the cabinet has given high speed rail the green signal to boost Regal economies and
reducing climate emissions 20 minutes or maybe more off the journey time presenter
says he has launched legal action against the government okay let me show you something just
here here in the UK there's a 14m Motorway due to be built now this 14, 1, 4 mile Motorway is
set to cost over1 billion 14 M of Road we'll see 7 hectares of Woodland removed whilst the entire
130 M hs2 route will remove around 20 hectares of Woodland which is remarkable and by the way
that's Chris from rail Focus all sorts of modern videos about rail engineering hs2 if that's your
thing go and subscribe Link in the Dublydoo below big fan here now the local Council Thurrock were
they're not best pleased they think this is only going to ease congestion for like 5 years
we still feel that the lower thames Crossing is not fit for purpose and it's going to add
6.6 million tons of CO2 to the atmosphere so what exactly went wrong why did a electric
Railway fail so badly you'll hear that hs2 is the single largest environmental threat to the
UK at the moment you'll hear that costs spiraling out of control is it true or are we being misled
somewhat welcome to the story of Britain's failed
Railway okay let's take a step back this is an abandoned Railway you probably
worked it out by now I love walking old lines but there is one thing I'd
rather do from here which is actually catch a train come and take a look at
this okay this is Worthy down halt absolutely gorgeous platform still in situ Little Shelter
behind the camera now I know what you're thinking you're thinking this is nowhere near hs2 this is
on the didcot newb and Southampton Railway but what have I told you that hs2 can actually help
abandon Railways like this one open now your response might indeed be to think that I've
gone completely mad well that's because you've probably been fed one of the many
mistruths about hs2 namely 20 minutes or maybe more off the journey time hold on people were
in for quite the ride so this was set to be the UK's second high-speed Railway although that's
not really the case cuz the first one went 60 Mi under the sea to France this was an opportunity
to us to have our first high-speed Railway that connected cities from the south to the north so
let me explain to you exactly how hs2 could maybe just maybe have helped this abandoned
Railway reopen picture the scene you're on the London Underground and you're waiting
for the next tube to come along you look up to the board and you see it's only 3 minutes
and there's another 8 minutes later you jump on and you stop start Journey Begins this is
the perfect model for your local mass transit system now expand that to a regional level or
even larger on a national scale and then add in local traffic Regional traffic Express traffic
and Freight well pretty soon your stopper model has a bit of a problem you see because what's
the point of an Express train if there is no room for your local stopper to get out of the way the
M the West Coast Mainline and new streets they're maxed out now you're not going to get any more you
might get I think there's plans for maybe one or two more trains per hour once the Camp Hill
lines but again that's just a temporary situation but in terms of kind of getting local Regional
and in city trains into New Street it's just it's just maxed out so we need that new infrastructure
Okay so hs2 isn't about Journey time it's about capacity so what about all the other
stuff okay another amazing bit of little infrastructure to show you just below the
line that I'm on now now in those early days it's really important to remember that hs2 did
nothing for their own PR someone could put out a huge piece of misinformation I think there's
some large organizations that really put out some facts that weren't true in any shape or
form HS 2's response absolutely nothing they just got on with building a railway
because that was exactly what they were there to do have a look at this absolutely gorgeous
Bridge just down here anti- groups had the Monopoly really on information and that's
why so many of the myths that's surround the project today kind of have stuck with
us According to hs2 limited just one month's road vehicle CO2 is the equivalent of all the
construction for hs2 Phase 1 and 120 years of operation that's a huge saving you know if you
can get people out of cars and out of planes into trains then that's that's a Monumental
Saving right I was going to do this as voiceover but on Mid edit and I want you to have a look
exactly what I'm having a look at now so I've done a screen recording but the big mustard line
there well that's hs2 the actual rout of hs2 right next to this town called wend there is
the railway to the northeast of the hs2 already in place and this here is the entire town of Wendover
keep scrolling this way north east because this massive great field keep going huge field there
now this Woodland here which has incidentally been cut into by these big I don't know what they
are maybe RAF buildings or something cut into the woodlands well this Woodland is something
they've used to suggest that hs2 will have an adverse effect on it so that Woodland there
over a mile away from HS 2 over a town away from hs2 is one of the things they've said or
be affected by hs2 and here's another one with a similar claim only this time it's 2 miles away
over 2 miles away and the last one and this is really the headline for me the absolute headline
pause this and read it 43 of the UK's 52,000 Woodlands are affected by hs2 but of those 43,
34 will remain untouched that is staggering I love this bridge it's just brick strewn it's
almost like a like a tunnel under the first line that went that way and then a little bit
later in its life another section was built which joined up with another line just here won't go
into detail but it probably costs a fortune at the time now speaking of cost the big claim is
hs2 is burning a hole in everybody's pocket you and I a cost aspiring out of control Etc so how
true is that well to look at that it's probably worth comparing it against other infrastructure
projects because I think that's where there is quite some misunderstanding I think the working
figure at the minute for each just two phase one which is what we're building what what's
been committed is somewhere around the 50 billion Mark I think it Compares reasonably with other
projects I think the lower temps Crossing at 700 million pound per mile or something like that so
really we're suggesting two things here number one the cost of infrastructure these days in this
country is absolutely huge and when we talk about Road building infrastructure well we don't really
talk about Road building infrastructure it's just hidden away under the carpet and secondly
that hs2 is actually very cheap at 100 billion for 34 45 M Electric Railway that was originally
planned in fact that's really cheap because let's not forget we we say the 50 billion pound figure
for hs2 but that does include things like stations maintenance depos and trains as well which a lot
of people like to uh compare us to Europe or the rest of the world and France in particular they
don't measure things like we do so the railway is the line that's how much the line costs that's a
separate figure to the to the station but with hs2 the figure is it's all lumped in
together have a look at this article right here it talks about how money is borrowed
against growth for a project so in other words if the overall economic gain is greater than
the cost well then that means it's paid for itself now I don't know how true that is for
cars as much as it is for Railways so I guess the question really is what should
we be investing our money in should we be investing in uh roads just another Lane
on another Motorway to replicate one that's already there to ease congestion for just a
few years or maybe an electric Railway I think if I was PM I think I'd know where I'd put my
eggs I don't think I'd get many votes for it because of this public perception and then of
course there's the benefit to the actual economy right now before a train is even left a station
currently 27,000 people are employed by hs2 could be tens of thousands more indirectly as
well so where exactly are we now cuz when this was originally planned well this was going to be
something like a Southeast Asian bullet train or maybe even the tgv system a highspeed rail
linking our major cities across the country maybe even something to be a little bit proud
I am canceling the rest of the hs2 project what a legacy to lead that goes beyond the
life of any individual government and basically tear it up at a party conference...... saw this
as a vote winner hasn't turned out to be like that people are more worried about the cost
of living crisis they're worried about food how much that costs and really in reality hs2 isn't
going to impact how much a loaf of bread costs or how much your gas and electricity costs so we now
have a railway being built between London and Birmingham it seems a quick one but of all the
benefits I've suggested that this was originally intended to give us we're now ironically left with
the only one that it was never designed to do which is to shave 15 to 20 minutes off of your
journey really hope that what I've done in this video is give you a chance to look at
some of the mistruths that were told about hs2 over the last decade and probably more
hs2 isn't the magic solution to all of our problems to get us out of the car and onto
the railway perhaps it could have helped but I also want to sort of let you understand
some of the costs of infrastructure full stop these days and certainly their Road
building infrastructure and why you rarely hear about it you may disagree and that's
completely fine if you think hs2 wouldn't have solved any problems let me know what you think
would be the solution to help us all out in these troubled times I've been Paul
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