Readers letters
PE has now carried two editorial comment sections in fulsome support of HS2 Rail Scheme with the message ‘let’s stop debating and get on with it’ regardless of the cost benefit ratios. This is simply not how any project should proceed. Project management and quality management principles show us that the more consideration at the concept stage, the better. I have attended and participated in many seminars encouraging this principle. The fundamentals and objectives of any scheme should be debated before big expenditure on more and more detailed design.
In the case of HS2, the consultations have been about this particular scheme, not what we are trying to achieve as a country. Personally, I do support improving the whole national rail network countrywide, including higher speeds. Labelling HS2 objectors (of whom I am one) from all over the country, as ‘dissenters with local self interest’ and as ‘a small minority’ for pointing out effective lower cost options, is just plain wrong.
Developing technology solutions to the whole rail network could improve our industry base as well as helping the whole country. Railways have been appalling treated by successive governments, as our train builders in Birmingham and Derby can testify. They don’t need a one off glamour project – or one every 30 years - there should be a consistent flow of orders for stock to maintain our indigenous industry. Passenger overcrowding (now) could be addressed by a constant flow of longer trains. Signalling, freight solutions, and bottleneck elimination as apart of an industry strategy would be effective much more quickly.
The best railway system in the world is generally recognised to be Switzerland. Not only is the country a similar size to England, but they have managed super low point-to-point journey times without super high speed trains, through investment, technology, reliability, interconnectivity and good timetabling. It is a mystery to me why we are trying to ‘out do’ large countries such as France by ‘beating’ their extreme maximum speeds.
Why the selection of a target speed of 400kph? Comparing with existing 125mph trains (200kph) my understanding is that double the speed means about four times the energy, four times the pressure pulse, and eight times the power requirement. The track curvature must be four times less making for expensive construction. This speed base is much more challenging than HS1 through Kent.
Last year the responses in PE to the HS2 from members were thoughtful and balanced. For the engineering profession to ignore cost benefit analysis brings us into disrepute.
Nigel Rock, Napton on the Hill, Warwickshire
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