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Released Capacity

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The Ham

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It could well do but I wonder whether that is more likely to be the case on suburban services in our major cities rather than Intercity travel.

Which is why I went on to say that some paths could be used by metro services. Although the growth tends to be lower on Intercity services there has been little in the way of service improvements compared with the metro services (the main exception is Virgn West Coast, but then that hasn't seen much change since the trains were lengthened about 5 years ago).

As such this has something of a limiting factor. Take for instance East Coast, their main fleet, the IC225's has remained the same and whilst there are some more HST's it's not a lot. You compare this with the likes of SWT and even just in the last few years there have been extra units providing extra capacity.

I wouldn't be surprised to see Intercity passenger jump over the next 4 years as significant extra capacity is added to East Coast and GWR.
 
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quantinghome

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There's no doubt that the last 50 years have seen a huge increase in the population of this country so it's hardly surprising that we've seen a increase in demand for rail travel. However given that we have an ageing population and couples are having less children I'm not so certain that we can expect the population to grow at the same rate. Not to mention the fact that the Government is determined to significantly reduce migration so I wonder whether these two factors will have an affect on future increases in rail travel.

It's not due to population growth. Rail travel started growing strongly from the mid-90s, more than doubling over 20 years. In that time the UK population has risen by about 10%. Whilst this may have given a small boost to rail travel, I think the following trends have contributed more:

1. The end of major road building, increasing traffic congestion.
2. Younger people less likely to drive due to costs of insurance.
3. Structural changes in the economy. People are more likely to work for companies that have multiple offices rather than located in one place, and more likely to need to commute into major cities than work in their local town.
4. Families living further apart, so travelling more to see each other.
5. Online advance purchase tickets making buying rail travel easier and cheaper (in the off-peak).

As previously stated I think that HS2 between Birmingham and London will be a success but I wonder whether 8 trains an hour is simply there to give more choice as opposed to meeting current physical demand. Not only that but I would be interested to know how many of those who use the London Midland service actually travel all the way to London, especially given the length of the journey.

Sheffield to London is indeed much improved but I do wonder if any of those trains are full on leaving Sheffield and whether everyone travels through to London. Certainly in my experience that isn't the case and those trains only really start to fill up as they head through the East Midlands. Again I wonder if two trains an hour is really just there to give more choice. Given that I think Toton will be a disappointment will there be enough demand for a service from Sheffield that only really makes a station call in Birmingham?

If there wasn't demand, companies wouldn't run as many trains, simple as. If EMT only needed to run 1 tph from Sheffield to satisfy demand, they would do so, saving themselves a lot of money in the process and increasing their profits. However, they seem to have found that in hiring and running more trains, they have attracted more passengers and make more money.

Forgive me if I've got the wrong end of the stick, but you appear to be saying that we should only consider running more trains when the current ones are completely full. This isn't what happens. Once a service is more than 50-60% full, rail companies have tended to look to increasing capacity. In the 90s and early 2000s this was relatively easy because there was spare track capacity. Now it's more difficult as all sorts of expensive and disruptive upgrades to the existing network are needed to expand capacity.

In terms of Manchester I concur that the service is pretty good but I travel up to Manchester from London around four times a month and yet in the morning and coming back in the evening both trains are far from full. Surely all those extra services are really there just to serve different routes and provide more options as opposed to physically meeting demand.

You're travelling in the opposite direction to the main peak passenger flows, so it's not surprising the trains you travel on aren't full.

There is an easy and indeed very sensible way round that; charge passengers a premium to use HS2 as the SNCF do on their LGV routes and ensure that there is an alternative service on the WCML which is cheaper and is the same as the current timetable.

Why do you think that is a sensible thing to do? Why would pricing people off the HS2 onto a classic service be preferable to building more rail capacity?

Also, why would you want to keep the current WCML timetable? It prioritises long distance travel to London in preference to other journeys. So many passengers lose out from this. Post-HS2, the WCML timetable will in all likelihood be revised so that it provides a regular semi-fast service which will connect the major stops on the WCML which currently have a poor service.
 

Roast Veg

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I'd personally like to see a slow VTWC service calling Bletchley (post EWR), Nuneaton, and Stafford towards the north. This would supplement the hourly LM Trent Valley services and give good onward journeys to travellers from Bedford/Bicester/Leicester/Coventry. It would require a fast Trent Valley path, so flighted behind a fast service seems appropriate, and my intuition is that it would see good passenger flows from the catchment area towards any of Liverpool/Manchester/Glasgow, which makes it a flexible proposition.
 

Roast Veg

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There will be more EW trains serving Bletchley, which was my rationale for suggesting it.
 

The Ham

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There will be more EW trains serving Bletchley, which was my rationale for suggesting it.

The problem is (IIRC) that Bletchley is effectively priced as a LM only ticket, meaning that if the successor​of LM runs fast services which have few calling points then a lot of people will use that service rather than the fast services from MK as it will be cheaper.
 

Bletchleyite

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The problem is (IIRC) that Bletchley is effectively priced as a LM only ticket, meaning that if the successor​of LM runs fast services which have few calling points then a lot of people will use that service rather than the fast services from MK as it will be cheaper.

Indeed it is, because people were just buying LM Only MKC-EUS tickets (BoJ is and always has been permitted on these) and were complaining vociferously about Bletchley being more expensive. Silverlink ignored this for years, but LM "fixed" it quite early in their tenure.

However, that can change. I do wonder if a "Milton Keynes Stations" (I know it won't now be called that) fare grouping would be necessary under the "new order". Wolverton and MKC already have the same fares. If you want to specifically encourage people to use Bletchley the cheaper (and plentiful) car parking will already do that to some extent, though a previous attempt to move more business from MKC by reducing it further didn't really work.
 
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po8crg

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Personally I do more long-distance rail travel as the internet has meant I've made friends all across the country, and I get trains to visit them.

Looking at business travel, about 2000 we used to get suppliers sending in staff for extended periods to work at our office (perhaps for a few weeks at a time). Now, that sort of thing is nearly always done over the internet. But we now are much more inclined to use a supplier based at the other end of the country and they come over once or twice a years to keep the relationship functioning (and for a sales meeting, etc).

I think the internet might be reducing the small number of people who do frequent long-distance travel. But I'm pretty sure it has increased the number who do it infrequently. And HS2 will be a very strong option for infrequent travellers.
 

158756

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National rail growth could double by the opening of phase 2 meaning that there could still be a significant number of people travelling on the classic lines. Yes it may be less than at Privatisation but that is still enough to run a reasonable frequency reasonable unit length service.

I won't be surprised if the next 20-30 years are very difficult for the railway, especially outside London, as automation makes road travel more affordable and convenient, and mass unemployment means people don't commute and can't afford leisure travel.

Is a new railway really going to have a purpose in 2033?
 

HSTEd

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I won't be surprised if the next 20-30 years are very difficult for the railway, especially outside London, as automation makes road travel more affordable and convenient, and mass unemployment means people don't commute and can't afford leisure travel.

Is a new railway really going to have a purpose in 2033?

HS2 has the advantage that it is faster than cars will ever be permitted to move for the forseable future.
It would probably be quicker to take it and hire an autonomous car/taxi at the other end than to drive the entire route.
 

Bald Rick

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I won't be surprised if the next 20-30 years are very difficult for the railway, especially outside London, as automation makes road travel more affordable and convenient, and mass unemployment means people don't commute and can't afford leisure travel.

Is a new railway really going to have a purpose in 2033?

In that scenario, new railways that don't link major economic centres, or major residential development to those economic centres will struggle to have a purpose.

Similar old railways will have the same problem.
 

The Ham

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I won't be surprised if the next 20-30 years are very difficult for the railway, especially outside London, as automation makes road travel more affordable and convenient, and mass unemployment means people don't commute and can't afford leisure travel.

Is a new railway really going to have a purpose in 2033?

Given that automated cars are currently going to be pitched to compete for trade with driver run cars (i.e. taxi) there is a long way to go in terms of costs before the train is under threat from that.

There is also the issue that most driverless cars will be hard on being electric, which for the time being limits the range of them.

Personally I think that driverless cars will lead to more people using the train not less.
 

absolutelymilk

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Given that automated cars are currently going to be pitched to compete for trade with driver run cars (i.e. taxi) there is a long way to go in terms of costs before the train is under threat from that.

There is also the issue that most driverless cars will be hard on being electric, which for the time being limits the range of them.

Personally I think that driverless cars will lead to more people using the train not less.

I agree - it will allow people to use the train/buses/cycling for most things and then get a driverless taxi when these are not running/they want to get home from the station.

Most roads are already at capacity, so increased travel in driverless cars will simply push people onto buses/trains.
 
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LesF

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The only certainty is that we don't know what rail demand will be in the future. That's not a reason to do nothing. What's needed is a national plan connecting all communities, not a segregated showpiece railway connecting a few places to London and incapable of adaptation as the pattern of demand becomes apparent over the decades.
 

absolutelymilk

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The only certainty is that we don't know what rail demand will be in the future. That's not a reason to do nothing. What's needed is a national plan connecting all communities, not a segregated showpiece railway connecting a few places to London and incapable of adaptation as the pattern of demand becomes apparent over the decades.

"A few places" - HS2 trains will directly serve London, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Carlisle, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Liverpool, Newcastle, Preston, Sheffield and York. They will free up space on the lines going into London, Manchester, Birmingham and Leeds, allowing more services to run to those cities from other destinations.

How exactly can you say that this is only serving a few places?
 

jp4712

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I just did a quick search to see how usage of the Trent Valley stations has increased since 2002. The figures are quite interesting:

Rugeley Trent Valley: 2001/2 - 9,380. 2015/6 - 155,876
Lichfield TV: 2001/2 - 182,917. 2015/6 - 1,063,986
Tamworth: 2001/2 - 518,057. 2015/6 - 1,148,686
Atherstone: 2001/2 - 6,779. 2015/6 - 141,494
Nuneaton: 2001/2 - 535,148. 2015/6 - 1,236,492.

Now it isn't possible for ridership figures to rise ad infinitum, but it's clear that the LM Trent Valley locals unlocked a HUGE amount of untapped demand. At my local station, Lichfield Trent Valley, in the days of the occasional Dogbox shuttling between Stafford and Coventry via Nuneaton you'd never find one more than half full. Nowadays, a four-car 350 can be full and standing from Euston to Tamworth. A large new car park was finished at Lichfield TV a couple of years back: it is now routinely full by the time the 0708 VTWC service calls. It is a similar picture at Tamworth where the new multi-storey is already impossible to get into by 0730. Virgin have gone on record saying that they would like to create extra services for the Trent Valley if they could.

The point I am making is that I am sure that whoever runs the franchise along the 'traditional' WCML post-HS2 will not struggle to find people to fill trains on the released paths.
 

LesF

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"A few places" - HS2 trains will directly serve London, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Carlisle, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Liverpool, Newcastle, Preston, Sheffield and York. They will free up space on the lines going into London, Manchester, Birmingham and Leeds, allowing more services to run to those cities from other destinations.

How exactly can you say that this is only serving a few places?

True that most of the 12 places you list will benefit, but if you take a wider basket of 32 cities, large towns and airports affected by HS2, you find that of the 496 journey combinations possible between them, 88 would be improved by HS2, 314 would be unchanged, and 94 would be made worse by the reduction of existing services and/or being slower due to having more stops.
I expect much more from the level of cost and destruction planned for HS2. This poor plan has come about from the silo thinking behind HS2; let's building a flashy new Eurogauge railway and ignore its effect on the network - that's someone else's problem. Cities are told to be HS2-ready. That means you'll need to spend millions connecting to HS2 and it's someone else's problem.

Another commentator thinks there'll be future spurs to places by-passed by HS2. There won't. All 18 tph are spoken for and some of them have been allocated twice. Stoke on Trent gets a raw deal. And HS2 will not be magically exempt from the 101 things that go wrong on railways. As soon as there's a delay, even if it comes from the connections with the classic network, the timetable will collapse for the rest of the day.
 

edwin_m

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True that most of the 12 places you list will benefit, but if you take a wider basket of 32 cities, large towns and airports affected by HS2, you find that of the 496 journey combinations possible between them, 88 would be improved by HS2, 314 would be unchanged, and 94 would be made worse by the reduction of existing services and/or being slower due to having more stops.

That's an impressive level of detail, especially as nothing resembling a timetable has been published for the extra services that released capacity on the existing network is expected to provide, and which could affect many of those links. Do you have a link to the source of this information?
 

The Ham

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True that most of the 12 places you list will benefit, but if you take a wider basket of 32 cities, large towns and airports affected by HS2, you find that of the 496 journey combinations possible between them, 88 would be improved by HS2, 314 would be unchanged, and 94 would be made worse by the reduction of existing services and/or being slower due to having more stops.
I expect much more from the level of cost and destruction planned for HS2. This poor plan has come about from the silo thinking behind HS2; let's building a flashy new Eurogauge railway and ignore its effect on the network - that's someone else's problem. Cities are told to be HS2-ready. That means you'll need to spend millions connecting to HS2 and it's someone else's problem.

Another commentator thinks there'll be future spurs to places by-passed by HS2. There won't. All 18 tph are spoken for and some of them have been allocated twice. Stoke on Trent gets a raw deal. And HS2 will not be magically exempt from the 101 things that go wrong on railways. As soon as there's a delay, even if it comes from the connections with the classic network, the timetable will collapse for the rest of the day.

Will Southampton to Liverpool improve, stay the same or get worse? Based on the fact so many stay the same I would guess that you'll say it stays the same.
 

Ianno87

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Will Southampton to Liverpool improve, stay the same or get worse? Based on the fact so many stay the same I would guess that you'll say it stays the same.

That example would get much better - travelling via London (or Reading/Old Oak Common, or potentially Birmingham International/Interchange if the Liverpools stop) would almost become much faster than either the current trip via London, or XC via Birmingham/Wolverhampton.
 

The Ham

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That example would get much better - travelling via London (or Reading/Old Oak Common, or potentially Birmingham International/Interchange if the Liverpools stop) would almost become much faster than either the current trip via London, or XC via Birmingham/Wolverhampton.

I know it will, I was more finding if the poster who claimed that the majority of city to city travel knew that. I would guess that it is likely that anyone doing a rail planner search dinging that it went via Reading then didn't look to see what the via London time was to then see that with 30 minutes of saving on London Crewe would then put it faster than the current journey time, by enough that even with a longer wait at Crewe that it could still be just as quick.

The choices of cities and airports is a careful one in that most places in the South heading to Heathrow, Gatwick, Luton, Southampton and other airports aren't going to see an improvement due to HS2, however by the time of HS2 opening the week be improvements to access times to Heathrow in the form of Crossrail and probably the western approach. As such there is less need for HS2 to also do that.
 

The Ham

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I reason that between us we would be able to find more than 90 combinations that are likely to improve due to HS2. Given that HS2 lists 22 of them in their own documents.
 

quantinghome

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True that most of the 12 places you list will benefit, but if you take a wider basket of 32 cities, large towns and airports affected by HS2, you find that of the 496 journey combinations possible between them, 88 would be improved by HS2, 314 would be unchanged, and 94 would be made worse by the reduction of existing services and/or being slower due to having more stops.

Even if we take these figures as accurate (and I agree with Edwin_m - how do we know at this stage without a detailed timetable for released capacity?), such bald figures completely miss the point because they don't state what level of improvement/worsening is associated with each combination and they don't state how many passengers are affected. As HS2 concentrates on the largest populations it is likely that the improvements will apply to a large number of people, and they will be significant improvements in the order of 30-60 minutes or more. By contrast the 'worse' journeys may mean 10 minutes slower for places with lower population. I also disagree that a service having more stops is necessarily worse.
 

edwin_m

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Frequency contributes to journey time in the sense that people who have to depart/arrive at a specific time will have less time waiting on average. So if the WCML/ECML trains make more intermediate stops, this may be a net benefit the stations with the extra calls even if the journey times from those stations are a bit longer.
 

Grimsby town

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True that most of the 12 places you list will benefit, but if you take a wider basket of 32 cities, large towns and airports affected by HS2, you find that of the 496 journey combinations possible between them, 88 would be improved by HS2, 314 would be unchanged, and 94 would be made worse by the reduction of existing services and/or being slower due to having more stops.
I expect much more from the level of cost and destruction planned for HS2. This poor plan has come about from the silo thinking behind HS2; let's building a flashy new Eurogauge railway and ignore its effect on the network - that's someone else's problem. Cities are told to be HS2-ready. That means you'll need to spend millions connecting to HS2 and it's someone else's problem.

Another commentator thinks there'll be future spurs to places by-passed by HS2. There won't. All 18 tph are spoken for and some of them have been allocated twice. Stoke on Trent gets a raw deal. And HS2 will not be magically exempt from the 101 things that go wrong on railways. As soon as there's a delay, even if it comes from the connections with the classic network, the timetable will collapse for the rest of the day.

Improvements and new classic lines are definitely needed for HS2 to be as successful as possible. The problem is that people complain about the cost therefore none of these projects can be associated directly with HS2 for the project to remain politically acceptable.

If you look at what is currently happening in Birmingham with the Midland Metro system (extensions including plans to link Curzon Street by 2026), it is likely in around 5 years we'll see exactly the same being considered in many other cities and hubs linked by HS2.

The first stage only links one city to another directly even with classic compatibles most lines won't be running more than 200 metre trains so the boost in capacity will be minimal initially so opening new lines to link into HS2 will probably wait until 2032.

Another reason there has been minimal work on classic lines is unlike the ECML, Leeds - Doncaster / Sheffield etc. the WCML south of Birmingham is mainly 4 tracks. Therefore, capacity has existed to provide stopping services meaning that a lot of places have stations and therefore don't need any infrastructure improvements, they simply need extra services using the freed up capacity which can planned around 2024. I think by time we get 2026/27 and the Birmingham section opens there will suddenly be a lot more talk of improvements to the classic rail network as a direct result of HS2
 

Chester1

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Even if we take these figures as accurate (and I agree with Edwin_m - how do we know at this stage without a detailed timetable for released capacity?), such bald figures completely miss the point because they don't state what level of improvement/worsening is associated with each combination and they don't state how many passengers are affected. As HS2 concentrates on the largest populations it is likely that the improvements will apply to a large number of people, and they will be significant improvements in the order of 30-60 minutes or more. By contrast the 'worse' journeys may mean 10 minutes slower for places with lower population. I also disagree that a service having more stops is necessarily worse.

I remember reading some anti HS2 news article a couple of years ago about towns and cities that would lose out. One was supposedly Chester due to multiple stops being added. It totally ignored that journeys to London would be much faster than now through changing onto a HS2 service at Crewe. Many people currently use the ATW shuttle service to connect with Manchester to London VT services anyway. The article was techicallly correct but also showed how wildly inaccurate some of these guesses can be. Stockport (my new home) will lose out on services to London but will be vastly benefited by freed up paths into Manchester via Levenshulme and also potentially diverting services via Wilmslow and Manchester airport too. Id think most residents would prefer more commuter capacity over services to London.
 

TheDavibob

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Given LesF's location is given as Coventry, which as far as I can tell is the only city to genuinely lose out from HS2 (in that it will at least lose a fast service to London and possible see a slowing of the other two), I can see why they are concerned. However, these problems do not stretch to other cities, particularly the further you get from London.
 

LesF

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That's an impressive level of detail, especially as nothing resembling a timetable has been published for the extra services that released capacity on the existing network is expected to provide, and which could affect many of those links. Do you have a link to the source of this information?
You are absolutely right that HS2 has never published a timetable. How could they? It would be too embarrassing. Instead they hide behind unsubstantiated assertions that HS2 will be" transformational" (even though it would affect less than one per cent of UK rail journeys) and that it would "rebalance the economy" (even though it would reinforce the dominance of cities in proportion to their size, leaving others worse off). My source is a thorough study that's still in draft form. I'm making comments to the author. I'll gladly provide a link when the study is published.
Interesting that a respected rail consultant who was employed by HS2 has not been asked to do any more work since he told them it won't work.
You don't have to take my word for it: the former chair of HS2, Sir Doug Oakervee, was quoted in the Independent as saying, "Well, you can always do things differently, you can always do things better. Whether we went the right way is questionable." Shortly after, it was announced he was going on 3 months sick leave, then that he was leaving HS2.
The tragic irony is that we can have everything HS2 promised, including the direct links to HS1 and Heathrow that were abandoned, and much more, for less money, if HS2 is changed to something actually worth building.
 
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