Despite the government's announcement, should HS2 be cancelled?

[JonathanH]

I would hope that Scotland quite quickly goes 2tph due to attracting air passengers.

There is unfortunately a practical limit to how many trains can be accommodated over the route north of Preston. Once you have Scottish trains from London, Birmingham and Manchester, and recognised the demand for freight trains, fitting in another London train on the opposite side of the hour to the first one isn't likely to be straightforward.

 

[Peter Sarf]

There is unfortunately a practical limit to how many trains can be accommodated over the route north of Preston. Once you have Scottish trains from London, Birmingham and Manchester, and recognised the demand for freight trains, fitting in another London train on the opposite side of the hour to the first one isn't likely to be straightforward.

I had not thought of TPE and Birmingham to Scotland. Lets hope one of them becomes a full length train starting back from London !. Well it would be nice to think that one day HS2 will be justified further North of (at/near) Manchester to Scotland.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I had not thought of TPE and Birmingham to Scotland. Lets hope one of them becomes a full length train starting back from London !. Well it would be nice to think that one day HS2 will be justified further North of (at/near) Manchester to Scotland.

One of the proposals did have Euston-Manchester-Scotland with a Pendolino replacing Euston-Birmingham-Scotland which would be replaced by the HS2 Curzon St to Scotland service. Not seen that one for a bit though. I can see the sense in it as it would allow Lancaster, Oxenholme and Penrith to retain a London service without using any more paths than are used now, though its downside would be a Pendolino on Castlefield.

 

[The Planner]

There is also fairly large uproar about the potential of Lancaster losing its London service entirely, other than possibly a very slow one via Birmingham. It's not a big place, but has a lot of students, many of whom are from the South East, and the London services are always well used there.

With regard to Preston, at almost any given time either P5 or P6 is unused, often both, and P7 is totally disused and could be reinstated and extended slightly (there appears to be room either or both ways), so that's an easy one to deal with. Unless the rationalisation would be looking to remove the nuisance south end bays which would probably mean the Ormskirk and Colne needing one or the other to reverse in.

What would need sorting at Lancaster? P5 could be extended pretty cheaply to stick it in, there is space to the south. In fact it would probably already fit a 200m unit, the northern end is the same length as 4 which fits a 265m Pendolino while the missing bit at the south end isn't 65m long.

The north end is being looked at, and if it costs I dont see it happening now.

 

[Bletchleyite]

The north end is being looked at, and if it costs I dont see it happening now.

What is the concern about P5? As it is the same physical platform as P4, if it's say too narrow surely it's too narrow for Pendolinos now?

Might need to move signals, but surely that's pocket money compared to the price of HS2 as a whole.

 

[Greybeard33]

Yes, but with NPR to Marsden I am far from convinced going to Leeds via Nottingham is the best option.

The line from Manchester to Marsden will never be full with TPE traffic and it gets you within 25 miles of Leeds.

But the tunnel from Manchester Airport to Piccadilly will be full, because of the headway constraints for emergency escape. Nor will Piccadilly HS station have capacity for reversing more Leeds services. If the 3tph Euston - Manchester services were extended to Leeds, they would likely become overcrowded.

 

[Bletchleyite]

But the tunnel from Manchester Airport to Piccadilly will be full, because of the headway constraints for emergency escape. Nor will Piccadilly HS station have capacity for reversing more Leeds services. If the 3tph Euston - Manchester services were extended to Leeds, they would likely become overcrowded.

Would they? They near double the capacity from the full pre COVID service which wasn't itself anywhere near full.

 

[Greybeard33]

Would they? They near double the capacity from the full pre COVID service which wasn't itself anywhere near full.

The planned capacity from London - Leeds via the original Eastern leg was 2*400m + 1*200m tph, i.e. 83% of the planned London - Manchester capacity. Even after subtracting the passengers who would have alighted at Toton, 3*400m trains to serve both Manchester and Leeds would be a substantial reduction from the capacity that modelling indicated would be needed to cater for future demand. HS2 is supposed to be future proof.

 

[Chester1]

Replace Preston with Lancaster and Stoke with Macclesfield.

Exactly my thoughts. Even if it’s not the ’final’ solution, the EMD spur (platform extensions notwithstanding) is a quick win for the East Midlands.

I thought Liverpool was 2 tph. One train was a split with a Lancaster service at Crewe?

Yes, 2 to Liverpool, and yes, one is the north WCML stopper, which has been cited as either Preston or Lancaster depending who you ask, though I personally would go for Carlisle.

So its:

To / from London:

3tph Birmingham
3tph Manchester
1tph Liverpool
1tph Liverpool and Lancaster (split units)
1tph Macclesfield
1tph Edinburgh/Glasgow (split units)

To / from Birmingham:

1tph Manchester
1tph Liverpool

Its easy to see why Euston expansion has been scaled down to 10 HS platforms. If Sheffield, Nottingham and Derby all get their own services then we are still looking at 13tph and 5 of those would be single units.

If Birmingham to Leeds is 2tph then 17tph would run north of Birmingham for a few miles.

I would hope that Scotland quite quickly goes 2tph due to attracting air passengers.

It makes sense to me to build High Speed between Manchester and Leeds (or as much as possible) as an extension of HS2 to Manchester. The need for an Eastern leg from near Birmingham is unlikely to gain much * and will not be needed until HS2 Birmingham - Northwards is full. And then it will be a case of a new High Speed line starting back from London. So all a LONG way off.

*= The likes of Derby and Sheffield might lose out but I think Leeds Northwards will be the main traffic generator.

Doesn't need to be high speed. NPR should reduce Leeds to Manchester to 30 minutes. With a 5 minute turn around and 65 minute journey time to London it would be 1 hour 40 minutes. That would beat journey times via ECML and East Midlands Parkway.

But the tunnel from Manchester Airport to Piccadilly will be full, because of the headway constraints for emergency escape. Nor will Piccadilly HS station have capacity for reversing more Leeds services. If the 3tph Euston - Manchester services were extended to Leeds, they would likely become overcrowded.

I am not convinced the Manchester tunnel would be full. Its speculative at this stage but with HS2 only its:

- London to Manchester 3tph
- Birmingham to Manchester 1tph.

NPR will be a minimum of:

- Liverpool to Leeds 4tph

That is only 8tph.

Perhaps solution for Leeds is to have multiple routes e.g.

2tph Leeds to London via ECML
1tph Leeds to London via Sheffield and East Midlands
1tph Leeds to London via Manchester

1tph Leeds to Birmingham via Manchester
1tph Leeds to Birmingham via East Midlands

That would open up a wide range of journeys to intermediate stations.

 

[Bletchleyite]

HS2 is supposed to be future proof.

Was. We've instead moved to a more sensible phased approach, spending money over a much longer period as it comes close to being needed.

The one piece of true madness in the present spec is of a 10 platform Euston, because that is going to be very hard to change later. The people who planned and built the 1960s Euston were visionary - it opened with maybe 5-6tph in total, pre COVID it handled over 20tph in the peaks with only a crowded concourse to show for it.

 

[Bald Rick]

The people who planned and built the 1960s Euston were visionary - it opened with maybe 5-6tph in total

It had a lot more than that, particularly in the evening. Loads of parcels / postal / paper trains occupying platforms for a long time, plus the sleepers of course. And don’t forget the loco release extended platform occupation times compared to now.

 

[Greybeard33]

So its:

To / from London:

3tph Birmingham
3tph Manchester
1tph Liverpool
1tph Liverpool and Lancaster (split units)
1tph Macclesfield
1tph Edinburgh/Glasgow (split units)

To / from Birmingham:

1tph Manchester
1tph Liverpool

Its easy to see why Euston expansion has been scaled down to 10 HS platforms. If Sheffield, Nottingham and Derby all get their own services then we are still looking at 13tph and 5 of those would be single units.

If Birmingham to Leeds is 2tph then 17tph would run north of Birmingham for a few miles.



Doesn't need to be high speed. NPR should reduce Leeds to Manchester to 30 minutes. With a 5 minute turn around and 65 minute journey time to London it would be 1 hour 40 minutes. That would beat journey times via ECML and East Midlands Parkway.



I am not convinced the Manchester tunnel would be full. Its speculative at this stage but with HS2 only its:

- London to Manchester 3tph
- Birmingham to Manchester 1tph.

NPR will be a minimum of:

- Liverpool to Leeds 4tph

That is only 8tph.

Perhaps solution for Leeds is to have multiple routes e.g.

2tph Leeds to London via ECML
1tph Leeds to London via Sheffield and East Midlands
1tph Leeds to London via Manchester

1tph Leeds to Birmingham via Manchester
1tph Leeds to Birmingham via East Midlands

That would open up a wide range of journeys to intermediate stations.

No, it is 2tph Birmingham - Manchester, which would be extended to York/Newcastle after NPR opens. No service from Birmingham - Liverpool and 1tph London - Glasgow only, not Edinburgh. This is the 2b West iTSS now the Golborne Link has been binned:

HS2 Crewe to Manchester: update on the strategic outline business case

Provides an update on the 2017 strategic outline business case for the HS2 western leg route from Crewe to Manchester.

www.gov.uk

The Hybrid Bill Strategic Outline Business Case has been amended to remove the cost of all the infrastructure enhancements needed to run HS2 to Edinburgh, not just the Golborne Link. No 400m platforms at Preston or Carlisle, no depot at Annadale, no turnback at Craigentinny, no signal headway reductions west of Edinburgh.

HS2 Crewe to Manchester: impacts of removing the Golborne Link

Supplement to the update on the strategic outline business case.

www.gov.uk

 

[MattRat]

No, it is 2tph Birmingham - Manchester, which would be extended to York/Newcastle after NPR opens. No service from Birmingham - Liverpool and 1tph London - Glasgow only, not Edinburgh. This is the 2b West iTSS now the Golborne Link has been binned:
View attachment 124030

HS2 Crewe to Manchester: update on the strategic outline business case

Provides an update on the 2017 strategic outline business case for the HS2 western leg route from Crewe to Manchester.

www.gov.uk

The Hybrid Bill has been amended to remove all the infrastructure enhancements needed to run HS2 to Edinburgh, not just the Golborne Link. No 400m platforms at Preston or Carlisle, no depot at Annadale, no turnback at Craigentinny, no signal headway reductions west of Edinburgh.

HS2 Crewe to Manchester: impacts of removing the Golborne Link

Supplement to the update on the strategic outline business case.

www.gov.uk

And no way to get to Birmingham outside of London and some Manchester trains....

 

[Elecman]

With regard to Preston, at almost any given time either P5 or P6 is unused, often both, and P7 is totally disused and could be reinstated and extended slightly (there appears to be room either or both ways), so that's an easy one to deal with. Unless the rationalisation would be looking to remove the nuisance south end bays which would probably mean the Ormskirk and Colne needing one or the other to reverse in.

P7 needs some resignalling and trap points installing out of the adjacent sidings before it can be used for passenger services

 

[Bletchleyite]

P7 needs some resignalling and trap points installing out of the adjacent sidings before it can be used for passenger services

Thanks. Not mega costly though.

 

[The Planner]

Thanks. Not mega costly though.

The whole thing needs doing, and as its down to be ETCS when it is, I doubt anyone is going to mess with it.

 

[Bald Rick]

And no way to get to Birmingham outside of London and some Manchester trains....

yes there is….

 

[tomuk]

The Hybrid Bill has been amended to remove all the infrastructure enhancements needed to run HS2 to Edinburgh, not just the Golborne Link. No 400m platforms at Preston or Carlisle, no depot at Annadale, no turnback at Craigentinny, no signal headway reductions west of Edinburgh.

HS2 Crewe to Manchester: impacts of removing the Golborne Link

Supplement to the update on the strategic outline business case.

www.gov.uk

No they haven't if yiou read the document you linked to they are retained:

...a number of works intended to support the Phase 2b train service with the Golborne Link are being
retained in this Bill.
1.20 These include platform extensions at Carlisle and Preston stations; and works to
construct Annandale depot for stabling and maintenance of HS2 trains running to
Scotland

 

[HSTEd]

But the tunnel from Manchester Airport to Piccadilly will be full, because of the headway constraints for emergency escape.

The tunnel on approach to Manchester is 12.67km long in the last set of planning documents.

There are four intervention shafts - at 2.6, 4.7, 6.8 and 9.2km from the southern end.
The absolute longest distance between access points is 3.5km at the Manchester Picadilly end.

The stated HS2 journey time from Manchester Picadilly to Manchester Airport is around 7 minutes, for a distance of around 16-17km stop to stop, for an average speed of 137+km/h.
Even at that average speed, which includes the station throats at both ends, you'd traverse the 3.5km gap in around 90 seconds. I'd suggest given that the train will have been rolling for a kilometre before it gets into the tunnel that the actual time will be significantly less, given how well modern high speed trains can accelerate.

Given that the headway for the nominal 18tph capacity of the core is 200 seconds, I am skeptical that this will form a real constraint on capacity.

And even if it did - by far the cheapest solution would be to add an extra intervention shaft to the plan, even if it costs a billion pounds it will avoid 15 or 20bn in extra high speed line costs on the duplicate railway to Leeds

Nor will Piccadilly HS station have capacity for reversing more Leeds services.

Why not?

It's got six platforms.
Numerous termini handle the required number of trains per platform, and we have the advantage of a comparatively simple route knowledge requirement for LU style reversing, and thats before we consider more exotic options like autoreverse.

Fenchurch Street is instructive

If the 3tph Euston - Manchester services were extended to Leeds, they would likely become overcrowded.

Even if we were limited to 3tph (and I don't think we would be), that's at least 3300 seats per hour. And given we would have continuous GC track to Leeds, if necessary we can push to 4500 (TGV M).

Even 3300 seats per hour is a huge uplift over the current service, it will be a looong time before that is exhausted.

EDIT:

Using the old stats from the Sapsan, the train will be going something like 100km/h before it even enters the tunnel, and will keep accelerating for those 3.5km to the first intervention shaft. Given that the ruling linespeed of that section is 250km/h.

EDIT #2: At least one reading of this document implies that this restriction is not limiting on HS2 because it has adopted the "alternative technical arrangement" using cross passages between the running bores.

I think I got confused by that.

 

[Arkeeos]

The problem is that HS2 was over-specified.
I didn't support it originally, but now realise that it is the only effective way to put a better service back on the WCML. Unfortunately, to "sell" it they went for an unnecessarily fast line, with higher costs for alignments, cemented ballast, contractors carrying all the risk and higher speed (more energy-wasting) trains: all these bring disproportionate increases in costs - plus more noise.

The success of the railway we had shows that not much improvenment was necessary in the way of speed, just capacity.

This I believe has already been explained, the cost of making the line high speed isn't that much greater than making it 125mph and is projected to have around 30% higher ridership than if it was built to that spec.

 

[Greybeard33]

No they haven't if yiou read the document you linked to they are retained:

Yes you are correct that the legislative powers for those works are being retained in the Hybrid Bill. But a paragraph after the one you quoted says:

1.22 It should however be noted that these powers are permissive, and should
Government pursue different options following consideration of alternatives these
works may be reconsidered.

Then the Technical Annex says that the cost of these works has been removed from the business case:

A.2 A ‘no link to the WCML sensitivity’ in which the Golborne Link was not included in the
scheme was published in the SOBC. In the time since the original publication of this
scenario a small number of methodological changes were introduced in order to
capture the full removal of all the costs associated with the Link and to reflect the
latest assumptions around appraisal years and sunk costs. These changes can be
summarised as follows:
• Changes to capital cost assumptions, which includes:
o The deletion of any passive provision for a future Golborne Link.
o The exclusion of Land and Property costs for continuing to hold
Safeguarding between Hoo Green and Lilly Lane.
o The adjustment of the Rolling Stock Fleet only for Phase 2a indicative
Train Service Specification (iTSS) operating to Scotland.
o The removal of the costs related to Off Route Works including Annandale,
Preston, Carlisle, Craigentinny Provisional Sum (for Edinburgh turnback)
and signal Headways near Mid Calder.
o The reduction of the size of the Crewe North Rolling Stock Depot to
reflect the downsized rolling stock fleet.

And a footnote says:

It should be noted that both passive provision remains in the Bill for a link to the WCML, as do the works at
Annandale, Preston and Carlisle. They have only been removed from the economic analysis as costs
would fall to any project which takes forward a future link to the WCML.

Taking these together, I think it is clear that the WCML works north of Crewe will only proceed if the Golborne Link, or a replacement, is restored in a future Hybrid Bill.

 

[LYuen]

There is a huge lose of potential for Manchester not being a through station and Manchester Airport HS2 station still being too far away.
If the budget is tight at the moment, HS2 Phase 2, especially 2B, should be paused, rather then going ahead with a permanently compromised system.

 

[Bletchleyite]

There is a huge lose of potential for Manchester not being a through station and Manchester Airport HS2 station still being too far away.

It's a misnamed station. It isn't for going to Manchester Airport (why would someone from London want to do that, and they aren't going to fill up seats from Manchester going there* when they can sell a London ticket), it's really South Manchester Parkway**, replacing the very significant role of Stockport as a parkway station for the Jags, Mercs and Range Rovers arriving from posh south Manchester and Cheshire for peak services to London.

* That is, they'll either not sell tickets to Manchester Airport from Manchester on HS2 at all (as per the way passengers won't be carried between Euston and OOC), or they'll do it on a standby basis which people probably won't accept for time-critical airport travel, so the current line and the tram will remain the main Manchester <-> Airport service and so the slightly remote location won't matter.

** It's actually in a very, very similar position and situation to Liverpool South Parkway, which *isn't* called Liverpool Airport. OK, a bus is needed to get to the airport from that rather than a tram, but the overall situation is similar.

 

[Bald Rick]

There is a huge lose of potential for Manchester not being a through station

Why?

 

[Glenn1969]

yes there is….

Birmingham and East Midlands- Leeds is currently dire with no capacity for expansion because New Street, Sheffield and Leeds have all got capacity issues. When and how will this be sorted out if Wider network NPR/Midlands Connect/2B East are all scrapped to save money (none of them were mentioned in the Autumn Statement?)

 

[LYuen]

Why?

The benefits of high speed rail is high frequency and high capacity service. Such service requires high demand. The demand for WCML is huge, but at the moment it is split into complicated service patterns, hence poor utilisation of track usage. When service patterns can be simplified with services stopping all major stations, it can justify very frequent service. Manchester can possibly be the midpoint of London-Scotland HS2 project. Allowing a service to stop at Manchester and continue to Scotland, that will be the backbone/flagship service in HS2.

Imagine a service calling at Euston, Birmingham Interchange, Manchester and Glasgow only. It is planned to be 3-4 tph each. What level of frequency can meet the demand, assume an HS2 train is double the capacity of the Pendolino trains? I'd say 6-12 tph is justifiable and even profitable. That is about the same level of service as Japanese Shinkansen!

Plus, if the Manchester HS2/NPR station is a through station and the train to Leeds is north-bond, it allows trains to split at Manchester to go either to Scotland or Yorkshire.

 

[HSTEd]

The benefits of high speed rail is high frequency and high capacity service. Such service requires high demand. The demand for WCML is huge, but at the moment it is split into complicated service patterns, hence poor utilisation of track usage. When service patterns can be simplified with services stopping all major stations, it can justify very frequent service. Manchester can possibly be the midpoint of London-Scotland HS2 project. Allowing a service to stop at Manchester and continue to Scotland, that will be the backbone/flagship service in HS2.

Imagine a service calling at Euston, Birmingham Interchange, Manchester and Glasgow only. It is planned to be 3-4 tph each. What level of frequency can meet the demand, assume an HS2 train is double the capacity of the Pendolino trains? I'd say 6-12 tph is justifiable and even profitable. That is about the same level of service as Japanese Shinkansen!

Plus, if the Manchester HS2/NPR station is a through station and the train to Leeds is north-bond, it allows trains to split at Manchester to go either to Scotland or Yorkshire.

With modern signalling, fixed formation trains and the possibility of autoreverse, I'm not sure it really matters if its a through station or not, with the exception of reverses using up more capacity on the approach from the south than they otherwise would.

 

[Trainbike46]

You would argue against it because it is wrong. Rail's share of transport miles and journeys is small, under 10% so whatever you do with rail won't make that much difference. What matters is decarbonising road transport, so if decarbonisation is the goal then forget rail, you would be better taking a fraction of the cost of HS2 and using it to roll out a decent EV charging network across the UK, which would do far more to cut carbon.

Rail has way lower carbon emissions even compared to EV cars, and is a way more realistic alternative for flights like Central belt-London. So, while EV cars should definitely play a role, they absolutely do not replace improvements to rail. The point isn't the current modal share, but the ability to (attractively) replace journeys that currently get made by car or plane with journeys by rail - whether that is on HS2 itself or on the extra trains that can run on the existing network because the long distance trains move to HS2 (and other newbuilt railways). a similar thing applies to freight moving from lorries to rail.

Reducing domestic flights isn't a decent saving it contributes only 1.2% of transport emissions which are 27% of total UK emissions so 0.324%. Spending few billion pounds on free electric vans would give greater benefit.

This is misleading
If you break carbon emissions down into enough chunks, the overal emissions will appear low. That doesn't mean they don't need dealing with. You also completely ignore that in many other sectors action is happening to reduce emissions. For Domestic flights, on the other hand, we are only looking at an increase in emissions, and that is worrying. The only other sector I can think of that has as little realistic decarbonisation plans is food production, and while solutions exist, this isn't VegansUKforums, so I would feel it was rather off-topic here.

you're also missing the point that electric vans are in fact getting introduced quite quickly now, do you know how many royal mail and amazon have introduced recently? The reality is we need to tackle ALL sources of emissions, we're way past the point where you can say "if we buy a bunch of electric vans we don't have to deal with domestic flights" We need to deal with emissions from vans and domestic flights.

On a per passenger-km basis, domestic flights have by far the greenhouse gas emissions of all transport within the UK, so within transport it makes a lot of sense to focus on that.

Also, you completely miss the point that HS2 isn't just about replacing flights, it's about replacing flights AND replacing cars AND replacing HGVs - and in quite large numbers at that.

 

[Greybeard33]

Given that the headway for the nominal 18tph capacity of the core is 200 seconds, I am skeptical that this will form a real constraint on capacity.

And even if it did - by far the cheapest solution would be to add an extra intervention shaft to the plan, even if it costs a billion pounds it will avoid 15 or 20bn in extra high speed line costs on the duplicate railway to Leeds

I don't believe even headways are feasible on the Manchester Spur, because of the varying stopping patterns at Birmingham Interchange and the option for some Manchester services to call at Crewe.

Any change in design of the tunnel ventilation shafts would necessitate another public consultation and amendment of the Hybrid Bill, setting the project back several years.

Even if we were limited to 3tph (and I don't think we would be), that's at least 3300 seats per hour. And given we would have continuous GC track to Leeds, if necessary we can push to 4500 (TGV M).

Even 3300 seats per hour is a huge uplift over the current service, it will be a looong time before that is exhausted.

I understand the iTSS includes a "growth path" for a fourth hourly train from Euston to Manchester. But NPR per the IRP only delivers new track (presumably GC gauge) from Piccadilly to Marsden. The TRU project (aka "NPR Phase 1"), which is upgrading the existing route from Marsden to Leeds, does not include clearance to GC gauge - at most W12 for freight. So any HS2 Manchester - Leeds trains will have to be CC sets.

Of course, Leeds station would need expanding to accommodate HS2 trains from London, whether they arrive from the south or the west. I don't think this work is covered by the £96bn IRP budget.

 

[LYuen]

With modern signalling, fixed formation trains and the possibility of autoreverse, I'm not sure it really matters if its a through station or not, with the exception of reverses using up more capacity on the approach from the south than they otherwise would.

Possible but inefficient. The service pattern quoted in #462 shows Manchester is dead-end of the service. A through Manchester station can make it otherwise.