HS-GB: Another armchair rail planner's HSR masterplan no one asked for

[Uncle Buck]

Rather than your Transpennine and Caledonian lines, would a better route not be a single line running Liverpool-Warrington-Manchester Airport-Manchester-Bradford-Leeds-York-Northallerton, with the line from Northallerton to Middlesbrough/Redcar/Sunderland electrified. You would then have NPR, you could take several Transpennine services off the congested ECML, and would reduce journey times from Northern England to Scotland (certainly Edinburgh/Dundee/Aberdeen). The northern WCML would still be used for Glasgow to Liverpool/Manchester services.

 

[SynthD]

There is a strong argument to link Liverpool-Manchester-Leeds with a high speed line so why not use that as part of the route from London to Scotland.

How? Can you draw that on a screenshot?

 

[Peter Sarf]

How? Can you draw that on a screenshot?

Well really the reverse S mentioned in the HS2 thread iirc.
From the South joining West of Manchester. Obviously linking to HS2 Southwards - aka HS2 phase2a but with a different name.
Northwards (well NE) from Leeds probably to pick up the ECML on the nice and fast Selby diversion. Adding/tweaking parts Northwards as need overcomes cost until Edinburgh is reached.

 

[Sad Sprinter]

Well I'm back from my holiday (which I had a cold throughout) so here's the map the nation has been crying out for of my theoretical high-speed railway.

As said before, the basis of this idea is to design a high-speed railway system not for the 2000s scope of "How do we increase capacity on the WCML?", but with the 2020s scope of "How the actual f**k do we save Britain?". The idea is to create the most efficient, wide reaching network as possible to help facilitate balanced economic growth.

So without further ado...

Line 1: High Speed South East (formerly HS1) - extended in tunnel from North London through to Basingstoke via an underground through station at St. Pancras. Allowing Javelin trains to run through London via Heathrow to Oxford/Southampton.
Line 2: High Speed North West (formerly HS2) - a central spine from Euston to Manchester Victoria via Heathrow and a Birmingham through station. I routed via Heathrow to provide connections with HSSE to Southampton/Bournemouth for access to Manchester/Scotland
Line 3: High Speed Northern England (formerly HS2 phaseB and HS3): Approaches Birmingham further east to link Birmingham Airport with the East Midlands and South West
Line 4: High Speed Central England: East Midlands to London (St. Pancras?) route, provides access for new lines into East Anglia
Line 5: High Speed Caledonia: passenger numbers bolstered by strategic interchanges at Heathrow (for South West), Birmingham (for Bristol/South Wales) and Manchester Airport (for Merseyside)
Line 6: High Speed South West: Extension of HSSE from Basingstoke to Bristol followed by Birmingham to Exeter line (plus lower speed secondary route from Exeter to Plymouth)
Line 7: East Anglian New Trunk Line (provides fast access from Stansted to London and access from Cambridge/East Anglia to Heathrow. Relieves GEML and provides interchange with HSNW at OOC or Heathrow)

 

[Irascible]

I still feel the Solent & C. Durham need linking in - pretty sure it'd add little time to go London-Bristol via Southampton - I'd also maybe go into Birmingham from Bristol from the south, then you can just keep going N instead of reversing. There's significant traffic from the SW to the more-north-W, and you're stuck reversing everything or getting people to change atm.

Going to the SW via Heathrow is a literal waste of time, you can't sell anything on that unless you absolutely wreck the already existing NE-SW route.

 

[Sad Sprinter]

I still feel the Solent & C. Durham need linking in - pretty sure it'd add little time to go London-Bristol via Southampton - I'd also maybe go into Birmingham from Bristol from the south, then you can just keep going N instead of reversing. There's significant traffic from the SW to the more-north-W, and you're stuck reversing everything or getting people to change atm.

Going to the SW via Heathrow is a literal waste of time, you can't sell anything on that unless you absolutely wreck the already existing NE-SW route.

I changed the direction of the Bristol to Birmingham approach, because I deliberately wouldn't include direct SW-NW trains. I'd have people change at Birmingham to board London to Manchester trains that empty out at Birmingham or to fill up London to Scotland trains. You won't change at Heathrow coming from the SW going up north. That change is at Birmingham.

 

[Rhydgaled]

Sure, I think people would be far more onboard with the project if there could at least have been a way to run SW-NW trains via the HS2 Eastern Arm. Building a new HSR system and terminating regional trains at Birmingham, disconnected from the rest of the network was a decision I don't think I could ever agree with.

Agreed; HS2 east never made sense to me unless XC's Plymouth-Edinburgh services were able to move onto it between Leeds and Birmingham without having to reverse anywhere between Plymouth and Edinburgh.

I actually dont have a problem with it as long as there is a 30 year plan and that random field in South Staffordshire is just a temporary terminating point. In our democratic system, sadly any incoming government can cancel any forward thinking plan.

We absolutely do need a longer term plan. The key thing in my view is to ensure that every section that does get built is designed to allow future extension onto the next bit. Old Oak Common on HS2 is like this - while not getting to Euston is crazy at least the design of Old Oak Common station accomodates a future extension into central London. While an incoming government could cancel it, the one after could bring it back again. What I really don't like about HS2 is the short-termist way that Curzon Street has been designed - it completely fails to recognise that (in 10, 20, 30, 40 or even 50 years time) we might want to knock down the buffer stops at the end of the platform and extend towards Bristol. There's nothing wrong with temporary terminating points - a next generation rail network for the whole of GB cannot be built overnight and you might as well open completed sections to start getting some use out of them rather than waiting decades, without seeing any of the benefits, just to allow a big bang grand openning of the whole system. The problem is dead-ends stubs that cannot be used as the starting point for a future extension - Euston is kinda understandable since Euston-Cross could well have been an insummountable challange (and perhaps not necessary if you take the view that London is big enough and development needs to be shifted to the regional cities (bridging the north-south divide and all that)) but everywhere else the planners need to be more forward-looking.

For this reason I think that, if we're ever going to want a new Liverpool-Manchester-Bradford-Leeds-York high speed line (NPR), then it should be built before HS2 reaches north of Crewe. This is so that the necessary through stations in Manchester, Bradford and Leeds get built; HS2 can then be extended northwards and make use of the NPR infrustructure into Liverpool, Manchester and Leeds.

I have always thought Birmingham being on a branch was dumb. The irony is the London centric services will terminate at Curzon street AGAIN !.

Going through Birmingham would have taken pressure of New Street to Wolverhampton.

Agreed. Unfortunately it doesn't appear to be practical to provide for both London-Birmingham-Manchester and Plymouth-Birmingham-Derby/Nottingham-Leeds with a through high-speed station on roughly the site of HS2's Curzon Street, but in my view they should have absolutely built in passive provision to do one or the other. Now that construction of phase 1 has started, and with Handsacre being rather further north than I assumed it was, I think the Plymouth-Birmingham-Derby/Nottingham-Leeds approach would be the better one. This makes the extension beyond Curzon Street a far lower priority than it would have been if the masterplan had been to go to Manchester via central Birmingham (not least because the Bristol-Birmingham line will need electrification first), but Curzon Street should really still be redesigned to be more like Old Oak Common (ie. allowing a future extension without forcing trains to reverse).

On names v. numbers etc ...

Does anyone know why we gave up the clear and to-the-point "CTRL" in favour of "HS1" — were we already expecting more high-speed lines at the time?

And why we went for the rather meaningless "High Speed One" (HS1) instead of following the pattern elsewhere of including "Line" (i.e HSL1 etc). (Compare French LGV1, LGV2, etc = "Ligne à grande vitesse", German SFS = "Schnellfahrstrecke", Belgian HSL = "Hogesnelheidslijn", etc.)

No idea on most of those questions but, although 'Channel Tunnel Rail Link' makes sense, I almost always read CTRL as 'Control' (ie. the keyboard keys) and get confused when I see it in a railway context. Perhaps London-Chunnel Primary Line (LCPL) would have been better, which would make HS2 phase 1 the London-Birmingham&Crewe Primary Line (LBCPL)?

 

[Sad Sprinter]

it completely fails to recognise that (in 10, 20, 30, 40 or even 50 years time) we might want to knock down the buffer stops at the end of the platform and extend towards Bristo

Or you know, connect our great Northern cities to Europe. Which is now physically impossible. Had we ran Javelin trains through St Pancras towards Heathrow, like my plan suggests, such a service would have been simple.

 

[Rhydgaled]

Or you know, connect our great Northern cities to Europe. Which is now physically impossible. Had we ran Javelin trains through St Pancras towards Heathrow, like my plan suggests, such a service would have been simple.

It would only be physically simple with a 4-track core through Central London, as otherwise the Javelins and other traffic heading towards Heathrow/Bristol would eat up the capacity needed for the services on High Speed North West. That fact, together with our departure from the European Union making on-train border controls even less likely, eroded my enthusiasm for the Euston-Cross option.

 

[Bletchleyite]

It would only be physically simple with a 4-track core through Central London, as otherwise the Javelins and other traffic heading towards Heathrow/Bristol would eat up the capacity needed for the services on High Speed North West. That fact, together with our departure from the European Union making on-train border controls even less likely, eroded my enthusiasm for the Euston-Cross option.

In the end there's no obvious place to send services south of London aside from mainland Europe, and even if we were in Schengen there's not going to be demand for 10tph. The commuter lines south of London are third rail and have very different demand profiles to the lines out of Euston, and so HS2 units wouldn't be very suitable, and indeed might not fit (hence the odd 20m high speed units for Southeastern).

Thus in London, unless you did a "terminus of convenience" somewhere just outside to save money on land, you're always going to need an HS2 terminus.

If the capital was Birmingham or Manchester rather than a city in the bottom right hand corner, things might be very different.

 

[BayPaul]

In the end there's no obvious place to send services south of London aside from mainland Europe, and even if we were in Schengen there's not going to be demand for 10tph. The commuter lines south of London are third rail and have very different demand profiles to the lines out of Euston, and so HS2 units wouldn't be very suitable, and indeed might not fit (hence the odd 20m high speed units for Southeastern).

Thus in London, unless you did a "terminus of convenience" somewhere just outside to save money on land, you're always going to need an HS2 terminus.

If the capital was Birmingham or Manchester rather than a city in the bottom right hand corner, things might be very different.

I could see the logic for a future HS line to the SW linking through to HS1 to Kent and a new HS Anglia, avoiding expensive London termini, allowing multiple useful stations in Greater London to spread passenger nunbers (Stratford International, St Pancras area underground, perhaps Paddington, Old Oak Common or Heathrow).

These would work as similar trains are needed on each side - Javelins services from Dover to Bristol for example, or a more long distance spec version for Norwich to Penzance.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I could see the logic for a future HS line to the SW linking through to HS1 to Kent and a new HS Anglia, avoiding expensive London termini, allowing multiple useful stations in Greater London to spread passenger nunbers (Stratford International, St Pancras area underground, perhaps Paddington, Old Oak Common or Heathrow).

These would work as similar trains are needed on each side - Javelins services from Dover to Bristol for example, or a more long distance spec version for Norwich to Penzance.

I still struggle to see where you're going to need 10tph and where there'd be significant (or any) through traffic. Gatwick maybe? But then you'd need a big terminus there. Also you would need to do the work to 25kV electrify and allow 25m vehicles on the "Javelin" routes.

The big downside is unreliability - importing delays from different routes.

 

[Sad Sprinter]

I still struggle to see where you're going to need 10tph and where there'd be significant (or any) through traffic. Gatwick maybe? But then you'd need a big terminus there. Also you would need to do the work to 25kV electrify and allow 25m vehicles on the "Javelin" routes.

The big downside is unreliability - importing delays from different routes.

In my plan, the HS1 extension will only send Javelins to Bournemouth/Oxford. Maybe terminate at Heathrow too if necessary.

I assumed a Western high speed line would terminate at Paddington. I wouldn't use European sized stock for such a service considering it wouldn't be a "closed" service like HS2 phase 1.

 

[Rhydgaled]

In the end there's no obvious place to send services south of London aside from mainland Europe, and even if we were in Schengen there's not going to be demand for 10tph. The commuter lines south of London are third rail and have very different demand profiles to the lines out of Euston, and so HS2 units wouldn't be very suitable, and indeed might not fit (hence the odd 20m high speed units for Southeastern).

Thus in London, unless you did a "terminus of convenience" somewhere just outside to save money on land, you're always going to need an HS2 terminus.

True enough, but HS2 comes into London from the west/north-west anyway (not from due north) so a 'Euston Cross' type proposal wouldn't necessarily have to send stuff out due south. My thinking is that a HS2 through station in London would have to be sort of like this concept I just knocked up in MS Paint:
Javelin services would run from HS1 as they do now to Reading via the new Heathrow line, instead of going into STP (although most Eurostar services would still go to STP - I forgot to put that on the drawing). Longer-distance services for GWR-land (green line) would run through to the north-east (blue line) while some of those from the north-west (red line) would run through onto HS1 to terminate at each of Ebbsfleet, Ashford and selected destinations in mainland Europe. The remaining services from the red line would run through onto the blue line, effectively a service from the NW terminating in London and another to the NE starting in terms of 'all change' but with the odd through passenger and without the need to build seperate termini for each of the three additional lines into London - there would be one massive underground 'Euston Cross' station instead.

 

[BayPaul]

I still struggle to see where you're going to need 10tph and where there'd be significant (or any) through traffic. Gatwick maybe? But then you'd need a big terminus there. Also you would need to do the work to 25kV electrify and allow 25m vehicles on the "Javelin" routes.

The big downside is unreliability - importing delays from different routes.

I was assuming that Kent could probably take 6tph (the current 4tph, plus perhaps 1 to Dover + 1 to Hastings), and that a new (wildly expensive) set of branches at Stratford could take a further 6tph (2 Norwich, 1-2 Clacton, 2-3 Cambridge / King's Lynn), so 12tph + Eurostar to the East.

To the west:
2tph Oxford / Worcester etc
2tph Cardiff / Swansea
2tph Bristol
2tph Exeter /Plymouth /Penzance
2tph Weymouth via Basingstoke & Southampton
1tph Salisbury
1tph Cheltenham

This would be a completely independent line to HS2, with an interchange at OOC.

Importing delays would be an issue. I don't see any particular reason not to have duel voltage as per the existing Javelins though, and 240m train lengths work throughout this network, I wouldn't have thought gauge clearance in Kent would be that painful, compared to the insane cost of digging that tunnel across London!

 

[Bald Rick]

Lets not forget that ‘Euston Cross’ isn’t actually physically possible under all practical assumptions.