HS2: Will Old Oak work and what could be done to improve it?

[Ianno87]

But such "tricks" should not be applied to a brand-new railway. They are done to maximise capacity of one whose capacity can't be increased any more.

It is entirely reasonable to do so, as any railway new or old will have natural variations in day-to-day running to some extent, to make best use of the capability of the infrastructure.

 

[Bletchleyite]

It is entirely reasonable to do so, as any railway new or old will have natural variations in day-to-day running to some extent, to make best use of the capability of the infrastructure.

We will have to agree to disagree. Fundamentally, to me, a newly-built railway should be designed to run to the published timetable to a very high degree of accuracy (HS2 should be able to achieve 100% days with great regularity other than imported delay from the Scottish services). The WCML requires compromises, a brand-new railway should not contain any.

I'm very much with the Swiss on this one.

 

[Bald Rick]

I'm very much with the Swiss on this one.

And their two minute dwell times!

 

[Ianno87]

And their two minute dwell times!

And that's why you specify the station and rolling stock to achieve this, which is exactly what @Bletchleyite wants.

Want accurate 2 minute dwell times? Then design the whole railway system to achieve them! And that includes how passengers are managed to achieve this. Then there's absolutely no need to timetable longer dwell times at all.