HS2 Review ongoing

[Max]

If the HS2 Review did not take into account the effect of it on regional aviation, then there would have been something seriously amiss with it. So I don't see how discussing this aspect is even a smidgeon off topic.

That may be your opinion but perhaps if you have an issue with a moderating decision in future you'd be better off contacting me directly about it rather than disagreeing so publicly? I do agree with you that there are clear links between the case for HS2 and the future of domestic flights, however from where I'm standing the discussion had deviated off aviation in the context of HS2 and was starting to head towards solely discussing domestic aviation, which is clearly not ideal. Good to see that subsequent posts have steered things back towards the topic in hand, so thank you to those that did heed my post.

 

[Yindee8191]

I got the opportunity to quiz my local Green Party candidate on HS2 before the election and he was utterly clueless on it. He gave the usual weak talking points about it being a white elephant or being environmentally damaging, so I asked him simply how he would solve the WCML capacity problem without HS2. He clearly had no idea what I was talking about. It seems to me that most Green Party members who are anti-HS2 don’t really know anything about railways, but oppose HS2 out of either NIMBYism or a lack of understanding of it.

 

[PartyOperator]

I got the opportunity to quiz my local Green Party candidate on HS2 before the election and he was utterly clueless on it. He gave the usual weak talking points about it being a white elephant or being environmentally damaging, so I asked him simply how he would solve the WCML capacity problem without HS2. He clearly had no idea what I was talking about. It seems to me that most Green Party members who are anti-HS2 don’t really know anything about railways, but oppose HS2 out of either NIMBYism or a lack of understanding of it.

Not just the WCML (which is basically two railways between Rugby and Preston) but the MML and ECML and eastern parts of XC network too. Being really fast lets a 350 mile railway relieve capacity on all the busy north-south lines, west and east. Hard to come up with a project that gives more capacity for less construction.

 

[Bald Rick]

However it should be noted that domestic air travel had been falling (and often switching to rail) for some time. As such a 20% to 30% (of those flows to places which benefit most from HS2) shift could be entirely possible and so you could be looking at 1.5 million to 2.2 million fewer air passengers.

The reason domestic air travel has been falling is principally down to three factors:

1) the increase in frequency, capacity and/or reduction in journey time for the rail links up against almost all of the major air flows in the country (London to Manchester / Leeds / Newcastle / Edinburgh / Glasgow).

2) the increase in costs of domestic air travel due to air passenger duty.

3) the increase in effective domestic air journey time due to increased air security post the 2006 ‘liquids’ bomb attempt.

HS2 will further enhance (1). But don’t be under the impression that domestic air traffic has been reducing naturally without ‘pressure’ from other factors.

Heathrow-Manchester is all the way down to about 7 a day now, and if Easyjet ran flights from Stansted they've already gone.

Slight embarrassment - I saw an EZY flight STN-MAN on google flights, but evidently I hadn’t specified non-stop It was via Belfast.

The important part of all of this is that HS2 will capture a decent share of London -Scotland central belt traffic, and with trains stopping at Manchester there is the potential to kill off the handful of Manchester - LHR flights (in combination with Manchester becoming more of a long haul airport itself). However it will absolutely not kill off domestic aviation.

 

[WatcherZero]

I would add:
4) The high cost of slots at British airports when they could be more productively used for other services. Domestic air travel outside London is almost entirely confined to the smaller regional airports which have cheaper/vacant landing slots.

E.g. If I wanted to Fly Manchester to Bristol I would generally be routed via Dublin or even Amsterdam!

 

[The Ham]

I got the opportunity to quiz my local Green Party candidate on HS2 before the election and he was utterly clueless on it. He gave the usual weak talking points about it being a white elephant or being environmentally damaging, so I asked him simply how he would solve the WCML capacity problem without HS2. He clearly had no idea what I was talking about. It seems to me that most Green Party members who are anti-HS2 don’t really know anything about railways, but oppose HS2 out of either NIMBYism or a lack of understanding of it.

There's a lot of anti HS2 catchphrases, if you challenge on those catchphrases there's little to back it up.

It's a White Elephant - how is it that if it's due to have ~100 million passengers a year? Especially given that growth is ahead of predictions.

It's not going to be carbon neutral over 120 years - this is only based on the construction, however this is circa 1,500,000 tonnes, this compares with the 330,000 times which the strategic road network creates each and every year in maintenance and operation. As such why is there nothing being said about reducing road milage if HS2 is such a problem?

Most of the benefits are from businesses and use high prices (i.e. only high paid people) - the business benefits are based on charge out rates, which are MUCH higher than the staff pay.

It's why those who have objections to HS2 are unlikely to have much bearing on the review as they are making claims which are so easily overturned.

 

[The Ham]

The reason domestic air travel has been falling is principally down to three factors:

1) the increase in frequency, capacity and/or reduction in journey time for the rail links up against almost all of the major air flows in the country (London to Manchester / Leeds / Newcastle / Edinburgh / Glasgow).

2) the increase in costs of domestic air travel due to air passenger duty.

3) the increase in effective domestic air journey time due to increased air security post the 2006 ‘liquids’ bomb attempt.

HS2 will further enhance (1). But don’t be under the impression that domestic air traffic has been reducing naturally without ‘pressure’ from other factors.



Slight embarrassment - I saw an EZY flight STN-MAN on google flights, but evidently I hadn’t specified non-stop It was via Belfast.

The important part of all of this is that HS2 will capture a decent share of London -Scotland central belt traffic, and with trains stopping at Manchester there is the potential to kill off the handful of Manchester - LHR flights (in combination with Manchester becoming more of a long haul airport itself). However it will absolutely not kill off domestic aviation.

I would add:
4) The high cost of slots at British airports when they could be more productively used for other services. Domestic air travel outside London is almost entirely confined to the smaller regional airports which have cheaper/vacant landing slots.

E.g. If I wanted to Fly Manchester to Bristol I would generally be routed via Dublin or even Amsterdam!

In not suggesting that HS2 will kill of domestic flights nor am I suggesting that other factors aren't impacting on the amount of air travel.

The point I was making was that you'd only need to impact on a few routes in the London/elsewhere market to better the 1 million passengers expected to switch form air travel to HS2, those routes are the ones which would likely most benefit from HS2.

Outside of London the following also happen which could also be impacted by HS2:
Birmingham/Central Belt ~500,000
Manchester/Southampton ~220,000
Newcastle/Southampton ~117,000

Birmingham/Central Belt journey times are likely to fall from 4 hours to around 3:20.
Manchester/Southampton journey times are likely to fall from about 4:15 to around 2:45.
Newcastle/Southampton journey times are likely to fall from 5:30 to around 4 hours.

(Note journey times from Southampton using HS2 have been calculated by adding current journey times to Paddington to HS2 journey times from Euston, as such there's likely to be some margin of error with actual times when services start, however are likely to be a reasonable benchmark comparison).

Also both the Southampton routes are likely to see an increase in frequency making them more attractive in that regard as well.

Now clearly that's only 8 million out of 23 million passengers which currently use domestic flights. However airlines like to want to be quite efficient and so it may not require much of a drop for routes to be cut.

Manchester/Southampton could see a noticeable drop given that is likely to be sub 3 hours after HS2. Such a drop would likely result in fewer flights which would then in turn result in yet fewer air passengers.

A future scheme to speed up Crewe to Central Belt times would likely see further drops in air passengers.

The other big factor to consider is that 15% of people make up 70% of air travel in any given year. This is likely to mean that relatively few people are making up a large proportion of those air passengers. You only need a fairly small number of people to stop flying (due to environmental concerns, retirement, death, etc.) and it could have a significant impact on air travel.

Chances are that as companies become more environmentally friendly, and with less of a time difference due to HS2 and more of a viable option with Skype, that they could well look at putting in place significant flight restrictions.

For instance if you're a company which sees most of its CO2 emissions from transport. If you've got a few people flying fairly regularly between offices and HS2 means that the average time saving is 30 minutes of you fly then you may well accept the "lost" time if it reduces your CO2 emissions. Especially if you reduce the numbers of trips made by using Skype, which gains you a lot of time back.

There's also going to be a generation who will be very keen to be green, they are probably just about to start to be getting into significant roles within companies just as those who are less favourable towards rail travel are starting to be retiring in significant numbers. Their voices are likely to be applying pressure to reduce business air travel.

If businesses turn away from air travel, as there's a viable alternative in the form of HS2, then it's not that unlikely that those 8 million passenger movements could likely fall by 25%, with 50% being a possibility.

However if there's taxes applied to the CO2 emissions generated by companies and their activities then I'd expect that fall to be much, much higher even if the value was fairly low. It would certainly make the likes of BA do things like code share with TOC's and Heathrow to remove the support that they give to regional routes.

The difficult domestic routes to deal with are those to Northern Ireland. Which do make up a lot of the remaining 15 million domestic air passengers makes up about 6 million, with a significant amount (somewhere around 2 million) of the remainder being from those going to the Channel Islands.

Whilst neither of these are likely to be fixed by rail any time soon (and may actually go up in the short term as people move away from long distance holiday travel) if we can get from 23 million down to 19 million (a 50% fall due to HS2 on routes which it impacts on, even if some of that fall is down to other factors on other routes) that's going to make some significant inroads to our domestic air travel CO2 emissions.

 

[JKF]

Surely a lot of the the demand for Manchester - London flights are for people making onward international flights, so unless rail can take them direct to the terminal then air may retain a lot of business just from a convenience point of view.

 

[Bletchleyite]

OOC gets pretty close.

 

[Chester1]

Surely a lot of the the demand for Manchester - London flights are for people making onward international flights, so unless rail can take them direct to the terminal then air may retain a lot of business just from a convenience point of view.

Exactly. BA operates the Heathrow - Manchester service almost entirely to feed its long haul services. Unless you are traveling from somewhere with good links to Manchester Airport to an area near to Heathrow then the service is not competitive. The convience of checking luggage in and going through security at Manchester and just waiting airside at the terminal at Heathrow is very hard for rail travel to beat. BAs real competitors for London - Manchester flights are flights from Manchester direct to the final destination or via an alternative hub.

 

[The Ham]

Exactly. BA operates the Heathrow - Manchester service almost entirely to feed its long haul services. Unless you are traveling from somewhere with good links to Manchester Airport to an area near to Heathrow then the service is not competitive. The convience of checking luggage in and going through security at Manchester and just waiting airside at the terminal at Heathrow is very hard for rail travel to beat. BAs real competitors for London - Manchester flights are flights from Manchester direct to the final destination or via an alternative hub.

Yet Manchester Gatwick no longer exists, which is comparable time at 3:20.

The reason why there's so many Heathrow domestic flights is because there's £20 million of support. It wouldn't take much of a change of government rules to restrict airlines being able to only be supported for routes if there's no viable alternitve surface transport option.

To stop going via another hub airport the air duty could be changed so that any through booking was taxed as it had left from the UK. That could lead to split ticketing coming into play, however with the risk of missing connections being much worse with flying I'd guess that few would risk it.

 

[Ianno87]

OOC gets pretty close.

It's basically no different to getting a train to a 'Heathrow HS2' station then changing for a monorail/shuttle to one of the terminals from there.

 

[AndrewE]

It's basically no different to getting a train to a 'Heathrow HS2' station then changing for a monorail/shuttle to one of the terminals from there.

It will be about a 20 minute journey though, so maybe a bit long to be described as a "shuttle?"

 

[AM9]

It will be about a 20 minute journey though, so maybe a bit long to be described as a "shuttle?"

It can take 20 minuites platform to platform to go from T2 to T4, andthat is a shuttle.

 

[jayah]

Not just the WCML (which is basically two railways between Rugby and Preston) but the MML and ECML and eastern parts of XC network too. Being really fast lets a 350 mile railway relieve capacity on all the busy north-south lines, west and east. Hard to come up with a project that gives more capacity for less construction.

I will propose extending the SW-NE Cross Country services from 4 to 9 cars.

More than doubles the standard seating capacity at the expense of only a few places where the current train occupies part of a shared platform.

 

[HSTEd]

Trackage that allows trains to reach Curzon Street from South West of Birmingham, or that allows one to proceed from New Street to HS2 would do a great deal.

But that (probably) requires upgrades on the conventional lines, and HS2 was probably terrified of getting that upgrade lumped into their budget too.

It also depends if 250km/h is fast enough to be allowed onto the less densely loaded sections of HS2 north of Birmingham - because there are no electrodiesels faster than that.

 

[The Ham]

Trackage that allows trains to reach Curzon Street from South West of Birmingham, or that allows one to proceed from New Street to HS2 would do a great deal.

But that (probably) requires upgrades on the conventional lines, and HS2 was probably terrified of getting that upgrade lumped into their budget too.

It also depends if 250km/h is fast enough to be allowed onto the less densely loaded sections of HS2 north of Birmingham - because there are no electrodiesels faster than that.

Given that it would be limited to a few paths it probably wouldn't cause too much of a problem, especially if the Southern end is going to be limited to below the previously listed 18tph.

 

[MarkyT]

It also depends if 250km/h is fast enough to be allowed onto the less densely loaded sections of HS2 north of Birmingham - because there are no electrodiesels faster than that.

Given that it would be limited to a few paths it probably wouldn't cause too much of a problem, especially if the Southern end is going to be limited to below the previously listed 18tph.

Or attach a diesel loco at Curzon Street (with auto-couplers incorporating brake and control lines for speed of operations) for push-pull haulage of sets south thereof on XC lines to South Coast and West Country. If wires eventually extend further south/west the traction change could occur elsewhere of course. Attached is my latest idea for Curzon Street throat changes, with new connections to conventional lines:

 

[HowardGWR]

I see on your diagram Mark, that the yellow lines indicate grade separation. Is that right and how much of those would be new construction? (i don't know exactly how much legacy infrastructure exists there).

 

[MarkyT]

I see on your diagram Mark, that the yellow lines indicate grade separation. Is that right and how much of those would be new construction? (i don't know exactly how much legacy infrastructure exists there).

Sorry for taking so long to reply but needed to get back to a proper computer screen rather than struggling with searches on my tiny phone. Here is a link to a post I made in this thread in October that shows the rough alignment overlaid on Google Earth. Note the WCML line into New Street is diverted to fit with the grade separation approaching Curzon Street.
https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/hs2-review-ongoing.190760/page-14#post-4232793

 

[MarkyT]

... the yellow lines indicate grade separation.

Correct. I've adjusted the area where the diverted WCML fast lines go into New Street as I think this would inevitably have to pass OVER the Aston Cross City line as close to the Curzon Street throat as possible. I've kept the existing Proof House flyover to maintain as much directional grade separation as possible on the slow pair. I've shown some signal routes set to show the kind of simultaneous movement possibilities that exist in this very flexible layout.

 

[The Planner]

Not sure why the Up Derby has suddenly moved next to the Stours, the Vauxhall chord and Grand Jn have gone too, which means you cannot have a XC out the low numbered platforms to the Camp Hills nor a Walsall towards Duddeston.

 

[jagardner1984]

I would have thought the only thing that will really make a difference to the HS2 / Domestic Air conversation is taxation. HS2 in terms of capacity much more than anything else seems the logical, considered thing to proceed with.

I suspect politically the new government will need to bend its HS2 position a bit towards those voters it’s just gained who have bought into the “its all London centric, scrap it, get £95billion a year to spend in Leeds” lines from the Brexit Party amongst others.

But the economics and Business case is based on the current funding/passenger numbers and taxation regimes for Air and Rail.

If common sense were to apply, a 150% compulsory carbon offsetting to all long distance travel, combined with a Green Travel levy on environmentally bad choices (domestic air, long distance road travel by SUV (some form of road pricing), diesel rail travel, cruise travel) would be the fastest way to accelerate expenditure on green travel projects, electrification schemes and simply, to start to eliminate bad choices across all forms of transport. (Some of the data on the cruise industry and its growth is absolutely jaw dropping). Given a lot of the environmental damage caused by aviation is in take off and landing, such a policy would also make direct flights to international destinations from regional airports much more economically viable for operators, as the levies applied to a direct flight abroad would be noticeably less on a modern, high efficiency aircraft than on a series of feeder flights on old inefficient aircraft into hub airports such as LHR or LGW.

Obviously there would have to be sensible exemptions / reductions for those living in island communities, and perhaps the “one holiday a year” type policies some of the parties were promoting at the election.

But as we know, common sense and travel infrastructure planning aren’t often words you utter together.

 

[MarkyT]

Not sure why the Up Derby has suddenly moved next to the Stours, the Vauxhall chord and Grand Jn have gone too, which means you cannot have a XC out the low numbered platforms to the Camp Hills nor a Walsall towards Duddeston.

I agree that area needs some more work. The new up Derby connection is shown using the existing Proof House flyover to gain a new grade separation. The flyover could become redundant if a retained flat junction was acceptable. With the diverted Stours so close to the Curzon St throat, retaining the Vauxhall chord connection to Aston would probably be a struggle, so a revised flat junction crossing the Down Stour might be necessary. Clearly that would introduce new constraints but that might be acceptable in the larger scheme of things.

 

[Chester1]

I suspect politically the new government will need to bend its HS2 position a bit towards those voters it’s just gained who have bought into the “its all London centric, scrap it, get £95billion a year to spend in Leeds” lines from the Brexit Party amongst others.

The politics are not that simple. There has already been pro HS2 lobbying by new Tory MPs and Labour Metro mayors. I think some sort of HS2 stasis would be the obvious political choice. The political cost of cancelling any of it (especially phase 2) is now high for the Tories. At the same the politics of building it at the new cost are too difficult. Saying lets continue with the planning, legal side and enabling works but delay major authorisations until after the next general election to focus on more intermediate infrastructure problems would be a reasonable idea to sell (even though its not the best of ideas in reality).

 

[jagardner1984]

I suppose part of the problem here is that decisions on UK high speed rail are about 60 years behind our neighbours, so any further kicking into the long grass is just another head in hands moment for anyone who wants to see some green infrastructure development.

One wonders if this had been pitched as a new double track/four track railway alongside the WCML /ECML, with additional station / platform capacity, designed to allow higher speeds / fewer stops and a huge capacity increase on lines everyone can see are full, whether their would have been quite as much procrastination on this topic.

One also wonders if the issue with the existing main lines is the mixed traffic usage slowing down the higher speed traffic, whether in fact an investment in longer passing loops, slow lines would relieve some of the congestion and remove some of the political toxicity around the project.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

I suppose part of the problem here is that decisions on UK high speed rail are about 60 years behind our neighbours, so any further kicking into the long grass is just another head in hands moment for anyone who wants to see some green infrastructure development.

I think there is a slight exaggeration here. 60 years ago would have been December 1959. At that time, even the original High Speed line in Japan was 5 years into the future, and Europe was about 25 years away from building anything of significance.

One wonders if this had been pitched as a new double track/four track railway alongside the WCML /ECML, with additional station / platform capacity, designed to allow higher speeds / fewer stops and a huge capacity increase on lines everyone can see are full, whether their would have been quite as much procrastination on this topic.

If you mean purely in terms of marketing HS2 by emphasising capacity rather than speed, while still keeping the current HS2 plans, then yes, it's obvious that there would have been much less opposition, and that would have been a more sensible political strategy. Whether that would have translated into faster building is a bit hard to say - unlikely to have made a year or so's difference I would have thought because the process of planning and costing and getting legal approval and so on still has to be done.

If you mean, literally, building HS2 as a pair of extra tracks alongside the WCML - not a chance! The numbers of buildings that would have to be knocked down alone would make the project far more expensive and less viable.

One also wonders if the issue with the existing main lines is the mixed traffic usage slowing down the higher speed traffic, whether in fact an investment in longer passing loops, slow lines would relieve some of the congestion and remove some of the political toxicity around the project.

Passing loops don't make that much difference on an overcrowded railway - because once a train has passed another one on the loop, it still has to somehow find a new path to thread itself back into once the passing loop ends - and there just aren't many paths available on the WCML. Passing loops make more of a difference when the line has lots of spare capacity - so it's easy to find paths to fit trains into - but you just have the problem of fast trains needing to overtake. That's not really the problem on the WCML.

 

[The Ham]

I think there is a slight exaggeration here. 60 years ago would have been December 1959. At that time, even the original High Speed line in Japan was 5 years into the future, and Europe was about 25 years away from building anything of significance.

It's also worth pointing out that although it's worth looking at what others are doing the building of HS2 isn't anything to do with "they have it so should we" and nor should it be.

In fact it could be argued that most other countries would build a line to Manchester and a line to Leeds and not try and get one line to do both things.

Personally I wouldn't be surprised if within a few years of HS2 being built that further "new intercity lines" were being looked at to be added to the rail network.

 

[jagardner1984]

Sorry, my earlier post was ambiguous, I as meaning the decision phase rather than the construction phase. My point being the need to get people from A to B in a faster manner was acknowledged and being understood around that time, with the rest of the time used to get things built. We are in the slightly ridiculous position of spending billions of pounds and making television documentaries of construction work at Euston, OOC and other places, and then for cheap political gain spending more money considering canning the whole thing.

Whilst some minor tweaking is obviously inevitable as a project goes on, as was recently discussed in the field of defence spending and why it is so inefficient and associated with such cost overruns and time delays, rethinking or reworking the whole project part way through and making additional / different demands of the project team, is precisely why HS2 will go over budget and be delayed beyond its original goals.

I didn’t mean literally building a railway alongside the WCML and ECML, I simply meant that simply getting new railway between a London terminal and Birmingham, Manchester and elsewhere, with walking connectivity to other destinations served by those existing stations (ie put the new railway in them, under them or near them) would have been far easier understood by the “general public”. Any speed increase of this new railway would be an advantage not the main reasoning. That is and should always have been about capacity.

 

[SamYeager]

I didn’t mean literally building a railway alongside the WCML and ECML, I simply meant that simply getting new railway between a London terminal and Birmingham, Manchester and elsewhere, with walking connectivity to other destinations served by those existing stations (ie put the new railway in them, under them or near them) would have been far easier understood by the “general public”. Any speed increase of this new railway would be an advantage not the main reasoning. That is and should always have been about capacity.

As I recall a major justification for HS2 originally was that it would remove the need for runway 3 at Heathrow and as such was really a political ploy by the Tory party against the Labour party leading into the 2010 election. This is probably why the speed element was emphasised in the first place rather than capacity. I personally feel that both are needed but let's not get sidetracked discussing Heathrow capacity.