High Speed Two (HS2) discussion

[HSTEd]

Where would they split services to avoid the possibility of delaying services behind?

South Yorkshire Parkway and the Manchester AIrport station (I can't think of anywhere else in South Manchester to put a station that makes any sense).

 

[YorkshireBear]

Or at leeds or manchester themselves on the through platforms.

 

[Nym]

Or at leeds or manchester themselves on the through platforms.

I can see it being;
Manchester West or South Parkway (My plans have two parkway stations at Manchester)
Crewe
Sheffeild Nunnery Square
York...
(At stage II)

Stage I I can't see any joined up stuff running except to Manchester and splitting at Crewe.

There really isn't enough space at any C Manchester station at the moment, and 13 - 16 at piccadilly won't be long enough.

 

[Sidious]

I can see it being;
There really isn't enough space at any C Manchester station at the moment, and 13 - 16 at piccadilly won't be long enough.

What about Mayfield?

 

[Nym]

What about Mayfield?

For splitting services on route?

And Mayfeild on it's own is nowhere near long enough, as I've said, many, many times before, you need the whole Baring St Industrial Estate, and you can have a terminating station, with delta junction, and a station on each mainline point of the delta, and at the city end.

 

[LE Greys]

It is not in the interests of the government to build a high speed route that does not appear to be heavily used, they would be open to charges of it being a white elephant.

So they will endeavour to fill up all the slots available on the line even if they are effectively wasting slots by running short classic compatible trains independently rather than in 400m formations. (This way they can say the line is 90% full or some other nonsense even if the trains are 200m CC trains)

And if you actually think about it, the number of paths disrupted by having to wait for a late component of a lashup is actually the same as that component running independently late and missing its path. One.

Either way one train has missed its path, and if half the formation is very late you could just send the section that has arrived on time onto the core and cut back the late section of the train to somewhere like Birmingham International and transfer the passengers to a regular service.

In some ways, classic-compatibles serving the wider area would actually be better than captive stock running to individual stations with poor connections (although my ulterior motive for this is that it increases the likelihood of an east coast route). However, it's also a bit of a blind alley, cutting HS2 services to Liverpool, Holyhead, Wolverhampton and so on would be politically very difficult, and the trains would rapidly fill up with passengers from the WCML. This would free up capacity very effectively (although I'm not sure the people of Milton Keynes would like it that much).

 

[YorkshireBear]

Is there any documents anywhere that state how many trains will pass Leeds as classic compatible trains or has that level of detail not been accounted for? I envisage no more than 2 and 3 at absolute max?

 

[Chris125]

As i've seen predicted in a recent interview, RailNews reports that Business case for HS2 'is improving'

"The benefit-to-cost ratio of the first stage is now put at 1.7 and this improves to 2.5 with phase 2. He said: “We are quite confident these figures are correct – and that they are very, very conservative."

"The DfT’s announcement about Stage 2 is expected before the end of this month, and has been foreshadowed several times by Patrick McLoughlin since he became transport secretary in September"

Chris

 

[nerd]

Is there any documents anywhere that state how many trains will pass Leeds as classic compatible trains or has that level of detail not been accounted for? I envisage no more than 2 and 3 at absolute max?

The most recent service specification indeed showed three classic compatible services per hour along the spur past Leeds - two from Newcastle to Euston, one from Newcastle to Brum. It is feasible to suppose that additonal cross-country services might be run from Newcastle, if a route could be found for classic-compatible units to bypass central Burm, and run on to Bristol and South Wales. But there is no likelihood of more than two paths per hour to Euston.

 

[YorkshireBear]

The most recent service specification indeed showed three classic compatible services per hour along the spur past Leeds - two from Newcastle to Euston, one from Newcastle to Brum. It is feasible to suppose that additonal cross-country services might be run from Newcastle, if a route could be found for classic-compatible units to bypass central Burm, and run on to Bristol and South Wales. But there is no likelihood of more than two paths per hour to Euston.

Is this service spec avaliabel anywhere? And by spur does this refer to a spur that bypasses leeds?

 

[HSTEd]

Has anything emerged about the options for avoiding the NIMBYs in the Chilterns?

I seem to remember an option to spend ~£3bn simply burying the entire line inside the AONB in a continuous tunnel.

 

[Padav]

@HSTEd
"Has anything emerged about the options for avoiding the NIMBYs in the Chilterns?

I seem to remember an option to spend ~£3bn simply burying the entire line inside the AONB in a continuous tunnel."

The hardline opposition largely located in Buckinghamshire will only go away if the threat of the line is completely removed from their immediate locality, ie. moved to someone else's backyard - a tunnel isn't acceptable because it involves huge amounts of spoil requiring removal and the anti-groups located in the Chilterns don't want their allegedly "quiet country lanes" clogged up with dumper trucks full of spoil for the next 5-10 years!

The anti-HS2 campaign has to some extent dug itself into a corner - some elements of the campaign are utterly committed to a single goal of sabotaging the concept of a new rail line - so much so that no other outcome will be deemed acceptable.

We'll know a bit more in a few weeks when the outcome of the Judicial Review (JR) becomes public knowledge - if (as I hope and expect) the JR largely endorses the government's decision to press ahead with HS2, whilst of course expressing some observations on how it could have been managed more effectively, this could signal a real turning point and encourage some more moderate elements of the anti-HS2 community to adopt a policy of constructive engagement, rather than the seeminly ubiquitous "head in the sand, over our dead bodies" approach exhibited to date - let's wait and see?

 

[nerd]

Is this service spec avaliabel anywhere? And by spur does this refer to a spur that bypasses leeds?

yes to both

http://assets.dft.gov.uk/publicatio...update/hs2-economic-case-appraisal-update.pdf

see the last page (page 67)

 

[MarkyT]

The most recent service specification indeed showed three classic compatible services per hour along the spur past Leeds - two from Newcastle to Euston, one from Newcastle to Brum. It is feasible to suppose that additonal cross-country services might be run from Newcastle, if a route could be found for classic-compatible units to bypass central Burm, and run on to Bristol and South Wales. But there is no likelihood of more than two paths per hour to Euston.

Why bypass Bimingham? If they're classic compatible units they could go through New Street or into Curzon Street and reverse assuming additional junctions, and electrification on the Bristol route (unless the new trains were bi-mode)

 

[The Ham]

The hardline opposition largely located in Buckinghamshire will only go away if the threat of the line is completely removed from their immediate locality, ie. moved to someone else's backyard - a tunnel isn't acceptable because it involves huge amounts of spoil requiring removal and the anti-groups located in the Chilterns don't want their allegedly "quiet country lanes" clogged up with dumper trucks full of spoil for the next 5-10 years!

How ever the tunnels are built it is much more likely that the spoil will be taken away by train.

 

[LE Greys]

How ever the tunnels are built it is much more likely that the spoil will be taken away by train.

"Never let the facts get in the way of a good story". There was a similar fuss in Letchworth when the Hitchin flyover was built.

 

[NSEFAN]

a tunnel isn't acceptable because it involves huge amounts of spoil requiring removal and the anti-groups located in the Chilterns don't want their allegedly "quiet country lanes" clogged up with dumper trucks full of spoil for the next 5-10 years!

Anyone who drives in Bucks will tell you that those country lanes are anything but quiet! A classic example of building more houses and just hoping the roads will cope with the extra cars... :roll:

 

[nerd]

Why bypass Bimingham? If they're classic compatible units they could go through New Street or into Curzon Street and reverse assuming additional junctions, and electrification on the Bristol route (unless the new trains were bi-mode)

High speed services will run, so far as possible, point-to-point with the minimum of intermediate stops. A classic compatible service from Newcastle to Bristol that stopped at Brum would offer little time saving on exisitng services; especially given congestion on the northern approaches to New Street.

 

[northwichcat]

According to a post on a blog site following on from a HS2 Consultation Meeting:
* HS2 is expected to link to the WCML near Crewe to allow Liverpool services to join and leave HS2 at that point.
* Manchester Airport may or may not be included on the HS2 route.
* A Central Manchester station may or may not be included as a calling point on London-Scotland HS2 services.

 

[Holly]

According to a post on a blog site following on from a HS2 Consultation Meeting:
* HS2 is expected to link to the WCML near Crewe to allow Liverpool services to join and leave HS2 at that point. ...

North or South of Crewe one wonders.
And just how fast is the Crewe Station avoiding line, and is there a possibility to make it faster?

 

[nerd]

North or South of Crewe one wonders.
And just how fast is the Crewe Station avoiding line, and is there a possibility to make it faster?

South of Crewe; so that the HS2 services to Liverpool can stop at Crewe.

 

[Philip Elliott]

Bye, bye Stafford...

 

[Stats]

yes to both

http://assets.dft.gov.uk/publicatio...update/hs2-economic-case-appraisal-update.pdf

see the last page (page 67)

That service specification is out of date, although HS2 are not publicly releasing the latest one to avoid blight. All they say is that they have introduced additional capacity to address some crowding issues and changed stopping patterns.

 

[YorkshireBear]

That service specification is out of date, although HS2 are not publicly releasing the latest one to avoid blight. All they say is that they have introduced additional capacity to address some crowding issues and changed stopping patterns.

I only need an idea anyway, need to come up with my own service specification. Just using theres as a small guide.

 

[Geezertronic]

Bye, bye Stafford...

Why? Are WCML trains not going to stop there as well?

 

[LE Greys]

Why? Are WCML trains not going to stop there as well?

Or perhaps a Stafford-Stoke-Stockport-Manchester route leaving HS2 at Rugeley (which will naturally still exist for maintenance trains).

 

[nerd]

Why? Are WCML trains not going to stop there as well?

obviously, yes. But they will not (apparently) be served at Phase 2 by high speed trains from Liverpool to Euston.

 

[Philip Elliott]

Why? Are WCML trains not going to stop there as well?

There were no plans for fast Euston - Stafford via Rugby services. Obviously there will have to me post phase 2 which means one of the so called 'freed paths' errr... won't be. Also pathing into Liverpool is very tight and so most likely Stafford would get a call on a Chester service and as such will be slower than currently.

The obvious point is that Stafford will no longer get the improved service promised nor indeed will any part of Staffordshire be served by high speed services.

There will also be the crazy situation of Stafford getting high speed services in phase 1 and then having them withdrawn for phase 2.

 

[ole man]

Somehow I can't see any services being omitted from calling at Stafford, we are spending millions on renewing and changing the junction where the RBS1 joins the WCML.
The former Royal Mail platform will be reopened,and 2 extra lines added

 

[YorkshireBear]

There were no plans for fast Euston - Stafford via Rugby services. Obviously there will have to me post phase 2 which means one of the so called 'freed paths' errr... won't be. Also pathing into Liverpool is very tight and so most likely Stafford would get a call on a Chester service and as such will be slower than currently.

The obvious point is that Stafford will no longer get the improved service promised nor indeed will any part of Staffordshire be served by high speed services.

There will also be the crazy situation of Stafford getting high speed services in phase 1 and then having them withdrawn for phase 2.

Stafford will recieve 1 HS2 service per hour in each direction. On London - Liverpool trip from phase 2.