More Delay for HS2, and how should we proceed?

[TheManOnThe172]

As it will be seat reservations only, isn’t it all fixed train tickets?

The station plans are out, with bench placements, etc.

Those with flexible tickets can afford to cut it reasonably fine, in the expectation that they can transfer to a later train with only a time penalty if they miss their HS2. Those with fixed-train tickets face a big financial penalty for missing their HS2. So they will rationally plan to arrive with plenty of time in hand and therefore take up waiting space at OOC for much longer.

 

[mmh]

As it will be seat reservations only, isn’t it all fixed train tickets?

Some have assumed it would be, I think based on something HS2 Ltd said years ago about compulsory reservations, coupled with a bit of "it's what the TGV/ICE does." I don't think you can safely assume anything at all about how HS2 will be operated - at the same time it was said to be reservations only, it was also definitely going to Manchester and the East Midlands...

 

[Trainbike46]

The lesson from HS1 has been that check-in at St Pancras closes 30 minutes before departure, 45 minutes at weekends, with passengers advised to arrive as much as 90 minutes earlier according to the Eurostar website. At Old Oak Common there will of course be no passport or customs checks, but a minimum check-in time of, say, 30 minutes at busy times would entirely negate the time advantage of travelling on HS2. I wonder if anyone here knows what the HS2 check-in deadline will be?

Why do people keep assuming HS2 would need check-in? It doesn't, just like the existing Southeastern Highspeed services don't have check-in either.

Eurostar is the exception here, and the check-in is because of the channel tunnel security regulations (which won't apply to HS2) and the passport controls (which are necessary at Eurostar as the UK hasn't and likely won't join Schengen, but are utterly unnecessary at HS2)

The cost of the rolling stock might be trivial, but that's not the issue.
This turnaround won't be happening on a siding in the middle of nowhere, it will take place in an enormously expensive Euston station.
Those turnaround assumpsions are costing literal billions because they force an overspecced 11 platform station, a station that was likely unbuildable.

And their response when people to ask about this it is to go to the press and publish op eds attacking anyone who dares question the 11 station design.



A design that assumes a blank cheque is a bad design, the philosophy that they can have as much money as they want is seen throughout HS2.

As an example of the problems caused by that listening project, it has also ensured that HS2 trains will never be able to have level boarding throughout their journey if they go onto the classic network. It also precipitated a court case that HS2 had no chance at all of winning and from which they were also only extricated by Brexit. (This was the platform height debacle)
Which given the supposed emphasis placed on Classica Compatible services, was certainly an odd design choice.

That whole mess has led me to be extremly skeptical of that whole exercise.

you are aware that the only services that would have a 55-minute turn-around are the Glasgow/Edinburgh ones right? Everything else is planned for a 25-minute turn-around. Planning a longer turn-around for the longest-distance services, especially when they will have a 25-minute turn-around at Glasgow (and that is unavoidable unless you want to add large changes to glasgow central to the HS2 programme, and to me it seems like a very good decision not to do that). Short turn-arounds at both ends for the Edinburgh-Glasgow service seems like a recipe for disaster, so sensible to avoid.

 

[HSTEd]

you are aware that the only services that would have a 55-minute turn-around are the Glasgow/Edinburgh ones right? Everything else is planned for a 25-minute turn-around. Planning a longer turn-around for the longest-distance services, especially when they will have a 25-minute turn-around at Glasgow (and that is unavoidable unless you want to add large changes to glasgow central to the HS2 programme, and to me it seems like a very good decision not to do that). Short turn-arounds at both ends for the Edinburgh-Glasgow service seems like a recipe for disaster, so sensible to avoid.

Yes, I am aware of this, but 55 minutes is still excessive even for those trains.

The plan was predicated on an extremely, and excessively, simple operational concept. A concept that only makes any kind of sense if you assume that you can have whatever station you want and cost is no object.

Is is "sensible" to avoid those issues when every platform at Euston costs such an enormous sum of money?

(That article also states that the only option for trains reporting more than a few minutes late is to terminate at Old Oak Common or Euston, and then (reasonably) disregards the first one as totally impractical. But the reality is there are plenty more options given the very high intensity of the service over the core section. The obvious one is to terminate the serivce at Birmingham International or divert to Curzon Street and tip the passengers onto the next southbound)

 

[Deepgreen]

No it isn't, HS2 will use P5 and 6 in the main at Crewe. There is nothing separate.


0 minutes.

'To ensure an on-time departure, doors will be closed and locked 30 minutes before departure'....

 

[Trainbike46]

Yes, I am aware of this, but 55 minutes is still excessive even for those trains.

The plan was predicated on an extremely, and excessively, simple operational concept. A concept that only makes any kind of sense if you assume that you can have whatever station you want and cost is no object.

Is is "sensible" to avoid those issues when every platform at Euston costs such an enormous sum of money?

Do you think HS2 could have added at least 1 extra platform at Glasgow Central (including all the work that would require to connect it, so layout and signalling changes, as well as having another extra worksite) for less money than designing Euston with 1 extra platform from the start? That seems unlikely to me

 

[HSTEd]

Do you think HS2 could have added at least 1 extra platform at Glasgow Central (including all the work that would require to connect it, so layout and signalling changes, as well as having another extra worksite) for less money than designing Euston with 1 extra platform from the start? That seems unlikely to me

But that's not the only other option, despite the author of the article's desperate attempt to portray that as the reality.

He makes assumptions that all destinations will be served by separate rotations of trains, and that the only place a late service can be short terminated at is Old Oak Common.
Neither of these assumptions are really sensible.

The core service is 18tph, it is quite feasible to terminate at Birmingham International, where platforms will be an order of magnitude cheaper than at Euston, and tip the passengers onto one of the next trains south.
Or the crude option of simply padding the timetable at the entrance to the high speed system.

 

[Energy]

The core service is 18tph, it is quite feasible to terminate at Birmingham International, where platforms will be an order of magnitude cheaper than at Euston, and tip the passengers onto one of the next trains south.
Or the crude option of simply padding the timetable at the entrance to the high speed system.

HS2 Euston would have originally had a 50-minute turnaround for the Edinburgh/Glasgow services, it would have taken a lot of delay to have issues.

 

[Trainbike46]

But that's not the only other option, despite the author of the article's desperate attempt to portray that as the reality.

He makes assumptions that all destinations will be served by separate rotations of trains, and that the only place a late service can be short terminated at is Old Oak Common.
Neither of these assumptions are really sensible.

The core service is 18tph, it is quite feasible to terminate at Birmingham International, where platforms will be an order of magnitude cheaper than at Euston, and tip the passengers onto one of the next trains south.
Or the crude option of simply padding the timetable at the entrance to the high speed system.

Having trains turn-around on to different services is a funny one. On the one hand, it gives more flexibility with timetabling, which is great. On the other hand it makes importing issues between routes more likely, and if the original plans for having captive HS2 trains comes to be, you would have some restrictions still. Of course, neither of these are insurmountable, and this is how I suspect in the (very) long term any increase in train numbers beyond the original 18 tph would/could have been accomodated from a platform perspective.

Terminating soundbound trains early at Birmingham International should really be avoided though, as it is quite passenger-unfriendly

 

[Gerald Fiennes]

Suppose the HS2 trains were only c.230-240m long. Could some of the work at Crewe/Manchester be avoided, at least for 10 years or so.

There is no legal requirement that HS2 trains should be only 200m or 400m long as is sometimes supposed.

 

[SynthD]

Some have assumed it would be, I think based on something HS2 Ltd said years ago about compulsory reservations, coupled with a bit of "it's what the TGV/ICE does."

It comes from tunnel evacuation plans. They have made the headhouses capable of dealing with the number of seated passengers, and how many trains will be in each headhouse’s section.

 

[Verulamius]

Why is the Government about to cancel the Manchester section when most of the building cost will be over a parliament's life away?

I think it is because of Euston. HS2 truncated to Birmingham can just use OOC. But if it is extended further to Manchester then Euston becomes necessary to provide terminal capacity.

The tunnels to Euston need to be built over the next few years so I think this is the yes/no decision point.

If you don't build to Euston then Birmingham only it is.

 

[HSTEd]

It comes from tunnel evacuation plans. They have made the headhouses capable of dealing with the number of seated passengers, and how many trains will be in each headhouse’s section.

If they have really done that that is another example of catastrophically bad planning by HS2.

Given that that would place a hard limit on the capacity of trains for the rest of time.
I have seen nothing like this in the planning documents, and indeed the Tunnel Safety TSIs do not require the headhouses to be sized to allow a certain number of passengers to be held inside, or place limits on evacuation times.

It would be comically stupid if they demand to spend billions on a hyper capable station at Euston, but don't want to provide extra outdoors grass at the evacuation shaft for more evacuees to stand on.
Do you have any primary sources to support this? I have seen it repeated much but I think a lot of it is circular repetition.

EDIT:
It would also require a safety grade system for guaranteeing only passengers with correct reservations have boarded the train, and you can't possibly do that for classic compatible trains without total rebuilds of all stations and Eurostar levels of security. By far the simplest way to meet the evacuation requirements is to assume the trains are all crush loaded, but given the idiotic design decisions HS2 has repeatedly made, perhaps htey think that is too "crude" for their "proper railway".

 

[The Ham]

The lesson from HS1 has been that check-in at St Pancras closes 30 minutes before departure, 45 minutes at weekends, with passengers advised to arrive as much as 90 minutes earlier according to the Eurostar website. At Old Oak Common there will of course be no passport or customs checks, but a minimum check-in time of, say, 30 minutes at busy times would entirely negate the time advantage of travelling on HS2. I wonder if anyone here knows what the HS2 check-in deadline will be?

As others have said, there'll be no defined minimum check in - even with all seat booking it'll be turn up and add long as the doors are open you can get on.

Is it a given that this cancellation is going to happen I think it would be politically very stupid to announce cancellation or pausing just before the Conservative conference in Manchester already you have got the likes of Andy Burnham angry about this not least Cameron coming out of the woodwork and Johnson aswell surely if you are going to do this you are going to need some serious political cover to neutralise the opposition especially considering we could be less than a year away from a general election does anyone know what that political cover could be I am in favour of HS2 for capacity reasons and I would certainly be very disappointed if it was cancelled or paused with the general Election not to far away why don't the current government say yes costs have spiralled but this will be a decision for the next government to make postponing the decision to after the election to avoid the backlash? Also are the rumours cut beyond Birmigham/Lichfield or Crewe?

Have costs spiralled though? There's still 25% of the HS2 contingency left when you allow for the doubling of Euston (total contingency of about £5.5bn).

Oh and that's before we even look at the extra £4bn that the government has allowed for further contingency.

Yes some elements are costing more (including the doubling of Euston), but unless there's evidence to the contrary I'm not sure that the costs are necessary as bad as some would like you to believe.

Why is the Government about to cancel the Manchester section when most of the building cost will be over a parliament's life away?

I think it is because of Euston. HS2 truncated to Birmingham can just use OOC. But if it is extended further to Manchester then Euston becomes necessary to provide terminal capacity.

The tunnels to Euston need to be built over the next few years so I think this is the yes/no decision point.

If you don't build to Euston then Birmingham only it is.

Maybe because they want to offer a tax cut (most likely to benefit the more wealthy of society) before going into the next election.

However given they've just saved is from an increase in taxes on flying & meat, being forced to have 7 bins, and being made to car share; then we shouldn't need any more of a bribe to keep them in power should we?

 

[The Planner]

Suppose the HS2 trains were only c.230-240m long. Could some of the work at Crewe/Manchester be avoided, at least for 10 years or so.

There is no legal requirement that HS2 trains should be only 200m or 400m long as is sometimes supposed.

Wouldn't make any difference at Crewe, it still needs dealing with HS2 or no HS2.

 

[E6007]

Bree Louise, did she die in vain?

Good point!

 

[trebor79]

Poorer people (who can only afford fixed-train tickets) will aim to spend at least 30 minutes at OOC, killing time before their HS2 journey for fear of the horrendous financial penalty for missing their train if they were to encounter delays from inbound public transport or bad traffic. Will OOC have enough room to warehouse these people? How many will get seats?

Again, how is that different from any other domestic train service?
There will be no need to "check in".

 

[TheManOnThe172]

Again, how is that different from any other domestic train service?
There will be no need to "check in".

The waiting time is indeed no different. But even at the reduced service levels supported by OOC as a terminus, there will be a rather large number of people hanging around at a station that hasn't been designed as a terminus and so presumably won't have extensive waiting space (let alone seating). And in a location where there won't be a lot of other facilities nearby.

 

[Sonik]

Engineering and design cannot take place isolated from financial realities, the amount of funding available for a project is every bit as real a constraint and factor in the design as all the other engineering parameters.

Designing a project to the latest performance limits and which doesn't cut any corners is great, but only so long as it can still be built within some reasonable tolerance around the budget available. A gold plated project which spends its way through the budget before even half finished has not been well designed or managed.

I don't disagree that the project has been mismanaged and that needs to be addressed.

But by focusing only on the immediate cost, we completely ignore the more fundamental question of return on investment, which will inevitably be damaged by curtailing the scheme. It's akin to buying a valuable classic car and leaving it to rot because fixing it up would be 'too expensive'. By doing so, the money already spent is wasted.

And since it's it's a debt funded investment, it's not even unaffordable; that's a false dichotomy created purely for political point scoring.

 

[stuu]

The waiting time is indeed no different. But even at the reduced service levels supported by OOC as a terminus, there will be a rather large number of people hanging around at a station that hasn't been designed as a terminus and so presumably won't have extensive waiting space (let alone seating). And in a location where there won't be a lot of other facilities nearby.

The station was designed on the assumption that about a third of all passengers would use it, and that's with a full 17tph service, which isn't likely to happen for decades, if ever. It shouldn't be particularly stretched serving 7-9 departures an hour

 

[Wychwood93]

Why would it be any different to any other domestic train?

High speed services within our European neighbours have reservation only - trolling along at circa 300 kph has a touch of additional risk if anything goes 'wrong'. Allowing standing passengers is not a good idea. Having said that, I was once on a double TGV from what is now Avignon Centre where the rear set was not available for use - the front half was full and standing from Lyon. Nothing untoward happened - obviously!

There are some on here - The Planner and Bald Rick for example - who may have additional detail as to intentions re. reservations.

 

[trebor79]

High speed services within our European neighbours have reservation only - trolling along at circa 300 kph has a touch of additional risk if anything goes 'wrong'. Allowing standing passengers is not a good idea. Having said that, I was once on a double TGV from what is now Avignon Centre where the rear set was not available for use - the front half was full and standing from Lyon. Nothing untoward happened - obviously!

There are some on here - The Planner and Bald Rick for example - who may have additional detail as to intentions re. reservations.

Yeah but reservation only doesn't mean you need to "check in" 30 minutes early like you do for an international service.

It really will be the whitest of white elephants if you have to get to the middle of nowhere in Old Oak Common at least 30 minutes early for your High speed train to Curzon Street that's 15 minutes quicker than going from Euston to New Street where there is a vast array of onward connections...

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Yeah but reservation only doesn't mean you need to "check in" 30 minutes early like you do for an international service.
It really will be the whitest of white elephants if you have to get to the middle of nowhere in Old Oak Common at least 30 minutes early for your High speed train to Curzon Street that's 15 minutes quicker than going from Euston to New Street where there is a vast array of onward connections...

Spain has a security check (luggage scans) for its high-speed services, as well as being reservation only.
The security checks are because of previous terrorist threats.
It's not inconceivable that our paranoid Home Office might insist on something similar here (with airline parallels, which is where such policies come from).

 

[Trainbike46]

Spain has a security check (luggage scans) for its high-speed services, as well as being reservation only.
The security checks are because of previous terrorist threats.
It's not inconceivable that our paranoid Home Office might insist on something similar here (with airline parallels, which is where such policies come from).

There are currently no plans for that; it is firmly in the speculative territory. If you actually want to discuss, maybe make a speculative thread

It is also a terrible idea, and if ever suggested it should be resisted

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

More signs of panic at Westminster about the government seemingly about to axe HS2 Phase 2.
From the Guardian tonight:

Rishi Sunak pushes to axe northern HS2 rail line ahead of Tory conference

Sources say the PM wants to scrap the project’s section o Manchester before the party’s annual gathering in the city next weekend

www.theguardian.com

Rishi Sunak is facing a huge backlash from senior Tories and business leaders amid signs he is ready to scrap the northern section of the HS2 high speed rail line before the Conservative conference opens in Manchester next weekend.
Several sources told the Observer on Saturday that a meeting was scheduled to take place involving the prime minister and the chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, on Monday or on Tuesday, with a decision to be announced by Sunak by the middle of this week.
One source said any decision to cancel the section of HS2 from Birmingham to Manchester could not be made at the conference and would have to come before it. “He has to do it before Tories go to Manchester. To do it there would be inconceivable. It would be a kick in the teeth for the city. So doing it before seems to be the plan.”
On Saturday night – with indications that business leaders were bombarding No 10 with demands not to scrap the northern section – there were strong rumours that at least one middle- ranking minister could resign if the project is dramatically cut back.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

Why is the Government about to cancel the Manchester section when most of the building cost will be over a parliament's life away?

I think it is because of Euston. HS2 truncated to Birmingham can just use OOC. But if it is extended further to Manchester then Euston becomes necessary to provide terminal capacity.

The tunnels to Euston need to be built over the next few years so I think this is the yes/no decision point.

If you don't build to Euston then Birmingham only it is.

HS2 should never have been started until the uks 10 biggest cities outside of London had comparable public transport. Now we have worst of al worlds with other infrastructure upgrades frozen out and a high speed white elephant. This is on HS2 who have proven to be utterly inept and to think we are 2 years off celebrating 200 years of railways.

 

[350401]

HS2 should never have been started until the uks 10 biggest cities outside of London had comparable public transport. Now we have worst of al worlds with other infrastructure upgrades frozen out and a high speed white elephant. This is on HS2 who have proven to be utterly inept and to think we are 2 years off celebrating 200 years of railways.

This is not on HS2 Ltd. This is on the utterly incompetent and short termist government in Westminster; who are axing HS2 phase 2 to save £8bn, only to give away £7bn on inheritance tax cuts.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

This is not on HS2 Ltd. This is on the utterly incompetent and short termist government in Westminster; who are axing HS2 phase 2 to save £8bn, only to give away £7bn on inheritance tax cuts.

HS2 have had years to develop and plan this project and have utterly failed despite the vast cost of all its consultants. The costs had already spiralled and now they want another 8B. This project is sucking the oxygen out of all public transport infrastructure improvements for the next decade so a line has to be draw under it. Labour won’t do any different.

 

[350401]

The issue is the planning system and the Hybrid Bill system which enables all kinds of baubles and adds on to be added to the design. Had HS2 been plain line route without a lot of the current mitigations, it would have be far cheaper. I don’t think it’s fair to attack the HS2 Ltd staff, who have had to a good job in damn tough circumstances, constantly adapting to the changing political environment.

 

[HSTEd]

The issue is the planning system and the Hybrid Bill system which enables all kinds of baubles and adds on to be added to the design. Had HS2 been plain line route without a lot of the current mitigations, it would have be far cheaper.

And it would have been unbuildable.
Unless you want some sort of totalitarian regime where the peasants can be brushed aside and the ruling elite can do whatever they want......

And a lot of the "mitigations" actually ended up saving money, see HS2s original plan to try and force a surface alignment through the NNML corridor. Tunneling saves money compared to that!
I'm not sure building a line through the Chilterns on a viaduct would be possible without literal troops guarding the sites.

I don’t think it’s fair to attack the HS2 Ltd staff, who have had to a good job in damn tough circumstances, constantly adapting to the changing political environment.

The scheme design has been flawed from its conception, and I am not aware of HS2 adapting in any meaningful way.