No I'm suggesting that single deck trains of 200m would be more sensible which could be doubled up in peak times. This works perfectly well for the SNCF so why not here? People are seriously over estimating the number of customers who will be using HS2 outside of the peak travelling times. I would love to know where people think all these passengers are going to come from. And so would the National Audit Office!
Well for one thing Manchester joins the commuter belt.
This means we willl likely see a reduction in the gradient of house prices as you move north along the line. (Ie. prices should increase near the stations in the North West, equalising with locations south of London).
People will likely live further north and commute using HS2, which could easily generate enormous flows.
And then there is the possibility for reverse peak transits to jobs in Manchester from the South East or from Birmingham
et al.
As to where off peak traffic will come from.... you have to understand just how cheap it will be to travel between the cities, it means that nights at the theatre in the west end have travel costs that are rounding errors, hell it means that students in London can come experience the Manchester nightlife for almost nothing.
A massive cultural shift can be expected, since Manchester ends up somewhere in the vicinity of Northampton or Grantham... firmly within London's orbit and Birmingham ends up somewhere near Northampton.
As to the idea of doubling up 200m sets as they do on SNCF, you have to remember that SNCFs network is
entirelu different.
HSR in France
is about journey times as it can have long double deck trains on its regular network if it wants.
This is about capacity, if you calculate the marginal cost of running a 400m set like a proposed
TGV Grande Capacité instead of a single 200m TGV Duplex set... you end up with the extra seats costing ~£3.85 each
return to Birmingham. (Since you don't have to pay capital costs on the line, on the rolling stock since you already have it for peak reinforcmeent and the train requires no additional staff, it is just energy and track/train maintenance)
Its absurdly cheap.
2 x 200m sets requires extra staff (since you must provide 2 crews with the exception of a second driver), it reduces capacity on the paths, it leaves rolling stock idle and it confuses passengers
