Terminating HS2 at Euston via existing lines

[SynthD]

If it was taken back there should be room for HS2 to surface here

The site isn't wide enough to build it, perhaps wide enough for the final result. I'm not sure about the length, it's 800m from the road bridge to the far end of the Queens Park platforms and that road bridge. The land above the tunnel as it comes up to the portal is the WCML and a road bridge, not parkland or sports fields.

 

[The Planner]

I was at a public meeting held by Lord Berkeley near Euston a few years ago & he also argued strongly for HS2 to join the WCML at Queens Park for the last lap to Euston.
He said it could be done within the railways boundary without taking any land.

I was very sceptical so took a trip to Queens Park a few days later.

Lord Berkeley was right. A well known builders merchant has a large yard just north of the station between the DC lines & the WCML. Presumably it was once Queens Park Goods yard & is now leased from Network Rail.

If it was taken back there should be room for HS2 to surface here including a flyunder without any land take at all...& with careful management not enormous disruption with freights diverted via Hampstead Heath & 6 available tracks from Willesden Junction to Euston.

Its not 6 tracks from Willesden to Euston though. its 5 from Camden.

 

[Nottingham59]

6 available tracks from Willesden Junction to Euston.

its only 6 tracked to Park St tunnels.

I see there are only 5 tracks around the curve between Camden Junction and the canal, but fortunately there are six tracks over the canal bridge and space for an additional sixth track around the outside of the curve. Giving six tracks available for peak hour traffic from Queens Park into Euston.

 

[The Planner]

I see there are only 5 tracks around the curve between Camden Junction and the canal, but fortunately there are six tracks over the canal bridge and space for an additional sixth track around the outside of the curve. Giving six tracks available for peak hour traffic from Queens Park into Euston.

So we are now straying into rebuilding a live railway in terms of the Euston approaches. How are you dealing with Camden Jn where the Up Fast splits into lines A and D and the grade separation there?

 

[popeter45]

So we are now straying into rebuilding a live railway in terms of the Euston approaches. How are you dealing with Camden Jn where the Up Fast splits into lines A and D and the grade separation there?

if Euston is getting pushed back could use that time to re-plan Euston alltogether with a full rebuild?
sink the classic links to HS2 level and have a single 24 400m platform station that everything can access, also add a few switches half-way along some of the platforms to allow them to be used a A&B 200m platforms for more capacity, could even leave 2 with passive pervisions for connection to watford DC services onto crossrail 2 if that happened

 

[zwk500]

if Euston is getting pushed back could use that time to re-plan Euston alltogether with a full rebuild?
sink the classic links to HS2 level and have a single 24 400m platform station that everything can access, also add a few switches half-way along some of the platforms to allow them to be used a A&B 200m platforms for more capacity, could even leave 2 with passive pervisions for connection to watford DC services onto crossrail 2 if that happened

How are you achieving this whilst still maintaining some resemblance of a train service to Euston itself?

 

[popeter45]

How are you achieving this whilst still maintaining some resemblance of a train service to Euston itself?

project rio style
MML run diesel servies to st pancras MML side or liverpool street for Manchester+Liverpool
scottish 390's run on NLL to 2 of the st pancras international platforms 5+6 with KVB disabled and AWS overlayed instead
LNWR terminate at watford for overground to go via WLL to terminate at waterloo

 

[Bletchleyite]

How are you achieving this whilst still maintaining some resemblance of a train service to Euston itself?

The way to do it, as HS2 was indeed going to do, is to do half at a time. You'd have to reduce services to make Euston work with say 12 platforms at once, but it's doable.

 

[zwk500]

The way to do it, as HS2 was indeed going to do, is to do half at a time. You'd have to reduce services to make Euston work with say 12 platforms at once, but it's doable.

You'd either have to do it in so many stages you'd be constantly rewriting the timetable or you'd have to reduce the service to such a paltry offering that either way the revenue and passenger numbers hit would be decades worth.

 

[The Planner]

The way to do it, as HS2 was indeed going to do, is to do half at a time. You'd have to reduce services to make Euston work with say 12 platforms at once, but it's doable.

HS2 did do that for the last two years with high side closures of Euston.

You'd either have to do it in so many stages you'd be constantly rewriting the timetable or you'd have to reduce the service to such a paltry offering that either way the revenue and passenger numbers hit would be decades worth.

Depends on the block. You can normally do 5 or 6tph Avanti on a two track timetable.

 

[Bletchleyite]

You'd either have to do it in so many stages you'd be constantly rewriting the timetable or you'd have to reduce the service to such a paltry offering that either way the revenue and passenger numbers hit would be decades worth.

Not really.

Euston presently has 16 platforms, and the plan is to reduce to 15 once HS2 needs to take P16 with no service reduction. So you only need to drop by three more.

You could probably manage that by doing stuff like the following:
- No second Liverpool
- No Birmingham semifast (keep the existing 2tph)
- Get rid of the peak extra fast Northampton, instead extending the clockface fasts to 12 car and extending the Tring semifast to Bletchley and the MKC stopper to Northampton in the peaks.
- Temporarily reroute the Watford DC away from Euston (not quite sure where to, but there are options that have been considered before, e.g. via Primrose Hill).
- North Wales services an hourly connection (improved frequency to Holyhead to pay for loss of through services), timed to connect well to the Liverpool every hour in both directions at Crewe.
- Reduce layovers at Euston; if a particular service needs to be there for a long time run it out to Camden Bank. Compensate by increasing them at the outer end where feasible (certainly would be for MKC and Tring, for the LNR Birminghams you could sit at Northampton for a bit).

I suspect that'd be enough.

Alternatively you could do it in three stages which would allow more platforms at any one time.

 

[Bald Rick]

I was at a public meeting held by Lord Berkeley near Euston a few years ago & he also argued strongly for HS2 to join the WCML at Queens Park for the last lap to Euston.
He said it could be done within the railways boundary without taking any land.

I was very sceptical so took a trip to Queens Park a few days later.

Lord Berkeley was right. A well known builders merchant has a large yard just north of the station between the DC lines & the WCML. Presumably it was once Queens Park Goods yard & is now leased from Network Rail.

If it was taken back there should be room for HS2 to surface here including a flyunder without any land take at all...& with careful management not enormous disruption with freights diverted via Hampstead Heath & 6 available tracks from Willesden Junction to Euston.

As usual in these matters Lord B is sadly mistaken.

It would be possible, just, to get the high speed line up at Queens Park through the space released by the builders yard. However there would definitely be land take; as ever you can’t just magic major infrastructure into existence, someone has to build it. And to enable building you need land, and lots of it. Have a look at the land take at other tunnelling sites on HS2.

It would also be rather disruptive to the most valuable section of the WCML.

And, also, you cant get all the freight via Hampstead Heath, and the DC line tunnels would need reboring to take OLE.


(I know this because I’ve looked at it myself personally in the course of pre HS2 studies).

 

[Technologist]

As usual in these matters Lord B is sadly mistaken.

It would be possible, just, to get the high speed line up at Queens Park through the space released by the builders yard. However there would definitely be land take; as ever you can’t just magic major infrastructure into existence, someone has to build it. And to enable building you need land, and lots of it. Have a look at the land take at other tunnelling sites on HS2.

It would also be rather disruptive to the most valuable section of the WCML.

And, also, you cant get all the freight via Hampstead Heath, and the DC line tunnels would need reboring to take OLE.


(I know this because I’ve looked at it myself personally in the course of pre HS2 studies).

Land take/ civils working area is something which always annoys me in my current (non rail) project. From a first principles perspective it should be possible to build things very close to each other, in practice heuristically the civils people will point to examples of insufficient working space leading to delays.

The key point is that civil construction projects are orders of magnitude away in terms of cost and efficiency from where they could be theoretically if they were more like volume production industries. Ergo if you planned to activity down to the level of modelling the individual workers, used large amounts of automation, tooling and off site manufacture you probably could build stuff like the concept originally described in a tight area and with minimised disruptions to ongoing activities. (I am aware that all those things are current buzzwords in construction however the industry is very conservative and is nowhere near fully exploiting them)

However nothing like that will happen if you are set up as a project like HS2 is, if "Britain's New Trunk Railway" was set up with the goal of connection GB's top 20 conurbations to highspeed rail and then building each of those conurbations a mass transit/regional rail system, plus transit orientated development with a set budget of ~£10 billion a year (potentially much less if they are allowed to raise revenue from property) and finish point of ~2060 then you would be in a position where you could invest in owning your own capabilities to do things, have your own R&D department and learn by doing over extended time periods.

While we are at it BNTR should have pretty broad powers to set it's own route on the basis of "net public/environmental good" with a broad requirement to fully investigate alternative routes. We need to stop trying to engineer around public perception problems because that then causes the biggest public perception problem which is massive costs. HS2 has a vague goal, build a fast railway to Birmingham and maybe Manchester, sometimes it's for capacity sometimes its for speed and a massive vague price tag for something which doesn't seem that big and which most people can't imagine using. If the goal is much more ambitious like build a high speed railway to every big city, plus mass transit more people are likely to be on board even if it won't get to them for decades and 0.5-1% of government annual spend to do it is again difficult to make the "HS2 will bankrupt the country" statements against.

Really we should have started "BNTR" off by doing something like a Leeds-Teesside-Newcastle High Speed Railway learning all the lessons on a relatively easy bit, under current governance you couldn't do that because it would be likely that such a project would have a negative cost benefit on its own. We need to get the treasury out and embrace ambiguity over the long term, sell the project as a fixed annual budget and variable end date with the proviso that as we get better at doing this over time we will get more done per year as the project continues.

 

[SynthD]

Btnr would make HS2 as originally planned. It will be cancelled by nimbys aligned with sensible people who can’t stand the lack of local control you plan. You’d cancel it because your intentions are far from how any implementation will look like.

with a broad requirement to fully investigate alternative routes. We need to stop trying to engineer around public perception problems

I don’t understand how these two are compatible.

 

[BrianW]

If HS2 terminated at OOC is there any reason why it couldn't be connected up to the existing line to Euston so that HS2 could terminate at London Euston ?

Why? I appreciate that OOC may (will) require design changes to 'convert' it from a through station design to a terminus, and that 'passive provision' for later extension to Euston will also add to cost. Also that redesign/repurposing/ blight at and en route to Euston will also add to cost. Changes add cost; they are not a 'saving'.
Few passengers will have their journey's end at Euston, or OOC. Onward 'distribution' is a vital consideration. The Elizabeth line has been engineered into Paddington, and beyond, serving the West End, the City and Canary Wharf. What do origin and destination data suggest?
With appropriate run-offs onto the 'Classic' routes beyond Birmingham perhaps a silk purse might yet be created??
I can see why the government wishes to be seen making 'savings' from HS2 to promise 'levelling up' across the (red wall) 'north', relating it to the 'cost of living crisis' being suffered by 'hard-working families'. The Conservative Conference is just days away now, in Manchester's surplus to requirements and repurposed Central station.
I note, in passing, that Euston is in Kier Starmers' constituency, and Labour-run Camden Council; OOC is similarly Labour.

 

[grove]

If they are incapable of allowing a terminus at Euston to be built, surely the solution is to just connect Old Oak Common directly to HS1 and send trains down the Channel Tunnel as a better way of getting rid of them.

The problem is really historic in allowing politicians to think they can design infrastructure.
A terminus will always cause capacity problems, compare that with the throughput of City Thameslink with just two platforms. Running Manchester and the North trains through to Stratford might have been a better solution.
If the other issue is that HS2 addresses capacity on WCML then closing two other routes out of Manchester were also political mistakes of the 1960s and 1980s.
It feels like once again politicians are going to make some poor design decisions.
I'm not even sure there this a passenger acceptable solution yet from OOC to central London, so for the foreseeable future passengers will continue to use the WCML and Chiltern from Birmingham.

 

[SynthD]

I'm not even sure there this a passenger acceptable solution yet from OOC to central London

The Elizabeth line will stop (and half start) from there by then.

 

[MarkyT]

A terminus will always cause capacity problems, compare that with the throughput of City Thameslink with just two platforms. Running Manchester and the North trains through to Stratford might have been a better solution.

I disagree. With an ATO system, Walthamstow Central and Brixton are able to terminate and reverse the entire Victoria Line service of up to 33 trains per hour. Many Japanese dead-end terminals manage phenomenal throughput including the two Shinkansen high-speed facilities side by side at Tokyo station. Back in UK, Charing Cross and Fenchurch St. manage amazing throughput despite their buffer stops and limited platform numbers.

 

[zwk500]

A terminus will always cause capacity problems, compare that with the throughput of City Thameslink with just two platforms. Running Manchester and the North trains through to Stratford might have been a better solution.

Leaving aside the issue of getting from HS2 to HS1, where do they go from Stratford?

 

[grove]

Leaving aside the issue of getting from HS2 to HS1, where do they go from Stratford?

Anywhere east/south east of Stratford where you can put a turnaround depot!

 

[adamedwards]

Ebbsfleet as there is space and you might even use the loops off HS1 just down the line. Rebrand the station as Ebbsfleet (Kent Parkway) International.

 

[zwk500]

Ebbsfleet as there is space and you might even use the loops off HS1 just down the line. Rebrand the station as Ebbsfleet (Kent Parkway) International.

Not unlimited space with the Javelins coming through and the 400m platforms are European height, not HS2 height.

 

[grove]

Ebbsfleet as there is space and you might even use the loops off HS1 just down the line. Rebrand the station as Ebbsfleet (Kent Parkway) International.

Not unlimited space with the Javelins coming through and the 400m platforms are European height, not HS2 height.

Why do we design problems into our infrastructure?

 

[SynthD]

Why do we design problems into our infrastructure?

We don’t. They are designed for the purpose they first have. They aren’t made to be compatible with something that comes along 50 years later.

 

[zwk500]

Why do we design problems into our infrastructure?

Because using HS1 is not a solution to the problem you're trying to solve.

 

[grove]

Let's stick to the original design and stop delaying and changing our minds!

 

[HSTEd]

Why do we design problems into our infrastructure?

Because HS2 decided to use a non standard platform height and then decided to initiate a doomed legal action against the EU over it.

It was only rescued from inevitable defeat by Brexit.

That decision also means that classic compatible trains can never be level boarding throughout their service because the HS2 height is different from the general UK standard.

Just another example of HS2's hubristic behaviour

 

[Parjon]

Moving from a problematic 3tph service and going to 2tph to each of Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham would help greatly.

Of course it would expose the fact that there is no need to build HS2 at all...

 

[The Planner]

Moving from a problematic 3tph service and going to 2tph to each of Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham would help greatly.

Of course it would expose the fact that there is no need to build HS2 at all...

You'll have to explain that one. Liverpool will get its second train per hour in due course.

 

[matacaster]

Because HS2 decided to use a non standard platform height and then decided to initiate a doomed legal action against the EU over it.

It was only rescued from inevitable defeat by Brexit.

That decision also means that classic compatible trains can never be level boarding throughout their service because the HS2 height is different from the general UK standard.

Just another example of HS2's hubristic behaviour

Whilst not cheap, surely a bit of kneeling bus technology or electrified ramps at each door could solve the platform height issue.