Do we still need HS2?

[Elecman]

Yes but does it have to be so bloody expensive?

Blame the NIMBYS for all the extra expensive tunnels

 

[Ianno87]

Well if passenger numbers remain considerably reduced and if rail industry finances don't recover then I'd have thought sooner or later someone will ask why we need three mainlines between London and Birmingham, is the Chiltern line in it's current form still necessary.

The Chiltern Line is still going to be needed in some form to serve Banbury, High Wycombe etc, even it ceases as any kind of through London-Birmingham service.

 

[The Planner]

Closure, 2nd service or 2nd service extension?

Closure.

 

[adamedwards]

And in other news...
France announces closure of the Paris Lyon Marseille LGV.
Germany to close the Frankfurt Koln high speed line.
China to rip up the thousands of miles of new lines built.
Etc.
Back in the 1830s I am sure the people telling passengers they would explode at +30mph were arguing for Turnpike widening!
I'm sorry Mr Stephenson it will never catch on.
Etc
We are building a brilliant new railway and it's going to be fantastic.

 

[Bevan Price]

We needed a new railway to increase overall North/South capacity. Personally I am not convinced that it needed to be a mega-expensive high speed line. Building a line with specification for speeds of around 125 mph could have been a lot cheaper than building HS2.

And I predict zero chance that Marylebone to Birmingham services will be allowed to cease. There is too much traffic to intermediate stations to risk losing.

 

[Starmill]

Well if passenger numbers remain considerably reduced and if rail industry finances don't recover then I'd have thought sooner or later someone will ask why we need three mainlines between London and Birmingham, is the Chiltern line in it's current form still necessary.

It'd be better for everyone if the Chiltern's 'Mainline' service were more focused on providing capacity for Leamington Spa, Banbury and Bicester anyway frankly. But that would require fast trains between the West Midlands and London Euston to focus on greater load, which might risk losing cash. I'd say I hope we could move to focusing on more effective capacity management rather than revenue management, but I doubt it.

 

[yorkie]

Personally I'm of the opinion that the idea that more people will choose to work from home from now on and thus all capacity issues on infrastructure has been automatically solved is a bit short sighted. Personally a lot of the people I know are tiring of working from home and now want to return to the office asap, the work/home balance is wearing thin, I wouldn't be surprised if it's the same for a lot of people too.

Exactly, but we will see an increase in people working from home some days of the week. This in turn means people prepared to live further from where they work, which means an increase in longer distance travel (at the expense of shorter distance travel).

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 5 Apr 2021 ==

We needed a new railway to increase overall North/South capacity. Personally I am not convinced that it needed to be a mega-expensive high speed line. Building a line with specification for speeds of around 125 mph could have been a lot cheaper than building HS2.

I doubt it would have been that much cheaper, and we really need to obliterate the domestic air market, as other countries are successfully doing

And I predict zero chance that Marylebone to Birmingham services will be allowed to cease. There is too much traffic to intermediate stations to risk losing.

On the contrary HS2 will allow such services to focus better on the intermediate stations.

 

[21C101]

Well if passenger numbers remain considerably reduced and if rail industry finances don't recover then I'd have thought sooner or later someone will ask why we need three mainlines between London and Birmingham, is the Chiltern line in it's current form still necessary.

They tried that in the 1970s and singled it.....in fact I think they came close to shutting it as a "duplicate route"

 

[cle]

It'd be better for everyone if the Chiltern's 'Mainline' service were more focused on providing capacity for Leamington Spa, Banbury and Bicester anyway frankly. But that would require fast trains between the West Midlands and London Euston to focus on greater load, which might risk losing cash. I'd say I hope we could move to focusing on more effective capacity management rather than revenue management, but I doubt it.

Nothing is stopping you using it like that today. Chiltern's service isn't a sentient being. Pretty much every service stops at Leamington and Banbury, and most at Bicester.

People from Leamington, Banbury, Bicester and High Wycombe (plus othern decent sized markets) can use it to travel to either London or Birmingham. And now Oxford. It's very useful, pretty well balanced, and not many networks have peak flows at each end.

It needs longer trains and wires for better journey times - and potentially merging with EWR, and doubling down at a new Oxford as a hub (services up to Stratford/Brum, Cowley, 3rd tph to London) - not denigrating.

House-building in Bicester and Aylesbury alone is immense - from both you could commute to various places, including MKC one day... demand will come to Chiltern just fine.

 

[JonathanH]

is the Chiltern line in it's current form still necessary.

For journeys between Birmingham and London, no, not at all. For journeys between the intermediate stations, yes.

 

[XAM2175]

As a thought experiment: imagine that one of the various Victorian enterprises had built some vaguely-passable goat-track along the current HS2 alignment. It is never particularly productive and is finally put out of its misery by Doctor Beeching. How many members here would argue for its re-opening?

 

[Purple Orange]

Well if passenger numbers remain considerably reduced and if rail industry finances don't recover then I'd have thought sooner or later someone will ask why we need three mainlines between London and Birmingham, is the Chiltern line in it's current form still necessary.

By the same token, why do we need the M6 toll road? It carries considerably less traffic than the M6 proper, but nobody will shout for a road closure. Neither will people shout “oh but why can’t we just upgrade the existing motorway network?”

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 6 Apr 2021 ==

As a thought experiment: imagine that one of the various Victorian enterprises had built some vaguely-passable goat-track along the current HS2 alignment. It is never particularly productive and is finally put out of its misery by Doctor Beeching. How many members here would argue for its re-opening?

Oh without a doubt, there would be people howling at the moon for it to return!

 

[HSTEd]

By the same token, why do we need the M6 toll road? It carries considerably less traffic than the M6 proper, but nobody will shout for a road closure.

Well because its in private hands?
It's not really the Government's business if it stays open or not.

As to HS2 - reduction in railway income/traffic makes HS2 more essential if anything else.
It is considerably cheaper to operate HS2 than keep people on conventional railways.

There are serious rationalisations to the WCML that could be carried forward once it is operational to help stem the operational losses.

And chiltern can go back to doing sensible things rather than pretending to be an intercity railway to Birmingham

 

[Purple Orange]

Well because its in private hands?
It's not really the Government's business if it stays open or not.

As to HS2 - reduction in railway income/traffic makes HS2 more essential if anything else.
It is considerably cheaper to operate HS2 than keep people on conventional railways.

There are serious rationalisations to the WCML that could be carried forward once it is operational to help stem the operational losses.

And chiltern can go back to doing sensible things rather than pretending to be an intercity railway to Birmingham

Just because it is in private hands doesn’t mean it is needed. Railtrack was private. The Channel Tunnel is in private hands. My point I was trying to subtly make was that infrastructure asset has greater value than the operational demand at any one moment in time.

 

[21C101]

As a thought experiment: imagine that one of the various Victorian enterprises had built some vaguely-passable goat-track along the current HS2 alignment. It is never particularly productive and is finally put out of its misery by Doctor Beeching. How many members here would argue for its re-opening?

It is quite amusing that HS2 veers off said goat track at exactly the spot where it ended and trains had to run 50 miles along the metropolitan line into London so building the southern extension of said goat track; which, had it originally been built, would have probably ensured it never shut.

I suspect Watkin would have given his eye teeth to run further west with a triangular junction onto a short branch to Birmingham but I suspect would never have got that past parliament.

 

[och aye]

For people who think we don't "need" it, what are your criteria for "need"?

Cos I guess that, in a way, no railway anywhere in the world is "necessary", if you want to go down that line of argument.

Usually when confronted with this reasoning, I then immediately ask: "What is the alternative solution to congestion on the railways?" which is more often than not greeting with a response of silence.

I know it might sound ridiculous, but I sometimes wonder if the scheme had been given a boring functional name such as the "West Coast Main Line Capacity Upgrade" instead of HS2 we'd hear as many people moaning about it being a scheme for "rich business men to travel down to London faster"

 

[Irascible]

I know it might sound ridiculous, but I sometimes wonder if the scheme had been given a boring functional name such as the "West Coast Main Line Capacity Upgrade" instead of HS2 we'd hear as many people moaning about it being a scheme for "rich business men to travel down to London faster"

Unfortunately I suspect most of it would be "why does it cost so much?" and for the slightly more aware "didn't they just do that? what about the rest of the country?"

 

[Bald Rick]

We needed a new railway to increase overall North/South capacity. Personally I am not convinced that it needed to be a mega-expensive high speed line. Building a line with specification for speeds of around 125 mph could have been a lot cheaper than building HS2.

As I have explained elsewhere on these pages, the cost difference is minimal. You could have had a 50mph new railway into London, and it would still have needed Euston rebuilding and tunnels out to Ruislip. That stretch is responsible for something like a quarter of the cost.

 

[6Gman]

Yes but does it have to be so bloody expensive?

No, but people keep insisting on design changes and constant consultation which has delayed the project and increased costs.

 

[52290]

I would be more enthusiastic about it if it connected to HS1 as was originally planned. It would then fulfill Mrs Thatcher's original promise to provide regional Eurostars, for which the rolling stock was built and then sold to Canada. I remember seeing a provisional timetable for the sleeper service, Preston dep 8pm, Gare du Nord arrive 8am.

 

[6Gman]

Well if passenger numbers remain considerably reduced and if rail industry finances don't recover then I'd have thought sooner or later someone will ask why we need three mainlines between London and Birmingham, is the Chiltern line in it's current form still necessary.

Well since the Chiltern line serves Bicester and Banbury to London flows (which nobody else can meet) and then shares the tracks all the way to Birmingham with other operators what would you close?

 

[Bletchleyite]

Well since the Chiltern line serves Bicester and Banbury to London flows (which nobody else can meet) and then shares the tracks all the way to Birmingham with other operators what would you close?

More likely post HS2 the Chiltern line could return to providing a decent, frequent suburban and outersuburban service, possibly not going past Banbury with WMR services meeting it in the other direction.

 

[tbtc]

It's surprising how people seem so certain that Covid will trash demand for long distance travel but won't affect their favourite rural re-openings (e.g. I've not seen anyone who previously supported some backwater route like Tavistock - Okehampton or Skipton - Colne admit to doubts in the project because of the long term affects of Covid)

Actually, no, it's not surprising at all, sorry!

I know the WCML might be busy but I don't see why £100bn+ is really sacrificed for a high speed railway instead of spending the money on upgrading the current railway and removing all the bottlenecks etc

I remember the way that the WCML was around the millennium, when the "upgrade" turned it into a five-days-a-week line (Fraser Eagle would have made a fortune from all "bustitution" - Manchester - London trains had to run via Chesterfield, with several stops south of Leicester since they replaced the path of a 170 operated Midland Mainline services) - trying to upgrade existing lines is rather problematic.

Plus, it often just pushes the problem onto the next place - you could build a parallel viaduct at a bottleneck but then find that the flat junction ahead means that you haven't actually released any additional paths.

It'd be an interesting thread - what upgrades you could do on the WCML (if you had to stick to the current route) - maybe there's some grade separation here and there, some four-tracking... but the upgrades twenty years ago went significantly over budget/ were significantly delayed and were significantly cut back (e.g. it was meant to deliver a 140mph railway) - and those were the "easy" bits to upgrade, before twenty years of infrastructure inflation...

As a thought experiment: imagine that one of the various Victorian enterprises had built some vaguely-passable goat-track along the current HS2 alignment. It is never particularly productive and is finally put out of its misery by Doctor Beeching. How many members here would argue for its re-opening?

I agree - the "We Should Re-Open The Euston - Toton - Meadowhall Line" threads would be many!

(yeah, I know it's not running via Meadowhall any more, but you know what I mean)

I know it might sound ridiculous, but I sometimes wonder if the scheme had been given a boring functional name such as the "West Coast Main Line Capacity Upgrade" instead of HS2 we'd hear as many people moaning about it being a scheme for "rich business men to travel down to London faster"

Yeah, the "businessmen" argument is a really annoying one - people complain about how slow conventional services are between many UK cities ("why of why is the clock face timetable between these two places slower than one crack express a day in Victorian times" etc) - but the minute you propose improving journey times to London it's all class envy...

For example, you can argue in favour of re-opening Leamside to shave a few minutes off the Newcastle - York journey time and find a lot of agreement on here - you can suggest removing some local stops to improve the Liverpool - Birmingham journey time - but if you argue in favour of trimming a similar number of seconds off a journey that involves London then... "ugh...that's only for posh people"

 

[JonathanH]

More likely post HS2 the Chiltern line could return to providing a decent, frequent suburban and outersuburban service, possibly not going past Banbury with WMR services meeting it in the other direction.

No reason for WMR to run south of Leamington Spa if they take that route back over. Banbury passengers can use Cross Country, and as you say, Chiltern can concentrate on travel south of Banbury.

I note that you are happy to sever the Chiltern route but not my equally appropriate quest to split LNR services at Northampton. Both ideas are all about forcing more custom onto HS2.

 

[The Planner]

More likely post HS2 the Chiltern line could return to providing a decent, frequent suburban and outersuburban service, possibly not going past Banbury with WMR services meeting it in the other direction.

And turn Banbury into a mini New St, no thanks.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I note that you are happy to sever the Chiltern route but not my equally appropriate quest to split LNR services at Northampton. Both ideas are all about forcing more custom onto HS2.

To be fair I'm not overly bothered if Chiltern is severed or not, and my view is not about forcing traffic onto HS2. The key difference between Chiltern and LNR is that the former's role as a London/Birmingham commuter route is significantly compromised by it being a budget Intercity route (which is what the classic WCML IC services can become instead in addition to being there to serve journeys to/from MK, Watford and Rugby), and the latter's isn't because it doesn't do that (other than the erroneous and now dead attempt at a Liverpool service) - running across Northampton causes no disadvantage at all that I've noticed. Therefore your split would be solely for ideological reasons and so I oppose it.

And turn Banbury into a mini New St, no thanks.

What exactly do Banbury and New St have in common besides being railway stations vaguely in the Midlands?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 6 Apr 2021 ==

No reason for WMR to run south of Leamington Spa if they take that route back over.

It's not ideal the way we in the UK have IC services carrying local passengers. Let's not create another one for want of running WMR (or whatever) one stop further along.

 

[JonathanH]

It's not ideal the way we in the UK have IC services carrying local passengers. Let's not create another one for want of running WMR (or whatever) one stop further along.

Yes, but the issue is that there are no stations between Leamington Spa and Banbury - the former has facilities to terminate from the north, the latter from the south. Banbury to Birmingham is far enough to be an IC flow if that is how you want to characterise CrossCountry. I'd say it is essentially a regional operator now. No need for duplication of WMR and XC services over a 20 mile stretch of route with no intermediate stations.

And I'll concede that that is a bit different to the Northampton situation where the regional routes from Birmingham and London do naturally meet up.

 

[Ianno87]

Yes, but the issue is that there are no stations between Leamington Spa and Banbury - the former has facilities to terminate from the north, the latter from the south. Banbury to Birmingham is far enough to be an IC flow if that is how you want to characterise CrossCountry. I'd say it is essentially a regional operator now. No need for duplication of WMR and XC services over a 20 mile stretch of route with no intermediate stations.

The main argument for duplication of services on that stretch would be for Leamington/Warwick/Solihull to retain some form of direct London service.

Unless you really got the train service Crayons out and reduced to a half hourly Birmingham-Leamington-Banbury-Oxford-Reading-Paddington service only to try and semi-combine the two present flows.

 

[6Gman]

No reason for WMR to run south of Leamington Spa if they take that route back over. Banbury passengers can use Cross Country, and as you say, Chiltern can concentrate on travel south of Banbury.

I note that you are happy to sever the Chiltern route but not my equally appropriate quest to split LNR services at Northampton. Both ideas are all about forcing more custom onto HS2.

So Warwick - Bicester would require two changes of train?

Why is there such an enthusiasm on here for making journeys more difficult for ordinary passengers? The people who pay to travel on these trains we enjoy watching.

(Incidentally back in BR days I was responsible for unit and traincrews out of Marylebone. The way Chiltern has transformed that route and met and nurtured the market has been a superb example of commercial success to the benefit of passengers.)

 

[PTR 444]

Of course, there is also the line to Stratford Upon Avon which is likely retain some tourist demand to and from London, so a post-HS2 Chiltern core service could run Marylebone - Wycombe - Banbury - Leamington - Warwick - Stratford, instead of Birmingham. This would leave Solihull without a direct service to London, but for these folk it would most likely be quicker to get a bus to Birmingham Interchange and catch HS2 from there anyway.