HSUK vs HS2

[Bald Rick]

For comparison, there are around 2 million flights a year between the London airports and Edinburgh and Glasgow each (4 million total). A single London airport will probably match the Euston total for Glasgow. A lot to be hoovered up. Assuming 4,000 operating hours a year for simplicity, that is 1,000 an hour or 500 per direction. You can imagine that HSUK superfasts to London Euston and Heathrow would soak up a lot of traffic. And the freed up domestic slots would allow for more heavy widebody aircraft to wider international destinations; this is strategic thinking in action.

It’s 2.6m air passengers (not flights) to Edinburgh and 2m to Glasgow. Both rather less than they were 20 years ago as the rail service is much better and the number of flights much reduced.

The freed up slots would only be used by widebodies at Heathrow and (possibly) Gatwick. But a high proportion of Heathrow - Glasgow / Edinburgh fliers are transfer passengers to/from long haul at Heathrow, so these flights would mostly remain. This is exactly what has happened with Manchester flights.

 

[BogiePicker]

It’s 2.6m air passengers (not flights) to Edinburgh and 2m to Glasgow. Both rather less than they were 20 years ago as the rail service is much better and the number of flights much reduced.

The freed up slots would only be used by widebodies at Heathrow and (possibly) Gatwick. But a high proportion of Heathrow - Glasgow / Edinburgh fliers are transfer passengers to/from long haul at Heathrow, so these flights would mostly remain. This is exactly what has happened with Manchester flights.

Yes, the word should have been passengers indeed and my argument proceeded on the basis of using that term (as opposed to nearly half a billion passengers between London and Scotland - but I suppose one could also semantically interpret as 'individual flights' = journeys). But HSUK proposes direct Scotland - Heathrow - Gatwick HSR services to cater precisely to this. A lot of the large continental European airports have very good rail connectivity and some even have proper HSR services, Frankfurt springs to mind, and I believe I've seen something about DB-Lufthansa cooperation. The other thing is that if the 500k Glasgow Central - Euston figure previously provided is correct, there's a good bit more to go.

 

[Bald Rick]

Yes, the word should have been passengers indeed and my argument proceeded on the basis of using that term (as opposed to nearly half a billion passengers between London and Scotland - but I suppose one could also semantically interpret as 'individual flights' = journeys). But HSUK proposes direct Scotland - Heathrow - Gatwick HSR services to cater precisely to this. A lot of the large continental European airports have very good rail connectivity and some even have proper HSR services, Frankfurt springs to mind, and I believe I've seen something about DB-Lufthansa cooperation. The other thing is that if the 500k Glasgow Central - Euston figure previously provided is correct, there's a good bit more to go.

I think you are missing the point that the incremental revenue gained from HSUK would fall rather a long way short of the incrementsl cost of building it compared to HS2.

 

[Trainbike46]

HS2 is my preferred one here:
-Route via Birmingham/West midlands makes sense
-More realistic that it will actually get built
-Including Eastern leg it connects most major population centres to each other (though NPR/HS3 needed as well for connections within the North)

Of course, HS2 isn't perfect, I would have liked a through station in Birmingham Manchester for example. For Birmingham that ship has definitely sailed. For Manchester and Leeds, change might be possible as part of a reinstatement of the cancelled bits.

HS2 is a start, not the end, of an improved railway in the UK
HSUK by contrast, feels more like a scheme to get HS2 cancelled, to only then realise that all of HS2's problems apply more strongly to it - leading to no HSR at all

 

[HSTEd]

I personally believe that HS2 has poisoned the well on significant new rail infrastructure for a long time.

NPR appears to be more or less dead, it simply hasn't stopped moving yet.
Fundamentally I think the scheme was overly ambitious, seemed to follow a flawed optimisation process, and then suffered from a catalogue of mismanagement and problems.

For just one example, see the initiation of an unwinnable legal action against the EU, seeking to force a rewrite of the Technical Specifications for Interoperability.
Or the phasing that didn't seem to consider Phase 2 might get cancelled or delayed.

 

[BogiePicker]

I think you are missing the point that the incremental revenue gained from HSUK would fall rather a long way short of the incrementsl cost of building it compared to HS2.

The case for an 'HSUK Scottish extension' (York - Glasgow via Edinburgh) would not rest on the Heathwick flights alone; I showed a 500/hr/dir and HSUK would only send 1tph from Scotland/NE to Heathwick. It was adduced 1) to contrast with the 500k Glasgow Euston figure 2) to show an additional though not sufficiently justifying advantage of the 'eastern' route.

I also would have thought that BCR, rather than commercial revenue, would have been the deciding factor in any such scheme. Whether one judges that faster rail connections to Scotland/NE are worthwhile or not, it's clear HS2 has taken it seriously as well. My view is that the HSUK approach of aggregating all flows thereto on a single axis (not just from London & its airports, but from Cross Country and Transpennine) is superior to the HS2 approach which would require upgrading both East and West (for Newcastle at the very least) and dilute frequencies since Edinburgh and Glasgow paths up the west coast would be mutually exclusive.