I don’t know whether https://assets.publishing.service.g...ata/file/534049/Overview_of_Phase_1_route.pdf has been superseded, but pages 12/13 have some proposed service levels. We go from 14tph ‘long distance’ in the peak to 19tph across HS2 and WCML. As I understand it day 1 service levels are 11tph on HS2, implying 8tph of long distance remaining on WCML. With an equivalent rise in the commuter service level to take up that capacity.
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Why are people opposed to HS2? (And other HS2 discussion)
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I don’t know whether https://assets.publishing.service.g...ata/file/534049/Overview_of_Phase_1_route.pdf has been superseded, but pages 12/13 have some proposed service levels. We go from 14tph ‘long distance’ in the peak to 19tph across HS2 and WCML. As I understand it day 1 service levels are 11tph on HS2, implying 8tph of long distance remaining on WCML. With an equivalent rise in the commuter service level to take up that capacity.
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Esker-pades
Established Member
I am very calm. I think I laughed when I first saw your comment. (It certainly provided some light relief compared to the ball-aching tediousness of going over electoral theory for the 94th time.)
If, as you have stated at various points since, you are not offering opinions on HS2, timetablers/planners etc., but are simply observing that sometimes trains aren't passing a station, I am at a loss as to why you needed to comment here in the first place.
tbtc
Veteran Member
In addition to the above lists, it's maybe worth pointing out (for whose who forget) that many of these services are non-stop between Euston and Rugby (or even further north), so are of absolutely no benefit to people in Watford/ Milton Keynes etc.
So their line has a 200m+ long train every three minutes but they aren't seeing them stop.
Take those non-stop services away and there are now a lot more paths that can be used for services stopping at "local" stations.
Essentially, if HS2 meant turning the (four track) WCML into a six track railway from Euston to Rugby (to absorb all of the services that don't stop between Euston and Rugby) then people would understand the concept - it'd be welcomed (as most schemes that follow routes laid out by Victorians are generally welcomed on here).
BUT, because the two additional lines are running a different way from London to the Midlands (which ought to be irrelevant as trains aren't stopping so doesn't matter which route they take), people can't get their heads around the simple concept that providing an additional two lines will permit a large increase in capacity.
Esker-pades
Established Member
A point which is perfectly illustrated here:
My emphasis. The words omitted were "and signalling modernisation".
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
HS2 is extra lines on the WCML. Like the Northampton loop, they just don't run alongside the regular ones because there are quite a lot of houses in the way of doing so.
We can therefore conclude that our Preston correspondent is in fact in favour of HS2
HS2 is extra lines on the WCML. Like the Northampton loop, they just don't run alongside the regular ones because there are quite a lot of houses in the way of doing so.
We can therefore conclude that our Preston correspondent is in fact in favour of HS2
I literally don't get why it's apparently hard to understand - HS2 is de-facto 6 tracking of the southern WCML. But given that it's for a load of trains running non-stop from Euston to wherever, you are not constrained by following the current WCML, and are free to choose whatever route suits you for the extra two tracks.
It was a failing in early HS2 public relations I think. That concentrated on speed mainly of course, and the perception of the line being a completely separate standalone system with the emphasis on captive trains and a preference for interchange from the classic network rather than through workings. That also drove the 'new line envy' of those cities that nevertheless WERE to be served by classic compatibles. The project has moved on with the initial fleet at least now being entirely classic compatible, and more routes in phase 2 extending over classic lines too. Integration with NPR is also a major new selling point. There has been little publicity about the concrete benefits possible on classic lines using the released capacity. It's sometimes mentioned in passing in very general terms but never in detail. I suppose HS2 consider that not to be their concern, but by not pointing out the opportunities, people on existing routes couldn't feel engaged, and may have actually felt their ordinary commuter trains were being threatened by the new line in some way. Perhaps the dead hand of the treasury was involved too in not wanting to promise improved services, even though the additional longer distance limited stop commuter services that are most likely to be the benefit are often fairly lucrative, and may be at least cost neutral if not profitable, especially if they unlock demand impossible to meet today.
Polarbear
Established Member
Unfortunately, HS2 has to contend with the sort of nonsense that's included in this article in the Daily Mail today
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...S2-project-fund-28-vital-transport-links.html
(sorry, having problems embedding the text of this article into the post)
Most of the schemes proposed in that article have been proposed in the past, only to be put on indefinite hold, cancelled, or derided in some way. A lot of those opposed to HS2 will lap this sort of thing up, and will in turn, not care a jot about any of the proposed alternatives. Unless it affects THEM directly, all the anti HS2 people seem to be interested in is not paying for infrastructure in some forlorn hope that they will get a small decrease in their taxation as a result.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...S2-project-fund-28-vital-transport-links.html
(sorry, having problems embedding the text of this article into the post)
Most of the schemes proposed in that article have been proposed in the past, only to be put on indefinite hold, cancelled, or derided in some way. A lot of those opposed to HS2 will lap this sort of thing up, and will in turn, not care a jot about any of the proposed alternatives. Unless it affects THEM directly, all the anti HS2 people seem to be interested in is not paying for infrastructure in some forlorn hope that they will get a small decrease in their taxation as a result.
DynamicSpirit
Established Member
Anyone like to comment on the feasibility/pricing of those alternative suggestions? My impression on a quick read-through is that it reads like a list of random schemes picked out of pot, without any thought for how useful/necessary they are. And some of the prices quoted look pretty unrealistic. Also, it misses the point that, even if they could all be built for £55bn, many of those schemes would then require ongoing subsidy, whereas HS2 is likely to turn in very healthy profits for a long time to come.
A couple of gems that caught my eye:
Extend Crossrail to Stansted Airport for £4Bn..... Totally unrealistic. Do these guys have any idea what Crossrail is for?
Exeter to Plymouth via Okehamption for £500m .... would cost a LOT more than that, surely.
Lower Thames Crossing... Already being planned to be built by the Government. Main impact would probably be to cause more traffic misery through swathes of Northern Kent and Southern Essex
Reopen Blackburn to Hellifield for improved East-West connectivity for £15m. Aside from that that line is already open - just not used very much, how on Earth would it give E-W connectivity?
ABB125
Established Member
The only reason they've put east-west connectivity is because if they said north-south they would get immediate opposition "because it would only benefit London"...
A Taxpayers Alliance report. Enough Said! As low tax libertarian free market ideologues with a US inspired irrational hatred of passenger trains, they'd never normally promote any of these alternative public transport schemes, so it's obvious their new found support for them would be about as reliable as a monetary figure quoted on the side of a brexit bus. I was quite heartened by the comments section. It wasnt the endless sea of 'vanity project - end of' type remarks I was expecting but actually contained some more thoughtful positive contributions. It seems the new messages about capacity and network benefits might be getting through, to some people at least.
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I had to hold my nose and open the link (one doesn’t ever go to the D**** M*** website), but some of those costs are laughable. In both directions to be fair.
£500m for BML2?
£100m for Penrith - Keswick?
£100m for Skipton - Colne?
£1.3bn for dualling the A1 Durham - Edinburgh. (They can’t have been north of Durham recently)
£500m for A5 expressway? (That really made me chuckle)
Britain’s ‘S-Bahn network’. (But only if you live in Leeds)
£5bn for MML electrification? (It’s much less)
£1.5bn for Rugby - Birmingham ‘upgrade’ - presumably 2 new tracks from somewhere near
Rugby to somewhere near Birmingham. If only HS2 had thought of that.
£500m for BML2?
£100m for Penrith - Keswick?
£100m for Skipton - Colne?
£1.3bn for dualling the A1 Durham - Edinburgh. (They can’t have been north of Durham recently)
£500m for A5 expressway? (That really made me chuckle)
Britain’s ‘S-Bahn network’. (But only if you live in Leeds)
£5bn for MML electrification? (It’s much less)
£1.5bn for Rugby - Birmingham ‘upgrade’ - presumably 2 new tracks from somewhere near
Rugby to somewhere near Birmingham. If only HS2 had thought of that.
Polarbear
Established Member
It’s also my opinion that if HS2 were deferred or cancelled, few if any of those proposals would ever be fulfilled. Unaccountable lobby groups such as the Taxpayers Alliance will make sure of that.
Were I a betting man (I steer clear of bookmakers), those road projects would get the go ahead (with any cost over-runs unquestioned), whereas the rail projects would be heavily scrutinised, and more likely than not, junked for the very same reasons the anti HS2 mob vote for trying to cancel the current project (cost, environment etc.)
There are a few on Twitter arguing against HS2, usually on very spurious grounds. When challenged to come up with VIABLE alternatives to solve the capacity issues at the current pinch points, they’re remarkably silent!
Were I a betting man (I steer clear of bookmakers), those road projects would get the go ahead (with any cost over-runs unquestioned), whereas the rail projects would be heavily scrutinised, and more likely than not, junked for the very same reasons the anti HS2 mob vote for trying to cancel the current project (cost, environment etc.)
There are a few on Twitter arguing against HS2, usually on very spurious grounds. When challenged to come up with VIABLE alternatives to solve the capacity issues at the current pinch points, they’re remarkably silent!
You can basically answer that question by replacing 'evangelical' with 'evidence based'.
It's based on facts; not beliefs, hunches or feelings.
I'm not sure that's entirely true.
There are supporters on this thread who carry on as though HS2 can solve anything. Even journeys that are not on the route are bettered by the mere fact that it exists. Remember when I listed five random parts of the UK and supporters fought over each other to find any spurious reason to prove a direct benefit? Rather than admit that HS2 can't solve everything including defeat 99% of all known germs, supporters claim that it can boost anything you throw at it.
That's not "evidence based". That's OTT eagerness, that's passion, that's evangelist.
Why some people are so desperate to support HS2, to deflect all criticism, to stand up for it like a white knight against all enemies, fascinates me. Nothing is perfect, so why do some supporters act like HS2 is flawless? How hard is it to admit that it might deliver everything you claim?
outta nowhere!
How about you just straight up tell us what will convince you that HS2 is a good idea?
Nothing will, I've been very open about that. I will not use HS2, either, something else I've been consistent with. I've made it very clear that I see nothing but negativity, just as supporters are very clear that they only see positivity.
I started out as a sceptic but have been persuaded, partly because the scheme has evolved, but also because it is being better explained by its supporters and promoters. My support is based on pragmatism. The scheme as proposed may not be precisely what my unbridled crayonism may have cobbled together, but the overall goals are demonstrably in agreement with the broad need for a massive uplift in capacity on the three main lines heading north from London and by now they've clearly put a huge amount of engineering expertise to work to refine and finalise the design. As an engineer myself I generally trust that expertise. Main line capacity, and the availability of London terminal platforms to serve it, is where the big crunch is on the network today, and it is preventing decent quality services at important intermediate towns along these corridors all the way from London through the Midlands to the north, whose service quanta and character have had to play second fiddle to the journey time and seat demands of the large northern cities that HS2 will serve in future. Put simply, the project delivers the equivalent of another pair of tracks, not only on the WCML, but also on the MML and the ECML, all for the cost of only one pair of tracks south of Birmingham and the two arms of the Phase 2 wye. That's an extraordinary level of benefit for the distance of new construction involved, and alternatives might have had to provide major high speed cutoffs along ALL THREE separate routes to bring similar benefits. The precise routing between London and the West Midlands is largely irrelevant to its function due to the lack of intermediate stops, as others have pointed out, but the additional London station and hub at Old Oak Common providing Crossrail and airport connections is simply genius (and very Japanese). Much of the phase 1 land has already been acquired now, or at least purchase has been agreed. Cancellation now would probably disappoint many of those property owners who have dealt already. An enormous lengthy and costly administrive task of closing down contracts, legislation, compensation claims etc would ensue, and undoubtedly lead to yet another decade or so of little progress on major mainline development, and give opportunities for further snake oil solutions like Hyperloop to be dragged out and peddled before the public amidst a campaign of misinformation funded by mysteriously-funded think tanks and pressure groups. I'd really rather not have to go through all that again. Meanwhile the aviation and petroleum sectors will have another decade of profits before their hegemony is effectively challenged further.
DynamicSpirit
Established Member
And there you have it. A person who will refuse to be convinced by evidence, no matter how strong that evidence is. Why do you even bother participating in the debate if you refuse to be convinced by any evidence.
That's really not true. It's not by a long way the first time you've stated something not true here. And I really don't understand why you keep stating falsehoods. Many, people here (including myself) have taken the line that they can see both advantages and disadvantages of HS2, but that on balance the advantages considerably outweigh the disadvantages.
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Why do you have this obsession that HS2 is a bad thing because it is of limited benefit to a resident of, say, Falmouth or Cromer? Show me a scheme that does have benefits more wide-spread than HS2 (For the record, HS2's benefits *are* very wide spread across England, Wales and Scotland, if not to absolutely everywhere, including to your own city of residence, and that is fact whether you like it or not).
And HS2 does not in any way stop what you would term "targeted hotspots" being additionally invested in for the places that HS2 does not benefit. It is not HS2-and-nothing-else, as is ably demonstrated by the investment underway or planned on the existing network that is carrying on regardless.
We can have HS2 *and* (say) Cornish electrification should funders so choose.
If act, HS2 could make investment in other areas more likely, by providing additional WCML capacity more efficiently than disruptive conventional upgrades, keeping more money free for 'other' stuff. Or even the political argument - the government would not want to be seen investing in HS2 without investment in other areas too - so there's stuff for everyone.
Your final statement simply isn't true. Supporters do not "only see positivity". Most of us - and I'm a reluctant supporter, because I think it's imperfect - take the view that the advantages of the scheme outweigh the drawbacks.
Ironically, two US HSR projects are well underway, Texas central scheduled to start construction on 2020 and the Florida Virgin USA get their 125mph link to Orlando, Tampa under construction in later this year.
OK, like some evidence like this:
View media item 3340
Looking at the numbers on the table between London and the West Midlands/North West there's now about 10 million (as the figures are in thousands) extra trips being made every year.
That's about 27,000 extra a day, filling an extra 39 trains (assuming 100% seat occupancy) with 429 coaches between them.
That doesn't even allow for Scotland or North Wales, which although have seen smaller and are split over more than one route would only add to those problems.
Based on that can you start to understand why adding a few extra coaches and a few extra trains here and there isn't going to cut it when trying to provide the capacity needed.
It's why those who have looked at the information are more and more thinking, "you know what we do need HS2, or at least something very much like it".
HS2 is far from perfect, but what other option is there? Even if there is one it's probably too late to start design work on it to be able to deliver it within the timeframe.
I don't trust the taxpayers alliance or their motives, and have no doubt that their 'support' for these projects would evapourate into the mist, were HS2 to be cancelled.
Nevertheless, I would reiterate that Plymouth - Exeter via Okehampton and Blackburn - Hellifield are both worthwhile projects which would both increase travel opportunities, and in the case of Okehampton, improve network resilience.
To answer your points, I think £500m was quoted in the NR study on the various options after the Dawlish wash out.
Also, Blackburn - Hellifield is not open to passengers to all intents and purposes. Try getting a train that way today, and see how far you get.
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Wasn't it £0.9-£1.2bn depending on the scope of works in the options report. Whilst the £500m was the initial estimate before the report was completed.
From the report:
Likewise HSUK's cost estimates are optimistic and often don't take into account the existing use of the existing network, for instance they use the MML to get out of London.
£500m does ring a bell from somewhere, although it might have been revised at some stage. Safe to say it's the single track option we're pondering.
Esker-pades
Established Member
Thing is, as someone who has been on the pro-HS2 side in this thread, I was anti-HS2 until about 1 or 2 years ago. The change in my position was brought about by evidence and facts.
HS2 isn't flawless. So, the question really should be: "Why can't PR1Berske find an anti-HS2 argument that actually holds some water?"
As I have written before, I am personally sceptical about HS2. But the thing that convinces me most that HS2 should be built is the abysmal, laughable arguments used against it by the anti-HS2 campaigns.
Above we have a perfect example. The poster writes that "Nothing will" convince him or her to support HS2, and that he or she sees "nothing but negativity".
Someone who is not open to arguments and facts, whatever they might be, is a fanatic. Someone who cannot see a single positive feature about HS2 (even if they think on balance it is a bad thing) is a fanatic. Someone who says they will never use HS2, even if it would be best way to make a journey, is a fanatic.
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I've been thinking about this on the walk to work.
What would I need to see for HS2 to be acceptable? Well, we all know Option A is "scrap the whole thing", though that's not a helpful response, so let us look at Option B.
I would have started the project in the North, with no connectivity at all with Birmingham to begin with, to radically improve the railways up here with action rather than words.
I would have built P15/16 at Piccadilly, a scheme I was initially against until the evidence became overwhelming that it must be built in conjunction with Ordsall Curve. This could have been the High Speed platforms for the North, allowing for interchange with the wider region.
I would not have spent one single penny on London Euston.
My HS2 would have improved east-west links between strategic points of the region, looking at how to connect the North East to more interchange opportunities. TransPennine routes, both classic and HS, would invigorate the economy far more than a new railway line into Euston.
What we see in the news and through numerous parliamentary reports is the case for HS2 crumbling before our eyes. Had we seen real, confirmed, credible investment up here, rather than at London like always, perhaps the scheme would have been popular and more likely to be built.
As the scheme is built to improve Euston first and connect the north seventh or eighth, I can't see any reason to be enthusiastic about it. Had it been focused on the north first and foremost, maybe I would not be so heavily opposed.
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