HS2 Construction Progress - Southam, August 2023
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- Опубліковано 15 вер 2024
- Construction progress on always controversial HS2 project on the section around the side of Southam.
This shows what has been achieved since our last visit 7 months ago - • HS2 Construction Progr... - which show that progress remains slow. Though with the Euston end being pushed out to some time in the 2040s, no rush...
Footage taken from a DJI Mavic 3, audio from UA-cam Audio Library.
I never cease to be amazed by the level of environmental destruction that HS2 is causing to our countryside all so a few, and I mean very few, business types can save 15 minutes on their journey. Which they will lose twice over at either end anyway - Old Oak Common is something like 20 minutes from Euston and it is around 10 - 15 minutes between New St and Curzon St in Birmingham. Britain's biggest and most expensive white elephant.
It's staggering this every got off the planning board, as the business proposal was so incredibly weak, and as you say, usable by only a handful of people a day (ironically, I am one of those few), and not even 1% of the required 576,000 needed a day in order to "only" need 50-60% taxpayer subsidy per fare.
But it was deemed we had to have a high speed line at any cost, and matters not if it actually remotely made any sense. Big white elephant indeed.
Always good to document progress, in years to come these will be historic records.... good flight
That was the intention :), thanks.
Neverending construction calm and peaceful 😌
And once again, a whole load of nothing being done!
@@theboy-uk I would like to work this way.
@@robodrone5662 Get in the queue, I'm first :)
@@theboy-uk Perfect, I am behind you 😁
Thanks again for a great video - very enjoyable being able to monitor the progress like this.
The video of the section around Chipping Warden should be published in a few days, so keep an eye out :)
Awesome to see. It's great to see things like the tunnelling under woodlands - yes it makes it a lot more expensive than it might have been but preserving the forest (as well as adding new woodland planing elsewhere in the commitment to having an overall positive net biodiversity change) I think is worth the cost - not even mentioning the investment in jobs etc.. A big, polluting motorway project would have probably just plowed straight through that forest and the corridor would have been far wider in the end! I bet the fact that some grass and other vegetation is starting to grow over the earthworks will be confusing some detractors too - they seemed to think that moving some earth and temporarily scraping off the grass meant the earth was forever salted and destroyed and all life would never return!
There was a major discussion on a previous video about whether or not a motorway would have done more or less damage. Personally, overall, I think less. But great to see HS2 doing some tunnelling, sad to see so much other woodland destroyed, and will take centuries to recover.
For the record, I don't think another London/Birmingham motorway is required, and would not back such a scheme. Mind you, I don't think another London/Birmingham railway is required either!
A motorway would probably have avoided that forest in the first place (for example, the M40 took a sharper bend with more acute superelevation in the late 1980's to avoid Shabbington Woods). Motorways do not have the alignment specifications that 200mph+ railways have. This particular railway has a 225mph line speed specification - more than 3x the speed of motorways which is why the new line is so straight and flat. In any case, I'd love to try out HS2 if I'm around long enough - imagine traveling at 200mph+!
Can’t understand why they don’t employ more people to get it done quicker. I’ll never be able to travel on it because I will be long but will have contributed to the cost through my taxes
@@michelle47 From HS2's perspective, no need to rush, when the taxpayer is footing 100% of the build costs, no matter what they may rise to. #Job for life
What won't "ever return" are the hundreds of local nature reserves, ancient woodlands, sites of scientific interest, wood pastures, old mires & wetlands that have been destroyed by this monstrous vanity project.
Are you aware that HS2 Ltd have already incurred numerous fines for multiple breaches of environmental issues?
Thousands of trees planted along the route in Warwickshire where the vast majority perished due to lack of aftercare.
The pollution of streams, rivers & other waterways.
The bulldozing of mile upon mile of hedgerows containing nesting birds when they specifically said they'd wait until the nesting season was over.
HS2 is an environmental disaster of epic proportions & Britain's biggest infrastructure mistake in half a century.
Thankfully, the Eastern leg & the Golborne link have already been scrapped & it's almost certain that the Birmingham to Manchester line & Euston station will suffer the same fate .. happy days 😀
Great tunes!
Straight from UA-cam's Audio Library :)
I have watched every one of your HS2 videos and I've never seen one single person working.
Which might help explain the current estimated completion date of the London to Birmingham section of 2042....
One things for sure they should have started construction in the North then it would definitely been completed reaching… oh yes London!!
I think had they had done the cheaper Phase 2a Western leg first, there would have been more chance of it going beyond just yet another London to Birmingham commuter line, of which the existing 2 lines have *PLENTY* of spare passenger capacity outside of London bound morning peak.
Well you did a good job on showing us the progress of the construction I don’t know how long has been this construction is going on but hopefully it will finish soon. BTW new friend here I also did the right thing I played more than 7 minutes ( all the video) before I hit the black word that starts with letter “S”, in that way it works and nobody takes our score away. 🙏 😊 see you in my list.
I believe this railway is due to open Phase 1 in 2042, on current estimates! Just having a quick nose over on yours :)
@@theboy-uk Phase 1 Old Oak Common and Birmingham should be open by 2030, through I have heard a rumour that they might land in a year ahead of that schedule as the work is going so well, some are saying 2028 might even be a possibility.
Old Oak Commons to Euston tunnels will be completed around 2030, as the boring machines and tunnel concrete factories have already been built. But the station itself won't be finish until 2035, once the tunnels begin the pressure to get Euston design signed off and construction started and completed is going be huge.
The Birmingham to Crewe component won't be completed until 2034.
The Crewe to Manchester probably won't be completed until 2040s.
@@DavidKnowles0 Phase 1 is Curzon St to Euston. Current estimates are putting this around 2042. Oak Common is of no use to a Central London to Central Birmingham line. Phase 2a is, rightly, in jeopardy.
Great video. Thanks! Any plans to go up a bit further to Cubbington/Stoneleigh area.?
Thanks! No plans to go any further North than Southam or further South than Aylesbury, I believe other people are adequately covering those other areas.
This isn’t just about Train tracks. High pressure fuel lines are involved, wiring and water. Safety stations/shut off zones. The old network has to be/must be and will be changed/upgraded (rerouted) as needed. The old plans/blueprints… well, every enemy to the UK probably has them?
Not sure what you are trying to convey....
What a disgraceful ransacking of beautiful Warwickshire countryside, and for what?. A train that 90% of people don't want and will never use. Homes and businesses lost and some left suicidal . And of course disruption galore, and not for a few months......years and years!.
Well, at least some common sense is being used, and Phase 2 completely cancelled. Phase 1 I suspect is too far gone, so we will have to continue ploughing all the money in, upsetting local communities with the ridiculous levels of disruption that HS2 manage to cause, and for a railway that will be closed within a decade of it opening in 2042...
Shocking destruction of the English countryside, concreting our heritage for saving 18 mins on a ride from nowhere to nowhere. £100Bn cost too.
It's clear HS2 have crowdsourced the comments here too with praise.
Despicable waste of taxpayer's £.
I don't think, compared to the times from 15 years ago, its anywhere near as much as 18 minutes. I fully believe, despite the huge amount of money already spent on it, we should cut our loses and can the whole project.
In one of my next lives I might get to ride on that. 2nd or 3rd life that is.
I can just imagine the latest bill to the govt.
Progress so far.............letting the ground dry out.
Cost of said work........£150million.
That's the way its going, currently!
Thanks again for another great video.
From this and other videos the construction companies seem to be very good at building small ponds but not very good at building bridges, laying track beds and actual track!!!!!!
LOL, how true is that!
At the moment they are concentrating on building 103km of tunnels, because of the lead time on the equipment, tool and factories to do this. An the viaducts for the same reason.
You got to remember the government artificially slowing down construction by limiting the amount of money it spending on the project per year, rough about 2bn a year.
A lot of progress has been achieve,
long Itchington Wood Tunnel
Colne Valley Viaduct it now halfway completed. They are over the halfway mark on the Chiltern tunnels, which is 10km.
An bridge have been put in place over mainline railway in the West Midlands
Numerous other new bridges has already been put in place.
The viaduct and tunnel are on cause to be completed by March 2024,
@@DavidKnowles0 The government have had no choice but to limit funds, due to the official under estimation of costs by the entity that is HS2. Even at the roadshows, they said they had no idea what the costs would be for Phase 1 (and admitted that no government would ever be daft enough to approve Phase 2), so plucked a figure out the air that made it looked viable, knowing it was unachievable. It was in their interest it went ahead at any costs, as they were all getting cushy jobs in HS2 Ltd. Corruption.
Some of my relatives live near Southam, and there is widespread resentment that they have had to endure years of disruption & blight from the construction work and will see zero benefit as a result.
Understandable. Very, very few people can benefit from this big white elephant, and nowhere near enough people - 576,000 a day - in order to "only" need £600 a year per taxpayer to subsidise it...
Not every project has to directly benefit all people. There's give and take in every infrastructure project.
@@inbb510 I tend to agree, except that there are so few people who can use this. I am one of the few who can, and even I think its daft to built this just for me and a handful of others....
@@theboy-uk , we don't even know how much the ticket prices are going to be so I don't think anyone can credibly state how much said HS2 ticket is going to cost.
We can't talk about reducing ticket costs when the said infrastructure hasn't been built yet.
Like roads, building more rails produces induced demand and tourists from abroad would also be likely use the HS2 as a means to get up to the North of the country.
In the age of the climate crisis and capacity on our old wiggly Victorian railway lines known to be a problem the HS2 is the only realistic solutions to this.
Also £600 a year subsidy is like nothing compared to how much our European counterparts pay in taxes to subside their 'cheap' public transport infrastructures. Weren't we all for subsidising our public transport services??
@@inbb510 HS2 stated that they need to carry 576,000 passengers a day, sold at full fare prices, to "only" need 50-60% subsidy on each fare, on Phase 1. Prepandemic, Avanti and Chiltern combined were carrying about 120,000 passengers a day across their whole network, not just on the Birmingham/London section. As somebody who regularly uses this route, there are absolutely no passenger capacity issues between London and Birmingham outside of London bound morning peak. Anyone trying to tell you different has an agenda beyond telling the facts. There simply isn't the demand for this new money pit, beyond a feeling that we need a fast line, because it's trendy. Simply building it in the hope it might drum up demand is beyond crazy. Ultimately, it's a few minutes faster than the existing routes that have been slowed by Network Rail to make HS2 look more viable.
HS2 will not be green, it has never declared to be green, and every review says it's not green, and overall detrimental to the environment. By the time it opens, currently predicted in another 19 years for Phase 1, petrol and diesel cars would not have been sold for a dozen or so years, further swaying the green debate away from the old Victorian system.
I'm certainly not against railways, I use them frequently, and support EWR, despite some moronic decisions made (like not electrifying it). I'm just against unneeded, expensive, ill considered projects that won't last because it's too expensive to run. What a waste of money and environment.