High Speed Two (HS2) discussion

[Tobbes]

Nobody can answer the point about all the towns and cities across England, let alone Wales and Scotland, not having access to the London/NotQuiteBirmingham Expressway. And that might be the detail which sinks the whole scheme.

Ok, I'll bite.

First, the "London/NotQuiteBirmingham Expressway" won't cost £80bn, so I suggest that you edit your signature block to avoid looking rather silly.

Second, as has been consistently pointed out, the impacts of HS2 on regional services across the UK, as well as London - North, is complex but positive. As much as I'd like the idea of taking a streamlined Princess Coronation to Glasgow with the correct carriages, I'd prefer a classic compatible via HS2 phase 1 / phase 2 and ultimately a full high speed route to do the trip in under three hours.

So, no, disinformation gets you nowhere, and unless the NPV costs blooms beyond £50bn in 2013 pounds, I'm confident it will happen. Come along, you might just like it in 2026..... and by 2040 we won't know how we ever lived without it. To misquote Peter Parker, "This will be the age of the train".

Tobbes

 

[CalderRail]

You can get from Wakefield to London in about 1hr 57minutes. Why spend -- if you insist - £20bn on making it 1hr 30?

False premise. Why spend £20bn making it 1h30 as well as increasing available capacity on the slow lines which run parallel?

Your arguments are typical of the anti-HS2 lobby that doesn't want to acknowledge the interconnectedness of the rail system and what knock on benefits would ensue from the HS2 project.

 

[PR1Berske]

False premise. Why spend £20bn making it 1h30 as well as increasing available capacity on the slow lines which run parallel.

Your arguments are typical of the anti-HS2 lobby that doesn't want to acknowledge the interconnectedness of the rail system and what knock on benefits would ensue from the HS2 project.

Not a false premise at all. Why spend £20bn on making commuters and office managers in Birmingham 15 minutes earlier for their meetings, when a fraction of that cost could modernise the track and signalling across Yorkshire?

 

[Dave1987]

I would focus money on where it matters - Manchester, Birmingham - and spend that money wisely. I would look at advances in signalling technology and intelligent timetabling.

Are you saying the Voyager timetable programming is unintelligent?

 

[Chris125]

Sounds like a clever move from Labour to limit the spiralling compensation claims and to reassure people that costs aren't going to get as silly as some people have suggested.

It's clever politics and good news for the political consensus on the project - a pretty meaningless cap allows them both to support the project and react to the concerns of those who have believed the nonsense about £73/£80bn billion, and follows on the heels of surprisingly robust comments in support from Maria Eagle. Sorry to disappoint those looking for a change in direction, but if this was really meant to herald a u-turn they would have come up with a figure much more likely to be exceeded.

Chris

 

[Tobbes]

Imagine spending money where it matters - the South West, into/out of Liverpool, into/out of Manchester.

Why does the South West matter to the HS2 debate? HS2 is there to address the WCML capacity problem, which is concentrated between London and Birmingham. But since you raise it, what do you want to do in Liverpool and Manchester, anyway? What would it cost? What would the benefits be? Without any detail, this is irrelevant waffle.

Now imagine how quickly and value for money that work would be, and how soon results would be shown, and how positive those results are.

Well, we can only guess, as you've not put anything concrete to test against HS2. Perhaps you'd care to?

You can get from Wakefield to London in about 1hr 57minutes. Why spend -- if you insist - £20bn on making it 1hr 30?

I've no idea of the timesavings from Wakefield to London with HS2, but the point is that if your numbers are accurate (and I've no reason to suspect that they're not) then they speak to exactly the point you dismissed earlier - that there was no benefit anywhere outside London or Manchester. And no, it's not £20bn for Wakefield's benefit, anymore than it would be £42bn for London's benefit.

Working on resignalling WCML would of course be disruptive, I understand that,

Good!

but better to work on what we've got

Why?

than creating an entirely new London-centric expressway for a 15minute time saving for only commuters and management to enjoy.

Seriously? Your best counter argument? Could I suggest quitting whilst you're behind?

Tobbes

 

[PR1Berske]

Are you saying the Voyager timetable programming is unintelligent?

I'm saying that a toothcomb to each and every timetable in the country could release a lot of gaps if done properly.

How and why we use the railways are changing - as HS2 will find when nobody uses the damn thing because in 30 years time office life would have changed so much that the 15 minute extra coffee drinking time bought for £20bn+ would have resulted in a lot of empty carriages. Many very early services could be moved or scrapped, freeing up units for later on in the day. Franchise holders could be asked to sacrifice services going to similar or identical destinations at peak times.

There's a lot of better ways to deal with the system than building a London-centric expressway.

 

[Tobbes]

Not a false premise at all. Why spend £20bn on making commuters and office managers in Birmingham 15 minutes earlier for their meetings, when a fraction of that cost could modernise the track and signalling across Yorkshire?

A completely false premise.... but you seem to specialise in that. Do let me know when you have a concrete proposal to address capacity on the WCML to put up against HS2 and then we can have a proper discussion.

 

[PR1Berske]

The SW matters because it's an economically deprived area which needs to have the same opportunities for jobs and growth as the rest of England. Imagine spending a fraction of the 20/40/73+bn on rail in the SW, with better links within and beyond Cornwall and the Bristol city regions? What opportunities there could be to extend the same opportunities to one corner of England in greatest need of investment which seem to be only offered to commuters in Birmingham.

 

[MidlandMainlie]

The SW matters because it's an economically deprived area which needs to have the same opportunities for jobs and growth as the rest of England. Imagine spending a fraction of the 20/40/73+bn on rail in the SW, with better links within and beyond Cornwall and the Bristol city regions? What opportunities there could be to extend the same opportunities to one corner of England in greatest need of investment which seem to be only offered to commuters in Birmingham.

What about the need of deprived places in the NW or NE. One Transport scheme cannot address the needs of the whole country. Given the upgrades to the Great western Mainline (Electrification, New IEP rolling stock) what else should be done to help the SW?

 

[tbtc]

The SW matters because it's an economically deprived area which needs to have the same opportunities for jobs and growth as the rest of England. Imagine spending a fraction of the 20/40/73+bn on rail in the SW, with better links within and beyond Cornwall and the Bristol city regions? What opportunities there could be to extend the same opportunities to one corner of England in greatest need of investment which seem to be only offered to commuters in Birmingham.

What, you mean like electrifying the GWML from London to Bristol etc, replacing the 1970s HSTs with IEP, that kind of thing?

Are you going to complain that spending all of this money on the South West isn't being spent on Wakefield/ Stoke/ Norwich now?

 

[PR1Berske]

Having a discussion with a work colleague tonight about this, his first comment was simply "well why can't they just run more trains".

People genuinely don't understand the reason for building HS2, and that's why they cannot get their head round the cost - they think that the govt is spending 40 million or however much they've decided it will cost this week on cutting journey times by 20 minutes. If it was explained to people that in 10-15 years time, people could literally be turned away from boarding trains at a terminus because it's too busy, I think they'd be a lot more forgiving.

:roll: More scare stories and unsubstantiated claims from the pro-HS2 lobby. Passengers being turned away from busy stations? Citation Needed.

A completely false premise.... but you seem to specialise in that. Do let me know when you have a concrete proposal to address capacity on the WCML to put up against HS2 and then we can have a proper discussion.

I have already said that focusing investment on specific areas and looking at a wholesale change in timetabling to make it more responsive/intelligent would be a step in the right direction.

What, you mean like electrifying the GWML from London to Bristol etc, replacing the 1970s HSTs with IEP, that kind of thing?

Are you going to complain that spending all of this money on the South West isn't being spent on Wakefield/ Stoke/ Norwich now?

I'm going to say that I'd rather have more of the schemes you've quoted, repeated all over the country, rather than a single London-bound expressway built in 30 years time.

 

[MidlandMainlie]

:roll: More scare stories and unsubstantiated claims from the pro-HS2 lobby. Passengers being turned away from busy stations? Citation Needed.




I have already said that focusing investment on specific areas and looking at a wholesale change in timetabling to make it more responsive/intelligent would be a step in the right direction.

What does that mean? Focusing Investment on what schemes exactly? What Changes to timetabling?

I'm going to say that I'd rather have more of the schemes you've quoted, repeated all over the country, rather than a single London-bound expressway built in 30 years time.

How would that solve capacity on the southern WCML though?

 

[Ironside]

:roll:


I'm going to say that I'd rather have more of the schemes you've quoted, repeated all over the country, rather than a single London-bound expressway built in 30 years time.

As has been pointed out we are getting the upgrades to the classic lines as well as HS2 on top.

 

[tbtc]

I'm going to say that I'd rather have more of the schemes you've quoted, repeated all over the country, rather than a single London-bound expressway built in 30 years time.

That's what we are getting though - the MML is being electrified and upgraded to 125mph, the Oxford to Bedford line, the new flyover at Hitchin, a thousand miles of electrification before the end of the decade, thousands of new carriages being built...

...yet I keep seeing people suggest that HS2 is taking up all of the infrastructure money!

I don't think we are ever going to move beyond the "£73bn for an express bus" argument, are we?
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

What does that mean? Focusing Investment on what schemes exactly? What Changes to timetabling?

There seems to be a belief that (despite all of the professionals scheduling the WCML and the bottlenecks that mean we can't have a couple of extra paths for a London-Shrewsbury service) there's a magic bullet that finds huge empty spaces in the timetable that would accommodate hundreds of new services a day... I know, I know...

 

[PR1Berske]

That's what we are getting though - the MML is being electrified and upgraded to 125mph, the Oxford to Bedford line, the new flyover at Hitchin, a thousand miles of electrification before the end of the decade, thousands of new carriages being built...

...yet I keep seeing people suggest that HS2 is taking up all of the infrastructure money!

I don't think we are ever going to move beyond the "£73bn for an express bus" argument, are we?

Because that's what it is, when you strip away the vague claims about "jobs and growth and investment and shiny lights and unicorns"

We are getting a line from London(ish) to Birmingham (ish) for the use of commuters to shave 15 minutes off their journey into London, and that's it. I notice that it's acceptable for the pro-Lobby to say "It'll unlock so much potential!" with wide eyed glee, but the anti-Lobby has to provide 100 pages of alternative proposals and policy documents :roll:

 

[The Planner]

I have already said that focusing investment on specific areas and looking at a wholesale change in timetabling to make it more responsive/intelligent would be a step in the right direction.

Ignoring the HS2 element, I am interested in this, how can you make it more responsive? do you suggest moving away from a LTP timetable and making it all STP considering the current change every 5-7 months? how would you deal with the current 12 week minimum window for advance ticket sales and people forward planning if the timetable had more fluidity?

As for intelligent timetabling, you are still working off several fixed elements such as rolling stock, linespeed, signalling etc... there is still only a certain amount you can do with what there is. As discussed before elsewhere, until everything moves at the same speed and does the same thing you are never going to utilise a network to anywhere near capacity. Whilst every TOC has/will have differing ideas and demands, you are also never going to get a common ground. Unless of course you scrap HS2 and spend the £80bn on bringing it all in house again

 

[tbtc]

We are getting a line from London(ish) to Birmingham (ish) for the use of commuters to shave 15 minutes off their journey into London, and that's it

You didn't notice the bit about the line running to Manchester and Leeds then?

The fact that some HS2 services won't even serve London (i.e. not just a London project)?

The capacity increases planned at current WCML stations (once the paths taken up by non-stop services are released)?

The huge improvements all round the country in CP5?

Every time it just comes back to the "saving fifteen minutes" argument... (and no alternatives offered, other than some mystical "fine-tooth comb" stuff)

 

[The Planner]

(despite all of the professionals scheduling the WCML and the bottlenecks that mean we can't have a couple of extra paths for a London-Shrewsbury service)

Never been called that before, the cheque is in the post....

 

[jon0844]

I'm saying that a toothcomb to each and every timetable in the country could release a lot of gaps if done properly.

First you insult people here by calling them anoraks, and now planners who work incredibly hard on making things work. Who next?

Timetable planning is extremely complex and why not look at a site like realtimetrains to see the other stuff you don't normally see. Freight, ECS, charters, specials etc.

It wasn't that long ago things were drastically changed to allow more Virgin trains to run, some of it detrimental to other users.

Just as I'd love to see you explain how WCML upgrades would work, how much it would cost, how long it would take and how many people would be affected by construction (including compulsory purchasing, compensation and lengthy objections and appeals), perhaps you can now say how the timetable can be changed?

Of course you won't answer any of the above, but I can wish.

 

[tbtc]

As for intelligent timetabling, you are still working off several fixed elements such as rolling stock, linespeed, signalling etc... there is still only a certain amount you can do with what there is. As discussed before elsewhere, until everything moves at the same speed and does the same thing you are never going to utilise a network to anywhere near capacity

You mean you could increase capacity on the southern stretch of the WCML if you took out the non-stop services (maybe onto a separate route for high speed services) and could then increase the number of trains at places like Milton Keynes?

(yeah, I know, "deaf ears" and all that...)

 

[PR1Berske]

Ignoring the HS2 element, I am interested in this, how can you make it more responsive? do you suggest moving away from a LTP timetable and making it all STP considering the current change every 5-7 months? how would you deal with the current 12 week minimum window for advance ticket sales and people forward planning if the timetable had more fluidity?

As for intelligent timetabling, you are still working off several fixed elements such as rolling stock, linespeed, signalling etc... there is still only a certain amount you can do with what there is. As discussed before elsewhere, until everything moves at the same speed and does the same thing you are never going to utilise a network to anywhere near capacity. Whilst every TOC has/will have differing ideas and demands, you are also never going to get a common ground. Unless of course you scrap HS2 and spend the £80bn on bringing it all in house again

Look, my stance comes from wanting to do things differently.

You can bet your bottom dollar that whenever Government says "The roads are jammed, let's build more roads", there's an outcry. There has to be a better way - staggering office hours, removing traffic signals, sorting out speed limits, putting freight on rail :roll:

You can bet your bottom dollar that whenever Government says "That airport is chockablock, let's build an extra runway", there's an outcry.

Why is it any different on the railways? Why should we have outdated and industry-friendly attitudes towards timetabling, why should it be so rigid? Why do we have to always build for the benefit of London? Why not look at curtailing multi-billion pound projects just as we do for the roads?

I don't have all the answers. Except one. Scrap HS2.

 

[MidlandMainlie]

Just as I'd love to see you explain how WCML upgrades would work, how much it would cost, how long it would take and how many people would be affected by construction (including compulsory purchasing, compensation and lengthy objections and appeals), perhaps you can now say how the timetable can be changed?

Of course you won't answer any of the above, but I can wish.

So would the rest of us, we've only been waiting three days :roll:

 

[jon0844]

The SW matters because it's an economically deprived area which needs to have the same opportunities for jobs and growth as the rest of England. Imagine spending a fraction of the 20/40/73+bn on rail in the SW, with better links within and beyond Cornwall and the Bristol city regions? What opportunities there could be to extend the same opportunities to one corner of England in greatest need of investment which seem to be only offered to commuters in Birmingham.

Why bother if nobody will be commuting in 30 years anyway?

How can you be suggesting improving other lines when you're against another new line, or would this benefit you?

It sounds to me like you're being rather hypocritical here, or alternatively haven't realised that you're actually supporting a future HS3 project perhaps. And why not? Why should HS2 be it?

 

[MidlandMainlie]

Why is it any different on the railways? Why should we have outdated and industry-friendly attitudes towards timetabling, why should it be so rigid? Why do we have to always build for the benefit of London? Why not look at curtailing multi-billion pound projects just as we do for the roads?

I don't have all the answers. Except one. Scrap HS2.

Finally we get to the point of it, you don't have any answers, therefore all your ramblings about upgrades and timetabling are bluster and nonsense

 

[Tobbes]

I notice that it's acceptable for the pro-Lobby to say "It'll unlock so much potential!" with wide eyed glee, but the anti-Lobby has to provide 100 pages of alternative proposals and policy documents :roll:

You're quite right, it isn't sufficient for the pro-HS2 lobby to say such things... which is why it is fortunate that they're not. I agree that the messaging for HS2 was poor up front - it was confused about speed, timesavings and whatnot, when it should simply have focussed on capacity, capacity, capacity.

When people get that there is a capacity problem, that there are no credible enhancements that get you the long-term capacity WCML requires, and that HS2 is best seen as WCML 2 - with the rider that if you're going to build a new alignment, the cost differential between a 140 mph alignment and a 250 mph alignment is small enough that you'd go for the high speed option - and that a new alignment will result in much less disruption than expanding the WCML, then even the hard-bitten policy types in London thinktanks come round.

If you've got a method of 6 or 8 tracking the WCML from Euston to Stafford and clearing it to Berne loading gauge for less than HS2, I'm sure DfT would be delighted. Could be a bit challenging, though!

 

[jon0844]

:roll: More scare stories and unsubstantiated claims from the pro-HS2 lobby. Passengers being turned away from busy stations? Citation Needed.

Are you suggesting people aren't already turned away from busy stations right now, today, not years in the future?

Okay, so these are Tube stations (it's harder to close many railway stations) but look at Victoria, Oxford Circus, King's Cross, Old Street and no doubt many more (these are just ones I've experienced) to see how people are turned away due to overcrowding right now.

 

[PR1Berske]

You didn't notice the bit about the line running to Manchester and Leeds then?

The fact that some HS2 services won't even serve London (i.e. not just a London project)?

The capacity increases planned at current WCML stations (once the paths taken up by non-stop services are released)?

The huge improvements all round the country in CP5?

Every time it just comes back to the "saving fifteen minutes" argument... (and no alternatives offered, other than some mystical "fine-tooth comb" stuff)

The HS2 line to Leeds and Manchester -- when it comes -- will be in the 2030s maybe even 2040s. Absolutely useless by that time for all manner of reasons. Why not spend a fraction of the cost on improving the existing networks around those two cities? Why wait 20+ years for a HS2 line when there's improvements needed now that'll be starved of much needed funds?

HS2 is focused on London, it doesn't matter about the one or two exceptions, it's a London-centric proposal which begins and ends at the already stuffed Euston. It's selling point is the 15 minutes saved for Birmingham commuters, and that's £20bn which could be going anywhere else.

First you insult people here by calling them anoraks, and now planners who work incredibly hard on making things work. Who next?

Timetable planning is extremely complex and why not look at a site like realtimetrains to see the other stuff you don't normally see. Freight, ECS, charters, specials etc.

It wasn't that long ago things were drastically changed to allow more Virgin trains to run, some of it detrimental to other users.

Just as I'd love to see you explain how WCML upgrades would work, how much it would cost, how long it would take and how many people would be affected by construction (including compulsory purchasing, compensation and lengthy objections and appeals), perhaps you can now say how the timetable can be changed?

Of course you won't answer any of the above, but I can wish.

I did no such thing, you're taking my quote out of context. I have no doubt that timetabling is complex, but I also know it's stuck in the past. Why not revisit the usual way of doing things to find better and more responsive timetabling solutions?

WCML upgrades work when they're focused and relevant to travellers needs. That means spending money wisely on approaches into and out of stations, it means finding new ways to run services into busy destinations, particularly interchanges. I don't know exactly how to the final degree, just as you and other cheerleaders can't tell me when "passengers would be turned away from busy trains" and other outlandish scarestories.

 

[The Planner]

I don't think it is rigid, despite the impression of NR, TOC, FOC, PTE etc etc... there is an incredible amount of collaborative working that happens day in and day out. I am also unsure about what is outdated by it all, if someone was making a revolutionary step forward then we are/would be on their doorstep asking them what they are doing and how

 

[MidlandMainlie]

I did no such thing, you're taking my quote out of context. I have no doubt that timetabling is complete but I also know it's stuck in the past. Why not revisit the usual way of doing things to find better and more responsive timetabling solutions?

Again what exactly does this mean?