HS2 Northern Branches Discussion

[HSTEd]

I'm finding this quite funny - the thread is bulking at the cost of putting a station in the city centre of one of the biggest cities in England, at a cost of an extra billion, which will service the wealthiest ward outside SE England (Sheffield Hallam) yet here we are talking about throwing probably £20 billion at a line to get people to Cornwall at the weekend.

Slaps forehead !

One station is not worth that much, a whole new line is worth rather more.
I would happily consider a city centre station if I work out where to put one without requiring trains to slow to a crawl in the approach.

 

[LE Greys]

If you operate with a stop at Heathrow, Reading and Bristol Parkway Wast (I propose a station in the middle of that giant diamond junction thing with split immediately to the west with the Cornwall line curving away in a tunnel) only, you could easily manage 90 minutes, it is only 340km via Bristol if you go directly from Bristol to Plymouth in a straight line.

You could possibly even add a third stop at either Tiverton (or Taunton) Parkway/Exeter and stay under 90 minutes.

That's roughly what I was thinking, only I reckoned the station might work better slightly farther east, at Bristol Parkway itself (assuming there's room, of course). One branch would obviously continue into Severn Tunnels 2 and 3 (presuming its a twin-bore). The other was intended to continue through or under Bristol, collecting NE-SW traffic, then head on to Exeter and Plymouth.

As to building a line in Cornwall itself, many people would balk at the cost, but without it journey times to Cornwall don't really drop that much.

Do we want the beaches of Western Cornwall to be day trip destinations for London (with all the attendant benefits, including being able to shed the expensive to operate Sleeper services) or don't we?

I would certainly agree with that, the line hasn't seen much improvement since the gauge conversion. The GWR wanted to make a few changes in the 1940s, about the same time they wanted to build a shortcut to avoid Dawlish, but the small matter of a world war got in the way. The problem is, what do you bypass? Cornish traffic is a bit diffuse, because it comes from so many different sources that it's difficult to focus it down to a few calling points. I reckon the most we can hope for is a 125 mph line with tilt following much of the current route, but taking the odd short-cut. Similar problems face the line to Aberdeen, among others.

If we assume my Option 'W' capacity enhancement on HS2 as the base, we have 18tph at London Paddington of which 8 will support the primary north-south High speed network.
This leaves us ten paths to play with:
I propose deploying them as:

1tph Hereford/Great Malven (leaving the HS network at Oxford, possibly dividing if this is required by the timetable to allow a second 200m unit to proceed to a secondary destination on the north-south network).
2tph Bristol via Bath (I propose 400m Classic Compatibles on this route) leaving the network at a slip line somewhere north of Chippenham)
2tph South Wales via Bristol Pkwy with a new Severn rail directly east of Bristol Airport.
2tph Bristol via Bristol Pkwy (using the Pkwy-Temple Meads line which will be captive cleared).
2tph South West via Bristol Pkwy (using said tunnel I mentioned).
1tph Spare.

This makes a lot of sense. Essentially, its an expansion of what FGW provides at the moment. Nowhere really loses out, except possibly Westbury-Plymouth passengers, who would have to change at Exeter. I can see Cheltenham grabbing the 'spare' path ASAP. I presume Didcot, Swindon and Chippenham would feature in there somewhere, and its possible to fill the gap by reinstating the Oxford-Bristol service, possibly also calling at Corsham and Wooton Bassatt, which would be a good place to access the old line for the 'via Bath' route.

This requires captive clearing on relatively little line (Bristol Pkwy-Bristol Temple Meads) and would allow the remaining destinations currently served by Great Western (chiefly, stations to Cheltenham and Westbury) to be served over the now rather emptier fast lines out of Paddington, alongside some sort of expanded outer commuter service for the THames valley.
Platform extensions to 400m at Cheltenham are likely to be extremely trivial, while at Bath the platforms could be extended to 400m alon the viaduct/bridges without major property acquistions other than car parking space and already public land (appears to be a road central divider or somesuch).

Bristol could have its platforms extended towards the south if the southern road bridge is replaced.... which isn't going to break the bank.

The high speed line would have a triangle east of reading, have an Ashford style station at Reading and then proceed towards Bristol, with a Parkway possibly being added near Swindon before the divergence of the Bath Spa slip line (this would be served entirely by Cross Country services from Oxford though).

The paths to Oxford would be provided by local services as now or by the 8tph that will be sent through the station, as well as the 1tph Classic Compatible that will divide there.

2tph to the South West would give us a lot of opportunities (especially if we add in 2tph "XC" services, 1 from each leg of the main network, presumably formed of coupled CC sets from various places for transit along the crowded Leeds-Birmingham axis).

We could call at multiple parkway stations and then have 1tp2h terminating at multiple places in Cornwall. (I do note that the Atlantic Coast Line has no real tunnels and only a handful of height restricting overbridges, almost all of them in rural areas where cheap humpbacks are acceptable, and that if it was cleared we can have captive sets terminating in Newquay, and all the intermediate stations are also cheap to extend). Therefore I recommend constructing GC cleared structures all the way to Penzance by one means or another.

Once again, thank goodness for Broad Gauge! There is probably sufficient horizontal clearance on much of the route for this, with vertical clearance possible in some places. I don't know the full details, and it certainly won't have to deal with car parks in Ealing.

It would be expensive.... but I think it is worth it because it completely transforms an entire side of the country that seems rather transport poor and which has so much potential.

I quite agree! It certainly needs it more than part of the country that's just had £10billion spent on upgrading its railway. <hides chip on shoulder>

(unfortunatley only having 9 paths for non through-Oxford routes is annoying but that could be solved if capacity really warranted it by another line, my Option 'M' from the main thread, which would reduce the neccesary Oxford-route paths to however many trains Oxford needs).

Worth thinking about.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

New Street probably wouldn't have the capacity to accommodate the extra services generated by this (presuming this would generate extra services) given the fact that extra lines cannot be installed at the southern end of the station (not sure about the northern end). I assume you'd also come across issues if the length of the trains was longer than an 11 car 390 which I assume is the maximum length New Street can handle.

I assume you'd also have issues running these into Moor Street/Snow Hill for similar reasons.

The only way I could see of doing this would be to run the services into the new HS station with a reversal back out (provided there is the capacity built in there of course).

It's a pity the old route through Honeybourne isn't available, the GWR built it as a way to do Snow Hill-Bristol without using any Midland route miles on the way. Currently, the only way I can see it is NE-Curzon Street-Oxford-Bristol-SW, without major modifications or leaving the G/WR homeless.

 

[HowardGWR]

I can't believe all this HS GW stuff. presumably TIC.

The whole point about the west country is that it isn't anywhere else (ergo the flight to second homes there by city, showbiz and other fat cats).

So it needs to be kept that way. 'No HS GW' I see the banners already.

 

[Haydn1971]

I think I've already gone way beyond the risk of sounding boring Haydn, but I can't see that as a huge market. Like you though, I'd love to understand it all better - though maybe a rail forum isn't the best place for debate.

Not at all, it's an important issue and I agree, perhaps only a very small handful of people on here would understand the true economics of the debate. Sheffield was a very late developer as a city, it missed the rail boom because it simply wasn't important when the railways were being built, despite all the steel that originated here !

I've heard lots of "facts" about Sheffield, such as the wealth in Sheffield Hallam, the largest concentration of "government" staff outside London, I also look around the city and see a few very established large businesses specifically HSBC and numerous small but world class employers, but without doing the math myself, I don't feel that I can trust the comparisons between the major urban areas in the north, is Sheffield more important than Liverpool or Newcastle, should Nottingham have priority for a city station over say York which will undoubtably have money thrown at it when the new classic compatables roll up at the station.

What is required is a fully independent economic appraisal of which places will benefit, both immediately and in the longer term from having a HS2 connection, either by captive or classic compatable stock. I don't feel that HS2 are best placed to commission that work nor are the DfT sufficiently experienced to understand the national implications of what HS2 will bring.

I feel something like this deserves a truly independent client body that has the people who understand the importance of linkage with areas that will drive not just national business, but the global connectivity of the whole idea, the importance in my mind of the airport links, the links to business growth areas, the significance of global oil prices and how that will impact on air travel over such long periods that even I can't begin to work with. To clarify, I deal in road infrastructure projects with development processes measured in decades and still can't quite get my head around what will happen beyond 30-40 years.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

I would happily consider a city centre station if I work out where to put one without requiring trains to slow to a crawl in the approach.

There is a clear route through Sheffield, it's destructive and costly, involving tunnels, viaducts and upsetting people who use the parks to the south of Sheffield.

But as I said about two minutes ago, is HS2 Ltd or their consultants best suited to making a balanced decision on what is really worth doing. I work with transport models almost every day and I'm deeply suspicious of the results, as I know people can fudge the results to suit their own end, which is partly the game that I am in, where I sometimes need to err on the side of caution and sometimes be quite accepting depending on the end game.

HS2 has a cost, that cost oddly isn't escalating, which makes me feel uneasy in that HS2 and the DfT will know what they have budgeted for, which on smaller scale projects is wise and the margin of error in the modelling is rather slim. When longer term concepts are being discussed, the models we have now are useless, as the data models use time periods of years and decades. You move further and consider that 75 years ago, we didn't quite know for sure that we were about to enter a global war, which essentially bancrupted the then superpowers and changed the balance of power globally - it's 19 years until HS2 goes fully operational, the documents already talk of 40-60 year periods after opening, what HS2 will be most concerned about is the 15-20 years from now timeframe, which sits rather nicely in the "we can use current modelling software" bracket - what happens in the 60-100 year timeframe, we don't know because we haven't the tools to model it. Yet here we are talking about £1bn extra at Sheffield is too much... We don't actually know if it is, because we can't model the very long term benefits of investing that £1Bn

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

I can't believe all this HS GW stuff. presumably TIC.

The whole point about the west country is that it isn't anywhere else (ergo the flight to second homes there by city, showbiz and other fat cats).

So it needs to be kept that way. 'No HS GW' I see the banners already.

Sorry to be pedantic, but I feel that your posting would be better placed on the thread called High Speed Two (HS2) discussion.

This thread is called HS2 Northern Branches discussion....which the West Country is somewhat a goodly distance to the south of this.

 

[Martin222002]

Not at all, it's an important issue and I agree, perhaps only a very small handful of people on here would understand the true economics of the debate. Sheffield was a very late developer as a city, it missed the rail boom because it simply wasn't important when the railways were being built, despite all the steel that originated here !

I've heard lots of "facts" about Sheffield, such as the wealth in Sheffield Hallam, the largest concentration of "government" staff outside London, I also look around the city and see a few very established large businesses specifically HSBC and numerous small but world class employers, but without doing the math myself, I don't feel that I can trust the comparisons between the major urban areas in the north, is Sheffield more important than Liverpool or Newcastle, should Nottingham have priority for a city station over say York which will undoubtably have money thrown at it when the new classic compatables roll up at the station.

What is required is a fully independent economic appraisal of which places will benefit, both immediately and in the longer term from having a HS2 connection, either by captive or classic compatable stock. I don't feel that HS2 are best placed to commission that work nor are the DfT sufficiently experienced to understand the national implications of what HS2 will bring.

I feel something like this deserves a truly independent client body that has the people who understand the importance of linkage with areas that will drive not just national business, but the global connectivity of the whole idea, the importance in my mind of the airport links, the links to business growth areas, the significance of global oil prices and how that will impact on air travel over such long periods that even I can't begin to work with. To clarify, I deal in road infrastructure projects with development processes measured in decades and still can't quite get my head around what will happen beyond 30-40 years.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---


There is a clear route through Sheffield, it's destructive and costly, involving tunnels, viaducts and upsetting people who use the parks to the south of Sheffield.

But as I said about two minutes ago, is HS2 Ltd or their consultants best suited to making a balanced decision on what is really worth doing. I work with transport models almost every day and I'm deeply suspicious of the results, as I know people can fudge the results to suit their own end, which is partly the game that I am in, where I sometimes need to err on the side of caution and sometimes be quite accepting depending on the end game.

HS2 has a cost, that cost oddly isn't escalating, which makes me feel uneasy in that HS2 and the DfT will know what they have budgeted for, which on smaller scale projects is wise and the margin of error in the modelling is rather slim. When longer term concepts are being discussed, the models we have now are useless, as the data models use time periods of years and decades. You move further and consider that 75 years ago, we didn't quite know for sure that we were about to enter a global war, which essentially bancrupted the then superpowers and changed the balance of power globally - it's 19 years until HS2 goes fully operational, the documents already talk of 40-60 year periods after opening, what HS2 will be most concerned about is the 15-20 years from now timeframe, which sits rather nicely in the "we can use current modelling software" bracket - what happens in the 60-100 year timeframe, we don't know because we haven't the tools to model it. Yet here we are talking about £1bn extra at Sheffield is too much... We don't actually know if it is, because we can't model the very long term benefits of investing that £1Bn

A very interesting post there Haydn.

A budget way of bringing HS2 services into Sheffield city centre would be to have a grade separated junction in the vicinity of Beighton Junction, were the HS2 line runs alongside the existing line, the old road, into Sheffield.

This would then allow classic compatible trains to serve Sheffield Midland station. The main issue though would be that any such services would take up train paths which could go north onto Leeds, York or Newcastle.

 

[HowardGWR]

Sorry to be pedantic, but I feel that your posting would be better placed on the thread called High Speed Two (HS2) discussion.

This thread is called HS2 Northern Branches discussion....which the West Country is somewhat a goodly distance to the south of this.

Paul, with respect please read the posts I was replying to below mine and you will see that yours was not a very appropriate comment. I was saying the same thing to those posters .

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Paul, with respect please read the posts I was replying to below mine and you will see that yours was not a very appropriate comment. I was saying the same thing to those posters .

Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa...

I have sent a PM to you.

.......slinks away furtively to the darkest corner of the forum in abject disgrace..

 

[JohnB57]

Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa...

I have sent a PM to you.

.......slinks away furtively to the darkest corner of the forum in abject disgrace..

Please don't take this in anything other than the spirit of camaraderie in which it was intended Paul. But sometimes I read your posts and my mind plays them to me in the voice of Noel Coward. In fact one time when that happened, I went away and wrote lyrics to "Don't Let Your Daughter Go By Train, Mrs Worthington".

Sad, but true.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Please don't take this in anything other than the spirit of camaraderie in which it was intended Paul. But sometimes I read your posts and my mind plays them to me in the voice of Noel Coward. In fact one time when that happened, I went away and wrote lyrics to "Don't Let Your Daughter Go By Train, Mrs Worthington".

Sad, but true.

Thought for the day.

Matthew 27:46
Eli, eli, lama sabachthani.

Luke 6:20-22
Blessed are you when men shall hate you and when they shall separate you from their company and shall reproach you and cast out your name as evil.

Here endeth the lesson.

 

[JohnB57]

Thought for the day.

Matthew 27:46
Eli, eli, lama sabachthani.

Luke 6:20-22
Blessed are you when men shall hate you and when they shall separate you from their company and shall reproach you and cast out your name as evil.

Here endeth the lesson.

Wow. And in my innocence I'd decided that humour was the true opiate of the people.

Cheers for that Paul. The lesson hath ended but sadly, nothing hath here been learnt.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Wow. And in my innocence I'd decided that humour was the true opiate of the people.

Cheers for that Paul. The lesson hath ended but sadly, nothing hath here been learnt.

Only my final departure from this thread as punishment for my transgressions..:cry:

 

[nerd]

Two points;

- the Scots will be publishing their business case for a high speed link between Glasgow and Edinburgh next year. No mention of the 'joint study' between Transport Scotland and DfT which is referenced in the Phase 2 route report; and which would also consider improvements to the North East, and which may also consider upgrades to existing lines. I don't see how the joint study can report until the Edinburgh-Glasgow business case is complete.

- Brown's phrasing is interesting; "We are planning high-speed between Edinburgh and Glasgow to link to the south". This makes it clear that the Edinburgh-Glasgow link is seen as integral to HS2 (and hence fundable by the UK government, not Holyroood). I am also detecting at least the implication that a 'Y' alignment in Scotland is envisaged.

SCOTLAND will not enjoy the benefits of high-speed rail unless the line is continued north of the border, according to Transport Minister Keith Brown.

While cities in England will enjoy reduced travel times to and from London, passengers from Glasgow and Edinburgh will see limited improvements, he said.

A high-speed rail line from London to Birmingham (HS2) is due to open in 2026, cutting the trip to 49 minutes, and to Manchester by 2032, reducing the trip to 68 minutes.

However, Mr Brown said Scots passengers using existing lines to link up in Manchester or Leeds would see the time cut by only 20% to three hours 38 minutes. Some services could be even slower.

He said: "In 2026 new services on existing tracks will run slower than at present and reductions will be modest.

"There will be little scope to meet rising passenger demand."

Mr Brown said it could result in economic disadvantage for Scotland. He was speaking at the Scottish Parliament Transport Infrastructure and Capital Expenditure Committee, where he outlined the Scottish Government's plan for a high speed line between Glasgow and Edinburgh.

He said: "We are planning high-speed between Edinburgh and Glasgow to link to the south. A new line would not only benefit the two cities but relieve pressure on services.

"I don't doubt the UK Government's commitment to high-speed rail, but we need it to come to Scotland."

Mr Brown said he was aware of scepticism after previous governments pledged to include Scotland in high-speed links to the Channel Tunnel, which did not materialise.

THE Scottish Government will publish the business case for a high-speed rail link between Edinburgh and Glasgow in spring next year.

The project, which would almost halve journey times between the two cities to less than 30 minutes by 2024, was first unveiled last November.

Transport minister Keith Brown said work was now under way to produce a report outlining the costs and benefits of the proposal.

Mr Brown was speaking at Holyrood's Infrastructure Committee, where he updated MSPs on high-speed rail.

The committee was told that the Glasgow to Edinburgh high-speed route had the potential to boost rail capacity across the central belt, significantly reduce journey times and possibly lead to new stations being built.

"Cost-benefit ratio is a fundamental part of any transport projects we undertake," he said.

"We are just starting that process now and that is why we will have the report coming forward in spring next year."

He told the committee that, even at this stage, it was possible to see the potential for "pretty huge" economic benefits.

Mr Brown said the Scottish Government was also continuing to press the UK Government to extend its High Speed 2 (HS2) project north of the border, providing a fast connection between London and Glasgow.

 

[HSTEd]

Talking about a line between Edinburgh and Glasgow would favour the East Coast route though.

Unless they build a high speed line via Carstairs which doesn't lead to reduced journey times in that direction.

Once you include projected passenger loadings to Scottish destinations you simply can't make it add up without routing it via Tyneside.

 

[tbtc]

I wish they'd build the most appropriate line to link Edinburgh and Glasgow, rather than approaching this from the angle of "how can we get London to pay for it".

The frequency of HS2 services from England to Scotland is always going to be fairly low (when compared to the southern end), and therefore the case relatively weaker whichever side of the country they go up (due to all of the empty countryside in between).

 

[HSTEd]

If the Scottish government was looking to limit costings they would build: Glasgow-Edinburgh-Berwick. Or offer to build Glasgow-Edinburgh-Coldstream and contribute to the Newcastle-Coldstream section in order to get a shorter journey time to the South.

Then you use the ECML between York and Newcastle until such time as the UK Government decides to complete the middle segment.

 

[Haydn1971]

Would a 400kph line actually be required between Glasgow and Edinburgh or would a easier 225kph offer much better value then look to link south using a 400kph line ?

 

[HSTEd]

Would a 400kph line actually be required between Glasgow and Edinburgh or would a easier 225kph offer much better value then look to link south using a 400kph line ?

It will be 320kph in all likelyhood.

The line south will likely be rigged for 320kph (or 360kph if the politicians get their way).

There is no reason to go slower (indeed it removes the point of the line if you go much slower) and no reason to go faster.
320kph would allow for ~25-30m travel times with an intermediate stop which if a direct route is taken would allow for interesting opportunities for modifications to the current E-G stopping patterns on atleast one line.

 

[steamdrivenand]

I think the Scots can whistle for getting the UK to pay for their line, unless the UK supporters see political advantage at the referendum in committing to the line. Something like if independence is voted down UK pay and if independence goes ahead Scotland pays.

 

[LE Greys]

I think the Scots can whistle for getting the UK to pay for their line, unless the UK supporters see political advantage at the referendum in committing to the line. Something like if independence is voted down UK pay and if independence goes ahead Scotland pays.

Or the SNP puts off the referendum until the line is built. :roll:

 

[HSTEd]

Or simply notes this position and claims that this is an example of "English blackmail".

Best way is to pay for it and make sure "built by the Government of the United Kingdom" is written on everything.
Including the teacups in first class á la GNER.