Why are people opposed to HS2? (And other HS2 discussion)

[si404]

Of course they are. Which is the point. No modern construction project would be allowed to encircle wildlife so it is unable to escape.

Which is why along a motorway was a non-starter - because they would have to do that!

If you cleared an island of inaccessibility of animals because they would be caged, then it's a net negative on the environment, a removal of habitat. HS2 people, when planning the route, saw the issues created by the design principles of HS1 and rejected those principles because of that.

This is an important point for the posters who don't understand why the high design speed is an issue.

It would be an issue if they chose one of the more expensive routes following a motorway corridor rather than a straighter more direct line through emptier space (and I believe over half the time difference between motorway corridors and the chosen one was the slower corners of those routes to minimise impact, with the other half being the ~10% longer route due to going an indirect route) and were still planning the more precise alignment...

As it is, the cost savings of slowing the line's minimum design speed down would be minimal and more than cancelled out by the need to redesign the route at places where it might be useful, consult on it, change construction contracts, etc, etc. And the capacity increase from slowing down (which was the start of this "we should make it slower" guff) has been shown to be nearly non-existent, unneeded and actually reliant on things that aren't line speed.

When people were told route 'X' was better than route 'Y' because it would save 6 minutes between Euston and Curzon Street their confusion is understandable now they are being told it isn't really about speed but is all about a capacity problem (remote from where they have chosen to live).

You forgot the price tags - that the other routes were more expensive as well as less beneficial. I put the costs and the journey times together in the same sentences.

Running along a motorway corridor had more track length and slower corners adding 13-14% more journey time (and thus decreasing the benefits*), and would just change the environmental impact from "the line is going really close to old trees and a knocking a few down" to "the line is going really close to houses and knocking a few down". That might have been acceptable (depending on whether we see ancient woodland and scenic views as worth more than houses in Luton), except they would have also cost 13-18% more as well.

Even if HS2 were more competent at communicating the case for the line, it's still the case that there's none so deaf as those who won't listen, none so blind as those who willfully won't see.

*After all, the most common lay complaint about HS2 is that it "only saves 20 minutes between London and Birmingham", which isn't true. We've seen more informed people here complain that 30 minutes (again less than the actual number) off a journey time to Scotland isn't worth it. If the figures were true, they would be valid arguments - the benefits aren't worth the cost. However, if we had 6 or 7 minutes longer journeys on phase 1, those untrue figures would actually be fairly near the mark. And, it ought to go without saying, but if we had a lower the line's speed (though it should be pointed out that phase 2a isn't much modified from when it was supposed that the fastest trains that would run on that alignment would be 125mph, maybe 140) this argument that doesn't save time would have even more clout. Speed is a benefit - it might not be the main purpose of the line to have Euston-Curzon Street a shorter journey than Euston-Chesham, but it is a useful thing to have.

 

[Esker-pades]

Take a holiday in Manchester. Get back to me on this subject.

Intelligent debate is great, but that comment is just pointless.


Take a holiday in Tring (or Berkhamstead, or Kings Langley, or Bletchley, etc., etc.). Get back to me on the subject....

See?

 

[jfowkes]

So if tilt is unnecessary to improve journey times to Scotland, why has so.mich time and effort being spent on track and trains which facilitate it ? Are you saying that the people who plan the railways might have got something wrong ?

It's only in the last few years that non-tilt technology (lighter, faster-accelerating trains) have caught up with tilting journey times.

 

[B&I]

Now you're back in the realms of 'HS2 isn't absolutely perfect in every regard so lets not build it'. Bottom line is, you can't build a line to *everywhere* in one go. Manchester is a significantly more important destination than Liverpool when viewed in terms of passenger numbers. It has a bigger combined population of city+surrounding-towns-in-catchment-area. It also has a much more important airport. So it makes sense to build a line there first. Personally, I very much hope that Liverpool will eventually get a high-speed link to HS2 (which could well happen as part of NPR), but the fact that it's not there from the start isn't a reason not to build HS2.

Imagine if people had decided not to build the original Liverpool and Manchester railway that kicked off the whole passenger railway revolution, just because it didn't serve - say - Leeds or Bradford or Birmingham... That's the logic of your argument.

If you actually bothered reading any of my posts, rather than putting in some cut and paste 'Manchester is the centre of the universe' stuff (presumably to explain why Manchester will have 6 times the capacity to London per hour that Liverpool will, or why it gets a Brum service with twice as many seats taking half the time when passenger numbers from both cities to Brum are similar), you will see that I am.not arguing against building anything, except (in the first instance) parts of the western leg of phase 2. But this sort of misrepresentation is standard among HS2 proponents - if you oppose any aspect of the current plan, you.must ve in favour of scrapping the whole thing.

 

[B&I]

Intelligent debate is great, but that comment is just pointless.


Take a holiday in Tring (or Berkhamstead, or Kings Langley, or Bletchley, etc., etc.). Get back to me on the subject....

See?

I must have somehow missed coverage of the near-total collapse in rail services around Tring and Berkhamstead since May 2018

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Another one who seems to think that an electrified line between the south west and Brum is the stuff of a mad man's dream.

I don't. I would love to see the Birmingham-Bristol line electrified. But you know what will happen if electrifying it (at a cost of several £bn) gets proposed as part of the HS2 plans (alongside - as a rough guess - let's say £5-£10 bn to build a through station at Birmingham and associated tunnels to connect to these electrified lines, plus the cost of additional rolling stock and whatever infrastructure improvements are required between Birmingham and Bristol to enable these new longer (and probably more frequent) trains. By the time you've finished, you've added at least another £20bn or so to the cost of HS2, and added several more years to the time to build it, and then it becomes more likely that nothing at all will get built.

As I keep saying: You can't build stuff to *everywhere* all in one go. You have to start somewhere and then expand from that as the things you've initially built prove themselves.

 

[Esker-pades]

I must have somehow missed coverage of the near-total collapse in rail services around Tring and Berkhamstead since May 2018

Here's the thread:
https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/lnr-new-wcml-timetable-may-2019-in-open-data-feeds.176894/

And the season ticket compensation from WMR & LNR:
http://news.wmtrains.co.uk/pressrel...railway-season-ticket-holders-in-2020-2956764

Compensation for West Midlands Railway and London Northwestern Railway season ticket holders in 2020

Season ticket holders, on West Midlands Railway (WMR) and London Northwestern Railway (LNR) services, will not have to pay the upcoming national fares rise. West Midlands Trains (WMT) has announced a discount on season tickets that more than covers the annual 2.8% increase.

Following a drop in train performance since May, WMT pledged to compensate passengers and have now announced this measure will take the form of a 3% reduction in the cost of weekly, monthly and annual season tickets, offsetting the upcoming national fares rise on Thursday 2 January 2020.

 

[B&I]

This doesn't need a through station though. With some additional link lines that might be added later, portions could split off and reverse to South West and South Coast destinations from the Curzon Street terminus. THey might even be loco-hauled over non-electrified lines in the shorter term until further electrification is completed. That's no reason not to build the initial network ASAP.


Again nothing prevents these in the future, but you have to start somewhere. As with the motorway network, you tend to start where the most demand is. HS2 does that. Traffic can still run through beyond via existing lines where capacity isn't such a problem.

Or you could build the network properly now rather than have some daft solution involving reversing at Curzon St.

Similarly, you could build 'NPR' first. It's not prevented by geography, technology etc. There's plenty of demand for a line using that route- much of it clogs roads across the north on a daily basis. It is politics which dictates that HS2 'must' be built first

 

[B&I]

Here's the thread:
https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/lnr-new-wcml-timetable-may-2019-in-open-data-feeds.176894/

And the season ticket compensation from WMR & LNR:
http://news.wmtrains.co.uk/pressrel...railway-season-ticket-holders-in-2020-2956764

Would you like to point me to the bit in that which says that the percentage of late and cancelled LNWR and Virgin / Avanti services over those lines has been greater than the corresponding percentages for Northern and TPE ?

 

[TrafficEng]

St Pancras, Thameslink, King's Cross, Euston and all their associated connections in one place.
I can't think of anywhere else in London that has that many connections in one place.

Stratford?

HS1, Crossrail, GEML, Lea Valley, North London (Overground), Central Line, Jubilee Line, plus DLR (x2)

(Have I missed any?)

 

[B&I]

I don't. I would love to see the Birmingham-Bristol line electrified. But you know what will happen if electrifying it (at a cost of several £bn) gets proposed as part of the HS2 plans (alongside - as a rough guess - let's say £5-£10 bn to build a through station at Birmingham and associated tunnels to connect to these electrified lines, plus the cost of additional rolling stock and whatever infrastructure improvements are required between Birmingham and Bristol to enable these new longer (and probably more frequent) trains. By the time you've finished, you've added at least another £20bn or so to the cost of HS2, and added several more years to the time to build it, and then it becomes more likely that nothing at all will get built.

As I keep saying: You can't build stuff to *everywhere* all in one go. You have to start somewhere and then expand from that as the things you've initially built prove themselves.

Why does it have to be part of the 'HS2 budget' ? Maybe it should be paid for by the government because it's needed anyway. And even if it's not currently affordable, wouldn't some passive provision on HS2 be sensible for the point when it is affordable ?

A problem with the cyrrnrr HS2 plan is that it maximises capacity along already well-served routes, reinforcing existing travel patterns. How does this promote growth of other ones, or improve their case for a similar degree of improvement ?

 

[158756]

Yes, but such a thing is not within the capability of existing technology since no high speed bi-mode exists in the world. Best available is a Spanish trainset that can only manage 250km/h which is far too slow.

And an upgrade to Bristol/Penzance would cost billions which would inevitably be added onto HS2's budget to attack the core scheme.

That no one's built a faster bi-mode doesn't necessarily mean it can't be done - it doesn't need to go any faster than an 80x on diesel, in fact in could be slower with not particularly ambitious electrification of the fastest bits. If you really wanted to, I doubt it's impossible to make an electric train do more than 250km/h just because of the weight of diesel/engines. Of course it is very possible the main reason no one has built such a train is because they've all taken a more sensible decision and either electrified where necessary or don't plan on such high speeds that a 250km/h train is impossible to path.

 

[B&I]

Because people who want to prevent HS2 from happening will then cheerfully add that project's budget to the HS2 total and scream about how the price has gone up another five billion or ten billion or whatever.
But will carefully avoid mentioning that the price has gone up because we are buying more.

Well perhaps if HS2's proponents were able to.put forward a coherent rationale for the project, rather than whinging because their opponents' PR is better, these problems might be overcome.

Here's a suggestion. Why not fit HS2 into a programme of improvement for all main lines, so that projects like Brum-south west improvement could be justified in their own terms rather than solely on the basis that they are adjuncts to HS2 ? A degree of mental.flexibility could work wonders with this.

 

[si404]

Because people who want to prevent HS2 from happening will then cheerfully add that project's budget to the HS2 total and scream about how the price has gone up another five billion or ten billion or whatever.
But will carefully avoid mentioning that the price has gone up because we are buying more.

And contractors then go "well the scheme is going to cost this much"

More-Andrew-than-Adonis really laid into his successor at the DfT when they quoted the P95 price instead of the P50 that had been used before - because it made it more likely (and thus moving the P50 cost) that the price would be more like the P95 price than the P50 one - the construction industry isn't dumb when it comes to providing quotes: if the budget envelope looks bigger, they'd charge more. So this "HS2 will cost £100bn" malarky is a good way to make sure it does.

It should be remembered that TfL need to build Crossrail 2 or something like it for London's housing plan (in the Lea Valley) and to deal with underlying traffic growth on the tube. It's something that needs to happen with or without HS2 phase 2. TfL only tied CR2 to HS2's eastern leg because they need Central Government money, and the DfT (despite the WAML and SWML benefiting rather a lot from CR2) weren't offering too much. Unlike stuff such as the short NET extension at Toton, it's not a scheme reliant on HS2 for a case, nor is it necessary for city distribution from HS2 as Euston is very well connected already. The issue is that you might have to wait for a couple of trains to pass to get on in the peak direction due to all the Londoners. Even at Euston tube, HS2 isn't expected to dump that large a proportion of passengers on it. Yet because TfL tied the schemes together (loosely) to try and get funding the umpty billion for that got added to HS2's budget by non-official sources that then became the assumed figure by everyone because it was the only one being heard.

 

[B&I]

Which is why along a motorway was a non-starter - because they would have to do that!

If you cleared an island of inaccessibility of animals because they would be caged, then it's a net negative on the environment, a removal of habitat. HS2 people, when planning the route, saw the issues created by the design principles of HS1 and rejected those principles because of that.
It would be an issue if they chose one of the more expensive routes following a motorway corridor rather than a straighter more direct line through emptier space (and I believe over half the time difference between motorway corridors and the chosen one was the slower corners of those routes to minimise impact, with the other half being the ~10% longer route due to going an indirect route) and were still planning the more precise alignment...

As it is, the cost savings of slowing the line's minimum design speed down would be minimal and more than cancelled out by the need to redesign the route at places where it might be useful, consult on it, change construction contracts, etc, etc. And the capacity increase from slowing down (which was the start of this "we should make it slower" guff) has been shown to be nearly non-existent, unneeded and actually reliant on things that aren't line speed.You forgot the price tags - that the other routes were more expensive as well as less beneficial. I put the costs and the journey times together in the same sentences.

Running along a motorway corridor had more track length and slower corners adding 13-14% more journey time (and thus decreasing the benefits*), and would just change the environmental impact from "the line is going really close to old trees and a knocking a few down" to "the line is going really close to houses and knocking a few down". That might have been acceptable (depending on whether we see ancient woodland and scenic views as worth more than houses in Luton), except they would have also cost 13-18% more as well.

Even if HS2 were more competent at communicating the case for the line, it's still the case that there's none so deaf as those who won't listen, none so blind as those who willfully won't see.

*After all, the most common lay complaint about HS2 is that it "only saves 20 minutes between London and Birmingham", which isn't true. We've seen more informed people here complain that 30 minutes (again less than the actual number) off a journey time to Scotland isn't worth it. If the figures were true, they would be valid arguments - the benefits aren't worth the cost. However, if we had 6 or 7 minutes longer journeys on phase 1, those untrue figures would actually be fairly near the mark. And, it ought to go without saying, but if we had a lower the line's speed (though it should be pointed out that phase 2a isn't much modified from when it was supposed that the fastest trains that would run on that alignment would be 125mph, maybe 140) this argument that doesn't save time would have even more clout. Speed is a benefit - it might not be the main purpose of the line to have Euston-Curzon Street a shorter journey than Euston-Chesham, but it is a useful thing to have.

I don't think I've ever seen so many unsupported assertions in one place.

 

[nidave]

Yes, that's an accurate summary of what I'd suggest. Despite living in the north, and making a majority of my journeys around it,

So to be clear. You want to stop infrastructure being built in the North to benefit the North????

 

[Esker-pades]

Would you like to point me to the bit in that which says that the percentage of late and cancelled LNWR and Virgin / Avanti services over those lines has been greater than the corresponding percentages for Northern and TPE ?

Of course! All data is for the most recent period (8th Dec 2019 to 4th Jan 2020).
Northern: 72.8% PPM / 45.6% RT / 8.6% CAN / 9.3% CaSL
TPE: 81.6% PPM / <no data> RT / <no data> CAN / 6% CsSL
LNWR: 68.8% PPM / 38.2% RT / 9.6% CAN / 10.2% CaSL

PPM - Public Performance Measure (<5 mins late)
RT - Right Time arrival
CAN - Cancelled
CaSL - Cancelled and Significant Lateness (>30 mins late)

I haven't been able to find complete data for TPE.

Sources:
http://trains.im/ppmhistorical/monthly
https://www.londonnorthwesternrailway.co.uk/about-us/our-performance/train-performance
https://www.northernrailway.co.uk/corporate/performance


I'm not quite sure what point you're trying to make now.

 

[macka]

Manchester's capacity problems are much more severe than elsewhere because the infrastructure is clearly incapable of providing the frequencies demanded and all possible capacity solutions short of curtailing services will be extremely disruptive and expensive. And no, substituting frequency for longer trains doesn't work because many of the stations especially Oxford Road cannot accompany longer trains. HS2 is designed to alleviate capacity issues on the WCML that have only just started to develop. Manchester's capacity issues are here now and there's no adequate solution on the horizon, not even P15/16.

 

[jfowkes]

Why does it have to be part of the 'HS2 budget' ? Maybe it should be paid for by the government because it's needed anyway.

Yes, it should be! You should definitely lobby for classic transport improvements outside the scope of HS2.

HS2 is not the reason that <name local/regional improvement here> isn't happening.

 

[HSTEd]

Stratford?

HS1, Crossrail, GEML, Lea Valley, North London (Overground), Central Line, Jubilee Line, plus DLR (x2)

(Have I missed any?)

Euston King's Pancreas gets
HS1, ECML, MML, WCML, Thameslink, Victoria Line, Picadilly Line, Northern Line (x2), Circle/Metropolitan/H&C Lines, Watford DCs (Overground)
About the only thing it's missing is Crossrail, which is what OOC is for.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I must have somehow missed coverage of the near-total collapse in rail services around Tring and Berkhamstead since May 2018

Er, how? You do know the LNR franchise has near enough collapsed, with very few trains running on time and lots of short formations, owing to the implementation of a timetable that would never work? It's basically the same as has happened to Northern but slightly better resourced.

 

[si404]

Euston King's Pancreas gets
HS1, ECML, MML, WCML, Thameslink, Victoria Line, Picadilly Line, Northern Line (x2), Circle/Metropolitan/H&C Lines, Watford DCs (Overground)

Additionally much better bus and non-powered transport (cycling and walking) links to destinations than Stratford.

About the only thing it's missing is Crossrail, which is what OOC is for.

Indeed - Stratford is mostly similar destinations as OOC gets (Liz, NLL). Euston (we'll leave off KXSP down the road*, though clearly improving that interchange link is a low hanging fruit for maximising the benefits) has few in common with OOC: TCR and Farringdon-Liverpool Street are the only stations that will have direct trains to both until CR2 (then add Dalston and Clapham Junction, though the latter has been scrapped IIRC).

*Even though TrafficEng has both HS1 and the regional station despite them being nearly as far apart as Euston and St Pancras. Perhaps the plan is to demolish Westfield and build a massive terminus there (with a shopping centre on top) to turn back trains - in which case both would be adjoining. :P

 

[MarkyT]

So if tilt is unnecessary to improve journey times to Scotland, why has so.mich time and effort being spent on track and trains which facilitate it ? Are you saying that the people who plan the railways might have got something wrong ?

Maybe yes with hindsight. Old-style 'heavy' tilt is dead in my humble opinion, although it may live again in a lightweight limited inclination (max 1%) system as applied to the N700 series Shinkansens, as I described up-thread. The Pendolino, based on ATP derived technology is a dead-end I think, although the UK WCML operator has had to keep their still relatively new fleet operating because replacing them too early would be uneconomic. At future full fleet renewal, however, the decisions on what features to incorporate will be made based on the state of the art at the time, and that is unlikely to include that historic form of tilt which, with very heavy bogies, causes a lot of rail and wheel wear (with consequent frequent regrind and renewal activity), particularly on tight curves where EPS speeds apply. It's lucky that the receipts from one of the busiest railways in the world can help cover the high cost of this, but future fleets could achieve similar performance more economically with the newer technology.

 

[MarkyT]

Or you could build the network properly now rather than have some daft solution involving reversing at Curzon St.

Where exactly in Birmingham would you put your through station with its twin throats and approach lines without destroying much of the city centre, or placing it so far outside it would no longer be near the centre at all.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

And even if it's not currently affordable, wouldn't some passive provision on HS2 be sensible for the point when it is affordable ?

Passive provision that adds a very small cost = yes, very sensible. Adding something like 5% of the entire HS2 budget to build an underground station in Birmingham just in case we later need a SW extension = no, not sensible.

What I'd regard as sensible and desirable would be something like: Design Curzon Street station with an eye on, how might you later extend it if required to add a couple of underground through platforms? Is there somewhere the escalators could go? Is there somewhere East of the station where new tracks from the South West could join the tracks to the North? That to my mind would be a good and proportionate passive provision.

 

[B&I]

So to be clear. You want to stop infrastructure being built in the North to benefit the North????

Let's pick this apart.

Different people define 'the north's differently, but taking a definition which differentiates it from the Midlands, very little of HS2 is going to be built in the north. The specific bit I think shouldn't be built (in the short term, while money is short) is the western leg from appaorixmatley Rugby to the outskirts of Manchester. (I think capacity problems approaching Manchester should be solved via an east-west 'NPR" line serving the city centre, with a chord heading from west of the urban area to join the WCML. I also think new track should be built for at least part of the route between Crewe and Preston, to relieve the WCML bottlenecks around there).

So I'm suggesting that a proportion, but not all, of the 'northern' infrastructure is cut.

Is your view that only infrastructure built in the north benefits the north ? Following my suggestion, the north-west would continue to benefit from faster journey times and more capacity to London thanks to phase 1. The eastern half of the north will also continue to benefit.

How much of 'the north's benefits from.this northern infrastructure I have suggested cutting ?

 

[TrafficEng]

Which is why along a motorway was a non-starter - because they would have to do that!

If you cleared an island of inaccessibility of animals because they would be caged, then it's a net negative on the environment, a removal of habitat. HS2 people, when planning the route, saw the issues created by the design principles of HS1 and rejected those principles because of that.

I think the point may have been missed/forgotten again. Small bits of land will need to be cleared anyway because they will be in the footprint of the construction works. Bigger bits of land don't need to be cleared because they justify mitigation (access/egress points).

The habitat value of land which is already disturbed by a transport corridor is lower than that of 'virgin' habitat (unless special status applies). Land which is 'trapped' between an old and new transport corridor lends itself to the creation of new habitats with no extra landtake required. Creation of habitat loss mitigation in 'virgin' areas requires additional landtake with further impacts.

Swings and roundabouts. Not a compelling case for determining the route of a major transport project.

It would be an issue if they chose one of the more expensive routes following a motorway corridor rather than a straighter more direct line through emptier space...

It is an issue in all cases. If you draw a straight line on a map there will always be things of value (environmental, landscape, historical, economic, social, etc) in the way. The more you are willing to deviate from the straight line, the fewer of these have to be adversely affected.

(A reminder: I'm not promoting a motorway route vs the chosen route)

...(which was the start of this "we should make it slower" guff)...

There are some quite influential people who regard this question as rather more important than "guff".

You forgot the price tags...

Deliberately. I thought on today of all days it would be diplomatic not to draw any attention to those figures. But since you ask, if there is such a significant variance between all of them and £106bn then how confident are we that the differential between them (£3bn) remains as it was estimated to be?

Even if HS2 were more competent at communicating the case for the line, it's still the case that there's none so deaf as those who won't listen, none so blind as those who willfully won't see.

There will always be some people implacably opposed. But supporters of anything should be mindful not to make the mistake of dismissing dissenting voices with derogatory language. It has a tendency to harden opposition rather than soften it.

 

[B&I]

Passive provision that adds a very small cost = yes, very sensible. Adding something like 5% of the entire HS2 budget to build an underground station in Birmingham just in case we later need a SW extension = no, not sensible.

What I'd regard as sensible and desirable would be something like: Design Curzon Street station with an eye on, how might you later extend it if required to add a couple of underground through platforms? Is there somewhere the escalators could go? Is there somewhere East of the station where new tracks from the South West could join the tracks to the North? That to my mind would be a good and proportionate passive provision.

But we do need a southwestern extension, if we're not forever to have a situation where passengers who currently enjoy a single journey (albeit a slow and overcrowded one) won't forever be made to change trains and shuffle between stations at Brum. I struggle to see how anyone could argue against this

 

[B&I]

Where exactly in Birmingham would you put your through station with its twin throats and approach lines without destroying much of the city centre, or placing it so far outside it would no longer be near the centre at all.

It may have escaped your attention, but there is a big area of cleared land just to the east of Birmingham city centre, which some people seem to think would be a really good place to put a railway station. There is also a thing called a 'tunnel', which you might have come across before. Some of them even go a really long way under cities, such as northwest London and south Manchester.

 

[B&I]

Er, how? You do know the LNR franchise has near enough collapsed, with very few trains running on time and lots of short formations, owing to the implementation of a timetable that would never work? It's basically the same as has happened to Northern but slightly better resourced.

In which case, I'm sure you'll have no problem suggesting which WCML services should be cut to sort this mess out.