High Speed UK?

[LesF]

NotaTrainSpott: your extract does not appear to be from the 2010 command paper Cm 7827 as there is no clause 6.1.60 in it. Where did it come from?
If a second high speed route were needed to make up for the inadequacy of HS2, and Euston is the only place for a station, where would the second one terminate? We must get it right first time, not leave it to others to patch up some decades later.

 

[po8crg]

If a second high speed route were needed to make up for the inadequacy of HS2, and Euston is the only place for a station, where would the second one terminate?

That seems to be the point that HS2 Ltd are making. That they can't terminate more than 18 tph in London within the reasonable bounds of the available property.

We must get it right first time, not leave it to others to patch up some decades later.

I think their point is that the only options for the a second station other than Euston are:

(a) pick a site, knock down everything on it, build a station there, and then run a tunnel there from outside London.

(b) pick a site, knock down everything on it, dig a big hole, launch a TBM from there to a tunnel portal outside London, build a station entirely underground and then rebuild over the top.

That's going to be expensive - the platforms alone are 415m long and about 100m wide for 9 platforms. That's 40,000 sq m of central London property before you start - even if you do build it underground so you can build back on top when you've finished, you still have to buy the ground to sell it back again.

You're also going to need to go somewhere that has excellent connections.

Honestly, I'd be tempted to say Farringdon - at least it will be well-connected as the point where Thameslink crosses Crossrail. I suspect you could put the concourse alongside the existing station, and build the platforms underground; run 800m roughly NNE and there isn't too much that you couldn't get away with demolishing; you'd just have to get under Clerkenwell Road and St John Street. It would cost tens of billions - far more than any of the Euston plans - just for land acquisition. You might get much of that back ten years later when you've finished construction, but you'd still have to pay interest on the money you used to buy it all up.

So, if you have a problem that can only be solved by throwing an enormous amount of money at it, then you shelve it and hope something comes up in the intervening decades. Someone might come up with a cheaper way of doing major underground construction without clearing the land above (TBMs are fine for tunnelling, but not much use for opening up the sort of giant cavern that a station would need).

 

[NotATrainspott]

NotaTrainSpott: your extract does not appear to be from the 2010 command paper Cm 7827 as there is no clause 6.1.60 in it. Where did it come from?
If a second high speed route were needed to make up for the inadequacy of HS2, and Euston is the only place for a station, where would the second one terminate? We must get it right first time, not leave it to others to patch up some decades later.

It came from the report from HS2 Ltd themselves, rather than the command paper which was produced by the Department for Transport. They serve similar aims but the HS2 one is more to do with the route engineering - there's an Arup one as well that has more detail again - whereas the DfT one is more about the general concept and funding.

The plans for Euston are not inadequate. Effectively the rebuild plans have returned back to Option 1, the original full reconstruction at lower level plan, and there will be twelve HS2 platforms split across two separate 6 line throats, joined by a grade-separating dive-under north of the station. The WCML will get another 12 platforms spread across the Fast and Slow lines - 2 of them 400m long for the sleeper, 4 of them 320m long for 12-car 26m EMU services and the remaining 6 being the standard 265m long. With these numbers of platforms the full capacity of all lines out of Euston can be saturated, meaning that there is little point in ever rebuilding the station again.

If a second HSR line is to come from the East Midlands it will require its own set of platforms and of all places Euston is not going to be rebuilt again to accommodate it. Instead there will need to be another solution, which I feel will end up being a station built in a box underneath a Royal Park.

 

[HSTEd]

A high speed line to the East Midlands would remove the little remaining surface traffic into King's Cross.
That frees up enough horizontal space for eight platforms - maybe more once the Suburban Trainshed is rendered unnecessary by Moorgate opening 24/7.

If you skylight the tunnels north of the station and put the canal onto a bridge you can make the platforms fit.

 

[LesF]

A lot of points to answer. I drafted something Saturday but RUK Forums lost it.
H'row: agreed you won't fill trains if you send them off the HS line to Hrow and reverse there, because air passengers are a tiny part of the overall demand. Now try running those trains through Hrow to the west country, Wales and the south coast and you have 3 sources of passenger that will fill trains very well: air passengers, those aiming for central London via Xrail, and through passengers. With stops at Brent X, OOC, Hrow CTA and T5, it won't be exactly high speed, but no matter, the connectivity is phenomenal, allowing access to Hrow from a large number of towns without changing. Compared with taking a train to a London terminal the plodding across London with luggage, there'll be lots of happy passengers. This does not need any new tunnels under H'row or a "hub" remote from Hrow that would need a change. The brief for HS2 asked for it to be able to serve Hrow but it doesn't. Fail. And there are no spare paths to run trains off HS2 to a Hrow spur. Fail.

 

[NotATrainspott]

A lot of points to answer. I drafted something Saturday but RUK Forums lost it.
H'row: agreed you won't fill trains if you send them off the HS line to Hrow and reverse there, because air passengers are a tiny part of the overall demand. Now try running those trains through Hrow to the west country, Wales and the south coast and you have 3 sources of passenger that will fill trains very well: air passengers, those aiming for central London via Xrail, and through passengers. With stops at Brent X, OOC, Hrow CTA and T5, it won't be exactly high speed, but no matter, the connectivity is phenomenal, allowing access to Hrow from a large number of towns without changing. Compared with taking a train to a London terminal the plodding across London with luggage, there'll be lots of happy passengers. This does not need any new tunnels under H'row or a "hub" remote from Hrow that would need a change. The brief for HS2 asked for it to be able to serve Hrow but it doesn't. Fail. And there are no spare paths to run trains off HS2 to a Hrow spur. Fail.

All Great Western and Crossrail services will call at Old Oak Common, meaning that passengers from the Thames Valley will be able to access HS2 through a single, simple change there. Similar connections can be provided for other lines such as the Overground and for the other lines that pass through the Wormwood Scrubs area, including the Dudding Hill Line from your beloved Cricklewood. At Euston, it is certain that some sort of high capacity people mover (whether a travelator or an APM) will be provided between the rebuilt Euston and the St Pancras King's Cross area, meaning that passengers from the entire Thameslink network will have access to HS2 as well. Add in Crossrail 2 and likely extensions of the DLR towards Victoria and Euston and that's even more people with great access to HS2 (and to other lines).