Spending under scrutiny, but HS2 making steady headway
EVERY six months, the Transport Secretary reports HS2 progress to Parliament, with the latest report published on October 27 and covering February-August 2022.
With diggers, dumpers and tunnel boring machines (TBMs) active along the route of Phase 1 between London and Birmingham, it’s inevitable that the physical achievements listed in the report are more dated than RAIL’s coverage, but the Parliamentary report serves to keep an eye on project spending.
So, it is likely to be the March 2023 report which notes the launch of tunnel boring machine
Sushila, which will spend the next 22 months digging the five miles from West Ruislip to Greenford
(RAIL 968).
TBM Caroline began a parallel dig at the second bore in late-October (RAIL 970). The Department for Transport update reports Dorothy’s completion of its first one-mile drive under Long Itchington Wood, and records that four TBMs have been launched on Phase 1 and have dug around 8.4 miles.
Across the first phase, DfT’s report predicts that construction will peak next year, with initial train services starting between Old Oak Common and Birmingham in the period 2029-33.
When the Labour government first announced HS2 in March 2010 (RAIL 640), it didn’t predict an opening date. But in January 2012, and with a ConservativeLiberal Democrat coalition in power, the DfT was talking about services by 2026 (RAIL 688).
Justine Greening was Transport Secretary at the time. She said then: “When it came to HS2, I could have made the easy choice: I could have gone for the short-term option, relying on a patch-andmend approach and leaving our rail networks overstretched, overburdened and less resilient.
“But let us be clear: the price for that would have been paid in lost business, lower growth, fewer jobs, and more misery for passengers on a network without the capacity to cope. We would have failed future generations depending on us to create the prosperous country that they will want to live in.”
Today, the DfT estimates that the second phase will open between 2035 and 2041. It will now only run to Manchester, after DfT axed Leeds last year in favour of taking the eastern leg only as far as a point between Derby and Nottingham.
It expects an intermediate phase (2a to Crewe) to open between 2030 and 2034. DfT’s report says the next stage for Phase 2a is to appoint a design and delivery partner and a contractor for advanced civil engineering work.
HS2 is now evaluating bids from three potential design and delivery partners: AECOM/Costain, Jacobs, and a joint venture of Atkins, Mace and SYSTRA. The trio running for the advanced civils contract are BAM Nuttall, Galliford Try, Laing O’Rourke and Skanska.
Both deals should be awarded by the end of the year, says HS2. Then, in the first quarter of 2023 should come three major contracts for Phase 1 track laying. HS2 divides this work into three lots: Urban, Central and North. The shortlist is the same for all three, with Balfour Beatty, ETF, TSO as a joint venture; Colas Rail; a Ferrovial-BAM Nuttall joint venture; and a Rhomberg Sersa-Strabag joint venture (which is not competing for the North contract).
Another major contract set to be awarded in 2023 is the one to signal the line with ETCS (European Train Control System) Level 2 without signals. This will allow trains to operate automatically (at Grade of Automation Level 2, which means the train moves and stops automatically, but has a driver).
The contract should include a traffic management system, weather monitoring (for example, to allow automatic application of speed restrictions in high winds),
PHILIP HAIGH sifts through the latest Department for Transport report on HS2 progress
and adhesion management (to prevent delays caused by trains failing to grip the track properly). Three companies are on the shortlist for the £500 million contract: Alstom, Hitachi and Siemens.
There are four companies chasing HS2’s deal for overhead line equipment that will supply power to the trains. They are Colas, China Railway Electrification Engineering Group, and two joint ventures - Rapide (consisting of SPL Powerlines, INEO and Keltbray) and BBVT (which includes Balfour Beatty, ETF and TSO). HS2 is evaluating their tenders and expects to award the contract in the first quarter of 2023.
For Phase 1, the OLE contract covers 469 single-track kilometres including 58 viaducts, 47 underbridges and 148 overbridges, as well as four complex track junctions that include 99 highspeed turnouts. Phase 2a covers 120 single-track kilometres, 18 underbridges, 43 overbridges, four viaducts and two high-speed turnouts.
DfT’s six-monthly report reveals that it asked HS2 in September to plan and implement actions to bring Phase 1’s costs back within its £40.3 billion target. This phase’s budget is £44.6bn, with the difference explained by the DfT holding back £4.3bn as a contingency. HS2 has its own contingency budget of £5.6bn, from which it has spent £1.5bn.
DfT reports that HS2 is facing cost pressures of around £1.9bn hence September’s request. This pressure comes from several areas, says the DfT. The biggest, at £1.1bn, is a potential increase in costs of the main civil engineering works that stems from lower-thanplanned productivity and extra design costs.
Euston station’s design is also a source of cost pressures (amounting to £0.4bn). DfT expects that the move to a smaller station, with ten platforms rather than 11, will help reduce this pressure. However, the reduction has led to fears that the station will not be able to cope with the level of service the DfT expects.
Recent work at Euston has included demolitions, installation of piles for the station’s box structure, building a replacement London Underground traction sub-station, and building a six-storey accommodation block. The traction sub-station includes a 20-metre-deep vertical shaft that links to a tunnel that is 90 metres long and 6.5 metres wide.
Euston shares with Old Oak Common another cost pressure - this time of £0.3bn and based on
altering Network Rail’s infrastructure to suit HS2.
Countering all these pressures, DfT reports savings and efficiencies of £0.8bn, mainly from civil engineering works and land acquisition.
Hanging over the project is inflation. DfT’s report cites figures from the Office of National Statistics that show inflation for construction materials running at 18% over the year to August 2022. DfT argues that this does not affect HS2’s affordability because it has set budgets and cost estimates in 2019 prices. However, it admits that there’s pressure on annual funding settlements from the Government because these are set in cash.
Out on the line, HS2 Chief Executive Mark Thurston said in late October: “We’ve now got fantastic momentum on HS2, some £23bn of contracts, and of those contracts well over 90% are with UK-based companies and about 70% of those companies are small and medium-sized organisations.”
He said HS2 has over 35 sites between London and Crewe, with 29,000 people working on the project nationally.