Why hasn't Crossrail led to more support for HS2?

[Nottingham59]

Capacity is the primary reason stated in the all the whitepapers released and business cases. A quick look at the HS2 website also confirms capacity is the first benefit mentioned.

It would be good if that were the case, but I fear that there has been a change of tune by HS2 Ltd since the Phase One: Full Business Case was published in April 2020.

Table 2.12 (page 61) gives the transport benefits of the Full Y network as £77bn at 2015 prices. By far the greatest component of this figure is "reduction in journey times" at £39bn. Benefits from increased capacity don't really figure at all.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5fc51d7b8fa8f54755392863/full-business-case-hs2-phase-one.pdf

 

[fishwomp]

It would be good if that were the case, but I fear that there has been a change of tune by HS2 Ltd since the Phase One: Full Business Case was published in April 2020.

Table 2.12 (page 61) gives the transport benefits of the Full Y network as £77bn at 2015 prices. By far the greatest component of this figure is "reduction in journey times" at £39bn. Benefits from increased capacity don't really figure at all.

Famously this journey time reduction was said not to factor in that people can work productively on trains now.. Ouch.

As a more spacious seat and table, and more seats less standing, would make journey times more usable for laptops / working.. if someone paid the right consultancy they could make the case for the economic benefits for Cross Country's resolving current capacity shenanigans!

 

[Grimsby town]

It would be good if that were the case, but I fear that there has been a change of tune by HS2 Ltd since the Phase One: Full Business Case was published in April 2020.

Table 2.12 (page 61) gives the transport benefits of the Full Y network as £77bn at 2015 prices. By far the greatest component of this figure is "reduction in journey times" at £39bn. Benefits from increased capacity don't really figure at all.

View attachment 172569

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5fc51d7b8fa8f54755392863/full-business-case-hs2-phase-one.pdf

It's always important to remember that the economic dimension (which includes the benefit cost ratio) is just one part of the business case. No meaningful attempt has been made to value the released capacity partly because its very complicated to achieve.

 

[FMerrymon]

It would be good if that were the case, but I fear that there has been a change of tune by HS2 Ltd since the Phase One: Full Business Case was published in April 2020

Incorrect and nothing to fear. From the hs2.org.uk website in January 2013: https://web.archive.org/web/20130125235929/http://www.hs2.org.uk/about-hs2 first mention in "about hs2" is "releasing space on crowded lines".

Attached the 2009 and 2010 whitepapers. Capacity key point.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 11 Jan 2025 ==

It's always important to remember that the economic dimension (which includes the benefit cost ratio) is just one part of the business case. No meaningful attempt has been made to value the released capacity partly because its very complicated to achieve

Yes, its the standard green book methodology from the DfT. Its how every transport scheme is appraised.

 

[HSTEd]

Reduced journey times were clearly a major design driver - given they decided on a near straight line route through the Chilterns that landed them in the massive political battles that have seriously damaged the project.

 

[The Ham]

A lot of the issues with HS2 is down to it being easy to say "impacts 108 ancient woodlands" but it's much harder to put forward a short snappy reason for HS2.

However, if you look into it there's a LOT of positives from building HS2:

Savings to the NHS of £9.5 billion by 2050 if we hit our transport decarbonisation targets (that's in addition to the savings to the NHS from reaching other decabonisation targets)

No additional coaches to ruin longer trains to Manchester than we currently have (due to journey time savings)

Lower railway staff costs to run the same number of services (due to journey time savings)

In addition one driver being able to move far more people per train (due to higher capacity train)

Extra local service capacity from removing long distance services (including some TPE services at Manchester) from the existing platforms (potential for longer trains and/or more frequent services)

Reduced road congestion - for example by building HS2 it could be the catalyst to double rail use

If we could reduce car by 10% (which doubling rail use would certainly deliver if bus, cycling and walking also increased) that's the equivalent of term time traffic being like school holiday traffic

Potential for companies to operate as easily in Birmingham as they do in Basingstoke and in Salford as they do in Southampton in terms of being able to attend meetings in London but with the ability to more easily recruit staff (including support staff) who can live near where they work (and only needing those staff who need to to travel to London for meetings rather than every day)

 

[fishwomp]

Savings to the NHS of £9.5 billion by 2050 if we hit our transport decarbonisation targets (that's in addition to the savings to the NHS from reaching other decabonisation targets)

When all cars will be electric by then, and WCML electric since 60s, what extra is HS2 decarbonising? Don't forget the phenomenal amount of CO2 in making concrete for HS2..

 

[Krokodil]

what extra is HS2 decarbonising?

Flights and XC. The eastern leg would have been revolutionary for Birmingham-Leeds.

 

[YorkshireBear]

Reduced journey times were clearly a major design driver - given they decided on a near straight line route through the Chilterns that landed them in the massive political battles that have seriously damaged the project.

As the technical director Andrew McNaughton has said repeatedly.

They found the best possible alignment missing everything they could. It happened to be capable of the speeds. Not the other way around. Green Signals podcast, episode 3 I believe.

 

[The Ham]

When all cars will be electric by then, and WCML electric since 60s, what extra is HS2 decarbonising? Don't forget the phenomenal amount of CO2 in making concrete for HS2..

All new cars would be electric, however not necessarily all vehicles on the roads.

Also HS2 could (if it was built on the original timeline before it was delayed to decide to build it and delayed further due to bits being cancelled) have also aided in moving those savings forwards by shifting people from ICE vehicles before people would have been willing to go electric.

Shifting people from cats would also likely reduce the cost of road accidents by reducing the numbers which happen.

A reduction in road deaths of 1% (due to a shift away from car use) due to the cost to the country of fatal accidents could be a £2bn saving over a 60 year period.

As to concrete, do you know how the HS2 values compare over (say) 120 years with having to replace the 400 miles of concrete trunk roads in the UK (which typically would need to happen every 40 years) over the same timeframe?

To be honest I don't know, however given that roads would typically be wider (read need more concrete) I would have thought that HS2 would come out favourable.

 

[jfowkes]

When all cars will be electric by then, and WCML electric since 60s, what extra is HS2 decarbonising? Don't forget the phenomenal amount of CO2 in making concrete for HS2..

Freight. HS2 means more rail freight capacity, and electrifying road freight is HARD.

 

[HST43257]

Flights and XC. The eastern leg would have been revolutionary for Birmingham-Leeds.

This. People don’t seem to realise that HS2 benefitted far more than WCML intercity and local services.

Derby-Sheffield, Nottingham, Leeds, and York-Edinburgh - all of these places would’ve had quicker and more frequent journeys to/from London. (I prefer the IRP East Mids Parkway idea to East Mids Hub station). Everywhere south of those places on the MML and ECML had the potential for more reliable, quicker and more frequent journeys.

Then there’s XC. Birmingham to Leeds in 49 mins (down from 2h10ish), York in 52 mins (down from 2h30ish regular, occasional 1h57) and everywhere north of there. Not to mention more frequent services (I think 2tph Birmingham to Leeds was initially proposed, and 1tph Newcastle. Something I wonder about is the likely decrease in connections to Bristol and the South West, but I reckon a break at Birmingham would surely be good for reliability, and perhaps a more regular frequency (ie 20/40 becomes 30/30, or whatever it is now/was pre covid)

Speed may not matter London to Birmingham, but HS2 is mega transformational for both speed and capacity further north

 

[eldomtom2]

This. People don’t seem to realise that HS2 benefitted far more than WCML intercity and local services.

Derby-Sheffield, Nottingham, Leeds, and York-Edinburgh - all of these places would’ve had quicker and more frequent journeys to/from London. (I prefer the IRP East Mids Parkway idea to East Mids Hub station). Everywhere south of those places on the MML and ECML had the potential for more reliable, quicker and more frequent journeys.

Then there’s XC. Birmingham to Leeds in 49 mins (down from 2h10ish), York in 52 mins (down from 2h30ish regular, occasional 1h57) and everywhere north of there. Not to mention more frequent services (I think 2tph Birmingham to Leeds was initially proposed, and 1tph Newcastle. Something I wonder about is the likely decrease in connections to Bristol and the South West, but I reckon a break at Birmingham would surely be good for reliability, and perhaps a more regular frequency (ie 20/40 becomes 30/30, or whatever it is now/was pre covid)

Speed may not matter London to Birmingham, but HS2 is mega transformational for both speed and capacity further north

The problem is that by building a massive network to at least partially take over all north-south intercity rail travel, they ended up making the individual sections much less useful that they could otherwise be - HS2 themselves said that if it wasn't for the need for capacity to take over MML and ECML services, the BCR would be in favour of an intermediate station between London and Birmingham.

 

[HSTEd]

Freight. HS2 means more rail freight capacity, and electrifying road freight is HARD.

The technology for road freight electrification already exists, trial installations are present on roads in Germany and Sweden.

Batteries and eHighway type overhead cables for lorries will be required in any case, because railfreight can't possibly complete on short hauls.
And once you've installed those, railfreight's niche shrinks perilously small.


== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 11 Jan 2025 ==

As the technical director Andrew McNaughton has said repeatedly.

They found the best possible alignment missing everything they could. It happened to be capable of the speeds. Not the other way around. Green Signals podcast, episode 3 I believe.

Well, it didn't miss the AONB.

They had to resort to massive additional tunneling, but even so they spent political capital that proved impossible to replace.

 

[fishwomp]

Flights and XC. The eastern leg would have been revolutionary for Birmingham-Leeds.

my response was about the claim of HS2 decarbonising transport.

XC will also be decarbonised by 2050..

And Flights? .. It's already quicker for most to take train from London for everything south of Newcastle given check-in times. Most Heathrow to Manchester, Leeds are doing connecting journeys they will probably continue to do that until a change in tax, or the Heathrow slots get used for more valuable trips.

 

[FMerrymon]

Well, it didn't miss the AONB.

They had to resort to massive additional tunneling, but even so they spent political capital that proved impossible to replace

To miss the AONB, you either have to go via Reading or via Luton. It's a big detour. Luton or Dunstable would need to be tunnelled under. There would have been a lot more people affected who'd have shouted just a much. Going through the Chilterns anyway would have needed a tunnel.

Once out of the AONB it follows an existing corridor then an old unused one out of the Chilterns.

If you look at the route selection papers they look at following the m40, Chiltern mainline and M1. They're all more expensive and affected more residential properties.

Watched the hs2 Panorama programme again the other day and they were claiming the Colne valley viaduct was a product of the high speed

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 12 Jan 2025 ==

The technology for road freight electrification already exists, trial installations are present on roads in Germany and Sweden.

Batteries and eHighway type overhead cables for lorries will be required in any case, because railfreight can't possibly complete on short hauls.
And once you've installed those, railfreight's niche shrinks perilously small.

Trials and unproven. I'm sceptical. Freight is still used on railnfor reasons other than co2 emissions.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 12 Jan 2025 ==

South West-north East would have been possible via ooc and Birmingham. That would be more trains an hour, more seats and time savings over an hour on some journeys. Cardiff-Newcastle/glasgow/Edinburgh would see big improvements

Many journeys that currently include crosscountry Bournemouth-Manchester would also be improved

 

[HSTEd]

To miss the AONB, you either have to go via Reading or via Luton. It's a big detour. Luton or Dunstable would need to be tunnelled under. There would have been a lot more people affected who'd have shouted just a much. Going through the Chilterns anyway would have needed a tunnel.

If you are going to Luton anyway you can make like HS1 and put a station there, which will take the sting out of the project. This is a key difference to Crossrail that I think explains a big part of the question posited in this thread.
People getting disrupted by Crossrail were normally near stations and thus could expect to receive something.

Crossrail disrupted people's lives, sure, but those people could expect to benefit from the project.
HS2 disrupted peoples lives, but offers them nothing in exchange.

To achieve the supposed goal of maximising capacity, you only have to beat the classic railway. Thanks to the low performance of the WCML a train could stop several times and still handily beat it to Birmingham.
Also "big detour" doesn't really mean much when your trains are capable of eating up 5+km each and every minute.

Trials and unproven. I'm sceptical. Freight is still used on railnfor reasons other than co2 emissions.

Once the carbon dioxide emissions argument for the railway falls away, the railway is going to have to work a lot harder to sell railfreight (and its costs) to the Treasury.

 

[FMerrymon]

Reduced journey times were clearly a major design driver - given they decided on a near straight line route through the Chilterns that landed them in the massive political battles that have seriously damaged the project.

Everything stems from the original issue around capacity and how to increase it.

Once they'd decided to build a new line then they decided it should be high speed as there are other benefits in doing so. It also contributes toward the capacity objective in multiple ways.

 

[Krokodil]

XC will also be decarbonised by 2050..

Some hope. It's not just about decarbonising the trains, it's about providing a more competitive alternative to road transport (which will continue to have a massive climate impact even once every car is a BEV).

And Flights? .. It's already quicker for most to take train from London for everything south of Newcastle given check-in times.

There are around 5 million airline passengers between Edinburgh/Glasgow and London. Golborne would have reduced timings on these routes to 3:40, comfortably below the 4hr threshold considered the tipping point for air/rail competitiveness.

 

[jfowkes]

Once the carbon dioxide emissions argument for the railway falls away, the railway is going to have to work a lot harder to sell railfreight (and its costs) to the Treasury.

Congestion, safety and non-CO2 environmental impact then (brake and tyre particulates are big pollutants too).

And this is if road freight electrification works in practice, which is a big if I think. Lots of questions to answer between trials and widespread implementation.

 

[The Ham]

Something which is often overlooked is that rail travel uses less energy than road travel.

Therefore, until such time as there's more than enough renewable electricity generation to cover transport and replace gas use, rail will still provide a benefit to the grid in allowing us to generate less energy.

That's before you consider that with an increasing population (not all due to immigration, for example between 2022 and 2050 the population is due to increase by 4.6 million, yet the number of 65 is due to increase by 4.7 million) unless we can reduce the miles travelled at the same rate (given car numbers are increasing, that's unlikely) as the population is rising (so the total miles travelled stays the same) you'd need to build new roads or enhancements to roads to cater for the extra traffic.

Arguably it's better to use that money to improve walking, cycling and public transport so that you can achieve that.

That means big ticket items (such as HS2) to increase capacity but also simple things like ensuring that walking routes are high quality (especially for getting to school).

 

[fishwomp]

There are around 5 million airline passengers between Edinburgh/Glasgow and London.

1.5M to Stansted and Luton combined, 0.4M City, 1.2M Gatwick, and 2M Heathrow (Source CAA May '23 stats, extrapolated with bucket of salt)

Golborne would have reduced timings on these routes to 3:40, comfortably below the 4hr threshold considered the tipping point for air/rail competitiveness.

I couldn't find why people fly from GLA/EDB - but.. Manchester has 0.5M to Heathrow, Newcastle 0.4M and no other London destinations - both are 2h or 3h journeys by train.. why? Flight connections.

Given 2M Heathrow - EDB/GLA, a good 0.5-0.75M must be connections. You get looked after when the connections break - hard to win here unless Rail does same (TPE do this for Manchester airport - if plane is late, but can't help if train is late!).

The rest at Heathrow (1.25M-1.5M) must be game for modal shift possibly via time - but price is a factor too, and those 200 seater planes have to run to help fill the big planes... discounting happens here too.

City's 0.4M is not going to change much with HS2 - a 30 mins reduction in rail time from 5hr (inc tube) is nothing compared to their current 1h flight and limo..

Luton, Gatwick, Stansted total of 2.7M are budget operators, with a time-sucking London end journey (unless your destination is the home counties). Far more is won by price here than journey time.

So, longer trains for more capacity (Lumo will know who I am talking about) and competition might be a bigger factor than Golborne..

 

[Mgameing123]

HS1 in its short length has two physical connections to the classic network, one at Ebbsfleet for Gravesend and the Medway Towns etc, the other at Ashford, with both through trains towards Canterbury or Folkestone and connecting trains towards Rye. It benefits a lot of people, all across Kent.

It has 3 if you count the connection at Southfleet Junction.

 

[Trainguy34]

It has 3 if you count the connection at Southfleet Junction.

If we're including that we may as well include the freight link lines around Ripple Yd

 

[Krokodil]

So, longer trains for more capacity (Lumo will know who I am talking about) and competition might be a bigger factor than Golborne..

If only we had a project which would double frequencies out of Euston and extend train lengths to 400m. Oh wait, that's another benefit that the full HS2 network would have brought.

 

[fishwomp]

If only we had a project which would double frequencies out of Euston and extend train lengths to 400m. Oh wait, that's another benefit that the full HS2 network would have brought.

You mean the one that is shortening the Manchester trains?

 

[Krokodil]

You mean the one that is shortening the Manchester trains?

No, I said "the full HS2 network". The one which runs through to Piccadilly (and Leeds/Golborne). Not the truncated one on Rishi's hotel beermat.

 

[FMerrymon]

If you are going to Luton anyway you can make like HS1 and put a station there, which will take the sting out of the project. This is a key difference to Crossrail that I think explains a big part of the question posited in this thread.
People getting disrupted by Crossrail were normally near stations and thus could expect to receive something.

Crossrail disrupted people's lives, sure, but those people could expect to benefit from the project.
HS2 disrupted peoples lives, but offers them nothing in exchange.

Its a good point that there is disruption for people who don't benefit or could not see how they would benefit. It doesn't help that the government have been on and off about associated works that would have benefitted them. For example, Aylesbury would benefit from the connection to EWR and to OOC, but the government has not committed and even pulled Aylesbury out saying its not value for money (plus it needs hs2 phase 1 to start to have the capacity to get to MK/Northampton).

Kenilworth was expected to be doubled on the back of the capacity release Coventry-Birmingham, but again no commitment. Haul roads were going to converted to a route long cycleway at one point which would have been a fantastic idea and likely bring some visitors along the route and be useful for locals, but has gone.

On the point of Luton though, it was already to gain from hs2 eastern branch, already has Thameslink. The route was more expensive, with fewer benefits. You can read about the considerations here https://assets.publishing.service.g...c/hs2-review-of-route-selection-and-speed.doc. Any intermediate station between Birmingham and OOC would mean every service stopping there, increasing energy use and time, or would reduce the trains per hour. And what about the communities between Luton and Birmingham?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 12 Jan 2025 ==

To achieve the supposed goal of maximising capacity, you only have to beat the classic railway. Thanks to the low performance of the WCML a train could stop several times and still handily beat it to Birmingham.
Also "big detour" doesn't really mean much when your trains are capable of eating up 5+km each and every minute.

Not a supposed goal: the goal *IS* capacity. Capacity can be released not just on the wcml, which was the primary point, but also the cross country services and connecting TV/SW/South Wales to the north/scotland/east mids with additional speed to make hs2 via ooc more attractive for those journeys. Bypassing ecml via Birmingham would have also benefitted from that reduced journey time.

 

[The Ham]

Not a supposed goal: the goal *IS* capacity. Capacity can be released not just on the wcml, which was the primary point, but also the cross country services and connecting TV/SW/South Wales to the north/scotland/east mids with additional speed to make hs2 via ooc more attractive for those journeys. Bypassing ecml via Birmingham would have also benefitted from that reduced journey time.

Indeed, what's the capacity for getting between Southampton and Newcastle? Currently under XC it's something like 200 every other hour and whilst there's a fair amount of capacity via London it's a bit of a pain to get from Waterloo to Kings Cross.

Under HS2 but only does the joinery time reduce by about an hour (using journey times to Paddington from Southampton and from Euston as well as some time to change at OOC - so could have been better if the full HS2 network had been built) but it removes the need to get across London.

Whilst XC would still be direct, two changes at stations with at least 2tph (and Reading to OOC would be quite a few more than that) means that missing one service still means your journey is still 30 minutes faster. The capacity would also be far more.

That's assuming that XC still runs south of Reading, if the XC paths south of Reading get used to create direct trains to OOC then it's a single point of change and reduces the journey time even more.

Even with the two changes to Birmingham was a bit faster than by XC, as such prioritising services to OOC might create more journeys than retaining the current XC services.

Especially given that such a change in priority would benefit travel to other places too, including Manchester and Liverpool (the latter many would like to be back on the XC network).

 

[HSTEd]

Its a good point that there is disruption for people who don't benefit or could not see how they would benefit. It doesn't help that the government have been on and off about associated works that would have benefitted them. For example, Aylesbury would benefit from the connection to EWR and to OOC, but the government has not committed and even pulled Aylesbury out saying its not value for money (plus it needs hs2 phase 1 to start to have the capacity to get to MK/Northampton).

Kenilworth was expected to be doubled on the back of the capacity release Coventry-Birmingham, but again no commitment. Haul roads were going to converted to a route long cycleway at one point which would have been a fantastic idea and likely bring some visitors along the route and be useful for locals, but has gone.

The problem with these projected benefits is that they are detached from the scheme being pushed.
The cynical public will come to the conclusion that these projects will be quietly axed once HS2 gets what it wants.
Which turns out to be exactly what happened.

In order for people to believe the benefits will be delivered, they have to be an integral part of the scheme that the funder is proposing. As they were with Crossrail.

On the point of Luton though, it was already to gain from hs2 eastern branch, already has Thameslink. The route was more expensive, with fewer benefits. You can read about the considerations here https://assets.publishing.service.g...c/hs2-review-of-route-selection-and-speed.doc. Any intermediate station between Birmingham and OOC would mean every service stopping there, increasing energy use and time, or would reduce the trains per hour. And what about the communities between Luton and Birmingham?

Well they would get stations too, if we follow the HS1 type of model.
A high speed train from London to Birmingham could stop at Luton, Milton Keynes, Northampton, Rugby and Coventry and still beat the WCML handily.

Also, does it matter if the trains stop multiple times if they are still faster than the alternative? A line that continued on that basis through Wolverhampton, Stafford, Stoke, Manchester, Huddersfield, Leeds and York would still beat the classic railway for essentially all journey combinations other than London-York, and even then it will get close.
The classic railway is pretty slow by modern HSR standards.

Not a supposed goal: the goal *IS* capacity. Capacity can be released not just on the wcml, which was the primary point, but also the cross country services and connecting TV/SW/South Wales to the north/scotland/east mids with additional speed to make hs2 via ooc more attractive for those journeys. Bypassing ecml via Birmingham would have also benefitted from that reduced journey time.

Unfortunately, given the collapse of the scheme, most of this capacity that has been provided will not be used.
That is another lesson - a scheme that defers the bulk of its benefits to the end of the scheme runs a serious risk of being cancelled before it can be realised.