Where do you envisage the tunnel portals being located?
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Possible plans for Edinburgh Waverley station?
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The answers to our two questions are interrelated.I was more thinking along the lines of: How much would that cost to build!hock:
47271
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As of yesterday:
The escalators by P11 are now out of use ahead of being moved.
The buildings at the end of P12 are getting demolished.
The pedestrian crossing from the foot of the escalators to the main concourse has been moved eastwards to the other side of the footbridge.
The entire area east of the new pedestrian crossing is fenced off around the location of the extensions to P5 and P6.
It looks like the only purpose of the crossing is to deal with construction vehicles since there's no point in anything else trying to drive down there.
The escalators by P11 are now out of use ahead of being moved.
The buildings at the end of P12 are getting demolished.
The pedestrian crossing from the foot of the escalators to the main concourse has been moved eastwards to the other side of the footbridge.
The entire area east of the new pedestrian crossing is fenced off around the location of the extensions to P5 and P6.
It looks like the only purpose of the crossing is to deal with construction vehicles since there's no point in anything else trying to drive down there.
route:oxford
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Well, things do get a little bit complicated in Edinburgh with the multiple levels.
From the WCML:-
Start the descent immediately after the Western Approach Road. There may well be enough space to have both a double track route into a new underground Haymarket station as well as retain a double track access to the current station.
From the Waverley end
A dive under immediately adjacent to platform 2 - at what I think would be platform 3&4?
I was more thinking along the lines of: How much would that cost to build!
Less than Crossrail.
EdinburghTrain
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I'd love to see it, however just because something costs less than Crossrail, that doesn't make it worthwhile.
Crossrail will have benefits for 10/15 Million+ people, if it cost £1 billion less to tunnel under Edinburgh, it wouldn't be money well spent.
Crossrail is also partly funded by businesses in London.
I would drive the tunnel all the way past the east end of the Calton tunnels, with two lower level platforms at Waverley.
NotATrainspott
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Sometimes easier than soft rock, if you don't need to support every cavern. You can get lovely effects like on the Stockholm metro with the exposed rock forming the walls and ceilings of the station caverns.
I had similar ideas about tunnelling under Waverley before. The big thing that's more talked about is the basic notion of another pair of tracks into Waverley and that would come about as a result of HSR work. The big question then is whether it's possible to still have the four existing tracks through Princes Street Gardens while fitting in a new tunnel portal to the south when Edinburgh Castle is right there. If you can tunnel into and/or under the rock, then it should be possible to link some traditional TBM tunnels up to the surface without affecting the existing tracks. Ideally, you could build these tunnels independently without affecting existing traffic and then rework the southern side of the station to use them over a single long possession. East of the castle, it seems that trimming away at the southern slope of the cutting and driving a new tunnel under the Mound shouldn't be that hard.
The base case for the long term future is that 12, 13 and 18 will be available as through platforms. I think then that a southern expansion and reconstruction can provide a few TSI-compliant (they would only be accessible from the HSR tunnel, so there's no reason not to) platforms for the major InterCity services. If there are multiple independent through platforms available from both the north and south tunnels as well as some terminating platforms in between them, I think there's no real benefit to building a new cross-city tunnel for suburban/regional trains. There will be three tracks out to the east soon enough and I see a possibility of a non-conflicting turnback at Abbeyhill for suburban trains.
Altnabreac
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You can get enough HSR capacity into Waverley from the west without any tunnelling being required.
So the only benefits from tunnelling inside the bypass are being able to use slightly wider bodied stock (and then only once you have 100% HSR southwards) and a time saving of 5-7 mins.
You also lose out on a stop at Haymarket as the business case won't pay for 2 underground stations.
So really it's about the most expensive location between Golborne and Scotland to invest in a £/minute journey time saved calculation.
Given you can get journey times well below 3 hours without tunnelling into Waverley it therefore won't ever happen.
400m platforms at Waverley (and possibly also Haymarket) could be of benefit though, and could be delivered much more affordably.
So the only benefits from tunnelling inside the bypass are being able to use slightly wider bodied stock (and then only once you have 100% HSR southwards) and a time saving of 5-7 mins.
You also lose out on a stop at Haymarket as the business case won't pay for 2 underground stations.
So really it's about the most expensive location between Golborne and Scotland to invest in a £/minute journey time saved calculation.
Given you can get journey times well below 3 hours without tunnelling into Waverley it therefore won't ever happen.
400m platforms at Waverley (and possibly also Haymarket) could be of benefit though, and could be delivered much more affordably.
A couple of platforms and a few escalators aren't going to be that expensive.
Altnabreac
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£400m for a stop 1.5 miles from the terminus at Waverley = negative business case.
I agree there's almost no business case for through tunnels to start with, but if they used a constant diameter bore then there's not that much additional cost for adding a low-level station under an existing surface station. It's just the cost of platforms, lighting, ventilation, escalators and stairs.
Altnabreac
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Even then I think it would be hard to justify. Difficult to pick apart though. I think a lack of Haymarket stop would be a downside to the business case for a tunnel but also that a Haymarket stop would make a tunnel business case worse, if that makes any sense
route:oxford
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I make the utilisable length from the end of Platform 3 to be 210 metres.
So using two gradients that I've found hunting through the forums.
Faringdon - 1:27 - the trackbed would be 7.8metres lower at it entered the portal.
DLR at Bank - 1:17 - the trackbed would be 12.3 metres lower as it entered the portal.
Estimating the portal is around 10 metres away from the historic booking office buildings.
So on an 11 coach Pendolino, around a third of the powered bogies wouldn't be on the gradient at any one time.
Unless my arithmetic is terribly wrong.
I'm at Waverley just now. My train is next but one at p19 but I'll be damned if I can find a seat. There's two benches at most.
I appreciate there's work going on immediately behind but I can't see any reason for so few seats.
Edit: although I am keeping myself amused working out various ways this rammed platform will fit in the approaching 3-car 185 to Manchester Victoria.
And now even more amused at people chasing the 170 that passed through en route to p7 (the TPE was being held next to the Klondyke).
I appreciate there's work going on immediately behind but I can't see any reason for so few seats.
Edit: although I am keeping myself amused working out various ways this rammed platform will fit in the approaching 3-car 185 to Manchester Victoria.
And now even more amused at people chasing the 170 that passed through en route to p7 (the TPE was being held next to the Klondyke).
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NotATrainspott
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In the short term, yes. In the very long term (as in, going beyond 2043) I think there is quite a reasonable case for a new pair of tracks. Any HSR spur into Edinburgh would merge back onto the Slateford line just west of the A720 in a first phase, leaving the tunnel to be built as a later phase once the capacity truly is required.
Remember that the ultimate restriction on the Slateford line is the flat junction at Haymarket. You could quite practically have 10tph (6 Glasgow, 2 London, 1 Manchester, 1 Birmingham) using the new line. The actual number of trains through Haymarket south tunnel doesn't need to change as much as the general proportion taking each route. While the Dalmeny Chord will help, it's not going to magically solve all pathing problems over this junction forever, as e.g. there will be 6tph to Bathgate in future. Today the diverging route is a small proportion of traffic through the south lines, so there aren't as many conflicts. If the proportion increases, so does the number of conflicts. The few minutes of saved journey time aren't as important as the capacity improvements.
There can't be a stop at Haymarket on any new HSR line. This isn't great, but I think it's going to be acceptable. A Manchester Airport-style stop at the western tunnel portal near Edinburgh Park would connect to the tram and give good access to the employment sites and transport interchange possible there. Then, in the city centre there's going to be development north-east and south-east of Waverley on the planned tram routes. The loss of a Haymarket call would have no negative impact on these places. Anyway, Haymarket isn't really that far away from Waverley. If the classic line frequencies are ramped up the end-to-end journey time with a change couldn't really be that bad anyway, especially when the HSR shuttle service could be so much faster. The replacement stop at Edinburgh Park would have excellent access from the road network, so that people around Midlothian and suburban Edinburgh could practically take the shuttle to Glasgow rather than driving. These folk don't gain much from the Haymarket stop today.
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Altnabreac
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I think you'd only ever have 5 Glasgow (four Scotrail, one Newcastle CC or TPE) but you could equally have 1 Liverpool so 9-10tph is reasonable as a long term possibility.
You're also quite right that wouldn't fit through Haymarket East Junction. But nor would 5-6tph so you can't ever send your HSR that way.
In my experience they are rarely in operation at Kings Cross when the platform is busy.
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As far as I understand the existing plans, there will be a new gated area taking in platforms 6, 7, 11 and 12 and platform 5 will be ungated. Given the small number of gates they are planning to put in for these platforms I'll be interested to see if they just end up permanently open.
Scotrail84
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No real progress on the old motorail sidings but 12 is coming along well.
Columns have been exposed , wonder how old the black paint is on them?
NotATrainspott
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As I understand it, 12 is meant to be finished well before 5 and 6 in the plans. 12 will be useful pretty much immediately for the 7 and then 8 car E&G shuttle service, while 5 and 6 will only come into their own once the IEP rollout is well underway on ICEC.
Great to see the extension at platform 12 starting to come to life.
Providing you could create some space at Princess Street Gardens approach, if you got rid of the old station building at Haymarket then wouldn't that allow just enough space for a tunnel beyond the buffer at 0? Throw in a new junction from the WCML turn off to connect with Platforms 1 and 2 then you've got greater flexibility at a potentially lower cost compared to low level platforms.
You've still only got four tracks between Haymarket and Waverley though, with flat crossings to boot.
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