British High Speed Railway Project Is Typically British

[Zaune]

The Guardian

HS2 plans unrealistic, costly and lack expertise, parliamentary report finds

Public accounts committee concludes there is not yet a convincing case for high-speed rail project

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Shiv Malik
The Guardian, Monday 9 September 2013
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Link to video: HS2 high-speed rail project criticised by MPs

The government's plan for a high-speed railway connecting London with Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds is beset by spiralling costs, a lack of expertise and unrealistic delivery timetables, a parliamentary report has concluded.

The public accounts committee (PAC) says the Department for Transport has "not yet presented a convincing case" for building the £50bn HS2 project, which will take 20 years to complete in two phases.

The project, which received support from David Cameron during his G20 trip last week, has been panned by the committee, which found that £185m had already been spent on consultants – a figure that is expected to rise to £500m by the time building work begins in early 2016.

Pointing to the fiasco surrounding the franchise award of the Westcoast mainline in October , the 56-page report, published on Monday, says the department is suffering from a "shortage of the commercial skills it needs to protect taxpayers' interests" and noted that costs for the first phase of the project had risen by almost £5bn to £21.4bn.

On Friday the prime minister threw his weight behind the plans, saying that he was "passionately in favour" of the multibillion-pound scheme, and urged doubters to "think big". Speaking in St Petersburg, where he was attending the G20 summit, Cameron said: "There's an unholy alliance between the Financial Times, Peter Mandelson and Nigel Farage, who want to give up on projects to make our country competitive and fit for the 21st century … We know infrastructure projects can make a massive change to the economic geography of our country."

The report heavily criticises the department's predictions for the project's benefits. It finds that after overestimating economic benefits by £8bn through a double-counting error, the department has forecast smaller rises in commuter numbers than expected. These latest figures have yet to be taken into account by HS2 planners and would push down estimated economic gains.

"So far the department has made decisions based on fragile numbers, out-of-date data and assumptions which do not reflect real life," it said.

Fears were also raised about the government's parliamentary timetable. Describing the deadline for passing HS2 legislation by March 2015 as "unrealistic and overly ambitious", the committee predicted that each month legislation is delayed will cost £7m-£10m.

It said: "The department has yet to demonstrate that this is the best way to spend £50bn on rail investment in these constrained times, that this is the most effective and economic way of responding to future demand patterns, that the figures predicting future demand are robust and credible, and that the improved connectivity between London and regional cities will enhance growth and activity in the regions rather than drawing more activity into London."

Transport secretary Patrick McLoughlin rejected the PAC findings, insisting that the case was "absolutely clear" and that without HS2, key rail routes would be "overwhelmed" by rising passenger numbers. "The project will free up vital space on our railways for passengers and freight, generate hundreds of thousands of jobs, and deliver better connections between our towns and cities," he said.

Speaking on Sky News the day before the report's publication, he said HS2 "was a very central project for the United Kingdom" which would always attract controversy.

"Any big infrastructure project, if you look over the history of the railway altogether, there has been controversy when new lines have been talked about. We haven't built a new railway line north of London for 120 years. We are going to be desperately short of capacity."

The PAC's chair, Margaret Hodge, said the DfT's case was not yet convincing. "It has not yet demonstrated that this is the best way to spend £50bn on rail investment in these constrained times, and that the improved connectivity will promote growth in the regions rather than sucking even more activity into London.

"The pattern so far has been for costs to spiral – from more than £16bn to £21bn plus for phase one – and the estimated benefits to dwindle."

She added that the department was still using "out-of-date data and assumptions which do not reflect real life, such as assuming business travellers do not work on trains using modern technology".

Fellow committee member Richard Bacon, the MP for South Norfolk, said the department owed it to "rail users everywhere to stop itself going down the wrong track" and that the money might be better spent on existing rail lines.

Matthew Sinclair, chief executive of the TaxPayers' Alliance campaign, said the business case for HS2 was weaker than ever: "The sooner the government shunts this white elephant into the sidings for good, the better for the taxpayers who will otherwise be saddled with an eye-watering bill."

Surprise surprise.

[LaCroix]

I'm baffled how they managed to blow 185million on consulting, already, and plan to spend another 315 million over the next 3 years... Are they paying people to make oil-paintings of every meter of planned track?

edit:
Just for context - in Austria we recently finished a new 2 rail high-speed track, 60 km long, and over 20 km of that in tunnels that were in part drilled under Vienna. And that whole thing was a ~3 billion Euro bargain, stations included...

[LaCroix]

Interesting link:

Cost of rail construction with special emphasis on tunnels - major worldwide projects.

UK and US really top that list...

[Borgholio]

Wow, how the fuck can you spend 4 billion dollars per fucking km of subway tunnel?

[Thanas]

I'm baffled how they managed to blow 185million on consulting, already, and plan to spend another 315 million over the next 3 years... Are they paying people to make oil-paintings of every meter of planned track?

Over here we got a Government department dealing with that which sure as hell does not cost 500 million. This is pretty stupid in of itself. Heck, for 500 million you could build a whole track.

50bn? I repeat, 50 billion? THE HELL? Over here, we are currently building a new 120km high speed track, with 6 viaducts (totaling 14,4 km) and 3 tunnels (totaling 15,4) for 2,8 bn, including everything.

[Zaune]

We don't have a government department, we have Highly Paid Consultants who work in The Private Sector, and therefore have Business Sense and Real World Experience and are therefore seen as much better qualified to Make Decisions by the kind of politician who Thinks In Capitals.

Of course, it rarely if ever actually works like that in practice because these consultants are employed mostly to tell government ministers what they want to hear. (That probably goes for the private sector as well.)

[Vendetta]

But if they did it cheaply and efficiently then they wouldn't be able to funnel the maximum amount of money to their mates.

Which, after all, has been the point of british railways since they were privatised.

[Dartzap]

Infrastructure projects here always seem to be cocked up, no matter whose in charge, Edinburgh's new tram system has gone tits up due to the German company in charge asking for more money and the Holyrooders sticking their fingers in their ears. The joy and hope of delayed trams As for HS2, never mind the bloody money aspect, the WCML is jammed full as it is, unless Branson invents a hovertrain in the near future, a new line or more connective routes will be needed.

Saying that, our new bypass is almost complete, on time, on schedule and under budget. Only took 'em 40 years to start it!

[Eternal_Freedom]

For fifty billion pounds we could buy a whole new Navy. How in the name of Cthullu can it cost that much for a railway?

Someone invent a way to communicate with the dead, I want to see what Brunel would do to these muppets.

[Thanas]

Brunel would scoff and ask why it was so cheap, then proceed to build an over-engineered, over-budget monstrosity that would soon be out of service due to economical inefficiency.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Brunel would scoff and ask why it was so cheap, then proceed to build an over-engineered, over-budget monstrosity that would soon be out of service due to economical inefficiency.

Probably, but it would be amusing to watch the argument.

[Dartzap]

His atmospheric stuff wasn't that bad, it was just a shame about the rats eating the tubing

His bridge over the Tamar is still in use, as is the majority of the GWML.

[Patroklos]

Interesting link:

Cost of rail construction with special emphasis on tunnels - major worldwide projects.

UK and US really top that list...

I'd imagine local geology/geography (water tables, type/depth of bed rock, grade issues, etc.) has a lot to do with some of those costs, but not all. Japan for instance obviously has to deal with major earthquake engineering just like California.

[K. A. Pital]

Now where's Starglider when you need him. How could those Eurocrats be more efficient than British atlas-shrugging ways?

[PeZook]

For comparison, the entire Apollo program cost 120 billion total in 2009 dollaroids.

This is awesome

[Broomstick]

Wow, how the fuck can you spend 4 billion dollars per fucking km of subway tunnel?

If you're talking about Manhattan the underground of the island is as built and rebuilt as the ground-and-above levels, and it's below sea level. Building a new tunnel there requires careful study of what's already underground; probable re-routing of old sewer lines, water pipes, old tunnels of various sorts, phone wiring, gas pipelines, electrical cables, and all manner of other infrastructure; possibly the re-engineering of the existing foundations of standing skyscrapers; and the special needs of below-sea level construction to withstand exposure to salt water. I'm sure that adds to the cost above boring a tunnel through "virgin" dry ground. Add in a little corruption. I'm sure it adds up quickly.

[Thanas]

Yeah, I can see that in Manhattan. Kinda. I mean, Tokyo is no slouch in that regard either and estimates are up to 500 mil per km there. So is this 8 times as hard? I dunno about that but would be willing to defer to expert opinion there.

[PeZook]

Geological differences can affect the price wildly, I've been told by documentaries

[Dartzap]

Thats certainly a reason why the price of HS2 keeps getting hiked up, NIMBYism demands a fair chunk of it is hidden underground, lest the price of the mansions is reduced even by a penny. (Same thing happened when the lines originally went down, except larger landowners usually got a station on their estates as a bribe)

[Admiral Valdemar]

Brunel would scoff and ask why it was so cheap, then proceed to build an over-engineered, over-budget monstrosity that would soon be out of service due to economical inefficiency.

There's no way Brunel could top modern day bureaucrats. He actually could come up with revolutionary engineering and well received rail routes for his time. These clowns are somehow just one step away from hiring Mack trucks to go and haul cash into an industrial grade incinerator.

The coverage of the HS2 debacle over the last year has been amusing as you can see it slowly fall apart much like a lot of the ConDem plans of late.

[fgalkin]

Just so people know what we're dealing with, here's what subterranean Manhattan looks like





See the difficulty?

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Broomstick]

Those look familiar - are those images from National Geographic?

[Thanas]

Is there a way to get the first image in a higher resolution? It looks interesting but I can't read anything.

[Dartzap]

Atleast there aren't any plague pits!

[LaCroix]

@fgalkin - nobody is disputing that building a tunnel under Manhattan is no piece of cake.

Still, 50bn GBP for a ~300km long railway, of which almost all will be above ground, is... A tad excessive...