High Speed Two (HS2) discussion

[Waverley125]

Personally I think it's obvious that, once HS2 west is built, there'll be a good CBR for a 'cut the corner' line between London & Nottingham, sending trains for Leeds, Sheffield & Newcastle due north instead of 'round the corner' via Birmingham International.

Then extend HS2 (E) from Leeds to Newcastle & Edinburgh, so have two routes to Scotland, one west coast, probably calling only at the Manchester Parkway (Preston?) and Carlisle, and one via the east for Nottingham, Sheffield, Leeds & Newcastle.

 

[LE Greys]

Personally I think it's obvious that, once HS2 west is built, there'll be a good CBR for a 'cut the corner' line between London & Nottingham, sending trains for Leeds, Sheffield & Newcastle due north instead of 'round the corner' via Birmingham International.

Then extend HS2 (E) from Leeds to Newcastle & Edinburgh, so have two routes to Scotland, one west coast, probably calling only at the Manchester Parkway (Preston?) and Carlisle, and one via the east for Nottingham, Sheffield, Leeds & Newcastle.

Another option (which I naturally would prefer) would be to run it south from Leeds and York roughly along the Towns Line route to Peterborough, accross the Fens to Cambridge, then to Stratford via Stansted, as proposed by Greengauge 21. Stansted, Cambridge and Peterborough would act as "collector" stations for passengers going north from East Anglia and the Home Counties, to avoid the need to travel into London. Some trains could potentially split from the route at Peterborough and run to King's Cross via Stevenage, and there would be several access points to the Towns Line along the way. This almost exactly mirrors what happened in the 1850s when they built the Great Northern. A typical Edinburgh service might stop at one of the three collector stations, then call at Leeds or York, (Darlington maybe,) Newcastle and Berwick, while a typical Newcastle service would definitely stop at one of the collectors, then (Doncaster maybe,) Leeds/York, Darlington and Durham (using the old line).

I have a feeling that the eastern side of HS2 will go near Nottingham anyway, so this would give the east a quicker route north than the west. Stopping at only one or two stations might get the time to Edinburgh down to 2½ hours, meaning potentially Paris in 5 hours.

 

[tbtc]

Personally I would think that it would make sense for the HS2 route up to Glasgow and Edinburgh should go up the west coast/side of the country and spit into a second Y in south Scotland as the WCML does, as this would give a faster journey time then going via the east coast and the eastern side of the Y.

However I would have 2 tph from Edinburgh (as there are a lot of the time now) with one going fast via the western route and WCML before that is built, and the second train going via the ECML, or any eastern extension of the HS2 Y, serving the stations along the way, ie Newcastle, Darlington and York, possibly also Berwick.

I agree.

Remembering that Edinburgh is west of Carlisle, the fastest way from the Scottish capital to the English capital is to avoid Berwick/Newcastle etc.

 

[Nym]

How about the Waverley route opened as part of HS2?

 

[Batman]

I would be interested to know what these "number of reasons" are to be honest. I can't work out a reason why it wouldn't work other than not being able to fit it in the space or perhaps signaling issues.

My guess is that the reasons would be that it would be easier to terminate local trains off the Camp Hill line at Moor Street, there isn't a strong enough business case for reopening the Sutton Park Line (appart from the Aldridge extension on the Walsall line) and locals from the Leicester/Tamworth lines need to run through New Street as part of current or planned cross city services. So the long and short of the matter is that there will only be demand for 3 locals tph from Curzon Street, 1 to Stanstead Airport, 1 to Leicester and 1 to Nottingham. All of those can be catered for at New Street on existing infrasturcture and platform capacity.

 

[LE Greys]

How about the Waverley route opened as part of HS2?

Difficult terrain to build in, but possible. My version would access the general route via Coldstream from Newcastle, but that's my East-centric mind thinking. Probably, using the Carstairs line, accessed from the old avoiding line to pass over/under the WCML, would be a good temporary solution. I'd assume that HS2 would follow the M74/WCML corridor for much of the Carlisle-Glasgow route, but with a number of tunnels to cut corners and increase speed. It would probably rejoin the old route somewhere near Motherwell.

 

[HSTEd]

A route via the East Coast from Leeds further north has the benefit that it gets you Newcastle for free and large parts of it can be built on relatively flat terrain (especially on the approach to Edinburgh and around York)

Then again I would build a HS3 rather than extending the Leeds Line any further north, apart from maybe a connector to York.
Said route would also take the Scottish traffic out of Euston and thus relieve it from the insane pressures that will be placed upon it by HS2 to Leeds and Manchester.

 

[DaveNewcastle]

A route via the East Coast from Leeds further north has the benefit that it gets you Newcastle for free and large parts of it can be built on relatively flat terrain (especially on the approach to Edinburgh and around York) . . . .

The steepest gradient on the current ECML is right there, between Berwick and Dunbar at Grantshouse.
The highest point on the current ECML is right there, between Berwick and Dunbar at Grantshouse.

Remembering that Edinburgh is west of Carlisle, the fastest way from the Scottish capital to the English capital is to avoid Berwick/Newcastle etc.

Exactly!

Even a straight line between Newcastle and Ednburgh is about 18% shorter than that coastal route with its summit and plumetting gradients near Grantshouse.

 

[Nym]

Gradients don't matter so much as curves on HS track...

 

[DaveNewcastle]

Gradients don't matter so much as curves on HS track...

I will agree, but as I'm sure you know, the sharpest curves on the current ECML are between Newcastle and Edinburgh. There's the 90degree curve onto Newcastle's King Edward Bridge, the 90degree curve into Morpeth (from the south), and the 90degree curve round Ayton Hill (its not much under 90 round Dunbar or Widdringon).

Even if the terrain in those areas can be addressed, there are only slightly less torturous curves between Darlington and Newcastle.
The upshot, in my mind, is that it becomes much more realistic to connect Yorkshire (Leeds or York) with east Central Scotland (Edinburgh) by other routes. 'Realistic' meaning that benefits accruing (in my estimate within 30 years and thereafter) will justify the costs of a more direct and completely new Yorkshire - Edinburgh rail link.

Sadly, the political framework between the two nations is not currently disposed to agree on such joint developments.

 

[Nym]

It is indeed easyer up the east coast than the west, especially since between York, Northallerton and pretty much all the way to Newcastle you can go in a dead straight line...

 

[HSTEd]

Routing trains to Scotland via the West Coast High Speed route (as it seems that HS2 is now being generalised as meaning the entire network) risks overloading the system and forcing the quadroupling of the line, which would be rather shortsighted in my opinion.

Building a second route to the north, (the "East Coast" Route) would allow Scotland-London services to operate seperately from the London-West Midlands trains and spread the passenger load onto a second terminus that looks as if it will likely be underutilised after HS2 to Leeds opens.

It also serves Newcastle without requiring a spur off on its own and could be coupled to the West Midlands route via Leeds and York using the current "Y" proposal.

You could even put in one of those "high speed" moving walkways to allow Euston to join St Pancras and King's Cross in the huge passenger complex that seems to be developing on Euston road.

If the objective is to reach Newcastle and Scotland at the lowest cost possible the cheapest route is undoubtedly in the East where it can be built over flat open fields rather than trying to force a way north through the Lake District from Manchester, which is undoubtedly a more controversial route with regards to environmental factors.

The Endgame would likely include a Manchester-North route but this would be over a longer timeframe, as London-Glasgow via Edinburgh would likely be sufficient in the medium term, with the final map looking more like a capital A than a Y.

 

[alanf]

Last time i looked Edinburgh was east of Carlisle Whatever happened to the breaking news on BBCnews24s on Saturday that HS2 was on hold till January. I definately saw it and hadn't been drinking but it's never been mentioned since. I wonder if the beeb have been fooled

Alan

 

[jopsuk]

Last time i looked Edinburgh was east of Carlisle

You haven't looked very hard then. The centre of Edinburgh is at 3°9′37″W. The centre of Carlisle is at 2° 56′ 38.04″ W. The country is not at the angle you think it is.

 

[Waverley125]

Getting from Leeds to Newcastle is pretty easy given that, aside from a few Hils on the way to Wetherby, the line is basically dead straight & dead flat, and there's the old route due west of Central to bring HS2 into Newcastle along, meaning it could be almost Virgin until Cental station.

Once you get north of Newcastle (Cramlington) you can turn Northwest and head up past Rothbury & Wooler to Edinburgh.

Another option (which I naturally would prefer) would be to run it south from Leeds and York roughly along the Towns Line route to Peterborough, accross the Fens to Cambridge, then to Stratford via Stansted, as proposed by Greengauge 21. Stansted, Cambridge and Peterborough would act as "collector" stations for passengers going north from East Anglia and the Home Counties, to avoid the need to travel into London. Some trains could potentially split from the route at Peterborough and run to King's Cross via Stevenage, and there would be several access points to the Towns Line along the way. This almost exactly mirrors what happened in the 1850s when they built the Great Northern. A typical Edinburgh service might stop at one of the three collector stations, then call at Leeds or York, (Darlington maybe,) Newcastle and Berwick, while a typical Newcastle service would definitely stop at one of the collectors, then (Doncaster maybe,) Leeds/York, Darlington and Durham (using the old line).

No, no, no. Cambridge & Peterborough are simply too close to London to be stopping there now. Their economies are completely different from the northern cities, given they are glorified commuter towns for London (as are most of East anglia). What Cambridge & Peterborough need is massively increased capacity on their existing lines to London & to each other, as well as the connections on the classic lines that HS2 avoiding them will bring.

The sensible 'east' alignment to be built after the existing one is:

Euston-Nottingham-Sheffield-Leeds-Newcastle-Edinburgh

 

[HSTEd]

Why do you want to put everything into Euston when there is a station a few hundred yards away that will be standing almost empty once the bulk of its Suburban, Scotland and Leeds traffic is removed?

 

[LE Greys]

No, no, no. Cambridge & Peterborough are simply too close to London to be stopping there now. Their economies are completely different from the northern cities, given they are glorified commuter towns for London (as are most of East anglia). What Cambridge & Peterborough need is massively increased capacity on their existing lines to London & to each other, as well as the connections on the classic lines that HS2 avoiding them will bring.

The sensible 'east' alignment to be built after the existing one is:

Euston-Nottingham-Sheffield-Leeds-Newcastle-Edinburgh

So if you live in Norwich and want to go to Glasgow, you still have to go into London to do so. :-x
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
The point is that stations in East Anglia would have a huge catchment area, most of Norfolk and Suffolk, plus Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire. Sending them into London, putting them on the Circle Line and surfacing at Euston Square to go to all points north would simply encourage the growth of Norwich Airport. Besides, I'd be looking at having several trains bypass London altogether and run right through to/from Paris.

 

[Nym]

So if you live in Norwich and want to go to Glasgow, you still have to go into London to do so. :-x

Erm... no

You can go to Manchester Piccadilly and change there for a Glasgow train, or change at Peterbrough and Edinbrugh, or change at Sheffeild, or change at Warrington, although that involves a walk, plenty of not london options there for glasgow...

 

[LE Greys]

Erm... no

You can go to Manchester Piccadilly and change there for a Glasgow train, or change at Peterbrough and Edinbrugh, or change at Sheffeild, or change at Warrington, although that involves a walk, plenty of not london options there for glasgow...

Well yes, but think about it for a minute. Imagine that the majority of Edinburgh trains are running via HS2, with the only ECML Edinburgh train being a semi-fast via the Towns Line. That reduces the speed of the Peterborough option. Currently, the fastest Norwich-Glasgow is 6 hrs 26 with changes at Peterborough and Edinburgh. That goes out of the window with the extra 30-odd minutes that all the stops will cost. The fastest WCML-based service is 7 hrs (assuming you leave at 11:00 and connect to the 13:30 from Euston. Cutting 90 minutes off that gives you a 5 hr 30 journey, a gain of only an hour. That's an hour plus the inconvenience of going via London, you lose half an hour if you stay with the ECML because of the extra stops. Crossing the country to Manchester takes even longer. Putting a collector station at Stansted (or Cambridge, having both might be going a bit too far) could potentially cut the time to 4 hrs 30, although 5 hrs is more likely. That's without a London connection.

Northbound, I'd be looking at something resembling this:
Paris-Stratford-York-Newcasle-Edinburgh-Glasgow
Paris-Stratford-Stansted-Leeds-Darlington-Newcastle-Edinburgh
Brussels-Stratford-York-Newcasle-Edinburgh-Glasgow
Brussels-Stratford-Peterborough-Leeds-Darlington-Newcastle-Edinburgh
London-Stansted-York-Darlington-Durham (old line)-Newcastle
London-Peterborough-Leeds-Darlington-Durham (old line)-Newcastle

Alternate the last two between Leeds and York and the Paris/Brussels services between Stansted and Peterborough. Stratford stops are for passport control. You also have the potential of running some additional trains via the ECML south of Peterborough, but this would involve running through Welwyn. The extra capacity could be used to divert some of the Leeds and York semi-fasts onto the new line, using something resembling the 395, but even without that you have a train every ten minutes. You also have far fewer expresses passing through Welwyn. The point is to use the East Anglian stations like Ashford and Ebbsfleet. Ashford is smaller than Cambridge, but the catchment area is about the same in terms of places such as Tonbridge. Running the eastern side of the current Y route via Nottingham might be very helpful, but the whole eastern side of the country loses out.

 

[Nym]

If I was building HS3, I would have stations at Cambridge or Standsted and Peterbrough though... and it would be more than 2 track to Peterbrough to have 'javelin' services running. And classic compatable services onto Cambridge if the station isn't there, onwards to Kings Lynn.

 

[Waverley125]

all this is based on the idea that current ECML services will all but stop.....they won't.

There's still be a good service to Edinburgh specifically for places like Peterborough, Stevenage, Grantham, Doncaster, Darlington etc. not on HS2. The difference HS2 will make is that it will allow more stops at places between centres, as end-to-end passengers are now on HS2.

So Retford, Newark, Northallerton & Morpeth will all get a better service, while on the WCML you'll see Rugby, Nuneaton, Tamworth, Lichfield & Stafford get their Scotland & North of England services back.

 

[tbtc]

The point is that stations in East Anglia would have a huge catchment area, most of Norfolk and Suffolk, plus Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire

It may be a "huge catchment area", but its spread over hundreds of square miles, making it difficult to serve with one train station.

HS2 is intended to serve areas of high population where it is most efficient.

 

[sprinterguy]

all this is based on the idea that current ECML services will all but stop.....they won't.

There's still be a good service to Edinburgh specifically for places like Peterborough, Stevenage, Grantham, Doncaster, Darlington etc. not on HS2. The difference HS2 will make is that it will allow more stops at places between centres, as end-to-end passengers are now on HS2.

So Retford, Newark, Northallerton & Morpeth will all get a better service, while on the WCML you'll see Rugby, Nuneaton, Tamworth, Lichfield & Stafford get their Scotland & North of England services back.

I'm not sure that the capacity north of Newcastle will allow services to Edinburgh from both HS2 and the classic ECML. I suppose it depends how many of the HS2 services marked as running to Newcastle will run beyond there to Scotland and how many will actually terminate at Newcastle.

Your point stands that the opening of HS2 to Leeds would not remove very many of the existing Intercity departures from Kings Cross; they'll just have more stops added into them; but we might be seeing more of those trains terminating at York or Newcastle.

 

[MK Tom]

So Retford, Newark, Northallerton & Morpeth will all get a better service, while on the WCML you'll see Rugby, Nuneaton, Tamworth, Lichfield & Stafford get their Scotland & North of England services back.

Will they though? At the moment Milton Keynes-Glasgow isn't a through journey (bar one at 6AM) but it's pretty fast changing at Crewe. If it became a through journey but stopped at everywhere on the Trent Valley line, that would be less beneficial for MK than the current setup.

 

[Waverley125]

yeah, but the job of HS2 isn't to make every journey faster from ever place, but to aggregate the maximum potential benefit. So though it's still fast changing at Crewe, it'd probably be faster changing at Birmingham with HS2.

However, given that most people who don't inhabit this forum are very averse to changing, at are much more likely to use direct service, MK getting a clockface hourly service to Glasgow will be better than the Status Quo. I also don't imagine it'll stop everywhere, probably a pattern like Watford, Milton Keynes, Rugby, Nuneaton/Tamworth, Rugeley/Lichfield alternating hourly, Stafford, Crewe, Warrington, Wigan, Preston, Lancaster, Oxenholme, Penrith, Carlisle, Lockerbie, Motherwell.

You'll probably also see other stations without major IC services (e.g. Bletchley) get them back, same on the ECML (through services to Hull hourly, with Lincoln, Harrogate, Middlesbrough & Scarborough back on the timetable).

It's true the ECML north of Newcastle will be a bottleneck, but any sensible programme of building would see this eradicated as part of the next set of extensions to HS2 (i.e. Leeds-Tees Parkway-Newcastle-Edinburgh). You'd then get more through services north of Newcastle, plus a better Berwick-Newcastle stoping service, plus the proposed hourly Newcastle-Edinburgh semi-fast (i.e. Cramlington, Morpeth, Pegswood, Alnmouth, Chathill, Berwick upon Tweed, Dunbar, Drem, Prestonpans, Musselburgh, Edinburgh Waverley)

 

[Philip Elliott]

So Retford, Newark, Northallerton & Morpeth will all get a better service, while on the WCML you'll see Rugby, Nuneaton, Tamworth, Lichfield & Stafford get their Scotland & North of England services back.

It is amazing how many pro-HS2 people haven't actually read the official HS2 ltd literature. None of the Trent Valley stations will have a regular service to anywhere north of Crewe. The post HS2 WCML (390s) services are listed as:

1tph EUS-MKC-SOT-MAC-SPT-MAN
1tph EUS-MKC-CRE-CTR (some through to North Wales)
1tph EUS-WFJ-MKC-RUG-COV-BHI-BHM-SND-WVH-STA-CRE-RUN-LIV
1tph EUS-WBQ-WIG-PRE-LAN-OXN/PNR-CAR-GLC
1tph EUS-WFJ-MKC-RUG-NUN-TAM-LTV-STA-CRE
1tph EUS-NMP

 

[Zoe]

1tph EUS-WBQ-WIG-PRE-LAN-OXN/PNR-CAR-GLC

Why not run that service via HS2? If HS2 indeed is going to improve journey times from London to Glasgow then it should be able to reach Warrington before a 390 via the WCML can.

 

[Philip Elliott]

HS2 trains will be very limited stop because they will be slower for 270 miles of the WCML plus they will have less seats than an 11-car 390.

 

[dalmahoyhill]

Hmmm yes slower over the WCML than a pendolino but not as much as you think. obviously they have a non tilt penalty but that is 10-15mph on corners. however Pendolinos are heavier due to all that tilt technology therefore HS2 will probably have better acceleration.
i read somewhere that they suffer a 8min time penalty between birmingham and Glasgow. soend to end the journey time would be similar until HS2 is extended to manchester.

 

[MK Tom]

It is amazing how many pro-HS2 people haven't actually read the official HS2 ltd literature. None of the Trent Valley stations will have a regular service to anywhere north of Crewe. The post HS2 WCML (390s) services are listed as:

1tph EUS-MKC-SOT-MAC-SPT-MAN
1tph EUS-MKC-CRE-CTR (some through to North Wales)
1tph EUS-WFJ-MKC-RUG-COV-BHI-BHM-SND-WVH-STA-CRE-RUN-LIV
1tph EUS-WBQ-WIG-PRE-LAN-OXN/PNR-CAR-GLC
1tph EUS-WFJ-MKC-RUG-NUN-TAM-LTV-STA-CRE
1tph EUS-NMP

I'll eat my complaints if this is true. Non-stop services to Rugby, through services to Liverpool... my only issue with this is the Glasgow service - as others have said if it's not stopping south of Warrington then it needn't run down the WCML. Obviously I'd like it to make an extra call at MKC But if it's using the WCML instead of HS2 then why doesn't it make a couple of stops, say TAM and MKC?