Why are people opposed to HS2? (And other HS2 discussion)

[BigCj34]

Although some of London's green belt is arable land, a lot is meadow, woodland or sporting facilities (e.g. golf courses).

Some of the meadowland provides very high quality biodiverse habitats as they have existed for a very long time and been left undisturbed. Many of them were originally used for growing hay to feed London's horses (aka transport system). And the woodland is obviously a gem when it comes to biodiversity.

Also a lot of London's arable land is not as intensively farmed as might be imagined. It has an almost forgotten about feel to it in comparison to East Anglian prairies. In part this may be due to much of the land being in public ownership and farmed by tenant farmers who weren't as incentivised to grub out the hedges and fill in the ditches. If you look at the area immediately north of Grange Hill the field pattern is more pre-war than 2020.



I completely agree with you. But for some inexplicable reason people seem to like cramming themselves into tiny boxes so they can claim to live in London and earn London wages to pay the vastly inflated cost of their box.

We often do the worst of both worlds with American style suburban sprawl at a higher density with small houses. Density is good if it the properties are well sized flats built upwards (5 storeys or so) that are close to amenities, green public spaces, transport, etc. Not so good if it's little faux Georgian boxes or a tower block in an open field. England is very close to the Netherlands for population density!

 

[Bletchleyite]

England is very close to the Netherlands for population density!

What's notable about NL, though, is that they are mostly not flat dwellers - they mostly live in houses that have a very distinctive look but are very similar to UK terraces.

 

[HSTEd]

With the rise of compact, relatively affordable lifts, I could see an argument for having houses where every room is on a different story. There would obviously be a staircase but a lift might make 4-5 story living somewhat practical.

 

[BigCj34]

What's notable about NL, though, is that they are mostly not flat dwellers - they mostly live in houses that have a very distinctive look but are very similar to UK terraces.

Probably with more room though. I don't see traditional red brick terraces in the UK as a bad thing, they seem to have a decent amount of living space but don't know how big they are compared to modern new builds.

 

[The Ham]

If there is a massive ethical argument not to travel by car or plane then there is also a massive ethical argument not to travel by train.

The differentiation between Rail=Good and Road/Air=Bad is a false one if it is based only on the type of fuel used. The argument presumes rail will become more low-carbon whilst road and air will remain high-carbon. There is no evidence to support that presumption.

The average age of cars registered in the UK is about 8 or 9 years. This means natural churn of cars could replace the whole of the existing fleet in less time than it takes to build HS2. Given the right conditions in the year HS2 finally opens we could have something like 70% or more of UK cars running on 'clean' renewable or nuclear energy.

Meanwhile swathes of the rail network - including many main lines - still won't be electrified and will be operating 'dirty' diesels, some of them many decades old.

If the rail industry promotes the idea that Rail=Electric=Good and Car=Diesel/Petrol=Bad then it needs to prepare for the situation where in fact it has a greater need for diesel than cars do.

Or spend extra billions on electrification and/or hydrogen and battery technology which is where road and air transport is likely to be heading.

See my previous post. What are the priorities?

Whilst there's a need for less travel but all reductions in travel are equal.

For example if people are able to walk/cycle to/from work then they are still going to need to travel for other purposes (for instance visiting friends and family). They have two options, keep a car for occasional travel or use rail for that travel.

Given the fairly large upfront costs of car ownership it could well result in people opting for traveling by rail.

In doing so those people will have reduced the need to travel overall, however it still requires them to need to travel by rail more.

As a case study, someone changes jobs or moves home to be within 3 miles of work. They walk or cycle rather than the previous 22 miles a day of commuting which they did before.

Given that walking/cycling can carry on with no limits we can count this as 0 miles of travel, so a saving of 22 miles a day. Which would be an annual saving of 4,840 miles a year. If they also reduced their leisure travel (again by walking and cycling) by about 1,160 miles a year they've cut the account traveled by about 6,000 miles a year.

Now if they then use the train for 1,000 miles a year and have about 700 miles of travel in hire cars they will have increased the amount of travel needed buy train by 1,000 miles.

As such increasing rail travel could be part of an overall fall in all travel.

It should be noted that rail travel is more efficient than car travel when comparing like for like. This means that battery trains would likely use less energy than battery cars, diesel trains use less energy than diesel cars and OHLE/3rd rail trains exist as well as using less energy than anything else.

Since 1990 the emissions from rail remains broadly the same, yet there's been a more than doubling of passengers, in the same time road travel has seen emissions fall by 3% at the same time as travel had increased by 24%.

Now whilst it's true that electric cars will start to have a bigger impact on road emissions it is likely that (given that recently less than 5% of new cars are electric) it's going to take a few years before there's sufficient numbers to have a noticeable impact.

In the meantime rail will continue to benefit from greater amounts of renewable energy.

Whilst there will continue to be DMU's and some HST's they are likely to be a fairly small number and so will be running few services.

Yes electrification isn't cheap, however it does being cost savings. Lease costs are lower, fuel costs are lower, maintenance costs are lower, track access charges are lower, etc. None of those savings in any one year is likely to come to very much, over time and combined they add add up to a significant amount.

 

[The Ham]

(a) They still cost money.
(b) They still cost money.
(c) They still cost money.
(d) They still cost money.
(e) They still cost money.

The way in which things are procured is irrelevant, other than how it gets added to the public sector spending pile. Paying for all the additional 'stuff' either needs more subsidy or greater fare revenue.

If there is significant growth in ridership then fare revenue will increase without ticket prices needing to increase. But initially we are just talking about decanting passengers from the three main lines onto HS2. The growth will hopefully come later, although only if fare levels can be controlled to make rail an attractive option. (see 'They still cost money')

Two specific points. (d) Depots ideally need to be in places where staff can get to them easily. That tends to be land in towns and cities which has development potential and therefore significant economic value. Even if already in railway ownership there is an economic cost involved in utilising that land for depot space rather than alternatives.

(e) Stations need to be upgraded to cope with passenger growth (e.g. stairs, gatelines, exits), and for that matter to make them accessible. ASDO isn't the answer to everything. To fully utilise the spare capacity created by HS2 it is inevitable that longer trains (see (b)) will need to be stopped at stations with shorter platforms, there is a limit to the acceptability of long trains not opening all their doors. The very existence of ASDO is a demonstration that railway planning/funding priorities have departed from what the general public might call 'common sense'.

Whilst they still cost money, the lease costs of rolling stock is not added to the national debt. They are mostly funded directly from ticket sales.

They are "funded" by private companies although they will have an impact on the payments to/from TOC's this is fairly small fry compared to infrastructure funding.

Last year the total amount of day to day funding was around £0.5 billion whilst the spending on enhancements was around £4 billion.

Therefore even if all enhancement spending was to be cut there would still be money for day to day spending.

However if you look at the amount of subsidy that Virgin received (excluding enhancement spending) then it was a negative figure (i.e. Virgin paid the DfT money). Things would have to change quite a lot for that to reverse.

Especially given that the costs of running HS2 on a per seat basis falls dramatically.

As an example the number of coaches needed within the fleet will be able to stay the same, but will be able to run more services.

This sounds counterintuitive given that HS2 trains will be longer, however as they are faster the maths works:

5 hours to get from London to Manchester, turn the train around run the return service and then be ready to go again. Using a fleet of trains with 9 coaches with a frequency of 3tph means 135 coaches.

Change this to 11 coach trains and it's 165 coaches.

If we assume 9+9+11 its 145 coaches.

Now so the same but with HS2 trains which can do it in 3 hours rather than 5 and with 16 coaches (again 3tph) gives you a figure of 144 coaches.

However the current trains would give you 1,527 seats an hour compared with 3,150 seats an hour with HS2.

That alone halves the per seat cost for the rolling stock.

Do it with drivers as well, and for every 5 drivers currently you could cope with 3, due to being able to get back to run more services.

As such, unless there's some significant cost which I've overlooked the day to day running costs most likely be lower.

 

[Mogster]

It won't happen to that extent other than for a few people in very high value jobs because fares are unlikely to be substantially less than at present. So while commuting daily from Manchester to London on HS2 may be "time-affordable" it won't be financially affordable.

Sell your £1M small London semi and you can buy a similar or better property for 150k in Greater Manchester. That’s a lot of spare cash and you can still earn London wages while living in the North.

I agree it sounds outlandish but there are plenty of people commuting the full length of HS1.

 

[TrafficEng]

Flying is clearly an extremely energy inefficient way of travelling. Until aviation stops burning fossil fuels to get into the air it will always be horrendous. The laws of physics dictate that.

Unfortunately you've conflated different issues and come up with a conclusion that doesn't help understanding of the thread topic.

Flying is an efficient way of moving people where the distance is large and there is a need to reach the destination in a reasonable time. The high-bypass jet engine is an efficient way of propelling a vehicle at high speed - if it wasn't then airlines wouldn't use them. Flying in less-dense air at high altitude allows mass-transport of people at speeds of circa 900 km/h. It is unlikely that ground-level wheeled transport will ever be able to achieve those speeds at equivalent energy consumption levels. Flying is also unrestricted by geographic features (mountains, rivers, seas, oceans) that land-based transport requires complex engineering (and energy) to overcome.

In the medium-term eliminating fossil fuels from aviation may worsen energy efficiency as alternative propulsion systems using propellers are inherently less efficient at altitude and speed. So it will probably get more horrendous rather than less, until more efficient propulsion systems are developed.

Car travel is also energy inefficient compared to other terrestrial methods of transport.

Demonstrably untrue. A car being driven 20 miles by a worker on their way home at 10pm is more energy efficient than a 10 tonne bus that will need to make a 40 mile round trip. Likewise a train.

If the bus or train is filled with more people then as a mode they become more efficient. But that involves applying constraints that don't exist in the absolute statement you made.

Adopting an integrated transport strategy with energy efficiency and environmental impacts taken into account requires us to accept that in some situations car travel is better than other motorised forms of transport. Train=Good/Car=Bad is too simplistic to have practical application.

It is also socially expensive. It causes congestion, is generally perceived to be unfriendly to other road users such as cyclists (which in pretty much every way is a beneficial mode of transport), and results in less public transport. I’m also uncertain as to what effect all these batteries will have on the environment in the future. Can the precious metals be extracted in an environmentally friendly way and are they recyclable?

On the plus side, a large fleet of grid-connected EVs provides scope for energy efficiency and grid security improvements with electricity being stored when there is surplus generation and the availability of rapid backup in the event of major generation failure.

Who knows, one day electric cars might help keep the trains running when a wind farm trips out.

70% of the particulate pollution of a car doesn’t come out of the exhaust, but the tyres, brakes etc. Last time I checked electric cars still had these.

As do motorcycles, buses, coaches, trams and trains. If you don't believe metal-metal wheels generate particulates then google is your friend.

By their very nature cars are always going to be less energy efficient than other modes of transport.

Demonstrably untrue. See above.

You can fiddle with the stats to compare a car with 1.7 people in, with a train at 40% capacity but ultimately that’s just fiddling. The more people who use public transport the more efficient it becomes, the more people that use cars the more environmental and social problems arise.

What you call 'fiddling' I've always known as 'Transport Planning'. Stuff gets measured, other stuff gets estimated, it all goes into a model and out comes an answer based on science and mathematics rather than personal opinions. If you do that kind of thing for a while you start to understand that different solutions are needed for different types of problem. There are few absolutes, and applying policies that are unduly based on generalisations often ends badly.

In response to the assertion "The more people who use public transport the more efficient it becomes" I would say "The more people who rely on public transport the less efficient it becomes". I'd suggest the latter is more relevant to the discussion about HS2.

 

[HSTEd]

On the plus side, a large fleet of grid-connected EVs provides scope for energy efficiency and grid security improvements with electricity being stored when there is surplus generation and the availability of rapid backup in the event of major generation failure.

Ah yes the magical EV battery array which people just use so they can make their scenarios work and avoid admitting than the energy storage problem seriously screws with very high renewable scenarios.

How will people react when they wake up in the morning to find some generating plant failure or wind lull has left them unable to drive to work?
Or you've managed to wreck their batteries with repeated cycling?

Who knows, one day electric cars might help keep the trains running when a wind farm trips out.

Or we could you know.... not run our grid into the ground to let National Grid and the electricity companies pay larger dividends?

As do motorcycles, buses, coaches, trams and trains. If you don't believe metal-metal wheels generate particulates then google is your friend.

In that case, bring on the low and medium speed maglevs.

 

[The Ham]

Unfortunately you've conflated different issues and come up with a conclusion that doesn't help understanding of the thread topic.

Flying is an efficient way of moving people where the distance is large and there is a need to reach the destination in a reasonable time. The high-bypass jet engine is an efficient way of propelling a vehicle at high speed - if it wasn't then airlines wouldn't use them. Flying in less-dense air at high altitude allows mass-transport of people at speeds of circa 900 km/h. It is unlikely that ground-level wheeled transport will ever be able to achieve those speeds at equivalent energy consumption levels. Flying is also unrestricted by geographic features (mountains, rivers, seas, oceans) that land-based transport requires complex engineering (and energy) to overcome.

Whilst flying can be a useful way of transporting people it's hardly an efficient way of traveling for the vast majority of travel which would be undertaken by those using HS2.

However even where there's an engineering heavy solution (like for instance the Channel Tunnel) these trends to be for fairly short distances and so given that rail passengers have a lower carbon footprint than flying (especially those on electric traction) then the overall impact is still lower.

Anyway there's a LOT of concrete needed to build an airport including the taxiways, runways, aircraft stands, buildings, etc.

In the medium-term eliminating fossil fuels from aviation may worsen energy efficiency as alternative propulsion systems using propellers are inherently less efficient at altitude and speed. So it will probably get more horrendous rather than less, until more efficient propulsion systems are developed.

In the meantime trains will produce less and less emissions as the energy grid gets greener. We do not really have the luxury of of waiting for aircraft to get worse before they get better.

Just to get back to levels of emissions from UK international aviation seen in 1990 we'd need to halve emissions from it. If that's not possible we'd have to cut by 1/4 emissions from road travel just so that those two combined went back to the 1990 level, even if there was no increase in flying and no worsening of emissions.

Demonstrably untrue. A car being driven 20 miles by a worker on their way home at 10pm is more energy efficient than a 10 tonne bus that will need to make a 40 mile round trip. Likewise a train.

If the bus or train is filled with more people then as a mode they become more efficient. But that involves applying constraints that don't exist in the absolute statement you made.

Adopting an integrated transport strategy with energy efficiency and environmental impacts taken into account requires us to accept that in some situations car travel is better than other motorised forms of transport. Train=Good/Car=Bad is too simplistic to have practical application.

Whilst it's true that the individual vehicles in question are more efficient when traveling that is not how you measure efficiency.

Even if it was then it's still not taken into account the emissions from construction of the vehicle and the infrastructure to move those vehicles.

Whilst a fleet of buses will produce more emissions than 5 cars when carrying 5 people, it is rare that is ever the case. As such you need to look at average vehicle loadings to see how is the best way for people to travel around.

On average then a train is better than a bus and a bus is better than a car. Yes you'll be able to find some journeys where the opposite may be true, for instance the train returning to a depot. However those are small inefficiencies are more than offset by the times that there are buses and trains carrying more people than there are seats.

On the plus side, a large fleet of grid-connected EVs provides scope for energy efficiency and grid security improvements with electricity being stored when there is surplus generation and the availability of rapid backup in the event of major generation failure.

Who knows, one day electric cars might help keep the trains running when a wind farm trips out.

A single wind farm is hardly likely to make a dent in the capability of the grid to keep the trains running and the lights on.

Whilst recovering power from charged batteries will help smooth out peaks and troughs in power generation is going to have a limit on what can be recovered.

You'd be better off building more pumped hydro power stations (like Dinorwig) which allows you to pump water to a reservoir when there's excess power being generated and then generate power when there's a shortage of power.

The storage capacity of Dinorwig is 9.1GWh.

Compare this to the storage capacity of a Tesla battery of 100kwh.

That would mean you'd need to take back 5% of a full charge of 1,820,000 cars just to have the same amount of energy.

That's getting in for 7.5% of all cars on the road being able to give back 5% of their charge compared to 1 power station.

If there were 10 such power stations then to be able to draw on that much power would require about 75% of every car on the road to be able to give up 5% of their charge.

Increase it to 20 such power stations and you'd be looking at 75% of cars needing to give up 10% of their charge. Now that's fine if it's overnight, but during the rush hour then very few of those cars will be plugged in.

As do motorcycles, buses, coaches, trams and trains. If you don't believe metal-metal wheels generate particulates then google is your friend.

However nature is more easily able to deal with metal particles than rubber. In fact there's an argument that by putting iron filings into the oceans that it would increase the ability for then to absorb CO2 emissions. (Again Google is your friend).

Now whilst steel isn't iron it is made from it and so, although likely to be less effective than iron the outcome would likely be the same.

However trains are designed to run long distances without breaking and mostly manage to do so, especially compared to cars where they will have to show down or stop for other traffic or due to infrastructure layout quite a lot.

Now whilst the brakes of a train have to do more work than a car, again it comes down to the number of people being carried for the weight. However, probably more importantly it also comes down to how hard the brakes are used. Trains show down much more slowly than cars, mostly because drivers of trains know where they are stopping and so can drive accordingly.

As such the problem of brake dust is a much smaller issue for rail travel than it is for car travel

What you call 'fiddling' I've always known as 'Transport Planning'. Stuff gets measured, other stuff gets estimated, it all goes into a model and out comes an answer based on science and mathematics rather than personal opinions. If you do that kind of thing for a while you start to understand that different solutions are needed for different types of problem. There are few absolutes, and applying policies that are unduly based on generalisations often ends badly.

In response to the assertion "The more people who use public transport the more efficient it becomes" I would say "The more people who rely on public transport the less efficient it becomes". I'd suggest the latter is more relevant to the discussion about HS2.

OK then, using science from a Transport Planner to a Highway Engineer (who has picked up a lot of knowledge of Transport Planning due to working in small companies where the boundaries between the job roles are very fuzzy and so has been tasked with undertaking most tasks on both sides of the fence, in fact struggles to understand where the fence actual is at times), please explain to me how car travel can be a more efficient method of travel at a macro level when there's more reliance on public transport.

I can see how on some journeys car travel could be better, however even then for many of those it would be better to walk or cycle. However, when viewed from the perception of trying to reduce our overall carbon emissions it is generally better for people to use public transport than the private motor car, especially for the 85% of the population who live in urban areas (settlements with a population of over 10,000).

 

[nidave]

It's not for me to say what might be needed in the north

The people who's job it is to decide and say whats needed have decided HS2 is part of that solution for the North.

 

[Bletchleyite]

The very existence of ASDO is a demonstration that railway planning/funding priorities have departed from what the general public might call 'common sense'.

Is it? Trains have for years stopped at short platforms. ASDO is just a demonstration that modern-day health and safety doesn't allow this when the only thing preventing people falling out is them looking whether there is a platform there or not, nor does it allow the driver or guard's Mk1 eyeball to determine which doors to release.

 

[Bletchleyite]

With the rise of compact, relatively affordable lifts, I could see an argument for having houses where every room is on a different story. There would obviously be a staircase but a lift might make 4-5 story living somewhat practical.

Or you build flats because then people only have to go up/down stairs on going in and out, not all the time. When I was buying I did look at 3 storey townhouses but I just don't like them for that reason (weak knees don't help, though).

Not everyone makes proper use of their garden. Those who do want gardens could buy ground floor flats.

 

[hwl]

However nature is more easily able to deal with metal particles than rubber. In fact there's an argument that by putting iron filings into the oceans that it would increase the ability for then to absorb CO2 emissions. (Again Google is your friend).

Now whilst steel isn't iron it is made from it and so, although likely to be less effective than iron the outcome would likely be the same.

However trains are designed to run long distances without breaking and mostly manage to do so, especially compared to cars where they will have to show down or stop for other traffic or due to infrastructure layout quite a lot.

Now whilst the brakes of a train have to do more work than a car, again it comes down to the number of people being carried for the weight. However, probably more importantly it also comes down to how hard the brakes are used. Trains show down much more slowly than cars, mostly because drivers of trains know where they are stopping and so can drive accordingly.

As such the problem of brake dust is a much smaller issue for rail travel than it is for car travel

The density of steel is circa 5.25 times than of rubber so using mass alone to quantify rail wheel wear vs road wheel wear in terms of particulate numbers isn't a valid comparison in effect an apple vs orange comparison.
The particle size distribution of rail wear particles is interesting in that there is a surprisingly a large number of large/very large particles hence a comparatively small number of the smallest most problematic ones.

 

[The Ham]

Well, I wasn't suggesting new lines into cities, or major expansion of existing city centre stations - I think you must be somewhat besotted with such issues !. It's not for me to say what might be needed in the north but my travels up there suggest that a sizeable amount of money is needed to enable more frequent services, faster services, more carriages on many trains, more facilities at many/most stations etc etc - you know, the everyday sort of stuff that other people seem to just take for granted.....

Which is why is been suggested that as well as HS2 there should be a fund of £43 billion for regional cities (i.e. not London) to invest in regional transport schemes. That fund a be available for local cities to decide what would be best for their area.

This fund had been noticed by some of those opposed to HS2 and so quite like to add the £43 billion to the cost of HS2, however they ignore the fact that such schemes would bring additional benefits (which they then don't add to the benefits side of the equation).

Such schemes would bring benefits to lots of people, including quite a few who may never use HS2. Chances are it would provide public transport improvements to areas like the West Country which otherwise would have limited benefits from HS2.

Lord Berkeley's report into cost savings for HS2 cuts the value of this fund to £22.5 billion to provide 1/3 of his cost savings. As such chances are there would be fewer schemes, quite possibly even cutting out places like the West Country.

As such I've got a question, which would likely result in better public transport for the regions HS2 with a £43 billion find for public transport or a scaled back HS2 with a £22.5 billion fund for public transport?

Once you have an answer maybe you'll have an answer as to why the Northern Cities tend to like HS2 given the opportunity to improve public transport which needs significant improvement.

At £43 billion you could do lots of projects, like those line reopenings which people suggest need to happen. However if you just implement them without consideration to if there was capacity to connect them to the nearby cities or even for people using then to travel further than just on the reopened line, then you're not going to get the range of benefits you otherwise would.

 

[The Ham]

The density of steel is circa 5.25 times than of rubber so using mass alone to quantify rail wheel wear vs road wheel wear in terms of particulate numbers isn't a valid comparison in effect an apple vs orange comparison.
The particle size distribution of rail wear particles is interesting in that there is a surprisingly a large number of large/very large particles hence a comparatively small number of the smallest most problematic ones.

In which case most of the particles are unlikely to end up in water courses, especially given that water from railways doesn't run across a smooth, hard surface and into gullies. Rather it is more likely to re-enter a drainage system by draining through the construction of the railway to be picked up by a a land drain. As such it's much harder for particles to get into the drainage network.

However as soon as you put in a catchpit into the network any heavy particles will get caught, this isn't the same as with light particles which need to get caught within an oil intercepter. With the exception of new roads very few roads have oil intercepters on them.

 

[class26]

Interesting article in this mornings Telegraph (who as a newspaper is very against HS2)

I quote a few lines -

Baroness Vere of Norbiton, a transport minister, praised “Victorian pioneers” for building the train lines which form the “vast part of our national railway”.
She also criticised “naysayers” who block such projects and praised the “courage” of politicians who see them through.
Speaking in the House of Lords in an HS2 debate on Thursday, Baroness Vere said: “Thinking back nearly 200 years to the 1830s, our predecessors were here debating not one, two or three but four new major train lines."...

That to me sounds optimistic and that the government`s thinking is to build it.

 

[Noddy]

Unfortunately you've conflated different issues and come up with a conclusion that doesn't help understanding of the thread topic.

Flying is an efficient way of moving people where the distance is large and there is a need to reach the destination in a reasonable time. The high-bypass jet engine is an efficient way of propelling a vehicle at high speed - if it wasn't then airlines wouldn't use them. Flying in less-dense air at high altitude allows mass-transport of people at speeds of circa 900 km/h. It is unlikely that ground-level wheeled transport will ever be able to achieve those speeds at equivalent energy consumption levels. Flying is also unrestricted by geographic features (mountains, rivers, seas, oceans) that land-based transport requires complex engineering (and energy) to overcome.

In the medium-term eliminating fossil fuels from aviation may worsen energy efficiency as alternative propulsion systems using propellers are inherently less efficient at altitude and speed. So it will probably get more horrendous rather than less, until more efficient propulsion systems are developed.



Demonstrably untrue. A car being driven 20 miles by a worker on their way home at 10pm is more energy efficient than a 10 tonne bus that will need to make a 40 mile round trip. Likewise a train.

If the bus or train is filled with more people then as a mode they become more efficient. But that involves applying constraints that don't exist in the absolute statement you made.

Adopting an integrated transport strategy with energy efficiency and environmental impacts taken into account requires us to accept that in some situations car travel is better than other motorised forms of transport. Train=Good/Car=Bad is too simplistic to have practical application.



On the plus side, a large fleet of grid-connected EVs provides scope for energy efficiency and grid security improvements with electricity being stored when there is surplus generation and the availability of rapid backup in the event of major generation failure.

Who knows, one day electric cars might help keep the trains running when a wind farm trips out.



As do motorcycles, buses, coaches, trams and trains. If you don't believe metal-metal wheels generate particulates then google is your friend.



Demonstrably untrue. See above.



What you call 'fiddling' I've always known as 'Transport Planning'. Stuff gets measured, other stuff gets estimated, it all goes into a model and out comes an answer based on science and mathematics rather than personal opinions. If you do that kind of thing for a while you start to understand that different solutions are needed for different types of problem. There are few absolutes, and applying policies that are unduly based on generalisations often ends badly.

In response to the assertion "The more people who use public transport the more efficient it becomes" I would say "The more people who rely on public transport the less efficient it becomes". I'd suggest the latter is more relevant to the discussion about HS2.

Whilst flying can be a useful way of transporting people it's hardly an efficient way of traveling for the vast majority of travel which would be undertaken by those using HS2.

However even where there's an engineering heavy solution (like for instance the Channel Tunnel) these trends to be for fairly short distances and so given that rail passengers have a lower carbon footprint than flying (especially those on electric traction) then the overall impact is still lower.

Anyway there's a LOT of concrete needed to build an airport including the taxiways, runways, aircraft stands, buildings, etc.



In the meantime trains will produce less and less emissions as the energy grid gets greener. We do not really have the luxury of of waiting for aircraft to get worse before they get better.

Just to get back to levels of emissions from UK international aviation seen in 1990 we'd need to halve emissions from it. If that's not possible we'd have to cut by 1/4 emissions from road travel just so that those two combined went back to the 1990 level, even if there was no increase in flying and no worsening of emissions.



Whilst it's true that the individual vehicles in question are more efficient when traveling that is not how you measure efficiency.

Even if it was then it's still not taken into account the emissions from construction of the vehicle and the infrastructure to move those vehicles.

Whilst a fleet of buses will produce more emissions than 5 cars when carrying 5 people, it is rare that is ever the case. As such you need to look at average vehicle loadings to see how is the best way for people to travel around.

On average then a train is better than a bus and a bus is better than a car. Yes you'll be able to find some journeys where the opposite may be true, for instance the train returning to a depot. However those are small inefficiencies are more than offset by the times that there are buses and trains carrying more people than there are seats.



A single wind farm is hardly likely to make a dent in the capability of the grid to keep the trains running and the lights on.

Whilst recovering power from charged batteries will help smooth out peaks and troughs in power generation is going to have a limit on what can be recovered.

You'd be better off building more pumped hydro power stations (like Dinorwig) which allows you to pump water to a reservoir when there's excess power being generated and then generate power when there's a shortage of power.

The storage capacity of Dinorwig is 9.1GWh.

Compare this to the storage capacity of a Tesla battery of 100kwh.

That would mean you'd need to take back 5% of a full charge of 1,820,000 cars just to have the same amount of energy.

That's getting in for 7.5% of all cars on the road being able to give back 5% of their charge compared to 1 power station.

If there were 10 such power stations then to be able to draw on that much power would require about 75% of every car on the road to be able to give up 5% of their charge.

Increase it to 20 such power stations and you'd be looking at 75% of cars needing to give up 10% of their charge. Now that's fine if it's overnight, but during the rush hour then very few of those cars will be plugged in.



However nature is more easily able to deal with metal particles than rubber. In fact there's an argument that by putting iron filings into the oceans that it would increase the ability for then to absorb CO2 emissions. (Again Google is your friend).

Now whilst steel isn't iron it is made from it and so, although likely to be less effective than iron the outcome would likely be the same.

However trains are designed to run long distances without breaking and mostly manage to do so, especially compared to cars where they will have to show down or stop for other traffic or due to infrastructure layout quite a lot.

Now whilst the brakes of a train have to do more work than a car, again it comes down to the number of people being carried for the weight. However, probably more importantly it also comes down to how hard the brakes are used. Trains show down much more slowly than cars, mostly because drivers of trains know where they are stopping and so can drive accordingly.

As such the problem of brake dust is a much smaller issue for rail travel than it is for car travel



OK then, using science from a Transport Planner to a Highway Engineer (who has picked up a lot of knowledge of Transport Planning due to working in small companies where the boundaries between the job roles are very fuzzy and so has been tasked with undertaking most tasks on both sides of the fence, in fact struggles to understand where the fence actual is at times), please explain to me how car travel can be a more efficient method of travel at a macro level when there's more reliance on public transport.

I can see how on some journeys car travel could be better, however even then for many of those it would be better to walk or cycle. However, when viewed from the perception of trying to reduce our overall carbon emissions it is generally better for people to use public transport than the private motor car, especially for the 85% of the population who live in urban areas (settlements with a population of over 10,000).

The Ham as responded to your points as I would, but probably much better articulated than I would have!

You say the I’ve conflated various issues in the Road/plane=Bad, Public transport=Good argument but that’s exactly the point. I said

There is a massive ethical argument that travelling by car or plane isn’t good for the planet

The argument is multifaceted and there are clearly reasons and times why a car is more efficient than public transport and vice versa. You’ve provided an atypical scenario of someone driving 20 miles late at night. However that’s the point - the more people that do that journey the worse it is for the planet, whether for greenhouse gases or for air quality. The more people that use public transport to make that same journey the less polluting and more efficient those empty (as you use in your argument) late night train or bus journeys are (per person). Maybe we should call it ‘Transport Planning’? You already have, that’s great!

While I can see where you are coming from in most of your points (even if I disagree of think you have misunderstood my origin point) I can’t even begin to understand your last point from an environmental and/or social point of view.

 

[Neen Sollars]

So how do you solve the capacity problem between London and Birmingham?

Hi, In short more and longer trains into Euston and Marylebone. I am only focused on trains and passengers from Bham to London and vice versa for the the reasons in my posts. The site works for 11 new 400m platforms at Euston and the connection with rail hub interchange at OOC are ongoing. I would hope the plans could be amended for some of those 11 to accommodate WCML trains. Euston to OOC should be built, OOC to South Ruislip re-instated, four track South Ruislip to North Ruislip. Chiltern run into Marylebone and Euston.
No more two car units into London, as Marylebone has a five car only platform that is the minimum. Before re-modelling Oxford Stn P1&2 only have 6 car capacity so use them. Stations on Chiltern Main Line (CML) were lengthened to 9 cars, use them.
Chiltern`s premier service consists 6 sets of 8 vehicles, Class 68 loco, 6 passenger coaches and a DVT, 25% of the train does not carry passengers. The go to train of choice should be the composite Hitachi 800 IET Bi-mode 9 car set. There is an immediate 50% increase in passenger carrying capacity on trains that currently are not full.
Euston can then offer a service to suit the budget of all midlands passengers who wish to enjoy a visit to the Capital - the premium Avanti up to 125 mph on the WCML, the club up to 100 mph on the CML, and the budget LNWR on the WCML. Any passenger stepping off a train at New Street (from where ever) should be stepping on an HS2 train at Curzon Street within 8 minutes, from Moor Street it is 5 minutes.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Hi, In short more and longer trains into Euston and Marylebone. I am only focused on trains and passengers from Bham to London and vice versa for the the reasons in my posts. The site works for 11 new 400m platforms at Euston and the connection with rail hub interchange at OOC are ongoing. I would hope the plans could be amended for some of those 11 to accommodate WCML trains.

The plans for exactly where the lines and stations are going have been years in the making. They are not going to change, unless you want to go back to the drawing board, throw away the last 10 year's or so of planning and getting the plans through Parliament, and thereby delay completion of London-Birmingham - perhaps another 10 years or so to the mid 2030s. Besides, the HS2 lines leave Euston in a different direction from the WCML lines (HS2 heads West, the WCML heads NW as far as Primrose Hill) - so there's no way you'll be getting WCML trains onto HS2 platforms without building some kind of (expensive) linking tunnel.

I do totally agree with your comments about 4-tracking around Ruislip (although I don't think sending Chiltern trains to Euston is realistic) but that's a completely separate thing from HS2.

 

[Esker-pades]

Hi, In short more and longer trains into Euston and Marylebone. I am only focused on trains and passengers from Bham to London and vice versa for the the reasons in my posts. The site works for 11 new 400m platforms at Euston and the connection with rail hub interchange at OOC are ongoing. I would hope the plans could be amended for some of those 11 to accommodate WCML trains. Euston to OOC should be built, OOC to South Ruislip re-instated, four track South Ruislip to [West] Ruislip. Chiltern run into Marylebone and Euston.
No more two car units into London, as Marylebone has a five car only platform that is the minimum. Before re-modelling Oxford Stn P1&2 only have 6 car capacity so use them. Stations on Chiltern Main Line (CML) were lengthened to 9 cars, use them.
Chiltern`s premier service consists 6 sets of 8 vehicles, Class 68 loco, 6 passenger coaches and a DVT, 25% of the train does not carry passengers. The go to train of choice should be the composite Hitachi 800 IET Bi-mode 9 car set. There is an immediate 50% increase in passenger carrying capacity on trains that currently are not full.
Euston can then offer a service to suit the budget of all [M]idlands passengers who wish to enjoy a visit to the Capital - the premium Avanti up to 125 mph on the WCML, the club up to 100 mph on the CML, and the budget LNWR on the WCML. Any passenger stepping off a train at New Street (from where ever) should be stepping on an HS2 train at Curzon Street within 8 minutes, from Moor Street it is 5 minutes.

And how does that negate HS2 (South)?

Again, this 'solution' falls into the trap of assuming that HS2 is about London to Birmingham, and not about commuter capacity around those cities.

It adds little capacity to the WCML commuter services, effectively meaning that Milton Keynes, Northampton, etc. get no improvement. Trains at peak are pretty much at maximum length. The best one can do is go from 8 to 12 coaches, which means a rammed 8 car train becomes a mildly uncomfortable 12 car for a few years before it fills up again. Further, it does nothing to the already rammed 12 car services.

The Chiltern Main Line doesn't have much track capacity either, meaning that Chiltern Railways has to choose between long-distance (Birmingham/Oxford) or commuter services. They have chosen the former, which means most stations between Marylebone and Princes Risborough are underserved. Thus, any additional capacity one does create will be taken up by commuter services (London and Banbury, or between Dorridge, Stratford-upon-Avon, and Solihull into Birmingham), not the London-Birmingham/Oxford stuff.

Euston already offers various degrees of services to "suit the budget of all [M]idlands passengers"; it's called the May 2019 timetable change. And we all know what an utter shambles that turned out to be.

It's not that your proposals are bad, it's just that they are to be done in addition to HS2, not instead of HS2.

It's such a predictable response, that I even wrote an essay about it a month ago. I've used bits of it, which (with slight re-wording) address your post.

 

[The Planner]

Hi, In short more and longer trains into Euston and Marylebone. I am only focused on trains and passengers from Bham to London and vice versa for the the reasons in my posts. The site works for 11 new 400m platforms at Euston and the connection with rail hub interchange at OOC are ongoing. I would hope the plans could be amended for some of those 11 to accommodate WCML trains. Euston to OOC should be built, OOC to South Ruislip re-instated, four track South Ruislip to North Ruislip. Chiltern run into Marylebone and Euston.
No more two car units into London, as Marylebone has a five car only platform that is the minimum. Before re-modelling Oxford Stn P1&2 only have 6 car capacity so use them. Stations on Chiltern Main Line (CML) were lengthened to 9 cars, use them.
Chiltern`s premier service consists 6 sets of 8 vehicles, Class 68 loco, 6 passenger coaches and a DVT, 25% of the train does not carry passengers. The go to train of choice should be the composite Hitachi 800 IET Bi-mode 9 car set. There is an immediate 50% increase in passenger carrying capacity on trains that currently are not full.
Euston can then offer a service to suit the budget of all midlands passengers who wish to enjoy a visit to the Capital - the premium Avanti up to 125 mph on the WCML, the club up to 100 mph on the CML, and the budget LNWR on the WCML. Any passenger stepping off a train at New Street (from where ever) should be stepping on an HS2 train at Curzon Street within 8 minutes, from Moor Street it is 5 minutes.

Again, like I said before, do a bit of Googling on the route and how things are planned. How are you getting more trains to Euston south of Rugby? The HS2 station at Euston is much lower than the existing platforms that are there, as is OOC, its in a below ground box. How do you get more trains on the Chilterns? 4 tracking South Ruislip to West Ruislip certainly isn't going to do it.

 

[Neen Sollars]

Right, so you are building the western side of 2B, Phase 2A and one of the most difficult bits of Phase 1 to do in the grade separated junction at Water Orton and the route into Birmingham plus a dead end spur to get to Birmingham Interchange. So not Phase 2 first then, look at a HS2 route map.

Right. It just goes to show how the London and South East focused and biased politicians, bureaucrats, and so-called intellectuals have had their cosy worlds turned upside down by Brexit and the 2019 landslide election, that we are now likely to see the majority of HS2 phase 1 scrapped. I will tell you what a dead end is TP, Phase 1 HS2 was initially due to end in a field north of Lichfield at Handsacre, that is a dead end! Fact.
Work on clearance for HS2 in the Midlands is ongoing, if HS2 is to be built it should be built from Manchester and Leeds to Birmingham to integrate into HS3 northern powerhouse. So what have we at the dead end at Bham Intl HS2 interchange (apart from the possible route south HS2 Phase 1, but think 2050 for that) we have Birmingham Intl Airport, 2018 12.5 m passengers p.a. target 18 m 2033, with quieter future aircraft current capacity 30 million passengers p.a. We have the NATIONAL Exhibition Centre. We have Bham Intl WCML station, we have thousands of leisure and industrial businesses within a five mile radius. We have access to the national motorway network, M42, M6 and Toll, M40, M5, M69, M1 M54, all within easy reach. Not bad for a dead end?
So, our many business and tourist travellers domestic and intl arrive at HS2 Bham interchange to be sped quickly and in comfort by rail into Curzon Street (I don`t want to send them on the Midland Metro) in minutes or to Leeds or Manchester within an hour. Some of these Leeds trains should continue to Scotland on upgraded 140 mph ECML. Our engineers will have a solution to any construction problems on the line.
This northern tip of HS2 phase 1 is integral to my revised HS2 north and should be constructed asap with connections to existing networks as planned whilst a revised plan for the remainder of HS2 is drawn and approved. This with the work already outlined + Euston to OOC and East West Rail Bicester to Bedford present immediate large infrastructure projects, along with the many improvements to the existing network waiting to start.

 

[Neen Sollars]

Again, like I said before, do a bit of Googling on the route and how things are planned. How are you getting more trains to Euston south of Rugby? The HS2 station at Euston is much lower than the existing platforms that are there, as is OOC, its in a below ground box. How do you get more trains on the Chilterns? 4 tracking South Ruislip to West Ruislip certainly isn't going to do it.

Ask an engineer.

 

[Meerkat]

Densification is really needed but almost unachievable.
Those vast swathes of 30s semis with huge gardens aren’t great for how close they are to the city.
But replacing them with town houses or the low rise apartment blocks that surround German cities would require a totalitarian government!

 

[Ianno87]

Ask an engineer.

Engineers can spend money. They can't however, break the laws of physics as you are expecting them to.

 

[The Planner]

Right. It just goes to show how the London and South East focused and biased politicians, bureaucrats, and so-called intellectuals have had their cosy worlds turned upside down by Brexit and the 2019 landslide election, that we are now likely to see the majority of HS2 phase 1 scrapped. I will tell you what a dead end is TP, Phase 1 HS2 was initially due to end in a field north of Lichfield at Handsacre, that is a dead end! Fact.

Wrong, look at a HS2 map. The main line stops at Fradley in anticipation of Phase 2A where a spur line joins the WCML at Handsacre allowing trains to continue north.

Work on clearance for HS2 in the Midlands is ongoing, if HS2 is to be built it should be built from Manchester and Leeds to Birmingham to integrate into HS3 northern powerhouse. So what have we at the dead end at Bham Intl HS2 interchange (apart from the possible route south HS2 Phase 1, but think 2050 for that) we have Birmingham Intl Airport, 2018 12.5 m passengers p.a. target 18 m 2033, with quieter future aircraft current capacity 30 million passengers p.a. We have the NATIONAL Exhibition Centre. We have Bham Intl WCML station, we have thousands of leisure and industrial businesses within a five mile radius. We have access to the national motorway network, M42, M6 and Toll, M40, M5, M69, M1 M54, all within easy reach. Not bad for a dead end?
So, our many business and tourist travellers domestic and intl arrive at HS2 Bham interchange to be sped quickly and in comfort by rail into Curzon Street (I don`t want to send them on the Midland Metro) in minutes or to Leeds or Manchester within an hour. Some of these Leeds trains should continue to Scotland on upgraded 140 mph ECML. Our engineers will have a solution to any construction problems on the line.

Why would anyone at Birmingham Airport get on a people mover to Birmingham Interchange to go to Curzon St when they can just go to International and a get a train to New St?

 

[The Planner]

Ask an engineer.

 

[Meerkat]

Not everyone makes proper use of their garden. Those who do want gardens could buy ground floor flats

Or you have communal roof gardens

 

[JonathanH]

Densification is really needed but almost unachievable.
Those vast swathes of 30s semis with huge gardens aren’t great for how close they are to the city.
But replacing them with town houses or the low rise apartment blocks that surround German cities would require a totalitarian government!

Or perhaps a left wing government that brings in a land / garden tax to replace council tax at such a punative level that all the occupants of a line of houses feel the need to sell off their gardens for development.