HS2 hub in Brackley

[cr767055]

Hi, I'm a 14 year old railway campaigner, working on a few projects in the last few months.

I've been exploring the idea of a Northamptonshire/East Midlands Hub Two station in Brackley, more exactly, Turweston (a village that would be totally knocked out by High Speed Two) to serve Buckinghamshire, West/North Northamptonshire, Warwickshire, Oxfordshire etc without having to travel all the way to London or Birmingham to catch a train.

I know congestion would be an issue, however a passing loop or two extra tracks would fix this. Has anyone got any thoughts on this?

 

[JonathanH]

The problem with building intermediate stations on HS2 is (at least) fourfold:
1) it stimulates development in an area where there are currently green fields which is not what the locals want
2) even with long loops for the station it reduces capacity on the railway itself - ie you can't run as many trains
3) it adds to the cost of the railway
4) the whole point of HS2 is to allow more trains to stop at stations on the routes which no longer need to accommodate high speed trains.

It isn't a matter of 'travelling all the way to London or Birmingham to catch a train'. There are existing railways and stations to board trains to London or Birmingham for travel further afield. There is no large settlement to justify the services stopping and most of the locals probably don't want Brackley to become a megacity.

There are previous threads where there is thought about intermediate stations

https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/hs2-what-services-and-facilities-might-be-passively-provided-for-at-calvert-for-a-possible-station.200353/#post-4435832

 

[D365]

4) the whole point of HS2 is to allow more trains to stop at stations on the routes which no longer need to accommodate high speed trains.

This (in my opinion) is the most crucial point, and one that the anti-HS2 crowd always seem to miss.

 

[Ianno87]

The problem with building intermediate stations on HS2 is (at least) fourfold:
1) it stimulates development in an area where there are currently green fields which is not what the locals want
2) even with long loops for the station it reduces capacity on the railway itself - ie you can't run as many trains
3) it adds to the cost of the railway
4) the whole point of HS2 is to allow more trains to stop at stations on the routes which no longer need to accommodate high speed trains.

It isn't a matter of 'travelling all the way to London or Birmingham to catch a train'. There are existing railways and stations to board trains to London or Birmingham for travel further afield. There is no large settlement to justify the services stopping and most of the locals probably don't want Brackley to become a megacity.

There are previous threads where there is thought about intermediate stations

https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/hs2-what-services-and-facilities-might-be-passively-provided-for-at-calvert-for-a-possible-station.200353/#post-4435832

Add..

5) If there were a stop, you are slowing down everybody travelling from London to Birmingham/Manchester/whereever for the benefit of a few people joining at Brackley, who (as already noted) are served by the existing lines in the area from Milton Keynes etc.

 

[Legolash2o]

Add..

5) If there were a stop, you are slowing down everybody travelling from London to Birmingham/Manchester/whereever for the benefit of a few people joining at Brackley, who (as already noted) are served by the existing lines in the area from Milton Keynes etc.

Instead of physically connecting to the existing lines, you could build an interchange instead or a new platform.

 

[Ianno87]

Instead of physically connecting to the existing lines, you could build an interchange instead or a new platform.

I'm not talking about a new connection.

Any extra station stop anywhere has the effect of slowing down all the passengers on the train who don't want to get on or off there.

 

[Legolash2o]

I don't see how.

1. If the lines are separate (interchange/platform), then trains won't impact the traffic. Any passengers wanting to use the new line, can simply use the new platform.
2. If you are travelling from London to Birmingham, you wont be slowed down as there's already stops at those stations. You wouldn't need to add new stops anyway for the reason above.

 

[30907]

I don't see how.

1. If the lines are separate (interchange/platform), then trains won't impact the traffic. Any passengers wanting to use the new line, can simply use the new platform.
2. If you are travelling from London to Birmingham, you wont be slowed down as there's already stops at those stations. You wouldn't need to add new stops anyway for the reason above.

So you are building an interchange outside Brackley on a separate line (from where to where? I assumed the OP was about a Parkway type station)? But trains from London to Birmingham won't stop?

I'm obviously misunderstanding you, so please could you explain a bit more?

 

[Ianno87]

I don't see how.

1. If the lines are separate (interchange/platform), then trains won't impact the traffic. Any passengers wanting to use the new line, can simply use the new platform.
2. If you are travelling from London to Birmingham, you wont be slowed down as there's already stops at those stations. You wouldn't need to add new stops anyway for the reason above.

1A. HS2, with 17/18tph, will be full to planning capacity. Therefore, it must be at least one of already the planned trains that must stop, and thus cannot achieve the journey time it could do without the stop. Stopping a train is always slower than not stopping that train.

1B. Even a station on loops eats capacity, if not everything stops; each stopping train needs one path on arrival and then drop into a different path on departure; so each stopping train needs two HS2 paths (unless absolutely everything stopped)

2. But the potential (49 minute) journey time is not being achieved; making that 56 minutes, whilst still an improvement on existing routes, still affects the benefits of HS2 by making it not quite as attractive.

 

[Legolash2o]

I've just taken the proposed route and overlaid it on top of the existing network (I've attached for convenience). Looking at the proposed route, there would be a connection at Banbury, Leamington Spa and Northampton. These are the areas where I say you could have a interchange or new separate platform to serve the new routes.

However, after just seeing the proposed route itself, it does look like it would connect to the WCML at Bugbrooke to Weedon and Harbury to Leamington Spa. I incorrectly made an assumption it would just dive under/over the existing WCML, so your observations hold and I stand corrected. For the section near Weedon, I doubt there's budget or even room to make it a 5/6 track to avoid interaction with the WCML.

But let's turn this in a positive. How could it be done without impacting the WCML?

I haven't seen where the HS2 route runs so I have no idea how this proposal would impact HS2 to be honest.

 

[Ianno87]

Hang on, so the proposal in this thread is nothing to do with adding a station on HS2 itself? That's what 'HS2 Hub' (thread title) usually means.

It's just adding a seperate local line vaguely in the vicinity of HS2 to serve local towns/villages by connecting them to the WCML?

 

[swt_passenger]

Well it originally sounded very like a re-run of “why can’t HS2 have an interchange with EWR at Calvert”, but moved a few miles up the road...

 

[Legolash2o]

According to the the map below. HS2 will be running right in the middle of Banbury and Weedon. I believe there's a suggestion to add a station on the HS2 (Turweston) which then serves the new lines in the diagram I showed. Everything you said still stands as that would eat up HS2 capacity and travel time.

The picture is getting clearer, at least for me anyway.

https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&t=p&source=embed&ll=51.95907718333133,-1.305313188476579&spn=0.650787,2.290649&z=10&mid=1CmwsEr8Tbwn-nGT7UfSMjdVIItA

 

[ashkeba]

Add..

5) If there were a stop, you are slowing down everybody travelling from London to Birmingham/Manchester/whereever for the benefit of a few people joining at Brackley, who (as already noted) are served by the existing lines in the area from Milton Keynes etc.

Are they? There is a bus taking 30 minutes to Banbury and another to Bicester (both stations) but no through ticketing or competition that I saw. I saw no obvious link to the WCML except a slow bus to Northampton twice a day and the roads and car parks to it look poor too.

Brackely should have its railway links improved else it should not surprise anyone that they resent HS 2 passing so close but delivering no benefit now the linked greenway has been cut after doing its job of placating some green objectors during consultation. There are probably still some sore Brakley residents about the closure of their old railway lines and later vandalism of their viaduct instead of using it to provide a safe walking route to the countryside like in Rugby and Leicester.

So what benefit will Brakley get from HS 2?

 

[Ianno87]

Are they? There is a bus taking 30 minutes to Banbury and another to Bicester (both stations) but no through ticketing or competition that I saw. I saw no obvious link to the WCML except a slow bus to Northampton twice a day and the roads and car parks to it look poor too.

Brackely should have its railway links improved else it should not surprise anyone that they resent HS 2 passing so close but delivering no benefit now the linked greenway has been cut after doing its job of placating some green objectors during consultation. There are probably still some sore Brakley residents about the closure of their old railway lines and later vandalism of their viaduct instead of using it to provide a safe walking route to the countryside like in Rugby and Leicester.

So what benefit will Brakley get from HS 2?

I imagine Brackley residents needing to access rail will do so by driving to Banbury, Milton Keynes etc. and driving from there. Which get the released capacity benefits of HS2.

I grant that local public transport to/from Brackley is poor, but that's not a problem for HS2 to solve.

 

[A0]

Hi, I'm a 14 year old railway campaigner, working on a few projects in the last few months. I've been exploring the idea of a Northamptonshire/East Midlands Hub Two station in Brackley, more exactly, Turweston (a village that would be totally knocked out by High Speed Two) to serve Buckinghamshire, West/North Northamptonshire, Warwickshire, Oxfordshire etc without having to travel all the way to London or Birmingham to catch a train.

I know congestion would be an issue, however a passing loop or two extra tracks would fix this. Has anyone got any thoughts on this?

The bit I'm unsure about is your comment about having to 'travel all the way to London or Birmingham to catch at train'. Also not convinced this benefits 'North Northamptonshire' - North Northamptonshire covers Kettering and Corby - they're served by the MML and are some distance to the east of either the WCML or HS2.

West Northants isn't brilliantly served by rail, but does have fairly easy connection to Bicester and Banbury - both of which have direct London and Birmingham trains currently.

Reality is there won't be intermediate stations put on HS2 as it kills the benefits case as the idea is HS2 will release capacity on the WCML and possibly the Chiltern mainline.

 

[Legolash2o]

You can also argue why put a HS2 station essentially in the middle of nowhere that relies on buses.

A station that serves HS2 needs good connections to everything else. Rail, tram, good roads, etc.

 

[cr767055]

Just to let you all know, the link in the original thread has nothing to do with this specific question, it's just to show you what I've done in the past. The question here is, could or should Brackley get an HS2 station/hub?

 

[edwin_m]

According to the the map below. HS2 will be running right in the middle of Banbury and Weedon. I believe there's a suggestion to add a station on the HS2 (Turweston) which then serves the new lines in the diagram I showed. Everything you said still stands as that would eat up HS2 capacity and travel time.

The picture is getting clearer, at least for me anyway.

https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&t=p&source=embed&ll=51.95907718333133,-1.305313188476579&spn=0.650787,2.290649&z=10&mid=1CmwsEr8Tbwn-nGT7UfSMjdVIItA

It's about 5km from Banbury and 3km from Weedon assuming you mean the one near Aylesbury (there are others). So hardly "right in the middle".

more exactly, Turweston (a village that would be totally knocked out by High Speed Two)

That map shows HS2 is several hundred metres away so no direct impact on the village and certainly not "totally knocked out".

Just to let you all know, the link in the original thread has nothing to do with this specific question, it's just to show you what I've done in the past. The question here is, could or should Brackley get an HS2 station/hub?

It would probably reduce confusion if you explained that in the post in question, or just deleted the link.

 

[PeterC]

This (in my opinion) is the most crucial point, and one that the anti-HS2 crowd always seem to miss.

Indeed, it really makes me laugh when people post on social media saying that the money would be better spent improving services to the stions that are being by-passed!

 

[cr767055]

It would probably reduce confusion if you explained that in the post in question, or just deleted the link.

Yup, just done that.

 

[ashkeba]

West Northants isn't brilliantly served by rail, but does have fairly easy connection to Bicester and Banbury - both of which have direct London and Birmingham trains currently.

What are these easy connections, please?

 

[cr767055]

does have fairly easy connection to Bicester and Banbury

I'm not aware of any station in Northamptonshire to provide a direct service to Banbury/Any CML location (excl. Kings Sutton, but we don't really count that.)

 

[Ianno87]

I'm not aware of any station in Northamptonshire to provide a direct service to Banbury/Any CML location (excl. Kings Sutton, but we don't really count that.)

I think the point is that it's easy to reach those stations from West Northants (by road at least)

 

[cr767055]

I think the point is that it's easy to reach those stations from West Northants (by road at least)

Ah, got it.

 

[A0]

What are these easy connections, please?

Probably useful to define 'West Northants' for these purposes - to my mind it's points west of Towcester and Daventry.

The largest place in that area is Brackley - popn 13,000. The rest of it is villages such as Silverstone (popn 2000) Middleton Cheney (popn 3500) etc.

Brackley is about 10 miles to either Bicester or Banbury - there is a half-hourly bus from Brackley to Banbury - hourly in the evenings until late. There's also an hourly bus service to Bicester.

For most people they'll drive - which since Brackley hasn't been rail connected for 50 or so years, means pretty much everyone who's moved there has done so knowing there isn't a direct rail link.

 

[D365]

The question here is, could or should Brackley get an HS2 station/hub?

No.

 

[ashkeba]

Probably useful to define 'West Northants' for these purposes - to my mind it's points west of Towcester and Daventry.

Is not Brackley slightly east of Daventry?

Brackley is about 10 miles to either Bicester or Banbury - there is a half-hourly bus from Brackley to Banbury - hourly in the evenings until late. There's also an hourly bus service to Bicester.

With no through ticketing and not great coordination.

For most people they'll drive - which since Brackley hasn't been rail connected for 50 or so years, means pretty much everyone who's moved there has done so knowing there isn't a direct rail link.

The roads to those places are not easy and the car parks expensive. It is understandable if people there are not happy to have a train line built near them if it becomes little easier to catch trains. I know some say connecting the towns near HS2 is not the job of HS2 but it seems like a missed opportunity to build support for the project.

 

[adamedwards]

Build a Cherwell Valley Parkway off the B430 near M40 J10. Sorted.

 

[edwin_m]

With no through ticketing and not great coordination.

The problem is that the UK doesn't integrate buses and trains properly.

The solution is not to build a brand new high speed station, as any buses serving that wouldn't be integrated either, so people would just use cars instead.

The solution is to integrate buses and trains properly.