My idea for an alternative to High Speed Two

[pwl2706]

Hii all,

Is it feasible to build 2 or 3 broad gauge lines directly ontop off the Great Western and East Coast Main lines?

Everything could be pre-fabricated offsite (including the rails, electrics, signalling, comunications) then assembled on site between 1AM and 5AM...

Surely that would be a viable alternative to this vastly expensive High Speed railway they're planning on building...which will do enormous damage to the environment for a huge cost, and take 20 years to complete...

The major challenges of course would be bridges, tunnels, and towns or cities...

But the benefits are that it would be cheaper, and quicker, and increase the capacity of the lines...

Or is that madness?

 

[Haydn1971]

Yes it's madness

 

[yorkie]

But the benefits are that it would be cheaper

No. More expensive!

and quicker

Hard to see how

Not feasible!

And unacceptably disruptive.

 

[Agent_c]

Hii all,

Is it feasible to build 2 or 3 broad gauge lines directly ontop off the Great Western and East Coast Main lines?

Everything could be pre-fabricated offsite (including the rails, electrics, signalling, comunications) then assembled on site between 1AM and 5AM...

Surely that would be a viable alternative to this vastly expensive High Speed railway they're planning on building...which will do enormous damage to the environment for a huge cost, and take 20 years to complete...

The major challenges of course would be bridges, tunnels, and towns or cities...

But the benefits are that it would be cheaper, and quicker, and increase the capacity of the lines...

Or is that madness?

No, you'd have to shut down the lines, then you'd have to buy every property near the lines, and given they go through towns probably much higher priced, and then you'd still be stuck with the consequences of a route that was surveyed in the hope trains might reach 20Mph not 200Mph, so you'd still have curves and grades that weren't favourable to a modern train.

Also you'd need to close down the lines to do significant work for a long time.

Better to build a new line, where its not going to interupt current operations, where it can be surveyed and built for the capacities of modern technology, not 1890's.

 

[swt_passenger]

Hii all,

Is it feasible to build 2 or 3 broad gauge lines directly ontop off the Great Western and East Coast Main lines?

You don't really mean 'broad gauge' do you, no one will ever build a 7ft gauge again.

I think you meant to refer to European gauge, i.e. GB+ or GC, though this is academic for all the reasons others have said.

 

[6Gman]

Hii all,

Is it feasible to build 2 or 3 broad gauge lines directly ontop off the Great Western and East Coast Main lines?

Everything could be pre-fabricated offsite (including the rails, electrics, signalling, comunications) then assembled on site between 1AM and 5AM...

Surely that would be a viable alternative to this vastly expensive High Speed railway they're planning on building...which will do enormous damage to the environment for a huge cost, and take 20 years to complete...

The major challenges of course would be bridges, tunnels, and towns or cities...

But the benefits are that it would be cheaper, and quicker, and increase the capacity of the lines...

Or is that madness?

What do you mean by:

a) broad gauge
b) 2 or 3 lines
c) on top of

?

 

[The Ham]

Have you not heard of the tremendous cost overrun overrun on the GWML, which was in large part having to undertake work on a working railway with equipment (underground) which was not accurately mapped.

Any change in type of railway (other than gauge enhancements within the same range, I.e. UK passenger up to UK largest freight) would probably require the closure of the line until all the works were done.

In short the easiest and cheapest way to provide significant extra capacity is to build a new line.

 

[edwin_m]

If this idea is so cheap, why didn't they build the M6 Toll on top of the M6?

 

[jon0844]

The major challenges of course would be bridges, tunnels, and towns or cities...

So not too much of a problem then...

 

[Geezertronic]

Surely that would be a viable alternative to this vastly expensive High Speed railway they're planning on building...which will do enormous damage to the environment for a huge cost, and take 20 years to complete...

The major challenges of course would be bridges, tunnels, and towns or cities...

But the benefits are that it would be cheaper, and quicker, and increase the capacity of the lines...

Vastly expensive and huge cost compared to what? Your alternative will majorly disrupt the ECML and GWML lines for years to come as the lines have to be closed in order to make the structural changes required before your alternative is even implemented. How many people would that affect and what sort of cost would you put on that?

And HS2 won't cause "enormous" damage to the environment in the scale you allude to, but I doubt if it will cause much more than any other major infrastructure project that is going on in the UK at the moment.

Or is that madness?

Yes it is

 

[swt_passenger]

Back to the original question, why would anything whatsoever done to the GWML or the ECML have any bearing on the primary purpose of HS2, which is and always has been about the Birmingham and NW corridor?

That's why any proposal that hinges on reopening the GC to "somewhere other than the west midlands" has always been given a good ignoring, so how routes even further away have any relevance is difficult to understand...

 

[Andrewlong]

So not too much of a problem then...

And this double decker GWML fantasy proposal - where would the stations be? And another question is where does the route head north towards Birmingham where the current proposed terminus will be at?

 

[GrimsbyPacer]

I think the OP is simply saying that extra rails are added to these mainline, so they are dual guage standard and broad. That would allow bigger trains for less than a new line, the current line could stay open while this happens largely.
A wider train is more stable at higher speeds, not that width matters with tilt abillity available.

 

[Agent_c]

I think the OP is simply saying that extra rails are added to these mainline, so they are dual guage standard and broad. That would allow bigger trains for less than a new line, the current line could stay open while this happens largely.

Couldn't stay open, and would end up costing more, just in real estate and legal challenges alone.

 

[swt_passenger]

I think the OP is simply saying that extra rails are added to these mainline, so they are dual guage standard and broad. That would allow bigger trains for less than a new line, the current line could stay open while this happens largely.
A wider train is more stable at higher speeds, not that width matters with tilt abillity available.

In which case the OP is completely confused by the relationship between track gauge and vehicle gauge, as I suggested in an earlier reply. You don't need a wider track gauge for larger trains.

 

[edwin_m]

A wider train is more stable at higher speeds

A wider train is probably less stable at any speed, as it is likely to be heavier higher up and therefore have a higher centre of gravity. If you are referring to a wider track gauge then that would indeed make the train more stable. But with the track gauge and typical train dimensions we have today, higher speeds around curves would become intolerable for passengers well before there was any risk of overturning.

not that width matters with tilt abillity available.

No again. A tilting train allows passengers to tolerate higher speeds round curves so it can curve faster and is therefore less stable. Again a wider track gauge would counteract this effect, but the curving speed is still well below the overturning speed with the existing track gauge (although calculations have to be done to assess whether a tilting train is stable in high crosswinds). The effect of train width is similar to that of a non-tilting train.

 

[DerekC]

What do you mean by:

a) broad gauge
b) 2 or 3 lines
c) on top of

?

These are the questions we need the OP to answer before rushing off and making assumptions so that we can issue pompous (and not always accurate) condemnations. I would add one more:

d) Why ECML and GWML but not WCML?

 

[yorkie]

I think the OP is simply saying that extra rails are added to these mainline

I took "directly on top [of]" to mean literally on top; I got the impression the whole point was to not take up any more land.

so they are dual guage standard and broad

This doesn't make sense. What is meant by "dual [gauge] standard" and what is meant by "broad"?

That would allow bigger trains for less than a new line,

It would certainly cost more than a new line.

the current line could stay open while this happens largely.

No chance!

A wider train is more stable at higher speeds

Wider train or wider gauge? The former isn't more stable, and the latter is never going to be feasible.

not that width matters with tilt abillity available.

I'm not sure what you mean by that.

This looks like a very expensive 'solution' looking for a problem.

The simple solution to the problem of lack of capacity is to build a new, purpose built, line.

Yes, a new alignment isn't cheap, but it's a lot cheaper - and far less disruptive - than trying to build a new line on top of an existing line!

 

[southern442]

Hii all,

Is it feasible to build 2 or 3 broad gauge lines directly ontop off the Great Western and East Coast Main lines?

Everything could be pre-fabricated offsite (including the rails, electrics, signalling, comunications) then assembled on site between 1AM and 5AM...

Surely that would be a viable alternative to this vastly expensive High Speed railway they're planning on building...which will do enormous damage to the environment for a huge cost, and take 20 years to complete...

The major challenges of course would be bridges, tunnels, and towns or cities...

But the benefits are that it would be cheaper, and quicker, and increase the capacity of the lines...

Or is that madness?

I'm not sure your idea would be feasible.

However, being a Lefty-Green Party-supporter-and-tree-hugger-type as some may call me I think that we should consider every option for an alternative to HS2. You have raised some interesting points here, such as the amount of money wasted (billions have been wasted merely discussing it). Several alternatives are more expensive, but the benefits will mean they will end up paying for themselves. I personally think that we need a new London-Scotland mainline in the UK. This mainline will, to keep HS2 happy, serve Birmingham and Leeds, and it will have a slightly larger loading gauge, but will be fully compatible with the rest of the network. It will have a line speed of 155-190MPH, and will serve intermediate stations. The fact that it will be a full proper mainline serving all settlements en route will mean it should reduce road usage and will eventually result in certain roads becoming so quiet that they will be converted back into single carriageway (e.g. M40). It would cost loads and it would be a risk but if it worked it would pay off big time.

 

[The Planner]

That was ok until the bit about the assumption of reducing motorways to single carriageways, pretty unlikely.

 

[AM9]

Surely it would be quite cheap going through the Goring Gap as the upper tracks could be built onto the 'unnecessarily large' OLE gantries.

 

[southern442]

That was ok until the bit about the assumption of reducing motorways to single carriageways, pretty unlikely.

I can see that it would be a problem. I think that in order for us to achieve that level of rail use, there would need to be enough railways to provide the journey opportunities, and there would need to be an attractive enough system for people to want it to happen. We do need to reduce road usage dramatically if we want to sort out our environmental state out.

 

[JamesRowden]

We do need to reduce road usage dramatically if we want to sort out our environmental state out.

Or people can use the roads as much as they do now but using buses and coaches rather than cars.

 

[HSTEd]

Why don't we just build a Breitspurbahn sized line.

Would never have to worry about capacity on that......

 

[nidave]

Add to everything that's been said - lets say if you did mange to do it - you would not be able to run any more trains along the bit of track as you would still have a limit to the number of trains you can run.

With HS2 you get a totally empty railway, therefore you can have lots of extra capacity on both lines - allowing more stopping services on the WCML as all the intercity stuff has been moved to HS2

 

[southern442]

Add to everything that's been said - lets say if you did mange to do it - you would not be able to run any more trains along the bit of track as you would still have a limit to the number of trains you can run.

I think the OP meant building lines on top of current main lines.

 

[The Ham]

I think the OP meant building lines on top of current main lines.

On top of... as in replacing is covered above.

On top of... as in building new lines at a higher level would mean a railway line some 6 to 12 metres (or higher) above the existing, given that it is not uncommon for railways to be on embankments then it's not going to be pretty.

Also, the cost would be eye watering, as a pedestrian bridge across a two line railway is circa £2million, now scale that up to take trains and with the supports being off to the sides (inverted U) or being only down the centre (T), either of which are more expensive than a solid support or several supports. It could be cheaper to tunnel the whole way.

Such a proposals would make HS2, HS3 and all the other known improvements (to early/mid CP6) which are happening look cheap in comparison, as bridges are very costly. I worked on a project to build a road across a flood plain where it was cheaper to dig out compensation areas along side, dugout and soil stabilise the existing ground along the route, build up the embankments (mostly with imported materials), put in a lot of culverts through the embankment and have short bridges, and some sections of retain walls than it would have been to build a long bridge.

There is a good reason that high-level transport links are rare, and most that do exist tend to be on embankments, often with retaining walls to minimise land take and with short sections of bridges. A good example is railway lines going over arches, although formed of "bridges", they are cheap in terms of materials and can be back filled with excess material (although it should be noted that they require a lot of labour which is not as cheap as it used to be).

Even the DLR (which by it's very nature doesn't have the loadings that a mainline railway would have) limits the number of bridges and sections of supported tracks.

 

[DerekC]

I think the OP meant building lines on top of current main lines.

I think The Ham has got it exactly right. The broad gauge/standard gauge and stability stuff is in the noise. The real problems are first, the cost of building a line up in the air and second, the fact that you would never get it through planning consent/TWA approval. Just think of the fuss over OLE structures on GWML and multiply by a few orders of magnitude. Sorry, OP, but not a good idea. However, keep thinking!

 

[southern442]

I think The Ham has got it exactly right. The broad gauge/standard gauge and stability stuff is in the noise. The real problems are first, the cost of building a line up in the air and second, the fact that you would never get it through planning consent/TWA approval. Just think of the fuss over OLE structures on GWML and multiply by a few orders of magnitude. Sorry, OP, but not a good idea. However, keep thinking!

It would be interesting to see if anyone has any other ideas that are slightly more realistic than this and could be done. I'm not necessarily talking about upgrading existing lines, I do think that a brand new mainline is what we need, but I don't think that the new mainline in question should be HS2.

 

[The Planner]

As long as no one comes up with the GC with a new junction at Rugby to serve the WCML and the obligatory 12 platform station at Brackley.