HS2 Northern Branches Discussion

[steamdrivenand]

Have you had a look at the DfT docs on Toton because for the bits of line I've looked at they show road and other alterations plus some ideas on station layout etc. The document titles don't exactly make it easy to identify the bits you want to look at and they're clunky pdfs which take a while to load but there's masses of info there.

 

[RichmondCommu]

Changes to service frequencies and stopping patterns are inevitable and will help spread the benefits while making the most of the extra capacity.

Changing service frequencies and stopping patterns from Nottingham, Derby and Sheffield will basically force customers to use HS2 even if its of no obvious benefit to them. In my view this is no way to run a railway and is very unfair to effectively force people to pay a premium rate. We need to have guarantees that the service on the MML will not be downgraded. For customers living in Derby's western suburbs (as an example) HS2 will be of very little use to them.
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Have you had a look at the DfT docs on Toton because for the bits of line I've looked at they show road and other alterations plus some ideas on station layout etc. The document titles don't exactly make it easy to identify the bits you want to look at and they're clunky pdfs which take a while to load but there's masses of info there.

Oh I completely agree that there is scope for the necessary road alterations top enable access to Toton, my point was that the disruption and scale of the road works will be immense! And it’s hard to see how congestion on the A52 and M1 could be eased (I admit that I haven't opened the link yet!). Shorter trains able to run on classic lines would seem to be more practical and a lot cheaper!
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I agree it's a real risk, and that additional infrastructure will be needed to make Toton easier to get to. This must include:

- improving road access, not just from the A52,
- extending the tram from Nottingham,
- building a tram link the other way into Derby
- having platforms for classic services to stop at Toton for trains from Derby, Nottingham, East Midlands Parkway and further afield to stop, so Toton is more of an inter-change.

The good news is there is 20 years to put the additional infrastructure in place.

I concur but this all still involves addditional travelling time which in many cases will put people off. I fully agree with the development of HS2 in principle but we need to make sure that it is an attractive alternative for all customers, not just those living in the locality!

 

[Nym]

It is a reasonable thought and one I came up with a while back, to have a station effectively on a branch, between Derby and Nottingham, and knocking off a 200m set to each destination, pushing through Nottingham to Lincoln and Derby to Sheffeild Midland.

Would only be 2tph maximum though, and would proberbly be better if the services were splitting at an in line station so that one half may proceed North via HS2, and the other to Derby or Notts, even if not initially used in service, one would regret not planning for this.

 

[RichmondCommu]

Would only be 2tph maximum though, and would proberbly be better if the services were splitting at an in line station so that one half may proceed North via HS2, and the other to Derby or Notts, even if not initially used in service, one would regret not planning for this.

Well exactly! Hopefully within the next 20 years the Government will revise their plans. If we are to win hearts and minds with a skeptical public we need to make HS2 accessible to all. What works for SNCF and DB would work for us too!

 

[johnb]

I concur but this all still involves addditional travelling time which in many cases will put people off. I fully agree with the development of HS2 in principle but we need to make sure that it is an attractive alternative for all customers, not just those living in the locality!

Most people don't live or work at Derby Midland or Nottingham Midland, though! If you need to take a bus/tram/bike/car to get to the station, then as long as Toton has good road, bus and rail links with neighbouring districts, good taxi access and good parking, it will be no harder than the city centre stations for the vast majority of people (whether they live in the E Mids and are heading south, or they're Londoners visiting local industry).

Derby and Nottingham aren't like Leeds or Manchester, where a large proportion of local skilled employment is in the city centre, or where existing transport links make the mainline station easy for suburbanites to reach. Most people live and work in suburbs. In that context, as long as Toton is tied properly into local transport networks, it's no worse than either mainline station for most people.

 

[steamdrivenand]

Agreed Johnb, what's better building a station midway between the two cities or nearest access Sheffied or somehow trying to ram two stations into the city centres of Derby and Nottingham and trying to link them with the wide arcs that HS2 has to use. Demolitioning your way in and out of a city, let alone two will cause even greater probs. and if you build in Derby it'll upset Notts and vice versa. Like Meadowhall, a Parkway station with good inter modal (hate that phrase) links are the way to go.

As to forcing people to pay premium fares that is farcical. To fill the enormous quantity of seats HS2 will provide there's no way at all they can get away with premium fares. OK there'll probably be first class for those who can pay but they'll have embarrassingly empty trains if they try running it like the Orient Express. I'm afraid Richmond you've fallen for the 'class warfare' PR of the anti HS2 brigade. Think about it logically and the suggestion doesn't hold water.

 

[ivanhoe]

Most people don't live or work at Derby Midland or Nottingham Midland, though! If you need to take a bus/tram/bike/car to get to the station, then as long as Toton has good road, bus and rail links with neighbouring districts, good taxi access and good parking, it will be no harder than the city centre stations for the vast majority of people (whether they live in the E Mids and are heading south, or they're Londoners visiting local industry).

Derby and Nottingham aren't like Leeds or Manchester, where a large proportion of local skilled employment is in the city centre, or where existing transport links make the mainline station easy for suburbanites to reach. Most people live and work in suburbs. In that context, as long as Toton is tied properly into local transport networks, it's no worse than either mainline station for most people.

You have made some extremely good points here. The final destination is so important. However, By the time Toton is open for Business, passengers will be doing St Pancras in 90 minutes on the Midland Main Line. (It is an aspiration now )

 

[bangor-toad]

I agree it's a real risk, and that additional infrastructure will be needed to make Toton easier to get to. This must include:

- improving road access, not just from the A52,
- extending the tram from Nottingham,
- building a tram link the other way into Derby
- having platforms for classic services to stop at Toton for trains from Derby, Nottingham, East Midlands Parkway and further afield to stop, so Toton is more of an inter-change.

The detailed plans on the DfT wensite do show the plans for Toton in some detail. Check out hs2-arp-lr0-dr-rt-55121_3-0.pdf for the Toton station info.

There is improved road access from more than just the A52 although only from the north - perhaps to avoid the instant congestion that would occur if there was another way from Long Eaton onto the M1?

The tram extension is mentioned and all the local current developements are making at least passive provision for that.

Probably not a hope of the tram going to Derby though.

The new conventional rail side of the Toton station is shown as having 4 full length platform faces.


Do have a look at the detailed plans - the parts around Nottingham are quite spectacular.
After the tunnel under East Midlands Airport the line come out and will go on a viaduct that starts at junction 24 of the M1 (requiring the Hilton hotel to be demolished).
The viaduct crosses the M1 and then remains as an elevated railway all the way across until it get to the existing MML. It then crosses above the MML in a really short tunnel *above* the existing MML tunnels before emerging onto a new viaduct over the Trent and then recrossing the MML just north of Trent junction.
The existing direct route onto the Erewash valley route is then used for the straight run through Long Eaton, past Tesco and Adsa, into the new Toton station.

Just north of Toton, there'll be months of construction fun as the newly widened M1 is moved 100 yards to the west to allow a decent allignment...

All in all, if it follows this route it should be a spectaular ride.
Cheers,
Jason

 

[Wath Yard]

Most people don't live or work at Derby Midland or Nottingham Midland, though! If you need to take a bus/tram/bike/car to get to the station, then as long as Toton has good road, bus and rail links with neighbouring districts, good taxi access and good parking, it will be no harder than the city centre stations for the vast majority of people (whether they live in the E Mids and are heading south, or they're Londoners visiting local industry).

That is a valid argument for people travelling to London but not people travelling from London to other cities. If you drive to Euston, not that many do, then you won't have access to your car at the other end so ending up in a parkway isn't convenient.

Parkways aren't a new concept. Take East Midlands Parkway; some people in south west Nottingham may well find it more convenient to drive there if they want to travel to London than make their way into Nottingham, however nobody travelling from London - Nottingham is going to alight at East Midlands Parkway.

As for Toton and local industry, is there even such a place as Toton or is it just a depot and yard? It's hardly a thriving metropolis or centre of industry.

 

[Chris125]

Changing service frequencies and stopping patterns from Nottingham, Derby and Sheffield will basically force customers to use HS2 even if its of no obvious benefit to them. In my view this is no way to run a railway and is very unfair to effectively force people to pay a premium rate.

There is no 'Premium Rate', the business case for HS2 assumes no addition to the ticket price. The extra revenue comes from the stepchange in frequency and seats available.

As for forcing people to use it, conventional services will still be available and may even have fares cut to compete, but more stops and reduced frequencies are likely for some to free up capacity and allow other services serving new markets to be operated.

Surely making the most of available capacity and cascading the benefits of HS2 to other railway users is the right way to run a railway?

Chris

 

[sheff'd victoria]

Whereas driving and parking into the city centre is a breeze?

As an ex team leader at First South Yorkshire Buses I am well aware of Sheffield's unique road traffic system, Im also aware of the many complaints of Sheffield residents on a site called the Sheffield Forum

I would just like the HS2 station to be closer to the City Centre

 

[HowardGWR]

You have made some extremely good points here. The final destination is so important. However, By the time Toton is open for Business, passengers will be doing St Pancras in 90 minutes on the Midland Main Line. (It is an aspiration now )

Yes but from a central station so it won't be 90 minutes, more like 135 minutes from home, if all went well on the road. The whole idea of HS anyway is that one will travel from one's home in Ockbrook (say) to Paris or Brussels. MML will not compete with that. The fact that most business pax are going from the Ockbrooks of this world to locations like Canary Wharf, rather than from The Meadows in Nottingham, (still better off for that London destination, by the way, if it stops at Stratford) is just another justification for a Toton location.
Kettledrum has outlined all the connections that will be set up and besides, those business people will not think twice about jumping in a taxi.

IMO

 

[Kettledrum]

Probably not a hope of the tram going to Derby though.

Yes I agree that a tram into Derby would be a very very very long shot, and that a conventional rail link from Toton into Derby station is probably the best that Derby will get, but the Derby politicians are very pro-rail and very vocal.

Interesting the Transport Secretary said today that if the owners of East Midlands Airport came up with proposals for a station at the airport, he would look at them. I guess the airport would have to fund it itself, but it's not short of cash.

 

[JohnB57]

I would just like the HS2 station to be closer to the City Centre

But you - and others on here - continue to not tell us why and where the business for a city centre station will come from.

Johnb and I have very similar screen names but have no other connection by the way. In responding to his earlier point, you seem to misunderstand the rationale behind the location of Meadowhall and Toton parkways. Of course they're not final destinations in their own right, but a point I keep making is that to most people, neither is Sheffield city centre. Without onward transfer opportunites using other modes, I accept that Meadowhall, Toton and any other similar location would have limited use. The fact is that they will have rail, road, bus and in Meadowhall's case tram interchange facilities and therefore be far more useful to the whole region.

 

[Nym]

Looking in detail at the EM Parkway Station design, it would be very easy indeed to have two south facing cords added to the design to have services be able to call at the station, split with 200m of classic compatable heading North and the remaining 200m heading back south to Trent Junction to head onwards to Derby and Nottingham (one or the other) and of course, good high speed services from Derby and Nottingham being able to come and call at this station all on their own. These could quite merrily sod off via York or another link near Sheffeild toward Doncaster...

 

[Kettledrum]

Looking in detail at the EM Parkway Station design, it would be very easy indeed to have two south facing cords added to the design to have services be able to call at the station, split with 200m of classic compatable heading North and the remaining 200m heading back south to Trent Junction to head onwards to Derby and Nottingham (one or the other) and of course, good high speed services from Derby and Nottingham being able to come and call at this station all on their own. These could quite merrily sod off via York or another link near Sheffeild toward Doncaster...

Interesting idea - perhaps you should respond to the consultation with this point. It would satisfy the demands of Derby and Nottingham and even Sheffield to have HS2 trains reaching their city centres, and these trains could be running even before the HS2 is built further North to Meadowhall and Leeds

 

[JohnB57]

Looking in detail at the EM Parkway Station design, it would be very easy indeed to have two south facing cords added to the design to have services be able to call at the station, split with 200m of classic compatable heading North and the remaining 200m heading back south to Trent Junction to head onwards to Derby and Nottingham (one or the other) and of course, good high speed services from Derby and Nottingham being able to come and call at this station all on their own. These could quite merrily sod off via York or another link near Sheffeild toward Doncaster...

Wouldn't the significant height difference between the projected route south of EMA and East Midlands Parkway be a problem?

 

[steamdrivenand]

We all talk about business travellers so I thought I'd apply the possibility of HS2 to one of my regular journeys when I was a business traveller.

Back in the day I was a Senior Mgr with a bank, in their card processing business, based in North Yorkshire and living near Ripon.

I generally had to travel down to the City of London at least twice a month and I'm wondering how my preferred journey would be affected by the advent of HS2 Phase 2.

After trying via Leeds, both by car and by local train from Harrogate, I eventually settled on driving cross country for 40 minutes and parking at York (space reserved). I then caught the 07.00 to KGX which arrived in London around 09.00 having stopped at PBO.

Slightly OT but I was always amazed that First Class appeared rammed full of NHS senior management from the North East, heading to the capital. I travelled on all sorts of different days but it always seemed the same.

My preferred option home was the 17.00 ex KGX as it was a non-stopper arriving in York before 19.00.

So would it be worth fiddling about to wind my way into the depths of Leeds to get a Captive to Euston or would the ECML from York, at just around 2 hours,still be the better option?

 

[Nym]

Wouldn't the significant height difference between the projected route south of EMA and East Midlands Parkway be a problem?

HS Railways can do massive gradients remember...

And I don't think it will be THAT bad...

 

[JohnB57]

HS Railways can do massive gradients remember...

And I don't think it will be THAT bad...

East Midlands Parkway is 32m asl, the M42 south of the airport is around 90m asl. Quite a lot in a short distance - it's surprisingly hilly around there.

The other issue that could affect line speed is excessive point work I guess - but you're the engineer!

 

[swt_passenger]

Wouldn't the significant height difference between the projected route south of EMA and East Midlands Parkway be a problem?

There's a gradient and elevation diagram under the map: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploa...ta/file/69000/hs2-arp-lr0-dr-rt-55092_3-0.pdf

Looks like a few km of viaducts is part of the solution...

 

[Nym]

Kak, I'm on about the new station being built on the route between Notts and Derby, southbound facing out of the HS2 station there, one cord to the "Freight Line" and the other to the four track route in place, this would provide access via looping round into Derby and Nottingham.

And I ain't no Civil Engineer... But the gradients there look like (at most) 10m to climb.

 

[JohnB57]

And I ain't no Civil Engineer...

You always seem reasonably polite...

 

[HSTEd]

HSR in Germany has been considered capable of 4% gradients.
But here we are sticking to UIC specs for no real reason so we are limited to 2.5%.

 

[DXMachina]

You always seem reasonably polite...

The letters (MIET AMIMechE MIEEE(Soon)) suggest a Mechanical Engineer

The difference is that Mechanical engineers build weapons, civil engineers build targets

 

[Nym]

The letters (MIET AMIMechE MIEEE(Soon)) suggest a Mechanical Engineer

The difference is that Mechanical engineers build weapons, civil engineers build targets

Electrical and Mechanical...

I build the targeting systems (Not really, currently I fix trains...)

Civil Engineers dig big holes and pour concrete in them (See: Tottenham Court Road)

I really should take the IEEE one off, really can't be bothered paying $170 for it...

MIET: Member of the Institution of Engineering and Technology
AMIMechE: Associate Member of the Institute of Mechanical Engineers...

Either way, I don't see a massive height difference that can't be overcome for a southern pointing connection from HS2 to Trent Junction (Basically) so one can point trains at Derby and Nottingham. I'd like to see something similar to get stuff towards Doncaster, but I think that's a bit harder to pull off.

 

[Mutant Lemming]

Of the four major cities in the North - one gets a station, another gets a station and a station for it's airport, another gets a station at it's retail park and the other doesn't get a station at all.
I am getting more inclined towards the anti brigade. Can understand why people don't want to pay for something that won't really benefit them or will marginalise their city.

 

[JohnB57]

You always seem reasonably polite...

The letters (MIET AMIMechE MIEEE(Soon)) suggest a Mechanical Engineer

The difference is that Mechanical engineers build weapons, civil engineers build targets

And some fell on stony ground.

 

[steamdrivenand]

And some fell on stony ground.

I'll giggle for you John

 

[Wath Yard]

I accept that Meadowhall, Toton and any other similar location would have limited use. The fact is that they will have rail, road, bus and in Meadowhall's case tram interchange facilities and therefore be far more useful to the whole region.

If you think people are going to be attracted to the proposition of a high speed rail journey and then catching a bus to their destination several miles away you are living in a fantasy world. It's the sort of stuff environmentalists come up with but it isn't what normal people do or would ever consider doing.