
BERGEN Light Rail Development & Construction has awarded Veidekke Entreprenor, Norway, a Krone 634m ($US 103.9m) contract to construct a 2.7km section of the third construction phase of Bergen's light rail project from Lagunen
WHILE welcoming the release of the annual National Infrastructure Plan by federal government advisory body, Infrastructure Australia (IA), the Australasian Railway Association (ARA) is asking for greater recognition of rail's larger, long term projects.
ITALY's newest and Europe's fastest high-speed train, the Frecciarossa 1000, was officially unveiled to the world today at Bombardier's Vado Ligure plant.
NCDOT starts grade separations along Piedmont Corridor
The North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT) in the US has started construction on rail safety upgrade projects along the Piedmont Corridor between Raleigh and Charlotte.
The North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT) in the US has started construction on rail safety upgrade projects along the Piedmont Corridor between Raleigh and Charlotte.
The Alstom-led CITA Cuenca consortium has secured a €70m contract from the Cuenca in Ecuador to deliver 14 Citadis trams.
Network Rail invites bids for Edinburgh-Glasgow electrification project
UK infrastructure manager Network Rail has invited bids for its £400m project to electrify the Edinburgh Waverley - Glasgow Queen Street line.
Walsh/Shea Corridor Constructors wins $1.27bn Crenshaw/LAX transit corridor project
The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro) in California, US, has awarded a $1.2bn design-build contract for the Crenshaw/LAX transit corridor project to Walsh/Shea Corridor Constructors.
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