Publication of Integrated Rail Plan for the North and Midlands

[javelin]

Only if you have really short trams like Manchester does. Most other UK trams are much longer.

What? Manchester can can handle 57 metre doubles. No other system in the UK is anywhere near that so to use the local network you are limited to the lengths the street running can take.

 

[irish_rail]

The fictional young family and OAPs with luggage from the north holidaying in the south west strikes again. This demographic is always heavily overplayed and probably represents a much smaller proportion of service users than people imagine.

There was never going to be a comfortable solution for Birmingham. New Street is too centrally located to expand, but the ‘problem’ for those connecting on to the local services is a problem faced by many people who travel from large cities all over the world. People have often to ‘hoof it’ across Manchester, London, Glasgow, but the issue here is to provide a sensible local solution.

Absolutely nothing fictional about it. You need to get your facts right. The vast majority of travel on the south west route is leisure and the number of "blue rinsers" is well above what you see on other intercity routes, as well as families. Any attempt to wreck connectivity between the north and south west will be fought very very hard , why should the south west lose out even more just to benefit Boris' train set

 

[Roast Veg]

Tempted to suggest it is a politician (badly) trying to think their feet rather than necessarily a well thought-through policy.

How much space is there at Moor Street and Snow Hill?

 

[BayPaul]

Oh right so it benefits a few dormitory towns between London and Birmingham like Milton Keynes, how on earth is that comparable with the lavish spending on the north? The vast vast vast majority of the south gets absolutely nothing from HS2.

It also benefits people in most areas in the Southeast wanting to travel to the Midlands, North or Scotland, as their journey times via London will be significantly reduced, and capacity increased.
With the addition of the Bordesley chord, journey time from the Southwest to the North and Scotland will also be improved, albeit with a change of train. Personally I would have loved to see a connection for XC trains from Bristol to HS2 at Birmingham, but this isn't a bad alternative.
OK - it doesn't have much benefit to the Southwest, but it would be difficult to design a scheme to benefit the entire country - this one seems to me to provide a benefit to around 75% of the UK's population, which is pretty impressive.

 

[quantinghome]

Oh right so it benefits a few dormitory towns between London and Birmingham like Milton Keynes...

Yeah, apart from the aqueduct, the roads, irrigation...

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Oh right so it benefits a few dormitory towns between London and Birmingham like Milton Keynes, how on earth is that comparable with the lavish spending on the north? The vast vast vast majority of the south gets absolutely nothing from HS2.

You get an easy interchange between GW routes and HS2 services at OOC, plus a better link to Heathrow.
But if you want Leeds/Newcastle you'll still have to slog round the Circle line to King's Cross with the axing of the eastern leg.
Or go via Birmingham and maybe Manchester...

 

[quantinghome]

Or go via Birmingham and maybe Manchester...

If only that were a joke. Should the IRP actually happen, then by the early 2040s, the fastest way from West Yorkshire to Heathrow (anyway west of London in fact) will certainly be via Manchester and OOC. And likely the cheapest as well given the capacity of HS2's trains.

 

[irish_rail]

You get an easy interchange between GW routes and HS2 services at OOC, plus a better link to Heathrow.
But if you want Leeds/Newcastle you'll still have to slog round the Circle line to King's Cross with the axing of the eastern leg.
Or go via Birmingham and maybe Manchester...

Trouble is that far south west to Old Oak Common is still painfully slow. Plymouth to Old Oak for example will likely still take 3 hours. And how are all these former XC passengers going to squeeze onto the GWR London trains which are already fairly full and likely to be much fuller with London bound people in a few years?
It isn't a reasonable route from Devon and Cornwall, and I dread to think of the cost of a ticket for say Plymouth to Liverpool via Old Oak Common!

OK - it doesn't have much benefit to the Southwest, but it would be difficult to design a scheme to benefit the entire country - this one seems to me to provide a benefit to around 75% of the UK's population, which is pretty impressive.

Not benefiting the south west I can live with, but this actively DIS benefits the south west if we lose direct trains to the north!? How on earth can this be seen as progress!!??
Since covid more and more people are relocating down to the south west , and it will become more important over the coming years , especially with ex pats from cities in the north and London. Removing links isn't a bright idea.

 

[Roast Veg]

Not benefiting the south west I can live with, but this actively DIS benefits the south west if we lose direct trains to the north!? How on earth can this be seen as progress!!??

Services via Birmingham, whilst requiring a change, will be faster to the North East than today.

 

[cle]

How predictable and small as a nation we are. Bickering about who is worst off.

Does it matter? Will it change anything?

This is the plan, as it stands today - let's discuss what's planned, rather than a parochial little grievance contest.

 

[Ianno87]

Absolutely nothing fictional about it. You need to get your facts right. The vast majority of travel on the south west route is leisure and the number of "blue rinsers" is well above what you see on other intercity routes, as well as families. Any attempt to wreck connectivity between the north and south west will be fought very very hard , why should the south west lose out even more just to benefit Boris' train set

I bet if you looked at actual % of total XC passengers who are families with luggage travelling from North of Birmingham to the South West, it is tiny.

Besides, changing train is not the disincentive to travel for such groups that many on here seem to think. Ease of finding a good value fare is far more important (compared to the cost of driving). People don't care that much about changing trains.

 

[takno]

Services via Birmingham, whilst requiring a change, will be faster to the North East than today.

It's already quicker to change at Birmingham to get to Edinburgh. Doesn't mean it's more convenient. In the case of the northeast under this plan you'll be changing for the sake of about 30 miles at high speed, which is extremely unlikely to work out quicker than a through train.

 

[Ianno87]

How predictable and small as a nation we are. Bickering about who is worst off.

Does it matter? Will it change anything?

This is the plan, as it stands today - let's discuss what's planned, rather than a parochial little grievance contest.

Agreed. This is the plan (for the North at least). How do we make the best of it, and benefit as many future passengers across the network (with other plans for other areas) as possible.

 

[chorleyjeff]

NR will have to work out a programme that delivers TRU, MMLU and ECMLU in parallel over about 10 years (CP7/8).
They have a habit of getting overwhelmed by the sheer complexity of major upgrades (WCRM, GWML etc).
"Digital signalling throughout TRU and ECML" is an easy phrase to say but can NR organise itself to do all that in a meaningful timeframe?
There will also be huge disruption on each of the upgraded routes for at least a decade, as was the case for WCRM.

Given the timescale and disruption outside weekday commuter times of doing Euxton to Salford mostley plain line electrification I have little faith that much can be delivered in the next twenty years. I don't believe anything the PM says on the topic.

 

[quantinghome]

Agreed. This is the plan (for the North at least). How do we make the best of it, and benefit as many future passengers across the network (with other plans for other areas) as possible.

I predict that the plan will not survive very long in its current form. Once it's handed to railway professionals to work out how to implement it, the problems involved in running more frequent and faster intercity services on the existing network will become apparent.

 

[HowardGWR]

I bet if you looked at actual % of total XC passengers who are families with luggage travelling from North of Birmingham to the South West, it is tiny.

Besides, changing train is not the disincentive to travel for such groups that many on here seem to think. Ease of finding a good value fare is far more important (compared to the cost of driving). People don't care that much about changing trains.

Yes they do. I do. Your point may apply to those who have no choice at present but the whole idea is to get people off planes and cars.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Besides, changing train is not the disincentive to travel for such groups that many on here seem to think. Ease of finding a good value fare is far more important (compared to the cost of driving). People don't care that much about changing trains.

It is definitely a disincentive for some.

 

[Dixie]

There was never going to be a comfortable solution for Birmingham. New Street is too centrally located to expand, but the ‘problem’ for those connecting on to the local services is a problem faced by many people who travel from large cities all over the world. People have often to ‘hoof it’ across Manchester, London, Glasgow, but the issue here is to provide a sensible local solution.

Would have been better with a through station under New Street with 4 platforms. All trains could have gone through with trains heading north east from an underground junction north of New Street. Curzon Street wasn't the best idea.

 

[Purple Orange]

I bet if you looked at actual % of total XC passengers who are families with luggage travelling from North of Birmingham to the South West, it is tiny.

Besides, changing train is not the disincentive to travel for such groups that many on here seem to think. Ease of finding a good value fare is far more important (compared to the cost of driving). People don't care that much about changing trains.

This. People are fixated with granny and her heavy baggage, but granny is hardly using the train. It’s letting a romanticised view of the realities of rail travel prevent improvements for the majority of the travelling public.

 

[Meole]

Would have been better with a through station under New Street with 4 platforms. All trains could have gone through with trains heading north east from an underground junction north of New Street. Curzon Street wasn't the best idea.

Exclude local services from New St to make way for the priority ?

 

[Starmill]

Oh right so it benefits a few dormitory towns between London and Birmingham like Milton Keynes, how on earth is that comparable with the lavish spending on the north? The vast vast vast majority of the south gets absolutely nothing from HS2.

It will have all kinds of positive network effects, such as being able to provide a peak fast service between Watford Junction and Milton Keynes Central which isn't currently possible, and improving the speed and capacity of the service to London from large places like Rugby and Nuneaton. It will also benefit the whole of Great Britain by making our distribution of freight significantly more efficient. I really don't understand why so many people are keen to act hard done to by HS2. The groups who are are quite small.

 

[HowardGWR]

This. People are fixated with granny and her heavy baggage, but granny is hardly using the train. It’s letting a romanticised view of the realities of rail travel prevent improvements for the majority of the travelling public.

Have you ever travelled on XC?. Mothers with children, grannies were my companions when I did, and they were going long distances. It's the younger couples and families that undertake long journeys by car.

 

[cle]

I predict that the plan will not survive very long in its current form. Once it's handed to railway professionals to work out how to implement it, the problems involved in running more frequent and faster intercity services on the existing network will become apparent.

I tend to agree. Which is why I was careful to use 'as it stands', 'status quo' and so on. Look at how even EWR has chopped and changed.

Future governements, or even ministers in the same government, might be able to tweak things. Constituent MP involvement is a big factor too, both for and against changes. But it's what we have for now.

And there are indeed some folks who benefit here, such as those of Derby, Nottingham and Warrington. There are more who don't of course, vs the last iteration - but iteration is the key word here.

 

[domcoop7]

I predict that the plan will not survive very long in its current form. Once it's handed to railway professionals to work out how to implement it, the problems involved in running more frequent and faster intercity services on the existing network will become apparent.

Ahh the good old "Railway Professionals" are back again. Because, if a train station doesn't get opened directly outside my house and / or a rail line doesn't go where I want it to go, clearly the whole thing must have been planned by people who aren't railway professionals.

Presumably people imagine they went down to Wetherspoons and asked a few punters to plan a rail network?

 

[Purple Orange]

Have you ever travelled on XC?. Mothers with children, grannies were my companions when I did, and they were going long distances. It's the younger couples and families that undertake long journeys by car.

Yes, I’m well travelled on XC unfortunately.

 

[Bletchleyite]

It will have all kinds of positive network effects, such as being able to provide a peak fast service between Watford Junction and Milton Keynes Central which isn't currently possible, and improving the speed and capacity of the service to London from large places like Rugby and Nuneaton. It will also benefit the whole of Great Britain by making our distribution of freight significantly more efficient. I really don't understand why so many people are keen to act hard done to by HS2. The groups who are are quite small.

Pretty much the only people who lose from it are the inhabitants of Stockport and Coventry, and possibly Penrith depending on exactly what the Scottish service calling pattern ends up being and if Windermere services are extended to Preston/Lancaster if Oxenholme loses its London service. (Oxenholme station is in the middle of a field so is mostly a parkway station).

 

[Dixie]

Exclude local services from New St to make way for the priority ?

No I mean a further 4 platforms under New Street, as was done in Antwerp when the Dutch high speed line was built, on in Zurich.

 

[Purple Orange]

Ahh the good old "Railway Professionals" are back again. Because, if a train station doesn't get opened directly outside my house and / or a rail line doesn't go where I want it to go, clearly the whole thing must have been planned by people who aren't railway professionals.

Presumably people imagine they went down to Wetherspoons and asked a few punters to plan a rail network?

I think on here, the old guard assume city types with ponytails from the 80s planned it.

 

[Ianno87]

Ahh the good old "Railway Professionals" are back again. Because, if a train station doesn't get opened directly outside my house and / or a rail line doesn't go where I want it to go, clearly the whole thing must have been planned by people who aren't railway professionals.

Presumably people imagine they went down to Wetherspoons and asked a few punters to plan a rail network?

"Railway professionals" aren't people who draw fancy track layouts and lines on maps and shout "Build it all!".

They are the people who almost certainly have advised this report on the costs and practical deliverability of these proposals, and their associated capacity outputs.

 

[Starmill]

Pretty much the only people who lose from it are the inhabitants of Stockport and Coventry, and possibly Penrith depending on exactly what the Scottish service calling pattern ends up being and if Windermere services are extended to Preston/Lancaster if Oxenholme loses its London service. (Oxenholme station is in the middle of a field so is mostly a parkway station).

Indeed. And in any sensible version of the future a dedicated bus rapid transit solution from the Stockport and Coventry suburbs and centres to Manchester Airport HS2 and Birmingham Interchange respectively would solve that. They're not exactly far away. Plus of course they'll retain their existing heavy rail links Coventry - Birmingham International and Stockport - Manchester Piccadilly.