Changes to HS2 as part of Integrated Rail Plan

[yorkie]

Change to HS2 have been announced as part of the Integrated Rail Plan:


[To follow]





You can find discussion of the IRP itself in this thread. If you wish to speculate (for instance "I think they should do x instead of y") then please feel free to either start a new thread in Speculative Ideas or contribute to an existing thread if an open thread already exists.

 

[JohnElliott]

So presumably the Eastern stub will now become known as the Withered Leg?

 

[edwin_m]

So if the IRP has its own thread, and anything not in the IRP is considered speculative, what goes in this thread?

 

[yorkie]

Discussion on what people think about the actual proposals can go in the non speculative thread.

 

[Yew]

I wonder how much land has already been purchased for the eastern leg, I wonder how much will be sold off at a fraction of it's value to the Tories and their donors...

 

[swt_passenger]

I wonder how much land has already been purchased for the eastern leg, I wonder how much will be sold off at a fraction of it's value to the Tories and their donors...

Aren’t there long standing rules requiring it to be offered to the previous owner first?

 

[Shrop]

I wonder how much land has already been purchased for the eastern leg, I wonder how much will be sold off at a fraction of it's value to the Tories and their donors...

There's a thought. Government could always do another APT, ie sell it off in the misguided belief that it isn't wanted, let others find a use for it, then pay vastly more to buy it back when they finally realise that the Eastern leg was actually a good idea after all

 

[ohgoditsjames]

We’ve gone from talking about the North South divide, we can now add the West / East divide to the mix.

 

[MattRat]

It's political suicide is what it is. There goes all the North East Conservative voters. And we'll be the laughing stock of Europe as well, when our fancy new high speed trains end up on a line that's as straight as a roundabout. I doubt the upgrades will help either, as they can just pawn that off as the necessary electrification for the trains to even be able to run on it, although I have a feeling even that will be cut and they'll buy some 'revolutionary' bi mode trains instead.....

 

[ashkeba]

We’ve gone from talking about the North South divide, we can now add the West / East divide to the mix.

There is no divide: neither the East of England nor the West of England is getting High Speed services any time soon. Kent, London, Midlands and Manchester only.

 

[hwl]

I wonder how much land has already been purchased for the eastern leg, I wonder how much will be sold off at a fraction of it's value to the Tories and their donors...

Buried in the the small print - They are still proceeding with full safeguarding for Eastern Leg though...

 

[Yew]

We’ve gone from talking about the North South divide, we can now add the West / East divide to the mix.

I imagine the BBC would be much more upset if the route to Manchester had been cancelled

 

[HST43257]

Buried in the the small print - They are still proceeding with full safeguarding for Eastern Leg though...

Maybe it’ll come…

…at some point

Give it 70 years or so

 

[Shrop]

There is no divide: neither the East of England nor the West of England is getting High Speed services any time soon. Kent, London, Midlands and Manchester only.

For any HS route to the West of England it's easy to predict Government behaviour. Firstly they'll talk about it for decades, then they'll plan it all around a route to Bristol, which then stands every chance of pruning it back to Swindon. So good luck to South Wales and everywhere from Taunton to Penzance, you'll be fine because Paddington to Swindon serves you wonderfully!

 

[D869]

From p.14 of the Plan (my bolds):

"We will fully electrify and upgrade the Transpennine Main Line between Manchester, Leeds and York... This first phase will allow electric services between Liverpool and Newcastle, result in significant improvements to local services all along the line, and reduce journey times from Manchester to Leeds from 55 now to 33 minutes. Once the newbuild high speed line between the Standedge area and Manchester Piccadilly opens, under later NPR phases, it will further reduce the journey to 33 minutes and increase seat capacity by over 300%."

???

 

[MattRat]

I imagine the BBC would be much more upset if the route to Manchester had been cancelled

Who cares what the BBC think. The only people affected would be staunch Labour voters who wouldn't vote Conservative anyway. It would at least be a logical cut, unlike the Eastern Leg.

 

[Roast Veg]

Buried in the the small print - They are still proceeding with full safeguarding for Eastern Leg though...

That's a surprise. It will probably get sold after the Sheffield to Leeds review.

 

[Ianno87]

From p.14 of the Plan (my bolds):

"We will fully electrify and upgrade the Transpennine Main Line between Manchester, Leeds and York... This first phase will allow electric services between Liverpool and Newcastle, result in significant improvements to local services all along the line, and reduce journey times from Manchester to Leeds from 55 now to 33 minutes. Once the newbuild high speed line between the Standedge area and Manchester Piccadilly opens, under later NPR phases, it will further reduce the journey to 33 minutes and increase seat capacity by over 300%."

???

I think the stated TRU journey time improvement is from 55 to 43 minutes, so a typo.

NPR then reduces that to 33 minutes.

 

[hwl]

That's a surprise. It will probably get sold after the Sheffield to Leeds review.

Safeguarding doesn't mean they own it (they can do though) and i'd be surprised is they had done much 2B purchasing

 

[Irascible]

For any HS route to the West of England it's easy to predict Government behaviour. Firstly they'll talk about it for decades, then they'll plan it all around a route to Bristol, which then stands every chance of pruning it back to Swindon. So good luck to South Wales and everywhere from Taunton to Penzance, you'll be fine because Paddington to Swindon serves you wonderfully!

Forget high speed rail, just upgrading the southwest bits to current WCML standards would be enormous.

I wonder how much land has already been purchased for the eastern leg, I wonder how much will be sold off at a fraction of it's value to the Tories and their donors...

Well there is the other thing governments do - leave it hanging around doing nothing but annoy people that nothing is being done with it...

 

[MidlandMainlie]

I assume that the Birmingham - East Midlands leg will broadly follow the M42(A) corridor before joining the MML south of EMP. I wonder if just before it joins the MML they will build a short sub heading north as passive provision for a future extension towards Sheffield and Leeds like how they are doing now as part of phase 1 for the Eastern leg.

 

[ABB125]

I assume that the Birmingham - East Midlands leg will broadly follow the M42(A) corridor before joining the MML south of EMP. I wonder if just before it joins the MML they will build a short sub heading north as passive provision for a future extension towards Sheffield and Leeds like how they are doing now as part of phase 1 for the Eastern leg.

That is (was?) the current plan.

~~~

I note that the Golborne spur is being reconsidered as part of the Union Connectivity Review:

The Union Connectivity Review is considering the case for alternatives to the Golborne Spur for faster and higher capacity connections from HS2 services to Scotland.

There are choices that must still be made, such as assessment of alternatives to Golborne as part of the upcoming Union Connectivity Review, which will be published shortly.

This is interesting, as it suggests that there may well be an extension of the Golborne spur further north (and as a result probably bypass Wigan). I suspect that if it was going to be cancelled, they'd simply say something along the lines of "we are considering options", but the fact that it mentions the UCR and "faster, higher-capacity connections" leads me to be hopeful!

 

[snowball]

I assume that the Birmingham - East Midlands leg will broadly follow the M42(A) corridor before joining the MML south of EMP. I wonder if just before it joins the MML they will build a short sub heading north as passive provision for a future extension towards Sheffield and Leeds like how they are doing now as part of phase 1 for the Eastern leg.

Except for a short length at its NE end it will follow without change the already proposed route of the HS2 eastern arm, which is indeed largely alongside the M42 and A42.

At its NE end it will have to follow a more southerly route to join the MML, as the route hitherto proposed crosses the MML just north of EMP.

 

[Roast Veg]

I note that the Golborne spur is being reconsidered as part of the Union Connectivity Review:


This is interesting, as it suggests that there may well be an extension of the Golborne spur further north (and as a result probably bypass Wigan). I suspect that if it was going to be cancelled, they'd simply say something along the lines of "we are considering options", but the fact that it mentions the UCR and "faster, higher-capacity connections" leads me to be hopeful!

It's also possible that it will be dropped entirely. Who knows!

 

[WatcherZero]

It rules out dropping the spur altogether unless replaced with a better option.

The options therefore boil down to
A. Address the two track bottleneck and grade separate the WCML junctions south of Wigan
B. Extend the Golborne spur further north
C. Upgrades to the WCML to achieve the 3 hour London-Glasgow/Edinburgh are so effective they can accept the time/capacity penalty of dropping the spur and still achieve the target.
D. The Union Connectivity study recommends reinstating the spurs axed depot junction and increasing the linespeed to operate Scotland-Manchester services via the Golborne spur altering the alignment.

 

[The Ham]

Union Connectivity Review:

Off topic, but why do I keep wanting to read this as Unicorn Connectivity Review?

One theory is that as the Unicorn is the official animal of Scotland I make that link, there maybe a more sceptical theory too, but in response to such a suggestion a MP would say "no comment".

 

[class26]

It's also possible that it will be dropped entirely. Who knows!

wold be politically not popular though !

 

[MattRat]

wold be politically not popular though !

Neither was cutting the Eastern Leg. The Conservatives don't seem like the type of people that want to win elections....

 

[Howardh]

Although completion of HS2 was a long time ahead; I wonder how many - if any? - firms who had considered re-locating to the route to use HS2 now clearly won't?

 

[tavistock]

It's political suicide is what it is. There goes all the North East Conservative voters. And we'll be the laughing stock of Europe as well, when our fancy new high speed trains end up on a line that's as straight as a roundabout. I doubt the upgrades will help either, as they can just pawn that off as the necessary electrification for the trains to even be able to run on it, although I have a feeling even that will be cut and they'll buy some 'revolutionary' bi mode trains instead.....

HS2 was never coming here anyway. No one other than opportunistic politicians here gives a monkeys about the Eastern leg not reaching Leeds. Upgrades to LNER and the trans Pennines service much more important. False outcry