Although it's rare to have an opportunity to design a whole new main line railway from scratch - so you may as well set a high bar with the opportunity to come down from it later.
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HS2 Review ongoing
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Although it's rare to have an opportunity to design a whole new main line railway from scratch - so you may as well set a high bar with the opportunity to come down from it later.
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Bear in mind that if 'green' is an issue, then making the line dodge around wildlife sites would increase the length of the line and consequently, increase the maintenance costs and the energy requirement. It also might take it nearer to towns/other non-railway infrastructure, increasing the cost/energy required in construction/environmental objection of a different kind/etc..
Similarly, it can be assumed that the current alignments in Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds are the most cost effective and probably the least objectionable in environmental terms, commensurate with the desired operational objectives.
Those changes alone are likely to raise the cost without any significant overall change to environmental and green impact of the project. It also might damage the case and commit travellers to road journey for even more years.
LNW-GW Joint
Veteran Member
This isn't new really, it was part of the brief given to the Okervee review by the DfT ministers, in terms of possible options to investigate.
The demolition of property for the Euston development has already been done, so axing the link from OOC might save money but the physical impact on Camden has already happened (although there's a lot of construction disruption to come).
Rescheduling the project to level out the annual spend is the most likely outcome of the review.
It's worth noting that many of the new Chinese HSLs actually start and end in rather distant suburbs of the major cities, with metro links.
But then the whole scale of development in China is vastly greater than HS2.
The fuction of HSR in China is to move masses of people on routes where there isn't any alternative to driving on long slow road routes. In the UK, rail has been a transport mode of choice for many for decades, and HSR is needed to supplement an overloaded rail system operated since victorian times. Failure to do that will drive (pun acknowledged but not intended) many more travellers onto roads. Even when EVs become the norm for 150-250 mole journeys, the continual extension of the road network is not sustainable.
ohgoditsjames
Member
If the eastern leg is binned it will mean Sheffield won’t be getting HS2 and HS3. What an insult.
Whether Euston station itself is finished simultaneously and opens immediately or not, it is very important that HS2 at least bores the tunnels from Old Oak Common to the Euston portals AT THE SAME TIME as they bore the tunnels north west from OOC, as otherwise an insanely busy quarter mile long six platform terminal station operating in the trench will likely prevent or at least significantly hamper a subsequent TBM launch from the same site. I don't think it would be possible to launch and service the TBMs throughout their construction period from the Euston end. A wrong decision here could ensure that the line can never get to Euston or possibly even anywhere else east or south of OOC.
Good point. Clearly, you don't want to make it too twisty/indirect but how do we know that the exact route proposed is the best compromise between the two extremes? The tighter curves allowed by aiming for 200mph instead of 250mph might allow the route to skirt around the edges of sensitive sites rather than ploughing through the middle of them.
The current alignments in Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds probably are the most cost-effective means of linking these places with London and delivering the basic HS2 three-branched-Y network. However, linking these cities to each other (and other regional cities such as Liverpool, Bristol and York) in order to rebalance the economy away from London and significantly improve upon the current XC and LNWR services requires something rather different to HS2 as it is currently proposed. For Northern Powerhouse Rail (NPR), Manchester will need through platforms not the terminal ones proposed for HS2 - add NPR to the scope of HS2 and it may be more cost-effective for trains from London to use the through platforms and continue to(wards) Leeds rather than having to build both sets of platforms. In terms of the Birmingham area, the current design of Curzon Street (while 'cost-effective') is completely ineffective if Bristol is to be built into the network of regional cities and also prevents Wolverhampton-Euston services using HS2. In Leeds, NPR will probably require a through station to allow trains from Liverpool to continue through to York and beyond. If HS2 joined NPR just west of Leeds and used those NPR platforms, services from Sheffield, Leicester and London using HS2 into Leeds could also continue to(wards) York and possibly avoid the cost of constructing the proposed HS2 terminal platforms in Leeds.
The sort of changes I would like to see in Birmingham would indeed significantly increase the cost. However, services terminating in Birmingham simply would not have covered the distance required to be competing with air travel. Therefore, if trains are going to continue to terminate in Birmingham why not continue with 125mph services on the classic WCML?
Why make changes to Birmingham, such as making it a through location? The current services rarely do so, as such the benefits would be fairly small.
Passenger flows are large enough that there's no need for services to run Manchester, Birmingham, London. Yes Birmingham London and Manchester Birmingham but what do you gain by running the services joined together?
DynamicSpirit
Established Member
To be pedantic: I think what you'd gain is more efficient stock utilisation, and - from the passenger's point of view - more frequent services: For example, someone at Manchester wanting to go to either Birmingham or London would be able to basically catch any Southbound HS2 train, instead of only the trains heading for their particular destination - hence higher frequencies to both destinations, even with only the same numbers of trains actually running. The downside obviously might be slightly longer journey times London-Manchester, if trains were expected to stop at the central AND interchange stations in Birmingham.
But I can see that the difficulties and extra expense involved in making Birmingham a through station to run London-Birmingham-Manchester trains would probably be too great to be worth pursuing.
I agree with Rhydgaled. It's not just about London - or it shouldn't be We should be looking to the future with a joined-up high-speed (higher-capacity anyway) network serving a lot more places than just London. From that perspective putting a terminal station in halfway along the new line is mad, especially (as he says) services from e.g. the Bristol direction and continuing NE and NW ought to be considered.
swt_passenger
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Hasn’t the hypothetical through station in Birmingham been proposed in these forums numerous times since the route was announced, and hasn’t it been explained just as often that it was looked at and ruled out because it was impossible to build without either significant demolition across the city centre, and/or a massive underground station with ensuing long tunnels? It certainly wasn’t ignored at the Initial planning stage, but it was quickly ruled out.
ABB125
Established Member
Personally I think that the current Birmingham plan is a good compromise (except for the lack of a connection to the current network) in terms of cost and connectivity. As long as there is sufficient capacity at the new Curzon Street station, any future new line to Bristol/Cardiff could depart the station towards the east (but shortly turn south towards Bristol). (I suspect this would be a lot easier than trying to fit a line in from the south/west of Birmingham city centre.)
Add in a connection near Washwood Heath for HS2 to New Street and beyond, and everyone's happy.
Add in a connection near Washwood Heath for HS2 to New Street and beyond, and everyone's happy.
Can you remind us how many "massive underground station-s- with ensuing long tunnels" have been built for Crossrail? Or what the cost of the Euston HS2 station and approaches will cost?
So why should something similar be out of the question for part/the heart of the provincial high-capacity (also high-speed) network? It needs saying again - and again - that HS rail isn't (shouldn't) just be about access to London.
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DynamicSpirit
Established Member
Not another person trying to turn this into a North-South argument? *sigh*
Just like Birmingham Curzon Street, London Euston HS2 is being built as a terminus station. And in both cases, this has caused some upset with some people expressing regret that the two stations weren't designed as through stations.
As far as underground vs surface is concerned: I'm pretty sure that, if there had been any suitable disused stations or similar sites in the middle of London that could be repurposed for HS2, then that would be done in preference to the huge expense of an underground station. But there aren't: Practically every square inch of central London is occupied by something that would be pretty expensive to remove, so going underground was the only option. The difference between London and Birmingham in this regard is that in Birmingham, it just happens that there was a suitable disused station site very close to the town centre. So why go to the aforementioned huge expense of an underground station when the option to build on the surface exists?
So how again is Birmingham being treated less favourably than London?
There's two issues, firstly London is just getting a tunnel in from one side, so comparing Birmingham to London isn't comparing like for like when you are talking about a through station.
Secondary if you run trains London, Birmingham, Manchester even without the trains being any slower people from Manchester will be disadvantaged. For the simple reason that by significantly increasing the frequency of Birmingham trains (6tph? If not more if you'd be asking for the Liverpool services to do likewise) you'll make it a lot more attractive to go by train.
Now what's the problem with that you say, well it's likely to result in there being train services where people heading to Manchester not being able to get a seat due to passenger numbers going to Birmingham.
No, I'm not. I'm just pointinhg out that tunnel for London is Inevitable, but for some reason is out of the question for Birmingham - or Manchester, where a through deep-level station is needed anyway.
did you not read the comment that Birmingham is at the heart of the country, and it is very likely that a high speed/high capacity network will need to accommodate Bristol (and other) southern origin to NW and NE destinations? It's not just about London
Birmingham might be a destination for some travellers, but by no means as many as will want to travel through the region. Unlike London. And it is still worth pointing out that through stations take less space than termini, and allow through services with more journey opportuntities, and lead to a servicing area out in the sticks at the other end where it is cheaper to put it and where the work will be much more appreciated.
I think the seven additional 400m terminal platforms that Curzon St will provide in central Birmingham could prove very useful for notional future Cross country routings, allowing trains using the northern phase 2 arms to join and divide as they reverse for destinations in the south. So with suitable additional connections, a full length train arriving from Leeds could have portions for the west country via Bristol and the south coast via Reading for example.
Simply, because in London there is genuinely no altermative if you want a city centre terminal.
Manchester* and Birmingham have sufficient brownfield land close to the city centre to use without expensive works.
*Of course, Manchester's approaches are almost entirely tunnelled from Manchester Airport too, because there's no other alternstive. So no, it's simply not the case of saving the "sexy" infrastructure for London.
A tunnelled HS2 station would be enormous, especially if built with a through configuration with two massive throat junction caverns. At 400m long, construction of each individual platform of a high speed station would move at least as much earth as an entire crossrail station and you'd have to find a large block of subteranean real estate suitable for six or more of these alongside each other on a largely straight and level alignment and then arrange all the connecting passageways and safety measures. I'm not aware of ANY large high speed rail station constructed under a major city using boring and mining methods anywhere in the world. The costs would be phenomenal. There are subsurface stations in trenches that can be built over like OOC and Stratford, but such facilities are not easy to fit into central locations within old cities.
DynamicSpirit
Established Member
But no-one in the Government is yet proposing that. Personally, I'd love to see Bristol and the SW plugged into a High Speed network that runs across the UK (and apart from anything, sooner or later, something will have to be done to get XC off of the Cross-City line tracks). But that's not part of the HS2 plans - it's just something that people like us are calling for on Internet discussion sites! You can't really start designing a station on the basis that, maybe, hypothetically, in 20 year's time we'll want to add X to it and therefore we'd better spend tens of billions extra building an underground station just in case that happens. Especially when even the current costs are making quite a few politicians freak out and giving ammunition to those who would prefer to spend the money building roads.
That's all true. But basic geography and population levels dictate that, even if HS2 was extended to Bristol, the number of people heading from Birmingham to London and the North will far exceed the numbers heading for the SW. Therefore you can expect the vast majority of HS2 trains at Birmingham will still terminate there, with just a few running to Bristol/etc. For the ones that terminate, it's still a lot cheaper to use Curzon Street. If, hypothetically, there was a future extension to Bristol and a demand for through services, then I guess you'd address the question of whether you need to build some new underground platforms then - but in that case it would be just enough platforms for the minority of HS2 trains that actually need them - which seems rather more sensible than building lots of underground platforms now for trains that won't need them.
DynamicSpirit
Established Member
Are you sure about that? I would have expected that the seven platforms and surrounding track are being designed as just sufficient for the level of service proposed in HS2 phases 1 and 2. If we start adding additional services to Bristol that are not yet planned, and demanding that these services reverse at Birmingham, is it really reasonable to assume that these extra services can still fit a station that wasn't planned for that many trains?
I have just come home from holiday by TGV from la Rochelle... and a diversion via "old lines" to call at an old station at Saint-Pierre-des-Corps, where there was a massive interchange of people ... Where?
It's actually a suburb of Tours, but Wikipedia says The station at Tours itself is a terminus station through which trains cannot pass, so trains that do not terminate at Tours tend to avoid it entirely, leaving Saint-Pierre-des-Corps as the principal long distance station for the entire metropolitan area.
I was thinking more of a few parallel deep-level platforms for New St, rather like I remember Chatelet-les-Hales. Double track approaches, parallel platforms for successive trains to call at alternately. Brum is founded on nice workable sandstone, so boring should be easier than in unstable clay.
I do acknowledge that the HS2 approach to Manchester will be tunnelled from the SE, but there is no joined-up thinking yet. It needs a through Liverpool - Manchester airport - Manchester Centre (at an existing heavy rail location) [Oldham?] - Yorkshire scheme that is integrated with NPR, which will probably need more tunnelling - which of course will make it completely unaffordable for somewhere in the provinces. It's ironic that if Crossrail had tried to put an ordinary railway through the new tunnels it would probably be in service by now. Just give us that, and HSR where it can be made use of!
Unfortunately that is the sort of thinking that guarantees that London will continue to dominate our economy for employment and income. Don't you think the "population levels" might actually be a consequence of the funding that has been put into London's infrastructure over the last half-dozen decades?
I can still hardly credit that an international station was built in London, and then abandoned, then had many millions spent on it again to make it useable for local services.
Well there are planned to be various trains terminating at Birmingham from the north. These would be extended to destinations further south, reversing and splitting as appropriate. The 20 minute interval London service will probably need just a pair of, or at most three platforms, so seven in total seems adequate to cope.
Here's a track layout for the terminal with the HS2 proposed layout and the additional connections to the conventional network shown. London trains would use the group of three platforms #1-3, with Cross Country using the bottom four, #4-5 for northbound, #6-7 for southbound.
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DynamicSpirit
Established Member
I would say it's more the kind of thinking that will ensure that HS2 actually gets built!
And I was referring to the combined population levels of London, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, the North of England: Basically everywhere that trains heading NorthEast out of Curzon Street will be going to. The point is that, even some through platforms were built, you'd probably still be seeing no more than, maybe, 20% of HS2 trains heading SW, and therefore potentially needing through platforms.
And no, I think the population levels in London are largely a consequence of our economy becoming more and more specialised, which leads to job roles becoming more and more specialised. That means that companies need to recruit their staff for certain specialist roles from smaller and smaller groups of people. That leads to companies moving to the places with the highest populations, because that's where they'll find the specialist staff, and that sets up a vicious cycle where more and more people also want to move to the biggest cities because that's where the highest paying companies have moved to, and you end up with this awful cycle of the largest cities becoming larger and larger. To add to that, young people are far more mobile these days than in times past, and most young people tend to want to go to places where there are already lots of of other people and therefore lots of culture, lots of jobs, lots of dating opportunities etc. etc. The whole thing is a cycle that - as far as I'm aware - virtually no Government anywhere in the World has so far found a way to beat. And in the case of the UK, it's probably exacerbated by that London is not only the largest city, but also the closest large city to Europe, and the seat of Government to boot.
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swt_passenger
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A two track and two platform metro (Crossrail) tunnel isn’t the same as a HS Station, which is where the proposed “Euston Cross” fully underground station for HS2 fell down.
However yet again, another HS2 discussion turns into full on speculative redesign, in an attempt to make it even more expensive...
However yet again, another HS2 discussion turns into full on speculative redesign, in an attempt to make it even more expensive...
What a stunningly restrictive layout! only 2 lines in and out of all the platforms, and all the "rest of the network" platforms accessed by a single lead junction - which feeds into the down London-and-everywhere-else line. I can't see whether the one on the diagram is the "additional single turnout ... from Curzon St throat" or if another one is meant. Hopefully a railwayman with operating experience will get some control of this before it is built.
The layout of the majority of the throat is EXACTLY as shown in the firm plans already published for phase 1, with the addition of a single turnout on the south side of the viaduct to the three new lines lines connecting to the conventional network. It may not be the most flexible layout in the world, but stunningly restrictive is a little strong! All the XC services would have to cross in the throat anyway, that's a limitation of the terminal configuration unless additional flyovers were provided, so the single lead is not as restrictive as it first may appear, and a northbound can depart at the same time as a southbound arrives. The three lowest numbered platforms act as a separate terminal for the London service (three arrivals and three departures an hour + some empty stock movements at certain times so not a major stretch). A London arrival could take place at the same time as a northbound XC arrival or a southbound departure due to the parallelism in the layout.
If it doesn't feature a pile of diamond crossings and double-slips, then some people will never be happy.
That said, the single lead seems unnecessarily parsimonious, if only because it creates a significant single point of failure in an important layout.
The single point of failure would be my major concern too, but is a common concern for many places on the network. I think they'd need the very best most reliable Japanese style equipment reliability specified, and a very well equipped dedicated maintenance team stationed ready to go in a hut right next to the junction (not a bad idea in itself, whether or not the additional conventional network connections existed).
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