HS2 in the press

[HSTEd]

You would, but you're probably not representative of most people (who don't use the tunnel and aren't much bothered).

Well I know a lot of people who are glad the Tunnel means the M20 doesn't turn into the Operation Stack lorry-park every time a storm means the cross channel ferry service is disrupted.
Also you can't use "not-bothered" as an argument against - it is not an argument at all, you have to measure people who say it was a good thing it was built against people who say it was a bad thing.

There's no evidence that track capacity is the reason Ouigo uses out of town stations. More likely, it's to stop business people switching from regular tgv.

Actually there is, SNCF now has to pay track access charges on a quasi-commercial basis to Réseau ferré de France. These charges tend to be graded based how heavily a route is used and thus how close to overcrowding it is - the last few kilometres of routes into terminals, especially in Paris, are far more heavily charged than the hundreds of kilometres of plain line that make up the majority of the LGV network.
Thus to keep costs down the trains go to the cheapest-to-use tracks and stations they can find.

 

[Voglitz]

Actually there is, SNCF now has to pay track access charges on a quasi-commercial basis to Réseau ferré de France.

Probably a lot more "quasi", than "commercial". RFF is being reabsorbed into SNCF.

But why would the access charges-per-traveller for a Ouigo from the Gare de Lyon, be so much more than the charges-per-traveller for a banlieue train from the same station?

the last few kilometres of routes into terminals, especially in Paris, are far more heavily charged than the hundreds of kilometres of plain line that make up the majority of the LGV network.

Evidence? Where are the charges published?

 

[NotATrainspott]

According to the SRA's Ricard Anguera, building the Channel Tunnel generated negative net economic benefits.

Very possibly, in the short term. However, it has brought two of the world's Alpha+/++ cities far closer together than any air or road link ever could. The lifetime of the infrastructure is so long that the initial construction costs become meaningless, yet the benefits accrue more and more every year.

Well, in the case of Eurostar, there is quite a "loss of fuss", because people have to be at the station well before the train leaves. On SNCF domestic tgv, everyone has "the fuss" of making a reservation, and in the case of Ouigo, travelling miles out into the sticks to board the train.

You have to make a reservation to get on a plane as well, and you need to get 'miles out into the sticks' to get a flight. Even London City is far further from the business zones than the London rail termini. If you need a reservation to go on HS2, you'll use a mobile app to reserve a ticket at short notice if need be. The Eurostar operation involves fuss because you're going through the Schengen/CTA frontier and have to go through security screening, neither of which will apply to HS2.

Did I miss something? Has a north-south heavy rail tunnel under Glasgow been announced? Who said there was going to be a HSR terminal at Glasgow Central?

A north-south heavy rail tunnel is one of the long-term options identified in the Scottish Transport Projects Review, and could easily be delivered in the same time-frame as HS2 to Scotland. As a project, it isn't that far beyond the scale of the M74 completion or the Queensferry Crossing, so there's no real reason why Transport Scotland could not fund and deliver it. When HS2 does come to Glasgow, the benefits of going to Central outweigh any extra costs involved - the same reasoning applied in Manchester and that's why they chose to extend Piccadilly rather than building a new and cheaper terminus in Salford.

 

[Altnabreac]

Did I miss something? Has a north-south heavy rail tunnel under Glasgow been announced? Who said there was going to be a HSR terminal at Glasgow Central?

As NaTS says a cross Glasgow tunnel is identified as a long term intervention in the STPR. The Scottish Government has a pretty good record in delivering big ticket infrastructure items so I'd be surprised if it didn't happen eventually.

As regards HS Termini in Glasgow a report was commissioned by Glasgow City Council a few years ago which identified 3 sites: Bellgrove, High Street or Glasgow Central.

The High Street site is the preferred option of Glasgow City Council because of the potential regeneration benefits.

My personal view is that the onward transport connectivity of Glasgow Central will be a better business case.

However as far as this discussion is concerned it doesn't really matter as new city centre termini are likely to be a long way down the list of priorities in delivering a 3 hour journey time using classic compatibles and stretches of new line.

So any schemes in the medium term will be using the existing stations of Glasgow Central, Haymarket and Waverley.

 

[clc]

A north-south heavy rail tunnel is one of the long-term options identified in the Scottish Transport Projects Review, and could easily be delivered in the same time-frame as HS2 to Scotland. As a project, it isn't that far beyond the scale of the M74 completion or the Queensferry Crossing, so there's no real reason why Transport Scotland could not fund and deliver it. When HS2 does come to Glasgow, the benefits of going to Central outweigh any extra costs involved - the same reasoning applied in Manchester and that's why they chose to extend Piccadilly rather than building a new and cheaper terminus in Salford.

It would cost the same as the combined bill for the Queensferry Crossing, M74 Completion, Borders Rail, M8 Completion and M80 Stepps to Haggs, five of the biggest schemes undertaken by Transport Scotland since it's inception 9 years ago. I'd still love to see it happen though.

 

[Agent_c]

As NaTS says a cross Glasgow tunnel is identified as a long term intervention in the STPR. The Scottish Government has a pretty good record in delivering big ticket infrastructure items so I'd be surprised if it didn't happen eventually.

As regards HS Termini in Glasgow a report was commissioned by Glasgow City Council a few years ago which identified 3 sites: Bellgrove, High Street or Glasgow Central.

The High Street site is the preferred option of Glasgow City Council because of the potential regeneration benefits.

My personal view is that the onward transport connectivity of Glasgow Central will be a better business case.

However as far as this discussion is concerned it doesn't really matter as new city centre termini are likely to be a long way down the list of priorities in delivering a 3 hour journey time using classic compatibles and stretches of new line.

So any schemes in the medium term will be using the existing stations of Glasgow Central, Haymarket and Waverley.

Both High Street and Bellgrove strike me as really bad ideas. Bellgrove is way too far away (although the land is there in the old abattoir across the road).

High Street is marginal, but you'd have to pair it with some link to Central, maybe time for the second Subway Circle.

 

[NotATrainspott]

Both High Street and Bellgrove strike me as really bad ideas. Bellgrove is way too far away (although the land is there in the old abattoir across the road).

High Street is marginal, but you'd have to pair it with some link to Central, maybe time for the second Subway Circle.

Which is why Central is the only realistic option. It might be cheaper to provide four 400m platforms at High Street but you then have to include the extra costs of adding new public transport links. At Central, such links are already provided or new ones would have a better business case as more services interconnect there.

 

[Voglitz]

Very possibly, in the short term.

"The longer term evaluation of the project confirms the poor viability of the investment both in financial and cost benefit terms" (Anguera report).

You have to make a reservation to get on a plane as well, and you need to get 'miles out into the sticks' to get a flight.

Indeed. But you said, "Most of the time savings from HSR come from the complete lack of fuss at either end", which is frequently and obviously incorrect.

In the case of HS2, the 'fuss' involved with parkway stations would be enough to destroy the benefit of the faster in-vehicle journey.

A north-south heavy rail tunnel is one of the long-term options identified in the Scottish Transport Projects Review, and could easily be delivered in the same time-frame as HS2 to Scotland.

After the general election, there are likely to be big public expenditure cuts, so perhaps not so 'easily delivered'.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

As regards HS Termini in Glasgow a report was commissioned by Glasgow City Council a few years ago which identified 3 sites: Bellgrove, High Street or Glasgow Central.

What they really need to "identify", is a magic money tree that could be shaken to provide the massive amounts of cash required.

 

[NotATrainspott]

"The longer term evaluation of the project confirms the poor viability of the investment both in financial and cost benefit terms" (Anguera report).

Indeed. But you said, "Most of the time savings from HSR come from the complete lack of fuss at either end", which is frequently and obviously incorrect.

In the case of HS2, the 'fuss' involved with parkway stations would be enough to destroy the benefit of the faster in-vehicle journey.

Which is why HS2 plans to serve the middle of London, Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds already and will end up serving the middle of Glasgow, Edinburgh, Liverpool and Newcastle when the time comes. Sheffield Meadowhall is a handful of minutes away by train from Midland and as Leicester won't see any HS2 services, there will still be reasonably fast InterCity services on the MML to serve Derby and Nottingham if Toton/Breaston proves just too difficult to reach. Also, you're still not helping your argument, because the faff involved in getting to airports from each of these places is still greater.

After the general election, there are likely to be big public expenditure cuts, so perhaps not so 'easily delivered'.

And the timescale involved in getting HS2 to Scotland is so long that entire political parties could be born and old ones could die. Spending decisions in the next Parliament aren't going to make that much of a difference, and even the Tories are planning to build HS2 and other investment despite 'austerity'.

 

[Altnabreac]

Which is why Central is the only realistic option. It might be cheaper to provide four 400m platforms at High Street but you then have to include the extra costs of adding new public transport links. At Central, such links are already provided or new ones would have a better business case as more services interconnect there.

Agreed.

The main problem at Central is that to create 4 x 400m tracks you probably need to use the space of at least 6 of the existing tracks.

Lengthwise it's not a huge problem, you just go out across the Clyde, Blackfriars style using the disused eastern bridge piers.

Currently long distance services use 2-3 platforms Max. An interim classic compatible scheme can cope by diverting more local services to low level but new 400m platforms would reduce capacity significantly.

Ironically the solution to this issue is the same as mentioned upthread - a new N-S tunnel to free up high level capacity.

 

[po8crg]

Is this tunnel in Glasgow the Glasgow Cross rail that connects Central to Queen Street?

 

[Altnabreac]

Is this tunnel in Glasgow the Glasgow Cross rail that connects Central to Queen Street?

The basic version of Glasgow Crossrail doesn't connect to Central or Queen St which is the reason it hasn't been built.

There is a more expensive version of it that connects to Queen St but it has slower journey times than existing services to Central so is unlikely to have a great business case either.

This is a rather nebulous scheme for a direct tunnel that hasn't really been developed yet. It does deliver a step change in capacity at Central though which is going to be needed eventually.

 

[deltic]

The existing corridor that the M6 and WCML run along passes between the Lake District and the Yorkshire Dales National Parks, and would be the obvious choice for any line through Cumbria. That's likely not to be massively controversial, given that the motorway and existing railway already go through. There may be more resistance in Scotland than in Cumbria - neither the M74, nor the WCML are ideal for a route to Slamannan (which is near-enough halfway between Glasgow and Edinburgh on a straight-line route, ie roughly where a junction would be so the two arms can be used for Glasgow-Edinburgh trains as well as for Anglo-Scottish). A new corridor through the borders will face rather more resistance than Borders Railway did, as it won't have a station between Carlisle and Glasgow/Edinburgh.

Northumberland National Park is a much bigger barrier to Newcastle-Edinburgh than the Lakes are to Preston-Carlisle. Indeed, if you can't go through the National Park (and do bear in mind that the A68 does go through, so a railway along that corridor isn't completely impossible), then the shortest route from Newcastle to Glasgow is to go south of the park, at which point you practically go through Carlisle.

The western route is a lot shorter than the eastern, which is why the motorway to Scotland takes the western route.

There are some second-order considerations in terms of connections to English cities other than London - generally, the eastern route makes it easier to serve multiple cities with one train; the western route makes trains to most English cities faster than the eastern.

Environmental rules are far stricter than when the M6 was allowed to be built - we are also talking about a HSR which is unable to hug the contours of hills etc like conventional rail lines and even motorways. A load of concrete viaducts and tunnels going through a National Park is not going to go down well

 

[NotATrainspott]

Environmental rules are far stricter than when the M6 was allowed to be built - we are also talking about a HSR which is unable to hug the contours of hills etc like conventional rail lines and even motorways. A load of concrete viaducts and tunnels going through a National Park is not going to go down well

The M6 and WCML don't go through either the Lake District National Park or the Yorkshire Dales National Park. There is at least 5km between them at the narrowest point, so there's no need to run a high speed route through either of them.

 

[po8crg]

It, erm, doesn't go through a National Park on the western route. Take a look at a map; the natural route runs east of the LDNP.

 

[deltic]

The M6 and WCML don't go through either the Lake District National Park or the Yorkshire Dales National Park. There is at least 5km between them at the narrowest point, so there's no need to run a high speed route through either of them.

My map suggests both just cross the boundary of the Lake District national Park near Thrimby and both are well within 1km of the boundary in many places. Trying to draw a straight line avoiding the Forest of Bowland, Yorkshire Dales and Lake District National Park will not be easy

 

[Altnabreac]

The M6 and WCML don't go through either the Lake District National Park or the Yorkshire Dales National Park. There is at least 5km between them at the narrowest point, so there's no need to run a high speed route through either of them.

The Lune gorge is very constrained here though. I know someone who was involved in designing the M6 here and they are of the opinion that this section will be one of the trickiest pieces of engineering on the whole of the High Speed Network.

As you say though there is no need to go through either of the National Parks but it will need some very clever alignment design to make it work.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

My map suggests both just cross the boundary of the Lake District national Park near Thrimby and both are well within 1km of the boundary in many places. Trying to draw a straight line avoiding the Forest of Bowland, Yorkshire Dales and Lake District National Park will not be easy

I believe at Thrimby the M6 does briefly cross the boundary but the WCML does not and remains entirely outside the boundaries of both national parks at all times.

 

[NotATrainspott]

My map suggests both just cross the boundary of the Lake District national Park near Thrimby and both are well within 1km of the boundary in many places. Trying to draw a straight line avoiding the Forest of Bowland, Yorkshire Dales and Lake District National Park will not be easy

I had not noticed that section and for good reason - the M6 is a mere 200m into the park for around a kilometre at most. It is completely and utterly insignificant in the grand scheme of things.

 

[CdBrux]

Surely when passing between roughly Kendal and Penrith it can be accepted to find an alignment that accepts a compromise between engineering, unsightly intrusions into the landscape, tunnels and also speed. If it needs to slow down to, for example, 250km/h for some of this distance is that really a great problem?

 

[NotATrainspott]

Surely when passing between roughly Kendal and Penrith it can be accepted to find an alignment that accepts a compromise between engineering, unsightly intrusions into the landscape, tunnels and also speed. If it needs to slow down to, for example, 250km/h for some of this distance is that really a great problem?

It wouldn't be the first place on HS2 where the linespeed had been compromised, but I doubt it would be acceptable to have such a massive reduction. Through much of South Yorkshire the maximum speed drops to around 360km/h, and near to Barnsley the route rapidly switches between bored tunnel, embankment and cutting.

Tunnels are a reasonably good way of getting out of problems, as they are relatively easy to build and leave little environmental trace compared to nominally-cheaper options like embankments, cuttings and viaducts. Other HSR lines through similarly difficult terrain around the world seem to rely upon tunnels as well rather than finding some semi-acceptable surface alignment which would still need massive surface works. Tunnels are almost certainly going to be needed to get through Lune Gorge and to get through the valley at Crawford, but aside from that I can't see it being impossible to fit an HS2-spec mainline through there. It might be a bit of a rollercoaster ride through, using the maximum allowed gradients and minimum vertical curve radii possible.

 

[HSTEd]

You could just tunnel the entire thing really. The extra cost is offset by the drastically reduced political problems.

 

[pablo]

You could just tunnel the entire thing really. The extra cost is offset by the drastically reduced political problems.

Phew. I'd rather fly!

 

[HSTEd]

Phew. I'd rather fly!

I am sure ultra-short-throw projectors could be arranged to display things on the window blinds to make it look like you were travelling through countryside

 

[NotATrainspott]

I am sure ultra-short-throw projectors could be arranged to display things on the window blinds to make it look like you were travelling through countryside

You would probably have transparent OLED panels built in to the internal window pane if you wanted this. There's a concept rendering somewhere of such a thing on board an HS2 train, used to show the sort of information you normally have on CIS displays, and I can't see it being an implausible idea with the way technology has developed in the past ten years.

 

[pablo]

When the first TGV line from Paris-Lyon opened I remember one of their selling points. Since there would be no freight, steeper gradients were acceptable to the TGV stock and there was no need for tunnels. I don't know if that turned out to be true.

Have any of the naysayers on here actually worked out if the Lune Gorge or Beatock is so difficult that serious tunnelling is necessary?

It's very easy to do. Draw a route on a map and a straight line on a piece of tracing paper. Manoeuver the straight line over the route and mark off each intersecting contour with a note of its elevation. Turn yer paper landscape mode and construct a vertical scale off that baseline. Mark the height at each intersection against the vertical scale wiv a dot. Connect up the dots. The baseline will be the scale of the map. The vertical scale can be anything you want to make it, for clarity.

With two dimensions you can now work out the average gradients between dots. Find the limiting gradients for an HSR. Draw that in and you have a profile from which you can assess, very roughly, the cut and fill or whether tunnelling is required. Needs basic maths.

Then you are basing your assertions on summat approaching fact rather than guesswork or, just plain negativity.

 

[AM9]

I believe at Thrimby the M6 does briefly cross the boundary but the WCML does not and remains entirely outside the boundaries of both national parks at all times.

Would that be because the WCML existed before the boundary whereas the M6 didn't. The boundary may have been located specically to exclude the WCML anyway.

 

[Deerfold]

Phew. I'd rather fly!

Sure?

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/passenger-planes-without-windows-could-4512820

 

[AM9]

Sure?

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/passenger-planes-without-windows-could-4512820

I like the way the sweetener of wider seats is boasted, some hope!
The Ryanairs of this world would just take the cost savings and supplement their profits. Their penny pinching customers would swallow the line that the savings were being passed down to them.

 

[HSTEd]

There is a HSL in Germany that permits 4% Gradients - but that has a derogation from the TSIs, which only allow 2.5% (which is still approximately the Lickey)

 

[pablo]

Thank you HSTEd.
Just a quick look tells me that Kendal to Shap Summit, 15 miles, c585' rise, av. gradient 0.75%. Beattock to Beattock Summit, 9 miles, c650' rise, av. gradient.1.4%.

An HST would laugh at these hills.
I foresee some heroic earthworks and soaring viaducts to keep the line high and straight, but not a lot of tunnelling going past the Lakes.

Now, if the Ullswater route were to be taken, that would require a Kirkstone base tunnel!