Mobile tech destroys the case for the HS2 £multi-beellion train set Finally people seem to be waking up to the dog's breakfast which is the economic case for the proposed High Speed Two London-Birmingham rail link. You know, this lovely train set that the politicians want to plonk down in the middle of England. I've never quite been sure why it is that politicians love such train sets: most of …
"True, but as I understand it, HS2 terminates at Euston, and HS1 at St Pancras. Unless they're building a stretch to connect the two that freight trains can cut through, then presumably there will need to be an intermodal hub to lift European cargo from HS1, load it onto trucks or conventional trains and then transfer back to HS2."
Huh? Nobody transports freight on high speed rail.
Freight runs on the ordinary lines. Otherwise you have scheduling nightmares.
An assumption here is that remote access is always going to be available on the train. Try tethering your device to your phone and watch it repeatedly lose its connection to the outside world as you go from A to B.
As for any wifi provided in the train I can imagine this rapidly becoming congested and unusable.
Indeed, most UMTS networks are not built for use at high speeds (HS2 is alleged to be due to rumble along at a clippy 250mph). You might just be able to hang on to a 144kbps connection if you're lucky, but there are going to need to be some funky long-lobed directional antenna deployments to minimise the handover rates.
" but there are going to need to be some funky long-lobed directional antenna deployments to minimise the handover rates."
Or (just throwing this idea out there) they put the a base station on the train with linking into a "leaky" coaxial antenna laid by the side of the track.
Kind of like the plan for the London Underground.
@JetSetJim It's worse than that. @TimWorstall has clearly never tried using mobile tech on the high-speed line that we do have, HS1. The Javelins may only cruise at 120mph (they only crank it up to 140mph when they're late) but mobiles are practically useless. Some of it is the fancy windows blocking the signal, some of it is speed. But the main problem is that through London and under the Thames you're in a tunnel. So that doesn't work. Plus a lot of the rest is in a cutting to protect the NIMBYs - and that doesn't work either. How much of HS2 will be in tunnels/cuttings?
Another factor is that a total journey time of 37 min to Ashford is hardly long enough to really get going on meaningful offline work, I've noticed that the proportion of people working on HS1 is far smaller than equivalent trains on GW/WCML/ECML. So if you're going to pick and choose your baseline, at least choose the most relevant one, namely HS1.
(but not a Brummie).
If I need to go to London I will take a train to Warwick Parkway, and get to Marylebone. Total time (door to door): 2hrs 45 (plus the tube journey I'd have to make anyway).
To use a city centre station, it's either bus or taxi to (say) New Street. You can forget the bus option if I need to be in London before 11. And a taxi adds £££££s to the cost, because parking in the city centre is (a) expensive and (b) leaves you a walk from the station.
However, I can (and have) hired a car. Driven to (say) Hillingdon (on the A40), parked up got tube to Marylebone in less than 2hrs 45, and for less than a standard return fare on Virgin.
And even if you can take a train to New Street the time needed to walk from there to the HS2 terminus at Curzon Street* will cancel out any time saved on the new route.
* The original terminus of the London & Birmingham Railway completed in 1837, as recorded by Dickens in 'Dombey & Son', the booking hall is still extant. Thanks, mine's the anorak.
Politicians generally think in 5-year windows, so considering the deep future is a bit alien for them
Big infrastructure projects like this have a few benefits *if done properly*
1) They create a shitload of jobs (right when we need them)
2) They show our trading partners that we're thinking of the future and aren't tied to 1900's legacy
3) They mean we can then sell expertise to Asia and the Middle East
4) They provide a bit of immortality for the governments of the day
If you can get beyond the immediate short-term objections and see the long-long-term benefits, the picture can sometimes change somewhat
"If you can get beyond the immediate short-term objections and see the long-long-term benefits, the picture can sometimes change somewhat"
5hitload of jobs? You mean a few thousand navvy jobs, probably all foreign employees of the sub contractors that will tender cheapest because we slavishly apply EU procurement rules. Probably not much real benefit to the UK economy, certainly no enduring benefit.
Aren't tied to our 1900's legacy? Our trading partners will judge us on our airports and telecoms, not how quickly we move fat Brummie councillors to their conferences with DCLG.
Expertise to sell? This won't involve much UK technology as we have no expertise in high speed railways. Look at how Hitachi provided the commuter units for the Channel Tunnel link, or who built the Eurostars. Even the WCML Pendolino's were built outside of the UK by Fiat and Alsthom, with some token assembly and fit out work at Washwood Heath (just before they shut the place).
Immortality for governments? Only in their vacuous little brains.
"5hitload of jobs? You mean a few thousand navvy jobs, probably all foreign employees of the sub contractors that will tender cheapest because we slavishly apply EU procurement rules."
You might like to look up the Channel Tunnel for some idea of the numbers involved and the skills required.
Try 10s of 1000s of staff over decades As for the last batch of Network Rail trains coming from Germany talk to Tony Blair. EU procurement rules have specific options for "regional development" that allow local development factors (or damage to local industry) to be taken into account if the govt uses them.
"Aren't tied to our 1900's legacy? Our trading partners will judge us on our airports and telecoms, not how quickly we move fat Brummie councillors to their conferences with DCLG."
The will when it means they can get on a train at Frankfurt,Paris, Munich or Brussels and get off in Birmingham.
"who built the Eurostars."
That would be Bombardier, using (IIRC) factories in Britain. UK skills are in Alstom (formerly GEC) and cover things like signalling and control. Unlike road signals rail signals are inter linked across the whole network and designing, building and testing them involves high level safety critical software and hardware design. It's not as high profile as military or nuclear applications but it's higher volume and very serious.
In the case of railways, a really big infrastructure project that has the added advantage of being one that you can stop and restart as cash-flow permits, would be to replace all of the existing 19th century lines and signalling with something from the 21st century. You'd increase capacity everywhere you did this (because signalling is a limitation almost everywhere), you'd presumably electrify the whole network (so it could run on carbon-free electricity if you'd bothered to build the generating capacity), and you wouldn't upset any Nimbys.
If you work as a reporter for El-Reg, then you can do everything from wherever there is an internet connection. One of your colleagues does his work from a house in rural Spain. There are a few other jobs like that, working as a translator is one such job.
However, most people work in jobs where they have to physically do something or fix something, and that can't be done over the internet. They need to be on site. So they need transport facilities.
Secondly, HS2 isn't primarily about shaving a few minutes off the London to Birmingham journey. It is mostly about moving intercity trains off the West Coast Mainline so that there is more space for commuter services between Milton Keynes, North London and Euston. In this respect it is the same idea as building motorways to take long distance traffic off the A roads so that there is more room on them for local traffic. Adding a pair of extra tracks to the WCML would probably cost more than building a new line given all the stuff that is built alongside it, and if you are going to build a new line, you may as well make it a high speed line.
Other bit.
I've always found that you get a heck of a sight more done and some actual ruddy decisions made, in a two hour face-to-face meeting than in a whole day of conference calling.
Conf calls are fine for status updates and the like, but utter crap if there's anything remotely contentious on the agenda. Also a conf call seems to head straight to catastrophic meltdown if the number of participants gets anywhere near double figures, while physical meetings of 20 or more are perfectly productive.
" Also a conf call seems to head straight to catastrophic meltdown if the number of participants gets anywhere near double figures, while physical meetings of 20 or more are perfectly productive."
They work well for a few participants. They can be made to work well enough for many participants, as long there's a clearly defined agenda, and a chair with a virtual baseball bat and the resolve to keep order.
Besides, in my experience, once you get more than a few people in any type of meeting, the collective IQ quickly ends up being inversely proportional to the number of participants. Small and focused is always better.
"I've always found that you get a heck of a sight more done and some actual ruddy decisions made, in a two hour face-to-face meeting than in a whole day of conference calling."
Now that sounds like someone whose actually done this.
Post 9/11/01 I'd expected video conferencing (and the telephone companies stock prices) to go through the roof.
Never happened. It seems IRL there's still a lot of times when humans face to face meetings matter.
"most people work in jobs where they have to physically do something or fix something"
I think you'll find that the service sector is now larger than the primary or secondary sectors of industry.
A lot of people need to be physically located, but even more people don't... But that sort of depends on how you define "need". I don't physically need to be in an office to produce code, but being co-located with the team is actually extremely handy.
This all seems fine if you are based in London. If you are based in the North West though HS2 offers a glimmer of a chance of not wasting your life travelling to and from London to do business. As those of us in the North know, there is little business going on outside of London and all important things can only ever be undertaken there.
Will HS2 allow London to expand out to Birmingham or beyond maybe? Is that not a benefit, being able to actually move some jobs and business outside of London.
I dont have much knowledge of history but wonder how the Victorians ever built the train network we are using today, I bet they didnt debate at the lengths we do today.
Build HS2. Build it big. Take it to Glasgow, Edinburgh, Liverpool & Cardiff to name a few cities. Lets put something in that in a few hundred years from now people can look and debate on the new transport systems they need and how the new Elizabethans (II) put in the (then) crumbling HS2 network.
Lucky Tim, hope the weather is nice today. Living in Portugal is defo my number 1 aim. Given you will hardly have any major road issues, unless you count Lisbon, and the toll roads, why moan about this if you're not even based in London :-)
Let us build Hs2. Build it big and only after its been running for a decade do the cost benefit to see if it was worthwhile. There can be no model anywhere that can rightly predict how much it will eventually cost and what benefits, if any, it will bring. Suck it and see. Spend the money before the bankers take it as a bonus. Dont do a half baked thing, as the temptation will be to cancel it after cost overruns. Commit to building it. Commit to building it big.
"Build it big and only after its been running for a decade do the cost benefit to see if it was worthwhile. "
It'll be a bit late by then, and we'll have wasted several billion despoiling the countryside. Sadly the train enthusiasts want ME to pay for their extravagance, and I don't believe their numbers. I'm academically and professionally qualified to comment on these things, I've managed multi-billion infrastructure programmes, and HS2 is a daft idea. There are no material benefits from speeding up the time taken to travel between two of the already best served cities in the land, particularly when they manage to bu99er it up by failing to provide proper interchange with HS1 in London, or with Birmingham's existing rail transport system.
HS2 is a fail on so many levels it isn't true. Fictious demand, fictious costs, fictious benefits. And all largely based on a TGV-type technology that will be obsolete by the time the line is planned to be in use (ignoring the cost and time overruns).
"It'll be a bit late by then, and we'll have wasted several billion despoiling the countryside."
Interesting comment. Having looked at the elevation and route drawings for a good chunk of Stage 2 (Brum-Manchester), an incredible amount appears to be either tunnelled or below grade (deep cuttings), meaning both visual and sound impact. From what we can tell it'll be less of a disturbance than the dual carriageway blaring noise across the valley, despite being much closer (our unbiased opinion based on a detailed reading of the planning documents, without the benefit of input from either HS2 or the rather rabid local luddites*, so we're not swung by anyone's propaganda).
As "big infrastructure" goes the impact will be far less noticeable than your average motorway or airport project.
* Not that they're not entitled to their opinion but it'd be nice if they could calm down enough to form some sensible arguments to support their case (such arguments do exist, both economic and for specific local environmental case studies) instead of bleating the same tired and somewhat hysteric "Environment, think of the children, it'll make the wildlife have miscarriages" arguments that were trotted out circa 1830.
"Given you will hardly have any major road issues,"
The A 22, the motorway east west along the Algarve, was recently upgraded to a toll road. The EU insisted: roads built with EU money should be toll roads.
Current accounting suggests that the costs of collecting the tolls are higher than the revenue from the tolls.....
Different problems here, to be sure, but we do have them.
OK then - is your primary work tool a laptop? Mine is an IBM Model M keyboard connected to two 22 inch monitors (this is fairly modest by some developers' standards). Oh there's some sort of box that connects them together. Other important tools are a quiet room with nobody else in it, a large expanse of desktop and a chair that doesn't jiggle around constantly. I've tried writing code on a laptop on the train. I generally just give up.
"No, I'm a sub-sub unit of El Reg's Iberian offshoot. Rural Portugal for me."
Interesting.
I had thought by your comments about rare earths you we're based somewhere around the North East (or at least had a place there).
But to be clear this is a purely academic issue for you, yes?
There are a hell of a lot of jobs outside London (horrible place - I grew up there and have no intention of ever living there again!)..
Even in the public sector, the idea that you must be based in London is fading fast - MOD has (largely) moved to Bristol, DVLA is (and always was) in Wales..
Bring back Motorail. Drive your electric car to the station and on to the train, plug it in to the wagon which is tapping a bit extra from the overhead, drive your electric car off again at the other end with a nice recharge.
Your robot self driving electric car could even drop you off by the ticket office, park itself on the wagon and hook up to the charger and be waiting outside the exit at the far end...
They also never seem to factor in the "opportunity-cost" of these big projects:
That is, "If we didn't do thing X, what other things Y, Z, A, B could we spend the money and would that give a better return?"
Or - in this case given the UK's current fiscal situation it should better be expressed as "if we didn't borrow £35Bn to blow on HS2 how much less-in-debt would the country be?".
But not all work time is of equal value. Your businessman might be worth £50 an hour on average, but the work he can do in the train or the driverless car isn't the same work that he can do in the office. In my experience the work you can do on the train is of much lower value, e.g. sorting your inbox, adding animations to your Powerpoint presentation, or dashing off quick emails like "I'll get back to you when I'm back in the office".
Putting these numbers into the mythical cost/benefit spreadsheet would still give HS2 a lower benefit than assuming no work at all is done on the train; but a higher benefit than assuming that all work is equal.
There is of course a uniquely British disease of saying that what we've got is good enough, and that rather than build more we should just charge people more to use it. This applies to trains, airports, housing, water, energy, etc. I'd be glad to have HS2 just to prove that we're capable of pulling our collective finger out.
I don't work on trains or planes. I use part of the time to think rather than react to emails, twats, skypes etc.
A little time spent thinking about the problems often works wonders. You can't really do that safely behind the wheel of a car.
The fact the the El-Reg Hack who wrote this piece sits in Portugal says a lot. He obviously has not (recently anyways) faced the daily grind of the M3/M25/M4 (change to other roads as needed). Pah, you arrive for work ready to take a kip sometimes.
As the old BR saying went,
Let the Train take the strain.
I do as much as I can from my part of Hampshire.
I'm flying to Reunion soon. There is no way I'm changing planes in Paris. I'll take Eurostar right to CDG. At least then Air France can't leave my bags in LHR.
There a massive benefits in doing business face to face. I've spent enough of my life on conference calls to know how hard it is to make them productive. Plenty of the real stuff is done around the metaphorical water cooler.
If the journey times are shorter people are more likely to turn up.
Simon
That will be why everybody is rushing to build Concorde replacements then
If it's vital that cockneys and brummies meet face to face to discuss the massive West Midland-London trade deals then it shoudl be vital for me to supersonic to Shenzen everytime I need a circuit board making.
"The lack of the Concord-NT has a lot to do with the scum of the earth aka Greenies. They basically castrated the Concord with "environmental laws" restricting it's full use."
Partly true, but think on this.
Concorde was a joint English/French government programme to carry 100 people at a time at M2.2 (and its prototypes had to be re-designed because the French insisted it did not need to be that big).
According to British Airways
it took them about 30 years to transport 2.5 million passengers.
A US report estimated the programme cost governments c$770m in 1965 dollars.
If you're balking at the cost of HS2 think what a modern 300 seat M2.2+ passenger plane will cost. You can bet no plane maker (or more probably consortium) would go into this without strong government backing.
Completely agree, build new motorways, up the speed limit on motorways to 90mph (managed motorways only of course, so 90 is the real limit) and you will benefit the economy...
Oh and build a new airport or add a runway to heathrow, we need a larger hub, linking airports with high speed rail is a pipe dream...
is a total waste of time if there are going to be vehicles on it that don't do the maximum.
The *effective* speed limit on most motorways is about 60mph. Why ? Because you get 2 dickbrained HGVs neck-and-necking for miles, and the traffic builds into an ever lagging line of cars getting up to 56mph, and then trying to overtake, pulling into L3, thereby slowing *that* down to the pre-overtake speed of - guess what - 56mph.
I have driven for 10 miles, stuck behind two HGVs on the 2 lane A34.
Is that face-to-face meetings are entirely substitutable for remote ones.
Speaking as a human being, I'd like to suggest that this is not true for the great majority of people. I've had more contracts signed over a pint of beer than via an email exchange or phone conversation.
Now if your work doesn't actually require you to actually deal with social nuances every day, commuting any serious distance is a colossal waste of time and money.
Yes, but it isn't the only thing that isn't being cut out from this pseudoinvestigation. Other mitigating factors that make the train time non-productive involves:
- Working in secure environments. Some resources might not be available outside the corporate network, and sometimes even with VPN access they are unavailable for security or legal reasons.
- Sometimes, internet access while on the move will be flakey. If your work needs constant internet access, you will suffer.
- If the trip is long enough, instead of working on the move, I'll revert to sleeping through. That'll end up being wasted time anyway.
Again, the claim isn't that it's fully productive either, just that the productivity isn't the zero it is assumed to be.
If you travel regularly on trains you arrange your work such that you can do the train compatible bits on the train where possible, mostly so you don't have to look up and see the horrors around you.
I suspect you'll not see much economic benefit from tourists using the route either, given the large amount of the journey which will be in tunnels. One benefit of trains is being able to watch the countryside pass by, being plunged in to the blackness of tunnels and subjected to large pressures changes every few minutes is a pretty awful experience. So I can't see it being used by anyone other than commuters or business travellers with their heads down looking at a laptop.
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