Despite the government's announcement, should HS2 be cancelled?

[Peter Sarf]

With respect - you obviously don't know the people I do! They certainly don't fit the stereotype you set out.

In terms of Europe and high-speed rail ... well, some countries do that by building on existing connections, rather than completely new build (which also often lacks good connections with the existing network even at stations) - eg Germany rather than France. So Britain might have followed a different "high-speed" model.

Furthermore, a lot of what is trumpeted here (I mean in Britain, beyond just this website) as new "high-speed" lines that are leaving poor old Britain behind, is actually just straightening out and tunnelling existing routes, and doing so to bring them up to a speed not much faster than the fastest trains in this country can already run. A lot of what we're asked to be overawed by and to copy here runs at little more than half the design speed of the absurdly over-specified HS2 - a vainglorious vanity project if ever I saw one.

We have the oldest railway lines in the world. They are furthest from being improved upon. The West Coast Modernisation proved that. And I am afraid we do need to future proof any new build. When our mainlines were built they were never designed to cope with the speeds possible quite soon after. Lessons need to be learned. The Great Central could have come nearest to being high speed as it was built a lot later BUT did not go anywhere near major population centres unlike HS2 and was probably more for freight.

We live in such a different world to when HS2 was conceived. To many people, 2 hours on a train from Manchester to London is able to be used productively. The faster journey time thing isn't relevant.
Arguments on capacity, equally now seem harder to justify when fewer people are travelling .
What HS2 seems to be now is a way of turning Manchester (and perhaps Birmingham) into dormitory towns for London. With that , eventually you'll see the same crazy property prices and see young locals forced out . So be careful what you wish for, as places like Manchester could soon have all the personality of Milton Keynes, and all the priceyness of London.
Let's focus on making our existing railways great and bin HS2 now.

My bold. That is such a hopeless aspiration. We have the oldest railways in the world. They were built as a time when speeds were never expected to reach 100mph. We need high speed lines more than the countries that already have them. We are so very backward. Instead we upgraded the West Coast Mainline at vast expense and then realised we needed a new line on a new alignment anyway.

The biggest transport flows are from London to Birmingham to Greater Manchester. It has been like that since before the M1 was built. That is where HS2 is going.

Is leisure travel really taking off on the Birmingham/ Manchester to London routes though? I'd suggest people would rather a decent service across the North. And leisure traffic in the London to Birmingham and Manchester direction? Really!?
A focus on leisure could be some REAL expenditure on XC services to give decent length trains serving locations people actually want to go. That would do far more for leisure travel than a Birmingham to London white elephant.
And how about getting rid of the daft requirement for the trains to be self driving. I wander how much that adds to the overall build cost.
Re dormitory towns, I think its pretty much a given thats where Manchester would head (its half way there now , much to the disliking of locals). Do we want our Northern cities to be stripped of all their charachter?

I expect travel to and from London is a far bigger draw than between many other cities. London is a very big place.

I am not denying that there are other routes that need improving. But I think Cross Country (XC) is at the stage where lengthening the trains already running could be done first. That does not require any new lines, junctions or stations.

I would like to see better comuncations across the Pennines. I can see the economics of a High Speed Manchester to Leeds line being improved if it is an extension of HS2 rather than having to compete with an Eastern leg.

The real problem is that at least some of the people making the decisions need to be seen to be doing something. I'm not disagreeing with you about the economic reality of such projects, but the fact that all Joe Public will see is deep cuts being made. And if those cuts don't also impact on HS2, they are going to ask the politicians why. Is it the right way to do things, of course it isn't. But frankly successive governments have been contemplating HS2 for so long the simple cost of it has risen through inflation, and other rising costs to the point where if the rest of the economy is having to take a hit, few if any politicians will have the stomach to leave it intact.

Its a simple, harsh reality of politics. If something doesn't get off the ground and past a point of no return, it is always going to be liable to fall foul of a shift in economic fortunes. This is why I say I will be amazed if P2 gets even close to Crewe.

That will be the clincher. If public opinion, not necessarily based on any logic or understanding, sways the mind of those who want votes.

XC and HS2 do different things, though this does back up my view that the majority of the people who actually use trains on Merseyside for long distance trips (or who would do if they could afford it) would probably like an extended LNR Crewe service more than an HS2 service, as it's cheap and cheerful, perfect for leisure use.

Of course LNWR services could be improved or expanded on the West Coast Main Line once HS2 has siphoned off 125mph Pendolinos.

If people took the environmental crisis as seriously as it ought to be taken (which many on this forum seem not to), then the modal shift would happen by virtually all internal-to-the-UK (and indeed within Europe) passenger flights being banned anyway in the next few years.

We can only hope. I see HS2 as chipping away at the attractiveness of domestic flights. Mainly at the Manchester to London end I see domestic flights being wiped out. But journey time savings due to trains missing the Southern WCML to Scotland will compete against the airlines there. Furthermore a later HS2 stage would improve that in rails favour even more.

Well, quite.

HS2 (if built in full) is more like a French LGV. Dedicated stations and a dedicated line throughout.

Germany and Switzerland build Neubaustrecken (new build lines) that specifically benefit the clockface connectional timetabling (Takt). They integrate with normal lines, and while there are a few e.g. Kassel-Wilhelmshoehe there are generally not dedicated stations.

Our network is more like Germany's than France's.

See below

I'm not sure I fully agree: it uses quite a lot of existing stations (Euston, Manchester, Waverley, Glasgow Central, for example), and services are, and always were, planned to continue beyond the dedicated line, to Liverpool, stoke on trent, Scotland, etc. While the relatively long stretch of dedicated line is a bit more the French approach, the lack of stations out in the sticks is much more German in it's approach, so HS2 feels more like a hybrid between the French, German and British way of doing things.

Now of course there are new stations, birmingham curzon street for example, but really, from a passenger perspective Curzon Street is more like an expansion of Moor Street (and really should just have been called that to avoid the confusion).

I would say HS2 is rather a mixture of the French LGVs and the German approach. Perhaps we have got it right based on lessons we have learnt from them ?. I would say cancelling HS2 stage2B is a likely sacrificial lamb if needs be. Perhaps Stage3 was ?. We have the benefit of city centre stations although the Eastern leg was probably a bit more like France.

OK, two and a bit 11 car Pendolinos then. It's still tiny compared with rail or car.

That would be about one Pendolino diagram per day.

 

[Mikey C]

Most Manchester flights are for connections. Old Oak Common will help here more than the journey time reduction. Given how dire Manchester Airport is, train is already far quicker to London itself.

Agreed. I'm sure the number of people in Manchester literally just flying to London will be minimal.

Similarly, since Eurostar opened I have literally only flown to Paris (and back) once, which was an onward connecting flight with Air France.

 

[Bevan Price]

I have never been wholly convinced about HS2 in a country the size of ours - it has a massive building cost, and "they" are going to want to recover that cost - that might mean that fares become unaffordable for many passengers, whilst the time savings will be minimal as they will still have slowish transport at one - or both ends - to get between home or business and the HS2 terminals.

Doubling running speeds roughly quadruples the power required to sustain such speeds. Reducing weight will help, as will needing fewer trains, but will that be enough to keep operating costs affordable ?

Yes, we need more capacity on parts of WCML and other lines, but some of that could have been obtained by other, much cheaper means. In particular, on the WCML, getting rid of first class would have increased the amount of standard class seating considerably. That needs a decision - should railways be trying to get as many people as possible off the roads (which means the one-time Woolworths philosophy - "pile 'em high, sell 'em cheap) - or do you want to extract maximum money from a limited number of users?

However, having spent so much already, it would be foolhardy to cancel HS2 completely.

 

[AlbertBeale]

... ones which only start to be a net benefit at the end of the century ...

I'm afraid that you're mistaken in this line.

If I am mistaken, it's because I'm being overgenerous to HS2. A document published by HS2 a few years back (in a section on carbon footprint in a "phase one information paper") gave, in round figures:

Something like 6 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent related to the construction.
Around 3 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent anticipated net saving in operational emissions once modal shift, carbon mitigation from tree planting, and freight benefits from released capacity on the classic network are taken into account. (NB this is the total over a 60-year operational assessment period, ie - given, say, 10 years for construction and 60 years of operation - around 70 years from these calculations; so within a decade or so of the end of the century.)
Hence - according to their own figures - the combined (negative on account of construction, and positive on account of use) carbon footprint of the scheme is around 3 million tonnes carbon dioxide equivalent of emissions overall, by the last decade of this century.

So it'll be some time in the 22nd century before the carbon savings attributable to the project outweigh the massive carbon footprint of building it. Though the way we're going, much of Britain is likely to be too far under water by then for anyone to care anyway.

 

[Roast Veg]

I have never been wholly convinced about HS2 in a country the size of ours - it has a massive building cost, and "they" are going to want to recover that cost - that might mean that fares become unaffordable for many passengers, whilst the time savings will be minimal as they will still have slowish transport at one - or both ends - to get between home or business and the HS2 terminals.

(...)

That needs a decision - should railways be trying to get as many people as possible off the roads (which means the one-time Woolworths philosophy - "pile 'em high, sell 'em cheap)...

You've answered your own question. Put as many seats as possible out on HS2 for a nice low rate and the induced demand will bring in plenty of money.

The UK is actually a very good shape for a high speed railway, as our most important cities can pretty much have a straight line drawn between them.

 

[LittleAH]

The thing that's key about HS2 and Crossrail is how many new journeys they've enabled and to what extent they've enhanced them, not simply who uses it.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 15 Nov 2022 ==



And they'll still fly with HS2 unless you build it all the way to Carstairs. Under 2 hours is your magic figure for a rail journey.

It isn't actually. It's usually three hours given city centre to city centre travel. But... HS2 should be phased as it should definitely be expanded upon. It would be stupid to halt it.

 

[tomuk]

If I am mistaken, it's because I'm being overgenerous to HS2. A document published by HS2 a few years back (in a section on carbon footprint in a "phase one information paper") gave, in round figures:

Something like 6 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent related to the construction.

6 M tonnes of CO2 is 1.3% of UK Annual Emissions it a very small this is very small beer, hardly a blip on the graph.

 

[Starmill]

If I am mistaken, it's because I'm being overgenerous to HS2. A document published by HS2 a few years back (in a section on carbon footprint in a "phase one information paper") gave, in round figures:

Something like 6 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent related to the construction.
Around 3 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent anticipated net saving in operational emissions once modal shift, carbon mitigation from tree planting, and freight benefits from released capacity on the classic network are taken into account. (NB this is the total over a 60-year operational assessment period, ie - given, say, 10 years for construction and 60 years of operation - around 70 years from these calculations; so within a decade or so of the end of the century.)
Hence - according to their own figures - the combined (negative on account of construction, and positive on account of use) carbon footprint of the scheme is around 3 million tonnes carbon dioxide equivalent of emissions overall, by the last decade of this century.

So it'll be some time in the 22nd century before the carbon savings attributable to the project outweigh the massive carbon footprint of building it. Though the way we're going, much of Britain is likely to be too far under water by then for anyone to care anyway.

I'm sorry but this is all quite wrong.

Unfortunately it's too far off topic in this thread to go into really.

 

[Sonik]

The UK is actually a very good shape for a high speed railway, as our most important cities can pretty much have a straight line drawn between them.

This. UK geography is much more suited to HSR than France, Germany or Spain, and none of these countries seem to regret building a network. The UK is more like Japan with a long narrow country and dense population, perfect for good efficiency with HSR.

Perhaps the only reason we have put it off so long is because our existing Victorian era networks were more or less adequate, but they are now full. It's the very definition of a 'high quality problem' that HS2 can address. The problem won't go away if HS2 is canceled.

 

[AlbertBeale]

I'm sorry but this is all quite wrong.

Unfortunately it's too far off topic in this thread to go into really.

I was simply quoting HS2's own figures...

Maybe it's getting off topic - though the environmental case for/against HS2 is, I'd have thought, pertinent to any judgment about the wisdom or otherwise of cancellation. But I'll leave it there.

 

[The Ham]

Current rail use since September is typically between 80% and 90% of pre Covid levels, so rail use is likely to be up to 20% below when the model used to justify HS2 should have us by now, right?

Unfortunately no.

Pre Covid rail use between 2009 and 2019 had seen an increase (London/West Midlands) from a baseline of 100 passengers to 180. Apply a 20% reduction to that figure and we're at 144.

The expected growth for HS2 was based on a 2.5% per year growth rate, so in 2023 the model assumed that we'd be at 142.

As such even with a significant fall in rail use it's fairly likely that we're about on track compared to the model.

Whilst other flows (London/Northwest 172 & London/Scotland 170) are lower and there have been lower rail use at times over the last year and not all rail use has recovered at the same rate, it should be noted that many of the services which are behind the average are commuter services and that some weeks have seen rail use of around 95%.

Also had HS2 spending stopped us doing the MML or Trans Pennies Upgrades?

If we really want to reduce our carbon emissions from construction there's a lot of road building projects which should get the chop first. As they also significantly increase our ongoing carbon emissions through the use of ICE vehicles, unlike rail projects which reduce the need for car based travel.

Also some road projects are expected to cause us to need to build yet now roads. For example the Lower Thames Crossing is likely to need further upgrades to the M2/M20 to cater for the expected traffic which it allows.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 16 Nov 2022 ==

If I am mistaken, it's because I'm being overgenerous to HS2. A document published by HS2 a few years back (in a section on carbon footprint in a "phase one information paper") gave, in round figures:

Something like 6 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent related to the construction.
Around 3 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent anticipated net saving in operational emissions once modal shift, carbon mitigation from tree planting, and freight benefits from released capacity on the classic network are taken into account. (NB this is the total over a 60-year operational assessment period, ie - given, say, 10 years for construction and 60 years of operation - around 70 years from these calculations; so within a decade or so of the end of the century.)
Hence - according to their own figures - the combined (negative on account of construction, and positive on account of use) carbon footprint of the scheme is around 3 million tonnes carbon dioxide equivalent of emissions overall, by the last decade of this century.

So it'll be some time in the 22nd century before the carbon savings attributable to the project outweigh the massive carbon footprint of building it. Though the way we're going, much of Britain is likely to be too far under water by then for anyone to care anyway.

Care to do the same exercise for any of the road building projects?

The figures are bad, very very bad.

Lower Thames Crossing construction is 2 million tonnes with a further 3 million tonnes over the next 60 years, that's for a much smaller project.

Now whilst road emissions are likely to fall, it should also be noted that the carbon emissions from the construction of HS2 are less than expected through the user of non diesel/much lower diesel construction sites, through the user of lower carbon concrete (at least where it's not structural) and so on.

 

[Grimsby town]

I was simply quoting HS2's own figures...

Maybe it's getting off topic - though the environmental case for/against HS2 is, I'd have thought, pertinent to any judgment about the wisdom or otherwise of cancellation. But I'll leave it there.

A quick reply on this is that the HS2 modelling is very conservative on capacity release. I'm not sure if it even includes freight. It's also based on the fact that plane and car usage gets cheaper due to efficiency gains while rail tickets rise at RPI +1. Clearly if we are to mitigate climate change these assumptions can't hold.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 16 Nov 2022 ==

This. UK geography is much more suited to HSR than France, Germany or Spain, and none of these countries seem to regret building a network. The UK is more like Japan with a long narrow country and dense population, perfect for good efficiency with HSR.

Perhaps the only reason we have put it off so long is because our existing Victorian era networks were more or less adequate, but they are now full. It's the very definition of a 'high quality problem' that HS2 can address. The problem won't go away if HS2 is canceled.

Completely agree. The small country line seems to be a misunderstanding of geography. Its not far off 1000 Road miles from Lands End to John o'Groats. The distance between larger places such as Plymouth and Aberdeen is still over 600 miles. You won't get many journeys in France longer than that between two places with populations of around 200k. Finally the distance from London to the Central belt is around 400 miles by road. That's only 50 miles off the distance between Paris and Marsellie. Newcastle to London is further than Paris to Lyon. Manchester/Leeds/Sheffield to London further than Paris to Lille. The distance between the UKs population centers is certainly comparable to France.

 

[Trainbike46]

You've answered your own question. Put as many seats as possible out on HS2 for a nice low rate and the induced demand will bring in plenty of money.

HS2 is intending to run a lot of 400m long trains. Eurostar's 400m class 374 trains have 902 seats, and that is with the large proportion of first class seating (standard premier and business premier), so with a set-up more suited to domestic operation you could be looking at near a 1000 seats, so almost 3000 people per hour per direction on london-manchester alone. There's no way you could even come close to selling that many tickets without a "pile them high, sell them cheap" approach. All these people claiming that HS2 will charge a massive premium over existing WCML tickets haven't looked at the business case, and often seem to forget to apply common sense to this. If they were intending to make it a premium service, then why would they go for 400m long trains?

 

[Bletchleyite]

HS2 is intending to run a lot of 400m long trains. Eurostar's 400m class 374 trains have 902 seats, and that is with the large proportion of first class seating (standard premier and business premier), so with a set-up more suited to domestic operation you could be looking at near a 1000 seats, so almost 3000 people per hour per direction on london-manchester alone. There's no way you could even come close to selling that many tickets without a "pile them high, sell them cheap" approach. All these people claiming that HS2 will charge a massive premium over existing WCML tickets haven't looked at the business case, and often seem to forget to apply common sense to this. If they were intending to make it a premium service, then why would they go for 400m long trains?

What I do find curious about it is that it's being built at capacity with almost (2 half trains I think, one of them slow) no spare capacity. But talking of 400m trains, an 11 car Pendolino is 265m long, so it's about a third extra capacity - not as much as you'd think.

 

[MattRat]

HS2 is intending to run a lot of 400m long trains. Eurostar's 400m class 374 trains have 902 seats, and that is with the large proportion of first class seating (standard premier and business premier), so with a set-up more suited to domestic operation you could be looking at near a 1000 seats, so almost 3000 people per hour per direction on london-manchester alone. There's no way you could even come close to selling that many tickets without a "pile them high, sell them cheap" approach. All these people claiming that HS2 will charge a massive premium over existing WCML tickets haven't looked at the business case, and often seem to forget to apply common sense to this. If they were intending to make it a premium service, then why would they go for 400m long trains?

Surely we should be comparing the trains to Class 373, since those trains are classic compatible, which is the type of sets we'll be ordering.

 

[Trainbike46]

What I do find curious about it is that it's being built at capacity with almost (2 half trains I think, one of them slow) no spare capacity.

I guess that is because it improves the business case?

Looking at the service specification map from before they cancelled the eastern leg, there were 2 200m trains an hour from london. One to Stoke and Macclesfield, one to Liverpool lime street. But the services that were planned to start from Birmingham are all 200m too.

But talking of 400m trains, an 11 car Pendolino is 265m long, so it's about a third extra capacity - not as much as you'd think.

Currently there's almost 1700 seats per direction per hour to Manchester on Avanti - depending on the exact design of the new trains, 1/3 extra seems like a slightly low estimate. And that is just for the london-manchester part of the service. There will be services on the existing lines as well - such as a semifast (to me, anything that stops between london and birmingham is a semifast by definition) serving connections like Milton Keynes/Rugby/coventry/Stoke to Manchester and those passengers are currently on the avanti service as well, so the actual capacity uplift is higher

 

[The Planner]

What I do find curious about it is that it's being built at capacity with almost (2 half trains I think, one of them slow) no spare capacity. But talking of 400m trains, an 11 car Pendolino is 265m long, so it's about a third extra capacity - not as much as you'd think.

It isn't really comparing apples with apples, an 7 car 807 isn't far off a Pendo in capacity from what I have seen, so 182m vs 400m, so over double.

 

[The Ham]

What I do find curious about it is that it's being built at capacity with almost (2 half trains I think, one of them slow) no spare capacity. But talking of 400m trains, an 11 car Pendolino is 265m long, so it's about a third extra capacity - not as much as you'd think.

If you look at the capacity of a 9 coach 801 (234m) which has 611 seats vs the longer 11 coach 390 (265m) which has 589 seats, it's possible to fit in more seats.

Now whilst we're unlikely to see seating capacity of the 80x's (with their 26m coaches) it's likely to be higher than the 390's (with their 23m coaches) as there's a good chance the HS2 coaches could be 25m, which would give you something a bit higher than the +50% extra train length that there is between 265m and 400m (it's about 33% less from 400m to 265m as 2/3 of 400 is 266).

At 390 density that's 889 seats, whilst at 801 it's 1,044 seats, so about 1,000 isn't likely to be far from the mark we see.

 

[jfowkes]

A quick reply on this is that the HS2 modelling is very conservative on capacity release. I'm not sure if it even includes freight. It's also based on the fact that plane and car usage gets cheaper due to efficiency gains while rail tickets rise at RPI +1. Clearly if we are to mitigate climate change these assumptions can't hold.

Absolutely this.

HS2's eventual carbon emissions/reductions are obviously going to depend on policy. In the worse case, HS2 gets built in full, runs all its trains, literally never gets used by anyone ever and all classic services stay as they are. Clearly in that case it would never make back any of its carbon cost. In the best case, it shifts a lot of long distance travellers from car/plane onto HS2 and the capacity release on the classic network allows for loads of short-distance travel that was previously by car and for more freight to move from lorry to rail. Then, the carbon payback period could be very short, a few decades perhaps.

The reality will be somewhere in-between and depend on transport, energy and economic policies for the next 100 years. The idea that anyone can say what HS2's eventual carbon impact will be with any degree of certainty is fanciful.

 

[Bletchleyite]

It isn't really comparing apples with apples, an 7 car 807 isn't far off a Pendo in capacity from what I have seen, so 182m vs 400m, so over double.

7.807 is about the same as 9.390 I believe. Less wasted space and 26 rather than 24m vehicles and I think less First Class. A 9 car Pendolino is 218m. But most Manchester services, even when it was 3tph, were 11.390.

However, a 400km/h unit is going to need to have a very long nose (for crashworthiness if nothing else). I'd expect the HS2 units to have only half (at most) of the end vehicles with passenger accommodation.

If on the other hand that double is being gained by a "cram 'em in" layout, then that doesn't bode well for the longer services to Scotland etc. (Maybe a different layout should be used for Scotland, a bit like GWR could really do with dedicated 9-car 80x with a lower density layout for the Westcountry?)

 

[eldomtom2]

Absolutely this.

HS2's eventual carbon emissions/reductions are obviously going to depend on policy. In the worse case, HS2 gets built in full, runs all its trains, literally never gets used by anyone ever and all classic services stay as they are. Clearly in that case it would never make back any of its carbon cost. In the best case, it shifts a lot of long distance travellers from car/plane onto HS2 and the capacity release on the classic network allows for loads of short-distance travel that was previously by car and for more freight to move from lorry to rail. Then, the carbon payback period could be very short, a few decades perhaps.

The reality will be somewhere in-between and depend on transport, energy and economic policies for the next 100 years. The idea that anyone can say what HS2's eventual carbon impact will be with any degree of certainty is fanciful.

Er, wasn’t “it’ll take a century or more to pay off its carbon debt” what the guy who brought up carbon emissions in the first place said? Don’t see how saying that is arguing against him...

 

[jfowkes]

Er, wasn’t “it’ll take a century or more to pay off its carbon debt” what the guy who brought up carbon emissions in the first place said? Don’t see how saying that is arguing against him...

I'm not saying “it’ll take a century or more to pay off its carbon debt” won't happen, so in that sense I'm not arguing against him. But the correct phrase would be “it might take a century or more to pay off its carbon debt”. We don't know.

What I do know is that personally, I want to see it built and used. Because it's also valid to say "“it might take as little as 10 to 20 years pay off its carbon debt”. Let's aim for that!

 

[stuu]

7.807 is about the same as 9.390 I believe. Less wasted space and 26 rather than 24m vehicles and I think less First Class. A 9 car Pendolino is 218m. But most Manchester services, even when it was 3tph, were 11.390.

However, a 400km/h unit is going to need to have a very long nose (for crashworthiness if nothing else). I'd expect the HS2 units to have only half (at most) of the end vehicles with passenger accommodation.

Why? The Frecciarossa 1000 trains in Italy (Hitachi/Bombardier) are designed for 360 km/h, the same as the HS2 units, and they don't have anything like half a vehicle without passengers. Neither do the artists impressions

 

[Starmill]

I was simply quoting HS2's own figures...

You were using out of date figures, and doing so in a deliberately misleading manner. This is also precisely the way which the IEA, other right-wing think tanks, and Andrew Gilligan have tried to get HS2 cancelled, so please forgive my skepticism as to your protests against any association with discredited extreme right-wing causes.

The carbon budget case for HS2 is highly persuasive and clearly established. It's not politically feasible to regulate flights between England or Wales and the Central Belt of Scotland out of existence with the current rail journey times. This will remain the case for the foreseeable future while rail journey times between London and the Central Belt are stagnating at approx 4 hours 20 mins. Such a regulation could easily have be passed after HS2 Phase 2b Western if the Golborne Link hadn't been withdrawn from planning. It may still be possible to pass this kind of regulation after only phases 1 and 2a. Works to reduce journey times only on the classic lines by around 20 minutes will be disruptive and costly. There is no hope of enhancements which could take these journey times under 3h 55m using only the existing network.

 

[Trainbike46]

Why? The Frecciarossa 1000 trains in Italy (Hitachi/Bombardier) are designed for 360 km/h, the same as the HS2 units, and they don't have anything like half a vehicle without passengers. Neither do the artists impressions

As we won't know for certain how many seats they'll have until the final design is available, there's always a level of speculation/discussion/uncertainty.

But I do agree that around 1000 seats per train seems a likely number, but I guess bletchleyite is just slightly more negative in their capacity expectations

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 16 Nov 2022 ==

You were using out of date figures, and doing so in a deliberately misleading manner. This is also precisely the way which the IEA, other right-wing think tanks, and Andrew Gilligan have tried to get HS2 cancelled, so please forgive my skepticism as to your protests against any association with discredited extreme right-wing causes.

The carbon budget case for HS2 is highly persuasive and clearly established. It's not politically feasible to regulate flights between England or Wales and the Central Belt of Scotland out of existence with the current rail journey times. This will remain the case for the foreseeable future while rail journey times between London and the Central Belt are stagnating at approx 4 hours 20 mins. Such a regulation could easily have be passed after HS2 Phase 2b Western if the Golborne Link hadn't been withdrawn from planning. It may still be possible to pass this kind of regulation after only phases 1 and 2a. Works to reduce journey times only on the classic lines by around 20 minutes will be disruptive and costly. There is no hope of enhancements which could take these journey times under 3h 55m using only the existing network.

And improved journey times will cause more people to switch from air to rail, even if the government doesn't introduce, the in my eyes necessary, restrictions on domestic air travel, and the extra capacity will mean it is possible for more people to switch from air or car to rail.

From international examples, less than 4 hours by train tends to lead to a big shift towards rail - and HS2 will deliver that for the central belt-london route

 

[JamesT]

As we won't know for certain how many seats they'll have until the final design is available, there's always a level of speculation/discussion/uncertainty.

But I do agree that around 1000 seats per train seems a likely number, but I guess bletchleyite is just slightly more negative in their capacity expectations

From HS2's website - https://www.hs2.org.uk/building-hs2/trains/

Each train will be around 200m long, with the option to couple two units together to create a 400m long train with 1,100 seats.

You'd assume that number is what was in the specification they tendered for...

 

[Trainbike46]

From HS2's website - https://www.hs2.org.uk/building-hs2/trains/

You'd assume that number is what was in the specification they tendered for...

Wow, so even I was too negative with my almost 1000 guess.

1100 seats, so almost twice as many as an 11 car pendolino

 

[Starmill]

Given the Eurostar 'e320' has larger than typical ratios of business / premium to standard accommodation, plus a bar area, but still manages over 900 passenger seats, it shouldn't be too difficult to believe that approximately 1,100 is achievable.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Given the Eurostar 'e320' has larger than typical ratios of business / premium to standard accommodation, plus a bar area, but still manages over 900 passenger seats, it shouldn't be too difficult to believe that approximately 1,100 is achievable.

Looking at the Eurostar e320, you can probably work out what a reasonable layout would be. If we say 1st is going to be one end vehicle only (which it might well be) you would get something like:

Cab end 1: 1st - 40 seats
Cab end 2: Std - 56 seats (I worked this out by adding the missing fourth seat to each row from the above)
Normal intermediate x 4: Std - 76 seats
Catering Std: it won't be a half-bar, so let's use a cab car for that: 56 seats (unless you're doing dedicated ones for Scotland you will need catering provision)
Wheelchair Std: 45 seats (again Eurostar doesn't have this, so I worked this out by adding one to each row in the wheelchair 1st)

That's a total of 521 seats. You might be able to get in an extra row in the each of the two I worked out from First, so let's say 530 for a round number.

Twice that is 1060.

So yes, I guess feasible to get near 1100.

 

[Mikey C]

7.807 is about the same as 9.390 I believe. Less wasted space and 26 rather than 24m vehicles and I think less First Class. A 9 car Pendolino is 218m. But most Manchester services, even when it was 3tph, were 11.390.

However, a 400km/h unit is going to need to have a very long nose (for crashworthiness if nothing else). I'd expect the HS2 units to have only half (at most) of the end vehicles with passenger accommodation.

If on the other hand that double is being gained by a "cram 'em in" layout, then that doesn't bode well for the longer services to Scotland etc. (Maybe a different layout should be used for Scotland, a bit like GWR could really do with dedicated 9-car 80x with a lower density layout for the Westcountry?)

For all their faults, the one thing the 80x aren't is lacking in is legroom, as the seating layout is very spacious.