HS2 Construction Progress Thorpe Mandeville to Chipping Warden, January 2024
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- Опубліковано 8 вер 2024
- Construction progress along the route of the ever controversial, ever pointless, expensive HS2 between Thorpe Mandeville and Chipping Warden, taken in January 2024 from a DJI Mavic 3.
Previous video of this part of the route in August 2023 - • HS2 Construction Progr... - confirms minimal progress in the last 6 months.
With all the sections north of Birmingham now officially, rightly, cancelled, Phase 1 looks even more pointless, given the tiny number of passengers travelling between central Birmingham and central London. I suspect a rethink will happen, and they will add more stations along the route, to make it yet another London Commuter route, as it can't survive as per the original proposal. Or, if common sense wins, cancel the project entirely.
Even though you think the project a folly, of all the HS2 videos being posted yours are among the best. The flight is smooth and steady (no abrupt changes of course, or illogically covering the same ground repeatedly), not too slow as to be boring, has text to identify locations, and a thoughtfully selected sound track.
Thanks for your feedback. My intention is to have a factual record of the construction, simply showing how it is at each stage. Hence there are no voiceovers or comments on the video itself to detract from that aim - though they get plenty of comments, positive and negative, in the UA-cam comments system! Which is fine (and the correct thing to do, IMHO(.
Glad you enjoy the series. They take a while to film and even longer to edit (and I'm a bit behind - this one was filmed in January!!), so always good to hear that people think its worthwhile.
A great video, a very long flight. Thanks again for doing this. It’s fascinating to be able to monitor progress like this.
Thanks, each of these are done as a series of flights, and then edited together to make what you see, which is why it takes a long time. The intention is to have a record of the construction over the years.
I have just put the finishing touches to a video covering Newton Purcell all the way to Southam - none of the footage is new, but just stitched together all the bits I've previously posted, so keep an eye out for that one in a couple of weeks, grab a brew and biscuit, and enjoy :)
Another fascinating video Boy. This is the same stretch you photographed last January isn't it? Would be interesting to compare the two. Changes to earthworks aren't always that easy to notice but you can see work proceeding on the structures and I believe the landscaping is progressing.
Indeed it is same section, I try to do these sections every 6 months - I foolishly started doing them monthly, but that really was a hard game of spot the difference!
Looks like some fascinating progress, I do hope labour completes the project as designed. I want more reliable, more comfortable journeys to see my family in the north.🎉
Nobody, even politicians, are stupid enough to built Phase 2a (or 2b, or 3), as it absolutely doesn't make any financial sense. Even during the Phase 1 meetings, HS2 staff were openly saying no government would be stupid enough to approve Phase 2... ...so it was right the government canned it.
@@theboy-uk If you watch the Green Signals podcast about Phase 2a (as I have recommended to you several times), the absolute folly of deleting Phase 2a becomes obvious. Sounds like this meeting you went to was Stop HS2.
@@theboy-ukdoesn’t HS2 only work if it reaches Manchester? I thought the whole point was to increase capacity along the west coast mainlike, from London to Manchester and reduce travel time? Without phase 2, phase 1 is not that useful
@@petitkruger2175 The original purpose of HS2 was to provide additional capacity on the West Coast, Midland and East Coast Main Lines by removing capacity hungry high speed trains onto a dedicated route. The full route would connect London to Birmingham, Leeds and Manchester with HS2 trains going on to Liverpool, Sheffield, Newcastle, Glasgow and Edinburgh.
With the cutbacks, the only directly connected city will be Birmingham. Services from Liverpool, Manchester, Glasgow and Edinburgh will be no more than at present (due to capacity restraints between Birmingham and Crewe and local restraints on the approaches to Manchester). Journey times will not be dramatically affected (except between London and Birmingham) as HS2 trains will be slower than tilting trains on the conventional railway.
There is no way that London to Birmingham will be economically viable by itself (except perhaps by allowing upgraded Pendolinos on the new route, as proposed by Chris Gibb).
Whilst building the full route is the best solution, at the very least we need Phase 2a (Birmingham to Crewe) as that by-passes some important congested areas and frees up track capacity for freight on the existing West Coast Main Line.
@@martinsloman6905 I have seen it. Its obviously very bias.
For your info, though I think I've said to you before, I went into the first HS2 roadshow very pro HS2, and scoffing at the Stop HS2 mob with their little setup outside. It very quickly became apparent that HS2 was not about providing a better service (it doesn't really), but about being a must have vanity project for the UK rail industry, paid for by hard working taxpayers. And the people staffing it proudly saying if they got Phase 1 signed off, they would all get nice, cushy, senior roles in what would become HS2 Ltd.
I was shellshocked by it.
So you can bet I went to subsequent events very well prepared.
Good to see waterproofing membrane going on to the green tunnel near the end of the video, I'm really excited to see them start to be covered over and the regeneration start to take place! So please keep documenting it! 50 years ago or earlier, it would have just been a cutting, nature be damned. That would have still been miles better than a motorway (much more narrow finished corridor and electric propulsion instead of fossil fuel) but this will be so much better! This new method is expensive but I'm excited to see it completed!
I would mostly agree if HS2 did something new, but it doesn't. There are already 2 existing London to Birmingham lines with plenty of capacity and capable of being only a few minutes slower.
Remember, by the time Phase 1 fully opens - assuming it will, as the very expensive stretch from Wormwood Scrubs to Euston hasn't got full funding yet - all new cars will also be electric... ...not withstanding that the majority of electricity used in the UK comes from non renewable sources, mostly gas. Not that I'm advocating a new London to Birmingham motorway should be built - like the railways, the existing 2 have enough capacity!
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What a lovely calm area. No rush no work. Well done.
A whole load of nothing going on, LOL
@@theboy-uk I still think it is a perfect construction.
@@robodrone5662 Yeah, we both need a job constructing HS2!
@@theboy-uk My dreams would come true.
Interesting that, if you look at WTF droning's recent video, which covers part of this area, you see loads of activity.
Most aerial views on You Tube seem to icture the sites as "idle" wasteland - do they actually do any work.
In the 4.5 years I've been capturing footage of construction in these parts, its very rare to see them working. But when milking the magic money tree (taxpayer), not need to rush....
@@theboy-uk They can only work when there money. The government artificially slow down construction by limiting the yearly expenditure on the project.
@@DavidKnowles0 With publicly funded projects, it's clear how much money will be allocated each period. If HS2 have made a mess of that, that's their fault. And as you can see from this series of videos, they often end up having to do stuff twice due to inactivity. This is NOT the Governments fault - other than they stupidly approved this vanity project - it is 100% in the hands of the incompetent HS2 mob.
It's just a coincidence based on when the videos happen to be taken. Do you imagine that the progress that is happening on all these tunnels, bridges and earthworks is just occurring by magic?
@@stephengentle2815 The videos are taken across all days of the week, though more usually in the mornings (the sun is the right way). Construction progress is glacially slow. In the time it has taken to move some soil about and half build some cut and cover tunnels on this section, the entire M40 extension had been constructed and opened. Just saying, seeing as I know you love a motorway 👍
Another good one, it's amazing in some parts of these videos you can actually see a little bit of progress, in others it's just a load of churned up countryside. Maybe they should have concentrated on short stretches and moved on.
No need to rush when the good ol' taxpayer can bail them out :)
If you go on the gov.uk website, you can find large scale plans of each section of route, which you can easily match to Boy's video as he takes the trouble to label various features. Part of the reason we are seeing this large scar on the landscape is down to temporary works such as construction compounds, site offices, car parks and access roads. Part is down to the permanent works - the actual railway and ancillary features such as electrical sub-stations, transformers and balancing ponds but the vast majority is because of mitigation works that includes habitats, grasslands, woodland etc.
The irony is that, until they get established, all you see in a drone video is acres of churned up soil but, in fact, HS2 is by far the greenest major infrastructure project we have ever constructed.
The actual railway (between lineside fences) is about the same width as a dual two lane motorway and you can see that where the 'green tunnel' is being constructed.
If you look at the HS2 'Embankments and Cuttings' video you can see the lengths that the railway has to go to prevent people having to see an express train. Not only is a huge length of the route put in cutting (far above that required by the engineering) but they are even constructing embankments with cuttings within them.
The most impressive visible feature of Phase One is the Colne Valley Viaduct which stretches for two miles through an area of lakes and woodland and which is now nearing completion. Even in the construction phase you can see the minimal impact of a modern high speed railway on the environment.
@@martinsloman6905 Thanks for the info. However, I think most people agree that this is having a multi generation impact of the habitats and environment - 400 year old woodland takes, well, 400 years to grow again. Plus the HS2 contractors have multiple times been fined for working outside what they were legally allowed. Ironically, it appears that those fines simply get passed back to HS2 Ltd, who then pay them from the public purse, hence little more than lip service is giving to stop the repeats.
The UK rail industry has a long history of turning spare land to wasteland, fingers crossed it doesn't happen here, but I won't hold my breath. To keep these habitats and woodland managed probably means HS2 will keep milking the taxpayer for that, along with the 50-60% subsidies (if they hit their unachievable 576,000 passengers a day) until such time as the inevitable happens.
And all this money and destruction gives us what, precisely? Yeah, just another London to Brum train line that just isn't needed.
@@theboy-uk You seem to be making the assumption that HS2 is destroying a large amount of ancient woodland. In fact, were the full 345 mile two phase route to be built (as it should be), it would destroy 58 hectares of this woodland, which amounts to 0.018% of the UK total. A useful comparison is with the 14.4 mile proposed Lower Thames Crossing, which is understood to destroy 57 hectares.
In fact, you can't replace ancient woodland as it is defined as woodland in existence before 1600, which is assumed not to have been planted. However, measures such as transplanting soil from ancient woodland plus the planting of far greater areas of new trees are being adopted. In addition, a mile long tunnel has already been constructed at Long Itchington for the purpose of saving an ancient woodland - something that would not even have been considered during the motorway building era.
I'm not sure what you are referring to with respect to railways converting spare land to wasteland. Certainly, the cutbacks during the mid 20c resulted in large areas of operational land becoming redundant but this is hardly the same thing as creating areas of effective rewilding which have never been railway operational land and are outside the railway fenceline. In that respect they are no different from other areas of rewilding that have been created in recent years with the same maintenance requirements and, as rewilding is good for biodiversity, why is it so objectionable that it is done at taxpayer's expense? Remember that it is the government that has required HS2 to carry out this work. Perhaps the government should have vast acres of rewilding retro-fitted to the motorway network that the motorist can pay for through toll charges.
I am not commenting on any of these subsidy figures you are quoting or this 576,000 passenger figure unless you notify us of the source - as I asked last time. Remember that no advocate of HS2 has ever stated that the Phase 1 route (Euston / Old Oak Common to Birmingham / Lichfield) is viable by itself (although Chris Gibb has some interesting proposals to maximise capacity and reduce jouney times).
@@martinsloman6905 It *IS* destroying sections of ancient woodland, both legally and "less legally". Its also destroying old, established woodland that is not classed as ancient, but will still take centuries to recover. Why did they need so much land?
As for the rewilding thing, it goes back to the excessive land grab. So not only has the taxpayer had to pay for the land to be taken away from crop and livestock farming, the taxpayer has to now stump the cost to maintain this land. Oh, and the taxpayer has also had to stump all the legal battles from landowners who didn't get paid promptly after having their land stolen, and in some cases still haven't. All this for a project that simply isn't needed - there are no capacity issues outside of morning peak London bound, and anybody who tries to tell you otherwise doesn't use the service regularly or has an agenda.
The 576,000 a day for Phase 1 is HS2's figures. Their business plan to only need "standard" subsidy levels of 50-60% per *FULL PRICE* fare was to run 20 trains per hour, 24x7, 1200 passengers per train.
Also, HS2 was only ever about phase 1. HS2 themselves openly admitted no government would be stupid enough to approve later phases - this was in response to a question when asked if it would be better to start on the Northern sections first, and they were insistent on Phase 1 because they absolutely must have another London centric new line. Or, as anybody there would say, a vanity project.
A horrendous blot on the landscape & within a decade of this monstrous vanity project opening, will be nothing more than a glorified cycle path.
I agree. Although if your suggestion is correct, then some good would come of it, LOL. It could rebrand as the world's most expensive cycle path!
Hardly a vanity project. We're just belatedly installing the rail infrastructure most developed countries have had since the 1980s.
@@MrSamuelHorton Seeing as it has no real purpose, and is only a few minutes faster than the 2 existing London to Birmingham lines, then consider that there are no capacity problems on those existing lines beyond London bound morning peak (and anyone who tries to tell you otherwise doesn't use those services). Then consider it terminates at a new station in Birmingham rather than one of the existing hubs, and London end terminates at Wormwood Scrubs with only a connection to Crossrail....
...Vanity Project.
@@MrSamuelHorton .. "belatedly installing the rail infrastructure"?
What was originally planned as a world beating, high speed railway connecting the south to the north & beyond has now been reduced to nothing more than a shuttle service between west London & Birmingham.
The Golborne link - scrapped.
The eastern leg - scrapped.
The northern leg - scrapped.
The blatant corruption within HS2 Ltd that's recently been exposed reveals that senior executives shredded documents & used misleading projections to ensure that billions of pounds kept flowing into the project.
Whistleblowers claim they were told by bosses to lie about the project’s cost and were sacked after speaking out. They say the government wasn't informed of the real cost of HS2 for years, all while voting on laws that approved its construction.
It's been a disaster since day one & continues to be so.
@@theboy-uk I'd say the actual purpose has been rather poorly communicated. It was not just capacity or journey time, it was also fixing the technical debt of being first adopters. Most important of which is the loading gauge dictated by track separation, the size of bridges, tunnels and supporting track structure, stuff you cannot change without a complete rebuild.
UK rail is a mess of loading gauges, a testament the history of the hundreds of little rail companies leading the world. West Coast Main Line gauge is W10, Midland Main line is W6-8. East Coast is W9. Ideally they'd all be UIC GC (International Union of Railways GC size) so that we could run our refrigerated + high cube containers exports via rail freight from UK to anywhere on the continent without changing trains. Frankly even a standard upgrade to W12 or UIC GB+ would do a lot.
Whether you think this is all worth it is up to you. I can understand if you don't.
P.S. Euston tunnel looks to be happening but it's gotten buried in "pre-election sensitivity".
Crazy vanity protect that only UKIP was brave enough t o condemn.Just how much will fares be? Costing every taxpayer thousands of pounds,with the vast majority never seeing any benefit.
According to the printed booklets they gave us at the initial meetings, if they manage 576,000 passengers a day (they will struggle to get 2% of that IMHO), then they "only" need 50-60% subsidy on every full priced fare, and that fares will broadly be in line with the prices on the 2 existing London to Birmingham lines. Obviously the taxpayer is stumping 100% of the construction costs.
@@theboy-ukLike the labours of Sisyphus here. Only a couple of days in sunny Manchester and the stone's right at the bottom again. These meetings you went to sound quite remarkable, Boy. These were official meetings on behalf of the HS2 project. They told you the line was going to be unprofitable even if they got 576,000 passengers. There would be 20 trains an hour despite Phase 2 never going ahead - as a government would have to be mad to sanction it. They also told you that they were in line for highly paid jobs in HS2. They handed out printed booklets, which confirmed all of this (possibly not the PR guys salary) but these aren't available on line. I assume you were instructed to eat the booklets following the meetings.
How can you use the word vanity in the same sentence as UKIP - the party of Nigel Farage?😱😱
@@martinsloman6905 Now you can see why I went from being very Pro HS2, to seeing it for what it really was, after attending the 1st in that series of meetings about it! Some of the meetings were more candid than others.
Although never stated to me, I get the feeling even they thought Phase 1 would probably never go ahead.
The docs did used to be online, maybe still are, but I can no longer find them on their site - probably understandably given that it was never going to be achievable, and was only ever a silly vanity project.
@@theboy-uk