It is a lot, especially considering that lorries move slower than cars, so it will not just be a lorry every 2 minutes, it will be a lorry plus a rolling convoy stuck behind it every two minutes (those 100-350 cars for example).
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Why are people opposed to HS2? (And other HS2 discussion)
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It is a lot, especially considering that lorries move slower than cars, so it will not just be a lorry every 2 minutes, it will be a lorry plus a rolling convoy stuck behind it every two minutes (those 100-350 cars for example).
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R
RailUK Forums
No, but there is nothing anyone can do about that, so it is logical to allow for the fact that certain times of the day will be busier on the roads, and try to avoid adding to it as much as possible. The cars clogging up the roads will also be people driving too and from work.
DynamicSpirit
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OK that all works. But on a pedantic point, you were claiming specifically that running through City Centres slows down the journey times. That's not quite what your Brussels-Amsterdam example shows - because - if you are correct - the slower journey times on that route aren't caused specifically by running through city centres, they are caused by using classic lines instead of building a brand new high speed line the whole way.
I think the correct statement is that, new high speed lines tend not to be built through city centres because to do so while maintaining the high speeds would involve huge extra expense (because of the tunnelling and underground stations you'd probably need). So they tend to serve intermediate cities by spurs because it's cheaper to build. I would argue that, if the money for the extra tunnelling could be found, then in principle it would be better to tunnel the high speed lines to serve the city centres because then you can run a more frequent turn-up-and-go service (for example, running London-Birmingham-Manchester instead of separate London-Birmingham, London-Manchester and Birmingham-Manchester services, each one at half the frequency that a combined service would have provided). Obviously I understand that, in the real world, there isn't unlimited money and that's why the cheaper (albeit not so good) options tend to be chosen.
So you were opposed to the WCML upgrade then as the extra speed they aimed for was just a gimmick?
You are happy to reduce motorways to 50mph 24/7? as trying to increase the speed is a gimmick
You prefer to walk everywhere as cycling is faster and therefore a gimmick.
quantinghome
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I agree there is a missed logical step by saying that running through city centres slows journeys down. You provided the intermediate logical step.
I do wonder whether a high speed line direct through city centres would be inherently better. There are pros and cons even without considering costs. The biggest drawback is you would get into difficulties with unbalanced passenger flows. For example if (say) Leeds became a through station on HS2, you would either have to run 6 trains per hour from Leeds to Newcastle, which would be massive overkill, or alternatively you could terminate some services at Leeds. But if you did that, what's the point in through running?
Well you could certainly build some bays or turnback facility within the station itself to do both things
HSTEd
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250mph is, however, definitely a gimmick at the present time.
The only people to try anything above 200mph have given up on it, repeatedly.
Which is why there are no plans for HS2 to run at 250mph currently. It's merely the route being designed to that speed so you don't have to rip the whole thing up if we do later make faster speeds work.
As to giving up repeatedly, the Chinese seem to be back to running at 220mph for the last few years - http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2017-09/21/c_136625952.htm - that's fairly close to the speed that HS2 is intended to be running at.
HSTEd
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Given the development of very high speed tilting trains, see the N700, the Talgo AVRIL etc etc, I am not convinced that the alignment would have to be ripped up to allow this.
Building an alignment for a hypothetical speed of 400kph has put serious engineering constraints on the designers of the route, and that will inevitably have increased costs.
A twin track line designed for 400km/h will never be cheaper than one designed for 320km/h, because it is strictly harder to lay out and engineer the former.
The French gave up, the Chinese gave up once, the Japanese gave up.... the list does go on and on.
And we are rather different to China where they have 1200km runs to make use of thes maximum speeds.
And if HS2 was all about speed we would have probably selected a maglev technology which will leave all practical steel rail systems in the dust.
But we didn't.
Whilst our is likely that there would be a lorry at the front of a convoy of traffic, it's still not a lot of traffic.
A busy road would see 1,000 vehicles in an hour (a vehicle every 3 to 4 seconds), therefore a lorry every 120 seconds with 33 cars between. However very few people actually walk for 20 minutes alongside a road and so would most likely see 6 lorries and 200 cars.
Typical HGV content of a road is 5%, so 5 lorries for every 100 vehicles (the above is only about 3%, to get to standard levels car use would need to be 600 cars an hour). However busy HGV routes contain over 10% lorries, to get to 10% there would have to be 300 cars an hour.
Grumpy Git
On Moderation
Never mind the volume of lorries, what about the fact that the load on the road (& bridges) is the cube of the axle weight.
I remember our tarmac school road when a new sports hall was being built, by the end of the first day of of groundworks commencing, it was nothing but a dust track. the lorries taking away the spoil had destroyed it. Local people can do without a constant stream of eight-wheelers rumbling past for years on end, no matter how easy it is.
I remember our tarmac school road when a new sports hall was being built, by the end of the first day of of groundworks commencing, it was nothing but a dust track. the lorries taking away the spoil had destroyed it. Local people can do without a constant stream of eight-wheelers rumbling past for years on end, no matter how easy it is.
But the rolling stock on HS2 services can be used on the conventional network in GB, so no need to press old stock into service.
If there's no choice then so be it, but when there appears to be reasonable accommodations that can be made (like using rail or a new byway to the motorway), but aren't even costed, it's no wonder that people get upset.
(maybe they have been costed, in which case it's up to the government to explain why they won't pay say £10 a lorry to mittigate the problem)
I presume that the inhabitants of Woore are part of the general chorus objecting to HS2, and therefore in part using the argument that HS2 costs too much. If they had special measures to cover the temporary disruption caused by construction, it would be further increasing the total cost
To be fair, looking at their documentation, until very recently it seemed entirely to be about mittigation of the increased load through the village, and the parish council seem to have been engaging in good faith of "how can we deliver this" rather than "how can we stop this". Certainly from reading their notes I see a world of difference between them and the "Build nothing anywhere" brigade on Stop HS2.
The latter are today complaining about an aquifer, which I can't seem to find mentioned in the 5,500 posts so far on the "why are people opposed" thread.
Nothing on google other than propaganda and paywalls
Please post any suggestions for how you think HS2 could or should be built in the Speculative Ideas section. Feel free to create a new thread if any of the existing ones (e.g. https://www.railforums.co.uk/thread...pend-on-£106bn-on-rail-infrastructure.198754/ ) are not suitable.
… true, except in China, where (although quite a bit of the network was slowed from 350km/h down to 300km/h early on, after the Wenzhou accident) there is 350km/h running on the Beijing-Shanghai route, and 330km/h on Beijing-Tianjin, and there may be other routes above 320km/h that I didn't notice while reading.
That's not 250mph, but it is above 200mph, and it's definitely not a gimmick.
Amazingly (to me!) Beijing-Tianjin high speeed line is expected to be at capacity soon and so a second parallel high speed line is apparently now under construction!
Peter Kelford
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That's not what I said. On the PSE line for instance, speeds rarely exceed 250km/h as there is a high level of congestion. At the predicted 18tph this will be worse.
In a big country that connects megacities in the 'ideal distance' and traffic problems.
An out-of-date satellite image shows the difference:
London:
Beijing/Tianjin (at same scale):
Peter Kelford
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London and Birmingham are a lot smaller
And much wealthier, your point?
Point of order. Trains on the LGV SE routinely travel at 300km/h. They average 221kph between Paris and Lyon, and that includes acceleration and deceleration, plus around 20km on the conventional lines. Plus the usual allowances for TSRs and other later running etc (which they do have, regularly, on the LGVs).
Congestion and speed are not connected in a properly signalled railway with a properly planned timetable.
Peter Kelford
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How wealthy a city is doesn't really impact the cost of a few relatively cheap train tickets. I'm not aware of costs being a major deterrent to travel on an intercity railway. HS2 tickets are likely to be proportionally more expensive anyway.
They do, but I should point out the train would reach 300km/h and then decelerate, or reach 280km/h. I point out that this observation took place recently, and that a built-in speedometer was available.
Peter Kelford
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But when one train is 2 mins late then the timetable breaks down if the signalling is very tight.
You misunderstand. High Speed running times are planned with 5% recovery margin to account for small delays.
If the train is on time, it will drive at less than line speed. Nothing to do with "congestion".
In fact the TVM signalling doesn't (I believe) have a 280kph display (its 300 or 270).
A well planned timetable with some performance recovery and buffer will not "break down". PSE is not planned to 100% capacity use. There will be a a chain of a few trains delayed, slowly dissipating until the next firebreak.
No, the timetable breaks down if the timetable is very tight.
On LGV SE there is nominal capacity of 15tph. SNCF use 10 normally, up to 12 on winter and summer Saturdays (AIUI). Given that nothing stops between Paris and Macon TGV, anything that leaves Paris will late will simply delay the next one before it has even got to the LGV. Once on the LGV they simply proceed in order at full speed. It’s the same on HS1, and will be the same on HS2.
Peter Kelford
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I know TVM doesn't. The speed will waver rather than reduce. It seems highly inefficient to travel at 220, then 260-ish then 280 then braking to 220 again. South of the Lyon area, this is not so pronounced and the train will travel at a steady speed, so I have difficulties believing it's not related to congestion. Around the Bifur de Montanay, the train ground to a complete halt, most likely to allow a train on the PSE line (we were on the Rhône-Alpes) to pass.
The blocks are tight because the timetabling is tight. If trains are timetabled 1min after the previous one, the signalling will have every block occupied. Having every block occupied or more blocks occupied leads to congestion and limited recovery time. Same meaning slightly wrong or confusing choice of wording.
That'll just be trains presenting from various points maybe a minute or two off path all marging together onto the shared section. Not "congestion", just the inevitable reality of day-to-day operation.
At no point will trains on an LGV be planned 1 minute apart, ever. The minimum planning headway on PSE is 4 minutes, IIRC.
Peter Kelford
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Figurative language is used.
Peter Kelford
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This will be worse on a busier line. On a busier line, there is also a bigger domino effect.
No, you specifically said "timetabled 1 minute aftervthe previous one".
The advantage of a high speed line is that everything by and large does the same thing on the busiest sections. So trains being out of planned order to manage delay isn't a big deal. Initial delay will natural dissipate through the following trains until recovered.
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