HS2 - why not start the northern half first?

[Shimbleshanks]

If pushing the southern half of HS2 through the Home Counties is going to be difficult, has any thought been given to starting the section between the Midlands and north-west England first?

Advantages would be: Fewer nimbies to contend with, at least that's my impression.

Creating a high-speed link between Manchester, Liverpool and Birmingham - surely this ties in the the Government's aspirations to develop the regions.

Improvement in journey time between the North-west and London, it's just that the speed-up would occur on the first half of the journey, not the second.

Making an early start on the northern section would allow problems with the route south of Birmingham to be sorted out meanwhile.

Drawbacks I could see are that Birmingham folk might prefer a fast link to London rather than a fast link to the North - but then maybe not?

 

[Bletchleyite]

Drawbacks I could see are that Birmingham folk might prefer a fast link to London rather than a fast link to the North - but then maybe not?

Major drawback - unlike the southern section it will not relieve capacity problems on the south WCML, which is the main benefit that will come from the southern section. (The tiny time improvement on a London-Brum journey is neither here nor there).

Neil

 

[NotATrainspott]

Effectively David Higgins' HS2 Plus report means that the two sections will start at almost the same time. In his timetable, the station sites in the Phase 2 cities will be built simultaneously to the ones on Phase 1 so that full regeneration works can happen around them, despite there being no trains running into any of them.

 

[deltic]

Because the work required to progress HS2 phase 2 through Parliament wont be ready for at least 2 years while phase 1 is already going through the Parliamentry process - ie doing Phase 2 first will just delay start for years

 

[Simon11]

To add, the business case stacks alot around London and if you exclude London, demand and thus revenue will be far lower.

Start with London and they will start to recoup the investment quicker.

 

[Holly]

To add, the business case stacks alot around London and if you exclude London, demand and thus revenue will be far lower.

Start with London and they will start to recoup the investment quicker.

You can still run classic compatibles into London.
Starting North is faster, cheaper and allows you to build experience before tackling the expensive parts.

But I do take the point, the bureaucracy takes far far longer than the construction and the southern end has a huge head start of the bureaucracy. Which pretty much sets the bad decision in stone.

 

[AM9]

You can still run classic compatibles into London.
Starting North is faster, cheaper and allows you to build experience before tackling the expensive parts.

But I do take the point, the bureaucracy takes far far longer than the construction and the southern end has a huge head start of the bureaucracy. Which pretty much sets the bad decision in stone.

Running Classic Compatibles is just as problematic as extra fasts on the WCML. The liine is full so any additional services will only make journeys less reliable. The southern part of HS2 will release capacity for freight, local and fast passenger traffic.
The north has much to do before the lack of HS2 is a constraint to growth. Its needed now to ease WCML overloading which affects that whole of southern England.

 

[deltic]

The northern route is also not straightforward. Witness the apparent changes to station locations in the East Midlands and Leeds and the continuing argument about station locations in South Yorkshire. Depot locations also seem to be problematic.

 

[GrimsbyPacer]

They are starting in the South first because it won't pass Birmingham!

 

[Holly]

Running Classic Compatibles is just as problematic as extra fasts on the WCML. The liine is full so any additional services will only make journeys less reliable. The southern part of HS2 will release capacity for freight, local and fast passenger traffic.
The north has much to do before the lack of HS2 is a constraint to growth. Its needed now to ease WCML overloading which affects that whole of southern England.

Against that, starting in the North would produce benefits at an earlier date, and for less money spent by that date. And lower project risk.

Which doesn't change the fact that this is all water under the bridge and the wrong decision is already set in stone.

 

[WatcherZero]

Starting in the north wouldn't produce any benefit without the southern section, your just replacing the existing fasts with new fasts to Birmingham shaving a few minutes. They would be unable to continue south of Birmingham as there is no spare paths to put them on and they would be unsuitable for stopper duties, the trains operating north of Birmingham are not as yet at full capacity.

 

[The Planner]

How would you make it work starting in the north and connecting into the classic network, Handsacre is the wrong way around. You would need to build an abortive expensive connection to do it. I also agree with the pathing issues aswell, how does the southern end of the WCML work doing this?

 

[edwin_m]

It would basically be only about journey time. Because the southern WMCL is full, the same number of services would run to Manchester etc but they would come off the WCML somewhere to use the HS2 route further north. They would also therefore miss out places like Stoke, who are not exactly wild about HS2 as it is!

This would only make sense if the decision was made to build an east-west route across the North before a north-south route to London. Depending what route was chosen for the east-west services, some London and Birmingham trains might be able to use parts of it, for example any new route into Liverpool.

 

[matacaster]

They are starting in the South first because it won't pass Birmingham!

Agree entirely!

The reason that HS2 has the northern legs is simply to ensure that the entire country pays for a new high speed Birmingham to London commuter line. If they admitted it would only go from London to Birmingham, then there would be calls for these two places alone to fund the cost. The only real capacity problem is between these two places.

 

[superkev]

Sad that hs2 is like the m1 before it bypassing the uks 5th largest (Wikipedia) population centre Bradford metro district.
k

 

[edwin_m]

Sad that hs2 is like the m1 before it bypassing the uks 5th largest (Wikipedia) population centre Bradford metro district.
k

If you're referring to this page then you're caught by the boundary issue.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_districts_by_population

This gives populations within the boundaries of local authorities, whereas what most people would consider important is the conurbation or greater built-up area which often encompasses many authorities. The extreme case is Greater London where if you go by that list you should be wondering why HS2 isn't serving the primary population centre in ... Croydon.

Even on that list Leeds has 50% more population than Bradford so it's a pretty poor wicket if you're trying to bat for Bradford.

 

[GrimsbyPacer]

That Wikipedia list also puts Manchester quite low down.
This thread says it's about whether the North end should start first.
But imagine Crossrail London and The Channel Tunnel starting from one side only. Obvisously if Leeds, London, Birmingham and Manchester all had construction started at the same time HS2 would be built alot faster and the so-called benenefits to what Tories call Northern Powerhouse would happen from day one. Phase 2 could then be the Scotland route/s.

 

[NotATrainspott]

That Wikipedia list also puts Manchester quite low down.
This thread says it's about whether the North end should start first.
But imagine Crossrail London and The Channel Tunnel starting from one side only. Obvisously if Leeds, London, Birmingham and Manchester all had construction started at the same time HS2 would be built alot faster and the so-called benenefits to what Tories call Northern Powerhouse would happen from day one. Phase 2 could then be the Scotland route/s.

Strangely enough David Higgins changed the plans for Phase 2 such that construction of the northern half would start almost simultaneously with Phase 1. For example, Manchester Piccadilly will take around five years to complete, and previously the plan had been to start once Phase 1 is complete so that the station would only be ready just in time for Phase 2. However, the plan is now to start construction as soon as Parliamentary approval has been received, such that the Phase 2 stations are ready well before there are any HS2 services calling at them. This is intended to make the scheme impossible to cancel - as if that were ever really a worry - and would also enable other works to happen simultaneously. At Meadowhall, for example, there are various plans to extend the Supertram network and these would need to tie in to the HS2 plans. If the HS2 station plans weren't finalised for construction until 2027 or so, it would make it difficult to commit to any Supertram plans until that time. Since the plan is now to get things shovel-ready in the early 2020s, Supertram works could begin and be completed then without any worry of plans changing in future, and those extra public transport links provided for the future HS2 services would then be able to serve local people far earlier than would otherwise be the case.

Now, this isn't new information for anyone who read the Higgins reports. There appears to be a contingent of people who cannot process the idea that maybe, just maybe, there is no grand conspiracy against the North whereby HS2 would be planned and then ritually cancelled after an election. The Higgins plans are as much as it is possible to do in our country with our system of authorising large infrastructure projects, so criticising him for not planning even more would be like criticising TfL for not having started construction on Crossrail 2 despite it being needed as well.

Also, I would also point out that HS2 doesn't need to be built linearly in most cases. There are various current or recent HSR construction projects visible on Google Maps (e.g. the LGV Sud Europe Atlantique near Poitiers) where you can see how hundreds of kilometres of the route can be constructed simultaneously. Therefore, comparisons with tunnelled schemes like Crossrail or the Channel Tunnel are not particularly apt. The fundamental reason why Phase 1 must begin earlier is that the individual components of HS2 that will take the longest to build are all located at the London end, and so it is essential that these begin earlier for the scheme to work.

 

[Chris125]

Agree entirely!

The reason that HS2 has the northern legs is simply to ensure that the entire country pays for a new high speed Birmingham to London commuter line. If they admitted it would only go from London to Birmingham, then there would be calls for these two places alone to fund the cost. The only real capacity problem is between these two places.

HS2 has northern legs because they are fundamental to relieving the existing network, especially the ECML, and to the overall business case which significantly improves with the larger network. To suggest that London-Birmingham is the only 'real' capacity problem is simply wrong.

Chris

 

[matacaster]

HS2 has northern legs because they are fundamental to relieving the existing network, especially the ECML, and to the overall business case which significantly improves with the larger network. To suggest that London-Birmingham is the only 'real' capacity problem is simply wrong.

Chris

Which 'northern parts of ECML' are full to capacity which judicious 4 tracking or relatively short sections of new railway couldn't solve?

eg Doncaster -> Leeds is slow, 2-track and full. What is required is either a new route or improvements to any of the existing routes etc between the two.

I think you may find its (mainly) the southern end that's the problem.

 

[NotATrainspott]

Which 'northern parts of ECML' are full to capacity which judicious 4 tracking or relatively short sections of new railway couldn't solve?

eg Doncaster -> Leeds is slow, 2-track and full. What is required is either a new route or improvements to any of the existing routes etc between the two.

I think you may find its (mainly) the southern end that's the problem.

However, the question then is whether there is a business case for building extraordinary four-tracking. There might be some areas where it would be feasible and useful to do so - e.g. through Huyton and Roby on the Chat Moss line between Liverpool and Manchester - but in a lot of cases it's not going to be that simple. As soon as you need special infrastructure or land acquisition, the question has to be asked whether it's actually a useful thing in the long term. If you know you're going to need to build a brand new high speed railway anyway, which would then remove any need for that investment, then there isn't much point spending a lot of money on the classic railway there. Something similar will apply when it comes to bringing HS2 to Scotland, since there's no point upgrading the WCML for >200km/h running if a 400km/h high speed line is at all likely and would then leave your expensively-upgraded tracks with only 75mph freights.

 

[po8crg]

Putting an extra two tracks between Stockport and Manchester, and enough grade separated junctions to actually be able to use the capacity would likely cost as much as or more than the HS2 tunnel. That whole area is a nest of flat junctions, and trains (e.g. Oxford Road to Stalybridge) end up crossing the throat of Piccadilly station creating even more problems. Rebuilding it properly could mean closing Piccadilly station for months (hardly practical), or working around busy operating tracks, which would also be very challenging - look at how hard the London Bridge reconstruction has been.

 

[Chris125]

Which 'northern parts of ECML' are full to capacity which judicious 4 tracking or relatively short sections of new railway couldn't solve?

I didn't say anything about the 'northern parts' of the ECML.