Chris Stokes Between the Lines
http://www.modern-railways.com April 2019 Modern Railways 97
W
hen the coalition
government took forward
High Speed 2 after the
2010 election, as well as the Euston
route the project included a direct
branch to Heathrow and a link
to High Speed 1, via a single line
connection to the North London
line. The business case for both these
links was actually dreadful, but it
was argued both were strategically
vital. Indeed, the project as a whole,
and in particular the Heathrow
branch, was part of a pitch by the
Conservatives that HS2 was an
alternative to expanding Heathrow –
a proposition that didn’t stand
up to analysis for a moment.
Nearly 10 years later, costs for what
was to have been a £30 billion project
have ballooned. Both the Heathrow
branch and the connection with
HS1 have been quietly dropped, but
the current quoted capital cost is
£56 billion, despite these reductions
in scope. Even this now appears
to be unrealistic, with HS2’s Chief
Executive admitting that further cost
savings are now being considered,
including reducing planned service
frequencies and lower maximum
speeds, which in turn would enable
a reduction in the cross-section
of the tunnels. There are also
Chinese whispers that the Old Oak
Common – Euston section may be
dropped, at least initially. The Euston
terminus is enormously complex and
expensive, and the work will be very
disruptive, both to existing services
and the local neighbourhood, with
a potential legal challenge to the
level of compensation offered for
demolition of the office blocks in
front of the station. Even Sir TerryMorgan, briefly the Chair of HS2,
suggested to the House of Lords
Economic Affairs Committee that it
might be sensible to drop Euston.
There are also periodic press stories
that a number of members of the
cabinet are gunning for the project,
including Liz Truss, the Treasury Chief
Secretary, who is responsible for the
current Spending Review, although
Theresa May and the beleaguered
Chris Grayling are still reported to
be supporters. But Chris Grayling’s
mantra is that the budget is fixed,
which suggests its scope will be
reduced further. Termination at
Old Oak Common? Dropping the
Crewe – Manchester section? This
involves a long tunnel under south
Manchester for only five trains an
hour in each direction – three London
services and two Birmingham
trains, which HS2 Ltd itself only
forecasts to have 20% load factors.
California may provide an awful
precedent. The state government
was firmly behind a large-scale
high-speed network from San
Francisco to Los Angeles, with
branches to Sacramento and San
Diego. But costs escalated, and the
new state governor has cut the
project right back to the section
already under construction, from
Merced to Bakersfield, pretty
much nowhere to nowhere.
I realise many Modern Railways
readers are passionate supporters
of HS2, but I offer a modest
thought experiment. A project
that included HS1 and Heathrow
for a cost of £30 billion is clearly
more defensible than a £56 billion
scheme that is likely to be further
reduced in scope. Given the constantpressures on public expenditure,
is there a potential point at which
even the project’s most fervent
advocates begin to have doubts?T
he fundamental trade-off for
the North of England may
well be money to upgrade the
network linking the great Northern
cities against continuing with HS2.
Andy Burnham, Manchester’s Mayor,
told Channel 4 that the North
wanted and needed both – but
when pressed, accepted that, if he
had to make a choice, he would
have to prioritise investment in the
regional network. I’m sure that would
be the right priority; the rail routes
which are in most urgent need of
improvement and investment in the
North aren’t Manchester – Euston
or Leeds – King’s Cross, which
already have excellent inter-city
services, but routes like Manchester –
Liverpool via Warrington and
Manchester – Leeds via Bradford.
Investment in the North would
keep all the benefits in the region,
with ‘agglomeration benefits’
through linking the major cities
together in terms of employment,
job creation and economic growth.
In contrast, academic research from
around the world suggests that the
benefits of HS2 would be weighted
towards London, increasing, not
reducing, the North – South divide.
Scotland continues to offer a
vision of what can be done. There
are now around 13 trains an hour
between Glasgow and Edinburgh,
over five different routes, giving
comprehensive rail access across the
central belt. With the completion
of the electrification via Shotts,all routes are now electrified.
The trains are mostly new and
high quality, rather better than the
refurbished ex-Thameslink Class 319s
now operating in the North.
In contrast, there are two routes
between Liverpool and Manchester;
one has recently been electrified
but there is at present no likelihood
of electrification of the Warrington
route. The ex-Lancashire and
Yorkshire route via Wigan, which
had an hourly express service
over a hundred years ago, is no
longer through: two single track
stubs meet at a single platform at
Kirkby, so there are no direct trains
between Liverpool and Bolton.
Ormskirk is another terminus
station for two dead-end branches,
with a risible service to Preston.
The Calder Valley route is
another example. Frequency is
reasonable, but speeds are low –
the existing infrastructure won’t
support a fast, limited stop service,
calling at, say, Rochdale, Halifax
and Bradford only. In Scotland,
this would be an electrified
route with four trains an hour.
The position in the North
East is equally grim, with only
an hourly slow service on the
coast route via Sunderland and
Hartlepool, with populations of
174,000 and 92,000 respectively,
yet the open access Grand Central
services are their only direct links
to the south. And as yet there are
no trains to Ashington and Blyth.
The rail network in the
North could be transformed
at a fraction of the cost of HS2,
years before it’s ever built.
[email protected]Scottish progress: electric test train on the Shotts line. Class 86s Nos 86638 and 86627
sandwich a flatbed wagon approaching Breich from the west on 24 February 2019. John Peter097_MR_Apr 2019_BtL.indd 97 11/03/2019 17:31