Ideas for future High Speed Railway lines

[HSTEd]

Price, yes, but not necessarily speed. All it would take is one vehicle getting a flat tire or breaking down and chaos would ensue.

The Fehmarn Belt tunnel provides a hard shoulder - I assume it would be the same here.

 

[DPWH]

I think people get their crayons out in the wrong places. The best improvements would be to the existing system on the continent, particularly:

(1) Antwerp-Ghent and then splitting with one branch south to Lille and one west to Calais (to (try to) get London-Holland trains down to about 3 hrs), but also useful for Amsterdam-Paris, Amsterdam-Lille, and relieve congestion through Brussels.
(2) LGV Picardie (saves 20 mins on London-Paris but to relieve the main LGV Nord from London-Lille
(3) A tunnel under the Sonian Forest to connect Belgian HSL-1 to HSL-2, enabling London-Cologne trains to bypass Brussels, and to try to open London-Frankfurt up to a reasonable time.

I'm surprised no-one has commented on these proposals. Suggest I'm wrong, suggest I'm right, but I'd be interested in the reasoning.

 

[Holly]

I'm surprised no-one has commented on these proposals. Suggest I'm wrong, suggest I'm right, but I'd be interested in the reasoning.

I suspect people simply don't think it belongs in any of the UK Railway Forums.
Try the International Transport forum perhaps?

 

[Clip]

The Fehmarn Belt tunnel provides a hard shoulder - I assume it would be the same here.

To be perfectly honest with you in this day and age we need to be doing as much as we can to discourage long distance car use not encourage it

 

[HSTEd]

To be perfectly honest with you in this day and age we need to be doing as much as we can to discourage long distance car use not encourage it

If electric cars really are coming, then the environmental arguments against car use no longer really apply I'm afraid.

 

[The Ham]

If electric cars really are coming, then the environmental arguments against car use no longer really apply I'm afraid.

Other than the environmental impact from the production (or more importantly the disposal) of the batteries.

Also most cars are very wasteful in that they sit on drives, parked on street or in car parks for most of their life and are only really used for short bursts.

Even on a day that I travel for 5 hours, that's only about 20% of the day and most of the time most people are traveling for a lot less than that.

Compare that with a train which could be in (useable) service 10 hours a day (of not more) and the energy costs in producing the vehicles start to be split over a much smaller number of working hours (that's before you look at the length of the life of the vehicles, where trains are a lot older when they are scrapped than cars).

 

[najaB]

If electric cars really are coming, then the environmental arguments against car use no longer really apply I'm afraid.

Only in a low/zero carbon grid as the energy has to come from somewhere.

 

[MarkyT]

If electric cars really are coming, then the environmental arguments against car use no longer really apply I'm afraid.

Only in a low/zero carbon grid as the energy has to come from somewhere.

And electric cars alone will do nothing for urban congestion or parking constraints. While stationary in traffic or circling endlessly looking for a spot, they won't be directly emitting any local tailpipe pollution admittedly although their tyres will still be shedding rubber. Also considering that the electric power used must be generated somewhere and cause some pollution the inefficient formula of typically one person per tonne of vehicle still applies, as well as the the relative inefficiency of tyre on tarmac when compared to rail systems if that is what is being replaced.

 

[HSTEd]

And electric cars alone will do nothing for urban congestion or parking constraints. While stationary in traffic or circling endlessly looking for a spot, they won't be directly emitting any local tailpipe pollution admittedly although their tyres will still be shedding rubber.

I very much doubt electric cars will be left endlessly circling the streets, even if they are autonomous.
Modern high density parking solutions can help ameliorating the parking problems in cities (for example the automatic subterannean or aboveground car parks with sleds that are moved around under computer control).

And shedding rubber from tyres should be compared to the shedding of fine metal powder from railway vehicles.

Only in a low/zero carbon grid as the energy has to come from somewhere.

The energy pollution production issue is something of a red herring as we can produce enough energy with negligible overall pollution release. Either from nuclear or similar reliable renewable resources (mainly tidal)

 

[najaB]

The energy pollution production issue is something of a red herring as we can produce enough energy with negligible overall pollution release. Either from nuclear or similar reliable renewable resources (mainly tidal)

Which is what I said.

In any case, moving 1000 people in one electrically powered train is going to be more energy efficient than moving 1 person in each of 1000 electric vehicles.

 

[HSTEd]

Which is what I said.

In any case, moving 1000 people in one electrically powered train is going to be more energy efficient than moving 1 person in each of 1000 electric vehicles.

If the energy can be produced in a manner that produces negligible pollution, does it matter?

 

[najaB]

If the energy can be produced in a manner that produces negligible pollution, does it matter?

Yes. It still matters, it's still inefficient. That's energy being wasted that could be used for something else. Also, as @MarkyT says, there's congestion and land-take for parking to think about too.

 

[The Ham]

If the energy can be produced in a manner that produces negligible pollution, does it matter?

It matters because it takes resources to generate power, even if that's just to build the wind turbine, given we've got a limited amount of any resource then using it just to allow everyone to travel in an ineffective way isn't the best way. Especially given what I said this morning about the energy requirements of the vehicles in the first place.

That's not too say that we should force everyone to use public transport, rather there's good reasons to encourage it's continued use.

 

[HSTEd]

It matters because it takes resources to generate power, even if that's just to build the wind turbine, given we've got a limited amount of any resource then using it just to allow everyone to travel in an ineffective way isn't the best way. Especially given what I said this morning about the energy requirements of the vehicles in the first place.

Well the resources necessary to build say, a nuclear power station, are not in any kind of shortage. They consist of concrete, steel and aluminium - all of which are available in functionally unlimited quantities.
The inputs are also negligible compared to the amount of energy that will be produced over the lifespan of the plant.

There is also no uranium shortage, or any prospect of their ever being one - even the currently far too expensive seawater extraction of uranium is sufficiently cheap to render the maximum possible price of uranium irrelevant as to the price of nuclear energy (and before anyone says it is far too expensive, just ignore the idiotic deal the government signed to avoid the appearance of state ownership at Hinkley)

That's not too say that we should force everyone to use public transport, rather there's good reasons to encourage it's continued use.

However, subsidies to public transport and such (including deliberately restricting the utility of road transport, such as forcing the deletion of a road crossing of the Irish Sea in favour of a rail only solution) also represent a cost to society, which is in many ways comparable to the energy "wasted" by less efficient means of transportation.

The only way an Irish Sea crossing will ever come close to defraying the cost is if it as a drive through road solution - the Channel Tunnel has been a commercial failure and has been unable to even drive the Dover-Calais ferries out of the market.

 

[najaB]

The only way an Irish Sea crossing will ever come close to defraying the cost is if it as a drive through road solution - the Channel Tunnel has been a commercial failure and has been unable to even drive the Dover-Calais ferries out of the market.

I don't think it was ever intended or expected that the ferries would be completely driven out of the market. It would be a very poor business plan that depended on capturing 100% of any given market. There are, however, not nearly as many ferries on the route as there were 20 years ago despite the amount of cross-Channel trade increasing.

 

[MarkyT]

... the Channel Tunnel has been a commercial failure and has been unable to even drive the Dover-Calais ferries out of the market.

The owning company has been delivering respectable profits and dividends in recent years and is investing in improving the assets and diversifying into an electric power interconnector. Now that is after a number of near collapses and rescues and refinances by banks in the early years I admit, but it is not a failure by any stretch of the imagination. The big expense they struggled with earlier was the cost of the capital at the time, not the ongoing operating cost. A road solution might have been substantially more expensive with much bigger tunnels required, so may have been an even greater struggle at the beginning for such a long and deep tunnel. Road links were on the table for the project but the chosen solution was what exists, clearly, and was what was considered most viable at the time.

 

[DPWH]

I suspect people simply don't think it belongs in any of the UK Railway Forums.
Try the International Transport forum perhaps?

I'm not sure why that is. Surely the tunnel to Ireland counts as "international"? That's discussed even though it would cost multi-gazillion pounds tunnel and would be a massive engineering undertaking, i.e. the longest undersea tunnel on the planet. And then discussion about that descended into an off-topic musings about car v road tunnels and crystal-ball gazing regarding self-driving electric cars.

Surely in that context "high speed rail" lines/services which are of direct relevance and usefulness for Britain are better topics? "Expensive, but within reasonable budget constraints for this sort of thing" and "well within existing engineering capabilities", whereas the other suggestions noticeably lack these criteria?

 

[najaB]

I'm not sure why that is. Surely the tunnel to Ireland counts as "international"?

One end of it...

 

[HSTEd]

Well if the tunnel comes out in Northern Ireland..... no end of it would be "international" as it stands.

 

[Halifaxlad]

I would do a brand new high speed route from Bradford to Burnley, to enable Leeds - Bradford - Preston - Blackpool North services to operate a lot quicker and to pull Leeds closer to the WCML.

Also a brand new line between Manchester and Doncaster via Barnsley, to pull Manchester closer to the ECML.

https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?...ll=53.72260072314779,-1.8704140561010263&z=10

 

[najaB]

I would do a brand new high speed route from Bradford to Burnley, to enable Leeds - Bradford - Preston - Blackpool North services to operate a lot quicker and to pull Leeds closer to the WCML.

Also a brand new line between Manchester and Doncaster via Barnsley, to pull Manchester closer to the ECML.

https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1ESHp8z3uhgF8Ryj4DibXIO6Knw9ZobCQ&ll=53.631009590163195,-1.9725466671875438&z=9

You link isn't public.

 

[Halifaxlad]

You link isn't public.

Changed it, thanks for pointing it out.

 

[Clip]

I've mapped mine out here:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=16_5LouJm_ar0F6QGXrHVMcZQgsAc-QCB&usp=sharing

I like the pretty colours but i doubt the S********d branch is going to be any sort of speed looking at it

 

[Clip]

The Chunnel has been a huge failure.

You need to show your workings out on that statement im afraid

 

[HSTEd]

You need to show your workings out on that statement im afraid

The bit where Eurotunnel essentially went bankrupt in all but name?

And the bit where Calais-Dover ferries still exist?

 

[najaB]

And the bit where Calais-Dover ferries still exist?

We've been through this before, and it doesnt matter how many times you say it: there was never an expectation that the ferries would go away completely.

 

[HSTEd]

We've been through this before, and it doesnt matter how many times you say it: there was never an expectation that the ferries would go away completely.

Nope, but a drive through crossing would have crushed them.

Eurotunnel was a basket case until the debt forgiveness and refinancings pulled the current operation out of the ashes.
This model of shuttle trains carrying cars through a tunnel simply is not going to be economic.

If you are going to load a car onto a train, you incur many of the same disadvantages you get from loading it on the ferry.

Which is why no-one has ever attempted any project like it since.

(And before anyone cites the Swiss rolling highways, they are also basket cases economically and survive due to huge subsidies and taxes on road vehicles)

 

[najaB]

Nope, but a drive through crossing would have crushed them.

As well as being next to impossible to make the safety case for. Think Mont Blanc was bad? Imagine a tunnel nearly five times longer and under the sea.

 

[Clip]

The bit where Eurotunnel essentially went bankrupt in all but name?

And the bit where Calais-Dover ferries still exist?

That doesn't mean it has been a failure as you claim. It seems to be working just fine about now and there is plenty of room for both the tunnel and the ferries to work in harmony no matter what you think.

Its a bit like saying the railways have failed because there are still trucks on the road

 

[HSTEd]

As well as being next to impossible to make the safety case for. Think Mont Blanc was bad? Imagine a tunnel nearly five times longer and under the sea.

That assumes you build a bored tunnel in the same place as the existing one, which is not what you would do.
If you were building a crossing today you would either build a multiple span suspension or cable stay bridge using gravity base platform piers (derived from oil rig tech, as is being proposed for various projects in Norway) or you would build an immersed tube tunnel.

An immersed tube tunnel would only be ~35km long, and a 17km long one is already under construction in the Fehmarn Belt.

This is not the late 80s any more.