High Speed Two (HS2) discussion

[Wirral]

You put the nail in the coffin of your own argument there. You can only ever make marginal improvements without huge expense and massive disruption.

And they say pricing will be in line with existing services.

The distances involved in the UK do not warrant the cost especially to save 25 minutes to Birmingham.

We should be able to run the existing trains faster with marginal improvements. North West to London is only 2 hours anyway.

I would rather a few disruptions on the West Coast than the blight a new railway is going to cause being built. Connections into London and modelling of stations alone is going to cause massive disruptions anyway, lets not kid ourselves.

People might say pricing will be in line but they also say things wont go over budget but they always do. The current cost to expensive.

There must be an argument out there that high speed railways are just economic folly and can only be run by the State with massive grants, we are not France.

 

[AndyLandy]

The distances involved in the UK do not warrant the cost especially to save 25 minutes to Birmingham.

We should be able to run the existing trains faster with marginal improvements. North West to London is only 2 hours anyway.

I would rather a few disruptions on the West Coast than the blight a new railway is going to cause being built. Connections into London and modelling of stations alone is going to cause massive disruptions anyway, lets not kid ourselves.

People might say pricing will be in line but they also say things wont go over budget but they always do. The current cost to expensive.

There must be an argument out there that high speed railways are just economic folly and can only be run by the State with massive grants, we are not France.

Ahh, that old misconception. HS2 is not actually being built to make journey times faster, it's entirely about capacity. The WCML simply will not be able to handle the expected volumes of passengers on that corridor.

Of course, if you're going to have to build a new railway to handle the capacity, you might as well build a high speed line.

As for costs, we already delivered HS1 on-time and on-budget. Why won't HS2 be the same?

 

[tbtc]

The distances involved in the UK do not warrant the cost especially to save 25 minutes to Birmingham

The "save a few minutes to get to Birmingham" argument is the weakest one against HS2.

I would rather a few disruptions on the West Coast than the blight a new railway is going to cause being built

"A few disruptions? Were you around ten years ago in the days of the five day railway (and the Manchester to London trains running via Leicester)?

There must be an argument out there that high speed railways are just economic folly and can only be run by the State with massive grants, we are not France

All railways in the UK can only be run by massive state support - HS2 isn't unique!

And most big countries are building High Speed lines (or already have a few).

 

[HSTEd]

The distances involved in the UK do not warrant the cost especially to save 25 minutes to Birmingham.

I wasn't aware that 3 trains per hour did the Birmingham run in 70 minutes.
Crack express timings are worthless, you need the typical journey time to make a reasonable comparison.

Cutting the typical Birmingham journey time in half cuts your staff requirement per passenger seat in half as well.

We should be able to run the existing trains faster with marginal improvements. North West to London is only 2 hours anyway.

So are you willing to gut the timetable to allow trains to go a bit faster?
You won't get much more than 140mph on the existing route which will not save very much time at all.

I would rather a few disruptions on the West Coast than the blight a new railway is going to cause being built. Connections into London and modelling of stations alone is going to cause massive disruptions anyway, lets not kid ourselves.

So you want a 5 day railway for years upon years like it was during the WCRM?
Additionally the only existing station that is being remodelled is basically Euston, every other station will be brand new and thus construction works should cause minimal disruption to active railways at those locations.

People might say pricing will be in line but they also say things wont go over budget but they always do. The current cost to expensive.

HS1 did not go overbudget.
But I suppose I must be some sort of paid shill for someone for questioning htis.

There must be an argument out there that high speed railways are just economic folly and can only be run by the State with massive grants, we are not France.

But its not true.
TGV actually covers its costs completely, it is used to prop up the dire regional services run by SNCF.
Costs will be lower thanks to lower staffing, lower maintenance requirements and massively increased passenger counts.

But again I must be some sort of paid shill.

 

[Philip Elliott]

Ahh, that old misconception. HS2 is not actually being built to make journey times faster, it's entirely about capacity. The WCML simply will not be able to handle the expected volumes of passengers on that corridor.

Of course, if you're going to have to build a new railway to handle the capacity, you might as well build a high speed line.

As for costs, we already delivered HS1 on-time and on-budget. Why won't HS2 be the same?

What a railway called high speed 2 is not about speed at all?:roll: The business case is based on journey time reductions not on capacity.

The bovine excrement is on you...

 

[Ironside]

The distances involved in the UK do not warrant the cost especially to save 25 minutes to Birmingham.

We should be able to run the existing trains faster with marginal improvements. North West to London is only 2 hours anyway.

I would rather a few disruptions on the West Coast than the blight a new railway is going to cause being built. Connections into London and modelling of stations alone is going to cause massive disruptions anyway, lets not kid ourselves.

People might say pricing will be in line but they also say things wont go over budget but they always do. The current cost to expensive.

There must be an argument out there that high speed railways are just economic folly and can only be run by the State with massive grants, we are not France.

WCML pretty much saturated with trains so can't speed up the trains without removing trans from the route or abandoning some of the smaller stations. We need the extra capacity of new lines and it's not that much more to build the new lines for high speed.

Things don't always go over budget, HS1 didn't.

High speed lines between big cities don't require as a much subsidy as crumbling classic lines and some even turn a profit.

 

[The Ham]

There must be an argument out there that high speed railways are just economic folly and can only be run by the State with massive grants, we are not France.

IC services (which HS2 will include) are a lot easier to make money on than regional services (other than those primarily going into London), as such the risk of HS2 needing a "massive grant" is fairly slim (other than possibly a small subsidy until Phase 2 is compleate, but even that may not be the case).

 

[AndyLandy]

What a railway called high speed 2 is not about speed at all?:roll: The business case is based on journey time reductions not on capacity.

The bovine excrement is on you...

Nope, that doesn't necesarily follow, that's just a straw man.

It's being built for capacity reasons, but if you're building a new railway, you might as well make it fast, because that's even better for capacity. So, we're building a high speed railway.

High speed is far more exciting and marketable to Joe Public than "some more railway for extra capacity" would ever be, so of course it's promoted on the basis that it's fast. Doesn't mean the driving force isn't capacity.

 

[Philip Elliott]

I wasn't aware that 3 trains per hour did the Birmingham run in 70 minutes.
Crack express timings are worthless, you need the typical journey time to make a reasonable comparison.

Cutting the typical Birmingham journey time in half cuts your staff requirement per passenger seat in half as well.

Current trains stop at three places en route, HS2 will serve 1 (Old Oak is still in London so doesn't count). Therefore the comparison time for 390s is 72-73 minutes.

Cutting journey times by half doesn't just double crew utilisation, that is so simplistic to be utterly laughable. For a start, every extra trip you do has a turn around time. You still have to look at turn averages. The fatigue index will go straight over your head...
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Nope, that doesn't necesarily follow, that's just a straw man.

It's being built for capacity reasons, but if you're building a new railway, you might as well make it fast, because that's even better for capacity. So, we're building a high speed railway.

High speed is far more exciting and marketable to Joe Public than "some more railway for extra capacity" would ever be, so of course it's promoted on the basis that it's fast. Doesn't mean the driving force isn't capacity.

Except it never was - Andrew Adonis made it quite it quite clear it was about reducing domestic aviation when he set up HS2 ltd. Philip Hammond said it was an alternative to Heathrow expansion. Nick Clegg says it is about closing the north/south divide. Georghe Osborne says it is about "investment infrastructure". Richard Bowker (former head of the SRA) recently said "HS2 should be about capacity not speed" - he obviously isn't convinced it has been planned around capacity.

The capacity argument is very much a latter day when people realised the speed argument wouldn't wash with the electorate.

 

[The Ham]

What a railway called high speed 2 is not about speed at all?:roll: The business case is based on journey time reductions not on capacity.

The bovine excrement is on you...

The reason the business case is based on speed is that there is little business value in running trains where everyone can easily get a seat, as such the only way to get a new line (not including speed enhancements) is to wait for the lines to be very heavely used so that there is overcrowding in the off peaks.

Also, there is little point building a new line with sharp bends on it which the trains can not easily get around when running at a speed where they are crusing (i.e. not flat out, nor very slowly). If you want an example of why not just look at what happened in Spain. Therefore if the line is going to be fairly straight anyway (to cope with speeds of about 125mph say) there is little difference in making it being able to cope with speeds of 200mph.

Is should also be noted that a straight railway is cheaper to build than a twisty railway, as the more a line twists about the more land that it needs and the more people it passes near who will need paying for blighting their property.

 

[Philip Elliott]

HS2 is being built for speed. The key problem you miss is that to get those speeds stops you being able to make intermediate calls. As I've said nearly a hundred times, for the station on the existing route to get a service no worse (and no better either) requires 8 out of the current 9 trains per hour to continue running therefore you do not get the capacity release without hammering the services at these stations.

HS2 is anything but straight - it is a continous series of gentle bends and as such can't steer away from population as easily, to suggest routes with tighter bends automatically go nearer populations is just...bizarre.

 

[The Ham]

HS2 is being built for speed. The key problem you miss is that to get those speeds stops you being able to make intermediate calls. As I've said nearly a hundred times, for the station on the existing route to get a service no worse (and no better either) requires 8 out of the current 9 trains per hour to continue running therefore you do not get the capacity release without hammering the services at these stations.

The whole point about HS2 is that it will be like a motorway compared to an A road. Yes there will still be lots of people who want to use the A road for shorter trips, whilst there will be lots who will benefit from not having to slowed down to get where they are wanting to go.

Also those 8 services are less busy and will upset fewer people if they stop at one or two extra stations on the way, meaning that the total number of service could be reduced a little. Alternitively each service could be run with a shorter train, meaning less of a walk for those at the far end of the train when it arrives in London. How much differenace will it make to the train service if a town no longer has 6 trains an hour with 100 spare seats but has 5 with 150 spare seats?

HS2 is anything but straight - it is a continous series of gentle bends and as such can't steer away from population as easily, to suggest routes with tighter bends automatically go nearer populations is just...bizarre.

Gentle bends are fine, the reason tigher bends tend to be associated with centres of popuation is that if you are going through a town or city chances are you'll come up against something you can not move or go under.

Stearing around a city is easy if you have a long enough run up to it. If I want to go from A to B avoiding C, I do not walk up to C walk around it and then carry on, I walk in an almost straight line from A to just to one side of C and then do a gentle cerve to then walk straight to B. It makes my route shorter and easier to do.

 

[tbtc]

As I've said nearly a hundred times, for the station on the existing route to get a service no worse (and no better either) requires 8 out of the current 9 trains per hour to continue running therefore you do not get the capacity release without hammering the services at these stations

By taking most of the "end to end" passengers off the Manchester/ Birmingham/ Liverpool (etc) to London services, you free up a lot of space for passengers to places like Milton Keynes.

By putting more MK passengers on the longer distance services, you free up a lot of space for Northampton passengers.

At the moment, the "nine trains per hour" that you refer to are of very little use to those at the southern end of the WCML (i.e south of Rugby) as they don't make a lot of stops.

 

[Ironside]

The reason the business case is based on speed is that there is little business value in running trains where everyone can easily get a seat, as such the only way to get a new line (not including speed enhancements) is to wait for the lines to be very heavely used so that there is overcrowding in the off peaks.

Also, there is little point building a new line with sharp bends on it which the trains can not easily get around when running at a speed where they are crusing (i.e. not flat out, nor very slowly). If you want an example of why not just look at what happened in Spain. Therefore if the line is going to be fairly straight anyway (to cope with speeds of about 125mph say) there is little difference in making it being able to cope with speeds of 200mph.

Is should also be noted that a straight railway is cheaper to build than a twisty railway, as the more a line twists about the more land that it needs and the more people it passes near who will need paying for blighting their property.

And a shorter straighter line there is also fewer miles of track to monitor and maintain, and less wear and tear than going around corners.

 

[HSTEd]

HS2 is being built for speed. The key problem you miss is that to get those speeds stops you being able to make intermediate calls. As I've said nearly a hundred times, for the station on the existing route to get a service no worse (and no better either) requires 8 out of the current 9 trains per hour to continue running therefore you do not get the capacity release without hammering the services at these stations.

I have demonstrated before that you can run those services far more cheaply than they currently are.
Unless you think that Coventry should get 3 11-coach Pendolinos with massive catering crews for a journey of an hour?

I am not entirely sure why you need 8 of the nine trains?

You can save atleast one on Manchester and two on Birmingham.
You can start splitting trains (Which will be shorter multiple units) at places like MKC and Crewe to preserve paths.


--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Current trains stop at three places en route, HS2 will serve 1 (Old Oak is still in London so doesn't count). Therefore the comparison time for 390s is 72-73 minutes.

No it isn't.

Find me a slot in the timetable for 3 trains per hour running non stop to Birmingham and you can claim that.

Are you seriously proposing withdrawing all the intermediate stations to allow that journey time to be achieved?

Cutting journey times by half doesn't just double crew utilisation, that is so simplistic to be utterly laughable. For a start, every extra trip you do has a turn around time. You still have to look at turn averages. The fatigue index will go straight over your head...

The turnaround time will drop thanks to the reduced need for catering reprovisioning, water filling and the like (since that tends to be related to time in service rather than number of journeys) and the reduced journey times will tend to reduce utilisation of those services per passenger-hour.

And there will be less need for make up time thanks to the more reliable nature of the infrastructure and the lack of conflicting slower moving train services.
You can turn around a train in a couple of minutes using ATO.

 

[Chris125]

As I've said nearly a hundred times, for the station on the existing route to get a service no worse (and no better either) requires 8 out of the current 9 trains per hour to continue running therefore you do not get the capacity release without hammering the services at these stations.

...and as you've been told a hundred times that's a ridiculous argument; whether it's HS2 or the WCRM there will always be winners and losers when it comes to making the most of available capacity, the key is to make sure that there are as many winners and as few losers as possible.

Chris

 

[hs2critic]

Only the most hardcore anti-HS2 campaigner could think that someone would just decide to charge ten times as much for a ticket and expect to make loads of profit. Businesses are there to make money, and the successful ones don't just bump up prices unless they've got a very captive market. HS2 will have to compete with other lines, albeit slower ones, so won't be able to get away with murder.

Well that might be what you think, but repeat that exact statement and substitute "HS2" for "Virgin Trains" and that is what you have now.

And as for - "And they say pricing will be in line with existing services" (Yorkshire Bear)

Well yes, they say that, but you have an incredibly high confidence level in politicians if you believe it.

 

[The Ham]

Well that might be what you think, but repeat that exact statement and substitute "HS2" for "Virgin Trains" and that is what you have now.

But that is because Viirgin has a captive market (as jonmorris0844 said) as that is what they have now, whilst HS2 will not, so will not be able to, unless HS2 is going to be so busy that the trains will be running fairly full in the peaks, in which case it would have been a very good thing to build HS2.

And as for - "And they say pricing will be in line with existing services" (Yorkshire Bear)

Well yes, they say that, but you have an incredibly high confidence level in politicians if you believe it.

OK, assuming polititions set the price high, then no one uses the new services and the TOC then floods the market with advance tickets just to keep themselves going and put bums on seats (from where they also hope for extra revenue from other sales). Therefore it doesn't matter what the politicians do with setting the prices.

 

[Ironside]

But that is because Viirgin has a captive market (as jonmorris0844 said) as that is what they have now, whilst HS2 will not, so will not be able to, unless HS2 is going to be so busy that the trains will be running fairly full in the peaks, in which case it would have been a very good thing to build HS2.



OK, assuming polititions set the price high, then no one uses the new services and the TOC then floods the market with advance tickets just to keep themselves going and put bums on seats (from where they also hope for extra revenue from other sales). Therefore it doesn't matter what the politicians do with setting the prices.

And if that generation were daft enough to demand a minimum price significantly higher than the other lines then that govt would have to bail out the TOC, which would lead to a change in charging policy.

The HS2AA (action alliance against hs2) have the Supreme Court appeal set for the 15th/16th October.

 

[hs2critic]

But that is because Viirgin has a captive market (as jonmorris0844 said) as that is what they have now, whilst HS2 will not, so will not be able to, unless HS2 is going to be so busy that the trains will be running fairly full in the peaks, in which case it would have been a very good thing to build HS2.

OK, assuming polititions set the price high, then no one uses the new services and the TOC then floods the market with advance tickets just to keep themselves going and put bums on seats (from where they also hope for extra revenue from other sales). Therefore it doesn't matter what the politicians do with setting the prices.

In what way is Virgin's market more captive than HS2 will be? There's a time difference of just 7 mins between the fastest Chilterns and regular Virgin services ex Brum - or typically about 20 mins.

HS2 will have a greater difference between it and the Virgin or whoever at the time, especially given the extra stops the latter will have south of Rugby.

The argument about politicians not mattering is fine in theory, but if it were the case, Virgin would already have a logical price structure.

 

[gordonthemoron]

HS2 will be great for me cos we'll get better local services when the expresses move onto it

 

[YorkshireBear]

In what way is Virgin's market more captive than HS2 will be? There's a time difference of just 7 mins between the fastest Chilterns and regular Virgin services ex Brum - or typically about 20 mins.

Chiltern run less regularly with shorter diesel trains. Electric traction attracts more customers. Chiltern have barely made a dent in Virgin. Its almost a rounding error.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Well that might be what you think, but repeat that exact statement and substitute "HS2" for "Virgin Trains" and that is what you have now.

And as for - "And they say pricing will be in line with existing services" (Yorkshire Bear)

Well yes, they say that, but you have an incredibly high confidence level in politicians if you believe it.

No I have no confidence in them, for the most part they are absolute morons.... But the business case is based around this pricing so I cant see it been deviated from massively, also it would practically be political suicide.

 

[joeykins82]

I don't think it's so much that electric traction attracts customers, it's more that infrequent travellers "know" that if you're going between Birmingham and London then you go to Euston or New Street, especially since NRE will show the fastest services which are the Virgin ones. I've got friends in Birmingham who, once they found out about Chiltern's pricing vs Virgin's, have switched and won't go back because it's more than £20 cheaper for a flexible, walk-up fare.

 

[jon0844]

An MP won't be setting the fares anyway.

 

[The Ham]

Apparently "East Coast Pendolinos could deliver faster journey times than HS2 for Anglo-Scottish services"
http://www.globalrailnews.com/2013/...y-times-than-hs2-for-anglo-scottish-services/

However, berried in the text (highlighted):

A Pendolino running on the East Coast Main Line between London and Edinburgh would be faster than HS2, according to Virgin’s chief operating officer Chris Gibb.

With non-tilt HS2 trains limited to the current operating speeds of between 110 mph-125 mph once they join the classic network, Pendolinos could actually be the quicker option on longer routes says Gibb.

Alstom has already modelled the journey time between London and Edinburgh, via the ECML, for a Pendolino running at 140 mph with European Train Control and tilt activated north of Darlington and concluded that a journey time of three hours and 37 minutes is possible – one minute faster than trains using HS2.

Chris Gibb said : “If we are to see the massive investment in HS2, we need to maximise fully the benefits it will bring, and the use of tilting trains running at 140 mph on the classic lines is the way to deliver this.”

As it is only one minute faster, and trains running at 140mph will eat paths on the ECML, when there is already a need for more capacity. It is unlikely to be of much use. Of course it does allow whoever is running ECML when HS2 is fully built to run trains to Scotland which would give HS2 a run for it's money.

Personally I think it's just Virgin's opening salvo in trying to win the ICEC franchise.

 

[jon0844]

Personally I think it's just Virgin's opening salvo in trying to win the ICEC franchise.

Or trying to stop HS2 competing with its existing WCML operation (which it doesn't want to give up). I wonder why Virgin doesn't point out that if the WCML had been upgraded to allow for 140mph running, it would also be able to impact on projected HS2 times?

And surely we could already have faster trains along the ECML to Scotland today? It's just that there's the problem of other trains to slot in.

In other words, Virgin knows full well that such an idea wouldn't happen in reality - and so, given we know Chris Gibb isn't an idiot, there has to be some other motivation for saying it.

(Surely Virgin would also want to not only have HS2 built, but be the company to run trains on it?)

 

[YorkshireBear]

I did see that proposal, its just mouthing off in my eyes. How would you fit in the North Berwick stoppers, TPE services, XC services, Freight services (of which the ECML has many and very few 4 track sections) grade seperating everything would cost a fortune.

 

[jon0844]

It just makes Virgin sound good, as if they're thinking of the public while the industry lags behind. Virgin doesn't need to worry about the other services, as if it won the ICEC franchise, it would only be interested in its own services.

Good for PR though.

We could extend it further. I know that there was the test to allow the existing Mk4s to run at 140mph. However, it was deemed unsafe without in cab signalling.

But, if I wanted to get some nice soundbites in the press and look like a 'passenger champion', I could go around and say that we have trains in operation today capable of going much faster but the 'health and safety' brigade stopped it from happening. I know only too well that people on the Internet especially would lap it up.

I can then perhaps throw in the fact that BR wanted to do it (thus enraging those who were against privatisation) or that the EU has laid down new rules on signalling for high-speed services.

 

[YorkshireBear]

It just makes Virgin sound good, as if they're thinking of the public while the industry lags behind. Virgin doesn't need to worry about the other services, as if it won the ICEC franchise, it would only be interested in its own services.

Good for PR though.

We could extend it further. I know that there was the test to allow the existing Mk4s to run at 140mph. However, it was deemed unsafe without in cab signalling.

But, if I wanted to get some nice soundbites in the press and look like a 'passenger champion', I could go around and say that we have trains in operation today capable of going much faster but the 'health and safety' brigade stopped it from happening. I know only too well that people on the Internet especially would lap it up.

I can then perhaps throw in the fact that BR wanted to do it (thus enraging those who were against privatisation) or that the EU has laid down new rules on signalling for high-speed services.

Do you work for Virgin?

 

[jon0844]

No, but I perhaps should work for the Daily Mail. I've just written a perfect 'outrage' story bound to spark loads of comments online, and thus loads of traffic and ad revenue.