High Speed Two (HS2) discussion

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Go 30 years down the line and it appears that the lines between London and the rest of the country will blur further and that we will see a gradual suburbanisation of the southern half of England.

That may very well be the case for the southern half of England but is it not the case that HS2 was also to aid the strength of the cross-Pennine belt of cities in the north of England, such as Liverpool, Manchester, Bradford, Leeds and Sheffield which cannot in any way be described as satellite areas of the Greater London conurbation.

The term "London-centric" is bandied around on numerous threads on this website and certain postings do nothing to dissuade forum members that there seems to be an insidious brain-washing occurring to convince forum members that this indeed is the case..

 

[HSTEd]

That may very well be the case for the southern half of England but is it not the case that HS2 was also to aid the strength of the cross-Pennine belt of cities in the north of England, such as Liverpool, Manchester, Bradford, Leeds and Sheffield which cannot in any way be described as satellite areas of the Greater London conurbation.

Well they can't be described as satellite areas of the Greater London conurbation.... yet
Putting Manchester and Sheffield under 70 minutes from London is going to alter thier status massively I would expect.
Even Leeds would only be 82 minutes away which is about where Newark stands now.

They might not be a part of the Great London conurbation but with those travel times I think they soon will be, especially if HS2 delivers as many seats as it is capable of at the costs it is capable of.

The term "London-centric" is bandied around on numerous threads on this website and certain postings do nothing to dissuade forum members that there seems to be an insidious brain-washing occurring to convince forum members that this indeed is the case..

Well unfortunately I am one of those people that believe that London-centric economy growth is now inevitable and the only way we can help the rest of the country is by tying London as closely to everything else as possible, potentially to the point of making 'London' a symonym for the entire country.

This is why I am still open to R&D on technologies that can cut travel times still further than 320-360kph TGV Duplex/AGV sets can.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Well they can't be described as satellite areas of the Greater London conurbation.... yet

Putting Manchester and Sheffield under 70 minutes from London is going to alter their status massively I would expect.

Being my usual self up wide awake in my study in all unearthly hours of the night and wishing to draw a nearby European comparison, I would say that Tours may well be viewed as a TGV satellite to Paris, I would most certainly state that Marseille is not a heavy-rail satellite of Paris.

 

[HSTEd]

Being my usual self up wide awake in my study in all unearthly hours of the night and wishing to draw a nearby European comparison, I would say that Tours may well be viewed as a TGV satellite to Paris, I would most certainly state that Marseille is not a heavy-rail satellite of Paris.

And Marseille is about as far from Paris as Inverness is from London.

Not really comparable to Manchester or Leeds or even Newcastle.
Meanwhile Tours is only 50km closer to Paris than Leeds is to London.

 

[The Ham]

I think that is what David Higgins is hinting at. As I understand it the Phase 1 timetable is determined by the rebuilding works at Euston which is expected to take 7 years. The actual construction of the line to Birmingham is expected to take less so there will be a busy period of construction from 2018-2023/24ish then construction will stop for a couple of years until the rebuilding works are completed and the line opens in 2026;. then work on phase two would begin. If work on phase 2 started as soon as the phase 1 route was completed (but before it opens) it would shorten the completion date for phase two by a couple of years and allow the workmen to transfer and avoid the disruption of workers being laid off only to rehire 2 years later.

Having looked at the Phase 2 maps a bit more the distance to Crewe is up to 30km, now given that Phase one (120km) will take, say, 5 years that works out at about 24km a year (even 6 years is 20km per year), meaing that the bit to Crewe should be possible to build in an additional 18 months.

If that is the case then it could be possible to tack it onto Phase 1 and still be able to open Phase 1 on time, or if not open it 6 to 12 months after Phase 1. In doing so it should free up a number of paths on the WCML through Stratford which could have otherwise would have not been freed up for a further year or two if Phase 2 only started after Phase 1.

All of which, depending on how passenger growth performs over the next few years, may possibly mean that it could save other stop gap projects from needing to be built to cope with the extra demand for a short llife span.

In terms of the impact on trains, given the link to the WCML is south of Crewe it should be possible to built it in the same WCML closures as the junction at Lichfield. Which would just mean that rather than all the services running via Birmingham they would have to run via Stoke on Trent as well. As although this would add extra travel time for the weekends it was happening it would mean a lot less weekends where there would be diversions in place for.

Although this leads to the question is it better to have 10 weekends of disruption where journey times are increased by an hour or have 18 weekends where journey times are increased by 30 minutes? As there will be those who will travel regardless as well as those who won't regardless, it is then just a case of working out how much more anoying it is for the rest to be delayed for a longer time over fewer weekends against those who will be more anoyed about the higher number of weekends of disruption, although with the shorter delay.

 

[JohnB57]

The dome (aka the millennium experience) was a failure because there was no clear idea what it was for. It ended up as a random pile of exhibits which showed the very worst in high-mided 'creative' intent. It's only been successful following its retooling as a concert and sports venue.

On the contrary. The primary vision of the dome was very clear - to provide a national focus to celebrate the turn of the millennium. It was the assumptions and the execution that resulted in it not achieving all it set out to and in those respects I'd suggest the similarities with HS2 are striking.

HS2 is a project designed around a bespoke, flawed BCR model, which has resulted in something the public fails to understand. Not because of mis-communication, but because actually, mostly they're not stupid. Take the BCR out of the equation and I simply don't see how anyone could argue that the best solution for future capacity constraints is the design as it stands. Would you really build a line with no intermediate stops between London and Birmingham unless the business case you wished to sell to the electorate depended on the symbolism of squeezing a few extra minutes off the journey time?

The case may or may not not have been communicated properly, but there are a lot of people out there, many of whom are rail enthusiasts like me, who understand all the arguments very well, are desperate for massive future-proofing infrastructure projects but remain unconvinced about HS2's promise to make their own lives better.

 

[eps200]

On the contrary. The primary vision of the dome was very clear - to provide a national focus to celebrate the turn of the millennium. It was the assumptions and the execution that resulted in it not achieving all it set out to and in those respects I'd suggest the similarities with HS2 are striking.

HS2 is a project designed around a bespoke, flawed BCR model, which has resulted in something the public fails to understand. Not because of mis-communication, but because actually, mostly they're not stupid. Take the BCR out of the equation and I simply don't see how anyone could argue that the best solution for future capacity constraints is the design as it stands. Would you really build a line with no intermediate stops between London and Birmingham unless the business case you wished to sell to the electorate depended on the symbolism of squeezing a few extra minutes off the journey time?

The case may or may not not have been communicated properly, but there are a lot of people out there, many of whom are rail enthusiasts like me, who understand all the arguments very well, are desperate for massive future-proofing infrastructure projects but remain unconvinced about HS2's promise to make their own lives better.

Intermediate stops would not solve anything at all. Think of six tracking a line, you have a slow pair that stop everywhere, a semi fast pair that stop in some places and an fast pair that run between the main cities.

We currently run these three sets on two pairs HS2 is the Fast pair freeing up more capacity for the other two. Why would you possibly add more stops to a fast line? your new services should go down the lines that exist useing the now freed up paths.

 

[JohnB57]

Intermediate stops would not solve anything at all. Think of six tracking a line, you have a slow pair that stop everywhere, a semi fast pair that stop in some places and an fast pair that run between the main cities.

We currently run these three sets on two pairs HS2 is the Fast pair freeing up more capacity for the other two. Why would you possibly add more stops to a fast line? your new services should go down the lines that exist useing the now freed up paths.

As I said, I understand all of that very well, although I appreciate your "Ladybird Book of Railways" explanation!

I thought capacity was the main driver, not speed? So, facilitate a greater number of people to transfer to the high speed line by introducing maybe just one extra stop between London and Birmingham on a different route with a different catchment area to your current semi and slow lines via MK and you free up even more capacity. Priority number one satisfied. Secondary benefit hardly impacted.

 

[Philip Elliott]

Intermediate stops would not solve anything at all. Think of six tracking a line, you have a slow pair that stop everywhere, a semi fast pair that stop in some places and an fast pair that run between the main cities.

We currently run these three sets on two pairs HS2 is the Fast pair freeing up more capacity for the other two. Why would you possibly add more stops to a fast line? your new services should go down the lines that exist useing the now freed up paths.

Your logic is right but the execution is wrong. Services to Coventry, Stoke, Chester etc. are not 'semi-fast' but are express services. The only semi-fasts are the moment are the xx.13 Northampton/Birmingham, xx.46 Crewe and xx.49 Northampton/Birmingham.

Therefore we need a line that stops MK, Coventry and Stoke then we really can 'transfer' express services.

 

[edwin_m]

The London-Birmingham leg of HS2 is intended to carry not only London-Birmingham passengers but also those between London and Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, Preston, Scotland etc, and also those who can make other journeys by interchanging at London, OOC or a station further north. Assuming the forecasts are accurate, it will be carrying 18 trains per hour which is close to maximum theoretical throughput, and at peak times each train will be close to the maximum number of passengers.

Therefore there is no point in introducing intermediate stops on this leg because there is no capacity to carry extra passengers. Extra stops (where some but not all trains call) would actually reduce capacity because each stopping train takes up two paths, one before it arrives at the stop and a different one after it has departed. Also for stops nearer London the journey time saving is that much less and therefore there is little incentive to go to a stop that is probably less conveniently located than the existing railway.

The situation becomes a little different north of Birmingham where (despite trains from Birmingham northwards using it) capacity is somewhat less constrained. There are opportunities for regional trains to take up the remaining capacity, and the Scottish proposal for Glasgow-Edinburgh high speed services is the most public example of such an idea.

 

[IKBrunel]

As I said, I understand all of that very well, although I appreciate your "Ladybird Book of Railways" explanation!

bit unecessary imho

I thought capacity was the main driver, not speed?...

I think you are making the mistake of trying to oversimplifying a complex project with a complex set of objectives.

I would say HS2 is about capacity, reliability, ease of use, ticket cost and speed, not necesarily in that order. Any argument based on the premise that HS2 delivers only 1 of those things is silly.

Yes politicians are talking up capacity at the moment, that they only talk in short soundbites is an unfortunate consequence of tabloid papers & tv news.

facilitate a greater number of people to transfer to the high speed line by introducing maybe just one extra stop between London and Birmingham

Where would you put the halfway station? Bicester? Aylesbury? Not convinced these places have the population centre to justify it. If the cash were spent on a shiny new station how many people would use it? Especially given they are already served by the ever improving Chiltern line, and shortly the east west line. I would hope that stations are being built where there is a robust case to do so and not just to appease nimbys.

 

[HowardGWR]

As I said, I understand all of that very well, although I appreciate your "Ladybird Book of Railways" explanation!

One can usually identify that an argument has hit home when this sort of response is made. EPS200's contribution was a model of logical thought and beautifully expressed IMO.

On other responses about a station between Brum and London, I thought there were already to be two (Airport and OOC)? Have I got that wrong?

Not only that, but there is a proposal to bring WCML trains into OOC for Crossrail. See London Reconnections web site for the many ideas including those from TfL.

 

[tbtc]

The point is though what chance do we have of encouraging the likes of Google to move its headquarters from London to Sheffield? That is what HS2 is aiming to do

Is it?

Excellent. Never noticed that in the spec before. Maybe they'll pay some tax, once they've moved to Yorkshire?

There are a few other aims of HS2, mainly freeing up capacity on current lines (which is currently taken up by non-stop/fast trains, that take a disproportionate amount of line capacity)

 

[IKBrunel]

mmm,
I think for me this is one of the fundamental advantages of the HS2 approach.
mixing freight/stoppers/intercity all on same lines is an inefficient use of the resource, not to mention a recipe for poor reliability.

 

[HowardGWR]

mmm,
I think for me this is one of the fundamental advantages of the HS2 approach.
mixing freight/stoppers/intercity all on same lines is an inefficient use of the resource, not to mention a recipe for poor reliability.

As we saw when the class 66 spread itself over the lines, remember?

So reliability is also a pre for a new line.

 

[Philip Elliott]

mmm,
I think for me this is one of the fundamental advantages of the HS2 approach.
mixing freight/stoppers/intercity all on same lines is an inefficient use of the resource, not to mention a recipe for poor reliability.

We don't mix all those types on the WCML because we have separate fast and slow lines. You think the post HS2 timetable on the WCML which provides a complete mash of services is more efficient?

Post HS2 sees more freight mixing with more commuter services - that is the real disaster in waiting for reliability.

What about the other 97% of the network that is not affected? The most common cause of delays on my commute is freight.

 

[JohnB57]

One can usually identify that an argument has hit home when this sort of response is made.

I can assure one that one is wrong.

 

[HSTEd]

The additional commuter trains will be running on the fast lines though.
I imagine there would be actually be fewer passenger trains on the slow lines as those paths will be turned over, to a greater extent, to pure freight operations.

 

[dggar]

One can usually identify that an argument has hit home when this sort of response is made. .

Is this another variation on Godwin's law?

 

[JohnB57]

I think you are making the mistake of trying to oversimplifying a complex project with a complex set of objectives.

I would say HS2 is about capacity, reliability, ease of use, ticket cost and speed, not necesarily in that order. Any argument based on the premise that HS2 delivers only 1 of those things is silly.

Yes politicians are talking up capacity at the moment, that they only talk in short soundbites is an unfortunate consequence of tabloid papers & tv news.


Where would you put the halfway station? Bicester? Aylesbury? Not convinced these places have the population centre to justify it. If the cash were spent on a shiny new station how many people would use it? Especially given they are already served by the ever improving Chiltern line, and shortly the east west line. I would hope that stations are being built where there is a robust case to do so and not just to appease nimbys.

And I think that you're falling into the trap of using whatever argument suits without trying to understand, or worse, ignoring others, perfectly reasonable points just because they don't chime with your own opinions.

In my post, I quoted the "priority of the month", capacity, being improved by additional stops. I also pointed out that the speed issue would be a minor compromise. These are reasonable points, mentioned often by many people and they deserve proper consideration.

I am fully aware that in complex projects, there is a hierarchy of priorities that shift with the politics. I really do understand these issues, I just think there are better solutions.

Bicester and/or Aylesbury parkways would be good. When I travel to London by train, just like the vast majority of people, I have to drive to a station some miles away - either Wakefield or Meadowhall in my case - so I'm afraid your point about local population is convenient to your argument, but irrelevant. Anyone south of Birmingham going to London will simply not use HS2 as it's currently designed and that seems to me a missed opportunity.

 

[YorkshireBear]

Bicester and/or Aylesbury parkways would be good. When I travel to London by train, just like the vast majority of people, I have to drive to a station some miles away - either Wakefield or Meadowhall in my case - so I'm afraid your point about local population is convenient to your argument, but irrelevant. Anyone south of Birmingham going to London will simply not use HS2 as it's currently designed and that seems to me a missed opportunity.

Why? They can use the existing lines that have trains to suit there needs better? HS2 can't serve everywhere.

 

[HSTEd]

Bicester and/or Aylesbury parkways would be good. When I travel to London by train, just like the vast majority of people, I have to drive to a station some miles away - either Wakefield or Meadowhall in my case - so I'm afraid your point about local population is convenient to your argument, but irrelevant. Anyone south of Birmingham going to London will simply not use HS2 as it's currently designed and that seems to me a missed opportunity.

I assume you want these stations to get 18 trains per hour?
Anything other than every train stopping would seriously degrade capacity.

This is fine, but you have to agree to that tradeoff, there are no 'free stops' as it were.

 

[MarkyT]

One thing not mentioned so far in this debate about intermediate parkway stations on HS2 is that if they were really successful in attracting significant numbers of passengers, those would most likely be abstracted largely from existing Chilterns services. Loss of such trade might then result in the need for service reductions on the existing lines, not only affecting London commuting but many other established travel patterns around and between Chilterns towns. Furthermore if the new service was so enticing it attracted custom from as far away as Oxford and the WCML corridor there may be insufficient custom remaining on those lines to increase services to fill the capacity HS2 was designed to release in the first place and the need for the frequent additional HS2 commuter stops themselves could start to choke off capacity for the non-stop expresses. By definition the customers for these beetfield stations would likely be the better off rural commuters who have sole access to motor vehicles to drive long distances to the parkway, yet it will be poorer, more urban rail users who will have to bear the brunt of any resultant classic commuter service reductions. Please let's not build any additional stations on the new line. Leave HS2 to become the new super-fast WCML express bypass to Brum and beyond that it was always intended to be and develop existing lines for improved local commuter services.

 

[jon0844]

Excellent. Never noticed that in the spec before. Maybe they'll pay some tax, once they've moved to Yorkshire?

Google's HQ will be right behind King's Cross. Of course it will probably run at a huge loss to offset tax!

 

[edwin_m]

On other responses about a station between Brum and London, I thought there were already to be two (Airport and OOC)? Have I got that wrong?

There will be a station at OOC but all trains will stop there and this means it doesn't cause a capacity penalty. Capacity is used less efficiently when some but not all trains stop.

By Airport I assume you mean Birmingham not Heathrow (which is another story). The Birmingham Interchange station will be near the junction of the Birmingham branch and the main line, and this means that although not all trains will stop, by careful timetabling it can be accommodated without loss of capacity on the main line to/from London.

Not only that, but there is a proposal to bring WCML trains into OOC for Crossrail. See London Reconnections web site for the many ideas including those from TfL.

These will be separate platforms from HS2 so won't have any effect on HS2 capacity. It's a very sensible proposal in my view, as there are about 14 Crossrail trains per hour that terminate at Paddington and extending them onto the Euston line reduces the number of classic network trains terminating at Euston and therefore also reduces the size of the station.

 

[Philip Elliott]

One thing not mentioned so far in this debate about intermediate parkway stations on HS2 is that if they were really successful in attracting significant numbers of passengers, those would most likely be abstracted largely from existing Chilterns services. Loss of such trade might then result in the need for service reductions on the existing lines, not only affecting London commuting but many other established travel patterns around and between Chilterns towns. Furthermore if the new service was so enticing it attracted custom from as far away as Oxford and the WCML corridor there may be insufficient custom remaining on those lines to increase services to fill the capacity HS2 was designed to release in the first place and the need for the frequent additional HS2 commuter stops themselves could start to choke off capacity for the non-stop expresses. By definition the customers for these beetfield stations would likely be the better off rural commuters who have sole access to motor vehicles to drive long distances to the parkway, yet it will be poorer, more urban rail users who will have to bear the brunt of any resultant classic commuter service reductions. Please let's not build any additional stations on the new line. Leave HS2 to become the new super-fast WCML express bypass to Brum and beyond that it was always intended to be and develop existing lines for improved local commuter services.

Banbury/Leamington/Warwick/Solihull to London are hardly 'local commuter services'. You're looking at it from a black or white perspective and forgetting the hundreds of shades of grey in between. Chiltern has very bad overcrowding so capacity relief would be most welcome!

It is naive to believe that rural areas are all well off. Rural isolation is still big issue and is a significant cause of the high number of 'neets'.

 

[HSTEd]

Also just noticed something:

On the HS2 Website:

The Edinburgh travel time is listed as 218 minutes, calling at OOC and Carstairs only.
The Newcastle travel time is listed as 138 minutes, calling at OOC and York only.

From the current timetable the Newcastle-Edinburgh travel time is 88-90 minutes, which would put a Edinburgh via Newcastle journey time at something like 230 minutes.

So going via the 'shorter' and 'more direct' WCML saves 12 minutes on a journey of 3.5-4 hours.

Which means those Newcastle paths are potentially very useful in the future....

 

[Kettledrum]

Where would you put the halfway station? Bicester? Aylesbury? Not convinced these places have the population centre to justify it. If the cash were spent on a shiny new station how many people would use it? Especially given they are already served by the ever improving Chiltern line, and shortly the east west line. I would hope that stations are being built where there is a robust case to do so and not just to appease nimbys.

The problem with building any additional stations is that the time it takes the trains to slow down and stop, and the time it takes the train to accellerate again back to full speed reduces the number of trains you can run on the line each hour. Even with very lengthy passing loops in the stations, it would reduce the capacity of the new line.

Having said that, there are two possible locations that spring to mind:

1. A parkway station where the new East-West line and HS2 intersect; and
2. Crewe station, where the trains are not currently scheduled to stop at all.

Public opinion is not just about appeasing nimbys, and I could see arguements being made for either of the above two possibilities.

 

[YorkshireBear]

Maximum possible turnout speeds are 230kph, so you will loose capacity no matter how long the loops are with an extra station stop.

 

[The Planner]

Regardless of the length and substantial size of the switch, why is 140mph the max for a turnout? We can have 125mph now, so if money is chucked at it why not more?