Publication of Integrated Rail Plan for the North and Midlands

[NoRoute]

I must have missed whichever £115 billion rail project has happened of late.

Well the full HS2 project was accelerating towards over £100+ billion in forecast costs, which is why the Treasury pulled the emergency brake and we're here discussing the Integrated Rail Plan.

 

[Ianno87]

Well the full HS2 project was accelerating towards over £100+ billion in forecast costs, which is why the Treasury pulled the emergency brake and we're here discussing the Integrated Rail Plan.

Precisely. The Apollo programme happened because capital cost didn't matter to the US Government. NASA basically had a blank cheque.

 

[GoneSouth]

Massive joke that the Sheffield to Leeds line has been relegated to ‘we are considering’

We have 3 years before the next general election… This one is in the bank as a pre election vote winner…

Blah blah The good people of west and South Yorkshire didn’t like what we announced for the future of high speed rail… we listened and here you are, a new high speed line between Sheffield and Leeds so please vote for us now or you won’t get it.

Conservatives win next election… plans binned within the year!

Repeat

 

[DDB]

No mention of electrification to Matlock. Am I being too pessimistic in worrying that the plans will make the Matlock service very vulnerable in the medium and longer term - as the lost MML capacity from slower train speeds and stops at Duffield and Belper becomes too high to tolerate?

I think you are being too pessimistic . The Matlock branch has always struck me as a prime candidate for a bimodes. Overhead electric as far as Ambergate to allow the acceleration to not cause to much problems with the Duffield and Belper stops. Then on the slower branch line operate on diesel or battery saving the need to put up masts and wires through the pretty bits.

 

[Ianno87]

I think you are being too pessimistic . The Matlock branch has always struck me as a prime candidate for a bimodes. Overhead electric as far as Ambergate to allow the acceleration to not cause to much problems with the Duffield and Belper stops. Then on the slower branch line operate on diesel or battery saving the need to put up masts and wires through the pretty bits.

Plus, a reminder that IRP is a strategy, not the detail. The statement at this moment is "Midland Main Line electrification is a good idea". What exact bells and whistles that comes with (Matlock, Erewash, whatever) is to be developed over the coming years.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

B----y hell the Guardian is being really sarcastic at Shapps

Happy Shapps in transports of delight despite rail plan let-down | John Crace

Transport secretary was all smiles as he revealed government had pulled plug on major parts of proposals

www.theguardian.com

Partial quote --

So Boris Johnson didn’t break the promises he had made shortly after becoming prime minister in July 2019, in his election manifesto later that year and on more than 50 other occasions. At least not in parliament. He got Grant Shapps to do it instead.

And who better? Because Shapps is exactly the sort of person that this prime minister needs to get him out of a hole. Someone who knows he is authentically shallow: that there is even less to him than meets the eye. Someone who bizarrely considers his bogus alias of Michael Green to be a sign of cunning. And who – like everyone else – still can’t quite believe his luck at being made a cabinet minister and is determined to enjoy every minute he gets to stay in the job.

 

[adrock1976]

Regarding the table of journey times from Liverpool to Manchester Airport HS (Page 116), what is the reference point in the Ringway area that is being used for comparison with the conventional network?

If the existing Airport rail/Metrolink station is being used (east side of airfield), that is cheating as the HS station I believe is going to be sited on the west side of the airfield.

The reference point that ideally should be used is the journey time to the main terminal building for a fair comparison.

 

[deltic]

You mean this one

https://www.railwaysarchive.co.uk/documents/DoTBRB_Electrification1981.pdf

That was depressing reading - one clear lesson is that delay in making investment decisions cost a serious amount of money

 

[Llandudno]

It will mean Birmingham to Lincoln via Nottingham takes less than an hour and a half.

Depends on the connectional time at Nottingham…

 

[takno]

No this is money that was already budgeted for the department, they are just allocating where it is spent.

It's money that was previously budgeted for UK-wide spending on the basis that HS2 benefitted the whole country, and as such didn't attract Barnett residuals. Now that HS2 isn't going to serve Scotland and the money is to be spent on a spot of northern electrification and some kind of improbably cheap transit thing in Leeds, there should be Barnett residuals.

Whether you agree with the formula or not, once the SNP realise what's going on two or three weeks they will certainly start banging the drum on the topic

 

[childwallblues]

Hopefully they crack on with some of the Liverpool WCML and approaches upgrades sooner rather than waiting for HS2 to get up north before doing the entire route. Would benefit existing services to sort out the slow as molasses last few miles.

The last few miles includes the curve around Edge Hill Depot were the railway doubles back on itself.

 

[Class83]

There's good and bad in this. Manchester gets most of what it wanted, also Sheffield southbound. Nottingham and Derby southbound are the winners, plus Warrington does rather well. I'm slightly intrigued by the South Birmingham spur, will this just enable more commuter services, or will it eventually grow?

The middle ground is the lack of clarity on Liverpool to Warrington, Lime Street is constrained and the access is already slow, more tunnels through Edge Hill won't be cheap but is probably needed, even if the rest of the route to Warrington is essentially a 100mph upgrade online. What should probably be described as Manchester Crossrail from Warrington to Standedge looks ok, not sure about the reversal in the station, but if the cost savings allow something else to happen then it's not the worst thing ever. The ECML upgrades are useful on their own, though Leeds in particular will feel let down.

So the losers are anyone travelling through platforms 13 & 14 at Manchester Piccadilly for the next 20 years. Leeds, who thought they were getting direct HS2, and specifically connections from Leeds to Sheffield and the Midlands. Sheffield, while not doing too badly southbound, doesn't get much either towards Manchester or Leeds. Runcorn, whose service levels were more dependent on being a Cheshire Parkway on the Liverpool Line.

The wildcard is the Union Connectivity Review. For Scotland, Golborne or something better, though this will surely happen as removing HS2 East puts pressure on the ECML so removing Edinburgh is more important? Chester, electrification extending to North Wales perhaps, as I assume there will be no Diesel services into London on HS2? And, will that Birmingham spur extend towards Cardiff?

 

[GoneSouth]

Wow you must be a seriously fast reader to have ploughed through all that whilst posting numerous negative comments on here, some almost immediately after publication.

What exactly do you mean by "read as much as I can in the time available".

Have you read it all or not?If not, I strongly suggest you do read the whole document and then post, rather than waste all our time with your half informed views.

Reading between the lines in the report, the revised strategy gives the same or better benefits overall for less money than the original HS2b "plan".

If this strategy goes ahead, further work is required to determine the best way to link Leeds to the new network.


In the meantime, West Yorkshire gets a shed load of money for infrastructure work in the city itself such as trams or guided busways etc.

Which if you had actually read the full document you would know......

Hope your day improves.....

Please not a guided busway! Poor man’s solution!

Glasgow, Edinburgh, Newcastle, Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham, Nottingham (even Blackpool) have trams, metros or decent city centre rail systems, what did Leeds (and Bristol) do to deserve a guided bus? it’s not gone very well down here in Bristol, lots of criticism, operators reluctant to run the service etc. the short one in Bradford is dreadful!

 

[DynamicSpirit]

There was plenty of leaking to the press over the last few weeks about a new line from Leeds to north of Sheffield, and the new station at Leeds being retained. I suspect work might have been done on it but they pulled it from the report at the last minute for whatever reason.

To my mind, that line made almost no financial sense in the context of the other proposals: Once everything is built, Leeds-Birmingham will be faster via Manchester and Leeds-London faster via the ECML So the only purpose of the line would be to provide fast trains Leeds-Sheffeld-Derby/Nottingham. That's nice but just not enough traffic to justify the expense of building it. For that reason, I'd say it's a good thing on balance that it has been pulled.

 

[quantinghome]

"Full potential" is going to be governed by many factors. For example, there is little point (say) having a dedicated NPR line right into Leeds Station if then you don't have enough platforms there.

Who knows what the plan is for Leeds station. The IRP isn't telling that's for sure.

My hunch is that (taking Leeds-Manchester as an example)
-The scope of TRU, as stated (essentially 4-tracking Huddersfield to Dewsbury, plus grade separation of the area, plus full electrification) buys 8 Fast paths per hour between Leeds and Manchester, plus some journey time reductions
-Then NPR plugs into this, takes those 8 Fast Paths and significantly accelerates them between Huddersfield and Manchester
-That probably starts to "max out" a number of other places, such as the number of practical paths for NPR services on HS2 through Manchester Airport, or the practical platform capacity of Leeds (for example), so expanding the scope even further, whilst theoretically segregating Fast and Slow services even more, doesn't actually yield any further benefit in terms of achievable trains per hour

I'd read (I forget where exactly - some TfN or local authority minutes) that TRU would deliver 4 fast, 2 semi-fast and 2 stoppers. TfN's requirement for Leeds-Manchester was 6 tph. No idea if that's still planned. Bypassing the slow, slow route from Manchester to Standedge would have obvious benefits, but it not clear to me that the remaining two-track sections would allow an increase in local stopping trains to metro-level frequencies (train every 10 or 15 minutes).

NPR and TRU combined pretty much give a dedicated pair of "non-stop" tracks all the way from Manchester Piccadilly to Dewsbury.

I can't see anything stated for what's going to happen between Marsden and Huddersfield. It was four-track back in the day but the current two-track alignment has taken advantage of the space to slew the tracks for linespeed improvement up to 85mph (TRU ups this to 90/95mph) (ref: 06_170302_northern_hub_beyond_david_lawrance_james_hodge (thepwi.org)), but that would be reduced if it were to revert to four-track.

 

[adrock1976]

To my mind, that line made almost no financial sense in the context of the other proposals: Once everything is built, Leeds-Birmingham will be faster via Manchester and Leeds-London faster via the ECML So the only purpose of the line would be to provide fast trains Leeds-Sheffeld-Derby/Nottingham. That's nice but just not enough traffic to justify the expense of building it. For that reason, I'd say it's a good thing on balance that it has been pulled.

What exactly is going to happen with the (former) 3 Newcastle HS trains north of York?

See the September 2020 diagram at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:HS2_vector_map.jpg to see what I am explaining here.

 

[Purple Orange]

What exactly is going to happen with the (former) 3 Newcastle HS trains north of York?

See the September 2020 diagram at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:HS2_vector_map.jpg to see what I am explaining here.

In terms of what Newcastle will get, or use of capacity in to Euston & Birmingham?

 

[21C101]

Depends on the connectional time at Nottingham…

Zero if it is a Birmingham Curzon Street to Lincoln through train.

 

[NoRoute]

Plus, a reminder that IRP is a strategy, not the detail.

Hang on, IRP = Integrated Rail Plan.
Plan: a detailed proposal for doing or achieving something.

All these comments about this being a strategy are plucked out the air, this was meant to be a plan, it is in the title. What has arrived is not a plan, there should be detail but it's missing, so it's a poor plan.

 

[ABB125]

Now that HS2 isn't going to serve Scotland and the money is to be spent on a spot of northern electrification and some kind of improbably cheap transit thing in Leeds, there should be Barnett residuals

The new proposals don't affect Scotland? The Glasgow/Edinburgh trains were never planned to go via the East branch

 

[class26]

The spur at Birmingham is mentioned above. I suspect that is merely the Bordesley curve , enabling trains form the south west to go to Moor St via the Camp Hill line so it is an easy connection to Curzon st.
I would love to think it was more as it looks to be to the city limits but I guess the map isn`t to scale !

 

[A0]

With enormous (near-bottomless) amounts of resource and money thrown at it, of course.

And one or two dead astronauts along the way for good measure.....

 

[adrock1976]

In terms of what Newcastle will get, or use of capacity in to Euston & Birmingham?

Of what they will get now, regardless of whether it will be to Kings Cross or on the truncated eastern arm of HS2.

 

[Ianno87]

Hang on, IRP = Integrated Rail Plan.
Plan: a detailed proposal for doing or achieving something.

All these comments about this being a strategy are plucked out the air, this was meant to be a plan, it is in the title. What has arrived is not a plan, there should be detail but it's missing, so it's a poor plan.

OK, the Plan is to electrify the Midland Mainline in some way, shape or form. How that is achieved still has many possible options. For example, do you use 4 track portals or pairs of Twin Track Cantilevers.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

B----y hell the Guardian is being really sarcastic at Shapps

Happy Shapps in transports of delight despite rail plan let-down | John Crace

Transport secretary was all smiles as he revealed government had pulled plug on major parts of proposals

www.theguardian.com

That's from the parliamentary sketch-writer - he's paid to get a laugh out of the theatre - Shapps was jolly...unsufferable by the end.
They have a serious piece by Christian Wolmar on the IRP.

I think HS2 Ltd and Network Rail come out of this rather well, in that they have the green light for a huge pipeline of work with no destructive organisational changes.

NR in particular must be cock-a-hoop to get authorisation of ECML and MML upgrades in place of HS2 north of Trent, the full TRU and upgrade of Liverpool-Ditton-Warrington.
Plus local electrification of Bolton-Wigan and Leeds-Bradford Int.
Full digital signalling I assume is ETCS for ECML maybe to Newcastle, and for TRU.
They just have to reign in the costs to avoid the risk of mid-term cancellation or descoping.

HS2 Ltd loses the route north of Trent but they have the new Warrington-Marsden route to compensate, which will have some serious technical challenges.
I thought HS2 Ltd might be dismantled or reorganised but evidently not.
They will now have to work with NR long term as equal partners, working from the same overall pot and priorities.

£96 billion looks like a nicely-engineered figure, ie less than the emotive £100 billion which enrages the media.
Makes you wonder what the number looked like before Rishi told them to be realistic.
It's also the "cost to completion" from now (or possibly from April next year), removing the spend on HS2 to date (£8 billion I think is mentioned).

 

[Starmill]

Now that HS2 isn't going to serve Scotland

It's not?

 

[MontyP]

Plus, a reminder that IRP is a strategy, not the detail. The statement at this moment is "Midland Main Line electrification is a good idea". What exact bells and whistles that comes with (Matlock, Erewash, whatever) is to be developed over the coming years.

It's interesting that it is called a "Plan" but isn't even a "Strategy".

In all industries I have worked in:
- you start with options
- then identify "what" you want to achieve - this is called a strategy
- next step is to describe "how" you are going to do it - this is called a plan.

This document isn't even at the "strategy" stage.

 

[Ianno87]

In all industries I have worked in:
- you start with options
- then identify "what" you want to achieve - this is called a strategy
- next step is to describe "how" you are going to do it - this is called a plan.

You've got them in the wrong order:

1) What (the output): Capacity, connectivity journey times.
2) How (the concept): e.g. "A high speed line"
3) Options: "This route or that route".

IRP has, to some extent, set out 1 and 2.

 

[Bevan Price]

Runcorn is an odd station and has been seeing a regular decline in usage over the past few years. Could be down to the new bridge being tolled. I certainly have colleagues who in the past would drive to the station instead of travel via Merseyrail to Lime Street as it was so well placed on the road network. The new bridge has removed a lot of that connectivity too, with the old bridge being largely only useful for local traffic (and newly tolled).

I think it’s a myth that Runcorn itself has a high demand for London journeys. It was a useful parkway station, that’s all.

And not very useful for commuting into Liverpool, due to the extortionate WCML midweek parking charge (£12) costing more than the train fare.

 

[323 Class]

Who knows what the plan is for Leeds station. The IRP isn't telling that's for sure.


I'd read (I forget where exactly - some TfN or local authority minutes) that TRU would deliver 4 fast, 2 semi-fast and 2 stoppers. TfN's requirement for Leeds-Manchester was 6 tph. No idea if that's still planned. Bypassing the slow, slow route from Manchester to Standedge would have obvious benefits, but it not clear to me that the remaining two-track sections would allow an increase in local stopping trains to metro-level frequencies (train every 10 or 15 minutes).


I can't see anything stated for what's going to happen between Marsden and Huddersfield. It was four-track back in the day but the current two-track alignment has taken advantage of the space to slew the tracks for linespeed improvement up to 85mph (TRU ups this to 90/95mph) (ref: 06_170302_northern_hub_beyond_david_lawrance_james_hodge (thepwi.org)), but that would be reduced if it were to revert to four-track.

Having read the publication about the 'New' line from Warrington to Marsden, it gets very confusing.
If you look at this, The dark blue is the new line but it must also be the old line as it isn't showing an alternative to the Stalybridge route.
It also seems to suggest that the whole route will be elecrified.