Although I do not support HS2, I have to say the engineering, construction of this part of the Network is extraordinary. It would be really great to see some of the workforce too and get their opinions (regarding the construction) it must be amazing to have worked on such a project. Well done Rupert and the team, you are engineers not performers or actors and we appreciate you sharing this with us 👍
Thank you Rupert and the BBV team. A very informative video showing how sensitively the project is being delivered despite its proximity to many people’s homes.
They really threaded the needle with this section. Such a complex little part of the route. I'm grateful they explained why there are openings when he kept referring to it as a tunnel. I don't know why I never realised the reason for them but it makes so much sense now.
Added onto which, they needed to get over 3,000 different permits from various bodies to allow the work to go ahead. Notably down in Buckinghamshire, it passes through a woodland where there's a species of bat officially classified as Threatened, so they had to spend £100m on a 1km long "bat shed" with a mesh roof to stop the bats getting hit by trains. While Natural England didn't determine the structure, it was the cheapest of seven different designs that could meet the required specification. Then there's the bored tunnel through the Chilterns and viaducts designed to either blend into the scenery or look aesthetically pleasing... The line is desperately needed for capacity reasons, but politicians from two different governments decided it had to have a line speed higher than HS1, which somewhat constrained the route and meant it couldn't weave around the base of the Chilterns or largely follow the M40 corridor.
Excellent video and explains what has been occuring in the local area. It would be nice though to understand why there is 4 different structures, tunnel, retaining structure, u-box and portal. The retaining area I understand, lower than ground level but not as expensive as a tunnel, but why the u-box between two parts of it?
All very impressive and very vey expensive. Nothing like this on European high speed lines. All done to hide it from the moaning neighbours. This is why the whole project is so expensive compared to other countries' rail projects.
Capacity. The combination of freight, local services and long distance services on a single pair of tracks restricts service frequency for all three, while development along the line prevents quad tracking. However, the politicians of two different governments decided it had to have a higher line speed than HS1, not so much for the Phase 1 stretch to Birmingham but the full Phase 2 routes to Manchester and Leeds, on the assumption it would make the route competitive with internal flights. However, that constraint piled heaps of additional costs onto the budget, especially with environmental mitigation schemes and requiring over 3,000 permits from different bodies just to build the Phase 1 stretch, the most notorious being the £100m "bat shed" required to prevent bats being hit by the trains, which even HS2 Ltd think is a bit of a white elephant but was the cheapest of the 7 solutions offered for the 1km route that would meet the requirements necessary to obtain the permit from Natural England. The requirement for extensive consultation, mitigation measures, design revision and obtaining permits for everything plagues major infrastructure projects in general: look how long the proposed Stonehenge Tunnel, Lower Thames Crossing and Heathrow Third Runway have been in gestation, with hundreds of millions spent between them without any CPOs or spades / diggers due for years from now...
Didn't realise they were tunneling beneath the lane. Thought they were just creating the tunnel section where the lane was, and then moving the lane back over and digging the other side out!
Wasn't this route previously a railway cutting at least in part? A green tunnel is much more expensive than a cutting, hence the huge overspend on the original project cost esp in the chilterns. If it was a cutting already couldn't you have dug deeper before putting the concrete on top, surely that would have been cheaper to do? Was it a stability issue?
There hasn't been railways track along this route since the 1960s, it was converted to a Wildlife Corridor in the 70s. It was the Berkswell to Kenilworth Junction branch line.
So it’s a cut & cover, a buried box that is covered over to disguise its origin. When someone says “tunnel” I think of a bored construction. Cut & cover is more like a wide bridge.
cut and cover is a different method, but the end result is similar. For cut and cover, you dig a gigantic hole and then start constructing the concrete tunnel starting with the floor, then the walls, then the roof. For the method explained in the video, they start at ground level above the tunnel, dig very narrow trenches for the walls and then fill those with concrete. Then you build the roof (or more like 'skylights' in this case), then you excavate the earth beneath the roof, and then finally the floor.
@caroleast9636 That's how they are building Old Oak Common station. For a multi storey ubderground basement it's cheaper and quicker to build it top down, as it allows the above ground structure to be built at an earlier stage of the project.
@michaelcahill9191 Oh hello again Michael. Still on every HS2 related video on YT I see. But hey I see you have changed your tune and its not about speed but capacity. Which is what we have been saying all along. "Better a sinner who repents ...." 😂 Sadly you still show the same level of ignorance though. There are no lines left to reinstate (other than local branch lines) and to add to current main lines is recipe for disaster as was shown on the WCML some years ago. Disruption for years and its still 125 MPH. Oh and those longer trains require longer stations ....
Now we can see precisely why the HS2 project keeps ratcheting up in price - it's down to one linear mile of route at Burton Green. We don't get detailed updates at Radstone, do we, where complex landscaping issues are not being talked about, Thorpe Mandeville, where a watercourse has been destroyed, Wormleighton, with its dodgy geology, the south end of the tunnel under Long Itchington wood and all those other equally interesting places. Well I suppose they don't have rows of houses overlooking the railway excavations, so what the public doesn't need to know about...but I wonder what the final price tag will be?
Much cheaper to put everything in deeper tunnels. One technology, one machine, no bridges, no disruption to roads, rivers, pylons, pipes or railways. No farmland destroyed, very few houses destroyed so no lawyers, appeals etc. Much more predictable costs as the tunnelling machine technology is well understood - as are the concrete sections and the disposal of the soil and rocks removed. Just 10 tunnelling machines and bob’s your uncle. No doubling or trebling of costs and time taken to do the work.
Utter waste of taxpayer's money. £120Bn to save 20 mins from part of London to part of Birmingham. Destroying swathes of pricless English countryside, woodland and archaeology. Criminal.
Wow, just think, we'll soon be able to get to Birmingham twenty minutes sooner than is currently possible and for a mere £100 billion. I know there are critics, but I say who needs an NHS, or social care, or NHS dentists, or prisons, or housing, or affordable child-care, or fire-safe cladding, or the reduction of university fees etc?..Not me, Birmingham with 20 minutes to spare if you please, every time.
So Boris Johnson gave a thumbs up to millions of pounds for a load of concrete tunnels and concrete viaducts! Wherever I've travelled by train (like London to Aberdeen) I've always enjoyed the journey - the passing scenery & the changing weather. So HS2 won't be getting a thumbs up from me! If the vast sums involved had been spent on upgrading routes in all parts of the UK (and restoring lines closed by Beeching) millions of travellers would now be experiencing faster journeys - and more people would be using the railway!
@@pwithnall.. whatever people may try & tell you, there are absolutely NO passenger capacity issues between London & Birmingham, except London bound morning peak. Chiltern mainly run 2 or 3 DMU's most of the day & they're mostly empty! Added to that, virtually nobody travels the entire route between the cities & instead, get on & off at stations en route. And arguments that the WCML is at "full capacity" rely on a discredited & out of date forecasting model which overestimates long distance passenger growth & isn't used for anything anymore except to justify the monstrous vanity project that is HS2. Network Rail's " New Lines Programme Capacity Analysis" shows that WCML capacity is kept artificially low by private operators wanting to maximise profits. A DfT analysis shows that in peak hours leaving Euston, WCML trains were loaded at just 52.2%. The blatant corruption within HS2 Ltd that's recently been exposed reveals that senior executives published exaggerated figures & misleading projections to ensure billions of pounds kept flowing into the project (or lied as it's more commonly known) & you've fallen for it hook, line & sinker. HS2 is an environmental disaster of epic proportions & Britain's biggest infrastructure mistake in half a century.
@@pwithnallthat’s great an all but try filling a larger train when the cost of a ticket will inevitably be higher than the cost of your average Avanti trip.
Although I do not support HS2, I have to say the engineering, construction of this part of the Network is extraordinary. It would be really great to see some of the workforce too and get their opinions (regarding the construction) it must be amazing to have worked on such a project. Well done Rupert and the team, you are engineers not performers or actors and we appreciate you sharing this with us 👍
Thank you Rupert and the BBV team. A very informative video showing how sensitively the project is being delivered despite its proximity to many people’s homes.
They really threaded the needle with this section. Such a complex little part of the route. I'm grateful they explained why there are openings when he kept referring to it as a tunnel. I don't know why I never realised the reason for them but it makes so much sense now.
Excellent explanation. Thank you 🙏
Really clear update on this fantastic project
1:20 Honestly great video, but I was most impressed with the 550ft gardens of some of those houses
Excellent video, thanks!
Amazing!, just incredible engineering, congratulations 👏👍
Love these videos
Keep up hard work
So is this effectively beneath the old disused railway alignment?
It's a bit lower, yes.
I get why this is so expensive now
Added onto which, they needed to get over 3,000 different permits from various bodies to allow the work to go ahead. Notably down in Buckinghamshire, it passes through a woodland where there's a species of bat officially classified as Threatened, so they had to spend £100m on a 1km long "bat shed" with a mesh roof to stop the bats getting hit by trains. While Natural England didn't determine the structure, it was the cheapest of seven different designs that could meet the required specification. Then there's the bored tunnel through the Chilterns and viaducts designed to either blend into the scenery or look aesthetically pleasing...
The line is desperately needed for capacity reasons, but politicians from two different governments decided it had to have a line speed higher than HS1, which somewhat constrained the route and meant it couldn't weave around the base of the Chilterns or largely follow the M40 corridor.
@@mittfh A fair appraisal
Really clear and informative update, thanks!
Excellent video and explains what has been occuring in the local area. It would be nice though to understand why there is 4 different structures, tunnel, retaining structure, u-box and portal. The retaining area I understand, lower than ground level but not as expensive as a tunnel, but why the u-box between two parts of it?
I don't see a mountain or a city, yet I do see a tunnel.
Nice
So far...so good!
All very impressive and very vey expensive. Nothing like this on European high speed lines. All done to hide it from the moaning neighbours. This is why the whole project is so expensive compared to other countries' rail projects.
‘Moaning neighbours’ ?? How about you living close to this construction nightmare…
@@14Jem And you're a symptom of what is so wrong with this country: so many moaning meanies.
@@convinth total waste of money and vandalism of our beautiful countryside on an epic scale for what? 30 min quicker to London from Birmingham.
Capacity. The combination of freight, local services and long distance services on a single pair of tracks restricts service frequency for all three, while development along the line prevents quad tracking. However, the politicians of two different governments decided it had to have a higher line speed than HS1, not so much for the Phase 1 stretch to Birmingham but the full Phase 2 routes to Manchester and Leeds, on the assumption it would make the route competitive with internal flights. However, that constraint piled heaps of additional costs onto the budget, especially with environmental mitigation schemes and requiring over 3,000 permits from different bodies just to build the Phase 1 stretch, the most notorious being the £100m "bat shed" required to prevent bats being hit by the trains, which even HS2 Ltd think is a bit of a white elephant but was the cheapest of the 7 solutions offered for the 1km route that would meet the requirements necessary to obtain the permit from Natural England.
The requirement for extensive consultation, mitigation measures, design revision and obtaining permits for everything plagues major infrastructure projects in general: look how long the proposed Stonehenge Tunnel, Lower Thames Crossing and Heathrow Third Runway have been in gestation, with hundreds of millions spent between them without any CPOs or spades / diggers due for years from now...
@@14Jem would have been a quicker, simpler, cheaper construction for a surface railway as they have done in France and Germany wherever possible.
Didn't realise they were tunneling beneath the lane. Thought they were just creating the tunnel section where the lane was, and then moving the lane back over and digging the other side out!
2:41 4:24 said the exact same thing -_- good progress tho
Wasn't this route previously a railway cutting at least in part? A green tunnel is much more expensive than a cutting, hence the huge overspend on the original project cost esp in the chilterns.
If it was a cutting already couldn't you have dug deeper before putting the concrete on top, surely that would have been cheaper to do? Was it a stability issue?
There hasn't been railways track along this route since the 1960s, it was converted to a Wildlife Corridor in the 70s.
It was the Berkswell to Kenilworth Junction branch line.
@Gr33nMamba so why the expensive tunnel if an existing cutting? All these design changes have pushed the cost sky high
Why can't we have this in Devon and Cornwall 😮
Not enough people to pay for it!?!
👏👏👏
Now I finally understand what was built and how it's going to function.
So it’s a cut & cover, a buried box that is covered over to disguise its origin. When someone says “tunnel” I think of a bored construction. Cut & cover is more like a wide bridge.
cut and cover is a different method, but the end result is similar. For cut and cover, you dig a gigantic hole and then start constructing the concrete tunnel starting with the floor, then the walls, then the roof. For the method explained in the video, they start at ground level above the tunnel, dig very narrow trenches for the walls and then fill those with concrete. Then you build the roof (or more like 'skylights' in this case), then you excavate the earth beneath the roof, and then finally the floor.
@ Finishing with the floor is odd and counterintuitive but I guess there’s reasons for that
regardless it's expensive and probably unnecessary.
@caroleast9636 That's how they are building Old Oak Common station. For a multi storey ubderground basement it's cheaper and quicker to build it top down, as it allows the above ground structure to be built at an earlier stage of the project.
ok then cu this time next year
Just think how many homes could have been built with these resources. What a bloody waste of money and effort.
so overengineered. NIMBYs in this town could have just coped
Next railway to be built can go past the back of your house then, see how you like that.
@@pwithnallI would never expect taxpayers to fork out £300 million for my satisfaction
@michaelcahill9191
Oh hello again Michael. Still on every HS2 related video on YT I see.
But hey I see you have changed your tune and its not about speed but capacity. Which is what we have been saying all along.
"Better a sinner who repents ...." 😂
Sadly you still show the same level of ignorance though. There are no lines left to reinstate (other than local branch lines) and to add to current main lines is recipe for disaster as was shown on the WCML some years ago. Disruption for years and its still 125 MPH.
Oh and those longer trains require longer stations ....
Now we can see precisely why the HS2 project keeps ratcheting up in price - it's down to one linear mile of route at Burton Green. We don't get detailed updates at Radstone, do we, where complex landscaping issues are not being talked about, Thorpe Mandeville, where a watercourse has been destroyed, Wormleighton, with its dodgy geology, the south end of the tunnel under Long Itchington wood and all those other equally interesting places. Well I suppose they don't have rows of houses overlooking the railway excavations, so what the public doesn't need to know about...but I wonder what the final price tag will be?
Much cheaper to put everything in deeper tunnels. One technology, one machine, no bridges, no disruption to roads, rivers, pylons, pipes or railways. No farmland destroyed, very few houses destroyed so no lawyers, appeals etc. Much more predictable costs as the tunnelling machine technology is well understood - as are the concrete sections and the disposal of the soil and rocks removed. Just 10 tunnelling machines and bob’s your uncle. No doubling or trebling of costs and time taken to do the work.
See, we can build in straight lines, so how come our roads are all twisty windy? Can't have a straight section longer than a few yards.
Utter waste of taxpayer's money. £120Bn to save 20 mins from part of London to part of Birmingham.
Destroying swathes of pricless English countryside, woodland and archaeology.
Criminal.
The same was said in the 1830’s..
Utter waste of money destroying beautiful English countryside just to save a couple of days by stagecoach
Wow, just think, we'll soon be able to get to Birmingham twenty minutes sooner than is currently possible and for a mere £100 billion. I know there are critics, but I say who needs an NHS, or social care, or NHS dentists, or prisons, or housing, or affordable child-care, or fire-safe cladding, or the reduction of university fees etc?..Not me, Birmingham with 20 minutes to spare if you please, every time.
Absolutely ridiculous putting everything in tunnels.
You wouldn't think that if you lived here.
@01jvb OK, but I want to hear nothing from you on how much it costs.
@@jonathanwilliams9697 You won't, I don't know !. Like hundreds of other people in the Kenilworth area, I opposed HS2 when it was first proposed.
@@01jvbThat went well then. Thank you for the escalating costs.
So Boris Johnson gave a thumbs up to millions of pounds for a load of concrete tunnels and concrete viaducts! Wherever I've travelled by train (like London to Aberdeen) I've always enjoyed the journey - the passing scenery & the changing weather. So HS2 won't be getting a thumbs up from me! If the vast sums involved had been spent on upgrading routes in all parts of the UK (and restoring lines closed by Beeching) millions of travellers would now be experiencing faster journeys - and more people would be using the railway!
I cant understand a word of his explanation! Hopeless
None of your concern if you cannot understand English then.
Pointless project.
Utter waste of money when we need more prisons more hospitals and a boost to the military, just to get travellers from London 35 minutes earlier.
It’s about capacity not journey times.
@@pwithnall.. whatever people may try & tell you, there are absolutely NO passenger capacity issues between London & Birmingham, except London bound morning peak.
Chiltern mainly run 2 or 3 DMU's most of the day & they're mostly empty!
Added to that, virtually nobody travels the entire route between the cities & instead, get on & off at stations en route.
And arguments that the WCML is at "full capacity" rely on a discredited & out of date forecasting model which overestimates long distance passenger growth & isn't used for anything anymore except to justify the monstrous vanity project that is HS2.
Network Rail's " New Lines Programme Capacity Analysis" shows that WCML capacity is kept artificially low by private operators wanting to maximise profits.
A DfT analysis shows that in peak hours leaving Euston, WCML trains were loaded at just 52.2%.
The blatant corruption within HS2 Ltd that's recently been exposed reveals that senior executives published exaggerated figures & misleading projections to ensure billions of pounds kept flowing into the project (or lied as it's more commonly known) & you've fallen for it hook, line & sinker.
HS2 is an environmental disaster of epic proportions & Britain's biggest infrastructure mistake in half a century.
@@pwithnallthat’s great an all but try filling a larger train when the cost of a ticket will inevitably be higher than the cost of your average Avanti trip.
@@typicalbrummie3852 yeah agreed, ticket prices need to be lower