I don't know the population of the entire London region as opposed to Greater London, but I can't think it is more than the 15 million conceded by Grayling as the population of the 'North". Crossrail alone is estimated to cost almost 15 billion. What is the government prepared to spend on 'Crossrail for the North'?
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North should "take control" of transport
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It's all well and good the likes of Burnham and Rotheram saying the North needs this money, but for what?
No one has any idea of any scheme they would spend it on, and if you did spend £15 billion on a 'Crossrail for the North' it'd have one very significant difference to the Elizabeth Line - the trains would be half empty.
There isn't enough demand to get anywhere near a business case for any 'HS3'. Manchester to Leeds has 5 mostly 3 car trains per hour. Some in the North might think that's a lot, but at Waterloo that many people depart on trains every few minutes. Waterloo's capacity cannot be cheaply increased. Stick a couple of extra carriages on TPE services (which is being done), maybe improve a couple of junctions and the North will be sorted for decades. That's why London needs so much spending, including Crossrail 2.
No one has any idea of any scheme they would spend it on, and if you did spend £15 billion on a 'Crossrail for the North' it'd have one very significant difference to the Elizabeth Line - the trains would be half empty.
There isn't enough demand to get anywhere near a business case for any 'HS3'. Manchester to Leeds has 5 mostly 3 car trains per hour. Some in the North might think that's a lot, but at Waterloo that many people depart on trains every few minutes. Waterloo's capacity cannot be cheaply increased. Stick a couple of extra carriages on TPE services (which is being done), maybe improve a couple of junctions and the North will be sorted for decades. That's why London needs so much spending, including Crossrail 2.
We have 1980s Pacers vs London Euston getting a new railway: we've effectively had the DfT washing its hands of us for 30+ years.
In the time it's taken to build Crossrail the government have probably spent £15 billion subsidizing railways in the North, otherwise they'd all be closed.
A fair bit of truth in that....for all the hoo haa about overcowding on Northern services in the past , it has gone a bit quieter as extra carriages have appeared ....a significant number of services are now running around as 4 car units on a permanent basis.
While that's true, can I point out that you're comparing a single line to the largest station in Britain? To be honest, the 5tph (soon to be 6) is not any smaller than most lines down south.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
and those new tpe 350s.
There is a point in that - although I don't think comparing a single route in the North with the entire output of Waterloo is particularly valid.
The problem is that Grayling has just cancelled a load of the sorts of schemes which would improve the existing regional railway. There need to be quite a few improved junctions and extra carriages to sort out the North (not to mention the South West's) railway network.
Many people seem to be proposing massive spending on that, or another, single route though, as opposed to the largest station in Britain. The comparison still holds even if you restrict it to just the services to be transferred to Crossrail 2.
5tph might not be less than most lines in the South, but the South isn't running 3 coach trains on those lines, and isn't proposing to spend billions of pounds on any of them in isolation (ignoring BML2).
The problem with comparing population numbers is that, although to get to 15 million you need to include London and the South East, is that the number of rail passengers is vastly different.
Something like 2/3 of so rail travel is classed as London and the South East. Note that Intercity travel that originated in London is not counted in those numbers.
There are 4 coach trains in the South East that are on services where there are 4tph in the off peak periods have no spare seats, both into and out of London.
As such if you spend £15 billion on rail improvements in the North you would need passenger numbers to go through the roof to justify that level of spending. As otherwise there's going to be significant numbers of under utilised infrastructure. Which would result in the subsidiary for rail services increasing. Conversely TfL needs to break even (mostly by funding it's own improvements from fares) and so the business case for Crossrail 2 had to more than cover it's running costs.
Also it is worth noting that Crossrail 2 had the potential to benefit London, the South East, the East and parts of the South West. The latter being the potential to have more services from London heading to/through Salisbury.
One last question, which region benefited from the revolt of Reading? As it is clearly spending within the South East, yet it will allow more services to Wales and the South West.
That's not to say that there shouldn't be investment outside of London, for there should be, rather people shouldn't be looking at what one region has and say "we need X so that we receive the same" bit rather should be saying " what needs to be done to provide us with a good rail service?" As the two are very different answers.
HSTEd
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Private sector funding can't change the simple economic reality.
Most transport schemes in the North have awful business cases, and most of the ones that don't get funded anyway.
All that does it leave the public in hock to likely usurious interest payments on said capital.
Shaw S Hunter
Established Member
Er, no it couldn't. The ownership of Manchester Airports Group breaks down as: Manchester City Council 35.5%, the other nine councils of Greater Manchester collectively 29%, and the remaining 35.5% is held by IFM Investors, an Australian based investment fund manager itself owned by a large group of pension funds. There is no suggestion that TfN could be structured in a way that includes any private holding.
And the Jet2 job news is hardly relevant to a discussion about public funding of railways: there are no publicly funded air services from Manchester and airlines stand or fall on their own commercial feet.
er no.... i mentioned the fact that local councils own the airport body, which my understanding is what TFN would look like. Nobody actually knows what it will look like in the future in detail, but nobody is ruling out some sort of private holding. We simply dont know yet....but I ll remind you that Franchises are indeed in the private sector, and they will be having a big say in this.
I did some research regarding population, geographic area and GVA for a blog. The figures I got below. Highlights difficulty in comparing Crossrail in London with a Crossrail for the North.
Populations
Leed City Region - 3m
Huddersfield - 146,000
Liverpool City Region - 1.5m
Greater Manchester - 2.8
Hull - 850,000
Halifax - 90,000
8.4m
Greater London 8.5m
GVA and area
North East 14,165km² £49.6bn
North West 8,592 km² £156.8bn
Yorkshire and Humber 15,420 km² £109.7
37,000 sq km £316.1bn
London 1,569 sq km £378.4bn
backontrack
Established Member
Hmm. Maybe this HS3 idea isn't so barmy after all... :roll:
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Of course trains are less busy in the north than the London conurbation. Driving is a realistic alternative in many cases. The needs of the north ore different, but the foremost need is economic regeneration which needs to be stimulated, and which should be the priority of any government which strives to rebalance the distorted economy of the UK. If the cities on the transpennine route became economic powerhouses, there would be an inescapable need to improve the railway. However (chickens, eggs and all that) it's surely unarguable that a better infrastructure would attract investors and improve the economy. If the government really believed in 'the Northern Powerhouse' it would act now (or should have done years ago).
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
And the new DMUs and EMUs for Northern.
And the forthcoming TPE near-complete fleet replacement.
And don't forget - the North got 15x while the South East was soldiering on with knackered slamdoor stock.
There is more still to do of course, but I don't get why people claim the North is badly done by just because of one particular class of old rolling stock.
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xotGD
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New TPE trains that will still take an hour to get from Leeds to Manchester. We need investment in the infrastructure as well as the rolling stock.
The majority of journeys in the North are made on Northern, and currently Northern has no post-privatisation DMUs and a large amount of those trains are pacers.
Until all the new trains are in service, the opinion of being badly done to won't change.
TPE's new trains tend to be not appreciated due to the fact they are almost always overcrowded.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
It could be sped up a little, but the demand is more of a web than fast services to one place, so capacity and connectivity are more important. The model needed is more like Nederlandse Spoorwegen or SBB than HS2.
Current typical schedule Leeds - Manchester Piccadilly or Victoria is 51 minutes with one stop at Huddersfield. Some Sunday terminators at Victoria take 49 minutes. Why should new trains take longer?
I don't think anyone is saying a new line is not a good idea. It's just not as simple as saying London is getting Crossrail 2 so the north should have Crossrail North, HS3, Northern Powerhouse rail or what ever it is called today.
Yes "The North" does have a large population" but it's spread over some 37,000 sq km, as far as I can make out. Whilst Greater London's 8.7m population is squeezed into just 1569 sq km.
People can't even decide what HS3 should do, should it be a high-speed line serving only key centres bypassing towns, or should it serve small towns in order to serve all 9m people?
And like @Moonshot said
Well apart from the fact that Kirklees, City of Bradford, York, Selby and Halifax are all part of the Leeds City Region.
A very important point. Local MPs and Councillors can shout about wanting electrification, for example, but do they really understand why?
I'm reminded of the Welsh MPs complaining that Wales is "the only European country other than Albania" not to have any electrified railways ...
So what?
Well apart from the fact that Kirklees, City of Bradford, York, Selby and Halifax are all part of the Leeds City Region.
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Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
I am. I think it would be poor value for money compared with minor infrastructure enhancements to existing lines, large-scale electrification plus a plan to get all mainline inter-regional and inter-city trains across the North to at least 200m in length, and a complete end to single and 2-car operation other than on the tiniest branch line.
That would provide enough capacity for a lifetime and would be far, far better value for money.
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Harbornite
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What about the orders for new rolling stock for Northern and TPE? Do they not count?
Harbornite
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You also seem to have forgotten about the recent rolling stock orders made for Northern and TPE, as well as the proposals for HS3.
HSTEd
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Except huge capacity additions that do not reduce journey times drastically will never wash their face because they won't grow the passenger base sufficiently.
Even with huge amounts of supressed demand on Northern that could be instantly realised by adding more rolling stock it would take decades before fares and passenger loadings could even start to close the horrifying black hole that is the regional railways finances.
We need ten percent growth sustained for years to get anywhere.
And that means you need an epochal improvement in service quality (and I mean things people actually care about rather than whether their train has a BREL works plate in the doorway or not)
Even with huge amounts of supressed demand on Northern that could be instantly realised by adding more rolling stock it would take decades before fares and passenger loadings could even start to close the horrifying black hole that is the regional railways finances.
We need ten percent growth sustained for years to get anywhere.
And that means you need an epochal improvement in service quality (and I mean things people actually care about rather than whether their train has a BREL works plate in the doorway or not)
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