HS2 Reset: Evidence to Transport Committee - 9 July 2025 "Total overspend on high-speed rail could be as much as 100%"

[zwk500]

Euston to St Pancras is another example of uncaring authorities, in the rail industry, Government or anywhere else. It would be easy and inexpensive to provide clear signing along such a relatively short walking route, and yet there's virtually nothing at all.
Quite remarkable when so many people want to do this walk, who don't know the area. For all the £billions involved with HS2, the cost of a few signs, and perhaps a coloured line along a pavement route would be insignificant.
Ah, but it isn't the job of HS2. Nor anyone else it seems.

There *are* coloured signs, as well as blue pedestrian signs. And TfL proposed a much more in-depth set of changes to Phoenix Road as part of the HS2 works.

From Euston entrance: https://maps.app.goo.gl/TZ3WaUd7A646VcET6
On eversholt street: https://maps.app.goo.gl/eoUss7YQBQQcWYJVA
Eversholt St repeater: https://maps.app.goo.gl/3kQWZrFLoE2SDgMp9
Phoenix Road, visible from Eversholt St: https://maps.app.goo.gl/h78fsfLBf9PoHbyq9
(Note that from this point, St Pancras is dead ahead)

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But there "No Signs"...

To avoid being slightly unfair, I will absolutely agree with complaints that the signs are not visible enough, not clear enough, not frequent enough, and not big enough. I think Euston has a painted line on the concourse, but I don't think a coloured line on the pavement itself over that distance would be helpful given how likely it would be to be covered up or discoloured quickly.

And TfL's plans, https://content.tfl.gov.uk/hs2-phoenix-road-urban-study-tfl-2015.pdf, that apparently nobody's doing because it's "nobody's job"

 

[fishwomp]

A rail link between Curzon and New St? It's about 300m door to door. That's less than Euston to St Pancras which many people walk.

Not this one again. We know it _can_ be walked. It's not 300m - it's 500m.. try measuring New St's exit [which is already 100m from an escalator from a platform] to the terminus buffer stop.. that's also a straight line measurement..

You say _many_ people. What about _most_ people, or those with mobility issues, with baggage, etc. We spend millions on infrastructure like level boarding, and then say, go on, off you go, here's a walk or a wait for a tram with that level boarding, which might be full because it's rush hour etc..

Being so close just highlights the missed opportunity of not having built them to form one station. It was, after all, fine to build a tunnel under london so that the station could arrive at Euston, where a pretty small percentage of people will be wanting to actually connect into it from (as in, I can't see Coventry passengers changing to a Birmingham HS2 service in London!!!) - but why not do the same for Brum?!

 

[NCT]

Not this one again. We know it _can_ be walked. It's not 300m - it's 500m.. try measuring New St's exit [which is already 100m from an escalator from a platform] to the terminus buffer stop.. that's also a straight line measurement..

You say _many_ people. What about _most_ people, or those with mobility issues, with baggage, etc. We spend millions on infrastructure like level boarding, and then say, go on, off you go, here's a walk or a wait for a tram with that level boarding, which might be full because it's rush hour etc..

Being so close just highlights the missed opportunity of not having built them to form one station. It was, after all, fine to build a tunnel under london so that the station could arrive at Euston, where a pretty small percentage of people will be wanting to actually connect into it from (as in, I can't see Coventry passengers changing to a Birmingham HS2 service in London!!!) - but why not do the same for Brum?!

Can you propose a suitable site for such a 'one station'?

 

[zwk500]

Being so close just highlights the missed opportunity of not having built them to form one station. It was, after all, fine to build a tunnel under london so that the station could arrive at Euston, where a pretty small percentage of people will be wanting to actually connect into it from (as in, I can't see Coventry passengers changing to a Birmingham HS2 service in London!!!) - but why not do the same for Brum?!

How would you rebuild New Street to provide a connected or integrated concourse and 7x400m platforms without meaningfully impacting on the mainline station's capacity (or what alternative capacity would you provide), and what new site would it require to be acquired?

I'd have loved it if HS2 had chosen a design with a north-south through station under New Street with a direct connection to Moor Street. But I also realise that the level of engineering required to turn New Street into Berlin HbF was well beyond what might reasonably have been achievable in that location.

Euston is building a new station at approximately ground level adjacent to the mainline station, and has cleared out the old Carriage sheds and several streets to do so.

 

[fishwomp]

How would you rebuild New Street to provide a connected or integrated concourse and 7x400m platforms without meaningfully impacting on the mainline station's capacity (or what alternative capacity would you provide), and what new site would it require to be acquired?

I'd have loved it if HS2 had chosen a design with a north-south through station under New Street with a direct connection to Moor Street. But I also realise that the level of engineering required to turn New Street into Berlin HbF was well beyond what might reasonably have been achievable in that location.
[..]

It looks like New St at its widest is 130m (and has one or two non-platform lines in there) - and longest platforms not much shy of 400m.
Curzon St is 125m wide, add on the width of the running lines at Proof House Jct and you get 150.

A double deck station at Curzon St would have been perfect, whilst also actually being adjacent to Moor St.

Apparently Manchester ought to have an underground station (etc) - but that debate will run.

 

[The Ham]

Not this one again. We know it _can_ be walked. It's not 300m - it's 500m.. try measuring New St's exit [which is already 100m from an escalator from a platform] to the terminus buffer stop.. that's also a straight line measurement..

You say _many_ people. What about _most_ people, or those with mobility issues, with baggage, etc. We spend millions on infrastructure like level boarding, and then say, go on, off you go, here's a walk or a wait for a tram with that level boarding, which might be full because it's rush hour etc..

Being so close just highlights the missed opportunity of not having built them to form one station. It was, after all, fine to build a tunnel under london so that the station could arrive at Euston, where a pretty small percentage of people will be wanting to actually connect into it from (as in, I can't see Coventry passengers changing to a Birmingham HS2 service in London!!!) - but why not do the same for Brum?!

Of course, it's entirely possible that for at least some people the distance they are waking from Curzon Street is no greater than from New Street.

Of course, it's also possible to use any retained services to carry on using New Street for those who would find that more useful.

As such, whist HS2 and Curzon Street doesn't cater for everyone, New Street currently doesn't and the fact that WCML and New Street will still exist means that HS2 doesn't actually need to cater for everyone.

Given the complaints about the cost of HS2, please explain (bearing in mind the above points) how you would justify the cost of a single station for Birmingham.

 

[Peter Sarf]

As for the Vegas loop, proposed in 2019, tunnelling began in 2019, first tunnel opened in 2021 (conceived and built within the commissioning period for Cross Rail). 2023 permission to build 105km of tunnels granted. Currently has 9 stations and 5 miles of tunnels dug.

Once the thing is running with 12 person self driven minibuses I suspect that the Vegas Loop will be thought of as an incredibly extensive metro system built in very little time at very little cost.

.......................

+

I'm yet to be convinced that it's going to be delivered in full, on budget and/or on time.

In part, due to it being mostly privately funded, the costs are not as transparent as UK infrastructure (for example HS2) and so it's possible (I'm not claiming that this is the case, just that it's possible) that the actual costs are much higher.

I also understand that it only operates 10am to 9pm, whist that's useful for guests, it's not likely to be useful for staff.

Likewise, it's ongoing net costs (especially given the limited opening times and current scale) are quite significant, so even if the build costs are lower, it's possible that the lifetime costs might not be.

This smaks of the DLR all over again. I hope HS2 is taken seriously like Cross Rail, not done inadequately like DLR and need tinkering with (eg doubling the length of platforms so they almost reach each other) once built.

Euston to St Pancras is another example of uncaring authorities, in the rail industry, Government or anywhere else. It would be easy and inexpensive to provide clear signing along such a relatively short walking route, and yet there's virtually nothing at all.
Quite remarkable when so many people want to do this walk, who don't know the area. For all the £billions involved with HS2, the cost of a few signs, and perhaps a coloured line along a pavement route would be insignificant.
Ah, but it isn't the job of HS2. Nor anyone else it seems.
As is so often with railways in the UK, yet again the public are dumped in unfamiliar areas and left to fend for themselves, simply because no-one in any position of influence is prepared to take on any responsibility.
But you can be sure they'll be perfectly competent at finding excuses as to why it's "not my job".

What we need is an integrated transport polisy - heard that one before ?.

BTW, there are signs but I almost got lost trying to follow them - I would have missed the turn West off Eversholt Street away from Euston towards StPancras. I don't go the way the signs seem to send one either. Whatever I do I have to dodge the beggars at the foot of the steps outside Euston on Eversholt Street.

All I will say is if we cannot have an integrated set of stations then New Street to & from Curzon Street AND Euston to StPancras/Kings-Cross need something better than a walking route zig zagging along roads. A covered travellator from Euston HS2 via Euston WCML to StPancras then Kings Cross is what is needed. After all look at the links within airports - do people walk between Gatwick North and South treminals ?. Do people walk between Heathrow Terminals three, four and five. There is a travelator linking Heathrow Terminal three to Terminal two which might be closer than the above mentioned stations.

 

[FMerrymon]

Getting back on topic: HS2, as conceived was an 18 x 400m tph per direction. Looks like what we will get is 6-8 trains per hour of <400m, so about 1/3 of the capacity. So many benefits will be missed as Government, the media and so on obsess about cost, which is of course only half the story. Is as much attention going into how to maximise benefits?

Exactly, and that high capacity spec is a large part of the costs of hs2. It had a greater return and, you're right, the media and politicians only focus on the cost and thinking it was only about speed. I don't think I've seen any media reports on the reduction in frequency.

A connection at Kingsbury to the line to Tamworth might be something. Requires electrification, but could help free up new street further using the other platforms at Curzon St, take some expresses off the mml, speed up journeys to Sheffield.

I'd prefer they just got on and built phase 2a and at least the truncated hs2 east, but doesn't look like it will happen.

 

[fishwomp]

Given the complaints about the cost of HS2, please explain (bearing in mind the above points) how you would justify the cost of a single station for Birmingham.

I'm not proposing any change. What's done is done. All that is said is that it could've been different.

With all the fiddling, billions have been wasted re-doing and chopping and changing and ultimately delaying.

 

[SynthD]

Ok, so we could go London, Luton, Milton Keynes, Northampton, Leicester, Nottingham, Sheffield, Leeds - total distance about 300km.

What about Scotland? HS2 has twice the remit/ambition, no wonder it has half the stops before Leeds.

We use the super performance BEMU trains that accelerate at tube train rates (1.3ms-2) to very high … operating speed of 400kph, … average dwell time is 90 seconds.

An Intercity service where they brake as hard as tube trains. So people are sitting until it’s stopped, pick up luggage, exit, new people come on, put luggage somewhere secure enough for those acceleration rates, sit down, within 90 seconds? Super speedy trains with super performance service timings need super humans to always do the right thing for that plan.

Speed and frequency plus transit orientated development will drive a lot more passenger traffic to the point where we chuck freight off the tracks

These lines with all this technology won’t be the current lines, so what’s wrong with freight on the WCML? Or if the fast lines are these new all-stoppers, the freight can stick to the slow lines.

Musk told me that the idea originated out of his hatred for California’s proposed high-speed rail system. … He insisted the Hyperloop would cost about $6 billion to $10 billion, go faster than a plane, and let people drive their cars onto a pod and drive out into a new city. At the time, it seemed that Musk had dished out the Hyperloop proposal just to make the public and legislators rethink the high-speed train. He didn’t actually intend to build the thing. … With any luck, the high-speed rail would be canceled. Musk said as much to me during a series of e-mails and phone calls leading up to the announcement.

Musk’s biographer Ashlee Vance had this to say on his alternative to rail.

 

[SCDR_WMR]

Euston to St Pancras is another example of uncaring authorities, in the rail industry, Government or anywhere else. It would be easy and inexpensive to provide clear signing along such a relatively short walking route, and yet there's virtually nothing at all.
Quite remarkable when so many people want to do this walk, who don't know the area. For all the £billions involved with HS2, the cost of a few signs, and perhaps a coloured line along a pavement route would be insignificant.
Ah, but it isn't the job of HS2. Nor anyone else it seems.
As is so often with railways in the UK, yet again the public are dumped in unfamiliar areas and left to fend for themselves, simply because no-one in any position of influence is prepared to take on any responsibility.
But you can be sure they'll be perfectly competent at finding excuses as to why it's "not my job".

That's not my point. Absolutely could do so much better, as could New St to Moor St which is barely 4 minutes walk which ever route you take.

None of these 'links' need to be rail links. All should have very well signposted, well lit and safe walking routes that anyone could follow.

 

[The Ham]

I'm not proposing any change. What's done is done. All that is said is that it could've been different.

With all the fiddling, billions have been wasted re-doing and chopping and changing and ultimately delaying.

And the point I was making was that many of the points you made are only relevant if you are assuming that New Street is always closer to where people want to be and assuming that there's no chance of using WCML services to get between London and Birmingham.

As soon as you factor those in, the impact will be zero (or as close to zero as to make no material difference to anyone), and for those for whom it was a long walk to where they were going to from New Street but it's now closer to Curzon Street there's going to be improvements.

Whilst it's important to question if something is the best way to do it, a lot of debates around HS2 haven't consider the full picture (see also how I've highlighted that the shorter trains don't actually reduce peak hour capacity as the journey time improvements means that there's at least 2 extra services a day within the current time of operation.- yes, you may need a few people to travel at a slightly different time to spread the load, however it's not as big as the 20% shorter train lengths implies).

 

[Krokodil]

How would you rebuild New Street to provide a connected or integrated concourse

We can't even manage an integrated concourse at the moment!

As such, whist HS2 and Curzon Street doesn't cater for everyone, New Street currently doesn't and the fact that WCML and New Street will still exist means that HS2 doesn't actually need to cater for everyone.

It is a shame that there won't be easy transfers between HS2 and most of the suburban routes.

All I will say is if we cannot have an integrated set of stations then New Street to & from Curzon Street AND Euston to StPancras/Kings-Cross need something better than a walking route zig zagging along roads.

What would make the biggest difference for me would be not having to go all of the way to the concourse by Euston Road before doubling back down Eversholt Street.

Putting an additional concourse over the platforms right next to Phoenix street would cut that corner, reduce the pressure on the Euston Road concourse and reduce the amount of time taken for passengers to board when their platforms are called.

 

[The Ham]

It is a shame that there won't be easy transfers between HS2 and most of the suburban routes.

Indeed, although (again), there will be existing services and so whilst those going to Curzon Street benefit from the time advantages there's still going to be services to New Street and so it's not like there's going to be no option to use New Street.

There's the possibility that it may take a few minutes longer in the train from London.

However, even for those walking at a leisurely pace (2mph) and taking 10 minutes to do so, HS2 would still be faster by at least 15 minutes.

Yes, there's those for whom 500m is too far to walk, but even if they are slowed down on the existing services by (say) 10 minutes (due to extra stops), that's not significant on a journey which is going to take over 90 minutes anyway.

 

[Palmerston]

Plus there'll be a tram stop just outside Curzon Street.

And it's better placed for suburban connections on the Snow Hill lines, albeit these are less numerous than the New St options.

 

[SCDR_WMR]

Plus there'll be a tram stop just outside Curzon Street.

And it's better placed for suburban connections on the Snow Hill lines, albeit these are less numerous than the New St options.

One would hope that trams will also run both to New St (onwards to Edgbaston) and Snow Hill (onwards to Wolverhampton) from the Curzon St stops. Could absolutely revolutionise citywide travel if priced aggressively or included in tickets which surely WMCA could achieve.

 

[InTheEastMids]

A double deck station at Curzon St would have been perfect, whilst also actually being adjacent to Moor St.

I like the idea of building an offline "New Street 2", then an HS2 station on top of that, then diverting all services. However look at the shambles that has unfolded at the other place where the HS2 and existing network stations are supposed to be mashed together somehow I suspect we'd be seeing that play out in Birmingham...

HS2 Euston: Government does not know what it is trying to achieve with the station​

https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/127/public-accounts-committee/news/196287/hs2-euston-government-does-not-know-what-it-is-trying-to-achieve-with-the-station/

I also think it would be a constructability nightmare and it's such a radical reshaping of the city centre in terms of how people might live, work and move around Birmingham City Centre. A lot of hard to estimate costs/benefits from all of the knock-on reconfiguration of the city.

A connection at Kingsbury to the line to Tamworth might be something.

I'd be very surprised if something like this has not been looked at, and if it never ever turned up. However, Govt is very defensive about HS2 because it's been unwilling/unable to go out and make the "value" narrative. So it says the bare minimum about Bham-Manchester and Crewe-Manchester to justify its actions. This only changes if (i) we have political leaders prepared to go and make the case (ii) the "not HS2" box needs ticking, so probably requires GBR to be mature enough to take over - even if it then goes on to build Ph2a to HS2 spec (iii) Ph1 gets advanced enough so people start to really appreciate the transformational nature of the project and the narrative switches from "why has our hopeless Govt invested in this white elephant?" to "Why is our hopeless Govt not making more of this feat of engineering?".

An Intercity service where they brake as hard as tube trains.

If you're going to 180mph at >1-1.5 ms-2, that is not a tube train, it's more like a plane's take-off roll. Around 5 minutes at cruise then the type of braking from high speed that you expect after touchdown. So there are human factors/ergonomics/comfort issues to explore as well as the impact of this very hard, sustained acceleration/braking on track and train.

 

[Technologist]

I also understand that it only operates 10am to 9pm, whist that's useful for guests, it's not likely to be useful for staff.

Likewise, it's ongoing net costs (especially given the limited opening times and current scale) are quite significant, so even if the build costs are lower, it's possible that the lifetime costs might not be.

Since we have “car brain” I think we need to have “rail brain”.

Having the cars operating autonomously has been feasible since before opening, that they aren't autonomous is mostly an issue of local laws and Tesla solving for a more general environment and not wanting to use "crutches" to get the system working in the much more constrained environment of the Loop system. It some point in time both those issues will be sorted out and the system will be running 24/7 with unmanned cars and larger vehicles. The lifetime costs of cars is lower than for rail, precisely because it has a much lower requirements for the quality of the running surface, no points, limited signalling and no electrification.

The Loop was even an idea 8 years ago and is continuously evolving. It's much better to evaluate it against the operators objectives and direction of travel rather than against what it is currently doing.

At the moment it is a taxi that doesn't get stuck in traffic and is priced as such, once it starts to go to many places in the city it becomes more useful, take the drivers out and the cost per ride goes down. At this point demand will likely ramp up massively and require larger vehicles. A 12 seat vehicle with a 2 second headway is 20,000 seats per hour per tunnel.

This, of course, is what the term "bionic duckweed" was invented to describe, in response to the Blair government being sceptical of electrification on the grounds that hydrogen trains would be coming soon. In the event, of course, hydrogen trains have not proven to be especially practical.

And of course battery electric trains have essentially created bionic duckweed. It's a term often thrown around whilst describing things that are either, 1: Totally feasible 2: Common in other industries.

Bionic duckweed is an example of a lack of state capacity. There is nobody in government who actually has the capability to do preliminary design of new transport vehicles and set strategy appropriately. They rely on academia and industry itself to do this, this is a bad idea as the former are pretty poor at doing it and the latter have an agenda of their own, they certainly aren't going to tell you their products are soon to be obsoleted. If you were looking at battery costs and capability it would have been pretty clear that hydrogen was never going to work and that batteries would win in the 2000's. Once the Tesla Model S appeared it was pretty obvious to anyone who can add up what was going to happen.

This relies on Whitehall letting it loose. Good Luck.

We currently have ARIA which was created outside of the civil service, it's restrictions or procurement and salaries and has been funded for 10 years, it is possible to get something past Whitehall. It strikes me that one of the biggest issues with GBR is that it has been put together by operational people and politicians. One of the best descriptors about transport policy is that "you don't estimate the need for a bridge by counting the number of people swimming the river". GBR needs to have the capability to internally imagine what a future railway could be, what technology you would need to do that and a route to create that technology. Without that you have just re-ordered the players that gave us our current situation.

 

[NCT]

With rolling stock being an established globalised private sector industry, I highly doubt a country of 60m outside of the EU can reinvent BREL.

 

[jfowkes]

At the moment it is a taxi that doesn't get stuck in traffic and is priced as such, once it starts to go to many places in the city it becomes more useful, take the drivers out and the cost per ride goes down. At this point demand will likely ramp up massively and require larger vehicles. A 12 seat vehicle with a 2 second headway is 20,000 seats per hour per tunnel.

I will place a very large bet that this will never happen. 20,000 pphpd is metro levels of service and the idea that you can run that with individual 12-person vehicles is, to put it mildly, fanciful. The existing stations and tunnels definitely can't support that, not least because some of the connections only have one tunnel, there needs to be traffic lights to control which way cars are flowing through it. You can't run 20,000pphpd with a single tunnel. The existing stations can't support vehicles arriving and departing every 2s, there's just not the space to load and unload that many vehicles. Metro stations can support that because you have a single vehicle with multiple doors. How are 2 vehicles per second going to enter the station, peel off to an empty parking spot, unload & load and rejoin the flow without taking up vast quantities of space? I just can't see how the fundamental logistics of it work.

Is the intent that the existing system gets completely rebuilt to support that level of service?

 

[InTheEastMids]

Bionic duckweed is an example of a lack of state capacity.

And of course battery electric trains have essentially created bionic duckweed

Yes, Bionic duckweed is Government pointing at a low-maturity technology and claiming it's an alternative to a high-maturity technology to avoid scrutiny about investment. It's not a failure to imagine the future as much as the use of a possible future as an excuse to not engage with the present. Batteries are not bionic duckweed because they are proven mature technology with foreseeable development rates.

But batteries were bionic duckweed back in 2007 when Roger Ford coined the term, because at that low-maturity stage, nobody could say with certainty when, or even if they'd ever become a feasible alternative. What happened with batteries was massively influenced by Chinese Government decisions that were still, at that point, mostly in the future and could have gone a different way.

Algae-derived biofuels made in big tanks in sunny places - remain both literal and figurative bionic duckweed in its purest form. As the relevant Wikipedia article* says "they have no practical significance but remain an aspirational target in the biofuels research area"

We currently have ARIA which was created outside of the civil service, it's restrictions or procurement and salaries and has been funded for 10 years, it is possible to get something past Whitehall.

ARIA is in most ways another Arms Length Body, so similar to Network Rail, HS2 (on-topic alert!) or the Environment Agency. The biggest reason why there's limited civil service interference is that it spends about 1% of HS2, mostly on things with no immediate impact, meaning political disinterest**. Whereas, of course this entire thread is devoted to how people are grilling HS2 over ever last £100Billion that's paying for concrete to be poured in some very influential peoples' neighbourhoods.

*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algae_fuel

**This could change very quickly if people start to question whether it's slinging too much money at US tech zillionaires at a time when there is growing mistrust of these companies as standalone entities or as potential routes for increasingly hostile countries to affect the UK.

 

[The Ham]

I will place a very large bet that this will never happen. 20,000 pphpd is metro levels of service and the idea that you can run that with individual 12-person vehicles is, to put it mildly, fanciful. The existing stations and tunnels definitely can't support that, not least because some of the connections only have one tunnel, there needs to be traffic lights to control which way cars are flowing through it. You can't run 20,000pphpd with a single tunnel. The existing stations can't support vehicles arriving and departing every 2s, there's just not the space to load and unload that many vehicles. Metro stations can support that because you have a single vehicle with multiple doors. How are 2 vehicles per second going to enter the station, peel off to an empty parking spot, unload & load and rejoin the flow without taking up vast quantities of space? I just can't see how the fundamental logistics of it work.

Is the intent that the existing system gets completely rebuilt to support that level of service?

20,000 in 12 seat cars is 1,667 cars an hour, a motorway lane can take about 1,800 cars an hour, however that's with limited traffic constraints - chiefly grade separated junctions with limited traffic merging/diverging at each junction.

As such, whist it's possible, not with the current layout built, i don't know about the future tunnels and stations, but if their "within" the tunnel it's not going to be feasible.

Also, the time penalty of getting into a car which stops at a station which you do not wish to go to because another passenger is joining or leaving would be significant even if that's 4 rows of 3 seats in a car like setup and no one is ever blocked in the load unload time vs (say) a tube train would be noticeably slower.

Since we have “car brain” I think we need to have “rail brain”.

Having the cars operating autonomously has been feasible since before opening, that they aren't autonomous is mostly an issue of local laws and Tesla solving for a more general environment and not wanting to use "crutches" to get the system working in the much more constrained environment of the Loop system. It some point in time both those issues will be sorted out and the system will be running 24/7 with unmanned cars and larger vehicles. The lifetime costs of cars is lower than for rail, precisely because it has a much lower requirements for the quality of the running surface, no points, limited signalling and no electrification.

The Loop was even an idea 8 years ago and is continuously evolving. It's much better to evaluate it against the operators objectives and direction of travel rather than against what it is currently doing.

At the moment it is a taxi that doesn't get stuck in traffic and is priced as such, once it starts to go to many places in the city it becomes more useful, take the drivers out and the cost per ride goes down. At this point demand will likely ramp up massively and require larger vehicles. A 12 seat vehicle with a 2 second headway is 20,000 seats per hour per tunnel.

As I've said above 20,000 seats is technically possible, but not in a tunnel, station, tunnel, station in line layout, you'd need the stations to be offline and grade separated junctions - which is going to significant increase the costs.

If you keep it in line you're going to reduce capacity significantly.

As I said a motorway lane can do 1,800 cars an hour, most urban roads are around 1,000 and even then the majority of movements would be going straight, where there's a need for lots of movements to/from the side the land space increases very rapidly.

That's not to bad if you're building a new housing estate and adding a roundabout, but underground that's adding a lot of cost. Even using a traffic signal junction which is more compact, most junctions start to add second lanes to facilitate the volume of traffic through the junction.

However, it's not uncommon for metro rail services to run at higher than 20tph, in London there's 7 lines which run at 24tph or higher and whilst some per train capacities are fairly low at around 750 (but they run at 30tph, so have an hourly capacity of 21,000 and you'd almost certainly not be designing a system with 130m trains, but rather 200m long trains which significantly increases capacity), it's not hard to have trains capable of moving 1,100 people at 24tph which is nearly 1/3 more capacity and trains able to move over 1,250 people and at 30tph where you'd certainly need two tunnels of cars as that's around 190%.

Clearly for a city of limited size compared to (say) London that's not an issue as 20,000 movements each way is (for UK traffic) for a city of 700,000 is around 20% of all peak hour movements and so is never going to be fully tested in terms of capacity.

But then, why bother with tunnels, create 10 bus routes with 6bph and significantly reduce car usage and benefit everyone with less congestion.

 

[Krokodil]

Since we have “car brain” I think we need to have “rail brain”.

"Car brain" is the colloquial term for motonormativity. A phenomenon psychologists have identified.

Motonormativity is an unconscious cognitive bias where society assumes private car ownership and high-risk driving behaviors are normal, inevitable, and neutral, despite clear evidence of environmental and public health hazards.

So do kindly tell us how our remarks about the obvious flaws in your ideas amount to "rail brain"?

I will place a very large bet that this will never happen

I would also like to place a very large bet on this. In fact, I am prepared to bet my house that...

A 12 seat vehicle with a 2 second headway is 20,000 seats per hour per tunnel.

...will never happen

 

[Sir Felix Pole]

An intriguing question is if Andy Burnham does indeed become PM, whether HS2 to Manchester would be back-on, including a redesigned Piccadilly underground through station?

 

[NCT]

Depends on who he appoints as Chancellor, and whether bond markets might consider such a duo as Truss/Kwarteng Mk 2. All hypothetical at this stage of course.

 

[Palmerston]

An intriguing question is if Andy Burnham does indeed become PM, whether HS2 to Manchester would be back-on, including a redesigned Piccadilly underground through station?

Given everything he's said, HS2 to Manchester would look back on. I suspect he might get 'feasibility studies' on an underground through station before committing to it

 

[jfowkes]

I would also like to place a very large bet on this. In fact, I am prepared to bet my house that...

...will never happen

Yeah it's probably feasible to do specifically the "lots of vehicles travelling in tight line formation in a tunnel at the same speed" thing. It's when you want to turn it into a functioning transport system with turnouts, stations etc. that it all falls apart.

 

[HSTEd]

With rolling stock being an established globalised private sector industry, I highly doubt a country of 60m outside of the EU can reinvent BREL.

If we abandon the fiction of meaningful competition in UK rolling stock manufacture, we probably can.

The UK (EDIT: National Rail) passenger rolling stock market is probably 600 or so vehicles per year. It could sustain a factory and modern technology would allow us to fill all the roles we require with only two or three designs of train.

Right now we have way too many factories because politicians like cutting ribbons, and rolling stock orders are distributed based on the necessity to avoid embarassing plant closures rather than quality.

 

[InTheEastMids]

Given everything he's said, HS2 to Manchester would look back on

It's always good to dream up the attack lines. If he commits, it will be alleged that he's Prime Minster of the North and suddenly southerners will be moaning that they're not getting Crossrail 2 or whatever. But he obviously can't be seen to "betray" the north by spending in the south... I'm in the East Midlands and we can't even get OHL into Leicester, so am resigned to getting nothing either way.

Govt already has plainly recognised it needs to do Ph2a or something like it, but with HS2's reputation trashed and promises made about EWR and NPR/LMR, it's obviously not something they feel they can be vocal about for now. Especially since there are lots of other departments clamouring for spending, with real difficulties in Defence, adult social care, higher education etc.

Yeah it's probably feasible to do specifically the "lots of vehicles travelling in tight line formation in a tunnel at the same speed" thing.

It's technically feasible to do a lot of things, or it will be as the future is a really long time. But when or if it becomes economic... and that's a critical uncertainty that is very hard to foresee and a reason why futurology is very hard. The downsizing of Euston would therefore be a massive error because you can imagine rail systems in 100 years that combines virtual couplings and advanced signalling to reduce headways, but the people side is harder to transform as the logistics of getting people on and off trains hits hard limits around terminal capacity, walking speeds and so on which requires space.

 

[SynthD]

If we abandon the fiction of meaningful competition in UK rolling stock manufacture, we probably can.

The UK (EDIT: National Rail) passenger rolling stock market is probably 600 or so vehicles per year. It could sustain a factory and modern technology would allow us to fill all the roles we require with only two or three designs of train.

Right now we have way too many factories because politicians like cutting ribbons, and rolling stock orders are distributed based on the necessity to avoid embarassing plant closures rather than quality.

Are any trains for overseas made here?