Was cancelling the HS2-HS1 tunnel between Old oak Common and St Pancras a mistake , if anything i think this is one of the most short-sighted cancellations of HS2 as it prevents linking the larger European rail network to the Uk's that would potentially provide an international rail link from the north to Europe
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Should the HS2-HS1 tunnel under London be uncancelled?
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I would suggest looking for the previous threads on this subject. International services on the rest of the UK network have many issues that make them infeasible and it would degrade the services that HS2 should be providing.
mike57
Established Member
I think history will look back at the decision to abandon linking HS1 and HS2 (or at least terminating them at the same location) as a major lost opportunity but given where we are now it isn't going to happen in the foreseeable future.
The reality is we are struggling to get past Old Oak Common, and given the current economic situation and the massive overspend on the bit of HS2 that is being built i think it's safe to say that any further high speed rail is decades away at best.
I actually think the economic situation is getting worse and will end up being worse than at any point in the last 60 years or so and this will impact the railways as it will everything else.
St Pancras International is pretty much at capacity, so would an hourly Birmingham (either Ebbsfleet or Ashford may be alternate hours) Lille Paris service help, probably. Will it happen, no.
The reality is we are struggling to get past Old Oak Common, and given the current economic situation and the massive overspend on the bit of HS2 that is being built i think it's safe to say that any further high speed rail is decades away at best.
I actually think the economic situation is getting worse and will end up being worse than at any point in the last 60 years or so and this will impact the railways as it will everything else.
St Pancras International is pretty much at capacity, so would an hourly Birmingham (either Ebbsfleet or Ashford may be alternate hours) Lille Paris service help, probably. Will it happen, no.
Only if we join Schengen. Much as I would like to, it seems a majority of my countrymen do not.
I think quite the opposite. As mentioned above, without Schengen services were just infeasible. The capacity of the link was never going to be enough to make it worth building the passenger handling facilities for international trains, and every station on HS2 is too chronically congested to allow a platform to be lost to international trains.
I would argue it would've sat as an empty White Elephant to an even bigger extreme than Stratford.
John Jefkins
Member
Totally agree. But simplest link is to terminate the tunnel from Old Oak at Primrose Hill with two ramps ( ie both tracks ) linking to the North London line route to St Pancras. Restore 4 tracking and both old platforms at Camden Town to take TfL and freight. Reversing Javelins at St Pancras to terminate them at OOC creates 24 slots of 7.5m each on the Javelin platforms to take 8 Classic compatible HS2 trains to St Pancras instead of Euston with them terminating at those 6 unused platforms at Stratford (2) , Ebbsfleet (2) or Ashford (2). That would create 12 tph across London from OOC to St Pancras and Stratford. It boosts HS2 demand 47% for 70% of London and the South East as well as GWR demand by connecting the Thameslink, Javelin , Kings Cross , MML and Great Eastern networks to HS2 and the GWR ( plus Heathrow).
Forget that Euston dead end. Just use St Pancras and unused HS1 platforms to terminate all HS2 trains until HS2 reaches Manchester again - by which time we’d only need 3 or 4 platforms at Euston and the whole of Euston could be rebuilt as a single level integrated station with just a single track from HS2 for just 4 trains / hr.
St Pancras and existing unused HS1 platforms at Stratford, Ebbsfleet and Ashford could handle 11 HS2 trains per hour.
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I do see it as a mistake, the same as the Elizabeth line’s bespoke core terminating westbound trains beneath eastbound mainline terminators.
It’s as if we learned nothing frim Victorian railways terminating around London’s periphery and denies Birmingham and Manchester possible European through services.
It’s as if we learned nothing frim Victorian railways terminating around London’s periphery and denies Birmingham and Manchester possible European through services.
John Jefkins
Member
Not if Eurostar trains carried domestic passengers in half the train and international in the other half and they used the side platforms at St Pancras to exit domestic one side , close doors & check everyone has gone before opening doors on the other side to load international passengers. That could be done within 6 or 7 minutes if international passengers were already by the correct doors.
Eurostar or Virgin international could then bid to run 3 trains/hr to Manchester. They share domestic & international already on trains from Brussels to Lille where both passengers go through bag scans but domestic bypass passport control to use a different route to their part of the train. Two guys in red sweatshirts act as the border and stop anybody passing between the domestic and international parts of the trains. It’s been done for years on Eurostars. Why not in England too?
John Jefkins
Member
It reduces Euston cost by billions. Its also half the cost of tunnelling from Primrose Hill to Euston.
1) The existing viaduct around Camden market is already 8.4m wide so it’s wide enough for a pair of GC gauge tracks. The work is just to replace bridge superstructures @ about £8 million each for 6 bridges ( Whaley bridge just got new superstructure for £5.1m ).
2) Redecking existing bridges and restoring tracks on existing railway land for 1km of 4 tracking for TfL track isn’t a vast task - say £30m. Plus £10m to restore the old platforms at Camden Town?
Remember that TfL save £1 billion by avoiding needing to upgrade Euston underground because if most HS2 trains go to St Pancras instead of Euston, Kings X / St P already has an upgraded and perfectly big enough tube station to cope with HS2 traffic too.
HS2 save £5 billion by avoiding the need of ever having more than about 3 platforms for HS2 at Euston - which could be postponed until it reaches Manchester and which could be approached via the existing throat from Primrose Hill instead of an expensive tunnel between Primrose Hill and Euston.
The Euston rebuild could be postponed until HS2 reaches Manchester and until the rest of Euston needs to be rebuilt and Crossrail 2 gets built.
Meanwhile by overlapping Javelins to OOC ( ideally to Heathrow ) with all HS2 trains sent via St Pancras reversals to terminate at Stratford , Ebbsfleet and Ashford, we get 12 tph across London and HS1 platforms can terminate up to 11 HS2 trains per hour.
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FGWHST43009
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Ideally being in Schengen would make this feasible however as others have previously stated it's not a popular idea at the moment. With Schengen a proper HS2-HS1 link (maybe akin to the original BR plans with an underground through station either in the St Pancras/King's Cross area or Euston) could allow some HS2 trains to continue to Europe rather than terminating at Euston? Slightly off topic but someone on a previous thread suggested doing on-train passport checks while stationary at Cheriton and Coquelles. Surely something similar could be done at Ashford International and Lille Europe but without passengers having to de-train? There could be a train from Birmingham and Manchester to Paris which would run as separate 200m sets as far as Birmingham Interchange then couple up, stop at Old Oak, Stratford then Ashford for passport checks.
So rather than sending HS2 traffic to a purpose-built terminal at Euston, you’d try to cram them into an already overloaded St Pancras?
Eurostar gave up on split domestic/international trains several years ago.
You would also have to build border controls and staff them at every additional station you’re calling at.
Would these 3 tph to Manchester be instead of HS2’s planned 3 tph? So you’re halving the domestic capacity at a start.
This is tail wagging the dog stuff. Restructuring the first major uplift in domestic rail capacity in decades in order to service a comparatively small number of people who would use an international through train is madness.
John Jefkins
Member
Totally agree. By taking most HS2 trains to St Pancras and Stratford ( by reversing Javelins to terminate at OOC platforms we create 24 7.5 minute slots on those 3 platforms or 30 6 minute slots) we create room at St Pancras to reverse 8 HS2 tph.
The Passenger Demand Forecast Handbook says you remove a 65 minute interchange penalty to increase passenger demand 47% on connections from Thameslink or Javelins or Great Eastern trains at Stratford simply by switching HS2 trains from Euston to both St Pancras (Thameslink ) and Stratford. That’s a 50% uplift for about 70% of the HS2 market- ie 35% of 45 million = 15 million extra passengers/ yr paying over £60 average fares in 2040 = almost £1 billion per year extra revenue.
There’s a similar uplift if Javelins extended to Heathrow via a single track ramp at OOC similar to the one at Stratford international towards Temple Mills. That would enable some Eurostars to terminate at those 2 central OOC platforms.
All done by ending the OOC tunnels at Primrose Hill with ramps up via the HS2 office site at juniper crescent to join the NNL as it curves around Camden market. That viaducts is 8.4m wide enough for tracks to be relaid for GC Guage. Just the bridge superstructures need replacing with arches either side instead of having 3 I beams ( as the I beam in the middle gets in the way of GC guage ).
HS1 Ltd should be OK with better using the 3 Javelin platforms and could add extra lifts & perhaps an extra escalator on the side of the new part of St Pancras. Later on , by extending some Eurostars to OOC , there’d also be room to better exploit those 6 Eurostar platforms to terminate some HS2 trains too. But right now 6 platforms down HS1 are completely unused. Why build 6 new platforms at Euston when HS1 already has them?
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FlyingPotato
Member
In an Ideal world (with or without Schengen), I think the tunnel should have been built and all new HS2 build stations built with or provided provisions for Eurostar esc facilities.
However, it was cut and if the government has a hissy fit over building it to Crewe and God forbid Leeds, it ain't going to be built for a very long time if at all
However, it was cut and if the government has a hissy fit over building it to Crewe and God forbid Leeds, it ain't going to be built for a very long time if at all
Interesting, I've always thought that if there was a link, Stratford International could finally have a purpose as "the" London stop on a through service from HS1 to HS2, rather than having to go into and reverse out of St Pancras again.
HSTEd
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International traffic simply isn't a major traffic driver on the UK railway.
Even if through trains could be run between Birmingham and Manchester and a handful of locations in North Western Europe, they are going to struggle to compete with simply flying. And the vast majority of international travel to the continent doesn't go to a small corner of North Western Europe.
I would prefer any money that woudl be spent on some sort of connection instead be spent on a HS1 modernisation to allow it to fulfill its domestic role more effectively. If anything I'd suggest moving Midland Main line trains into a rebuilt Euston (so HS1 can take over the MML platforms) would be preferable to moving Euston trains into St Pancras.
Even if through trains could be run between Birmingham and Manchester and a handful of locations in North Western Europe, they are going to struggle to compete with simply flying. And the vast majority of international travel to the continent doesn't go to a small corner of North Western Europe.
I would prefer any money that woudl be spent on some sort of connection instead be spent on a HS1 modernisation to allow it to fulfill its domestic role more effectively. If anything I'd suggest moving Midland Main line trains into a rebuilt Euston (so HS1 can take over the MML platforms) would be preferable to moving Euston trains into St Pancras.
Sorry for multi quoting. I haven’t got time to respond to all the points now, but I will tomorrow. Before I do that, can I check a summary of your proposal:
1) A new tunnel (doible track?) is built from OOC to somewhere near Primrose Hill
2) All Southeastern High Speed services (up to 8tph) reverse at St Pancras platforms 11-13 before heading west over new build track to that new tunnel, to terminate at OOC, and vice versa
3) 8tph HS2 services (of the 10-12 that will run when Phase 1 is complete) head via this new tunnel to St Pancras platforms 11-13 (max length 295 metres), either terminating there or continuing east to Stratford (2 tph each way), Ebbsfleet (2 tph each way) or Ashford (2tph each way).
Assuming I’m correct, and putting to one side for now the 10 year delay to the project this would entail, can you just check your working on platform usage at St Pancras with 24tph turning each hour, using the hesdways and junction margins at St Pancras and minimum turnback times and minimum platform reoccupations?
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Note there's no physical route between the SE platforms at St. Pancras and the NLL line. Along with connecting lines from MML and ECML, the Camden chord is only connected to the international platforms. It might be possible to add extra points (crossings with slips probably) to create such a track connection, but it would require reversing trains to cross the entire throat on the flat for each movement. The existing terminal layout is very clever with a grade separation squeezed into the throat to minimise conflict, in concept rather like that planned for HS2 at Euston. From https://railway-news.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/signalling-at-the-st-pancrasctrl-terminal.pdf
A Eurostar train has approximately the same capacity as five A320s or 737s. Manchester would struggle to fill one train per day to Paris even if the whole route was high speed and took about 3 and a half hours. The maximum demand for regional Eurostar to Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam would probably be 1tph. It's simply not worth building a link for that.
Joining Schengen has never been a popular idea apart from amongst people with a very internationalist outlook. Eurostar is only very useful for a small corner of Europe and the added hassle of passport control is small compared with the hassle of taking a plane. Most Brits don't visit Europe that often. It's an easy sell to spend 10-15 minutes once a year in order to have a basic border check for illegal migrants. Where schengen failed is not having an option for the five island nations in Europe for border controls but being part of the Schengen visa system.
A better project to reduce the number of flights would probably be extending HS2 towards Scotland.
If the purpose is to encourage better rail connections to Europe could be building a line between Old Oak Common and Stratford to create an easy interchange to international services.
By doing that you could maintain a constant service (say 3tph to Manchester) but then witha frequent service to Stratford you could have a high frequency of trains to various locations across Europe which would see higher usage than direct trains.
As whilst you would not have the benefit of a direct service you could see people going to other places more able to go direct from Stratford (so not having to change outside of the UK - which shouldn't be an issue but if there's issues trying to understand what's happening in a language you aren't proficient in can be a struggle).
If the purpose is to encourage better rail connections to Europe could be building a line between Old Oak Common and Stratford to create an easy interchange to international services.
By doing that you could maintain a constant service (say 3tph to Manchester) but then witha frequent service to Stratford you could have a high frequency of trains to various locations across Europe which would see higher usage than direct trains.
As whilst you would not have the benefit of a direct service you could see people going to other places more able to go direct from Stratford (so not having to change outside of the UK - which shouldn't be an issue but if there's issues trying to understand what's happening in a language you aren't proficient in can be a struggle).
Technologist
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Ironically one of the most consequential decisions in European history was the choice of channel tunnel contractors.
One of the options for the channel tunnel was EuroRoute which would have been a road bridge/tunnel and a train tunnel. It wasn't selected as the winner as it was predicted to cost substantially more than the rail only option.
EuroRoute
Today you can catch a train to France. You can even put your car on it, and be there in less than an hour. But in the 1980s, Euro Tunnel had competition - including plans to build a motorway across the English Channel.
www.roads.org.uk
The public consultation indicated that most people would prefer to be able to drive across and also not need to book slots in advance.
I think in practice this solution would have been wildly popular and lead to plenty of people in south east England travelling regularly to Europe on a whim. It would have probably ended up with the UK in Schengen (border checks would have seemed very silly) and no Brexit.
John Jefkins
Member
So
St Pancras platforms aren’t at capacity with only 6 tph using 9 platforms. Of course not. And HS1 has 6 completely UNUSED platforms. Even if Eurostar did use 4 of them again it would only be for 6 trains a day and they could easily be shared.
Right now we could save £6 BILLION by bypassing Euston ( linking to the North London Line at a shortened tunnel to Juniper Crescent ( Primrose Hill) instead of Euston. £5b on postponing anything at Euston until HS2 reaches Leeds again ( when only 2 or 3 platforms could take a few HS2 trains). £1b on not upgrading Euston tube until Crossrail 2 is built. New road bridges to take GC gauge and 4 tracking work using existing railway land from Camden Town eastwards to the St P junction would cost about half what’s saved on tunnelling from Primrose Hill to the huge Euston throat also saved.
By overlapping 4 Javelins sent west to terminate at OOC or Heathrow with 8 to 11 HS2 trains sent via St Pancras 4 minute reversals to terminate at Stratford or Ebbsfleet or Ashford we create relief for the overcrowded Elizabeth line and a 50% boosted market for 70% of HS2 passengers according to PDFH evidence that shows that switching Euston for St P or Stratford cuts out a 65 minute interchange penalty to boost HS2 and GWR markets for about 70% of the London and South East - ie everywhere accessible by the Thameslink Network ( including SE London connections to London Bridge), Kings X trains, MML , Javelins or Great Eastern trains as they all get faster and easier connections to both HS2 and GWR services from OOC than Euston could provide.
It’s the DOMESTIC market uplift of using the St Pancras and Stratford links to Thameslink, Kings X , Javelins, Great Eastern networks plus an already upgraded tube station with extra tube lines plus having through trains to Stratford and Kent instead of a Euston dead end.
Eurostar doubles it’s market if it can reach Heathrow and west London better - but I agree Eurostar is only 5 million extra passengers when the extra domestic passengers could amount to another 15 million per year up HS2 due to the better connections at St Pancras and Stratford and an extra 30 million passengers per year carried between Stratford, St Pancras and Old Oak Common.
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What interchange takes 65 minutes at Euston but not at St Pancras?
Where exactly are you proposing HS2 trains call next after Old Oak Common?
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Uncle Buck
Member
I cannot claim any technical knowledge, but it seems to me that it would be worth linking HS1 and HS2, not for international services north of London- I quite agree that they are not feasible- but to better integrate points east and southeast of London into the network.
Could there not be a service running, at the very least, Dover-Ashford-Ebbsfleet-Stratford-[St. Pancras or Euston]-Old Oak- Heathrow, or further afield,
Could there not be a service running, at the very least, Dover-Ashford-Ebbsfleet-Stratford-[St. Pancras or Euston]-Old Oak- Heathrow, or further afield,
Yes it should. A lot of people seem to have this backwards. It is not being in Schengen that makes using St Pancras as the sole international terminal out of over 2500 railway stations in Great Britain infeasible.
The security arrangements at St Pancras, making use of the converted Midland Railway beer cellar, which was proportioned for the efficient storage of beer barrels from Burton-on-Trent pending consumption in London, are not an efficient use of space and cannot serve the entirety of a population of 70 million, while of the purpose built facilities in London, Waterloo International has been decommissioned and Stratford International has never been commissioned and in Kent, Ebbsfleet International and Ashford International are no longer served by the Eurostar.
The only feasible way to achieve a modal shift from air to rail is to build security facilities at the stations outside London, on HS2 and run international trains from Manchester and Birmingham etc which do not stop in London at all. We will of course not be joining Schengen for the purposes of a railway which we already have and that is not a valid reason to continue forcing passengers through airports indefinitely.
As well as the environmental implication of doing nothing to move short haul aviation onto the railway, we should be highly concerned following Rishi Sunak’s descoping of HS2 that either too few destinations are going to be served by the high speed line, or that even once finished the terminus at Euston is not going to have the capacity to reverse enough trains to fill all the paths on HS2.
There needs to be somewhere else to send the trains from HS2 which cannot serve Euston, as well as to serve the international travel demand of the 90% of the population who do not live within reach of St Pancras. If we were in Schengen, then the use of St Pancras would be feasible. It is the fact that we are not and will not be in Schengen that makes it essential that the security facilities are distributed around the country to cope with the number of passengers from anywhere in the country who could be using international trains, but cannot be accommodated at St Pancras.
The security arrangements at St Pancras, making use of the converted Midland Railway beer cellar, which was proportioned for the efficient storage of beer barrels from Burton-on-Trent pending consumption in London, are not an efficient use of space and cannot serve the entirety of a population of 70 million, while of the purpose built facilities in London, Waterloo International has been decommissioned and Stratford International has never been commissioned and in Kent, Ebbsfleet International and Ashford International are no longer served by the Eurostar.
The only feasible way to achieve a modal shift from air to rail is to build security facilities at the stations outside London, on HS2 and run international trains from Manchester and Birmingham etc which do not stop in London at all. We will of course not be joining Schengen for the purposes of a railway which we already have and that is not a valid reason to continue forcing passengers through airports indefinitely.
As well as the environmental implication of doing nothing to move short haul aviation onto the railway, we should be highly concerned following Rishi Sunak’s descoping of HS2 that either too few destinations are going to be served by the high speed line, or that even once finished the terminus at Euston is not going to have the capacity to reverse enough trains to fill all the paths on HS2.
There needs to be somewhere else to send the trains from HS2 which cannot serve Euston, as well as to serve the international travel demand of the 90% of the population who do not live within reach of St Pancras. If we were in Schengen, then the use of St Pancras would be feasible. It is the fact that we are not and will not be in Schengen that makes it essential that the security facilities are distributed around the country to cope with the number of passengers from anywhere in the country who could be using international trains, but cannot be accommodated at St Pancras.
There is no feasible way of doing what you suggesting.
As others have pointed out, even if every air passenger from Manchester airport swapped to rail you'd max out at 1tph.
You might get another 2tph from all the other airports.
However HS2 is based on 17tph, reducing that to 14tph isn't going to mean much of a reduction in the number of platforms in London.
At the time of HS2 being proposed the 390's had 469 seats, whilst HS2 are at to have 1,100 seats. 3x469= 1,407 whilst 2x1,100= 2,200 which would mean the extra capacity would be an extra 57%.
That would mean even if rail growth was 1.5% per year we'd use up the extra capacity in 31 years (so by 2040).
On that model in 2023/24 we should have been at plus 27% even allowing for the sufficient fall due to COVID we were at plus 21% on the London/Northwest passenger numbers, plus 28% on London/West Midlands and plus 110% on London/Scotland.
However growth in the first half of 2024/25 on Avanti services has been 4.6% (so far higher than 1.5% per year). Which would mean that in 2024/25 the gap on the Northwestern flows would be closing up very rapidly. If we assume no further growth it would reach plus 26% compared to the model of plus 29%.
Now obviously the reason we can still fit those extra passengers in was because the original trains weren't full in 2009 (and there's been upgrades in capacity), however the point is that we'd likely need yet more capacity for HS2 soon after it's open if we were to reduce frequencies to 2tph.
Snow1964
Established Member
Yes it's a mistake, and not building the junction tunnels (even if don't build the link at this stage) isolates HS2
As others have said UKs staying out of Shenegen area makes it unattractive at the moment, but that might change sometime (and we are talking a 120 year Design life).
With country gradually deteriorating since Brexit, and post Brexit immigration worse than before there is good chance of change, more a case of which year than never.
When in ten years time other Europeans are boasting about cheap holiday travel on competitively priced open access International services and Midlanders and others in regions find they are excluded, going to wonder why we thought current approach was a good idea.
Trains like new TGV-M can carry 2x 740 passengers, there is no way St Pancras International can handle 4 trains an hour each way with those sort of passenger numbers, without other UK stations sharing the load. The alternative is high fares to squueze demand.
As for the idea a HS1-HS2 link needs a station, that is just expensive Fantasy when trains can call at either or both of Old Oak and Stratford I ternational with their connections.
As others have said UKs staying out of Shenegen area makes it unattractive at the moment, but that might change sometime (and we are talking a 120 year Design life).
With country gradually deteriorating since Brexit, and post Brexit immigration worse than before there is good chance of change, more a case of which year than never.
When in ten years time other Europeans are boasting about cheap holiday travel on competitively priced open access International services and Midlanders and others in regions find they are excluded, going to wonder why we thought current approach was a good idea.
Trains like new TGV-M can carry 2x 740 passengers, there is no way St Pancras International can handle 4 trains an hour each way with those sort of passenger numbers, without other UK stations sharing the load. The alternative is high fares to squueze demand.
As for the idea a HS1-HS2 link needs a station, that is just expensive Fantasy when trains can call at either or both of Old Oak and Stratford I ternational with their connections.
John Jefkins
Member
International services are a red herring. It’s the DOMESTIC connection Thameslink - to Cambridge, Luton, Bedford, most of London, Javelins from Kent and the Stratford connections to East London and Essex for both HS2, Heathrow and GWR trains.
It’s 30 million extra passengers a year added to both HS2 and GWR trains from swopping Euston to St Pancras or Stratford for most HS2 trains.
That’s achieved by simply overlapping 4 Javelins/hr to OOC with at least 8 HS2 trains/hr reversing in 4 minutes each at the 3 Javelin platforms at St Pancras to terminate on those disused platforms at Stratford, Ebbsfleet and Ashford.
By terminating the HS2 tunnel on railway land near Juniper Crescent to join existing NNL tracks ( 4 tracked again on railway land from Camden Town) we save £6 billion and boost HS2 revenue by between £1 billion and soon £2 billion extra revenue per year.
What’s not to like? Why was this ignored?
Check out the PDFH. If you compare Euston with St Pancras for Thameslink network passengers they get a 65 minute interchange penalty at Euston. And a 47% ( say 50%) INCREASE in passenger demand by switching to St Pancras. Same for travellers from Kent or Essex. The area improved is about 70% of London and the South East. That’s 15 million extra passengers up HS2 per year plus another 15 million extra using those 12 trains/hr between Stratford and OOC to reach Heathrow or GWR trains. Mostly through passengers on through trains reversing at St Pancras rather that two sets of trains and two sets of platforms using expensive central London real estate.
Sell most of the cleared land at Euston for lucrative housing and hotels. Use the 6 totally unused platforms on HS1 and 9 poorly used platforms at St Pancras ( with only 6 tph using them ) instead of wasting £6b at Euston ( £1b upgrading its tube stations and £5b on adding more platforms).
Send EVERY HS2 train to HS1 until HS2 reaches Manchester.
Then upgrade ALL of Euston as an integrated station where HS2 trains share the same level and some new platforms.
End the tunnel at Primrose Hill with ramps to both the NNL and a future ramp stub to later connect to a much smaller number of platforms at Euston - only added when HS2 phase 2 gets built.
But meanwhile HS2 can earn £1 billion extra revenue per year by boosting its passenger numbers - far earlier than Euston could be built - by simply using the unused HS1 platforms at Stratford and Ebbsfleet THAT ALREADY EXIST.
Better cross London connections = higher revenue.
Using existing platforms at Stratford = lower cost.
Send Javelins west to OOC ( or ideally to Heathrow.
Send HS2 trains east via St P reversals to reach Stratford or Ebbsfleet with some reaching Ashford.
St Pancras doesn’t need to handle passengers who stay on board through trains to Stratford or Kent.
But St Pancras platforms are actually very lightly used.
Only 6 trains per hour shared across NINE huge platforms!
Of course those platforms could be better used to reverse HS2 trains sent to actually terminate 7 minutes east at Stratford’s totally unused platforms or others sent to 2 more at Ebbsfleet with some continuing to Ashford too.
The better CONNECTION to the Thameslink, Great Eastern and Javelin networks with better London Bridge and King’s Cross local links is what boosts revenue for HS2 ( as well as relief for an overcrowded Elizabeth line in providing cross London links to Heathrow and the GWR.
12 HS2 trains/ hr plus 4 Javelins per hour could be using the HS1 link - each way.
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John Jefkins
Member
Connecting HS2 services to the Thameslink, Javelin, Great Eastern and Kings x networks plus running through services to Stratford and Kent UPGRADES and INCREASES revenue to repay costs sooner.
Using EXISTING north London line links and EXISTING poorly used platforms at St Pancras ( for reversals ) and 6 completely unused HS1 platforms ( at Stratford , Ebbsfleet and Ashford ) for terminations SAVES £6 billion at Euston.
If you look at Arup’s drawings, using the NNL is totally feasible.
Redecking or replacing road bridge superstructure.
Restoring 4 tracking & still existing Camden Rd platforms.
Cheaper than even the section of tunnel saved to Euston.
40mph is fine for trains slowing to approach St Pancras platforms.
Overlapping Javelins sent west to OOC with HS2 trains sent east via St Pancras reversals to Stratford or Kent adds at least 12 trains per hour ACROSS London to connect up networks.
That doesn’t just add passengers to HS2.
The Elizabeth line can’t cope with demand.
It adds capacity for links to the GWR at OOC.
A ramp there to the GWR could enable Javelins to become the new Heathrow express to free up GWR platforms at Paddington too.
Overlap Javelins with HS2 trains to bypass London for millions.
They’d stay on board to reduce the need of city centre platforms.
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