TheDavibob
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Why would they publish an actual timetable 9 years in advance?
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Why would they publish an actual timetable 9 years in advance?
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Journey times to Heathrow will improve over the existing situation, it will just require a change of trains to Crossrail.
Whilst 'proof of concept' timetable(s) exist behind the scenes, the final timetable will depend on the service funders' (i.e. DfT) priorities in 2026, which could easily be different from today. The HS2 infrastructure is designed to permit a good many number of different permutations of the proposed service offering (which is a good thing) - attempting to tie it down to a single proposal at this stage as the offering is not very informative at all (other than for the purposes of proving infrastructure design and demonstrating the business and strategic case for the scheme). The public would just be critiquing an 'artificial' timetable which will almost certainly not be the one implemented.
What would that be, out of interest?
quantinghome
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I suspect the dubious claims of HSUK may be trotted out shortly...
Yep, the whole point of these studies and suggestions is to indefinitely delay any line from being built. You can find objections to any proposal and after 8 years of development HS2 is the plan the government, Labour and Lib Dems agreed on. If I were in charge id make some changes to it, as would many people but its fundmental a decent solution to a very large number of railway constraints in London, Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds. There are also economic and environmental benefits from reducing journey times and encouraging a shift away from car and air travel.
And, of course, for travellers from the western part of Coventry the new HS2 station at Brum International would be equally convenient.
Given that it's not even known the leg of the trains that may even run the services it is not possible to produce a timetable.
As Northern with lots of short trains run a very different timetable to the south East TOC's who run longer trains.
Will the future WCML timetable look different from what runs now, almost certainly. Will it mean significantly longer journey times, probably not.
There is likely to be significant demand for Birmingham/Coventry likewise MK/London, as such I wouldn't be surprised if the was a service that ran Birmingham, Birmingham International, Coventry, MK, London. Yes there would be limited numbers who travel end to end (much as there is on XC services) but between each station there could be enough of a flow to make it worth running it as a joined up service.
It could well be the case that such a service continues beyond Birmingham so as to get people to/from Birmingham but also providing good connections to Coventry, as although the numbers wanting to go there wouldn't be enough to justify their own service it would be enough to justify a through service.
What has to be remembered is that by the full opening of Phase 2 passenger numbers could have easily doubled over the current numbers. That means that a flow of 5 people an hour at present between two stations could be 10, as such if there's a service with 5 stops there could be 100 people traveling on the train over the line. Add in that it's going to London as well and the service is likely to be very viable.
YorkshireBear
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How do you expect a timetable to be published? For something that won't be operational for 9 years....
Of all these journeys you seem to say will be made worse have you mentioned All the ones that will get better by additional services running? For Example i know one suggestion is to continue to run conventional Leeds-Birmingham services on the existing network. But re-route them so that Barnsley and Meadowhall both get direct services. Thats a big benefit. Additional calls at Burton and Tamworth too as the trains won't be running non stop as much. All seems quite positive to me when you take all these examples of possibilities afforded to current secondary routes.
I looked in detail at work the other day at the HSUK proposals, how they think they can deliver what they say for that price i will never know. I think you would need more than 10* that much.
Dgss1
Member
Not only is it £200bn it is also impossible. Clearly the person/people that made it live near the ECML in the North
Building any railway is possible - at a price.
I wouldn't be surprised if one of the protagonists lives not unadjecent to the route of HS2 in the Chilterns...
Im more surprised that the whole team is only 2 people
http://www.highspeeduk.co.uk/the-team/
But they both appear to be from HArrogate and Poppleton would you believe
YorkshireBear
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And the rest???
Yes, I live in Coventry and I'm grateful to Davibob for admitting the city will lose out from HS2 while others are making excuses. Ironic that it's had the biggest passenger growth outside London. But the only city? What about Stoke on Trent, Wolverhampton, Walsall, Derby, Sheffield, Wakefield, Leicester?
Stoke fought hard to get an HS2 station and lost.
Wolves and Walsall will be effectively cut off from HS2 and existing services are due to be cut.
Derby will not be connected to Toton unless existing services are rerouted there, taking longer.
Sheffield objected to Meadowhall and only succeeded in losing HS2 altogether. Victoria is the right place.
Leicester don't seem to realise how little use Toton will be to them. They probably accept HS2 because the carrot of MML electrification is dangled before them, but it'll probably never happen since GW electrification has been such a disappointment.
The poor links between East and West Midlands will not be improved by HS2. It never ceases to amaze my how enthusiasts make excuses for HS2 when to anyone prepared to look objectively at it, it's clearly a complete lemon. Transformational? Mending the north-south divide? Get real folks.
And remember that HS2's sums include the £8.3bn they plan to save by CUTTING existing services. If they were not cut there would be no saving. They can't have it both ways.
While they won't get an HS2 station, they also won't see a reduction in services though, just a slowing down (which I get is an issue, just not as big a one as at Coventry).
Wolves I get, Walsall though? I get that Curzon Street won't be terribly well connected, but there will still be a valid interchange there.
My understanding is that Derby will gain a direct Toton service, along with Nottingham, thus connecting both cities effectively to HS2. These plans are quite far in the future.
But Sheffield will be getting 2 direct classic-compatible services onto HS2 from Midland station. Sure, they won't have a dedicated HS2 station (although there is still talk of Sheffield Parkway). The added cost of getting a railway line to Victoria would eliminate any benefit of going that way, when using classic compatible trains is much easier.
Yeah, but they'll still have 4 tph to St Pancras, taking about an hour. Leicester just isn't that far from London. That's like saying Cambridge won't benefit from HS2. It's true, but not relevant.
Possibly, although hopefully getting Pendos off the mainline will free up capacity at places like New Street which could be used by more E-W regional trains.
I certainly don't expect it to do any of those things. I expected it to relieve capacity on the WCML, allowing local passengers better access to railway services along its axis, with some limited capacity relief to the ECML once HS2 trains get there - again, allowing more capacity for more local services.
Source please. Not that I don't believe you, just I haven't seen that figure anywhere and was wondering where you got it from.
HS2 is cutting the intercity services from the WCML, which then costs them money to run.
Those services which are cut from the WCML can then be replaced with other services, which will cost money to run.
The "savings" have to be allocated somewhere. In the same way that if you buy a new car you remove the costs from your old car that you are replacing it with from any budget you have which are then replaced by the costs of the new car.
As an example if you lease a car for £175 per month at the end of that lease you stop paying that £175 and you take out a new lease. Lets say that new lease costs you £185 per month your new outlay isn't £310 it's £185. If you then choice to lease a second car for £150 (as you need more capacity) that is then added to your budget. As a person that could be that it replaces your original car and £25 is then spare to use for your new more expensive car or that you add the second car as the extra item it has no impact on you. However if it is 2 TOC's then that makes a big difference, as if the intercity TOC is still paying for services that it is no longer running then the TOC that uses their paths then get free trains paid for them which the intercity TOC wouldn't be happy with.
edwin_m
Veteran Member
Toton to Birmingham will be about 20min, so central Nottingham to Birmingham will be quicker by changing there even if the first part of the journey is by tram. If a decent connecting train service is provided between Nottingham and Toton (which is likely but not confirmed, as for Derby) there will be even more time saving.
Figures taken from Supporting Report - Economic Case appraisal - full network
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/hs2-economic-case-october-2013
Last page under "Classic line savings". The first figure is for phase 1, the second includes phase 2. Priced at 2011 so the figures will be higher now.
Staff -£1,358m -£2,059m
Electricity -£515m -£759m
Diesel -£2m £m
Lease Cost -£1,538m -£2,254m
Maintenance -£1,365m -£1,667m
All Other -£898m -£1,526m
Add up the second column and you get £8.3bn. If new services were to be added to utilise the released capacity there would be no saving, so it's dishonest to claim both.
This is only the money side of it. I'll find the schedule of reduced services so you can see the damage HS2 would do to the network. I mentioned a short list of damaged stations. When you see the full list you'll understand the scale of destruction.
edwin_m
Veteran Member
Just to take this one statement.
Woodhead is not the only route linking Manchester and Liverpool to Sheffield and has never linked anywhere to Leeds.
Victoria is around 1km from Sheffield Cathedral, Midland is about 600m. Both are uphill but Midland has a tram connection.
The "Transpennine element to HS2" would have connected Manchester with Leeds, so high speed trains to Leeds would have run via Manchester and high speed would have gone nowhere near Sheffield. This was looked at but a network with two branches was chosen instead.
The nearest part of the Midland line to Victoria is about 400m away, but it is in a cutting spanned by bridges and tunnels so building a major new station here would be a huge undertaking.
I can't help thinking you're making your facts up to suit your opinion here. I realise the opposite isn't fashionable these days.
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So, like every large scale project, it's supposed to improve the railway overall. It's macro-scale decision making. Whether you agree with that is a different issue, more to do with politics and nothing to do with railway construction. Yes, the two are intertwined, but the zeitgeist from politicians over the last 40 years or so has been to do with the big scale, at the cost of the small scale. ie: so long as it benefits more people than it disbenefits, then the government is cool with it, but that's true of all political decision making. If every project completed had no disbenefits, then all projects would have to have a BCR of infinity before we could build them and nothing would ever get built. But I don't really want to debate the grander abstracted question of "how should government funding be allocated" because I don't think either of us would ever leave this forum thread if we did.
I'd suggest London, with its myriad of terminus stations, is pretty well connected. I think the plans for Leeds are poor, but I think there wasn't much choice in Birmingham. Better integration with Moor Street is probably all we can hope for.
As for Parkways, yeah, I kind of agree when it comes to Toton and (maybe*) Sheffield. Personally, I'd have said that greater benefits would have been had by running more classic compatibles - but apparently large savings can be made by buying "off-the-shelf" high speed trains.
*Maybe in that it might not get a Parkway, but get a Classic Compatible service only
But you also have to remember that not all of Nottingham is by the station. Lots of people will get on the NET straight there (or folks in Beeston etc).
As to sucking people out of towns to somewhere else, that's again, a different point. As I say, I agree that more classic-compatible services would have been a good thing, especially for the Nottingham-Derby situation. They aren't just going to shut down the MML though. The point of HS2 is to release capacity to benefit the people of intermediate towns, who are currently struggling to physically get on trains (especially on the WCML corridor). Phase 2 performs the same task for people on the MML corridor assuming a certain level of growth. It's high speed because it's cheaper to make it high speed as high speed trains can go over bigger gradients. Is its route perfect? Absolutely not, but that's because you're dealing with the messy world of politics. Does this mean it shouldn't get built? No, because based on whatever estimating models have been used**, it will benefit more people than it will disbenefit and that's how things are done in general.
** I just want to make the point as well, that estimating models can be wrong, but we need to figure stuff like this out somehow.
1. Sheffield Victoria isn't that central to Sheffield.
2. You'd need to bore out a new Woodhead tunnel. One of them isn't structurally sound enough anymore, the other is full of electric cables for all the electricity that the good people of Sheffield and Manchester use.
3. You can't make an interchange at Victoria between the Midland and the Woodhead route. If you wanted an interchange, it would probably be somewhere around Nunnery Square or in the Blast Lane area. Both would require loads of demolition and years of disruption to existing services, because you'd need to replicate the number of platforms at Midland.
4. Are you suggesting that HS2 take a "Manchester via Sheffield" route, or that the existing "Manchester" spur be built and that the second "Manchester to "Sheffield" HS line be built, with a reversal at Sheffield Victoria for the Leeds services? Would you mind describing this idea better. I don't think I'm getting it.
If we ignore all the aforementioned points about government funding allocation etc. then I'd like to point out that HS2 is going nowhere near Leicester. The good folk of Leicester will have some benefits though. Their Leicester - London trains will be notably emptier, because all of those travelling from Sheffield will be on High Speed trains.
In terms of the monetary values above, thanks for providing the source. Someone up-thread posted that that specific bit is not taking into account running new services with those savings. It's all to do with how you draw lines around various bits of funding. I don't know which is accurate or not, so won't comment further on this point.
I'm pretty sure I've posted the WCML indicative service level post-HS2 up somewhere myself and I remember it generally being pretty positive, with only few towns "losing out", but lots of towns (especially on the South WCML corridor) winning. I'll see if I can find it.
TheDavibob
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HS2 doesn't serve Milton Keynes (obviously) which, for all intents and purposes, counts as a city on the route. Of course, MK benefits hugely from it being built.
HS2 doesn't serve Lichfield (a city, by name at least) despite running straight past it. Of course, Lichfield benefits from HS2 being built (with capacity relief allowing for a doubling of the semi-fast, almost certainly).
HS2 doesn't go anywhere at all near Cambridge, but of course, Cambridge benefits from HS2 being built (by virtue of ECML trains being free to run to somewhere that isn't Kings Cross).
The only city that seems to genuinely suffer (and not Stockport-style suffering, where granted they lose fast trains but, via a change at Piccadilly or a short jaunt to the Airport gain a massive time saving) is Coventry. And frankly, that's partially because Coventry is currently abusing it's position on the fast line to Birmingham and getting services it doesn't, on it's own merits, justify. That said, the freeing up of seats on the slightly-slower fasts from Coventry to Euston (and New Street) will make the journeys more comfortable (and maybe even cheaper) so it isn't entirely bad.
HS2 doesn't serve any places served by SWT services, but because the business case for Crossrail 2 improves with HS2 then they will all see an improvement.
Coventry could see a more frequent service with the fastest journey times only a little slower than at present. Will that mean that they are dramatically worse off? I would suggest that on balance most people will accept that trade off so that they have a wider choice of trains to use.
My view on how the released capacity will be used is that the majority of the released paths will be used by local services.
Yes there's going to be a few long distance LM type services, however it is much more likely that the southern end of the WCML, and to a lesser extent the southern end of the ECML, will be filled up with commuter services.
That will then allow more paths further north for other services, probably a more equal split between local and middle distance services.
It's where the complaints about long distance passenger numbers only make up a small percentage of the number of UK rail passengers starts to fall down. In that it could allow something like 10 new commuter services an hour into the London and the South East market which although is a small number of extra trains in that market does make up about 2/3 of all rail passengers.
Likewise 5 new services around Birmingham and 3 each for Manchester and Leeds again is fairly small in terms of numbers of services in the regional sector, but again the regional market is something like 1/4 of the passengers of the UK.
As such by "removing" long distance services from the existing network that frees up a significant number of paths for shorter distance services.
Of course then there's also the passengers who switch to HS2 because it's faster. For instance anyone from Reading heading north could switch from XC services by using HS2 services from Old Oak Common. That could also remove some people from London bound services who would be going through central London to head north. OK, that's not going to make a big difference to capacity but it could make a small difference.
Yes there's going to be a few long distance LM type services, however it is much more likely that the southern end of the WCML, and to a lesser extent the southern end of the ECML, will be filled up with commuter services.
That will then allow more paths further north for other services, probably a more equal split between local and middle distance services.
It's where the complaints about long distance passenger numbers only make up a small percentage of the number of UK rail passengers starts to fall down. In that it could allow something like 10 new commuter services an hour into the London and the South East market which although is a small number of extra trains in that market does make up about 2/3 of all rail passengers.
Likewise 5 new services around Birmingham and 3 each for Manchester and Leeds again is fairly small in terms of numbers of services in the regional sector, but again the regional market is something like 1/4 of the passengers of the UK.
As such by "removing" long distance services from the existing network that frees up a significant number of paths for shorter distance services.
Of course then there's also the passengers who switch to HS2 because it's faster. For instance anyone from Reading heading north could switch from XC services by using HS2 services from Old Oak Common. That could also remove some people from London bound services who would be going through central London to head north. OK, that's not going to make a big difference to capacity but it could make a small difference.
Has anybody seen Curzon Street's location in Brum? Despite being surrounded by fancy buildings it's an absolute hole at the bottom of a steep hill. The connection to New Street is over several very busy roads and either through the packed Bullring/Selfridges shopping centres or underground in beggars' alley. The Woodman pub is a saving grace but the area outside permanently smells of yoofs smoking weed and you have to dodge all the skateboarders outside the science museum. The pastoral area of Aston is around the corner so don't be getting lost as you leave the station.
The tram will take a circuitous route to/from Eastside and I suspect a lot of Londoners will stick to the WCML rather than use HS2 because of this. There cannot be a travellator because of the hills and main bus 'station' outside Moor Street.
Regarding Coventry, I would like to see less 350s stopping at all the halts, farms and villages on the WCML and more fast train stops at places like Northampton, MK and Rugby. I don't personally see a reduction of services to Coventry anyway - there is an extra platform being constructed right now after all. Peak services to and from Brum are very busy - can't comment on London bound much.
The tram will take a circuitous route to/from Eastside and I suspect a lot of Londoners will stick to the WCML rather than use HS2 because of this. There cannot be a travellator because of the hills and main bus 'station' outside Moor Street.
Regarding Coventry, I would like to see less 350s stopping at all the halts, farms and villages on the WCML and more fast train stops at places like Northampton, MK and Rugby. I don't personally see a reduction of services to Coventry anyway - there is an extra platform being constructed right now after all. Peak services to and from Brum are very busy - can't comment on London bound much.
edwin_m
Veteran Member
It's probably only known as Curzon Street station for historic reasons, as that was the original station that occupied part of the site of the HS2 terminus. The buffer stops and main entrance won't be on Curzon Street but will be close to the entrance to Moor Street station, thus providing a better connection to that group of services than New Street does today and avoiding any need to go near the science museum or indeed the Woodman. Agreed the connection to trains at New Street will take longer than connections within that station today, but it will be in the interests of everybody to provide the best possible connecting route.
The entrance to the HS2 station will be right next to Moor Street (opposite and slightly up hill from the Pavilions shopping centre) and about 700m from the nearest New Street entrance (avoiding using the tunnel or passage alongside the Bull Ring). Yes, that's going to put off a lot of people from change trains at Birmingham for HS2, but then there will be more space on the trains that will continue to serve New Street from other destinations (for instance if you are going between Birmingham and Manchester it will be 45 minutes rather than 90 minutes so significant numbers will switch from XC to HS2 providing more space for those that do want to use the slower service so that they have an easier change, or no change, at Birmingham)
However, anyone wanting use the local services that run through/to Moor Street will be significantly better off than they are at present.
Whenever there is a new line there will be those for whom it will be better and those for whom it will be worse and most of the time they will still have the option to use whichever option suits them more.
People heading to Birmingham will adjust and pick services based on where they are going, to an extent. The reason being is that with 30 minutes of time saving on the journey time most people could walk that far in that time and still have time to grab a coffee. However depending on where you are heading the extra distance could be cut further (for instance be heading to Symphony Hall and it drops to an extra 500m even though you are broadly walking past New Street).
As I suggested above, out of a current existing Virgin trains (IIRC 14 tph), it is likely that there would be some (say about 4) that would be longer distance trains (as you described) with the remaining paths (say about 10 tph into London and probably 5 tph into/out of Birmingham) being local commuter service. With maybe a few "other" medium/longer distance service (maybe like extra XC services) which don't serve London but aren't commuter trains either.
swt_passenger
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The HS2 station being consistently referred to as Curzon St has IMHO been one of the more ridiculous decisions of DfT and their subsidiary organisations.
It just allows regular whinges about the excess distance to somewhere completely irrelevant to passengers. Referring all along to Moor St High Speed station would have been the obvious solution that reflects where the entrance is.
It just allows regular whinges about the excess distance to somewhere completely irrelevant to passengers. Referring all along to Moor St High Speed station would have been the obvious solution that reflects where the entrance is.
TheDavibob
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Yup, especially if the Camp Hill lines are opened up, and the regional cross-country services diverted to Moor Street.
My only real gripe with Curzon Street is the lack of access to Birmingham locals (i.e. the Cross-City line and Chase Line). This is further compounded by the fact that the Cross-City runs past Curzon Street now (as do various other lines, but longer distance). I imagine the biggest stumbling block to just plonking a pair of new platforms down is that people would use it as a Curzon-New Street shuttle, thereby ruining the cross-city completely.
tbtc
Veteran Member
Agreed - if you didn't know anything about the plans and just googled the pub mentioned earlier (The Woodman) then you'd think that this HS2 station was going to be a mile or two away from New Street.
Curzon Street is a dreadful name for the station that will be effectively at Moor Street.
My guess is that some kind of link will happen, but HS2 is being carefully budgeted to ensure that it doesn't become liable for all of the "ancillary" benefits around the project.
For example, HS2's budget will pay for a new line from London to Leeds/ Manchester, but they don't want to see their money stretched by including schemes like "electrifying from Toton to Nottingham/ Derby and building a new interchange station"/ "a link from HS2 to HS1"/ "a link to existing lines at Birmingham to allow something like Leeds - Bristol to run via HS2".
So I'd wager that by the 2030s there'll be some link to New Street, or platforms on the existing lines to permit the kind of journey that you describe - but HS2 is being managed so that they don't foot the bill for these kind of improvements (and money will be found from the Network Rail budget or the West Midlands will fund it separately).
I'm not saying I agree with this approach, but it seems to be the way that projects happen nowadays - e.g. Crossrail wasn't going to go west of Maidenhead until the cost of electrifying to Reading was paid for by the GWML budget, then Crossrail could piggy-back on it...
...the problem is that it makes HS2 look half-finished and gives people some easy complaints to make about it - but I can see why HS2 want to ensure that they don't have to pay for all of the remodelling/ electrification/ extensions etc on the conventional network.
See what you mean but people would have still whinged anyway. Some individuals have a preconceived whinge position and merely look for issues to attach it to! They might have said for instance "they call it the same station as Moor Street but you have to go out of a door and back in another one so that isn't properly integrated", etc etc. Personally I quite like the idea of having a separate identity that can help people find their way round a large complex. Like having separately identified terminals within an airport for instance. The ease of transferring between the terminals is a separate issue, but there is no issue between Moor St and Curzon St as the head ends are side by side and I believe the New St connection to and from both could be improved massively by conversion of the Swan Passage / St Martin's Queensway tunnel to a pedestrian dedicated travelator link, something like this for instance: http://www.townend.me/files/brumlink.pdf
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