HS3 Paddington to Newport

[JonathanH]

Probably in the realm of fantasy, but with HS2 now likely to be under-capacity for decades, would it be worth building a spur from where it crosses EWR at Calvert, running north of Oxford and rejoining the GWML near Swindon?

If we can't afford to extend HS2 to its original destinations, it is, as you say, fantasy to imagine you can afford to build a branch to Bristol.

 

[Irascible]

Probably in the realm of fantasy, but with HS2 now likely to be under-capacity for decades, would it be worth building a spur from where it crosses EWR at Calvert, running north of Oxford and rejoining the GWML near Swindon?

If such an alignment was built to the same spec as HS2, it would be faster for Bristol and Cardiff services than going via Reading. Would depend on Euston still being built to its original planned size though, unless you can modify OOC so HS2 trains can run from Paddington.

Practically, zero chance obviously! this thread has been "what if" from the start though. It'd probably make more sense to split off rather further north than Calvert & then come through at least Gloucester. I much prefer a Shinkansen-style approach with actual stops, leveraging the crazy acceleration of modern trains, than hub to hub & chucking everyone onto other transport to go back again.

 

[PTR 444]

I much prefer a Shinkansen-style approach with actual stops, leveraging the crazy acceleration of modern trains, than hub to hub & chucking everyone onto other transport to go back again.

If HS2 was being designed today, I would have made it so that Birmingham was an underground through station with fast tracks for non-stopping services, similar to Lille Europe.

Something similar could work for Reading and Bristol on a hypothetical GW high speed route. Might be better to wait a few decades though assuming tunnelling costs remain on a downward trend.

 

[SynthD]

By 2040 or even 2030 I expect a national plan on high speed railways. The UK has been lacking behind compared to other countries. HS3 should be on the list after all HS2 phases and NPR.

By 2040 I think politicians will still be wringing their hands of plans we already have safeguarded, eg track to Goldborne, services to York.

More space for Elizabeth Line, Freight and GWR Semi Fasts between Reading & Paddington.

No, only GWR, and freight beyond Reading.

 

[Transilien]

If HS2 was being designed today, I would have made it so that Birmingham was an underground through station with fast tracks for non-stopping services, similar to Lille Europe.

I'm pretty sure that was being considered in the original plans but was dropped on grounds of cost.

 

[Meerkat]

If you built an HS line from outside Paddington to Reading is there the capacity in Paddington and the Lizzie to use it?

 

[HSTEd]

If you built an HS line from outside Paddington to Reading is there the capacity in Paddington and the Lizzie to use it?

Well the Elizabeth line currently turns an awful lot of trains back at Paddington (soon to be Old Oak Common), so I don't think there is much problem on that score. Obviously additional rolling stock would have to be ordered however.

If you put the high speed line into Paddington it could probably more or less take over the station, although I'm not sure you would send it to Paddingotn as opposed to one of the other termini.

 

[Mgameing123]

By 2040 I think politicians will still be wringing their hands of plans we already have safeguarded, eg track to Goldborne, services to York.

No, only GWR, and freight beyond Reading.

HS3 should also be built between Reading and Paddington as that part of the GWML is going to have a severe lack of capacity in 10 years time.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 7 Aug 2024 ==

Well the Elizabeth line currently turns an awful lot of trains back at Paddington (soon to be Old Oak Common), so I don't think there is much problem on that score. Obviously additional rolling stock would have to be ordered however.

If you put the high speed line into Paddington it could probably more or less take over the station, although I'm not sure you would send it to Paddingotn as opposed to one of the other termini.

Paddington currently is a fine terminus which isn’t too hectic. What other terminuses after all have space to expand?

 

[Bald Rick]

What other terminuses after all have space to expand?

Paddington doesn’t!

 

[Meerkat]

Well the Elizabeth line currently turns an awful lot of trains back at Paddington (soon to be Old Oak Common), so I don't think there is much problem on that score.

That doesnt mean they have capacity as they go through the core to be loaded when they start.

 

[Irascible]

HS3 should also be built between Reading and Paddington as that part of the GWML is going to have a severe lack of capacity in 10 years time.

The point of HSR is not to duplicate relatively short distance crowded services, but to take traffic off them so they've got capacity again - for the cost of the thing HSR would provide fairly limited improvements to direct Reading-London services. If you both took long distance Wales/Southwest passengers passing through away and provided other better ways to go north ( like a HSR line roughly following the M5 ), then Reading suddenly isn't as busy anymore.

Real pity HS2 didn't get a station somewhere around Milton Keynes.

 

[Mgameing123]

The point of HSR is not to duplicate relatively short distance crowded services, but to take traffic off them so they've got capacity again - for the cost of the thing HSR would provide fairly limited improvements to direct Reading-London services. If you both took long distance Wales/Southwest passengers passing through away and provided other better ways to go north ( like a HSR line roughly following the M5 ), then Reading suddenly isn't as busy anymore.

Real pity HS2 didn't get a station somewhere around Milton Keynes.

That wouldn't solve the problem of capacity between Paddington and Reading. HS3 is supposed to take fast trains away from the GWML meanwhile also provide direct trains from Heathrow to the West as Heathrow is one busy destination that could attract alot of people into public transport.

The spare capacity could be allocated to more Elizabeth Line trains to Heathrow & Maidenhead, More Semi Fast GWR services stopping at busy Elizabeth Line stations, trial of Fast Elizabeth Line services on the fast line, More capacity for freight trains.

 

[JonathanH]

The spare capacity could be allocated to more Elizabeth Line trains to Heathrow & Maidenhead, More Semi Fast GWR services stopping at busy Elizabeth Line stations, trial of Fast Elizabeth Line services on the fast line, More capacity for freight trains.

Immediately you would need grade separation of a number of junctions on the Paddington to Reading stretch. Freight services would need to remain on the reliefs as that is generally where the yards are, and there would still be some residual fast services.

 

[HSTEd]

Immediately you would need grade separation of a number of junctions on the Paddington to Reading stretch. Freight services would need to remain on the reliefs as that is generally where the yards are, and there would still be some residual fast services.

Well if a high speed railway has removed essentially all the GWR traffic from this section, the fast lines could just become the Crossrail lines.

If the high speed line goes to Reading I don't see what residual fast services there would be? Where are they going?

 

[JonathanH]

If the high speed line goes to Reading I don't see what residual fast services there would be? Where are they going?

Slough, Maidenhead and Twyford. Connections to the Thames Valley stations

 

[cle]

If capacity was freed up for more EL services (e.g. if they had the fast lines and it was all paired by speed) - those stations could be served by stopping patterns: e.g. OOC-Ealing-Hayes-Slough... is fine and would provide a lot of connections. And far more frequently.

We should have 6tph out to Slough and at least Maidenhead all day.

 

[HSTEd]

Slough, Maidenhead and Twyford. Connections to the Thames Valley stations

I very much doubt that those stations are worth the cost requires

The journey time advantage for Slough seems to be only ~13 minutes or so (varying depending on the exact train). GIven that the fast trains appear to be only 2tph from slough, I think that an increase in stopping train frequency might be able to remove a large part of the disadvantage.
4 stopping or 2 fast trains per hour vs say 8 stopping trains per hour.

It's been shown a lot in public transport policy that "frequency is freedom" and is the most important driver on patronage.

Maidenhead and Twyford do worse, but their journey time growth is ultimately constrained by being able to double back through Reading if it comes to it.

 

[cle]

They're also much smaller markets, and very peak driven (ie a few fasts scratch the itch) - whereas Slough has more in-bound commuting, off peak, generally a larger place and of course, the Windsor connection. So a metro service is probably better overall for Slough - esp when considering the total journey time to West End, City vs changing at Paddington.

If there was some investment, it would be good to try build a EL terminating platform at Slough for a few more inners. Hayes has one and West Drayton has the turnback, but if capacity was cleared, you'd want more to Slough (and LHR). An even 10 min service would be good.

 

[Mgameing123]

I very much doubt that those stations are worth the cost requires

The journey time advantage for Slough seems to be only ~13 minutes or so (varying depending on the exact train). GIven that the fast trains appear to be only 2tph from slough, I think that an increase in stopping train frequency might be able to remove a large part of the disadvantage.
4 stopping or 2 fast trains per hour vs say 8 stopping trains per hour.

It's been shown a lot in public transport policy that "frequency is freedom" and is the most important driver on patronage.

Maidenhead and Twyford do worse, but their journey time growth is ultimately constrained by being able to double back through Reading if it comes to it.

As someone who has used the train from these stations I can confirm you are totally wrong. Demand from these stations on the fast trains are high and semi fast trains stopping at these stations would be a huge benefit.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 8 Aug 2024 ==

They're also much smaller markets, and very peak driven (ie a few fasts scratch the itch) - whereas Slough has more in-bound commuting, off peak, generally a larger place and of course, the Windsor connection. So a metro service is probably better overall for Slough - esp when considering the total journey time to West End, City vs changing at Paddington.

If there was some investment, it would be good to try build a EL terminating platform at Slough for a few more inners. Hayes has one and West Drayton has the turnback, but if capacity was cleared, you'd want more to Slough (and LHR). An even 10 min service would be good.

If we were to terminate trains at Slough. Could it be worth considering extending these trains to Windsor or even establishing a fast Windsor to Paddington service?

 

[HSTEd]

As someone who has used the train from these stations I can confirm you are totally wrong. Demand from these stations on the fast trains are high and semi fast trains stopping at these stations would be a huge benefit.

Demand might be high now, because the frequency advantage is not that large currently.

Whatever the benefits to people from Slough et al might be, running fast trains in such an environment would consume a lot of capacity.
Those two trains per hour would consume something like ten paths on a stopping train dominated line.

Unless you can work out a justification for the GWML to still have 10-20 fast paths per hour in a post high speed line environment, the economics don't look great.

It's an awful lot of resources to save a comparatively small set of flows a comparatively small amount of time.

EDIT:

Twyford is ~36 minutes to Paddington as it stands, its 5-8 minutes or so to Reading. Given the intensity that the services would be operated at its pretty would be comparable to now to double back via Reading and the high speed line. At a higher service frequency.
It's even going to be fairly competitive with Maidenhead, so I don't see that many people really losing out here for a major operational simplification.

 

[SynthD]

The point of HSR is not to duplicate relatively short distance crowded services… Real pity HS2 didn't get a station somewhere around Milton Keynes.

Huh? MK is the leading example of a short and crowded WCML journey start or end, even if they aren't terminating.

The spare capacity could be allocated to more Elizabeth Line trains to Heathrow & Maidenhead, More Semi Fast GWR services stopping at busy Elizabeth Line stations, trial of Fast Elizabeth Line services on the fast line, More capacity for freight trains.

Other than the already planned and possible rise in Elizabeth tph, the only likely improvement I see is GWR adding more stops before Reading, especially important in the peak. But if HS3 is focusing on Bristol and Cardiff, the other fast trains through Reading (Newbury and Oxford) will also increase.

Could it be worth considering extending these trains to Windsor or even establishing a fast Windsor to Paddington service?

No, the Windsor platforms are too short, it would be a poor use of a slot.

 

[HSTEd]

Other than the already planned and possible rise in Elizabeth tph, the only likely improvement I see is GWR adding more stops before Reading, especially important in the peak. But if HS3 is focusing on Bristol and Cardiff, the other fast trains through Reading (Newbury and Oxford) will also increase.

The capacity of modern high speed lines is truly collosal.
Even at 360km/h it is 18 400m trains per hour, at a lower speed of ~300km/h this number will be even higher.

I feel that attempting to subdivide the traffic we have is unhelpful in that regard. Bristol and Cardiff will never be able to fill a substantial fraction of the capacity of such a line, even if traffic explodes.

We have to come up with routings that go where the people are, and take as much of the traffic off the (more expensive to operate and less reliable) classic railway as possible.
I think the Shinkansen model is interesting, but the UK is not Japan - we don't have many very long distances journeys to cater for - so I think something similar but somewhat different is better.

In essence I would prefer a SHinkansen style railway, but only operating the "all-stations" stopping pattern. In most cases it still (often easily) beats the classic railway and it would allow near metro intensities - so we can soak up any and all traffic we want. To use a different scheme from the one proposed as an example, I attempted to doodle a London-Brighton-south coast-Bournemouth scheme and it has fewer point ends in it than the approach to either half of Victoria station.

 

[Mgameing123]

Huh? MK is the leading example of a short and crowded WCML journey start or end, even if they aren't terminating.

Other than the already planned and possible rise in Elizabeth tph, the only likely improvement I see is GWR adding more stops before Reading, especially important in the peak. But if HS3 is focusing on Bristol and Cardiff, the other fast trains through Reading (Newbury and Oxford) will also increase.

No, the Windsor platforms are too short, it would be a poor use of a slot.

We can easily expand them to Crossrail length.

 

[SynthD]

We can easily expand them to Crossrail length.

It would be extremely in excess of demand. Why Crossrail? The branch is on the GWR side of Slough station.

We have to come up with routings that go where the people are

That may be the fatal flaw with skipping Reading and excluding Oxford and Newbury.

 

[HSTEd]

It would be extremely in excess of demand. Why Crossrail? The branch is on the GWR side of Slough station.

Well if a high speed line is built, I don't think there would be a "GWR side" of the station any more.

That may be the fatal flaw with skipping Reading and excluding Oxford and Newbury.

Well you could just go London-Reading-Oxford-Swindon.
At 300km/h you can burn off five kilometres every minute, you'd likely still easily beat the classic railway to Swindon, let alone Bristol, stopping at Reading and Oxford.

Serving Newbury and Oxford simultaneously is probably impractical, but Newbury people can fairly quickly reach Reading, so it is probably tolerable.

 

[Mgameing123]

It would be extremely in excess of demand. Why Crossrail? The branch is on the GWR side of Slough station.

That may be the fatal flaw with skipping Reading and excluding Oxford and Newbury.

Oxford and Newbury won’t be directly served. Instead the idea is that trains to those destinations diverge from Reading.

 

[PTR 444]

It would be extremely in excess of demand. Why Crossrail? The branch is on the GWR side of Slough station.

That may be the fatal flaw with skipping Reading and excluding Oxford and Newbury.

This is quite true. Reading is a huge traffic generator and commuting destination in its own right, so for a GWML high speed line to be profitable, it would most likely need to serve the town in some way. Essentially a new line should be built parallel to the existing GWML, with certain sections underground a bit like the Berlin - Hannover high speed railway. The new line can be built to 140mph and exclusively used by intercity passenger trains, while the existing main line becomes used by a more intensive semi-fast service (Paddington - Ealing Broadway - Hayes & Harlington - Slough - Maidenhead - Twyford - Reading) and freight. This arrangement would also allow the Elizabeth Line to have exclusive use of the reliefs.

 

[HSTEd]

Essentially a new line should be built parallel to the existing GWML, with certain sections underground a bit like the Berlin - Hannover high speed railway. The new line can be built to 140mph and exclusively used by intercity passenger trains, while the existing main line becomes used by a more intensive semi-fast service (Paddington - Ealing Broadway - Hayes & Harlington - Slough - Maidenhead - Twyford - Reading) and freight. This arrangement would also allow the Elizabeth Line to have exclusive use of the reliefs.

Why would you limit yourself to only 140mph/~230kph when you have a ~55km run?

Even with a top speed of only 285kph/177mph you could do it in about ~15 minutes. At 320kph/200mph you will probably average 140mph, stop to stop! Such is the power of modern multiple units.

 

[Mgameing123]

This is quite true. Reading is a huge traffic generator and commuting destination in its own right, so for a GWML high speed line to be profitable, it would most likely need to serve the town in some way. Essentially a new line should be built parallel to the existing GWML, with certain sections underground a bit like the Berlin - Hannover high speed railway. The new line can be built to 140mph and exclusively used by intercity passenger trains, while the existing main line becomes used by a more intensive semi-fast service (Paddington - Ealing Broadway - Hayes & Harlington - Slough - Maidenhead - Twyford - Reading) and freight. This arrangement would also allow the Elizabeth Line to have exclusive use of the reliefs.

Make sure to also serve Heathrow and Old Oak Common under the plans. People all around the UK go to Heathrow as it is a major international hub.

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^^

Why would you limit yourself to only 140mph/~230kph when you have a ~55km run?

Even with a top speed of only 285kph/177mph you could do it in about ~15 minutes. At 320kph/200mph you will probably average 140mph, stop to stop! Such is the power of modern multiple units.

 

[HSTEd]

Make sure to also serve Heathrow and Old Oak Common under the plans. People all around the UK go to Heathrow as it is a major international hub.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 8 Aug 2024 ==

^^

Stopping at both Old Oak Common and Heathrow would be a bit much, but in any case it doesn't change the fundamental logic. Heathrow to Reading is still a run of 35km, more than enough to utilise top speeds well in excess of 140mph. If you stop at Old Oak instead its ~50km.