AN OUTSIDE VIEW

Nothing much has been said about the interaction between HS2 and IEP. The latter provides for 27 years from 2015 - which brings us up to 2042. If HS2 goes ahead at all, a substantial amount of it will be built by then, and there will also be significant running of trains on both HS2, at around 300 kph and the classic network at 200 kph. HS2 will be constructed to a wider European envelope to accept trains such as the French TGV and the German ICE. How does IEP fit into this scheme of things?

According to Agility Trains , the £4.5 billion package covers the supply of 596 carriages. The Railway Gazette report refers to an "overall package", with "financial close" covering the supply of 369 vehicles, and "commercial close" for a further 227 vehicles for the ECML. So presumably the £4.5 billion is for 596 vehicles, but this is not exactly clear.

I have done a bit of research of my own on whether the IEP is not such bad value for money as it appears at first sight. The initial figure appears to £7.5 million per vehicle, but of course it is substantially less, since it is a supply-and-maintain contract and also includes a lot of infrastructure work to accommodate the 26 metre long vehicles. Presumably, also, it includes a major half-life overhaul and two other refurbishments in between, over the 27.5 year contract period. Nevertheless, the figure is probably on the high side, though not outrageous. On the other hand, if a decision had been taken to hold to the present 23 metre standard vehicle length or even slightly shorter, much of the infrastructure work would not have been needed. If a further decision had been taken to retain locomotive haulage, existing depots would, with some upgrading, have largely sufficed. According to a report by Arup as part of the McNulty Value for Money Review, published in 2011, "capital co...

Opponents to HS2 have been granted a hearing by the High Court , and the right to seek a judicial review against the scheme. Unfortunately, the grounds for the appeal relate to compensation and environmental issues rather than the economics of the project itself. The latter, however, has already been brought into question by the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee in a report published earlier in the month.

The IEP contract has now been awarded to Hitachi. No surprise there. It just shows the power of civil servants to push through a project even when, as in this case, it was conclusively shown to be poor value for money. The alternative to the IEP might have been this - a fleet of conventional hauled vehicles and up-to-date Euro-locomotives such as the TRAXX, seen above in on-hire service. This would have bought the flexibility which the IEP investment does not. Details of the contract for the first tranche of the Hitachi fleet are given here on the website of Railway Gazette International . The initial deployment of 369 vehicles on the Great Western, from 2017, will be as follows: London - Swansea London - Oxford - Hereford London - Gloucester - Cheltenham London - Bristol A further deployment of 227 cars will be delivered for East Coast by 2018: London - Leeds London - Edinburgh - Aberdeen/Inverness The contract has options for further sets, which could operate on the following route...

This is my abortion is a project by American "feminists" to be frank about their abortions. Be warned, it is very unpleasant. As unpleasant as the material put around by anti-abortion campaigners. A few minutes previously the bright red muck in the jam jar was a very small child attached to its mother by its umbilical cord. It was not a blob of jelly. This campaign could have the opposite effect to that intended.

The proposals announced yesterday add another £4.2 billion to the already committed £5.2 billion of rail investment for 2014 to 2019. The new schemes envisage the electrification of the Midland Main Line as part of a high-capacity 'electric spine' passenger and freight route from Yorkshire and the West Midlands to Southampton. Routes to be electrified at 25 kV 50 Hz as part of the electric spine are: Southampton port - Basingstoke; Basingstoke - Reading; Oxford - Leamington - Coventry; Coventry - Nuneaton; Oxford - Bletchley - Bedford; Bedford - Nottingham/Derby; Derby - Sheffield; Kettering - Corby This makes a great deal of sense, since it consolidates the electrified network. The reopening of Oxford to Bletchley as an electrified line from the outset is a welcome surprise. In addition to these are the extension of the GW proposals to take in Swansea, the Welsh Valleys, the Windsor, Henley, and Marlow branches, and the connecting link between Acton and Willesden. Inevita...

The neo-libertarian narrative is not one that was being peddled in the 1970s but is widespread today. One has only to look on the newspaper websites and read the comments. It is mainstream in the politics of the right. It has soaked widely into popular consciousness. It has important elements of truth, which are easy to recognise. The left has no answers. One is obliged to take the yes-but view. Our task is not to convert the "right" except to the extent that we alone within the world of political economy can expose the underlying fallacy, as we alone are aware of the nature of property rights. The bigger task is to move the left, as they are stuck in old discredited paradigms which have been proved to fail. The left is pretty much defenceless against the neo-libs, anarcho-caps and other political economies at that end of the spectrum. The neo-lib analysis is well supported in the background by the extremely wealthy and powerful, who will be the main, probably sole, benefic...

Only joking. But why would anyone become an anything-ist when the -ism in question was invented just a few decades ago by an embittered person who had suffered from horrible experiences early in life and never come to terms with them? Isms invariably have antecedents. Most of the atheist -isms come out of the Enlightenment and a thread can be traced from there back to the re-discovery of ancient Gnostic texts that came to Italy with the fall of Constantinople in 1453, and their subsequent translation into Latin and then into modern languages. Objectivism seems also to have a Calvinist strand, whence comes its particularly repellent individualism. It is not, then, so very new. And why would anyone so close themselves off to further thinking by defining themselves in such a way? The question raises further ones about -isms in general. When analysed, most of them can be shown to be heresies of orthodox ie Catholic Christianity. Now the defining feature of a heresy is either that it ta...

ON USURY AND OTHER DISHONEST PROFIT is the title of Vix Pervenit , an Encyclical of Pope Benedict XIV promulgated on November 1, 1745. It was in fact the first Papal Encyclical. What would banking and finance look like if the principles set out in that document were held to? The question lies behind an article in the FT today, with the headline, The City must get rid of banks’ top brass. The author of the article blames it on culture and values. That is a superficial analysis. It will not do to blame the top brass. These are the sort of people, whom, as class mates, one would not trust with one's pocket money to buy a bar of chocolate at the school tuck shop. If they are reaching the most exalted positions in the banking profession, there is something seriously amiss. The problem is systemic and structural. It has nothing to do with culture and values, at least not within the banking profession alone. The structures that society creates, of course, are a product of culture ...

I have come across a few enthusiasts for Ayn Rand lately and got involved in discussions with them. They would be of no importance but for the fact that her ideas have taken a firm hold on the political right. Supporters of Rand's philosophy might be found amongst the young people at Conservative Central Office who are responsible for developing party policies. Rand invented a philosophy she called "objectivism". It has a set of fallacies at the heart of it, the principal one being that there is an objective reality which the human mind can apprehend through reason. There is, it is true, an objective reality and objective truth, but the human mind is unable to apprehend it. It is true also that human beings have direct contact with reality through sense perception. The senses can, however, play nasty tricks on us at times - optical illusions are a good example. The meanings that are given to the raw data that the senses present to the mind are dependent on the sta...

Swedish X2000 train breakdown , originally uploaded by Henry░Law . Five hours in a forest in a broken down train. Both pantographs had been wrecked by a fault in the overhead wire. It took over three hours to get a rescue locomotive from Hallsberg, and another hour and a half to couple it (a freight shunter) to the train, after which it was dragged to Hallsberg, by then about five hours late. The good thing was that SJ staff handled the incident well. The adjacent track was secured and passengers were allowed off, everyone was kept informed, arrangements were made to ensure that every single passenger reached their destination, and food was laid on free of charge at Hallsberg. You could not have asked for more. However, it shows yet again that overhead electrification is less robust than third rail except in icy weather, and that there is also a need to standardise coupling and braking systems, so that breakdowns can be dealt with efficiently, when they happen. Whether this supports th...