HS2

[youngster]

By the time that HS2 is built, I would imagine that most meetings of that kind will be conducted by whatever fantastic form of video link will have been devised by then. Thus saving a huge amount of time and stress compared to traveling, and at a cost of close to zero. If so, the volume of business travel may well decline, in contrast to the doubling of volume assumed in the HS2 business case (which apparently also assumed that the fare charged for HS2 travel would be double the current fare).

Even if there is a case for greater capacity, it doesn't need to be at 250mph. The government has now accepted that the economic benefits of the 250mph element will be minimal, hence their switch to justifying HS2 only in terms of capacity. However the choice of route has not been revised, even though the route is governed by the need for dead straight track for 250mph trains. A different route and 125mph trains would cost a lot less, cause less environmental damage, cause less pollution and deliver the same capacity increase.

[Psamathe]

... The government has now accepted that the economic benefits of the 250mph element will be minimal, hence their switch to justifying HS2 only in terms of capacity. ...

I think that in practice the only people who will be able to afford to use the service with any regularity will be the very wealthy commuters (commuting into their banks in London). And for them the time saving of 250 is significant. Government changed its justification from time saving to capacity when it became apparent that the time saving argument was antagonising a lot of the public (who could never afford to use it anyway). So it became a matter of finding reasons (any reasons) to justify building it (as politicians like their vanity/legacy projects).

Ian

[CJ]

Once upon a time when the channel tunnel was first built, I still used to fly to Brussels for meetings because I live only half an hour's drive from Heathrow (provided I set off early enough in the morning), and it was still more convenient to fly. But once HS1 was built, it became better to go via rail, even though it takes me longer to get to St Pancras than to Heathrow (I can take public transport direct to St Pancras, though I can do it more quickly with a change, and of course there is also my 12 min bicycle ride to the station). My usual destination in Brussels involves two legs by public transport and a 5 min walk whether I arrive at the railway station or the airport.

That works fine for the admittedly large number of people who live near London and have meetings in or near Paris, Lille and Brussels. They can now get there and back in one day without flying.

And if your meeting is much further away, as some of mine have been, in Berlin and Munich, one can catch a Eurostar the previous evening to Paris and sleep your way there on a City-Night-Line train - and back again, saving time (since you can't do anything else with sleeping time) and the cost of a hotel.

When there was an overnight ferry from Harwich to Hook I used to do something similar for meetings in the Netherlands. I went directly from a day at the office to a night on the ship, which docked at 7am so no problem to be at the meeting by 10. Another night on the ship and back to the office by the afternoon of day three - with a few hours of very pleasant Dutch cyclepath cycling fitted in. This worked fine until the slow overnight ship was replaced by a much faster day ferry. But not fast enough. There's no kind of ferry can get you to Holland for a 10am to 4pm meeting in Delft, in-between two nights in your own bed (even if that bed's in Harwich I guess) so that necessitated at least one and more likely two nights in a Dutch hotel and turned 1½ working days into a 3-day trip! So then I flew. (I hear the night ferry is back, but I no longer go to meetings in Delft.)

Maybe I'm unusual in that I can sleep on a moving train or ship, but I wish I could catch a night train from London through the tunnel and wake up next morning in Amsterdam, Franfurt, Turin, Toulouse - any of those destinations further than Paris but not as far as Berlin: too far to go there and back in a long day by fast train and not far enough for City-Night-Line from Paris. If there were such overnight trains from and to London, they'd also serve other British cities as far away as Manchester and Bristol very well.

At present, the only way to for me to attend an all day meeting in, say, Frankfurt, is to fly and spend at least one night in a hotel. Likewise anyone on the continent to a meeting in Manchester. All the existing high-speed continental trains have not changed that and neither will HS2. Overnight trains through the tunnel could.

[Psamathe]

For me, one of the major issues with trains is that they are great if they happen to go where you want to go. So HS2 will be absolutely no use if you want to go to Bristol, Norwich, Newcastle, Exeter, Brighton, Hull, Southampton etc., etc., etc. In fact the list of places it will be useful for is very very very short.

So vast amounts of limited capital serving very few routes. And just think what a difference just one tenth of the expenditure could make to e.g. local cycle infrastructure (and the powered miles that would save the country, health benefits, etc.). Or the far more widespread benefits for high speed broadband roll-out (with e.g. videoconferencing meaning more meetings would not require travel by anything). Or many other cheaper projects allowing the benefits from the expenditure to be more widespread; both from the building phase and infrastructure perspectives.

And if going to business meetings, a 45 min taxi ride on top of your train ticket gets expensive, adds delays, etc. to the point where it is easier to drive yourself (more so if several of you attending).

Ian

[Mick F]

I remember when the Chunnel was being built that people were saying that the trip across will be too fast. Someone could have driven down from up country, put their car on Eurostar and driven away in France without much of a break. At least on the car ferry, you'd have a few hours nap and/or a sit-down meal whilst crossing the channel.

Yes, a sleeper train from up country, through the Chunnel, then wake up on the continent at breakfast time would be a good idea ............ and it doesn't need HS1 or HS2 to do it.

[Steady rider]

York - London – about 2 hours by rail
Edinburgh to London 5 hrs
Edinburgh to Paris 7.5 hr
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Speed_1

I am not sure that rail would be cheaper than flying, eg return flight to Australia, say £1000, 24000 miles, 24 miles per £1. Edinburgh to Paris, say 650 miles, 1300 return, at 24 miles per £1, 1300 = £54, high speed rail may not be cost effective and add in the extra time. Take out all tax and flying may be cheaper. The comparison may have weaknesses but it raises doubts if rail can compete for long distance travel with flying. All the companies building HS2 may make large profits with the public footing the bill in the end.

[TonyR]

By the time that HS2 is built, I would imagine that most meetings of that kind will be conducted by whatever fantastic form of video link will have been devised by then.

I've been hearing about the demise of travel to meetings because of the rise of video-conferencing for at least forty years now. Still waiting for it to happen.

[TonyR]

York - London – about 2 hours by rail
Edinburgh to London 5 hrs
Edinburgh to Paris 7.5 hr
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Speed_1

I am not sure that rail would be cheaper than flying, eg return flight to Australia, say £1000, 24000 miles, 24 miles per £1. Edinburgh to Paris, say 650 miles, 1300 return, at 24 miles per £1, 1300 = £54, high speed rail may not be cost effective and add in the extra time. Take out all tax and flying may be cheaper. The comparison may have weaknesses but it raises doubts if rail can compete for long distance travel with flying. All the companies building HS2 may make large profits with the public footing the bill in the end.

London to Manchester is about the same flying as by rail. The flight shorter but by the time you've factored in travel to and from the airport and check in time compared to walk up walk on city centre to city centre its about evens.

[Steady rider]

save on train fares

https://bluejeans.com/trial/group-video ... tAod3XoAwA

http://www.vijugroup.com/video-conferen ... tAodeF8ASw

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Videoconferencing

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=video ... 03&bih=701

you need the proper equipment that others will I assume know all about.

[Psamathe]

By the time that HS2 is built, I would imagine that most meetings of that kind will be conducted by whatever fantastic form of video link will have been devised by then.

I've been hearing about the demise of travel to meetings because of the rise of video-conferencing for at least forty years now. Still waiting for it to happen.

I suspect it will happen gradually as the current "youngsters" who have had the internet available from a young age and spend their evenings chatting with their mates over the internet. They are often as comfortable using computer based links as being face to face. For many who never had the internet available whilst young, often face-to-face is easier. I remember quite a few customer meetings where the customer required face-to-face meetings particularly during the pre-sales phase of a contract.

Ian

[PaulB]

Whenever I hear politicians talking about HS2 they all highlight how quickly people from Birmingham and maybe, eventually, Manchester could get to London. It appears to me that HS2 will just make the London commute spread a bit further up the country with the knock on affect on house prices etc.

As someone who lives about 120 miles north of Manchester I cannot see how HS2 would benefit this area. All that will happen is that more people and investment will be sucked into the M25 world. This country is so obsessed with London and the "Home Counties" that other areas (not just us 'up-north') are left to pick up whatever crumbs are left. I like London and always enjoy spending a few days there but HS2 will do nothing for those of us who live miles away from it.

We need good rail links across the country between the likes of Liverpool,Sheffield, Leeds, Derby ect. Very often you need to change trains several times and then hang about for ages waiting for your connections. I've just come back from two weeks in Switzerland. Now, they know how to run a railway! Everything on time and interlinked. The trains from Zurich (and other stations) always leave from the same platforms. If you need to get to Bern you know it's platform 4, to Geneva it's platform 5 - every day. Whenever I've been to London the Carlisle train (usually heading up to Glasgow) has never departed from the same platform twice! The Swiss use the 'clock system' where trains arrive at a main staion around the same time. This allows passengers to transfer to their connections, without waiting, before all the trains leave. It just works!

Clean trains, run on time with enough seats would be a start!

[youngster]

By the time that HS2 is built, I would imagine that most meetings of that kind will be conducted by whatever fantastic form of video link will have been devised by then.

I've been hearing about the demise of travel to meetings because of the rise of video-conferencing for at least forty years now. Still waiting for it to happen.

If you've been hearing about it for forty years, you may be of an age such that you're not all that likely to be making business trips in fifteen years time and in the decades thereafter, so your preference for traveling may not be relevant! Things have moved on quite a bit already, and video link technology in fifteen years time will undoubtedly make what we have now look extremely primitive.

In any case,nobody is talking about the demise of business travel. The issue is whether it will double in volume (as they have to assume in order to make a business case for HS2) at a time when technological connectivity will have made it unnecessary to travel to conduct many of the meetings for which travel has been necessary in the past.

[Rittmeister]

Once upon a time when the channel tunnel was first built, I still used to fly to Brussels for meetings because I live only half an hour's drive from Heathrow (provided I set off early enough in the morning), and it was still more convenient to fly. But once HS1 was built, it became better to go via rail, even though it takes me longer to get to St Pancras than to Heathrow (I can take public transport direct to St Pancras, though I can do it more quickly with a change, and of course there is also my 12 min bicycle ride to the station). My usual destination in Brussels involves two legs by public transport and a 5 min walk whether I arrive at the railway station or the airport.

That works fine for the admittedly large number of people who live near London and have meetings in or near Paris, Lille and Brussels. They can now get there and back in one day without flying.

And if your meeting is much further away, as some of mine have been, in Berlin and Munich, one can catch a Eurostar the previous evening to Paris and sleep your way there on a City-Night-Line train - and back again, saving time (since you can't do anything else with sleeping time) and the cost of a hotel.

When there was an overnight ferry from Harwich to Hook I used to do something similar for meetings in the Netherlands. I went directly from a day at the office to a night on the ship, which docked at 7am so no problem to be at the meeting by 10. Another night on the ship and back to the office by the afternoon of day three - with a few hours of very pleasant Dutch cyclepath cycling fitted in. This worked fine until the slow overnight ship was replaced by a much faster day ferry. But not fast enough. There's no kind of ferry can get you to Holland for a 10am to 4pm meeting in Delft, in-between two nights in your own bed (even if that bed's in Harwich I guess) so that necessitated at least one and more likely two nights in a Dutch hotel and turned 1½ working days into a 3-day trip! So then I flew. (I hear the night ferry is back, but I no longer go to meetings in Delft.)

Maybe I'm unusual in that I can sleep on a moving train or ship, but I wish I could catch a night train from London through the tunnel and wake up next morning in Amsterdam, Franfurt, Turin, Toulouse - any of those destinations further than Paris but not as far as Berlin: too far to go there and back in a long day by fast train and not far enough for City-Night-Line from Paris. If there were such overnight trains from and to London, they'd also serve other British cities as far away as Manchester and Bristol very well.

At present, the only way to for me to attend an all day meeting in, say, Frankfurt, is to fly and spend at least one night in a hotel. Likewise anyone on the continent to a meeting in Manchester. All the existing high-speed continental trains have not changed that and neither will HS2. Overnight trains through the tunnel could.

I completely agree with you. Night trains seem to be the missing link here. The extensive network of night trains is staggering in mainland Europe e.g. Hamburg to Chur. I have always wondered why the tunnel does not have a night train option especially for places like Frankfurt, Geneva or Bordeaux etc. If I were D Bahn, I would be rethinking their plans to offer high speed routes and maybe shift some rolling stock to the Channel Tunnel as a trial.

There is also the long forgotten fact that Stagecoach actually used to run night trains to Scotland from London. They were one of the first privatised services.

The number of nightbus options is staggering and ironically SNCF operate a coach service to London. It shows that people don't mind travelling 8 to 12 hours to get to places in Europe if the price is right!

[Psamathe]

Night trains seem to be the missing link here. The extensive network of night trains is staggering in mainland Europe e.g. Hamburg to Chur. I have always wondered why the tunnel does not have a night train option especially for places like Frankfurt, Geneva or Bordeaux etc.

I remember between school and university doing an Interail ticket round Europe (the one where you get a pass and can use pretty much any train for free within Europe). We used to always use overnight trains to get places as that way we did not have to pay for somewhere to sleep - use the train. Meant we were often making far bigger "jumps" than many would consider "sensible", but it meant we could catch a train late evening and get off the same train early morning having paid nothing for somewhere to sleep and having got somewhere else without wasting any time.

I remember when younger taking the overnight train London to Scotland for a walking holiday. It was excellent - do a full days work, turn up at train station and arrive early am refreshed and ready for holiday - no wasted days.

Ian

[Edwards]

So when all the commuters and rich business types have done with this thing as they no longer need to go to London, what then?

It has clearly been stated that HS2 will slow down the trains on the West Coast Main Line as there will no longer be a need for fast trains south of Birmingham.
It does not connect to anything useful and requires a time consuming walk to get to the stations.

Europe has different needs from their fast trains because of the distances so comparing there to here does not work properly. Time saved from London north on this line is soon lost in the transfers.

But if the journey time is slightly longer then there can be a proper connected useful rail line giving real extra capacity.

Personally as somebody who is unable to use trains I would rather my share was spent on improving this city for cycling.