High Speed 2, the UK’s flagship infrastructure project and beacon of cost management, budget control and programme delivery, has announced a major new initiative for construction of the new high-speed line.
HS2 to be strengthened by use of worn out wind turbine blades like this one pictured last week
“Our major new initiative for construction of the new high-speed line will repurpose these worn-out items and put them to good use, as a replacement for reinforcing bar, for blowing smoke up the backsides of politicians, and for for quickly dispersing reports and flip charts out the window when the National Audit Office turns up to ask how it’s all going.”
After consulting with colleagues on a quick Safety Brief, Risk Assessment and the company’s pioneering Making Sure No-one Ever Gets Upset About Anything Like Whatsoever Engagement Strategy, the spokesperson continued:
” Our major new initiative for construction of the new high-speed line doesn’t stop there – we’ve identified a range of other materials that we can recycle to shore up the project, including press statements that can be reused indefinitely, such as:
HS2 will be great for freight trains as they can use any other railway except ours
HS2 will free up capacity on any other railway for freight trains
Freight trains are really good and use any other railway
Freight trains keep freight off the roads and off HS2
We really can deliver Phase 1a for £56 billion by 2026
To fully realise the benefits of Phase 1a would only cost another £50bn and an extra 5 years or so
Leading global ad campaign campaigners Scratchi and Scratchi produce leading ad campaign for Rail Delivery Group, extolling the virtues of transparency, visibility, inclusivity and stakeholder outreach
Roger Flawed – thorn in the tough hide of the railway
Fellow long-suffering colleagues in the eternally beleaguered industry we call rail. Another Rail Minister goes having served no longer than it takes me to write a chapter of Napier Deltic – Britain’s Forgotten Opposed-Cylinder Panacea, just as yet another industry review gets started (and spurning my suggestion of getting involved and leading it from a new project office in what’s left of Vulcan Works); a growing list of rail franchises look set to hand the keys in; the introduction of the Azumas and Caledonian sleepers are put back yet again; Great Western electrification is massively behind schedule and over budget; Midland Main Line electrification is nowhere to be seen; the Elizabeth Line may end up starting posthumously at this rate; and the Freight Operators have made no attempt to exploit the woefully under-utilised Channel Tunnel to attract desperate pre-Brexit freight customers onto rail.
Well well well well well well.
I do find it strange that I was the only one to see all of this coming, as set out in copious past editions of Permanent Way Industry Knowledge (PWIK to those with the subscription). I set out the conclusions of the current Rail Review at least 4 years and 28 seconds earlier in my article on The Triangular Opposed Franchise Engine which proposed a three-way structure of Regulator, Infrastructure Manager and Railway Undertaking, capable of generating 3,300 horsepower. This would have sorted at a two-stroke the issues of franchise specification, industry fragmentation and timetable chaos, assisted by blowers to improve cylinder exhaust scavenging.
The challenge of new rolling stock designs was also addressed about 15 years ago in my article on Push-Pull: Opposed Traction and Rolling Stock Strategy, which suggested use of English electric locomotives coupled at either end of rakes of Mark II or III coaching stock, using diesel and/or electric and/or diesel and/or electric traction depending on the time of day and interest level of the traincrew. Hybrid solutions were possible using recycled chip fat from the Vulcan Fryer in Newton-le-Willows.
As for all the other cares and woes, it strikes me as obvious, and intuitively apparent, that this could have all been solved years ago, had the Government and British Rail not chosen to short-sightedly stop production of the Class 55 and their world-beating pairs of D18-25 series II type V Deltic engines: mechanically blown 18-cylinder engines each rated at 1,650 hp (1,230 kW) continuous at 1500 rpm. Why oh why oh why oh why they didn’t follow my advice in my article Build More Deltics: You Idiots remains a mystery to me to this day.
Still, can’t say I didn’t warn them. And as to their own dysfunctional proposals, all I can say is, I wouldn’t have done it like that.
This article is an abridged version of the 200-volume Encyclopedia Delticus, Flawed R, published by Hoddle and Hyprocrite, price £55.55 from a good bookshop. Back copies of PWIK are available on monthly subscription somewhere.
Azumapocalypse test run, successfully completed yesterday
Scientists warned today that a combination of things could bring the whole world to a cataclysmic end. Technical problems with the Japanese-Tyneside joint venture rolling stock caused by a lack of sufficient black sticky insulation tape, like what you used to be able to get from Maplins before they went bust, around key electrical components on the new high-speed rolling stock, could trigger distortion of the fabric of space-time fabric, at speeds over 73 and a half miles per hour.
Head of Research at the University of Dire Warnings, Death, Destruction & Doom, Mr Anatoly Vitaly Smith, said at a safe distance:
So…the problem seems to be caused by things we don’t properly understand at all. So….it would be really inappropriate and unscientific to even attempt to speculate as to the causes or outcomes. So…I believe it is fundamentally because the inter-vehicle and roof-mounted electrical cabling doesn’t have enough of that black sticky insulation tape that Maplins used to sell before they went bust – that always got tangled up and you’d have to start again, and always seemed to attract dust and stray pubic hair – the electrical interference which is then created at speeds of over 73 and a half miles per hour leads to unexpected unintended unforeseen consequences.
Mr Smith continued:
So…these consequences can include:
Distorting time such that all clocks speed up relative to the train itself, causing passengers to think that the trains are always running late
Passing trains electrocuting anyone standing on the platform with an umbrella tilted at 39 degrees to the vertical
Mild sensations of stimulation for anyone lying down on the platform at right angles to the train as it passes
Creation of a planetary-wide electrical storm and wormhole event likely to destroy all matter, as well as the train itself. Signals may also then change aspect unexpectedly
A spokesman for the Department for Transport wouldn’t be drawn, photographed or recorded on the subject, but in a subsequent Government statement the Government noted that the unintended ending of life as we know it by introduction of new rolling stock did not form part of the East Coast franchise specification, and therefore was outside the Government’s control. An Opposition spokesman was already en route to ask Elon Musk for a spare ticket to Mars and was unavailable for comment. The last word from the train manufacturers claimed the strapline “Inspire The Next” had, in fact, referred to the afterlife, before laughing repeatedly in a fading and echoing way.
The InCiders on today’s hunt for last month’s news yesterday
Latest industry snippets:
More empty JVC wagons moved from Westbury to Knobsworth by GBHrail. Possibly a new flow for Supreme Glass or possibly the shunter omitted to detach them from the engine at Shitesworth Up Yard.
Port of Samson has announced 1,500 new quayside microcranes. Each crane can lift equal to 17 bags of sugar (empty) and consumes barely a tenth of the palm oil of normal craneage. Source: Vladimir Smith, Scumbly-on-Sea
A fleet of 13 Autonomous quad bikes are being converted into bi-mode next generation shunting locos by Cunslet Disengineering at Stoke on Fire. Aimed at the as yet non-existent last-mile short-haul market, their padded leather buffers can double as pantograph reducers when required. Source: Rail People; locomotion supplement, July.
And in represervation news, this from the Weymouth & Grangemouth Light Railway shunter’s’ cabin log:
We put 4 up number 3 and kept on pushing til they found them. Bang!!!!!!!!!!!!
No.6 Road is clipped out UFN, gauge spread and worm in the chair putty; the rake of CNT wagons at the top end will be stuck until we can stroke them out by hand with a pinch bar.
No.17 is back in following a month of repairs including new ferrules, screws, bobbins and scrote pins on every fourth sleeper until Wednesday week
The rake of Knuntfish that had been defiling No.1 Reception were finally collected on the Saturdays-only Freshbury to Stalesnatch trip working
Cabin mess room heater finally gave out Thursday week; fitter attended and found sixteen crispy copies of Mynge Mag Supreme from the mid-70’s jammed in the thermostat housing shield
Sponsored by Belle End Retirement Homes, Mudgely Fudgely Zomerzet Zider and the Campaign for Endless Folk Music
Challenged by journalists at a follow-up briefing of journalists to confirm who the Conservative Government had inherited the industry structure from, and who had built the model of it at privatisation, the Transport’s Secretary’s Spokesperson’s said that following extensive stakeholder research focus group activity, focussed on Merseyside, it agreed with local people who laid the blame squarely at Detorri’s. The Italian family, famous for its famous horse racing driver, and his line of eponymous pop-culture-wear, was not available for comment.
Frankie’s chart-topping song, released a decade before privatisation, urged a more relaxed approach to arrival times
The spokesperson continued that the Conservative Government had pledged to unify the fragmented industry structure imposed on it at privatisation by Detorri’s, with a new model fit for the 21st Century. The travelling public, as well as the static public, would see the Conservatives deliver a railway completely and utterly different from Dettori’s previous failed and discredited attempts.
An antispokesman for the Opposition stated that it was unfair to attempt to place responsibility on any one organisation or family for the current state of the rail network, as it was entirely the Government’s fault. The Labour party had committed itself to creating a new nationalised model for the railways. The decision on OO gauge or HO gauge would be determined by the outcome of a vote at the Labour Party conference, even though Jeremy Corbyn would prefer to have it at N gauge instead.
Following the announcement by For Transport Secretary’s State of the appointment of John Lewis boss Keith Floyd to undertake a “stock take” of Britain’s railways, the leading supermarket chain and Himalayan Quinoa stockist has responded with its new Autumn campaign featuring a new range of new “railwayanaana” product lines.
Members of the retailers loyalty card scheme have been given a preview of the items in the new railway-inspired collection, due for release over the coming weeks.
Demand is expected to be in demand
Speaking at the launch of the new launch, Keith Moon said:
Strategy, stakeholders, engagement, reach out, review, review, consideration, consultation, conversation, optioneering, consultation, refinement, consultation, inclusivity, diversity, university, Manchestersity, SitySityBangBang, representative, inclusive, disruptive, stakeholders, Digital Railway, Digital Railway, Digital Railway, Digital Railway, Digital Railway.
John Lewis boss and Transport Secretary pictured tomorrow ahead of today’s press conference yesterday
The new initiative is expected to see the creation of a cohesive plan for the rail network, removing duplication of management of infrastructure and operations through regional alliances, with a minimum of two competing franchises required on each main line route where services travel more than 150 miles. Sources close to someone claim these will be operated exclusively by new TOCs John Lewis Rail and Waitrose Rail. The government will remove the DfT from franchise specification, and encourage the new regional alliances to bid for funds to reinstate branch lines to feed more traffic into the core routes and create diversionary capacity. Planning regulations will be relaxed to speed up the redevelopment of stations into mixed-use hubs to attract more passenger and freight traffic to rail. Staff of all grades will become Partners with Board level representation, receiving annual bonus payments based on performance and reduction in strike action.
An Opposition Spokeswoman criticised the proposals, claiming they raised more questions than answers, in particular whether John Lewis Partnership Cards could be used for train tickets, and whether passengers would get a free coffee when entering the station.
Following strenuous denials at 09:00 this morning that any such report existed, following a Freedom of Information request at 09:01 the government disclosed in full a report looking at alternative proposals for HS2 phase 2, following the request for anyone having any ideas whatsoever to submit these through the Guidance for market-led proposals (Gfmlp) initiative initiated earlier in 2018 this year.
Five proposals were outlined in the Alternative Route Selection Evaluation High Output Level Exercise report, as follows:
1.The Moderate Speed Zero Impact Zero Harm Full Inclusivity Pan-Stakeholder Alliance (MSZIZHFIPSA) made up of environmental groups, local authorities and “other really really nice people”, which has proposed an entirely sub-surface railway linking Phase 1 near Birmingham with “every other major town and city where the majority of stakeholders would definitely like a new railway line at some point provided they wouldn’t see it, hear it or feel it”. The route would be made entirely of recycled ocean-harvested plastic, mixed with cardboard, straw bales, quinoa and dung. Trains would run “at a speed which wouldn’t disturb any surface or sub-surface sentient or non-sentient beings.” Anyone not wishing to have the route located beneath, near or anywhere at all which they might not like would be offered £1 million in compensation and counselling. The gender-neutral, gender-fluid, vegan sub-surface route would be tunnelled by hand using specially-trained teams of archaeologists equipped with teaspoons, to make sure no harm was caused to sub-surface animals, insects, artefacts or anything else that may in future be found to have feelings. Construction is expected to take as long as necessary to avoid upsetting anyone, once everyone’s happy with the idea.
2.The Emmanuel-Mac-Ron Ligne a Très Très Très Grande Vitesse Superbe Coupe du Monde Gagnants conglomorate, a consortium of French state-owned railway, state-owned construction, state-owned rolling stock manufacturing and state-owned philosophy / sporting interests, which proposes two dead-straight and completely flat surface-level railway lines running from Birmingham to Manchester and Leeds, equipped with triple-deck high-speed trains running at “much, much faster than your “pathétique” 400 kph”. Anyone situated in the path of the new lines will be offered a choice of:
a) 3 x the price of their property and a nice weekend break in Brittany, or
b) a team of “professional stakeholder engagementeurs,” drawn from the elite French CRS riot police, who have a strong track record of “engagement” and securing “mutually-agreed solutions”.
A spokesartiste explained the design philosophy behind the route alignment, which translates as being “in the shape of a two-fingered salute to Britain and its army of armchair-sedentary pedants who seek to frustrate every grand projet with their sitting-down objectionable behaviour hypocritical.” He went on to be translated as saying that HS2 will be a further symbol of France’s increasing unification of Europe, the Declaration of National Utility for the new LTTTGVSCdMG projecting France’s strategic direction in technology, railways, abstract thought, and any of various forms of team game involving kicking (and in some cases also handling) a ball. Construction will be immediate and impressive.
3. The Fuchnkuenz Partnership, a German joint venture between major manufacturers of petrochemicals and engineering structures. The combined lubricant / erection venture’s proposals were rejected on geographic and territorial grounds, due to the route alignment being “on an axis projecting from Berlin into Poland.”
4. The Eastern Sunrise Very High Speed Railway Design Construction and Considerably Punctual Operation State Corporation (ESVHSRDCCPOSC) has been awarded preferred bidder status for its proposals to supply an entirely self-funded in-house project, the route alignments described as “direct very”, rolling stock as “highly nice” running at speeds of “you will like yes.” The company claims that the route alignments have already been designated, following extensive public consultation which has “achieving full compliance and agreement by all identified stakeholders.” Construction will take place ahead of opening.
5. The Northern Powerhouse Construction Company, a grouping of leading civil engineers, property developers and railway operators based in Yorkshire, submitted a plan to radically reduce the costs and time involved with phase 2, proposing a link from Birmingham to Manchester, which would then extend to Sheffield via a reinstated Woodhead Tunnel before following existing transport corridors to Leeds, York and Newcastle. A further link at the southern end of HS2 phase 1 would enable larger continental UIC-gauge passenger and freight trains to operate, including duplex TGV sets and shuttles for unaccompanied and accompanied HGVs. An optional extension north from Manchester with a 4-track West Coast Main Line to Carlisle would in turn link to the Borders Line to extend high-speed services to the Central Belt. The route would be funded by a string of major residential, retail and distribution developments along the route, with costs kept under control by “a sensible dialogue with real stakeholders and not pandering to the ever-expanding demands of objectors.” The line could be constructed within 10 years if the government agreed not to telephone, email or visit for the duration of the project. The bid was rejected by the government, who said that the proposals lacked vision and didn’t go far enough.
Commenting on the proposals, a passing Opposition spokesman criticised the government’s approach, saying the proposals lacked vision and didn’t go far enough.
Following strenuous denials at 09:00 this morning that any such report existed, following a Freedom of Information request at 09:01 the government disclosed in full a report looking at alternative proposals for HS2 phase 2, following the request for anyone having any ideas whatsoever to submit these through the Guidance for market-led proposals (Gfmlp) initiative initiated earlier in 2018 this year.