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@@JohnSmith-xl8cb I think people over focus on the delays. These extremely long-term infrastructure programs are inter-generational gifts, our great grandchildren will use them, and be richer for it, the same way we ride the Victorian railways.
Great video! One of the big mistakes I think from phase 1 was creating all these tunnels rather than running the line overground to appease local opposition. This is in part why the costs have exploded. I would be curious to hear your opinion on whether the tunnels proposed in phase 2a could be scrapped in favor of an overground line, even if it requires a less direct route (after all speed is not the point, capacity is). It seems like the only way phase 2a will be built is if we can somehow cut all the unnecessary overengineering to reduce costs.
Phase 2a is cheap in relative terms. They should just build it as is, It would've only had 2 short tunnels so it wouldn't make sense to mess around with the design. A slower less direct route would be longer requiring more land and track so any savings would be negligible. Phase 2b had extensive tunnelling but that was underneath Crewe and Manchester so less about appeasing NIMBYs and more about not wanting to demolish houses.
But which is cheaper ? Building underground through North West London or building overground. Building overground would have resulted in thousands of services and traffic diversions. Just imagine the chaos. Building underground is neater and out of the way.
HS2 should still continue going north despite its costing £Billions to build 1st Phase of HS2 to Birmingham. I do think that HS2 will be completed before 2030. By the way Merry Christmas 😊
Euston station probably won't be completed for year's I wouldn't be entirely shocked if labour decides to proceed with Manchester now underground through station first through, in prep for eventually building HS2 up to it, HS3, it will probably immediately stop the sale of land, if that has even started yet.
For me the money would be better spent going to Crewe, or further, rather than worrying about Euston. Tunnels between there and Old Oak Common will not be cheap.
The problem is OOC limits services to a maximum of 6tph. Plus modelling showed that 70% of people will want to go to Euston despite Liz Line connections.
If HS2 only goes to Curzon St. Brum, it will remain quicker to keep using the WCML from Euston for Rugby, Coventry and Wolverhampton. What we need is capacity for freight, and the undecided junction at Handsacre will be key to this.
I’m absolutely fascinated about the epic amounts of engineering in this scheme - thanks for the explanation! What’s the building at 4:45 going to be used for?
Another excellent video, and particularly enjoyed the closeups of the ground of the southern portal, a perspective you never usually see from a drone. Still maddens and sickens me how one in-elected moron can make such a rash, foolish and wrong decision without proper consultation. I’m not convinced labour will overturn his decision but as long as these Tory wasters get voted out it will go some small way to appeasing me. How the hell can he think it’s a good idea to limit this railway between CS and OOK? And how the hell do we end up in a situation where we have to give in to “do holders” who act like babies when they don’t agree with something. This country , like many other places is going to the dogs.
For some reason Sunak thought cancelling HS2 was a ratings winner and that people would fall for his "Network North" nonsense. Now the rail industry has been left with a mess that it needs to sort out, but unfortunately it looks like it'll take a change of Government just to get HS2 to Crewe.
Living in Aberdeen, a place which has paid so much to the treasury through North Sea oil and gas taxation over the years, this is yet another example of London and the South East only matter. What on Earth is the benefit to Aberdeen or North East Scotland going to be?
@@Rail_Focus when it’s a constant one way street when it comes to infrastructure spending it gets to get rather irritable particularly when you know just how much money has gone down South since the 1970’s with virtually nothing coming back up. We supposed to be grateful to receive brand new 50 year old HST sets..
Agree it should be built in full, everyone should be campaigning to re-establish phase 2 to Leeds, Manchester and Golborne so HS2 can fulfill its full potential.
What's the point, basically it's just a head shunt, a 100 miles long, not enough distance to get the train up to top speed, before it returns to Landan,a complete waste of money, what was wrong with the abandoned Great central route, it's pathetic
Once this bit is opened the pressure to complete it will be overwhelming. A lot of rich/powerful people will find changing trains at Old Oak Common/Birmingham annoying, and it'll get finished. And it'll all be worth it, because this project will still be useful in 100 years. People will use this is 2123 that same way we use barely upgraded Victorian railways.
They already got the boring machines for the Euston tunnels an the factory to build the tunnel segments. So it virtually 100% that the tunnels to Euston will be built. Hopefully a deal can be done for Euston to be upgraded with a connection to HS1, a complex engineering challenge but not impossible. Hopefully the private venture will realise they need both HS1 connection an 12 platforms to fully take advantage of Euston.@@domtweed7323
@@domtweed7323Hopefully some private building firm will finish the line between Old Oak Common and London Euston. The old Euston station is in need of upgrade, it can not just be abandoned.
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Great update! I'm keeping close eye on updates for HS2 as I live in Aylesbury
Thank you, glad you found it informative :)
Thanks for the update. Great to see more progress on the Chiltern Tunnel South Portal structure
No problem. The tunnels will be completed before we know it, I think the breakthrough will be around March.
I'm very excited to ride HS2 whenever it opens.
Good luck with that😂😂
@@JohnSmith-xl8cb I think people over focus on the delays. These extremely long-term infrastructure programs are inter-generational gifts, our great grandchildren will use them, and be richer for it, the same way we ride the Victorian railways.
Great video! One of the big mistakes I think from phase 1 was creating all these tunnels rather than running the line overground to appease local opposition. This is in part why the costs have exploded. I would be curious to hear your opinion on whether the tunnels proposed in phase 2a could be scrapped in favor of an overground line, even if it requires a less direct route (after all speed is not the point, capacity is). It seems like the only way phase 2a will be built is if we can somehow cut all the unnecessary overengineering to reduce costs.
Phase 2a is cheap in relative terms. They should just build it as is, It would've only had 2 short tunnels so it wouldn't make sense to mess around with the design. A slower less direct route would be longer requiring more land and track so any savings would be negligible.
Phase 2b had extensive tunnelling but that was underneath Crewe and Manchester so less about appeasing NIMBYs and more about not wanting to demolish houses.
But which is cheaper ? Building underground through North West London or building overground. Building overground would have resulted in thousands of services and traffic diversions. Just imagine the chaos. Building underground is neater and out of the way.
Next time you're down, Chris give us a message. I live all around this. I'll be happy to show you some interesting quirky places.
Will do. I'm sure I'll be back down before long.
Thanks
Thank you so much 😀
Latest expected cost announced today by the HS2 chief exec is almost £67 billion. This is a dramatic increase from previous quoted figures.
Inflation, not a lot that can be done about that
HS2 should still continue going north despite its costing £Billions to build 1st Phase of HS2 to Birmingham. I do think that HS2 will be completed before 2030. By the way Merry Christmas 😊
At the very least it must be built to a Crewe
Euston station probably won't be completed for year's
I wouldn't be entirely shocked if labour decides to proceed with Manchester now underground through station first through, in prep for eventually building HS2 up to it, HS3, it will probably immediately stop the sale of land, if that has even started yet.
For me the money would be better spent going to Crewe, or further, rather than worrying about Euston. Tunnels between there and Old Oak Common will not be cheap.
The problem is OOC limits services to a maximum of 6tph. Plus modelling showed that 70% of people will want to go to Euston despite Liz Line connections.
If HS2 only goes to Curzon St. Brum, it will remain quicker to keep using the WCML from Euston for Rugby, Coventry and Wolverhampton. What we need is capacity for freight, and the undecided junction at Handsacre will be key to this.
I’m absolutely fascinated about the epic amounts of engineering in this scheme - thanks for the explanation!
What’s the building at 4:45 going to be used for?
Not 100% sure tbh. Will be services of some description, doesn't look big enough for a sub station though.
UK government just supporting UK south of north London
Well it is now that Sunak has cancelled the section that would've benefited the North the most
Another excellent video, and particularly enjoyed the closeups of the ground of the southern portal, a perspective you never usually see from a drone.
Still maddens and sickens me how one in-elected moron can make such a rash, foolish and wrong decision without proper consultation. I’m not convinced labour will overturn his decision but as long as these Tory wasters get voted out it will go some small way to appeasing me. How the hell can he think it’s a good idea to limit this railway between CS and OOK?
And how the hell do we end up in a situation where we have to give in to “do holders” who act like babies when they don’t agree with something. This country , like many other places is going to the dogs.
For some reason Sunak thought cancelling HS2 was a ratings winner and that people would fall for his "Network North" nonsense.
Now the rail industry has been left with a mess that it needs to sort out, but unfortunately it looks like it'll take a change of Government just to get HS2 to Crewe.
Living in Aberdeen, a place which has paid so much to the treasury through North Sea oil and gas taxation over the years, this is yet another example of London and the South East only matter. What on Earth is the benefit to Aberdeen or North East Scotland going to be?
"it doesn't benefit me directly so what's the point" is a silly argument really.
@@Rail_Focus when it’s a constant one way street when it comes to infrastructure spending it gets to get rather irritable particularly when you know just how much money has gone down South since the 1970’s with virtually nothing coming back up. We supposed to be grateful to receive brand new 50 year old HST sets..
What a waste of money. Just build a raised track like every other country.
Have to appease the NIMBYs to get anything built in this country
Long siding. 0 connectivity another failed infrastructure project.
🙄
@Rail_Focus If you cut the arms and legs off a body then unfortunately the designed system can not perform the intended function.
Agree it should be built in full, everyone should be campaigning to re-establish phase 2 to Leeds, Manchester and Golborne so HS2 can fulfill its full potential.
What's the point, basically it's just a head shunt, a 100 miles long, not enough distance to get the train up to top speed, before it returns to Landan,a complete waste of money, what was wrong with the abandoned Great central route, it's pathetic
100 miles not enough to get to top speed? Okay 🤣
Hmm: well, the original Stockton-Darlington Railway began as a "shuttle" between two stations.....
Completely agree....no point in continuing after cutting off the arms ams legs.
@Rail_Focus Great idea to flag off your viewers comments / opinions.
?
Considering that the all over higher speed trains routes have been scrapped I hope this is also scrapped
Yeah and leave 90% built infrastructure littering the countryside as well as laying off 30k+ workers. Not the best idea.
Once this bit is opened the pressure to complete it will be overwhelming. A lot of rich/powerful people will find changing trains at Old Oak Common/Birmingham annoying, and it'll get finished.
And it'll all be worth it, because this project will still be useful in 100 years. People will use this is 2123 that same way we use barely upgraded Victorian railways.
They already got the boring machines for the Euston tunnels an the factory to build the tunnel segments. So it virtually 100% that the tunnels to Euston will be built. Hopefully a deal can be done for Euston to be upgraded with a connection to HS1, a complex engineering challenge but not impossible. Hopefully the private venture will realise they need both HS1 connection an 12 platforms to fully take advantage of Euston.@@domtweed7323
@@domtweed7323Hopefully some private building firm will finish the line between Old Oak Common and London Euston. The old Euston station is in need of upgrade, it can not just be abandoned.