Publication of Integrated Rail Plan for the North and Midlands

[The Ham]

There is no suggestion of removing SW to the north trains

I did wonder if this was going to be the case.

As chances are XC would still be servicing stations which the HS2 services, or other fastest services to major cities, may not serve. As such there could be a reasonable case for retaining XC.

In which case it'll retain (slower) direct services for those few who prefer to use them over changing, however gives the option of changing (which could be changing from the "wrong" XC service) and improving your journey time.

 

[stephen rp]

If this was the first time any kind of investment such as this was being proposed, I'd agree that it's inexplicable. However, the announcement represents a significant reneging on investments the government had previously promised to make.

The only areas where it goes beyond what was promised, AFAICT, is the provision of a new build section of line from Warrington to Marsden under NPR, a transit system for Leeds, and having HS2 trains serving Derby and Nottingham city centre - the latter two being small investments in the grand scheme of things.

Of course, everywhere that was promised investment gets something, and HS2 and NPR haven't been cancelled in full. But it's still a massive cutback no matter how much spin the report tries to use to disguise it.


Yes, Mr Burnham is getting everything he was was promised and yet he still finds something to complain about. I suppose he's a Labour politician so that was fairly foreseeable.

New line from Warrington to Marsden is obviously less than what was promised.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 20 Nov 2021 ==

Is this not spending big? Indeed bigger than any previous expectations? Granted on some different things.



That was a question asked by many a few months after it was set up, when they started arguing with each other.




I understand that. My point is that many of the expectations were not set by central Government. A whole host of them were made by the local politicians or TfN: underground station at Piccadilly, new station for Liverpool, NPR via a new station for Bradford, etc. Etc. None of them were ever ‘promised’ by central Government.

But the main point is that in the current financial circumstances, and with very significant opposition to HS2, and with demand for rail services levelling out at 70% of pre-Covid nationally, it would have been very, very easy for the whole lot to be binned. And I’m really not joking when I say that when senior politicians see this sort of reaction to what should be seen as a landmark piece of public investment, they won’t be keen to do it again.




I’m sure he’s seen the detail, and must have “momentarily forgotten” how NPR leaves Manchester. He may remember when the plans do come out; hopefully he won’t try to claim credit.





Once, in about 1983.

Most recently it was ‘paused’, or more accurately put on to a slower development process. Which about 2 years ago was sped back up.

How does NPR leave Manchester?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 20 Nov 2021 ==

 

[Ianno87]

Am I correct in thinking that the section from Dewsbury to Leeds will remain two track?

Correct.

Even once electrified, this will be a huge capacity bottle neck, with local stoppers mixing in with semi-fasts (via the existing lines) and "fast" services via the new high-speed route.

I've explained upthread (I don't intend to keep repeating it to save wear and tear on my thumbs) why this does not prevent the intended level of capacity being realised, based on the stated outputs of TRU (which are, presumably, based on some supporting timetable analysis by Network Rail).

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 20 Nov 2021 ==

Open the link to IPR, search for Fleetwood and look all the times Fleetwood gets a mention.

How many posts are in this thread are a about "Does my favourite project X' get a mention.

Read. The. Document. First.

 

[stephen rp]

Any real clue where NPR would go at Lime Street? Someone said new tunnels but that could be more expensive than the underground station Burnham wants at Piccadilly.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

He's the Mayor of Manchester. His job is to argue for the best possible deal for Manchester

Greater Manchester.
That's a whole lot bigger, including Wigan, Bolton, Bury, Oldham, Stockport, Rochdale, Altrincham, Man Airport, Stalybridge, Salford etc.
Total population 3.3 million.

West Yorkshire is 2.3 million, South Yorkshire 1.2 million, Merseyside 1.4 million.
So "NPR" covers a population of broadly 7 million, skewed more to the west side of the Pennines than the east.

 

[stuu]

Any real clue where NPR would go at Lime Street? Someone said new tunnels but that could be more expensive than the underground station Burnham wants at Piccadilly.

The existing station. Nothing new is proposed west of Widnes

 

[GoneSouth]

Regarding changing trains at New Street, did Virgin (and Arriva after 2007) recommend to avoid it if at all possible?

This may have been not long after Operation Princess collapsed.

Yes when Arriva (spit) took over the franchise they started to publicise how they were going to stop all that faffing about at Birmingham and promote changing at the likes of z Cheltenham, Wolverhampton and Tamworth.

Didn’t take them long to realise that people really didn’t want to change onto the next train heading in the same direction they were already going, and instead people wanted to change onto a different line, which could obviously only be done at Brum!

So the absolute best-case time-saving is 29 minutes. That assumes a 10 minute change is possible, which sounds optimistic to me, given that only the very front of the stations are next to each other, and the HS2 trains will be hundreds of metres long, and with the much-mentioned baggage in tow. It also assumes I have a walk-up ticket, since if I have a booked seat on the HS2 train I will need to have a much longer minimum change in order to keep the journey planner happy.

A more realistic scenario is a roughly zero time-saving northbound, and about 10 minutes longer heading south, where I'll be connecting onto an hourly train and will need a longer connection to be safe.

Added to that I'm apparently expected to not only change trains in Birmingham, but also to change direction in Manchester, and to do a large proportion of the journey through tunnels. Nothing about this crackpot scheme is likely to appeal to anybody.

Couldn’t agree more. Haven’t any of the MPs in the west woken-up to the idea that levelling up the north actually means making it more difficult to get to. Maybe time for them to do some (unpaid for a change) lobbying

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

The existing station. Nothing new is proposed west of Widnes

There is some mention of potential for upgrading the approach to Lime St, which is very constricted Mossley Hill-Edge Hill.
Extending Merseyrail to Warrington would help too (separate debate).

 

[Ianno87]

.

Didn’t take them long to realise that people really didn’t want to change onto the next train heading in the same direction they were already going, and instead people wanted to change onto a different line, which could obviously only be done at Brum!

Not necessarily. Take (say) Carlisle to Bristol - that (on pre-Covid) pattern could be done at either Wolverhampton or New Street, out of the Scotland-Birmingham train into the Manchester-Bristol train. But, in the grand scheme of things, not *that* many passengers have such a choice in practice - New Street remains the default for most.

Even so, most folk when offered a change at Wolves or Derby, will choose New Street anyway for better station facilities, more options for onward connections, etc

 

[DynamicSpirit]

On the point about changing at New Street: If the chord is built to allow long-distance trains from the SW to terminate at Moor Street instead, that could have the benefit of removing some of the diesel pollution from New Street. It also potentially frees up a little capacity at New Street - for more local services, perhaps.

On the other hand, the diesels coming down from Derby via Burton will still presumably need to go somewhere - I'm not sure that adding to the pressure at New Street by having them terminate there is a good idea. So maybe those trains will still head somewhere vaguely SW as additional services? To much unknowable at the moment.

 

[matacaster]

Correct.




I've explained upthread (I don't intend to keep repeating it to save wear and tear on my thumbs) why this does not prevent the intended level of capacity being realised, based on the stated outputs of TRU (which are, presumably, based on some supporting timetable analysis by Network Rail).

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 20 Nov 2021 ==



How many posts are in this thread are a about "Does my favourite project X' get a mention.

Read. The. Document. First.

As

Correct.




I've explained upthread (I don't intend to keep repeating it to save wear and tear on my thumbs) why this does not prevent the intended level of capacity being realised, based on the stated outputs of TRU (which are, presumably, based on some supporting timetable analysis by Network Rail).

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 20 Nov 2021 ==



How many posts are in this thread are a about "Does my favourite project X' get a mention.

Read. The. Document. First.

In respect of the 2-track Morley section, if the line through kirkgate was electrified that would give extra capacity but would have around 15mins? Time penalty unless linespeed could be improved.

 

[21C101]

There is no suggestion of removing SW to the north trains.

While the devil will be in the detail, there most certainly is such suggestion:

"We will progress work on options to complete the Midlands Rail Hub, focusing on improved services to Hereford, Worcester, Coventry, and allowing more services to access Birmingham Moor Street station. This could give passengers from Bristol, Cardiff and beyond easy interchange to HS2 at the adjacent Curzon Street station, deliver increased capacity at Birmingham Snow Hill Station, and additional commuter services on the Camp Hill Line."

If services from Bristol, Cardiff and beyond are diverted into Snow Hill via Moor Street, to interchange wiith Curzon St then they won't be heading further north as they do now.

 

[Watershed]

New line from Warrington to Marsden is obviously less than what was promised.

Is it? TfN certainly made all sorts of proposals and suggestions but there was never a promise from the government to build this.

However, the government did promise to build HS2 East in full, which they have completely gone back on.

 

[Grumpy Git]

Who'd have thought that George Osborne's "Northern Powerhouse" would actually turn out to be a one-bar electric fire?

 

[squizzler]

Whilst "hardly any of the general population care about rail" is a common trope made by forum contributors who want to try and convince us of their worldly savvy, the impression I get in the media is that in this instance the forum is a lot more blasé than the representatives of the regions and cities that are concerned. Although on one level these contributors might be right - there are probably a lot of people both sides of the Pennines who do not care for trains and railways at all but are now staunch backers of the rail building programme since it became a regional identity issue.

Naturally as a rail forum we want to talk about trains and railways, and thus perhaps fail to notice how totemic the rail programme has become to the aspirations of Northern England. If the slogan "levelling up" was not an invitation to have such aspirations, I don't know what is. The truncation of the programme has thus been subsumed into a broader narrative of political sleaze and dishonesty.

This video from a Yorkshire based political commentator typifies this view.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Is it? TfN certainly made all sorts of proposals and suggestions but there was never a promise from the government to build this.

But they did publish passive provision for HS2 links for a new line towards Liverpool near Rostherne.

 

[takno]

Whilst "hardly any of the general population care about rail" is a common trope made by forum contributors who want to try and convince us of their worldly savvy, the impression I get in the media is that in this instance the forum is a lot more blasé than the representatives of the regions and cities that are concerned. Although on one level these contributors might be right - there are probably a lot of people both sides of the Pennines who do not care for trains and railways at all but are now staunch backers of the rail building programme since it became a regional identity issue.

Naturally as a rail forum we want to talk about trains and railways, and thus perhaps fail to notice how totemic the rail programme has become to the aspirations of Northern England. If the slogan "levelling up" was not an invitation to have such aspirations, I don't know what is. The truncation of the programme has thus been subsumed into a broader narrative of political sleaze and dishonesty.

This video from a Yorkshire based political commentator typifies this view.

You just need to read the articles on the BBC website. They are usually much too cautious to really stick the boot in, but over a period of days they've kept at it, and in fact have intensified the articles. Their take is very much that this is building an east-west divide on top of the north-south divide.

Nobody's that interested in trains, but lots of people are interested in getting about the country, and in being a valued part of it that deserves investment

 

[alistairlees]

No, I'm not.

Birmingham will get a London journey time reduction of about 40% and a frequency of at least 6 tph that's more than anywhere south of Birmingham will see.

Manchester London journey times will drop by almost half.

Similar improvements are on the cards for Nottingham and Sheffield from East Mids.

Name me one place south of Birmingham which is seeing benefits like that from HS2.

London.

 

[Ianno87]

London.

And all of the London and South East that connects via London to get North.

 

[Glenn1969]

Not withstanding the fact that GA have had a fleet of brand new trains whilst TOCs like EMR get cast offs from elsewhere which are already around 20 or more years old and/or in poor condition (156s and 360s from GA, for example!) - and even the Regional replacements will be nearly 25 years old once they’ve all eventually joined EMR. As for Thameslink, how about the introduction of 700s from new? (By the way, before anybody says it, yes EMR are of course getting brand new trains through the 810s)

At long, long last, the focus is on the North and Midlands - I am very pleased and positive about the IRP. Yes, it’s a plan and not all of it may go ahead; but £96bn is not an insignificant sum (or even if, let’s say, half the value were delivered, £48bn is still a good chunk of money spent on the North and Midlands). Personally, I’m grateful for any spend that genuinely improves the MML, whether it be £5m or £5bn

only c£40bn of it is new money, but that is still a sizeable sum. I just have to hope the studies on how to improve things in Yorkshire and the North East report quickly (and that some of the timescales which still appear to finish nearer 2050 than 2030 get speeded up)

 

[The Planner]

While the devil will be in the detail, there most certainly is such suggestion:

"We will progress work on options to complete the Midlands Rail Hub, focusing on improved services to Hereford, Worcester, Coventry, and allowing more services to access Birmingham Moor Street station. This could give passengers from Bristol, Cardiff and beyond easy interchange to HS2 at the adjacent Curzon Street station, deliver increased capacity at Birmingham Snow Hill Station, and additional commuter services on the Camp Hill Line."

If services from Bristol, Cardiff and beyond are diverted into Snow Hill via Moor Street, to interchange wiith Curzon St then they won't be heading further north as they do now.

That isn't what it is saying, the fact it says "could" doesn't mean its going to happen and delivering extra capacity at Snow Hill is a poorly worded saying of "we might do P4 after years of saying it". Its a separate project which dovetails out of any chords as it gets Chiltern terminators out of Moor St.

 

[Glenn1969]

That isn't what it is saying, the fact it says "could" doesn't mean its going to happen and delivering extra capacity at Snow Hill is a poorly worded saying of "we might do P4 after years of saying it". Its a separate project which dovetails out of any chords as it gets Chiltern terminators out of Moor St.

It says "could" 77 times. How many of them will actually happen? All of them are probably needed

 

[GoneSouth]

It says "could" 77 times. How many of them will actually happen? All of them are probably needed

I’d like to see a live table with all the “could” statements with a quick visualisation of whether they were achieved, scrapped, paused, in progress and with dates for completion, abandonment etc. I suspect I’ll be dead long before most of this is completed though!

 

[GoneSouth]

But then he also specifically said that the 'triple lock' on state pensions would be maintained, that national insurance rates wouldn't rise and that the foreign aid budget would maintain it's 0.7% of GNI floor. He also very specifically promised a number of other items which just aren't happening like "40 new hospitals" and so on.

Anybody remember the big red Brexit bus and all that new money saved from the clutches of the eu, to be ploughed back into hospitals. You just can’t believe anything this lot say

Granted, the Great Western didn't get upgraded until 2010-2020.

Another half done job, just ask the residents of Chippenham and Bath (and maybe Swansea?)

 

[domcoop7]

Whilst "hardly any of the general population care about rail" is a common trope made by forum contributors who want to try and convince us of their worldly savvy, the impression I get in the media is that in this instance the forum is a lot more blasé than the representatives of the regions and cities that are concerned. Although on one level these contributors might be right - there are probably a lot of people both sides of the Pennines who do not care for trains and railways at all but are now staunch backers of the rail building programme since it became a regional identity issue.

Naturally as a rail forum we want to talk about trains and railways, and thus perhaps fail to notice how totemic the rail programme has become to the aspirations of Northern England. If the slogan "levelling up" was not an invitation to have such aspirations, I don't know what is. The truncation of the programme has thus been subsumed into a broader narrative of political sleaze and dishonesty.

This video from a Yorkshire based political commentator typifies this view.

I'm not sure how reflective this is of the wider population though.

There is a hard core of "political commentators" who are now apparently expert correspondents on the cost-benefit ratio and pathing constraints of High Speed Rail networks.

Last month they were experts on fuel shortages and supply-chain logistics. Before then they were experts on pandemics and before then international trade. Before that they were experts on vaccine rollout, and before that international trade again. And so on and so on.

It's the same people saying the same thing dressed up in a different way - that thing being "we don't like the government" (almost always accompanied by "we don't like Brexit").

The "all the Northern newspapers talked about betrayal" was the same. It's a single newspaper (Reach PLC / the Daily Mirror) that has different editions in different towns. And it is an anti-government newspaper. As is the Guardian, as is the Independent.

These people are never going to think anything this government does is good and they are always going to moan and complain about it. Like the boy who cried wolf, their message has no traction.

 

[class26]

Anybody remember the big red Brexit bus and all that new money saved from the clutches of the eu, to be ploughed back into hospitals. You just can’t believe anything this lot say

Another half done job, just ask the residents of Chippenham and Bath (and maybe Swansea?)

But it can`t be done at any price, Network are probably guilty of gold plating everything meaning electrification gets cut back and will only be rolled out en mass when costs are brought down. the onus is on Network Rail to get its house in order.

 

[Austriantrain]

Maybe an interesting point of comparison:

The Swiss NEAT-project (mainly the Lötschberg, Gotthard and Monte Ceneri base tunnels) was costed at 17,76 bn CHF at 1998 prices, so approx 26,6 bn CHF - probably more, because construction costs would have risen quicker than general prices - or a bit more than 21 bn GBP at today’s prices). And that is only a part of what Switzerland has invested in its railways in the last 30 years.

Now Switzerland is obviously a very rich country, but also a small one with about 8 million people.

The IRP has an investment sum of 96 bn GBP, which is about 5 times as much as for NEAT, but for a country with 8 to 9 times more people.

So in effect, at Swiss Levels (and NEAT, as I said, was only a part of total investments - the underground Zurich Long-distance station alone came to about 2 bn CHF, and the planned Lucerne through station will be more than that - the next infrastructure plan, STEP 2035, has a total investment of more than 12 bn CHF) the UK could invest vastly more than it does with IRP.

The thing is, UK people don’t want to - they would certainly not accept a Swiss level of spending for rail, at least that is what I suspect - and the UK government obviously as well, because otherwise they would have spent so much more and thought it a vote-winner.

So my point is: the amount of money spent on the railways, and therefore the outcome, depends on political preferences (and thus on voter preferences). If a country wont support more than a certain amount of investment, obviously not every wish can be catered for.

 

[NoRoute]

The thing is, UK people don’t want to - they would certainly not accept a Swiss level of spending for rail, at least that is what I suspect - and the UK government obviously as well, because otherwise they would have spent so much more and thought it a vote-winner.

So my point is: the amount of money spent on the railways, and therefore the outcome, depends on political preferences (and thus on voter preferences). If a country wont support more than a certain amount of investment, obviously not every wish can be catered for.

I'm not sure it's that clear cut, most European countries have electoral systems which include a greater degree of representation, many use proportional representation, so they have more political parties with power and a broader range of voices in the debate, influencing the priorities. Many have a much less centralised system of government than we have in the UK and there's a pretty consistent pattern that government cares most about what is under its nose, rather than what is hundreds of miles away.

When the entirety of a country's choices on every issue and topic are boiled down to a choice between the Blue team or the Red team, the result doesn't really give much guidance as to any particular topic.

 

[quantinghome]

But it can`t be done at any price, Network are probably guilty of gold plating everything meaning electrification gets cut back and will only be rolled out en mass when costs are brought down. the onus is on Network Rail to get its house in order.

There has certainly been gold plating, mostly due to lack of recent experience in electrification, but this was largely resolved after learning from the failures of GWEP. The solution is a rolling programme which allows skills to be built up, knowledge gained, lessons learned and applied. Unfortunately the government isn't doing this, instead authorising piecemeal electrification projects, thus perpetuating the problem of engineering skills being expensively built up, only for the teams to be stood down and dispersed.

 

[21C101]

But it can`t be done at any price, Network are probably guilty of gold plating everything meaning electrification gets cut back and will only be rolled out en mass when costs are brought down. the onus is on Network Rail to get its house in order.

They are, but I don't entirely blame them for two reasons.

Firstly they have to comply with modern health and safety requirements. What this means is that before anything can be done it has to be exhaustively documented that it is not unsafe.

The days of an experienced engineer proceeding on precedent are long over. The accident where the chap leaning out of the window got killed and the Train Operating Company got fined millions (due to the Do not lean out of the window sign being deemed not prominent enough compared with other signs around the door), illustrates how easy it is to fall foul of the rules.

Additionally, the sentencing guidelines expressly forbid the behaviour of the victim being deemed a mitigating factor in H&S offence sentencing, the fines were also increased hugely by the May administration and each update of the Construction, Design and Management regulations is more onerous.

Road construction costs have risen by similar amounts over the last decade and the latest version of CDM, which extended the scope to work on domestic premises, was expected to increase the cost of domestic building work by 20%.

Secondly, if you gold plate and all goes well you finish on time and below budget and look good. If you don't and it goes badly you become a pillory.