More Delay for HS2, and how should we proceed?

[zwk500]

No northerners or folk from the west use Thameslink, Crossrail etc either!

To be fair Thameslink and Crossrail are very much about the suburban hinterland of London, any use by long-distance travellers would be largely incidental.

 

[py_megapixel]

I wasn't aware the Hitachi IEPs only served London, I must have imagined them running through Scotland, the North of England and the West Country. Similarly the Greater Anglia fleet is mainly for the benefit of the people of Greater Anglia, not London.

They run through those places, but their primary purpose always seems to be to connect them to London. (The 755s are an exception, yes.)

Every one of the TOCs that are typically considered "intercity" has, either completed or planned, an order of 80x or a programme of major internal renovations of their existing fleet - except CrossCountry. CrossCountry doesn't serve London. The only other intercity TOC that doesn't serve London is TPE, which is nothing short of an utter shambles at the moment.

No northerners or folk from the west use Thameslink, Crossrail etc either!

Not when they're in the north or the west they don't, no!

 

[Meerkat]

They run through those places, but their primary purpose always seems to be to connect them to London.

To connect northerners to London, and like HS2 to make it easier to base businesses in the north.
I bet HS2 had an influence on HSBC moving its retail headquarters to Birmingham.

 

[zwk500]

They run through those places, but their primary purpose always seems to be to connect them to London. (The 755s are an exception, yes.)

Every one of the TOCs that are typically considered "intercity" has, either completed or planned, an order of 80x or a programme of major internal renovations of their existing fleet - except CrossCountry. CrossCountry doesn't serve London. The only other intercity TOC that doesn't serve London is TPE, which is nothing short of an utter shambles at the moment.

Before the IET programme, wasn't XC the Intercity operator with the most recent upgrade programme? And Investments such as the rebuild of Derby station, Bromsgrove rebuild, TRU don't count as well I suppose?

Not when they're in the north or the west they don't, no!

They should come to London more often then

 

[Roast Veg]

It takes proportionally more money to close the gap though, because the return on any investment in London is much larger than it is in the next biggest city.

London is 9 times larger than the next biggest metropolitan area in the UK. It's economy is also comparably bigger. It would take decades of housebuilding to elevate Manchester or Birmingham to that level, as well as requiring approximately double the current land area of those cities.

No, unfortunately (and similarly to France with Paris and Spain with Madrid), London is going to remain the dominant economic centre of the UK for my lifetime (I'm in my 20s). We cannot afford not to invest in London at the same time as also needing to invest in the Scottish Central Belt, M62 corridor and West Mids conurbations. We have a lot of wasted time to catch up on.

When the commuting population of London is taken into account, that's a radial population of about 16 million, with an average Gross Value Added per capita of around £40000.

Combing South Yorkshire, West Yorkshire, Greater Manchester, and Merseyside into one megalopolis has a population of approximately half that, and a rough GVA per capita of £20000.

According to the HM Treasury 2021 report, capital expenditure per capita was a little above £2000 per capita (£1300 in commuting regions), and between £1100-1400 in the North.

I think that suggests across the board that if you take a purely utilitarian view, the North is getting an ok deal right now.

 

[Mikey C]

They run through those places, but their primary purpose always seems to be to connect them to London. (The 755s are an exception, yes.)

Every one of the TOCs that are typically considered "intercity" has, either completed or planned, an order of 80x or a programme of major internal renovations of their existing fleet - except CrossCountry. CrossCountry doesn't serve London. The only other intercity TOC that doesn't serve London is TPE, which is nothing short of an utter shambles at the moment.


Not when they're in the north or the west they don't, no!

TPE has had lots of new trains, indeed 3 different types. That it's shambles isn't because they haven't had money spent on fleet replacement.

 

[Dan G]

So HS2... It seems very plausible that the investigations into short-term spending cuts (now with names, apparently) will produce options that are chosen by the government to keep their spending within the "fiscal rules" they've imposed upon themselves without any further tax rises (we really, really needed the Health and Social Care Levy).

My money is on the start of construction of Euston station indeed being pushed back a few years.

 

[JonathanH]

My money is on the start of construction of Euston station indeed being pushed back a few years.

Hasn't it already started?

 

[The Planner]

Hasn't it already started?

Yep.

 

[najaB]

Hasn't it already started?

More than a year ago, if memory serves correctly.

 

[AndrewE]

More than a year ago, if memory serves correctly.

Apparently New Civil Engineer is reporting that Euston could be speeded up to save money, rather than postponed!

 

[Dan G]

Only the site clearance.

 

[AndrewE]

Only the site clearance.

I thought that was done... have the archaeologists finished? If not you could get some more in and put them on double shifts!
Or are you saying that the new build has already been scheduled at maximum speed?

 

[The Planner]

Only the site clearance.

Its a bit more than that, piling by Line X, bridge works etc

 

[eldomtom2]

Further to the discussion on the number of platforms at Euston, I had the opportunity to put the criticisms raised in this thread to Alon Levy and got this response:

Yeah, people like that are why the UK has no ability to expand infrastructure. Note how they don't ask "how can we be as punctual as Japan?" (it's not about avoiding the classical network - the Mini-Shinkansen exists) or "how does Barcelona turn 32 metro and S-Bahn trains per hour on four tracks at Catalunya and how can we do that at Euston?" or "how come low-punctuality regional services in Germany constantly turn in eight minutes?". They ask "how can we justify that We Are Different and have nothing to learn from them?". At some point, the US and UK are going to need to lower their heads and admit that non-English-speakers do things better.

 

[stuu]

Further to the discussion on the number of platforms at Euston, I had the opportunity to put the criticisms raised in this thread to Alon Levy and got this response:

Being as punctual as Japan would involve retraining every single passenger in the country, to be ready to get off the second the train arrives, without flapping about. To be ready to get on the train the second the doors are opened. And perhaps most importantly, not to trash the train they are getting on.

I would point out that two tracks at Brixton turn around 36 trains every hour, so it's not a question of lack of technology or know-how.

The mini-shinkansen have as much in common with the WCML as they do to peas

 

[zwk500]

Further to the discussion on the number of platforms at Euston, I had the opportunity to put the criticisms raised in this thread to Alon Levy and got this response:

He can cherry pick examples all he likes but comparing a metro service with the Classic WCML (pre or post-HS2) is not a useful thing to do. Paris-Nord has 34 active platforms on the mainline level, Den Haag Centraal has 10 platforms, Frankfurt am Main HbF has 24 mainline platforms. These are stations with a comparable mix of Regional/IC traffic to Euston, not a sodding metro line. Obviously there will be differences in the service levels and passenger numbers, but it proves the point that the proposed size of Euston is not excessive by European (non-native English speakers, because the French, Germans and Dutch speak fairly good English!) Standards

 

[Meerkat]

Being as punctual as Japan would involve retraining every single passenger in the country, to be ready to get off the second the train arrives, without flapping about. To be ready to get on the train the second the doors are opened. And perhaps most importantly, not to trash the train they are getting on.

I would point out that two tracks at Brixton turn around 36 trains every hour, so it's not a question of lack of technology or know-how.

The mini-shinkansen have as much in common with the WCML as they do to peas

Can you imagine the reaction if the TOCs employed people to push as many passengers as they could into the train!!

 

[fishwomp]

Can you imagine the reaction if the TOCs employed people to push as many passengers as they could into the train!!

Reminds me of this https://churcher.crcml.org/Articles/Article1981_1.html

"But Sir, we never blow our whistles at the Newbury passengers.”

 

[HSTEd]

The two Mini-Shinkansen routes that exist in Japan (the Yamagata Shinkansen and Akita Shinkansen) are for the most part now solely used by Mini-Shinkansen services.
Most of the track is single gauge and carries no "classic" services - it's not really comparable to Classic Compatibles.

However, I do think platform counts at many of these stations are overly conservative, especially given the comparatively short journeys the bulk of passengers on HS2 will be making in time terms. Comparatively very few passengers will be going on journeys above 90 minutes, and even fewer will reach the 2 hour mark. That cannot help but have a major impact.

Honestly I would have preferred Platform Edge doors and driverless operation - but I know HS2 is too conservative to go for that. That would cut the reoccupation time of the platforms quite significantly and allow each platform face to spend a much greater of its time with a train on it with doors open. Although that effect would likely be far more prononuced at OOC or the airport stations than at the termini.

 

[zwk500]

However, I do think platform counts at many of these stations are overly conservative, especially given the comparatively short journeys the bulk of passengers on HS2 will be making in time terms. Comparatively very few passengers will be going on journeys above 90 minutes, and even fewer will reach the 2 hour mark. That cannot help but have a major impact.

Manchester will still be 90 minutes, until Phase 2B is completed. And therefore anything beyond Crewe will also be beyond 90 minutes, which is a not insubstantial amount of traffic. We also don't know yet what form the Eastern link will take (if anything happens) for sure, so the journey times for 90 minutes may move south from York area to Sheffield area.

Honestly I would have preferred Platform Edge doors and driverless operation - but I know HS2 is too conservative to go for that. That would cut the reoccupation time of the platforms quite significantly and allow each platform face to spend a much greater of its time with a train on it with doors open. Although that effect would likely be far more pronounced at OOC or the airport stations than at the termini.

HS2 is going to be using ATO with ETCS L2, I don't see that PEDs would substantially assist dwell times on top of that, given that you would expect HS2 to have check-ins and so forth so issues with last-minute dashes or people milling about on the platforms shouldn't be serious. Swapping Driver-only for Train Manager-only would have been a nice option for HS2-only services, but given the level of service that will run onto the classic lines drivers were unavoidable.

 

[Roast Veg]

Honestly I would have preferred Platform Edge doors and driverless operation - but I know HS2 is too conservative to go for that. That would cut the reoccupation time of the platforms quite significantly and allow each platform face to spend a much greater of its time with a train on it with doors open. Although that effect would likely be far more prononuced at OOC or the airport stations than at the termini.

Even if there were no classic compatible services, there's no safety case for driverless ATO at HS2 speeds, so you'd be looking at huge research and development expenses.

 

[HSTEd]

Even if there were no classic compatible services, there's no safety case for driverless ATO at HS2 speeds, so you'd be looking at huge research and development expenses.

There is a driverless high speed rail line in operation in China and has been in operation for a couple of years at this point.
Here's a Graun article from when the service launched.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 11 Feb 2023 ==

HS2 is going to be using ATO with ETCS L2, I don't see that PEDs would substantially assist dwell times on top of that, given that you would expect HS2 to have check-ins and so forth

Well there doesn't appear to be check in spaces on the designs for the stations, so I am extremely skeptical that any such thing is being considered!
If nothing else the staffing required for "check-ins" would be enormously expensive.

 

[fishwomp]

Even if there were no classic compatible services, there's no safety case for driverless ATO at HS2 speeds, so you'd be looking at huge research and development expenses.

At those speeds, and with the driver being told when to brake, accelerate, line speed etc on a segregated line, this would be easier to automate than the rest of the network. However, it would also be quite unnecessary to do so - 400 passengers or so, one driver isn't a big spend. The driver will be in a better position to troubleshoot when the thing stops working, or in the event of all the future equivalent of signal failure, so that's a pretty sound investment.

 

[Roast Veg]

At those speeds, and with the driver being told when to brake, accelerate, line speed etc on a segregated line, this would be easier to automate than the rest of the network. However, it would also be quite unnecessary to do so - 400 passengers or so, one driver isn't a big spend. The driver will be in a better position to troubleshoot when the thing stops working, or in the event of all the future equivalent of signal failure, so that's a pretty sound investment.

Agreed.

 

[stuu]

Well there doesn't appear to be check in spaces on the designs for the stations, so I am extremely skeptical that any such thing is being considered!
If nothing else the staffing required for "check-ins" would be enormously expensive.

I can imagine they may have digital check in via app or self-service terminal for people who can't use apps. That was an option suggested in a report on ticketing technology

Renders show PEDs at the new stations. I can imagine the Treasury not liking that idea though

 

[zwk500]

Well there doesn't appear to be check in spaces on the designs for the stations, so I am extremely skeptical that any such thing is being considered!
If nothing else the staffing required for "check-ins" would be enormously exexpensive.

With no bag scan or passport control, check in would effectively be just henticket gateline. Staffing it would be minimal on tip of that.
Basically it'd be as per normal gated stations with trains 'called' like at big termini.

 

[MarkyT]

At those speeds, and with the driver being told when to brake, accelerate, line speed etc on a segregated line, this would be easier to automate than the rest of the network. However, it would also be quite unnecessary to do so - 400 passengers or so, one driver isn't a big spend. The driver will be in a better position to troubleshoot when the thing stops working, or in the event of all the future equivalent of signal failure, so that's a pretty sound investment.

They'll normally use ATO I'm sure for consistent performance, but having a fully qualified driver onboard is still an excellent investment to monitor operations and equipment on such a huge complex machine and be able to drive manually if necessary, making sure operations can continue with minimal delays.

 

[Meerkat]

They'll normally use ATO I'm sure for consistent performance, but having a fully qualified driver onboard is still an excellent investment to monitor operations and equipment on such a huge complex machine and be able to drive manually if necessary, making sure operations can continue with minimal delays.

If the trains are ATO on long, boring (tunnels and sound barriers) trips will the drivers be given more responsibilities, akin to a train manager, to keep them busy (as much for their state of mind as efficiency)?

 

[6Gman]

More than a year ago, if memory serves correctly.

sorry - wrong "quote".

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 13 Feb 2023 ==

Apparently New Civil Engineer is reporting that Euston could be speeded up to save money, rather than postponed!

In my experience delaying a job to do it in dribs and drabs is more expensive than getting it done at reasonable speed.

Correct "quote" this time!