HS Caledonian Railway New Line

[adrock1976]

With discussions in various threads about northern extensions of HS2, Scottish electrification, Glasgow Crossrail, etc, I've had a flash of creative thinking here.

Assuming the present day Glasgow Central station is chosen as the city station for HS services, and having the western arm of HS constructed first, this is what I'm basing my thinking on.

Platforms 9 and 10 at GLC could be specially dedicated to HS services and nothing else, as these are long platforms and importantly, are straight as an arrow in comparison to Platforms 1 and 2, where they are curvy. Alternatively, the former site of the Caledonian Railway Bridge Street station may be an alternative, as the pillars for the dismantled bridge over the Clyde is still there, and would integrate with the Glasgow Underground at Bridge Street station as well as local heavy rail services.

After crossing the mighty Clyde, the HS route would obviously be on a new alignment as far as the Solway Firth or River Eden on the approach to Carlisle, with the Edinburgh arm joining up somewhere (similar to Fretin Junction in France). This would run alongside the classic CR line to the west, with the disused and abandoned buildings at the northern side of the approach to Citadel station being demolished to make way for the HS line.

The track to the west of Platform 1 - 3 island could be redesigned with another island platform built there. The present Platform 3 at Citadel station could be specially dedicated for the southbound traditional CR/ Lancaster & Carlisle Railway, with Platform 1 being specially dedicated for the southbound HS services.

The new island platform could have the outer face specially dedicated for the traditional Lancaster & Carlisle Railway/CR northbound services, with the inner face being specially dedicated for the New Caledonian HS northbound services.

The HS tracks would be on a different and much straighter alignment than the present day Lancaster & Carlisle Railway to Preston or some other place to connect with and/or bypassing the Manchester arm of HS2.

Does this seem a good idea to have HS services calling at Citadel station, or would it be better to bypass it completely and leave the Preston - Carlisle, and Carlisle - Scotland journeys on the traditional lines?

In peace

Adam

PS Although I've made references to College Goods Yard and Glasgow Crossrail, it is because both of my local stations of Springburn and Barnhill are on the City Union Railway. i am one of these people who are happy to keep all options open. Furthermore, in the run up to the 2001 General Election, the Office of National Statistics released a report saying that the Westminster constituency of Glasgow Springburn (the present day Glasgow North East) was the most deprived constituency outside of London. It was very grim reading indeed.

 

[NotATrainspott]

With discussions in various threads about northern extensions of HS2, Scottish electrification, Glasgow Crossrail, etc, I've had a flash of creative thinking here.

Assuming the present day Glasgow Central station is chosen as the city station for HS services, and having the western arm of HS constructed first, this is what I'm basing my thinking on.

Platforms 9 and 10 at GLC could be specially dedicated to HS services and nothing else, as these are long platforms and importantly, are straight as an arrow in comparison to Platforms 1 and 2, where they are curvy. Alternatively, the former site of the Caledonian Railway Bridge Street station may be an alternative, as the pillars for the dismantled bridge over the Clyde is still there, and would integrate with the Glasgow Underground at Bridge Street station as well as local heavy rail services.

After crossing the mighty Clyde, the HS route would obviously be on a new alignment as far as the Solway Firth or River Eden on the approach to Carlisle, with the Edinburgh arm joining up somewhere (similar to Fretin Junction in France). This would run alongside the classic CR line to the west, with the disused and abandoned buildings at the northern side of the approach to Citadel station being demolished to make way for the HS line.

The track to the west of Platform 1 - 3 island could be redesigned with another island platform built there. The present Platform 3 at Citadel station could be specially dedicated for the southbound traditional CR/ Lancaster & Carlisle Railway, with Platform 1 being specially dedicated for the southbound HS services.

The new island platform could have the outer face specially dedicated for the traditional Lancaster & Carlisle Railway/CR northbound services, with the inner face being specially dedicated for the New Caledonian HS northbound services.

The HS tracks would be on a different and much straighter alignment than the present day Lancaster & Carlisle Railway to Preston or some other place to connect with and/or bypassing the Manchester arm of HS2.

Does this seem a good idea to have HS services calling at Citadel station, or would it be better to bypass it completely and leave the Preston - Carlisle, and Carlisle - Scotland journeys on the traditional lines?

In peace

Adam

PS Although I've made references to College Goods Yard and Glasgow Crossrail, it is because both of my local stations of Springburn and Barnhill are on the City Union Railway. i am one of these people who are happy to keep all options open. Furthermore, in the run up to the 2001 General Election, the Office of National Statistics released a report saying that the Westminster constituency of Glasgow Springburn (the present day Glasgow North East) was the most deprived constituency outside of London. It was very grim reading indeed.

The Glasgow high speed tracks would need to start heading towards the east, so it makes sense to ensure the HS platforms are on the eastern side of Central so that there's no need for expensive grade-separation or the recipe for disaster that is crossing over a station throat. Unfortunately one of the structures on Jamaica Street is Grade A listed, so it may be rather complicated to extend the station to the east. The idea of having the HS terminus on the other side of the river is a non-starter as you have most of the same costs without the interconnectivity of a single main station, since connectivity to the subway could be nothing but a travelator to St Enoch away.

In my idea of how it would all work, I would have the Grade A listed building jacked up and moved across Jamaica Street to sit on top of a new travelator link tunnel. Building the HS platforms south of Argyle Street, and then extending across the Clyde like at Blackfriars, would seem to be possible while keeping most of the classic station open. Madrid's Atocha station shows what you can do with an old station when you need to fit in too much new railway infrastructure - keep the old station as it is but remove all the tracks and put them in a new build shed to the south. Keep the station building north of Argyle Street, including the Hielanman's Umbrella, more-or-less as-is and reconstruct all the railway infrastructure south of it with the undercroft opened up in the same way as St Pancras.

Carlisle needs some form of rail service to Scotland and to London but if you have a captive line to Scotland, there's really no point in running a classic service all the way (at speeds that don't mix well with freight) from Lancaster just to serve the city. As a result, I think there really isn't much doubt that Carlisle would have some form of captive HS2 station, then also performing the role of the split/join location for Edinburgh/Glasgow-London services. The land in the city is cheap, the railway alignment is already more-or-less straight, and there's space for the existing station to be expanded to the west to hold HS2 platforms without needing much work done to the classic parts. It might be cheaper to build a parkway station nearer the Scottish border but when there really isn't much to stop a captive station being built in the city centre - with the benefits that would bring the city and the entire region - I can't see that option being chosen.

 

[Altnabreac]

To be honest I'm not sure Carlisle would have a Captive HS station.

I think Carlisle is a much more likely location for splitting / joining 400m classic compatibles than Carstairs post HS2 phase 2.

The next phase after that is to achieve 3 hour journey times by building several discrete sections of high speed line. Probably E-G, and then a couple of long sections bypassing Shap and Beattock.

In Carlisle you'd logically still use the existing line and station.

By the time you're talking about a full Captive line including new city centre stations there is likely to be demand for 2tph 400m trains to each of Edinburgh and Glasgow so no need to split/join.

Carlisle would probably served by classic compatibles running on a route like Edinburgh - Birmingham or extension of the London - Preston via Crewe CC service.

 

[NotATrainspott]

To be honest I'm not sure Carlisle would have a Captive HS station.

I think Carlisle is a much more likely location for splitting / joining 400m classic compatibles than Carstairs post HS2 phase 2.

The next phase after that is to achieve 3 hour journey times by building several discrete sections of high speed line. Probably E-G, and then a couple of long sections bypassing Shap and Beattock.

In Carlisle you'd logically still use the existing line and station.

By the time you're talking about a full Captive line including new city centre stations there is likely to be demand for 2tph 400m trains to each of Edinburgh and Glasgow so no need to split/join.

Carlisle would probably served by classic compatibles running on a route like Edinburgh - Birmingham or extension of the London - Preston via Crewe CC service.

I just cannot see there being any justification for any sort of classic-compatible service to venture north of Lancaster with the eventual full captive HS2 to Scotland. It would take hours for a Preston terminator to run up to Carlisle and back, and in that time it would be the only remaining long distance high speed service on what could otherwise be a solely freight/local passenger line. All Scotland-non-London services would end up running on the captive line too, so that the line could actually deliver the sorts of massive transport improvements to non-London travel that it is capable of. Scotland-Birmingham captive services would stop at every captive station on the route, but even with this the total journey time would be something quite spectacular compared to today and would help to reduce the relative advantage London has over other cities (e.g. at the moment, it can be as fast and cheap to get from Scotland to London as it is to other major cities in England which are significantly closer).

It may not be necessary for there to be a full speed bypass line of any Carlisle HSR station, so it may be the case that the HS2 station would comprise of little more than another pair of low-speed tracks and another set of platforms built to the west. Since the existing railway alignment is straight enough and wide enough, it may even be the case that Network Rail already owns much of the land necessary to build it. In that sense it's like Toton, but with even less population around it. The lay of the land running north-south through Cumbria would also mean that any realistic HS2 route would have to run close to Carlisle regardless of the exact route chosen.

 

[Rick1984]

I think one route from Newcastle to Edinburgh and on to Glasgow where it would terminate is a better option.

 

[NotATrainspott]

I think one route from Newcastle to Edinburgh and on to Glasgow where it would terminate is a better option.

That requires two captive approaches into Edinburgh, each running into one single station site sandwiched between two World Heritage Sites and alongside an extremely busy and indispensable part of the British rail network. That's a rather tall order, and nowhere else has such a thing been accepted on HS2. The only city centre through stations even suggested in the route engineering studies have been in relatively inexpensive cities with corridors available for captive tracks. As a consequence, the idea of running services through Edinburgh is a complete non-starter, and with that the concept of an East Coast HSR route from Newcastle collapses as well. The recent TfN/DfT documents suggest that Newcastle is seen as the northernmost reach of the high speed rail network through the North East of England, while the main line through Lancashire would extend to Scotland.

 

[HSTEd]

It doesn't necessarily require two captive approaches into Edinburgh - after all Waverley is barely useful as a station anyway.

The route between Newcastle and Edinburgh would take advantage of the great hill climbing performance of high speed trains (4% gradients in common use in Germany) and simply proceed straight from Edinburgh to Newcastle.
That approaches Edinburgh from the South, so the route in is also useful to the Glasgow line.
But the western line looks far more likely to be built - leaving Newcastle hung out to dry.

 

[NotATrainspott]

It doesn't necessarily require two captive approaches into Edinburgh - after all Waverley is barely useful as a station anyway.

The route between Newcastle and Edinburgh would take advantage of the great hill climbing performance of high speed trains (4% gradients in common use in Germany) and simply proceed straight from Edinburgh to Newcastle.
That approaches Edinburgh from the South, so the route in is also useful to the Glasgow line.
But the western line looks far more likely to be built - leaving Newcastle hung out to dry.

Waverley is as centrally located as it is possible for a main railway station to be. You can walk out of it to reach almost every major destination in Edinburgh, and it links a huge variety of services in Great Britain, from local lines up to long distance high speed services.

Hill climbing ability is wonderful but when you're routing a high speed line through the middle of the Northumberland National Park you've got other, very serious problems. It's slap-bang in the middle between Edinburgh and Newcastle and stretches far enough to make any avoiding route as long as a route that may as well go via Carlisle. If you have to go to Carlisle, you may as well continue south rather than east and have the advantage of 2.5 hour journey times to London and connections to the second and third largest conurbations in the country - Manchester and Birmingham.

Newcastle doesn't need a captive line immediately. It's a nice idea that I support but the incremental benefit it has over the classic railway isn't large enough to justify the disbenefits of not being able to serve York, Darlington, Durham and Middlesbrough properly. Small sections of captive cut-off line would be a good idea, arranged in such a way that they would later become parts of the new fully captive line, but there's no need to prioritise this section above others. A second London-Birmingham line or a Birmingham-Bristol line would help its case considerably.

 

[Rick1984]

In that case have Glasgow as a through station and terminate the line at Edinburgh.

 

[route:oxford]

In that case have Glasgow as a through station and terminate the line at Edinburgh.

The HS1 station for Glasgow should be built underground somewhere in the region of Buchanan Street. That way pedestrian access can be provided from both Queen Street and Central Stations without having to cross Glasgow.

 

[edwin_m]

The HS1 station for Glasgow should be built underground somewhere in the region of Buchanan Street. That way pedestrian access can be provided from both Queen Street and Central Stations without having to cross Glasgow.

That could be difficult given the need to pass below the Clyde and the two sub-surface heavy rail routes, and (probably) above the Subway. An underground station for high speed trains would be twice as long as a Crossrail station and probably with more platforms, so incredibly expensive.

 

[clc]

The HS1 station for Glasgow should be built underground somewhere in the region of Buchanan Street. That way pedestrian access can be provided from both Queen Street and Central Stations without having to cross Glasgow.

It would surely be more beneficial (and cheaper?) to divert existing local/regional services through a new tunnel linking the north and south networks and make part of Central High Level the HSR terminal.

If you did this very few HSR passengers would need to transfer to Queen St as the vast majority of stations in the Glasgow conurbation could be reached from Central directly or via a same platform change at Partick. The only exceptions I can think of would be Airdrie, Springburn and WHL stations.

HSR passengers from the south destined for Aberdeen, Dundee and Inverness could avoid an inter-station transfer by going via Waverley.

 

[route:oxford]

That could be difficult given the need to pass below the Clyde and the two sub-surface heavy rail routes, and (probably) above the Subway. An underground station for high speed trains would be twice as long as a Crossrail station and probably with more platforms, so incredibly expensive.

Surely the Northern terminus of High Speed One will be Perth? Thus it would only need the two through platforms.

 

[Noddy]

Surely the Northern terminus of High Speed One will be Perth? Thus it would only need the two through platforms.

Why do you keep calling it High Speed 1? It will be HS2 Phase 3, or maybe HS4.

 

[route:oxford]

Why do you keep calling it High Speed 1? It will be HS2 Phase 3, or maybe HS4.

It can't be HS2 in Scotland as there isn't an HS1 in Scotland yet.

A bit like the Post Boxes in Scotland don't say Queen Elizabeth II...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/8207950.stm

 

[Ironside]

It can't be HS2 in Scotland as there isn't an HS1 in Scotland yet.

A bit like the Post Boxes in Scotland don't say Queen Elizabeth II...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/8207950.stm

The post boxes may have just the insignia but the agreement for monarchs since the time of Churchill is that the highest number usedby england or scotland is the number to be worked from; therefore it is logical that as the High speed network is within the UK a similar pattern will follow. Ie as there is HS1 in England, HS2 is to follow.

 

[HSTEd]

Having a seperate numbering scheme for HSLs in Scotland is just silly.
Especially since they would be only like 2 hours apart.

 

[33Hz]

It already happens between Belgium and the Netherlands and between Belgium and France.

 

[HSTEd]

Yes, all of which are seperate independent states.

That hasn't happened with Scotland yet.

 

[33Hz]

But what will happen first?

 

[Noddy]

But what will happen first?

If it does there will be no 'HS1' in Scotland in the next fifty years.

 

[Agent_c]

Where is the Scottish M1?

 

[edwin_m]

Where is the Scottish M1?

Maybe Scotland could have exclusive use of HS7, HS8 and HS9 with England and Wales having HS1 to HS6?

This is getting silly.

 

[33Hz]

If we go down that route then surely HS1 should be HS2 and HS2 should be HS1 (with the westerly branch HS6)?

 

[route:oxford]

If it does there will be no 'HS1' in Scotland in the next fifty years.

It was pointed out to me that it wouldn't be "HS1" anyway.

It'll be Àrd Luaths A H-aon

or

"ÀLAH"

 

[Noddy]

It was pointed out to me that it wouldn't be "HS1" anyway.

It'll be Àrd Luaths A H-aon

or

"ÀLAH"

And if you're a Scots speaker?

 

[PaulLothian]

And if you're a Scots speaker?

Interestingly, no distinctively different words for railway-related things. Scots dictionaries tend to offer only words reflecting variations of pronunciation (e.g. railwey).

Never gave this much thought before, but the development of railway technology probably coincided with the period of Scots history (the century or so after the battle of Culloden) when there was a great focus on assimilation into the UK. The pressure for Scots to speak 'English', as opposed to their many local dialects of broad Scots meant there would be relatively little development of new words in Scots. Or, to be precise, any new words coined would not tend to be recorded!

I think this theory may work for other areas of Scottish life as well, but will have to investigate further!

 

[route:oxford]

And if you're a Scots speaker?

Depends on whether you have a posh Scot's tongue as I do, or you are a bit rough.

 

[edwin_m]

I did some work on a railway scheme in Iceland a few years ago. If it had gone a bit further they would have had to submit some railway terminology to the committee that thinks up Icelandic words for new things to prevent the language being polluted by English. So for example the word for computer translates literally as "number wizard".