Have railways became too expensive to build/improve?

[matacaster]

I find it astonishing that hardly any work can be done with live trains running on the nearby track.
Road - vehicles do not run on a predetermined rail and vary considerably in height, width length, speed and weight.
Roadworks sometimes have traffic lights, often ignored deliberately or when thought to be broken or taking long time to change. Sometimes no traffic lights. Far more casualties to road workers and general public.

Rail - vehicles fit within admittedly slightly different loading gauges, may have higher speeds, run on predefined tracks, have signalling or possibly hand signals and lookouts (now banned?). How on earth, other than failure to follow safety rules correctly can this be dangerous, particularly when compared to road?

 

[Brubulus]

I find it astonishing that hardly any work can be done with live trains running on the nearby track.
Road - vehicles do not run on a predetermined rail and vary considerably in height, width length, speed and weight.
Roadworks sometimes have traffic lights, often ignored deliberately or when thought to be broken or taking long time to change. Sometimes no traffic lights. Far more casualties to road workers and general public.

Rail - vehicles fit within admittedly slightly different loading gauges, may have higher speeds, run on predefined tracks, have signalling or possibly hand signals and lookouts (now banned?). How on earth, other than failure to follow safety rules correctly can this be dangerous, particularly when compared to road?

Entirely agree with this assessment however I do think that trains on tracks immediately adjacent to one being worked on should have a TSR of 15mph or less so they can stop if needed. At least this keeps the trains moving and delays passengers for at most a few minutes, far less than laying on RRBs.

 

[The Planner]

Entirely agree with this assessment however I do think that trains on tracks immediately adjacent to one being worked on should have a TSR of 15mph or less so they can stop if needed. At least this keeps the trains moving and delays passengers for at most a few minutes, far less than laying on RRBs.

Normally 20mph passing a worksite if adjacent line open is used.

 

[43066]

Far more casualties to road workers and general public.

Are there more casualties to road workers than rail? There have been several fatalities involving railway workers recently.

In any case, it shouldn’t be about making rail less safe.

 

[aavm]

It's a shames there isn't an easy answer to this question. The problem with HS2, electrification, and all the other improvements is that they are just way too expensive to be justified, yet China opens a dozen new metro lines a year. What are they, and many others, doing right that we can't emulate?

 

[Parjon]

China is a bad example and not one to emulate. Other European countries are our benchmark, against which we perform poorly.

 

[zwk500]

What are they, and many others, doing right that we can't emulate?

There may be a dispute about whether it is 'right' or not, but a key part of what the Chinese government is doing differently is shooting/imprisoning people who disagree with it. Whatever your criticisms of the current UK policies on protests, in China it is infinitely worse.

 

[Gostav]

It's a shames there isn't an easy answer to this question. The problem with HS2, electrification, and all the other improvements is that they are just way too expensive to be justified, yet China opens a dozen new metro lines a year. What are they, and many others, doing right that we can't emulate?

A major factor promoting China's metro construction process is the availability of cheap shield machines made in China. At the beginning of the century, metro plans emerged in various parts of China, but almost all of them were rejected by the central government because "imported shield machines machine is too expensive”.

If a large amount of equipment and capital and even engineers must be sourced overseas, it means that the project will be too susceptible to changes in the budget and schedule due to changes in the world situation and in this case serious delays and big budget overruns are almost inevitable.

There may be a dispute about whether it is 'right' or not, but a key part of what the Chinese government is doing differently is shooting/imprisoning people who disagree with it. Whatever your criticisms of the current UK policies on protests, in China it is infinitely worse.

But there are also mandatory land acquisitions in the UK and if necessary, use of force to drive out protesters (such as anti-HS2 activists). This may have caused some delays and overruns, but does not explain the significant overbudget and significant delays which often has deeper problems.

 

[modernrail]

I have never seen any evidence of proper ongoing audit led improvement on the railways. IMHO there should be a multi-disciplinary team of forensic accountants, cost engineers, efficiency experts etc whose sole job is to roam around the railway and sort out disparities in costs against international benchmarks. Not on an acrimonious basis, on a positive basis. The same approach worked wonders for getting the costs of offshore wind down.

I suspect one reason the Government have not done this is because half the time the answer coming back would be ‘inefficiency cost due to Tory dogma’ or ‘inefficiency cost due to general Tory political incompetence’.

I have never understood why Tory voters have not put their own politicians on the rack for managing to fulfil their privatisation dream and yet somehow cause a massive increase in subsidy. Makes you wonder whether the whole Tory cause is really just a load of wind bags piping out hot air rather than any pursuit of real value for money and progress.

 

[chorleyjeff]

I live part of the year in Spain and keep an eye on all the infrastructure projects that are proposed or are being constructed there. The costs of some of these mammoth projects are far below those in the UK. I appreciate that land values are much lower in most parts of Spain and that remedial measures to keep locals happy are not as necessary as in the UK. As an example of this, in my hometown of Malaga - the projected cost of building a 1.8km extension of Malaga Metro line 2 from Guadelmedina to the new Hospital civil is €180 Million. This extension will be all undergound and will have 3 new stations. Malagaa also has expensive real estate - though not close to London costs - but in Malaga you can't burrow more than 10 metres without coming across archeological remains from the Phoenecian/Roman/Visigoth/Moorish/Renaissance period which have to be fully investigated and usually preserved. What is the reason for the difference in costs?

Land compensation costs are a minor cost in such schemes.

 

[zwk500]

I have never understood why Tory voters have not put their own politicians on the rack for managing to fulfil their privatisation dream and yet somehow cause a massive increase in subsidy.

because they buy the lies.

Makes you wonder whether the whole Tory cause is really just a load of wind bags piping out hot air rather than any pursuit of real value for money and progress.

Yes. It's about middle income people being scared of evil socialists taxing their income while the real wealthy get even richer playing a totally different game.

 

[Dr Hoo]

I have never seen any evidence of proper ongoing audit led improvement on the railways. IMHO there should be a multi-disciplinary team of forensic accountants, cost engineers, efficiency experts etc whose sole job is to roam around the railway and sort out disparities in costs against international benchmarks. Not on an acrimonious basis, on a positive basis. The same approach worked wonders for getting the costs of offshore wind down..

Have you heard of the concept of Control Periods, Periodic Review, Office of Rail and Road, supplemented by Transport Select Committees and so on?

One might query how successful it’s been but such a process has been in place for almost 30 years now.

I am not aware of a similar process for British Rail.

 

[BrianW]

I have never seen any evidence of proper ongoing audit led improvement on the railways. IMHO there should be a multi-disciplinary team of forensic accountants, cost engineers, efficiency experts etc whose sole job is to roam around the railway and sort out disparities in costs against international benchmarks. Not on an acrimonious basis, on a positive basis. The same approach worked wonders for getting the costs of offshore wind down.

I suspect one reason the Government have not done this is because half the time the answer coming back would be ‘inefficiency cost due to Tory dogma’ or ‘inefficiency cost due to general Tory political incompetence’.

I have never understood why Tory voters have not put their own politicians on the rack for managing to fulfil their privatisation dream and yet somehow cause a massive increase in subsidy. Makes you wonder whether the whole Tory cause is really just a load of wind bags piping out hot air rather than any pursuit of real value for money and progress.

In total agreement, with paragraph 1.

Not so sure about para 2- I know it was a while back since Government was not Tory, but did Labour not 'fiddle', sghilly shally, stop-go, cut back etc etc?
Perhaps just saying 'inefficiency due to persistently changing political priorities' would say much the same?

Para 3- well that's the Great British public for you? Rather have sleight of hand 'tax cuts' and 'smaller government', based on the idea that the private sector is 'better' and public sector is full of tea-swilling skivers, than decent public services.

Oh well ...

 

[aavm]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGV_Bordeaux–Toulouse - wikipedia LGV Southwest

A French High Speed line recently given the go ahead, 138 miles for ~ £4 Billion. Starts and finishes outside the city centres.
Why is HS2 10x the cost?
Its not a Conservative vs Labour issue.
For example, if there was along term commitment to (say) 50 miles of new high speed line a year, (or electrification, or ... ) the construction industry could recruit, plan, and build generic bridges and tunnels, rather than produce 1-off custom structures, then loose the experience afterwards. That would help, but does not not account for the massive extra cost

 

[zwk500]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGV_Bordeaux–Toulouse - wikipedia LGV Southwest

A French High Speed line recently given the go ahead, 138 miles for ~ £4 Billion. Starts and finishes outside the city centres.
Why is HS2 10x the cost?

Important to note the 20 years between preliminary studies and approval. As for the cost, you've hit the first nail: LGVs don't go into the city (a few exceptions like Lille aside) and so don't have to build very expensive tunnels and deep-lying stations.
Land values also have a factor - LGVs have less need to buy city centre property, HS2 had to buy it up on Euston Road.
Additionally LGVs are built to a slightly easier top speed - 320 kph, not 400kph. The government could have chose to drop down 80kph but did not. HS2 has also had to tunnel through an awful lot of countryside and build iaducts over most of the rest for environmental concerns, while also building dedicated alignments to each city rather than tapping into existing mainlines. Have a look at OpenRailwayMap and see where LGV Nord actually finishes in relation to Paris.

And the funding actually approved is slightly more than the 4bn (which is the estimate for the first phase only) -

The cost of the LGV project is estimated at 14.3 billion euros, with funding planned at 40% by the State, 40% by local authorities in Occitane and New Aquitaine and 20% by the European Union.

The initial UK estimate for the 120 miles London-Birmingham was £15-17bn, so a bit more but not far off.

 

[Fazaar1889]

The cost of the LGV project is estimated at 14.3 billion euros, with funding planned at 40% by the State, 40% by local authorities in Occitane and New Aquitaine and 20% by the European Union.

20% from the EU? That'll be a solid £20bn for us. Why don't we get that? Oh... wait....

 

[HSTEd]

20% from the EU? That'll be a solid £20bn for us. Why don't we get that? Oh... wait....

I very much doubt any high speed rail project that would get funding from the EU would ever be approved by the Treasury.

Birmingham hardly needs convergence funding!

 

[The exile]

To do otherwise could put Network Rail at risk of corporate manslaughter charges should anyone's misuse of the crossing lead to loss of life or limb in the future.

And there you have an example of what is going wrong. NR should only be liable if injury occurs during correct and careful use of the crossing (wrong side failure, for example). Anyone causing / suffering accident by their misuse of a crossing should not only be eligible for compensation but liable for all costs arising.

 

[zwk500]

I very much doubt any high speed rail project that would get funding from the EU would ever be approved by the Treasury.

Birmingham hardly needs convergence funding!

Carlisle or Cardiff certainly would have justified it. As evidenced by the fact that South Wales was one of the highest receiving regions for the EU development bank.

 

[HSTEd]

Carlisle or Cardiff certainly would have justified it. As evidenced by the fact that South Wales was one of the highest receiving regions for the EU development bank.

And the treasury would never have signed off on them given that the business case would be atrocious! A few billion bung from the EU would not be sufficient to rescue that business case.

The best bet for getting projects would be Boris Johnson having a flight of fancy and forcing it through by diktat. That just isn't the kind of government Britain has had in living memory.

EDIT:
Also I wonder if the EU would ever be happy paying convergency money to a non TSI compliant project like HS2.

(HS2 abandoned TSI compliance over platform height and was in the process of losing court actions about it when Brexit rescued them)

 

[zwk500]

The best bet for getting projects would be Boris Johnson having a flight of fancy and forcing it through by diktat. That just isn't the kind of government Britain has had in living memory.

It absolutely is - Boris just couldn't keep his hands out of people's pockets for long enough to get them through.

 

[stuu]

Important to note the 20 years between preliminary studies and approval. As for the cost, you've hit the first nail: LGVs don't go into the city (a few exceptions like Lille aside) and so don't have to build very expensive tunnels and deep-lying stations.
Land values also have a factor - LGVs have less need to buy city centre property, HS2 had to buy it up on Euston Road.
Additionally LGVs are built to a slightly easier top speed - 320 kph, not 400kph. The government could have chose to drop down 80kph but did not. HS2 has also had to tunnel through an awful lot of countryside and build iaducts over most of the rest for environmental concerns, while also building dedicated alignments to each city rather than tapping into existing mainlines. Have a look at OpenRailwayMap and see where LGV Nord actually finishes in relation to Paris.

And the funding actually approved is slightly more than the 4bn (which is the estimate for the first phase only) -

The initial UK estimate for the 120 miles London-Birmingham was £15-17bn, so a bit more but not far off.

Good points, however Phase 2a doesn't have any major tunnels or viaducts, and goes through fairly uneventful countryside, and is still expected to cost north of £100m per km

The LGV to Toulouse is going to cost £31m per km (€8bn for 222km)

 

[Starmill]

And there you have an example of what is going wrong. NR should only be liable if injury occurs during correct and careful use of the crossing (wrong side failure, for example). Anyone causing / suffering accident by their misuse of a crossing should not only be eligible for compensation but liable for all costs arising.

You're of course 100% entitled to your view, but surely you can accept that Network Rail have responsibility for all of their railway's "users" - and that that includes all staff, passengers and people crossing their land?

If Network Rail don't follow a set process such as a level crossing risk model, how could they show at Court, were it to come to a claim or charges against them, that they had fulfilled their duty to keep all of these users safe? How can you rationalise knowing the risk of crossing misuse, but not intervening to mitigate that risk, when the lives and limbs of railway staff and passengers who are on trains are at risk, not only the users of crossings? It absolutely would not fly at Court that Network Rail had fulfilled their legal duty to keep railway users safe because they planned to recover the costs of compensation for anyone killed or injured owing to misuse of a level crossing from the person who was misusing it.

Network Rail could advance the defence at Court that they did everything possible to mitigate the risk of a collision arising from misuse of a crossing by preventing that misuse through measures such as automatic gates. In extremis therefore, Network Rail are obliged to close a crossing if the risk assessment indicates it can't operate within the tolerances and mitigation isn't in place. This does happen on occasion, for example, there's one such crossing in the Deganwy area. As Network Rail state time and again, no other interfaces present the kind of risk that crossings do, although obviously there is still lesser risk elsewhere, such as holes in the boundary fence, gates at access points not being secured and issues at stations.

As a thought experiment, suppose that you're exposed personally to dangerous doses of radiation, and lose your house and any possessions in it as a result of a radiation leak from a nuclear power station. The leak was caused by a criminal trespasser and attempted thief who broke in and tried to steal something, but in do doing caused a small amount of radiation to leak. Your house is part of an exclusion zone for decades as a result. From whom might you attempt to claim damages: the trespasser, or the operator of the nuclear power station?

A hypothetical Network Rail or nuclear power station operator in both of these cases would be able to bring claims against the trespassers, assuming that they were still alive, but such claims couldn't possibly hope to cover the cost of damage that might be caused. If the trespasser were killed in the course of their offence, likely nothing could be recovered at all from them.

 

[Gathursty]

The recent and simplest station rebuilding project - Barrow Haven - in Lincolnshire cost £1.3 million. That is one platform being replaced in 3 months. Normally, I'd be the first to say that's crazy on both the time and cost but I respect now that to shut the whole line and do it in a fortnight would be very detrimental in a poorly served region. I'm tempted to say they could have tried to get the cost down to £1 million but an extra £300,000 isnt that painful.

Most stations nowadays are being built in the same copycat style. See Bow Street, Newcourt, Pye Corner etc... I expect some savings due to this repetition.

 

[Welly]

£6 million pounds for a new footbridge at Garforth station???

https://www.newcivilengineer.com/la...ccessible-beacon-footbridge-10-05-2023/?tkn=1

What's the breakdown? Gold plated lift buttons and stair rails??

 

[zwk500]

£6 million pounds for a new footbridge at Garforth station???

https://www.newcivilengineer.com/la...ccessible-beacon-footbridge-10-05-2023/?tkn=1

What's the breakdown? Gold plated lift buttons and stair rails??

What should the project cost then? Give us an outline breakdown.

 

[Goldfish62]

I find it astonishing that hardly any work can be done with live trains running on the nearby track.
Road - vehicles do not run on a predetermined rail and vary considerably in height, width length, speed and weight.
Roadworks sometimes have traffic lights, often ignored deliberately or when thought to be broken or taking long time to change. Sometimes no traffic lights. Far more casualties to road workers and general public.

Rail - vehicles fit within admittedly slightly different loading gauges, may have higher speeds, run on predefined tracks, have signalling or possibly hand signals and lookouts (now banned?). How on earth, other than failure to follow safety rules correctly can this be dangerous, particularly when compared to road?

I was travelling between Berlin and Hanover on the high speed line a couple of weeks ago. The train was scheduled to take about 10 min longer than usual. The reason being that one line was closed for engineering work for around 30 km stretch. So, we had full bidirectional working, speed reduced from 250kph to 160kph and track workers and heavy equipment carrying out major engineering work on the adjacent track.

Not a replacement bus in sight.

 

[Bikeman78]

Although the ever increasing trend toward full-barrier MCB-OD or MCB-CCTV rather than more cost-effective AHB crossings is driven by driver's increasingly riskier behaviours. If we could trust people not to try their luck, the LX audits would probably come out with a lot more options than just 'Full military-scale defensive fortifications'

Do people drive more safely in mainland Europe? I'm not convinced, going from personal observation. Despite this, simple AHBs still predominate. I just looked at a few Belgian examples. There is nothing to stop pedestrians turning off the road and walking along the track, for example. But then most railways are unfenced anyway. Never mind different country, it might as well be a different planet!

 

[zwk500]

Do people drive more safely in mainland Europe? I'm not convinced, going from personal observation. Despite this, simple AHBs still predominate. I just looked at a few Belgian examples. There is nothing to stop pedestrians turning off the road and walking along the track, for example. But then most railways are unfenced anyway. Never mind different country, it might as well be a different planet!

I don't think it's possible to generalise to that extent. For instance Italian driving is legendary for it's general unpredictability. Belgian driving has appeared to me to be generally of pretty low quality, but then I'm living less than 10 minutes from the Belgian border and plenty of cars on Belgian plates drive round Maastricht very sensibly. I'd say the overall standard of driving here would be broadly comparable to a similar sized university town in the UK - the majority of drivers are polite, sensible and safe but you have a similar proportion of boy racers and inattentive drivers as the UK. I've not really done any highway driving in NL so can't comment on that.

But what I have noticed in NL is a much greater tendency to not push their luck on amber lights or other warnings. I do find it interesting that some of the local stations here are island platforms but with a full LX barrier for the pedestrian crossing of the track.

 

[JamesT]

I was travelling between Berlin and Hanover on the high speed line a couple of weeks ago. The train was scheduled to take about 10 min longer than usual. The reason being that one line was closed for engineering work for around 30 km stretch. So, we had full bidirectional working, speed reduced from 250kph to 160kph and track workers and heavy equipment carrying out major engineering work on the adjacent track.

Not a replacement bus in sight.

Dedicated high speed lines like that have larger spacing between the tracks, so there’s a greater margin of safety.

Reading https://www.bahn.de/service/ueber-uns/inside-bahn/news/grossbaustellen#4 there’s a few long term works where replacement buses are offered, so it’s hardly that we’re unique in using them.