High Speed Two (HS2) discussion

[snowball]

"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." said the chairman of IBM in 1943...

He almost certainly didn't.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_J._Watson#Famous_misquote

Although Watson is well known for his alleged 1943 statement, "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers", there is scant evidence he made it. Author Kevin Maney tried to find the origin of the quote, but has been unable to locate any speeches or documents of Watson's that contain this, nor are the words present in any contemporary articles about IBM. The earliest known citation on the Internet is from 1986

[snip]

The story had already been described as a myth in 1973; the Economist quoted a Mr Maney as "revealing that Watson never made his oft-quoted prediction that there was 'a world market for maybe five computers'".

See the Wikipedia article for possible sources of this urban legend - some of them are actual remarks by Brits.

 

[RichmondCommu]

There are well heeled people who don't work in the City/Canary Wharf in London you know.

In all fairness I was just responsing to post 3178 and your suggestion regarding well heeled city types

And we could run a train at ~5AM if you wanted....

In all fairness getting up at 05.45 every week day in order to be in the office for 08.00 (and that's being optimistic) is going to be difficult to maintain over a period of any length.

 

[transmanche]

He almost certainly didn't.

I'm sure that you can come up with other statements forecasting the future which later proved to be wildly inaccurate - possibly some even predicting the future of railways.

 

[HSTEd]

In all fairness getting up at 05.45 every week day in order to be in the office for 08.00 (and that's being optimistic) is going to be difficult to maintain over a period of any length.

People do this all the time. In-fact the summer before last I was required to report for work by 0600 every day, which lead to having to be up by 0530, at the latest.

And judging by the fact that HS2 season tickets will be cheaper per mile than conventional tickets, you could abstract significant quantities of commuter who currently have to live rather closer to London.
Taton provides a counterexample to the idea that everywhere in the North must be a horrible place to live.

And then there is the fact that office space in the North West is significantly cheaper than in the south, which could even lead to reverse-peak commuting.
This is a shift in public transport speeds of a magnitude not seen since the invention of the railways.

 

[RichmondCommu]

People do this all the time. In-fact the summer before last I was required to report for work by 0600 every day, which lead to having to be up by 0530, at the latest.

Well I can only applaud your efforts.

And judging by the fact that HS2 season tickets will be cheaper per mile than conventional tickets, you could abstract significant quantities of commuter who currently have to live rather closer to London.
Taton provides a counterexample to the idea that everywhere in the North must be a horrible place to live.

It doesn't matter how nice Tatton is (and I would concur that it's a nice place to live). The fact is that in order to have a full days work in London you would still need to get up much earlier than if you lived in Surrey. In other words it's simply not worth moving.

We may find that people move closer to Birmingham but I'm afraid migration to the North West is highly unlikely. Balham to Oldham; no chance.

And then there is the fact that office space in the North West is significantly cheaper than in the south, which could even lead to reverse-peak commuting.
This is a shift in public transport speeds of a magnitude not seen since the invention of the railways.

You need to ask yourself this question; why is office space cheaper in the North West than London?

 

[HSTEd]

It doesn't matter how nice Tatton is (and I would concur that it's a nice place to live). The fact is that in order to have a full days work in London you would still need to get up much earlier than if you lived in Surrey. In other words it's simply not worth moving.

Well lets make a couple of simplifying assumptions: if you live in the South Manchester area you will likely have a similar travel time to the station as you would living in Surrey.

Canary Wharf to Old Oak Common will be something on order of 20 minutes.
Meanwhile Canary Wharf to London Waterloo takes something on order of 10-15 minutes.
With Manchester Airport something like 59 minutes out of Old Oak Common, that takes us to roughly an hour of Waterloo. (note that I am ignoring connection times in both cases, so that should remove that as an important effect)

That takes us to somewhere similar to Haslemere which is still within the extended halo that I would regard as the "commuter belt".

There is then the draw of the ludicrously cheap housing compared to Surrey.
In fact Birmingham international will be somewhere closer than that, tending towards the area of Guildford.

We may find that people move closer to Birmingham but I'm afraid migration to the North West is highly unlikely. Balham to Oldham; no chance.

Oldham is too far from the Manchester HSR station, we are more likely to see any migration to points in the south of Manchester, presumably concentrating in areas that are not directly under the airport approach/takeoff paths.
Ditto Birmingham (except to the east rather than south).

You need to ask yourself this question; why is office space cheaper in the North West than London?

Because the North west is miles from anywhere, and certainly too far from London, which is the only city that really matters in the UK (it has 15% of the population by itself remember).
HS2 corrects this.

 

[The Ham]

I agree about Paddington. It could knock a considerable amount off the funding if tunneling through to Euston was taken off and possibly reduce the need for OOC station? I think most casual travellers wouldn't be bothered by going from Paddington instead of Euston. Problem is, would there be enough space for both GWML and HS2 once it's all open. If there was or a plan to increase to required capacity was made then I could see the merits of that.

The rest definitely doesn't stack up.

Also, there are a lot of people along the GMWL who would quite like to see at least a chunk of the spare capacity created at Paddington from Crossrail and the new station layout at Reading to increase the number of services that they see.

That's not to say that a few trains an hour (if there is space elsewhere on the network) could be run if passenger growth is higher than forcast in 2020 than it should have been at opening of HS2 to provide extra capacity.

 

[jon0844]

I'm sure that you can come up with other statements forecasting the future which later proved to be wildly inaccurate - possibly some even predicting the future of railways.

By 2050 there will be no more Pacers operating on the UK railway network.

 

[LexyBoy]

There won’t be much if any spare capacity at Paddington. The capacity freed up will be used by the extra intercity services to be delivered by IEP, and not all of the suburban platforms are long enough for 8-car EMUs I don’t think, which will put further demands on those which are. Crossrail’s only removing the 8 tph of Heathrow and Greenford services.

 

[JamesRowden]

Well lets make a couple of simplifying assumptions: if you live in the South Manchester area you will likely have a similar travel time to the station as you would living in Surrey.

Canary Wharf to Old Oak Common will be something on order of 20 minutes.
Meanwhile Canary Wharf to London Waterloo takes something on order of 10-15 minutes.
With Manchester Airport something like 59 minutes out of Old Oak Common, that takes us to roughly an hour of Waterloo. (note that I am ignoring connection times in both cases, so that should remove that as an important effect)

That takes us to somewhere similar to Haslemere which is still within the extended halo that I would regard as the "commuter belt".

There is then the draw of the ludicrously cheap housing compared to Surrey.
In fact Birmingham international will be somewhere closer than that, tending towards the area of Guildford.




Oldham is too far from the Manchester HSR station, we are more likely to see any migration to points in the south of Manchester, presumably concentrating in areas that are not directly under the airport approach/takeoff paths.
Ditto Birmingham (except to the east rather than south).



Because the North west is miles from anywhere, and certainly too far from London, which is the only city that really matters in the UK (it has 15% of the population by itself remember).
HS2 corrects this.

It takes less than 50 minutes to get from Redhill Station (Surrey) to Canary Wharf Underground Station.

 

[gordonthemoron]

predictions from my boyhood:

In the future we will have flying cars/jetpacks
In the future we will have more leisure time due to shorter working hours
Paperless office
Concorde

 

[YorkshireBear]

By 2050 there will be no more Pacers operating on the UK railway network.

thats definitely not a safe bet.

 

[Mainliner]

Growing dissent in the press?

"£50 billion HS2 has reached the end of the line"

"As the cost of the high-speed rail link soars, it is time to look for far better ways to spend money on transport."

http://www.standard.co.uk/comment/c...f-the-line-8697585.html?origin=internalSearch

 

[jon0844]

thats definitely not a safe bet.

3050?

 

[snowball]

maybe the question should be, will there be Pacers on the ex-UK railway network?

 

[The Ham]

3050?

a little safer

 

[hs2critic]

HS2 puts Manchester Airport about an hour from London and Birmingham International even closer than that.

For who's benefit?

With the reduced costs per seat.km of HS2 we could easily see explosive growth in demand.

Reduced operating costs I can buy into, but offset by the substantial repayments on capital costs of building the line in the first place.

 

[HSTEd]

For who's benefit?

For the benefit of people that can take advantage of journey options that were not previously available?

Reduced operating costs I can buy into, but offset by the substantial repayments on capital costs of building the line in the first place.

Capital cost amortises down to a rather reasonable figure when you consider the intensive nature of the service.
£40-50bn really sounds like a lot but it isn't when its spread over dozens of trains a day for 40 years.
And remember that a tunnel will potentially be in service for a hundred years or more.

And the operating costs are cut by an order of magnitude.

 

[hs2critic]

For the benefit of people that can take advantage of journey options that were not previously available?

Not really. In the main, London passengers will continue to use London airports, unless there is an exceptional reason to use a regional, usually price. That will be partially offset by the cost of getting there.

If anything, the faster time to OOC means Heathrow becomes more accessible from the Midlands & North England, thus deeping the bleed that already happens, as it offers far superior frequency and routes.

By all means, build stations near MAN & BHX airports to serve a few niche scenarios, but they will mainly become parkway stations for London airports and the centres of each respective city - assuming local traffic is welcome on HS2.

Capital cost amortises down to a rather reasonable figure when you consider the intensive nature of the service.

That is assuming usage will be as high as predicted, but the real question will be one of yield. Despite claiming to run 18tph after ph2, HS2 Ltd are still struggling to come up with a decent BCR for the scheme, despite this being a government project and govt setting the rules of how BCR is calculated.

And remember that a tunnel will potentially be in service for a hundred years or more.

Yes I would hope so, but when you take the NPV of an asset that far into the future, it tends to zero.

And the operating costs are cut by an order of magnitude.

Why? On the plus side you might have lighter trains cg Class 390s, but comparing these with the latest AGVs isn't quite comparing like with like if other, more efficient classic trains are available.

When you are moving people at 400kph instead of 200kph, you still need more energy to do this, however you do the maths. I'm not saying that's a reason to build a classic line instead, but I don't buy into any "orders of magnitude" difference - unless you meant maglev, which is a different story

 

[edwin_m]

The reasons for reduced operating cost could include more people per train (so less cost per passenger), simpler modern infrastructure needing less maintenance, but also that because the trains are faster the same train and crew can do more journeys in a day.

 

[hs2critic]

The reasons for reduced operating cost could include more people per train (so less cost per passenger), simpler modern infrastructure needing less maintenance, but also that because the trains are faster the same train and crew can do more journeys in a day.

I don't dispute any of those, but I question how costs could be "orders of magnitude" lower.

So let's take a 2-set captive train against two separate Pendolini - on the plus, you only need one driver, but you'd need two train managers anyway (assuming the role still exists, which it probably would), and you'd also have two sets of catering - even on a single train that long, it would be a long walk. Catering revenue is proportional to the length of journey (or is expected as part of the first class premium), so you are essentially offsetting the wages of a driver against the catering. So the driver wins that one, but then offset again against the additional electricity costs.

 

[D365]

The real benefit of doubling up is that you fit two services into one path - making efficient use of a busy railway (please don't argue about the scale of 'busy' on HS2).

[I meant it would be preferable if minor points like that aren't picked at. Apologies if I sound at all rude, I don't mean as such.]

 

[HSTEd]

I don't dispute any of those, but I question how costs could be "orders of magnitude" lower.

So let's take a 2-set captive train against two separate Pendolini - on the plus, you only need one driver, but you'd need two train managers anyway (assuming the role still exists, which it probably would), and you'd also have two sets of catering - even on a single train that long, it would be a long walk.

Not considered to be a problem on Eurostars or on e320s.
The reduced demand for catering due to the very short journey times can be expected to allow one crew to handle the entire demand supposing single 400m sets can be provided.
Even if you cannot get 400m sets (and there is no reason to expect we could not order such sets even if the preliminary documents do not propose them) you can get away with two non driver staff members in each set since I doubt the service would have a guard/TM.

Catering revenue is proportional to the length of journey (or is expected as part of the first class premium), so you are essentially offsetting the wages of a driver against the catering. So the driver wins that one, but then offset again against the additional electricity costs.

Considering that the London Euston-Manchester journey time is ~68 minutes, the London Euston-Birmingham journey time is ~49 minutes and even the Leeds travel time is under 90 minutes, it is unlikely that catering would continue on anything like the same basis as it does now.

I would expect first class' free catering offer to consist of tea and biscuits and not much else, as can be found on most other journeys of that total length.
You certainly don't need the massive crews Pendolinos carry now.

And as a matter of fact... a TGV Duplex has a lower electricity use per seat.km than a Class 390, thanks to not being hopelessly overweight.

And then we have to consider the fact that a handful of signallers in one control centre can control the entire route, the drastically reduced maintenance costs from only having half as many trainsets, massive use of slab track in all the tunnels which is a near zero maintenance solution.
The drastically reduced staffing costs on the trains thanks to drastically increased numbers of passengers per staff member.

And this is before you getaround to using things like contact rails in the tunnels to further reduce maintenance, and using modern signalling systems that do not trail miles of copper all over, especially thanks to the very simple nature of the system.

 

[hs2critic]

The real benefit of doubling up is that you fit two services into one path - making efficient use of a busy railway

Absolutely, although if you mean services from different places, there's always a risk with join&split that the two trains don't meet up at the right time.

However - I take no issue with the concept, doubled (or even) trebled trains are widely used on the current network, but mainly for commuter services.

It is my understanding there were trials of doubled-up intercity services on the ECML - I assume with Class 91s? Platform length less of an issue there.

(please don't argue about the scale of 'busy' on HS2).

Why not? Forums are designed for discussions, and HS2 is dependent on very intense usage to justify the exorbitant costs. Even if these projections are correct in terms of numbers, the yield is very much open to debate, and that is what is most important for the business case.

I accept the WCML is rammed in terms of track capacity, but I don't accept that these trains are full - in fact, to quote another thread just started, some of the Virgin services branded "peak" are so empty, they are practically ghost trains.

On the ECML, the opposite seems to be the case - headways are much longer (station capacity KX etc?), but I understand the Leeds <> KX services are rammed full throughout the peak and beyond.

Which begs the question - if this is where the relief is needed most, why is HS2 being built the other way round?

 

[NSEFAN]

It is my understanding there were trials of doubled-up intercity services on the ECML - I assume with Class 91s? Platform length less of an issue there.

Doubling up Mark 4 sets wouldn't work very well at King's Cross. The likes of York, Edinburgh and Newcastle have long platforms but the London end would need remodeling in order to do that.

I accept the WCML is rammed in terms of track capacity, but I don't accept that these trains are full - in fact, to quote another thread just started, some of the Virgin services branded "peak" are so empty, they are practically ghost trains.

That might partly be due to the price differential between peak and off-peak fares. For example, an Anytime Return from Birmingham to Euston is £158, but the Off-Peak Return is £49. My understanding is that the first off-peak trains tend to be rather busy for this reason. Whenever I've travelled on a Virgin service, it has always been off peak and it has always been busy. I can't speak for the peak time, though.

Pricing people off the trains evidently works, but it shifts the burden of carrying all those passengers onto the roads. Sooner or later the route needs to be expanded in order to cope with the demand.

 

[harry42]

So, if this did go ahead, why build a tunnel under East Midlands Airport?!

Also, the east midlands terminus would be at toton about 1 mile from the new tram stop at Bardills...open up?!

 

[edwin_m]

So, if this did go ahead, why build a tunnel under East Midlands Airport?!

Also, the east midlands terminus would be at toton about 1 mile from the new tram stop at Bardills...open up?!

It is difficult to design a new rail route in a densely populated country which avoids built-up areas where significant demolition would be needed, and our sensitive natural and heritage sites. Please note this would only be slightly easier if the speed was lower - you would have a little more flexibility with curvature.

Like any design project, compromises have to be made. The Toton site was chosen by a process of elimination, details of which are available online, and while it isn't ideal it is probably the least worst option given the constraints I noted above and the fact that Nottingham, Derby and Leicester are roughly in a triangle so serving one of them well means the others will miss out.

In order to pass through Toton and avoid other difficult areas the line also needs to pass through East Midlands Airport. The airport is on a hill and the alternative to a tunnel would be a huge cutting with bridges for roads, runways etc. It would have been possible to provide a station for the airport but considering it doesn't even justify a connecting bus from East Midlands Parkway at present, it is likely that the amount of interchange between rail and air here is very low. Also this would have been the only station for the East Midlands, but its local rail connections are non-existent and its bus connections no better than could be provided at Toton, so Toton is clearly a better site for the East Midlands station than the airport would be.

 

[HowardGWR]

It is difficult to design a new rail route in a densely populated country which avoids built-up areas where significant demolition would be needed, and our sensitive natural and heritage sites. Please note this would only be slightly easier if the speed was lower - you would have a little more flexibility with curvature.

Like any design project, compromises have to be made. The Toton site was chosen by a process of elimination, details of which are available online, and while it isn't ideal it is probably the least worst option given the constraints I noted above and the fact that Nottingham, Derby and Leicester are roughly in a triangle so serving one of them well means the others will miss out.

In order to pass through Toton and avoid other difficult areas the line also needs to pass through East Midlands Airport. The airport is on a hill and the alternative to a tunnel would be a huge cutting with bridges for roads, runways etc. It would have been possible to provide a station for the airport but considering it doesn't even justify a connecting bus from East Midlands Parkway at present, it is likely that the amount of interchange between rail and air here is very low. Also this would have been the only station for the East Midlands, but its local rail connections are non-existent and its bus connections no better than could be provided at Toton, so Toton is clearly a better site for the East Midlands station than the airport would be.

One imagines that the Skylink express bus services will be extended via Toton to EMA?

 

[Chris125]

I accept the WCML is rammed in terms of track capacity, but I don't accept that these trains are full - in fact, to quote another thread just started, some of the Virgin services branded "peak" are so empty, they are practically ghost trains.

The argument for HS2 isn't that the trains are full today but that they will be by the mid 2020's based on arguably quite conservative predictions of passenger growth - producing a long term solution to a long term problem means work has to start in advance, especially for a project with a 15 year construction programme.

Chris

 

[brianthegiant]

Also, the east midlands terminus would be at toton about 1 mile from the new tram stop at Bardills...open up?!

The current outline plane for the Toton HS2 station include 4 HS platforms, 4 classic platforms & NET(Tram platforms).

The Tram will be extended the mile down the hill to Toton HS2. The proposed housing estate in between has a route reserved for this in the plans. Long Eaton Councillors are now also waking up and suggesting that NET extends beyond the HS2 station into Long Eaton. I think they'd previously been unenthusiastic about the Tram going to Long Eaton.

I personally think there might also be an argument for bus-only roads (busways?) between Toton HS2 and Toton / Long Eaton, since they wouldn't cope with the through vehicle traffic but would benefit from the improved bus services. These would allow through buses towards the airport. The main road access will be off the A52 near the M1.