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

Adsy125 · 8 May 2019

PR1Berske said:
It should be that quick for everyone. Let's spend money on making the whole country connected to decent internet, rather than only connecting bits of England to London.

It's not about "how much faster", you're asking the wrong question. You should be asking, "why can't the whole country have access to decent broadband speeds?"

You're saying that like 55 Mbps is necessary, it isn't. 2 Mbps is required for SD streaming and about 4Mbps for HD streaming, these speeds aren't ideal but plenty of people, and families, do just fine on less than 10Mbps. How many places in the UK can't access broadband at 10Mbps?

Edit: To make it clear, I think everyone should have access to Broadband of at least 15Mbps bandwidth, and there should be costed plans to achieve this where practical. But HS2 doesn't need to be cancelled to pay for it!

RailUK Forums

Harbornite · 8 May 2019

6Gman said:
A philosophical concept which states that an NHS Clerk from Preston knows better than the guys who do it for a living.

Indeed.

Harbornite · 8 May 2019

Bald Rick said:
Smart timetabling, n, a concept in timetabling that is sufficiently complex such that if you need a detailed explanation you obviously aren’t smart enough to be able to understand it*, and therefore no explanation will be given.

*Even if you’ve been working with timetables most of your career, and have never heard of the phrase.

Love it.

Harbornite · 8 May 2019

PR1Berske said:
*Extra lines and signalling modernising on the WCML
*Focused funding in regional hotspots
*Reflect actual passenger numbers in timetabling to make traffic flow more responsive to actual need (of you like, make timetabling smarter)
*Use alternative destinations than Euston
*Invest in high-speed internet
*Accept that building new railways aren't always the solution
*Accept that London has enough investment and should get not one penny more

For starters, the extra lines on the wcml theory has been shown as unsuitable many times, why can't you comprehend this?

The rest isn't worth responding too, just more of the usual soundbites. You should visit a train planning department though, you might learn something...

MarkLong · 9 May 2019

LNW-GW Joint said:
Part of it is the extent of tunnelling to get out of London and through the Cotswolds, as well as all the environmental protection along the route.
That's on top of permanently high land prices, especially in the south.
Phase 2a and 2b are, relatively speaking, significantly cheaper per mile than Phase 1, with less tunnelling and cheaper land.
I believe new French high speed lines were "cheap" because they have had plenty of practice in constructing such lines, and the builders are keen to have a rolling business.
Italy and Spain have also benefitted from an intensive building programme (and Spain is relatively "empty" in terms of land purchase and routeing).
Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands are more like us with a rather stop/start approach, and high land and environmental costs.
The Netherlands has also had major ground problems with tunnels, and overall have not had a good performance from their HSL.
We do things on a one-off basis and pay the penalty of high overheads and lots of staff turnover and training.
You can see the same phenomenon in the electrification programme, where we had a 5-year blitz and broke the delivery capability at great cost.

Compare to HONG KONG, which is not, the 26 KM of HK-SHENZHEN line cost 8.5 bn GBP (2016 price)...

The Ham · 9 May 2019

MarkLong said:
Compare to HONG KONG, which is not, the 26 KM of HK-SHENZHEN line cost 8.5 bn GBP (2016 price)...

In which case, by my maths, phase 1 of HS2 should then be costing £75bn, so £56bn for both phases sounds good value. Even the often quoted (unverified) figure of £100bn for both phases would still be good value compared to that.

Taunton · 9 May 2019

Well, I left Euston before 0900 yesterday morning and after this discussion paid attention to how well occupied the line was at the peak of the morning rush. Being sat on the right hand side on the Down Fast gave a good view.

Long, long intervals when there was nothing else on the line. In fact, given that I was focused and paying attention, even I was surprised that I didn't see more trains.

There were several little 4-car units around, both ways, on the Slow lines and right in the peak, which doesn't seem to give much credence to being oversubscribed.

We zoomed through Watford Junction, the Down morning calls there on the Fast having been given up for "capacity". So was a lot of the onetime high revenue business patronage as well, a number of my colleagues from Herts/Bucks who used to board long distance northbound there now drive up the M1 instead, seeing their service as just "discontinued". As our Pendolino was about 20% full it's not as if they get a full load out of Euston.

To paraphrase Mr Hislop, If that's an anywhere near full-up rail route then I'm a Banana.

The Planner · 9 May 2019

Taunton said:
To paraphrase Mr Hislop, If that's an anywhere near full-up rail route then I'm a Banana.

Clearly looking out the window is the training aspect we lack... if it isnt full up find me the spare paths on the fasts, realtimetrains and the planning rules should help you.

anme · 9 May 2019

Taunton said:
To paraphrase Mr Hislop, If that's an anywhere near full-up rail route then I'm a Banana.

Well that's settled then. I would certainly trust a random poster on an internet message board more than any well trained and experienced expert.

Just look how well that's turning out for brexit.

jfowkes · 9 May 2019

According to RTT (if I'm using it right), between the hours of 0900 and 1000 yesterday, 21 trains terminated at Euston, so one train every ~3 minutes. Sounds pretty busy to me.

Ianno87 · 9 May 2019

Taunton said:
We zoomed through Watford Junction, the Down morning calls there on the Fast having been given up for "capacity". So was a lot of the onetime high revenue business patronage as well, a number of my colleagues from Herts/Bucks who used to board long distance northbound there now drive up the M1 instead, seeing their service as just "discontinued". As our Pendolino was about 20% full it's not as if they get a full load out of Euston.

I'm sure VT would stop the handful of lighter-loaded trains at Watford/MK etc. if they *could*....but there is no timetable capacity to do so*. To get peak dircetion trains into Euston, you have to keep firing them out first (and to get the sets north to come back again), thus taking up Down Fast line capacity.

Just saying "look at my one example of a lightly loaded train" ignores what that train is doing before and after, which will easily justify itself as a 'postioning' move (that just happens to carry passengers on it).

*The only time it is possible, and Virgin do it, being at the very start of the day and very end of day, when Watford/MK/Rugby do get some very useful extra 'Business' type calls heading to Liverpool, Glasgow and Manchester. The MK stop for Glasgow is particularly well-used..filling up capacity available at Euston because it is such an early departure from there!

Bald Rick · 9 May 2019

Taunton said:
Well, I left Euston before 0900 yesterday morning and after this discussion paid attention to how well occupied the line was at the peak of the morning rush. Being sat on the right hand side on the Down Fast gave a good view.

Long, long intervals when there was nothing else on the line. In fact, given that I was focused and paying attention, even I was surprised that I didn't see more trains.

There were several little 4-car units around, both ways, on the Slow lines and right in the peak, which doesn't seem to give much credence to being oversubscribed.

We zoomed through Watford Junction, the Down morning calls there on the Fast having been given up for "capacity". So was a lot of the onetime high revenue business patronage as well, a number of my colleagues from Herts/Bucks who used to board long distance northbound there now drive up the M1 instead, seeing their service as just "discontinued". As our Pendolino was about 20% full it's not as if they get a full load out of Euston.

To paraphrase Mr Hislop, If that's an anywhere near full-up rail route then I'm a Banana.

How very curious.

Yesterday morning, 47 service trains arrived at Euston between 0800-1000, which one assumes were those that you saw. Of these:

6 were London Overground on the D.C. lines

20 were Virgin, either Pendolinos or double Voyagers. Assuming you were going north by Virgin, one of these would have gone past your window every three minutes on average.

21 were LNW, of which 10 were 8 cars, 9 were 12 car and precisely 2 were 4 car, arrivals at 0946 and 0948, neither of which are considered to be ‘right in the peak’.

On average, a train would have gone past your window in the opposite direction every 100 seconds or so. Of course you may well have missed some of them due to the various tunnels.

The Ham · 9 May 2019

Bald Rick said:
How very curious.

Yesterday morning, 47 service trains arrived at Euston between 0800-1000, which one assumes were those that you saw. Of these:

6 were London Overground on the D.C. lines

20 were Virgin, either Pendolinos or double Voyagers. Assuming you were going north by Virgin, one of these would have gone past your window every three minutes on average.

21 were LNW, of which 10 were 8 cars, 9 were 12 car and precisely 2 were 4 car, arrivals at 0946 and 0948, neither of which are considered to be ‘right in the peak’.

On average, a train would have gone past your window in the opposite direction every 100 seconds or so. Of course you may well have missed some of them due to the various tunnels.

The other thing that with noting is that 100 second feels like quite a long time. To give to an idea as to what they would be like it's a road with 36 cars an hour this compares with fairly busy road is over 500 cars.

RLBH · 9 May 2019

The Ham said:
The other thing that with noting is that 100 second feels like quite a long time. To give to an idea as to what they would be like it's a road with 36 cars an hour this compares with fairly busy road is over 500 cars.

Of course, a car on the road is only one car long. A train is rather longer than that (well, usually), so just counting passes isn't the most informative. Using Bald Rick's numbers - assuming a DC Lines train is 5 cars and a Virgin train is 10 cars on average - I get 426 train cars in two hours, or one every seventeen seconds.

A train car has a comparable capacity to a double decker bus. I don't think anyone would argue that a road which saw a double decker bus every seventeen seconds in each direction wasn't busy.

Maybe that's the answer. Replace all trains with Class 153s. The unions will love it, since it creates lots of jobs for drivers and guards. The operators will love it, because there'll be a single class with homogeneous characteristics allowing for easy timetabling. And the public will love it, because virtually every line will have a turn-up-and-go service. Then the strategic planners won't have any difficulty convincing people that the lines are full.

I can't see any possible downside to this approach - everyone's a winner!

The Ham · 9 May 2019

RLBH said:
Of course, a car on the road is only one car long. A train is rather longer than that (well, usually), so just counting passes isn't the most informative. Using Bald Rick's numbers - assuming a DC Lines train is 5 cars and a Virgin train is 10 cars on average - I get 426 train cars in two hours, or one every seventeen seconds.

A train car has a comparable capacity to a double decker bus. I don't think anyone would argue that a road which saw a double decker bus every seventeen seconds in each direction wasn't busy.

Maybe that's the answer. Replace all trains with Class 153s. The unions will love it, since it creates lots of jobs for drivers and guards. The operators will love it, because there'll be a single class with homogeneous characteristics allowing for easy timetabling. And the public will love it, because virtually every line will have a turn-up-and-go service. Then the strategic planners won't have any difficulty convincing people that the lines are full.

I can't see any possible downside to this approach - everyone's a winner!

The point I was making was that someone looking out the window for 100 second would feel that a lot of time had passed by, because we are used to looking at how busy roads are and so expect a busy railway to look the same (which it wouldn't ever do).

MarkLong · 9 May 2019

The Ham said:
In which case, by my maths, phase 1 of HS2 should then be costing £75bn, so £56bn for both phases sounds good value. Even the often quoted (unverified) figure of £100bn for both phases would still be good value compared to that.

Yes, and talking about over budget. This first section of HSR in China, building from Wuhan to Guangzhou, the cost for infrastructure only has risen from 8.9 bn GBP to 23 bn GBP (2009 price). Basically, no country can avoid over budget in HSR. So even the unverified tag of 100bn (maybe in 2020s price) seems reasonable.

Bletchleyite · 9 May 2019

I suspect the 4-car (actually 5 at the moment) trains the OP saw were all LO ones?

I suppose they could consider relaying the DC line to 100mph with OHLE, introducing a skip stop style service, and lopping back the Bakerloo, but I don't think it would be a popular move.

LNW-GW Joint · 9 May 2019

6Gman said:
"When a new railway is being built on top of an existing one it is not reasonable to expect that traffic will always flow without delay ... we took 15.5 min to cover 6.5 miles from Bletchley to Leighton Buzzard" OS Nock in Railway Magazine June 1964. His train took one hour 54 minutes Rugby to Euston.
Of course, in those days the railway was a lot less busy and Health & Safety was much less strict. Today it wouldn't be an hour's delay; it would be rail replacement buses for months.

And West Midlands services ran to Paddington on an enhanced service, and Manchester services to St Pancras (sleeper to Marylebone via the full length of the GC).
North Wales to St Pancras via Nuneaton was another wacky route, with some services going to Kensington Olympia or to Marylebone via Claydon.
But the remaining trains were desperately poor for 5 years or more, 4 hours Crewe-Euston being typical.
You never knew what was in store, or what route you would take.
No apologies, no delay repay, guard hiding in brake van...
"Getting on with the job" was the BR slogan at the time.

LNW-GW Joint · 9 May 2019

Taunton said:
Well, I left Euston before 0900 yesterday morning and after this discussion paid attention to how well occupied the line was at the peak of the morning rush. Being sat on the right hand side on the Down Fast gave a good view.
Long, long intervals when there was nothing else on the line. In fact, given that I was focused and paying attention, even I was surprised that I didn't see more trains.
There were several little 4-car units around, both ways, on the Slow lines and right in the peak, which doesn't seem to give much credence to being oversubscribed.

Well, Mr Planner will correct me if I am wrong, but the WCML fast line carries 10tph south of Rugby off-peak, with a couple more south of Hanslope (9xVT, the others LNWR).
There are a couple more in the peak.
So while you were speeding north you would be passing at least 20tph going the other way (on the fast).
Headway is 3 minutes, with a couple of gaps in the hour for resilience and weaves between fast/slow lines for LNWR.
The 14 fast line deps from Euston are at 00/03/07/10/13#/20/23/30/33*/40/43/46#/49#/57* (* peak only, # LNWR fast line 110mph, rest are VT 125mph).
It's not easy to see how you could fit in more departures and maintain a resilient service.
Apart from the intensive LNWR and Southern services, there are rather too many of those pesky container trains getting in the way on the slow lines.
Yes, 4 and 5 car trains are unsuitable, but there are practical reasons for that, largely because of DfT parsimony when specifying the franchises.

tbtc · 9 May 2019

LNW-GW Joint said:
Headway is 3 minutes, with a couple of gaps in the hour for resilience and weaves between fast/slow lines for LNWR.
The 14 fast line deps from Euston are at 00/03/07/10/13#/20/23/30/33*/40/43/46#/49#/57* (* peak only, # LNWR fast line 110mph, rest are VT 125mph).
It's not easy to see how you could fit in more departures and maintain a resilient service

What about "intelligent signals" and "clever pathing" and "bi-directional unicorns"? :lol:

Simple common sense... oh! :oops:

Seriously though, just like you don't wait until the front of your train is touching the buffers before you apply the breaks, you don't wait until every seat is filled and every train at maximum length until you start to discuss increasing capacity - if you can see which way the demand pattern is going.

Given how long it takes to bring about changes on the railway, and how much of the Victorian infrastructure we still have to deal with, it might take a decade if we want anything other than the most cosmetic changes - that's what HS2 is about.

Since we can't simply build two parallel lines in the space at the edge of the current WCML (for obvious reasons, given how built up it is in some areas) we need to either decide that

(a) passenger demand is going to stagnate or reduce (if that's the case then that has huge implications on a number of lines, not just the WCML)
(b) passenger demand will continue to broadly rise (if that's the case then we need some kind of long term strategy for how to accommodate this)

Ianno87 · 9 May 2019

LNW-GW Joint said:
Well, Mr Planner will correct me if I am wrong, but the WCML fast line carries 10tph south of Rugby off-peak, with a couple more south of Hanslope (9xVT, the others LNWR).
There are a couple more in the peak.
So while you were speeding north you would be passing at least 20tph going the other way (on the fast).
Headway is 3 minutes, with a couple of gaps in the hour for resilience and weaves between fast/slow lines for LNWR.
The 14 fast line deps from Euston are at 00/03/07/10/13#/20/23/30/33*/40/43/46#/49#/57* (* peak only, # LNWR fast line 110mph, rest are VT 125mph).
It's not easy to see how you could fit in more departures and maintain a resilient service.
Apart from the intensive LNWR and Southern services, there are rather too many of those pesky container trains getting in the way on the slow lines.
Yes, 4 and 5 car trains are unsuitable, but there are practical reasons for that, largely because of DfT parsimony when specifying the franchises.

Careful there bringing actual timetable planning into this discussion. You're clearly just protecting the London "Rail Establishment"

Taunton · 9 May 2019

Right you lot.

The next time I do this (before long) I will take notes.

Particularly to avoid accusations that my observation skills are so incompetent that I was including the LO DC units as running on the Slows ...

AM9 · 9 May 2019

Adsy125 said:
You're saying that like 55 Mbps is necessary, it isn't. 2 Mbps is required for SD streaming and about 4Mbps for HD streaming, these speeds aren't ideal but plenty of people, and families, do just fine on less than 10Mbps. How many places in the UK can't access broadband at 10Mbps?

Edit: To make it clear, I think everyone should have access to Broadband of at least 15Mbps bandwidth, and there should be costed plans to achieve this where practical. But HS2 doesn't need to be cancelled to pay for it!

That's reasonable. 15-20Mb/s is adequate for any catch-up tv streaming channel, for several users to concurrently do mixed browsing/e-mail/social media and for two-way AV communication, - skype etc.. Businesses should be able to purchase higher bandwidth as a commercial customer, but there is very little real need for higher data rates in domestic premises. Of course, the bandwidth should be available at the input to the router, (or if the router is provided with the contract, at one of the ethernet jacks). If users then experience low wi-fi bandwidth, that that is not an issue with their internet connection.

Bald Rick · 9 May 2019

Taunton said:
Right you lot.

The next time I do this (before long) I will take notes.

Particularly to avoid accusations that my observation skills are so incompetent that I was including the LO DC units as running on the Slows ...

The best thing to do is have open train times up and running, then you can see what’s coming at you. When I’m on the WCML, I usually can’t keep a track of everything as there is so much around.

PeterC · 10 May 2019

anme said:
Well that's settled then. I would certainly trust a random poster on an internet message board more than any well trained and experienced expert.

Just look how well that's turning out for brexit.

Just to get back to the original topic. When a layman's impression is of short trains, half empty trains and accounts of people switching to road because of a lack of services rather than lack of seats it does explain some of the antipathy towards the project.

anme · 10 May 2019

PeterC said:
Just to get back to the original topic. When a layman's impression is of short trains, half empty trains and accounts of people switching to road because of a lack of services rather than lack of seats it does explain some of the antipathy towards the project.

What sane, honest layman claims any of those things? Please explain, for example, how any person who had spent two minutes looking at the timetable could claim there is a lack of services?

Emotion is not a substitute for facts.

Bald Rick · 10 May 2019

PeterC said:
Just to get back to the original topic. When a layman's impression is of short trains, half empty trains and accounts of people switching to road because of a lack of services rather than lack of seats it does explain some of the antipathy towards the project.

It’s fair to say that a very small proportion of the people with antipathy towards the project ever use the WCML. Just read the petitions to Parliament.

Railwaysceptic · 10 May 2019

Taunton said:
Right you lot.

The next time I do this (before long) I will take notes.

Particularly to avoid accusations that my observation skills are so incompetent that I was including the LO DC units as running on the Slows ...

Don't be discouraged. There are several YouTube videos with decent picture quality which indicate there is spare capacity on the southern section of the WCML. (I assume the HS2 protagonists are not suggesting we spend all that money just to ease pressure at rush hour)

Next week I'll sit on the platforms at South Kenton for an hour or so and I'll time the trains going past on the fast lines.

Ianno87 · 10 May 2019

Railwaysceptic said:
Don't be discouraged. There are several YouTube videos with decent picture quality which indicate there is spare capacity on the southern section of the WCML. (I assume the HS2 protagonists are not suggesting we spend all that money just to ease pressure at rush hour)

Next week I'll sit on the platforms at South Kenton for an hour or so and I'll time the trains going past on the fast lines.

YouTube videos of a single location at a time are of course a well-known tool of choice for the professional operational planner in identifying spare paths. <\sarcasm>

ChiefPlanner · 10 May 2019

Most main lines have little pockets of "capacity" - for example there is space behind a Tring starting local service back to Ledburn Junction - (where for example the following slow line path may be switched to the fast lines - as the hourly fast Leighton Buzzard calling train does) - however this little widow of opportunity is of no value as there is no sensible use for it - there are similar gaps on the ECML slow lines , less so maybe on the well planned Midland Main line where EMT and GTR services are carefully interlinked south of Bedford where the GTR's do a carefully planned weave for much of the day to clear the fast lines. Much discussed previously.

So - any "random" spotting a bit of a gap on a section of track , does not understand the big picture - as you have to find a clear path from origin to destination. I am tempted to say this is quite smart.

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

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