Where should HS3 go and why?

[HSTEd]

I just don't see the need. The Brunel and later Inglis route from Wootton Bassett is so good that very high speed can be laid out on it. The tracks are far apart (10ft) on the fast lines due to the BG until beyond Swindon.

But it is full of non high speed traffic, or soon will be.

If we are going to be building a new line then it makes sense to build a new high speed line.
And tracks being far apart is not as important as the height available, which is not so good.

 

[HowardGWR]

But it is full of non high speed traffic, or soon will be.

If we are going to be building a new line then it makes sense to build a new high speed line.
And tracks being far apart is not as important as the height available, which is not so good.

Agreed but I doubt the need on gauging concerns (width or height). Forgive my ignorance but how high are these double deckers (duplex is it?). I am assuming four tracking from Didcot to WB though, too, I should point out.

 

[NotATrainspott]

Agreed but I doubt the need on gauging concerns (width or height). Forgive my ignorance but how high are these double deckers (duplex is it?). I am assuming four tracking from Didcot to WB though, too, I should point out.

At high speed you need more vertical clearance above and beyond the GC gauge for aerodynamics, so you would need to lower track or raise bridges by entire metres (i.e. not a good idea) for it to work. As with HS2 alongside the WCML through Crewe, it's better just to build a new pair of tracks to the side of the existing route with all new bridges and tunnels from the start. Then you don't need to disrupt the existing network during construction and you don't have to completely rebuild most of the stations along it where the HS trains won't stop. The speed differential between HS trains and even the fastest of classic trains would be enormous so you would need to add another pair of tracks anyway, even along the 4-track sections. That will be even more true when HS2 is extended to Newcastle as the York-Darlington straights are not much more than two tracks with many freight and local services needing to use them as well as intercity trains.

 

[edwin_m]

Which can be dealt with by simply excavating the ground north of the tunnel mouth and putting the canal on a bridge over the approach.
We have seen more insane excavations for railway projects in the UK, just look at the amount of spoil excavated for Westminster's tube station.

You only need a hundred or so metres and if you demolish the PSB you should be able to avoid demolishing that art college.

You will need 400m from the stops, plus the length of the new throat pointwork, so at least 200m of the tunnel would have to go but the north end might remain (it's 528yd long). The opened up area would also need to be widened to accommodate however many long platforms there are plus the wider throat and tracks round the edge to reach the remaining short platforms. The disused third tunnel might provide some of this space, but I wouldn't be surprised if the portals are listed.

All of which would have to be done while maintaining some sort of service into the station. The bit of canal above is actually a basin not a simple cut, and judging by what happened at St Pancras would need to be preserved in exactly its present form...

 

[HSTEd]

You will need 400m from the stops, plus the length of the new throat pointwork, so at least 200m of the tunnel would have to go but the north end might remain (it's 528yd long). The opened up area would also need to be widened to accommodate however many long platforms there are plus the wider throat and tracks round the edge to reach the remaining short platforms. The disused third tunnel might provide some of this space, but I wouldn't be surprised if the portals are listed.

All of which would have to be done while maintaining some sort of service into the station. The bit of canal above is actually a basin not a simple cut, and judging by what happened at St Pancras would need to be preserved in exactly its present form...

If we sacrifice the suburban platforms as unneccessary in the post thameslink era that substantially reduces the extension to the platforms necessary since they are nearly 300m anyway.
Moorgate could easily handle the residual traffic or they could use one of the long platforms.

While the throat will need to be made wider, it appears it will need to be made wider on the eastern side, which is away from buildings and put it under what appears to be car parking and roads, which prevents massive demolitions.

As to the basin having to be preserved, I think that is primarily an aesthetic matter and there is no reason that you could not have a basin there after construction is complete.
Just that the bridge would have to be wider, although it seems as if the basin is not actually used for anything any more so it might not be politically impossible to simply remove it and replace it with an aqueduct.

With the Thameslink programme Kings Cross has spare capacity as well and would lose most of its intercity services to a HS2 line running to Peterborough anyway.
All that would be left if High Speed went into Liverpool Street would be Cambridge Cruisers really.

Maintaining a service into the station might be difficult but not impossible, it might be easier to simply turn everything back at Finsbury Park and send everything of 6 cars or less into Moorgate permanently to reduce loading there.

 

[pro4600]

Has anyone has proposed a Brighton-gatwick-Croydon-lewisham-canary wharf-Stratford-standsted-Cambridge alignment? Ok no Central London, but offers other opportunities.

 

[NotATrainspott]

Has anyone has proposed a Brighton-gatwick-Croydon-lewisham-canary wharf-Stratford-standsted-Cambridge alignment? Ok no Central London, but offers other opportunities.

Isn't that just BML2? I think the opinion generally is that if we are going to build any new intercity rail infrastructure it should be high-speed or at least built to GC gauge. Those proposals though reuse quite a bit of other track so it's not going to be the same as HS2.

 

[HowardGWR]

I don't know who thought up the poll but I wish more options had been listed. I voted for the second but do not agree with the examples given which sound like rural areas. Railways are mass transit systems and need to connect the major Core Cities and the Scottish ones, as I have posted elsewhere on this sub-forum. So yes to Cardiff to Leeds, yes to Liverpool to Glasgow - and so on.

One day, I see Birmingham to Dublin being built.

 

[59CosG95]

I don't know who thought up the poll but I wish more options had been listed. I voted for the second but do not agree with the examples given which sound like rural areas. Railways are mass transit systems and need to connect the major Core Cities and the Scottish ones, as I have posted elsewhere on this sub-forum. So yes to Cardiff to Leeds, yes to Liverpool to Glasgow - and so on.

One day, I see Birmingham to Dublin being built.

Apologies Howard for not listing any more options. I'll see if more can be added. Technically, Plymouth, though it is quite small, is a core city and should probably be connected to a HS network.

 

[po8crg]

If I had a free hand and a huge budget:

Not necessarily in order:

Heathrow-Gatwick-Ashford
Waterloo-Gatwick-Southampton (Airport Parkway)-Bristol
Birmingham-Bristol
Bristol-Cardiff-Swansea
Bristol-Exeter-Plymouth-Penzance
Toton-Stratford
Toton-Norwich
York-Newcastle-Edinburgh
Edinburgh-Glasgow
Liverpool-Manchester
Manchester-Leeds (well Church Fenton to connect to the York spur)
Edinburgh-Dundee-Aberdeen-Inverness

 

[Morgsie]

The south west avoiding Dawlish

 

[WatcherZero]

Daily Mail seems to have jumped on the new Dawlish avoiding line bandwagon.

That said the alternative routes would mean towns and villages losing their current link as it travels along the sparsley populated edge of Dartmoor.

 

[HowardGWR]

Daily Mail seems to have jumped on the new Dawlish avoiding line bandwagon.

That said the alternative routes would mean towns and villages losing their current link as it travels along the sparsley populated edge of Dartmoor.

Lines to Devon and Cornwall come well down the pecking order behind the core city connections mentioned by others.. (Plymouth is not a core city and should not become one IMO - but that's a planning and sustainability argument).

 

[Rhydgaled]

Having recently read a rather disapointing peice in the January Modern Railways (yes, I've got a lot of catching up to do in my reading!) I have to say that a HS3 is looking very unlikely.

The disapointing peice is that the alternatives to HS2's Euston terminous have been discarded. That means HS2 will end up as an isolated line with no passive provision for inclusion in a truly national HSR network.

What was really needed, in my opinion, was a London station with passive provision for becoming the hub of a network. From that would branch out lines to the north-west (Manchester via Birmingham), north-east (Cambridge, Doncaster, Leeds/York), south-east (HS1), west (Heathrow, Reading, Bath, Taunton/Newport S.Wales) and maybe south-south-west (Heathrow, Southampton).

 

[NotATrainspott]

Having recently read a rather disapointing peice in the January Modern Railways (yes, I've got a lot of catching up to do in my reading!) I have to say that a HS3 is looking very unlikely.

The disapointing peice is that the alternatives to HS2's Euston terminous have been discarded. That means HS2 will end up as an isolated line with no passive provision for inclusion in a truly national HSR network.

What was really needed, in my opinion, was a London station with passive provision for becoming the hub of a network. From that would branch out lines to the north-west (Manchester via Birmingham), north-east (Cambridge, Doncaster, Leeds/York), south-east (HS1), west (Heathrow, Reading, Bath, Taunton/Newport S.Wales) and maybe south-south-west (Heathrow, Southampton).

In a perfect world the HS2 terminus would be in the perfect location to do this, but we don't have a perfect world and we have to make do and mend even with a project as large as HS2. The French don't connect up their Parisian TGV terminals because the cost of doing so would be outrageously high to dodge between the warren's nest of tunnels underneath Paris and therefore London as well. Instead of spending outrageous sums of money building HSR stations and tunnels underneath their capital, the French built an orbital HSR line which does much of the same job but at much reduced cost. Such a solution is very much possible in London around the M25 and indeed formed a crucial part of Lord Foster's Thames Hub airport plan.

There is a city in the UK where a through, central hub HSR station would make sense and that is Birmingham. A national HSR network centred on London is inefficient as it is not at all central in Great Britain whereas Birmingham most certainly is. That's why it's the centre of the Y network and it has the possibility of forming the centre of a future X network to Bristol/South Wales/Cornwall. It also has the advantage of larger areas of space being available to build through stations and any tunnels underneath it would be far simpler as there aren't anywhere near as many as in London.

 

[eps200]

The last gov killed Birmingham grand central it would have done the job

http://www.arup.com/_assets/_download/download488.pdf

 

[NotATrainspott]

The last gov killed Birmingham grand central it would have done the job

http://www.arup.com/_assets/_download/download488.pdf

It's certainly unsurprising that many people have looked at that area and saw the potential for a new Birmingham through station as well. Any future through station on the 'X' network wouldn't need more than four platforms and there will still be a need for a large eastern-facing terminus, so the Curzon Street plans probably aren't going to kill the idea completely.

 

[eps200]

Much of the land has already been sold off.

 

[MarkyT]

What was really needed, in my opinion, was a London station with passive provision for becoming the hub of a network. From that would branch out lines to the north-west (Manchester via Birmingham), north-east (Cambridge, Doncaster, Leeds/York), south-east (HS1), west (Heathrow, Reading, Bath, Taunton/Newport S.Wales) and maybe south-south-west (Heathrow, Southampton).

Euston, especially if linked up to the Kings Cross/St. Pancras complex with high quality pedestrian/travelator links (no greater distance than many airport terminal walkways) WILL become a very large hub with the arrival of HS2.

London is in the south east corner of the country and it is unlikely many people will need to interchange much in London BETWEEN notional additional future HS lines. It seems to me much more important to improve interchange between High Speed and classic urban, suburban and regional networks in London and elsewhere.

The exception is International interchange, with through continental services from the UK provinces likely to be extremely minimal if existing at all due to unknown and possibly quite small market size for any particular flow and the border and security constraints and costs. St Pancras is always likely to offer the best range of international destinations and frequency of service and once again Euston offers a good interchange compromise here as long as a a good largely traffic free and covered pedestrian link is provided between the terminals -

http://www.townend.me/files/kxlink.pdf

I would like to see the Great Western classic intercity services diverted from Old Oak Common into Euston instead of Paddington for the great improvement in connectivity that would provide with such a link, perhaps using classic route capacity through the Primrose Hill tunnels released by West Coast intercity services being replaced by HS2 and some WCML suburban diverted to Crossrail. That would release Paddington for long distance Chiltern expresses (via Northolt - Old Oak Common) shared with Heathrow Express if that remained a separate entity from Crossrail. Marylebone would then be dedicated to the Aylesbury line and improved inner suburban services out to High Wycombe.

The Integrated Euston - Kings Cross - St. Pancras complex would then become a 'London Hauptbahnhof' hub similar to those in Wien or Berlin.

 

[Rhydgaled]

MarkyT, my assumption is that all or most HS lines in mainland Britain would go to London. It isn't centrally located, but it is the main centre of the current network and there's nothing to suggest it would be otherwise with HSR. While there wouldn't be that many cross-London journeys, I feel one through station (with perhaps 6-10 platforms and four tracks either side) would be more efficeint than four or five termini each with a double-track line feeding them and at least 6 platform.

Having a London hub with passive provision for additional lines also means you don't need to make the case for whole new lines at once, you can do it incrementally for immidiate capacity gains. For example, you start with HS2 running from Manchester to HS1. Then, you can build a branch from Old Oak Common to Heathrow and replace Heathrow Express with an westbound extension of of HS1 Javelin service. That wouldn't, in itself, justify a new Heathrow - London HSR line and associated London terminal. Later, you could extend that branch from Heathrow further west.

My general idea is you have trains arriving from Manchester, Bath/Bristol and possibly Southampton at the west end of the 'London hub' station and then depart from the east end of the station to HS1 destinations, Cambridge and Leeds/York. It'd only be one cross-London tunnel, a bit like Crossrail but 4-track (or at least passive provision for it) and with only one large station rather than several slightly smaller ones.

 

[MarkyT]

My general idea is you have trains arriving from Manchester, Bath/Bristol and possibly Southampton at the west end of the 'London hub' station and then depart from the east end of the station to HS1 destinations, Cambridge and Leeds/York. It'd only be one cross-London tunnel, a bit like Crossrail but 4-track (or at least passive provision for it) and with only one large station rather than several slightly smaller ones.

The only possible way I can think of doing this might have been to demolish everything in the blocks between between Polygon Road and Phoenix Road along their entire length from Euston to St Pancras to constuct a massive station box then find a way to join this into the appropriate routes at each end. Not too difficult for the new HS2 bored tunnels from the west, but unfortunately the HS1 run into St. Pancras from the east was not designed with such a west facing link in mind and the remainder of the Kings Cross railway lands are fast being developed around the tracks, blocking what could be done realisticaly to reconfigure junctions to suit. That would mean new tunnels all the way to at least Stratford and others have claimed it is not possible for them to emerge (affordably) into the existing station box there, so the tunnels would have to continue further east perhaps to Ripple Lane / Dagenham to establish an HS1 junction, and if we're trying to create a new north-east heading HS leg that would require a junction somewhere before Barking in an undergound cavern like the new east London Crossrail junction, or it could diverge at Dagenham, take a sharp left and burrow under Romford to join the M11 corridor.

I used the past tense in my first sentence because I believe such a through station is now an opportunity lost as a result of decisions made at the time HS1 was constructed. A deep level station of the size required and constructed in mined caverns to reduce surface disruption would be extraordinarily difficult and expensive, each long platform (of say 10) would be broadly equivalent to an entire Crossrail station and perhaps the larger problem would be the vast throat junctions required at either end of a through station configuration. The station box alternative might demolish more property, especially residential units, than the Euston expansion currently planned so would likely raise just as much opposition.

 

[NotATrainspott]

Feasibly, the only place in London where a through HSR station with enough platforms to allow sensible dwell times and frequencies would be underneath one of the royal parks. Such a station idea was mooted as one of the HS2 terminus ideas - Euston was simply the least bad of all options, which included everything from Paddington to Canary Wharf - and has the advantage of not demolishing homes or businesses and already being owned by the state, but it would be untenable to do so much damage to one of London's iconic parks. There would be so much land excavated that they would probably need to build and complete at least one of the running tunnels before even starting to dig down so that they have the capacity to carry away the amount of spoil that would be excavated, resulting in the project taking more than a decade to complete.

Such a completed station would be very much a technical marvel but if very few people are ever going to travel through it on a train, what's the point of the absurd expense? For the cost of building that one station you could almost certainly build HSR along the entire core CrossCountry route from Bristol to Newcastle, which would result in very few people ever having to change in London to get to their destination.

 

[Rhydgaled]

For the cost of building that one station you could almost certainly build HSR along the entire core CrossCountry route from Bristol to Newcastle, which would result in very few people ever having to change in London to get to their destination.

Would a single subterainian HSR through station really cost more than three or four seperate London termini? Because at least three seperate stations is what you would need to serve lines to the north-west, north-east and south-west otherwise (south-east is already there as HS1).

 

[NotATrainspott]

Would a single subterainian HSR through station really cost more than three or four seperate London termini? Because at least three seperate stations is what you would need to serve lines to the north-west, north-east and south-west otherwise (south-east is already there as HS1).

However, you then have to pay for three or four termini at once even though the passenger numbers don't yet justify it. Once Euston takes the load off the MML and the ECML, both St Pancras Domestic and Kings' Cross will take some time to fill up completely again to the point where a second HSR terminus is required. With IEP, electrification and Crossrail, Paddington will have quite a bit of extra capacity for some time to come as well, especially if there is going to be a lot of interchange happening at Old Oak. HS2 is trying to build as little within London as it physically can since London is by far the most expensive place to build in the UK, so massively increasing the expense incurred here would provide little short-or-medium term benefit for an enormous increase in cost.

In my own opinion I can still see a through-London HSR route being a possibility once there is need for a GW and EC HSR line. Since both are likely to be needed within a reasonably short time of each other, it would indeed benefit both lines and provide immediate benefit to both once built. From the west, the GW HSR would almost certainly pass by Old Oak where there is space for another station box on the North Pole depot site. From there, I would imagine that the line would split with some trains going to a slightly rebuilt/extended Paddington terminus and the others bypassing it and continuing to the EC HSR terminus. If the route went under South London it would benefit from the relative lack of tunnelling there and could then go through to the new areas of London in the East End. In the long term I don't think London City airport will survive, either by being made inoperable by a Thames Hub airport or just by the environmental problems of jets flying low and landing in central London. The docklands here could host the EC HSR terminus, constructed as a station box like the Jubilee and Crossrail Canary Wharf stations. Then it could be easy to continue northwards to Toton via Cambridge/Stansted and eastwards to connect into HS1.

 

[Rhydgaled]

Once Euston takes the load off the MML and the ECML, both St Pancras Domestic and Kings' Cross will take some time to fill up completely again.

I guess the issue there is that I don't support the Leeds spur of HS2, instead believing a proper EC HSR is needed to do a propper job of freeing capacity on the ECML. I the the Leeds spur should be canceled and the money put towards the additional Birmingham (Central station to M5/M6 junction) and/or London tunneling.

The MML is more difficult as it (probably) carries less traffic than the ECML, WCML and GWML and therefore you cannot justify a HSR route specifically to relieve the MML. However, both the EC and WC routes would require a sizeable diversion to serve the MML. The nearest you can get is probably a Leeds spur branching off the HS2 route further south than currently planned (ie. roughly following the course of the old Great Central Railway to Rugby).

 

[po8crg]

I guess the issue there is that I don't support the Leeds spur of HS2, instead believing a proper EC HSR is needed to do a proper job of freeing capacity on the ECML.

Probably true, but you can run a line from Toton to London later on and get a pretty good approximation to a real EC HSR.

The Birmingham-Derby stretch of HS2 is, or could be, transformative. That's one of the worst bits of allegedly main line railway in the country - take a look at how bad Birmingham-Leeds or Birmingham-York is on XC. I think you can drive from Temple Meads to York station, visiting all the stations that the train calls at, and still beat the scheduled train time, without breaking the speed limit.

The "could be" is, of course, because the current plans mean you have to change stations in Birmingham if you're coming up from the SW. Connecting to the traditional lines in central Birmingham would allow classic-compatibles to run along the Exeter-Bristol-Birmingham-Leeds-York-Newcastle axis in dramatically improved times.

 

[NotATrainspott]

I guess the issue there is that I don't support the Leeds spur of HS2, instead believing a proper EC HSR is needed to do a propper job of freeing capacity on the ECML. I the the Leeds spur should be canceled and the money put towards the additional Birmingham (Central station to M5/M6 junction) and/or London tunneling.

The MML is more difficult as it (probably) carries less traffic than the ECML, WCML and GWML and therefore you cannot justify a HSR route specifically to relieve the MML. However, both the EC and WC routes would require a sizeable diversion to serve the MML. The nearest you can get is probably a Leeds spur branching off the HS2 route further south than currently planned (ie. roughly following the course of the old Great Central Railway to Rugby).

I agree that a via-Birmingham line for Newcastle-London trains is not ideal, but within the scope of the complete HS2 project - the 'inverted A' configuration of a TransPennine line to Liverpool and extensions to Scotland and Newcastle - the Leeds spur is definitely a better proposition in the short term than building an entire new line all the way. As I said before, the cost of building things in London is truly immense and increasing the costs there would result in cost savings having to be made further north. The Y network works at the moment because 18tph between Birmingham Interchange and Old Oak Common is possible and is sufficient for the capacity requirements for some time to come, especially since the existing routes will still be served by long, fast trains which will just stop much more often. Building the initial network this way also results in the network benefiting the north far more than the south. Based on the unhappiness that HS2 doesn't currently include the TransPennine link, imagine what the uproar would be if the Leeds-Birmingham section were not included? As po8crg said, this section of the classic network is by far the worst mainline in the country. If Leeds were initially connected to London via its own line, it would almost certainly preclude the Birmingham connection and thus the network would become London- rather than Birmingham-centric.

 

[Rhydgaled]

I agree that a via-Birmingham line for Newcastle-London trains is not ideal, but within the scope of the complete HS2 project - the 'inverted A' configuration of a TransPennine line to Liverpool and extensions to Scotland and Newcastle - the Leeds spur is definitely a better proposition in the short term than building an entire new line all the way. As I said before, the cost of building things in London is truly immense and increasing the costs there would result in cost savings having to be made further north. The Y network works at the moment because 18tph between Birmingham Interchange and Old Oak Common is possible and is sufficient for the capacity requirements for some time to come, especially since the existing routes will still be served by long, fast trains which will just stop much more often. Building the initial network this way also results in the network benefiting the north far more than the south. Based on the unhappiness that HS2 doesn't currently include the TransPennine link, imagine what the uproar would be if the Leeds-Birmingham section were not included? As po8crg said, this section of the classic network is by far the worst mainline in the country. If Leeds were initially connected to London via its own line, it would almost certainly preclude the Birmingham connection and thus the network would become London- rather than Birmingham-centric.

Probably true, but you can run a line from Toton to London later on and get a pretty good approximation to a real EC HSR.

The Birmingham-Derby stretch of HS2 is, or could be, transformative. That's one of the worst bits of allegedly main line railway in the country - take a look at how bad Birmingham-Leeds or Birmingham-York is on XC. I think you can drive from Temple Meads to York station, visiting all the stations that the train calls at, and still beat the scheduled train time, without breaking the speed limit.

The "could be" is, of course, because the current plans mean you have to change stations in Birmingham if you're coming up from the SW. Connecting to the traditional lines in central Birmingham would allow classic-compatibles to run along the Exeter-Bristol-Birmingham-Leeds-York-Newcastle axis in dramatically improved times.

Good points. If only the trains from the proposed Birmingham-Leeds leg of HS2 could get into the Birmingham central HS2 station and out the other side onto the existing line to Bristol. If you could do that, the proposed Y-shaped route would make much more sense than the current plan of using the Leeds spur of HS2 only for trains from Leeds to London (and perhaps trains from Leeds terminating at Birmingham).

 

[NotATrainspott]

Good points. If only the trains from the proposed Birmingham-Leeds leg of HS2 could get into the Birmingham central HS2 station and out the other side onto the existing line to Bristol. If you could do that, the proposed Y-shaped route would make much more sense than the current plan of using the Leeds spur of HS2 only for trains from Leeds to London (and perhaps trains from Leeds terminating at Birmingham).

There are many trains from the North which are intended to terminate at Birmingham in the current Phase 2 plans:

• 2tph from Manchester stopping at the airport
• 2tph from Leeds stopping at Meadowhall and Toton
• 1tph from Newcastle stopping at Durham, Darlington, York, Meadowhall and Toton
• 1tp2h from Glasgow stopping at Motherwell, Lockerbie, Carlisle, Penrith, Lancaster, Preston and Wigan North Western
• 1tp2h from Edinburgh stopping at Haymarket, Lockerbie, Carlisle, Oxenholme, Preston and Wigan North Western.

Probably all of these will be run with 200m units and they can run because the marginal cost of running even one-to-two-thirds-filled trains on the infrastructure that has to exist anyway is so low.

 

[HSTEd]

It is worth noting that a High Speed line parallel to the SWML could quite easily serve the South West as well.....

A line to Southampton could quite easily have a Salisbury-Yeovil-Exeter spur, its less than a hundred miles, which means a train can cover it in half an hour or less.


And as to Exeter not being able to justify 5tph, try putting it an hour from London and see what happens.


Additionally: King's Cross will be almost empty of non intercity services once the Thameslink programme completes, pretty much only the Cambridge cruisers would be left, which leads to the possibility of reconstructing the station and fitting a KGX-Cambridge-Peterborough-Nottingham high speed line to the route since virtually the entire station could be turned over.