HS2 future northern extensions

[po8crg]

For me the biggest disadvantage - if the security theatre and immigration can be cleared up - is that you can't run sleepers. I'd love to go to Piccadilly at 8pm, get on a train, and then get off at 8am the next day in Venice or Rome or Madrid or somewhere. But you definitely can't change trains in the middle of the night on a sleeper.

Of course, you can't run them from St. Pancras at the moment because of the security and border farce, but if there was a link, the smart thing would be to start them "oop north" and then stop in St. Pancras or Euston at 10pm or so. Would probably involve some messy reversing (e.g. OOC-Stratford-STP-Stratford) to get the train in and out again, but a few extra minutes wouldn't hurt on a journey that long, the additional passengers from running into central London over OOC/Stratford would be worth the time, and the tracks should be quiet enough at that time of night.

 

[Voglitz]

For me the biggest disadvantage - if the security theatre and immigration can be cleared up - is that you can't run sleepers. I'd love to go to Piccadilly at 8pm, get on a train, and then get off at 8am the next day in Venice or Rome or Madrid or somewhere. But you definitely can't change trains in the middle of the night on a sleeper.

Of course, you can't run them from St. Pancras at the moment because of the security and border farce, but if there was a link, the smart thing would be to start them "oop north" and then stop in St. Pancras or Euston at 10pm or so. Would probably involve some messy reversing (e.g. OOC-Stratford-STP-Stratford) to get the train in and out again, but a few extra minutes wouldn't hurt on a journey that long, the additional passengers from running into central London over OOC/Stratford would be worth the time, and the tracks should be quiet enough at that time of night.

In recent years, sleeper and night trains have been vastly reduced in number, in Britain and Western Europe. Nothing to do with security or immigration theatre.

 

[po8crg]

In recent years, sleeper and night trains have been vastly reduced in number, in Britain and Western Europe. Nothing to do with security or immigration theatre.

Sleepers have mostly died off because daytime trains have got faster. Sleepers have generally run rather slowly, and you can cover the distance that most sleepers do in three or four hours thanks to HSR - and most people would prefer a three or four hour daytime journey than to take a sleeper. Because the European HSR routes don't interconnect yet, you can't do eight hours or more at high-speeds to run a sleeper.

When the interconnects get built over the next two or three decades, HSR sleepers will start to make sense. When Nîmes-Montpellier and Montpellier-Perpignan are built, a high-speed train could run Amsterdam-Seville or London-Seville entirely on high-speed track. Build Lyon-Turin and London-Naples is possible. Magistrale for Europe would allow London-Budapest. Those journeys are much further than people are likely to accept for daytime trains, but sleepers could make sense.

The only place in the world where there is enough track to do eight or more hours at 250 km/h is China, and that's the only country that has build high-speed sleeper rolling stock.

Sleepers require specialised rolling stock, and long journeys (in terms of time). No-one's going to order the rolling stock until there are routes to run it on, and there aren't any such routes in Europe as yet.

Whether any such order will be placed will be a commercial decision (will there be demand?) and will also depend on the regulatory environment (for international trains within the EU, and also for maintenance regimes on HSR, which is mostly closed down at night at present).

 

[33Hz]

I don't believe you need such interconnects to run a sleeper. There are 6.5 hour TGVs between Paris and Barcelona now so no technical reason why a sub 9 hour high speed sleeper couldn't run from London to Barcelona (and then on to Madrid etc) today. Similar story with Italy.

The withdrawn sleeper from Paris to Munich was not from lack of demand IMHO and the 6 hour replacement day train is not suitable for any but the most die hard TGV fans to take, especially for business. If you look at all the companies withdrawing sleepers it's usually high French access charges that are cited in making services uneconomic.

Back on topic, I find it extremely worrying that our current island mentality system of governance is being baked in to our high speed network from the outset. Removing the safeguarding is a huge mistake.

 

[Noddy]

This would be a very empty train, unless it could also carry intermediate passengers such as Manchester-Ashford, but unfortunately our security rules seem to make that impossible unless those passengers undergo baggage screening.

Would it be that empty? Fifty years ago if people said there would be a regular service (approx every 2hrs) to Brussels people would have been equally unimpressed/laughed. Personally I am unconvinced that a thought through service would not work. Even with the stops I suggest it would probably be around the sub 4hr mark from Manchester to Paris and sub 3hrs to Birmingham Interchange. With sensible timetabling at Birmingham Interchange it would also provide great connections for the East Midlands, South Yorkshire, and Liverpool. Those customer numbers start build up pretty quickly.

However HS2 between London and the West Midlands is expected to be nearly full, with only two paths per hour previous reserved for Heathrow now available. This may be an opportunity for a future east-side route, which would be less busy and could perhaps link with HS1 in the Stratford area.

Which is why I didn't suggest any services on HS2 beyond the very short section between the HS1-HS2 link and OCC. There would be no point on running Javelin type services along HS2. Where are the stations or the connections to local lines? I suggested Javelin services from Kent to Reading/Oxford (and of course Heathrow would also be a no brainer). These would run along CC lines in Kent, HS1, HS1-HS2 link, HS2 (less than 2 miles?), GWML. As mentioned by 33Hz there is also the Heathrow-Continent transfer market (especially KLM and Air France).

That's a high speed parcels service, which is possible in theory but no more has been heard of it since that demo. Probably not enough volume to make it worthwhile unless three or four competing parcels operators joined forces. There's also the problem that most premium parcels run overnight, when the high speed lines will be at least partly closed for engineering work.

Agreed, although that trail was run by a consortium of logistics operators and parcel companies including DHL and the french post service...

 

[edwin_m]

Would it be that empty? Fifty years ago if people said there would be a regular service (approx every 2hrs) to Brussels people would have been equally unimpressed/laughed. Personally I am unconvinced that a thought through service would not work. Even with the stops I suggest it would probably be around the sub 4hr mark from Manchester to Paris and sub 3hrs to Birmingham Interchange. With sensible timetabling at Birmingham Interchange it would also provide great connections for the East Midlands, South Yorkshire, and Liverpool. Those customer numbers start build up pretty quickly.

Similar times to these are achievable today by air. There are about nine flights per day between Manchester and Paris, all using smallish turboprops. If Birmingham had a timetable on their website I imagine it would be similar. So even if all those people wanted to fly at the same time of day (which they obviously don't) they would only fill one train for each city. Much as we would like it to, it really doesn't work unless that train can also serve other markets. Nor incidentally does any other international train in Europe except Eurostar, which happens to serve three of the biggest cities at an ideal separation for the train. All the others carry some domestic traffic too.

 

[Noddy]

Similar times to these are achievable today by air. There are about nine flights per day between Manchester and Paris, all using smallish turboprops. If Birmingham had a timetable on their website I imagine it would be similar. So even if all those people wanted to fly at the same time of day (which they obviously don't) they would only fill one train for each city. Much as we would like it to, it really doesn't work unless that train can also serve other markets. Nor incidentally does any other international train in Europe except Eurostar, which happens to serve three of the biggest cities at an ideal separation for the train. All the others carry some domestic traffic too.

Similar times are not available if you're taking any baggage! Eurostar are extending their services beyond the three capitals to regional cities. So I don't see why the reverse isn't possible in the UK especially as the population density is higher and distances are shorter.

 

[clc]

On the question of which route any new line to Scotland would take (if it ever happens), the Scottish Government's Infrastructure Plan was updated recently and I notice the section on HSR still alludes to a west coast route (costing £15 billion) with no mention of the cost of an east coast route. The update was only published a few days ago so I wonder if it gives a clue as to current thinking in Dft/TS:

http://www.gov.scot/Publications/2015/03/7221/1

 

[Altnabreac]

On the question of which route any new line to Scotland would take (if it ever happens), the Scottish Government's Infrastructure Plan was updated recently and I notice the section on HSR still alludes to a west coast route (costing £15 billion) with no mention of the cost of an east coast route. The update was only published a few days ago so I wonder if it gives a clue as to current thinking in Dft/TS:

http://www.gov.scot/Publications/2015/03/7221/1

Given how close we are to Purdah it is unlikely that the DfT will be publishing the report so we'll have to wait until after the election to see it.

I'm sure Keith Brown will have ensured the appropriate negotiators from the SNP side have been made aware of its contents though...

 

[clc]

Given how close we are to Purdah it is unlikely that the DfT will be publishing the report so we'll have to wait until after the election to see it.

I'm sure Keith Brown will have ensured the appropriate negotiators from the SNP side have been made aware of its contents though...

Good news stories are normally published before an election. The Tories will tank as always up here but the Lib Dems have a number of seats to defend so you'd have thought they'd be keen to publish. If they're not in a hurry to do so it suggests they don't think there's any vote winning potential in it.

 

[NotATrainspott]

YouGov has questions on HS2 in some of its regular surveys and from the results, it appears that Scotland is the least enthusiastic area about HS2 out of all of Great Britain. I imagine much of this is just because phases 1 and 2 don't bring any world-changing improvements - Phase 1 Glasgow timings will be achieved by Virgin East Coast services to Edinburgh once the IEPs are delivered.

 

[Altnabreac]

Good news stories are normally published before an election. The Tories will tank as always up here but the Lib Dems have a number of seats to defend so you'd have thought they'd be keen to publish. If they're not in a hurry to do so it suggests they don't think there's any vote winning potential in it.

The main benefits are to the Central Belt which is an SNP vs Lab battleground so no benefit to Patrick McLoughlin in publishing before the election.

Note the contrast to the HS3 / Rail North report which is a Con vs Lab battleground.

We'll all get to see it in June no doubt.

 

[Noddy]

On the question of which route any new line to Scotland would take (if it ever happens), the Scottish Government's Infrastructure Plan was updated recently and I notice the section on HSR still alludes to a west coast route (costing £15 billion) with no mention of the cost of an east coast route. The update was only published a few days ago so I wonder if it gives a clue as to current thinking in Dft/TS:

http://www.gov.scot/Publications/2015/03/7221/1

Sorry to appear to be playing devils advocate but, seriously, if there's any potential for another independence vote during the 2016-2020/1 Scottish parliament (ie another SNP majority) there's very little chance of anything significant happening before the end of that term. If there's a Yes vote there's zero chance of HS2 reaching Scotland unless it's funded entirely by the Scottish Government. Can you imagine any rUK government agreeing to spend 10s of billions of pounds building a HS line through Lancashire and Cumbria? The benefit cost ratio to the rUK would be atrocious, not to mention the politics which would no doubt still be at play. It is disappointing as a HS line between the Central belt and HS2 at Wigan would probably revolutionise travel within the UK and certainly eliminate polluting air travel between the Central Belt airports and London.

As to a Glasgow-Edinburgh HS line who knows what will happen, but I think continued upgrades of the existing lines are more likely. I can't see a Scottish government (of any colour) being able to sell to the public spending billions of pounds on building a new line to save 10 minutes, when other parts of the country (eg Perth and the other northern cities) are so poorly served (time wise).

EDIT: I've just seen the quoted £15 billion from Manchester to Glasgow/Edinburgh (including stations). That seems unlikely to me!

 

[Metrailway]

Alex Salmond has suggested on the Andrew Marr show today that, if the SNP hold the balance of power after the general election, they would demand a High Speed rail link between Glasgow-Edinburgh and Newcastle as a price for backing a minority Labour budget.

So it seems that the SNP may favour the East Coast route instead of the West Coast route suggested by others.

 

[Noddy]

Alex Salmond has suggested on the Andrew Marr show today that, if the SNP hold the balance of power after the general election, they would demand a High Speed rail link between Glasgow-Edinburgh and Newcastle as a price for backing a minority Labour budget.

So it seems that the SNP may favour the East Coast route instead of the West Coast route suggested by others.

Interesting. I suspect it's because that would give them a straight HS line between Glasgow-Edinburgh (and onto Newcastle) rather than a Y-shaped line between Glasgow, Edinburgh and the south. However, unless he's planning a straight route from Edinburgh to Newcastle (across the Northumberland National Park) it would also be slower to London (especially from Glasgow) than the west coast route and more expensive due to the additional route miles.

 

[clc]

Alex Salmond has suggested on the Andrew Marr show today that, if the SNP hold the balance of power after the general election, they would demand a High Speed rail link between Glasgow-Edinburgh and Newcastle as a price for backing a minority Labour budget.

So it seems that the SNP may favour the East Coast route instead of the West Coast route suggested by others.

Marr asked Salmond how he'd deal with a situation where Labour refused to negotiate with the SNP on it's budget, confident the SNP wouldn't vote against it and bring down a Labour govt. Salmond's response was that the SNP could propose an amendment to the budget such as, for example, starting HSR from Glasgow-Edinburgh to Newcastle instead of waiting for it arriving from London (I assume what he meant was starting construction of the northernmost section at the same time as the southern section). He suggested this would be popular in northern England.

I think he was trying to demonstrate to English viewers that the SNP could extract concessions which would benefit other parts of the UK and not just Scotland. Whether the allusion to an east coast route was based on anything concrete I'm not sure.

 

[NotATrainspott]

I wouldn't read too much into the Newcastle bit - he's just a politician, and to be honest the vast majority of politicians don't really care about railway stuff. If this were to happen, HS2 Ltd would pipe up and say whatever they feel they need to say, and they would switch to something with a better business case (i.e. HSR from Edinburgh and Glasgow to Carlisle or beyond).

 

[Altnabreac]

Marr asked Salmond how he'd deal with a situation where Labour refused to negotiate with the SNP on it's budget, confident the SNP wouldn't vote against it and bring down a Labour govt. Salmond's response was that the SNP could propose an amendment to the budget such as, for example, starting HSR from Glasgow-Edinburgh to Newcastle instead of waiting for it arriving from London (I assume what he meant was starting construction of the northernmost section at the same time as the southern section). He suggested this would be popular in northern England.

I think he was trying to demonstrate to English viewers that the SNP could extract concessions which would benefit other parts of the UK and not just Scotland. Whether the allusion to an east coast route was based on anything concrete I'm not sure.

I have been saying on here for 6 months that HS2 is high on the agenda for senior SNP folk in any Westminster negotiation.

Exact routings are less relevant than the political deal to be made and that is possibly stronger on the East Coast.

Either way the aim is to start work early in Scotland and for as much of the Scottish scheme as possible to be classified as a UK wide investment from a Barnett point of view.

Seems a good bit of politics to me.

 

[HSTEd]

The problem is in the long run I don't think HS2 from Glasgow/Edinburgh to London would actually be in the SNP's interests long-term?
It will increase the number of "weekend commuters" shuttling back and forth drastically, and possibly start serious cross-border commuter flows between Northern cities and Scotland. Manchester/Edinburgh in ~1hr is plausible.
This would, over time, corrode the sense of Scottish nationhood.
This is especially true if 360/400km/h running becomes a reality because then sub <2hr London-Central Belt journey times are potentially within reach.

They will more likely argue primarily for Glasgow-Edinburgh HSR and attempt to argue for HS2 to Scotland but not actually attempt to move it forward, handing them another stick to beat Westminster with.

 

[Noddy]

The problem is in the long run I don't think HS2 from Glasgow/Edinburgh to London would actually be in the SNP's interests long-term?
It will increase the number of "weekend commuters" shuttling back and forth drastically, and possibly start serious cross-border commuter flows between Northern cities and Scotland. Manchester/Edinburgh in ~1hr is plausible.
This would, over time, corrode the sense of Scottish nationhood.
This is especially true if 360/400km/h running becomes a reality because then sub <2hr London-Central Belt journey times are potentially within reach.

They will more likely argue primarily for Glasgow-Edinburgh HSR and attempt to argue for HS2 to Scotland but not actually attempt to move it forward, handing them another stick to beat Westminster with.

I totally agree, especially if the 'northern powerhouse' develops and starts sucking in large numbers of commuters. I also can't see a labour government giving away so much for a 'vote by vote' deal, which the SNP could pull out of at any time. Lets not forget the Lib Dems pretty much only got the AV vote out of a full coalition. As I said earlier I think it's politically naive to expect a Scottish extension to HS2 with the possibility of independence still in the background.

 

[Altnabreac]

I totally agree, especially if the 'northern powerhouse' develops and starts sucking in large numbers of commuters. I also can't see a labour government giving away so much for a 'vote by vote' deal, which the SNP could pull out of at any time. Lets not forget the Lib Dems pretty much only got the AV vote out of a full coalition. As I said earlier I think it's politically naive to expect a Scottish extension to HS2 with the possibility of independence still in the background.

Ironically it's attitudes like that which would lead to Independence by denying. Scotland investment on the grounds that it might seek independence in future.

To an extent I agree with HSTEd that in some ways Cross Border high speed rail could weaken desire for independence. It is to the SNPs credit that they support it anyway.

The reason they do so is that ultimately they see HS2 as important for business competitiveness in Scotland. In particular the relative competitiveness of Scotland and the North of England which is why starting at both ends would be a priority.

The main reason Independence failed to be approved was economic concerns so a stronger economy has to be a priority for any politician aiming to secure it in future.

I do agree that cross border would be unlikely to start post indepence but it's more likely to happen now given the political situation at Westminster.

 

[33Hz]

Glasgow was the main supporter of independence this time around. I've often heard it said that Edinburgh is practically an English city. Hence the SNP wanting HS2 on the East Coast?

Besides, taking in Tyne and Wear is surely a must. I agree with Salmond on this one.

 

[NotATrainspott]

The problem is in the long run I don't think HS2 from Glasgow/Edinburgh to London would actually be in the SNP's interests long-term?
It will increase the number of "weekend commuters" shuttling back and forth drastically, and possibly start serious cross-border commuter flows between Northern cities and Scotland. Manchester/Edinburgh in ~1hr is plausible.
This would, over time, corrode the sense of Scottish nationhood.
This is especially true if 360/400km/h running becomes a reality because then sub <2hr London-Central Belt journey times are potentially within reach.

They will more likely argue primarily for Glasgow-Edinburgh HSR and attempt to argue for HS2 to Scotland but not actually attempt to move it forward, handing them another stick to beat Westminster with.

Copenhagen and Malmo have been combined into a single economic unit now with the Oresund Bridge, and there are plenty of people commuting from one country into the other now. However, is that enough to make people genuinely consider changing the constitutional status of the countries to match? The number of people for whom HS2 would enable super-long-distance commuting is still tiny in comparison to the population of the country, and if that population believes that independence is the best way forward then that's what will happen.

Scotland to London is not an insignificant flow of passengers, and there would still be a justification for building the full captive line even after independence. For one, there's not much point building other captive lines in England without the ability to run captive up to Scotland (e.g. a Birmingham-Bristol line makes no sense if it won't stop Scotland-South West flights). Other European countries are building high speed rail connections between their cities because the improvement from them is greater than the sum of the individual parts in different countries. At the very least, captive running up to Scotland could allow the reliability of HS2 to improve enough that a few more paths could be squeezed out of Birmingham Junction, thus enabling a better service for the North of England without the cost of building a second London-Midlands line immediately.

 

[po8crg]

When you consider that France and Italy have been prepared to push through the Lyon-Turin high-speed line at enormous cost, and against protests that dwarf anything that the anti-HS2 movement has been able to put together, Scottish independence certainly shouldn't prevent a captive line from the Central Belt to England.

In fact, in one way it will make it easier - making it a cross-border project will make it eligible (provided both Scotland and rUK stay as members) for higher levels of EU funding than are available for a domestic project within a single member-state. Admittedly, that would probably only be about €3-5bn in a £30bn (€50bn) project, but every little helps.

 

[Voglitz]

Scotland to London is not an insignificant flow of passengers, and there would still be a justification for building the full captive line even after independence.

If the number of long distance Anglo-Scottish rail journeys increased to 10 million p.a., the HS2 extension cost £30 billion, and the money was borrowed at 3%, each trip would cost at least £90+ more in infrastructure charges. So, who pays?

 

[Haydn1971]

Putting costs into perspective, I read a recent article re the £15Bn cost increase of HS2 - apparently it represents about 3 months worth of UK GDP growth on completion - kinda sounds like peanuts in the bigger picture.

 

[clc]

If the number of long distance Anglo-Scottish rail journeys increased to 10 million p.a., the HS2 extension cost £30 billion, and the money was borrowed at 3%, each trip would cost at least £90+ more in infrastructure charges. So, who pays?

I work it out as £50 per journey assuming it has a 60 year lifespan.

 

[Voglitz]

I work it out as £50 per journey assuming it has a 60 year lifespan.

If it were possible to borrow £30,000,000,000 at 0%, then yes, 600 million trips over 60 years would amount to £50 per one-way journey.

 

[po8crg]

Yes, 3% interest is £90 per passenger just to cover the interest on the debt.

The government, however, currently borrows at 0.5%, which would make it £15 per passenger to cover the interest.

To pay off £30bn, assuming 0.5% interest, over 60 years, you'd need to start at £50 and put it up by the interest rate every year.

Of course, that assumes no growth in passengers. 2% annual growth in passengers, and that's £25 instead.

The problem is that very small tweaks to the assumptions (passenger growth rate, fare growth rate, starting number of passengers, interest rate) makes a huge difference to the final figure. You can justify anything from about £10 to about £250 on perfectly reasonable assumptions because the results compound.

And then you get to the "wider economic benefits" question - if people who don't travel benefit from other people travelling (because there is economic growth as a result, for example), then it may make sense for government to tax those people and use that tax to pay for the construction.

But a small (1%) error in one of these calculations will compound out of control over a long period, and this sort of thing has to be planned for a long period not a short one. So these sorts of calculations are of pretty limited value.

BCR is more to compare one project with another to prioritise them than really to decide what is good and bad.

 

[HSTEd]

If you accept fare uprates with inflation the interest rate over 37 years is -0.92% in real terms. That is £580m/yr in real terms, which is ~£50 per ticket at 10m passengers p.a.
But I think that is a very conservative sum. After all that reduces the length of the payment period by half.

Manchester alone could easily pull/push that many day-commuters to/from Edinburgh or Glasgow. (Especially the former as the very high value government and similar jobs setting up there woudl have people who would like to live in a place as shiny as Edinburgh).