HS2: Why no station on the Chiltern Section

[BrianW]

moderator note: posts #1-#3 originally in this thread:

HS2 construction | Page 26 | RailUK Forums (railforums.co.uk)

Well, apart from all the released capacity on the WCML and paths into London, which will result in better service for the Chilterns.

Although you did say on HS2. I guess reality is meaningless if it isn't perceived in that way

I'm forever shouting that HS2 will not only benefit MK, but that MK is the main reason for even building Phase 1 - but people still don't get it. Chiltern isn't likely to see a "metro style" London services off the back of HS2 (but that is proposed for MK) so you can see why that's even harder to sell, particularly as unlike MK it is "in their back yard".

With the intensity of operation of this part of the HS2, every train calling at such a station would result in one train fewer between London and Birmingham, unless at least a third of trains stopped which would be far in excess of the demand.

Interchange with EWR may look useful at first glance. But doing the numbers it's evident that from Bicester or MK or anywhere beyond, it would be quicker to travel to London or Birmingham by existing routes without the hassle of changing trains. So interchange would be limited to people making very short journeys on EWR, and to justify the new station there would have to be settlement around Calvert getting towards the size of MK. Or perhaps a future main London airport. I think the locals would find either of those far less palatable than HS2.

The question of an interchange station between HS2 and the (then) entirely putative EWR was looked at in some detail.

As it would be right in the middle of the highest-speed section of HS2, any stop would consume more than one additional train path, because of the time taken to decelerate from full speed and accelerate back up to full speed - and of course the end-to-end journey times would be extended by the same amount + station dwell. Since the number of paths is limited, a choice would come down to something like "Do we stop one train per hour at Chiltern Parkway and accept longer journey times on subsequent services or run an additional train to (say) Leeds." If the likely interconnecting traffic had been strong, then it would still have been a tricky case to make. Remember an HS2 loop serving Heathrow Airport was ditched on much the same logic.

There could never be sufficient traffic at Chiltern Interchange to justify stopping any high speed trains there.

Obviously this makes selling the case for HS2 to the locals all the more tricky - but I suspect they would have been against it regardless.

Moderators- I am happy for this to be relocated to wherever it fits best- it's somewhat off-piste relating more to EWR, Chiltern and HS2 'planning' than construction progress.

I long-wondered about why a station on HS2 was not proposed to 'buy off' protestors in the Chilterns, with something like a 'parliamentary' service. If 'succesful' it could have grown a huge hydrogen-car park serving growing Bicester East Parkway/ Verney Garden City/ New Buckingham/ Winslow New Town/ Enigma Innovation Centre, all as part of England's Economic Heartland. Without vision the people perish? Oxford or Cambrdge Blue Sky thinking, or pie-in-the sky?

 

[mr_jrt]

It's apparently the highest speed section of the route so would have annihilated capacity, even if you built loops miles and miles and miles long. I'm not sure the benefit of giving them a station would have outweighed the negative of the railway being over twice as wide throughout the Chiltern section!

 

[Bald Rick]

It's apparently the highest speed section of the route so would have annihilated capacity, even if you built loops miles and miles and miles long. I'm not sure the benefit of giving them a station would have outweighed the negative of the railway being over twice as wide throughout the Chiltern section!

In the vicinity of the station, about 6-8 times as wide for several miles, plus a massive car park.

 

[D365]

Because it’s cheaper in the long run to stick it in a tunnel

But on a serious note, there’s absolutely no commercial reason to add stations between London and Birmingham. We have the existing lines to do that.

 

[JonathanH]

I long-wondered about why a station on HS2 was not proposed to 'buy off' protestors in the Chilterns, with something like a 'parliamentary' service. If 'succesful' it could have grown a huge hydrogen-car park serving growing Bicester East Parkway/ Verney Garden City/ New Buckingham/ Winslow New Town/ Enigma Innovation Centre, all as part of England's Economic Heartland. Without vision the people perish? Oxford or Cambrdge Blue Sky thinking, or pie-in-the sky?

How many 'ancient woodlands' would need to be felled to allow the new town to be built that a station on HS2 in the Chiltern would entail?

The fact is that a station on HS2 in the Chiltern would be a catalyst for development that would not be welcomed by the people who live there, quite apart from the impracticality of putting the station on the line in the first place.

 

[LSWR Cavalier]

Even more development in the home counties, no need for that. I love the image of several loops, ten miles long maybe, even a turnout as long as a train, and trains slowing right down to let others by

 

[RT4038]

Even more development in the home counties, no need for that. I love the image of several loops, ten miles long maybe, even a turnout as long as a train, and trains slowing right down to let others by

On the interests of the 'levelling up' agenda, the Enigma Development Centre needs to be at Shildon, and the Garden Cities/New towns at Cleator Moor, Haslingden and Rawmarsh.

 

[30907]

I lojg wondered about why a station on HS2 was not proposed to 'buy off' protestors in the Chilterns, with something like a 'parliamentary' service. If 'succesful' it could have grown a huge hydrogen-car park serving growing Bicester East Parkway/ Verney Garden City/ New Buckingham/ Winslow New Town/ Enigma Innovation Centre, all as part of England's Economic Heartland. Without vision the people perish? Oxford or Cambrdge Blue Sky thinking, or pie-in-the sky?

I wondered that, too - a sop to the inhabitants of Wendover and Aylesbury?

However, the third and fourth of your quotes give the operating reason why not; other replies explain why local people might be up in arms (even more).

 

[BrianW]

I wondered that, too - a sop to the inhabitants of Wendover and Aylesbury?

However, the third and fourth of your quotes give the operating reason why not; other replies explain why local people might be up in arms (even more).

Expecting 'local' people (many of whom are newcoming 'pull up the drawbridge' NIMBYs) to object 'strongly' and for a long time about the development the government proposes:

http://www.englandseconomicheartland.com/Documents/Kit%20Malthouse%20letter.pdf

Or maybe the imagined 'innovation arc' development will be 'levelled up', moving 'up north' from Bicester, Buckingham and Bedford to Barrow, Barnard Castle and Blackpool's LS3.

I think those who objected to the M40 'extension' from Oxford make use of it rather than hold to their principled objections. Nowt so strange as soft southern folk.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I think those who objected to the M40 'extension' from Oxford make use of it rather than hold to their principled objections. Nowt so strange as soft southern folk.

The thing about the M40 is that while the Chilterns are NIMBYland, they are also Range Rover land, and you can drive your Range Rover on the M40. Whereas trains are for going to London and the Chiltern Line does that for them.

 

[AM9]

The thing about the M40 is that while the Chilterns are NIMBYland, they are also Range Rover land, and you can drive your Range Rover on the M40. Whereas trains are for going to London and the Chiltern Line does that for them.

I would imagine that the Chilterns NIMBYs see a fast service to London via HS2 as their entitlement in return for having the inconvenience of HS2 running through 'their' AONB. Maybe some of them see the drastic impact of such a change might make the project inviable so a worthy tool in the fight against the line.
Perhaps they should consider the fact that the electricity, gas, water and all goods that they consume uses infrastructure that blights the lives of many more people elsewhere. Probably not, - it's not within NIMBYs' character to consider anybody else at all.
If there ever was a station within the Chilterns, it would be amusing if all services were pick up only northbound and set down only southbound, (rigidly enforced of course).

 

[edwin_m]

The population density of the Chiltern region is lower than on other potential routes northwards from London. This is either a cause or a consequence of it not getting a major rail route until late in the "railway age" (Great Central and GW-GC joint). Partly as a result, those routes were downgraded or closed in the Beeching era, it was considered a strong candidate for London's main airport by the Roskill commission in the 1960s, and it was selected as the corridor for HS2. So it doesn't really make sense to propose a station that will be very large and expensive, and affect speed and capacity of the UK's main trunk rail route, in an area that has less intrinsic demand for rail than there is along the WCML or GWML.

 

[Mikey C]

The population density of the Chiltern region is lower than on other potential routes northwards from London. This is either a cause or a consequence of it not getting a major rail route until late in the "railway age" (Great Central and GW-GC joint). Partly as a result, those routes were downgraded or closed in the Beeching era, it was considered a strong candidate for London's main airport by the Roskill commission in the 1960s, and it was selected as the corridor for HS2. So it doesn't really make sense to propose a station that will be very large and expensive, and affect speed and capacity of the UK's main trunk rail route, in an area that has less intrinsic demand for rail than there is along the WCML or GWML.

And the roads between the main road corridors (M40/A41) aren't good either, so a parkway style commuter station would have created terrible traffic jams unless you spend a fortune on upgrading them as well