More Delay for HS2, and how should we proceed?

[The Planner]

From what I understand, you would not be able to increase the total number of London to Manchester services due to the Crewe to Manchester line being at capacity. In effect the current London to Manchester via Crewe service would switch to HS2, but the other current two Manchester services would have to remain on the WCML for the entire length.

You will need to make good use of Chelford loops, it happens now with a Macclesfield engineering block.

 

[MarkLong]

If The Manchester leg of HS2 is scrapped then is there still any point in building it at all.

Frankly, I think it should be either built in full as it was originally intended (which includes reinstating the now cancelled Leeds branch), Or it should be scrapped and cancelled altogether.

It can be built in phrases, as Japan's HSR network started from a single line connect their two biggest city and then gradually expanded in the next 60 years, and still in expansion. The critical things is not propose something and cut it back like what Tory gov in HS2, instead choose a practical approach by build things incrementally.

 

[Energy]

It can be built in phrases, as Japan's HSR network started from a single line connect their two biggest city and then gradually expanded in the next 60 years, and still in expansion. The critical things is not propose something and cut it back like what Tory gov in HS2, instead choose a practical approach by build things incrementally.

London - Birmingham by itself is a lot of money and work for just London - Birmingham, HS2 was packaged with London - Birmingham / Manchester / Leeds to make full use and get a good business case.

If it was at the drawing board I'd have Manchester with through platforms and a Liverpool - Manchester - Leeds section included instead.

 

[Tezza1978]

Seems PM face a lot of pressuare from people urge him not to cut phrase 2 of HS2.

On Sam Coates Sky: 'Earlier there were reports of a HS2 announcement this week. Now that’s a lot less clear and I’m told is just be in the context of the Autumn Statement in November And I’m told not to expect even guidance on IHT at Tory conference …'

Implies that he has seriously underestimated the strength of anger within his own party and from business leaders and is desperately scrabbling around and may change course.
Read some speculation that in the news that the potential scrapping of Euston has gone down worse than all of it - as in undermines the entire business case of the project and its future usefulness

If I were a betting man....I wonder if the compromise may be to proceed with Euston and 2A and then kick the Manchester leg into the "under review" box under the table and leave it for the next Parliament to look at again?

Which makes it very easy for Labour to reinstate the whole route.

 

[Energy]

If I were a betting man....I wonder if the compromise may be to proceed with Euston and 2A and then kick the Manchester leg into the "under review" box under the table and leave it for the next Parliament to look at again?

IIRC Manchester isn't through Parliament yet. I wouldn't be surprised if Rishi repackaged it into NPR.

 

[brad465]

This is what Jay Foreman, a well known Youtuber on Maps and travel networks, predicts about HS2:

https://twitter.com/jayforeman/status/1705880766327005263

My HS2 prediction: The government will commit to Euston but scrap Manchester. They just want to scare us that they might scrap Euston (which EVERYONE understands is staggeringly stupid) so that when they “only” scrap Manchester, we all think “Oh well that’s not so bad then.”

 

[Fazaar1889]

This is what Jay Foreman, a well known Youtuber on Maps and travel networks, predicts about HS2:

https://twitter.com/jayforeman/status/1705880766327005263

Honestly, as stupid as this sounds, Jay is probably right.

 

[irish_rail]

Honestly, as stupid as this sounds, Jay is probably right.

I've a feeling it will be the other way round, especially if Labour get in. Old Oak will be the terminus and trains will go to Manchester.

 

[Skie]

Even when it was first announced the Manchester bit of the route looked tenuous and caused plenty of headscratching. The recent 'leak' of WCML revenue confirmed that some of the modelling to support that route was, at best, niave. The dogleg it did for the airport (which I think isn't even guaranteed) and the massive amount of tunnelling involved just looked ripe for someone to poke holes in, especially when it disadvantaged Liverpool and had no provision to be anything but a terminus.

Hopefully HS2 gets to Euston and Crewe, and a sensible next government can come up with a sensible East to West scheme that benefits all of the northern cities and ties in at Crewe (and possibly a line in the East)

 

[Parjon]

Read some speculation that in the news that the potential scrapping of Euston has gone down worse than all of it - as in undermines the entire business case of the project and its future usefulness

In fact, the "business case" was undermined when the Leeds branch was mutilated and then canned. It relied on nebulous contortions of "new connections" but carried a BCR of 4. Whereas its western neighbour was always in negative territory due to the platinum plated planned spend.

I suppose it would only rub salt into the wounds that had Liverpool been included the BCR would have gone to 3... perhaps even more so knowing factoring in the snide decision to move prematurely to P95, solely to lock the city out, and its role in present day budgetary woes...

 

[heathrowrail]

The biggest waste of money for a 15-20 minute gain. The same time saving could have been achieved by reopening the New North Mainline, replacing Chilterns loco hauled services with GWR IETs, adding more tracks, higher line speeds and electrification to the Chiltern line.

 

[Sad Sprinter]

Even when it was first announced the Manchester bit of the route looked tenuous and caused plenty of headscratching. The recent 'leak' of WCML revenue confirmed that some of the modelling to support that route was, at best, niave. The dogleg it did for the airport (which I think isn't even guaranteed) and the massive amount of tunnelling involved just looked ripe for someone to poke holes in, especially when it disadvantaged Liverpool and had no provision to be anything but a terminus.

Hopefully HS2 gets to Euston and Crewe, and a sensible next government can come up with a sensible East to West scheme that benefits all of the northern cities and ties in at Crewe (and possibly a line in the East)

But I've heard it repeated multiple times a terminus would be perfectly fine as trains could reverse in and out quite quickly. It wasn't a claim I ever brought though.

 

[JonathanH]

The biggest waste of money for a 15-20 minute gain. The same time saving could have been achieved by reopening the New North Mainline, replacing Chilterns loco hauled services with GWR IETs, adding more tracks, higher line speeds and electrification to the Chiltern line.

No it couldn't, at least not if there is a desire to still serve the intermediate stations. Can you imagine the disruption caused by adding tracks to the Chiltern Line while still running trains?

 

[Sad Sprinter]

Surel

No it couldn't, at least not if there is a desire to still serve the intermediate stations. Can you imagine the disruption caused by adding tracks to the Chiltern Line while still running trains?

Surely he means reopening the old through roads in places. Can't imagine that would be too difficult. Gerrards Cross has been sadly lost though of course.

 

[heathrowrail]

No it couldn't, at least not if there is a desire to still serve the intermediate stations. Can you imagine the disruption caused by adding tracks to the Chiltern Line while still running trains?

Plenty of old through roads that could be reopened, adding new tracks where possible to add capacity would be a short term pain for long term gain. As happened with the GWML electrification and redoubling of the Cheltenham to Swindon line.

 

[Energy]

I suppose it would only rub salt into the wounds that had Liverpool been included the BCR would have gone to 3... perhaps even more so knowing factoring in the snide decision to move prematurely to P95, solely to lock the city out, and its role in present day budgetary woes...

It always seems a bit strange that Liverpool gets snubbed, Virgin Trains was great for Manchester and Birmingham but it seems mad that it is still 1tph (until the 807s finally enter service).

Really we should have had a high-speed line from Liverpool to Leeds built at the same time as HS2 to just north of Crewe and East Midlands Parkway.

higher line speeds

I don't think there is much speed left to eek out of Chiltern. And you still end up at Marylebone.

 

[heathrowrail]

I don't think there is much speed left to eek out of Chiltern. And you still end up at Marylebone.

Hence why I said reopen the New North Mainline connection into Paddington

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

The biggest waste of money for a 15-20 minute gain. The same time saving could have been achieved by reopening the New North Mainline, replacing Chilterns loco hauled services with GWR IETs, adding more tracks, higher line speeds and electrification to the Chiltern line.

Absolutely but BoJo wanted a vanity project not an upgraded railway line there not much good for photo ops. The deeper issue is how HS2 will starve all other more worthy transport infrastructure projects.

 

[Noddy]

Plenty of old through roads that could be reopened, adding new tracks where possible to add capacity would be a short term pain for long term gain. As happened with the GWML electrification and redoubling of the Cheltenham to Swindon line.

You mean that completely truncated electrification scheme despite years of cancellations and delays on the route, and the speed increase between Kemble and Swindon that was widely reported and then never happened?

 

[The Planner]

The biggest waste of money for a 15-20 minute gain. The same time saving could have been achieved by reopening the New North Mainline, replacing Chilterns loco hauled services with GWR IETs, adding more tracks, higher line speeds and electrification to the Chiltern line.

Nope. Where is the capacity at Paddington and Birmingham and how do you release capacity on the WCML? You also decimate the Chiltern ridership and revenue as you close it multilple times over several years to do all that.

 

[Snex]

London - Birmingham by itself is a lot of money and work for just London - Birmingham, HS2 was packaged with London - Birmingham / Manchester / Leeds to make full use and get a good business case.

If it was at the drawing board I'd have Manchester with through platforms and a Liverpool - Manchester - Leeds section included instead.

Must say, have to agree with this with it extended through to York on the ECML. It's all good building connections to London but when it takes nearly the same time to Manchester from Newcastle as it does London and it's half the distance as the crow flies then it probably should be sorted. It's not as if we're talking about small cities like Aberdeen to Inverness either.

Would also speed up Leeds / York / Newcastle down to the West Midlands which is as equally as painful currently.

Nottingham and Sheffield would arguably benefit with improvements on the Midland Mainline rather than a dogleg via Birmingham.

 

[jfowkes]

Absolutely but BoJo wanted a vanity project not an upgraded railway line there not much good for photo ops. The deeper issue is how HS2 will starve all other more worthy transport infrastructure projects.

HS2 was first conceived of under Labour in 2009 (BJ was Mayor of London) and received royal assent in 2017 (BJ was Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs). I don't really think he has much to do with it.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

The biggest waste of money for a 15-20 minute gain. The same time saving could have been achieved by reopening the New North Mainline, replacing Chilterns loco hauled services with GWR IETs, adding more tracks, higher line speeds and electrification to the Chiltern line.

That wouldn't do anything for the north or levelling up.
It would just be a faster way of getting to Birmingham.
Widening existing routes doesn't work either, because of the urban destruction en route.

 

[Parjon]

London - Birmingham by itself is a lot of money and work for just London - Birmingham, HS2 was packaged with London - Birmingham / Manchester / Leeds to make full use and get a good business case.

If it was at the drawing board I'd have Manchester with through platforms and a Liverpool - Manchester - Leeds section included instead.

While reaching Leeds via Manchester was the latest eventual intention (I will save which players were lobbying for this to another day, if there is a point) but why would you go all the way inland and further north to loop back down and arrive in Liverpool.

The geography in connecting us directly was never difficult, the financials even less so. As the developers of the WCML understood

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 24 Sep 2023 ==

That wouldn't do anything for the north or levelling up.
It would just be a faster way of getting to Birmingham.
Widening existing routes doesn't work either, because of the urban destruction en route.

HS2 won't do anything for "the north" and certainly doesn't level anyone up. So saving the money seems like a much better option.

 

[HSTEd]

Fundamentally we had major problems with a disconnect with people never really being able to agree what HS2 was actually for. Nebulous "adding capacity" is all well and good, but isn't that helpful.

Personally I would have preferred the inverse S to the Y, even if we ended up with single ended stations and autoreverse.
All trains stop at all stations on the high speed line.

London, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds and then on to Newcastle.

As it is, Sheffield demanded the eastern leg be broken to maintain its dominance over Rotherham, and after that there was no point building it at all.

 

[matacaster]

The reason that they wanted to build the Birmingham to London bit of HS2 was to increase the size of the land n commuter in belt. People have been moving farther out from London to places like Milton Keynes and bletchley for ages as london property prices became unaffordable. They wanted to get to London in a similar time as they went further out. So Birmingham becomes doable for commuters provided it's high-speed. London sucks in more and more investment and has all the crown jewels. Compare the number of theatres, museums and other attractions to any other region. Working from home has pricked that bubble a bit.
Salford wasa bit of a dump, look what happened when a,few london-based BBC staff were moved there. Salford quays was changed to become like pet of London.

I do not believe that there any real desire to get HS2 to Leeds or Manchester, these sections were just aspirations provided the money hadn't run out by then to appease northern voters. West Country passengers didn't even get that consideration. Journey times to anywhere else than London are rubbish. Look at pretty much the whole of cross country services, Sheffield to leeds by any route etc.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 24 Sep 2023 ==

Fundamentally we had major problems with a disconnect with people never really being able to agree what HS2 was actually for. Nebulous "adding capacity" is all well and good, but isn't that helpful.

Personally I would have preferred the inverse S to the Y, even if we ended up with single ended stations and autoreverse.
All trains stop at all stations on the high speed line.

London, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds and then on to Newcastle.

As it is, Sheffield demanded the eastern leg be broken to maintain its dominance over Rotherham, and after that there was no point building it at all.

Perhaps some extra Manchester to London capacity could be created by relinking it to MML via Peak District, some additional 4-tracking and axing some commuter services. Remember it's not about speed!

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

Nope. Where is the capacity at Paddington and Birmingham and how do you release capacity on the WCML? You also decimate the Chiltern ridership and revenue as you close it multilple times over several years to do all that.

Trans Pennine upgrade has multiple closure for years ahead so on your basis by the end of it there will be no passengers left to help pay for it. Umm I think not otherwise there is no point undertaking the project in the first place.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 24 Sep 2023 ==

HS2 was first conceived of under Labour in 2009 (BJ was Mayor of London) and received royal assent in 2017 (BJ was Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs). I don't really think he has much to do with it.

Yup fair point but final sanction to go ahead came from BoJo is what I should have explained.

 

[HSTEd]

Perhaps some extra Manchester to London capacity could be created by relinking it to MML via Peak District, some additional 4-tracking and axing some commuter services. Remember it's not about speed!

It's not "about" speed, but the route actually has to be fast enough to be somewhat attractive to the population.

Spending three hours to get to Manchester instead of ~1hr50 via HS2 Phase 1 is not going to go down very well.

At 3 hours people will start to wonder if it is really preferable to driving, or tolerating overcrowding on the existing service.
And good luck getting permission to "axe" commuter services - which will be used by far more people than a slow drag via the MML to London.

 

[MarkLong]

It's not "about" speed, but the route actually has to be fast enough to be somewhat attractive to the population.

Spending three hours to get to Manchester instead of ~1hr50 via HS2 Phase 1 is not going to go down very well.

At 3 hours people will start to wonder if it is really preferable to driving, or tolerating overcrowding on the existing service.
And good luck getting permission to "axe" commuter services - which will be used by far more people than a slow drag via the MML to London.

Plus if you upgrade Hope Valley Line into 125mph then the cost would be equally scare off the Treasury.

 

[HSTEd]

Plus if you upgrade Hope Valley Line into 125mph then the cost would be equally scare off the Treasury.

The cost would likely be higher than a new line to finally sort out the Buxton/Hope Valley line mess once and for all!