My ideas for HS2 (if Eastern Leg isn’t built)

[adamedwards]

I hope this doesn't happen. Cancelling HS2 east just when the Conservatives are opening a northern HQ in Leeds to bolster the Red Wall seats would politically crazy. Add to that 4 tracking at Digswell would be a political disaster in Grant Shapp's own constituency plus a post covid desperate need for jobs, I think it would be a massive mistake. That doesn't stop it being made, but surely even Dominic Cummings isn't that daft, is he?

 

[Sad Sprinter]

I hope this doesn't happen. Cancelling HS2 east just when the Conservatives are opening a northern HQ in Leeds to bolster the Red Wall seats would politically crazy. Add to that 4 tracking at Digswell would be a political disaster in Grant Shapp's own constituency plus a post covid desperate need for jobs, I think it would be a massive mistake. That doesn't stop it being made, but surely even Dominic Cummings isn't that daft, is he?

I suppose if the eastern leg was cut, it might come back as a HS4 line from Leeds straight to London via Cambridge/Stansted-at some point.

I do wonder, if the eastern leg was cut, what would be more likely to come next-HS2 to Scotland or a Leeds to London line.

 

[Roast Veg]

I suppose if the eastern leg was cut, it might come back as a HS4 line from Leeds straight to London via Cambridge/Stansted-at some point.

I do wonder, if the eastern leg was cut, what would be more likely to come next-HS2 to Scotland or a Leeds to London line.

Easily HS2 to Scotland. The RoI is much better because of the market share that can be taken from domestic flights, which is larger for a London-Scotland corridor than anything domestic coming out of Stansted.

Poor, poor East Midlands! It's looking like they just can't catch a break with cancelled programmes can they? Perhaps a cancelled HS2 Eastern Leg will get revitalized like the MML Electrification 15 years down the line?

Perhaps we should take a look politically at the East/West divide instead of the North/South divide? The West Mids seem to have a far better time of it than the East Mids, and Liverpool/Manchester are far luckier than Leeds/Bradford/Wakefield.

 

[Ianno87]

Random thought: *If* the Eastern leg gets deferred/dropped, it'll be an interesting inversion of the usual "Stop HS2" arguments; it might be interesting to see how many people actually come out to shout that they want it!

 

[Sad Sprinter]

Easily HS2 to Scotland. The RoI is much better because of the market share that can be taken from domestic flights, which is larger for a London-Scotland corridor than anything domestic coming out of Stansted.

Poor, poor East Midlands! It's looking like they just can't catch a break with cancelled programmes can they? Perhaps a cancelled HS2 Eastern Leg will get revitalized like the MML Electrification 15 years down the line?

Perhaps we should take a look politically at the East/West divide instead of the North/South divide? The West Mids seem to have a far better time of it than the East Mids, and Liverpool/Manchester are far luckier than Leeds/Bradford/Wakefield.

Although I do wonder if a HS line did reach Stansted whether it would provide any expansion oppertunities over Heathrow.

 

[Bald Rick]

The issue with any highspeed line up the east side of the country is: which London terminus?

 

[Purple Orange]

The issue with any highspeed line up the east side of the country is: which London terminus?

It would also need an OOC type interchange too, possibly linking in with cross rail again and dare I say, HS1.

 

[Sad Sprinter]

The issue with any highspeed line up the east side of the country is: which London terminus?

It would also need an OOC type interchange too, possibly linking in with cross rail again and dare I say, HS1.

I have a RAIL magazine from 2010 with a map of Greenguage 21's plans for such a scheme. By building a spur just east of Stratford, you can use Stratford International as the OOC station and run into St. Pancras.

What platforms at St. Pancras is another matter, of course.

 

[Ianno87]

I have a RAIL magazine from 2010 with a map of Greenguage 21's plans for such a scheme. By building a spur just east of Stratford, you can use Stratford International as the OOC station and run into St. Pancras.

What platforms at St. Pancras is another matter, of course.

Unless you adapted (somehow) the single track Temple Mills Spur (which bypasses the current platforms at Stratford), the first opportunity to spur off HS1 in open air is in the Dagenham/Rainham area; which is quite a long way in the wrong direction.

 

[Purple Orange]

I have a RAIL magazine from 2010 with a map of Greenguage 21's plans for such a scheme. By building a spur just east of Stratford, you can use Stratford International as the OOC station and run into St. Pancras.

What platforms at St. Pancras is another matter, of course.

It would probably require a rebuild of whatever station is picked as the terminus, but if Stratford (or wherever the interchange would be) is as useful as OOC, a great number of people may be changing before they get to central London anyway. On HS2, I think the vast majority of journeys I make in to central London would require a change at OOC rather than Euston.

 

[Bald Rick]

I have a RAIL magazine from 2010 with a map of Greenguage 21's plans for such a scheme. By building a spur just east of Stratford, you can use Stratford International as the OOC station and run into St. Pancras.

What platforms at St. Pancras is another matter, of course.

Professional crayoning I’m afraid. Those that know Stratford International, and its construction, will know that building a spur, or more platforms, to enable such a service is as close to impossible as the laws of physics allow.

 

[Purple Orange]

Could any of the London stations accommodate 400m trains through platform lengthening rather than building new platforms? It would result in no increase in capacity, but it might be easier to find another solution for services that may be displaced rather than building dedicated HS rail in to a second terminus.

 

[Bald Rick]

Could any of the London stations accommodate 400m trains through platform lengthening rather than building new platforms? It would result in no increase in capacity, but it might be easier to find another solution for services that may be displaced rather than building dedicated HS rail in to a second terminus.

In a word, no.

 

[BayPaul]

Could any of the London stations accommodate 400m trains through platform lengthening rather than building new platforms? It would result in no increase in capacity, but it might be easier to find another solution for services that may be displaced rather than building dedicated HS rail in to a second terminus.

I suppose you could extend St Pancras domestic platforms back out into the main trainshed making them the same length as Eurostar. It would obviously mean a complete rebuild of the station once again, and I can't see it would help in any way, as there is nowhere to put the MML or SE trains that you would displace, and 4 platforms really wouldn't be enough for a new HS3 line.

 

[Gareth]

Poor, poor East Midlands! It's looking like they just can't catch a break with cancelled programmes can they? Perhaps a cancelled HS2 Eastern Leg will get revitalized like the MML Electrification 15 years down the line.

Not sure the East Midlands has it quite that bad. They're not that far from London or Birmingham really to begin with. HS2's relationship with the region was casual anyway: an out of town station between Nottingham & Derby, whilst Leicester wasn't in the picture at all. The only reason the region was involved in the first place was because it was on the way to Leeds from Birmingham - two of all three cities outside of London that the UK government thinks actually have some sort of economic future.

Electrification of the MML plus some targetted improvements here and there would make a difference here. It is Sheffield that's really knackered, being that much further north. But no one cares about Sheffield, despite it being one of the largest cities in the country. Leeds is disadvantaged too but primarily in respect to the gold-plated provision its fellow regional capital on the other side of the Pennines is still slated to get.

 

[Purple Orange]

Not sure the East Midlands has it quite that bad. They're not that far from London or Birmingham really to begin with. HS2's relationship with the region was casual anyway: an out of town station between Nottingham & Derby, whilst Leicester wasn't in the picture at all. The only reason the region was involved in the first place was because it was on the way to Leeds from Birmingham - two of all three cities outside of London that the UK government thinks actually have some sort of economic future.

Electrification of the MML plus some targetted improvements here and there would make a difference here. It is Sheffield that's really knackered, being that much further north. But no one cares about Sheffield, despite it being one of the largest cities in the country. Leeds is disadvantaged too but primarily in respect to the gold-plated provision its fellow regional capital on the other side of the Pennines is still slated to get.

To be fair, Leeds should be getting the same level of investment as Manchester & Birmingham. I agree that the government sees Birmingham, Leeds & Manchester as having an economic future and as such it makes sense to invest.

 

[ABB125]

The issue with any highspeed line up the east side of the country is: which London terminus?

London Hauptbahnhof?

Presumably this eastern HS terminus wouldn't need to have as many platforms as Euston, as I really can't see 18tph running north on two high-speed lines (36tph total!). I would imagine services to Leeds, Sheffield (area), possibly Nottingham (area) depending on the route taken (all three of these could be served by the same train, so let's say 4tph). Newcastle and Edinburgh = 2tph. Run it via Stansted and we can add another 4tph Stansted Express (with reduced turnaround times compared to other services). Beyond that, I draw a blank. 10tph should manage with, say, 8 platforms maximun. Based on the drawings for Piccadilly in the latest HS2 consultation, this would be in the region of 85-90m wide.
Since this line is fairly likely to arrive from a north-easterly direction, I would suggest a (very deep to avoid whatever's down there) underground station with one end at St Pancras and the other end at Euston. Initially this would be a terminus, but conveniently my proposed site points in exactly the right direction for a new HS-Great Western line...

I await all the reasons why this isn't feasible!

 

[Purple Orange]

London Hauptbahnhof?

Presumably this eastern HS terminus wouldn't need to have as many platforms as Euston, as I really can't see 18tph running north on two high-speed lines (36tph total!). I would imagine services to Leeds, Sheffield (area), possibly Nottingham (area) depending on the route taken (all three of these could be served by the same train, so let's say 4tph). Newcastle and Edinburgh = 2tph. Run it via Stansted and we can add another 4tph Stansted Express (with reduced turnaround times compared to other services). Beyond that, I draw a blank. 10tph should manage with, say, 8 platforms maximun. Based on the drawings for Piccadilly in the latest HS2 consultation, this would be in the region of 85-90m wide.
Since this line is fairly likely to arrive from a north-easterly direction, I would suggest a (very deep to avoid whatever's down there) underground station with one end at St Pancras and the other end at Euston. Initially this would be a terminus, but conveniently my proposed site points in exactly the right direction for a new HS-Great Western line...

I await all the reasons why this isn't feasible!

Isn’t HS2 designed so that 1 platform serves 1.5 tph? The long distance services would probably operate under those circumstances, requiring 4 platforms and the Stansted expresses might operate like NPR, so let’s say 2 additional platforms, which could accommodate a total of 10 tph. The Manchester Piccadilly plans were based on 4 HS2 platforms that could accommodate 6 tph, with the addition of 2 platforms for NPR that need to accommodate 10 tph (6 Leeds & 4 Liverpool).

 

[BayPaul]

London Hauptbahnhof?

Presumably this eastern HS terminus wouldn't need to have as many platforms as Euston, as I really can't see 18tph running north on two high-speed lines (36tph total!). I would imagine services to Leeds, Sheffield (area), possibly Nottingham (area) depending on the route taken (all three of these could be served by the same train, so let's say 4tph). Newcastle and Edinburgh = 2tph. Run it via Stansted and we can add another 4tph Stansted Express (with reduced turnaround times compared to other services). Beyond that, I draw a blank. 10tph should manage with, say, 8 platforms maximun. Based on the drawings for Piccadilly in the latest HS2 consultation, this would be in the region of 85-90m wide.
Since this line is fairly likely to arrive from a north-easterly direction, I would suggest a (very deep to avoid whatever's down there) underground station with one end at St Pancras and the other end at Euston. Initially this would be a terminus, but conveniently my proposed site points in exactly the right direction for a new HS-Great Western line...

I await all the reasons why this isn't feasible!

I'd add in Hull (0.5tph), Middlesbrough (0.5tph) and Cambridge (2tph) as likely destinations to be served, and probably split Nottingham (2tph) out from the Leeds services, so making it more like 15 tph. Anything less than that is probably not going to have a business case anyway.

Digging a 400x90m fully underground station sounds a little tricky to say the least. I don't think anything like that has been built in this country - underground stations I've seen have either been lots of small tunnels, or a big box right up to the surface that has been covered over.

 

[Bald Rick]

I await all the reasons why this isn't feasible!

Just physics, geography and economics!

 

[ABB125]

Isn’t HS2 designed so that 1 platform serves 1.5 tph? The long distance services would probably operate under those circumstances, requiring 4 platforms and the Stansted expresses might operate like NPR, so let’s say 2 additional platforms, which could accommodate a total of 10 tph. The Manchester Piccadilly plans were based on 4 HS2 platforms that could accommodate 6 tph, with the addition of 2 platforms for NPR that need to accommodate 10 tph (6 Leeds & 4 Liverpool).

I didn't know that, but it seems reasonable. However, I would personally go for 8 platforms as no doubt there would be extra services added at some point. Also allows more operational flexibility.

I'd add in Hull (0.5tph), Middlesbrough (0.5tph) and Cambridge (2tph) as likely destinations to be served, and probably split Nottingham (2tph) out from the Leeds services, so making it more like 15 tph. Anything less than that is probably not going to have a business case anyway.

Digging a 400x90m fully underground station sounds a little tricky to say the least. I don't think anything like that has been built in this country - underground stations I've seen have either been lots of small tunnels, or a big box right up to the surface that has been covered over.

The Cambridge ones could probably be extensions of the Stansted Expresses, but the others probably would require more paths. I could probably come up with some more suggestions if I drew a line on a map, but I can't be bothered!

Just physics, geography and economics!

I thought that might be the case!
Do you have an opinion on a potential station site (although I would guess your opinion is "not possible")?

 

[Sad Sprinter]

Don't forget, you can build a Stansted to Colchester spur, or a line to Chelmsford through Ongar and mop up some GE commuter traffic. Could probably route the Norwich expresses onto a new line.

 

[Purple Orange]

I didn't know that, but it seems reasonable. However, I would personally go for 8 platforms as no doubt there would be extra services added at some point. Also allows more operational flexibility.

The Cambridge ones could probably be extensions of the Stansted Expresses, but the others probably would require more paths. I could probably come up with some more suggestions if I drew a line on a map, but I can't be bothered!

I thought that might be the case!
Do you have an opinion on a potential station site (although I would guess your opinion is "not possible")?

Trouble is, any 2nd London HS terminus would need to take the long distance traffic from the MML & ECML, which the Euston HS2 station is designed to do. Therefore the cheapest scenario would simply be to build the eastern branch of HS2.

 

[ABB125]

Don't forget, you can build a Stansted to Colchester spur, or a line to Chelmsford through Ongar and mop up some GE commuter traffic. Could probably route the Norwich expresses onto a new line.

Is your name Jim Steer?

Trouble is, any 2nd London HS terminus would need to take the long distance traffic from the MML & ECML, which the Euston HS2 station is designed to do. Therefore the cheapest scenario would simply be to build the eastern branch of HS2.

I agree.
The best overall option is to build the eastern leg and a new eastern line. (The Treasury may not agree.)

 

[Purple Orange]

By building a new eastern line, it needs to be understood for what purpose. It could just be that more capacity is required on the paths from Manchester & Birmingham.

 

[Sad Sprinter]

Is your name Jim Steer?

I agree.
The best overall option is to build the eastern leg and a new eastern line. (The Treasury may not agree.)

Ha yes, I'm a Greenguage 21 super fan. (not really)

If a new eastern line is built, could the released paths on HS2 for the eastern branch be of any use?

 

[ABB125]

By building a new eastern line, it needs to be understood for what purpose. It could just be that more capacity is required on the paths from Manchester & Birmingham.

Maybe. ("But only bankers going to London will use HS2", so why would more capacity be needed? )
In reality, I wouldn't have thought that any serious work would be put into an eastern line until after at least phase 1 opens.

 

[Purple Orange]

Maybe. ("But only bankers going to London will use HS2", so why would more capacity be needed? )
In reality, I wouldn't have thought that any serious work would be put into an eastern line until after at least phase 1 opens.

To be honest, after HS2 is done (including the eastern branch), I suspect the only high speed rail projects will be for building high speed bypasses on the ECML, northern WCML, possibly the north Trans Pennine and maybe on the GWML.

 

[ABB125]

To be honest, after HS2 is done (including the eastern branch), I suspect the only high speed rail projects will be for building high speed bypasses on the ECML, northern WCML, possibly the north Trans Pennine and maybe on the GWML.

I agree. Something to bypass the southern ECML, joining HS2 near Nottingham. A western route to Scotland. Something across the North. Something from the end of HS2 and the North line to Teesside and Tyneside (and possibly Edinburgh if the Scots will pay for it. Thought not!). Something from London to Bristol and Cardiff (for political purposes). Finally something from near Birmingham on HS2 to Bristol and possibly beyond.
Something like this:
(Here's a challenge: can you work out the names of the red dots?)

 

[Gareth]

Top three are Glasgow, Edinburgh & Newcastle.
Middle three are Liverpool, Manchester & Leeds.
Somewhere in the East Midlands - presumably Nottingham or a parkway.
Birmingham.
Bottom three are Cardiff, Bristol & London.

Poor Sheffield.