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We need High speed Rail, but Is HS2 really Needed?

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Clip

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Somebody said earlier in this thread about a French spokesperson saying "If we want to drain the swamp we won't consult the frogs" and I totally agree with Mr Croissant here. I think we should stop messing around, forget the precious old trees and build HS2. And 3. And maybe even 4.

To be honest I think HS2 will improve the looks of the fields it will rip up, like the Shinkansen. Beautiful.

If we abandon plans because of protecting the environment or keeping noise low then we won't get anywhere. Mr Grayling, get the diggers.

I dont think we are abandoning plans for those reasons BUT in this day and age we really must do everything we can to factor in environmental impact of large projects - indeed all projects - this earth needs all the help it can get right now from the harm we have foisted upon it the last god knows how long. We dont earn the right to destroy other habitats just because we can you know - we are not the owners and rulers of this world.
 
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Bucephalus

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I dont think we are abandoning plans for those reasons BUT in this day and age we really must do everything we can to factor in environmental impact of large projects - indeed all projects - this earth needs all the help it can get right now from the harm we have foisted upon it the last god knows how long. We dont earn the right to destroy other habitats just because we can you know - we are not the owners and rulers of this world.

I'm pro infrastructure but I also think you're quite right. In a perfect world I wish we could could have both
 

Clip

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I'm pro infrastructure but I also think you're quite right. In a perfect world I wish we could could have both

We can in a way - or at least we can mitigate our environmental impact on these projects which is generally what HS2 is doing , rather than the poster I quoted who thinks we should just build it and sod the rest of this planets lovely creatures
 

Bletchleyite

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I'm pro infrastructure but I also think you're quite right. In a perfect world I wish we could could have both

Railways aren't particularly ugly, even with the knitting. And modern day construction does a lot more for moving habitats etc - right down to spending a fortune on moving newts and the likes. And TBH building towns has a far greater effect than building one narrow strip of 2-track railway.

Do we look at the S&C on the magnificent Ribblehead Viaduct and think it's pig-ugly? No.

Do we look at the M6 and railway over Shap and think it's the railway that's a blot? No, that's the much wider M6 (which is impressive on an engineering basis, but is much more of a blot realistically).

Do we look at the Chiltern valleys and think the WCML (and the canal that came before) is a massive blot? No, it's just part of the scenery that blends in nicely.

It's really not as much of an issue as the naysayers are saying. There is no need to preserve the UK in aspic - least of all part of it for which the major part of the economy is, er, commuting by rail on the Chiltern line.
 

DanTrain

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Railways aren't particularly ugly, even with the knitting. And modern day construction does a lot more for moving habitats etc - right down to spending a fortune on moving newts and the likes. And TBH building towns has a far greater effect than building one narrow strip of 2-track railway.

Do we look at the S&C on the magnificent Ribblehead Viaduct and think it's pig-ugly? No.

Do we look at the M6 and railway over Shap and think it's the railway that's a blot? No, that's the much wider M6 (which is impressive on an engineering basis, but is much more of a blot realistically).

Do we look at the Chiltern valleys and think the WCML (and the canal that came before) is a massive blot? No, it's just part of the scenery that blends in nicely.

It's really not as much of an issue as the naysayers are saying. There is no need to preserve the UK in aspic - least of all part of it for which the major part of the economy is, er, commuting by rail on the Chiltern line.
I agree, I rather like a railway in the landscape to be honest. Some of the European High Speed routes are really beautiful and in my opinion contribute to, not detract from the landscape!
 

jyte

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I've personally always felt motorways have a much larger negative impact (noise/sight/environment) than railways.
 

The Ham

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I've personally always felt motorways have a much larger negative impact (noise/sight/environment) than railways.

Quite the near consent drone from a motorway will travel much further than that of trains.

I live nearer to a railway line than a motorway (motorway, railway line and then my house) and you are much more likely to hear the motorway than the trains.
 

Doomotron

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We can in a way - or at least we can mitigate our environmental impact on these projects which is generally what HS2 is doing , rather than the poster I quoted who thinks we should just build it and sod the rest of this planets lovely creatures
I have a name.
 

Ianno87

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I agree, I rather like a railway in the landscape to be honest. Some of the European High Speed routes are really beautiful and in my opinion contribute to, not detract from the landscape!

I always think about how they open up scenery to people who would otherwise never see it - how many people would see the Lune Gorge if it weren't for the WCML/M6?
 

quantinghome

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We have to remember that the 'natural' landscape in Britain is almost entirely man-made. Absent human influence we would see a vast temperate forest and substantial tracts of impenetrable marsh. Human impact has already transformed this over millennia. IMO land management issues (monoculture farming, moorland managed for shooting) has a greater impact than any linear infrastructure we have built over the past few centuries. It's a strange argument from an environmental perspective to say it's OK to have built the motorway network, but not high speed rail.
 

DanTrain

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I always think about how they open up scenery to people who would otherwise never see it - how many people would see the Lune Gorge if it weren't for the WCML/M6?
Indeed, same with the moors over Beatock, or much of the Highland Mainline! Whilst we don’t want rail lines everywhere, equally worrying excessively about a couple of quite nice valleys seems completely ott, just get on with it like the Chinese do!
 

OverSpeed

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Hello Gentlefolks :)

I've come to this conclusion, that we Brits (Or some Forum users whom-will not use HS2, not a single inch of track or a square centimeter of rolling stock:D) Will complain until the cows come home about progress of certain Schemes that, have happened,are happening and will happen.

The reasoning of my Original post was to see if a full WCML Upgrade Vs HS2 would be easier/cheaper to do than building a new route, but after my travels in the last week i can see the benefit of what HS2 will bring to the table, Especially when some people will want to travel between Point A to Points B & C and i do think it will be needed, but from what i've seen out and about on other lines, travelling from Points A to Z also needs to be addressed,sorted and upgraded.

I Guess they will be eventually, i do wonder though if the various thinktanks whom have done consultations on HS2, have taken into account of the growth of various Towns and cities, and what demands (transport wise) they will need and whether HS2 will effect them or benefit them, take my Local town of Rugby, in the next 10-15 years the population could well be over 130,000 in the town with all the new thousands of homes that are being built and will be built, Currently it takes around half an Hour to get to Birmingham International and around an hour to get to London.

Will these times increase post Hs2?

Just like Brexit, no one actually knows :)
 

The Ham

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Hello Gentlefolks :)

I've come to this conclusion, that we Brits (Or some Forum users whom-will not use HS2, not a single inch of track or a square centimeter of rolling stock:D) Will complain until the cows come home about progress of certain Schemes that, have happened,are happening and will happen.

The reasoning of my Original post was to see if a full WCML Upgrade Vs HS2 would be easier/cheaper to do than building a new route, but after my travels in the last week i can see the benefit of what HS2 will bring to the table, Especially when some people will want to travel between Point A to Points B & C and i do think it will be needed, but from what i've seen out and about on other lines, travelling from Points A to Z also needs to be addressed,sorted and upgraded.

I Guess they will be eventually, i do wonder though if the various thinktanks whom have done consultations on HS2, have taken into account of the growth of various Towns and cities, and what demands (transport wise) they will need and whether HS2 will effect them or benefit them, take my Local town of Rugby, in the next 10-15 years the population could well be over 130,000 in the town with all the new thousands of homes that are being built and will be built, Currently it takes around half an Hour to get to Birmingham International and around an hour to get to London.

Will these times increase post Hs2?

Just like Brexit, no one actually knows :)

I would suggest that those towns along the WCML would be able to benefit from the fact that those passengers going between stations which will benefit from HS2 using that rather than the existing services. Now there's going to be some who won't want to, however they are likely to be in the minority.

Take for instance a train with 500 people on board such runs London/Birmingham, if 75% of those people are traveling end to end that leaves 150 passengers wishing to use that service.

That's probably enough to justify keeping the service running, just with a shorter train.

There's two things to bear in mind though (which makes it more complex) firstly with extra seats it could attract more passengers. However conversely it could well be that the train company could consider trying to reduce frequenties.
 

Eddd

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Quite the near consent drone from a motorway will travel much further than that of trains.

I used to live about 2km from HS1, with the M20 about half way between. I could hear trains clearly over the distant roar of the traffic, though the infrequency suggested that only Eurostars were loud enough.

Naturally, I resented the motorway drone and liked the occasional trains.
 

Alfie1014

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When the case for HS2 was being developed around 10 years ago the than Permenant Secretary at DfT explained it as follows. Looking 20-30+ years in the future the capacity of the existing (land) networks between London and the Midlands and the North; road (M1 & M40) and rail (WCML and Chiltern) would be exhausted. Therefore to avoid constraining the wider economy by the costs of increasing congestion new capacity would required, either road or rail. At the time the Department was trying to look at schemes in a modally agnostic way but ultimately rail was the preferred option and the cost of going for High Speed was marginal and provided greater benefits than a new conventional rail route. Really HS2 should have been christened CB1 (Capacity Buster 1) to reflect its greater benefit, but this doesn't sound as sexy as High Speed 2!
 

OverSpeed

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I used to live about 2km from HS1, with the M20 about half way between. I could hear trains clearly over the distant roar of the traffic, though the infrequency suggested that only Eurostars were loud enough.

Naturally, I resented the motorway drone and liked the occasional trains.

I know what you mean there, i can hear trains on the WCML go across a bridge, which is about 2 miles away! There is also a Bypass which had soundproofing fences put up, to cushion the sound of vehicles rushing up and down it,but you can still hear them and guess you can spend X amount on doing these measures, but with an increase of speed you'll be able to hear the sound!
 

DanTrain

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When the case for HS2 was being developed around 10 years ago the than Permenant Secretary at DfT explained it as follows. Looking 20-30+ years in the future the capacity of the existing (land) networks between London and the Midlands and the North; road (M1 & M40) and rail (WCML and Chiltern) would be exhausted. Therefore to avoid constraining the wider economy by the costs of increasing congestion new capacity would required, either road or rail. At the time the Department was trying to look at schemes in a modally agnostic way but ultimately rail was the preferred option and the cost of going for High Speed was marginal and provided greater benefits than a new conventional rail route. Really HS2 should have been christened CB1 (Capacity Buster 1) to reflect its greater benefit, but this doesn't sound as sexy as High Speed 2!
Agreed, and that is what most people don't get. It's been marketed as SPEED and not as capacity, and therefore people look at the 30 minutes saved and wonder what the point is for £30bn or whatever it is now. What it really is is a doubling (ish) of capacity to many major destinations on already full routes.
 

GRALISTAIR

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Agreed, and that is what most people don't get. It's been marketed as SPEED and not as capacity, and therefore people look at the 30 minutes saved and wonder what the point is for £30bn or whatever it is now. What it really is is a doubling (ish) of capacity to many major destinations on already full routes.
And doubling capacity with much reduced disruption compared to modernizing an existing line.
 

route101

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For Glasgow how much of time saving will it be for HS2 compared to present ?
 

The Ham

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For Glasgow how much of time saving will it be for HS2 compared to present ?

Given that Leeds is expected to have an hours worth of journey time saving, it would likely save an hour over the current services along the ECML.
 

jyte

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For Glasgow how much of time saving will it be for HS2 compared to present ?
About an hour saved to both Edinburgh and Glasgow compared to the current 'standard' journey time. Interestingly, HS2 use 4:08 as the current London-Glasgow journey time, only one train manages this!
 

gsnedders

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About an hour saved to both Edinburgh and Glasgow compared to the current 'standard' journey time. Interestingly, HS2 use 4:08 as the current London-Glasgow journey time, only one train manages this!
The 16:30 no longer runs Euston–Preston–Glasgow (it has a more typical stopping pattern instead, rather than such a limited stop service for the sake of the headline time), so no train manages it now!
 

bussnapperwm

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As long as the current 168 Chiltern Express services are not slowed down to almost SET Classic service lines, I'll be happy.

In fact, I highly doubt I will use the waste of taxpayers money known as High Speed 2, especially with a 168 able to take me to London from Stourbridge direct in just over 2 hours...

(Especially as this country is virtually broke following a Mr Blair and Mr Brown spending spree!)
 

AlastairFraser

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But HS2 will vastly improve the inter regional service by allowing paths to be available on the WCML for more semi fast services!
Only to Birmingham until Phase 2 opens!HS2 opening is the wrong way round. I'm not a local but I bet you that the WCML is more congested between Birmingham and Manchester and onwards ,so it would make sense for the Chiltern lines to be heavily upgraded to 140mph for services to the West Midlands,Merseyside and North Wales , all the closed sections of the GCR Main Line including the Grendon Underwood link to be reopened as 140 mph railway(tunnels/bridges will be necessary of course pushing the price up but not as much as HS2 is going to cost)(this also helps the MML and the WCML further up by allowing some of the Sheffield/Manchester/Chesterfield/Leicester express traffic to be directed via the reopened line and the WCML south of Birmingham by allowing some long distance Birmingham traffic to terminate in Birmingham.) Then you build a high speed line between Birmingham-Manchester-Liverpool/Newcastle via Leeds and the Pennines with a branch to Hull and the Humber Ports at Leeds, essentially merging NPR or HS3 with Phase 2 of HS2. There is now no need for HS2 routing and stations at/near Nottingham/Derby and Sheffield because both of those places could be reached within 1-1.5 hours from London (assuming the reopened length of the GCR main line would be 112 miles and the line speed would be 140 mph with as many express trains fit on as possible-it would be a solely express line from Rugby to Beighton Jcn.)
While you're at it, you may as well reopen the missing part of the Borders Railway and you could run a 3rd London-Scotland link, if you still have capacity at Marylebone (or Paddington,possibly after Crossrail)
 

krus_aragon

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I'm not a local but I bet you that the WCML is more congested between Birmingham and Manchester and onwards ,so it would make sense for the Chiltern lines to be heavily upgraded to 140mph for services to the West Midlands,Merseyside and North Wales
Merseyside and the North Wales Coast would prefer travel via Crewe: If you fly at 140mph London to Birmingham, and then intend to avoid Crewe, you're looking at a further two hours of trundling along at 75-90mph via Shrewsbury just to get to Chester.
 

AlastairFraser

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Merseyside and the North Wales Coast would prefer travel via Crewe: If you fly at 140mph London to Birmingham, and then intend to avoid Crewe, you're looking at a further two hours of trundling along at 75-90mph via Shrewsbury just to get to Chester.
Thanks for the local knowledge- I've never been on the WCML except for the stretch between B'ham International and B'ham New Street on a XC train to Sheffield. Maybe they could enter a HS portal at B'ham and exit at Crewe. Not as efficient as going directly Birmingham to Chester but hell knows how much money a direct line would take to build, would it needlessly destroy any ancient natural habitats like HS2 Phase One and the amount of traffic to justify probably wouldn't be enough.
 

Ianno87

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Probably had to use the 4:08 timing so they couldn't be caught out exaggerating the journey time saving by some smart Alec saying "well, actually one train does it faster" if they compard HS2 journey times to the standard hour timing.
 

LNW-GW Joint

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Thank you for the replies, they are interesting to read and chin-stroke over. I may struggle to be won over to this scheme, but I do read the various arguments.

Don't forget HS2 will (eventually) take the long distance traffic off the MML and ECML too.
It's not just "London to Birmingham" for the expensive saving of a few minutes.
HS2 phase 1 gets you to Lichfield at high speed by 2026, and on to Crewe by 2027.
WCML services will then be reorganised (by a single TOC, West Coast Partnership, which will run all long distance services into Euston both via the old and new lines).
Phase 2 gets you to Manchester/Wigan and Sheffield/Leeds/York by 2033, when there will be a major reorganisation of MML and ECML long distance services.
HS2 gives you a large increase in capacity on all 3 main lines, to be reused for local/regional/freight benefit.
 
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