themiller
Established Member
An extremely simplistic way of putting it but if you don’t want to describe the process of moving two tower blocks from central London for starters, then yes.
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HS2 Euston - Development, design and construction news (not speculation, please)
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Snow1964
Established Member
New drone video of the HS2 Euston site (not mine)
Nottingham59
Established Member
Lord Hendy seems to be saying that they're looking at a combined HS2 and WCML Euston.
www.newcivilengineer.com
New plan for Euston station will see one concourse for HS2 and national rail services | New Civil Engineer
Work is underway on a masterplan to provide a train station that is a combination of the planned HS2 terminus, a redevelopment of the current Network Rail
www.newcivilengineer.com
That seems a pretty trivial reason for such a big change! If it mattered that much the HS platforms could be letters. Conversely one concourse makes it more confusing if there are HS only tickets.Lord Hendy seems to be saying that they're looking at a combined HS2 and WCML Euston.
New plan for Euston station will see one concourse for HS2 and national rail services | New Civil Engineer
Work is underway on a masterplan to provide a train station that is a combination of the planned HS2 terminus, a redevelopment of the current Network Rail
Hendy's said that Euston will have six platforms, with no decision on service patterns yet made.
https://x.com/RossLydall/status/1869011394718257213
https://x.com/RossLydall/status/1869011394718257213
What does that limit the service to, for example does it rule out ever going to the east midlands from Euston?
"Up to ten trains per hour", so I'd assume 3 tph each to Birmingham and Manchester, 1 tph to Liverpool and 1 tph to Scotland; even without Stoke or Lancaster terminators or more Liverpool or Scotland services, that's, at most, 2 tph to an eastern leg.
It is basically the current Avanti WCML service pattern but moved onto on the high speed platforms. 3 tph each for Birmingham and Manchester, 2 tph Liverpool, 1tph Glasgow and 1 tph Preston/Carlisle. A total of 7 trains/hour through Handsacre and Colwich, which is probably the most possible without phase 2a or a bypass line.
Based on current plans, it is likely that there will also be 1tph to Holyhead/Chester, 2 tph Birmingham via Coventry and MK and 1tph Manchester on the classic lines but these will continue to use the existing platforms.
So that kills the eastern leg totally. Better start throwing more money at the ECML as its here to stay!
Trying to be positive more realistic scope should hopefully mean Euston actually gets built.
Nicholas Lewis
Established Member
With a combined station whats to stop them having access into the "classic" side of the stn to some of the current high numbered platforms as well.
HSTEd
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Well, the Tokaido Shinkansen and Tohoku Shinkansen operate lots and lots of trains with 6 and 4 platforms at Tokyo respectively (and no fancy grade separated approaches), but I think East Midlands trains died an awful long time ago.
The Tohoku Shinkansen peaks at 15 trains per hour, there are lots of things that can be done with ATO at the end of the day.
What planners are willing to commit to now and what works in practice are likely to be two very different things.
It's being built to service a line which ends at Handsacre, so there wouldn't be much point in building more than 6 platforms for now. If they build it with no capacity to add another 4 platforms later (or at least to replace some classic platforms with HS2 platforms) then it will be problematic, but on the specific question of what's being built now you'd expect no change from the 6 platform setup.
Nottingham59
Established Member
There's a significant difference in levels. The HS2 lines are 2 - 3 metres below the level of the WCML tracks. If the rebuild of the classic side can lower the platform level by that amount, then I would expect some of those platforms to be able to access the HS2 tunnels.
From: https://assets.hs2.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/HS2-Euston-Brochure-27.05.22-lower-res.pdf
Nicholas Lewis
Established Member
If they are doing a complete Euston stn rebuild you would surely have it all on the same level
Nottingham59
Established Member
You would hope so. But it would make the climb out of the classic station even steeper.
And taking platforms away from the WCML side would curtail the capacity of the WCML.
PeterIppolito
New Member
Are you sure? Looking at the schedules, the max I'm seeing for the 4 Tohoku Shinkansen platforms from Tokyo is 7 tph, although 5-6 seems more typical.
The 6 Takaido platforms seem to max out at 13 tph, but I've heard they can do more on special occasions.
I might be looking at it wrong though, seems to be a lot of conflicting info on the web about, so happy to be corrected!
In terms of comparing to HS2, I think the Shinkansen trains are wider so they can probably load/unload people faster. Not to mention their services are more straightforward and just stick to their own dedicated line.
With many of the HS2 services diverging and then using the conventional network they could do with extra scheduled stop time (and extra platforms) at the London end for reliability.
Still, 18 tph from 6 platforms isn't exactly impossible, just leaves no redundancy.
Definitely. It's not just Tohoku, the lines to Kanazawa and Niigata also leave from those platforms.
The Tokaido line gets up to 17 at points, although it might be seasonal.
Nottingham59
Established Member
Welcome to the forum.
Given how few trains per hour that Avanti seem to be able to manage successfully out of Euston today, I wouldn't expect the British rail industry to be able to reach anything like Shinkansen levels of productivity.
Even if learning how to do that would cost a hell of a lot less than building another six platforms at Euston.
HSTEd
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The Tohoku Shinkansen shares its track and platforms with the Joetsu Shinkansen and the Hokuriku Shinkansen (laterly the Nagano Shinkansen) between Tokyo and Omiya.
The ~6 trains per hour are on the Tohoku/Akita/Yamagata/Hokkaido Shinkansen group, and exclude the services on the other two Shinkansen.
This is a youtube video of about 20-30 minutes at these platforms during a rush hour, and shows a lot more than seven trains per hour!
You can also see the pointwork, which amounts to precisely six sets of point ends (one diamond crossover and two splits to make four platforms)
I think, if we get a properly designed station with a full length concourse and lots of escalators to the platforms, we can unload and load people fast enough to make it happen.
But I think it would need ATO to do it reliably.
The very high acceleration performance of Shinkansen sets undoubtedly helps, and I don't know what the percentage axles motored on HS2 stock is, but I doubt it is as high as the Japanese push it in the modern era!.
EDIT:
At about 0:35 in the video you can see the two service groups on different departure boards, and they are pretty much spaced 4 minutes apart through the hour.
This is also tending towards speculation, so maybe we should hive off a thread in Speculative Ideas?
Last edited:
Nottingham59
Established Member
With a grade separated throat, you don't need massive acceleration from stationary to clear the throat before the next train arrives. Whichever platform is the next departure, you can route the arriving train into another platform without conflict. That's why HS2 could launch trains at 3 minute intervals, to give 18tph with 2tph spare. Even if trains took three minutes to get fully into the depature tunnel, the next train can leave on time.
The Shinkansen in the video could only achieve a 4 minute cycle because the departing train had to clear the scissors crossing before the next train could use it.
Wyrleybart
Established Member
But that would require 25kV erecting through Chester to Holyhead, or digging up 60 year old class 57s and fitting yet more coupler mods
No, that will use the new class 805 bi-modes, operating solely via the classic WCML.
TheHSRailFan
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This is quite disappointing. while I support the integration of the redevelopment of Euston, What happens to the HS2 station when say a future gov comes along and funds the full route will the expected amount of trains per hour during planning? Hendy was in charge of NR for over a decade, he should know this.
Is there any nuance to this, as in "we are building six platforms
Nicholas Lewis
Established Member
The latest six monthly update to parliament has this to say on Euston
Could infer from that whether its six platforms has yet to be confirmed and if Euston WCML is to be redeveloped whats to stop part of that stn being allocated to HS2 traffic.
Could infer from that whether its six platforms has yet to be confirmed and if Euston WCML is to be redeveloped whats to stop part of that stn being allocated to HS2 traffic.
Indeed all very unclear in reality.
chris2
Member
So it seems to me that the key Euston question is not really how many HS2 platforms there will be, but how many platforms will there be in total. Will it be 6 HS2 + 16 (current classic) = 22 total, or will classic platforms be demolished to make way for HS2, giving somewhere between 16 and 22?
The HS2 and west coast lines serve one corridor so the idea should be that at a minimum Euston grows in capacity because the point of HS2 is to add capacity along this corridor.
In what I would consider the worst case scenario with Euston being rebuilt with only 16 platforms in total, then the only capacity uplift would come via the fact that HS2 trains will be longer and therefore carry more passengers. But the number of tph would presumably be the same or worse and certainly not better, so this really wouldn’t be enough.
If in the best case, Euston ends up as a 22 platform station with 6 for HS2 and 16 classic platforms then that adds significant capacity to the corridor overall. But it will probably render the two sides very different in terms of their levels of busyness as most of the long distance trains will have transferred over to the HS2 platforms.
That will leave an annoying situation where there’s spare platform capacity on the classic side but a full HS2 side.
In the scenario that you wanted to expand the HS2 services, say by resurrecting 2a, what you’d want to be able to do is be able to reconfigure the adjacent classic platforms to accept HS2 trains. But of course the issue is the height differential between the two sets of lines so either HS2 will have to rise up or the classic will have to go down so that the HS2 lines can cross onto the classic lines and access more platforms. I’m not sure what’s more feasible but I would imagine that the the more favourable option would depend when you do it - if you do it before HS2 opens, best to meddle on that side, but once it’s open to Euston, it will be the classic side that is less busy.
If the station is designed such that the concourse sits on one level above the platforms (as I think previous designs suggested) then if you start messing around with the heights of platforms underneath, at least you’re not causing chaos and spoiling all the nice work you’ve done up above where all the passengers are.
I’m sure there’s loads more to it and I’m no expert, but the one scenario where I can really see it being a screw up is if they don’t expand the overall footprint and keep Euston permanently as a 16 platform station. That would not only permanently limit the capacity of HS2, but it would also prevent growth on the classic side, which of course is a key objective of HS2.
I’m sure some thought will be given to how you might come back later to give HS2 trains access to more platforms on the classic side and hopefully they can find a design solution that will allow this to happen in future, even if to begin with HS2 only has the six it needs to get started with.
The HS2 and west coast lines serve one corridor so the idea should be that at a minimum Euston grows in capacity because the point of HS2 is to add capacity along this corridor.
In what I would consider the worst case scenario with Euston being rebuilt with only 16 platforms in total, then the only capacity uplift would come via the fact that HS2 trains will be longer and therefore carry more passengers. But the number of tph would presumably be the same or worse and certainly not better, so this really wouldn’t be enough.
If in the best case, Euston ends up as a 22 platform station with 6 for HS2 and 16 classic platforms then that adds significant capacity to the corridor overall. But it will probably render the two sides very different in terms of their levels of busyness as most of the long distance trains will have transferred over to the HS2 platforms.
That will leave an annoying situation where there’s spare platform capacity on the classic side but a full HS2 side.
In the scenario that you wanted to expand the HS2 services, say by resurrecting 2a, what you’d want to be able to do is be able to reconfigure the adjacent classic platforms to accept HS2 trains. But of course the issue is the height differential between the two sets of lines so either HS2 will have to rise up or the classic will have to go down so that the HS2 lines can cross onto the classic lines and access more platforms. I’m not sure what’s more feasible but I would imagine that the the more favourable option would depend when you do it - if you do it before HS2 opens, best to meddle on that side, but once it’s open to Euston, it will be the classic side that is less busy.
If the station is designed such that the concourse sits on one level above the platforms (as I think previous designs suggested) then if you start messing around with the heights of platforms underneath, at least you’re not causing chaos and spoiling all the nice work you’ve done up above where all the passengers are.
I’m sure there’s loads more to it and I’m no expert, but the one scenario where I can really see it being a screw up is if they don’t expand the overall footprint and keep Euston permanently as a 16 platform station. That would not only permanently limit the capacity of HS2, but it would also prevent growth on the classic side, which of course is a key objective of HS2.
I’m sure some thought will be given to how you might come back later to give HS2 trains access to more platforms on the classic side and hopefully they can find a design solution that will allow this to happen in future, even if to begin with HS2 only has the six it needs to get started with.
https://x.com/philatrail/status/1869706821054935277
Would the suggestion of building six platforms wide enough to accommodate another four or five in future be feasible?
BRX
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Surely the majority of the cost is in building the container for the platforms rather than the platforms themselves. And if you are going to build a container large enough to take extra platforms, but aren't going to use that extra space for maybe a decade or more, you'd want to fill it with something revenue-generating in the meantime. Retail space or whatever.