High Speed Two (HS2) discussion

[deltic]

Hi there,
I've been busy avoiding more work and I've come up with some more ideas. Here's my speculation about the Leeds HS2 station.


Here are a lot of assumptions that need to be made or at least questions asked about where Leeds HS2 Station will be. What I'veasssumed is that, unlike Sheffield or Nottingham, this will be a city centre location. It also assumes that it will need to be able to cope with 400m trains. The minimum size would probably be 4 platform faces

■Will it be a through station?
■Will it be a terminus?
■Will there be links to allow running onto the exising network?
■Will it be connected to the current station?
Here are some ideas

There are three terminus station sites which are shown in red and two through station options shown in green



The first terminus option is on the site of the long abandoned Leeds Central Station

The advantages of this site are:

■Right size, long and wide enough
■Was once rail connected, allignments are still feasible
■Only a couple of building would need to be demolished

The disadvantages of this site are:
■No possibility of being a through station
■No way to access the station from the North
■A bit of a way from the existing station - interchanges not really easy
■Would have to build partly over the river meaning a partly elevated station



The second terminus option is on the site of the current car park (or the long abandoned Leeds Wellington Station)

The advantages of this site are:

■Right length for 400m trains
■It's part of the existing station - easy interchanges
■Through trains would use the existing station

The disadvantages of this site are:
■Rather narrow - may struggle to get 4 new 400m platform faces
■Will some of this space be used for general expansion of the station anyway?
■Tricky construction - partially over the river
■Complex trackwork needed to get to the new HS2 line and provide through running onto existing tracks
■Where would a replacement car park go?



The third terminus option is on the site of the old goods yard at Pottery Fields, now a retail park

The advantages of this site are:

■Right size, long and wide enough
■Was once rail connected, allignments into the site still exists
■Retail parks can be simply relocated with sufficient financial motivation
■It's flat and straighforward to build on

The disadvantages of this site are:
■It has been comprehesively redeveloped
■It's some distance from the existing station
■No possible way to serve trains from the North



The first through option is at Crown Point parallel to the existing track

The advantages of this site are:

■Right size, long and wide enough
■Existing railway thoroughfare
■Simplest connection to the North
■Not too much demolition required

The disadvantages of this site are:
■It's an elevated viaduct already - complex build?
■It's some distance from the existing station
■Would need to accomodate existing tracks through/around it
■How would the HS2 tracks get through the current Leeds station?



The second through option is at Holbeck. This would use the disused viaduct for the approach but rather than swinging back with the existing curves would have a new station. This would extend northeastwards on the site of mainly exisitng carparks. It would then tunnel under the office blocks and the river and emerge at Neville Hill Junction for access to the North.

The advantages of this site are:

■Right size, long and wide enough
■Approaches are simple, both to the south and north
■The approaches are smooth allowing fast through running if required
■Reasonably close to the new southern entrance to the existing station
■Not too much demolition required
■Minimal disruption to exising track layout and services

The disadvantages of this site are:
■It's an elevated viaduct already - complex build?
■It would require some low rise office blocks to be demolished
■It would need some tunnelling to access the North


Comments / idea / suggestions welcome. Abuse no so much...
Cheers,
Jason

Hasnt Tetley Brewery closed - in which case your Crown Point idea could be pushed further north and closer to existing Leeds station

 

[bangor-toad]

Looking at your map, you appear to have demolished half of Meadowhall Shopping Centre. I'm pretty sure that isn't going to happen.

I know the popular belief is that it will be at Meadowhall, but I can't see where you'd put it.

Hi,
There's actually quite a lot of space at / near Meadowhall. I'd suggest that there's more than enough space running parallel to the motorway. Given the shape of the land, the station would need to elevated but only above open ground. There would be no need to build above the shopping centre and with some careful design, would also completely miss the multi-storey car parks.
That's a simple build in civil engineering terms.

Here's one of my suggestion maps to show what I mean:

The only buildings that are in the way are industrial or warehouse units and these can be relocated far easier than dealing with residential properties. There's also enough space to allow for the sections near the station to be 4 tracked as is probably going to be required.


As to all of the earlier comments about Leeds, it's not a city I know well so apologies if I've got area names a bit confused.

Cheers,
Jason

 

[Nym]

Simple???

How many things there do you have to cross, close or build over as part of the project?

Junction 34 of the M1 is currently undergoing major refurbishment due to structural issues, the same with Tinsley Viaduct, and you're building pretty much on marshland and above a river, so the whole station will be suppoted above ground level on a massive viaduct to make it work...

Said it before and I'll say it again about where I'd have Sheffeild station, it's in one of two places, Nunnary Square or Victoria, and it should be combined with the provision of additional non HS2 platforms for heavy rail services on the lines via Nunnery Sq, and up to Stocksbridge, and interged into the Supertram network, and this will all take a nice amount of pressure off the likes of Sheffeild Midland, and also enable classic network connections to be made at Sheffeild for Classic Compatable services to run via Doncaster.

Hi,
There's actually quite a lot of space at / near Meadowhall. I'd suggest that there's more than enough space running parallel to the motorway. Given the shape of the land, the station would need to elevated but only above open ground. There would be no need to build above the shopping centre and with some careful design, would also completely miss the multi-storey car parks.
That's a simple build in civil engineering terms.

Here's one of my suggestion maps to show what I mean:

The only buildings that are in the way are industrial or warehouse units and these can be relocated far easier than dealing with residential properties. There's also enough space to allow for the sections near the station to be 4 tracked as is probably going to be required.


As to all of the earlier comments about Leeds, it's not a city I know well so apologies if I've got area names a bit confused.

Cheers,
Jason

 

[HSTEd]

There is plenty of room for a station adjacent to meadowhall using the motorway corridor and existing railway lines to gain the approach corridors....

I projected a rather straight route months ago (its several pages back in this threaD).

 

[YorkshireBear]

apx068

Where you have it there either you are looking at raising the railway as high as the M1, which would cost an absolute fortune, or having it low so that it interferes with the current junction 34 of the M1 all very costly and impractical.
I agree with nym proposal to have a fully intergrated station at nunnery square, i would then run a 4 track railway (or 2 track with passing loops at local stations) and run the line up past wadsley bridge then tunnel underneath grenoside and head north towards silkstone common before roughly following the M1 past horbury, then heading towards the white rose centre area and making its way into leeds from that side, heading into a through station. I refuse to accept it has to be a terminal station, some terminal platforms of course as per the current leeds station, but at least two lines running through. I would have the station on a slight curve so i could take the line out of leeds on a south easterly direction following the river valley were it only interfers with industrial units (the odd one can be easily moved) before heading at speed towards colton.
Although i would prefer it if there was a connection just outside leeds around neville hill and the true high speed line carried on north and connected north of northallerton.

 

[Martin222002]

I agree with YorkshireBear and Nym. There is simply just not enough room adjacent to Meadowhall, or near Meadowhall in my opinoin, for a high speed rail station with 400m platforms, but as I (and others) have said before Meadowhall is the wrong location for a Sheffield station for a large proportion of Sheffield residents to easily and quickly get to.

Nunnery Square, as suggested by Nym would be a much better location, with potential integrated links to the tram and (conventional) rail networks, and being right next to Sheffield Parkway (A57) would have just as good road links as a Meadowhall located station would have. It would also be closer to the city centre and be quicker to get to than a Meadowhall located station for the majority of Sheffield residents.

 

[HSTEd]

You don't really need that much room for a station....

You need two platform lines and two through liens and thats about it... (Effectively one island platform and four tracks).
If we are already putting it on a viaduct (and we have too) any other extraneous facilities can be built into the viaduct either above or below the platforms.

EDIT: 4m for the island platform and 4 3.2m wide tracks - absolute minimum of 16.8m.

 

[YorkshireBear]

You don't really need that much room for a station....

You need two platforms and two through liens and thats about it... If we are already putting it on a viaduct (and we have too) any other extraneous facilities can be built into the viaduct either above or below the platforms.

You do for 400m platforms and relevant turnouts and facilities and as i stated, putting all these on a viaduct will be incredibly expensive, a two track viaduct yes thats fine, but a 4 track viaduct supporting a large station complex? I think not, (i am a civil engineer so i know what im saying here).

I dont think the approaches to the suggested station parrallel to the M1 are very good either, certainly not easy at any height considered.

 

[Padav]

@Batman: Are you sure they've set a date for second reading yet? In terms of parliamentary timetabling October 2013 is still a long way off and the bill would be working to a very tight timetable if it were to go from second reading to royal assent in less than 18 months.

You seem to know more about the fine details of this process than I do!

I'm only repeating what I've seen on the DfT website - reported in this thread and the openly repeated admission on the STOPHS2 website that 25th October is the day when the Hybrid Bill will be deposited in Parliament.

You can read about the processes involved in a Hybrid Bill here
http://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons-information-office/l05.pdf

I agree that the timetable is tight but still doable

It's already accepted that the HS2 legislation will be a Hybrid Bill. Obviously there will be petitions (quite a number of them) lodged by a variety of anti-HS2 campaign groups.

Reading through the details it's obvious where the main attack of anti-HS2 groups will come from - there is overwhelming cross-party support for the Bill's passage so there will be no problem at all during the various readings - but the Select Committee stage is very different because that has a seminal impact on the entire process. It is here that anti-HS2 groups will concentrate their efforts to delay and frustrate progress - it seems that the choice of members of the Select Committee is a matter for the Committee of Selection - I'm not certain who has influence within the Committee of Selection and through it who gets to sit on the all important Select Committee - if anti-groups can somehow get a number of their (relatively small number amongst MPs) supporters on to this body I can see trouble ahead but if the Select Committee can avoid falling foul of such 'rigging' tactics and acts on the basis of plain common sense, everything should go through reasonably quickly?

 

[bangor-toad]

You do for 400m platforms and relevant turnouts and facilities and as i stated, putting all these on a viaduct will be incredibly expensive, a two track viaduct yes thats fine, but a 4 track viaduct supporting a large station complex? I think not, (i am a civil engineer so i know what im saying here).

Building on anything other than flat, stable and clear land is always expensive.

The important thing to look at is the total cost of the project. If you route through Sheffield with the station at/near Nunnery Square there are no obvious routes from the south or to the north suitable for a HS surface allignment. You're going to look at tunnelling to get past (under) south Sheffield and then either a long tunnel due north or multiple little ones heading up towards Stocksbridge.
(OK, perhaps it could be brought into Sheffield Victoria from the south along old allignments without tunnelling but the residential impact would be huge)

Rough rule of thumb has tunnelling costing about £100 million per mile. That's about the going rate for Crossrail.

Now an elevated viaduct at Meadowhall is going to cost a fair bit more than the last warehouse I built. But even if the cost is equal to tunneling (which I truely doubt) the length required is short at only a mile or so. The rest of the approaches can be built onto the ground (directly or with cuttings / embankments)
The Japanese have been building elevated 4 track high speed stations for years and they've got it sorted out. Slap down some major (3 foot diameter) piles on a 50 foot grid and put in your vertical risers. Float a concrete raft over the top and brace appropriately. Not cheap but I bet it's under £100 million per mile.

Routing via Meadowhall is going to be possibly £billions cheaper then tunneling under Sheffield.

Personally I think a central Sheffield station would be great but I can't see a way to justify that sort of additional costs.

All for now,
Jason

 

[YorkshireBear]

Building on anything other than flat, stable and clear land is always expensive.

The important thing to look at is the total cost of the project. If you route through Sheffield with the station at/near Nunnery Square there are no obvious routes from the south or to the north suitable for a HS surface allignment. You're going to look at tunnelling to get past (under) south Sheffield and then either a long tunnel due north or multiple little ones heading up towards Stocksbridge.
(OK, perhaps it could be brought into Sheffield Victoria from the south along old allignments without tunnelling but the residential impact would be huge)

Rough rule of thumb has tunnelling costing about £100 million per mile. That's about the going rate for Crossrail.

Now an elevated viaduct at Meadowhall is going to cost a fair bit more than the last warehouse I built. But even if the cost is equal to tunneling (which I truely doubt) the length required is short at only a mile or so. The rest of the approaches can be built onto the ground (directly or with cuttings / embankments)
The Japanese have been building elevated 4 track high speed stations for years and they've got it sorted out. Slap down some major (3 foot diameter) piles on a 50 foot grid and put in your vertical risers. Float a concrete raft over the top and brace appropriately. Not cheap but I bet it's under £100 million per mile.

Routing via Meadowhall is going to be possibly £billions cheaper then tunneling under Sheffield.

Personally I think a central Sheffield station would be great but I can't see a way to justify that sort of additional costs.

All for now,
Jason

I dont doubt that meadowhall is cheaper than tunneling (and fyi i at no point tunnel under sheffield it is through a hill with fields on it)
However if it is going to go round the outside of sheffiield i believe the station on the viaduct is one of the worst ways to go about it.

 

[HSTEd]

You do for 400m platforms and relevant turnouts and facilities and as i stated, putting all these on a viaduct will be incredibly expensive, a two track viaduct yes thats fine, but a 4 track viaduct supporting a large station complex? I think not, (i am a civil engineer so i know what im saying here).

I dont think the approaches to the suggested station parrallel to the M1 are very good either, certainly not easy at any height considered.

Build two two-track viaducts at the right distance apart.

Build a third shorter structure between the two that is 400m long and supports the platforms.

The approach and departure slips would be several hundred metres long anyway in all probability so it makes little difference if the pointwork is all not on the viaduct but on the sides of the "valley" that the station would be sitting in.

 

[Rational Plan]

you don't need to build the station in the middle of the valley either. Meadowhall Station is on the Northern side of the valley. The Southern end of the platforms can abut the Northern Side of the valley, thereby reducing the height of the support below the station and the distance required to get to the platforms.

 

[Nym]

And how, with a station at Meadowhall would you propose an actual connection to the Classic Network? (For through services)

PS: This is easy at Nunnery Square, toward Sheffeild Midland, Stocksbridge, Lincoln and Doncaster...

 

[bangor-toad]

And how, with a station at Meadowhall would you propose an actual connection to the Classic Network? (For through services)

Hi there,
Simple - there is no interconnectivity. The HS route would stand alone along it's length and have access to it for the "compatible" services at the ends - Litchfield for HS2 and then Leeds & Manchester for HS2b.

If interchange stations can be designed this is a good thing though. I would predict that the East Midlands station will be for the HS route, that there will be a tram extension to it and the new HS station will have new platforms on the Erewash valley lines which will see far more passenger services.
I'd guess that the existing Meadowhall station would be upgraded, possibly with additional platforms for extra capacity as part of the HS station works. (

The existing HS2 plans have no such interconnectivity along thier length and I can't see any reason to justify them at Nottingham or Sheffield.

Cheers,
Jason

 

[YorkshireBear]

I still remain unconvinced of a way to do it at meadowhall that isnt just ridiculous. Its my opinion.

My only opinion on building it there is to build it where the current international frieght terminal is (the one that cost millions to build and hasnt been used at all) and improve the surrounding rail network so that regular shuttles can run between it and meadowhall/rotheram/sheffield on the convential netowork as well as bringing the tram to it and then sending the tram into rotheram.
It would appear they have just recieved planning permission to expand the said terminal so maybe not there, but the point stands, there is a lot of flat old industrial land around there to build on, this allows a lower two track viaduct over the don valley.

 

[Sapphire Blue]

What about the old Sheffield Airport site - big enough, flat enough, close to existing rail lines and cheap to buy?

 

[Nym]

What about the old Sheffield Airport site - big enough, flat enough, close to existing rail lines and cheap to buy?

Land is there for a station, approaches aren't...

 

[YorkshireBear]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/928...able-to-solution-to-overcrowding-say-MPs.html

Quote in here saying network rail says that the alternative provided by STOP HS" campaigners meets demand according to network rail. They have never said that have they?
From what i know they completely rejected the alterantive proposal.

 

[nerd]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/928...able-to-solution-to-overcrowding-say-MPs.html

Quote in here saying network rail says that the alternative provided by STOP HS" campaigners meets demand according to network rail. They have never said that have they?
From what i know they completely rejected the alterantive proposal.

No they haven't. What the studies referred to demonstrated was that the Benefit Cost ratio for some of the Strategic Alternative proposals could be assessed as being better than that for the HS2 proposals. But - as you say - the Strategic Alternative proposals delivered far less in the way of extra capacity.

 

[WatcherZero]

MPs find no alternative to HS2
Posted 23rd May 2012

A HOUSE OF COMMONS report has concluded that High Speed 2 must be built, saying there is no alternative to constructing a domestic High Speed line if the railway's long-term capacity problems are to be solved.

The report is the result of a four-month inquiry by the All-Party Parliamentary Group for High Speed Rail.

It has ruled out upgrades to the existing network, because they would not add enough capacity. The key problem is the West Coast Main Line, where operator London Midland is set to introduce some 110mph (176km/h) trains to provide some additional train paths in the short term.

http://www.railnews.co.uk/news/2012/05/23-mps-find-no-alternative-to.html

 

[brianthegiant]

the detail can be found here:

www.appghsr.co.uk/newsshow.aspx?id=13&ref=7

 

[nerd]

Executve summary below. A very interesting read and well written;

http://www.appghsr.co.uk/upload/APPG for High-Speed Rail Inquiry Report.pdf

Obviously these are proponents of high speed rail, so they were scarcely likely to come out against HS2. But they do discuss the various issues around projected rail capacity and demand in a balanced way; and this is key to determining the likely value from HS2.

Underlying this is the issue of 'peak travel'. As income increased, so people tended to increase both their cash spending and their time spending on travel. They travelled more often, they travelled further, and they spent more time travelling. But this relationship appears to have a limit, and in much of western Europe average personal travel appears to have peaked, in terms both of frequency and time spent.

At the same time, rail travel has been increasing rapidly; in effect longer distance travel has been displaced from road to rail. If anything miles of driving travel per head of population has fallen as miles of rail travel per head have increased.

So the group outline two possible systematic explanations for this conundrum;

- Modal shift; the rail increase is simply and purely displaced from road (and to a degree air). But as we are at 'peak travel' so demand for travel is static. Once rail has taken all the market, demand will plateau. In support of this explanation, they note that the Manc-London travel split is now 80%/20% in favour of rail, whereas in 2002 it was 38%/62% in favour of road. Once the rail share reaches 100% there can be no further demand growth.

- Technological suppression of expresed demand; this explanation suggests that demand for travel is continuing to increase as income increases - as still appears to be apparent in air travel - so the apparent static consumption of road travel is not a funciton of static demand but of the technological dead-end represented by the self-driven private car. My current car (a Peugeot 308) is faster, more comfortable, and far more technically sophisticated than was the Peugeot 205 I drove 25 years ago. But the same journey along the same roads now takes me as much as 50% longer, and consequently I drive my newer car less often and many fewer miles. When the Metrolink reaches my neighbourhood next year I shall sell it. On this argument, the technological limit represented by deteriorating road travel speeds, combined with increasing travel demands due to increased income; will result in a long-term increasing demand in rail-based travel, displaced from road.

| The projected shortage of rail capacity is the key issue in the debate over high-speed rail. Supporters of the scheme claim that only a new line can accommodate future demand, while opponents argue either that demand has been overstated or that it can be met by more incremental approaches.

l Despite stagnating throughout most of the second half of the twentieth century, passenger numbers on the railways have grown strongly since 1995. Demand is now growing at around 5-6% per year.

l Some commentators argue that the recent surge in demand is a short-term
phenomenon, reflecting a one-off modal shift from the roads. They believe that in the long-term transport demand will stay constant or decline. There is little evidence yet, however, that we have reached market saturation for rail.

l If the current growth rate of demand continued for a sustained period, there is no question that current infrastructure would be overwhelmed and that incremental upgrades such as those suggested by Rail Package 2 (RP2) and 51m’s ‘Optimised Alternative’ would not be sufficient.

l If rail demand grows in line with the industry forecast at around 2% a year, then it is possible that the RP2 or 51m proposals would provide enough capacity to meet intercity demand.

l However, it is doubtful whether they could provide adequate capacity to match peak demand, demand for local services or freight. Only a new line provides enough capacity to support extensive industrial regeneration in the north or a shift towards more sustainable transport.

l Given recent passenger growth and the country’s overall economic and transport strategy, the risks from under providing rail capacity seem higher than the risks of overprovision.

 

[bailey65]

I can see the go ahead for hs2 being a long drawn out process with numerous planning battles and objections along the route.

 

[ole man]

http://www.railnews.co.uk/news/2012/05/23-mps-find-no-alternative-to.html

Also mentioned in this report was to four track between Attleborough Junc and Rugby, ive been told this was four track many moons ago, why was it reduced to three tracks,and the main problem with this is the Canal, wasn't this canal there before the railway?

 

[swt_passenger]

I can see the go ahead for hs2 being a long drawn out process with numerous planning battles and objections along the route.

It doesn't work like that for mega projects.

The 'numerous planning battles' don't happen, because it is done using a parliamentary bill procedure, like Crossrail...

Local planning authorities only get to discuss matters such as detailed material specs, they don't get to rule on the route and stuff like that.

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

Also mentioned in this report was to four track between Attleborough Junc and Rugby, ive been told this was four track many moons ago, why was it reduced to three tracks,and the main problem with this is the Canal, wasn't this canal there before the railway?

I agree that the canal is a bit of a red herring, speaking as someone who's regularly been along there by boat. There's ample room for a fourth track between canal and railway for nearly the entire length, and for the short section where it isn't very wide there's room on the other side of the formation. The M6 viaduct is a more significant obstacle to a fourth track, I reckon, because the supports either side of the three tracks are right where you'd put an extra track - but it wouldn't be impossible to alter the structure, just costly...

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=Bri...r=Brinklow,+Warwickshire,+United+Kingdom&z=17

That location seems to me to be the narrowest margin.

 

[ole man]

And all the OLE structures look like they are four-track booms so that wouldn't be a issue, ive worked just south of Attleborough Junc and there is room after adjustments to put up new OLE steel for a new road.

What problems does the M6 bridge cause? is the support columns?

 

[swt_passenger]

And all the OLE structures look like they are four-track booms so that wouldn't be a issue, ive worked just south of Attleborough Junc and there is room after adjustments to put up new OLE steel for a new road.

What problems does the M6 bridge cause? is the support columns?

Basically, yes. I couldn't find a good picture of the rail side of the combined bridge, but if you look at this:

http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/725168

... and imagine there's two more similar rows of support columns behind the trees, at a similar width to those you can see, you should get the idea. The nearest columns are quite near the canal, then the gap between the 2 rows allows for the three tracks neatly, but behind the furthest row columns the land is rising up to the embankment.

 

[ole man]

When was the bridge built? i take it must of been after it was three tracked?.Maybe the reason for the three tracking was the M6 bridge.

 

[LE Greys]

Possibly the alignment has been shifted slightly, to ease curves and clearances perhaps.