Anti-HS2 animation narrated by John Bishop

[po8crg]

I expect the captive network by, let's say, 2050 or 2060 to look a bit like this:

HS2 as proposed (London-Birmingham-Manchester and Birmingham-Leeds)
Liverpool-Manchester-Leeds-Newcastle (allowing London/Birmingham trains to get to Liverpool and Newcastle)
Wigan-Preston-Carlisle-Falkirk and Edinburgh-Glasgow (so trains can get from any HS2 station bar Newcastle to Edinburgh and Glasgow, and classic compatibles can run through Falkirk to Stirling-Dundee-Aberdeen and to Stirling-Inverness bypassing the Central Belt)
Birmingham-Bristol-Cardiff-Swansea
Toton-London relief line (moves captives from Newcastle, York, Leeds, Sheffield and Toton and classics from Hull off the Birmingham-London line, and shortens their route to London saving 5-10 minutes on all those services)

Possibly a Bristol-Exeter-Plymouth line, but I don't expect so.
Possibly something in the East, connecting off the Toton-London relief to serve Norwich and/or Ipswich (and perhaps an intermediate station for Cambridge or Ely or somewhere)
London-Bristol will be so good on the ICEP service that it's tough to justify HS London-Bristol. You can run classic-compatibles from Paddington to Swansea on the HS track from Bristol-Swansea and the GWML Bristol-London.
Possibly something to connect the NE to Scotland, but I don't expect so.

There might be a case for London-Southampton-Bristol, which would provide a Southampton-Bristol connection that doesn't otherwise exist (both road and rail are terrible), and also would bring the line into London on a different route, allowing for a new out-of-city station (ie a Surrey Parkway) and perhaps then an OOC-Heathrow-Surrey Parkway-Gatwick(-Ashford?) connection.

Even with all this, there will still be classic-compatibles running to Hull, to Aberdeen and Inverness, to Holyhead and to Penzance. None of those are ever going to justify a captive line (except Holyhead if there's an Irish Sea Tunnel to Dublin, but not before the 2070s or so).

 

[damo]

I expect the captive network by, let's say, 2050 or 2060 to look a bit like this:

HS2 as proposed (London-Birmingham-Manchester and Birmingham-Leeds)
Liverpool-Manchester-Leeds-Newcastle (allowing London/Birmingham trains to get to Liverpool and Newcastle)
Wigan-Preston-Carlisle-Falkirk and Edinburgh-Glasgow (so trains can get from any HS2 station bar Newcastle to Edinburgh and Glasgow, and classic compatibles can run through Falkirk to Stirling-Dundee-Aberdeen and to Stirling-Inverness bypassing the Central Belt)
Birmingham-Bristol-Cardiff-Swansea
Toton-London relief line (moves captives from Newcastle, York, Leeds, Sheffield and Toton and classics from Hull off the Birmingham-London line, and shortens their route to London saving 5-10 minutes on all those services)

Possibly a Bristol-Exeter-Plymouth line, but I don't expect so.
Possibly something in the East, connecting off the Toton-London relief to serve Norwich and/or Ipswich (and perhaps an intermediate station for Cambridge or Ely or somewhere)
London-Bristol will be so good on the ICEP service that it's tough to justify HS London-Bristol. You can run classic-compatibles from Paddington to Swansea on the HS track from Bristol-Swansea and the GWML Bristol-London.
Possibly something to connect the NE to Scotland, but I don't expect so.

There might be a case for London-Southampton-Bristol, which would provide a Southampton-Bristol connection that doesn't otherwise exist (both road and rail are terrible), and also would bring the line into London on a different route, allowing for a new out-of-city station (ie a Surrey Parkway) and perhaps then an OOC-Heathrow-Surrey Parkway-Gatwick(-Ashford?) connection.

Even with all this, there will still be classic-compatibles running to Hull, to Aberdeen and Inverness, to Holyhead and to Penzance. None of those are ever going to justify a captive line (except Holyhead if there's an Irish Sea Tunnel to Dublin, but not before the 2070s or so).

In terms of the Bristol HS line there is something to be said for the Southampton route you suggest. Or even something along the lines of Oxford, Cheltenham/Gloucester Bristol, Exeter.

Either way simply updating the line on its existing route through Reading does little to help anything very much.

 

[HowardGWR]

I expect the captive network by, let's say, 2050 or 2060 to look a bit like this:

HS2 as proposed (London-Birmingham-Manchester and Birmingham-Leeds)
Liverpool-Manchester-Leeds-Newcastle (allowing London/Birmingham trains to get to Liverpool and Newcastle)
Wigan-Preston-Carlisle-Falkirk and Edinburgh-Glasgow (so trains can get from any HS2 station bar Newcastle to Edinburgh and Glasgow, and classic compatibles can run through Falkirk to Stirling-Dundee-Aberdeen and to Stirling-Inverness bypassing the Central Belt)
Birmingham-Bristol-Cardiff-Swansea
Toton-London relief line (moves captives from Newcastle, York, Leeds, Sheffield and Toton and classics from Hull off the Birmingham-London line, and shortens their route to London saving 5-10 minutes on all those services)

Possibly a Bristol-Exeter-Plymouth line, but I don't expect so.
Possibly something in the East, connecting off the Toton-London relief to serve Norwich and/or Ipswich (and perhaps an intermediate station for Cambridge or Ely or somewhere)
London-Bristol will be so good on the ICEP service that it's tough to justify HS London-Bristol. You can run classic-compatibles from Paddington to Swansea on the HS track from Bristol-Swansea and the GWML Bristol-London.
Possibly something to connect the NE to Scotland, but I don't expect so.

There might be a case for London-Southampton-Bristol, which would provide a Southampton-Bristol connection that doesn't otherwise exist (both road and rail are terrible), and also would bring the line into London on a different route, allowing for a new out-of-city station (ie a Surrey Parkway) and perhaps then an OOC-Heathrow-Surrey Parkway-Gatwick(-Ashford?) connection.

Even with all this, there will still be classic-compatibles running to Hull, to Aberdeen and Inverness, to Holyhead and to Penzance. None of those are ever going to justify a captive line (except Holyhead if there's an Irish Sea Tunnel to Dublin, but not before the 2070s or so).

I don't get the Falkirk bit (do you live there or something?). it's north of both Glasgow and Edinburgh so how is it on the way to those?

On the Toton to London, that sounds like the GCR all over again to me. You may be right on the need for this.

 

[po8crg]

I don't get the Falkirk bit (do you live there or something?). it's north of both Glasgow and Edinburgh so how is it on the way to those?

I live about ten minutes' walk from Manchester Piccadilly, so I should be able to walk to an HS2 station in about 15 years' time.

The idea is that there would be a direct Glasgow-Edinburgh, while the line from England would cross that about halfway between the two cities with a diamond junction (if the Glasgow-Edinburgh is straight, that would be roughly Slamannan). For the sake of about another five miles or so, that could then connect to the conventional track near Falkirk - I'm not proposing a captive station in Falkirk! - and then classic-compatible trains could run through to Stirling-Perth-Dundee-Aberdeen or Stirling-Perth-Inverness, assuming that ScotRail will have electrified those lines by then.

This would allow direct services to the Highlands from England that would bypass the Central Belt and save 20-30 minutes compared to going into and out of Edinburgh or Glasgow. There might not be a need for England-Highlands services, but it's such a short stretch of track, and it would allow CC services from Glasgow/Edinburgh to the Highlands to use the Glasgow-Edinburgh HS line, which would both improve timings for those services and get them off the local track around the two big cities, so they're not competing for paths with commuter/regional services.

Even if there's six tph Glasgow-Edinburgh, plus two from each to London, one to Birmingham and one to Manchester-Leeds, that's only 10tph along the Central Belt line (and eight on the Anglo-Scottish), leaving plenty of paths for Edinburgh/Glasgow-Aberdeen/Inverness and an occasional England-Highland direct

 

[Altnabreac]

I live about ten minutes' walk from Manchester Piccadilly, so I should be able to walk to an HS2 station in about 15 years' time.

The idea is that there would be a direct Glasgow-Edinburgh, while the line from England would cross that about halfway between the two cities with a diamond junction (if the Glasgow-Edinburgh is straight, that would be roughly Slamannan). For the sake of about another five miles or so, that could then connect to the conventional track near Falkirk - I'm not proposing a captive station in Falkirk! - and then classic-compatible trains could run through to Stirling-Perth-Dundee-Aberdeen or Stirling-Perth-Inverness, assuming that ScotRail will have electrified those lines by then.

This would allow direct services to the Highlands from England that would bypass the Central Belt and save 20-30 minutes compared to going into and out of Edinburgh or Glasgow. There might not be a need for England-Highlands services, but it's such a short stretch of track, and it would allow CC services from Glasgow/Edinburgh to the Highlands to use the Glasgow-Edinburgh HS line, which would both improve timings for those services and get them off the local track around the two big cities, so they're not competing for paths with commuter/regional services.

Even if there's six tph Glasgow-Edinburgh, plus two from each to London, one to Birmingham and one to Manchester-Leeds, that's only 10tph along the Central Belt line (and eight on the Anglo-Scottish), leaving plenty of paths for Edinburgh/Glasgow-Aberdeen/Inverness and an occasional England-Highland direct

I personally doubt there is never going to be a big enough market for North of Scotland - England services bypassing Edinburgh or Glasgow.

The emerging consensus on new dedicated routes north of the Central Belt seems to be coalescing around Inverkeithing - Perth (the first section of this route to Halbeath is official Scottish Government policy via STPR, north of Halbeath is not yet anything other than an aspiration) which would seem likely to form an extension of Edinburgh services northwards rather than a service via Falkirk bypassing Edinburgh.

See the details in the Transform Scotland campaign here:
http://transformscotland.org.uk/intercityexpress/

The initial business case for the Edinburgh - Glasgow line will be with ministers soon and hopefully soon the proposed route corridor will become clearer by the Autumn.

 

[po8crg]

I personally doubt there is never going to be a big enough market for North of Scotland - England services bypassing Edinburgh or Glasgow.

I do too, but it would cost little to connect track together and would allow Highland trains into the Central Belt cities without competing for train paths with local services.

And who knows, there might be a couple of trains a day.

 

[NotATrainspott]

Eventually there will be a need for a second Forth Rail Bridge and while they're at it it would be a good idea to make it GC-gauge and have a speed limit higher than 50mph. Combine that with an Edinburgh Gateway HS station and a reopened Halbeath-Perth line which likely would need a sufficiently new alignment anyway and you've got the core of a future HS/upgraded line to Aberdeen and Inverness. With all the wonderful tram, train, air and road connections to Edinburgh Gateway the site could act reasonably well as a Central Belt Parkway station. That might just make a reasonably regular 200m HS2 train possible, especially one that would stop and join up with a Glasgow 200m at Carlisle for the journey to London.

 

[Altnabreac]

Eventually there will be a need for a second Forth Rail Bridge and while they're at it it would be a good idea to make it GC-gauge and have a speed limit higher than 50mph. Combine that with an Edinburgh Gateway HS station and a reopened Halbeath-Perth line which likely would need a sufficiently new alignment anyway and you've got the core of a future HS/upgraded line to Aberdeen and Inverness. With all the wonderful tram, train, air and road connections to Edinburgh Gateway the site could act reasonably well as a Central Belt Parkway station. That might just make a reasonably regular 200m HS2 train possible, especially one that would stop and join up with a Glasgow 200m at Carlisle for the journey to London.

There will never be justification for a new Forth Bridge (rail), you could in theory see a potential for some trains running across a chord from the new Edinburgh high speed line to the Fife lines with a station somewhere on the west side of Edinburgh but the there are major demand issues with running non stop cross border services to the north of Scotland.

The main problem is that existing cross border Aberdeen and Inverness services pick up a significant amount of Edinburgh - Aberdeen/Inverenss passengers, missing Edinburgh removes a large amount of their passenger base.

So you need the market for cross border services to expand significantly to justify these services. If a new high speed alignment Halbeath - Perth is built, this obviously helps make rail more competitive but again this would mainly be for internal Scottish journeys boosting Edinburgh - Aberdeen numbers (mainly by mode share increase from road) for example but London - Aberdeen services will still struggle to compete with Air.

I doubt therefore that cross border services which fail to call in Edinburgh (or less likely Glasgow) will manage to generate sufficient passenger numbers.

One possibility in the long term would be a same platform interchange at a Edinburgh Gateway type station from a cross border London - Edinburgh service onto a Glasgow - Aberdeen service running via the new Scottish HS line and a chord connecting to Fife and the Halbeath - Perth line. With a well co-ordinated timetable this could be a fast option for both Glasgow - Aberdeen services and cross border passengers.

 

[NotATrainspott]

There will never be justification for a new Forth Bridge (rail), you could in theory see a potential for some trains running across a chord from the new Edinburgh high speed line to the Fife lines with a station somewhere on the west side of Edinburgh but the there are major demand issues with running non stop cross border services to the north of Scotland.

The main problem is that existing cross border Aberdeen and Inverness services pick up a significant amount of Edinburgh - Aberdeen/Inverenss passengers, missing Edinburgh removes a large amount of their passenger base.

So you need the market for cross border services to expand significantly to justify these services. If a new high speed alignment Halbeath - Perth is built, this obviously helps make rail more competitive but again this would mainly be for internal Scottish journeys boosting Edinburgh - Aberdeen numbers (mainly by mode share increase from road) for example but London - Aberdeen services will still struggle to compete with Air.

I doubt therefore that cross border services which fail to call in Edinburgh (or less likely Glasgow) will manage to generate sufficient passenger numbers.

One possibility in the long term would be a same platform interchange at a Edinburgh Gateway type station from a cross border London - Edinburgh service onto a Glasgow - Aberdeen service running via the new Scottish HS line and a chord connecting to Fife and the Halbeath - Perth line. With a well co-ordinated timetable this could be a fast option for both Glasgow - Aberdeen services and cross border passengers.

I appreciate that a second Forth Rail Bridge would be quite a long term ambition but in the past six or seven years the UK has gone from future HSR lines being 'long term ambitions' to being Parliamentary reality.

What I can see is that UK transport network investment has shifted from one medium to another since the 1700s. Firstly they built the canals, then they switched to the railways and they kept doing that more-or-less until the world wars. After the second world war, they've concentrated mainly on roads and motorways but this period of investment is definitely winding down right now. What's replacing it is a return of the railways (especially high speed ones) as the most efficient long-term investment in how to move people and goods around the country.

The HS2 project is being done because the WCML really has hit 'the wall' of capacity where no reasonable investment in the existing infrastructure would ever return sufficient capacity. The WCRM project eventually sort-of-finished in 2008 is what brought the system to that wall. The current ECML and GWML upgrades will likewise bring those main lines to the point of 'the wall' where there won't be much more that can or should be done other than providing all new infrastructure to run parallel. Once the other London commuter lines have been AC-electrified, had their platforms extended to 12-car and have put into Crossrail tunnels they will have reached their 'wall' as well.

There is still more capacity that can be retrieved from the Forth Bridge as a lot of services are still formed of relatively short DMUs. The bridge will be electrified at 25kV AC as part of the Fife Circle in CP6 and there'll be platform extensions as well so the existing timetable will be able to deal with more people. Theoretically it is possible for the Edinburgh Tram system to be extended across the old Forth Road Bridge so there could be additional capacity relief for passengers from south Fife heading towards the western areas of Edinburgh. After electrification and tram-ification the bridges will have reached their 'wall' of capacity as well as there is nothing more than can realistically be done.

There is nothing legally that would stop other rail bridges being built across the Forth, or any other rivers/estuaries for that matter. The Scottish Government are currently building a second Forth Road Bridge without too much difficulty and really they're never going to build another road bridge when there is no public appetite for more roads and motorways. Likewise, once the M8 completion project is finished, along with the Aberdeen bypass and other more local/regional roads, the primary target of transport investment will be rail and other public transport and high-speed rail would be a crucial part of that. It is just because rail has been neglected for so long that the idea of massive investment in it again seems so ridiculous.

The cost of a new Forth Rail Bridge would be the highest cost of an HS network route kilometre in the UK, aside possibly from a Severn Barrage/Tidal Pools HS crossing from Bristol to South Wales. However, the number of kilometres involved is very small and to redirect an HS line through Falkirk would involve considerably more kilometres of track being required, thus increasing journey times and reducing the economic benefit from a new line. So long as a new bridge is technically feasible, I don't see why it should be immediately discounted.

With electrification and doubling of the Perth-Inverness line there would be significant journey time improvements, especially combined with the 35 minute saving said to come as a result of a reopened direct line to Perth, the journey times from the rest of the HS2 network up to the Highlands would not be too bad at all, even if a change were necessary. The frequency and journey times of flights from Aberdeen and Inverness is not as good as the flights from the Central Belt so the competition for even a few direct HS2 classic-compatible services will not be particularly strong. Given the likelihood of the price of air travel increasing far more than the price of HSR tickets, and the inevitably better quality of HSR compared to air travel, the amount of competition that air could provide is not as great as it is today.

I know I have a very optimistic view of the future of HS rail travel in the UK but since we've covered the country in motorways we are perfectly capable of doing the same for HS rail.

 

[HSTEd]

AIUI the Forth Rail Bridge could develop significant structural faults in short order.

A second crossing would probably be a good idea.

 

[Altnabreac]

I appreciate that a second Forth Rail Bridge would be quite a long term ambition but in the past six or seven years the UK has gone from future HSR lines being 'long term ambitions' to being Parliamentary reality.

What I can see is that UK transport network investment has shifted from one medium to another since the 1700s. Firstly they built the canals, then they switched to the railways and they kept doing that more-or-less until the world wars. After the second world war, they've concentrated mainly on roads and motorways but this period of investment is definitely winding down right now. What's replacing it is a return of the railways (especially high speed ones) as the most efficient long-term investment in how to move people and goods around the country.

The HS2 project is being done because the WCML really has hit 'the wall' of capacity where no reasonable investment in the existing infrastructure would ever return sufficient capacity. The WCRM project eventually sort-of-finished in 2008 is what brought the system to that wall. The current ECML and GWML upgrades will likewise bring those main lines to the point of 'the wall' where there won't be much more that can or should be done other than providing all new infrastructure to run parallel. Once the other London commuter lines have been AC-electrified, had their platforms extended to 12-car and have put into Crossrail tunnels they will have reached their 'wall' as well.

There is still more capacity that can be retrieved from the Forth Bridge as a lot of services are still formed of relatively short DMUs. The bridge will be electrified at 25kV AC as part of the Fife Circle in CP6 and there'll be platform extensions as well so the existing timetable will be able to deal with more people. Theoretically it is possible for the Edinburgh Tram system to be extended across the old Forth Road Bridge so there could be additional capacity relief for passengers from south Fife heading towards the western areas of Edinburgh. After electrification and tram-ification the bridges will have reached their 'wall' of capacity as well as there is nothing more than can realistically be done.

There is nothing legally that would stop other rail bridges being built across the Forth, or any other rivers/estuaries for that matter. The Scottish Government are currently building a second Forth Road Bridge without too much difficulty and really they're never going to build another road bridge when there is no public appetite for more roads and motorways. Likewise, once the M8 completion project is finished, along with the Aberdeen bypass and other more local/regional roads, the primary target of transport investment will be rail and other public transport and high-speed rail would be a crucial part of that. It is just because rail has been neglected for so long that the idea of massive investment in it again seems so ridiculous.

The cost of a new Forth Rail Bridge would be the highest cost of an HS network route kilometre in the UK, aside possibly from a Severn Barrage/Tidal Pools HS crossing from Bristol to South Wales. However, the number of kilometres involved is very small and to redirect an HS line through Falkirk would involve considerably more kilometres of track being required, thus increasing journey times and reducing the economic benefit from a new line. So long as a new bridge is technically feasible, I don't see why it should be immediately discounted.

With electrification and doubling of the Perth-Inverness line there would be significant journey time improvements, especially combined with the 35 minute saving said to come as a result of a reopened direct line to Perth, the journey times from the rest of the HS2 network up to the Highlands would not be too bad at all, even if a change were necessary. The frequency and journey times of flights from Aberdeen and Inverness is not as good as the flights from the Central Belt so the competition for even a few direct HS2 classic-compatible services will not be particularly strong. Given the likelihood of the price of air travel increasing far more than the price of HSR tickets, and the inevitably better quality of HSR compared to air travel, the amount of competition that air could provide is not as great as it is today.

I know I have a very optimistic view of the future of HS rail travel in the UK but since we've covered the country in motorways we are perfectly capable of doing the same for HS rail.

I still don't see what benefit a new Forth Bridge has?

• It is not in danger of any structural failure.
• It is located in the correct place to serve existing demand and any future high speed rail demand
• It has sufficient capacity for current traffic plus reasonable predicted increases in traffic.
• Alternatives exist if capacity becomes an issue such as tram train operations on the refurbished Road Bridge.

The only conceivable benefit is to allow High Speed trains to run over it slightly quicker than now. £2-3Bn for a 5 minute time saving is never ever in a million years going to have a positive business case.

Electrification, resignalling with reduced headways, longer trains, grade separated junctions at Inverkeithing, Dalmeny Chord, new high speed lines on the approaches north and south are all plausible iunterventions in this area.

However a new bridge is complete pie in the sky nonsense.

 

[NotATrainspott]

I still don't see what benefit a new Forth Bridge has?

• It is not in danger of any structural failure.
• It is located in the correct place to serve existing demand and any future high speed rail demand
• It has sufficient capacity for current traffic plus reasonable predicted increases in traffic.
• Alternatives exist if capacity becomes an issue such as tram train operations on the refurbished Road Bridge.

The only conceivable benefit is to allow High Speed trains to run over it slightly quicker than now. £2-3Bn for a 5 minute time saving is never ever in a million years going to have a positive business case.

Electrification, resignalling with reduced headways, longer trains, grade separated junctions at Inverkeithing, Dalmeny Chord, new high speed lines on the approaches north and south are all plausible iunterventions in this area.

However a new bridge is complete pie in the sky nonsense.

I was saying that there is plenty of capacity still to be found on what exists at the moment but as I was saying, capacity on the bridge will hit 'the wall' where there isn't much to do other than build another one. That won't happen for quite a while - on the order of decades, probably around 2050 or so - and I would fully expect it to be one of the last components of an upgraded/reopened higher speed line to the north. The tram would help for the locals in Dunfermline and Inverkeithing but not really anyone beyond that, and it will always be a slower option when the train is faster and serves most of the same major locations.

I don't see Network Rail being particularly enthusiastic about the prospect of 40 long heavy rail trains going over the existing bridge each way each hour using moving-block signalling, if such a thing were even possible when there are local stations at either end which a lot of services will skip. The bridge is getting quite old and to preserve its useful life for centuries to come I can see NR wanting to restrict services crossing it to a reasonable number. RTT says that between 1800 and 1900 today there will be 16 services going past Dalmeny; add in some of the future possibilities for trains to St Andrews, Leven, some more around the Fife Circle and some higher-speed services to Perth and beyond and that number is starting to look quite high for a two-track 2.5km long 125-year-old piece of priceless British history.

What I would say about your 'pie-in-the-sky' comment is that as I said, seven or eight years ago the idea of 530km minimum of new high speed lines (at 400km/h!) being built in the UK before 2030 was 'pie-in-the-sky' as well. It was certainly 'pie-in-the-sky' enough that they had no problems building the CTRL without any onward link other than the North London Line! If there is nothing technically infeasible about building a new one, which there certainly can't be if the Victorians managed it and did so well, then it will forever remain a possibility. I'm quite sure that the people who designed and built the Forth Road Bridge thought that that would be the last bridge built between the two Queensferries as well and look how wrong they were.

EDIT:
Another point - the Forth Bridge possesses half of the tracks that connect the north of Scotland (exc WHL) to the south; the other two being the line north of Larbert. Although it is rather unlikely that both lines would ever be simultaneously disabled, it is still a possibility. Another bridge would add another layer of redundancy which would enable more efficient engineering works for the old bridge and the Stirling line. A completely 'pie-in-the-sky' idea would be to have had the second bridge available in time for the electrification of the old one so that the old one would be able to be blockaded completely for weeks or months to get its electrification finished cheaply, safely and efficiently.

EDIT 2:
Just to clarify: What I imagine to be the final form of Central Belt HSR would be the main line from Carlisle coming up into Lanarkshire. Here, a 230km/h delta junction would be provided for the spur into Glasgow Central via the M8, the Whifflet line alignment, Polmadie and to the four platforms provided to the south-east of Glasgow Central. The main line route would continue eastwards to the south of Livingston and start to swing up towards the Edinburgh Gateway site. Near Hermiston Gait the Edinburgh 230km/h delta would be provided, tunnelling from the city bypass into a surface station on the south side of Waverley. Edinburgh Gateway would then have two stopping platforms and two through lines continuing northwards to the new bridge crossing, with a junction provided at Dalmeny to allow all standard Forth Bridge traffic to use the new bridge if required. On the other side of the Forth there would be another link line into Inverkeithing station for these diverted trains, with the main route continuing northwards along the M90 to Perth. All Glasgow/Edinburgh high speed services to the north would stop at the Gateway station, along with a limited number of 200m split portions off a Glasgow train at Carlisle that would head north to either Aberdeen or Inverness. So long as any far north trains are full between Euston and Crewe there isn't any worry about the Phase 1 path being wasted, so a good number of them would have to stop in Carlisle, Preston, Crewe and Birmingham. Alternatively or additionally there could be runs that only go to Manchester or Birmingham where the marginal cost of running the service is negligible once there is all the rolling stock freed up from Glasgow/Edinburgh/Newcastle duties by Phase 3.

 

[HSTEd]

Its worth noting that a 400m HSR set is rather heavier than most standard Britsih passenger trains, especially ones usually used on the Forth Bridge routes.
Even now the coal trains are gone it might cause significant increases in the wear of the bridge to have multiple such trains passing over the bridge each way each hour.
(One Aberdeen and one Inverness-London to start with before we even consider more speculative Birmingham trains).

THis is what has done it for the Forth Road Bridge remember.

The bridge is also (as you say) horrendously slow and could easily put ten minutes on a HSR journey to Aberdeen as the train would have to spool down from 320kmh to 80, cross the bridge and then spool up for the short remaining section of HSR to Ladybank or wherever the dedicated route stops.
This is before you even consider the fact that the line is likely to be blocked by some all shacks unit sitting at Inverkeithing or crawling away from the station.

A dedicated route would allow trains to proceed directly from Carstairs (or Newcastle or wherever) at 320kmh and hold that speed all the way to the end of the route, and do it with no regard for what coal train or Sprinter might be caught flatfooted in the centre of the route.

And then there is the loading gauge issue.

 

[Railfan2156]

On the bright side, if that's the best that the HS2 Action Alliance (urgh!) can do, then HS2's prospects are looking up. Especially if the vote goes through tonight.

I thin that the HS2AA have a good point, well put. In duie course, i shall publish a longer post explaining why HS2 SUCKS.

 

[Deerfold]

I thin that the HS2AA have a good point, well put. In duie course, i shall publish a longer post explaining why HS2 SUCKS.

Where did they get £73 million from?

A railway that doesn't even exist yet sucks? Sorry, SUCKS? Clever.

 

[Manchester77]

I thin that the HS2AA have a good point, well put. In duie course, i shall publish a longer post explaining why HS2 SUCKS.

If you're going to publish a longer post could you please read over it after typing so it's not riddled with mistakes so that it's easy to read and value your argument

 

[swt_passenger]

If you're going to publish a longer post could you please read over it after typing so it's not riddled with mistakes so that it's easy to read and value your argument

It'll be good to read a rant about HS2 again. Hopefully it will includes something completely new and original, unlike all the previous ones in the FHSR sub-forum...

 

[Manchester77]

It'll be good to read a rant about HS2 again. Hopefully it will includes something completely new and original, unlike all the previous ones in the FHSR sub-forum...

Would be nice to see some originality for a change with the anti HS2 arguments!

 

[Railfan2156]

Where did they get £73 million from?

A railway that doesn't even exist yet sucks? Sorry, SUCKS? Clever.

Here is my first reason why HS2 is a bad idea - other will be posted in due course.

1. Disruption to Existing Trunk Routes and Services to-and-from London: Not only will this project take money away from other lines, but it will have other consequences. Firstly, it will cause an issue to the ECML in that it will split it in the manner that the 'rump' ECML - London to York - will have to function as a separate line to keep passenger numbers up, cutting many place off from London which previously had direct links to London. Alternatively, it may simply decrease services, causing a slightly padded version of the same issue on a wider scale. It would replace the southern end of the for links to London, so it would have to, like the ECML, lower service to the East Midlands area, cutting off several cities. The northern end of the WCML would become redundant, as it would be mirrored by the S&C anyway, meaning that it probably couldn't support express traffic. This would cut off several destinations. As well as this kind of impact, the services that did remain - including those in the west country - would lose out on valuable money that would be spent on HS2. Yet another impact of the project would be journey times. Yes, I said journey times: it will save 20 minutes on London to Birmingham journeys, but it will greatly increase many other journey times, for the reasons mentioned above.

 

[HSTEd]

It only saves 20 minute if you compare it to one crack express..... most of the day it saves closer to 40. It also blows away timings to Manchester and Leeds.

As to splitting the ECML...it is already split.
I can count the number of services to points north of York from my native Grantham on the fingers of one hand.
A clockface all ICEC shacks service to york and leeds would be a good thing.

 

[NotATrainspott]

Here is my first reason why HS2 is a bad idea - other will be posted in due course.

1. Disruption to Existing Trunk Routes and Services to-and-from London:

I've missed having these rant/arguments.

Not only will this project take money away from other lines, but it will have other consequences. Firstly, it will cause an issue to the ECML in that it will split it in the manner that the 'rump' ECML - London to York - will have to function as a separate line to keep passenger numbers up, cutting many place off from London which previously had direct links to London.

There will still be services along the East Coast Main Line to destinations served by HS2 and they will still be run with 230km/h InterCity trains. I would direct you to the Assumptions Report produced in October 2013 as it details the assumed service patterns on the West Coast and East Coast Main Lines after Phase 1 and 2. In the case of the ECML they predict that there will be four InterCity East Coast paths an hour out of King's Cross, roughly one each per hour to Lincoln, Leeds, Newcastle (or Hull) and Edinburgh. All services call at Peterborough and the majority of other stops are called at as well. There will still be occasional services to extensions beyond Leeds and Edinburgh, as there are today.

In terms of numbers that does represent a decrease in the number of services to King's Cross but the long-distance non stop trains, such as those that run non-stop between King's Cross and York, have simply moved to HS2 instead. For intermediate passengers from smaller stations such as Alnwick there is little, if any, change from today.

A similar story exists for the InterCity West Coast network, especially as the vast majority of passengers will be perfectly served by the new HS2 services instead.

Alternatively, it may simply decrease services, causing a slightly padded version of the same issue on a wider scale. It would replace the southern end of the for links to London, so it would have to, like the ECML, lower service to the East Midlands area, cutting off several cities.

That is not correct. The point of HS2 is to remove the non-stop trains, such as the Glasgow-Euston trains that don't call anywhere south of Warrington Bank Quay, from the existing tracks and put them on a line designed to work that way. A single non-stop EPS125 path can be replaced by more than one stopping service, especially if combined with a general homogenisation of the timetable to reduce the speed differentials between services along the same tracks.

The northern end of the WCML would become redundant, as it would be mirrored by the S&C anyway, meaning that it probably couldn't support express traffic. This would cut off several destinations.

The currently planned HS2 Phase 2 reaches as far as a few kilometres south of Wigan North Western. If the engineering option to provide a Preston Bypass were chosen it would reach as far as Brock, roughly a quarter of the way to Lancaster. The Settle & Carlisle starts significantly further north than this, so I don't see how HS2 would duplicate it. It would be true that any Scotland/Carlisle extension would provide capacity relief for both the S&C and WCML, but the S&C will never become unimportant as a result of it. The WCML was gauge-cleared, at great expense, for inter-modal freight trains taking larger containers which can be pulled by electric locomotives, something that is unlikely ever to happen to the S&C. Once the non-stop 200km/h ICWC/HS2 services are removed from the WCML the extra freight paths would be best occupied by an increase in intermodal freight. Such an increase could be forced, if necessary, by a set of government carrot-and-stick initiatives to get long-distance freight flows off of the M6/M74 and onto these new electric container paths. Non-container and diesel freight traffic can be encouraged to go via the S&C instead, as it is today. In any case, it is relatively easy to fit in 160km/h stopping electric passenger service paths in between 130km/h non-stop freight paths as their average speeds are relatively similar, so it would be possible to run electric local/regional services along the WCML as well, even to serve reopened stations along the route.

As well as this kind of impact, the services that did remain - including those in the west country - would lose out on valuable money that would be spent on HS2.

The money being spent on HS2 doesn't actually 'exist' in a pot that can be spent on other things. It is an investment in a single, very large, infrastructure project that will return dividends for centuries to come as the investment in building the railways has returned so many dividends for the country since they were built by the Victorians. Not spending money on HS2 does not improve the BCR of building a Dawlish Avoiding Line. Indeed, it probably causes it to drop as the BCR of any rail investment improves as the rest of the network improves as well. In a very long term view, once the Inverted A network has been completed the natural next steps for the high speed rail network are to go to the west and possibly to the east. Building a line from London or Birmingham to Bristol would be the first step and then once that's done it wouldn't be impossible to continue to South Wales and to Exeter and thence to Plymouth - a 400km/h Dawlish Avoiding Line would be a rather impressive way of solving the sea wall problem. Without HS2 there can be no HSR to anywhere else in the country.

Yet another impact of the project would be journey times. Yes, I said journey times: it will save 20 minutes on London to Birmingham journeys, but it will greatly increase many other journey times, for the reasons mentioned above.

The journey time saving from Phase 1 is around half an hour and from Phase 2 it is around an hour. Future extensions to Scotland and Newcastle would result in journey time savings of two hours and an hour and a half, respectively. HS2 Ltd was created to investigate the possibility of a high speed rail link from London to Scotland; the Phase 1 and 2 stop offs at Birmingham and Manchester are merely there to break the whole construction process into easily manageable chunks. I don't think anyone in the world could spin that halving the journey time to Scotland is insignificant, especially when it would murder the domestic aviation market and save enormous amounts of aviation CO2.

Your posting style reminds me of other posters in the past who were similarly opposed to HS2. It is possible that you are simply regurgitating what StopHS2 and others have said but if you are nothing but a troll who likes to cause these (admittedly rather entertaining/frustrating) arguments then that's not really ideal, isn't it?

 

[Geezertronic]

1. Disruption to Existing Trunk Routes and Services to-and-from London: Not only will this project take money away from other lines...

That's wrong for a start... HS2 funding has nothing to do with classic line funding much in the same way that Crossrail is not taking money out of the current pot and affecting the funding of classic line improvements (as far as I am aware) of which there are many planned and in progress

 

[Deerfold]

Here is my first reason why HS2 is a bad idea - other will be posted in due course.

1. Disruption to Existing Trunk Routes and Services to-and-from London:

Why all the hyphens?

Not only will this project take money away from other lines, but it will have other consequences. Firstly, it will cause an issue to the ECML in that it will split it in the manner that the 'rump' ECML - London to York - will have to function as a separate line to keep passenger numbers up, cutting many place off from London which previously had direct links to London.

I'm not sure I understand where is going to be cut off from London? Surely places that are on HS2 will get new, faster services and everywhere else will retain services (some may be slower, with more stops).

Alternatively, it may simply decrease services, causing a slightly padded version of the same issue on a wider scale. It would replace the southern end of the for links to London, so it would have to, like the ECML, lower service to the East Midlands area, cutting off several cities. The northern end of the WCML would become redundant, as it would be mirrored by the S&C anyway, meaning that it probably couldn't support express traffic. This would cut off several destinations. As well as this kind of impact, the services that did remain - including those in the west country - would lose out on valuable money that would be spent on HS2.

Though oddly, the classic rail network seems to be one of the few places that the current government is pending on.

Yet another impact of the project would be journey times.

Journey times?

Yes, I said journey times:

I know, I was reading.

it will save 20 minutes on London to Birmingham journeys, but it will greatly increase many other journey times, for the reasons mentioned above.

And if you're going further than Birmingham it'll save you far more. And provide much more capacity.

I regularly catch the 0700 from Leeds to London - this stops only at Wakefield before London so takes up space on the ECML without providing any benefit for most of the line (and there's not much point in it stopping as it's pretty much full at the moment. If you could divert this service somewhere else, other trains will be able to make additional stops or you may even fit an extra train in.

 

[Busaholic]

I'm not one for picking up small errors in posts usually but would just like to mention that Alnwick last had a train service in 1968 - know this because my wife's sister lives there, doesn't drive, so when my wife arrives at Alnmouth on the XC arrangements have to be made for onward transportation. I gather the old Alnwick Station is now a rather splendid bookshop called Barter Books (regrettably have not visited yet)

 

[swt_passenger]

Here is my first reason why HS2 is a bad idea - other will be posted in due course.

As expected, nothing new about this whatsoever... :roll: Yawn...

Especially, the significant point that money allocated to HS2 would automatically become available to the normal railway if not spent on HS2. This is not how government finances work.