HS2 Construction Progress - Calvert to Quainton, May 2024
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- Опубликовано: 11 сен 2024
- Aerial view of the highly controversial HS2 construction progress in May 2024, between Calvert and Quainton.
HS2 Phase 1 is the project to provide a high speed rail link between London Euston and a new station in Curzon Street in central Birmingham, not far from Moor Street station.
Footage taken from a DJI Mavic 3, in May 2024.
0:40 School Hill Green Overbridge
1:30 Calvert Green Overbridge
2:18 Footpath SCL/13 Green Overbridge
2:32 Sheephouse Wood Mitigation Structure
3:14 Footpath CAG/2 Underbridge
4:00 Bridleway GUN/28 Green Overbridge
4:38 Bridleway QUA/36 Green Overbridge
5:36 Adam's Underbridge
6:04 Edgcott Road Overbridge
6:40 Footpath QUA/26 Underbridge
7:30 Bridleway QUA/28A Overbridge
Superb, thanks for that
Good Video and great choice of music, very appropriate .
Thanks. It was like Chopin predicted this construction project when he composed the music!
This isn't the first time someone has used the Chopin Funeral March with drone shots of HS2. Might have been The Boy previously - I don't remember. Still, once you get past thd somber opening chords it is a really beautiful piece of music and well suited to its subject.
@@martinsloman6905 Not the first time I've used it. It truly is a great composition. And very appropriate.
Nicely captured 👌 👍
Thanks! Though not much change since the one I did last September, progress is glacially slow :(
Once again must congratulate you Boy on this excellent video. I actually like your choice of music. Can't beat a bit of Chopin but maybe the Heroic Polonaise in tribute to this great piece of infrastructure (and the workers who are building it).😊
Thanks. I think the Funeral March is more appropriate, but I know we'll never agree on that. Life would be boring if were all the same.
So at 180mph+ = 20sec per mile .. its would take say 60 seconds to traverse this stretch. BTW travelled extensively on Japan.Shinkansen = #1
Trouble is, as a regular traveller on the existing 2 lines between London and Birmingham, I'll have whole trains nearly to myself - assuming they ever finish this vanity project before I retire - and the stretch to Euston is predicted to be more than a decade or more off!!
@@theboy-uk Boy, if you are so knowledgeable about rail travel betweeen London and Birmingham, why can you never provide us with verifiable statistics (despite numerous requests)?
@@martinsloman6905 As well you know, I'm trying to get official figures from both lines, but they are both giving me the run around.
But as a very, very regular user of both lines, I can tell you what I see. People claiming otherwise, I wonder how often they used both lines?
@@theboy-uk I did a bit of googling about this and found that somebody else had made an FoI request on the same subject. The response they got was that specific route information was not available to the public for commercial reasons. However, the ORR (Office of Rail and Road) does publish statistics for rail traffic between regions. The latest one (April 23 to March 24) shows that 9.8 million people travelled between the West Midlands and London.
To put that in context, that figure is greater than the North West to London which includes Liverpool, Manchester and Warrington. Now it is a long time since I last travelled between Birmingham and London but I have done Liverpool to London dozens of times and, whilst initial loadings can be low, I have never experienced the empty coach phenomenon you describe.
That is just common sense. London and Birmingham present an excellent rail market - too short for airline services but long enough to give the train a significant time advantage over the car. If we get slightly technical, the travel demand between two cities can be expressed as proportional to the sum of their populations divided by the square of their distance apart (the 'gravitational model') so you would expect London to Birmingham to be a primary market. Of course, more passengers travel at peak hours and at the beginning and end of the working week - so it doesn't disprove your 'empty train' anecdote but rail capacity (as with any other transport system) is targeted at the peaks.
@@theboy-uk every time I have travelled on the west coast mainline the trains have been pretty packed. I will probably be dead before this debarcle is finished lol.
You must fly on a Sunday, either that or no one actually works. I hope I live to be 150 to see this completed. Personally I think they should just throw some soil over it and grass seed then plant a lot of trees. Then lay a bus service on lol. Loved the music, reminded me of the death march, very apt.
LOL! If I recall, most of that one was a Friday lunchtime into the afternoon, so pub o'clock for construction workers
You'd be surprised how many get upset by Chopin's Funeral March!
Good Video, thank you for the update. But please, the choice of Music was Terrible! 😢
Pretty fitting I think ;)
This kind of progress is fascinating.
If you watch the previous video of this stretch from last summer, its "spot the difference", LOL
@@theboy-uk I still see no difference.
@@robodrone5662 There's not much!
@@theboy-uk Have you actually done that I wonder? This stretch is mainly earthworks and you can dig a 10m deep cutting and it isn't going to seem much different from a drone viewpoint. You can, however, see where progress is being made on bridges and other structures. You can also see where grass is becoming established on cutting slopes.
Obviously, what we are all interested in seeing is track laying, which I think will start next year. Phase 1 will make use of slab track (this is required for high speed track stability and for reducing maintenance) and I think there will be very rapid progress using mechanised slip-forming. Then its just the overhead line structures, fencing, lineside cabling etc and the railway will be complete.
@@martinsloman6905 Even the most brainwashed HS2 fan would have to admit that construction progress on the stretches I've covered is unacceptably slow. I know said HS2 fans will try to blame it on NIMBY and environmentalists, but that is simply not the case on this stretch. We are over 4 years in on this section from when spades hit the ground - more time that the entire M40 extension took - and the current estimates for Curzon to Wormwood Scrubs section to open is 2030. The as yet unfunded £18bn extension into Euston is estimated to be 2042.
I used to be a Civil Engineer and I'm stunned. What the f**k have they been doing the last 3 years!!?? Loads of unnecessary works and not one bit of rail laid yet. Robert Stephenson did the London and Birmingham Railway in 4 years with guys using not much more than picks and shovels. This is progress??!!
I'm beyond staggered at lack of progress, and the cost of this non-progress on the taxpayer. The M40 extension from Oxford to Birmingham was done in under 4 years about 30 years ago, but this is an utter mess.
If you want to know what is going on here, have a look at the relevant site plans: www.gov.uk/government/publications/hs2-plan-and-profile-maps-euston-to-chetwode (specifically Sheet 28: Calvert and Sheet 27: Route passes Buckingham Railway Centre).
These can be blown up to quite large scale and you can see the extensive amount of mitigation work being carried out - which is typical of what is happening on HS2 - clearly the greenest major infrastructure project ever constructed in this country.
For example, at Sheephouse Wood there is a 1km long 'bat protection structure' - which completely encloses the railway (you can see it early on in The Boy's video). There are at least two 'green overbridges' near Calvert (one of which is well advanced), which will have woodland planted above to preserve natural habitats and north of Quainton there is a huge embankment - not for the railway itself but to screen the railway from the surrounding countryside. There are also huge areas of woodland and habitat creation - often at some considerable distance from the railway.
In fact, the most intrusive item of infrastructure will be the auto-transformer station and accompanying national grid substation on the east side of the route north of Quainton.
Using your civil engineeribg knowledge what is the unnecessary work ?
@theboy-uk when they built the M40 there was a defined schedule of works to cost and build. With HS2 they are still putting the defined schedule of works together and costing it as they go.
@@TrevorWilliams-fq8mg most of the works are way beyond the railway boundary. I live near and have worked on HS2 delivering materials, sometimes as much as two miles away from the line(!), but this is deemed as required works to placate local residents and landowners. Everybody trying to blame HS2 for their woes and managing to get them to pay for new roads etc. It’s all a total waste of money and I think I’ll be in my grave before a train runs on it!
The music is very fitting for this debarcle
Absolutely, just don't let the brainwashed fans hear you say that though!
Awful music and no commentary!
I purposely don't comment on the video, as the intention is for a record of construction. Commentary would naturally contain my own views on the project.
Music is very appropriate for this white elephant ;)
Shocking waste of money! Is this where my taxes are going?
HS2 is paid for by government borrowing. Obviously the loan and interest paid on that loan will have to be paid for through future taxation but large infradtructure investments expand the economy and the wealth that is taxed.
And remember not just the construction, as HS2 will need a lot of taxpayer subsidy once up and running - 50-60% of each ticket will be from the taxpayer.
@@martinsloman6905 ultimately, it is the taxpayer having to pay up, even if the spike of it has to come from a (expensive) loan. It removes taxpayer money from other, infinitely more useful projects and services to one that exists purely as a vanity project for the rail industry.
@@theboy-uk OK Boy You have made a specific claim there. What is your source for it?
@@theboy-uk To make an analogy here. If you are a plumber you will need a van to carry your tools and equipment. That will cost you money and you will continually have to pay money to fuel, repair and maintain that van - all of which will detract from your bottom line. So I guess you would recommend getting rid of the van to improve profitability?
I can never get over the width of the sites and the amount of earth moving going on given that a double track railway is pretty narrow. It's almost like the contractors are doing unnecessary work to rip off the taxpayer. But that would never happen lol. It's environmental vandalism.
Exactly. It seems all about making as much work as possible for as long as possible, and milky this gravy train - no pun intended!
I thought space alongside HS2 is being left for an Aylesbury to Calvert link for East-West Rail - effectively making this a 4 track space. To add - also sidings for rail access to the waste disposal site - so taking some lorries off the road . So calling it vandalism is wide of the mark .
@@user-ff1um6mv5q HS2 Ltd are unlikely to release the land for that, hence the Aylesbury Varsity Line link has been kicked into the long grass, despite being massively more useful than HS2.
@@user-ff1um6mv5q I meant the space along the entire 100 miles, not a specific area
@@theboy-uk Boy, you know full well why there is so much ancillary work attached to HS2 and why this is being done to please the environmental lobby. Why don't you refer Garth to the HS2 plans that I have given you links to? Seems you prefer people to be ignorant.
Project HS2 is flop ( when it started back in 2012 completion projected year was 2026!)
Where’s the AUDIT!?
Which all companies are involved??? What’s their initial bid??? What’s the current scope and how much amount they have raised from banks?? Or paying from their capital!!???
The money side is easy. Every time they need money, they get it off the hard working taxpayer.
The Contractors don't submit a bid because the scope of works is unknown. When things become known they submit a price for those things.
@@TrevorWilliams-fq8mg No contract should be granted without a semi-defined cost, and clauses for unknowns. This was just open ended, using the taxpayer's wallet.
@theboy-uk generally I agree and contracts are not let like that. But if the works cannot be defined there is no other way of delivering the project. It's like you asking me to give you a price for building a building when you don't know what you want.
@@TrevorWilliams-fq8mg All contracts I've been involved in - which aren't this sort of construction - a fairly tight requirements document is agreed by both parties, with clauses for changes. Also, penalties for late delivery. Strikes me that this one is an open ended open wallet approach, and everyone looks surprised when the initial proposal had it at around £23-26bn (depending what page you looked on) for all of Phase 1 and Phases 2a/2b. And then utter surprise when that was all blown before a spade had hit the ground.
See vid by HS2 SKY View Warwickshie 8th July 24 for alternative comments. My critical comments got somewhat crushed.Well we are all entitled to our views but when a civil engineer ain't too impressed really that,in my opinion, says it all.
Yeah, but the whitewashed Pro HS2 brigade are very passionate and fail to see any common sense ;)
Nothing but a monstrous blot on the landscape & a complete & utter waste of billions of pounds.
Remember, that's billions of *OUR* pounds poured into this, and that's before you consider how much taxpayer subsidy HS2 needs once opened. A colossal waste of money when the existing 2 lines between London and Birmingham have excessive capacity aside from London bound morning peak, and have the capability of only being a few minutes slower than HS2.
@@theboy-uk As I have asked so many times, please give your sources for these claims - and something that we can check.
Have you not worked out that Crimsonanti is a bot by now?