Our new ticketing site is now live! Using either this or the original site (both powered by TrainSplit) helps support the running of the forum with every ticket purchase! Find out more and ask any questions/give us feedback in this thread!
The usage pattern of Gatwick is not comparable to a major European hub Airport.
Heathrow is closer but a combination of it being relatively close to its city for a major Airport and a very constrained site means it is much harder to provide a European style HSR hub in a sensible place for a viable price.
The economic geography of the UK is further problematic because London is such a dominant factor in rail travel. Bypassing it will always result in a weaker case.
Most people live in, or want to go to, the city centre, not an airport in the middle of nowhere. I think most people would view the city centre - city centre aspect of Eurostar as a positive.
This video from the Campaign for Better Transport shows a race between London and Glasgow - one person going by rail (from Euston), and one person going by air (from Luton I believe, but I can't find this now).
Their starting point was the centre of London and end point the middle of Glasgow. Train journey 4.5 hours, plane journey 1 hour. Obviously the train journey won, but in reality very few people live within walking distance to Euston station. If they had started in a random town or village in Bedfordshire instead then the result would have been very different.
== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==
Low numbers maybe, but from memory lots of (most?) trains still stopped at one or the other in both directions. Totally appreciate that this did extend journey times for the vast majority of passengers.
However, the investment in border control was already in place and so calling there didn't, at that stage, incur any additional cost. Following Brexit, and necessary changes to border control as a result, lots of investment would need to go into both stations to bring them up to date before they could accept any international passengers again.
Belfast international about an hour away on the bus from Belfast city centre and any rail station. I would not call it rail connected in any sense.
Belfast city airport however is about a 20 min walk from the nearest station and there has been discussion to build a station right Infront of the airport (as the rail line runs along the airport's length)
Many people have a destination in a city centre, particularly business travellers and tourists
The suburbs of a city typically have good public transport to the main station in the city centre, but maybe not to other suburbs or to the airport
That means services to/from city centres are convenient for a significant proportion of travellers even if they don't live there. There may also be an out-of-town station where people can drive if that's more convenient than travelling into the local city centre to take a train somewhere else. Whether there is a convenient one of these for a particular journey is essentially random, but that also applies to airports.
Edinburgh Airport is insanely busy these days. If an airport station could be served by the Edinburgh Glasgow Queen Street express service (i.e. a fast regular service to both cities) it would almost certainly be an absolute hit. To the point ScotRail would probably need to increase the frequency back to quarter hourly.
I think the potential benefits of EARL, would be for people who live further afield like: Inverness, Aberdeen, Dundee, Perth, Stirling as well as Newcastle for North American flights.
No, it was low number pre covid. Brexit was probably less significant than the poor service pre-covid in those two stations not reopening.
Eurostar had tried to all-but abandon Ashford once before when they got the e320s, pre covid or Brexit.
The usage pattern of Gatwick is not comparable to a major European hub Airport.
Heathrow is closer but a combination of it being relatively close to its city for a major Airport and a very constrained site means it is much harder to provide a European style HSR hub in a sensible place for a viable price.
The economic geography of the UK is further problematic because London is such a dominant factor in rail travel. Bypassing it will always result in a weaker case.
If you want to decrease the number of cars using Heathrow (and the M25) then the airport really needs vastly improved rail connections to elsewhere in the South East.
HS2 and a change at OOC will help and may mean that a direct Reading to LHR link isn't needed but the Southern Access proposal, while expensive, would open up a lot of connections to towns which are close to Heathrow but have no way of getting there by rail other than schlepping into London and out again - or jumping into their car.
There were 26k journeys from Luton Parkway to Gatwick Airport last year (and similar other unaffected years). A decent portion of those will be people parking at their local parkway station (which happens to have an airport) for a Gatwick flight.
What number of Heathrow passengers from either of those areas would be expected to transfer to the train if this was done? How many trains a day would be needed?
Edinburgh Airport is insanely busy these days. If an airport station could be served by the Edinburgh Glasgow Queen Street express service (i.e. a fast regular service to both cities) it would almost certainly be an absolute hit. To the point ScotRail would probably need to increase the frequency back to quarter hourly.
Fill an e320 4x per week.
Each e320 has 902 seats.
902 x 4 = 3608 seats filled.
Let's say that trains would be comfortable with 80% of seats filled. That means you would need 5 trains per week to comfortably carry this number of passengers.
5 direct trains per week between Paris and Birmingham sounds super. You could do a Monday - Friday service with an outward journey in the morning and a return in the afternoon. Connections from Paris to other major European destinations, and likewise from Birmingham for other UK destinations.
Direct flights, eg. London - Tsibili, run on this model, with flights on only 2 days per week. Nothing to stop train companies doing the same thing except for the general pessimism of many of the British population.
5 direct trains per week between Paris and Birmingham sounds super. You could do a Monday - Friday service with an outward journey in the morning and a return in the afternoon. Connections from Paris to other major European destinations, and likewise from Birmingham for other UK destinations.
Direct flights, eg. London - Tsibili, run on this model, with flights on only 2 days per week. Nothing to stop train companies doing the same thing except for the general pessimism of many of the British population.
Airlines have much lower costs for the infrastructure connecting locations where passengers board and alight.
If there was a short link between HS1 and HS2 at Camden Road then a 1 a day extension to each of Birmingham and Manchester would be more viable (if the border can be worked out).
But you arent building an HSR bypass of London to run single figures of trains per week. Youd need to be running double figures of trains per *hour* (each way) to justify such an investment. Where are those passengers coming from, if the line does not serve the dominant market?
They keep overhauling it, but only to add in more shops and further reduce the circulation space. Nasty claustrophobic little dump these days, and if they overhaul it any more then there will be nowhere left to sit at all.
Location-wise though the EARL project would make it the obvious station to use for most of Scotland, probably would have completely killed off Prestwick and left Glasgow with just domestic and charter flights. Ironically if they'd realised that at the time they could probably have binned off GARL and actually got EARL built.
Fill an e320 4x per week.
Each e320 has 902 seats.
902 x 4 = 3608 seats filled.
Let's say that trains would be comfortable with 80% of seats filled. That means you would need 5 trains per week to comfortably carry this number of passengers.
5 direct trains per week between Paris and Birmingham sounds super. You could do a Monday - Friday service with an outward journey in the morning and a return in the afternoon. Connections from Paris to other major European destinations, and likewise from Birmingham for other UK destinations.
Direct flights, eg. London - Tsibili, run on this model, with flights on only 2 days per week. Nothing to stop train companies doing the same thing except for the general pessimism of many of the British population.
The only problem there with that comparison is that the outward London flight is a overnight one, with the return the following morning meaning the craft isn't left sitting around for hours or overnight. With your idea, Monday to Thursday the unit would have to stay in Birmingham overnight, or run ECS back to London. Then you have the problem of what to do about the Monday morning service outward, and the Friday return. With the Tbilisi flights, the craft will be on other routes during the day before the outward flight, and after returning from Georgia. This is how they are able to serve lesser used routes, by shoehorning them into wider flight patterns keeping the craft in the air as much as possible.
The only problem there with that comparison is that the outward London flight is a overnight one, with the return the following morning meaning the craft isn't left sitting around for hours or overnight. With your idea, Monday to Thursday the unit would have to stay in Birmingham overnight, or run ECS back to London. Then you have the problem of what to do about the Monday morning service outward, and the Friday return. With the Tbilisi flights, the craft will be on other routes during the day before the outward flight, and after returning from Georgia. This is how they are able to serve lesser used routes, by shoehorning them into wider flight patterns keeping the craft in the air as much as possible.
Fill an e320 4x per week.
Each e320 has 902 seats.
902 x 4 = 3608 seats filled.
Let's say that trains would be comfortable with 80% of seats filled. That means you would need 5 trains per week to comfortably carry this number of passengers.
5 direct trains per week between Paris and Birmingham sounds super. You could do a Monday - Friday service with an outward journey in the morning and a return in the afternoon. Connections from Paris to other major European destinations, and likewise from Birmingham for other UK destinations.
Also, it's very unlikely that all the Birmingham-Paris passengers would want to travel out and back at the same time on a weekday, especially as the journey time would be uncompetitive with a direct flight even when transit to/from and at the airports is taken into account.
The only way it might have worked would be as a multi-purpose train, calling at say New Street, International, Milton Keynes, Watford, Stratford, Ebbsfleet, Ashford and Lille. That way it could serve a range of domestic and international journeys that might be enough to make the number stack up for a handful of journeys each day. This is what pretty much every international train does except those that happen to link cities large and close enough to justify a point-to-point service (like London, Paris and Brussels but not Birmingham). Unfortunately the Channel Tunnel security and immigration requirements make this impossible.
The principle of a Birmingham to Paris or Brussels service is sound. However it falls down on any contact with reality due to no HS1/HS2 link or even HS4Air and the hard border.
I think a case can be made for the Heathrow link to be reinstated as part of HS2. I’d envisage you could easily take one of the Birmingham services in and out of Heathrow on its way to Euston.
I think a case can be made for the Heathrow link to be reinstated as part of HS2. I’d envisage you could easily take one of the Birmingham services in and out of Heathrow on its way to Euston.
If you were doing this, you'd have needed to make Heathrow the outer London stop instead of OOC and routed every train through it.
As it is, the Heathrow Spur only makes sense as an alternative terminus to Euston. And that doesnt offer enough traffic to justify the costs involved in providing a new station under the existing Airport.
They keep overhauling it, but only to add in more shops and further reduce the circulation space. Nasty claustrophobic little dump these days, and if they overhaul it any more then there will be nowhere left to sit at all.
Location-wise though the EARL project would make it the obvious station to use for most of Scotland, probably would have completely killed off Prestwick and left Glasgow with just domestic and charter flights. Ironically if they'd realised that at the time they could probably have binned off GARL and actually got EARL built.
Fill an e320 4x per week.
Each e320 has 902 seats.
902 x 4 = 3608 seats filled.
Let's say that trains would be comfortable with 80% of seats filled. That means you would need 5 trains per week to comfortably carry this number of passengers.
5 direct trains per week between Paris and Birmingham sounds super. You could do a Monday - Friday service with an outward journey in the morning and a return in the afternoon. Connections from Paris to other major European destinations, and likewise from Birmingham for other UK destinations.
Direct flights, eg. London - Tsibili, run on this model, with flights on only 2 days per week. Nothing to stop train companies doing the same thing except for the general pessimism of many of the British population.
How ever hard you try, you are not going to go from single digit trains per day to multiple trains per hour. Treasury absolutely and categorically will not fund anything less than the latter.
How ever hard you try, you are not going to go from single digit trains per day to multiple trains per hour. Treasury absolutely and categorically will not fund anything less than the latter.
A couple of trains per day won't pay for the North London Line link, or an Old Oak Common to Stratford link, never mind HS4Air. Those couple of trains per day won't happen.
A couple of trains per day won't pay for the North London Line link, or an Old Oak Common to Stratford link, never mind HS4Air. Those couple of trains per day won't happen.
Exactly - the hub of it would be a 15 minute transfer between Heathrow and Gatwick - and extensions to the north of England and the Continent from this central branch would be highly profitable. Build it, and they will come - just like the Elizabeth line exceeding ALL forecasts!
Airlines don't need and won't pay for inter-airport transfers - alliances will do it easily within each of the expanded Heathrow and Gatwick.
All the main lines are operating at maximum capacity. Running trains to Heathrow and Gatwick just means diverting existing trains into mainline terminals. Old Oak Common will handle north - Heathrow traffic. Southern Rail link will handle south - Heathrow traffic. Thameslink handles Gatwick.
Any Heathrow station won't be at any of the terminals. It'll be a remote station like JFK and Newark mainline stations, which are functionally identical to Old Oak Common.
No, it's because the vast majority of UK connections operate through Heathrow. Gatwick and Manchester have some hub-and-spoke flights but also a large volume of point-to-point flights. Most other airports are overwhelmingly low-cost point to point. UK regional airports also tend to have feeder flights to overseas hubs like Schiphol.
The Elizabeth line connects almost the entire UK long-distance rail network within 2 changes. How is that poor?
Manchester to Heathrow Terminal 5 is more than an hour longer in journey time than to reach Euston.
North and West London to Heathrow is a horror show unless you are on the Elizabeth Line. Epsom to Heathrow is around 2hrs by rail, and about 1hr20 using the Superloop buses. Modal share for public transport must be close to zero from that part of the world.
Airlines don't need and won't pay for inter-airport transfers - alliances will do it easily within each of the expanded Heathrow and Gatwick.
All the main lines are operating at maximum capacity. Running trains to Heathrow and Gatwick just means diverting existing trains into mainline terminals. Old Oak Common will handle north - Heathrow traffic. Southern Rail link will handle south - Heathrow traffic. Thameslink handles Gatwick.
Any Heathrow station won't be at any of the terminals. It'll be a remote station like JFK and Newark mainline stations, which are functionally identical to Old Oak Common.
This is not entirely true.
Let’s start with the GWML. Currently there are 4 tph taken up by the Heathrow Express between Paddington and Heathrow Junction. West of Heathrow Junction surely must have space for additional fast trains.
This is not entirely true.
Let’s start with the GWML. Currently there are 4 tph taken up by the Heathrow Express between Paddington and Heathrow Junction. West of Heathrow Junction surely must have space for additional fast trains.
There have been many threads on trying to reuse the HEx paths. That there is a HEx train East of Heathrow doesn’t mean there’s an empty path West of it.
This is not entirely true.
Let’s start with the GWML. Currently there are 4 tph taken up by the Heathrow Express between Paddington and Heathrow Junction. West of Heathrow Junction surely must have space for additional fast trains.
We are aware of an issue with emails from the Forum to Microsoft-based email accounts (hotmail/outlook/live.com email addresses). This is being looked into currently, thanks for your patience meanwhile.
