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Birmingham and HS2

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deltic

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There is a strong likelihood that in 10 years time Birmingham Curzon Street and Birmingham Interchange HS2 stations will be open for business. Given Curzon Street will be adjacent to Moor Street (which potentially has space for 2 extra platforms) and there will be some sort of people mover from Birmingham International to Birmingham Interchange what changes in local services would be possible to improve links to the HS2 stations.

The Camp Hill Chord is the most obvious and has been covered on this forum recently. Others which may be viable include direct links from Shrewswbury/Wolverhampton and Walsall to Birmingham International via Bescot.

Any other ideas?
 
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Kettledrum

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Great question.

There really needs to be a masterplan to ensure the access to the benefits to the new HS2 station in Birmingham are spread far and wide.

There is potential for a whole new S-Bahn type system to be built to converge upon Moor Street station

It could be really ambitious and visionary with more local services from:

Solihull - current route has space for 4 tracks
Tamworth and the Fort
Sutton Park
Walsall
Camp Hill Line
Cannock

The camp line chords would be a must though. There's quite a few freight or dis-used lines that could be used for this kind of network.

For even more economic regeneration, we would need to find a way to connect new areas to the HS2 station. Dudley and Wednesbury for example.
 
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AndrewE

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It's all a tragic mis-spending of money. I agree we need more capacity, maybe high speed too, but look at Antwerp (through lines tunnelled at low level through the existing station) and Lille and see what could have been done with HS1 at St Pancras...
and then imagine HS2 going underground through Birmingham Central Low Level - escalators to both New St and Moor St - and on at speed without reversing to connect to useful destinations around the rest of the country. No way does Brum need a fast shuttle just to London. What a waste of public transport investment... At least Leeds HS2 might not be a terminal station now.
 
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The Planner

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The why's where's of HS2 as a scheme have been done to death.

As for the suggestions around Brum, 4 tracking up the Solihull corridor won't happen, there have long been plans for Tamworth locals (no chance of the Fort though), the Camp Hill chords are likely. Cannock should get more once its wired and Sutton Park will probably get Aldridge and that is it.
 

deltic

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The why's where's of HS2 as a scheme have been done to death.

As for the suggestions around Brum, 4 tracking up the Solihull corridor won't happen, there have long been plans for Tamworth locals (no chance of the Fort though), the Camp Hill chords are likely. Cannock should get more once its wired and Sutton Park will probably get Aldridge and that is it.

If the scale of development planned around Curzon St happens there will likely be a large increase in demand for services into Moor St. Interested to know why you discount 4 tracking to Solihull - is it due to cost, lack of space given modern requirements, the additional capacity is not needed or it would not actually provide much new capacity?

HS2 plans for a people mover from Birmingham Interchange to International would seem to limit the potential for large numbers of passengers changing between these stations which would seem to rule out running direct services via Aston to Wolverhapton/Shrewsbury or Walsall from International
 

The Planner

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The people mover is more for airport passengers, i cannot see it being a way of people transferring from classic to HS2 and unless you can find a substantial amount of replacement car parking then you wont get 4 tracking back north of Dorridge.
 

Harbornite

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The why's where's of HS2 as a scheme have been done to death.

As for the suggestions around Brum, 4 tracking up the Solihull corridor won't happen, there have long been plans for Tamworth locals (no chance of the Fort though), the Camp Hill chords are likely. Cannock should get more once its wired and Sutton Park will probably get Aldridge and that is it.

There doesn't seem to be any plans to re-quadruple that line, probably because there's room for longer trains and car parks occupy the trackbed in places. As for the Camp hill chord, there was an issue a few years back when the land was sold off.
 

The Planner

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Camp Hill Chords are probably the most likely of the lot from what I hear, land can be bought back if the will is really there.
 

Senex

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It's all a tragic mis-spending of money. I agree we need more capacity, maybe high speed too, but look at Antwerp (through lines tunnelled at low level through the existing station) and Lille and see what could have been done with HS1 at St Pancras...
and then imagine HS2 going underground through Birmingham Central Low Level - escalators to both New St and Moor St - and on at speed without reversing to connect to useful destinations around the rest of the country. No way does Brum need a fast shuttle just to London. What a waste of public transport investment... At least Leeds HS2 might not be a terminal station now.
How I agree with you -- and for Manchester and Leeds too. The HS2 planners seem to be stuck in the days when it was only London to Glasgow and London to Edinburgh that mattered and everywhere else of any importance (except Newcastle) could be left to branches, with the result that connections between those other places themselves and between them and Scotland have been pretty rubbish ever since. Look at the roundabout routes HS2 proposes for Birmingham to Manchester or Manchester to Scotland.
 

deltic

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The people mover is more for airport passengers, i cannot see it being a way of people transferring from classic to HS2 and unless you can find a substantial amount of replacement car parking then you wont get 4 tracking back north of Dorridge.

I see the people mover is meant to cope with 2100 passengers an hour and run every 3 mins but it is not clear what form it will take. My understanding was it that was originally envisaged to the same as the PRT system at Heathrow but this has been dropped and is more likely to be shuttles that operate between airport terminals.
 

The Planner

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Is that both ways so 4200? otherwise it is just 1050 in one direction at 20tph so 50 people per train. You are not going to need anything substantial to service that I would guess.
 

deltic

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Is that both ways so 4200? otherwise it is just 1050 in one direction at 20tph so 50 people per train. You are not going to need anything substantial to service that I would guess.

Like many items relating to HS2 it is not clear - I assume in both directions as the passenger forecasts has some 1500 people in the peak hour in both directions using it in 2041
 

HSTEd

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How I agree with you -- and for Manchester and Leeds too. The HS2 planners seem to be stuck in the days when it was only London to Glasgow and London to Edinburgh that mattered and everywhere else of any importance (except Newcastle) could be left to branches, with the result that connections between those other places themselves and between them and Scotland have been pretty rubbish ever since. Look at the roundabout routes HS2 proposes for Birmingham to Manchester or Manchester to Scotland.

If HS2 really does go north of Wigan, then all you need to get a high speed alignment from Manchester to Scotland is a chord south of Manchester Airport so trains can run out through the airport and change onto the line heading north.
At a 230km/h [minimum at junctions] it is not going to be much slower than crawling out of Northern Manchester on the classic line, which is the only other practical alternative. It will eat up the ~10km between Picadilly and the Airport in under five minutes, and be passing the latitude of Picadilly heading north a few minutes after that, already at high speed.
 

snowball

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If HS2 really does go north of Wigan, then all you need to get a high speed alignment from Manchester to Scotland is a chord south of Manchester Airport so trains can run out through the airport and change onto the line heading north.
There is such a chord in the plans, unless it's been deleted since I looked at them. To be geographically accurate, it's west of the airport rather than south. There's a triangular junction with its east, south and north corners respectively near the crossings of the A556, A50 and Bridgewater Canal. I think the chord in question was said to be for movements between Manchester and the rolling stock depot, but there's also been speculation that it could be used for Manchester-Scotland.
 
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6Gman

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The last time I travelled between Warwick and Moor Street I was struck b y how (comparatively) easy it would be to restore 4 tracks - and how useful it would be, given the mix of fast trains, stopping trains and freight.

It would certainly be on my list of "Schemes worthy of serious assessment".
 

Ianno87

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The last time I travelled between Warwick and Moor Street I was struck b y how (comparatively) easy it would be to restore 4 tracks - and how useful it would be, given the mix of fast trains, stopping trains and freight.

It would certainly be on my list of "Schemes worthy of serious assessment".

But HS2 would *probably* allow the Newcastle-Reading XC service (or its future equivalent) to be permanently re-routed via Coventry instead of Solihull. This caters for the fast Brum-Oxford/Reading XC market.

So then you're only 4-tracking for the benefit of the segregation of today's LM (Slow) and Chiltern (Fast/Semi-fast) services. And you don't make a good business case for 4 tracks by speeding up London-Birmingham Chiltern services, which will be nowhere near competitive on journey times with HS2. So it won't stack up very well..
 

6Gman

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But HS2 would *probably* allow the Newcastle-Reading XC service (or its future equivalent) to be permanently re-routed via Coventry instead of Solihull. This caters for the fast Brum-Oxford/Reading XC market.

So then you're only 4-tracking for the benefit of the segregation of today's LM (Slow) and Chiltern (Fast/Semi-fast) services. And you don't make a good business case for 4 tracks by speeding up London-Birmingham Chiltern services, which will be nowhere near competitive on journey times with HS2. So it won't stack up very well..

But with a good trailing wind you could get it done by c.2022 (pre-HS2) and don't forget freight.
 

The Planner

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But what extra trains would you use it for? It all fits currently and even more so once the XC is out of the mix. Not aware of any extra demand for Dorridge and intermediate stations. Freight on its own wouldnt get it past a fag packet.
 

Ianno87

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But with a good trailing wind you could get it done by c.2022 (pre-HS2) and don't forget freight.

So this expensive infrastructure would have precisely 4 whole years of usefulness before HS2 comes along anyway?
 

Chester1

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So this expensive infrastructure would have precisely 4 whole years of usefulness before HS2 comes along anyway?

And it wouldn't achieve much in that time. Chiltern needs extra capacity in the south not north to run faster and higher frequency services.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
The cheapest option would be to obtain and refurbish Mark III coaches when they are replaced by IEP + buy some more 68s and use them on all fast and semi fast services. This would alow cascading the 170s? to replace some of the class 160s? Which would increase the proportion of 100mph stock. Much more expensive to run but much more cost effective than 4 tracking.
 
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HSTEd

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The Chiltern long distance market will not survive the arrival of HS2 however.
If any low cost slower service appears it will inevitably be on the WCML, which has a variety of operational advantages. 110mph Class 350s will cost far less to operate than the stock that Chiltern would have to use.

Money on this sort of thing would probably be better spent spending more money to move some trains out of the existing Birmingham international into a new station directly adjacent to the HS2 one.
 

The Planner

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As long as it isnt the laughable Hampton in Arden to Whitacre link, always raises a chuckle that one. International can cope pretty well as it is and is likely to post 2026.
 

HSTEd

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Probably would take the form of a tunnelled kink in the line between Hampton in Arden and Marston Green.
Objective would be as close to cross platform interchanges between classic trains and HS2 trains as possible.
 

Harbornite

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The Chiltern long distance market will not survive the arrival of HS2 however.
If any low cost slower service appears it will inevitably be on the WCML, which has a variety of operational advantages. 110mph Class 350s will cost far less to operate than the stock that Chiltern would have to use.

Money on this sort of thing would probably be better spent spending more money to move some trains out of the existing Birmingham international into a new station directly adjacent to the HS2 one.


Why bother building a new station for trains on the existing line? Just keep Bham international as it is.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
The last time I travelled between Warwick and Moor Street I was struck b y how (comparatively) easy it would be to restore 4 tracks - and how useful it would be, given the mix of fast trains, stopping trains and freight.

It would certainly be on my list of "Schemes worthy of serious assessment".

The trackbed is blocked by carparks in places and demand for extra capacity would be limited because there aren't any forecast rises in freight and chiltern could lengthen trains IF there was demand.
 

Chester1

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The Chiltern long distance market will not survive the arrival of HS2 however.
If any low cost slower service appears it will inevitably be on the WCML, which has a variety of operational advantages. 110mph Class 350s will cost far less to operate than the stock that Chiltern would have to use.

Money on this sort of thing would probably be better spent spending more money to move some trains out of the existing Birmingham international into a new station directly adjacent to the HS2 one.

Infrastructure upgrades near Birmingham probably aren't neccessary. I agree the Chiltern fast market will die in 2026 but I think it will grow allot before then. At current growth rates, there isn't enough capacity on the WCML between Northampton area to London to last until then, but there will probably be allot of spare capacity afterwards. I think the answer is for Chiltern to take as much London-Birmingham fast services as possible until 2026. Correct me if I am wrong but isn't Chilterns bottle neck south not north? Would switching as many as poaaible or even all stopping servces to 100mph be enough to create paths for an hourly London to Birmgham non stop service?

Post HS2 I think you are absoutely right about the 350s. I don't think retaining some Pendalinos for WCML services would be able to compete on cost against using 350s. Pendalinos win now because of speed, an advantage that it will lose, both would be really slow vs HS2,.
 
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HSTEd

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Why bother building a new station for trains on the existing line? Just keep Bham international as it is.

Because a quick interchange between classic and HS2 services would be very useful for many travellers?
Would also permit people from non HS2 served destinations to have improved journey times to London.
 

Chester1

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Because a quick interchange between classic and HS2 services would be very useful for many travellers?
Would also permit people from non HS2 served destinations to have improved journey times to London.

Rough estimate of what the cost would be?
 

Harbornite

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Because a quick interchange between classic and HS2 services would be very useful for many travellers?
Would also permit people from non HS2 served destinations to have improved journey times to London.

But the new HS2 station will be located quite close to Bham intl, why go to the expense of building a new station for existing WCML services when you already have a station that is linked to the airport by monorail and will provide a quick interchange with HS2.
 

deltic

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The times I travel on Chiltern there appears to be relatively few Birmingham to London passengers. For intermediate stops those south of Warwick will presumably still find it faster on Chiltern. Those in Solihull will face a choice of going into Birmingham and crossing over to Curzon Street or driving to Interchange unless a new public transport link is provided.

Question for me is how do you provide decent links from say Wolverhampton or Walsall into HS2 - do you run direct connecting services via Aston to Birmingham International or improve interchange at Smethwick so people can travel on into Moor Street.

I see some have suggested new platforms on the Birmingham - Coventry line to provide a high level Curzon Street station to provide better connections with HS2 station which will presumably significantly impact on capacity into New Street
 
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