We need High speed Rail, but Is HS2 really Needed?

[DavidGrain]

When the WCML was upgraded, it was supposed to be upgraded to 140mph and Pendos are designed for that speed but the project was cut back to 125mph as a cost saving measure. The minimum curve radius for HS2 trains is 7km which means that lines have to be a straight as possible which has caused many towns to complain that they will not have a convenient HS2 station.

 

[PR1Berske]

And the fact that every piece of literature since shows at least 20 min saving is irrelevant?

Okay, lets say it's 20 minutes. Is that worth £40bn+ for a line into Euston which reduces direct services from major towns and cities?


I'd rather invest in the regions than London Euston, though I've said this plenty of times on here.

 

[Adsy125]

Okay, lets say it's 20 minutes. Is that worth £40bn+ for a line into Euston which reduces direct services from major towns and cities?


I'd rather invest in the regions than London Euston, though I've said this plenty of times on here.

But HS2 will vastly improve the inter regional service by allowing paths to be available on the WCML for more semi fast services!

 

[jyte]

I'd rather invest in the regions than London Euston, though I've said this plenty of times on here.

Totally agree. That being said, having not done a real cost/benefit analysis on HS2 I can't comment on whether it's value for money. In the short term (sub 10 years) I'm willing to bet no.

But if HS2 is what kick starts major regional transport improvements is it worth it? To me, definitely.

 

[PR1Berske]

But HS2 will vastly improve the inter regional service by allowing paths to be available on the WCML for more semi fast services!

The argument shifts every time. Either the classic line will be reduced or it'll be improved. Different people make different cases, even in this thread!

 

[Adsy125]

The argument shifts every time. Either the classic line will be reduced or it'll be improved. Different people make different cases, even in this thread!

I don't think you're reading it the way I am. Long distance traffic will move to HS2, speeding up Intercity services. This will free up more paths on the WCML for semi-fast trains, improving connectivity on the WCML. A few places may have slightly slower but more frequent trains as a consequence. However the majority of places will benefit from faster or more frequent trains.

 

[NSEFAN]

The argument shifts every time. Either the classic line will be reduced or it'll be improved. Different people make different cases, even in this thread!

It's possible for both these things to be true. A station could lose its 2 tph expresses but instead gain 4tph semi fast services. Whether that's an improvement or not will depend on who you ask. I'd argue that more trains is most definitely an improvement, given the point of public transport is to be a reliable turn-up-and-go service.

 

[Ianno87]

The argument shifts every time. Either the classic line will be reduced or it'll be improved. Different people make different cases, even in this thread!

Likely same number of trains on the classic lines (give or take). Just doing different things and connecting places differently to today.

Likely nothing is set in stone yet, as even Phase 1 is still 8 years away (15 years for full Phase 2)!

 

[jfisher21]

Seems like Coventry may be the biggest loser, I cannot see 3 fast and 3 stopping services to London per hour surviving post HS2

 

[jyte]

Seems like Coventry may be the biggest loser, I cannot see 3 fast and 3 stopping services to London per hour surviving post HS2

I suspect you're right. Maybe 1 fast 390 skipping Northampton, 1 fast 350 skipping Northampton and 2 semi fast...but that's probably still too many trains.

If all current WC terminus destinations have their current classic offering approx halved but all stop at MKC, Rugby and Watford, you'd have a major service increase at those four stations. And international will mostly be replaced by b-ham interchange, which just leaves Coventry...wonder if the advice will be to take train north to international and change!

 

[AM9]

The argument shifts every time. Either the classic line will be reduced or it'll be improved. Different people make different cases, even in this thread!

The classic line will become part of an integrated WCML, i.e. it will contribute to services from and to all parts that it currently serves. The main difference will be that inter-city services, (as in London-Birmingham-Manchester-Liverpool-Glasgow-Edinburgh) will not clutter up the fast lines on classic routes. Those places that aren't served by the inter-city services will still get regular services in paths created by the removal of the inter-city trains. The express services that serve those non-HS2 stops will also be able to make stops at stations that in the last few years, have been unable to benefit from faster trains because the fastest IC trains have used that capacity.
Now, is how it might work: Anybody wanting to get to London from say, Lancaster, Blackpool or Preston would normally be advised to travel to Crewe for example and then board a HS2 train to London/Birmingham etc.. That's fine as even over that journey, end-to-end-travel times would be less they are today.
If a passenger for some reason chooses not to travel on HS2 (never, ever, use HS2, not a single inch of track or a square centimetre of rolling stock), they would need to continue south beyond Crewe on the classic route maybe to Stafford or even as far as Birmingham on a train that serves all of the stations that themselves need trainsn to get their passengers to London, (probably via HS2 from Birmingham interchange) so that passenger would them change to another non-HS2 train, probably stopping at Coventry, Rugby, MK, Watford Junction and eventually arriving in Euston. The journey would probably take over twice as long because the passenger didn't take the recommended route.
As I said, that would be like driving from Preston to London avoiding Motorways and taking the scenic route, something like this:
A6,A5185,A576,A5081,A56,A556,A553,A54,A34,A5148,A446,A45,B4429,A5,A5183,A5.
I'm sure that those local to South Lancashire could find better routes but my point is that travelling by non-recommended routes on roads or by rail and shunning infrastructure improvements will inevitably involve a much slower journey.

 

[The Planner]

They would only need to go as far as Preston, Id also gamble on Lancaster getting a stop in some trains.

 

[WideRanger]

Perhaps an interesting comparison is the various lines between the Tokyo areas and the Osaka areas in Japan. Originally the main line was the Tokaido Main Line, with the Chuo Main Line providing an alternative route. Particularly on the Tokaido, there was a busy mixture of long distance express services, local stopping services and freight. When the Tokaido Shinkansen was built (it's instructive that Shinkansen merely means 'New Trunk Route' - there is no intrinsic sense of speed) it was built through less populated area because of the need to acquire land and to enable it to take a straighter alignment. As a result in some places it couldn't go into some of the City Centres (the most notable being Yokohama and Osaka, which are served by Shin-Yokohoma and Shin-Osaka respectively (the 'shin' bit meaning 'new').

What effect did it have? Well, firstly it released huge amount of capacity on the traditional lines. This meant that urban and suburban services were massively increased, with additional through trains being made possible where they weren't possible before. An example if this is the Tokaido Line and associated lines in the Tokyo area which have commuter services every 8 minutes off peak, with more (including semi fasts) at peak times. This spurred a massive increase in train ridership. Which then led to the spinning off of further services on previously freight only lines (The Yokosuka line is an example of this). This then allowed through trains from airports to run through those 'traditional lines' to a wider range of destinations, to the extent that now the vast majority of people travel to the airports in Tokyo by train. Very few of the (very large) population of the Tokyo Metropolitan area have a car, because they don't need them. And we can see the same effect at all of the other major cities on route (Yokohama, Nagoya, Kyoto, Osaka).

Another major effect it had was that the places where the new stations were built became new centres. Shin-Yokohama was agricultural. Now it is a major commercial centre, with the national football stadium. Shin Osaka was basically a slum. Now it is a major, and prosperous, centre.

The other major impact was to release paths for freight. The traditional lines are now packed with containerised freight trains, taking goods to an from the major ports and between the major urban areas.

It's still possible to take the traditional lines between Tokyo and Osaka. And it is a great fun 8-hour leisure journey, that I have done too many times. You meet a delightful mixture of people taking local journeys, trainspotters and retirees wanting to fill their days. But if you are busy, probably best to take the rather quicker bullet train.

None of the improvements in the services on the traditional lines (more local services and more freight by rail) and the development they opened up (bringing jobs and prosperity to otherwise deprived areas) would have been possible without the Shinkansen. Most of the people who benefit from the Shinkansen never travel on it.

 

[Bletchleyite]

None of the improvements in the services on the traditional lines (more local services and more freight by rail) and the development they opened up (bringing jobs and prosperity to otherwise deprived areas) would have been possible without the Shinkansen. Most of the people who benefit from the Shinkansen never travel on it.

And that'll be the same with HS2. The greatest beneficiaries will be the huge and increasing number of commuters to and from Milton Keynes (which will double in size again over the coming years), and those travelling from local IC stations on the WCML (Watford Jn, MKC, Rugby, Lichfield, Nuneaton, Tamworth etc) to places further afield. And drivers on the M1 and M6, who will encounter *slightly* fewer lorries as more freight can be taken by rail.

That it'll take 10 or 20 or whatever it is minutes fewer to go from Euston to Manchester is really just a happy side-effect and barely really registers in terms of the reasons why HS2 is needed. Even more so 5 or 10 minutes off Euston to Birmingham.

 

[PR1Berske]

Thank you for the replies, they are interesting to read and chin-stroke over. I may struggle to be won over to this scheme, but I do read the various arguments.

 

[Bald Rick]

Lots of other (functionally democratic) countries do have a similar kinda timeframe for major construction projects. HS2 taking approx a decade from conception to construction isn't any worse than Heathrow Terminal 5, or Brandenburg Airport in Berlin.

LGV Sud Est was 5 years from announcement to groundbreaking, and then 5 years from groundbreaking to opening.

In fairness the french seem quite fast once the diggers start...

Whilst this was true for the original LGV Sud Est, which is almost entirely in open country on easy terrain (no tunnels for example), four decades ago, it’s not the case for more recent LGVs. Typically it takes 5 years after an announcement (which itself may be several years in the planning) to gain approval, then another 5 years before construction starts. Believe it or not, we are now just about the quickest of the major economies when it comes to this sort of thing.

 

[jyte]

Whilst this was true for the original LGV Sud Est, which is almost entirely in open country on easy terrain (no tunnels for example), four decades ago, it’s not the case for more recent LGVs. Typically it takes 5 years after an announcement (which itself may be several years in the planning) to gain approval, then another 5 years before construction starts. Believe it or not, we are now just about the quickest of the major economies when it comes to this sort of thing.

Yes I know, hence my clarification through the phrase 'functionally democratic'. We have a process in this country that means you can't simply roll the bulldozers through someone's living room the day after a decision is made. But even China has (slowly) started to increase stakeholder engagement in major projects...slowly.

I think the California HSR project might have some interesting lessons for us to learn years in a few years in advance of HS2, things like mixing trains of different gauges (in their case floor heights), running high speed trains on classic lines. They started work about 3 years ago and already have some pretty impressive structures to show for that. It seems America has a similar attitude of 'yeah, but also no' to HSR that we have in this country..

 

[DanTrain]

Hi,

This is a genuine question as I'm not sure: what would be the cost of electrifying and 4-tracking both the Chiltern and the MML lines compared to HS2? If iut was significantly cheaper, you could put Birmingham trains on the Chiltern, freeing up space on the WCML and still get the improvements to Nottingham/Derby/Sheffield that HS2 brings.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Hi,

This is a genuine question as I'm not sure: what would be the cost of electrifying and 4-tracking both the Chiltern and the MML lines compared to HS2? If iut was significantly cheaper, you could put Birmingham trains on the Chiltern, freeing up space on the WCML and still get the improvements to Nottingham/Derby/Sheffield that HS2 brings.

While I don't think the high speed aspect of HS2 is that important, I think a reduction in speed would not be acceptable, so due to the formations that would be a non-starter.

WCML PUG (and the aborted 140mph PUG2) demonstrated how it is much easier and cheaper to build new than it is to upgrade an operating railway.

 

[DanTrain]

While I don't think the high speed aspect of HS2 is that important, I think a reduction in speed would not be acceptable, so due to the formations that would be a non-starter.

WCML PUG (and the aborted 140mph PUG2) demonstrated how it is much easier and cheaper to build new than it is to upgrade an operating railway.

I thought that might be the case. I don't think an upgraded and electrified Chiltern need be slower than the WCML, but I though it might be the case that a new line is simpler and possibly cheaper . Thanks!

 

[jyte]

I thought that might be the case. I don't think an upgraded and electrified Chiltern need be slower than the WCML, but I though it might be the case that a new line is simpler and possibly cheaper . Thanks!

I mean, the amount of work 4 tracking chiltern would essentially involve having to build a new 125mph alignment shadowing the entire line... at which point you're close to 'why don't we just build HS2?'.

 

[Geezertronic]

I thought that might be the case. I don't think an upgraded and electrified Chiltern need be slower than the WCML, but I though it might be the case that a new line is simpler and possibly cheaper . Thanks!

I suggest a new line would definitely be cheaper. Upgrading existing lines would be a huge amount more disruptive to passengers due to the amount of line closures that would be required to upgrade an actively used line, not to mention the extended length of time it would take to do it because of the consideration to running some semblance of service - weekend services would disappear. For those of us who remember the WCML upgrade project, that would just be an absolute nightmare. It's not as simple as closing a lane or two on a motorway and dropping the speed down to 40-50mph for months on end unfortunately

**Edited as I misunderstood the quoted post**

 

[Clip]

Hi,

This is a genuine question as I'm not sure: what would be the cost of electrifying and 4-tracking both the Chiltern and the MML lines compared to HS2? If iut was significantly cheaper, you could put Birmingham trains on the Chiltern, freeing up space on the WCML and still get the improvements to Nottingham/Derby/Sheffield that HS2 brings.

Youd have to straighten at High Wycombe for any sort of benefits and that could be a problem

 

[jyte]

Youd have to straighten at High Wycombe for any sort of benefits and that could be a problem

I don't even know how you'd do that.

 

[Bald Rick]

I don't even know how you'd do that.

Build a new line through the Chilterns. If only HS2 had thought of that.

 

[Clip]

Build a new line through the Chilterns. If only HS2 had thought of that.

We have a winner.

 

[quantinghome]

Hi,

This is a genuine question as I'm not sure: what would be the cost of electrifying and 4-tracking both the Chiltern and the MML lines compared to HS2? If iut was significantly cheaper, you could put Birmingham trains on the Chiltern, freeing up space on the WCML and still get the improvements to Nottingham/Derby/Sheffield that HS2 brings.

This was looked at a while ago:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/rail-alternatives-to-hs2

 

[Doomotron]

Somebody said earlier in this thread about a French spokesperson saying "If we want to drain the swamp we won't consult the frogs" and I totally agree with Mr Croissant here. I think we should stop messing around, forget the precious old trees and build HS2. And 3. And maybe even 4.

Spoiler: About The Environment

To be honest I think HS2 will improve the looks of the fields it will rip up, like the Shinkansen. Beautiful.

If we abandon plans because of protecting the environment or keeping noise low then we won't get anywhere. Mr Grayling, get the diggers.

 

[HSTEd]

How much does cut and cover tunnel cost in open field compared to surface running?

That could be considered to be the cost of getting the project done quickly.

 

[DanTrain]

This was looked at a while ago:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/rail-alternatives-to-hs2

Thanks for that! Some of the suggestions on there are truly worthy of some from this forum, but I think it proves that HS2 does just make more sense!