High Speed Two (HS2) discussion

[RichmondCommu]

Perhaps it could be done more widely, but could it be done 3 or 4 times an hour, every hour?
Crack Express timings are worthless, the important thing is what the normal travel time is.
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Crack Express are hardly worthless when compared against HS2 timings given that those trains won't be stopping anywhere between Birmingham and London.

 

[YorkshireBear]

I can't see why they just don't look at four tracking Rugby - Birmingham as an alternative.

HS2s marketing is misleading in saying 'journey times of 45 minutes London - Bham down from current 83 minutes'. The fastest journey is 72 minutes in the morning (not stopping at Rugby/Coventry) and this could be done on a wider scale if it was required.


Out of interest what are the current full linespeeds between Rugby and Grand Junction?

I will agree if you tell me how that would:
-Solve capacity issues at New Street.
-Allow local services to run at higher frequencies around Birmingham/Leeds/Manchester using capacity released by removing some expresses.
-Allows more services calling at intermediate stops on ECML, WCML & MML.
-Allows extra services to run to Scotland, Leeds, Liverpool and Manchester.
-Reduces journey times.
-Allows more freight trains

 

[pt_mad]

I will agree if you tell me how that would:
-Solve capacity issues at New Street.
-Allow local services to run at higher frequencies around Birmingham/Leeds/Manchester using capacity released by removing some expresses.
-Allows more services calling at intermediate stops on ECML, WCML & MML.
-Allows extra services to run to Scotland, Leeds, Liverpool and Manchester.
-Reduces journey times.
-Allows more freight trains

Four tracking would not solve issues at New Street but neither will HS2 or the New St refurb. If a new station is required then build a new station. This doesn't have to be part of HS2 and if the government were really really that bothered about New St a new station would have been built now rather than far into the future.

Is freight really that much of an issue. I don't think the major capacity issues are on the slow lines. You can stand near the WCML southern section for 10 minutes and see nothing on the slow whatsoever or maybe just 2 freights within an hour.

Services calling at intermediate stops, this would be a backwards step as far as DFT / Virgin are concerned. They wanted less stops at intermediate stations not more. We are more likely to get more 350 stoppers on the slow lines than more fast stoppers.



No I am not at all an expert but I work on the railway and havn't yet spoken to one person face to face that is actually for HS2!! It seems more of a subject of mocking and making fun from what I have seen.

 

[joeykins82]

HS2 phase 1 is 6-tracking the WCML from Euston to Rugby and 4-tracking the Rugby-Birmingham section. It just happens that instead of running the new tracks parallel to the WCML (and incurring the inflated costs, the disruption and the speed penalties that entails) it's being done on a new high-speed alignment that will be suitable for 50 years or more, instead of being just another series of mend and make do interventions on the WCML that'll give 5-10 years of just-about-tolerably-overcrowded capacity for roughly the same amount of money. It's been sold by the government on its speed benefits because they think that speed sounds sexy and that's where all of the anti-HS2 arguments seem to focus.

 

[Geezertronic]

I can't see why they just don't look at four tracking Rugby - Birmingham as an alternative.

Regardless of whether they can four track Beechwood tunnel or not (and it's apparently prohibitively expensive to do so), you'll only ever get 4 tracks into the south of New Street so you're just moving the bottleneck somewhere else given the south of New Street is already crowded enough

The fastest journey is 72 minutes in the morning (not stopping at Rugby/Coventry) and this could be done on a wider scale if it was required.

That is the 0730 which doesn't stop anywhere between Birmingham and London, but this is supplemented by the 0741 that starts at Birmingham International and stops only at Coventry. You'd need a few more trains and paths if you wanted to replicate that on a wider scale so that would increase the capacity issues on the WCML south rather than resolving it

 

[WessexEclectic]

Because the capacity problem is South of Rugby

Suppose you observe your local town centre. Traffic jams are oftern caused by a new and wonderful fleet of Virgin/Stagecoach 'Pendibuses'. You could come to the conclusion that the town's one-way road system is full to capacity and new by-pass needs to be built.

You then take a closer look and note that most of the buses are lightly loaded and the ones that are full are because passengers are taking advantage of cheap tickets available only on those services.

Do you still conclude that the road system is full to capacity?

 

[YorkshireBear]

Services calling at intermediate stops, this would be a backwards step as far as DFT / Virgin are concerned. They wanted less stops at intermediate stations not more. We are more likely to get more 350 stoppers on the slow lines than more fast stoppers.

Improving services is a backwards step?

 

[pt_mad]

Regardless of whether they can four track Beechwood tunnel or not (and it's apparently prohibitively expensive to do so), you'll only ever get 4 tracks into the south of New Street so you're just moving the bottleneck somewhere else given the south of New Street is already crowded enough

That is the 0730 which doesn't stop anywhere between Birmingham and London, but this is supplemented by the 0741 that starts at Birmingham International and stops only at Coventry. You'd need a few more trains and paths if you wanted to replicate that on a wider scale so that would increase the capacity issues on the WCML south rather than resolving it

They could use many of the same paths but cut some stops at Rugby and Coventry at peaks. After all HS2 will not stop at Coventry, so Coventry obviously is not a major factor in long distance high speed rail.

More 350s would be a viable idea for Coventry and Rugby.

Justification was found for four tracking the northern section of the Trent Valley so why not Rug - Bhm?
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Improving services is a backwards step?

As far as Virgin and DFT are concerned yes. Backwards towards the past. Like when Nuneaton had an hourly express, cut back to roughly 4 or 5 peak time pendos a day to London. Similar situation at Rugby. They want LESS intermediate stopping fast trains not more.

A few months ago there was a forum debate about why East Coast stopped a lot of fast services at places like Grantham/Newark/Retford and Northallerton and Virgin don't stop at smaller places. The general concensus was that because of the LM 350s, Virgin don't need to stop anymore fast services at smaller stations. Is this not still the case?

 

[Geezertronic]

They could use many of the same paths but cut some stops at Rugby and Coventry at peaks. After all HS2 will not stop at Coventry, so Coventry obviously is not a major factor in long distance high speed rail.

More 350s would be a viable idea for Coventry and Rugby.

So you're effectively saying that Coventry should have their current services cut and have commuter trains instead? And that is what anti-HS2 campaigners in Coventry are complaining about at the moment so you're not doing Coventry any favours there

Justification was found for four tracking the northern section of the Trent Valley so why not Rug - Bhm?

Probably because the northern Trent Valley section goes to a lot more northern destinations than just Rugby-Birmingham and is the direct route on the current WCML. Unless you plan to route some of these services via Birmingham, why would Rugby-Birmingham need 4 tracking let alone Rugby-Coventry? And how does that solve the capacity issues on the WCML South?

 

[pt_mad]

So you're effectively saying that Coventry should have their current services cut and have commuter trains instead? And that is what anti-HS2 campaigners in Coventry are complaining about at the moment so you're not doing Coventry any favours there

Isn't that what they did at Nuneaton and Rugby? (for the sake of Northern destinations)


Probably because the northern Trent Valley section goes to a lot more northern destinations than just Rugby-Birmingham and is the direct route on the current WCML. Unless you plan to route some of these services via Birmingham, why would Rugby-Birmingham need 4 tracking let alone Rugby-Coventry? And how does that solve the capacity issues on the WCML South?

Services run or will run to Scotland via that route as well not just Bhm and Wolverhampton.



It all comes down to - not in my back yard. Some people are for HS2, but if it directly impacted on their area or town they may change their minds.

As I say on the railway I have spoken to many people, a lot of them industry experts who mock the whole thing.

Havn't heard of hoards of people backing the plans. Hoards certainly against or thinking it as a waste of time.




Another fundamental problem with the issue of journey times is that everything is factored in from Birmingham City Centre or Leeds City Centre etc but when you consider the time it would take from an outer suberb of Bhm to drive to a cross city station, park car, wait for train, travel to New St, get on metro to Curzon St, wait for train then 45 mins aint 45 mins anymore.

I was speaking to someone from a West Midlands newspaper a few weeks ago who said he knew of many many people from Sutton Coldfield and surrounding areas who were driving to Cross City stations in the morning, struggling to park and then connecting to pendolinos at a crammed New St for a journey time of either 1hr 12mins or 1 hr 23 mins from there.
He made the point that he himself drives to Lichfield Trent Valley, parks there and gets straight on a pendo for way less journey time. Interesting.

 

[YorkshireBear]

As far as Virgin and DFT are concerned yes. Backwards towards the past. Like when Nuneaton had an hourly express, cut back to roughly 4 or 5 peak time pendos a day to London. Similar situation at Rugby. They want LESS intermediate stopping fast trains not more.

A few months ago there was a forum debate about why East Coast stopped a lot of fast services at places like Grantham/Newark/Retford and Northallerton and Virgin don't stop at smaller places. The general concensus was that because of the LM 350s, Virgin don't need to stop anymore fast services at smaller stations. Is this not still the case?

Virgin probably wont be in charge when HS2 opens. The WCML franchise is to be reorganised when HS2 opens. They have already said all those places you mention will start getting far more services.

 

[Gareth]

So you're effectively saying that Coventry should have their current services cut and have commuter trains instead? And that is what anti-HS2 campaigners in Coventry are complaining about at the moment so you're not doing Coventry any favours there

Some even call for this to happen to Liverpool with respect to Manchester; noting that Liverpool is far larger than Coventry, Manchester's only moderately larger than Liverpool, as well as smaller than Birmingham and the two cities are further apart than Coventry & Birmingham. Using that ridiculous yardstick, I think it easily makes Coventry fair game to these people.

EDIT

Hell, why even bother mentioning that one? I mean, some even want the UK to be even more London-centric than it is now, with every other last place, from tiny villages through to second largest city Birmingham to somehow serve this utopian metropolis as dormitory suburbs. And the scary thing is, these people aren't even trolling. They genuinely believe (or sorely want to believe) in what they advocate.

 

[Geezertronic]

It all comes down to - not in my back yard. Some people are for HS2, but if it directly impacted on their area or town they may change their minds.

That I have to agree with

As I say on the railway I have spoken to many people, a lot of them industry experts who mock the whole thing.

Havn't heard of hoards of people backing the plans. Hoards certainly against or thinking it as a waste of time.

I am sure there were a lot of people who mocked the motorway network, M1, M40, M25 etc... but the country couldn't do without it now (not that HS2 will be a direct comparison though)

Another fundamental problem with the issue of journey times is that everything is factored in from Birmingham City Centre or Leeds City Centre etc but when you consider the time it would take from an outer suberb of Bhm to drive to a cross city station, park car, wait for train, travel to New St, get on metro to Curzon St, wait for train then 45 mins aint 45 mins anymore.

I was speaking to someone from a West Midlands newspaper a few weeks ago who said he knew of many many people from Sutton Coldfield and surrounding areas who were driving to Cross City stations in the morning, struggling to park and then connecting to pendolinos at a crammed New St for a journey time of either 1hr 12mins or 1 hr 23 mins from there.
He made the point that he himself drives to Lichfield Trent Valley, parks there and gets straight on a pendo for way less journey time. Interesting.

But that would be like saying the people who use the "A Roads" don't know the "motorway" exists

 

[Ships]

Is freight really that much of an issue. I don't think the major capacity issues are on the slow lines. You can stand near the WCML southern section for 10 minutes and see nothing on the slow whatsoever or maybe just 2 freights within an hour.

Services calling at intermediate stops, this would be a backwards step as far as DFT / Virgin are concerned. They wanted less stops at intermediate stations not more. We are more likely to get more 350 stoppers on the slow lines than more fast stoppers.



No I am not at all an expert but I work on the railway and havn't yet spoken to one person face to face that is actually for HS2!! It seems more of a subject of mocking and making fun from what I have seen.

Maybe you should attend one of Andrew mcnaughtons talks on HS2, they really answer a lot of the questions people on here seem to have about HS2. I always have to laugh when people give anacdotle evidence as a reason against something. I mean I'm sure it's more relevant than all the research and simulation done by the hs2 planners. There is a capacity crisis on the WCML, weather or not you choose to believe it is upto you.

The thing with freight is you won't see them buzzing past ever 5 minutes because they are slower and take up more paths.

Again you miss the point, with hs2 in place and providing the fast intercity services capacity will be avalible for more semi fast and slow services, without having to worry about having a pendo up their bottoms...

Also I'm surprised comparisons havnt been made between wcml route upgrade costs an those of hs2. When you make this HS2 comes out rather well, and thats before you factor in all the disruption another weatcoast upgrade would cause!

I also work on the railway and most of the people chundering about hs2 seem to be signallers.....and they moan about EVERYTHING!

 

[HSTEd]

I am pretty sure HS2 Phase 1 would have delivered better value for money if it had been taken forward at the time of the WCRM instead of it.
Once you account for inflation I think the cost comes out as broadly comparable.

 

[The Ham]

Indeed, but I think that the headlines emphasise the more glamorous (such as it is) things which will interest passengers. Reduced operating costs and replacement of life-expired systems and stock isn't a very sexy way of spending £5bn. Also note that according to NR electric trains are (paraphrasing) "cheaper and lighter than diesels" - true generally, perhaps not so much with IEP...

Also the GWML hasn't been upgraded for a long time so you get more bang for your buck with upgrades. You can't simply electrify & resignal the WCML to deliver faster/more trains, as it's already been done to (pretty much) the best we can do. I accept there's room for improvement on the MML of course.

Although with the electrification of the MML, a good chunk of the easy improvements will be done; espicially if there are "new" longer trains for the line. Meaning that any furter improvements of the existing north south lines (WCML, ECML & MML) could start getting a little pricey. As such the improvements which HS2 should bring to all three lines could work out very cost effective.

 

[Ships]

The thing is you couldn't have just replaced the WCML with high speed and doing both would have been out of the question. Thing is the westcoast route mod done by NR now would probably be significantly cheaper even without factoring in inflation. I've heard some toe curling things that went on off fairly high up people on the upgrade

 

[HSTEd]

The thing is you couldn't have just replaced the WCML with high speed and doing both would have been out of the question. Thing is the westcoast route mod done by NR now would probably be significantly cheaper even without factoring in inflation. I've heard some toe curling things that went on off fairly high up people on the upgrade

Why not?
HS2 Phase 1 would have cut journey times to Liverpool and Manchester quite significantly, and probably Glasgow too.

 

[Ships]

Ok where would you put freight and semi fast and stopping services? HS2 releases a large amount of capacity on WCML because you probably won't have all the 125 services hogging paths!
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Whilst I agree with you on the travel times, it doesn't out weight the drawbacks. Also as it is we still get these, just have to wait till phase two.

I'm not sure if it's been mentioned but I believe there is an idea that the WCML north of phase two is going to be raised to 150mph without tilt. To me that sounds something similar to the intercity 250 program from thé late 80s/early 90s.

 

[HSTEd]

Ok where would you put freight and semi fast and stopping services? HS2 releases a large amount of capacity on WCML because you probably won't have all the 125 services hogging paths!
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Whilst I agree with you on the travel times, it doesn't out weight the drawbacks. Also as it is we still get these, just have to wait till phase two.

I'm not sure if it's been mentioned but I believe there is an idea that the WCML north of phase two is going to be raised to 150mph without tilt. To me that sounds something similar to the intercity 250 program from thé late 80s/early 90s.

Why are you disagreeing with me?
I was proposing that we should have built HS2-1 instead of the WCRM.
ie. 10 years ago.
I actually suggested this to my parents at the time when I found out how cheap LGVs were to build in France :P

And they can't upgrade above 125mph because that would require the route to be completely resignalled again, and it ain't due yet.

 

[Ships]

Sorry I seem to have gotten the wrong end of the stick! Thought you where proposing to replace the WCML with an high speed line. Sorry about that, what you say does make perfect sense!

 

[RichmondCommu]

I am pretty sure HS2 Phase 1 would have delivered better value for money if it had been taken forward at the time of the WCRM instead of it.
Once you account for inflation I think the cost comes out as broadly comparable.

But look how long its going to take to build HS2. The West Midlands and North West couldn't afford to wait that long.

 

[HSTEd]

But look how long its going to take to build HS2. The West Midlands and North West couldn't afford to wait that long.

Look at the absurd disruption it caused during the upgrade.
And the upgrade still took years.

 

[RichmondCommu]

Look at the absurd disruption it caused during the upgrade.
And the upgrade still took years.

I concur but even so it was much quicker than building HS2. And there can be no doubt that those living along side the WCML have reaped the benefits.

 

[HSTEd]

I concur but even so it was much quicker than building HS2. And there can be no doubt that those living along side the WCML have reaped the benefits.

They could have achieved almost all the benefits they got from the upgrade using 110mph multiple units.
The capacity enhancements would likely have been unnecessary if all the intercity trains could be removed from south of Birmingham/Rugeley. (And the extra line on the Trent Valley would almost certainly have been unnecessary as I believe that was only really to deconflict the fast and slow services which would have been less important if all the travel time gain had been south of Birmingham)

And as to the time taken, HS2-1 will only take a few years.
Remember that WCRM was on the drawing board since some time in the mid-90s. You can't include the project planning time in one case and not the other.

 

[RichmondCommu]

They could have achieved almost all the benefits they got from the upgrade using 110mph multiple units.
The capacity enhancements would likely have been unnecessary if all the intercity trains could be removed from south of Birmingham/Rugeley. (And the extra line on the Trent Valley would almost certainly have been unnecessary as I believe that was only really to deconflict the fast and slow services which would have been less important if all the travel time gain had been south of Birmingham)

And as to the time taken, HS2-1 will only take a few years.
Remember that WCRM was on the drawing board since some time in the mid-90s. You can't include the project planning time in one case and not the other.

A few years??? Nothing will run between London and Birmingham until 2026; well thats 13 years from now! And we started planning HS2 whilst Labour were still in power!

By my reckoning the WCML upgrade took around 10 years but this was phased with the first part having been completed in 2004 so customers could immediately start to see benefits.

 

[hs2critic]

Coventry has decided to leave the 51M group and start supporting HS2 now.

Not true. They voted to stop outright opposition and to get engineers to look further into whether or not they could get any extra changes, subject to a report for a later date.

The agenda item still quite clearly states there is nothing which would lend Coventry towards giving outright support.

Coventry's position is very different to the other councils. We are not on the line, so we are not affected in terms of the environmental concerns, but we also will not have any direct trains to London on HS2.

So rather than being "nimbys", there is an element of "imby" - ie bring it here, and a large element of indifference.

 

[tbtc]

Not true. They voted to stop outright opposition and to get engineers to look further into whether or not they could get any extra changes, subject to a report for a later date.

The agenda item still quite clearly states there is nothing which would lend Coventry towards giving outright support.

Coventry's position is very different to the other councils. We are not on the line, so we are not affected in terms of the environmental concerns, but we also will not have any direct trains to London on HS2.

So rather than being "nimbys", there is an element of "imby" - ie bring it here, and a large element of indifference.

I think that the ideal solution would be to build HS2 so that it passes every house in the UK but is about five miles away from every house in the UK - that way we'd satisfy everyone.

Either that or get the population of places like Liverpool and Coventry (and Bristol and Leicester etc) to move to somewhere on the route and swap with the Not In My Back Yard element who don't want to live anywhere near it.

Or maybe accept that we can't suit everyone with one line. But that'll never happen.

 

[hs2critic]

Or maybe accept that we can't suit everyone with one line. But that'll never happen.

In my experience, imbys are much rarer than nimbys - in fact, for a generic planning app, work on about 1:7 being par for the course.

But HS2 isn't a planning app, it is a hybrid bill, and it is also government money funding it, not a private developer. Given the high usage proposed, the economic case should stack up, but it doesn't, and that's the reality.

So I'm afraid the criticism will continue to come.

 

[Ships]

I've seen nothing in the business case for hs2 that mentions the value of the capacity on the WCML that will be freed up (quite important considering it'll be full in ten years). The optimism bias on 60% is pretty hefty but we shall see. In the end the country needs hs2