£32bn: what would it buy?

[Class172]

wow is that DLC for a sim? if not it should be, I want one .
Ok back on topic how about replacing all the out dated stock and if theres any change replace 220/221s with something with better toilets.

Not sure about whether the pantograph version is, but I believe the 142 model is the Trainz one made by Wessex_Electric_Nutter.

I'm pretty sure the picture wasnt taken in trainz, but it definitely a trainz model, being edited from WEN's original class 142 mesh. It isn't released at the moment.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Imagine the government scraped up £32bn from somewhere. What could be done with the railway network with that kind of money, high speed lines aside?

If this money was available, do you really think with the amount of debt that has to be repaid by the country, that such a proposal would be viewed by the Treasury as a serious proposition. It would all go to part-repayment of the vast debt that the country now owes.

 

[Oswyntail]

If this money was available, do you really think with the amount of debt that has to be repaid by the country, that such a proposal would be viewed by the Treasury as a serious proposition. It would all go to part-repayment of the vast debt that the country now owes.

Ah, you are too, too serious - too much Xenophon perhaps. In the semi-fantasy world of "what if", where national debt has bene paid off, everyone knows that £32billion would be earmarked to replace the clapped-out old rolling stock....on SWT, Southern and SE Trains

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Ah, you are too, too serious - too much Xenophon perhaps. In the semi-fantasy world of "what if", where national debt has bene paid off, everyone knows that £32billion would be earmarked to replace the clapped-out old rolling stock....on SWT, Southern and SE Trains

I accept your first statement...:roll:

I like the final ending of your quote.....with the usual lack of reference to the solving of the "Pacer Syndrome"...

 

[Schnellzug]

The really amusing thing, of coruse, is that none of this actually exists at all, does it. it's all completely imaginary and hypothetical. No one on earth actually has Billions of dollars, pounds or Euros. It all exists just on the level of the hypothetical.

 

[90019]

I'm pretty sure the picture wasnt taken in trainz, but it definitely a trainz model, being edited from WEN's original class 142 mesh. It isn't released at the moment.

It'll be a render from whichever program it is he made it in, but it does look very much like his other renders.

 

[johnnyp_360]

The really amusing thing, of coruse, is that none of this actually exists at all, does it. it's all completely imaginary and hypothetical. No one on earth actually has Billions of dollars, pounds or Euros. It all exists just on the level of the hypothetical.

Apple does

 

[Nym]

But Apple is a religion, it doesn't count...

 

[Eagle]

No one on earth actually has Billions of dollars, pounds or Euros. It all exists just on the level of the hypothetical.

Unless you're Vietnamese or something. Currently one billion dong is equal to about £31,000.

 

[Rhydgaled]

I've heard enough complaints about disruption, so I'm not going to suggest another WCML upgrade. However, I think somebody posted on a rail fourm that there's alot of space on the Chiltern line where the number of tracks has been reduced in the past. Perhaps therefore the Chiltern line could be re-quadrupled. Would that have much effect on the current running lines? Once the extra tracks are in place, could you divert the current service onto those, electrify the line and perhaps upgrade linespeeds slightly more to make the Moor Street to Marylebone almost as fast as New Street to Euston? Less disruption overall than trying to upgrade the WCML again surely, and less disruption at Euston than the HS2 proposals anyway.

If a new line really is the only option, then 250mph is too fast for a London - Birmingham link. All that is needed is to beat the car, which I think Pendos and Chiltern mainline silver services probablly already do. Therefore, I'd replace HS2 with a 125-155mph London - Birmingham line. Alternatively, I'd have a 202mph/325kph line and turn their Birmingham station into an intermediate stop on the Manchester service (which has air travel to compete with, hence the higher linespeed) by building a tunnel at the end furthest from London. Another idea would be to leave out the Birmingham spur of HS2 altogether and make just one 202mph/325kph line direct to Manchester with an interchange for Birmingham at Birmingham International. Once you've gone via Birmingham, I'd be supprised if there was much in the way of time savings to Leeds (esspecialy if there are intermediate stops). So I'd scrap the Leeds spur of HS2 and try to improve links within the north instead, for example by upgrading Manchester - Leeds - York services to full Intercity standards, maybe even with some new 125mph sections.

Does the £32bn costs of HS2 cover all of the very fast rolling stock it will need? If it does, you might save enough for my Birmingham tunnel by simplifing the rolling stock. Why do I think that? Well, won't the classic compatible trains need to have tilt to go to Glasgow without being slower than Pendos once on the classic line? To my knowlage, there has never been a 250mph tilting train, so that's going to cost a fortune. If the new line was just 125-140mph then you could just use Pendos on it. You'd knock less time in total off London - Glasgow of course, but you avoid the cost of building a 250mph tilting train without slowing down the jouney times between stops north of where HS2 ends.

I too would like to know how much less HS2 would cost if it was built for lower top speeds (but still with continental loading gauge, allowing double deck trains to boost capacity).

build a new batch of pacers...using Enviro200s or Optare Solos!

Would have to be Enviro200s, Optare Solos feel like better quality to me than Pacers.

Ah, you are too, too serious - too much Xenophon perhaps. In the semi-fantasy world of "what if", where national debt has bene paid off, everyone knows that £32billion would be earmarked to replace the clapped-out old rolling stock....on SWT, Southern and SE Trains

Not a bad idea to put some new rolling stock down there actually. Southern can have some electrification and extra EMUs to replace all their Turbostars, which can then go to Northern, and send a large number of 3-car 377s to the ValleyLines (need electrification there too of course). SWT can also have extra electrification Waterloo to Exeter and Salisbury to Southampton and Romsey, and more 444s for Waterloo - Exeter (releasing the 159s, some of which would gain ETRMS to release the 158s on the Cambrian line to other parts of Wales), and Portsmouth - London, the latter cascading 450s to the Lymington branch and Salisbury - Southampton - Romsey to release SWT's 158s to FGW, EMT or Northern.

 

[phil8715]

If Virgin ran a non stop train from Euston to Birmingham New Street how long would it take at the present time?


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

 

[NSEFAN]

I've heard enough complaints about disruption, so I'm not going to suggest another WCML upgrade. However, I think somebody posted on a rail fourm that there's alot of space on the Chiltern line where the number of tracks has been reduced in the past. Perhaps therefore the Chiltern line could be re-quadrupled. Would that have much effect on the current running lines? Once the extra tracks are in place, could you divert the current service onto those, electrify the line and perhaps upgrade linespeeds slightly more to make the Moor Street to Marylebone almost as fast as New Street to Euston? Less disruption overall than trying to upgrade the WCML again surely, and less disruption at Euston than the HS2 proposals anyway.

Not that much of the Chiltern was ever 4 tracked. Around Birmingham there were bits of 4 tracking, but further south loops were more common. From memory:

-South/West Ruislip: still has loops but ideally you'd want 4 tracks beween the two, which is not currently the case.
-Denham: The loop cannot be reinstated without moving the new platform, which would require work to the trackbed to support the weight (the old platform was removed due to subsidence).
-Gerrards Cross: The up platform would need to be put back into its original position.
-Beaconsfield: Could be reinstated.
-High Wycombe: Could also be put back, but the sharp curves there mean it would have minimal time benefit.
-Princes Risborough: The up loop has already been put back; if the former down platform was restored then a down loop could also be added.
-Bicester North: The up platform has recently been moved to where the loops were, so I doubt Chiltern would want it torn up now!
-Leamington Spa: The loop is still there but the linespeed isn't that great.

You probably could add more services onto the Chiltern, but it would need some clever timetabling in order to work. The lack of 4 tracks for miles on end would also increase the risk of one incident throwing the entire service into chaos. The advantage of something like HS2 is that if, say, the WCML is shut due to an incident then HS2 can keep working.

The trains on the Chiltern are generally capable of only 100mph, so these would have to be replaced, as mixing slow and fast trains is just asking for trouble. The various bottlenecks on the route also mean you'd need to implement tilting trains, another major engineering project. The whole thing starts to look very much like the WCML upgrade package!

If a new line really is the only option, then 250mph is too fast for a London - Birmingham link. All that is needed is to beat the car, which I think Pendos and Chiltern mainline silver services probablly already do. Therefore, I'd replace HS2 with a 125-155mph London - Birmingham line. Alternatively, I'd have a 202mph/325kph line and turn their Birmingham station into an intermediate stop on the Manchester service (which has air travel to compete with, hence the higher linespeed) by building a tunnel at the end furthest from London.

The high speed is what provides capacity. If you slow down the trains, then you will have room for fewer number of trains per hour, hence slower trains = reduced number of trains. Since it's going to be built now, we might as well do a proper job of it, rather than save a few pennies now to put off spending a good number of pounds in the future.

My understanding is that eventually, Birmingham will be an intermediate stop along the line. It is very expensive to build the whole route in one go, so once London-Birmingham is set up, we can get to work on Birmingham - Manchester/Leeds and beyond. This is also relevant to the speed point: if longer journeys on HS2 are faster, this makes them more competitive with the airlines. If the Birmingham station is right in the centre (or at least has good connections inside Birmingham) then this makes getting to/from the service faster.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

If Virgin ran a non stop train from Euston to Birmingham New Street how long would it take at the present time?

National Rail shows the fastest EUS-BHM runs to take 1h22 (88 minutes).

 

[SS4]

If Virgin ran a non stop train from Euston to Birmingham New Street how long would it take at the present time?


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

The 0730 BHM-EUS runs non-stop and takes 72 minutes so I'd imagine it'd be much the same in the opposite direction give or take a few mins

 

[Nym]

Also, the line speed has now been upped to 400km/h, that will make Manchester - Heathrow (Airports) very competitive with airlines, as in, it will beat them.

What we need to see is some proper planning around Manchester with enough stations and parking so that yes, you will end up using a P&R station at Culceath for London and Heathrow Airport...

Personally, I'd have Manchester Central on a branch of a Delta Junction between Manchester South Parkway (Manchester Airport, in the current space occupied by Air Parks) and Manchester West Parkway, Wigan (Just north of the Birchwood Jcn 11 on the M62) with a nice clean D2 link to that junction from a frankly massive P&R facility for Manchester, Liverpool, London and Birmingham, providing the main P&R facility, with Manchester South Parkway primerally taking the role of P&R for South Manchester, High Peak and Stockport.

With this stage of HS2 finishing at Manchester West Parkway, joining into the WCML South of Wigan and the Chat Moss Line for Liverpool via St Helens Junction, or via St Helens Central with a junction at Wigan S Jcns.

At stage 2, you could realistically expect Manchester - Euston journey times to be under 1hr20min, and Liverpool - Euston to be under 1hr30 via St Helens Junction and Manchester West Parkway.

There is of course also the opportunity to take advantage of Manchester and Liverpool commuters with this layout as well as an interchange with the Chat Moss and/or CLC routes at 'Manchester West Parkway'

 

[Ivo]

Unless you're Vietnamese or something. Currently one billion dong is equal to about £31,000.

Hooray! I'm a multi-millionaire!

Well, maybe.

 

[Rhydgaled]

The high speed is what provides capacity. If you slow down the trains, then you will have room for fewer number of trains per hour, hence slower trains = reduced number of trains. Since it's going to be built now, we might as well do a proper job of it, rather than save a few pennies now to put off spending a good number of pounds in the future.

I thought the fact that it was segregated from stoppers worked by trains with lower top speeds and the contanential loading guage were the main capacity factors. Surely faster trains = longer braking distance = longer distance spacing required between trains = longer time interval required between trains (net effect is probably increased or decrease speed has zero impact on capacity either way).

My understanding is that eventually, Birmingham will be an intermediate stop along the line. It is very expensive to build the whole route in one go, so once London-Birmingham is set up, we can get to work on Birmingham - Manchester/Leeds and beyond. This is also relevant to the speed point: if longer journeys on HS2 are faster, this makes them more competitive with the airlines. If the Birmingham station is right in the centre (or at least has good connections inside Birmingham) then this makes getting to/from the service faster.

Birmingham International is planned to be an intermediate stop on the HS2 route to Manchester, which yes could do with being high speed (202mph/325kph in my opinion would be a good idea rather than 400kph since it saves quite a bit of electricity for not much increase in journey time). However, the central Birmingham station in the offical HS2 proposals is a terminus on it's own spur. Apart from international services, I see no justification for HS speeds on services into that station.

If the plan for the line to Manchester was going via the central Birmingham station, which would then have to have a tunnel at the end where the buffer stops are currently planned, or all passengers for central Birmingham had to change at International (ie. no HS2 services from London into central Birmingham) then having a line speed of at least 186mph starts to make sense. I also think the spur into central Birmingham is a waste of capacity. If you have 3tph into that terminus, that's 3tph less capacity for destonations further north. If we pretend HS2 only has capacity for 6tph (it'll have more than that if built, I know) then that's 3tph for Birmingham and 3tph for Manchester. If the central Birmingham station wasn't a dead-end so the Manchesters could go through it and call, both Manchester and Birmingham could have 6tph if you want, or you could have 6tph to Birmingham, 4 to Manchester and 2 to Liverpool, all within the 6tph capacity of the line because Birmingham would be served by the Manchester and Liverpool trains. Now you might want services that terminate at Birmingham to allow use of out-of-UK-loading-guage stock from day one, but they should all be extended further north as soon as phase 2 (to Manchester) is complete to allow them to do so.

 

[Nym]

But it doesn't, it has capacity for 18tph between OOC and BSP so 3tph to BCZ isn't a major issue...

Especially when you consider there could well be another 3tph from BCZ heading north when Phase II opens anyway.

Captive stock will spread to wherever it will be possible, but I see it being a long time before this extends from Manchester, Birmingham and Leeds.

Also bear in mind that all services will call at OOC, but not all at BSP, hence the track layouts... It is likely that HS2R services will call at BSP with BCZ services, but only a handful of MSP bound services thanks to track layout.

Since branch wise for phase one you're looking at

3/4tph Birmingham Branch
6/7tph Left Branch
3/4tph Right Branch

Depending on if Chester is included and how many ECML LDPE services are transferred.

Like I said before, I can see service patterns as:

3tph BCZ
3tph MAN
3tph LPL (A/T 1tph Chester, 1tph Blackpool (Calling Crewe, Warrington, Wigan, & Preston adding 10mins to reaching PRE), 1tph Glasgow Central (Calling Crewe and Preston))
2tph LDS
2tph DON & Beyond

LPL pattern allows 20min intervals to LPL and 30min intervals to PRE, allowing 10mins for extra stops, running clockface every 20mins southbound off Crewe, MAN services may or may not call at CRE, initally taking over like for like current 3tph service patterns at Phase I, phase II would be a total re-write anyway, but would be wise to retain 1tph via Rugley Jcn and Crewe for Chester / Holyhead and Liverpool via Runcorn (400m set splitting at Crewe), with Liverpool then seeing 2tph via MSP / MWP and 1tph via Crewe, Runcorn & Rugley Jcn (Possibly picking up the Stafford call)

So only using 13 of the 18 possible paths between OOC and BSP...

Even if you keep 3tph fast to Liverpool, 1tph to Chester via Rugley etc.

You've still only got 10tph on the WCML 'Takeover' 7tph N of Birmingham Delta, say 4tph up the ECML side and 3tph to Birmingham, you're still only using 14 of the 18tph paths available. So you've got space for international and Heathrow Airport services. Taking into account nothing would stop between BSP and 'Heathrow Junction' and these both have fast turnouts, you could see capacity jumping up to 20tph without breaking a sweat, 24tph with some clever timetabling. 4tph to Heathrow (1 from Manchester, 1 from Preston & Liverpool, 1 from Birmingham and 1 from Newcastle via York, & Leeds and/or Doncaster), 14tph to Euston and 2tph paths available through the tunnel or onto Ebbsfleet would be easy. (And the HS1 HS2 link is built to take 3tph/dir)

 

[60163]

£32bn: some of it would pay other countries to have the Pendos and Voyagers, the rest would fund the implementation (if that IS a word) of heritage locos hauling repatriated mk3s on the national network in their place.

 

[Oswyntail]

£32bn: some of it would pay other countries to have the Pendos and Voyagers, the rest would fund the implementation (if that IS a word) of heritage locos hauling repatriated mk3s on the national network in their place.

While leaving £31.9bn left over for the delay compensation thus incurred

 

[Schnellzug]

While leaving £31.9bn left over for the delay compensation thus incurred

A fast journey squeezed into a vestibule, or in a rear-facing "airline" seat;
or a seat with a table and somewhere to put your luggage, your bike, a proper buffet car, etc.
Yes, it's a tough call.

 

[185]

£32bn?


Tunnel to Ireland? And one thrown in to Norway for good measure?

 

[Badger]

Hmm, just thinking, might pay for all the compulsory purchase orders needed to reopen Leicester Central and the Great Central Mainline from Rugby to Nottingham!

Had a walk along it today, but once you hit the bowstring bridge everything's been built on. As we speak the land where the BS Bridge cut across has a brand new leisure centre plopped on top.

 

[Eagle]

A fast journey squeezed into a vestibule, or in a rear-facing "airline" seat;

...or being left on the platform as three full rakes pass by; there only being 50 seats per carriage rather than 75. Tables take up room.

 

[furryfeet]

Hmm, just thinking, might pay for all the compulsory purchase orders needed to reopen Leicester Central and the Great Central Mainline from Rugby to Nottingham!

Not a bad idea !
Or on a slightly different note, pay the "government part" of the costs of the hybrid Central Railways scheme to build a continental gauge route from london to Nothingham, Sheffield and Liverpool - assuming of course that that organisation still exists of course.
I seem to remember that the hybrid bill was stopped in the House of Commons, since the government of the day did not want to pay out 3.5Bn, being 50% of the total cost.

Is this scheme now "dead in the water" or is it still slumbering ?

 

[Eagle]

Or on a slightly different note, pay the "government part" of the costs of the hybrid Central Railways scheme to build a continental gauge route from london to Nothingham, Sheffield and Liverpool - assuming of course that that organisation still exists of course.

HS2 is a continental-gauge route from London to those places (and more).

 

[Nym]

UIC GC Gauge to be exact...

 

[Rhydgaled]

...or being left on the platform as three full rakes pass by; there only being 50 seats per carriage rather than 75. Tables take up room.

Doesn't mean the stock has to have the same seating arrangments. I think East Coast's nine car IC125s (542 seats) and IC225s (529 seats) have more seats than a 9-car Pendo (447 seats). Even FGW's eight car low density IC125s have more, at 474 seats, I think (80 seats per TSO, East Coast TSOs have 76 seats I think).



So does the £32.7bn recently announced for HS2 include rolling stock and the Glasgow extension I think I heard mentioned? Will the classic compatible trains tilt once on the classic lines? If so, how much will developing them cost, if not how much time will they lose north of HS2 until the full route is complete to Glasgow?

So a continental gauge route from London to Nothingham, Sheffield and Liverpool would cost 7bn? Assuming that is new lines, not enlarging the loading guage on existing routes, how much do the corosponding sections of HS2 come to? That might give some idea of the cost savings that would be available if HS2 was being built for lower speeds.

How much is the Leeds spur of HS2 going to cost? Might a better alternative be building new sections of straight 140mph route to bypass bottlenecks and twisty bits of the ECML routes to Leeds and Newcastle?

 

[Peter Mugridge]

The £32.7bn is just for the London to Birmingham ( £16bn ) and Manchester / Leeds bits. I can't help wondering how much cheaper it would have been if the residents of West London and the Chilterns hadn't kicked up such a fuss that we are ending up with a route of which 20% will be in tunnels and the bulk of the rest in deep cuttings!

 

[Butts]

I'd have used some of the money (not sure how much it would cost) to build the third runway at Heathrow Airport or a new Airport somehwere near London.

A lot cheaper and quicker than HST

 

[Nym]

I'd have used some of the money (not sure how much it would cost) to build the third runway at Heathrow Airport or a new Airport somehwere near London.

A lot cheaper and quicker than HST

The third runway at Heathrow wouldn't have cost anything though, it was fully private funding from BAA Ltd...