HS2: onward connections from Birmingham?

[SynthD]

We now have a scheme where HS2 will remain mostly empty and the WCML will be full of lots of expensive to operate trains that will have comparatively little income supporting them.

Could you share your source for the 2040 passenger loadings you’re referring to?

 

[HSTEd]

Could you share your source for the 2040 passenger loadings you’re referring to?

I don't have actual loadings for 2040, given that is 17 years from now.

However, the farebox receipts for now were leaked, and they show that by far the most renumerative journeys on the WCML were the long distance routings (London-Manchester, London-Birmingham etc).
Given that the WCML already burns a billion pounds a year in net subsidy, the financials are highly unlikely to be pretty once all thsoe flows are stripped away.

 

[Grimsby town]

I don't have actual loadings for 2040, given that is 17 years from now.

However, the farebox receipts for now were leaked, and they show that by far the most renumerative journeys on the WCML were the long distance routings (London-Manchester, London-Birmingham etc).
Given that the WCML already burns a billion pounds a year in net subsidy, the financials are highly unlikely to be pretty once all thsoe flows are stripped away.

Do you have any evidence that the WCML costs £billion a year in net subsidy. When you dive into the numbers, the whole conventional rail system only costs a few £billion in subsidy each year. Avanti services aren't likely to be significantly subsidised at an operational level. They might even be profitable.

 

[HSTEd]

Do you have any evidence that the WCML costs £billion a year in net subsidy. When you dive into the numbers, the whole conventional rail system only costs a few £billion in subsidy each year. Avanti services aren't likely to be significantly subsidised at an operational level. They might even be profitable.

Those assumptions are only correct if you assume that subsidies to network rail are not subsidies to the railway.
The last set of figures we have indicates that the conventional rail industry has subsidies of ~£1bn per month, and depending on your accounting decisions with regards Network Rail debt, may even be higher than that!

Track access charges are about a quarter of what they should be on a commercial basis. This has the net effect of concealing subsidy to TOCs as subsidy to Network Rail.

 

[Grimsby town]

Those assumptions are only correct if you assume that subsidies to network rail are not subsidies to the railway.
The last set of figures we have indicates that the conventional rail industry has subsidies of ~£1bn per month, and depending on your accounting decisions with regards Network Rail debt, may even be higher than that!

Track access charges are about a quarter of what they should be on a commercial basis. This has the net effect of concealing subsidy to TOCs as subsidy to Network Rail.

I understand that track access charges don't necessarily cover all of network rails costs but I'm struggling to see where there's a statement that the WCML costs £1bn a year in subsidy.

Avanti shouldn't be far off being truly profitable given the price of UK fares and the fact it operates between large cities which makes rail very competitive. HS2 was previously expected to be profitable, although its questionable what the impacts of covid are, with less scope for high fare business travel.

 

[43066]

Do you have any evidence that the WCML costs £billion a year in net subsidy. When you dive into the numbers, the whole conventional rail system only costs a few £billion in subsidy each year. Avanti services aren't likely to be significantly subsidised at an operational level. They might even be profitable.

Indeed. Based on the figures shown the system is close to breaking even based on annual opex subsidy v income, excluding NR, and that’s without considering any wider economic/social/environmental benefits. Even if it’s circa £12bn per year net subsidy with NR included that’s still small fry in terms of overall government spending.

But the poster you’ve quoted appears to oppose expenditure on rail by default, so their position is no great surprise.

 

[eldomtom2]

But the poster you’ve quoted appears to oppose expenditure on rail by default, so their position is no great surprise.

I haven't seen any trace of that in @HSTEd's postings. Instead what I've seen from them is concern that the railways could be delivering better value for money.

 

[BrianW]

I imagine this topic is rather 'academic' until July, unless (unlikely) one of the political parties announces (accidentally?) a fully-funded proposal ...

 

[Route115?]

If you built a pedestrian tunnel between Curzon St & New St with a travelator how long would the connection take? (Think of Montparnasse.) What about including Moor St in the complex?. If you know the way the connection is ok but how many potential transferring passengers are confident of not getting lost?

How much extra would it have cost to build four 400m platforms under New St? (I still think that Startford International should have been built under Stratford Regional.)

 

[Taunton]

It's daft to take up half of the capacity of a Manchester or Birmingham train with people just going to Milton Keynes

Even dafter to take up capacity on London to Birmingham trains with those on cheap London to Edinburgh advances where the through train initially just forms part of the standard Birmingham regular interval pattern, only done for Avanti to steal revenue from LNER. Such fares cheaper than my London to Birmingham anytime.

I worked through my recent several business trips from London to the West Midlands to see what is HS2 favourable, only one destination suits HS2, which is to Birmingham, then a taxi to the middle suburbs. Others have been Coventry, Lichfield, and Telford, the latter involving the walk across Birmingham (with two bags) if I do it all by train. In fact, it seems likely more efficient to change at Birmingham International, and continue through New Street from there. Bit annoying if the connection happens to be coming from Euston!

 

[HSTEd]

I understand that track access charges don't necessarily cover all of network rails costs but I'm struggling to see where there's a statement that the WCML costs £1bn a year in subsidy.

The operating expenditures on track access charges are available by TOC, as are expenditures on various cost groups and incomes from various sources.

If you scale track access charges such that they actually cover Network Rail's costs (as determined from their accounts), the deficit across ICWC/Avanti and LNWR comes to something around ~£1-1.2bn per year.
That is the close as we are going to get to an actual cost breakdown.

Track access charges are only about 20-25% of Network Rail's income, by far the largest contributor is state funding. ~£2.2bn in access charges out of ~£10bn

EDIT:
Once again this is probably off topic so I can no further comment beyond this post. Again if someone wants to create a thread someplace else I would be happy to discuss it there.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

HS2 will treble the number of peak hour seats at Euston from 11,300 to, up to 34,900. Source: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/high-speed-two-an-engine-for-growth/high-speed-two-an-engine-for-growth#:~:text=HS2 will treble the number,will triple the seats available.

While that's technically true, it's probably worth pointing out that does not mean a trebling of the number of seats between Euston and the destinations currently served by Euston - because part of that increase in seats reflects that HS2 was also intended to have trains heading for Toton/Sheffield/Leeds/the North East - which would have meant that passengers from those places who currently arrive at St Pancras or Kings Cross would have arrived at Euston instead.

 

[Krokodil]

Which doesn't come close to filling the capacity of the route.

I got bored typing after I'd covered Manchester, Birmingham and Scotland. Other destinations are available. Or they were before the government started cutting. Not that Milton Keynes has any hope of being a replacement for Leeds.

Which will cost money to operate and consume infrastructure that is extremely expensive.

Packing people travelling from Milton Keynes to Euston into a 12 car 350 is a more efficient use of resources than having them use long-distance services.

Avanti services aren't likely to be significantly subsidised at an operational level. They might even be profitable.

It would probably help if most of their passengers weren't eligible for Delay Repay thanks to a combination of their inability to employ enough drivers, and Network Rail's inability to stop the infrastructure falling apart. What we need is a brand new railway...

Even dafter to take up capacity on London to Birmingham trains with those on cheap London to Edinburgh advances where the through train initially just forms part of the standard Birmingham regular interval pattern, only done for Avanti to steal revenue from LNER. Such fares cheaper than my London to Birmingham anytime.

Indeed. It's just a combination of the London-Wolves service with the Birmingham-Scotland. Eventually the Birmingham-Scotland service will go from Curzon St so it'll be interesting to see what they do with this.

 

[SCDR_WMR]

If you built a pedestrian tunnel between Curzon St & New St with a travelator how long would the connection take? (Think of Montparnasse.) What about including Moor St in the complex?. If you know the way the connection is ok but how many potential transferring passengers are confident of not getting lost?

How much extra would it have cost to build four 400m platforms under New St? (I still think that Startford International should have been built under Stratford Regional.)

Costs would be astronomical, would likely need to be very deep given it would need to go under the Snow Hill tunnel and the foundations/services for the large retail units next to the Bullring.

Would take maybe 3-4 minutes door to door if it was speedy.

Once Moor Street is expanded and services moved across, Birmingham will be less New St centric. Hopefully the road tunnel would be jazzed up and made much safer to use at this point.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Once Moor Street is expanded and services moved across, Birmingham will be less New St centric. Hopefully the road tunnel would be jazzed up and made much safer to use at this point.

Agreed. I think, in the future, when hopefully Birmingham becomes less car-dependent, there's a good argument that that tunnel should be pedestrianized - or at least, the road part narrowed and made a buses-only route. The location is just totally inappropriate as a busy through road.

 

[The Ham]

Which doesn't come close to filling the capacity of the route.
The only way HS2 could get even close to filling its capacity was to propose an enormous country spanning system that would take over essentially all long distance services.

That's not necessarily a bad thing, however, as I suggested on the 390 turbo thread, HS2 services could connect well with TPE 390 (i.e. replacing their 397's between Manchester or Liverpool and Scotland) services to provide better journey times for TPE but also giving faster London - Glasgow than direct with HS2 services (however the HS2 services to Scotland would be retained so people have the choice of speed or direct) which would give a higher frequency of advertised service.

It would also shift some of the "local" travel away from the HS2 services which would mitigate the slightly lower capacity of their trains.

However back on the main topic of the thread, there's also been suggestions in the past that XC could shift to Moor Street, which is it happened would mean that there'll be another reason to improve the interchange experience/time between HS2/Moor Street and New Street.

However, for those who wish to interchange to local services, distant it's worth noting that Moor Street gives a different selection of stains, so for those heading to those stations they benefit from HS2 serving a station closer to Moor Street.

Also, if the walk time is a barrier (and many will debate how much time it is, but for some that will be fine for others it's not), they have the option to use the classic services. Now whilst these will have a few extra stops in, which might slow the services down a bit, it does give them the option.

Now assuming that the number of Avanti services serving Birmingham New Street is limiting the ability to run further local services, the question which could be useful is, does the service pattern suggested potentially reduce the number of these longer distance services so other services could be run? (I don't know, which is why I'm asking).

However if XC moved there would be. Therefore, if there's a more frequent local service that could aid with journey times.

Also, whilst much is said about the increase in transfer time, currently at New Street, the journey time planners typically say that there's a 15 minute change time when changing from Avanti to get a service to University. This means that even allowing 12 minutes walk between platforms it would still be possible with that current gap (and so the extra walk time wouldn't impact on the journey time savings from HS2).

Before anyone says, but the HS2 services would be arriving earlier, well currently we don't know the timetable. However given that there's probably more scope to pick when the HS2 services arrive at Birmingham (due to having to interact with fewer services to get there) there's a fair chance the times could be fairly optimal.

Even if there was a 30 minute change time at Birmingham, given that HS2 is reducing journey times by 29 minutes, by the time you add in the minimum 15 minute current change time for the services through University the net saving is still 14 minutes for that line.

The same is true if services through Tipton (15 minutes change time currently).

Whilst services through Witton have a current change of 12 minutes, that would still be 12 minutes faster with a 30 minute change time.

The big winner would be services through Gravelly Hill, which currently have a 20 minute change time, so increasing that to 30 minutes from HS2 services would mean a 19 minute journey time saving.

Based on the above, it would require more than a 44 minute change time to increase the overall journey time. For example, let's say it's just about possible to change in 15 minutes and so the timetable is optimised for that for services through Tipton, for those who are unable to make that perfect (15 minute) change they would see their journey time increase by a full 1 minute if they then caught the next train.

A lot of the discussion to date that I'd seen hadn't considered the current change times, which is why I'd thought that it was worth looking at this.

Basically, unless I've missed something, I'm struggling to see how any of this would actually make things worse in terms of journey times. Granted, in theory the current interchange times could be reduced, but it's likely that they couldn't be changed by much.

 

[daodao]

If you built a pedestrian tunnel between Curzon St & New St with a travelator how long would the connection take? (Think of Montparnasse.) What about including Moor St in the complex?. If you know the way the connection is ok but how many potential transferring passengers are confident of not getting lost?

How much extra would it have cost to build four 400m platforms under New St? (I still think that Stratford International should have been built under Stratford Regional.)

I once travelled from Macclesfield to Stratford and back. The outward journey, changing at Sandwell & Dudley and Smethwick Galton Bridge was straightforward, but the return journey, with a case, changing from Moor Street to New Street in Birmingham, was not.

IMO, it will be much easier for passengers from London to places like Walsall to use the legacy services from Euston via the existing WCML than to use HS2 and change from Curzon Street (slightly further than Moor Street) to New Street, particularly if travelling with luggage.

 

[Grimsby town]

IMO, it will be much easier for passengers from London to places like Walsall to use the legacy services from Euston via the existing WCML than to use HS2 and change from Curzon Street (slightly further than Moor Street) to New Street, particularly if travelling with luluggage.

I'm sure some will stick to legacy services. HS2 released capacity makes direct services from London to Walsall/Shrewsbury more likely so changing at New Street may become a thing of the past.

Personally, I would transfer to HS2, overall journeys are likely to be shorter and the sheer number of seats mean that Birmingham services will have loads of cheap advances. I also enjoy the walk but then I'm relatively young and fit.

I think there's a tendancy to be very binary in thinking and apply the worst possible interchange experience to every passenger. Most people aren't travelling with giant suitcases, 3 children, and an elderly relative in a wheelchair from Euston to Walsall. The people that are may want to use a legacy service. They may also use HS2 and get the X51 bus from opposite Curzon Street to Walsall. The X51 only 15 minutes slower than the train and serves far more destinations directly than the train.

 

[SynthD]

Agreed. I think, in the future, when hopefully Birmingham becomes less car-dependent, there's a good argument that that tunnel should be pedestrianized - or at least, the road part narrowed and made a buses-only route. The location is just totally inappropriate as a busy through road.

The tunnel is bus, taxi and bicycles only. A future step could be electric buses and taxis, and bicycles only.

 

[Geezertronic]

If you built a pedestrian tunnel between Curzon St & New St with a travelator how long would the connection take?

Not sure that would be possible. You'd probably have to go deeper than the Moor Street-Snow Hill tunnel, then you'd risk getting into the southern end of the New Street lines and the Bull Ring foundations. A service walkway would be better, although the expectation that a properly signposted surface walkway should be the way to go

 

[Cross City]

Agreed. I think, in the future, when hopefully Birmingham becomes less car-dependent, there's a good argument that that tunnel should be pedestrianized - or at least, the road part narrowed and made a buses-only route. The location is just totally inappropriate as a busy through road.

I'd like to see the tram go through there as a branch off from the line that will go under Curzon St Stn.

Albert St - Moor St Station - New St Station - Suffolk St - Bristol St - Edgbaston Cricket - UoB/QE - Northfield High Street - Longbridge Town Centre - Rubery Great Park

 

[david1212]

And there will be a tram connection.

I have just been reading Rail issue 1008 which has an article on the tram extension to Curzon Street & Digbeth.

This states the planned peak service frequency is 10 minutes alternating between Wolverhampton and Edgbaston. Hence the peak service interval from/to New Street will be 20 minutes. As well as the journey time between tram stops there is the time from/to HS2 platform to/from New Street platform. With say a Shrewsbury <> London via HS2 ticket would the tram be included?

When the current "fast trains" stop at many shacks on the way down the HS2 service will save far more.

Currently the 1710 stops at just Coventry and Internaitonal and takes 1h17

When HS2 opens that train will be able to additionally stop at Watford, Milton Keynes, Rugby and possibly some other locations, adding a good 20 minutes to become more like 1h40

Even if the classic route time is around 1h40 minutes for someone travelling say Shrewsbury <> London is the time saving worth the hassle of the Birmingham transfer. If there was still a direct Shrewsbury <> Birmingham International service would changing there take significantly less time?
Then there is the price difference between a 'via HS2' and 'classic route' ticket. With business travel in decline so an ever increasing proportion of tickets are paid for personally cost vs journey time become an increasing factor, as shown by the numbers who currently travel Birmingham <> London with either Chiltern or London Northwestern Railway rather than Avanti.

 

[Bevan Price]

The tunnel is bus, taxi and bicycles only. A future step could be electric buses and taxis, and bicycles only.

Plus the homeless, drunks & other dodgy characters who sometimes loiter there ???

 

[Fazaar1889]

Plus the homeless, drunks & other dodgy characters who sometimes loiter there ???

Ah yes, my favourite. Classism

 

[12LDA28C]

I'm just feeling that if there's a, say, 20-25 minute connection time, virtually all the speed advantage of taking HS2 from Euston vs current Avanti Pendolino will be lost!

Most likely. Fortunate then, that HS2 is more about providing extra capacity than reducing journey times.

 

[The Ham]

Most likely. Fortunate then, that HS2 is more about providing extra capacity than reducing journey times.

Actually, probably it wouldn't take longer end to end for stations within Birmingham.

As I highlighted current change times are 12-15 minutes. With a faster London - Birmingham time of 29 minutes, and the fact that London Birmingham will be 3tph and the other services would be half hourly, the worst outcome would be a HS2 train arrives at 11:00, with the local connection at 11:29, so you miss it by 1 minute, so you connect to the train at 11:59, that's a maximum of 59 minutes, less the 29 minutes faster is 30 minutes, less the current 12 minutes connection time is 18 minutes slower.

Here is where a load of people say, see slower, we win.

However if you get the 10:40 the connection time would be to 11:29, so 39 minutes, less the 29 minutes faster journey time and the 12 minutes current connection time and it'll be 3 minutes faster.

Likewise if you get the 11:20 you'd connect with the 11:59 (so again 39 minutes and 3 minutes faster).

However that's with the connection at 39 minutes, it's it'll take 30 minutes the connection time could be reduced to (say) 34 minutes, which would make the connection from those services 8 minutes faster and the slower connection 12 minutes slower.

Overall that's 2tph which are 3 faster than the current 2tph, and whilst 1tph is slower, it's still likely that most people could still have a faster journey time.

However that's assuming that the local services stay at 2tph, which they may not given that there's likely to be free capacity at New Street to allow an increase in frequency.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

I guess one other issue regarding the possible time saving Birmingham-London is what HS2 will do about reservations.

If someone arrives at New Street on a local service, and there's a classic-WCML train to London waiting on another platform, then it's normally easy to just hop on it, even if you hadn't reserved a seat/hadn't planned to take that particular train because you weren't quite sure until the last minute whether you would be in time for it. Will HS2 likewise allow that, or will reservations be compulsory - thereby making it impossible to hop on them if you haven't planned at least a few minutes in advance to reserve a seat? If that happens, then that will somewhat disincentivise using HS2, and slow some connections, by making it much harder to quickly get on an HS2 train that you happen to have arrived just in time to catch.

 

[Geezertronic]

Even if the classic route time is around 1h40 minutes for someone travelling say Shrewsbury <> London is the time saving worth the hassle of the Birmingham transfer. If there was still a direct Shrewsbury <> Birmingham International service would changing there take significantly less time?

The hourly TfW train from Birmingham International to North Wales still calls at Shrewsbury.

The expectation of changing at Birmingham Interchange would be that you'd catch the new Rail Link from Interchange to International Station. To be honest, I'd rather that than have to go from Curzon Street to New Street

 

[miami]

Then there is the price difference between a 'via HS2' and 'classic route' ticket.

What is that price difference?

 

[Krokodil]

What is that price difference?

I suppose that it will be the same as the current "Any Permitted" vs "LNW/WMT Only". Plus some inflation.