By Simon Warburton
French TGV trains were European trailblazers. Image courtesy hpgruesen – Pixabay.
I didn’t think it was possible to be even more bowled over by the fiasco currently stalking what remains of Britain’s woeful attempts at building a high-speed network, but the jungle drums are beating louder now about the potential scrapping of the northern link to Manchester.
I recently posted a blog (see below) on my website – voyagerpro.co.uk – surrounding what I believe is a chronic and woeful lack of ambition on behalf of the UK to build a high-speed network and catch up with much of the rest of Europe, but if rumours the HS2 line will stop at Birmingham are true, then the whole sorry project is utterly pointless.
This might be just white noise – speculation has never really deviated from being at fever pitch with HS2 – but if it is reality, the entire undertaking is doomed.
Today, I can quite happily catch a relatively fast train from Euston in Central London to Birmingham New St in the heart of Britain’s second city in around 1h20min.
What’s the point of paying – presumably a premium – to catch an HS2 service from somewhere not in the middle of the capital to somewhere not in the middle of Birmingham?
I sincerely hope rumours of HS2’s northern link to Manchester being canned are just that. But what I wrote a few weeks ago still holds.
Where is the UK’s transport vision? HS2 could offer so much, but has been relentlessly attacked ever since it first saw light of day on a drawing board.
It was with some incredulity I read the two HS2 boring machines destined to scoop out thousands of tons of earth, are being mothballed underground some tantalising five miles short of their intended destination of Euston Station in London.
As if this project – assailed on all sides by doom-mongers and nimbys – wasn’t bizarre enough, it seems the tunnelling machines will be blessed with a statue of Saint Barbara – apparently the patron saint of tunnelling – who knew? – before their incarceration.
But the lowering of the giant German borers into their tomb for two years – maybe more – as the eternal wrangling surrounding this seemingly never-ending project sucks up ever more momentum – symbolises a crushing lack of ambition for UK PLC.
Take your pick of eye-watering HS2 cost estimates thrown in the air like confetti; they range from anything approaching £100bn to a frankly ridiculous £200bn.
Don’t let UK rail take a step back
Where is the ambition, the drive, the can-do, the inspiration for Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) students to witness the classroom translated into world class reality?
When Concorde was abruptly pulled from service – it was the first time in aviation’s short history a backward step had been taken.
If HS2 is ultimately and quietly shelved, what signal does that send about Britain’s engineering and infrastructural prowess? It relegates us to a second-rate rail system and an exorbitantly expensive one at that. We will have decidedly followed Concorde and stepped backwards.
Spain is rapidly developing an impressive high-speed network. Image courtesy Vlada11 – Pixabay.
Did Isambard Kingdom Brunel give in to the naysayers – of which I’m sure there were plenty – as he overcame the myriad problems associated with building his London to Bristol train line? He did not and is rightly lauded today as one the greatest Britons ever, leaving a legacy of engineering landmarks which marked the UK out as a global powerhouse of hi-tech.
HS2 isn’t some abstract vanity project; it is supporting 28,500 jobs and has created 1,200 apprenticeships already says the company.
Some 2,760 suppliers, many of them SMEs, are involved and expect many more jobs to flow if this benighted project ever goes to full fruition.
I’ve seen the HS2 works mushroom at Birmingham Curzon Street, which is due to be operational by the early 2030s. Is all that work, that know-how, going to disappear as Britain gives up on ambition?
HS2 is designed to increase capacity
Endless opposition is kicking this rail can down the road. I’ve also heard people argue the HS2 money could be spent on upgrading the existing rail system; just who are they kidding?
Do they honestly think whichever government of the day will magically release £100bn, £150bn into upgrading British trains, track, stations, infrastructure? It simply will not happen, that hypothetical money will just become swallowed by myriad other competing projects and passengers will be left to languish on our overcrowded and over-pricey existing services.
HS2 is designed to increase capacity, free up space to pluck freight off UK motorways and on to green rail. Isn’t that what the eco warriors currently disrupting sporting events want?
Britain’s population is rapidly expanding. We’re an island with finite geography – getting cars off roads means extra rail capacity is desperately needed and HS2 is part of, but certainly not all, of the answer.
But HS2’s scope is woefully limited. If you can’t even arrive at Euston Station in Central London, what’s the point? If the high-speed services don’t even make it to Leeds, Glasgow and Edinburgh, what’s the point?
The pandemic virtually shut down rail travel in the UK for an immense period of time, requiring an increase to a colossal £16bn of taxpayers’ money to prop up many ghost trains rattling around the country with very few passengers for obvious reasons. (The current strike-happy rail unions seem to conveniently ignore how much of the people’s cash has already been forked out to ensure the network continued).
Covid has also seemingly put the contentious third runway at Heathrow Airport into the long grass, but the airport is already reporting it is back to 80%-90% of 2019 passenger numbers. Pressure on its existing two runways, already almost saturated, will only grow and will catapult the capacity issue straight back to the fore.
If the environmental hardliners succeed in seeing off that third pavement at LHR, then we will urgently need the sort of heft HS2 affords. And that’s why high-speed has to go to Scotland, obviating the need for domestic flights and that’s why Heathrow needs a spur to link it to the high-speed network.
Three hours from Paris to Marseille
France has recognised the power of its swift trains and banned certain flights where it’s possible to take a train trip of less than 2.5h. We should do the same and do our bit for the polar bears, but oh hang on, we haven’t got a high-speed network.
Step off an aircraft at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris and you can quickly board a shiny TGV to all points of France’s compass. What happens to those who praise the French TGV system – and now increasingly Spain, which is launching competing services to SNCF – quelle horreur! – but who then return home to lambast the only significant engineering project of its scale the UK has?
I travelled by an SNCF double-decker TGV from Paris’ glorious Gare de Lyon (its Le Train Bleu restaurant is a wonder to behold) down to Toulon, a distance of 431 miles, which the French iron horse polished off in a shade less than four hours. (3h to Marseille).
And of course Japan has long had its fabled Shinkansen high-speed trains.
Compare that to say, London-Aberdeen (400 miles) and the quickest service I could find came in at at a whopping 7h06m with a hefty price tag to boot.
Japan has long had its famous Shinkansen trains. Image courtesy ArminEP – Pixabay.
The nimbys complain the UK is half the size of France and we don’t have room for a high-speed line. Well, as soon as the rattler noses out of the capital, there is in fact plenty of room, but some are so ideologically opposed, they can’t see the wood for the literal trees.
HS2 has made myriad commitments to protect – and in some cases – enhance the environment. There will be disruption for sure, but in hard cash terms, the injection of finance into the UK supply chain will be immense.
There is one tiny section of British high-speed line and very successful it is too, carrying 16-carriage Eurostars to Paris and Brussels, their trains flashing through the Kent countryside in no time.
St Pancras station shows what Britain can do
And in a rare example of Britain trumping France, the astonishingly impressive St Pancras Eurostar station in London knocks Gare du Nord in Paris into a cocked hat.
Before that UK high-speed line was built, I remember a cartoon depicting a sleek French Eurostar, having bulleted across from Paris, hissing into Folkestone.
The caption read something like: “Would passengers please transfer to the British connection to London.” Depicted was a waiting horse and trap with some bewildered people on board. “Gee up Dobbin” said the driver.
Brunel will be turning in his grave at the UK’s staggering lack of ambition.
