HS2 should stop at more stations in the Chilterns

[Tetchytyke]

HS2 was conceived from the very beginning as a WCML relief line.

It really wasn’t. It was conceived as a thrusting high speed line to be extra fast and extra speedy to get people between London and the north west much faster. The business case was predicated on the financial benefits to the north west and the West Midlands.

It’s only now people are questioning the cost that suddenly it’s an essential relief line for the WCML. A relief line that won’t accept freight, won’t accept local passengers, and is designed at speeds 100km/h higher than they need to be. A relief line with a bespoke train fleet (since cancelled at great expense) that can’t run on other lines. And a relief line for a WCML which is so terribly overcrowded that, er, they’ve allowed an OA operator to start running 6-carriage trains into London in the peaks.

They tried to claim it was an essential relief line for the ECML too, at least until the bit to the north east was cancelled. Turns out it wasn’t that essential after all.

 

[MatthewHutton]

The other thing about building houses near an HS2 station, yes it would increase traffic, but less than building those same houses away from public transport. And the people who live the closest to the station would also see their homes become worth more due to better connectivity (and have better connectivity) which is a reward too.

 

[Krokodil]

It really wasn’t.

This is like a Monty Python sketch.

It was conceived as a thrusting high speed line to be extra fast and extra speedy to get people between London and the north west much faster.

It started life as a Stafford Bypass.

A relief line that won’t accept freight, won’t accept local passengers

And why should it? The whole point is to better segregate different types of train to reduce the amount of unusable white space in the timetable. Trains which run at different speeds or have different calling patterns are capacity killers.

Freights and stoppers can have the run of the WCML once the intercity traffic has been removed.

 

[MatthewHutton]

It started life as a Stafford Bypass

If that was the priority why didn’t they spend the £1bn needed to deliver that?

 

[JamesT]

It really wasn’t. It was conceived as a thrusting high speed line to be extra fast and extra speedy to get people between London and the north west much faster. The business case was predicated on the financial benefits to the north west and the West Midlands.

It’s only now people are questioning the cost that suddenly it’s an essential relief line for the WCML. A relief line that won’t accept freight, won’t accept local passengers, and is designed at speeds 100km/h higher than they need to be. A relief line with a bespoke train fleet (since cancelled at great expense) that can’t run on other lines. And a relief line for a WCML which is so terribly overcrowded that, er, they’ve allowed an OA operator to start running 6-carriage trains into London in the peaks.

They tried to claim it was an essential relief line for the ECML too, at least until the bit to the north east was cancelled. Turns out it wasn’t that essential after all.

It really was. I give you the original scoping document for HS2: https://webarchive.nationalarchives....uk/pgr/rail/pi/highspeedtwo/highspeedtwo.pdf (my bolding)

5.
Network Rail’s initial work has pointed to a strong case for an entirely
new rail line in the corridor from London to the West Midlands. Such a line
would enable faster and enhanced services to be run on new and existing
lines to Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow and other destinations in the north of
England and Scotland, cutting journey times and increasing capacity
substantially.

6.
Additional capacity provided through a new line would relieve
overcrowding on the existing West Coast line. This is not only England’s
principal inter-urban express route; it also carries heavy local commuter traffic
and freight services. On present forecasts this section of the West Coast main
line will become overloaded south of Rugby by about 2025.

 

[MatthewHutton]

It really was. I give you the original scoping document for HS2: https://webarchive.nationalarchives....uk/pgr/rail/pi/highspeedtwo/highspeedtwo.pdf (my bolding)

That document also pretends that the traffic from intermediate stops could never possibly compensate for having to slow down the extra speedy trains which is quite frankly absolute nonsense.

 

[fishwomp]

The local line wouldn't have been in service much quicker. Portishead reopening has been in the wings for decades and it's only three miles long.

Too true. Ashington and the Tweedbank railways are examples of done well but I wish there weren't so many bad ones.

 

[MatthewHutton]

Too true. Ashington and the Tweedbank railways are examples of done well but I wish there weren't so many bad ones.

I suspect the catchment area of the bad ones isn’t big enough.

 

[35B]

That document also pretends that the traffic from intermediate stops could never possibly compensate for having to slow down the extra speedy trains which is quite frankly absolute nonsense.

Your expertise in transport economics being?

I’m firmly with @Krokodil on this one - building a high speed line addresses the capacity issues on the WCML by allowing one of teh different traffic types to be split off, leaving more even capacity use on the historic line. At that point, the economics favour high speed over (say) freight.

I get the discussion about Aylesbury vs Tring, but the argument for demand justifying additional HS2 stops relies on their being a service worth using for that local population (not a French every 2 hours “service”) and generating new demand rather than cannibalising existing demand. That 15km radius of Aylesbury may have 300k people living there, but they are already well served from the WCML, Aylesbury line and Chiltern main line, and overlap significantly with other possible railheads.

 

[The Planner]

Leamington won’t and Stoke is barely going to see any trip time improvements as the HS2 service goes via Stafford and will be down to 1tph. Lichfield and Coventry will get more reliable service but they will be slower than today and in the case of Coventry less frequent.

Until 2A is or isn't built, Stoke will get 2tph not via Stafford. Coventry will lose 1tph.

 

[MatthewHutton]

Your expertise in transport economics being?

At least as great as anyone involved in planning HS2.

Like come on are we really arguing that a stop at Stone Staffordshire, Lichfield, Kenilworth and Calvert wouldn’t have given you the better part of 10m rides between them with the latter being the weakest most likely?

That’s combined as many as Birmingham or Manchester.

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That 15km radius of Aylesbury may have 300k people living there, but they are already well served from the WCML, Aylesbury line and Chiltern main line, and overlap significantly with other possible railheads.

Primarily to London, not from Aylesbury itself.

 

[Peter Sarf]

Are you really arguing that if you built Calvert, Kenilworth, Lichfield and Stone and got say 1.5m, 4m, 4m and 3m passengers a year that you’d lose more than that by trip times increasing by 10 minutes?

Probably, And would you get all those passengers ? - Some are already connected reasonably well. Furthermore is you figures are correct would that undermine the economics of the existing WCML services ?.

Given most people don’t live in town centres I don’t think that’s true actually - and the service level away from London would be much more improved than that.

EDIT: Bristol parkway does pretty well.

Bristol Parkway is a suburb of Bristol for all intents and purposes. At was also a good place for a station on the existing GWML where it splits for South Wales and the South West vie Bristol centre. So not really an intermediate station on a new line.

It really wasn’t. It was conceived as a thrusting high speed line to be extra fast and extra speedy to get people between London and the north west much faster. The business case was predicated on the financial benefits to the north west and the West Midlands.

It’s only now people are questioning the cost that suddenly it’s an essential relief line for the WCML. A relief line that won’t accept freight, won’t accept local passengers, and is designed at speeds 100km/h higher than they need to be. A relief line with a bespoke train fleet (since cancelled at great expense) that can’t run on other lines. And a relief line for a WCML which is so terribly overcrowded that, er, they’ve allowed an OA operator to start running 6-carriage trains into London in the peaks.

They tried to claim it was an essential relief line for the ECML too, at least until the bit to the north east was cancelled. Turns out it wasn’t that essential after all.

I recall it was after the west Coast Main Line route modernisation was completed at great cost and for not much benefit (the Pendolinos never got let loose at 140mph so bang went Virgins aspirations) that people started to cast about looking for an alternative strategy. The answer was a new line kept away from existing WCML services such as trains stopping more places and bottlenecks. The goal was reduced disruption on the existing line while being widened built and would be immune to problems on the WCML. This meant a lot less stops.

If that was the priority why didn’t they spend the £1bn needed to deliver that?

Because it was tinkering with the WCML which was showing less and less returns (see above).

Decision was to bite the buletl, stop altering existing lines and build a purpose built intercity line - called HS2.

That document also pretends that the traffic from intermediate stops could never possibly compensate for having to slow down the extra speedy trains which is quite frankly absolute nonsense.

Quite frankly I find the argument for a steady speed with no interruptions very sensible. Anything else is absolutely wrong.

At least as great as anyone involved in planning HS2.

Like come on are we really arguing that a stop at Stone Staffordshire, Lichfield, Kenilworth and Calvert wouldn’t have given you the better part of 10m rides between them with the latter being the weakest most likely?

That’s combined as many as Birmingham or Manchester.

Really !!!.
Are you really suggesting those smaller towns and catchment areas (Stone, Staffordshire, Lichfield, Kenilworth and Calvert) combined would create as much demand as Birmingham or Manchester ?.

Furthermore we must remember the effect on the existing WCML services that call at the likes of Stone and Lichfield. We are trying to get the fastest trains off the WCML not rob it of the demand for the slower services that would benefit from a freer route on the WCML.

HS2 is not meant to recreate the West Coast Main Line.
HS2 is meant to simplify WCML operations by removing one service group - the services that need a good clear run without stopping trains getting in the way (and vice versa).

Do not loose sight of the problems the West Coast Main Line has. Otherwise they will be recreated on HS2.

 

[35B]

At least as great as anyone involved in planning HS2.

That answer's a cop out, and completely circular. I asked your expertise - that of the team modelling HS2 is a matter of public record.

Like come on are we really arguing that a stop at Stone Staffordshire, Lichfield, Kenilworth and Calvert wouldn’t have given you the better part of 10m rides between them with the latter being the weakest most likely?

That’s combined as many as Birmingham or Manchester.

I'm struggling to see that case flying - let alone in the context of a railway built for high speed running. Which takes me back to the basis for your claims to expertise.

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I get the discussion about Aylesbury vs Tring, but the argument for demand justifying additional HS2 stops relies on their being a service worth using for that local population (not a French every 2 hours “service”) and generating new demand rather than cannibalising existing demand. That 15km radius of Aylesbury may have 300k people living there, but they are already well served from the WCML, Aylesbury line and Chiltern main line, and overlap significantly with other possible railheads.

Primarily to London, not from Aylesbury itself.

For some reason, you omitted to copy the whole of my post. Which leads to a very oblique answer to a question about the catchment for a "Buckinghamshire Parkway" station, but is then completely silent about the trade-off between existing and new demand.

For context, my wife and I seriously considered moving to that area 25-odd years ago. For what we were considering, where we might have travelled to for work (and have since), and the pros and cons of driving to a parkway, I'd not have put an HS2 stop high on my wish list. In the right location, it could have been handy, but then so (depending on quite where you live) are a number of existing stations for which the shorter train journey has to be considered against the difference in time to get to the station, even assuming no cost difference and the destination is equally useful.

 

[SynthD]

Then I guess we have to agree to disagree as there aren’t typically stations close to a mega city with clear passenger numbers that aren’t also at an airport or major attraction.

What does clear passenger numbers mean? Denham has a similar population to Calvert, and passenger numbers of 33k. It is the closest station to the M25 crossing. People generally live in the towns with better service, like Gerrards Cross, with its 122 space car park.

And quite frankly doing London-Manchester in 1h15 or 1h45 isn’t enormously different anyway. It’s all much faster than driving or taking a plane.

It’s sounding more like rebuilding the Great Central Main Line than what the various governments set out to achieve. As future, relieved, WCML fasts will first stop at Milton Keynes, and Chiltern fasts sometimes stop first at Banbury, this neatly near parallels the second stop at Claydon. It also encourages a slippery slope of one more stop, eg Southam (also affected by construction) to match Rugby and Leamington on the other fast services.

Instead HS2 have chosen to try and nickel-and-dime everyone and they’re shocked- SHOCKED- that they have little or no goodwill with local people left.

The local projects they have done have all involved building things for local people- and some of those village halls have been grossly over-engineered

Which is it, they’ve spent too little or too much?

Wendover for example has 300k people within 15km. That’s not low density.

Wrong side of Aylesbury for promoting a Claydon station. It’s 7km from Tring, a station that these people will use when HS2 opens as it will have more seats. It’s 8km from Princes Risborough. It has its own station.

It’s only now people are questioning the cost

What about the people questioning the cost a long time ago? This feels like a timeline of what was noticed, not what was researched. This is from 2013. https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/hs2-benefits-dwindle-costs-spiral-5855288

And the people who live the closest to the station would also see their homes become worth more due to better connectivity (and have better connectivity) which is a reward too.

A reward for whom? If the two complaints are that HS2 costs too much, and didn’t spend enough in this area, then the homes will need to pay off HS2 debts.

 

[MatthewHutton]

Really !!!.
Are you really suggesting those smaller towns and catchment areas (Stone, Staffordshire, Lichfield, Kenilworth and Calvert) combined would create as much demand as Birmingham or Manchester ?

Yes. Because they have a larger combined population within their catchment area.

What does clear passenger numbers mean

Clear means clarity about what’s long distance and what is a local train. It’s unclear how many of the people at Charles de Gaulle airport are using the RER and how many the TGV. Or Shin Osaka between the local trains and the Shinkansen.

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As future, relieved, WCML fasts will first stop at Milton Keynes, and Chiltern fasts sometimes stop first at Banbury

How does Chiltern doing first stop Banbury help anyone in Buckinghamshire? And how would HS2 even make that possible?

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I'm struggling to see that case flying - let alone in the context of a railway built for high speed running. Which takes me back to the basis for your claims to expertise.

What case flying? The ridership?

It’s the same as what you get in other similar stations.

In terms of expertise I certainly know more than nothing about what has been done outside the UK. So that’s a start.

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Denham has a similar population to Calvert, and passenger numbers of 33k. It is the closest station to the M25 crossing. People generally live in the towns with better service, like Gerrards Cross, with its 122 space car park.

You aren’t surely arguing that a HS2 station on the M25 would get less passengers than Haute Picardie TGV?

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Furthermore we must remember the effect on the existing WCML

The people in the smaller towns have more competition from cars - so they need fast service too, perhaps even more.

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Quite frankly I find the argument for a steady speed with no interruptions very sensible. Anything else is absolutely wrong

And yet it’s not what anyone else has done.

 

[mike57]

And- here’s the thing- they compensated land owners fairly rather than trying to stiff people.

I think this raises an interesting question, how much of the total HS2 costs have gone to actually buying the land, not feeding the HS2 lawyers who were employed to argue how much to pay.

Would it have been cheaper to just compensate people well above market value, so that they took the money and ran and avoid a lot of the arguements.

 

[35B]

Yes. Because they have a larger combined population within their catchment area.

And their desire for travel?

The people in the smaller towns have more competition from cars - so they need fast service too, perhaps even more.

You'll need to elaborate on that. Not least where they travel to, and how often they travel. Which takes us back to what would be new traffic, and what taken off existing lines.

You aren’t surely arguing that a HS2 station on the M25 would get less passengers than Haute Picardie TGV?

Unlikely, but that doesn't mean it would be economically viable - or that the traffic on the M25 would actually benefit from the change.

 

[MatthewHutton]

And their desire for travel?

So you think only the people in the big cities ever travel anywhere?

 

[35B]

I think this raises an interesting question, how much of the total HS2 costs have gone to actually buying the land, not feeding the HS2 lawyers who were employed to argue how much to pay.

Would it have been cheaper to just compensate people well above market value, so that they took the money and ran and avoid a lot of the arguements.

Very possibly. But that kind of commercial view doesn't tend to get much favour with the Treasury, who will also worry about the implications for other projects.

 

[MatthewHutton]

Unlikely, but that doesn't mean it would be economically viable - or that the traffic on the M25 would actually benefit from the change

Why wouldn’t it be economically viable to do an M25 stop if that had been planned from the beginning?

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You'll need to elaborate on that

People who live in London and don’t own a car will use the train even if it’s a bad experience.

People in Lichfield who do own a car need to get a good experience to be persuaded to use the train.

 

[JamesT]

I think this raises an interesting question, how much of the total HS2 costs have gone to actually buying the land, not feeding the HS2 lawyers who were employed to argue how much to pay.

Would it have been cheaper to just compensate people well above market value, so that they took the money and ran and avoid a lot of the arguements.

Define market rate. The aforementioned Bree Louise pub was valued at £500k by HS2, whereas the former landlord reckoned it was £4m. If that's at all typical then it would seem worth challenging some of those claims.
He was paid £575k in 2019, but there's been the ongoing disagreement over whether it should be more.

 

[35B]

So you think only the people in the big cities ever travel anywhere?

No, I know that people in small cities, towns, villages and hamlets also travel. I live in a medium sized town, I've family who lived in a hamlet outside the Potteries. I travel, they travelled.

My question is about how many of them travel, how often, and where to. You have thrown numbers around like confetti; I'm curious about where they come from and what underpins them.

Thinking of where I live, most people I know don't travel much and plenty have never used an intercity train. That's in a town that has ECML commuter traffic. In the hamlet where relatives used to live, most people lived and worked locally, travelling very occasionally. None were distance commuters, and most of those who did use the train did so for specific long planned journeys.

People who live in London and don’t own a car will use the train even if it’s a bad experience.

People in Lichfield who do own a car need to get a good experience to be persuaded to use the train.

That is an assumption, and is falsifiable. The service from Lichfield to Euston is used by people I know for both work and leisure, despite being relatively mediocre - it offers opportunities that aren't available locally. If the train didn't go from nearby, they'd find a railhead to go from. I'm sure they would use HS2, but I'm not sure how many more would use HS2 - especially if it became "not very HS2".

Why wouldn’t it be economically viable to do an M25 stop if that had been planned from the beginning?

It would be more viable, because the costs would have been built in from the start. But the question is whether people would drive to and then round the M25 to connect with a service, rather than take a shorter, more predictable, journey to a local station. If I'm travelling up one of the arterial road corridors, I either go straight to the train near the start, or I go right in to London. The last place I'd railhead would be the M25, especially if I had to risk running a junction or two on that road.

 

[MatthewHutton]

My question is about how many of them travel, how often, and where to. You have thrown numbers around like confetti; I'm curious about where they come from and what underpins them.

Which specific numbers do you object to?

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Thinking of where I live, most people I know don't travel much and plenty have never used an intercity train

Some of which is because driving is a lot quicker. But that wouldn’t be the case with a nearby HS2 stop.

 

[35B]

Which specific numbers do you object to?

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Some of which is because driving is a lot quicker. But that wouldn’t be the case with a nearby HS2 stop.

All of the numbers, because none of them are sourced.

As for non-use of intercity trains, it is not because driving is faster (from Grantham, the ECML is always significantly faster). Need, desire, convenience, cost are all in play.

And that takes us back to the numbers. What you are doing is presenting a variation on "build it and they will come", conjuring up numbers from nowhere in particular, and ignoring any of the trade offs that would go to making them real.

 

[MatthewHutton]

But the question is whether people would drive to and then round the M25 to connect with a service, rather than take a shorter, more predictable, journey to a local station.

It’d be a lot quicker though?

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All of the numbers, because none of them are sourced.

OK so say the numbers for a parkway at Stoke, Lichfield and Kenilworth I am assuming similar passenger numbers to the larger TGV parkway stations (Aix, Avignon and Valence) which have fewer people living close by.

With Calvert I am assuming 2/3rds more than Haddenham and Thame Parkways traffic figure.

 

[35B]

It’d be a lot quicker though?

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OK so say the numbers for a parkway at Stoke, Lichfield and Kenilworth I am assuming similar passenger numbers to the larger TGV parkway stations which have fewer people living close by.

With Calvert I am assuming 2/3rds more than Haddenham and Thame Parkways traffic figure.

I don't regard anything involving the M25 as quicker, especially not at busy times. It is great when it flows, but a complete pain when it doesn't. That would apply to a station at Denham every bit as much as one at South Mimms.

As for the parkways you've assumed, you're scaling off usage figures in a way that is simply not plausible.

 

[MatthewHutton]

s for the parkways you've assumed, you're scaling off usage figures in a way that is simply not plausible.

Why?

 

[35B]

Why?

Because you're making no consideration for propensity to travel or the availability of alternatives. It comes back to this being a variation on "build it and they will come", where the numbers used are pulled at random with no underlying analysis to support analysis of whether they're too high or too low.

What's worse is that you've built this superstructure on top of a very debateable point - that if there were local benefits, opponents would be more amenable to HS2. I'd be deeply surprised it the objectors around Wendover, say, gave two hoots about the gains from a station at Calvert - it simply wouldn't be relevant to most of them, let alone enough to offset the objections to what's happening right there. Ditto all of the other places where objections are strong - the relatives I mention lived near the Meir hills, travelled through Crewe anyway, and still detested HS2.

 

[The exile]

How come Paris has significantly more space for tunneling? It's got a metro network denser than the tube yet there's plenty of space for numerous RERs.

With very few exceptions (Line 7bis?), the Paris Metro is very close to the surface (and of course above it in some cases) so you can go underneath without going down too far. Underground / Metro tunnels are also not the only things you have to avoid, though Paris will have its fair share of those as well.

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Bristol Parkway is a suburb of Bristol for all intents and purposes. At was also a good place for a station on the existing GWML where it splits for South Wales and the South West vie Bristol centre. So not really an intermediate station on a new line.

Indeed, its catchment (and passenger profile) has changed beyond recognition in the last 50 years. If you’d told people back then that there would be a substantial inbound commuter flow they’d have laughed in your face.

 

[Tetchytyke]

Which is it, they’ve spent too little or too much?

Both, like I just said.

Would it have been cheaper to just compensate people well above market value, so that they took the money and ran and avoid a lot of the arguements.

It would have been quicker. I assume it probably would have cheaper but who knows? I can’t imagine seven years of legal wrangling will come cheap to HS2.

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I asked your expertise - that of the team modelling HS2 is a matter of public record.

Expertise and competence are seemingly not the same thing.

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It really was. I give you the original scoping document for HS2

Weird choice of words to bold there.

The sentence right before the one you bolded- and the one given priority throughout the text- said:

Such a line
would enable faster and enhanced services to be run on new and existing
lines to Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow and other destinations in the north of
England and Scotland, cutting journey times

What about the people questioning the cost a long time ago? This feels like a timeline of what was noticed, not what was researched. This is from 2013

I’ve always questioned the cost. I was slagging off HS2 as long ago as 2014 on here. Doesn’t time fly.

Most people have only started to accept that the costs are rocketing. When Lord Berkeley gave HS2 a kicking in 2019 he predicted that it would cost at least £100bn. He was roundly mocked on here for being an idiot who didn’t know what he was talking about. Turns out he was right all along, as we sceptics thought he was at the time.