Revisiting HS2 alternatives

[swt_passenger]

If money were no object, I reckon a better overall solution would have been to reimagine "High Speed 2" as a larger, broader project to embark on the upgrade of the following lines to enable faster running, like HS1:

• Great Western Mainline (Paddington-Bristol) 140mph upgrade
• West Coast Mainline (Euston-Glasgow Central) 140mph upgrade
• Glasgow Central-Edinburgh Waverley via Carstairs 110mph upgrade
• East Coast Mainline (Edinburgh-Kings Cross) 140mph upgrade
• Cross Country route (Bristol-Tamworth) 125-140mph upgrades

Obviously money is an object and this isn't feasible now, but really I think we needed more of a broader, wider scope to upgrade the mainlines rather than 250 mph trains to Birmingham and little in the way of extra speed elsewhere.

In the general case, increasing speed on mixed traffic existing lines will reduce overall capacity.

 

[Hadders]

If money were no object, I reckon a better overall solution would have been to reimagine "High Speed 2" as a larger, broader project to embark on the upgrade of the following lines to enable faster running, like HS1:

• Great Western Mainline (Paddington-Bristol) 140mph upgrade
• West Coast Mainline (Euston-Glasgow Central) 140mph upgrade
• Glasgow Central-Edinburgh Waverley via Carstairs 110mph upgrade
• East Coast Mainline (Edinburgh-Kings Cross) 140mph upgrade
• Cross Country route (Bristol-Tamworth) 125-140mph upgrades

Obviously money is an object and this isn't feasible now, but really I think we needed more of a broader, wider scope to upgrade the mainlines rather than 250 mph trains to Birmingham and little in the way of extra speed elsewhere.

How would you add additional capacity to the West Coast Mainline south of Rugby? It's already full and more trains cannot be run. This is the principle reason for HS2, not speed.

 

[Sad Sprinter]

I think we sometimes forget we are rail enthusiasts not rail planners. Sometimes we invoke the past a lot because we genuinely like it and find it interesting, and without the knowledge of a civil servant or industry insider we can only rely on our own knowledge and ideas. And we forget, it is fun to make ideas and plan new lines and thins like that. Who cares if theres not capacity between A and B for X train. It's just nice to theorise. But then again, I am a romanticist.

I usually argue for HS2, but I'm not smitten by it. It's a "cool" idea, but I prefer a railway with lots of different cross country services, interesting formations things like that. From an enthusiasts persepective, give me the WCML in the late 80s or the ECML in the 70s over HS2 any day.

 

[tbtc]

I think Northern Powerhouse Rail should have been integrated into HS2 as a Phase 3 of sorts) - but the idea it might be reduced to only go as far as Birmingham (which is a possibility with the HS2 review incoming) is what gets me

It's the age old criticism of HS2 - it manages to be both "too expensive" and also "should be extended to directly serve every other city in the country" - Northern Powerhouse Rail was originally called "HS3" - that was the plan - build the line from London - Manchester/Leeds and then build the northern bits too as an integrated project that uses the termini at Manchester/Leeds that HS2 would be paying for.

Oddly people seem to accept the idea of a new line to improve journey times from Leeds to Manchester but not improving journey times from Manchester to Birmingham or from Birmingham to London.

It just irks me that if so much money is going to be spent, it can't be spent on anything further north. I mean Newcastle is a major city, as is York, as is Doncaster. And yet, HS2 isn't going to really give these major cities any decrease in journey time. Sure, we have the LNER Azuma program which will improve acceleration, but when the south is getting a new 250mph rail line that might not make it past Birmingham... it just fuels the idea that the North is being short-changed

...but apart from the Azumas, what have the Romans ever done for us?

HS2 was planned to provide direct services to York/ Newcastle - people complain that such services wouldn't be significantly faster than the current route through Grantham, but then also argue that HS2 shouldn't run at such high speeds.

I mean the North East is the least-funded region in the UK, and while London can consider a Crossrail 2 before the first is even completed

Only if you look at infrastructure spending on heavy rail (and only over certain periods), but then it's an area without the kind of population density that sustains heavy rail in busier parts of the UK, and it ignores subsidies (a million pounds spent each year on subsidising loss-making services is a million pounds that could be spent on infrastructure each year)

We won't see the new Northern 195s or 331s, even though refurb 156s and 158s are still an improvement on Pacers. You have to head down to York before you start seeing 170s, which again are refurb cascades

If you're only talking about the area north of York then I guess it's only seeing 800s (LNER) , 801s (LNER), 802s (TPE and the new FG open access services), the loco-hauled TPE sets (which are replacing the relatively modern 185s)

Getting off topic, I know, so to bring this back to HS2 - while I get that it's meant to improve times to London and relieve the WCML south of Birmingham, I just can't help but shake the feeling that maybe a more general program of improvements might have been the better option

I'm genuinely interested in any improvements that could happen instead - I'm not fixed on the idea of supporting HS2 - but looking at how long it's taking to spend huge sums of money on some minor improvements (e.g. a second line on the short chord at Dore might take another five years) so I can't see how we could upgrade the WCML/MML/ECML sufficiently (without disrupting existing passengers/services for long periods like the last attempt at a WCML upgrade - which couldn't deliver the 140mph that it planned to)

I think we sometimes forget we are rail enthusiasts not rail planners. Sometimes we invoke the past a lot because we genuinely like it and find it interesting, and without the knowledge of a civil servant or industry insider we can only rely on our own knowledge and ideas. And we forget, it is fun to make ideas and plan new lines and thins like that. Who cares if theres not capacity between A and B for X train. It's just nice to theorise. But then again, I am a romanticist.

I usually argue for HS2, but I'm not smitten by it. It's a "cool" idea, but I prefer a railway with lots of different cross country services, interesting formations things like that. From an enthusiasts persepective, give me the WCML in the late 80s or the ECML in the 70s over HS2 any day.

It's fine to theorise - there's plenty of scope to do that on the Forum.

But if the idea is to dismiss HS2 and say that we should be doing something different then that something different needs to be something realistic - by all means suggest "speculative" ideas - there have been many daydreaming threads about unrealistic ideas but if the idea is to suggest an alternative to HS2 then that needs to be an alternative that holds some water.

 

[The Ham]

if the idea is to suggest an alternative to HS2 then that needs to be an alternative that holds some water.

Indeed.

I've seen someone suggest that we just do the works at Euston so that we could then run 12 coach 80x's with 900 seats (i.e. adding 3 standard class coaches to the 9 coach 80x's on GWR & LNER). As that would double the capacity of trains.

There's many problems with this:

It doesn't double capacity, even compared with the shorter 390's, as double 469 is 938 and double 589 is 1178.

Therefore you'd need to run more trains, now once the extra services from the ICWC franchise and the open access operators are running then there's no spare capacity (or at least so little that it's not going to do much but at much greater risk of things go wrong)

To do so would result in a train ~50m longer than the longer 390's, now London is sorted but what about (picking a station at random, and definitely not the most expensive one to deal with) Birmingham New Street?

Even once you've fixed Birmingham New Street you then have all the other stations, now with Liverpool you could have 2x6 coach units which split with half serving Liverpool. However that would reduce capacity in the trains from 900 to 864 when paired or 432 when running on their own. That's at least an 8% reduction in capacity but could be up to 27% reduction:

11 coach 390 - 589
1/2 size HS2 train - 550
9 coach 390 - 469
6 coach 80x - 432

Even once you overcome the issue with the stations you are still left with where do you maintain them and store them overnight.

Then there's the issue of the number of coaches within the fleets, taking Manchester as an example:
- class 390's (9+9+11 coach units), 5 hour unit cycle, 3tph - 145 coaches (1,527 seats/hour)
- HS2 trains (3*16 coach units), 3 hour unit cycle, 3tph - 144 coaches (3,300 seats/hour)
- class 80x 3*12 coach units), 5 hour unit cycle, 3tph - 180 coaches (2,700 seats/hour)
- class 80x 3*12 coach units), 5 hour unit cycle, 3.5tph - 210 coaches (3,150 seats/hour)

That's an extra ~65 coaches to provide double the capacity to Manchester compared to either the current fleet or to nearly match the HS2 fleet.

Now at this point I should point out that there'll be a need for some retained WCML services to Manchester after HS2, so there could be a need for (say) 2*9 coach trains an hour which would add a further 90 coaches. However, even assuming that these are class 390's these would take the hourly seating capacity to ~4,240.

Chances are they would be more akin to a 444 and assuming 3*5 coach units running a total service provision of 2tph (i.e. 1*10 & 1*5) that's 75 coaches and a total of 4,200 seats.

That's 1/3 more seats per hour than the 80x's could provide with only 9 extra coaches being leased, stored, maintained, etc. It also frees up at least one path compared to the existing service patterns. As well as allowing 1/2 a train to be split from the 5 coach unit which is serving Manchester.

That could allow a service to run; Euston, Watford Junction, Milton Keynes, Rugby, Coventry, Nuneaton, Stafford, Crewe (split), stations to Liverpool/Manchester