Alternative route for HS2 phase 2 proposed with Manchester as through station

[takno]

Regular. We're gonna have issues when Brits travrlling to Gib land in Malaga as a diversion after Brexit and haven't filled in the ETIAS on the grounds they don't need to for Gib. Malaga can arrange one there and then I suppose, but I but what if someone has a criminal record which prohibits one from an ETIAS or visa? There's lots of these little things which our Brexit MPs haven't thought about.

I'm guessing they would switch to waiting on the tarmac at Malaga until it was possible to fly back over to Gibraltar, rather than letting people off and bussing them. It's difficult to say though, since Gibraltar is a uniquely terrible airport to land at, and the political situation between Spain and Gibraltar could be unusually icy. I think we may have drifted from the topic though

 

[Howardh]

I'm guessing they would switch to waiting on the tarmac at Malaga until it was possible to fly back over to Gibraltar, rather than letting people off and bussing them. It's difficult to say though, since Gibraltar is a uniquely terrible airport to land at, and the political situation between Spain and Gibraltar could be unusually icy. I think we may have drifted from the topic though

I suppose "bad weather at airports" can bring the topic round again showing how important it is to link UK airports by rail. Clearly when fog hits UK airports, the faster we can get pax from a diverted airport back to their original the better!
It's hard to see how Heathrow could take an extra load of diverted planes on top of it's 99% capacity now though.

 

[tasky]

Going less than 300kph doesn't actually save very much.
And I think the Japanese example is instructive, they operate 270km/h lines with 20 mile stop spacings, let alone 30-40 miles.

With (nearly) all axles motored the accelerations available to modern high speed trainsets are enormous.

With 20 mile stop spacings they achieve service-average speeeds of nearly 110mph.......

Just to add to this, the acceleration profile in the spec on the HS2 rolling stock is

From a stationary position, a 200m Train and a 400m Train shall both:
– achieve a speed of 360km/h; and
– cover a distance of 40km
in no more than 535 seconds on straight, level track. This requirement shall be achieved
using the criteria specified in Appendix C.

So that's standing start to 40km in 8.9 minutes, or 24 miles in 8.9 minutes. 161mph average speed over that period. Obviously for short stops of 30-40 miles they would need to slow down for the next station fairly soon after that.

 

[superkev]

Many years ago I remember the Labour government came up with what I thought at the time to be an excellent scheme to as usual improve northern connectivity. It went London to Birmingham then onto Manchester as HS2 but continued across the pennines to Leeds as HS3 and Newcastle. This was before the French even thought of TGV.
Although it missed out Sheffield it still to me seems a good idea.
K

 

[nimbus21]

Where would you place it?

How do you satisfy the competing claims of Sheffield, Leeds, Bradford etc?

Bradford and Leeds are very much bed fellows in the latest NPR plans. Check out the as-the-crow-flys distance between the city centres Leeds-Bradford-Manchester and you'll see its about 37 miles. Thats compared with 35 miles Leeds-Manchester. So a mere 2 miles more (5%) and you pick up England's 9th largest city, considerably larger than Nrwcastle and Hull, and with huge chunks of Leeds much closer to Bradford city centre than Leeds city centre.

Consider also the fact that Bradford must have by some margin the worst train services of any major UK city, and so you have a the scope for more transformational growth on the back of NPR in Bradford than anywhere else.