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Why are people opposed to HS2? (And other HS2 discussion)

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The Ham

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Carlisle said:
Which could mostly be achieved at a fraction of the cost by increased utilisation of tilt capable stock / routes .
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Which schemes would allow Southampton to Leeds to be about 30 minutes faster (as you said mostly I'll not require the full 1 hour journey time saving)?

I would guess that it would require skipping station stops, if this is the case how do you serve those stations?

How do you provide capacity for the XC services (which are now traveling faster due to their tilt) to be able to get past slower services (which may not be able to benefit from tilt)?

The average speed would need to increase by about 1/3 between Birmingham and Leeds to achieve it all by speed increases.

Assuming the train distance is comparable to the road distance (120 miles) the current average speed is ~60mph, which then requires an average speed of 80mph. This would need to allow for the speeding up and slowing down at each station as well as the station dwell time.

I don't know about the existing line speeds, however I would guess that there's fairly little which is >100mph. As such, even allowing for tilt (which seems to gain about 15%) there's likely to be a need for sections to be upgraded.

Then consider that Reading to Cardiff on the GWML which is fairly flat and straight is currently ~1:35 over a distance of 110 miles with fewer stops and you can see why I'm asking the question.
 
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Aictos

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Hopefully HS2 will mean faster journeys between Northampton and Birmingham by not having to stop at every station between Coventry and Birmingham - that could been served by a stopper from Wolves to Coventry via New Street and have the London to Birmingham via Northampton services to be speeded up by only calling Coventry and Birmingham International between Rugby and Birmingham.

Course HS2 needs to go ahead in order to free up paths between Rugby and Birmingham for any LNR service to be sped up.
 
agbrs_Jack

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FelixtheCat said:
Congleton cannot get a reasonable service because the paths are required by the InterCity services. I'm sure @agbrs_Jack can give more of an insight into Congleton's chronic lack of services.
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Indeed. With zero additional morning peak services too (60m gap 0712-0812 is just stupid) and zero evening peak services for the last year.
HS2 can enabled the 2tph needed to unlock the suppressed demand, a lot of people drive to Macclesfield for a more frequent service (Not helped by northern offering advance tickets from MAC and not CNG! - Working on that!).
The capacity released could give us a second hourly service to most likely Birmingham or possibly London (less likely but who knows!).
Also could see improvements to Sunday's current abysmal, franchise-commitment-of-2017-failing service. (Northern!), but that's another story...
TOCs are good at ignoring Congleton, I wonder if they realise there are hundreds of houses being built here seemingly all the time.


Bletchleyite said:
Congleton, a small rural Cheshire town, has 1tph to Manchester and to Stoke. I'm not sure why people seem to think it justifies more, other than possibly extending the latter to Crewe for better connectivity.
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Oi.
Chessington South
Roby
Hexham
East Midlands Parkway
Gatley
Sandbach - Amazing peak services!
Dalry
Mytholmroyd
All stations with less usage (some significantly less) and a better service - I could go on...

FelixtheCat said:
Patronage of ~350k per year. As with other threads: population is not everything.
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:) Cheers!
 
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Sceptre

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One of the things that HS2 Ltd hasn't really been able to combat is the myth that the budget is "blowing up". The budget is still the same as it was in 2013: £42.6bn (in 2011 terms) for the actual infrastructure and £7.5bn (again, in 2011 terms) for the rolling stock, each with sizeable contingencies.

Crossrail's headline figure of £14.8bn (now £17.6bn, IIRC), as far as I'm aware, didn't contain the cost of the rolling stock (£1.7bn).
 
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The Ham

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Sceptre said:
One of the things that HS2 Ltd hasn't really been able to combat is the myth that the budget is "blowing up". The budget is still the same as it was in 2013: £42.6bn (in 2011 terms) for the actual infrastructure and £7.5bn (again, in 2011 terms) for the rolling stock, each with sizeable contingencies.

Crossrail's headline figure of £14.8bn (now £17.6bn, IIRC), as far as I'm aware, didn't contain the cost of the rolling stock (£1.7bn).
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It's not been helped by unverified cost estimates of £100bn or those suggesting that there's a need to spend an extra £43bn on other transport schemes to make the most out of HS2 (which is often then cited as HS2 won't work, at all, without this funding).
 
DynamicSpirit

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Sceptre said:
One of the things that HS2 Ltd hasn't really been able to combat is the myth that the budget is "blowing up". The budget is still the same as it was in 2013: £42.6bn (in 2011 terms) for the actual infrastructure and £7.5bn (again, in 2011 terms) for the rolling stock, each with sizeable contingencies.

Crossrail's headline figure of £14.8bn (now £17.6bn, IIRC), as far as I'm aware, didn't contain the cost of the rolling stock (£1.7bn).
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Are there any links that explain the situation regarding HS2's budget and the various competing claims about the cost?
 
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PR1Berske

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Ianno87 said:
So your claim that the justification is weak is merely an opinion, is not supported by any evidence, and is thus completely unsubstantiated.
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sprunt said:
Of course I do. I just wanted you to admit that "the justification is weak" was made up. Thanks.
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So once again, supporters of HS2 can say "People from Southampton will benefit" without any further questions while opponents must deliver detailed reports based on industry information not always available to the general public.

Seems fair.
 
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Adsy125

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PR1Berske said:
So once again, supporters of HS2 can say "People from Southampton will benefit" without any further questions while opponents must deliver detailed reports based on industry information not always available to the general public.

Seems fair.
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They have explained why some, admittedly not a lot, of people, from Southampton will benefit from it. You haven't provided a single reason that the NVR is wrong.
 
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PR1Berske

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Adsy125 said:
They have explained why some, admittedly not a lot, of people, from Southampton will benefit from it. You haven't provided a single reason that the NVR is wrong.
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So that's adequate? "Some people will benefit," is enough?

I have been dragged through the mud for saying that HS2 won't benefit people in Carlisle or Norwich or Truro or whatever, only for supporters to say "Actually a handful of people from Norwich might go to Birmingham so it's justified "

This is the main problem on this thread. Any question about the validity of HS2 is brushed away with "Once it's built, everything will be better."
 
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The Ham

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PR1Berske said:
So that's adequate? "Some people will benefit," is enough?

I have been dragged through the mud for saying that HS2 won't benefit people in Carlisle or Norwich or Truro or whatever, only for supporters to say "Actually a handful of people from Norwich might go to Birmingham so it's justified "

This is the main problem on this thread. Any question about the validity of HS2 is brushed away with "Once it's built, everything will be better."
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The point being made is that there's lots of objection to HS2 because it ONLY benefits London - Birmingham by saving 20 minutes (even though that flow saves 30 minutes and the loss of 10 minutes from that figure is to allow for the change once you get to Birmingham, even though for many it may not actually be any further away from where they are going).

Yet there's going to benefits to some people on other flows which are also going to benefit, yes those flows many not be very large each hour, or even each day. However because there's so many places which could benefit the total numbers are likely to add to the benefit.
 
Esker-pades

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PR1Berske said:
So that's adequate? "Some people will benefit," is enough?

I have been dragged through the mud for saying that HS2 won't benefit people in Carlisle or Norwich or Truro or whatever, only for supporters to say "Actually a handful of people from Norwich might go to Birmingham so it's justified "

This is the main problem on this thread. Any question about the validity of HS2 is brushed away with "Once it's built, everything will be better."
Click to expand...
Carlisle will benefit from HS2...

The GWML Upgrade programme doesn't benefit anyone who lives in Gravesend or the whole of Scotland (amongst many other places). Yet, it happened because it benefitted a significant number of people on the GWML.

Ditto with HS2. No one railway project will benefit every person in the entire country. I have already said this in previous comments. Clearly you have not read them.
HS2 provides significant benefits to:
  • Southern WCML (as you have already admitted)
  • Commuters in Birmingham
  • Commuters in Manchester
  • Commuters in Leeds
  • Other stations and places which will get faster journey times
  • More which I can't remember at 7am in the morning
 
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RLBH

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The Ham said:
Assuming the train distance is comparable to the road distance (120 miles) the current average speed is ~60mph, which then requires an average speed of 80mph. This would need to allow for the speeding up and slowing down at each station as well as the station dwell time.
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In other words, improving the Cross-Country route so that it can achieve the same average speeds as the other inter-city main lines. Ludicrous concept, I know. I should know better than to expect main line speeds on routes that don't serve London.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for HS2. The benefits it brings are huge for a lot of the country. But I'm also deeply sceptical about claims that it will improve services from (e.g) Southampton to Manchester. That would require an additional line that isn't being planned right now. And that's okay. HS2 doesn't have to be all things to all men. The need for a new railway is most urgent on the main lines into London, so of course that should take priority.

Claiming that it is also the solution for Liverpool to Leeds, and Southampton to Manchester, and any other flow that might come vaguely nearby, is unhelpful. It reduces all these non-London and non-Birmingham flows to being dependent on London and (to a lesser extent) Birmingham. That really grates on the rest of the country. All it would take is a bit of honesty, and a reasonable degree of confidence that other routes will get commensurate investment in due course.

Instead, we get claims that it'll be very slightly quicker to travel from Southampton to Manchester if you get a suburban train from Southampton to London and change on to the brand new super fast expensive train from London. After all, that's no slower to Birmingham than the direct inter-city train from Southampton. Which is, technically, correct. Except that it involves spending an hour on a suburban train, and then changing trains. Neither of those is an inviting prospect.
 
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The Ham

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RLBH said:
In other words, improving the Cross-Country route so that it can achieve the same average speeds as the other inter-city main lines. Ludicrous concept, I know. I should know better than to expect main line speeds on routes that don't serve London.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for HS2. The benefits it brings are huge for a lot of the country. But I'm also deeply sceptical about claims that it will improve services from (e.g) Southampton to Manchester. That would require an additional line that isn't being planned right now. And that's okay. HS2 doesn't have to be all things to all men. The need for a new railway is most urgent on the main lines into London, so of course that should take priority.

Claiming that it is also the solution for Liverpool to Leeds, and Southampton to Manchester, and any other flow that might come vaguely nearby, is unhelpful. It reduces all these non-London and non-Birmingham flows to being dependent on London and (to a lesser extent) Birmingham. That really grates on the rest of the country. All it would take is a bit of honesty, and a reasonable degree of confidence that other routes will get commensurate investment in due course.

Instead, we get claims that it'll be very slightly quicker to travel from Southampton to Manchester if you get a suburban train from Southampton to London and change on to the brand new super fast expensive train from London. After all, that's no slower to Birmingham than the direct inter-city train from Southampton. Which is, technically, correct. Except that it involves spending an hour on a suburban train, and then changing trains. Neither of those is an inviting prospect.
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The route to HS2 used from Southampton in the examples where it's broadly comparable journey time to Birmingham is using existing XC services to Reading and existing GWR services with their new stops at Old Oak Common, both of which are using intercity services and neither are reliant on any new lines (yes a new station at OOC, but that is being built).

IF there were improvements, such as the Southern Approach to Heathrow or schemes to allow direct trains from Southampton to OOC, that would further reduce journey times and have the potential to make the journey easier and/or more frequent. Especially to places North of Birmingham where the current direct XC offering is 1tph (or less).
 
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RLBH

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The Ham said:
The route to HS2 used from Southampton in the examples where it's broadly comparable journey time to Birmingham is using existing XC services to Reading and existing GWR services with their new stops at Old Oak Common, both of which are using intercity services and neither are reliant on any new lines (yes a new station at OOC, but that is being built).
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So not one, but two changes of train, where you start off on a train that's going to Birmingham and change off it to get a different train to Birmingham that isn't any quicker? You're right, that's a compelling case for how HS2 will improve matters.
 
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class26

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The Ham said:
Which schemes would allow Southampton to Leeds to be about 30 minutes faster (as you said mostly I'll not require the full 1 hour journey time saving)?

I would guess that it would require skipping station stops, if this is the case how do you serve those stations?

How do you provide capacity for the XC services (which are now traveling faster due to their tilt) to be able to get past slower services (which may not be able to benefit from tilt)?

The average speed would need to increase by about 1/3 between Birmingham and Leeds to achieve it all by speed increases.

Assuming the train distance is comparable to the road distance (120 miles) the current average speed is ~60mph, which then requires an average speed of 80mph. This would need to allow for the speeding up and slowing down at each station as well as the station dwell time.

I don't know about the existing line speeds, however I would guess that there's fairly little which is >100mph. As such, even allowing for tilt (which seems to gain about 15%) there's likely to be a need for sections to be upgraded.

Then consider that Reading to Cardiff on the GWML which is fairly flat and straight is currently ~1:35 over a distance of 110 miles with fewer stops and you can see why I'm asking the question.
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Just a correction. XC are NOT travelling faster due to tilt as the tilt has been removed from their voyagers !
 
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swt_passenger

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class26 said:
Just a correction. XC are NOT travelling faster due to tilt as the tilt has been removed from their voyagers !
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The Ham was clearly replying to Carlisle’s earlier post #1529 which proposed a future scenario with more tilt in use.
 
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The Ham

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RLBH said:
So not one, but two changes of train, where you start off on a train that's going to Birmingham and change off it to get a different train to Birmingham that isn't any quicker? You're right, that's a compelling case for how HS2 will improve matters.
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I want suggesting that people would use it to get to Birmingham, however they may well do if going further North where there's time savings of 40-60 minutes depending on where you're going to.

Of course if you have to change at Reading (which is the case for quite a few towns around the area) changing at Old Oak Common as well will be a small inconvenience, especially given you gain 3tph in exchange for the single current (direct) XC to Manchester.
 
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quantinghome

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RLBH said:
In other words, improving the Cross-Country route so that it can achieve the same average speeds as the other inter-city main lines. Ludicrous concept, I know. I should know better than to expect main line speeds on routes that don't serve London.
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Main line speeds on routes which currently serve London are only possible because (i) they don't share tracks with slower services, (ii) they tend to have fewer and less harsh speed restrictions and (iii) they don't stop very often. (i) is achieved either by four-tracking, or having a skeleton stopping service which can just about fit round the fasts. Apply this to cross-country and you're faced with the following:

- removing most local services
- cutting out the smaller stops - so for example Birmingham - Leeds would only stop at Derby and Sheffield.
- realignments / cut-offs to lessen speed restrictions

Alternatively you could four-track, but that is in essence the same as building HS2 Phase 2b.

RLBH said:
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for HS2. The benefits it brings are huge for a lot of the country. But I'm also deeply sceptical about claims that it will improve services from (e.g) Southampton to Manchester. That would require an additional line that isn't being planned right now. And that's okay. HS2 doesn't have to be all things to all men. The need for a new railway is most urgent on the main lines into London, so of course that should take priority.
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I agree. It doesn't HAVE to demonstrate an improvement to every journey in the country, and it's not intended to. But the fact remains it does significantly improve many journeys from the north to southern destinations outside London. Southampton - Manchester is a rather well-chosen journey pair in that it has a direct cross-country service which is just about competitive with the current travel time via London, and does not have an existing direct service to an HS2 station. So the journey time reduction from Manchester to London which HS2 provides may not be enough to entice some people away from the direct journey. However, there are a plethora of journeys from the north of England where the current direct services are less competitive with changing, or where there are currently no direct services, where HS2 will give an unambiguous improvement.

For the sake of balance, there are also some journeys which will become less convenient once HS2 opens. Currently it's easy to get to Kent from the Eastern side of England by changing at St. Pancras. Once HS2 opens that connection will be slower (assuming more stops on the classic network) or less convenient due to the longer walk from Euston to St. P.
 
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quantinghome said:
Alternatively you could four-track, but that is in essence the same as building HS2 Phase 2b.
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And as I've said, I'm all in favour of HS2, even if I don't agree with all the tradeoffs that have been made. On the corridors where it's planned, it will do great things. Expresses from Birmingham to Leeds will be allowed to run as inter-city expresses, rather than having to be both inter-city expresses and regional services. Cross-country services have had to wear both hats for ages, largely because nobody was willing to spend money on lines that didn't go to London.

Unfortunately, once HS2 services from Leeds to Birmingham get there, they either have to stop, or go to London. Or Manchester, but that's a bit pointless. The corridor is finally getting the service it deserves - but only by virtue of that corridor becoming the main line to London. The quid pro quo is that the fast trains aren't capable of continuing on beyond Birmingham on the cross-country route. I can't see why HS2 doesn't have provision for access to the classic network heading south-west from Birmingham and on to the Birmingham-Oxford line.
 
ABB125

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RLBH said:
I can't see why HS2 doesn't have provision for access to the classic network heading south-west from Birmingham and on to the Birmingham-Oxford line.
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Whilst there are a few aspects of HS2 that I don't like, I can live with them, with the exception of this one! There needs to be a connection to the existing network in Birmingham. If there isn't, it will just cost an absolute fortune to install one when the powers that be realise that they actually need one.
 
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ABB125 said:
Whilst there are a few aspects of HS2 that I don't like, I can live with them, with the exception of this one! There needs to be a connection to the existing network in Birmingham. If there isn't, it will just cost an absolute fortune to install one when the powers that be realise that they actually need one.
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I would agree with that. The idea that (e.g.) a Plymouth - Newcastle service will be unable to benefit from HS2 is ludicrous.
 
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PR1Berske

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6Gman said:
I would agree with that. The idea that (e.g.) a Plymouth - Newcastle service will be unable to benefit from HS2 is ludicrous.
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But doesn't this point strike right at the heart of the HS2 paradox?

I was shot down in this thread, and others, for suggesting that particular towns would not benefit from HS2. And broadly speaking, the responses were along the lines of "Well the M6 doesn't benefit Inverness so maybe that should be closed too?"

All of a sudden, in my view, the argument has flipped somewhat. Now I am seeing, "Well maybe people from Norwich could benefit once they get into London," or "Once people visit Birmingham they'll change trains and it'll all make sense."

I see some difficulty here. If various towns in Cornwall, Wales and northern England are not directly linked to HS2, then they cannot possibly benefit from it. At all. The onyl benefit is tangential. If people agree that the benefit is tangential then my original argument is justified, because direct benefits do not exist for, say, Blackburn, just because they have to change at Manchester. That is like saying the WCML is still viable for the same reasons.

So where to go? Either Plymouth to Newcastle is not made better by HS2, because neither city is on the route; or Plymouth to Newcastle is made better because HS2 happens to exist despite neither city being on the route.
 
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The Ham

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PR1Berske said:
But doesn't this point strike right at the heart of the HS2 paradox?

I was shot down in this thread, and others, for suggesting that particular towns would not benefit from HS2. And broadly speaking, the responses were along the lines of "Well the M6 doesn't benefit Inverness so maybe that should be closed too?"

All of a sudden, in my view, the argument has flipped somewhat. Now I am seeing, "Well maybe people from Norwich could benefit once they get into London," or "Once people visit Birmingham they'll change trains and it'll all make sense."

I see some difficulty here. If various towns in Cornwall, Wales and northern England are not directly linked to HS2, then they cannot possibly benefit from it. At all. The onyl benefit is tangential. If people agree that the benefit is tangential then my original argument is justified, because direct benefits do not exist for, say, Blackburn, just because they have to change at Manchester. That is like saying the WCML is still viable for the same reasons.

So where to go? Either Plymouth to Newcastle is not made better by HS2, because neither city is on the route; or Plymouth to Newcastle is made better because HS2 happens to exist despite neither city being on the route.
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Even if no-one traveling between Plymouth and Newcastle is to change from XC to HS2 at Birmingham (which they may well do as the Birmingham to Newcastle section would be ~60 minutes faster than the existing service and would have seats for at least 500 people) they will still benefit from the fact that they'll be less people on the XC services running between Birmingham and Newcastle making the journey more pleasant.

I think that once HS2 actually starts running services there's going to be a lot of people who realise that there's a lot of journey options which will actually benefit from HS2 where they didn't think that they would.
 
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