Where should HS3 go and why?

[GingerSte]

Personally speaking, I would probably be in favour of the following
- Liverpool - Manchester - Leeds - Newcastle/Hull (using upgraded ECML for York to Newcastle)
- Toton (or wherever HS2 stops around Nottingham) - Leicester - London. This assumes that passenger increase continues, and that at some point relief is needed on the Birmingham-London portion of HS2. London terminus would most likely be near KX/St P, as by this point Euston would already be struggling.
- Something for the West of England. I'm not sure how this would work though. Maybe a London - Reading section. I'm not as familiar with the geography of that area, though, so would leave it to others.

However, I think that HS3 should actually be the section from Birmingham to Leeds. I'm not a fan of the current design for this leg, and I think that this section should be sent back to the drawing board. It can be added later if necessary.

I also think that a bit more money spent on small scale incremental improvements after HS2 would probably yield better results. Note, I said "After", not "Instead of"!

 

[Ironside]

That may well be the theory but I wouldn't rule out it attracting richer people from the South East to move to Cornwall since it would then be within commuting distance of London and this would likely force house prices/rents up as the market would command a higher price. This would make living in Cornwall even less affordable for the locals. Also the "bargain basement" fares would likely have to be booked a long time in advance and so would certainly not have the convenience of living in the South East. You can run as many trains per hour as you want but if you have an advance ticket, you only have one train per day you can travel on. The richer people would likely be able to afford very expensive walk-up fares and so have the convenience they are used to in the South East.

Richer people moving to the south west will increase housing demand but if extra housing is built to match the prices might not rocket and the increase in house building would improve the economy in the area so housing cost may be offset by increased wages. A lot of ifs in my sentence but my gist is that it doesn't have to be all bad news.

 

[Bonemaster]

If the government were to make car use a lot more expensive it could become unaffordable for quite a few people in the long term. Alternatively the government could decide to privatize the roads and leave it to the free market to raise the price of car use.

Quite simply no government would ever do this by design, Labour ran away from the plan of road pricing the best part of a decade ago, any pricing out is likely to apply to polluting cars, which the industry will phase out with more environmentally friendly cars, even if the proponents of High Speed rail agreed with you in any way, the models of parkway stations near motorways would never have been designed in.

Which is again countered by the increased wealth generated by having London being far more accessible.

Is pricing local people out of local houses right?

 

[TheKnightWho]

Is pricing local people out of local houses right?

Did you read my post?

 

[Zoe]

Quite simply no government would ever do this by design, Labour ran away from the plan of road pricing the best part of a decade ago, any pricing out is likely to apply to polluting cars, which the industry will phase out with more environmentally friendly cars, even if the proponents of High Speed rail agreed with you in any way, the models of parkway stations near motorways would never have been designed in.

If electric cars become the standard though the government will need to find another way of charging road users to recover the lost fuel tax revenue. If electric cars do not become the standard then due to climate change there may be no option other than to force people out of cars (although even electric cars are still going to have higher CO2 emissions than public transport). If you look how busy the motorways are now and you think of transferring the majority of long distance traffic onto high speed rail it becomes clear that investment in more rail capacity is needed now so that the public transport network can cope with a large modal shift unless the need to travel can be reduced.

It should also be noted that a lot of the younger generation are actually preferring to rely on public transport rather than have their own car (according to a report I saw on TV a few months back is correct). If this trend continues then isn't it inevitable that public transport is what the majority of people will use in the future?

 

[Bonemaster]

Did you read my post?

Yes I did, you say that local people will be within reach of London, whilst I accept that fact. I dispute that consequences, and you will get outwards migration to take advantage of lower living costs, this will push up housing prices beyond the impacts of the jobs being within reach. Cities are simply not full of highly qualified graduates who can get work in London that pays enough to make the commute financially viable. Those who do not get the benefits of the increase connectivity will be priced out of the local housing market.

I ask again is pricing local people out of local houses right?

 

[dalmahoyhill]

However, I think that HS3 should actually be the section from Birmingham to Leeds. I'm not a fan of the current design for this leg, and I think that this section should be sent back to the drawing board. It can be added later if necessary.

I also think that a bit more money spent on small scale incremental improvements after HS2 would probably yield better results. Note, I said "After", not "Instead of"!

Actually I would have to say I disagree, I think HS2 is well thought out.

It is not starting till 2018 as it is designed to start after crossrail has finished, too late for me but economics wise, this makes sense.

There is no point building legs of HS2 piecemeal, this is one of the reasons construction in the UK is typically expensive, we don’t plan long term, we build piecemeal additions and this costs more to stop and start work. Building the whole HS2 over 10 years makes sense.
The Birmingham to leeds leg I think works fine, it can be used as a cross country route as well. I understand why they went to meadowhall instead of Sheffield centre.
If you read the documentation on the DoT website it explains the rationale behind all the decisions.

I would be interested on what incremental upgrades you think would work

 

[TheKnightWho]

Yes I did, you say that local people will be within reach of London, whilst I accept that fact. I dispute that consequences, and you will get outwards migration to take advantage of lower living costs, this will push up housing prices beyond the impacts of the jobs being within reach. Cities are simply not full of highly qualified graduates who can get work in London that pays enough to make the commute financially viable. Those who do not get the benefits of the increase connectivity will be priced out of the local housing market.

I ask again is pricing local people out of local houses right?

Except you're forgetting that there are, again, only a limited number of professionals who can live and work in London at that expense. My point was that, in the wider capacity, the distribution of these people would be much greater, due to increased transport links along the entire line, as well as the probability of those that would also be created in the same time period.

 

[Bonemaster]

If electric cars become the standard though the government will need to find another way of charging road users to recover the lost fuel tax revenue. If electric cars do not become the standard then due to climate change there may be no option other than to force people out of cars (although even electric cars are still going to have higher CO2 emissions than public transport). If you look how busy the motorways are now and you think of transferring the majority of long distance traffic onto high speed rail it becomes clear that investment in more rail capacity is needed now so that the public transport network can cope with a large modal shift unless the need to travel can be reduced.

It should also be noted that a lot of the younger generation are actually preferring to rely on public transport rather than have their own car (according to a report I saw on TV a few months back is correct). If this trend continues then isn't it inevitable that public transport is what the majority of people will use in the future?

Fuel excise duty, and vehicle excise duty is put into a general tax fund and does not directly pay for roads, as such any shortfalls by changing behaviours can be made up from any of the plethora of other taxes. Put simply any designed indiscriminate attack on car users would be enough to loose any party of government the next election, hence why Labour rapidly backed off the idea, and the coalition with the exception of new build roads has not mentioned it, and when it comes to fuel duty we have had more cancelled or postponed increases than we have had increases over the last 5 years or so.

I strongly dispute the fact that younger people prefer public transport, cost is simply an ever increasing barrier especially through insurance for young drivers, young people are simply leaving it later to learn because of the outrageous insurance premiums, and high property costs.

 

[Zoe]

Fuel excise duty, and vehicle excise duty is put into a general tax fund and does not directly pay for roads, as such any shortfalls by changing behaviours can be made up from any of the plethora of other taxes.

You are correct in that it does not directly pay for the roads but it is still going to be a loss in tax revenue overall (even if none of it gets spent on roads) and this will still need to be recovered. If you don't add new road use taxes then you'd have to increase other taxes and I doubt that would be popular.

 

[Bonemaster]

Except you're forgetting that there are, again, only a limited number of professionals who can live and work in London at that expense. My point was that, in the wider capacity, the distribution of these people would be much greater, due to increased transport links along the entire line, as well as the probability of those that would also be created in the same time period.

No I agree with you, the law of unintended consequences will happen, increasing the distribution would cause high house price contagion outwards from the south east, you end up spreading a rather serious problem across a much wider part of the country. If not coupled to extensive house price measures you simply price local people out of local houses.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

You are correct in that it does not directly pay for the roads but it is still going to be a loss in tax revenue overall (even if none of it gets spent on roads) and this will still need to be recovered. If you don't add new road use taxes then you'd have to increase other taxes and I doubt that would be popular.

You really think people will notice, as by that time we will be paying for the pensions of an ever growing ageing population, we really won't notice the few billion that is currently collected through the taxes on motor vehicles being replaced.

 

[TheKnightWho]

No I agree with you, the law of unintended consequences will happen, increasing the distribution would cause high house price contagion outwards from the south east, you end up spreading a rather serious problem across a much wider part of the country. If not coupled to extensive house price measures you simply price local people out of local houses.

I think we'd probably start to see a deflation of house prices within the south-east, actually, as people would start to spread out.

 

[Zoe]

Put simply any designed indiscriminate attack on car users would be enough to loose any party of government the next election

The A14 is going to become tolled between Cambridge and Huntingdon following the upgrade to a three lane dual carriageway. Unlike the M6 Toll there will be no high quality alternative route so people will have no choice but to pay the toll. This could have the effect of getting some people to choose to travel by public transport from say Birmingham to Cambridge to avoid having to pay the toll. I doubt this will cost the Tories the next election.

 

[Bonemaster]

The A14 is going to become tolled between Cambridge and Huntingdon following the upgrade to a three lane dual carriageway. Unlike the M6 Toll there will be no high quality alternative route so people will have no choice but to pay the toll. This could have the effect of getting some people to choose to travel by public transport from say Birmingham to Cambridge to avoid having to pay the toll. I doubt this will cost the Tories the next election.

This is a single plan, rather than any nationwide strategy, the A428 - A1 or A428 - M1 (the old way before the A1-M1 link was built) are viable alternatives to avoid the toll road. I will certainly feel for the citizens of St Neots when this gets done.

 

[D365]

The A14 is going to become tolled between Cambridge and Huntingdon following the upgrade to a three lane dual carriageway. Unlike the M6 Toll there will be no high quality alternative route so people will have no choice but to pay the toll. This could have the effect of getting some people to choose to travel by public transport from say Birmingham to Cambridge to avoid having to pay the toll. I doubt this will cost the Tories the next election.

There never has been or will be any high quality transport in Cambridgeshire In all seriousness, there is supposed to be a weight limit imposed on the existing road by about 2020 when the infamous Huntingdon Railway Viaduct (currently being strengthened at a cost of £8m) is finally taken down and the detrunked road connected to Hinchingbrooke from the west and Brampton Road at the station from the east in a crossroads with the Huntingdon Link Road (currently under construction). How is this proposed weight limit to be enforced? The same limit exists on the Huntingdon-Godmanchester Old Bridge for safety reasons as it is a heritage structure. And we still get HGVs believing their sat-navs and crossing it regularly.

There is also the A428/A1 diversion, which is not too much longer. Especially if a dual-carriageway bypass is eventually constructed between Caxton Gibbet Roundabout and Black Cat Roundabout for the A421. If a toll could get more people onto the Birmingham-Stansted (via Peterborough/Cambridge) XC service, that might be good. Even better, electrification in CP6 and equivalent 379s as replacement. That would be great

How much has the cost of the A14 Huntingdon bypass inflated to now?
HINT: Gone up by about £300m since last time. And I wish everything could cost the Tories every election ever. [Maybe a slight exaggeration.]

This is a single plan, rather than any nationwide strategy, the A428 - A1 or A428 - M1 (the old way before the A1-M1 link was built) are viable alternatives to avoid the toll road. I will certainly feel for the citizens of St Neots when this gets done.

As do I. It's ridiculous and is going to have quite some repercussion. Nobody likes tolls. Even if this will be a fully automated system; i.e. without booths and probably not enough signage, directing sleepy drivers down a route which will be inflated over the years.

 

[Zoe]

This is a single plan, rather than any nationwide strategy, the A428 - A1 or A428 - M1 (the old way before the A1-M1 link was built) are viable alternatives to avoid the toll road. I will certainly feel for the citizens of St Neots when this gets done.

It is indeed a single plan but if in the future upgrades to existing roads are tolled then couldn't we end up with the situation where over time a large amount of the road network ends up tolled?

 

[HSTEd]

This argument forgets that much of the carbon footprint is capital based rather than operational based, and some of the benefits will be offset by people travelling further by car to connect into the HS network, rather than connecting in at local stations, for example people from Taunton driving to any potential parkway station.

Yes, b ut they would almost certainly drive to a station where they currently are.
So you can't really assign that carbon to the project iself.

As to capital based carbon, how important that is really depends on what sort of period you chose to consider the project over (obviously its huge if you "depreciate" it over 10 years, rather than 100 years that might be more reasonable for most of the major construction works like digging tunnels and building bridge piers and so on)

 

[Bonemaster]

Yes, b ut they would almost certainly drive to a station where they currently are.
So you can't really assign that carbon to the project iself.

As to capital based carbon, how important that is really depends on what sort of period you chose to consider the project over (obviously its huge if you "depreciate" it over 10 years, rather than 100 years that might be more reasonable for most of the major construction works like digging tunnels and building bridge piers and so on)

I will wait for someone more knowledgeable that myself on carbon accounting to answer the carbon depreciation question, but it is certainly included in carbon accounting, the former is not, just an unintended consequence that should be taken into account, and much carbon leakage will occur.

 

[GingerSte]

Actually I would have to say I disagree, I think HS2 is well thought out.

It is not starting till 2018 as it is designed to start after crossrail has finished, too late for me but economics wise, this makes sense.

There is no point building legs of HS2 piecemeal, this is one of the reasons construction in the UK is typically expensive, we don’t plan long term, we build piecemeal additions and this costs more to stop and start work. Building the whole HS2 over 10 years makes sense.
The Birmingham to leeds leg I think works fine, it can be used as a cross country route as well. I understand why they went to meadowhall instead of Sheffield centre.
If you read the documentation on the DoT website it explains the rationale behind all the decisions.

I would be interested on what incremental upgrades you think would work

When I say piecemeal, I mean piecemeal in the manner that HS2 is already being planned, ie Phase 2 would follow phase 1. I would just split it into Phase 2 (Birmingham to Manchester) and Phase 3 (Birmingham to Leeds). Passive provision can be made in phases 1 and 2 for phase 3 if necessary (turnouts, signalling etc).

I agree that piecemeal in terms of finishing a project, allowing project teams to disband and lose knowledge and then try to build something ten years later would be more costly. However, the other extreme (building everything at once) would also be costly, as it would provide a large peak in workload for all involved, followed by a drop to nothing. Phasing construction in a planned manner as described above would even out workloads and allow lessons learned in earlier phases to be carried through in later ones. I realise, though, that this brings with it political risks, and makes later phases easier to cancel.

If you really wanted to manage workloads, you could do worse than time the potential HS3 transpennine section to coincide with the end of the tunneled section of HS2, or Crossrail 2. However, that assumes similar geological conditions and I certainly wouldn't bank on it.

I've read the information on the rationale behind Leeds New Lane and Sheffield Meadowhall. I understand the reasons behind them. I just don't agree. I would be happy to list my reasons, but they would be better suited to the HS2 thread (in fact I probably will, but it may be later tonight or tomorrow). Suffice to say that I would prefer HS2 to be as integrated with existing transport hubs as possible, and I don't think the current scheme does this.

Bearing in mind that I'm from Yorkshire and live in Birmingham, i should actually be biased in favour of this section. It would suit me to be able to get to Leeds much more easily!

When I say incremental upgrades, I mean to the "classic" network. There may be incremental upgrades to the HS network, but none immediately spring to mind. Apologies for not making myself clear.

 

[The Ham]

If people were able to commute form Cornwall to London then what would happen is that there would be a lot less second homes, in that those that own them would be able to live there full time.

In doing so it would mean that there would be more spending in the local area, as rather than spending (say) 5/7th of their money in London or the south east with the remainder in the south west, it would proberbly invert (in that there would still be a stuff that they would be spending whilst at work or during the working week).

 

[Requeststop]

West of Heathrow to Bristol, Exeter and Plymouth. This will really open up the south west economically.

Birmingham to Bristol. This would make a national HS Network

London - Cambridge - Norwich. with a Cambridge- Nottingham branch off To connect the East to a HS network

London - Portsmouth - Southampton - for the South and a Branch from Southampton to Bristol.

Nice to dream.

 

[Rhydgaled]

The facts are that station car parks in many many places are consistently full, because people do not go to the local station by public transport, they go to the best place to catch a train by car in a very significant number of cases.

Correct, that's a fact. A good number of rail passengers certainly do arrive at the station by car. The questions are:

1. Can the greenhouse gas impact of this be managed? and
2. What can we do to change this?

The answer to the second has to be making buses a heck of a lot more attractive as a mode of transport, I think.

If electric cars become the standard though the government will need to find another way of charging road users to recover the lost fuel tax revenue. If electric cars do not become the standard then due to climate change there may be no option other than to force people out of cars (although even electric cars are still going to have higher CO2 emissions than public transport). If you look how busy the motorways are now and you think of transferring the majority of long distance traffic onto high speed rail it becomes clear that investment in more rail capacity is needed now so that the public transport network can cope with a large modal shift unless the need to travel can be reduced.

Indeed, there's alot of car journeys to shift to public transport and electric/hydrogen public transport is still going to be more effeicent than electric/hydrogen private cars. Electric/hydrogen power is probably easier to implement for public rather than private transport also (you can plan refueling of buses and self-powered trains arround a limited number of fueling/recharging points, but for private cars you need a network of 'filling stations'). The other questions are whether the national grid can be upgraded to handle powering all the electric cars and whether batteries can be improved sufficently. Currently there's no way the grid would cope if a large number of petol/diesel cars were suddenly replaced with electric ones. As for batteries, I remember a Top Gear episode where, after testing electric cars, the presenters decided that batteries were hopeless and got on a fairground 'bumper cars' ride, then suggested stringing overhead knitting above roads to provide power. I thought: 'we already have things like that, they're called electrified railways'.

Actually I would have to say I disagree, I think HS2 is well thought out.

It is not starting till 2018 as it is designed to start after crossrail has finished, too late for me but economics wise, this makes sense.

There is no point building legs of HS2 piecemeal, this is one of the reasons construction in the UK is typically expensive, we don’t plan long term, we build piecemeal additions and this costs more to stop and start work.

I disagree. I don't think it is that well thought out. The main issue is connectivity, it's supposed to be a national HSR network but the main city centre stations are all termini, preventing alot of through links, and the HS1 - HS2 link is a bit feeble. In particular, the use of Euston as the HS2 terminous prevents any future HSR lines in and out of London sharing a single integrated station. If they really were thinking long-term, there would be an all-new through station in London, with HS1 on the other side (ie. the Euston Cross proposal) with at least passive provision for another HSR line (running from the west to the north east) to run into additional through platforms at the same station with trains from the north east route and HS1 able to continue to both HS2 and the western route and vice versa. For example, you could have trains running:

• Bristol/Southampton - Heathrow - London - Cambridge - Leeds/York
• Bristol/Southampton - Heathrow - London - Ebbsfleet - Ashford/Europe
• Manchester - Birmingham - London - Ebbsfleet -Ashford/Europe and
• Manchester - Birmingham - London - Cambridge - Leeds/York

The first and last points are the main reason why I don't like the idea of the HS2 Leeds spur, an East Coast HSR route might do a better job of freeing capacity on the ECML. Additonally, HS2 couldn't really allow for a Leeds -Birmingham - Bristol service. Even providing a northbound tunneled exit from the proposed HS2 central Birmingham station (turning it into a through station) as I propose wouldn't fit that, there'd need to be a southwest bound tunneled exit from the station too.

 

[HSTEd]

Since I doubt a cross country service would be that intensively used you could just bore a twin tube tunnel under birmingham with two platforms under Curzon street, wouldn't even need through running lines since you could just check trains down to ~120mph if they were running non stop through the station.

And you could turn all three stations one Euston road into one huge complex if you could somehow provide a route to King's Pancras under the intervening houses/the British Library.

That would serve admirably I think.
A through station with as many platforms as we need underground would cost enough to buy you most of another high speed line.

 

[NLC1072]

London - heathrow - reading - Bristol = line splits to Exeter and Cardiff and joins the classic network as per 395's do.

 

[HSTEd]

London - heathrow - reading - Bristol = line splits to Exeter and Cardiff and joins the classic network as per 395's do.

Why waste time stopping at Reading and Heathrow?
Heathrow would easily subsume Reading's current role as a transport interchange (especially if a western access project were built) and you save time by running non stop to near Bristol.

 

[The Ham]

Why waste time stopping at Reading and Heathrow?
Heathrow would easily subsume Reading's current role as a transport interchange (especially if a western access project were built) and you save time by running non stop to near Bristol.

Of course. as I suggested earlier, Heathrow and Reading could be served by stations on a loop off of the through route so as to not to need to stop all the services. The reason for the Reading stop is that it enables travel to a lot of places with just one change. Although places like Southampton would still have this benefit as they would be able to get to the new hub at Heathrow there would be a few other places which wouldn't. In addition a lot of the freed up capacity on the classic lines would then be needed to run additional services to Heathrow so that places like Basingstoke and Southampton retained their direct link to the hub.

In which case a service pattern of:
1tph - London, Reading, Exeter and then onto Cornwall calling at most stations (including Plymouth)
1tph - London, Exeter, Plymouth
1tph - London, Heathrow, Bristol, Taunton, Exeter, Newton Abbot, Plymouth
2tph - London, Oxford fast
1tph - London, Reading, Oxford
1tph - London, Heathrow, Oxford
1tph - London, Heathrow, Reading, Swindon, Gloucester, Cheltenham
2tph - London, Bristol
1tph - London, Reading, Bristol Parkway, Newport, Cardiff
1tph - London, Heathrow, Bristol Parkway, Newport, Cardiff

Which would provide at least 1tph to Heathrow (and given the time needed to clear security this should be mostly fine for departures, arrivals may not work so well but given the classic network would likely still have fairly reasonable travel times people could still use it if they had just missed an hourly HS service - would proberbly still be true if the services were half hourly).

--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

1tph - London, Reading, Exeter and then onto Cornwall calling at most stations (including Plymouth)
1tph - London, Exeter, Plymouth
1tph - London, Heathrow, Bristol, Taunton, Exeter, Newton Abbot, Plymouth
2tph - London, Oxford fast
1tph - London, Reading, Oxford
1tph - London, Heathrow, Oxford
1tph - London, Heathrow, Reading, Swindon, Gloucester, Cheltenham
2tph - London, Bristol
1tph - London, Reading, Bristol Parkway, Newport, Cardiff
1tph - London, Heathrow, Bristol Parkway, Newport, Cardiff

Of course due to not being able to run 400m long trains to the places off HS3 the above service pattern may look more like (assuming new 400m long platforms could be built at Oxford, Bristol Parkway, Swindon and Exeter and Didcot to Oxford could be cleared for full HS trains, even if the line speed wasn't full speed):

1tph CC - London, Reading, Exeter (split) and then onto Cornwall calling at most stations including Plymouth (Newton Abbot and Paignton)
1tph CC - London, Exeter, Plymouth
2tph CC - London, Heathrow, Bristol Parkway (split), Taunton, Exeter, Newton Abbot, Plymouth (Newport, Cardiff, Swansea)
2tph HS - London, Oxford fast
1tph HS - London, Heathrow, Oxford
2tph CC - London, Heathrow, Reading, Swindon(split), Gloucester, Cheltenham (Bristol)
2tph CC - London, Bristol
1tph CC - London, Reading, Bristol Parkway (split), Newport, Cardiff (Swansea)

Where CC is Classic compatable stock which can run doubled up on the HS network and
Wheere HS are trains to full HS specification (i.e. 400m long)

That would give:
London Reading 4tph
London Heathrow 5tph
London Oxford 3tph
London Exeter or Plymouth 4tph
London Bristol TM 3tph
London Bristol Parkway 3tph
London Wales 3tph
Wales Heathrow 2tph
Bristol TM Heathrow 2tph
Bristol Parkway Heathrow 2tph

Didcot-Oxford would require about 18 over bridges to be investigated to see if any works were needed to allow them to take full HS trains, however three of these are footbridges at Stations and a further 5 being other pedestrian bridges. Meaning that the works required to run full length HS trains to Oxford would proberbly wouldn't be too difficult.

 

[HowardGWR]

Of course. as I suggested earlier, Heathrow and Reading could be served by stations on a loop off of the through route so as to not to need to stop all the services. The reason for the Reading stop is that it enables travel to a lot of places with just one change. Although places like Southampton would still have this benefit as they would be able to get to the new hub at Heathrow there would be a few other places which wouldn't. In addition a lot of the freed up capacity on the classic lines would then be needed to run additional services to Heathrow so that places like Basingstoke and Southampton retained their direct link to the hub.

In which case a service pattern of:
1tph - London, Reading, Exeter and then onto Cornwall calling at most stations (including Plymouth)
1tph - London, Exeter, Plymouth
1tph - London, Heathrow, Bristol, Taunton, Exeter, Newton Abbot, Plymouth
2tph - London, Oxford fast
1tph - London, Reading, Oxford
1tph - London, Heathrow, Oxford
1tph - London, Heathrow, Reading, Swindon, Gloucester, Cheltenham
2tph - London, Bristol
1tph - London, Reading, Bristol Parkway, Newport, Cardiff
1tph - London, Heathrow, Bristol Parkway, Newport, Cardiff

Which would provide at least 1tph to Heathrow (and given the time needed to clear security this should be mostly fine for departures, arrivals may not work so well but given the classic network would likely still have fairly reasonable travel times people could still use it if they had just missed an hourly HS service - would proberbly still be true if the services were half hourly).

--- old post above --- --- new post below ---



Of course due to not being able to run 400m long trains to the places off HS3 the above service pattern may look more like (assuming new 400m long platforms could be built at Oxford, Bristol Parkway, Swindon and Exeter and Didcot to Oxford could be cleared for full HS trains, even if the line speed wasn't full speed):

1tph CC - London, Reading, Exeter (split) and then onto Cornwall calling at most stations including Plymouth (Newton Abbot and Paignton)
1tph CC - London, Exeter, Plymouth
2tph CC - London, Heathrow, Bristol Parkway (split), Taunton, Exeter, Newton Abbot, Plymouth (Newport, Cardiff, Swansea)
2tph HS - London, Oxford fast
1tph HS - London, Heathrow, Oxford
2tph CC - London, Heathrow, Reading, Swindon(split), Gloucester, Cheltenham (Bristol)
2tph CC - London, Bristol
1tph CC - London, Reading, Bristol Parkway (split), Newport, Cardiff (Swansea)

Where CC is Classic compatable stock which can run doubled up on the HS network and
Wheere HS are trains to full HS specification (i.e. 400m long)

That would give:
London Reading 4tph
London Heathrow 5tph
London Oxford 3tph
London Exeter or Plymouth 4tph
London Bristol TM 3tph
London Bristol Parkway 3tph
London Wales 3tph
Wales Heathrow 2tph
Bristol TM Heathrow 2tph
Bristol Parkway Heathrow 2tph

Didcot-Oxford would require about 18 over bridges to be investigated to see if any works were needed to allow them to take full HS trains, however three of these are footbridges at Stations and a further 5 being other pedestrian bridges. Meaning that the works required to run full length HS trains to Oxford would proberbly wouldn't be too difficult.

Forgive me but i find this very difficult to follow. Although I am from the SW, I cannot see how further HS expansion could be justified, other than between the major British cities which are centres of our economy. So yes, I can see the desirability of HS links between those already in HS2 and Newcastle, Bristol, Liverpool, Glasgow and Edinburgh.

However, between Bristol and London, the new electric line will give opportunities for a much faster link, non-stop via Badminton. A quadruple line between Wootton Bassett and Didcot would enable separation from stopping services.

Southampton is a difficult nut to crack though, I agree, which is why I did not include it in the list above. I don't see the advantage of encouraging ever more SE area commuting but am willing to be set right on that.

 

[The Ham]

Forgive me but i find this very difficult to follow. Although I am from the SW, I cannot see how further HS expansion could be justified, other than between the major British cities which are centres of our economy. So yes, I can see the desirability of HS links between those already in HS2 and Newcastle, Bristol, Liverpool, Glasgow and Edinburgh.

However, between Bristol and London, the new electric line will give opportunities for a much faster link, non-stop via Badminton. A quadruple line between Wootton Bassett and Didcot would enable separation from stopping services.

Southampton is a difficult nut to crack though, I agree, which is why I did not include it in the list above. I don't see the advantage of encouraging ever more SE area commuting but am willing to be set right on that.

It's fairly simple, there are already a lot of (busy) trains on this corridor with more to follow when crossrail opens. This then means that post 2020 there will be few if any paths free and little chance of lengthening trains much to improve matters for London bound trains.

As such post HS2 (2030's and beyond) there could well be a need to provide a new east west line from Paddington towards Bristol, therefore if a new line is needed then again building it to take longer and faster trains mostly seperated from the older lines would be a sensible approach. (Then again this is mostly just wishful thinking)

 

[HowardGWR]

It's fairly simple, there are already a lot of (busy) trains on this corridor with more to follow when crossrail opens. This then means that post 2020 there will be few if any paths free and little chance of lengthening trains much to improve matters for London bound trains.

As such post HS2 (2030's and beyond) there could well be a need to provide a new east west line from Paddington towards Bristol, therefore if a new line is needed then again building it to take longer and faster trains mostly seperated from the older lines would be a sensible approach. (Then again this is mostly just wishful thinking)

Thanks. Then I think my suggested capacity increase Wootton Bassett -Didcot is better value for money. We could do with some pax-kms comparisons on these various routes to inform discussion though.

 

[HSTEd]

However, between Bristol and London, the new electric line will give opportunities for a much faster link, non-stop via Badminton. A quadruple line between Wootton Bassett and Didcot would enable separation from stopping services

Which would cost as much as a high speed line between Wooten Basset and Didcot and deliver fewer benefits.

High speed rail has the continental benefits in the South West thanks to the ridiculously long journey times we have now in Cornwall and Devon.
How would you like to commute to London from Liskeard and Plymouth?

A high speed line via Bristol to Plymouth could achieve that, which would be transformational for the slowly withering South Western economy.