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I suppose they might have placed some new long terminal platforms in the goods yards north of the canal and linked them to the main concourse and tube connections with walkways and travellators. I'm not advocating that by the way, especially now its all redeveloped for other uses.
I'm sure you're correct Euston was the easiest major northern terminal to widen significantly. Two nondescript modern hotels were lost, some railway buildings, a former carriage yard, a couple of mid-rise residential blocks in the throat area and some unfortunate low-rise commercial/residential streets near the buffer stop end. St Pancras was never a real option once the new British Library had been established, and would likely have required more extensive residential demolition north thereof than Euston anyway, even discounting the BL. Some alternatives considered were entirely new sites, under Hyde park was one I think, but that would not have the developed local transport connections of an existing major terminal, so would either be less useful or more expensive to adapt and reroute local transit.
If i designed HS2 i would do the following:
For the high speed lines have:
London-Manchester and Preston: 2 Tracks
London-Birmingham-Liverpool: 2 Tracks
Obviously on approach to London join the lines together and have a 4 track section
Might be very costly though.
Trains use current lines for further travel to places like Edinburgh, Glasgow, Stirling and Holyhead
If i designed HS2 i would do the following:
For the high speed lines have:
London-Manchester and Preston: 2 Tracks
London-Birmingham-Liverpool: 2 Tracks
Obviously on approach to London join the lines together and have a 4 track section
Might be very costly though.
Trains use current lines for further travel to places like Edinburgh, Glasgow, Stirling and Holyhead
Underutilised at only ~7tph per pair, for the most expensive part of the route in the south east. If all the trains have the same performance and stopping pattern on this section, it's surely better to put them all on one pair.
HS2 is aiming bigger and longer, to give the north and Scotland more. It’s more important to take London-Scotland air traffic than the benefits of 200m trains. What do you mean by take traffic away from New St while maintaining it as a hub? NewMoorCurzon Streets will be a similar concentration to EustonStCross, with a tram and a better pedestrian route.
A Berlin Hbf approach, with some routes utilising tunnels to access a Low Level station.
I am not persuaded by the idea of people having to take a tram from Curzon Street to New Street for onward journeys that could be made via a change within the existing New St Station. That seems a step backwards even if the London to Birmingham leg will be significantly quicker.
But the lower value for money projects may have stood a lower risk of being cancelled than an eggs all in one basket full HS2. The lower VFM is perhaps a moot point anyway given that HS2 won't now deliver its projected benefits due to the truncated form that it is now being built to
But a London to Birmingham relief line is pretty much all we're now getting, regardless of the original grand plans, and in a form that is sub optimal because no new capacity is delivered north of where HS2 will joint the WCML.
I am not persuaded by the idea of people having to take a tram from Curzon Street to New Street for onward journeys that could be made via a change within the existing New St Station. That seems a step backwards even if the London to Birmingham leg will be significantly quicker.
While I see your point, and partially agree, Birmingham has had major stations on two lines: new street, and snow hill/moor Street. HS2 chose to serve the latter for practical reasons, but as Curzon Street is effectively moor Street they are serving one of the lines directly, and I don't think there was a way to do both. Interchange/international may be an easier change for transfers from some directions as well.
Apologies: I misread the part of the thread this was referring to.
The trouble with that 'incremental approach' a la Strategic alternative is
A - it demanded more of King's Cross that there was room (as pointed out already)
B - it needed all the elements in place for there to be useful outcomes - the incrementality is but a mirage
C - it would have involved more than a decade of heavy disruptions
You need all of
- More capacity at Euston
- bypassing all of WCML south
- More capacity at Birmingham
- Connection onto the WCML north of Birmingham
To be able to deliver useful outputs. Otherwise you just create localised capacity for trains to have nowhere to run to or from.
And this is exactly what Phase 1 delivers.
As it happens, this most important and the most difficult part of HS2 IS being built.
Apologies: I misread the part of the thread this was referring to.
The trouble with that 'incremental approach' a la Strategic alternative is
A - it demanded more of King's Cross that there was room (as pointed out already)
B - it needed all the elements in place for there to be useful outcomes - the incrementality is but a mirage
C - it would have involved more than a decade of heavy disruptions
You need all of
- More capacity at Euston
- bypassing all of WCML south
- More capacity at Birmingham
- Connection onto the WCML north of Birmingham
To be able to deliver useful outputs. Otherwise you just create localised capacity for trains to have nowhere to run to or from.
And this is exactly what Phase 1 delivers.
As it happens, this most important and the most difficult part of HS2 IS being built.
Sometimes I get the feeling that people would be saying that HS2 Phase 1 would be the most important part of the project if Phase 2 was the only bit built.
Apologies: I misread the part of the thread this was referring to.
The trouble with that 'incremental approach' a la Strategic alternative is
A - it demanded more of King's Cross that there was room (as pointed out already)
B - it needed all the elements in place for there to be useful outcomes - the incrementality is but a mirage
C - it would have involved more than a decade of heavy disruptions
You need all of
- More capacity at Euston
- bypassing all of WCML south
- More capacity at Birmingham
- Connection onto the WCML north of Birmingham
To be able to deliver useful outputs. Otherwise you just create localised capacity for trains to have nowhere to run to or from.
And this is exactly what Phase 1 delivers.
As it happens, this most important and the most difficult part of HS2 IS being built.
But the Strategic approach wont actually relieve capacity constraints at Kings Cross because the Eastern leg of HS2 has been cancelled, or capacity constraints at the southern end of the ECML (or MML for that matter). So HS2 promised the gold standard and won't now deliver.
I understand the point about disruption and that is a more difficult point to argue against, although the experience of the last WCML upgrade shouldn't be a reason to run scared from the route upgrade option entirely.
We put all the eggs in one basket with HS2 and have arguably ended up with an over specified southern WCML bypass and no projects to deliver upgrades elsewhere that could have secured some of the benefits HS2 was intended to deliver, even if they were bronze standard.
The Netherlands do not have a comparable geography (IMHO). You might compare the south of England with the Netherlands; everything from the Midlands north is quite different (and that can easily be seen in that the Netherlands did not try to build a national HS network). Also, too much emphasis is put on frequency. Outside of the major conurbations, 2tph (which is what Switzerland does - not 1 tph) is almost always fine, provided you have enough capacity (meaning: if your trains run at 2 tph at maximum length - which of course in the UK will always be less than on the continent - and are overcrowded, then you should think about increasing frequence. Running 4 tph everywhere simply costs too much in terms of the infrastructure you have to provide.)
A bit more on frequency. With the full Y network, Birmingham HS2 services to the north would be
- 3tph Manchester (official plans have 2 but I believe there's the long term market for 3, and from a timetabling perspective 3tph Birmingham - Manchester takes the vacated paths of the 3tph London - Birmingham paths)
- 2tph Leeds
- 2tph Sheffield
- 2tph Nottingham
- 1tph Scotland via WCML
- 1tph Newcastle via York
That's 9tph. Add the 3tph Birmingham - London that's a 14tph operating frequency when each route only has a basic frequency. This is due to the Dutch-like dense network of cities. And these cities are big so easily justify their point-to-point services. They would be 200m trains minimum so not your typical UK regional toy trains. These are relatively conservative frequencies compared to equivalent Dutch flows. We are connecting Birmingham not with Graz and Klagenfurt, but with Vienna, Vienna, Vienna and Vienna.
At this operating frequency the 14tph need to be spread around the clockface, which means you can't do a Zwolle-style takt where services from Bristol alternate northern destinations. The beauty of HS2 is that the core market is strong enough that the system design doesn't need to have too much backward compatibility. We can run standard-sized continental trains from Birmingham to London, Manchester and Leeds. This leaves the Sheffield, Scotland and Newcastle paths as classic compatible sets.
There's no reason to restrict the Scotland and Newcastle paths to forming a strictly half-hourly pattern as their paths should be informed by the respective WCML and ECML structures (north of Wigan and north of York). So the only realistic pairing candidates for the 2tph from the south are Sheffield and Nottingham.
From the south, the market is 2tph from Bristol and 2tph from Cardiff in totality. It makes sense to have services via New Street to continue as classic semi-fast via Tamworth, Burton and Derby. With a 2+2tph pattern you can flight them and do a Zwolle-style takt interchange at Bromsgrove, so 2tph go to New Street and 2tph go to Moor Street.
So the maximum you can do is 2tph from the South West to either Sheffield or Nottingham. I'm not spending additional £bns on a disruptive underground through station for that frequency.
Switzerland is hourly building block with selected combined 2tph journey opportunities in many places. Even Zurich Geneva is hourly direct via Bern and hourly via Bienne with a change. This is very different from the Netherlands where (bar very few exceptions) the basic building block is 2tph and higher combined frequencies are very common.
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But the Strategic approach wont actually relieve capacity constraints at Kings Cross because the Eastern leg of HS2 has been cancelled, or capacity constraints at the southern end of the ECML (or MML for that matter). So HS2 promised the gold standard and won't now deliver.
We haven't got nothing. We've got a significant chunk of something. That alone is worth celebrating.
HS2 London - Birmingham will go into operation. Once ECML comes under the spotlight again, do you
A) try to expand King's Cross, do Ally Pally - Biggleswade, try to bypass complex freight areas that are Peterborough or Donny, or
B) just build Birmingham - Leeds/Church Fenton and use the spare 6 paths on the bit of HS2 in operation
It seems to me that an A or V shaped network, with two London termini and one WCML and one ECML high speed line, then allows the HS2 London-Birmingham line to serve the WCML destinations more frequently.
It seems to me that an A or V shaped network, with two London termini and one WCML and one ECML high speed line, then allows the HS2 London-Birmingham line to serve the WCML destinations more frequently.
Why? That'd just be greedy. WCML destinations don't need more than 12tph. An entirely new line into London will be far more expensive than just doing Birmingham - Church Fenton. Where would the ECML London terminus go?
Presumably there was a second place winner in the HS2 options report which selected Euston- otherwise, it wouldn't nessicarily have to be the Intercity/LDHS/High Speed trains which get diverted out of King's Cross- perhaps HSEast would get several of the terminus platforms, and some suburban trains would get moved into an underground terminus, like the new Grand Central platforms in New York?
I think, if the Birmingham and Manchester sections are built, 1hr 8min journeys to the latter in particular will quickly prove transformative- leading, for example, to lots of communiting in both directions.
Presumably there was a second place winner in the HS2 options report which selected Euston- otherwise, it wouldn't nessicarily have to be the Intercity/LDHS/High Speed trains which get diverted out of King's Cross- perhaps HSEast would get several of the terminus platforms, and some suburban trains would get moved into an underground terminus, like the new Grand Central platforms in New York?
I see the problem with providing 400m platforms at Kings Cross, and I also assume that any LDHS/Intercity/High speed terminus has to be at least as well located as the station it substitutes for. (I wonder if anyone's done a study into what 400m platforms there would look like- would you need to open out part of the Copenhagen tunnels to get reasonable approach speeds?)
I think it depends on how quickly uses are found for the other platforms and paths at Euston. The finished HS2 terminus there will probably be difficult to expand, wheras any eastern line will have to find new platforms somewhere. I think post-70s british railways have tended to find higher frequencies and speeds build custom very successfully, so presumably there'd be the temptation to maximise frequencies to Birmingham and Manchester.
Sometimes I get the feeling that people would be saying that HS2 Phase 1 would be the most important part of the project if Phase 2 was the only bit built.
HS2 London - Birmingham will go into operation. Once ECML comes under the spotlight again, do you
A) try to expand King's Cross, do Ally Pally - Biggleswade, try to bypass complex freight areas that are Peterborough or Donny, or
B) just build Birmingham - Leeds/Church Fenton and use the spare 6 paths on the bit of HS2 in operation
For A) also add doing something between Huntingdon and Peterboro’, Newark, at York, Darlington - Newcastle, Newcastle, and north of Newcastle if you want more or faster services there.
I never understood handsacre as there just putting the WCML bottle neck further up the lime just before rugeley if it was me and they needed that junction I would of made it a bit further up and make 2 spurs at little and great haywood so the wcml traffic is then split with some trains going on the Stafford line upto crewe and some going via stoke on trent to manchester like this image below
And I would also atleast carried on HS2 to crewe anyway
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Also as seen on image although not a big issue I'm curious why they went that way around lichfield and not my way as it looks like it's more longer and less direct but nit that it really matters only be a few seconds different
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Then also potentially I mean i get why phase 2 towards leeds starts at Birmingham to allow more connections to a big city however I would of considered making a branch if HS2 near Brackley and using as much of the old alignment (Great central) as I can taking it past Rugby and lutterworth and creating a spur one going onto the midland mainline at just below south wigston for a Leicester connection and one continouing on sort of following the M1 up towards east midlands airport to where the old proposals join up again going through longeaton and uo towards leeds
I never understood handsacre as there just putting the WCML bottle neck further up the lime just before rugeley if it was me and they needed that junction I would of made it a bit further up and make 2 spurs at little and great haywood so the wcml traffic is then split with some trains going on the Stafford line upto crewe and some going via stoke on trent to manchester like this image below
And I would also atleast carried on HS2 to crewe anyway
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Also as seen on image although not a big issue I'm curious why they went that way around lichfield and not my way as it looks like it's more longer and less direct but nit that it really matters only be a few seconds different
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Then also potentially I mean i get why phase 2 towards leeds starts at Birmingham to allow more connections to a big city however I would of considered making a branch if HS2 near Brackley and using as much of the old alignment (Great central) as I can taking it past Rugby and lutterworth and creating a spur one going onto the midland mainline at just below south wigston for a Leicester connection and one continouing on sort of following the M1 up towards east midlands airport to where the old proposals join up again going through longeaton and uo towards leeds
Does putting the link the other side of Rugeley then make it too close to Colwich Junction? The plan was that after Phase 2a opened there would only be 1tph going via Handsacre, so you wouldn’t build multiple junctions to serve traffic that isn’t there after a few years.
I think too many spurs risks importing more delays from the classic network. Whereas concentrating on a few core routes as HS2 does means you’re getting good use out of the expensive new infrastructure.
Aren’t you getting tired of writing pages and pages for someone you must consider a moron? Really? You think that I believe that Manchester is the UK equivalent of Klagenfurt? Really? Have you ever been to Klagenfurt? It‘s not even the equivalent of Gloucester
But Honestly, this is all a bit of filibustering from your side. I have said my piece, and remain convinced by it. You can easily ignore it and think that I don’t know anything. It doesn’t really matter to me.
Please understand that I’ve never been opposed to a fast link between London and Birmingham, as part of faster links between London and Manchester/Leeds. I’ve only ever been disappointed that prioritising London-Birmingham (and no further) as Phase 1, has undeniably led directly to the demise of the links between Birmingham and Manchester/Leeds.
This is why I started this thread. Not to find ways of tweaking things here and there, but to see whether we’ve learned anything with hindsight. Knowing what we know now, ie that the costs increased to such a huge extent that Government saw fit to abandon the northern sections of HS2, could we have done things differently?
I would suggest that Birmingham to Manchester AND Leeds (ie both Phases 2a and 2b) could (if started when the present Phase 1 started) have been completed for around the ORIGINAL cost estimate for Phase 1, AND been fully operational by now. If this had happened, the construction of Birmingham-London would probably be underway by now, because the whole of HS2 might well have carried the goodwill of the public.
Not just this, but if Phases 2a and 2b had been open by now, then it’s perfectly possible that London-Birmingham would have been constructed and operational BEFORE the present opening date (ie before 2033 - or thereabouts).
As it is, the public has been very significantly alienated, and yet with different Phasing as I have suggested, they might have been very much on board.
The dogged thinking that Phase 1 must be London-Birmingham at all costs, has resulted in all manner of failures and costs. I’ve given above, a scenario whereby Phase 1 might have been completed and opened just as soon as it will be anyway, but with Phases 2a and 2b open aswell, and with the general public very much more supportive of rail advances than they actually are today.
So to go back to your point, there might not have even be any need to discuss your contention that “These two things are not opposed”.
But hey ho, a good many members of this forum are so convinced that Phase 1 could only ever London-Birmingham, that even with hindsight, they don’t seem able to comprehend anything else.
I would suggest that Birmingham to Manchester AND Leeds (ie both Phases 2a and 2b) could (if started when the present Phase 1 started) have been completed for around the ORIGINAL cost estimate for Phase 1, AND been fully operational by now.
If we've learned anything in hindsight, it's that we can't do large rail projects to budget or to timetable. See also crossrail. It's almost at the point that putting any resources into budgeting and project planning is completely pointless, because it's just going to be very wrong.
That makes your assertion quoted wildly optimistic wishful thinking. There's no evidence for it.
But hey ho, a good many members of this forum are so convinced that Phase 1 could only ever London-Birmingham, that even with hindsight, they don’t seem able to comprehend anything else.
Once again, you're demonstrating an inability to imagine anything else. Which is why future projects will fail too, because so many people simply cannot think outside their box.
Maybe HS2 should have been a fully underground, 450mph, 30tph maglev to brand new, entirely underground stations in the centre of every major city in the UK (but not Liverpool, obviously). To be sure about the NIMBY problem, we'd give Aylesbury two whole stations.
Pretty sure there'd be no planning objections to that, meaning the whole thing could be done in a couple of years for about £50m. After all, the Chinese have done it.
Please understand that I’ve never been opposed to a fast link between London and Birmingham, as part of faster links between London and Manchester/Leeds. I’ve only ever been disappointed that prioritising London-Birmingham (and no further) as Phase 1, has undeniably led directly to the demise of the links between Birmingham and Manchester/Leeds.
This is why I started this thread. Not to find ways of tweaking things here and there, but to see whether we’ve learned anything with hindsight. Knowing what we know now, ie that the costs increased to such a huge extent that Government saw fit to abandon the northern sections of HS2, could we have done things differently?
I would suggest that Birmingham to Manchester AND Leeds (ie both Phases 2a and 2b) could (if started when the present Phase 1 started) have been completed for around the ORIGINAL cost estimate for Phase 1, AND been fully operational by now. If this had happened, the construction of Birmingham-London would probably be underway by now, because the whole of HS2 might well have carried the goodwill of the public.
Not just this, but if Phases 2a and 2b had been open by now, then it’s perfectly possible that London-Birmingham would have been constructed and operational BEFORE the present opening date (ie before 2033 - or thereabouts).
As it is, the public has been very significantly alienated, and yet with different Phasing as I have suggested, they might have been very much on board.
The dogged thinking that Phase 1 must be London-Birmingham at all costs, has resulted in all manner of failures and costs. I’ve given above, a scenario whereby Phase 1 might have been completed and opened just as soon as it will be anyway, but with Phases 2a and 2b open aswell, and with the general public very much more supportive of rail advances than they actually are today.
So to go back to your point, there might not have even be any need to discuss your contention that “These two things are not opposed”.
But hey ho, a good many members of this forum are so convinced that Phase 1 could only ever London-Birmingham, that even with hindsight, they don’t seem able to comprehend anything else.
The GDP figures per city region don't support it being so Birmingham centric:
GDP (billions)
London (Greater London)
617.9
Manchester (Greater Manchester)
110.2
Birmingham (West Midlands)
92.4
Leeds (West Yorkshire)
81.3
Liverpool (Liverpool City Region)
53.6
Edinburgh
36.5
East Midland Gateway (Nott, Leicester, Derby)
35.7
Glasgow
31.8
IF Birmingham was a through station and at a v short walk from New Street it might have made sense, but given neither of these were achievable then it should have brought the whole Phase 1 plan up for scrutiny
The GDP figures per city region don't support it being so Birmingham centric:
GDP (billions)
London (Greater London)
617.9
Manchester (Greater Manchester)
110.2
Birmingham (West Midlands)
92.4
Leeds (West Yorkshire)
81.3
Liverpool (Liverpool City Region)
53.6
Edinburgh
36.5
East Midland Gateway (Nott, Leicester, Derby)
35.7
Glasgow
31.8
IF Birmingham was a through station and at a v short walk from New Street it might have made sense, but given neither of these were achievable then it should have brought the whole Phase 1 plan up for scrutiny
Yes, my sympathies with Birmingham were in attempt to go along with those whose undying allegiance is to WCML relief (particularly the southern section).
There's actually plenty more that could be discussed
I would suggest that Birmingham to Manchester AND Leeds (ie both Phases 2a and 2b) could (if started when the present Phase 1 started) have been completed for around the ORIGINAL cost estimate for Phase 1, AND been fully operational by now.
I really am confused; earlier on when I thought you said that Phase 1 should have been Birmingham - Manchester / Leeds, you said (I think) that Phase 1 should have been London - Manchester. Now you’re back to saying it should have been Birmingham - Manchester and Leeds. Is that right?
Secondly, it would be good to see your thinking on how Birmingham - Manchester and Birmingham - Leeds could have been built for the original cost of Euston - Handsacre / Birmingham, and have been open by now, especially given HM Treasury annual spending limits, what the cost increases have been caused by, and the difficulties faced in the consents process.
Thats harsh. The business case work demonstrated exactly that, namely that doing Phase 2 first without Phase 1 had a very poor BCR. Simply because the additional capacity provided into Manchester and Leeds was a) not as much as it would be with Phase 1 and b) worth less per path released (by a long way) than the paths into London.
It’s not about imagination, it’s simple economics. And it was all tested when HS2 was being developed. I accept that you won’t know the full detail of what was considered and how; very few people do other than those involved in developing it, writing the papers, and those that read them. But that is the same for any major project, I can assure you.
From what I saw and heard from those people involved, it is my opinon, based on working on similar types of project (and HS2 early on) that a proposal to work north to south would have needed to had specific “direction” from Government (this is a term to describe proceeding with something for which there is no financial or societal case) at least a decade ago. And then continued similar “directions” through each change of Government (including when the Conservatives were changing PMs frequently). The most likely upshot of this is that it would have been cancelled in full, as it is simply not credible that 3 or 4 successive governments would all reach the same conclusion on delivering a project - namely HS2 Phase 2 without Phase 1 - that makes UK society worse off.
Aren’t you getting tired of writing pages and pages for someone you must consider a moron? Really? You think that I believe that Manchester is the UK equivalent of Klagenfurt? Really? Have you ever been to Klagenfurt? It‘s not even the equivalent of Gloucester
But Honestly, this is all a bit of filibustering from your side. I have said my piece, and remain convinced by it. You can easily ignore it and think that I don’t know anything. It doesn’t really matter to me.
I do not consider you a moron, far from it. Similarly I never thought or implied you were anti-British.
You made a specific charge that 'too much emphasis is put on frequency'. I responded to that point, and explained why I think your point was made on false premises. This conversation would be a lot easier if you simply engaged with the substance, rather than erecting straw men.
At the end of the day, West Midlands never voiced much disquiet about the Curzon Street proposal and Moor Street was a proposal of their own. Throughout the scheme development history the consistent hawkish body was Treasury. Why would doing something the West Midlands haven't asked for while pi$$ing off Treasury increase the chance of delivery? You still haven't answered this question.
As Bald Rick has explained, starting a scheme with poor value-for-money (as measured by Treasury criteria), either by starting from the north or adding bloat, would have needed Ministerial Direction, and it's highly unlikely that such Ministerial Direction would have been given by successive governments.
ie that the costs increased to such a huge extent that Government saw fit to abandon the northern sections of HS2, could we have done things differently?
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