HS2 Commons Debate

[LNW-GW Joint]

I've just been listening to (most of) this afternoon's Commons debate on HS2.
A lot of it was local nimby-ism at its worst, but I was surprised by the level of support for the general idea, if not for the specific route.

The most vehement opposition came from an unexpected source - the MP for Congleton, Fiona Bruce (no, not the BBC Newsreader!).
Despite the route to Manchester not being announced, she promised implacable opposition to any new line through her constituency (includes Sandbach, Middlewich etc), both on environmental grounds and because it would be of "no benefit" to her constituents who would face a slower service from Crewe/Stoke or a double-back from Manchester.

With Tory "friends in the North" like these, how can Hammond & co get a bill through Parliament?
Actually in summing up Theresa Villiers made a very good fist of the business case and the environmental mitigation, but overall the "no" campaign seemed to have the upper hand at the end.
We shall see.

The most troublesome technical issues seemed to be the planning blight of the final approach to Euston and why nothing was being done to upgrade links there.
Scottish MPs seemed to want assurances that, while wanting High Speed to go all the way, they were not going to be saddled with the cost of building it north of the border!

 

[WatcherZero]

Dont worry, something this important to the Governments program (and embarassing to lose) will probably be a two line, possibly even a three line whip.

 

[bladesman123]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-15277101

 

[Nym]

So she'd want the goverment to spend about the same amount of money connecting less of the population together, great idea! Why not build HS2 from the middle of nowhere to the edge of nowhere because the land would be cheap and it wouldn't **** many pepole off..

 

[Ivo]

One word to describe these people who want it done away with...

Morons.

 

[507 001]

well personally I feel that the money they are proposing to put into HS2 would be better spent improving what we already have as opposed to building new.


Does that make me a moron?

 

[YorkshireBear]

well personally I feel that the money they are proposing to put into HS2 would be better spent improving what we already have as opposed to building new.


Does that make me a moron?

But that is irrelevant. If it isnt built the money will disapear and be spent on nothing.

I agree with you that maybe we could spend 32 billion in better ways. Even with the disruption. But it wont happen unfortunately it is now a yes or now scenario. And being pro rail i have to go yes...

So no your not a moron its just the sensible option isnt even an option.

 

[HSTEd]

It would appear that the fiasco on the West Coast Main Line (thanks Railtrack) has destroyed the will to proceed with upgrades at the expense of brand new builds, politicians are now looking across the Channel at saying "Why cant we have that" and ignoring the differences between building through beat fields and building through the west midlands.

EDIT:

It would appear that dedicated High Speed Rail linse are to be the cargo cult of this century as massive expressways were of the last

 

[Ivo]

It's something that needs to be done. Britain is already in danger of falling behind; if we miss our chance to change that, the situation will be worse. Yes, we could spend £32bn elsewhere, and certainly not just on one thing. But we need something along the lines to HS2 in the same way that football clubs need a fanbase - without the (financial or otherwise) benefits that it/they will bring, the country will fall into a greater mess when it becomes apparent that we should have built it when we had the chance.

In this sense, I am calling those who completely discard the idea as "moronic" (pun intended) as morons. Those who disagree simply because we need to prioritise other sensible things are quite welcome to make their point, and in some cases may even in correct...

 

[507 001]

It's something that needs to be done. Britain is already in danger of falling behind; if we miss our chance to change that, the situation will be worse. Yes, we could spend £32bn elsewhere, and certainly not just on one thing. But we need something along the lines to HS2 in the same way that football clubs need a fanbase - without the (financial or otherwise) benefits that it/they will bring, the country will fall into a greater mess when it becomes apparent that we should have built it when we had the chance.

In this sense, I am calling those who completely discard the idea as "moronic" (pun intended) as morons. Those who disagree simply because we need to prioritise other sensible things are quite welcome to make their point, and in some cases may even in correct...

How will we fall behind? We are a small Island, its not as if it takes a particularly long time to get between our major cities as it did on the continent before the advent of TGV lines, HS2 isn't going to make that much difference.

 

[Mojo]

How will we fall behind? We are a small Island, its not as if it takes a particularly long time to get between our major cities as it did on the continent before the advent of TGV lines, HS2 isn't going to make that much difference.

This is exactly the problem with the anti-HS2 argument, they see it as all about speed. It is not. It will open up huge amounts of capacity on our already clogged up main lines and to get that capacity from the existing lines would cost much much more, but without most of the benefits (like the speed).

 

[MidnightFlyer]

How about we build HS2, four track it and have 'stoppers' too? Maybe a Chiltern Parkway station, with direct trains to Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds would make it a more attractive prospect?

 

[WatcherZero]

It would appear that the fiasco on the West Coast Main Line (thanks Railtrack) has destroyed the will to proceed with upgrades at the expense of brand new builds, politicians are now looking across the Channel at saying "Why cant we have that" and ignoring the differences between building through beat fields and building through the west midlands.

EDIT:

It would appear that dedicated High Speed Rail linse are to be the cargo cult of this century as massive expressways were of the last

You would rather we had never built the Motorway network?

 

[Greenback]

How about we build HS2, four track it and have 'stoppers' too? Maybe a Chiltern Parkway station, with direct trains to Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds would make it a more attractive prospect?

I would prefer that to what is currently on the table, but I can imagine the reaction from those who oppose any construction at all!

 

[HSTEd]

You would rather we had never built the Motorway network?

I didn't say that, I was referring to how India, China and other third world countries spent the 90s building expressways to show how they were first world despite having no real need for them at the time, and now China seems to be spamming HSR all over the place, apparently for similar reasons.

EDIT:

As for the high speed line not being used for Glasgow trains as they almost certainly wont be able to tilt and they would thus be limited to 110mph for most of the route and would thus give up a large fraction of the time they gain, couldn't a fleet of ~160+mph tilting trains like the ones that have in Italy be purchased, run fast on the high speed line to Birmingham/Manchester and then continue at existing speeds, this would also allow release of some Pendolinos to secondary Birmingham-North services on a permenant basis.

This is off topic but Il float it anyway.

 

[WatcherZero]

Active tilting gear would make the trains too heavy, increasing wear on the HSR tracks considerably.

 

[HSTEd]

Thanks to the smaller number of bogies on modern designs such as the AGV, late model Italian Pendolinos capable of the speeds Im talking about actually have comparable axle weights.

Although a larger number of axles will pass over the line at the same axle weight using tilting trains such as the ETR-610, this can be largely counteracted by the drastically increased life of slab track compared to conventional ballasted track that reduces track wear as a result of train weight to a minor factor in line running costs.
Studies from America at far higher axle impact weights and similar top speeds suggest hundreds of megatonnes of train could pass over the track between major track refurbishment works.

I will also note that the 7 carriage 180m ETR-610 weighs in at 420t, whereas the 10 coach AGV of similar length weighs in at 385t, so its not really a massive difference.

 

[WatcherZero]

Your failing to account for speed, 225mph, tiny bit of extra weight is a lot of extra track damage. F=MxA

 

[Peter Mugridge]

How about we build HS2, four track it and have 'stoppers' too? Maybe a Chiltern Parkway station, with direct trains to Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds would make it a more attractive prospect?

We wouldn't need to four track it; just put the platforms on a long loop with high speed turnouts, like Haute Picardie for example ( but with much greater connectional accessibility and a decent service level, obviously! ).

 

[Ivo]

Didn't we on the forum pretty much unanimously "vote" in favour of a station somewhere around Bicester months ago, only for the DfT to say that it would cost a path or two every hour? (When in practice they just fill the next path to go that way and group them together?)

 

[Nym]

I also worked out that if you four tracked it it would provide half as many paths again and the flexibility for international operators to run non-homogenous stock on the 'slows' pathed around the stoppers.

That being 4 track from OOC to Birmingham Delta Junction.

Between OOC and Euston, lower linespeeds = tighter headways = 20+tph possible on normal lines.

 

[HSTEd]

Im also a bit iffy on the choice of routing everything into Euston, especially as they are talking about cannabalising existing passenger loadings from the MML and ECML in stage 2 which will reduce St Pancras Domestic and King's Cross to the status of commuter stations.

Will it be able to cope?

 

[Chris125]

I also worked out that if you four tracked it it would provide half as many paths again and the flexibility for international operators to run non-homogenous stock on the 'slows' pathed around the stoppers.

I cant see how quadrupling could ever be justified - you would struggle to fit in enough extra platforms at either planned termini, existing stations arent exactly blessed with spare capacity either (especially in Birmigham), the alignment of HS2 is deliberately unsuitable for serving intermediate towns, and the much wider alignment would put the whole project at risk.

If more HSL capacity is needed it makes far more sense to build another line relieving the southern ECML and move much of the HS2 traffic from Leeds and beyond onto that line.

Chris

 

[Nym]

Well, if HSx comes in and runs say KX or Liverpool St - Doncaster, connecting in London still to HS1 etc. Then it would be less demand on the HS2 services (currently 4tph MML bound IIRC) so that would cover it nicely.

At the moment the current demand up the ECML doesn't justify it's own line though.

If there where we'd want to be looking at

3tph Leeds
3tph Newcastle
Extending some to Edinburgh
1 or 2tph to Doncaster / York and extended to Harrogate / Hull.
?4, 6tph 'Javelin' services to Cambridge & Stansted Airport?

The WCML route is much easyer to 'fill up' at Day 1.

But I'd be all for an ECML shaddowing route, meeting with the ECML at Doncaster, and branching off to Leeds via HS2 etc. But it all depends on what routes come out of the bag...