HS2 Crewe-Manchester Bill Published

[HSTEd]

this is the point…. They don’t gain a couple of minutes. AIUI there is no meaningful time difference between a through station and reversal.

With the trend towards ATO, there will eventually be no significant time difference at all.

Then I suppose we could have an argument about platform edge doors at HS2 stations to allow trains to move whilst the driver is moving from one cab to the other.

 

[Nottingham59]

this is the point…. They don’t gain a couple of minutes. AIUI there is no meaningful time difference between a through station and reversal.

I'm sure a reversal adds greatly to the operational complexity. To reverse a 400m train, the driver needs to walk from one end to the other, or drivers need to step back which is operationally complex.

And surely won't there will be conflicts in the station throat, even with a single overpass as is being suggested at Piccadilly, with trains entering and leaving the station at the same time? This introduces complexity in the timetabling, and makes that timetable very much more vulnerable in times of disruption.

But the biggest impact will by limiting future capacity. With ATO you could image a straight through layout being able to handle 16tph or more, like at Old Oak Common. I can't see that will be possible with reversing.

 

[snowball]

I'm sure a reversal adds greatly to the operational complexity. To reverse a 400m train, the driver needs to walk from one end to the other, or drivers need to step back which is operationally complex.

Maybe complex but is it several billion pounds and several years worth of complex?

And surely won't there will be conflicts in the station throat, even with a single overpass as is being suggested at Piccadilly, with trains entering and leaving the station at the same time? This introduces complexity in the timetabling, and makes that timetable very much more vulnerable in times of disruption

The NPR track coming in from Leeds and approaching Piccadilly HS will join the HS2 alignment on the north or up side, passing under the Leeds-bound track as it does so. The Leeds-bound NPR track, heading out of Piccadilly HS, will deviate from the HS2 alignment on the south or down side, and will fly over both the HS2 lines and the incoming track from Leeds by means of the Ardwick box structure. There will be at least four tracks between the station and where the spurs turn off. Trains terminating at Piccadilly will use platforms in the middle; trains reversing on their way east will use southern platforms; trains reversing on their way west will use the northern platforms.

 

[Nottingham59]

several billion pounds and several years worth of complex?

It's far too late to do anything about it now: they need to get on with it before the next austerity crunch hits.

 

[HSTEd]

But the biggest impact will by limiting future capacity. With ATO you could image a straight through layout being able to handle 16tph or more, like at Old Oak Common. I can't see that will be possible with reversing.

With ATO you could probably have the train leave the station without a driver at the controls, so he can walk the length of the train during the station stop and immediately afterwards.
Autoreverse is going to be in mainline service for years on Crossrail before HS2 opens to Manchester, much less NPR.

 

[MattRat]

With ATO you could probably have the train leave the station without a driver at the controls, so he can walk the length of the train during the station stop and immediately afterwards.
Autoreverse is going to be in mainline service for years on Crossrail before HS2 opens to Manchester, much less NPR.

Isn't this all just addeded complexity to solve a problem that ideally shouldn't exist.

 

[Nottingham59]

Deleted

 

[LOL The Irony]

Personally, I would have investigated whether it was possible for HS2 to approach Piccadilly from the North West. A tunnel from Urmston to Piccadilly would have been half the length of the tunnel from Davenport Green to Ardwick that is currently planned. (But may not have been half the cost as it would have to go over the Mersey on a viaduct and under the Ship Canal in a tunnel).
View attachment 109595
But as I said above, far too late now to be changing the designs.

That wouldn't allow for it to serve the airport.

 

[yorkie]

Just a gentle reminder that we do welcome discussion of a speculative nature but we do ask that this is posted exclusively in the Speculative Discussion section please.

If you see a thread in the wrong section, please report the opening post to us, using the report button. Likewise, if you see a speculative post in a non-speculative thread, please report the first such post to us, and let us know of any subsequent posts in your report.

As this thread is in the Infrastructure & Stations section, it does need to be dedicated to the actual proposals and not anything speculative; for speculative discussion on this topic, please create a new thread (if there isn't one already).

Many thanks

 

[Bald Rick]

I'm sure a reversal adds greatly to the operational complexity. To reverse a 400m train, the driver needs to walk from one end to the other, or drivers need to step back which is operationally complex.

it doesn’t And greatly to complexity, and step backs are not complex, at all. And I can’t ever see 400m trains going across the pennines.

Isn't this all just addeded complexity to solve a problem that ideally shouldn't exist.

as above, it isn’t complex. At worst it’s the cost of 4 drivers (say half a million a year), to save £5billion plus and a decade.

 

[Glenn1969]

it doesn’t And greatly to complexity, and step backs are not complex, at all. And I can’t ever see 400m trains going across the pennines.





as above, it isn’t complex. At worst it’s the cost of 4 drivers (say half a million a year), to save £5billion plus and a decade.

This is of course just Birmingham- Leeds services, however many per hour there are. It's London- Leeds and beyond , East Mids- most of Yorkshire and connectivity within Yorkshire that improvements are noticeably lacking for in the IRP and HS2 plans. Again unless I have missed something

As for the reverse- I live on a line where everything has to reverse and it takes 15/18 minutes to get from Low Moor to New Pudsey which is 6 and a half miles including the reverse and dwell at Bradford. How can there ever NOT be a time penalty ?

 

[Watershed]

I'm sure a reversal adds greatly to the operational complexity. To reverse a 400m train, the driver needs to walk from one end to the other, or drivers need to step back which is operationally complex

It's not really that complex at all. You certainly won't have drivers walking from one end to another with the sorts of dwells that are envisaged. It will be step backs - or perhaps more likely, some drivers doing London-Manchester and others doing Manchester-Leeds etc. on a given day.

And surely won't there will be conflicts in the station throat, even with a single overpass as is being suggested at Piccadilly, with trains entering and leaving the station at the same time? This introduces complexity in the timetabling, and makes that timetable very much more vulnerable in times of disruption.

No, the layout is very well considered and will eliminate almost all conflicts. The money spent on a grade separated throat is significantly less than the cost of an underground through station. It effectively makes it operate the same as a through station.

 

[MattRat]

That wouldn't allow for it to serve the airport.

You could take bits from both and make it an 'S curve'. I guess it's a moot point now but it still annoys me so little discussion was done. 2 options was never enough.

 

[Watershed]

How can there ever NOT be a time penalty ?

Because, to continue to serve the same stations, any alternative route would have to have much greater curvature. Therefore meaning lower linespeed, and hence any saving in distance is wiped out.

Also worth considering that your dwells at a significant station like Piccadilly are unlikely to be less than 3-4 minutes anyway - think of XC through services at Leeds, Bristol or Birmingham today - so your dwell won't actually be extended by the reversal.

The situation in Bradford is rather similar - the only way you would save any time would be by reinstating the avoiding curve. Which would, in turn, be rather pointless as you'd miss out a major traffic source.

Triangular routes/journeys are never going to be ideal, but I'm fairly certain this is the least bad way of providing high speed services towards Leeds, given the axing of most of the Eastern Leg.

 

[Bald Rick]

How can there ever NOT be a time penalty ?

Because a through station would:

1) be a longer route, and/or
2) be slower linespeed due to curvature, and
3) have the same time stationary at the platform

compared to the terminus station with a turn back.

 

[Starmill]

It's not really that complex at all. You certainly won't have drivers walking from one end to another with the sorts of dwells that are envisaged. It will be step backs - or perhaps more likely, some drivers doing London-Manchester and others doing Manchester-Leeds etc. on a given day.

No different to say Lumo, where trains have to have a crew change at Newcastle.

This clutching at straws is very confusing to me personally.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 31 Jan 2022 ==

This is of course just Birmingham- Leeds services, however many per hour there are. It's London- Leeds and beyond , East Mids- most of Yorkshire and connectivity within Yorkshire that improvements are noticeably lacking for in the IRP and HS2 plans. Again unless I have missed something

As for the reverse- I live on a line where everything has to reverse and it takes 15/18 minutes to get from Low Moor to New Pudsey which is 6 and a half miles including the reverse and dwell at Bradford. How can there ever NOT be a time penalty ?

Imagine if you wanted to rebuild Reading to remove the reversal made by Southampton to Birmingham trains. You'd need to tunnel for miles under all of the town and the surrounding built up area to create new through platforms. At the end of it trains would have exactly the same journey times between Southampton and Birmingham, because you'd have built lots of tight curves and still the train would have to follow a longer route. Would you have suggested that intervention?

Now, of course, you could build a cut-off, which would save both km and allow much higher speeds. But the penalty would be not serving Reading - much too high a cost.

Instead what has happened at Reading is that some movements have been grade separated and some approach speeds raised. This allowed some journey time improvements around five years ago.

 

[Bald Rick]

Imagine if you wanted to rebuild Reading to remove the reversal made by Southampton to Birmingham trains. You'd need to tunnel for miles under all of the town and the surrounding built up area to create new through platforms. At the end of it trains would have exactly the same journey times between Southampton and Birmingham, because you'd have built lots of tight curves and still the train would have to follow a longer route. Would you have suggested that intervention?

Now, of course, you could build a cut-off, which would save both km and allow much higher speeds. But the penalty would be not serving Reading - much too high a cost.

Instead what has happened at Reading is that some movements have been grade separated and some approach speeds raised. This allowed some journey time improvements around five years ago.

Very well put!

This should be cut and paste to any future suggestions that a through station is the right thing to do …

 

[CdBrux]

this is the point…. They don’t gain a couple of minutes. AIUI there is no meaningful time difference between a through station and reversal.

Then it's even more of a no brainer! Only gain is less land take and there's not exactly a shortage of land in the area

 

[Bald Rick]

Then it's even more of a no brainer! Only gain is less land take and there's not exactly a shortage of land in the area

Although I don’t know, I strongly suspect land take for the underground proposal would be greater. You simply can’t build a station that big ‘down below’ without making a huge mess at surface level.

 

[Watershed]

No different to say Lumo, where trains have to have a crew change at Newcastle.

This clutching at straws is very confusing to me personally.

Exactly. The vast majority of services which take more than an hour or two have a change of crew somewhere en-route. Those taking longer than 5.5 hours or so have little alternative but to have a change.

And yes, full crew working is the ideal position but with proper contingencies in place (i.e. sufficient spare crew waiting in the messroom) it's a perfectly reasonable way of operating.

 

[Cantab26]

It seems the Bill text is now finally available. Not sure where the maps are yet.

https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3094

Despite the fact that the short title just says Crewe to Manchester, the long title suggests that the Wigan arm is still in.

I see that some of my drafting suggestions have been included. Will be interesting to see if they survive select committee.

 

[Austriantrain]

Although I don’t know, I strongly suspect land take for the underground proposal would be greater. You simply can’t build a station that big ‘down below’ without making a huge mess at surface level.

Out of interest, even though it is not relevant in the Manchester case - do you (or anyone else) know how such a terminal would fare if there would be, say, 20 through tph in each direction? I suspect it would need at least more platforms than a through station because platform reoccupation time would be longer, even using auto-reverse?

 

[Bald Rick]

Out of interest, even though it is not relevant in the Manchester case - do you (or anyone else) know how such a terminal would fare if there would be, say, 20 through tph in each direction? I suspect it would need at least more platforms than a through station because platform reoccupation time would be longer, even using auto-reverse?

20tph would be pushing it, and would need maximum 15 min dwell times. But then 20tph is possible on a 4 platform terminus station with 20mph approaches, no grade separation and a two track approach - it’s called Fenchurch St.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

20tph would be pushing it, and would need maximum 15 min dwell times. But then 20tph is possible on a 4 platform terminus station with 20mph approaches, no grade separation and a two track approach - it’s called Fenchurch St.

We're talking about the north here, where operations are often, shall we say, stately, at places like Victoria, Piccadilly and Oxford Road.
Liverpool Central LL (pre-loop) used to be operated with rapid turnover, before modern signalling put paid to it.
For NPR, we are talking about reversing Liverpool-Leeds and maybe Birmingham-Leeds services, using as yet undefined stock.
The nearest equivalent today, maybe, is SE's 395s at St Pancras (4-6tph).
I'm not familiar with operation there but they appear to use 3 platforms with something like 18-minute turnrounds, ie not especially fast.
Using ETCS, HEx takes 11 minutes of the 15-minute window at Heathrow T5, but of course neither HEx or SE are through services.
So how fast can you turn an ETCS-fitted high-speed EMU requiring a system reset? Maybe King's Cross will tell us when it gets ETCS.

 

[Austriantrain]

20tph would be pushing it, and would need maximum 15 min dwell times. But then 20tph is possible on a 4 platform terminus station with 20mph approaches, no grade separation and a two track approach - it’s called Fenchurch St.

Thanks! Lucerne has up to 21 trains on a very long two-track approach with no grade separations. Many more platforms, but of course, since there are many longer-distance trains, not such short turn-arounds.

(the reason I am interested is because all the new through stations built in Europe - obviously, they have different backgrounds and inserting additional long grade-separated multi-track approaches in a station like Zürich HB would be an enormous undertaking in itself, but sometimes, a terminal might be a decent alternative).

 

[Bald Rick]

The nearest equivalent today, maybe, is SE's 395s at St Pancras (4-6tph).

southeastern were comfortably turning 8tph off 3 platforms Pre Covid, and there were plans for a couple more. I.E. 10 off 3 platforms….

Using ETCS, HEx takes 11 minutes of the 15-minute window at Heathrow T5, but of course neither HEx or SE are through services.
So how fast can you turn an ETCS-fitted high-speed EMU requiring a system reset? Maybe King's Cross will tell us when it gets ETCS.

ETCS isn’t the determinant of the turnarounds at Heathrow.

As said above, no reason why 3 minute turn backs are a problem with ATO over ETCS.

 

[MattRat]

We're talking about the north here, where operations are often, shall we say, stately, at places like Victoria, Piccadilly and Oxford Road.
Liverpool Central LL (pre-loop) used to be operated with rapid turnover, before modern signalling put paid to it.
For NPR, we are talking about reversing Liverpool-Leeds and maybe Birmingham-Leeds services, using as yet undefined stock.
The nearest equivalent today, maybe, is SE's 395s at St Pancras (4-6tph).
I'm not familiar with operation there but they appear to use 3 platforms with something like 18-minute turnrounds, ie not especially fast.
Using ETCS, HEx takes 11 minutes of the 15-minute window at Heathrow T5, but of course neither HEx or SE are through services.
So how fast can you turn an ETCS-fitted high-speed EMU requiring a system reset? Maybe King's Cross will tell us when it gets ETCS.

Aren't those bad examples as proper terminus'? It be like comparing it to Lime Street. I think terminus' operate a little differently to turnbacks, as you can force trains to wait longer, and no one is really the wiser as they usually get there just before the new serivce starts, whereas in a turnback, passengers will already be on board, and WILL notice a long dwell time.

 

[BayPaul]

Isn't the point that whilst it looks like a terminus, for NPR services it functions as a through station. If two platforms are allocated for services towards Manchester Airport, and two towards Leeds, which I believe is the case, I see no reason why 20 NPR through services per hour couldn't be timed in each direction, on top of how ever many terminating services can fit in the remaining platforms. Allowing 3 minutes dwell time, and 3 minutes platform reoccupation time, that gives 10tph on each platform, so 20tph in each direction in total. Of course, since the remainder of the infrastructure can't support it, there is no need to do so, but the point is that the station isn't a limit on capacity in any way.

Other advantages of the planned layout over an underground through station not yet mentionned in this thread:

• This layout will allow a much more impressive and pleasant first impression of Manchester - a classic glass-roof covered terminus, rather than deeply buried underground platforms
• An above ground station is probably easier to expand or redesign 50 years from now when more capacity is needed, or other lines need to be squeezed in
• Terminus stations are more passenger friendly, as you can approach platforms from the end, rather than needing to go up / down to the platform. This is especially useful when there is a short notice platform change. And yes, I am aware that these are 400m platforms that will also be accessed by intermediate stairs
• I suspect that routes will be simpler between the new platforms and platforms in the 'classic' Piccadilly.
• Not building a High Speed tunnel gives more opportunities for building a metro / local / metrolink / etc tunnel at some point in the future (which would be far easier due to shorter platforms, lower capacities, and smaller radi

 

[plugwash]

With the trend towards ATO, there will eventually be no significant time difference at all.

How is ATO intended to work? is it intended to operate unsupervised during some or all of the trains operation? or is it intended that there will always be a driver in the leading cab when the train is moving?

 

[Bald Rick]

How is ATO intended to work? is it intended to operate unsupervised during some or all of the trains operation? or is it intended that there will always be a driver in the leading cab when the train is moving?

probably the latter, but the former could plausibly happen at times when no passengers are on board.