Future of HS2?

[Peter Sarf]

A number of news sites are reporting a freeze of HS2 land sales whilst it considers alternatives, eg

Land sale freeze on axed HS2 route as Government examines rail alternative

A Labour frontbencher says he recognises concerns about connectivity between Birmingham and Manchester.

www.standard.co.uk

Full transcript in Hansard

https://hansard.parliament.uk/lords/2024-10-23/debates/32D6B775-0107-4A92-B94A-AC89CF798136/HS2PurchasedLand

Well that is good news at least.

 

[stevieinselby]

If the North Wales coast line was electrified, could some services be directed to that line, instead of Carlisle?

As there are currently only about 5 trains per day from London to North Wales, plus a handful to Chester, that doesn't suggest there's a huge demand for an improved service.
Electrifying the line would need to be done on its own merits, rather than so that it could be used to dump surplus HS2 capacity that isn't really needed anywhere!
I guess if increasing the number of HS2 trains on the WCML through Carlisle was a problem, you could continue to run the Scotland trains as planned and then just run more frequent 200m sets to Manchester, there's going to be plenty of capacity on the core if we're not building the eastern leg.

 

[poffle]

As there are currently only about 5 trains per day from London to North Wales, plus a handful to Chester, that doesn't suggest there's a huge demand for an improved service.
Electrifying the line would need to be done on its own merits, rather than so that it could be used to dump surplus HS2 capacity that isn't really needed anywhere!
I guess if increasing the number of HS2 trains on the WCML through Carlisle was a problem, you could continue to run the Scotland trains as planned and then just run more frequent 200m sets to Manchester, there's going to be plenty of capacity on the core if we're not building the eastern leg.

The plan was that the Chester/North Wales and Liverpool trains would continue to run on the old WCML between Euston and Crewe to serve Milton Keynes, Stafford etc.

Hence why the Evero trains were procured.

Obviously many of the passengers between London and these areas would probably use HS2 trains between London and Crewe and change at Crewe.

 

[Snow1964]

The plan was that the Chester/North Wales and Liverpool trains would continue to run on the old WCML between Euston and Crewe to serve Milton Keynes, Stafford etc.

Hence why the Evero trains were procured.

Obviously many of the passengers between London and these areas would probably use HS2 trains between London and Crewe and change at Crewe.

In a rational world the high speed service would give a cross platform interchange with the fast/semi-fast service at Crewe, with both trains timed to be there at same time, so can connect to North Wales, and those from Midlands connect to trains going north.

At moment there is no provisional published timescale, so can't tell if a change (even via bridge/subway) at Crewe is few minutes, or nearer an hour. (A similar query has previously come up about changing at Old Oak Common from South West, again could be minutes, or nearly hours wait for connection). No one seems to know yet.

 

[stevieinselby]

In a rational world the high speed service would give a cross platform interchange with the fast/semi-fast service at Crewe, with both trains timed to be there at same time, so can connect to North Wales, and those from Midlands connect to trains going north.

At moment there is no provisional published timescale, so can't tell if a change (even via bridge/subway) at Crewe is few minutes, or nearer an hour. (A similar query has previously come up about changing at Old Oak Common from South West, again could be minutes, or nearly hours wait for connection). No one seems to know yet.

There is a difference between the two.
Based on the full plan, at Crewe there would be 2tph to London, along with 2tph to Liverpool and 1tph to Lancaster. (Apparently you can only go to places beginning with L ... so just Llandudno, not Holyhead any more ). The vast majority of passengers connecting onto HS2 from the NWML would be wanting trains to London, so you could sensibly time that connection.
But at Old Oak Common, there would be trains every 5 minutes or so, all going to different northern destinations. So any one train coming in from the West Country will have good connections to some HS2 destinations but not to others, and it's just the luck of the draw if your train has good connections to Liverpool but not to Leeds which it is that you want to go to.
But with only half a dozen stations on the full plan scheduled to get an hourly service, the vast majority of passengers would have a connection time of no more than 30 minutes.

 

[Peter Sarf]

In a rational world the high speed service would give a cross platform interchange with the fast/semi-fast service at Crewe, with both trains timed to be there at same time, so can connect to North Wales, and those from Midlands connect to trains going north.

At moment there is no provisional published timescale, so can't tell if a change (even via bridge/subway) at Crewe is few minutes, or nearer an hour. (A similar query has previously come up about changing at Old Oak Common from South West, again could be minutes, or nearly hours wait for connection). No one seems to know yet.

With the number of services on the GW mainline and assuming they all stop at Old Oak Common I would suspect that each service can only connect adequately with one or two HS2 services. So some will work while others cannot work. So explain another way - the only way that could work is if all trains are flighted so GW are all within ten minutes each hour and same for HS2. That is never going to be possible of course.

For Crewe it would be nice to think the North Wales and Shrewesbury services could connect with up and down angle Scottish HS2 services. But that would mean three pairs (one in each direction) of services being at Crewe at the same time. Might mean a major recast of timetables in Wales.

EDIT
@stevieinselby got there first !.

 

[Sorcerer]

The plan was that the Chester/North Wales and Liverpool trains would continue to run on the old WCML between Euston and Crewe to serve Milton Keynes, Stafford etc.

Hence why the Evero trains were procured.

Obviously many of the passengers between London and these areas would probably use HS2 trains between London and Crewe and change at Crewe.

I'm pretty sure the Liverpool trains were intended to run partially over HS2 where the services would call at Crewe rather than Stafford if Phase 2A was opened at a frequency of 2tph, with one combined with the Lancaster service. I do not think it was ever intended for them to remain on the classic WCML like the Chester/North Wales services.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I'm pretty sure the Liverpool trains were intended to run partially over HS2 where the services would call at Crewe rather than Stafford if Phase 2A was opened at a frequency of 2tph, with one combined with the Lancaster service. I do not think it was ever intended for them to remain on the classic WCML like the Chester/North Wales services.

Yes. The classic WCML pattern that has usually been proposed by HS2 is two Birmingham, one Manchester, one North Wales. Those would pick up the stops that the Liverpools etc currently have. Plus potentially a second Trent Valley local.