High Speed Rail Scotland

[Noddy]

Surely Lockerbie-Penrith would be relatively easy to do engineering wise. Build a station in Carlisle (there's plenty of room on the west side of the station) to keep the locals happy. It's about 45 miles which would save 13min according to HSTed calculation, but I how much sustained 100mph running is there in this area? Especially through the current layout around Carlilse?

 

[Altnabreac]

Surely Lockerbie-Penrith would be relatively easy to do engineering wise. Build a station in Carlisle (there's plenty of room on the west side of the station) to keep the locals happy. It's about 45 miles which would save 13min according to HSTed calculation, but I how much sustained 100mph running is there in this area? Especially through the current layout around Carlilse?

That works relatively well but a couple of issues with it.

Now you're bypassing Carstairs all splitting and joining is likely to take place at Carlisle. So the majority of trains will be stopping there reducing the time saving from new line.

Also cross border infrastructure will be more complicated from a parliamentary point of view with probably a hybrid bill committee at Westminster and either a second bill at Holyrood or a complicated Sewell Motion agreement.

 

[Noddy]

That works relatively well but a couple of issues with it.

Now you're bypassing Carstairs all splitting and joining is likely to take place at Carlisle. So the majority of trains will be stopping there reducing the time saving from new line.

Also cross border infrastructure will be more complicated from a parliamentary point of view with probably a hybrid bill committee at Westminster and either a second bill at Holyrood or a complicated Sewell Motion agreement.

Totally accepted. But I didn't didn't say I would bypass Carstairs, just the difficult terrain between Lockerbie and Carstairs. Once we're getting to a point where we're actually thinking about building this missing section do you think they'll still be talking about splitting 200m trains? Or running 400m ones throughout? (I am of course aware you may need to reduce some other services if capacity further south is a problem.)

Regarding complicated parliamentary procedure, sections of line north of Manchester (or Newcastle) can only will be built with the support of both the UK and Scottish governments. If the Scottish government doesn't support it, it wouldn't be built in Scotland, or across the border, or in northern England. If the UK government doesn't support it, it won't be built in northern England. Maybe the Scottish government would go it alone in this case and build a line to the border but I doubt it. It absolutely will need firm and absolute agreement by the governments and opposition in both parliaments (ie none of this messing around by Labour) regardless of where it is built.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

As I understand it, cross-border rail is not a devolved matter, hence the DfT specifies the WC, EC, XC and TP franchises (with Scottish input).
Scotland hasn't got a magic pile of cash. It's UK cash which is split according to the Barnett formula and other agreed deals.
I think they will design a joint scheme suitable for both England and Scotland, with UK funding as for HS2.
As it stands that will be a West Coast scheme, splitting 400m trains at Carstairs for 200m trains on to Glasgow and Edinburgh (saves vast sums getting 400m trains into Central/Waverley.
We ought to know more about route options in the next David Higgins report in a year's time.

 

[Altnabreac]

Totally accepted. But I didn't didn't say I would bypass Carstairs, just the difficult terrain between Lockerbie and Carstairs. Once we're getting to a point where we're actually thinking about building this missing section do you think they'll still be talking about splitting 200m trains? Or running 400m ones throughout? (I am of course aware you may need to reduce some other services if capacity further south is a problem.)

Regarding complicated parliamentary procedure, sections of line north of Manchester (or Newcastle) can only will be built with the support of both the UK and Scottish governments. If the Scottish government doesn't support it, it wouldn't be built in Scotland, or across the border, or in northern England. If the UK government doesn't support it, it won't be built in northern England. Maybe the Scottish government would go it alone in this case and build a line to the border but I doubt it. It absolutely will need firm and absolute agreement by the governments and opposition in both parliaments (ie none of this messing around by Labour) regardless of where it is built.

All fair points but the splitting of 400m trains is also about the practicalities of platforming at Glasgow Central, Haymarket and Waverley.

You are more likely to see increased tph and splitting of Birmingham trains as well (currently proposed as 1tp2h to each city) before 400m trains to each city.

400m at Waverley is doable, Central is expensive but possible although it probably also involves losing platforms and thus reducing capacity so more spend to recreate that elsewhere. Haymarket is impossible short of closing Haymarket East Junction completely.

So 400m trains are possible but a non trivial investment financially.

 

[HSTEd]

Well you would probably only need one or maybe two useful platforms.

So you might be able to extend the externmost island over the river. Blackfriars style.

 

[Noddy]

All fair points but the splitting of 400m trains is also about the practicalities of platforming at Glasgow Central, Haymarket and Waverley.

You are more likely to see increased tph and splitting of Birmingham trains as well (currently proposed as 1tp2h to each city) before 400m trains to each city.

400m at Waverley is doable, Central is expensive but possible although it probably also involves losing platforms and thus reducing capacity so more spend to recreate that elsewhere. Haymarket is impossible short of closing Haymarket East Junction completely.

So 400m trains are possible but a non trivial investment financially.

The whole thing is a non-trivial investment! Do you think HS trains will continue in the long term to stop at two Edinburgh stations though?

 

[NotATrainspott]

The whole thing is a non-trivial investment! Do you think HS trains will continue in the long term to stop at two Edinburgh stations though?

No, and there's hints that Network Rail think the same in the appendices to the Route Study. The option of six-tracking Haymarket to Waverley was discounted as they thought that this would better be regarded as an HS2 development involving bored tunnels, presumably bypassing Haymarket altogether. Elsewhere in the appendices the idea of moving Haymarket westwards so that it could have more platforms was also discounted, so I really don't see there being any possibility of adding more capacity through the station other than fitting more advanced signalling.

The ideas that I've had about Waverley haven't come up in this route study but that doesn't surprise me, given that the impetus for having to do them would be that the HS2 plans would have to massively reduce the available classic capacity. Since this route study simply assumes that the Phase 2 service pattern will be introduced and then left unchanged, there's no need to consider how to redesign the classic station to fit around a future captive one. It's doubtful that there would be any easy way to do this without adding underground platforms to serve cross-Edinburgh commuter services.

 

[adrock1976]

In regards to High Speed Rail in Scotland and NW England, I would draw up plans for the following routes to be constructed, and to connect into a future UK wide HS network.

New Edinburgh & Glasgow Joint HS line, to broadly follow the alignment of the M8 (in between the Caledonian Railway and North British Railway routes, hence the "Joint" in the title of the line). This could be an enabling project for Glasgow Crossrail in conjunction with the main HS project. The Edinburgh end could be designed so as to leave the stub pointing tantalising in the direction of Newcastle for a future extension.

Construct a new Caledonian HS line from the New E&GJ HSR to Carlisle Citadel. This could approach Citadel station on the west side and have a new island platform constructed. This would provide a cross platform northbound interchange to and from the classic services, with the present day island Platforms 1 & 3 being used for interchange to and from classic southbound services.

Construct a new Preston, Lancaster, & Carlisle HS Railway, which would run on a much straighter and gentler graded alignment (with several tunnels). This would be an end on connection with the New Caledonian HSR at Carlisle Citadel. At Preston, the HS station could be sited near Salwick station, as it is close to the motorway, and would enable the service frequency to be improved at Salwick if the Parkway proposal that has been suggested previously is decided upon.

Construct a New North Union HS Railway line from Preston to the New Lancashire & Yorkshire HSR line (that would run from Liverpool to Kingston upon Hull via Manchester and Leeds), and onto the New Manchester & Birmingham HSR line, which in turn connects onto the New London & Birmingham HSR.

This would eventually provide a New High Speed Railway between London and Glasgow and Edinburgh via Birmingham and the North West of England. Perhaps when complete, maybe this route could be called the New London, North Western, and Caledonian Joint High Speed Railway?

 

[222ben]

In regards to High Speed Rail in Scotland and NW England, I would draw up plans for the following routes to be constructed, and to connect into a future UK wide HS network.

New Edinburgh & Glasgow Joint HS line, to broadly follow the alignment of the M8 (in between the Caledonian Railway and North British Railway routes, hence the "Joint" in the title of the line). This could be an enabling project for Glasgow Crossrail in conjunction with the main HS project. The Edinburgh end could be designed so as to leave the stub pointing tantalising in the direction of Newcastle for a future extension.

Construct a new Caledonian HS line from the New E&GJ HSR to Carlisle Citadel. This could approach Citadel station on the west side and have a new island platform constructed. This would provide a cross platform northbound interchange to and from the classic services, with the present day island Platforms 1 & 3 being used for interchange to and from classic southbound services.

Construct a new Preston, Lancaster, & Carlisle HS Railway, which would run on a much straighter and gentler graded alignment (with several tunnels). This would be an end on connection with the New Caledonian HSR at Carlisle Citadel. At Preston, the HS station could be sited near Salwick station, as it is close to the motorway, and would enable the service frequency to be improved at Salwick if the Parkway proposal that has been suggested previously is decided upon.

Construct a New North Union HS Railway line from Preston to the New Lancashire & Yorkshire HSR line (that would run from Liverpool to Kingston upon Hull via Manchester and Leeds), and onto the New Manchester & Birmingham HSR line, which in turn connects onto the New London & Birmingham HSR.

This would eventually provide a New High Speed Railway between London and Glasgow and Edinburgh via Birmingham and the North West of England. Perhaps when complete, maybe this route could be called the New London, North Western, and Caledonian Joint High Speed Railway?

Sounds awfully expensive! And where would it go through?

 

[clc]

"AMBITIOUS plans to build a bullet train between Scotland's two biggest cities have been dropped.
The proposal for a high speed link between Glasgow and Edinburgh was announced by Nicola Sturgeon when she was infrastructure minister in 2012.

But the scheme, which she claimed would cut journey times to less than 30 minutes, has been quietly abandoned."



http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/...igh_speed_rail_link_is_ditched_by_ministers_/

 

[Haydn1971]

No surprises there

 

[NotATrainspott]

Talk about misleading headlines: all that's happened is that they've said they can't put more detail into the plans until they've sorted out out the interface with the final HS2 plans. The concept of E&G HSR has always been to take advantage of what would be needed for HS2 and I expect that Transport Scotland just didn't expect the Phase 2 consultation response and Scotland work to take as long as it has done.

 

[Altnabreac]

"AMBITIOUS plans to build a bullet train between Scotland's two biggest cities have been dropped.
The proposal for a high speed link between Glasgow and Edinburgh was announced by Nicola Sturgeon when she was infrastructure minister in 2012.

But the scheme, which she claimed would cut journey times to less than 30 minutes, has been quietly abandoned."



http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/...igh_speed_rail_link_is_ditched_by_ministers_/

Herald print up misleading Lib Dem press release as fact and end up publishing complete rubbish.

Sadly this is what passes for journalism in this day and age.

Utter nonsense of an article.

 

[Noddy]

Herald print up misleading Lib Dem press release as fact and end up publishing complete rubbish.

Sadly this is what passes for journalism in this day and age.

Utter nonsense of an article.

Sturgeons announcement back in 2012 was utter nonsense too. It's politicians playing politics.

 

[Altnabreac]

Sturgeons announcement back in 2012 was utter nonsense too. It's politicians playing politics.

Well lets look at what was said in 2012:

Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said the Scottish government would "not wait" for Westminster to deliver HS2 north of the border and would be "firing ahead" with its own plans.

She said that a survey last year, carried out by the Scottish Partnership Group for High Speed Rail, had shown "a huge level of support" for HS2 in Scotland.

"We now know that within just 12 years, we could build a line which will see journey times between our two major cities cut to less than half an hour," she said."The Scottish government will now enter into talks with our partners in both cities and the rail industry to see how we can work together to see this vision realised - a Glasgow-Edinburgh high speed line which can connect to the network from England."

There's not much there to disagree with.

The Scottish Government have taken forward their own plans for High Speed Rail including detailed design work:
http://www.transportscotland.gov.uk/project/high-speed-rail

The Partnership Group did find demand for the service.
http://www.transportscotland.gov.uk/report/j202923-00.htm

Journey times would be less than half an hour and talks have taken place to develop the line and especially work out how it connects to the network in England.

The only bit I would say is maybe unrealistic is the 2024 opening date. That is still possible but my feeling would be 2026 might be more likely now.

Lots of work has been carried out on the project and major progress is likely to be announced soon.

Daft newspaper articles like this are just pointless, note how no one at Transport Scotland was approached for a quote. It purely printed one skewed opinion and presented it as fact.

Very poor journalism.

 

[Noddy]

Well lets look at what was said in 2012:



There's not much there to disagree with.

The Scottish Government have taken forward their own plans for High Speed Rail including detailed design work:
http://www.transportscotland.gov.uk/project/high-speed-rail

The Partnership Group did find demand for the service.
http://www.transportscotland.gov.uk/report/j202923-00.htm

Journey times would be less than half an hour and talks have taken place to develop the line and especially work out how it connects to the network in England.

The only bit I would say is maybe unrealistic is the 2024 opening date. That is still possible but my feeling would be 2026 might be more likely now.

Lots of work has been carried out on the project and major progress is likely to be announced soon.

Daft newspaper articles like this are just pointless, note how no one at Transport Scotland was approached for a quote. It purely printed one skewed opinion and presented it as fact.

Very poor journalism.

Sorry but it's clearly political spin from both sides. We knew that the 2012 headline of 12 years was a joke at the time, and we know that today's headline that it's been dropped is a joke.

 

[clc]

I've just watched BBC Reporting Scotland's late bulletin which said and I quote "Derek Mackay said the link could happen but that it would depend on what happens to high speed rail proposals in England"

Surely he was more definite than that?

 

[Altnabreac]

Sorry but it's clearly political spin from both sides. We knew that the 2012 headline of 12 years was a joke at the time, and we know that today's headline that it's been dropped is a joke.

I don't think 2024 is likely but it's not a joke.

A timetable might look something like.

Year 1 Announce go ahead for project development.
Year 2 Initial route announced for consultation
Year 3 Revised route announced
Year 4-5 Parliamentary procedures.
Year 6 Pre Construction
Year 7-9 Construction
Year 10 Testing and Opening

So if the project had been signed off in 2014, 2024 would have been reasonable.

The referendum and elections have got in the way but it looks like an announcement may be coming shortly so I think 2026 would be a reasonable timescale as a lot of development work is already complete.

 

[clc]

How many miles of track will be required to create the Edinburgh-Glasgow link specifically, so not counting what would be required anyway for the cross border city branches, ie. what will be the length of the upper side of the Lanarkshire triangle? I'm curious about roughly how much that section adds to the cost.

 

[Noddy]

I don't think 2024 is likely but it's not a joke.

A timetable might look something like.

Year 1 Announce go ahead for project development.
Year 2 Initial route announced for consultation
Year 3 Revised route announced
Year 4-5 Parliamentary procedures.
Year 6 Pre Construction
Year 7-9 Construction
Year 10 Testing and Opening

So if the project had been signed off in 2014, 2024 would have been reasonable.

The referendum and elections have got in the way but it looks like an announcement may be coming shortly so I think 2026 would be a reasonable timescale as a lot of development work is already complete.

I seriously hope you are proved right, but seeing as we don't have a proposed route, or have worked out which stations it'll use, I hope you'll forgive me if I don't hold my breath.

I think three years to build is also incredibly optimistic considering it'll be a brand new line through Glas/Edin, or a complete rebuild of existing lines through the two cities. The M74 extension took three years to build through Glasgow and that was only five miles.

 

[Altnabreac]

I seriously hope you are proved right, but seeing as we don't have a proposed route, or have worked out which stations it'll use, I hope you'll forgive me if I don't hold my breath.

I think three years to build is also incredibly optimistic considering it'll be a brand new line through Glas/Edin, or a complete rebuild of existing lines through the two cities. The M74 extension took three years to build through Glasgow and that was only five miles.

Well we'll see. I'm an optimist but I concede it is a big scheme, the parliamentary procedures will be complex and construction will not be simple so further delays could easily appear.

On the other side the funding situation via Barnett is looking more positive than before, the scheme looks to be avoiding the complexities of new city centre stations and major works in urban areas or on exisiting lines so it is potentially mainly greenfield construction which is simpler.

My bet would be that it will open after HS2 Phase 1 but before HS2 Phase 2.

 

[The Ham]

"AMBITIOUS plans to build a bullet train between Scotland's two biggest cities have been dropped.
The proposal for a high speed link between Glasgow and Edinburgh was announced by Nicola Sturgeon when she was infrastructure minister in 2012.

But the scheme, which she claimed would cut journey times to less than 30 minutes, has been quietly abandoned."



http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/...igh_speed_rail_link_is_ditched_by_ministers_/

Now also being reported here:
http://www.railnews.co.uk/news/2016/01/18-scottish-high-speed-plans-are.html

SCOTTISH ministers have revealed that uncertainties about a possible northern extension of HS2 mean that plans for a High Speed line linking Edinburgh and Glasgow will be shelved for the time being.

The link would be new, and its promotion and construction is unconnected with the project to electrify the present route between Glasgow Queen Street and Edinburgh via Falkirk, which is in progress.

The Scottish Government had previously said that a 225km/h route could be built at least a decade before HS2 could approach from the south, and in November 2012 Nicola Sturgeon, then deputy first minister, had said the Scottish Government would 'not wait' for Westminster to provide a High Speed line across the border from England, and that Scotland would be 'firing ahead' with the intention of opening a line between Glasgow and Edinburgh by the mid-2020s.

However, the 2015 Infrastructure Plan does not include such a scheme. When Liberal Democrat MSP Tavish Scott asked why not, transport minister Derek Mackay admitted that it was not possible to plan for the line at present, which 'depends on the high-speed route coming up from the south', and that a draft business case prepared in 2014 had made this clear.

Mr Scott accused ministers of showing a 'lack of respect' for people in the central belt cities. He said: "Three years ago the first minister said there would be full-steam ahead on this project. There was a grand ceremony in Glasgow addressed by two Cabinet ministers. What's happened since is that the SNP have shelved the project but hoped nobody would notice. They conned everyone into thinking that they would build this bullet railway from a blank page, and now they have tried to keep their cancellation secret."

Mr Mackay said a study of possible options would be published soon, when the next steps would also be announced.

 

[snowball]

I'm a bit confused by these latest developments. Are we still expecting publication in the near future of the report which Scottish Ministers are said to have received?

 

[Altnabreac]

I'm a bit confused by these latest developments. Are we still expecting publication in the near future of the report which Scottish Ministers are said to have received?

You can safely ignore the latest news articles which are much more to do with Lib Dem positioning before the 2016 Holyrood elections and much less to do with any reality about the scheme.

The report from HS2 Ltd and any announcement that follows has to be jointly agreed on both sides of the border as it was commissioned jointly.

Given "Purdah" for the 2016 elections will be mid March I would expect an announcement to be forthcoming before then so there's not long to wait.

 

[clc]

Derek Mackay said proposals to connect both Glasgow and Edinburgh to HS2, or one city with a forwarding connection, may be under consideration by the DfT. I can't see the latter being politically acceptable in Scotland - imagine the stooshie if it was decided that Glasgow trains had to go via Edinburgh!

http://www.thecourier.co.uk/news/sc...eil-high-speed-rail-link-way-forward-1.920440

 

[WatcherZero]

The East Coast Scotland link proposal required Glasgow trains to go via Edinburgh, that's why the West Coast fork was more favoured as it served both equally.

 

[NY Yankee]

The distance between Glasgow and Edinburgh is 67 kilometers. It is 49 kilometers from Ealing Broadway to Upminster. High speed rail is not necessary. Furthermore, I thought Scotland wanted to secede from the UK. Why are they suddenly interested in a rail link to a country that they abhor?

 

[NotATrainspott]

The distance between Glasgow and Edinburgh is 67 kilometers. It is 49 kilometers from Ealing Broadway to Upminster. High speed rail is not necessary. Furthermore, I thought Scotland wanted to secede from the UK. Why are they suddenly interested in a rail link to a country that they abhor?

Because lots of people travel between the two every day, and the ability of the existing railway to cope with them is going to become more and more stretched in future. That the two of them are so close together is what makes HSR at all feasible: if they were further apart, then there wouldn't be as many people going between them and the line would cost even more.

 

[Altnabreac]

The distance between Glasgow and Edinburgh is 67 kilometers. It is 49 kilometers from Ealing Broadway to Upminster. High speed rail is not necessary. Furthermore, I thought Scotland wanted to secede from the UK. Why are they suddenly interested in a rail link to a country that they abhor?

The why is very much about capacity, both creating new capacity for non stop services and freeing up capacity on the stopping services. The extra speed is not really very important and it is likely that the stock operating Edinburgh - Glasgow services will be javelin style 140mph stock rather than true High Speed trains.

The cross border link is very much about achieving a 3 hour journey time to London.

Whether or not people are in favour of political secession the economic links to the rest of the UK will remain very strong and relative competitiveness is the issue that the Scottish Government are very keen to address.

This misconception that nationalists hate England / the English is not generally borne out. As an english resident of Scotland who has a lot of contact with the current government and it's supporters I have never encountered any anti english sentiment.

Generally it is only during Football World Cups that I have seen any prejudice and I've lived in some of the rougher parts of Glasgow so it's not like I'm getting some biased view on it.