HSUK vs HS2

[BogiePicker]

The HSUK route doesn’t appear to provide a direct or dedicated high speed line between Manchester/Leeds and Birmingham, so HS2 is far better on this key requirement.

HSUK does in fact provide superior connections between those areas, with 1 hour journey times between the former Northern cities and Birmingham and 4tph proposed service frequencies for each. The reason you may have thought this is that the strategy does not involve new-build construction, but upgrades along existing, highly populated cross-country corridors. It is superior to HS2 because these corridors do not warrant very high speed alignments, because the intervals of non-stop running are not long enough to justify them; and also because they would take one directly to Birmingham New St. HSUK's outputs esteem Birmingham New St as the strategic and pivotal station of the entire national network, and cross-country services are given first order in their compendium.

In specific terms:

- Manchester - Birmingham: the strategy involves upgrading Birmingham - Stoke to enable journey times under 1 hr with 1 stop in Stoke. Selective four-tracking where possible and appropriate.

- Leeds - Birmingham: transpennine new-build to Sheffield Victoria, join new build main line and branch off via new/restored route to Derby. Then, upgraded cross country main line to around 155 mph to Birmingham New Street.

The other benefit of routeing to New St is that other cross-country destinations can also benefit from faster times from the North to New St, notably Bristol, but also Soton/Bournemouth/Cardiff/Exeter etc. Improved journey times along populated corridors also provides the basis for higher service frequencies.



Edit: response to other comments
- As said, HSUK values Birmingham New St as a station, but the best solution for the *national* network is not necessarily to route the main line through it. Indeed, since it is at the heart of the nation (in a manner of speaking), being on average closer to everywhere else, means it in itself paradoxically *doesn't* need super HS lines to everywhere else to get low journey times. Nonetheless it benefits viz. London with HS new build running along M1 corridor then joining WCML near Rugby; and for fast access to the NE and Scotland, HSUK proposes a 'HSUK10' service, running New St - Derby - York and then off to Newcastle, Edinburgh, Perth, and Dundee.
- The challenges of 400m stations would face any scheme, especially with Liverpool and above all Birmingham New St. Capacity issues are dealt with by 4-tracking out of London rather than just using two tracks, having high service frequencies supported by optimised routeings, and, as above, having diverse and integrated access corridors serving through-stations rather than squeezing absolutely everything onto a 18 tph Y-network with terminus stations.

 

[Trainbike46]

@Shrop

The reasoning behind HS2 (and NPR/HS3) is this:

- Generally speaking you want a high-speed line to connect your major population centres
- In the UK those are London, the Scottish Central Belt, and a donut-shape covering the midlands and northern cities (Liverpool/Manchester/Leeds/Birmingham/Nottingham/Sheffield)
-If you draw HS lines connecting those major centres, you get these sections as worth building:

- London-Birmingham
- Birmingham-Nottingham/Sheffield-Leeds
- Birmingham-Manchester
- Liverpool-Manchester-Leeds
- Manchester-Scottish Central Belt*
- Leeds-Newcastle-Scottish Central Belt*
+ Key connections onto the conventional network to serve other places

*it's unlikely you'd ever built more than one to the central belt, as the traffic volumes are unlikely to justify it. In any case you'd start with one or the other.

HS2, as originally envisaged, would fully cover the first three above and partially cover the Manchester-Scottish central belt one, providing both faster journey times and, most importantly, more capacity. NPR covers Liverpool-Manchester-Leeds, with the same advantages. In the long term, you'd ideally extend the high speed line further north towards the central belt, but that's not an argument against building the first half.

HSUK, on the other hand, covers these key connections (Birmingham-Manchester, Birmingham-Leeds) either not at all or less well, while building significantly MORE single track kilometres, which will inevitably lead to higher costs.

A key benefit of a dedicated high-speed line is that the speed differentials on the conventional lines reduce, as you remove the fastest trains. Lower speed differentials means you get more paths overall on the conventional network, not just freeing up the paths formerly used by the removed faster services.

There are many valid criticisms of HS2, however, most of these apply more strongly to the alternatives many critics, like Shrop, keep pushing forward.

The benefits HS2 (and NPR/HS3), in my view, far outweigh the costs, and therefore as much as possible of it should be built

 

[The Planner]

In specific terms:

- Manchester - Birmingham: the strategy involves upgrading Birmingham - Stoke to enable journey times under 1 hr with 1 stop in Stoke. Selective four-tracking where possible and appropriate.

That is magic bean territory. They need to find 29 minutes. Getting rid of Wolves, Stafford, Macc and Stockport just defeats the object and likely just finds you 15 minutes.

 

[HSTEd]

*it's unlikely you'd ever built more than one to the central belt, as the traffic volumes are unlikely to justify it. In any case you'd start with one or the other.

Going from Manchester to the Scottish central belt via Leeds and Newcastle is unlikely to be substantially slower, and has the advantage that you don't build a line through endless emptiness
There is only one medium sized population centre between Lancaster and the Central Belt (Carlisle), a distance of something like 130 miles.

When your trains can eat up five kilometres per minute, straight lines aren't very important

HS2, as originally envisaged, would fully cover the first three above and partially cover the Manchester-Scottish central belt one, providing both faster journey times and, most importantly, more capacity. NPR covers Liverpool-Manchester-Leeds, with the same advantages. In the long term, you'd ideally extend the high speed line further north towards the central belt, but that's not an argument against building the first half.

HSUK, on the other hand, covers these key connections (Birmingham-Manchester, Birmingham-Leeds) either not at all or less well, while building significantly MORE single track kilometres, which will inevitably lead to higher costs.

I am no particular fan of HSUK, given that I feel it falls victim to many of the same problems as HS2, but HS2 has created a situation that unless their enormous network is built completely, the entire project falls to pieces.
They created a railway that appears to runs away from all the intermediate traffic centres (MKC et al) and thus has to scrabble to gather up all the long distance north south traffic to fill itself.

As it stands, we have no way of using a huge portion of the built section's capacity, and the WCML will further be burdened by removal of the lucrative parts of its farebox.
Given the railway's financial situation, we are likely to end up with two not-fully-utilised railways running vaguely parallel.

The project had to be designed so that it functioned properly and improved the position of the railway after the first phase was built.
That's why I suggest our best option was a single self contained line with intermediate stations at 30km intervals, leveraging the performance of modern multiple units to still handily beat the classic railway.

The benefits HS2 (and NPR/HS3), in my view, far outweigh the costs, and therefore as much as possible of it should be built

Well if you build NPR/HS3, then you've destroyed what remains of the business case for the eastern leg of HS2!
And in contrast to your view, HS2 has been an utter disaster from start to finish. I am now worried that dreams of "restoring HS2" are going to cripple the railway for decades to come.

EDIT:
Edited to be less strident.

 

[JamesT]

Going from Manchester to the Scottish central belt via Leeds and Newcastle is unlikely to be substantially slower, and has the advantage that you don't build a line through endless emptiness
There is only one medium sized population centre between Lancaster and the Central Belt (Carlisle), a distance of something like 130 miles.

When your trains can eat up five kilometres per minute, straight lines aren't very important

There's straight lines are not important, but doing Manchester to Glasgow via Leeds, Newcastle, and Edinburgh is adding 50% distance. Even Edinburgh is 20% longer going that way. (Calculated by using Google Maps for a car and dragging waypoints around)

 

[HSTEd]

There's straight lines are not important, but doing Manchester to Glasgow via Leeds, Newcastle, and Edinburgh is adding 50% distance. Even Edinburgh is 20% longer going that way. (Calculated by using Google Maps for a car and dragging waypoints around)

If we use straight lines (which I accept is even cruder than your approach) I make Manchester-Leeds-York-Newcastle-Edinburgh-Glasgow to be ~425km.

The line Manchester-Carlisle-Glasgow is about 300km.

125km is not nothing, but it is only 25 minutes at 300kph, at 320kph it is only ~23 minutes.
From Edinburgh it's only ~70km of advantage, which is about 14/13 minutes.

Given the small size of the market and that the 425km of track vs the 360km (for the Y) of track gets you Leeds and the North East, I can't see the business case for a line via Carlisle stacking up.

 

[Trainbike46]

Going from Manchester to the Scottish central belt via Leeds and Newcastle is unlikely to be substantially slower, and has the advantage that you don't build a line through endless emptiness
There is only one medium sized population centre between Lancaster and the Central Belt (Carlisle), a distance of something like 130 miles.

I wasn't trying to take a position on what route the northern England-Scottish central belt route should take, hence why I listed the two obvious routes (east coast and west coast), and made clear you'd only ever built one or the other.
As I said, there's lots of valid criticisms of HS2. Examples include rather bad project management, and a communication strategy that was rather lacking.

However, the broad route selection (except maybe the golborne link) wasn't badly done, though there was room for improvement as well, an example of that in my view would be that they planned too many terminal stations, which is bad for using a single service to provide for many different flows, which enables frequent services.

Most of my comments in this thread have been dealing with repeated suggestions that somehow the real criticism of HS2 would be resolved if you massively increased the amount of new railway constructed (aka HSUK) or introduce loads of experimental technology (aka the maglev suggestions upthread).

In my view, the aim should be to massively increase passenger numbers. That requires more railway, and HS2 is by far the best proposal in general terms for that, despite it's failings. All other proposals I've seen (and I need to state that I've not seen yours in any detail, so am not including it here) is either way worse than HS2, or obviously much more expensive for similar benefits.

 

[BogiePicker]

That is magic bean territory. They need to find 29 minutes. Getting rid of Wolves, Stafford, Macc and Stockport just defeats the object and likely just finds you 15 minutes.

I think that only 1 tph would be a 1-stop at Stoke and that would be a London - Birmingham - Manchester service; the rest would call at the other stations in some combination.

It is important to note, however, that connectivity for those intermediate destinations would be not solely reliant on the Birmingham - Manchester axis: you'd have other cross country services/West Coast from eg Liverpool, Preston; London-bound services via Stockport taking other routes, and above all 'Midland Ring' services knitting the various cities of the Midlands together. This is what it means to be a network.

If we use straight lines (which I accept is even cruder than your approach) I make Manchester-Leeds-York-Newcastle-Edinburgh-Glasgow to be ~425km.

The line Manchester-Carlisle-Glasgow is about 300km.

125km is not nothing, but it is only 25 minutes at 300kph, at 320kph it is only ~23 minutes.
From Edinburgh it's only ~70km of advantage, which is about 14/13 minutes.

Given the small size of the market and that the 425km of track vs the 360km (for the Y) of track gets you Leeds and the North East, I can't see the business case for a line via Carlisle stacking up.

The other thing is that this routeing can have high load factors and support higher frequencies, not just for Manchester but for the pair of pairs (Liverpool, Manchester) and (Glasgow, Edinburgh). Including these on the same route means that you only need one train path to provide a direct journey to each rather than four - or, given one hourly allowed path along the main line, you can provide 1tph rather than 1tp4h. Liverpool illustrates this precisely, with exactly 1t4ph to Glasgow Central, 8:12, 12:12, and 16:12, and none to Edinburgh. So this would beg the question of why one would want a journey time (say) 30 mins faster when you'd spend 2 hrs on average waiting for your train.

 

[SynthD]

has to scrabble to gather up all the long distance north south traffic to fill itself.

As it stands, we have no way of using a huge portion of the built section's capacity

Yes, it has to be built as planned to perform as planned.

If it was built in smaller standalone pieces, eg stopping at Milton Keynes, would you accept that station closing once the new line reached Scotland?

 

[BogiePicker]

@Shrop

HSUK, on the other hand, covers these key connections (Birmingham-Manchester, Birmingham-Leeds) either not at all or less well, while building significantly MORE single track kilometres, which will inevitably lead to higher costs.

A key benefit of a dedicated high-speed line is that the speed differentials on the conventional lines reduce, as you remove the fastest trains. Lower speed differentials means you get more paths overall on the conventional network, not just freeing up the paths formerly used by the removed faster services.

- HSUK *does* cover Birmingham- Manchester/Leeds connectivity well enough, as explained in the preceding post. Respectively, frequencies will be doubled and quadrupled; and journey times will be reduced by a third and a half for each. HSUK refers to Birmingham New St as the hub of the national network; it has central prominence in the current set of proposals.
- I don't think it is necessarily the case that higher track mileage means higher costs, because a significant part of HSUK's new build is four-tracked and the route mileage is lower when compared like-for-like. Four-tracking isn't twice as expensive as a single pair of tracks, except through tunnels, and HSUK chose a route which involves a lot less of them than HS2.
- Your points apply to HSUK a fortiori because it is fourtracked from London.

 

[HSTEd]

Yes, it has to be built as planned to perform as planned.

If it was built in smaller standalone pieces, eg stopping at Milton Keynes, would you accept that station closing once the new line reached Scotland?

Why would you close it?
A train could stop a great many times on the way to Scotland and still beat the classic railway handily on essentially all journey combinations.
And such a service could be run at a high enough intensity to take on and beat the car - which is the true enemy.

 

[The Planner]

I think that only 1 tph would be a 1-stop at Stoke and that would be a London - Birmingham - Manchester service; the rest would call at the other stations in some combination.

It is important to note, however, that connectivity for those intermediate destinations would be not solely reliant on the Birmingham - Manchester axis: you'd have other cross country services/West Coast from eg Liverpool, Preston; London-bound services via Stockport taking other routes, and above all 'Midland Ring' services knitting the various cities of the Midlands together. This is what it means to be a network.

Still doesn't find the other 14 minutes they need.

 

[The Ham]

- The challenges of 400m stations would face any scheme, especially with Liverpool and above all Birmingham New St. Capacity issues are dealt with by 4-tracking out of London rather than just using two tracks, having high service frequencies supported by optimised routeings, and, as above, having diverse and integrated access corridors serving through-stations rather than squeezing absolutely everything onto a 18 tph Y-network with terminus stations.

Given that there's the potential of (compared to a 2009 baseline) of doubling passenger numbers, does HSUK propose 400m platforms away from their core, critically in Birmingham?

If not how do they carter for that potential of double the passenger numbers with shorter trains, whilst also catering for a similar uplift in use on local services?

If they do, then how do they fit them into the existing network without blowing the budget?

As previously highlighted by moving HS2 services to new platforms you free up capacity at New Street for more and/or longer local services.

 

[BogiePicker]

Still doesn't find the other 14 minutes they need.

From Manchester southwards
- 30 mins to Stoke non-stop. Fastest journey times at present are 34 mins with a stop in Stockport, so seems that the train performance is assumed to be faster than a Pendolino. Not unreasonable given that the 805/807 trains are hailed for their superior acceleration despite their lack of tilting ability.
- Non-stop to Birmingham involves an upgrade of the Grand Junction railway to ~100 mph, and bypassing Wolverhampton to Tame Bridge. New link constructed to Soho Junction. Again, trains would be presumably faster than the Pendos and Voyagers.

Given that there's the potential of (compared to a 2009 baseline) of doubling passenger numbers, does HSUK propose 400m platforms away from their core, critically in Birmingham?

If not how do they carter for that potential of double the passenger numbers with shorter trains, whilst also catering for a similar uplift in use on local services?

If they do, then how do they fit them into the existing network without blowing the budget?

As previously highlighted by moving HS2 services to new platforms you free up capacity at New Street for more and/or longer local services.

The preference of HSUK seems to be for 275m-300m platforms, given that is the constraint imposed by New St. Nonetheless,
- Early proposals for HSUK provisioned for 400m platforms. In Birmingham's case, since you insist, the proposal was for a dedicated spur following the M6 motorway corridor and with platforms contiguous to Moor St. So if absolutely required, it could be done, but the priority would be for New St.
- It must be asserted that comprehensive network performance for HSUK goes far beyond just running 400m trains, and that effective routeing, high frequencies, and the inherent superiority of 4-tracking have to be considered. The high speed spine and concentrated routeing creates frequencies to London from Leicester and Sheffield (both with 400m platforms proposed actually) of nine and seven trains per hour respectively. So even with direct hourly services, one has the option of going to one of these hubs with basically 'turn up and go' high speed trains, which get you to London in the hour or less.
- HSUK has *extensive * proposals for urban rail in core urban areas, where HS2 has just a vacuum. Serving existing railway stations requires rationalisation and grade separation and that is exactly what they propose. In Leeds' case, it is currently proposed to funnel 20tph through- services, specifically by reactivating the Farnley viaduct and fourtracking to Cross gates.

 

[The Planner]

From Manchester southwards
- 30 mins to Stoke non-stop. Fastest journey times at present are 34 mins with a stop in Stockport, so seems that the train performance is assumed to be faster than a Pendolino. Not unreasonable given that the 805/807 trains are hailed for their superior acceleration despite their lack of tilting ability.

Won't be quicker than a Pendo on that route. 805/807 acceleration is from station stops, not incremental speed differences.

- Non-stop to Birmingham involves an upgrade of the Grand Junction railway to ~100 mph, and bypassing Wolverhampton to Tame Bridge. New link constructed to Soho Junction. Again, trains would be presumably faster than the Pendos and Voyagers.

So a massive infrastructure upgrade ploughing a new route through the West Mids. Why are trains going to be faster than Pendos and Voyagers, you aren't stopping anywhere in this plan so where do the gains come from?

 

[BogiePicker]

Won't be quicker than a Pendo on that route. 805/807 acceleration is from station stops, not incremental speed differences.

So a massive infrastructure upgrade ploughing a new route through the West Mids. Why are trains going to be faster than Pendos and Voyagers, you aren't stopping anywhere in this plan so where do the gains come from?

I thought the whole point of the non tilting IEPs is that their superior acceleration compensated for their lack of tilt.

It will be a shorter, faster journey (linespeed upgrade) which bypasses Wolverhampton, and Birmingham to Stoke is under 50 miles. So huge speeds are not necessary. Details on the website. And note that your point is true of any scheme to improve transport in the area and quadruply true of HS2!

Overall, the HSUK superiority is in that:
- Stoke is too large to be bypassed between Birmingham and Manchester, and makes far more commercial sense as an intermediate destination than Crewe
- The distances don't merit 400kph alignments.

You were saying about how Wolves, Stafford etc oughtnt to be ignored with regard to Birmingham - Stoke - Manchester. A tu quoque is more than appropriate since HS2 can't even serve Stoke, let alone the other smaller areas in the Potteries and Midlands! A deterioration in intercity service provision is the rather likelier outcome, since the HS2 trains would cannibalise WCML traffic. Far better to integrate with higher frequencies.

 

[Ben427]

The flows between Birmingham and Leeds are tiny compared to the flows between either of those two great cities and London. If they cant give the current trains enough carriages to carry the existing demand, then there's no way a new line will be justified.

The flows between two of the largest cities and economic areas in the country outside of London are tiny because they existing infrastructure is slow and full to capacity. There's no space on the line to deliver increased trains between Leeds and Brum and the line is absurdly slow. On most days the journey takes the same time as getting to London from Leeds when the normal delays are taken into account.

This thinking is one of the problems, rail planners see low passenger flows as a reason not to increase capacity. There will always be a need to travel between major population and economic centres. It should be as easy and quick to travel between Leeds, Manchester and Birmingham as it is to travel to London and these cities.

 

[Trainbike46]

- HSUK *does* cover Birmingham- Manchester/Leeds connectivity well enough, as explained in the preceding post. Respectively, frequencies will be doubled and quadrupled; and journey times will be reduced by a third and a half for each. HSUK refers to Birmingham New St as the hub of the national network; it has central prominence in the current set of proposals.

That explanation has been responded to in much more detail than I could by the planner. Based on that, I don't accept it as being handled well
I'd add though, if you are keeping those flows on the existing network and increasing speed differentials by speeding up some, but not all, services, you will reduce capacity

- I don't think it is necessarily the case that higher track mileage means higher costs, because a significant part of HSUK's new build is four-tracked and the route mileage is lower when compared like-for-like. Four-tracking isn't twice as expensive as a single pair of tracks, except through tunnels, and HSUK chose a route which involves a lot less of them than HS2.
- Your points apply to HSUK a fortiori because it is fourtracked from London.

This makes no sense; what I said is that, if you build (and upgrade) more railway, costs will be higher. HSUK proposes building way more railway than HS2 and NPR combined, and proposes upgrades of the existing network on top of that. Therefore, overall costs of HSUK will be higher. This is a big problem, because the major criticism of HS2 is the cost. of course, you could build less of HSUK, but then it won't achieve the stated benefits either.

 

[The Planner]

I thought the whole point of the non tilting IEPs is that their superior acceleration compensated for their lack of tilt.

It doesn't compensate 100%

Overall, the HSUK superiority is in that:
- Stoke is too large to be bypassed between Birmingham and Manchester, and makes far more commercial sense as an intermediate destination than Crewe
- The distances don't merit 400kph alignments.

You were saying about how Wolves, Stafford etc oughtnt to be ignored with regard to Birmingham - Stoke - Manchester. A tu quoque is more than appropriate since HS2 can't even serve Stoke, let alone the other smaller areas in the Potteries and Midlands! A deterioration in intercity service provision is the rather likelier outcome, since the HS2 trains would cannibalise WCML traffic. Far better to integrate with higher frequencies.

Why can't Stoke be served by HS2? Handsacre says hello and the original Macclesfield terminator service.

It will be a shorter, faster journey (linespeed upgrade) which bypasses Wolverhampton, and Birmingham to Stoke is under 50 miles. So huge speeds are not necessary. Details on the website. And note that your point is true of any scheme to improve transport in the area and quadruply true of HS2!

What line speed upgrades?

 

[Bald Rick]

I thought the whole point of the non tilting IEPs is that their superior acceleration compensated for their lack of tilt.

Nope. The point of non tiltling IEPs was to get some new long distance trains in.

Their quicker acceleration only partly compensates their lack of tilt, and evn then only where there is acceleration, which non-stop trains don’t do much of.

On the WCML, a Pendolino is 5.5 minutes quicker than an 805 / 807 Euston - Crewe with one stop at Stafford.

 

[takno]

Nope. The point of non tiltling IEPs was to get some new long distance trains in.

Their quicker acceleration only partly compensates their lack of tilt, and evn then only where there is acceleration, which non-stop trains don’t do much of.

On the WCML, a Pendolino is 5.5 minutes quicker than an 805 / 807 Euston - Crewe with one stop at Stafford.

Modern Railways last month (or possibly July) suggested that the acceleration is very much based on gearing anyway, so it's only up to about 70 or 80mph where the acceleration is better than a Pendo. If that's the case then running them on 125mph track with some 90-100mph differential curves is going to be pretty unimpressive.

 

[Shrop]

Nope. The point of non tiltling IEPs was to get some new long distance trains in.

Their quicker acceleration only partly compensates their lack of tilt, and evn then only where there is acceleration, which non-stop trains don’t do much of.

On the WCML, a Pendolino is 5.5 minutes quicker than an 805 / 807 Euston - Crewe with one stop at Stafford.

This is slightly aside, but this morning I made a rare trip on the WCML and realised that I'm quite out of date with some things! This was on the 08.46 ex Euston semi-fast train to Crewe, and I was interested to see that we were timed to depart 7 minutes in front of a Pendolino. What surprised me was that the Pendo wasn't pathed to pass us until Nuneaton (both trains stopping at Milton Keynes and Rugby), and only then did I realise that our train had a speed capability of 110mph.

A little further north was a quick lesson in acceleration, as we started up out of Stafford around 15 seconds after a Voyager started up, heading in the same direction. With the acceleration of our Class 350 EMU I thought we'd soon catch up the Voyager, but we didn't, and it was still well ahead of us several miles later as it diverted off towards Stoke.

These performance characteristics will be well known to those with technical expertise, but I did find these things interesting

 

[The Ham]

The preference of HSUK seems to be for 275m-300m platforms, given that is the constraint imposed by New St.

300m is a 12 coach 80x, as I've said the potential for doubling of passenger numbers means that this isn't likely to cut it, not least add it doesn't aid so much with extra capacity for local services.

Nonetheless,
- Early proposals for HSUK provisioned for 400m platforms. In Birmingham's case, since you insist, the proposal was for a dedicated spur following the M6 motorway corridor and with platforms contiguous to Moor St. So if absolutely required, it could be done, but the priority would be for New St.

A dedicated corridor into Birmingham with platforms at Moor Street, isn't that different to HS2 creating a new line to next to Moor Street (also called Curzon Street). Yet the train has gone quite a lot further on a line with a lower top speed.

- It must be asserted that comprehensive network performance for HSUK goes far beyond just running 400m trains, and that effective routeing, high frequencies, and the inherent superiority of 4-tracking have to be considered. The high speed spine and concentrated routeing creates frequencies to London from Leicester and Sheffield (both with 400m platforms proposed actually) of nine and seven trains per hour respectively. So even with direct hourly services, one has the option of going to one of these hubs with basically 'turn up and go' high speed trains, which get you to London in the hour or less.

Whilst for tracking would be good, personally view would be to build one pair where you actually have the demand (Like Birmingham) and then build another pair to serve somewhere else. By doing so you can cater for the 16tph on each as there's the need.

It also means that you're not cross crossing services between places and the core at the expense of local services.

For example by building HS2 (in full) and then am East Coast HS line it would then be possible to improve journey frequency between Leeds and Birmingham by using the paths which had previously been used to provide London to Leeds services, as now the London Leeds services go direct rather than via nearly Birmingham.

Ah, but that'll cost a lot more; some might say. Well that's possible, however it also doesn't rely on the HS line having a hundred junctions to allow trains to join and leave the line. Which would reduce capacity, slow journeys down and make the network less reliable..

- HSUK has *extensive * proposals for urban rail in core urban areas, where HS2 has just a vacuum. Serving existing railway stations requires rationalisation and grade separation and that is exactly what they propose. In Leeds' case, it is currently proposed to funnel 20tph through- services, specifically by reactivating the Farnley viaduct and fourtracking to Cross gates.

That just illustrates why HSUK could never be the same cost as HS2. As they've quad tracked from London, they built a new spur into Birmingham, they significantly upgraded large tracks of the existing rail network.

As I've highlighted before HS2 were effectively banned from giving details of what the related capacity was going to do.

Is it or is it not true that by removing 2tph (long distance) from an existing station you gain an hour of platform space.

That hour of platform space can be used by 6 local services of 6 coaches (three lots of two pairs in a platform).

Let's assume that those services were previously 4 coach trains that's a 50% uplift in capacity over 6 services.

However, those for coach trains had previously been occuring platform capacity, and so the trains that had been also sharing platform space with those services could also be lengthen (for simplicity let's assume there were 3*4 coach trains in a platform, by reducing this to 2 trains then each train can view be 6 coaches long).

That's the potential for 18 trains to be lengthened from 4 coaches to 6 coaches by removing two long distance services from the existing platforms.

By using existing platforms for HSUK services you don't gain those added benefits.

 

[Bald Rick]

This is slightly aside, but this morning I made a rare trip on the WCML and realised that I'm quite out of date with some things! This was on the 08.46 ex Euston semi-fast train to Crewe, and I was interested to see that we were timed to depart 7 minutes in front of a Pendolino. What surprised me was that the Pendo wasn't pathed to pass us until Nuneaton (both trains stopping at Milton Keynes and Rugby), and only then did I realise that our train had a speed capability of 110mph.

Part of the difference is also dwell times. The xx46 to Crewe is allowed 1 min per stop at MK and Rugby (which in my experience the 0746 and 0846 rarely achieve at MK), but the xx53 to Manchester is given two minutes. The cumukative two minute difference between the two gives the xx46 another 3.5 miles ‘head start’. Thst is very much needed as the xx46‘s are reknowned for not being able to achieve their running times Euston to MK.

 

[Nottingham59]

Thst is very much needed as the xx46‘s are reknowned for not being able to achieve their running times Euston to MK.

So why don't they adjust the WTT to reflect the reality, and give them, say, 1/2 minute more running time?

 

[Shrop]

Part of the difference is also dwell times. The xx46 to Crewe is allowed 1 min per stop at MK and Rugby (which in my experience the 0746 and 0846 rarely achieve at MK), but the xx53 to Manchester is given two minutes. The cumukative two minute difference between the two gives the xx46 another 3.5 miles ‘head start’. Thst is very much needed as the xx46‘s are reknowned for not being able to achieve their running times Euston to MK.

It's certainly a challenge for a semi-fast to stay ahead of a Pendo over these distances. We were down about one minute by MK, but pretty well on time arriving into Nuneaton.
I did notice the extra dwell times at MK and Rugby for the Pendo, which brought to mind Chris Gibb's proposal to run them at 155mph. It seems such a shame to not use their full potential, although I guess that doing so could reduce their reliability and lifespan?

 

[JamesT]

It's certainly a challenge for a semi-fast to stay ahead of a Pendo over these distances. We were down about one minute by MK, but pretty well on time arriving into Nuneaton.
I did notice the extra dwell times at MK and Rugby for the Pendo, which brought to mind Chris Gibb's proposal to run them at 155mph. It seems such a shame to not use their full potential, although I guess that doing so could reduce their reliability and lifespan?

The Class 390s have a design maximum of 140mph. Running them at 155 would require a major upgrade rather than just running them harder. It would also need new infrastructure to run them on (i.e. HS2) as the current lines aren't set up for faster than 125.

 

[Shrop]

The Class 390s have a design maximum of 140mph. Running them at 155 would require a major upgrade rather than just running them harder. It would also need new infrastructure to run them on (i.e. HS2) as the current lines aren't set up for faster than 125.

Exactly, quite a lot of compromise and tweaking (to use a big understatement!) required. I only wish Sunak could be shut into a small room and not allowed out until he had found a cost effective solution himself

 

[Bald Rick]

So why don't they adjust the WTT to reflect the reality, and give them, say, 1/2 minute more running time?

Ah if only life was that simple.

If ‘they’ did that, it breaks the timetable. The following Manchester has to be delayed similarly, that means delaying a southbound freight path at Colwich, and then the Manchester misses it’s slot at Addswood Rowd, so you are rewriting the whole of South Manchester.

The better question to ask is ‘Why are the xx46 trains not meeting their running times on this section, when they used to be able to?’

 

[MPW]

From Manchester southwards
- 30 mins to Stoke non-stop. Fastest journey times at present are 34 mins with a stop in Stockport, so seems that the train performance is assumed to be faster than a Pendolino. Not unreasonable given that the 805/807 trains are hailed for their superior acceleration despite their lack of tilting ability.
- Non-stop to Birmingham involves an upgrade of the Grand Junction railway to ~100 mph, and bypassing Wolverhampton to Tame Bridge. New link constructed to Soho Junction. Again, trains would be presumably faster than the Pendos and Voyagers.

The preference of HSUK seems to be for 275m-300m platforms, given that is the constraint imposed by New St. Nonetheless,
- Early proposals for HSUK provisioned for 400m platforms. In Birmingham's case, since you insist, the proposal was for a dedicated spur following the M6 motorway corridor and with platforms contiguous to Moor St. So if absolutely required, it could be done, but the priority would be for New St.
- It must be asserted that comprehensive network performance for HSUK goes far beyond just running 400m trains, and that effective routeing, high frequencies, and the inherent superiority of 4-tracking have to be considered. The high speed spine and concentrated routeing creates frequencies to London from Leicester and Sheffield (both with 400m platforms proposed actually) of nine and seven trains per hour respectively. So even with direct hourly services, one has the option of going to one of these hubs with basically 'turn up and go' high speed trains, which get you to London in the hour or less.
- HSUK has *extensive * proposals for urban rail in core urban areas, where HS2 has just a vacuum. Serving existing railway stations requires rationalisation and grade separation and that is exactly what they propose. In Leeds' case, it is currently proposed to funnel 20tph through- services, specifically by reactivating the Farnley viaduct and fourtracking to Cross gates.

The mention of 4-tracking makes me wonder. How much extra would a new 4-track railway cost vs a new double track railway? Noting a rationale for new double track is that the cost is at least comparable to quad tracking an existing double track due to need to replace bridges and acquire land in potentially denser areas than a new alignment.

That is a very broad question and I don't expect a super accurate response. But would it be like 1.5x more expensive rather than 2x (ie double cost for double the tracks)?

Possible applications I can think of are to remove freight from urban or otherwise congested local routes, or for sections of routes which could also provide new connections for local routes but if only double tracked would result in reduced capacity by sharing.