@@kevinpowell210 Unfortunately the time taken is because the Government overspecified ground settlement and infrastructure life expectancy to a level not seen anywhere else in the world for high speed rail. The Engineers (HS2) had to meet this contractual requirement that meant embankments and cuttings have to be made then left for some time before finishing to the final profile. This was the main reason for the initial ballooning costs and delays after the initial route was decided, but since then the cost increases have been modest as well as in line with inflationary pressures.
A white elephant TORY TROPHY ‘we are good at infrastructure project regardless of actual need’ . This while we are drowning in shit trying to surf, eating shit and plastic due to poorly treated water while the greedy water companies pay out dividends and do the bare minimum, clearly certainly not doing the necessary grey / surface water separation which has been blatantly clear for years . 9 perhaps Severn Trent are the only half decent water company , maybe ? The only way like it or not is renationalisation. fines are pointless they just get paid by our rip off water bills ( We are one of the worst with sw water (Pennon group). Another Thatcher shibboleth chicken home to roost, like the blood transfusion scandal , the start of the Tory death by thousand cuts to the NHS . So “sir” Kier Starmer talks about renationalising railways , oh dear,….. low hanging fruit Kier, WATER IS AN ESSENTIAL and no one could deny the harm that years of under investment have done.
Many people who criticise HS2 over costs fail to understand that the project is pioneering many 'firsts' in major civil engineering works such as this JIT viaduct system, the 'Cut & Cover' tunnelling and how to reduce carbon footprints. Let alone how to provide post build biodiversity. Other projects will benefit and will save costs by using HS2 pioneering systems.
'firsts'??? Many of these techniques have been used in mainland Euro and China for decades ... and much faster and much lower costs! Considering our British pioneering heritage, this project would make the real pioneering' engineering greats, of this country, turn in their graves!
@@simonbaxter8001 Just go listen to the commentary again Simon. Many of these systems are new TO THE UK. At least pay attention before getting on your high horse. And park the faux patriotism as well. We never had every new technology or way of working. We invented much but not everything. As for turning in graves I would reckon Brunel would pretty pleased we are at last building new railways.
Many people who criticise HS2 over costs fail to understand the project. Costs, timescales, benefits, raison d'etre' and the huge amount of waste injected by the politics. Then again, few have the imagination to comprehend what is involved in a construction which disappears over the horizon beyond their gaze in whichever direction one looks. Thankfully those blessed with vision are cracking on and showing what is possible. This line is going to be wonderful when complete with ALL the land restitution work done too. Give it a year in operation and they'll be saying why did the politician order a stop at Handsacre, just as was said when Eurostar used to join the classic Network East of Dollands Moor to trundle into Waterloo. The desperately sad thing is if it was covered in tarmac there'd probably be far less opposition to it.
@@simonbaxter8001 Watch a video where they show the building of the Chinese high speed railway and compare it, luckily they won't be building any here, but it is cheap, it won't last 100 years though, ours will most probably last two hundred years, much like the Victorian one!?!
Awesome views and information. Yes this is really cutting edge in high-water areas...and planned to last for over 100 years. Amazing work and progress. Onward !
Hopefully you'll return as much of the devasted surrounding area back to how it was before you started. So many trees have been taken down in this area (I live in the nearest village). Our roads are destroyed by the heavy construction traffic and the delays caused by the lights makes a 10 minute journey to Aylesbury more like an hour in extreme cases.
...and how wonderful it is that we can benefit from the pioneering work of the Spanish engineers, just as the rest of the world benefitted from our early railway engineering. It's very easy to talk down this project simply because others have done it before, but that's progress.
All construction work is built on the back of previous projects some alterations are made for the better, some are tried and failed, at least we know this works I have no problem with that, we are not pioneering because we took too long to build the bloody thing!?!
I've used the HS line between Madrid and Barcelona many times through work. Emma is a great example of importing the skills to deliver at speed our service-driven economy turned its back on since 2016 and decades of under-investment in training and infrastructure before. At least, with a change of government on July 4th, there's fresh hope of delivering the full capacity benefits of HS2 by building out to Leeds and Manchester, and tunneling into Euston.
the spanish have not been doing anything like HS2, their lines are lower quality, built at grade most of the way, and have more than 80% of their route through desert and uninhabited land the UK doesn't have the benefit of having cities with nothing but dirt between
Interesting to know how they spread the load through the foundations of all those solid concrete pre-cast piers and decking, given that tbe land the viaduct traverses is well water-saturated "Bottom - land" (Mostly. Clays.?) of the Vale of Aylesbury. Lots of deep piles down to the chalk ? Or does the structure effectively float on the clay.?
Don't let those environmental protests hinder you from dedicating for the construction. I'm sure the appropriate measures were taken and done as best as possible to decrease damage to the environment and to grow the new better one. Some people just love to take good stuff down for the slightest of reasons.
Halfway would the first phase completed. The Tories strike again by destroying the one project that would open massive benefits to an overcrowded network.
Yes, we all hope after the HS2 also gets to Euston, that HS2 can be extended to Crewe, and then northern branches. Perhaps the UK also needs to start building the new GenIII+ and GenIV nuclear power plants to allow rail electrification of EWR, Transpennine (TRU), Eastern lines, and all of the UK British rail.
try and remember that it was Boris Johnson who as Conservative Prime Minister pushed the 'Go' button for HS2. Even though it lost him support amongst his own home county MP's and voters. Remember they lost a super safe seat in the Chilterns to a hypocrite Lib Dem over the construction of HS2.
I just don't understand why so much flat greenbelt land either side of the route needed destroying in order to build two tracks. Are they planning on building houses along it or something? In places like Wendover and Aylesbury we are talking tens of footbal pitches of green belt running for a good kilometre along the track, all seeming to have been needlessly graded. You can check out the degree of destruction from satellite photography already.
Are HS2 going to turn that road alongside the viaduct into a new road traffic scheme or will it just be left to be overtaken by nature over many years. Seems such a waste of money to build a road parallel to the railway that won't ever be used?
That is almost certainly a construction access road. Built so that the heavy machinery can access the various parts of the project without getting stuck in mud. Once the construction is complete the road will be removed and the land returned to floodplain.
Yey sure, the HS2 construction bosses have installed a 'haul' road to assist with the build and keep traffic off local roads. Then they will just leave it there when they are done, for weeds to start growing up through it and abandon it to nature !. You know very well that it will be removed and all manner of expensive remediation will be done to return that land and the surrounding area to a natural state. Except, it will probably be superior than what was there before.
People can't afford rail travel because prices are high. Prices are high because demand is higher than supply. Demand is higher than supply because the rail network is full. The rail network is full because there's not enough space to run all the local, regional and national high-speed trains we need. Solution: build more tracks and stations, like HS2 is doing.
Evidence? Sure prices do rise over time, but so do wages, and in fact as a percentage of the average take home wage, a rail ticket is often less expensive now than it was back in the 1960's when I was growing up. So there is very little evidence to support this rather cynical view.
The new UK nuclear power plants (GenIII+ and GenIV) will allow electrification of all UK and at low _green_ energy cost. The HS2 is the future of high-speed rail in UK and hopefully the USA can take the good hints too.
@@jamesadfowkes Yes. The HS2 adds high-speed capacity which will then permit additional slow trains to run on the heritage rails lines. So HS2 adds high-speed travel alternate lines to the older heritage _slow_ lines...so then the old lines will get more travellers and freight transport.
@@jamesadfowkes Prices are high because of greedy overseas owners and shareholders milking the system for all they can. Why is UK rail five times more expensive, per mile, than mainland Europe?
@@mrglide7078 I think we have different ideas of what constitutes progress. £80 billion could have improved transport infrastructure across the country. Instead some will save a few minutes on their unlikely journey between Curzon St. in Birmingham and Old Oak Common in Acton. The biggest winner will be Chiltern Railways who offer a service people actually want and can afford.
Pleas stop with the 'Sustainable' 'Carbon footprint' 'Biodiversity' etc language-no one really cares. Anyone actually been near these highspeed trains?? They are REALLY loud not sustainable, huge carbon footprint and biodiversity killers.
Are you aware that internal flights in France are to cease because there are TGV lines across France ? The carbon footprint of a TGV journey is 1/8 of that of flying. If we can build HS2 it will become non-commercial to fly between London-Manchester and London-Glasgow. Those reductions in carbon emissions need to be factored in to the debate over High Speed Rail. Likewise displacement of freight from road to the legacy railway network, once the passenger trains are on the HS. The inside lane of the M1 is like a slow moving freight train with thousands of heavy lorries belching along !. Lets get that on rail
Terrible useless idea benefitting nobody but the construction industry and the government. The devastation to the countryside has been monumental. I have lived in the area since 2001 and watched with horror the disruption and damage to the land and the roads. HS2 employees just doing whatever they want with clipboard in hand tearing down copses in private gardens. Beautiful trees cut and nature reserves cut through. Shame
All untrue, and completely ignoring the fact that the footprint of the line will be tiny when construction is over, and that it will revolutionise rail travel in the UK benefitting everybody, will take millions of lorries off the roads, and will give back 60% more biodiverse land than existed before construction started
Superb. Thanks for the update . I hope I’m still alive to take a train when they enter service in 6 years .
6 years seems optimistic looking at the slow progress so far
Why 6 years ? The halfway point of building this viaduct has nothing to do with finishing HS2 in 6 years.
@@kevinpowell210 not optimistic. They are really doing this now and getting on with it.
@@kevinpowell210 Unfortunately the time taken is because the Government overspecified ground settlement and infrastructure life expectancy to a level not seen anywhere else in the world for high speed rail. The Engineers (HS2) had to meet this contractual requirement that meant embankments and cuttings have to be made then left for some time before finishing to the final profile. This was the main reason for the initial ballooning costs and delays after the initial route was decided, but since then the cost increases have been modest as well as in line with inflationary pressures.
A white elephant TORY TROPHY ‘we are good at infrastructure project regardless of actual need’ . This while we are drowning in shit trying to surf, eating shit and plastic due to poorly
treated water while the greedy water companies pay out dividends and do the bare minimum, clearly certainly not doing the necessary grey / surface water separation which has been blatantly clear for years . 9 perhaps Severn Trent are the only half decent water company , maybe ? The only way like it or not is renationalisation. fines are pointless they just get paid by our rip off water bills ( We are one of the worst with sw water (Pennon group). Another Thatcher shibboleth chicken home to roost, like the blood transfusion scandal , the start of the Tory death by thousand cuts to the NHS . So “sir” Kier Starmer talks about renationalising railways , oh dear,….. low hanging fruit Kier, WATER IS AN ESSENTIAL and no one could deny the harm that years of under investment have done.
Many people who criticise HS2 over costs fail to understand that the project is pioneering many 'firsts' in major civil engineering works such as this JIT viaduct system, the 'Cut & Cover' tunnelling and how to reduce carbon footprints. Let alone how to provide post build biodiversity.
Other projects will benefit and will save costs by using HS2 pioneering systems.
'firsts'??? Many of these techniques have been used in mainland Euro and China for decades ... and much faster and much lower costs! Considering our British pioneering heritage, this project would make the real pioneering' engineering greats, of this country, turn in their graves!
@@simonbaxter8001 Just go listen to the commentary again Simon. Many of these systems are new TO THE UK.
At least pay attention before getting on your high horse.
And park the faux patriotism as well. We never had every new technology or way of working. We invented much but not everything.
As for turning in graves I would reckon Brunel would pretty pleased we are at last building new railways.
@@1chish nothing can stop me I’m all the way abt
Many people who criticise HS2 over costs fail to understand the project. Costs, timescales, benefits, raison d'etre' and the huge amount of waste injected by the politics. Then again, few have the imagination to comprehend what is involved in a construction which disappears over the horizon beyond their gaze in whichever direction one looks. Thankfully those blessed with vision are cracking on and showing what is possible. This line is going to be wonderful when complete with ALL the land restitution work done too. Give it a year in operation and they'll be saying why did the politician order a stop at Handsacre, just as was said when Eurostar used to join the classic Network East of Dollands Moor to trundle into Waterloo.
The desperately sad thing is if it was covered in tarmac there'd probably be far less opposition to it.
@@simonbaxter8001 Watch a video where they show the building of the Chinese high speed railway and compare it, luckily they won't be building any here, but it is cheap, it won't last 100 years though, ours will most probably last two hundred years, much like the Victorian one!?!
Incredible engineering, congratulations ❤️👍
Great update. More like this please!
Awesome views and information. Yes this is really cutting edge in high-water areas...and planned to last for over 100 years. Amazing work and progress. Onward !
Thanks for the update guys👍
awesome more vids like this would be amazing
Hopefully you'll return as much of the devasted surrounding area back to how it was before you started. So many trees have been taken down in this area (I live in the nearest village). Our roads are destroyed by the heavy construction traffic and the delays caused by the lights makes a 10 minute journey to Aylesbury more like an hour in extreme cases.
First of a kind in the UK but the Spanish have been doing it for years. Fantastic.
...and how wonderful it is that we can benefit from the pioneering work of the Spanish engineers, just as the rest of the world benefitted from our early railway engineering. It's very easy to talk down this project simply because others have done it before, but that's progress.
All construction work is built on the back of previous projects some alterations are made for the better, some are tried and failed, at least we know this works I have no problem with that, we are not pioneering because we took too long to build the bloody thing!?!
I've used the HS line between Madrid and Barcelona many times through work. Emma is a great example of importing the skills to deliver at speed our service-driven economy turned its back on since 2016 and decades of under-investment in training and infrastructure before.
At least, with a change of government on July 4th, there's fresh hope of delivering the full capacity benefits of HS2 by building out to Leeds and Manchester, and tunneling into Euston.
Remember which country invented railways [including underground].
the spanish have not been doing anything like HS2, their lines are lower quality, built at grade most of the way, and have more than 80% of their route through desert and uninhabited land
the UK doesn't have the benefit of having cities with nothing but dirt between
Love it!
Interesting to know how they spread the load through the foundations of all those solid concrete pre-cast piers and decking, given that tbe land the viaduct traverses is well water-saturated "Bottom - land" (Mostly. Clays.?) of the Vale of Aylesbury. Lots of deep piles down to the chalk ? Or does the structure effectively float on the clay.?
Unlikely to float as that could cause movement by differential settlement. Probably deeper piles.
Don't let those environmental protests hinder you from dedicating for the construction. I'm sure the appropriate measures were taken and done as best as possible to decrease damage to the environment and to grow the new better one. Some people just love to take good stuff down for the slightest of reasons.
Y do the rails laid come last, should be after the structure was built
It goes quickly and everything needs to be in place, that is the finishing work!?!
Halfway would the first phase completed. The Tories strike again by destroying the one project that would open massive benefits to an overcrowded network.
Yes, we all hope after the HS2 also gets to Euston, that HS2 can be extended to Crewe, and then northern branches. Perhaps the UK also needs to start building the new GenIII+ and GenIV nuclear power plants to allow rail electrification of EWR, Transpennine (TRU), Eastern lines, and all of the UK British rail.
try and remember that it was Boris Johnson who as Conservative Prime Minister pushed the 'Go' button for HS2. Even though it lost him support amongst his own home county MP's and voters. Remember they lost a super safe seat in the Chilterns to a hypocrite Lib Dem over the construction of HS2.
Can’t see how it will help commuters using Lancaster to Leeds services
I just don't understand why so much flat greenbelt land either side of the route needed destroying in order to build two tracks. Are they planning on building houses along it or something? In places like Wendover and Aylesbury we are talking tens of footbal pitches of green belt running for a good kilometre along the track, all seeming to have been needlessly graded. You can check out the degree of destruction from satellite photography already.
Not sure but it will be returned to original. A cycle path would be a nice addition though. I guess no forward planning for that though .
Are HS2 going to turn that road alongside the viaduct into a new road traffic scheme or will it just be left to be overtaken by nature over many years. Seems such a waste of money to build a road parallel to the railway that won't ever be used?
That is almost certainly a construction access road. Built so that the heavy machinery can access the various parts of the project without getting stuck in mud. Once the construction is complete the road will be removed and the land returned to floodplain.
Yey sure, the HS2 construction bosses have installed a 'haul' road to assist with the build and keep traffic off local roads. Then they will just leave it there when they are done, for weeds to start growing up through it and abandon it to nature !. You know very well that it will be removed and all manner of expensive remediation will be done to return that land and the surrounding area to a natural state. Except, it will probably be superior than what was there before.
It was great when they built the last main line out of London the great central railway and what happened to that ? 😂
“They”
Is this in California
This is high speed 2 between London and Birmingham UK. The trains should be a lot faster than brightline in California when finished.
By the time the line is operational, nobody will be able to afford rail travel!
People can't afford rail travel because prices are high. Prices are high because demand is higher than supply. Demand is higher than supply because the rail network is full. The rail network is full because there's not enough space to run all the local, regional and national high-speed trains we need. Solution: build more tracks and stations, like HS2 is doing.
Evidence? Sure prices do rise over time, but so do wages, and in fact as a percentage of the average take home wage, a rail ticket is often less expensive now than it was back in the 1960's when I was growing up. So there is very little evidence to support this rather cynical view.
The new UK nuclear power plants (GenIII+ and GenIV) will allow electrification of all UK and at low _green_ energy cost. The HS2 is the future of high-speed rail in UK and hopefully the USA can take the good hints too.
@@jamesadfowkes Yes. The HS2 adds high-speed capacity which will then permit additional slow trains to run on the heritage rails lines. So HS2 adds high-speed travel alternate lines to the older heritage _slow_ lines...so then the old lines will get more travellers and freight transport.
@@jamesadfowkes Prices are high because of greedy overseas owners and shareholders milking the system for all they can. Why is UK rail five times more expensive, per mile, than mainland Europe?
🇬🇧🚅👍
Concrete eh? Is it going to look stained and dirty within 5 years like half of England's cities since the 60's?
It's just a glorified motorway overpass. When you think of the way viaducts used to blend into the countryside, this is not that and looks awful.
Another scar across the landscape. And that’s before the gantries and fencing all at phenomenal cost.
Terrible isn't it. All this progress and gantries and stuff
@@mrglide7078 I think we have different ideas of what constitutes progress. £80 billion could have improved transport infrastructure across the country. Instead some will save a few minutes on their unlikely journey between Curzon St. in Birmingham and Old Oak Common in Acton. The biggest winner will be Chiltern Railways who offer a service people actually want and can afford.
@@Sandsrodrick'...save a few minutes...' Not sure you've grasped the full concept of this project, so best leave it there
Pleas stop with the 'Sustainable' 'Carbon footprint' 'Biodiversity' etc language-no one really cares. Anyone actually been near these highspeed trains?? They are REALLY loud not sustainable, huge carbon footprint and biodiversity killers.
Incorrect but go off
Are you aware that internal flights in France are to cease because there are TGV lines across France ? The carbon footprint of a TGV journey is 1/8 of that of flying. If we can build HS2 it will become non-commercial to fly between London-Manchester and London-Glasgow. Those reductions in carbon emissions need to be factored in to the debate over High Speed Rail. Likewise displacement of freight from road to the legacy railway network, once the passenger trains are on the HS. The inside lane of the M1 is like a slow moving freight train with thousands of heavy lorries belching along !. Lets get that on rail
Terrible useless idea benefitting nobody but the construction industry and the government. The devastation to the countryside has been monumental. I have lived in the area since 2001 and watched with horror the disruption and damage to the land and the roads. HS2 employees just doing whatever they want with clipboard in hand tearing down copses in private gardens. Beautiful trees cut and nature reserves cut through.
Shame
All untrue, and completely ignoring the fact that the footprint of the line will be tiny when construction is over, and that it will revolutionise rail travel in the UK benefitting everybody, will take millions of lorries off the roads, and will give back 60% more biodiverse land than existed before construction started
🏗️🏘️🏘️🏘️🏘️🏘️