Do you support High Speed 3?

[Camden]

HST, the key word you are missing from those loading is "average". As everyone knows, rail travel is a battle of the peaks. An 80%'s average loading is a daytime of 50/60% and a peak of over 100%. The crowded Midland Mainline is in the 80%'s south of its final stop in Luton, for comparison.

The reason why the 400 metre lengths are necessary therefore looking to those Manchester and Leeds trains with average loadings in the 40%s is because while many services won't fill a 200 metre unit, others will require more. If you don't have the 400 metre platforms then these cities too are stuck with 200 metre trains running at 80%s average. Over 100% at any point (ie over 65% average) might be ok for a 30 minute duration commuter line, I'd argue it's not for a premium high speed long distance service.

If on the basis of 40% something average loadings you can accept the need for 400 metre trains to handle those peaks, you should be able to see a matching need/problem for a Liverpool line that runs at over 80% which can only have 200 metre units. I travel to a few major northern cities periodically, and Liverpool already has two 260 metre voyagers in the peak, so I fail to see how this line can cope in the future with less, given my own experience.

You talk about making assumption, but I've assumed very little, and what I have is based on what's in the docs. You're writing about "unitary 400 metre units" when only 200 metre sets are spoken of in any docs.

Jon - the demand is forecast well in to the future. 400 metre capability is absolutely looking to peak demand.

 

[pablo]

For Voyagers read Pendolinos.

The delta junc. to Golburne spur was an afterthough in the planning. It does absolutely nothing for the northern towns. The main emphsis was to get from Handsacre to Manchester. There's a link back somewhere. "Oh, and we need to connect to the WCML somewhere too, for Scotland". So a curvey line was picked from many and drawn on the map. The embankments and bridge over the MSC were monstrosities that dwarfed the local semis. HS trains 140' in the air.... see them fly.

Golbourne as a site for the depot never made sense. Lowton didn't want it. No public transport. Few locals who would be interesed in working there. Night shifts? Own transport? Crewe or Warrington were the no-brainers.

When Warrington wanted the route right through its centre, why resist?

I detected a complete lack of local knowledge in the planning of this section. Just a desk job done from afar.

..and so on and so forth.

 

[Camden]

Haha yes whoops! Pendos not voyagers! I think it's because I loathe pendolinos so much!

Can't argue with your comments. I think one trouble with HS2 is the initial route so quickly became seen as the done deal as far as so many were concerned, and I think you can see that with some of the arguing about changes to it. If it changes, it's probably not as earth shattering as some might feel.

 

[pablo]

I hope its an opportunity to rethink the whole HS2 Ph2/HS3 thing. Come up with an integrated package that serves all directions and includes as many pop centres as possible. Doubt if I'll ever see it!

Added: Better if HS2 went due north from Crewe with a delta junction to an easterly approach into Manch. Forget the airport. It's well served by classic from north and south; Picc and Crewe. Better than Heathrow from OOC. Don't know why you would want to serve the airport with HS from the south! Curious agenda there.

Easterly branch to Manch could become an integral part of HS3 thus increasing utility. Think again about using the canal. The only peeps you'll upset is Peels Ports and their overweening ambitions. Use Vic rather than Picc. I realise the MSC is a big drain but you don't have to fill it in. The Yanks have built far longer decking structures on stilts over water. Google the Railway that went to Sea. Nowadays it's a two-lane dual carriageway for 100 miles, mostly on stilts, in hurricane alley! There's also a nice one through the gorge on the road to Valdez in Alaska.

There is no great problem paralleling the WCML through Cheshire. Warrington seems to want HS2 through its middle so take advantage. It could be another hub with HS2/HS3 interchange. Going further north the line ends up naturally somewhere near Golbourne without the same upset! So no further commitment required than at present but with greater integration and utility for all the cities and towns on the W-E belt.

I learnt all this from the UnderWorld. HS2 Ltd; you need to connect.

 

[LesF]

Pablo is right to say "rethink the whole HS2 Ph2/HS3 thing." The agonising that is going on over the route now is due to the wrong decisions being made 5 years ago by those who dreamed up a plan that has been shown over and over to be bankrupt, but have succeeded in seducing parliament into allowing it to continue when common sense dictates that an independent review is needed by someone with clear vision and not blinded by enthusiasm. We can achieve a proper national network but we won't get there by designing one bit in isolation then thinking "Where shall we go next". A complete national plan is needed before any work is committed. Plans can change as the pattern of demand becomes apparent, but it's bonkers to pursue a segregated HS2 without a firm overall plan including the means of getting passengers to any new stations. The full benefits will only be realised if new tracks are fully integrated into the network.

 

[NotATrainspott]

Pablo is right to say "rethink the whole HS2 Ph2/HS3 thing." The agonising that is going on over the route now is due to the wrong decisions being made 5 years ago by those who dreamed up a plan that has been shown over and over to be bankrupt, but have succeeded in seducing parliament into allowing it to continue when common sense dictates that an independent review is needed by someone with clear vision and not blinded by enthusiasm. We can achieve a proper national network but we won't get there by designing one bit in isolation then thinking "Where shall we go next". A complete national plan is needed before any work is committed. Plans can change as the pattern of demand becomes apparent, but it's bonkers to pursue a segregated HS2 without a firm overall plan including the means of getting passengers to any new stations. The full benefits will only be realised if new tracks are fully integrated into the network.

That is true, but it is not as if the general outline of the completed HS2 route has not yet been defined. If we know that the eventual line to Scotland is going to run via Preston, then there's no value in dithering over whether building the first parts of it running through Cheshire and Lancashire is a bad idea or not. How the various branches join on is a reasonable topic but there is only one way to get the main line through there.

 

[jon0844]

You might as well build an all new network if you can, so as not to disrupt people while work is carried out. You also then retain old legacy routes, which is always useful in time of disruption etc.

 

[UrbanWorld]

No, what he means by 'splitting and joining' is dividing a train into two so that it fits in a terminus that is too short for it normally. This is not done anywhere because it is stupid.

Can you tell us why this is stupid? Can you enlighten us.

 

[HSTEd]

Can you tell us why this is stupid? Can you enlighten us.

Because you can't do it without at least one shunt move and you end up coupling/uncoupling in the station throat which takes too much time.
You end up having to have dedicated coupling slips for each pair of platforms which means your total length of formation per "functional" platform is more than 600m. (200m platforms length and then 400m to park the train while you mess around).
You don't gain anything.

 

[Camden]

It does depend on where it takes place. In the instance of a terminus, then this could be a simple case of train pulls to a halt somewhere outside the station (common anyway), separates, first portion pulls in while second train waits, points change, second train pulls in, just as if it were two separate trains.

On the way out reverse the process.

Of course it does mean that the train takes up the space on the line for a longer amount of time rather than just pulling in and getting out the way. It takes up the space for the duration of two trains (which is what it is). Another detraction is that you need 2 platforms rather than one, so instead of building 400 metres long you're having to build wide. There's no standard advantage to that in terms of construction. Any time you'd save in a platform walk would also surely be removed by the train wait to couple and decouple.

For through stations, this is clearly not practical at all. But of course in those cases front train only operation certainly is.

 

[UrbanWorld]

There's something badly wrong here. On the one hand you say it's important to build to Manchester far more capacity than is actually needed (although I'd dispute that a 400 metre classic compatible couldn't cope with the forecast peak demand), but in the same breath say that Liverpool needs to be maxing out two classic compatibles before it can get a captive line of any sort. That doesn't make sense.

Camden, your logic is spot on, none of it makes sense. From one, three trains per hour were given to Manchester in a cludgy way to justify the unjustifiable - HS2 and a direct HS2 line into Manchester. All analysis is negative towards HS2. Few will gain for such an enormousness amount spent. But HS2 appears to be going ahead so be it. Strangely only 4 cities have direct city centre access, Manchester is one of the cities, chosen over Liverpool, a city with a better case as the city is expanding with very large projects planned and the rail is needed for the rapidly expanding port. The cruise business is also taking off needing direct rail access.

All analysis by HS2 Ltd was flawed over Liverpool - a deliberate ploy. They never took into account Wirral passengers. The Liverpool City Region has two London terminals, Lime St and Chester. Both are serviced by Merseyrail metro stations, so easily accessed. HS2 Ltd never re-analysis after their flaws were brought to their attention. They ignore Liverpool. Ring the rail inquires about Lime St to London trains, and if you have just missed a train they will direct you to Chester via the metro depending on times of course. People in the Wirral have the choice of Chester and Lime St to Liverpool. The Wirral and Chester were ignored. Manchester only has the Piccadilly terminus.

To keep up this justification of having a direct HS2 line into Manchester the detractors bleat on about that Manchester has maxed out now on CC services, as NotATrainspot does, and insults those who expose him on this point. Those who look at it a little more closely see that CC service are far from maxing out. Manchester can do with 2 trains per hour, not 3, and still have great spare capacity. HS2, or CC, trains at 400m long would again release capacity if in the future capacity was an issue. Splitting the trains over two platforms is easily done and saves money extending platforms/stations. There is no need to run a HS2 track into Manchester at great expense, via 7.5 mile tunnel, for no gain. High-speed trains are slowing up way before they halt at a terminal, not need track that can take trains at 225mph.

I regularly go to the north; Manchester, Leeds, and Liverpool and others besides, and let's just say if I had to pick one of those big three where getting a seat has seemed tough going it wouldn't be to Manchester. In other words, bearing in mind Liverpool today gets two 260 metre voyagers at peak, the time when it maxes out two 200 metre classic compatible trains an hour is by my reckoning about 2 years ago!

Liverpool is desperately short of services, at one train per hour, while Manchester has empty trains running out at 3 per hour. The empty Manchester trains were the reason Virgin could not run services into Blackpool.

It seems from where I'm standing that it's this insistence that "getting HS2" is wedded to these captive lines is the thing standing in the way of addressing that, where actually what's needed is just a 400 metre capable station building. Use the same approach in Manchester and Leeds and there's bucket loads of cash freed up for everyone. Two trains an hour 400 metres long is going to be more than enough for any city for a very, very long time.

100% correct.

As for HS3, I'll believe it when I see it. The notion of a blank cheque being written for a project with no BCR underpinning it sounds fantastical.

@urban what political reasons? Surely Manchester and Leeds vote the same way as Liverpool? And this was a Labour plan to begin with, wasn't it?

The Tory party have had a hate campaign against Liverpool for the past 35-40 years. London divides and rule. It is inexplicably promoting Manchester over Liverpool despite logic dictating the opposite - Mancunians actually think Manchester is the UKs second city. The latest is the omission from HS2 and now HS3 as they only want fast lines between Manchester and Leeds despite Manchester to Liverpool having over twice as many passengers than Mcr to Leeds. I can give you many factual instances of Whitehall putting mixed economy commercial Liverpool down over the past 100 years (Liverpool was richer than London at one time). Little by little London does it. The UK has one world-class mega city and a collection of second rate cities. If London never poked its nose in, and natural selection prevailed, Liverpool would rise to a Barcelona. There is no Munich or Barcelona in the UK. Ever wondered why? London wants no rival.

HS3 may come about simply because of political reasons. It make more sense than HS2, especially when extended to North Wales.

 

[Haydn1971]

Splitting trains as suggested above is stupid, here's why...

Second half of the train needs a driver and a guard... Assuming £45k for extra driver and £35k for extra guard, then a very typical 2x multiplier for overheads, three pairs of staff per day to cover the whole shift, leave, sickness etc....

That's getting on for (at today's rates) nearly £0.5M in staff costs per train that splits (each split location) - multiply that up over several services over 60 years (design life) that's a hell of a lot of station platform you can buy.

Then add the time to split, the risks of stopping on a 300kph mainline, the risk of split train failure etc etc etc

 

[UrbanWorld]

It does depend on where it takes place. In the instance of a terminus, then this could be a simple case of train pulls to a halt somewhere outside the station (common anyway), separates, first portion pulls in while second train waits, points change, second train pulls in, just as if it were two separate trains.

On the way out reverse the process.

It is a simple very quick procedure taking a few minutes, not rocket science. As you say, stop the 400m train in the station throat, automatically unhitch the train, and both sections move into a platform.

For through stations, this is clearly not practical at all. But of course in those cases front train only operation certainly is.

Camden you ooze with common sense. Computerised seating can put people where they should be on the train to alight at through stations.

 

[HSTEd]

If natural selection prevailed Liverpool would be crushed, just like Manchester, by the unstoppable juggernaut that is London.

Germany has Munich simply because Berlin was kind of out of action for years and noone really liked Bonn. Barcelona exists because it is quite far from Madrid (no-one tends to realise the shear size of Spain compared to the UK) and because of rabid regional nationalism.

If you look at 'second cities' elsewhere in the world you won't tend to find one less than 400-500km from the 'primary'. With the German exception which is from unique historical factors (the secondary used to be the primary).
Which means you are unlikely to get a second city south of Newcastle.

It is a simple very quick procedure taking a few minutes, not rocket science. As you say, stop the 400m train in the station throat, automatically unhitch the train, and both sections move into a platform.

So now that is a train that is stuck in the station throat for 3-4 minutes while the train performs the necessary brake continuity tests before it can move after the coupling/decoupling operation.

So what happens to the next train that is going to end up stacking up behind it?
You end up causing a nightmare in your outer approach roads.

 

[UrbanWorld]

Splitting trains as suggested above is stupid, here's why...

Second half of the train needs a driver and a guard...

Nonsense. A man can board the train at the station throat to take one half into a platform for a few hundred metres. It could be done driverless for a few hundred meters moving at 2 mph. Full driverless trains move around the DLR network from station to station and also at full line speed and have done this for about 30 years. Moving train at 2mph a few hundred meters is childsplay.

--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

If natural selection prevailed Liverpool would be crushed, just like Manchester, by the unstoppable juggernaut that is London.

London was artificially promoted to give the UK a world-class mega city using taxpayers money from all over the UK. It took about 35 years to do.

So now that is a train that is stuck in the station throat for 3-4 minutes while the train performs the necessary brake continuity tests before it can move after the coupling/decoupling operation.

So what happens to the next train that is going to end up stacking up behind it?
You end up causing a nightmare in your outer approach roads.

HS2 trains will not be moving into Mcr and Liverpool at the frequencies of Tube trains. If HS2 and HS3 come about using the same track into the stations, there would be no more than 5 per hour giving lots of time to hitch and unhitch trains. The London trains would be 400m and the rest 200m. At Liverpool the trains could be hitched and unhitched at Edge Hill. There is lots of space. Mcr Picc is easier to extend tan Lime St. But Edge Hill comes to the rescue.

 

[HSTEd]

Nonsense. A man can board the train at the station throat to take one half into a platform for a few hundred metres.

Less than that has caused national strike action. A shunting yard staff member moved a train a few hundred metres in the yard and it caused said stirke IIRC.
It would have to be a fully qualified driver to avoid said problems - and they are expensive.
You will also have to provide safe access to the train as it waits in the throat, since it will be used far more intensively than all other trackside access in the throat and must not interfere with operations in any way.
So you use up more land in the throat spreading the lines out and so forth.

It could be done driverless for a few hundred meters moving at 2 mph. Full driverless trains move around the DLR network from station to station and also at full line speed and have done this for about 30 years. Moving train at 2mph a few hundred meters is childsplay.

So we have all this equipment that would otherwise not be required? Even if you use the in built ATO equipment for the move you will have to provide equipment to allow the train to switch to UTO (unattended train operation) for the move. You will also have to provide platform staff equipped with a remote override which will stop the train.
Being run over in the platform line by a train going 2mph is still going to be fatal, the wheels will just have time to chop the person into at least three pieces first....

London was artificially promoted to give the UK a world-class mega city using taxpayers money from all over the UK. It took about 35 years to do.

London has been a World Class mega-city for something like three centuries.
Trying to paint this as a 20th Century phenomenon is a joke.
The only reason Manchester/Leeds could survive before was because of the poor nature of the transport system amplified the effective distances between them.
Now the suburbs of London are spreading out and with HS2 and similar transport schemes they will overrun Manchester, as they are already doing to Birmingham.
Trying to fight this is folly.
(Unless you want to blow up the motorways, limit the railways to 30mph and stop all airline travel, you can't resuscitate the outlying cities as independent conurbations - they must find their place as part of Greater Greater London)

HS2 trains will not be moving into Mcr and Liverpool at the frequencies of Tube trains. If HS2 and HS3 come about using the same track into the stations. There would be no more than 5 per hour giving lots of time to hitch and unhitch trains.

Lets grant you your insane wish and say that the Manchester-Crewe branch is eliminated and the only Manchester trains are 2 classic compatibles.
You will still need another hourly train to Birmingham, at least 4-6 trains per hour for HS3 (probably more for Manchester as it will be more central and having trains in more directions).
That takes you to roughly 10 trains per hour.

3-4 minutes in each direction in the station throat is going to be significant then.
And that is before we account for the fact that by breaking the sets in half you will reduce their capacity as each set will have to be run independently if one fails - so you will need high speed ends on both ends of all of them.
In essence you prevent high capacity sets from being used in the future.

And its not really clear what you would gain from breaking the trains in half.
You still need the same station area and your throat becomes more complex and harder to maintain.

The London trains would be 400m and the rest 200m. At Liverpool the trains could be hitched and unhitched at Edge Hill. There is lots of space. Mcr Picc is easier to extend tan Lime St. But Edge Hill comes to the rescue.

We have no idea what length any of the trains will be in the future - one of the benefits of building new is that we can cheaply future proof, so restricting half the trains to a length shorter than today's sounds rather short sighted.

 

[UrbanWorld]

London has been a World Class mega-city for something like three centuries.

FACT... 35 years ago the UK promoted London to be a world-class mega city. There is only NYC and London. They succeeded at the expense of all others. 35 years ago it looked like London would decline rapidly. The city was a mess. Large parts of the city were derelict. The place was littered with rubbish bags as the Tories were controlling the place (Thatcher was in charge) would not pay for proper rubbish collection.

Trying to fight this is folly.

Some wimps said that about fighting Nazis.

Lets grant you your insane wish and say that the Manchester-Crewe branch is eliminated and the only Manchester trains are 2 classic compatibles.

Insane is it? CC can be stretched to 400m as well. Man Picc can be extended to take 400m trains CC or HS2 on CC track. Running HS2 into Mcr through a 7.5 mile tunnel is economic madness. It is wasting money that can be used on regional and local rail.

Driverless trains run on the DLR despite unions. Splitting trains to run into two platforms is easy. It is not like going to the Moon. Manchester does not need a full high-speed line to to the city. It does not need one from the Crewe Hub either. A lot of money for a minute gain in time.

The only way Mcr would need a high-speed HS2 line into the city is if HS3 is high-speed all the way, then it can use this line as the access.

 

[bb21]

Insane is it? CC can be stretched to 400m as well. Man Picc can be extended to take 400m trains CC or HS2. Running HS2 into Mcr through a 7.5 mile tunnel economic madness. It is wasting money that can be used on regional and local rail.

Part of the success of the CrossCountry network is down to the increased frequency, so if you want to cut that to release paths, you will be undoing a lot of the good work that went on in the last 10-15 years.

If you want to increase XC services to 400m long, you will need major revamps at many stations en route, unless SDO is extensively used at every station, which is never a preferred option.

Driverless trains run on the DLR despite unions. Splitting trains to run into two platforms is easy. It is not like going to the Moon. Manchester does not need a full high-speed line to to the city. It does not need one from the Crewe Hub either. A lot of money for a minute gain in time.

The only way Mcr would need a high-speed HS2 line into the city is if HS3 is high-speed all the way, then it can use this line as the access.

That is all fine in an ideal world, nevertheless...

 

[UrbanWorld]

Part of the success of the CrossCountry network is down to the increased frequency, so if you want to cut that to release paths, you will be undoing a lot of the good work that went on in the last 10-15 years.

The CrossCountry (HS3) is to link up the North of England and hopefully North Wales. Instead of travelling hours between pretty close cities it will only take minutes. It links large economies that are close but oh so far. Because everything points to London.

400m trains will only be needed at teminus stations like Liverpool, mcr and Leeds. Few of the rest need alteration.

 

[NotATrainspott]

Mad John is revealing himself, once again. Despite arguing with him being a spectacularly futile exercise, he has made a point on which he is wrong but it is interesting nonetheless.

There is no need to run a HS2 track into Manchester at great expense, via 7.5 mile tunnel, for no gain. High-speed trains are slowing up way before they halt at a terminal, not need track that can take trains at 225mph.

HS2 London to the West Midlands Route Corridor Reviews - Arup

In the graphs of possible speeds along the route in the second half of the report you can see that they predict trains will reach 205km/h between Euston and Old Oak Common, only 9km away. It therefore seems rather sensible to build the new tunnel as trains will actually use it to reach high speeds only a couple of minutes after leaving Piccadilly.

Part of the success of the CrossCountry network is down to the increased frequency, so if you want to cut that to release paths, you will be undoing a lot of the good work that went on in the last 10-15 years.

If you want to increase XC services to 400m long, you will need major revamps at many stations en route, unless SDO is extensively used at every station, which is never a preferred option.



That is all fine in an ideal world, nevertheless...

The most sensible solution for the CrossCountry network is for the Birmingham HS2 spur to be extended towards Bristol with an underground station in the city centre. Once you've got 400m platforms in Bristol, the 400m platforms at the underground Birmingham station and those along the routes to Manchester and Leeds will be very useful indeed. With no more extensions northward, you can join a 200m set from Leeds to a 200m set from Newcastle, have it stop at every HS station to Bristol, then split it into a 200m set for South Wales and a 200m set for the West Country.

 

[LesF]

NottATrainSpot says "If we know that the eventual line to Scotland is going to run via Preston,......" Well, we don't know that. If anyone had bothered to calculate the cost of getting a 400km/h line through the hilly terrain north of Preston, they'd know that it will never be viable. East of the Pennines is much easier to negotiate and there are cities there that need to be joined while there's not much population north of Preston. Plus the fact that an east-of-Pennines route can put Glasgow and Edinburgh on the same path, making more trains/hr viable unlike HS2 which offers separate services from London to each of a very small number of cities. They plan to join and split at Carstairs to solve the problem that separate trains to Ed and Glas would be poorly loaded, but that introduces delay (until we learn to join and split trains on the move - that really would be world leading, unlike trying to go faster than anyone else. We join and split space vehicles at 18,000mph, aligning them in 3 dimensions, so we must be able to align trains in one dimension at 400km/h once we dispense with drivers).

 

[NotATrainspott]

NottATrainSpot says "If we know that the eventual line to Scotland is going to run via Preston,......" Well, we don't know that. If anyone had bothered to calculate the cost of getting a 400km/h line through the hilly terrain north of Preston, they'd know that it will never be viable. East of the Pennines is much easier to negotiate and there are cities there that need to be joined while there's not much population north of Preston. Plus the fact that an east-of-Pennines route can put Glasgow and Edinburgh on the same path, making more trains/hr viable unlike HS2 which offers separate services from London to each of a very small number of cities. They plan to join and split at Carstairs to solve the problem that separate trains to Ed and Glas would be poorly loaded, but that introduces delay (until we learn to join and split trains on the move - that really would be world leading, unlike trying to go faster than anyone else. We join and split space vehicles at 18,000mph, aligning them in 3 dimensions, so we must be able to align trains in one dimension at 400km/h once we dispense with drivers).

East of the Pennines is much easier to negotiate, yes, but that wonderful ease runs out at Newcastle. Running from Newcastle to Scotland will either require running through the middle of a National Park, along a route which has never seen major infrastructure due to its extreme hilliness, or a route that will be so much longer that the cheaper cost per kilometre is wiped out completely.

With a journey time to Glasgow and Edinburgh of just above two hours, there will no challenge in filling the 200m set to each that needs to split. Remember that the Edinburgh services will replace the fast East Coast services, so the numbers will be significantly higher through Preston than they are at the moment.

Running via Edinburgh adds billions to the cost because you then need to build three high speed approaches into Scottish cities rather than just two, and since getting one high speed approach into Edinburgh is going to be challenge enough I think the cost for two will be even more spectacular. At the same time, you then inevitably add around half an hour to any Glasgow journey times, as the journey between the two will be around 25 minutes on the high speed track and a few minutes will be needed to split the two services. That is, unless you decide to split the trains further away and approach Edinburgh from the West, which then improves nothing for Glasgow passengers and makes things worse for Edinburgh ones. For E&G HSR services to be worthwhile, it is necessary to approach Glasgow from the east and Edinburgh from the west, so that might be quite a dogleg.

An approach like what you suggest works for any future line to South Wales as both Swansea and Cardiff will be necessary to fill any high speed trains. Glasgow and Edinburgh alone are large and important enough to fill their own trains.

The line north of Preston simply needs to follow the M6/M74/WCML corridor, which has approximately zero population density but great construction access and a large amount of pre-existing blight.

 

[Max]

I've had to delete some posts from this thread. Please could we put an end to the petty bickering and name calling? Of course, it's completely fine to disagree with somebody's views but I do feel that certain people are deliberately trying to wind others up. We're all adults here, so let's keep it nice? Thanks!

 

[HSTEd]

FACT... 35 years ago the UK promoted London to be a world-class mega city. There is only NYC and London. They succeeded at the expense of all others. 35 years ago it looked like London would decline rapidly. The city was a mess. Large parts of the city were derelict. The place was littered with rubbish bags as the Tories were controlling the place (Thatcher was in charge) would not pay for proper rubbish collection.

The 40s-80s period was just a blip, caused by the overhang from war damage.
London was always going to reassert itself.
And Thatcher was not in Charge of London for the 80s.... Ken Livingstone was for a large part of it.

Some wimps said that about fighting Nazis.

And those people were idiots - if you actually take a look at the economic and production figures the Germans never had a chance.
It was just surprising how well they did before they were crushed by superior industrial capacity. Even without America it was simply a matter of time before they were defeated.
With America the Germans should just have surrendered in 1941 and saved everyone a lot of lives and money.

Insane is it? CC can be stretched to 400m as well. Man Picc can be extended to take 400m trains CC or HS2 on CC track. Running HS2 into Mcr through a 7.5 mile tunnel is economic madness. It is wasting money that can be used on regional and local rail.

So instead of a 7.5 mile tunnel you are proposing a total reconstruction of the classic line approaches to support routing 9-10 400m trains per hour across the throat to reach the line to Stockport/Airport/Crewe.
And you will have to do all that with the station open.

I doubt you will save much money for your regional and local rail improvements.
And even at 400m the CC trains will not have anything like the capacity of a 400m Captive set.

Driverless trains run on the DLR despite unions.

DLR was a newbuild system - now try doing this on your classic routes on the conventional railway.

Splitting trains to run into two platforms is easy.

And yet noone does this on a high speed system anywhere in the world.

Manchester does not need a full high-speed line to to the city. It does not need one from the Crewe Hub either. A lot of money for a minute gain in time.

As I demonstrated it is actually 20 minutes gain in time, since you avoid the mass of local trains and constrained capacity in the Manchester approach.

The only way Mcr would need a high-speed HS2 line into the city is if HS3 is high-speed all the way, then it can use this line as the access.

Which is actually the scheme I believe will be proposed.
Manc Airport as the core of the system.

 

[UrbanWorld]

The 40s-80s period was just a blip, caused by the overhang from war damage.
London was always going to reassert itself.

Only at taxpayers expense. They have a transports network other UK cities can't even dream of.

And Thatcher was not in Charge of London for the 80s.... Ken Livingstone was for a large part of it.

Thatcher was in charge from 79-80 when the city was a complete mess. Schipol was in a position to steal trade from Heathrow and Paris and Frankfurt were to finish off the financial sector. The docks were a wasteland. Only taxpayers money could save the city.

if you actually take a look at the economic and production figures the Germans never had a chance.
It was just surprising how well they did before they were crushed by superior industrial capacity. Even without America it was simply a matter of time before they were defeated.
With America the Germans should just have surrendered in 1941 and saved everyone a lot of lives and money.

One of the few sensible things you have ever said.

I am saying extend Picc plaforms or have 400m trains use two platforms the rest is fine.

Regional and local rail is where improvements are needed ass that is where the demand is and where the economy will be assisted in promotion.

400m CC trains will hold a lot of people.

1hr 20mins from London to mcr is not slow.

HS3 is the core. MAN airport is aside show. It is supposed to service the North West not the south.

 

[GrimsbyPacer]

It looks like UrbanWorld and HSTEd are arch enemies!

I haven't used the West Coast mainline south of Stoke ever.
Is it too slow for people's demands anx is it crowded?
The timetable looks to have some room left for more trains to me.

I have to say HS2 in my opinion will be very bad.
It may mean fewer trains at some stations, it has poor connectivity and it will end up being for rich bankers to have homes far away rather than normal people. How will it help the North at all?

 

[NotATrainspott]

It looks like UrbanWorld and HSTEd are arch enemies!

I haven't used the West Coast mainline south of Stoke ever.
Is it too slow for people's demands anx is it crowded?
The timetable looks to have some room left for more trains to me.

I have to say HS2 in my opinion will be very bad.
It may mean fewer trains at some stations, it has poor connectivity and it will end up being for rich bankers to have homes far away rather than normal people. How will it help the North at all?

For better or worse, HS2 will make Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds and Liverpool considerably closer to the centre of London. Each of these cities has the necessary size to benefit strongly from it, as it would never be possible for these to become mere commuter cities for people to work in London.

If you look at places like Reading, Oxford or Cambridge, all of them have extremely good connections to London which have allowed them to build up and retain people as they were able to commute into the city everyday. However, as the number of people doing that increases, the in-built appeal of each of them to attract their own new jobs and investment starts to make them more and more important to their surrounding regions to the point where they can themselves sustain similar sorts of jobs as London and their own commuter belts. This is one of the reasons the new East-West Rail project is so heavily promoted, as it will allow other areas out from London to access these new economic hubs.

This is not dissimilar to what is happening within the M25, where the new 2050 London infrastructure plan is based considerably around the outer hubs of Old Oak Common, Stratford and Canary Wharf (I would include Croydon in that group as well, actually). Improving these areas helps to relieve some pressure off the existing core in Zone 1 without actually detracting from it, resulting in a net positive effect for the city and for the country. This is only possible because of the improvements being made in transport, with Crossrail enabling not only OOC, Stratford and Canary Wharf but Reading as well, while Cambridge and Croydon will both benefit from Thameslink. The effect of Crossrail 2 is that it will likely stimulate similar growth around Tottenham Hale and in the south west as well, possibly around Clapham Junction.

With HS2, that effect of economic improvement can continue well beyond the South East. This is not only due to the reduced journey times but will be a consequence of the massively enhanced reliability of the line, as there will be little worry in peoples' minds that they will be inadvertently cut off from where they need to get to. When you're close to London, it's not as much of a worry because there are alternative means of transport, but when there is really no adequate alternative from the North today it does not help. This is one of the reasons why HS2 is best designed as a scheme segregated from the existing lines, even if were possible to keep journey times high by re-using existing infrastructure wherever possible (e.g. the southern approach to Manchester). The scheme is by no means complete, with captive extensions to Liverpool, Scotland and Newcastle still on the list of things to do, but there is only so much that can be planned and budgeted at one time.

Just as East-West Rail will massively improve the situation in the current outer-London hubs, the idea of 'HS3' will improve the situation across the Northern cities. Liverpool, Manchester and Leeds on their own may be able to do well once connected to Birmingham and London by HSR, but once they are properly connected together they will do even better. If there is something that might not be as ideal as everything else, it is that the future for the towns and villages around and between Manchester and others is likely to be as dormitory communities for the major city hubs in the way that London suburbs are. The sorts of enterprises which are genuinely sustainable in the United Kingdom today and into the future are not the sort which sustain the Victorian mill towns, but as these effects are already being seen by the mass exodus of their young and bright people, a future for them as dormitory communities for the Northern city centres cannot be the worst of all worlds. On a transport note, that means they will have to be served with good quality links, meaning electrification and proper trains, but this is already known and is already happening with Network Rail's plans for the future. The Pacers will be long gone by the opening date of HS2 in the most pessimistic projections.

 

[HSTEd]

Only at taxpayers expense. They have a transports network other UK cities can't even dream of.

Because it is and has always been far larger than any of those cities.

Are you really suggesting that Newcastle or Liverpool could justify spending that London could, even at its Nadir?
London may not have been as magnificent as it is now (or had been before) but it was still, by far, the greatest city on these islands.
Logic saying that it was decaying and should have been abandoned is the sort of logic that would have left Liverpool to the fate of Detroit after the Toxteth riots rather than pouring in investment.

Thatcher was in charge from 79-80 when the city was a complete mess. Schipol was in a position to steal trade from Heathrow and Paris and Frankfurt were to finish off the financial sector. The docks were a wasteland. Only taxpayers money could save the city.

And it was still the greatest City in Britain - Liverpool wasn't doing much better by this time. And it received bucket-loads of taxpayers money to save it.

I am saying extend Picc plaforms or have 400m trains use two platforms the rest is fine.

You can't practically extend the Picc platforms, the ones on the west side of the station are hemmed in by the through lines to Oxford Road and the ones on the east would cause difficulties in working trains across the throat without choking the whole thing up.
You have to dive under the throat to reach the only space available for new platforms, or even for practical extensions, (on the east side) from the routes CC trains would have to take towards Crewe.
Once you have a diveunder tunnel you might as well extend the length of the boring machine drives all the way out of the city, it will simplify spoil disposal and not increase costs that much. After all you will already have paid for the TBMs and the access sites (one of which will get cheaper since it will be on the edge of the city).

Regional and local rail is where improvements are needed ass that is where the demand is and where the economy will be assisted in promotion.

And yet you won't save any money for regional rail because you are proposing a colossal station reconstruction on par with Euston's - just to save a 7.5 mile tunnel and some greenfield station development.
That is far lower risk and likely to be lower cost once disruption charges are taken into account.

400m CC trains will hold a lot of people.

Not as many, as cheaply as a 400m captive set could.
You will still need the same number of staff/other costs but have 30% less passengers.

1hr 20mins from London to mcr is not slow.

In HSR terms it is - You will increase operating costs by 30% due to having to have more trainsets in circulation, you will constrain future demand growth by having absolutely no reserve of additional capacity to use up over any portion of the route - and you may not succeed in generating additional demand growth as you will have sufficient journey times to exclude commuter use.

It all adds up.

HS3 is the core. MAN airport is aside show. It is supposed to service the North West not the south.

MAN airport will be the core of HS3.
It has the connection to central Manchester, it is a logical place for a Liverpool HSL to break off HS2, giving it HS3 and its captive connection with one line. It then becomes a logical position to start the Transpennine route, allowing high speed transit from Liverpool direct to Leeds.
It becomes the Clapham Junction of British High Speed Rail.

 

[jon0844]

For better or worse, HS2 will make Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds and Liverpool considerably closer to the centre of London.

I do actually think it will help the other way too, or at least I hope so. I can see that some firms will be in a better position to relocate a lot of staff away from London, but still be closely connected. Why not take advantage of the skills based outside of the capital, along with the reduced leasing costs (and I guess even pay).

There's also the increase in leisure travel, including day trips, made possible by faster travel times and more comfort when actually in transit.

I know we will have some stock that has to be used on old lines, but I do think a lot of people fail to realise that there's the potential for far more spacious and comfortable trains than we have today. Another reason for building new lines, not upgrading old ones.

 

[AM9]

I do actually think it will help the other way too, or at least I hope so. I can see that some firms will be in a better position to relocate a lot of staff away from London, but still be closely connected. Why not take advantage of the skills based outside of the capital, along with the reduced leasing costs (and I guess even pay).

There's also the increase in leisure travel, including day trips, made possible by faster travel times and more comfort when actually in transit.

I know we will have some stock that has to be used on old lines, but I do think a lot of people fail to realise that there's the potential for far more spacious and comfortable trains than we have today. Another reason for building new lines, not upgrading old ones.

Maybe the enthusiasm for CC trains as a kludge for anything but the most essential services will wane when the Eurostar 374s have been experienced.