Do you support High Speed 3?

[Haydn1971]

The report by One North expects a 125mph railway using current infrastructure with some new tunnels and track adjacent to existing lines. Osborne's announcement suggests that this is the case as the cost of HS3 is lot lower per mile. I think the reason no plan has been put forward by the government is to ensure no political damage can be self inflicted yet gaining rail votes.

The One North "report" was more of a statement of intent... A statement turned around in a few weeks to drop on George Osborne's desk after he threw the gauntlet down about the north not having a vision. The report states that a new line is needed to connect with HS2 and the existing rail network, cost is estimated at £10-15M which I can assure you, given the lack of any route at this stage is simply a finger in the air cost for x miles of line quite probably based upon factored HS2 costs. No plan has been put forward because there hasn't been any study completed on route options and the relative economics of each.

 

[NotATrainspott]

1) How would that be legal? Surely that's open to all sorts of challenges? Going up to your point about Liverpool's HS2, I assume a captive line for them was also knocked back on standard BCR reasoning? This is just one instance where I can imagine a big kick off happening, but I'm sure I could think of plenty of others where projects are much wanted for economic uplift but go wanting.

and

2) How are people outside northernland supposed to feel about this? Smoke and mirrors "economic uplifts" are all very well, but both to construct and then subsidise this comes out of the taxpayer's pockets.

Not really. If Parliament votes to build such a line, then that's basically all there is to it so long as it and the project itself complies with European environmental planning standards. The economic impact of the line or alternatives is something that needs to be analysed properly before any expensive decisions are made and I believe that is the stage the Government are at now.

 

[UrbanWorld]

1) How would that be legal? Surely that's open to all sorts of challenges? Going up to your point about Liverpool's HS2, I assume a captive line for them was also knocked back on standard BCR reasoning? This is just one instance where I can imagine a big kick off happening, but I'm sure I could think of plenty of others where projects are much wanted for economic uplift but go wanting.

and

2) How are people outside northernland supposed to feel about this? Smoke and mirrors "economic uplifts" are all very well, but both to construct and then subsidise this comes out of the taxpayer's pockets.

Few rail lines survive on ticket sales. They are economically needed.

Liverpool's HS2 line was knocked back on political reasons only. All logic dictates that with port expansion, etc, it should be top of the list. Read the 20miles more web site.

 

[pablo]

1) How would that be legal? Surely that's open to all sorts of challenges? Going up to your point about Liverpool's HS2, I assume a captive line for them was also knocked back on standard BCR reasoning? This is just one instance where I can imagine a big kick off happening, but I'm sure I could think of plenty of others where projects are much wanted for economic uplift but go wanting.

and

2) How are people outside northernland supposed to feel about this? Smoke and mirrors "economic uplifts" are all very well, but both to construct and then subsidise this comes out of the taxpayer's pockets.

I think there is a cunning plan to shift half of Londoners ooop north to this Northern Power House, thus making it a self-fullfilling prophesy. To make that attractive you have to have 10 minute HS frequencies and a taxi rank at every station. That will trim the ship a bit.

Meanwhile the Governmint goes in for vast slum-clearance schemes in the north and south London suburbs..... with new infrastructure and rationed re-location. "It's the only way" as Mao Tse-tung said.

Mark my words. when I'm re-incarnated, I'll come back and collect on this one!

 

[UrbanWorld]

I keep returning to the Stockport corridor and the fact that with VHF, there is no capacity to run any more local or regional services along this route.

Is is best you look at fact. I gave you the figures yet you keep regurgitating this HS2 propaganda. This corridor is NOT up top capacity at all. HS2 running up this corridor will meet Manchester's needs. The three trains per hour are running mostly empty. This unneeded three train service per hour is block up expansion. Make them 400m long and only one per hour is needed.

There is quite an element of future-proofing throughout the HS2 plans

I would be interested to know where this future-proofing is on HS2. It is firm it HS2 only going directly to only FOUR city centres.

 

[NotATrainspott]

Is is best you look at fact. I gave you the figures yet you keep regurgitating this HS2 propaganda. This corridor is NOT up top capacity at all. HS2 running up this corridor will meet Manchester's needs. The three trains per hour are running mostly empty. This unneeded three train service per hour is block up expansion. Make them 400m long and only one per hour is needed.

I would be interested to know where this future-proofing is on HS2. It is firm it HS2 only going directly to only FOUR city centres.

The only relevant period of time is the peak period. It doesn't matter that there are free seats on the trains during the day if it peak times, there aren't any. The Government and transport authorities have been trying to get people to travel earlier and later forever but it has never worked, so they have no choice but to deal with the peak period as it is.

The future-proofing is that when they are building new infrastructure, that infrastructure is designed for significantly more passengers than are predicted to use it immediately (the number using it immediately would be above the capacity of the existing infrastructure though). Once Liverpool is no longer properly served by two 200m classic-compatibles an hour at peak times, it will require a captive line and that captive line will likewise be designed to carry significantly more people than it needs to in the short term. This is in contrast to an approach where only one or two 400m platforms would be built, as 'that is all that is needed'.

 

[Camden]

There's something badly wrong here. On the one hand you say it's important to build to Manchester far more capacity than is actually needed (although I'd dispute that a 400 metre classic compatible couldn't cope with the forecast peak demand), but in the same breath say that Liverpool needs to be maxing out two classic compatibles before it can get a captive line of any sort. That doesn't make sense.

I regularly go to the north; Manchester, Leeds, and Liverpool and others besides, and let's just say if I had to pick one of those big three where getting a seat has seemed tough going it wouldn't be to Manchester. In other words, bearing in mind Liverpool today gets two 260 metre voyagers at peak, the time when it maxes out two 200 metre classic compatible trains an hour is by my reckoning about 2 years ago!

It seems from where I'm standing that it's this insistence that "getting HS2" is wedded to these captive lines is the thing standing in the way of addressing that, where actually what's needed is just a 400 metre capable station building. Use the same approach in Manchester and Leeds and there's bucket loads of cash freed up for everyone. Two trains an hour 400 metres long is going to be more than enough for any city for a very, very long time.

As for HS3, I'll believe it when I see it. The notion of a blank cheque being written for a project with no BCR underpinning it sounds fantastical.

@urban what political reasons? Surely Manchester and Leeds vote the same way as Liverpool? And this was a Labour plan to begin with, wasn't it?

@pablo that might be the case, but I'm still not moving.

 

[HSTEd]

HS2 will be cheaper to run than conventional rail, thanks to massive capacity there will be no.need to use prices to restrain demand. Which means £15 Manchester-London RETURN.
Demand will explode from commuters in South Manchester alone.

 

[pne]

Where on the Continent do they split High Speed trains?

Germany has several ICE trains split up and/or join along the way, e.g. coming from the south at Hanover for Bremen and Hamburg or coming from Berlin at Hamm for two routes through the Rhine/Ruhr area.

 

[NotATrainspott]

Germany has several ICE trains split up and/or join along the way, e.g. coming from the south at Hanover for Bremen and Hamburg or coming from Berlin at Hamm for two routes through the Rhine/Ruhr area.

No, what he means by 'splitting and joining' is dividing a train into two so that it fits in a terminus that is too short for it normally. This is not done anywhere because it is stupid. On the other hand, splitting a train to serve more than one destination is done in a large number of places, and is planned to be done on HS2. Edinburgh and Glasgow will be served by trains joining together for the journey to London and I'm aware that one of the York services splits off a Leeds service at Meadowhall.

 

[Haydn1971]

I'm aware that one of the York services splits off a Leeds service at Meadowhall.

On HS2 ?

 

[NotATrainspott]

On HS2 ?

Yes, in the most recent service pattern plans.

 

[Haydn1971]

Do you have a link to that ?

 

[Camden]

I think there are or were a couple of services that planned on using coupling and decoupling. I don't think that's what the fella was talking about though, but he means about having a 400 metre train split and pull into the the same station at different platforms (as a measure of not having to build a 400 metre station).

I suppose if the station is a terminus that's not necessarily a terrible idea if building 400 metres is an issue, but you still have to build wide instead of long. If it was an enroute station, it would probably be more sensible to just have front train only operation.

On the subject of HS2, if this is true, first major alteration for HS2 http://www.warringtonguardian.co.uk/news/11691937.HS2_spur_through_Warrington_could_be_scrapped/ wonder if they'll be more. Doesn't bode especially well for this HS3 if they're scaling back HS2 in the north already, does it?

 

[HSTEd]

If they bin that the Scottish Nationalists will not be happy.

The section to Wigan is essential for any significant journey time gains to Scotland - without it I am fairly sure you would throw away the bulk of the benefit of going via the Manc branch instead of the Leeds one.

 

[Camden]

I think they'll have a hard job seizing on something happening 150 miles away from their border any more than they have about HS2 generally. Pretty difficult to connect Warrington and Wigan to the Scottish nationalist cause, especially when the net effect will be one of minutes.

As for the Manchester branch, that's not the only change, that delta junction will now not be needed, and as you say alters the thoughts about going to Scotland, but it also raises questions over the route there itself too. It would be a dedicated line all the way from Crewe into Manchester, and the economics of that will need to be assessed. Maybe my reasoning of three voyagers an hour becoming two 400 metre trains an hour over classic rail isn't so wide of the mark after all.

 

[MidlandMainlie]

I think they'll have a hard job seizing on something happening 150 miles away from their border any more than they have about HS2 generally. Pretty difficult to connect Warrington and Wigan to the Scottish nationalist cause, especially when the net effect will be one of minutes.

The SNP want a dedicated HS2 route all the way to Scotland to link up with their own Glasgow/Edinbrugh HS line. If as is looking increasingly likely they win a number of seats in the general election and go on to form a coalition with Labour then an extension to Scotland could be one their demands.

As for the Manchester branch, that's not the only change, that delta junction will now not be needed, and as you say alters the thoughts about going to Scotland, but it also raises questions over the route there itself too. It would be a dedicated line all the way from Crewe into Manchester, and the economics of that will need to be assessed. Maybe my reasoning of three voyagers an hour becoming two 400 metre trains an hour over classic rail isn't so wide of the mark after all.

In a few months a report looking at how HS2 can benefit Scotland will be published alongside a report into HS3 looking at various options, obviously the projects overlap so untill they are both published it is impossible to say what HS2/3 will look like North of Crewe.

 

[Camden]

The SNP want a dedicated HS2 route all the way to Scotland to link up with their own Glasgow/Edinbrugh HS line. If as is looking increasingly likely they win a number of seats in the general election and go on to form a coalition with Labour then an extension to Scotland could be one their demands.

It might be, but then it might already be a done deal by then. Or they might ask for something their people actually want (which doesn't seem to be more or faster attachment to England, but the ability to develop their own economy). Or the Tories and UKIP might win... A lot of mights and maybes.

In a few months a report looking at how HS2 can benefit Scotland will be published alongside a report into HS3 looking at various options, obviously the projects overlap so untill they are both published it is impossible to say what HS2/3 will look like North of Crewe.

If that newspaper report is anything to go by, not as impossible as you suggest. And if there's no route north of Crewe to anywhere but Manchester, there's no delta junction as that would be a route to nowhere. And if there's no route to anywhere but Manchester, then with its altered economics I would expect it to be up for review.

Interesting that you mention the HS3 and Scotland report timing, because of course one way of dealing with this would be to drop everything north of Crewe from HS2 and lump it into HS3. That would neatly justify "holding off" those few miles sticking up to Scotland on the basis of wanting to ensure "maximum benefit"... While will HS3 ever see the light of day?

If they build the picc extension as a captive station, my hunch is that you'll be using the steps to alight for a long time to come.

 

[HSTEd]

Classic Compatible trains are considerably more expensive to run though.

You seriously hurt the economics of the entire project by so enormously boosting the amount of traffic carried on the expensive to build and operate trains that were only ever added to the scheme in an attempt to buy off opposition and eliminate the need to actually spend the money to do high speed rail properly.

 

[Camden]

I think any cost difference between classic compatible and captive trains has now been played down as minimal. Not forgetting phase 1 will commence with the north serviced by classic compatibles anyway.

 

[HSTEd]

I think they'll have a hard job seizing on something happening 150 miles away from their border any more than they have about HS2 generally. Pretty difficult to connect Warrington and Wigan to the Scottish nationalist cause, especially when the net effect will be one of minutes.

Well the journey time problems are bigger than might be expected.
HS2 projections of journey time to Crewe is 55 minutes.

The current classic line journey time between Manchester and Crewe is 38 minutes, that gives you a journey time of something like 93 minutes.
You have thrown away nearly half an hour to avoid that last stretch of track.

Plus the nightmare of SDO boarding at Stockport which will boost travel times even further.

As for Scotland - current normal Crewe-Glasgow journey time is 3hr08 - which means you will end up wit a journey time of 4hr03 or so. Which means you are going to be little quicker than a CC set routed via York.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

I think any cost difference between classic compatible and captive trains has now been played down as minimal. Not forgetting phase 1 will commence with the north serviced by classic compatibles anyway.

That is a big assumption you make (about phase 1).
The inter phase delay is getting so short that it is a major possibility that they might not actually commence service until Phase 2 is complete. Allowing you to start service with fit for purpose trains rather than bodged CC ones.

CC sets will necessarily have 30-40% fewer passengers than captive sets and similar operating costs, so you will drastically increase the required fares for break even.

 

[Camden]

Well the journey time problems are bigger than might be expected.
HS2 projections of journey time to Crewe is 55 minutes.

The current classic line journey time between Manchester and Crewe is 38 minutes, that gives you a journey time of something like 93 minutes.
You have thrown away nearly half an hour to avoid that last stretch of track.

Plus the nightmare of SDO boarding at Stockport which will boost travel times even further.

As for Scotland - current normal Crewe-Glasgow journey time is 3hr08 - which means you will end up wit a journey time of 4hr03 or so. Which means you are going to be little quicker than a CC set routed via York.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

That is a big assumption you make (about phase 1).
The inter phase delay is getting so short that it is a major possibility that they might not actually commence service until Phase 2 is complete. Allowing you to start service with fit for purpose trains rather than bodged CC ones.

CC sets will necessarily have 30-40% fewer passengers than captive sets and similar operating costs, so you will drastically increase the required fares for break even.

Half an hour versus however many £bn though, is the issue, as it's not that last stretch but everything north of Crewe. At least four billion I would have thought. That could buy a lot of station at Crewe, Picc, Leeds, Sheff, Liverpool...

It's not an assumption about Phase 1, by the by. It has been stated that at Phase 1 classic compatible services will run to the north on the WCML north of Birmingham. If Crewe is done at the same time as Phase 1, that 90 odd minute journey times from the off, which isn't shabby. Also, recalling documentation from HS2 that gives the same number of seats for classic compatibles as captives.

 

[HSTEd]

Half an hour versus however many £bn though, is the issue, as it's not that last stretch but everything north of Crewe. At least four billion I would have thought. That could buy a lot of station at Crewe, Picc, Leeds, Sheff, Liverpool...

Crewe, Leeds and Piccadilly stations are already in the budget.
You also have to keep the Piccadilly approach in the plan due to the crossing moves you are going to force without it collapsing the service in and out of the station. (The main line is on the wrong side of the approach).

Sheffield would cost a billion by itself for no real gain, as all the projections show and now I believe the local council grudgingly agrees.

Liverpool can't assemble a business case without a captive spur, which is certainly wouldn't be getting without lines north of Crewe.

You essentially break the scheme by removing the Manchester-Crewe section and the Wigan branch.

 

[Camden]

Crewe, Leeds and Picadilly stations are already in the budget

Sheffield would cost a billion by itself for no real gain, as all the projections show and now I believe the local council grudgingly agrees.

Liverpool can't assemble a business case without a captive spur, which is certainly wouldn't be getting without lines north of Crewe.

You essentially break the scheme by removing the Manchester-Crewe section and the Wigan branch.

They might be in the budget, but with the budget under pressure who wouldn't say no to doing it all for less?

Liverpool can't assemble a business case without spending more money? Not sure how that works!

 

[HSTEd]

They might be in the budget, but with the budget under pressure who wouldn't say no to doing it all for less?

But you can't do it all with less, your proposed 'savings' have managed to gut the entire business case for the Western branch.

Liverpool can't assemble a business case without spending more money? Not sure how that works!

Liverpool will barely be able to fill 2 200m trains per hour - let alone a series of 400m sets unless you get the travel time and fare collapse that comes with a captive route.

 

[Camden]

But you can't do it all with less, your proposed 'savings' have managed to gut the entire business case for the Western branch.

Liverpool will barely be able to fill 2 200m trains per hour - let alone a series of 400m sets unless you get the travel time and fare collapse that comes with a captive route.

You've said a few things now which make me think you haven't read the docs though. Liverpool's forecast average loadings for HS2 is in the 80%s for its 2 classic compats. This is compares to Leeds and Manchester's 400 metre captives of mid 40%s. It's all in the docs, and as I've said above means in my book from Manchester and Leeds one or two trains a day running as 400 metres (where they'll be 60% to 70% full) and the rest of the day running as 200 metres (where they'll be 30 to 40% full). My trips to Liverpool, on the other hand, look like they will be spent standing, unless some way can be found to couple trains together.

If you haven't read the docs, it's no good guessing at business base. The bit away from Crewe to Wigan had a key purpose for depot reasons which no longer exists. If that has knock on effects for the bit to Manchester, complaining to me isn't going to alter that. But I don't think it being run by two 400 metre classic compatibles is going to have the drastic negative effect you seem to think, especially if the money can be used to better all round effect.

 

[NotATrainspott]

The newspaper article will have two levels of bias involved, as the paper will be itself biased against the spur and it was relaying news from the local MP who is similarly biased against it. The town of Knutsford (represented in Westminster by the little-known MP Gideon Osbourne) is in the middle between Crewe and Manchester, so there is not a vast amount of scope to straighten out the remaining Crewe-Manchester section if the delta junction is not to be built.

The choice of Golbourne for the rolling stock depot would always be difficult because of its environmental impact upon the greenfield land there. Moving it to Crewe is not at all a bad idea, especially if there are to be classic-compatible services branching off there or running via Stoke. Over the long term, the inevitable completed line to Scotland doesn't actually support any classic-compatible running beyond that already planned to serve Warrington, Wigan and Preston. If the rolling stock depot is moved, there isn't really a vast amount of point in disrupting Golbourne any more by building the classic-compatible connection there either. If the cost of the delta-Wigan section was around £1bn, then that would put a total price of around £3.5bn for the line from the delta to Brock, including the Preston Bypass and interchange station on the M55. Given that there's not an enormous amount of point in providing a classic connection at Brock either, with the first non-terrible location for one being in the centre of Carlisle, then it appears that the entirety of the line between the delta and Carlisle could be authorised in a Phase 3 with no temporary classic connections needing built whatsover. Maybe the Treasury has actually learned that splitting high speed rail into sections for the sake of splitting into sections isn't the best idea in the world, as shown by Southfleet Junction on HS1.

 

[HSTEd]

You've said a few things now which make me think you haven't read the docs though. Liverpool's forecast average loadings for HS2 is in the 80%s for its 2 classic compats.

So they won't be full then?
With a 90 minute journey loadings of over 100% are tolerated elsewhere on the network.
Additionally that assumes they retain the 200m CC sets with merges, but since you have essentially removed the justification for any other 200m set destinations on the West Coast (by eliminating the Wigan junction) there is no reason to select that train length.
You can follow the example of TGV Atlantique and build the train sets to the same length as an 11 car Pendolino.

This is compares to Leeds and Manchester's 400 metre captives of mid 40%s. It's all in the docs, and as I've said above means in my book from Manchester and Leeds one or two trains a day running as 400 metres (where they'll be 60% to 70% full) and the rest of the day running as 200 metres (where they'll be 30 to 40% full).

This makes numerous assumptions, none of which are actually supported by the available documentation - for instance that fare based suppression of journey counts will continue despite all need to constain demand being removed. (The reason this decision is made in the documentation is to be ultra-conservative, when noone actually believes that will be what happens).
Captive trainsets at full length don't actually cost very much extra to run than 200m trainsets, especially if it is a unitary 400m trainset that has more than double the number of seats but only the same crewing and pathing requirement.

If only one or two trains were to be 400m long, why on earth would we expend ridiculous resources on building so many 400m long platforms? If train capacity is not going to be any higher than classic lines why would we even bother with TSI compliant platform lengths?
There was never any real possibility that the majority of trains would be operated at 200m length on Captive routes - the costs of changing train lengths in service are greater than simply running the longer trains at all times, especially in the era of demand managed fares.

This is one of the reasons SNCF occasionally proposes 400m long TGVs on Sud Est but then realises it has no money for such a thing and shuts up again.

My trips to Liverpool, on the other hand, look like they will be spent standing, unless some way can be found to couple trains together.

Since you are removing a large fraction of the traffic on HS2 by removing the Wigan and Manchester sections there is no capacity constraint so you can make the liverpool train whatever length you can cram into the platforms at Lime Street.

If you haven't read the docs, it's no good guessing at business base. The bit away from Crewe to Wigan had a key purpose for depot reasons which no longer exists.

The primary purpose of the spur was always to provide the setup for HS2-3 to Scotland and also to actually alllow HS2 to be used for something beyond the Y network.
The depot was just a happy coincidence that allowed the use of a cheaper site in a more deprived area, producing more jobs to buy off more opposition.

If that has knock on effects for the bit to Manchester, complaining to me isn't going to alter that. But I don't think it being run by two 400 metre classic compatibles is going to have the drastic negative effect you seem to think, especially if the money can be used to better all round effect.

It won't have effects, since the only evidence we have for it being cut is a clickbait article in a local rag/on its website.

Two 400m classic compatibles will add half an hour to the journey time and add another five minutes to the average wait period compared to the current service.
You end up with Manchester gaining only about two carriages of seats per hour and only saving 20 minutes.
You might as well axe the entire Crewe-Birmingham section in that case as it becomes essentially worthless.

 

[jon0844]

These high speed lines will be around for 100 to 200 years, so I do hope we're thinking about usage needs beyond a few months after opening.

 

[Haydn1971]

These high speed lines will be around for 100 to 200 years, so I do hope we're thinking about usage needs beyond a few months after opening.

Spot on ! Lots of people keep barking on about now, HS2 and hopefully if HS3 gets built will be a step change in capacity as huge as the motorways in the 70's - the current appraisal is based upon a 60 year timescale, let's just think back to 60 years ago and how the UK has transformed since then. We (transport planners) just haven't got reliable enough tools to predict what may happen, but for the sake of a small fraction of a percent of annual budget each year, here's an opportunity to do it right. HS2 & HS3 are just the start of things to come, 30-50 years from now, I fully expect a full network to all the major cities in mainland UK, plus a second channel tunnel being either built, being built or in planning.