Hs2

[Geezertronic]

Theyve settled on 2 lines throughout which is dissapointing for the future in my opinion but it will save a lot of money short term (especielly as its looking upto a 1/3rd of it could be in tunnels to placate chilterns residents). I dont see Commuter services operating on it for decades however, they will just run on the existing lines with more paths available and less need to fuss about fast and slows though you would still probably see stoppers and express stoppers, just not limited stoppers.

Do you have a reference for that? The Labour HS2 plans seemed to indicate dual tracks but I hadn't heard that the ConLibs had committed to that? There's been a lot of speculation and it seems they are planning to run the line via Heathrow and split into a North East/North West line north of Birmingham (the Y route) if today's press is to be believed.

 

[WatcherZero]

No according to todays press they would run via Old Oak but with a spur to Heathrow to allow every 5th service from Birmingham to terminate there. The costs indicate (only £800m higher than labour proposal) that theyve kept it two track and just added a Heathrow spur.

Whats being reported is:
Pricetag is £800m higher than Labours proposal
£20bn cost for tracks to be met entirley from public purse
All rolling stock to be entirely private funded via Roscos
All stations to be public funded except Birmingham Parkway and Old Oak which will be part private-part public financed.

 

[philjo]

This is in today's Evening Standard:

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23884546-high-speed-rail-link-to-be-moved-after-battle-of-primrose-hill.do

The route of the planned high-speed rail link from Euston to Birmingham is being moved after a protest by Primrose Hill residents.

Transport Secretary Philip Hammond is expected to rule that the route should be altered following a campaign against it going through the wealthy neighbourhood, the Standard understands.

The area is home to celebrities including Jamie Oliver and Jude Law.

Hundreds of residents raised fears that homes could subside from tunnel-digging, and trains would cause noise and vibration. Some estate agents claim local house prices have already fallen.

The route is expected to be shifted north but could still go under a few streets in Primrose Hill. Details will be announced shortly.

Ministers are likely to face similar protests, but believe residents should not be affected as the trains will be in deep tunnels. A key reason for the change is thought to be that engineers struggled to find a suitable location for a ventilation shaft.

Mr Hammond also supports a link between the high-speed line and Heathrow, and it is likely that services will be able to connect with the Channel Tunnel line, possibly from a hub at Old Oak Common in west London.

But he rejected pleas from Tory MPs to divert the line so it does not run through the Chilterns. Today he unveiled the overall plan of the high-speed route to the North.

The “Y-shape” would go from London to Birmingham before branching out north of the city, joining the East Coast mainline south of York and West Coast mainline north of Manchester.

The Government is prepared to allocate an extra £800 million for the line north of Birmingham.

Work on the £20 billion high-speed network is expected to start in 2015 and take 10 years.

Fears of inflation-busting rail fare rises of up to 10 per cent in the New Year appeared to be confirmed today.

Mr Hammond is set to scrap the current formula for capping peak-time ticket price increases. He also confirmed the M4 bus lane would be suspended from Christmas Eve this year, but reopened temporarily during the 2012 Olympics.

I think that there should be 1 station at the point where the east-west line crosses (I think this is the propsed location for a depot?) which can provide rail connections to Oxford, Milton Keynes, Aylesbury etc plus act as a P&R station.

There ought also too be a spur off just sout of Leamington Spa so that Javelin style services can run off HS2 into Leamington Spa & then use existing track via Kenilworth to serve Coventry etc which would provide even more capacity on WCML for trent valley services.

 

[brianthegiant]

My main wish is just that more thought was being given to more simplistic means of improving the rail network incrementally, instead of focusing entirely on a big, shiny high speed line:

This issue has been debated fairly exhaustively on other threads in this forum...
Yes there needs to be continuing modernisation of classic lines & this is happening driven by: linespeed improvements, need to update signalling, need for broad guage freight routes, station modernisation, etc
BUT.. the WCML upgrade showed that major line overhauls, incl fourtracking, dont give good value for money due to the H&S & logistical cost of working by a live line.
HS2 is needed to bring continental visitors further into our rail network & increase demand for regional services, as an alternative to the present cheap flight+hire car vernacular. And thereby strengthening the economic case for improvements to classic lines.

 

[YorkshireBear]

as good as we could of got, glad Y shape is still in action

 

[tbtc]

Anyone would think there was a Party Conference on, and the Tories were desperate to distract their followers from wondering how they couldn't win a majority against the weakest Labour government for a long time...

...but seriously, at this rate it'll be quicker to get from Sheffield to London than it will be from Sheffield to Manchester.

 

[YorkshireBear]

Anyone would think there was a Party Conference on, and the Tories were desperate to distract their followers from wondering how they couldn't win a majority against the weakest Labour government for a long time...

...but seriously, at this rate it'll be quicker to get from Sheffield to London than it will be from Sheffield to Manchester.

yeah easily that would be very intersting

glad its coming our way though would of been ****ed if they went over pennines instead

 

[tbtc]

yeah easily that would be very intersting

glad its coming our way though would of been ****ed if they went over pennines instead

Despite living in Sheffield, I'm actually surprised by this, I thought they'd go via Manchester to Leeds. Am glad they didn't, but it's not like Sheffield has had a good deal from Mr Clegg

 

[WatcherZero]

The balls in the Scottish Governments court now to come up with a plan to take it to Edinburgh and Glasgow and find funding for it, though I hear the Scottish government favours having two lines connecting up to the two English Y lines rather than picking one line from either side. Though seems a bit pointless to me as Edinburgh going via Glasgow or vice versa wouldnt add much journey time versus the cost of building a second complete line to the border.

 

[YorkshireBear]

Despite living in Sheffield, I'm actually surprised by this, I thought they'd go via Manchester to Leeds. Am glad they didn't, but it's not like Sheffield has had a good deal from Mr Clegg

yeah i was very surprised i was under impression tories wanted S shape and was getting ready for it not to, glad theyve seen sense

The balls in the Scottish Governments court now to come up with a plan to take it to Edinburgh and Glasgow and find funding for it, though I hear the Scottish government favours having two lines connecting up to the two English Y lines rather than picking one line from either side. Though seems a bit pointless to me as Edinburgh going via Glasgow or vice versa wouldnt add much journey time versus the cost of building a second complete line to the border.

Yeah dont see point in two lines to scotland yet, woudn't be worth extra cost

 

[DaveNewcastle]

Yeah dont see point in two lines to scotland yet, woudn't be worth extra cost

Because its not just a single point (London) that minght be connected with a nation-sized area (Scotland).

If HS lines south of Scotland ran down both the East Coast and centrally (linking to NW England), then they'd provide connections to completly different cities, regions and communities. A single line based on a London-centric sense of geography simply couldn't achieve those connections - unless it snaked east and west a few times as it ran up and down the length of the UK - the "S" route, which has been vigourously ridiculed by others on here.

 

[LE Greys]

Because its not just a single point (London) that minght be connected with a nation-sized area (Scotland).

If HS lines south of Scotland ran down both the East Coast and centrally (linking to NW England), then they'd provide connections to completly different cities, regions and communities. A single line based on a London-centric sense of geography simply couldn't achieve those connections - unless it snaked east and west a few times as it ran up and down the length of the UK - the "S" route, which has been vigourously ridiculed by others on here.

Quite right. Besides, I'd imagine London as the hub of a wheel, with possibly six lines linking to the various regions of the UK (a bit like now, I suppose, but faster). There might need to be a few connections between the spokes, but there is no way that one line can achieve anything like this.

 

[WatcherZero]

What I mean is within/bordering Scotland theirs only two destinations worth serving by HSR, Carlisle and Newcastle, one on each side of a potential route.

Now if you connected Edinburgh and Glasgow up to one of the sides of the Y (Either Manchester or Leeds, doesnt matter which) you get your express to London and Birmingham and one additional destination. Now if you wanted to serve the other you would have to mirror that line with several hundred more KM of high speed track for something like less than an hours time saved, essentially its a highly expensive Single point to Single point track with one intermediary station (Carlisle or Newcastle), there would be no time saving for Birmingham or London. If you built a short line between Manchester and Leeds instead you would save a fortune at the cost of only missing out one station (again Carlisle or Newcastle)

 

[LE Greys]

What I mean is within/bordering Scotland theirs only two destinations worth serving by HSR, Carlisle and Newcastle, one on each side of a potential route.

Now if you connected Edinburgh and Glasgow up to one of the sides of the Y (Either Manchester or Leeds, doesnt matter which) you get your express to London and Birmingham and one additional destination. Now if you wanted to serve the other you would have to mirror that line with several hundred more KM of high speed track for something like less than an hours time saved, essentially its a highly expensive Single point to Single point track with one intermediary station (Carlisle or Newcastle), there would be no time saving for Birmingham or London. If you built a short line between Manchester and Leeds instead you would save a fortune at the cost of only missing out one station (again Carlisle or Newcastle)

That may be more of a hindrance than a help. I am expecting this line to get very busy within a few years, by abstracting traffic from road and air as well as rail, and probably by generating its own growth. That's actually a fault of the current proposal, since the stalk of the "Y" is the Birmingham-London section, which would have to cope with the entire equivalent of WCML and MML passenger volumes on one line. The "S" would be even worse. We will probably need four tracks within a decade of opening, and traffic can only get heavier. What we really need is two full-length routes, a rough parallel of what we have now, and at least one connection between them.

Adding branches would only make matters worse, since that would make diagramming more complicated and introduce a greater need for intermediate stops (Leeds-London trains calling at Manchester and Birmingham for example). No, build one route up the west coast, then follow it up with a second route up the east coast connecting directly with Stratford International. This would relieve the pressure on the existing route, and provide a link from eastern England to the north (currently, East Anglia is completely left out). The Midland branch might still be useful, but its importance would diminish with time. Of course, this is still an ultra-long-term project, but that's my proposal.

 

[WatcherZero]

It wouldnt fill out that much, with the trains capacity of 1000 each, proposed 9 services an hour 11 in peak (assuming replacing classic services running on HS2 with pure HS as the lines are completed) your easily replacing the long distance WCML/MML traffic while leaving the Short-mid distance on the existing lines.

 

[jon0844]

Why not build it with a view to easily widening it later. To a certain extent the M25 was, or at least the newer stretches had bridges build wide enough for expansion.

You can therefore save quite a lot of money now, but be prepared for the future.

Or, if that's not possible, at least make sure you have secured the LAND needed to expand it and don't allow offices, houses and retail parks to go right up to it.

 

[PR1Berske]

Why not build it with a view to easily widening it later. To a certain extent the M25 was, or at least the newer stretches had bridges build wide enough for expansion.

You can therefore save quite a lot of money now, but be prepared for the future.

Or, if that's not possible, at least make sure you have secured the LAND needed to expand it and don't allow offices, houses and retail parks to go right up to it.

I think anything like such long-term vision is likely to be stifled by the NIMBYists and the like. Any group - government, construction or whoever - buying great swathes of rural land in readiness for an expanded rail network in X years hence would find it very difficult to make their case.

Rail projects like HS2 have to struggle in the press - and therefore by extension the general public - against cynicism far more than road expansion.

I fully support HS2 - it's just I tend to be more realistic about such matters....

 

[Solaris]

Ok >£30Bn HS2 to Leeds and Manchester gets the go ahead. I'm really pleased. However, how about also pressing ahead with the £1bn electrification of the GWML?

 

[Nym]

Whats getting me about HS2 at the minute is that no-one is mentioning links to the West Country, the line through birmingham is handily close to an underused perminant way that used to go to Bristol, now I'm not saying that it would be worth running London - Birmingham - Bristol, but...
Manchester - Birmingham - Bristol and York/Leeds - Birmingham - Bristol would be, since the're looking at running up to 4tph Birmingham - London, it could use up some of the spare capacity north of birmingham, using 'classic compatable' trains in conjunction with electrifying the cross country route down to Bristol and Cardiff so potentially...

Euston - (Old Oak Common) - (Birmingham Parkway) - Birmingham Curzon St 4tph
Euston - (Old Oak) - (Birmingham Pway) - (Manchester South Parkway) - Manchester Central/Exchange 4tph
Euston - (Old Oak) - (Birmingham Pway) - (East Midlands Parkway) - Sheffeild ?Victoria? - York 2tph / Leeds City 2tph
Manchester Central/Exchange - (MSP) - Birmingham Curzon St - Cheltenham 1tph / Gloucester 1tph - Bristol Temple Meads 1tph / Cardiff Central 1tph
York 1tph / Leeds City 1tph - Sheffeild - (East Midlands Parkway) - Birmingham Curzon St - Cheltenham / Gloucester - Bristol 1tph / Cardiff 1tph

That leaves a spare 6tph on the section from Birmingham Interchange to Old Oak Common, Add in some classic compatables to Liverpool, Preston, Chester/Holyhead theres three, you could also add some 'airside' trains and international services, but then you might want to be dropping the amount per hour on the core to birmingham, manchester and york, 3tph is not unreasonable, especially if the core route uses double decker trains.

IMO, they should do all the perminant way work for 4 track south of the delta junction, split at old oak common and not to sound silly, but the idea I read in the press about running some services on a branch to Waterloo through Heathrow is a good one. But, there should be a 'delta' junction at old oak or further out from it, so that services can run, Waterloo - Heathrow - Old Oak Common - Stratford International - Ebbsfeet - Lille etc...
or, Destinations Beyond - Birmingham Interchange - Heathrow - Waterloo

That would see 4 track from Old Oak to Delta 'north' junction, since beyond that even if most services are running to Euston, they will be at a lower speed and with closer headways to get closer to 22 - 24tph on 2track, whereas at the full speeds of the network it would be closer to 16 - 18.

Also, 'airside' trains are a good idea. It's not too hard to have a moving walkway to a train, nor is it beyond our engineering ability to be able to have luggage 'cans' (Or Unit Load Devices) also on convayor belts, and loaded onto the side of a train, on witch passengers are also travelling.

Not at all a challenge at Manchester where they can use Terminal Two and the car park space to the west, or on the other side of the M56 for the staton area, Birmingham, bit more of a challenge. Heathrow, pop it in at T5 with walkways to airside, (you have to get scanned as transfer passengers anyway), and a pepole mover can get passengers over to the new 'Heathrow East' development. Now if you don't know about airlines, there are two that operate the majority of domestic flights, British Airways (T5) and British Midland (T2/3/East).

BUT! If you wanna get passengers off domestic flights, you also need to run to gatwick, conventional 100mph line would be OK for it, but there would need to be a service, if you wanna remove domestic flights, that would run, Manchester Interchange - Birmingham Interchange - Heathrow T5 - Gatwick South.

Very quickly we're coiming up with many many servries, 4 track is gonna be needed once we're running past brum...

Also, lets not forget the intentions of Air France-KLM to replace all short haul flights with rail services, so the'll wanna be running trains between Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham, Southampton etc etc etc. to Amsterdam and Paris CDG

 

[jon0844]

Rail projects like HS2 have to struggle in the press - and therefore by extension the general public - against cynicism far more than road expansion.

I think that view may be changing, given the 'environmental' angle and the fact that people are growing to like travel by train (despite the Luddites that still refer to old, slow, dirty trains).

How much land would you realistically need to 'reserve' for a future upgrade from two tracks to four tracks?

I suppose you could lease the land out until it is needed, saving the need for compulsory purchasing later. Later could be 10-15 years or more anyway, as it may be found that you don't need four tracks when the old 'legacy' routes will still maintain their existing service frequencies and you'll have ample capacity (especially if you could go double deck on HS2 later).

 

[swt_passenger]

... but the idea I read in the press about running some services on a branch to Waterloo through Heathrow is a good one.

I've seen a few letters in rail mags suggesting using Waterloo as the terminus of a line through Heathrow.

They seem to be driven mostly by their author's pressing need to use the international platforms for something, anything, no matter how impractical. Then they ignore the published plans to use them for the station rebuild for 10 and 12 car suburban services.

Airtrack is suggesting a running time from Waterloo to Heathrow of about 40 minutes, with limited stops.

So any proposed HS service will need a completely new twin track railway from Waterloo to Heathrow or it just isn't going to work. Otherwise it will be a similar time wasting trundle round the houses as Eurostar used to suffer on its way to CTRL1...

 

[Nym]

Point still stands about through running from Heathrow to Gatwick though, since there is still no facility to get directly from one to the other, asside from coaches...

That would also cover passengers from South of London, interchanging at Gatwick, extentions to Brighton anyone?

 

[swt_passenger]

How much land would you realistically need to 'reserve' for a future upgrade from two tracks to four tracks?

The project shall assume a 14m two track ballast shoulder - ballast shoulder trace.
The project shall assume a two track fence to fence width of 25m for an at-grade railway and a width of 60m for a four-track railway.
The project shall assume an allowance of 25m of no vegetation on each side of the route, resulting in a total footprint for a two-track line of route of 75m width and 110m width for a four track railway.

From page 12 of: HS2 Technical Appendix

It seems to me therefore that all they really need to do is make sure the two track (75m) formation never gets any closer to any physical obstacles than 18m.

 

[YorkshireBear]

i would certainly hope there gonna predict a 4 track requirement.
Do you think services on ECML WCML and MML will drop from it? if so what will the capcity be used for?

are they planning double deck trains for just high speed lines?

 

[Drsatan]

i would certainly hope there gonna predict a 4 track requirement.
Do you think services on ECML WCML and MML will drop from it? if so what will the capcity be used for?

are they planning double deck trains for just high speed lines?

If and when HS2 is built then I can imagine all Virgin WC services making extra stops, to encourage passengers to use HS2.

Since gauge clearance is a very expensive job, I think double decker trains for the time being will be used solely on HS2 (and HS1 depending on passenger numbers), since HS1 and HS2 are UIC gauge.

 

[philjo]

This article is interesting....

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/lentingle/2010/10/yorkshires_high_speed_rail_lin.html

It suggests that the Lib Dems were behind the switch to agreeing the 'Y' shaped line rather than the 'S' previously favoured by the Conservatives

 

[Geezertronic]

Anything other than 4 tracks to the Y split would be extremely short sighted

 

[WatcherZero]

This is a government thats making short term savings and increasing long term costs, its entirely within their current methodology.

 

[LE Greys]

If and when HS2 is built then I can imagine all Virgin WC services making extra stops, to encourage passengers to use HS2.

In the interim, it would mostly mean extra calls at Rugby, Milton Keynes, Northampton and Watford Junction. If they extend the new line to Manchester, most likely the WCML Liverpool and Manchester services will start making calls along the Trent Valley. The Glasgow service might transfer to HS2 from Manchester southwards, its path being used for a new service (hopefully to Blackpool) perhaps using cascaded Eurostars after they get replaced with double-deckers. There's a chance that Cross Country would gain a WCML path north of Birmingham, to cover Wigan and Warrington, but that's harder to say.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Point still stands about through running from Heathrow to Gatwick though, since there is still no facility to get directly from one to the other, asside from coaches...

That would also cover passengers from South of London, interchanging at Gatwick, extentions to Brighton anyone?

I've been saying that XC should do that for years, as long as they can access the airport from the west. Extend the Reading-Newcastle service to call at Heathrow T5 using the proposed connection down the old Colnbrook branch, then reverse and go on to Staines, Woking, Guildford, Redhill, Gatwick and Brighton. The biggest problem will probably be paths on the Brighton line (assuming that Airtrack happens) since the new Colnbrook junction would be grade-separated. This replaces the Reading, Woking and Gatwick coach links, although they would probably stay for non-rail passengers.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
Of course, there really ought to be an HS3 or HS4 that would head west from the possible Heathrow branch towards Reading, Bristol and Cardiff, with a branch to Plymouth. That really would require four tracks into London, unless you make space by running some trains into Paddington. Usefully, the GWR has a generous loading gauge thanks to broad gauge, and the line is good and straight thanks to Brunel. Between Didcot and Wooton Basset, there is plenty of room south of the existing line (assuming that a northward diversion to reach Didcot is possible) except for Swindon, where there would probably be a station anyway for the Gloucester line. Chippenham and Bath present a problem, but I'd sheer off at Wooton Basset and (roughly) follow either the M4 or the Badminton line (necessary to access Temple Meads anyway). The old station at Temple Meads is plenty long enough, and might gain a new lease of life as a terminus for the new line. It's worth having a project to look forward to.

 

[chic]

Anything other than 4 tracks to the Y split would be extremely short sighted

Depends on the nimbys in the chilterns. Just think how much angier their wee campaign will get if it's 4 tracks wide.