About HS2

[Purple Orange]

Everything depends on that growth assumption, if you assume something will grow on average each year forever then you can justify anything as being worthwhile in the long run, though it may still not make financial sense if you build it too early and it loses money for several decades.

That actually links in quite nicely with the points earlier in this thread about re-opening the GCML because the GCML project illustrates this beautifully, it was built in the expectation of future traffic growth from the north to London, which ultimately never materialised because the growth of the motor car sent the railways into long term decline, and while the infrastructure would eventually have been very useful, before that point was reached the losses made it unsustainable forcing its closure. I don't suggest that HS2 would be closed, but if passenger growth isn't sustained then financial pressures on the network will grow.

I think the big question for the railways will be whether COVID has accelerated video conferencing, remote and home working such that the those growth assumptions no longer hold. I wouldn't rule it out. In the space of 1 year video conferencing has advanced by a decade or more, its it's gone from an inconvenient oddity to being the default, a lot of business travel is now unnecessary and the high speed, efficient option for a meeting is a Teams or Zoom call.

Teams and Zoom calls haven’t eradicated the need to travel or reduced it. Pre-pandemic I would travel to other offices in the UK for work once a week, but in between that, communication would mostly on a 1-to-1 basis over the phone, lots of email traffic and occasionally weekly video conferencing. Teams and Zoom have made the telephone calls and weekly video conferencing slicker and more efficient. Email traffic is just as it was.

However those tools have not replaced being ‘present’. I am based in Manchester, but once a week I’d travel to Leeds, London, Edinburgh or Birmingham say, spending the day with people in those offices working alongside them. I’d have conversations (both work related and non-work related) with people who I may not have a reason to have a meeting over Teams or Zoom. Yet they get to know who I am and I get to know who they are.

Later, at a completely different time and location, there might be a case where I recall meeting someone and think “ah, Jane or Joe in the Leeds office would be useful to contact about this question or problem, I will call them on Teams”. The benefit is that we have already built a contact and we know each other. Without travel, I might not even know to call Jane or Joe, let alone not have them as a contact.

The difference between pre and post pandemic, is that we are now realising that working from home can be efficient, employees can be trusted and we don’t need to be in our regular office location every day. As I am based in the Manchester office, I may have less need to go to the Manchester office 4 days per week, but I still have the same need to go to London, Leeds, Edinburgh or Birmingham on a rotational basis.

HS2 and NPR etc can facilitate this.

 

[The Planner]

If by that you mean the Down Fast to Platform 1 should be Flashing YY then that is exactly what was designed and implemented. Has it changed in recent years? Great care was taken with the signal sight lines and sequencing, particularly as we had to accommodate a second set of flashing YY for Newbold / High Oaks Junctions. When the timetable first started running the xx03 Birmingham calling at Rugby was still causing some delay to the xx07 Liverpool, and this was traced to the timers on the flashing aspects hving been set to a "this is what we usually do" level, so the signal engineers had to re-programme the timers to the absolute limit permissible, so the route cleared into P1 as soon as possible. Once that was done and the timetable bedded in, there were no more delays.

It was never implemented like that, the flashing yellow route is for the route over Hilmorton onto the Up side of the station. P1 is approach controlled. The Liverpool still causes problems.

 

[Ianno87]

It was never implemented like that, the flashing yellow route is for the route over Hilmorton onto the Up side of the station. P1 is approach controlled. The Liverpool still causes problems.

I'd understood this was due to the restriction on overlapping flashing aspects; either Hilmorton could have them, or the P1 turnout, but not both (although Hitchin has a workaround to this when the flyover was installed). I guess the engineers' logic (rightly or wrongly) was a train turning out into P1 is stopping anyway, so is less impeded by an approach release from red (even though that route gets used much more in normal operation)

 

[The Planner]

I'd understood this was due to the restriction on overlapping flashing aspects; either Hilmorton could have them, or the P1 turnout, but not both (although Hitchin has a workaround to this when the flyover was installed). I guess the engineers' logic (rightly or wrongly) was a train turning out into P1 is stopping anyway, so is less impeded by an approach release from red (even though that route gets used much more in normal operation)

Indeed and the Hitchin solution has been looked at, it was the wrong decision in the first place in my view!

 

[CW2]

Ah yes, my memory is at fault. Apologies. It was the timer for the approach release to platform 1 which was set to the limit, and the flashing yellow is not applicable.
I was commuting from Rugby to Euston until 2014, and I think the arrangement was as smooth an approach as you could reasonably manage.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 7 Jun 2021 ==


EDIT

I'd understood this was due to the restriction on overlapping flashing aspects; either Hilmorton could have them, or the P1 turnout, but not both (although Hitchin has a workaround to this when the flyover was installed). I guess the engineers' logic (rightly or wrongly) was a train turning out into P1 is stopping anyway, so is less impeded by an approach release from red (even though that route gets used much more in normal operation)

Indeed and the Hitchin solution has been looked at, it was the wrong decision in the first place in my view!

It is slightly more complicated than that.
The choice was between having flashing yellows at Hillmorton AND Newbold / High Oaks with approach control on DF to P1
versus
Flashing Yellows to P1 and approach control to Hillmorton and Newbold / High Oaks.
You cannot have any overlapping between flashing yellow sequences at consecutive junctions, so if you have flashers to platform 1 that means you have to be approach controlled to both Hillmorton and Newbold / High Oaks. On a balance of capacity (and bearing in mind the vast expense of newly installed high speed junctions) it was sensible to go for flashers at Hillmorton and Newbold / High Oaks, and approach control to P1.
This choice might come more into its own post HS2 when we could see some of the electrically hauled 75mph freights running via Weedon instead of always being forced onto the slower route via Northampton. You might see such freights benefitting from the flashing yellows to go Down Weedon - Down Fast - Down TV Slow at Newbold / High Oaks, just as an example.
@ThePlanner Maybe you could see what margin would be needed to slip such a freight between passenger services via Weedon? (Consider it a benefit of HS2 - to get us back on topic!).

 

[The Planner]

This choice might come more into its own post HS2 when we could see some of the electrically hauled 75mph freights running via Weedon instead of always being forced onto the slower route via Northampton. You might see such freights benefitting from the flashing yellows to go Down Weedon - Down Fast - Down TV Slow at Newbold / High Oaks, just as an example.
@ThePlanner Maybe you could see what margin would be needed to slip such a freight between passenger services via Weedon? (Consider it a benefit of HS2 - to get us back on topic!).

Running time for a Class 4 with a 90 and 1200 tons from Hanslope to Rugby is 23 minutes with engineering/box time. A Pendo is timed to do the same in 14 minutes. So say xx.00 for the freight at Hanslope, xx.23 at Rugby. 3 minute headway so the Pendo cannot pass Hanslope before xx.12 for a clean run. Still a big gap and you'll need to flight.

 

[CW2]

Running time for a Class 4 with a 90 and 1200 tons from Hanslope to Rugby is 23 minutes with engineering/box time. A Pendo is timed to do the same in 14 minutes. So say xx.00 for the freight at Hanslope, xx.23 at Rugby. 3 minute headway so the Pendo cannot pass Hanslope before xx.12 for a clean run. Still a big gap and you'll need to flight.

Thanks for that. It means the freight could gain about 15 minutes by going via Weedon - and possibly more with a fast run through Rugby. It might make sense to divide the "Standard Hour" Fast Line capacity into (say) 40 minutes for passenger services (which allows for some repeating 30-minute interval services flighted to different destinations) and 20 minutes for flighted freight services. One of the unspoken benefits of HS2 being seen as faster transit times for freight services on the WCML. You could even send the freights down the fast out of Wembley / Camden, then loop them at MK in platform 5 for the passenger services to overtake.

 

[gordonthemoron]

Thanks for that. It means the freight could gain about 15 minutes by going via Weedon - and possibly more with a fast run through Rugby. It might make sense to divide the "Standard Hour" Fast Line capacity into (say) 40 minutes for passenger services (which allows for some repeating 30-minute interval services flighted to different destinations) and 20 minutes for flighted freight services. One of the unspoken benefits of HS2 being seen as faster transit times for freight services on the WCML. You could even send the freights down the fast out of Wembley / Camden, then loop them at MK in platform 5 for the passenger services to overtake.

One of the many HS2 benefits I expect in MIlton Keynes

 

[zwk500]

One of the unspoken benefits of HS2 being seen as faster transit times for freight services on the WCML.

Tbf, I think it's been spoken about quite widely to the industry, it's just not been the front-and-centre push to Joe Public.

You could even send the freights down the fast out of Wembley / Camden, then loop them at MK in platform 5 for the passenger services to overtake.

You can't cross to the fasts from Primrose Hill, and Willesden West London ladder is quite slow (15mph) so regardless of route you'd be crossing at Wembley North Jn (50mph). There's nowhere on the fasts to regulate between Wembley and MK, so you'd need a clean path for a train travelling at no more than 75mph (and above ~1400 tonnes it doesn't get anywhere near that except running down a decent gradient) all the way.

What might be feasible is adding in a relief line between the Down slow and Up Fast between Bletchley and MKC, to allow a parallel move for a Bletchley train to Wolverton and an EWR train terminating in 2 at MKC. If 125mph capability is being kept on the fasts, which I imagine it is, then it would probably not be worth the money needed to realign the fasts.

 

[6Gman]

Everything depends on that growth assumption, if you assume something will grow on average each year forever then you can justify anything as being worthwhile in the long run, though it may still not make financial sense if you build it too early and it loses money for several decades.

That actually links in quite nicely with the points earlier in this thread about re-opening the GCML because the GCML project illustrates this beautifully, it was built in the expectation of future traffic growth from the north to London, which ultimately never materialised because the growth of the motor car sent the railways into long term decline, and while the infrastructure would eventually have been very useful, before that point was reached the losses made it unsustainable forcing its closure. I don't suggest that HS2 would be closed, but if passenger growth isn't sustained then financial pressures on the network will grow.

I think the big question for the railways will be whether COVID has accelerated video conferencing, remote and home working such that the those growth assumptions no longer hold. I wouldn't rule it out. In the space of 1 year video conferencing has advanced by a decade or more, its it's gone from an inconvenient oddity to being the default, a lot of business travel is now unnecessary and the high speed, efficient option for a meeting is a Teams or Zoom call.

The GCML was, first and foremost, a freight railway. I have the 1951 timetable here. Over a 24 hour period there were 14 passenger trains between Woodford and Rugby, and 38 freight trains!

 

[The Ham]

Everything depends on that growth assumption, if you assume something will grow on average each year forever then you can justify anything as being worthwhile in the long run, though it may still not make financial sense if you build it too early and it loses money for several decades.

That actually links in quite nicely with the points earlier in this thread about re-opening the GCML because the GCML project illustrates this beautifully, it was built in the expectation of future traffic growth from the north to London, which ultimately never materialised because the growth of the motor car sent the railways into long term decline, and while the infrastructure would eventually have been very useful, before that point was reached the losses made it unsustainable forcing its closure. I don't suggest that HS2 would be closed, but if passenger growth isn't sustained then financial pressures on the network will grow.

I think the big question for the railways will be whether COVID has accelerated video conferencing, remote and home working such that the those growth assumptions no longer hold. I wouldn't rule it out. In the space of 1 year video conferencing has advanced by a decade or more, its it's gone from an inconvenient oddity to being the default, a lot of business travel is now unnecessary and the high speed, efficient option for a meeting is a Teams or Zoom call.

Indeed, which is why the HS2 model assumed that a few years after phase 2 opening that there was zero growth.

As to business travel (which makes up 9% and I added to the 55% to get to my broadly 65% commuting level) even if that dropped to zero (which is unlikely) because I'd already allowed for a drop in it because of the overall commuting the overall impact would still be fairly small (7% fall from the 2019 figures).

However not every meeting is all that suitable to video conferencing, and so some would likely remain.

Also it's worth noting that it could not overly harm rail travel, in that rather than needing a company car, as many meeting can be done by zoom/teams, people could find that their company cars are removed as a perk and so rail could benefit. Also people may not commute to work (possibly previously by car) but still need to travel for meetings (but as it's infrequent it's hard to justify car ownership) and so rail may not lose out that much.

The issue is that whilst we don't know the impact, we therefore can't be sure how negative the impact will be. As such we could pause construction only to find that we have to restart it a few months later if rail use gets to 80% of pre pandemic levels, as then we'd like be close to, if we don't quite hit, the level predicted by the time phase 1 opens.

Of course, whilst I can't be sure that will happen, can you be sure that we're not going to reach (say) at least 80% of pre pandemic levels by the end of the year (and so be close enough to it be likely that we'll get Phase 1 opening predictions when it opens)?

 

[Ianno87]

Thanks for that. It means the freight could gain about 15 minutes by going via Weedon - and possibly more with a fast run through Rugby. It might make sense to divide the "Standard Hour" Fast Line capacity into (say) 40 minutes for passenger services (which allows for some repeating 30-minute interval services flighted to different destinations) and 20 minutes for flighted freight services. One of the unspoken benefits of HS2 being seen as faster transit times for freight services on the WCML. You could even send the freights down the fast out of Wembley / Camden, then loop them at MK in platform 5 for the passenger services to overtake.

I can certainly see freights on the Fasts through Nuneaton/Tamworth/Lichfield being a routine sight.

 

[CW2]

I can certainly see freights on the Fasts through Nuneaton/Tamworth/Lichfield being a routine sight.

Putting freights on the fasts along the Trent Valley will make little or no difference to them, as the line speeds are already above 75mph on the Slows, whereas putting freights on the Fasts via Weedon is a definite time-saver.
[Edited for typos]

 

[zwk500]

Putting freights on teh dasts along the Trent Valley will make little or no difference to them, as the line speeds are already above 75mph on the Slows, whereas putting freights on the Fasts via Weedon is a definite time-saver.

But as the platforms at all Trent Valley stations except Nuneaton are on the slow lines only and HS2 will have taken the fast trains I can see why you'd segregate the passenger and freight traffic. Of course, if you can't get any more freight through MK it's largely academic as the existing paths have more than enough room on the slows as it is.

Freight via Weedon saves not only the extra mileage but the congestion of ECS moves at Northampton and Daventry traffic. However, it does come at the cost of losing the regulating opportunities provided by Northampton.

 

[CW2]

But as the platforms at all Trent Valley stations except Nuneaton are on the slow lines only and HS2 will have taken the fast trains I can see why you'd segregate the passenger and freight traffic. Of course, if you can't get any more freight through MK it's largely academic as the existing paths have more than enough room on the slows as it is.

Freight via Weedon saves not only the extra mileage but the congestion of ECS moves at Northampton and Daventry traffic. However, it does come at the cost of losing the regulating opportunities provided by Northampton.

Yes, I see your point about Northampton being a useful regulating point, but I'd rather keep the trains moving than plan for them to stop and re-start - particularly at Northampton where southbound you've got a steady climb up to Roade.