High-speed rail is an opportunity, not a waste

Scott

I couldn't agree more. This is a once in a generation opportunity to create a more economically united kingdom. The Chinese think big by building mass transit systems, that can only benefit their economy. We need to make these big decisions otherwise our country will become an economic desert in comparison. Linking 50million or so people more closely to the powerful London and south east economy can only be of benefit to everyone. Lets share the wealth of this country around its four corners rather than keep the big infrastructure investment concentrated in and around London. It has been for so long and that is why there is a big north south divide.

Dan Grover

If you think trains are what make London great, you're crazy.

The element I struggle with isn't its existence, it is its cost. It sounds like lots of people that aren't the taxpayer benefit, when it's the taxpayer who is paying for it. Like a union, it's great for those it helps, and rubbish for everyone else. So no wonder "civic leaders" in cities like the idea - they gain more than they lose. If there's this much money sloshing about as a response to it, let the private sector pay for it.

It works well in the continent because both France and Germany, despite their similar population levels to ours, have approximately double the physical size. The smaller a country gets, the more diminishing the returns on a speed increases are.

There's also the same argument to offer as suggested by people who see the way the NHS nicks doctors from overseas - that, by pegging the success of a city to the ability of its inhabitants to *leave it* somewhat suggests a defeatist attitude to that city itself. I think we'd be far better off trying to crease (or, rather, nurture, using localised tax breaks) industries in other cities, rather than facilitating people's desire to centre around a single city.

In a nutshell, I don't want my tax money going towards socially engineering the outcome of "fairness".

Charles Martel

I think you lose the argument when your defence consists of hissing ad hominem attacks at Matt Sinclair, TPA and everyone who happen to live in the 'South of England'.

This will be the MilleniumDome Express of wasteful public works, pork-barrel politics of the worst kind.

We don't want it, and I very much doubt you will get it, especially as the costs become clear.

Rhoda Klapp

How awful for the business leaders of the Midlands and North not to be able to open new markets because they are cut off from the lucrative South. And here was me thinking there have been trains for nigh on 200 years. Cars too, I understand, for over 100.

Seriously, what a load of special pleadinf tosh. Tell me Begg isn't on a fat earner noiselessly slipped from the massive tranche of taxpayer's money which these business people need before they can start, and which will need to be regularly tooped up to keep it running. If it's so bloody good, why is it not a privately-funded project?

Fergus Pickering

You are right, friend. I am right. They are all wrong and Luddites to boot. Luddites with big back gardens in many cases. But it's OK. Nobody will listen to them. The railway lines will get built and everybody (well, most people) will be happy.

libertarian

You really are deluded. Why don't you just go and look, its not difficult. In my town where we already have hi speed rail, house prices have shot up, but 1in 5 town centre shops are now boarded up. People just go to London to work and spend their money.

£billions of pounds to kill a local community. HS rail is another giant white elephant.

Cut businesses taxes, cut business rates, cut energy taxes, duties, green levies and let small businesses flourish, it really isn't difficult

Axstane

The inordinately high cost of rail travel, the most expensive in the world, puts rail travel already out of reach of many except for the very well-paid or occasional celebrations.

This huge investment will result in even larger fares and provide an opportunity for some franchise to make a killing out of fares and the government subsidy.

What is even worse is that the rolling stock and probably the rails themselves will provide new employment for foreign countries but not ours even though Corus has a plant mothballed which would be ideally suited to contract.

alexsandr

iys awaste of money and will do little to help on other corridors. like trans pennine and north east -birmingham - south west
or local trains.
we should be spending this money on capacityimprovements (4 tracking and flyover junctions) on the currrent network.

and as for high speed finishing at curzon street, 20 mins walk from new street. that has to be a joke.

Andy Barnes

Two seconds on Google and ..."David is frequently commissioned as an advisor on monetary policy to organisations such as the Bank of England, IMF, and HM Treasury".

What a surprise. The independent consultants could find no business case for HS2, but Prof Begg knows better. Hmmmm....

RobertD

Over the last 20 years airlines have brought down the price of air travel substantially in real terms, and the cost of using a car is also well down. The only mode of transport that continuously has increases in fares way above inflation is rail. That is despite heavy government subsidies for rail compared to the excess taxes paid by the motorist and flyer.

Unless this problem can be fixed, then there is no point in investing in more rail. Until we understand why it consistently costs more and delivers less, and have a cast iron plan to do something about it, this is not investment but value destruction.

While the planning process ties everything up in expensive lawyers and PR machines, we should set rail a real test. Make all rail fares subject to inflation -4% limits every year until we are ready to give a go ahead on HST. If the industry shows in can respond and work to the same price constraints that exist in other more competitive modes of transport then go ahead with HST, else they should not get a penny of new investment.

John Jefkins

Taxpayers may need to get this started, but there is every likelyhood of us getting all of our money back within 20 years of this being open. HS2 has a far better business case than either CrossRail or HS1 (across Kent).

It could win up to 30 million new passengers from the 3 air markets of Heathrow east to Paris,Amsterdam, Cologne/Frankfurt, Basel & Zurich and Geneva etc (12 million), Manchester, Leeds and Brum to the same places (8 million or enough to half fill 2 trains/hr from both Manchester and Leeds by 2032) and another 11 million gained from air on the London-Brum-Manchester airport- splitting into 2 rakes for Glasgow & Edinburgh market.

We don't even need a new line all the way to Scotland to get under a 3hr journey time to win around 70% of that air market. If you can average 200mph past Manchester to around Preston you only need average 125mph on upgraded existing lines via Carstairs to Glasgow or Edinburgh.

We are being too timid. Our railways have been growing at 5% not the 1.4% used by the DfT for their estimates. Lack of capacity is driving rail fares up. HS2 has a big business case.

We need to connect Heathrow now to HS1 (ie with a station by T5 rather than miles away at Wormwood Scrubs) and we need to get HS2 finished to Manchester & Leeds rather sooner than 2030! Our lines are filling up NOW!

TGF UKIP

The usual bollocks associated with this massive, London-centric vanity project. GNER went bust and National Express handed back their East Line franchise so much for "We have a train system that is full and in dire need of new capacity" Added to which, of course, as I pointed on the Sinclair piece, the leaps forward being made in video and telecommunications technology will mean that so many trips to London for business meeting will simply become unnecessary.

As always, though, the true cost is opportunity cost and how many other provincial incremental transport projects would be far more growth enhancing and economically beneficial than this idiocy.

When even Blair and Brown didn't come up with anything so grandiosely wasteful, it says it all.

Blue Porcupine

"a few privileged people in the Home Counties"

The nastiest, most dishonest politics. How do you think the line is going to get through the backyards of the Potteries? Levitation?

Maybe the benefits will be worth trampling on the minority of people affected - rich and poor. But if you're comforting yourself with the pretence that they're all fat Tories in fat Tory heartlands you've got a *very* rude awakening coming when the Brum-Manc building is started.

Still, you'll probably be pensioned off by then, so no harm done, eh?

Helene Davidson

If you really believe that London has benefitted from masses of investment in its transport infrastructure, you have clearly not used it recently. It is a national disgrace, and becoming a major disincentive to live and work in the city.

Feste

Countries need transport links. Ours are rapidly seizing up - the West Coast Main Line is full, the M1 and M40 are clogged, Heathrow is bursting at the seams.
This is not a vanity project - it is the minimum needed to keep our economy going, let alone expanding.

In2minds

"a massive increase in rail capacity must surely lead to falling ticket prices"

As pointed out some rail services will be lost to allow HS2 to function. So this is not an increase in capacity, it's a realignment.

Boudicca

Why is the Government taxing poor people to pay for a rich man's train?

Because the EU wants him to. HS2 is part of the EU's Trans European Transport Network. We are paying for the EU's transport policy - which demonstrates what a farce the so-called public consultations are. What the EU wants, Call Me Dave is rushing to deliver.

The money should be spent on improving existing rail lines for commuters and improving cross-country links instead of funnelling everything towards London, the south and the continent.

The money would be better spent on installing High-Speed Broadband across the country.

It would be better spent on a direct freight rail line from Southampton to a new inland container 'port' in the Midlands.

There are many things it would be better spent on that a High Speed train so the elite and the wealthy can travel 20 minutes faster at the expense of the ordinary taxpayer.

http://www.taxpayersalliance.com/

Martin Adamson

Ah, Professor David Begg. The man that brought the trams back to Edinburgh. Or not. Actually, the man who brought Edinburgh to the brink of bankruptcy.

JR

Let those northerners suffer. They should pay for itself!

daniel maris

I generally support HSR investment for the reasons cited. It is pretty much essential to our economic future.

However, Axstane has a good point to make. Our rail travel is so expensive that it really undoes a lot of the benefit. It is needs to be subsidised more, for the general good. The best way to achieve this would be via taxes on other forms of transport.

C. Goode

I am saddened that this argument has had a spurious class element linked to it. How easy and predicable and facile. The majority of people in the south east are not rich and not privileged, they are hard working citizens with similar concerns and problems as their peers in the north and they should be allowed a voice about this without being branded 'toffs'.

While I understand - and agree for - the need for economic growth throughout the country, I cannot see the sense of spending billions of pounds and destroying ancient woodlands and yet more virgin countryside for the sake of 20 minutes being knocked off a journey. It makes no sense. Surely the money should be spent on improving the infrastructure we already possess. What happens when a train is created that will remove another 20 minutes, do we build another link? And yet another?

In an era when the country is in crippling debt and money is being sapped from essential services, this project is unconscionable and should be abandoned.

And journalists, please present a balanced argument rather than peddle old and hackneyed clichés.

Andrew Allison

Firstly, I must declare an interest as an employee of the TPA, but as I live and work in East Yorkshire, I cannot be accused of living in a tiny bubble in the South of England. Not that Matt Sinclair does, and after reading this article it is obvious the TPA has a much better grasp of the facts than the yes campaign.

It is a rarity when I manage to make a return journey from Hull to London without either delays or cancellations. Last week, my train back to Hull from Kings Cross was cancelled. Ask anyone who travels from East Yorkshire to Leeds or Manchester in the morning what their journey is like. It's not just delays and cancellations for them (as frustrating as they are), but they also have to cope with sardine-like conditions. It is the same story on the return journey on an evening.

Perhaps Professor Begg can me how HS2 will benefit me? Or the people of Doncaster, York, Darlington, Durham, and Newcastle? Perhaps he is the one who lives in a bubble if he thinks the rest of the country is made up of Birmingham and Manchester?

What we need is a reliable service. We want to be able to sit down, rather than stand in the corridors. Spending billions of pounds to fund HS2 will take money away from the existing rail infrastructure, or does Professor Begg think we are awash with money?

We already have a high speed rail service. We are not the same as France and Germany where there are larger distances to cover at higher speeds. We need to increase the capacity and reliability on our existing network. What we don't need is a white elephant that will mean most of the country will have a poorer service. And most of the country, Professor Begg, means vast swathes of the Midlands and the North of England.

GaryB

Surely HS2 can't go ahead after the business case published today states that only London will benefit and shows a flawed environmental case. HS2 is clearly a waste of money.

Recent improvements to existing infrastructure have already had big improvements to journey times from S. Midlands to London. Surely this is a better model to spend taxpayer's money - improvements to lines everyone can use rather than building a line only rich business people will use

The supporters of the scheme seem to be business who will benefit enormously from contracts to build trains and the line itself.

The report has to be the end of the debate

Somebody told me

"Matt Sinclair lives in a tiny bubble in the South of England."

I stopped reading at this point. Lets debate the issue of high speed rail, not make attacks on people because of where they happen to live.

TomTom

"Over the last 20 years airlines have brought down the price of air travel substantially in real terms,"

YES RobertD but there are no longer any flights from Leeds-Bradford Airport to London.....only to Amsterdam

Olaf

"After all, a massive increase in rail capacity must surely lead to falling ticket prices."

Hahahaha where do you live? Tt's not the UK.

Yam Yam

Opponents of HS2 frequently insist that we double the capacity of the existing Euston-Birmingham railway line. However, there are substantial costs involved in this option too, notwithstanding that the speed of the trains will still be limited by the meandering nature of the track.

Besides, four-tracking the current line would still involve a colossal amount of property acquisition. But then it would be the homes of poorer people in Birmingham and Coventry that would have to be demolished, so maybe that's alright then.

commentator

This project is Concorde on rails.

Mr Oulton

@TGF UKIP
Please read up a little before posting. You might even wish to reflect on the actual facts rather than what you think they are.

The bankruptcy of various franchises has nothing to do excess capacity; it has everything to do with crazy franchising rules, illogical privatisation and the fact that the railways are "too big to fail".

Fergus Pickering

Rich man's train my bottom. I take the high speed train from Canterbury to Saint Pancras because it is faster and nicer then the bloody slow train to Charing Cross. My daughter also takes it for the same reason. The people on the train don't look especially rich to me. It is the rich, the rich men in their castles, who are standing in the way of progress on the railways as they always have, since the Rocket killed poor Mr Huskisson in 1830. The rich, after all, can be driven along motorways by the lower orders.

Ian Reed

Clearly you have not looked at the report from Oxera that was asked by the Transport Select Committee to look into the economics of HS2.
It said. There in uncertainty in the economics plus London was likely to benifit from HS2 'possilby at the expense of less service-oriented cities on the line'

John Bowman

So, in the unbiased opinion of the Director of the Campaign for High-Speed Rail, a High Speed Rail link is a splendid idea and any who think otherwise clearly are bonkers.

So it must be so.

Kit Charter

You said 'After all, a massive increase in rail capacity must surely lead to falling ticket prices.' I'm struggling to remember the last time ticket prices dropped for any reason, anywhere in the UK.....

Prestwick

Err...hello? Low-cost flights pushed down ticket prices after vastly expanding capacity and aggressively saving costs? Anybody remember this at all? The names Easyjet & Ryanair ring any bells? No?

Just wondering.

chris

I’m actually surprised that the spectator is pushing this utter nonsense. The public does not want this . The economic case is not viable. If one reads the consultation paper it refers to benefits gained from taking a fast link train rather than flying to Birmingham. Phillip Hammond and his cronies have already hired approximately 54 members of staff a cost £3.8 million of our money to enforce this vanity of project on us. We watch our libraries being closed and this is role of the state that we get in return. We are getting the democracy that we deserve because we are not standing up for ourselves and government deserves bloody nose for this.