Alternatives to HS2

[DunfordBridge]

I am aware that the idea of restoring the former Great Central line to London Marylebone has been proposed as an alternative to HS2 (Thread 49457 which seemed very interesting. As there are numerous high speed trains due to be replaced by the Hitachi IEP trains, it would seem to make sense to displace HSTs etc on a reopened Great Central line.

One question I have in my mind is how many of the people travelling to London actually intend to terminate their journeys in London and are not travelling onwards to other Southern destinations?

Surely it would make more sense to get passengers to where they want to go instead of channelling everyone into London. There must be plenty of orbital routes that can circumvent London.

 

[telstarbox]

Look at the GCR route and count the number of buildings on the old trackbed.

Most of them terminate their journeys in London. It's a city of 8.5 million people with thousands of businesses and cultural attractions.

Where exactly do passengers 'want to go'?

 

[Blamethrower]

I am aware that the idea of restoring the former Great Central line to London Marylebone has been proposed as an alternative to HS2 (Thread 49457 which seemed very interesting. As there are numerous high speed trains due to be replaced by the Hitachi IEP trains, it would seem to make sense to displace HSTs etc on a reopened Great Central line.

One question I have in my mind is how many of the people travelling to London actually intend to terminate their journeys in London and are not travelling onwards to other Southern destinations?

Surely it would make more sense to get passengers to where they want to go instead of channelling everyone into London. There must be plenty of orbital routes that can circumvent London.

Build a new railway and fill it with 40 yr old diesel trains?

Not the most well-thought plan I've seen to be honest

 

[The Ham]

Build a new railway and fill it with 40 yr old diesel trains?

Not the most well-thought plan I've seen to be honest

Not the worst either, that would probably go to "use intelligent timetabling on the WCML..."

 

[47802]

So how old are these HST's going to be by the time this Great Central route is rebuilt, and how much capacity will there be at the Marylebone end of the route to cope with all these new GC trains.

 

[swt_passenger]

I am aware that the idea of restoring the former Great Central line to London Marylebone has been proposed as an alternative to HS2 (Thread 49457 which seemed very interesting.

People have been proposing reopening the GCR as some kind of alternative to HS2 ever since Adonis first proposed HS2, and it just doesn't work, and HS2 Ltd explained why in fairly early publications on route selection.

It gets proposed every few months in the HS2 sub-forum for some inexplicable reason.


Channelling people into "London" allows them to transfer to numerous routes facing south, out of about 6 different main termini. This provides maximum flexibility, a hub and spoke arrangement, there's nowhere you could run a reopened GC to that would really do any better.

 

[NSEFAN]

Well, Marylebone was intended to have a 4-track station throat and many platforms. We just need to bore-through all the tunnels at St John's Wood, and kick out those people in the flats built where the other platforms should have been. Also, make the rest of the line 4 track/add passing loops so we can interleave expresses with commuter trains.

 

[Blamethrower]

Well, Marylebone was intended to have a 4-track station throat and many platforms. We just need to bore-through all the tunnels at St John's Wood, and kick out those people in the flats built where the other platforms should have been. Also, make the rest of the line 4 track/add passing loops so we can interleave expresses with commuter trains.

And subsequently drop all passengers off at the least connected station in London? Like I say, not that well thought out.

If the GC IS to re-open, I advocate a freight route (much like the Betuweroute in Netherlands) with links to EWR (+WCML + Chiltern), DIRFT and all container port lines. Add in a bypass of London and you've got a proper solution

Get the freight out of the way and quite a few paths become available for passengers, could be the next possibility to release passenger capacity.

Not to mention removing the stupidity of sending all freight trains through London to the channel tunnel

This was once proposed by someone called Central Railway or something, never got past the drawing board

 

[RobShipway]

Can I ask if the GCR was reopened I am presuming that this would be connected through to the Heathrow Airport station at Old Oak Common if being used for passengers?

Since Heathrow will at some point have a third runway, this will mean more people possibly from the North travelling to Heathrow Airport. You have not got much of a connection to get from Marylebone to Heathrow and I fear that the demand maybe too great for Marylebone Underground station.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

Not to mention removing the stupidity of sending all freight trains through London to the channel tunnel

This was once proposed by someone called Central Railway or something, never got past the drawing board


The Central Railway idea died a good while ago - as regrettably did the proposer , I believe.

The number of freights through London to the Tunnel is very small - hardly a handful a day though there is capacity for 24 a day I think - each way. Eurotunnel lorry traffic though increases in bounds all the time - despite recent "issues" which we all know about.

HS2 logic is reversed - get the (fast) passengers out of the way to give more room for LSE/ Regional and the only real freight with growth prospects - Intermodal ..domestic and import / export.

 

[NSEFAN]

And subsequently drop all passengers off at the least connected station in London? Like I say, not that well thought out.

The Bakerloo line also has low usage compared to some of the others, so if anything it's better for spreading the passenger load across the tube system. We could also time it to align with introduction of new trains and higher service frequencies on the Bakerloo line!

 

[DunfordBridge]

Look at the GCR route and count the number of buildings on the old trackbed.

Most of them terminate their journeys in London. It's a city of 8.5 million people with thousands of businesses and cultural attractions.

Where exactly do passengers 'want to go'?

So that is why they are building the Cross Rail tunnels. Personally, I used to travel to Bognor Regis fairly often. In the end, I went on the Thameslink from Bedford to Gatwick. Less hassle than the tube, just had to walk across to the next platform.
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So how old are these HST's going to be by the time this Great Central route is rebuilt, and how much capacity will there be at the Marylebone end of the route to cope with all these new GC trains.

Probably about the same age as the ones that are presently in use with Virgin and Grand Central, you have the bizarre situation where certain types of stock are on use both on heritage lines and the main line.
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And subsequently drop all passengers off at the least connected station in London? Like I say, not that well thought out.

Just some of them actually. As I was trying to say, passengers should be taken closer to their intended destination rather than spending half their time traversing London.
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If the GC IS to re-open, I advocate a freight route (much like the Betuweroute in Netherlands) with links to EWR (+WCML + Chiltern), DIRFT and all container port lines. Add in a bypass of London and you've got a proper solution

Get the freight out of the way and quite a few paths become available for passengers, could be the next possibility to release passenger capacity.

Not such a bad idea, I believe at its inception the Central line had a gauge that was conducive for freight traffic.
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Can I ask if the GCR was reopened I am presuming that this would be connected through to the Heathrow Airport station at Old Oak Common if being used for passengers?

Since Heathrow will at some point have a third runway, this will mean more people possibly from the North travelling to Heathrow Airport. You have not got much of a connection to get from Marylebone to Heathrow and I fear that the demand maybe too great for Marylebone Underground station.

I like your thinking. At one time, there used to be a service from Manchester to Brighton going through Kensington Olympia but it seemed to find disfavour.
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One of my main concerns is that the HS2 line is going to be expensive to run and maintain just by virtue of the very high speeds. I can see a situation where you are going to have trains consisting solely of first class carriages due to the target audience and to recoup the running costs. If people are to be enticed out of their cars, the present network needs to be more flexible and that is why money needs to be invested across the network.

 

[6Gman]

Had the GC survived to today I could envisage 170s offering a useful link Aylesbury - Rugby - Leicester - Nottingham - Sheffield.

But irrelevant to HS2!

 

[Ianno87]

The Bakerloo line also has low usage compared to some of the others, so if anything it's better for spreading the passenger load across the tube system. We could also time it to align with introduction of new trains and higher service frequencies on the Bakerloo line!

Not so much at Marylebone heading southbound in the morning or northbound in the evening - the spare capacity is really between Oxford Circus and Elephant & Castle (where the line of course goes no further).

If you have 18 200-400m trains arriving each hour disgorging a full load of passengers, a single tube line wouldn't cope at all with, frankly, such a colossal number of passengers.

 

[RobShipway]

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One of my main concerns is that the HS2 line is going to be expensive to run and maintain just by virtue of the very high speeds. I can see a situation where you are going to have trains consisting solely of first class carriages due to the target audience and to recoup the running costs. If people are to be enticed out of their cars, the present network needs to be more flexible and that is why money needs to be invested across the network.

When I was a young lad I used to be travelling from Brighton to Birmingham New Street on the Brighton to Manchester trains from time to time in the 1980's and I am well aware of the routing from Kensington Olympia to Old Oak Common where it would either join the GWML or get routed via the overhead bridge to be routed to Willesden Junction to join the WCML.

Maybe, it is me but the thinking behind the likes of the Brighton - Manchester or Brighton - Edingburgh trains needs to be thought about again and be well advertised this time so that more people get out of their cars and on to the trains.

 

[The Planner]

Had the GC survived to today I could envisage 170s offering a useful link Aylesbury - Rugby - Leicester - Nottingham - Sheffield.

But irrelevant to HS2!

Rugby - Leicester - Nottingham yes, Sheffield possibly, Aylesbury northwards no.

 

[adrock1976]

Regarding some of the comments above about the Great Central Railway, I would like to mention that the track still exists along the original formation, albeit it is fragmented today.

For example, Liverpool - Glossop and Hadfield via Warrington Central and Guide Bridge still exists, as does Penistone station, Sheffield - Cleethorpes via Brigg, the track via Rotherham Central, Barnetby - Lincoln Central, London Marylebone - Aylesbury Vale Parkway via the shared Metropolitan Railway, and the route of of Marylebone via the joint GWR/GCR Alternative Route.

Not forgetting the preserved sections in the East Midlands region.

All it needs is somebody to join up the missing sections. After all, the engineers of the GCR had intended European size trains to run along the route, linking Liverpool, Manchester, and Sheffield to Calais by means of a tunnel underneath the English Channel. It is ironic that the tunnel was completed in 1994 - 25 years after the tearing up of parts of the GCR London Extension, leaving any potential freight trains with no specially designed route to head north and using the present day conventional network instead.

 

[HSTEd]

The GC is not that much larger than the conventional gauges prevailing in the UK today.
If you want a freight backbone it basically has to be purpose built - to the largest possible gauge. Which is the one used on the Chunnel. Although even the Chunnel gauge is smaller than the one used in America and can't take double-stack hi-cubes unfortunately.

 

[adrock1976]

I should have been clearer in my previous post regarding the London Extension of the GCR.

I believe that the London Extension was designed with the stations having island platforms and wide road overbridges so as the track could be moved slightly away from the platform edge so as to allow wider trains to run.

Could somebody clarify if that was the case indeed?

 

[swt_passenger]

Maybe, it is me but the thinking behind the likes of the Brighton - Manchester or Brighton - Edingburgh trains needs to be thought about again and be well advertised this time so that more people get out of their cars and on to the trains.

How many times does it have to be pointed out that there is no capacity for them on the Brighton line, which is why they were binned after the XC franchise changes in 2007?

 

[Trog]

After all, the engineers of the GCR had intended European size trains to run along the route, linking Liverpool, Manchester, and Sheffield to Calais by means of a tunnel underneath the English Channel.

That was very far sighted of them as the European (Berne) gauge was only set at a conference held more than ten years after the GC London Extension was built.

 

[RobShipway]

How many times does it have to be pointed out that there is no capacity for them on the Brighton line, which is why they were binned after the XC franchise changes in 2007?

I was not saying that the services should be brought back, just that services like those should be created where capacity exists.

 

[The Ham]

I was not saying that the services should be brought back, just that services like those should be created where capacity exists.

It could well be that (at least parts of) such services could have paths to run after HS2. Although that all depends on what the future WCML timetable looks like.

 

[NSEFAN]

Not so much at Marylebone heading southbound in the morning or northbound in the evening - the spare capacity is really between Oxford Circus and Elephant & Castle (where the line of course goes no further).

If you have 18 200-400m trains arriving each hour disgorging a full load of passengers, a single tube line wouldn't cope at all with, frankly, such a colossal number of passengers.

I was assuming, since we're talking about classic-line alternatives to HS2, that we wouldn't be going for such high frequencies or train lengths. An ex-GCR route would have to supplement expresses on the WCML, not replace them. In which case it wouldn't quite be 400m trains at 18tph. And anyway, Marylebone is walking distance to Baker Street, so perhaps we could build an underground travelator to it, or covered walk-way?

 

[swt_passenger]

It could well be that (at least parts of) such services could have paths to run after HS2. Although that all depends on what the future WCML timetable looks like.

But the Brighton line timetable wouldn't change following on from HS2 surely, not to the extant that through paths would be provided that are impossible today?

 

[tbtc]

Alternatives to HS2?

Sure, there are a few, but most come with flaws.

Avoiding central London is certainly an interesting idea. Maybe the route could avoid central Manchester and central Birmingham too?

I’m all for cross-London services (Thameslink making Gatwick and Brighton accessible to those from the north of London, Crossrail making Heathrow/ Docklands/ Stratford accessible to those from the other side of London). Crossrail 2 sounds a good idea (though there’s diminishing marginal returns with such things, I guess).

I can’t see that working on HS2 so easily (partly because you’d struggle to have eighteen services an hour unloading/ loading on the through platforms of a central London station – especially trains with end-doors like HS2 will presumably be – it’d be a little easier to do with 700s).

But actually avoiding the capital altogether? That’s niche…

One of the big problems with HS2 is that the cost gets disproportionately expensive at the Euston end, but the idea of terminating everything at Old Oak Common seems a bit too “RyanAir” (dumping everyone a long way from where they want to actually get to). With Euston Square being integrated into the current Euston underground station, plus Crossrail 2 on the cards, the connectivity of Euston will be rather fantastic. So, it’ll cost a lot of money, but if we want 400m trains terminating at somewhere in central London with good connections then what alternative is there? (I wonder if anyone will get their crayons out and find a solution that involves a station in the unused Aldwych branch of the Piccadilly line?)

Or, you could argue that the benefits of each mile of HS2 are disproportionately lower the further you get away from London. We could just build it from Euston to somewhere around Tamworth, so that London – Manchester/ Liverpool/ Glasgow/ Holyhead services can run non-stop that far out of the capital, and avoid clashes with the London – Watford – Milton Keynes – Northampton - Coventry – Birmingham corridor. That would have some merits. Maybe an ECML equivalent from London to somewhere around Grantham (with a stop at Stansted/ Cambridge)? A GWML equivalent from London to somewhere near Didcot/ Swindon (with a stop at Heathrow)?

Or, instead of creating capacity on existing lines by removing the non-stop 125mph stuff, you could look at creating capacity on existing lines by removing the 60/75mph freight onto a dedicated line (e.g. one line doing Channel Tunnel– Daventry – Mossend and one line doing Southampton - Thames Estuary – with a junction, lorry park and marshalling yard somewhere near the M25 – wouldn’t have to be a straight line, could be built to cheaper standards – wouldn't need to go through any existing towns - no expensive stations to worry about - could free up a few paths on some “shared” lines).

The above are just a couple of suggestions for “alternatives” that I could at least debate about (not saying I agree with them, just that they are at least something reasonable). What I can’t simply accept are…

1 …just do something more cleverer with the signals and make the timetables “intelligent” and find lots of spare paths that way…

2 …make everything even longer on existing infrastructure (we already have eleven/ twelve coach trains on the WCML, we are about to get 260m long IEP on the ECML – there comes a point when existing platforms can’t be extended any further without fouling junctions and causing signalling problems – there are lots of stations that are underserved because they are on fast lines where trains don’t stop very often - we need something better…

3… “just rebuild the GCR and stick to historic alignments” (please no)

Give me something more interesting than the above three ideas and I’ll listen. I’ve been against HS2 in the past – I’m prepared to change my mind if someone can come up with something realistic that actually tackles problems (instead of something wooly).

 

[Blamethrower]

Not to mention removing the stupidity of sending all freight trains through London to the channel tunnel

This was once proposed by someone called Central Railway or something, never got past the drawing board


The Central Railway idea died a good while ago - as regrettably did the proposer , I believe.

The number of freights through London to the Tunnel is very small - hardly a handful a day though there is capacity for 24 a day I think - each way. Eurotunnel lorry traffic though increases in bounds all the time - despite recent "issues" which we all know about.

HS2 logic is reversed - get the (fast) passengers out of the way to give more room for LSE/ Regional and the only real freight with growth prospects - Intermodal ..domestic and import / export.

When I used to work next to the West London Line, there appeared to be more freight than passenger trains. Having asked the question on here, some of it was chunnel and some of it different (although I cannae remember)

If not the WLL then the NLL, these two have freight running round them all day long which is a bit silly. Not to mention noisy for those living next to class 66 + lots of squealing brakes.

Does anyone have a map of freight movements in the UK?

 

[Voglitz]

Well, Marylebone was intended to have a 4-track station throat and many platforms. We just need to bore-through all the tunnels at St John's Wood, and kick out those people in the flats built where the other platforms should have been.

There's no particular reason why long distance trains running on a Great Central alignment would have to use Marylebone as a terminus.

Also, make the rest of the line 4 track/add passing loops so we can interleave expresses with commuter trains.

Not necessary.

 

[HSTEd]

Where else would they route too?
GC is not the best connected route in the world at the best of times.

 

[glbotu]

The problems with the Great Central are numerous.

If it hadn't closed down in the first place, then sure, it would have been useful and someone would probably come up with a creative way of terminating the trains in London, and possibly increasing the line speed.

However, as it stands, the alignment barely allows for speeds above 80mph, and you only have two tracks into London for what would be a mixed-traffic line . Currently, Chiltern manage 14 tph into Marylebone in the morning peak, with nigh-on identical stock between Neasden South Junction and Marylebone.

Additionally, how do you deal with the problem the Great Central struggled with for the entirety of its 60 year life-span; how do you get passengers off the Midland, Great Northern and North-Western routes? Other than local services (which might be useful), the expresses just couldn't compete against what were otherwise better alignments.