HS2: Alternative ways to spend on £106bn on Rail infrastructure ?

[Jorge Da Silva]

What sort of Rail infrastructure investments could you pay for with £106bn and if needed the extra 2-% the project could go up by. I was a supporter of HS2 but now not sure.

rail reopenings, upgrades and maybe new stations.

 

[JonathanH]

There isn't £106bn on the table for alternative investment - part of meeting the £106bn cost is predicated on an increase in fare revenue. Most people would rather it wasn't spent at all.

A project will proceed on its own merits if it can be shown that the benefit outweighs the cost by a clear margin. If not, it will not proceed.

 

[Purple Orange]

There isn't £106bn on the table for alternative investment - part of meeting the £106bn cost is predicated on an increase in fare revenue. Most people would rather it wasn't spent at all.

A project will proceed on its own merits if it can be shown that the benefit outweighs the cost by a clear margin. If not, it will not proceed.

Is the question not really about highlighting priorities? If you were PM for a day, what would you do?

I would like to see HS2 and NPR built, but since the notion of it not being fully operational until 2040, and that is before NPR comes in to play, I would like to see infrastructure delivered within that timeframe. We have already seen what can be achieved within a decade in the north. P15 & P16 plus Oxford Rd could have been delivered already along with the chord and the Airport platforms, which compared to what was there before is quite significant.

For the Manchester area, perhaps all we will see is Transpennine route upgrade, P15 & P16 and Oxford Road delivered. If there was that plus West facing bays built somewhere on the Manchester network for Scotland and North Wales services, as well as continued investment in the tram network, Manchester would be doing pretty well.

 

[Halifaxlad]

I was watching or reading
something on signalling the otherday and it reminded me of how antiquated our network still is in parts, with some well used areas still using Absolute block, single line sections with diesel traction. It does get me thinking how much capacity could be increased upon the existing network with a mixture of upgraded signalling, re-opening old routes and electrification. Perhaps 'Upgrading rail lines' should also have been added to your poll.

 

[matacaster]

1. The main way that HS2's demise might be overcome is for Government and commerce to move whole functions AND decision-making out of London. If that happens then the pull of London which is what is actually causing the "lack of capacity" will be reduced. Thus, the extra capacity needed will be much smaller and can likely be accommodated on upgraded and electrified Chiltern Lines.

2. I would favour opening / reopening rail routes to places that have a reasonable potential volume of traffic or perhaps provide a convenient railhead for an area such that travellers could consider using rail to get (almost) from where they are going to (almost) their destination. If you can get a bus or taxi at a reasonable cost to cover the beginning and end of journey, then you might leave car at home (or even sell it) and catch the train. This will only happen if the vast majority of your likely trips are realistic by rail. So, take for example Otley before the station closed you could easily get to Harrogate, York, Leeds and Bradford and the whole network. Since Otley station closed, traffic has increased and people take the car. Ripon is another example.

3. Increase speed limit on Settle Carlisle line to 90 or 100MPH and run St Pancras (or perhaps Marylebone) on MML to Glasgow via Leeds using bi-Modes. Ok its slower and not electrified throughout but would mean that some long distance trains could be removed from WCL off-peak [REMEMBERING ITS ALL ABOUT CAPACITY]

4. I am a little undecided about electrification as the infrastructure is costly and ugly and it seems to cause a lot of disruption. It all depends on whether Hydrogen technology can be made to work. If it can, then all the current electrification infrastructure might be a waste of money. If it doesn't work then all core routes should be electrified. eg MML

5. Transpennine electrification throughout is a must + 9 coach trains with 4-tracking in Leeds Huddersfield section and reopening 2 disused tunnel bores at Standedge

6. I don't really like NPR as attempts to get it to go through Bradford look likely to be inordinately expensive and indirect. Whilst some (mainly students) might want to go from coast to coast, most passengers will only go part of the way (eg Leeds to Manchester or Newcastle to York). What people really want is capacity. I do however support a more basic Bradford crossrail.

 

[Glenn1969]

Transpennine electrification should also include Calder Valley- both via Halifax and the route through Brighouse- as a follow on project after the main Transpennine Route Upgrade has been completed

 

[The Ham]

Posted on another thread, which highlights the scale of the capacity uplift that HS2 will provide and the rate of growth seen:

2.5% growth year on year would get us to 25% growth over the 9 years from 2009 to 2018.

As you'll see from the table below this is an average of 49%:
View media item 3340
However you'll also notice that for the WCML this is mostly 70%.

Percentages sometimes are hard to understand or can be miss quoted, if we look at in terms of seats.

If we assume that from a coach of 70 seats that there were 30 in use in 2009, by now that would have gone up to 38, the average is actually 45 and for the WCML it's 51.

As such there's not a whole lot of spare capacity left in that coach, whilst it's true that there's been capacity improvements to provide extra coaches it should be remembered that 2.5% of 170 is more than 2.5% of 100 that coach is going to get very busy very quickly, even with those capacity increases.

Now to deal with the "we'll just a few more coaches", sorry but it's not going to work. The 11 coach 390's have 589 seats whilst the 9 coach ones have 469, that's a total of 1,048 seats.

A HS2 train is likely to have 1,076 seats (assuming same density as an 80x), as such HS2 will be providing a 2 to 1 capacity increase over the current trains.

That's a lot of extra capacity, nothing anyone has suggested is likely to get close to that.

 

[The Planner]

3. Increase speed limit on Settle Carlisle line to 90 or 100MPH and run St Pancras (or perhaps Marylebone) on MML to Glasgow via Leeds using bi-Modes. Ok its slower and not electrified throughout but would mean that some long distance trains could be removed from WCL off-peak [REMEMBERING ITS ALL ABOUT CAPACITY]

So nearly a Nottingham Glasgow sweepstake winner there. Unless that is about intermediate journeys people will still pick a quicker option and your suggestion would be slooooow.

 

[liam456]

So nearly a Nottingham Glasgow sweepstake winner there. Unless that is about intermediate journeys people will still pick a quicker option and your suggestion would be slooooow.

Just waiting for PR1 to arrive with a detailed appraisal on "smart signalling" deployments......

 

[class26]

So nearly a Nottingham Glasgow sweepstake winner there. Unless that is about intermediate journeys people will still pick a quicker option and your suggestion would be slooooow.

It is about capacity but will the public go for these trains that take so much longer to complete a journey ?

 

[muddythefish]

Is the question not really about highlighting priorities? If you were PM for a day, what would you do?

If I were PM for a day, I'd give the go-ahead to HS2 in full; bring forward construction on HS3; start outline planning on HS4 & 5; green light electrification of the remaining parts of the classic network; and commission Lord Adonis to recommend which of the Beeching line closures should be reopened.

That might go some way to redressing the imbalance of road / rail spending over the past 50 years.

 

[matacaster]

So nearly a Nottingham Glasgow sweepstake winner there. Unless that is about intermediate journeys people will still pick a quicker option and your suggestion would be slooooow.

Yes it would be comparatively slow, but not everyone is desperate for the fastest journey, particularly if the pricing was favourable and attracted coach travellers. If people had to choose between being crammed into a fast pendolino or a relaxed but slower train, perhaps some might choose slower?
Equally, perhaps not everyone wishes to only stop at the few same major stops.

 

[The Ham]

Yes it would be comparatively slow, but not everyone is desperate for the fastest journey, particularly if the pricing was favourable and attracted coach travellers. If people had to choose between being crammed into a fast pendolino or a relaxed but slower train, perhaps some might choose slower?

Your are right that some would, however it would also be true that some would only every want to fly whatever the implications. The numbers involved aren't really going to make much of a difference.

The problem is that such ideas only provide fairly small increases in capacity, HS2 is providing broadly the same capacity on a per train basis as coupling a 9 and 11 coach class 390 together.

That's the equivalent of doubling the frequency of the trains.

Adding a service which takes an age and may only attract 5% to 10% of long distance passengers from a comparable train to use it (as such is likely only be hourly) is hardly going to make much difference.

If HS2 is delayed further we may need such a scheme to keep us going until it's built, but as a replacement for HS2 it's not going to cut the standard required.

 

[JonathanH]

3. Increase speed limit on Settle Carlisle line to 90 or 100MPH and run St Pancras (or perhaps Marylebone) on MML to Glasgow via Leeds using bi-Modes. Ok its slower and not electrified throughout but would mean that some long distance trains could be removed from WCL off-peak [REMEMBERING ITS ALL ABOUT CAPACITY]

Seriously?

Yes it would be comparatively slow, but not everyone is desperate for the fastest journey, particularly if the pricing was favourable and attracted coach travellers.

Coach travellers will continue to travel by coach as it will always, on average, be cheaper or more convenient for them. A railway can't hope to compete on price with coaches (other than for marginal passengers).

Passengers paying cheap fares aren't going to fund infrastructure investment.

 

[class26]

Yes it would be comparatively slow, but not everyone is desperate for the fastest journey, particularly if the pricing was favourable and attracted coach travellers. If people had to choose between being crammed into a fast pendolino or a relaxed but slower train, perhaps some might choose slower?
Equally, perhaps not everyone wishes to only stop at the few same major stops.

Presumably its lower fares that filling the Euston - Glasgow via Brum ? Takes an hour longer so that probably proves your point

 

[Peter Kelford]

The first step would be upgrading the CML into some kind of proper line and removing from the WCML the fasts to Birmingham. This frees up several new paths, and at the same time freight can be sent that way, creating more space on the relief for stoppers and more space on the fast for expresses. The second part is a transpennine upgrade. This low hanging fruit would involve trying to climb over the mountains at 1/25 rather than meander through the valleys.

With the change, you could improve all cities' suburban networks and work on improving signalling and track renewing.

 

[The Ham]

The first step would be upgrading the CML into some kind of proper line and removing from the WCML the fasts to Birmingham. This frees up several new paths, and at the same time freight can be sent that way, creating more space on the relief for stoppers and more space on the fast for expresses. The second part is a transpennine upgrade. This low hanging fruit would involve trying to climb over the mountains at 1/25 rather than meander through the valleys.

With the change, you could improve all cities' suburban networks and work on improving signalling and track renewing.

All of which is likely to need to happen as well as HS2 to keep up with passenger growth.

Between 2017/18 and 2018/19 Virgin saw growth of 3.1% whilst Chiltern saw growth of 4.3% and West Midlands Trains saw 5.1%.

It's unlikely that you could take much capacity from Chiltern to give to long distance passengers before you then found that growth within the Chiltern area would then be wanting that space to cater for it.

Another 10 years of those growth figures would see
Virgin increase by 35.7%
Chiltern increase by 52.4%
West Midlands increase by 64.4%

Now whilst they may not sustain that growth for that long, growth could fall be quite a bit and still got those figures in 12-15 years rather than 10.

Therefore just to cope with demand Chiltern would have to increase capacity from 6 coaches to 9 coaches. Whilst busy 4 coach trains would be getting fairly full as 8 coach trains on West Midlands, possibly to the point that some would need to be 12 coach trains.

 

[Peter Kelford]

All of which is likely to need to happen as well as HS2 to keep up with passenger growth.

Yes. It does. However, if we were talking about what needs or should be completed HS2 wouldn't be discussed at all, it'd be long built, and a much more rational prices without white elephant characteristics. In the ideal world, HS2 would be a line that goes from London through Birmingham to Manchester, onwards to Leeds then across the Vale of York to Newcastle and onwards to Edinburgh, and over a new direct line to Glasgow. In an ideal world, 160km/h and 200km/h fast regionals would use the WCML with freight and slow stoppers. In an ideal world, the CML would be electrified and operating, perhaps with the majority of freight from London to Birmingham.

 

[The Planner]

Yes. It does. However, if we were talking about what needs or should be completed HS2 wouldn't be discussed at all, it'd be long built, and a much more rational prices without white elephant characteristics. In the ideal world, HS2 would be a line that goes from London through Birmingham to Manchester, onwards to Leeds then across the Vale of York to Newcastle and onwards to Edinburgh, and over a new direct line to Glasgow. In an ideal world, 160km/h and 200km/h fast regionals would use the WCML with freight and slow stoppers. In an ideal world, the CML would be electrified and operating, perhaps with the majority of freight from London to Birmingham.

Where is that freight getting on to/off the Chilterns in London and where is it going?

 

[squizzler]

I ticked all the boxes. Since the original poll gives me the choice of having all those things for £106bn, why not?

Can I come back for seconds?

 

[Peter Kelford]

I ticked all the boxes. Since the original poll gives me the choice of having all those things for £106bn, why not?

Can I come back for seconds?

I would do the same if this was practical.

 

[Peter Kelford]

Where is that freight getting on to/off the Chilterns in London and where is it going?

There are many tpd which are freight which could be sent via the CML and a short chord freeing up WCML paths.

 

[Aictos]

Where is that freight getting on to/off the Chilterns in London and where is it going?

Indeed...

There are many tpd which are freight which could be sent via the CML and a short chord freeing up WCML paths.

Can you supply more information as that is rather vague and doesn’t help anyone try to understand your proposal.

 

[Peter Kelford]

Can you supply more information as that is rather vague and doesn’t help anyone try to understand your proposal.

Try observing freight movements on real-time trains and you will see that much traffic can be diverted, and for the Willesden yards a short chord and junction in the vicinity of Northwick Park can be built.

 

[stevetay3]

I think at the moment some or all of 100B would be better spent elsewhere ie flood defences,nhs,walefare, etc

 

[6Gman]

Try observing freight movements on real-time trains and you will see that much traffic can be diverted, and for the Willesden yards a short chord and junction in the vicinity of Northwick Park can be built.

Is this chord from the slow lines around South Kenton to join the Chiltern east of Harrow on the Hill ?

If so, I may return to the theme ...

 

[The Ham]

I think at the moment some or all of 100B would be better spent elsewhere ie flood defences,nhs,walefare, etc

If you want better outcomes from major storm events you'll want to have a lot of new development.

Why you may ask?

I've been working on a site recently where a 100 year storm has a Greenfeld discharge rate of 115l/s. When we develop that site we have to limit the peak flow from that site (by the storage of water on site) to 38l/s.

That's over a 9ha site. Repeat that over 900ha and the peak River flow would drop from 11,500l/s to 3,800l/s. That means that rather than a channel cross section of 11m2 it drops to 3.8m2. (Assuming 1m/s of travel)

If that joins a river which floods at 100m2 of section area and the higher figure puts it at 105m2 whilst the lower figure puts this at 98m2, then that new development has stopped it from flooding.

 

[Aictos]

Try observing freight movements on real-time trains and you will see that much traffic can be diverted, and for the Willesden yards a short chord and junction in the vicinity of Northwick Park can be built.

Why do I need to? It’s your proposal therefore in all fairness you should be able to back up your proposal with facts and figures not just propose a random idea with little idea on how to put into effect.

If I may, it’s like me offering you a joint of meat with very little meat on it.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

There are many tpd which are freight which could be sent via the CML and a short chord freeing up WCML paths.

As someone mentioned - between South Kenton and Kenton , climbing up onto the Met Line formation ?

Very good luck with that idea ...slicing up a pretty desirable bit of suburbia and using up much valued open space. Expect some kick back is all I can say. So when you get to Aylesbury (eventually) - having resignalled north of Mantles Wood (Google it if you do not know) , I presume there will be some more interesting infrastructure works needed....................

 

[stevetay3]

If you want better outcomes from major storm events you'll want to have a lot of new development.

Why you may ask?

I've been working on a site recently where a 100 year storm has a Greenfeld discharge rate of 115l/s. When we develop that site we have to limit the peak flow from that site (by the storage of water on site) to 38l/s.

That's over a 9ha site. Repeat that over 900ha and the peak River flow would drop from 11,500l/s to 3,800l/s. That means that rather than a channel cross section of 11m2 it drops to 3.8m2. (Assuming 1m/s of travel)

If that joins a river which floods at 100m2 of section area and the higher figure puts it at 105m2 whilst the lower figure puts this at 98m2, then that new development has stopped it from flooding.

We have had three one hundred year storms in the last 10