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HS2 Review ongoing

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PR1Berske

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So let's get this right.... You're proposing that we spend a fair chunk of the money allocated to HS2 (remembering that the underground station at Euston and the tunnels leading out of it are going to be one of the most expensive parts of HS2, because building underground stations is expensive). But instead of getting an entire new line giving up to 18tph of long distance trains and massively relieving capacity on the WCML, you want to use the massive expense of this new underground station and approaches to basically get maybe a couple of extra tph on the Chiltern line and divert a few trains from the Great Western Line (I'm assuming you meant the GW line not the West Coast ML)?

That's similar to what I'd do.
Scrap HS2, keep the Euston/Camden regen as that's pretty advanced. Not one penny wasted on a new railway line but still benefits.
 
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PR1Berske

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Wow. So that would be one of the most completely utterly wrong statements about HS2 that anyone has posted here in the last couple of days. But prefaced with 'I know the truth'

I have to say this for you. You post your falsehoods with style ;)

Prove me wrong.

If HS2 was about anywhere other than London it would be started in the North. But it's not because it's not.
 

Meole

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Berkeley has the rail experience lacking elsewhere on the review team and clearly demonstrates that Crossrail 2 should take precedence for the economic future of the UK.
WCML should reduce demand with selective fare increases to reduce casual use and remove excessive long distance commuting which Crosstail 2 can replace more efficiently from the environmental perspective.
 

mmh

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But instead of getting an entire new line giving up to 18tph of long distance trains and massively relieving capacity on the WCML,

Berkeley believes 18tph is overambitious and a result of upping the specification to improve the business case rather than serving any defined benefit.

I've not read the whole report yet, but I wonder if as well as an 18tph high speed line being unprecedented, there'll be any mention that it's not just 18 tph, it's 18tph on a non self-contained system, something which never seems to be noted.
 

Class 170101

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Berkeley has the rail experience lacking elsewhere on the review team and clearly demonstrates that Crossrail 2 should take precedence for the economic future of the UK.
WCML should reduce demand with selective fare increases to reduce casual use and remove excessive long distance commuting which Crosstail 2 can replace more efficiently from the environmental perspective.

Crossrail 2 has very little to do with HS2 except as another access route to / from Euston to relieve pressure on the tube.
 

Aictos

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That's similar to what I'd do.
Scrap HS2, keep the Euston/Camden regen as that's pretty advanced. Not one penny wasted on a new railway line but still benefits.

What benefits?

How does it benefit Birmingham, Liverpool and Manchester passengers both IC and local services?

Your proposals don’t give any benefits at all that can be used.
 

EM2

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Perhaps you could actually read my comment, if you do you'll find "... if Lord Berkeley is telling things as they really are ....", the use of the word 'if' rather gives away the fact that I'm not claiming that he is or isn't telling the truth
Exactly my point. He has access to exactly the same information as everyone else involved in this review. Why is his point of view to be believed, and everyone else's not?
It's like the proud mother at her son's passing-out parade, 'They're all out of step except my boy'.
 

deltic

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A copy of
The London to West Midlands bit, all that is actively being prepared at the moment, is about 130 miles. The formation width is significantly less than a motorway. We built and opened that sort of motorway mileage every 3 to 4 years in the 1960s-70s. It has only expanded by, as ever with rail schemes, huge gold plating of the whole thing.

The M40 motorway from Thame in Oxfordshire, by the Chilterns, to Warwick, was opened all in one hit in the mid-1980s. It pretty much parallels much of HS2. I don't recall it's price but it wasn't £100bn and mostly was built and opened with little impact beyond the actual alignment locality.

In among the £100bn is already quite a few £bn for engineering design consultants, whose principal job is to survey, put detail in, cost it by current criteria, and assist the letting of contracts. If they can't do this job that they said they could, and were paid for, they should give their fees back.

M40 came out at about £10m a mile - the £100bn HS2 price tag is for a railway of far larger length plus stations
 

mmh

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What benefits?

How does it benefit Birmingham, Liverpool and Manchester passengers both IC and local services?

Your proposals don’t give any benefits at all that can be used.

You can still rebuild / extend Euston station, which is often criticised. Increase its passenger capacity and make it more pleasant. You could potentially provide separate 'local' and long distance sections. Birmingham, Liverpool and Manchester passengers would only benefit from it if they travel to London, but that's also the case with HS2.
 

Ianno87

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You can still rebuild / extend Euston station, which is often criticised. Increase its passenger capacity and make it more pleasant. You could potentially provide separate 'local' and long distance sections. Birmingham, Liverpool and Manchester passengers would only benefit from it if they travel to London, but that's also the case with HS2.

Two thirds of HS2 infrastructure is north of Birmingham. A bit more ciculation space at Euston does not generate jobs at the development around Manchester Airport HS2 station. Nor does it permit NPR to happen. HS2 does these things (as examples)
 

AndrewE

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You can still rebuild / extend Euston station, which is often criticised. Increase its passenger capacity and make it more pleasant. You could potentially provide separate 'local' and long distance sections. Birmingham, Liverpool and Manchester passengers would only benefit from it if they travel to London, but that's also the case with HS2.
How does this increase capacity on the lines leaving London? If they are full now then I imagine the only benefit would be longer trains from the (few) new platforms.
 

Bletchleyite

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How does this increase capacity on the lines leaving London? If they are full now then I imagine the only benefit would be longer trains from the (few) new platforms.

Increasing dwells at Euston (which have had to be reduced to allow for the loss of P17 and 18) would be a benefit, certainly.
 

Aictos

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You can still rebuild / extend Euston station, which is often criticised. Increase its passenger capacity and make it more pleasant. You could potentially provide separate 'local' and long distance sections. Birmingham, Liverpool and Manchester passengers would only benefit from it if they travel to London, but that's also the case with HS2.

Wrong! Birmingham, Liverpool and Manchester commuters benefit by the IC services moving to HS2 which frees up platforms for local services.

As a example, moving 2tph Avanti West Coast’s from Birmingham New Street to Curzon Street means the New Street platforms have more capacity for local and regional services.

Just doing the works at Euston does absolutely nothing to improve the rail network elsewhere.
 

Glenn1969

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Think what view people take on Lord Berkeley's report may depend on their view on HS2

I'm pro HS2- but I agree with those who say it should start in Manchester and relieve all those lines in the North that badly need it
 

Aictos

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Think what view people take on Lord Berkeley's report may depend on their view on HS2

I'm pro HS2- but I agree with those who say it should start in Manchester and relieve all those lines in the North that badly need it

But providing much needed capacity in the North is what NPR is for which HS2 makes possible.
 

mmh

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Wrong! Birmingham, Liverpool and Manchester commuters benefit by the IC services moving to HS2 which frees up platforms for local services.

As a example, moving 2tph Avanti West Coast’s from Birmingham New Street to Curzon Street means the New Street platforms have more capacity for local and regional services.

I'm with Berkeley on that, who points out its advantageous and commonly preferred to use existing stations with existing connections for town centre high speed rail rather than shunt them off to a separate station.

18tph. Say half of that doesn't leave HS2 and are Birmingham / Manchester / Leeds terminators. Which sounds massive overprovision, but for argument's sake. Where do the other 9 go? The existing WCML!
 

mmh

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Think what view people take on Lord Berkeley's report may depend on their view on HS2

I think that's very true. When reading it I think, regardless of your own stance on HS2, it's worth keeping in mind that on overarching theme of the report is the lack of detailed definition of what problems HS2 is solving, in which areas, and what benefits it's providing, and that what definitions there have been have been flexible and changed. I think that's an important issue both HS2 and its supporters *and* those against like me should give more importance too than we sometimes do.
 

Yindee8191

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The problem with starting in the north is that the new high-speed line from (then) Leeds and Manchester to Birmingham is going to make a large amount of people more likely to travel into London. They can only do this as far as Birmingham in HS2. At that point, they either fly (which is bad for the environment) or get on a different train. Currently, there are 3tph 9-11 car Avanti WC trains and 2tph 2-3 car Chiltern trains. The Avanti trains are already mostly full and the Chiltern trains are slow. Can those Avanti trains take thousands of extra people every day - concentrated in the peaks - when they’re already heavily loaded?

Also, don’t forget that one function of HS2 is connecting the North to London. This isn’t necessarily increasing the N/S divide, but it’s something that would benefit the North. Having such a connection to the UK’s main economic centre and, via HS1, to continental Europe, is a major benefit of HS2. Without such benefit, it’s not as effective a project.

Finally, let’s not forget that one purpose of HS2 is to solve the capacity problem on the southern end of the WCML. If it doesn’t do that, it’s less useful as it doesn’t have an impact on one of the major things it was intended to do. Leaving the WCML for another 15 years is not sustainable and is going to cause some big problems.
 

6Gman

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HS2 is a long way from ideal.

But the idea that scrapping it, or building Manchester-Birmingham first, will achieve anything useful is fantasy.
 

Ianno87

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I'm with Berkeley on that, who points out its advantageous and commonly preferred to use existing stations with existing connections for town centre high speed rail rather than shunt them off to a separate station.

18tph. Say half of that doesn't leave HS2 and are Birmingham / Manchester / Leeds terminators. Which sounds massive overprovision, but for argument's sake. Where do the other 9 go? The existing WCML!

And the MML (Sheffield) and ECML (York/Newcastle).

18tph should divide nicely between al the various legs without over-serving anything.
 

mmh

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Exactly my point. He has access to exactly the same information as everyone else involved in this review. Why is his point of view to be believed, and everyone else's not?
It's like the proud mother at her son's passing-out parade, 'They're all out of step except my boy'.

Berkeley's view is that the review isn't sufficiently independent and there's been undue influence from the Treasury and DFT, and that's why he's broken ranks.

The DFT, incidentally, about which you'll find countless posts saying they're not competent enough to specify a train seat. Rather fewer posts saying they're not competent enough to specify a 100bn 250mph train network. I wonder why?
 

Ianno87

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It also relieves XC (Birmingham- MIA- Manchester/ Birmingham- East Midlands Hub- Sheffield/Leeds)

And has a *huge* effect on journey times on those flows. E.g. Manchester-Birmingham reducing from 90 (pretty poor for the distance for the 2nd/3rd largest UK cities) to 40/45 minutes or so. Amazing for modal shift, I'm convinced.
 

mmh

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It also relieves XC (Birmingham- MIA- Manchester/ Birmingham- East Midlands Hub- Sheffield/Leeds)

It doesn't, unless you're saying a big chunk of the XC network should be cut? Not sure I follow correctly there to be fair.
 

Ianno87

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It doesn't, unless you're saying a big chunk of the XC network should be cut? Not sure I follow correctly there to be fair.

Nobody would get an existing XC service from Manchester/Leeds to Brum with how much faster the HS2 journey will be.

Thus more space for the likes of people from Stoke and/or those who continue to want a direct train from Manchester to (say) Oxford.

And then there's journeys like Newcastle-Reading which will be considerably faster via Old Oak Common than any direct service.
 

158756

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But providing much needed capacity in the North is what NPR is for which HS2 makes possible.

All of this is totally irrelevant to current commuters (and voters). Being optimistic, HS2 starting from London will reach Manchester and Leeds by 2040. So anyone over 48 now will be retired by then. By the time any NPR scheme is built (in the unlikely event it ever is) the vast majority now in work will be retired, or in many cases deceased.
 
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