The 2013 command paper specifically identfies HS2 Phase 3 as involving a mixture of new captive lines and 'upgraded' classic lines. I have presumed (though this is purely guesswork) that they envisage there being a new captive line on one side of England, and an upgraded classic line on the other.
I will have to read this command paper.
This is one key factor inclining the Scots to favour HSR through Scotland running south from Carstairs, rather than east towards Coldstream; there is much more Scotland/England freight demand along the WCML route. If the HSR line south of Lockerbie then swings east through Haltwhistle toward Newcasle, then the WCML though Cumbria will need upgrading to carry the extra volumes of freight on the classic WCML Scots line.
As I understand it, the passenger services on the Northern section of the WCML at present are dominated by:
London to Glasgow/Edinburgh
Manchester to Glasgow/Edinburgh
Birmingham to Glasgow/Edinburgh
Random local trains south of Preston
Now, the first and third train services can certainly be transferred to High Speed rail no matter the route, indeed those are the primary services we are concerned with.
However, the second service can also be transferred to High Speed rail with either route choice, as it would be easily possible to route a classic compatible train over North TPE to Leeds and then have it (if an appropriate chord was put in place) run to the Central Belt via an Eastern HS route while still beating its current running time.
This means that the only trains left are a handful of short distance services that would never be transferable to High Speed rail in the first place. (Presumably an hourly train through to London would be retained stopping at all stations but that is about it).
Meanwhile, on the East there are numerous trains that a properly laid out High Speed route could take up if it went via the Eastern Route, but which would be impractical to take up via the Western Route.
You could transfer effectively all the XC services and all the London trains to the High Speed route, assuming that a north facing "slip" line could be provided at York and Newcastle, which should not break the bank.
In summary, routing the line via the East Coast reduces both the ECML and WCML to local stopping trains only, while the West Coast route only does this for the WCML, as the flows on the ECML that require long distance services cannot be served by a western high speed route.
As we are not capacity constrained the route that can generate the most spare capacity has to be the chosen one.
As I understand it, the Haltwhistle option is the one favoured by Glasgow City Council; they see eventual demand for direct services to Europe (with a second English east coast HSR line to carry it); and don't want to miss out on that. But they have stressed that their support for this option is conditional on the WCML being upgraded to 140mph standard throughout at the same time.
There will never be sufficient demand for a second high speed line, the capacity we can squeeze from one is just too large. (Even if we had multiple on route stations we can get 10-12tph from it easily).
Therefore it is effectively an either/or choice, we can't claim that the East Coast might get its route at a later date, since it will never be able to justify one.
There are no plans for a captive service to York; and no conceivable need for it. The Church Fenton lilnk is designed with a 140mph limit entirely on the assumption that it will only be used by classic-compatible stock.
Will it at least be built to the GC loading gauge?
That is going to come back to bite us if the penny pinchers only have it built to the classic compatible loading gauge.
Equally, it is fundamental that captive services do not (for the most part) 'serve places along the way'; They will run end-to-end.
Indeed, but this still requires bi-directional stations at secondary destinations.... otherwise how will the generate "end-to-end" services to other destinations north of them?
HS2 Ltd fundamentally disagree with the 'Italian' model of a linear HSR route with 2-4 trains per hour stopping at all major cities along the way; Turin, Milan, Bologna, Rome, Naples. Instead they are constructing the system as a 'French' radial system, with London in the middle and non-stop services to each of (around 10) destinations, running mostly one or two paths to each per hour. The fact that in infrastructure terms, most of these radial paths share the same tracks south of Brum makes no difference to the general principle.
Yes, they claim the capacity argument as the primary driving one for not having stopping trains on HS2 Phase 1... then ignore that the argument no longer exists north of the Birmingham delta junction.
They primarily appear concerned with not letting those annoying secondary train services onto their "premium" high speed line.
Underlying this is a fundamental business model; HSR provides vastly greater seating capacity than classic trains, but will only be profitable if those seats are filled. On classic services this is done by stopping at intermediate stations. But that means slowing down to stop; which adds to operational costs. The alternative is to drop fares far below current levels; and fill the trains with new end-to-end business (on the example of Easyjet/Ryanair).
Basic to this is the realisation that, on an entirely new railway with new track and minimal interaction with the classic system, unit costs per seat mile for end-to-end riunning should be around a third of those on the existing classic system. So HSR ought to be able to charge fares at around half the rates per mile of those on the classic system for end-to-end services; and if they can fill their trains that way, will still make massive profits.
Which does though, creaste a problem for Government funding of the rest of the rail system. It is bad enough that taxpayers in Bristol are having to ppay for the construction of HS2; but if the result is that passengers from Manchester are able to get to London both faster and cheaper, there may weill be pressure for substantially reduced fares throughout.
But HS2 Ltd/Government are making decisions that do not appear to gel with this assesment of a "pile em high, sell em cheap" railway.
They are apparently committing to purchasing single deck captive train-sets of 200m length.
If you are going to sell huge numbers of advanced fares then really you should attempt 400m double deck trainsets as standard. (See the proposed
TGV Grande Capacité)
Additionally the problem could be solved by building the route to enable additional non London related traffic to be incorporated into it, but they do not appear to be doing this.
(The capacity argument on any Phase 3 route simply doesn't work, so the line should tend towards things like the Shinkansen or the "Italian" model)
