It's not a "promotional document", it is part of the business case evaluation for HS2. It was used in evidence for the select committee that examined the Bill in detail, and which was voted on and passed in Parliament.
It is all of those things - but it is also a promotional document as its purpose was to promote the construction of HS2. In this it was successful.
The logic for OOC station goes something like this:
With 18 tph running into Euston, the onward transport infrastructure would be utterly overwhelmed. It's necessary to split the HS2 load over two interchanges. Bearing in mind the possible routes out of Euston, and the locations where land is available to build a sizeable interchange station, OOC is the only sensible answer. Once the notion of HS2 running via Heathrow had been ditched, connecting at OOC for Heathrow Express was a must. Because of the density of trains on the GWML Fast Lines, once you stop one train you pretty much have to stop them all. As the demand modelling showed - even if you choose not to believe it - the disbenefit of a 3 - 4 minute journey time extension on the GWML services is outweighed by the overall connectional benefits.
I do chose not to believe - that is to accept without repeatable evidence - that there is a benefit to delaying GW expresses by three or four minutes as I find no specific reference to any such work being published in the public domain. The 2012 Atkins
Demand and Appraisal Report for HS2 makes no specific mention of these passengers. As it says on the tin - it’s about HS2. It does however in section 5.4.11 make a mention of passengers on the GWML in general terms:
While the majority of transport users would benefit from the introduction of HS2, some passengers could experience longer or less frequent services. For example, whilst travellers on the Great Western Main Line (GWML) would benefit from improved connectivity to HS2 at Old Oak Common, they would also see a slight increase in journey time to central London due to the additional stop. Also, depending on how released capacity is used on the WCML, some stations could see an increased journey time, or even a reduction in services, to London, and as more passengers use rail and underground services to access HS2 there could also be localised increases in crowding. These impacts and the disbenefits they generate have been included in the assessment of the costs and benefits of HS2, but are significantly outweighed by the larger benefits generated. They also might be minimised further through detailed development of the classic rail timetable and train service specification.
This is damningly vague. As I have written before there are two main groups of travellers on the GWML, those using the express services on the Mains and those using the suburban and outer-suburban services on the Relief lines. It is clear that the Atkins document is only concerned with the Relief line traffic as Figure 5.3
Transport User Benefits of HS2 Phase1 London to West Midlands by Origin of Trip in 2037 marks an area between Slough and Tilehurst extending down to about Blackwater on the Guildford line showing benefits between £10million to £15million in 2037. There are no benefits shown any further west, not for Swindon, nor Bath, nor Bristol nor Taunton nor Exeter. Benefits stop at Reading which is why I surmise that only suburban traffic was considered.
As I have written before I support the idea of suburban trains (GWR and Crossrail) stopping at OOC. It makes sense.
This Figure 5.3 does show considerable benefits accruing to Worcester and the surrounding area - but for trips to London via Birmingham and then HS2, not because of more connections being available at OOC for trains on their traditional route.
Table 5.5
Transport User with Benefits of HS2 by Region and Purpose in the Atkins document lumps the whole area served by the GWR and SWR into ‘Other’ with marginal benefits for ‘Business’ and ‘Other’ passengers of 4% in total.
Another sign that the long distance, high speed services to and from South Wales and the entire South West were not considered at all.
Is there another document which analyses the connectional benefits to travellers on the long distance high speed services of the GWR west of Reading of stopping their trains at OOC?
If this does not exist then it seems to me that the degradation in the GWR’s long distance high speed services is simply being accepted as collateral damage to HS2’s construction.
Not true. The percentage is higher at Paddington because other than St Mary's Hospital there's very little employment in the vicinity of the station. Compare tht with the likes of Marylebone, Euston, St Pancras, and Kings Cross, where there is significant employment nearby Sure, lots of people go forward deeper into London from each of those termini, but not as much as Paddington.
I suggest that you look at Figure 2.9 in TfL’s
Central London Rail Termini report of 2011. The Underground mode shares for onward journeys for the stations along the Euston Road are all within 15% of each other, the lowest is St. Pancras with 47% and the highest are Marylebone and Paddington with 62%. All of these are worlds away from Cannon Street which has only 9% of onward journeys made by Tube. Interestingly Waterloo is in the middle of the Euston Road group with 55% using the Tube for onward travel and nobody complains that Waterloo is out in the sticks.
The mode of onward travel which varies most between terminals is walking which varies from 80% at Cannon Street to 58% at Fenchurch Street and a low of 12% at Paddington. Other than that the most popular form of onward public transport is the Tube so from these figures it seems to be irrelevant whether the interchange to the Tube is a half a mile sooner or later in the overall journey.
It depend what you are comparing. If OOC didn't exist then 12 of the 24 Crossrail train per hour would be starting at Paddington, so capacity would be no issue. If you turned up and were faced with a wedged Crossrail that had come from further down the GWML then you could wait a few minutes for an empty Paddington starter. That is no longer the case. With OOC those Paddington starters become OOC starters. So there's a good chance they will load up with HS2 interchanging passengers before they even get to Paddington. So the smart commuter from (say) Reading will soon suss out that it is better to make an interchange at OOC onto an empty train there than at Paddington onto a full(er) one.
As I stated in an earlier post, my view is that this is likely to be opposite in the evening peak, where passengers may prefer to board at Paddington to be sure of a seat on the GWML.
I also do not accept the argument that the Crossrail trains might be full of HS2 passengers before they reach Paddington. Each Crossrail train can carry 1,500 passengers and in the peaks there will be 24 of these per hour - 36,000 people per hour. By Atkins’ calculations (Table 4.2) some 37% of HS2 passengers will change at OOC - a total of 55,800 per day to the West Midlands (and by implication in the reverse direction) or an average of 3,000 per hour over an 18 hour day. That’s two Crossrail trains worth. Double or triple that for the full ‘Y’ HS2 network - that’s still only 6 trains full per hour. Even allowing for the expected loads from the western suburbs there will be room on Crossrail for passengers changing at Paddington on inward journeys. One does not necessarily expect a seat on the Tube so I fail to see why this should be a consideration on Crossrail.
So yes, commuters from (say) Reading to central London may suffer a small disbenefit in terms of door-to-door journey times, depending on the exact destination. However this is outweighed by the overall benefits to a wider number of people afforded by the interchange possibilities at OOC. It's a good thing! Embrace it.
Edit: Typo corrected.
Every, repeat every, passenger travelling to Paddington on one of GWR’s express trains will delayed by four minutes if this stopping pattern is introduced. This means passengers from Penzance, Truro, Lostwithiel, Plymouth, Exeter, Taunton, Weston-super-Mare, Bristol, Chippenham, Gloucester, Kemble, Swindon and so on and so forth will be delayed by four minutes or so on their journeys to and from Paddington. It is not just about commuters from Reading using the non-stop trains.
Why should all these people accept a slowing down of their service simply because the Government found it cheaper to build a station at OOC rather than expand distribution capacity at Euston? The fact that the GW would be slower because HS2 was to be built was never in the prospectus.
This is underhand and reprehensible.
And what really makes me see red is Table 4.3
HS2 average weekday Passengers using London stations by origin/destination 2037 in the Atkins report. This shows for HS2 with OOC:
to/from Greater London 125,000
to/from Heathrow 1,100
to/from non-London 21,400
Total 148,000
So
every GW fast service is being slowed up to allow 0.74% -
fewer than one in a hundred - of all HS2 passengers to use a Hex service to Heathrow because if one Hex train stops at OOC every other train has to do so as well.
This is indefensible.
Edit: Typos and missing italics.
