HS2 - slowing down

[AlexNL]

With ETCS it shouldn't cost much to reconfigure the signalling to whatever capacity is needed.
There won't be the scale of fixed equipment which is so expensive to alter on classic lines.

Yes and no... with ETCS Levels 1 and 2 you're still dealing with fixed blocks and trackside equipment such as train detection, marker boards and balises.

If you want to make blocks shorter to increase capacity the infrastructure will have to be reconfigured: balises moved or added, marker boards moved, and so on.

ETCS Level 3 is supposed to do away with all that as the trains themselves are responsible for integrity monitoring and position reporting, but that's nowhere near being ready for prime time.

 

[NotATrainspott]

Interestingly with the ICE4 Germany is moving towards a *lower* top speed of 250km/h, citing connectivity, the environment and cost as more important than raw speed.

Personally I'd say speccing it all to 300km/h per HS1 would be a sensible balance.

The other factor in the 249km/h max speed of the ICE4 is that the high speed rail TSIs apply at 250km/h and above. Keeping it low means the Germans don't have to design their domestic trains to a standard which could let them run all across the Continent, which would add expense without a real benefit for them.

Germany has a very different rail network because the country has many cities of equal importance spread all over the country. It's not practical for any infrastructure to link all of them together. They essentially need a grid of train lines to link them all together, which means the benefit of rebuilding any one line to high speed standard will be lower by default than it is in the UK, where most cities are located on two major linear corridors east and west of the Pennines, or France, where Paris is the central hub of the rail network.

 

[Maurice3000]

The other factor in the 249km/h max speed of the ICE4 is that the high speed rail TSIs apply at 250km/h and above. Keeping it low means the Germans don't have to design their domestic trains to a standard which could let them run all across the Continent, which would add expense without a real benefit for them.

Very true. If you look at the product ranges of the major manufacturers you'll see that 249 km/h is a common cut off. Above that the requirements are more stringent and therefore costly. It would be economic madness to design a train with, for instance, a top speed of 260 km/h as the 11 km/h extra is not worth the extra cost.

Essentially the TSI has produced the product category of sub 250 km/h trains that the manufacturers are now basing their product portfolios on:

• sub 250
• 300/320
• 350 and up ("ludicrous speed")

 

[AndrewE]

Germany has a very different rail network because the country has many cities of equal importance spread all over the country. It's not practical for any infrastructure to link all of them together. They essentially need a grid of train lines to link them all together, which means the benefit of rebuilding any one line to high speed standard will be lower by default than it is in the UK, where most cities are located on two major linear corridors east and west of the Pennines, or France, where Paris is the central hub of the rail network.

I don't think this is true, and it is illustrated in an article that I found the other day:
https://www.citymetric.com/transpor...meant-end-northern-economic-independence-1408 says

"The end of the Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway meant the end of northern economic independence"

The development of the internal transportation network within and between England's four main northern conurbations is, as usual, distinctive and misunderstood.
The mosaic map created by the Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway Company (L&YR), and on display in various stations, shows only a part of the overall system – but it does indicate its unfocussed, decentralised character. Uniquely among major English companies, this company never built a line to London. Adapting this system to modern needs has rarely worked out well over the last century, culminating in the never-ending west coast line upgrade saga, and its strange and controversial child, High Speed 2 (HS2).
The L&YR is especially interesting as the only powerful and long-lasting organisation which emerged spontaneously to co-ordinate activity across these conurbation boundaries. Its profits reflected regional economic performance, and it responded accordingly, always paying a dividend, and often a very healthy one.
Incorporated in 1847, the L&YR united several small existing companies. Significantly, its core was the Manchester & Leeds Railway Company, formed in 1839, and not the Liverpool & Manchester (1830). It flourished for over 70 years, until 1921, when parliament forcibly grouped most lines into four huge new entities. The western routes mostly went to the London, Midland & Scottish; the rest to the London & North Eastern. The usual guiding logic of regionality and operational efficiency was set aside. The London routes to the north, provided by other companies, were assumed to have primacy.

The end of the LY&R had both a symbolic and practical significance. It meant the end of northern economic independence, and the region’s re-orientation towards becoming a London satellite zone, a move which the Thatcher government pretty much completed. Both the plan for HS2, and the cancellation of the Manchester to Leeds electrification, seem to grow entirely from that vision...

 

[LAX54]

Slow down ? Might as well get rid of the ever increasing over budget cost of this Vanity project once and for all

Think how good the 'real' rail network would be, if they used the money from HS2 for that instead

 

[urpert]

The M1 starts at Brent Cross, not Euston station!

Though it was of course intended to continue alongside the MML until it met Ringway 1 somewhere in the vicinity of Kilburn:

http://www.roads.org.uk/ringways/ringway1/north-cross-route

 

[urpert]

What would it look like if it was optimised for capacity? Presumably higher speeds need longer headways, hence signal section lengths... So could this de-speccing actually make our new fast relief line more useful (or delay the day when it too gets full?)
(is this why French TGVs and Eurostars are such long trains - by our standards?)

Domestic TGVs are a similar length to our domestic high speed trains (though very often work in multiple).

E* stock is a special case, due to the Tunnel fire requirements to be separable and driven from both ends, and also due to the distance between emergency cross-passages in the tunnel.

 

[whhistle]

albeit complicated by our loading guage for classic compatible

And this is where it goes wrong.
We still want to hark back to the days of yore and have stock that is small to serve a few "classic" stations, instead of thinking that perhaps HS2 should be a "new" railway.
Then look at upgrading other lines to the same spec.

 

[ABB125]

And this is where it goes wrong.
We still want to hark back to the days of yore and have stock that is small to serve a few "classic" stations, instead of thinking that perhaps HS2 should be a "new" railway.
Then look at upgrading other lines to the same spec.

That sounds like a good long term (ie: 50 years) plan, but would take some strategic planning from up high, which at the moment is somewhat lacking.

 

[Tetchytyke]

HS2 is neither needed nor wanted and is clearly not going to be whst was promised either.

The sooner the plug is pulled the better. Too late to save businesses around Euston though, including the Bree Louise pub (whose owner is, 12 months on, still waiting for the compensation for the loss of jis business)

The whole thing is a shambles.

As for the southern WCML, the capacity is only needed because Virgin cart fresh air about at high frequencies and WMT take up paths with tiny trains.

 

[The Planner]

So what happens in 10, 20, 30 years then when those seats fill up?

 

[HowardGWR]

HS2 is neither needed nor wanted and is clearly not going to be whst was promised either.

Your evidence for the words 'nor wanted' is lacking. The scheme has been voted through parliament with a huge majority. You mean, I assume, 'I don't want it'.

 

[Tetchytyke]

Your evidence for the words 'nor wanted' is lacking. The scheme has been voted through parliament with a huge majority.

So was the Bedroom Tax and the Iraq War!

The politicians will want it- they love their grand statement white elephants. The construction magnates will love it too. But you won't find many others in favour. You certainly won't in the Chilterns. Nor in Camden...

YouGov surveys show about 50% of people oppose HS2 with only about 30% in favour.

 

[The Planner]

Out of a sample of how many and where geographically? Got a link?

 

[furnessvale]

Think how good the 'real' rail network would be, if they used the money from HS2 for that instead

If HS2 is cancelled the money saved will be needed to build the new motorway necessary to carry the displaced traffic.

 

[VT 390]

As for the southern WCML, the capacity is only needed because Virgin cart fresh air about at high frequencies and WMT take up paths with tiny trains.

Most Virgin trains I have used from Euston are quite full, though some northbound morning services tend to quiet this is needed otherwise there would be no where for the southbound terminating trains to go. WMT services can be short 4 car sets but they have now ordered 5 car class 730's which will form 5 or 10 car sets allowing more 350's to operate together.
Even if some services are empty now you need to think what demand in the future will be as it may be okay now but if you wait until the route is at capacity to do anything about it then there will be years of overcrowding, but if you build HS2 now then by the time it opens the WCML will be at capacty.

 

[si404]

Yeah, but you don't, other than the NIMBYs (who don't seem to care about the Chiltern Line or the WCML), need to tunnel half the Chilterns.

You would have to tunnel (or deep cutting/viaduct combos) through a lot of the Chilterns with an M1 route. The M1 cuts across the grain of the hills - curves and grades that work for a 120km/h motorway don't work for a 360km/h railway. Add in that the M1 corridor is more populated (especially with Luton/Dunstable) and it's hard to see how there would be less tunnelling - and more likely to be more.

The Chiltern HS2 tunnel is urban area/NIMBY avoiding rather than hill avoiding - the corridor the route takes is a decent route for grade the Chilterns.* Wendover might have the two highest points in the hills either side of the town, but there's a natural gap a good 100+ metres below those heights. The Bulborne Valley-Tring Gap route that the Grand Union and WCML take is lower, but it's also a lot more urbanised and the Gap itself isn't great (GUC has loads of locks, WCML has a long cutting, GCML has just a small cutting at Wendover). If it weren't for the desire to hide the line, it could be mostly at-grade from OOC to Aylesbury with a shortish tunnel under Ruislip, another under the Chalfonts and a viaduct over the Colne linking them - with just some small cuttings/embankments/viaducts where needed on the rest of the route. This desire to hide the line would still exist on the M1 corridor, and so there would likewise be more tunnelling and deep cuttings than necessary. Likewise the desire not to create islands that are inaccessible (a major reason why M1 and M40 routes were quickly dropped from option surveys - they went and saw what HS1 did) to fauna unless they cross either railway or motorway would lead to more 'green tunnels' on the M1 route than on the Chiltern route.

Though the biggest problem with the M1 route is that it is longer than the planned route by an amount where it matters.

*Misbourne Valley residents managed to get the Grand Union Canal and WCML routed away from the area, via Watford and Berko instead, and the GCML to go up and over the ridge. The M1 could have gone that way, though that is much more due to Herts lobbying for the motorway (a factor in the Grand Union and WCML decisions too) rather than Bucks opposing it, that it doesn't.