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Government announces independent review into HS2 programme

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ChiefPlanner

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So the Greens are against HS2 because it goes through open countryside but are in favour (as far as I can tell) of East West Rail despite it going through open countryside. So what's the difference?

Part of the point of Oxford - Cambridge (and the service add-ons at either side) , is to allow a massive housing build on the corridor. Bit of a 21stC "Metroland" which has leap the M25. If the railway does not happen, then they will just build a motorway instead.

You want to like the Greens , but having gone to a couple of meetings / quizzes with them locally. "no" ....
 
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Sceptre

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The Green Party started to heavily oppose HS2 when Natalie Bennett became leader.

When she became leader, she lived in Somers Town.

I'm not saying those two facts are linked, but...
 

Glenn1969

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I'm pro HS2. I live in Yorkshire and don't go to London that often but I welcome the capacity and connectivity it will bring to Manchester and Yorkshire via HS2 or NPR
 

camflyer

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Part of the point of Oxford - Cambridge (and the service add-ons at either side) , is to allow a massive housing build on the corridor. Bit of a 21stC "Metroland" which has leap the M25. If the railway does not happen, then they will just build a motorway instead.

You want to like the Greens , but having gone to a couple of meetings / quizzes with them locally. "no" ....

Well, it may not be technically a motorway but the Oxford to Cambridge Expressway is happening in parallel with EWR development as part of the Oxford-MK-Cambridge Arc.

The Greens may be well meaning but when it comes to actual pragmatic politics they are up in the clouds.
 

Hadders

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We need to think long term.

We're building capacity for 50-100 years, not the next franchise period. The WCML south of Rugby is full, HS2 relives that problem so more trains from places like Leighton Buzzard, Hemel Hempstead, Northampton etc can run.

Yes it's expensive but so was my house when I bought it years ago. If fact I could barely afford it and most people told me I shouldn't buy it. I'm very pleased I did as the cost in today's money is like a bit of loose change. It'll be the same with HS2.
 

Glenn1969

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There are capacity issues on the south of the ECML as well with Welwyn being particularly troublesome to solve without considerable expense. This is why they should build HS2 in full and future proof our railway for the next 3 generations to use in comfort like we do now
 

Taunton

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I know, absurd isn't it. One of the major realistic ways that other countries have succeeded in reducing and even eliminating domestic and other shorter haul air routes on certain corridors is apparently out of the question in the UK according to this joke of a party.
The UK government has a different approach, and imposing and then regularly hiking up Air Passenger Duty has had a significant downward effect on UK domestic air travel, which is well down on what it was 10 or 20 years ago. Lesser routes have disappeared, and I notice it even the main business routes from London to Scotland. people haven't transferred to rail or road on this, there seems a notable downturn in business travel between the two, it's just become too expensive. It's probably one of the things that makes Scotland now feel increasingly isolated and separated from London.
 

The Ham

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More likely the concourse designed to be above or below the *middle* of the platforms, with escalators feeding the platforms in both directions centrally, so nobody has to walk an entire train length to board.

Reading station is a good example of this, with a central over bridge with escalators up/down on both sides.

The bridge is fairly wide so has shops providing catering. Meaning that everyone has easy access to them rather than them needing to be repeated on various platforms.
 

irish_rail

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I'm not convinced people would want to pay premium fares to use HS2 anyway. If u asked a passenger in Manchester would they like to pay for arguments sake 80 quid to get to London in 2 and a quarter hours or pay say 120 quid and get there 45 minutes quicker I genuinely believe the vast majority would take the cheaper slightly slower but still fast pendolino.

However if the current wcml is downgraded to all stations class 350s that may tempt some onto HS2 which is what will No doubt happen, but in my view is totally immoral. Telling the customer either, pay more , or your current standard of service will be reduced.
 

Aictos

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Has it even been confirmed what the actual ticket prices will be as at the moment it is nothing but speculation on how much tickets will actually cost in reality!
 

mmh

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I'm not convinced people would want to pay premium fares to use HS2 anyway. If u asked a passenger in Manchester would they like to pay for arguments sake 80 quid to get to London in 2 and a quarter hours or pay say 120 quid and get there 45 minutes quicker I genuinely believe the vast majority would take the cheaper slightly slower but still fast pendolino.

However if the current wcml is downgraded to all stations class 350s that may tempt some onto HS2 which is what will No doubt happen, but in my view is totally immoral. Telling the customer either, pay more , or your current standard of service will be reduced.

Quite. There's a thread about cheap fares being introduced for Manchester to London via Crewe on TFW+LNWR, where it's a great idea, and only extends the journey time by about an hour. On the supposedly full WCML.
 

Aictos

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I think that’s because they don’t have much choice. No one wants to be on that all stations stopper to Charing Cross for all eternity.

Or maybe it’s because HS1 serves where people want to get to without flaffing around with Cross London connections....

HS1 serves all three London to Scotland with two more or less serving it directly with one being a few minutes walk.
 

mmh

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People are happy to pay the higher fares on HS1, even when they have a 'classic' station on their doorstep.

They're not. The 'classic' routes have been downgraded to the point that people who'd used them for decades reluctantly switch to HS1.

Is that the same model which will make HS2 "popular"?
 

EM2

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I think that’s because they don’t have much choice. No one wants to be on that all stations stopper to Charing Cross for all eternity.
There's plenty of choice. Ebbsfleet gets a lot of custom from Maidstone for example, yet Maidstone East to London is still just over an hour on a semi-fast, same as it always was.
The same happens with Sevenoaks. 34m on a fast, but there are people from outside the town still drive to Ebbsfleet (and that takes half an hour!), pay for parking and pay the higher fare, rather than drive to Sevenoaks to get a classic service.
 
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matacaster

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Walking from Euston to St. Pancras is hardly 'crossing London'; King's Cross to St. Pancras is barely crossing a road. I'll grant you Paddington is a schlep.

As for how do I know, let's see how many direct North of London Eurostar services are running... answer, zero. The infrastructure already exists for such journeys; it was built into St. Pancras international throat. Eurostar could extend services to Birmingham or Manchester or Leeds, just as they have to Amsterdam and Marseilles. But they have concluded that they aren't worth running. They offer few advantages over the relatively easy transfer already available. There is no large unmet demand for direct services. The best thing to do would be to improve the transfer between stations - better walking route, travelators, PRT etc.

Whilst the connections exist, which paths would Eurostar use? I thought people on here were saying there aren't any available on wcml, mml or wcml.
 

Class 170101

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For those who say that Hs2 will give faster journey times.
Well the Sheffield to Birmingham Hs2 journey will be 8 minutes faster than the current journey times
Standard time for late running xc trains from Sheffield to Birmingham is 56 minutes. And paths are easily found for these journeys. Current journey times are grossly inflated.
For example. Someone calculated that A Plymouth to Glasgow journey via Sheffield and Leeds had 167 minutes standing time.
So we must be very careful about exaggerating time saving benefits of Hs2. I regularly travel from Birmingham to newcasle and my trains stand for at least 30 minutes on every journey. This does notlw for early arrival due to an excess of recovery time

You cannot neccessarily get rid of that 167 minutes 'standing' time because a path may not exist to head forward / arrive later at a particular intermediate point.

I would also suggest that XC will remain as it is to a point because HS2 does not serve intermediate journeys only those between major cities.

Chances are there'll be rules brought in, such as taxes based on journey being made (so even long distance flights made with a linking flight would be charged or rules starting that carbon offsetting to be used by any airline going through European airspace (most would force their passengers to pay as the extra costs of going around would be too high for them to bear).

If the EU did that I'd expect other countries (Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Greenland, etc.) to follow suit.

Would they be allowed to do that under International Law? How would the EU charge a flight say from Instanbul to New York that doesn't stop in the EU en-route?

So the Greens are against HS2 because it goes through open countryside but are in favour (as far as I can tell) of East West Rail despite it going through open countryside. So what's the difference?

East West Rail (Western Section) is an existing / mothballed railway unlike HS2 as far as they are concerned.
 

Class 170101

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Gatwick's latest plan has a cost of "only" £500m which would involve widening the current emergency runway and expanding the existing terminals. Seems like a no-brainer to do that while Heathrow is still sorting itself out.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news...-emergency-runway-to-increase-flight-capacity

I didn't think the second runway could be used at the same time as the first as it was too close to it to be used in the same way Heathrow uses its two runways?
 

Bletchleyite

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You cannot neccessarily get rid of that 167 minutes 'standing' time because a path may not exist to head forward / arrive later at a particular intermediate point.

And more to the point it makes XC, nasty though it is, reasonably punctual even on the long runs.

If you take that sort of padding out, what you get is the mess that is LNR at the moment (for example). It is much needed and it should stay. Better a slower, punctual and reliable service than a quicker one that you can't trust.
 

Class 170101

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And more to the point it makes XC, nasty though it is, reasonably punctual even on the long runs.

If you take that sort of padding out, what you get is the mess that is LNR at the moment (for example). It is much needed and it should stay. Better a slower, punctual and reliable service than a quicker one that you can't trust.

Or Operation Princess
 

Bletchleyite

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Quite. There's a thread about cheap fares being introduced for Manchester to London via Crewe on TFW+LNWR, where it's a great idea, and only extends the journey time by about an hour. On the supposedly full WCML.

Have another look south of Northampton. That's the bit that needs relieving. And LNR (and LM before them) price dumping is indeed a problem that is causing unnecessary overcrowding.
 

trebor79

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Would they be allowed to do that under International Law? How would the EU charge a flight say from Instanbul to New York that doesn't stop in the EU en-route?

The same way they do now, through modified Eurocontrol charges would be the simplest mechanism.
 

RLBH

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That's not the organisation of it - HS2 is a non-profit company.
HS2 Ltd may not be in it to make a profit, but their contractors are, and will be pricing accordingly. And even without making a profit, they've still got to not make a loss. Given the government's attitude to risk, that means HS2 Ltd is carrying it directly, which will increase the quoted cost.
 

RLBH

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If you take that sort of padding out, what you get is the mess that is LNR at the moment (for example). It is much needed and it should stay. Better a slower, punctual and reliable service than a quicker one that you can't trust.
Better still a fast, punctual, reliable service. Realistically HS2 Phase 2b is the only thing I can see that will allow the cross-country route to become a proper intercity railway, a privilege only currently granted to routes serving London.

Well, apart from the fact that you can't use it to get from Birmingham to southwest England or the South Coast because Curzon Street has no connection to the existing rail network southwards. But for the Birmingham to Leeds section, it's the right idea.
 

camflyer

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I didn't think the second runway could be used at the same time as the first as it was too close to it to be used in the same way Heathrow uses its two runways?

The two runways at LGW cannot be used simultaneously in their current configuration but the plan is to widen/realign the second one sufficiently so that it meets the minimum legal separation. However they are still going to safeguard land for a third runway which would need a lot more supporting infrastructure in terms of access roads and terminal buildings.

Getting back to railways, another problem Gatwick has is that the Brighton to London mainline is close to full capacity. The planned redevelopment of the railway station will help but some long term thinking is required to add more routes and seats through the Sussex commuterland.
 
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