Given that HS1 phase 1 is over 10 years away we may have to do both (some WCML upgrades and HS2) to get us through.
Don`t you mean HS2 phase 1 ?
Given that HS1 phase 1 is over 10 years away we may have to do both (some WCML upgrades and HS2) to get us through.
Most of the WCRM spend was on renewals. If the WCRM had been only renewals (with no enhancements), the disruption probably wouldn't have been that much different.
If the West Coast Main Line were not upgraded in the future, it would be still be disrupted by the need for renewals, to maintain railworthiness.
In much the same way, if HS2 were built, it would inevitably be disrupted by the need for renewals, to maintain its railworthiness.
True, but for both maintenance and renewals HS2 will be designed with much better safer access in mind and will be equipped with bidirectional signalling and better clearances between tracks throughout so one line can be closed at quiet times to enable work to take place whilst traffic is accommodated on the other. As far as civil engineering is concerned, being an all new construction, modern techniques in earthwork soil mechanics and structure design etc should ensure that the route is much less trouble to maintain than the underlying Victorian infrastructure of the existing main line for many many years to come.
If the West Coast Main Line were not upgraded in the future, it would be still be disrupted by the need for renewals, to maintain railworthiness.
In much the same way, if HS2 were built, it would inevitably be disrupted by the need for renewals, to maintain its railworthiness.
If you fill the a 80 seat carriage with 30 people paying £160 one way (peak time cost London->Manchester), that's a total revenue of £4800, and everyone travelling in comfort.
If instead you sell 100 tickets at £40 one way (offpeak cost London->Manchester), you end up with total revenue of £4000 and 20 people standing in an overcrowded carriage.
It's been going on for years.
There is one option: huge upgrade to Chiltern Mainline to take all Birmingham to London express traffic. Use one path to run give a semi fast service to stations that would lose out and give the remaining two paths for extra services to the north / Scotland.
I am a strong supporter of HS2 but I admit the capacity could be scraped together for another decade or so of growth but with the consquence of less reliable and slower services.
Travel to and from Euston isn't even 5% of national rail journeys. So HS2's potential to accommodate future demand growth, is more than a little exaggerated
In much the same way, if HS2 were built, it would inevitably be disrupted by the need for renewals, to maintain its railworthiness.
There is one option: huge upgrade to Chiltern Mainline to take all Birmingham to London express traffic. Use one path to run give a semi fast service to stations that would lose out and give the remaining two paths for extra services to the north / Scotland. Really clutching at straws would be to run 2 out of 3 Manchester services via Hope Valley and non stop from Sheffield to London. I imagine allot of work would be required to gain the extra capacity and get the speed to 2 hours 30 mins. I imagine the current service 2 hours 10 mins would be nearly impossible. East Coast Main Line has some decent options left, 4 tracking Welwyn for instance but its not the main problem. Perhaps standardising all WCML services at 110 mph with the same stopping pattern south of Crewe would create more paths but cause a huge time penalty.
I am a strong supporter of HS2 but I admit the capacity could be scraped together for another decade or so of growth but with the consquence of less reliable and slower services.
True, but for both maintenance and renewals HS2 will be designed with much better safer access in mind and will be equipped with bidirectional signalling and better clearances between tracks throughout so one line can be closed at quiet times to enable work to take place whilst traffic is accommodated on the other. As far as civil engineering is concerned, being an all new construction, modern techniques in earthwork soil mechanics and structure design etc should ensure that the route is much less trouble to maintain than the underlying Victorian infrastructure of the existing main line for many many years to come.
Now this is on a route built in the Victorian times, that has suffered greatly over its lifetime. So you have for example drainage that has fallen into disrepair and caused formation failure leading to more time consuming and expensive renewals, you have structures which modern renewal techniques (ie high output) aren't suitable for, areas where your maintainence is limited because of sighting due to curvature of the track, you have a track bed which wasn't designed with the current tonnage and linespeed in mind etc etc. So your always trying to fight your railway which makes maintainence and renewal more expensive. Despite this as I said we get away without WCRM disruption.
Now take HS2 (this is where your point about renewal falls down even further). You have a railway which is being designed from the ground up without the constraints of running on a Victorian alignment through Victorian structures. You can design it fit for purpose such that it supports for example high output throughout, it has suitable drainage throughout, the maintainer has complete asset records from the start and can have a fully optimised maintainence and renewals plan which isn't disruptive, maintains asset condition and doesn't cost as much as on the classics network. You can work to a plan which represents the best whole life cost because your not trying to firefight legacy issues which form a large part of daily life for the maintainer on the national network.
Sorry for the wall of text.
More targeted investment where it really matters would provide far better returns than giving London yet another railway.
Yes, growth has been about 2.5%. But this won't last. As we begin to see continued reductions on so called busy lines, the already weak case for HS2 crumbles .
This is why a review is needed. Re-examining the case anew could open up far more innovative solutions in the regions than the "London only" thinking we're currently lumbered with.
Don`t you mean HS2 phase 1 ?
I almost fell off much chair. That's a load of rubbish. Because of WCRM budget constraints in the south many of the track renewal were just components and skim dig it might be mainly a G44 CEN60 railway but the track bed was generally not improved. This means now that WCML south is have major issues with formation failure. A very large part of their conventional renewals are ROW 12 (formation only).
Travelling in Switzerland and Austria last week I was impressed by how flexible their layouts were, and how line speeds are matched to requirements.
Fast running into platforms for instance. How about that at Crewe, Preston, Carlisle etc?
We waste limited capacity on restrictive approach control.
Not to mention day-time maintenance using bi-di signalling.
It's one thing to say "look at what they've got there". However, what isn't being considered in that statement is "how did they get it to be like that?"
Hi, do you have a source to support the claim most of the WCRM money was spent on renewals?
WCRM did a lot of enhancement work and remodelling. S&C renewals weren't done like for like, lots of new RT60 layouts which allowed a higher line speed replacing older timber layouts etc this still constitutes an enhancement. The whole route had to be enhanced to support increased increased line speeds and vastly increased tonnage.
You can't pick up WCRM as an example of disruption caused by routine renewals.
Now take HS2 (this is where your point about renewal falls down even further). You have a railway which is being designed from the ground up without the constraints of running on a Victorian alignment through Victorian structures. You can design it fit for purpose such that it supports for example high output throughout, it has suitable drainage throughout, the maintainer has complete asset records from the start and can have a fully optimised maintainence and renewals plan which isn't disruptive, maintains asset condition and doesn't cost as much as on the classics network. You can work to a plan which represents the best whole life cost because your not trying to firefight legacy issues which form a large part of daily life for the maintainer on the national network.
However 'they got it to be like that', it's not from building high speed lines. In the case of Austria, it's likely that a lot of the mileage would have benefited from post-WW2 damage reconstruction.
However 'they got it to be like that', it's not from building high speed lines. In the case of Austria, it's likely that a lot of the mileage would have benefited from post-WW2 damage reconstruction.
Paragraph 2.35
In many instances, the disruption involved in better-than-before and like-for-like, would have been much the same. So in those cases, the upgrade disruption would have been, in effect, zero.
I didn't claim otherwise, fairly irrelevant to my point
You can pick up WCRM as an example of disruption caused by backlogged renewals.
Again irrelevant to my point which was about the disruption in future caused by renewals, or lack of as to comply with policy average asset age needs to be maintained. You can maintain something designed for a purpose (HS2) more cheaply than an asset that's suffered underinvestment, has areas of ageing components not designed for the line speeds and tonage that are using it with often inadequate drainage that causes many maintainence issues. (Despite this its maintained without major disruption).
High output plant, like Robel Mobile Maintenance Systems etc, would offer much the same benefits when used on 100-year old routes, as when used on HS2.
The Robel mobile maintainence system isn't high output plant. I'm talking TRS and BCS. These are much more efficient working on a railway designed to allow their use fully, not having to worry about structures with insufficient clearance or that don't have the structural integrity to allow them to work over. If you have a probably constructed formation with sufficient drainage to could do all your renewals (components and ballas) with high output machines, vastly reducing your renewal costs. you cannot do that on the national network now.
It's reasonable to assume that HS1 is more stable down below the ballast than the legacy lines. How that plays out in terms of total maintenance costs and practices, is completely unknown.
Rubbish, a properly designed and drained track bed will be much cheaper to maintain, you get full life out of your components and ballast and not have to spend large sums on reactive maintainence
All HS2 regular maintenance would have to be done at night, and even with high power lamps, there is likely to be some productivity penalty. All the tunnels must also impact the maintainability bill.
Night time doesn't really impact productivity, also a large proportion of maintainence on the national network is done at night. I would imagine the tunnels will be slab tracked as such require little maintainence
No, the point is that it was either designed in from the start, or significant disruption/spend occurred to make it happen. I'm expecting that it was the former, and wasn't done with weekend and bank-holiday possessions.
I didn't claim otherwise, fairly irrelevant to my point...Night time doesn't really impact productivity, also a large proportion of maintainence on the national network is done at night. I would imagine the tunnels will be slab tracked as such require little maintainence
Austria and Switzerland don't have bank holidays as such. The idea that 100+ year old infrastructure in those countries was 'designed from the start' for bi-directional working, 15kV ac electrification, etc, is a bit of a stretch.
Austria and Switzerland don't have bank holidays as such. The idea that 100+ year old infrastructure in those countries was 'designed from the start' for bi-directional working, 15kV ac electrification, etc, is a bit of a stretch.
That is your opinion. There are no figures setting out the annual cost of maintaining 1 mile of HS1, and 1 mile of West Coast track, or how long it takes to change damaged ohle or whatever.
The small number of junctions and crossovers would also make it possible to have lighting and even tool power supplies pre installed at the worksite, allowing maintenance to commence immediately upon the line being blocked.
Also, worksite protection, warning and power isolation facilities can be built into the signalling and control ecosystem throughout the new route, so taking possessions and applying protection can be a very quick and simple process rather than the planning and form filling nightmare it is on the classic network, again allowing more productive work to take place within the time available.
Nice idea, increases land grab though.I wonder if anyone has proposed building the two lines further apart with a barrier in between so that they can operate entirely independently, apart from at crossovers.
Might impede plant access though.
The increased capacity means more options for services on the existing lineHS2 is all bad news for the following:
It will cause huge economic woes for some cities (HS2 tried to hide the fact).
IMidland and Northern cities which will either get a slower service, less frequent service or worse trains when traffic is diverted via HS2.
This is a bit of a lie. High speeds don't need more energy - cruise requies a comparatively small amount of energy. What needs more energy is more accelleration and deceleration. By taking out all those areas where it needs to slow down and speed back up again - Towns, Curves, Steep hills, you reduce CO2.CO2 emissions are high as it's top speed needs so much energy.
Connectivity with lenghy walks/tram trips are needed at many stations isn't ideal.
The job of transport is not taking people from where they're not to where you think they should go, its to take them from where they are to where they want to go.The cost is not worth it, the money would be better spread into reopening lines and making tramways.
A small slither, that eventually would be replaced with a 7 lane motorway if we don't build it....Ancient woodland which stands to be destroyed is an irreplaceable loss
The trains are already very long, so we're looking at clearing huge parts of Real estate to build these new platforms. Given the central location of these stations, that isn't going to be cheap, nor easy, even if there's not a bunch of heratage orders preventing it.I'm sure improvements can be made to platform lengths, signals, timetables and infrastructure to avoid building a new line into Euston .
I love how people say 'something' can be done without specifying what exactly 'something' is, and at the same time ignore the opinions of professionals who would already have considered and dismissed the 'something' option.I'm sure improvements can be made to platform lengths, signals, timetables and infrastructure to avoid building a new line into Euston .
I love how people say 'something' can be done without specifying what exactly 'something' is, and at the same time ignore the opinions of professionals who would already have considered and dismissed the 'something' option.
It isn't at all clear why it would be possible to vastly increase capacity of existing lines south of the Thames by upgrading, but not possible on 80-odd miles of track out of Euston. Timetable re-casts, higher capacity rolling stock, re-signalling, grade separation, longer platforms, and use of alternative existing routes, are all perfectly viable options, which have been used elsewhere to increase capacity.
Thanks for splicing the end of my quotes together, missing most of my answer. Having worked in track maintainence and renewals I can say that planning norms don't change depending on weather it's night or day. You might not have the figures but they exist. Maintaining a brand new (well decade or so old ) railway built to high speed standards will be cheaper than something where your often fire fighting and having to keep assets going long through open than is optimal. Because your building new you can maintain and renew in a way which gives you the best whole life cost. Something which isn't always possible on the existing infrastructure
Do you want to pay for the extra real estate needed to expand Euston, etc to fit these longer platforms?
2x 25.1m + 23.9m *9 = 265m long for a Pendolino. How many cars are you planning for the SuperLongLino?
Euston expansion is only required for the HS2 scheme. Any train with 25-metre carriages, such as the IEP, would seat around 700 passengers with the existing platform lengths.