• Our new ticketing site is now live! Using either this or the original site (both powered by TrainSplit) helps support the running of the forum with every ticket purchase! Find out more and ask any questions/give us feedback in this thread!

You can build three tunnels...

Status
Not open for further replies.

PacerFacer

Member
Joined
19 Nov 2019
Messages
5
Location
Manchester
Hi there. I'm a lurker on this forum, and most definitely don't have any level of expertise when it comes to engineering or train operations. For that reason, I definitely favour the more blindly optimistic areas of speculative changes, although I think as long you acknowledge that you're operating in that space then that's OK?

Anyway, I've enjoyed the broader threads in this section (what are your general ideas for X etc), so I thought I'd kick one off.

The premise: a genie that specialises in very specific infrastructure wishes has granted you the chance to build three tunnels on the UK rail network. They have to be tunnels of relative substance (the genie frowns upon, but doesn't outright disallow, dive-unders) and be theoretically possible. The genie is also bored of London Underground designs, so those are out. It will also hear you out if you want to add a bonus international tunnel for the sheer thrill of it.

To start off, I decided to theme mine around getting across water (city centre crossrails are probably more useful, but they're also pretty heavily discussed on here). In no particular order...

Under the mouth of Portsmouth Habour
Distance coast to coast:
650m
Brings Gosport onto the network, and if you can find a route through could potentially offer a faster route to Southampton (that might be a challenge though).

Under the Humber
Distance bank to bank:
2km
Grimsby, Scunthorpe and Lincoln don't have direct access to Hull. That'd be nice.

Under the Dee
Distance coast to coast:
8.9km
A nice scheme for devolved government across the mouth of the Dee. Allows direct access from the north Wales coast into Liverpool without trundling into/changing at Chester. Could be a built to a specification that allowed for access to HS3 trains should a tunnel to Dublin ever be built in the far far future. Might require a second tunnel under the Mersey though.

I did consider proposing a tunnel from Weston-Super-Mare into Cardiff (13.8km) but that seems the most difficult/of least benefit. Plus the genie is very strict.

Anyway, have at it.
 
Sponsor Post - registered members do not see these adverts; click here to register, or click here to log in
R

RailUK Forums

randyrippley

Established Member
Joined
21 Feb 2016
Messages
5,383
Southport-St Annes-Fleetwood-Heysham-Barrow-Millom, linking into the Cumbrian coast route to the north and Merseyrail to the south
creates a high speed commuter route from the Lancashire west coast into Liverpool, revitalising Blackpool, Fylde, Morecambe, Barrow and the coast. You would need four sub-sea tunnel sections
 

tbtc

Veteran Member
Joined
16 Dec 2008
Messages
17,882
Location
Reston City Centre
Interesting idea for a thread.

Three suggestions (slightly tongue in cheek, off the top of my head):

1. Leith to Kirkcaldy. A significantly faster link from Edinburgh to civilisation (i.e. Fife), plus a station in Leith

2. Buxton to Stoke. A line underneath the Dark Peak, allowing a Sheffield - Buxton - Stoke (etc) service - if you're going to create a cross-Peak District route then this would be much more interesting than another thread about Matlock - Buxton

3. Barrow in Furness - Sodor. The Island of Sodor has such an old fleet these days, and surely needs to be added to the list of places with a direct service to Manchester Airport?
 

Tobbes

Established Member
Joined
12 Aug 2012
Messages
1,242
Excellent thread idea, @PacerFacer.

1. Penmaenmawr-Beaumaris; Holyhead-Dun Laoghaire as part of LGV Ireland from Crewe, allowing direct London/Birmingham Interchange/Dublin and with a triangular junction Dublin/Glasgow-Edinburgh

2. Liverpool Street-Lambourne End to allow a new pair of lines into Essex to serve Stansted and stations north of Chelmsford joining the GEML ivo Marks Tey;

3. Manchester-Leeds. Don't know the area well enough to say where a trans-Pennine base tunnel should start and end, but whatever is needed to build a 140mph alignment for Javelin-style services Liverpool-Manchester-Leeds
 

HSTEd

Veteran Member
Joined
14 Jul 2011
Messages
17,876
Given the example of the Barcelona Metro, I feel I could cheat and get an awful lot of track into only three tunnels!

And that thing doesn't even use the largest TBMs available these days!
 

ABB125

Established Member
Joined
23 Jul 2016
Messages
3,953
Location
University of Birmingham
Does the tunnel genie allow very long tunnels? If so, my suggestions would be:
  1. From wherever HS2 ends near Wigan to Glasgow, with a triangular junction somewhere in the Scottish Central Belt for a spur to Edinburgh
  2. From Plymouth to London via Exeter thence Bristol and Reading
  3. From Birmingham (involving some significant changes to the current HS2 approach to Curzon Street) to Cardiff, via "Teddington Hands Roundabout Parkway*" and Bristol (where there would be a junction with tunnel 2)
Obviously these tunnels would be designed for 250mph running at high frequencies... :D

*For anyone not familiar with this location, I can personally assure you that there would be at least one person who would use the train maybe once a month on the cheapest ticket available; given this absolutely huge passenger demand, I'm surprised it hasn't come up in one of the "reversing Beeching" threads yet**! :D

**Again, for those not familiar, I am being slightly sarcastic here. Though I will point out that there used to be a railway less than half a mile from the roundabout.
 

muddythefish

On Moderation
Joined
13 May 2014
Messages
1,577
Under the Dee
Distance coast to coast:
8.9km
A nice scheme for devolved government across the mouth of the Dee. Allows direct access from the north Wales coast into Liverpool without trundling into/changing at Chester. Could be a built to a specification that allowed for access to HS3 trains should a tunnel to Dublin ever be built in the far far future. Might require a second tunnel under the Mersey though.


Anyway, have at it.

I seem to remember a North-Wales - Liverpool direct tunnel was a serious proposal about 25 years ago, though I can't find a link to it.
 

JKF

Member
Joined
29 May 2019
Messages
798
Pill to Sea Mills, Clifton Down to Cumberland Basin, Wapping Wharf to Temple Meads. Then join them up to make the Portishead line reopening a bit more useful for me.
 

bspahh

Established Member
Joined
5 Jan 2017
Messages
1,916
I'm also assuming that a tunnel to Dublin would cost more than £100bn! @Bald Rick ? @ChiefPlanner ?

This briefing sheet from the ICE from December 2020 says on page 6
Costs would be much higher on the longer routes that avoid Beaufort’s Dyke. The estimated costs for a bored tunnel option for Route 2 would be £15bn, based on the Channel Tunnel costs of £93m/km (at today’s prices). Still, bear in mind that that would be for the tunnel alone. Factor in associated infrastructure such as marshalling yards, stations and new rail connections and you would be looking at another £15bn, pushing the overall price tag up to £30bn.
Route 2 is from Holyhead to Dublin.
 

XAM2175

Established Member
Joined
8 Jun 2016
Messages
3,468
Location
Glasgow
Very happy with that @XAM2175 . But the Dublin terminal needs to be Heuston, not Connolly - otherwise you'd miss the opportunity for Euston-Heuston.... ;)
...we have a problem.
"The next train to depart from platform 10 will be the EuroCity Apollo service to Dublin"

Does the tunnel genie allow very long tunnels? If so, my suggestions would be:
...
Obviously these tunnels would be designed for 250mph running at high frequencies... :D
Will there be provision for passengers to be anesthetised for the duration of the journey, given it'll be so interminably boring?
(pun only partially intended)
 

ABB125

Established Member
Joined
23 Jul 2016
Messages
3,953
Location
University of Birmingham
Will there be provision for passengers to be anesthetised for the duration of the journey, given it'll be so interminably boring?
(pun only partially intended)
That problem would be solved by painting landscapes on the inside of the tunnels, roughly depicting the view that would be experienced on the surface at that particular location.
 

XAM2175

Established Member
Joined
8 Jun 2016
Messages
3,468
Location
Glasgow
That problem would be solved by painting landscapes on the inside of the tunnels, roughly depicting the view that would be experienced on the surface at that particular location.
I think we might have differing definitions of "solved".
 

Halifaxlad

Established Member
Joined
5 Apr 2018
Messages
1,564
Location
The White Rose County
Limiting it to 3 was a good idea!

Mine are:

1) A lengthy tunnel between Rochdale and Milner Royd Junction (Somewhere) to faciliate a fast Bradford - Halifax - Rochdale - Manchester service.

2) Neville Hill under Halton Moor before connecting up with HS2.

3) A tunnel West of Sheffield running all the way under Manchester before rejoining the national rail network on the West side of Manchester. A completely through underground E-W station to serve Manchester along it.
 

londonteacher

Member
Joined
10 Aug 2018
Messages
703
If it can be anywhere then maybe from London to New York using Maglev technology of course or those new pods they are testing in the desert.
 

Purple Orange

On Moderation
Joined
26 Dec 2019
Messages
3,458
Location
The North
I like this idea of a thread. Mine would be:
  1. Manchester Metro: Ardwick to Cornbrook, with stops at Mayfield, Piccadilly Station, Piccadilly Gardens, Albert Sq, Spinningfields/Quay Street, Castlefield and Cornbrook
  2. HS2/NPR: Ardwick to Greenfield, a tunnel through east Manchester from the junction on HS2 towards Leeds to east of Greenfield, before rejoining the Trans Pennine Mainline and then using the existing tunnels towards Marsden (where all four tunnels are in use).
  3. Manchester Metro: Fallowfield to Colyhurst, with stops at Birchfields Park, Whitworth Park, All Saints Park, Oxford Road Station, Albert Square, St Anne’s Sq-St Marys, Victoria Station and Angel Gardens. This would link the Styal Line to the Bury Line for a dedicated Metro service.
 

SynthD

Established Member
Joined
4 Apr 2020
Messages
1,433
Location
UK
For Waterloo and Victoria, a set of tunnels from Stewarts Lane area to Esher, South Croydon and Chislehurst.
 

Gareth

Established Member
Joined
10 Mar 2011
Messages
1,505
Cross-Manchester tunnel for Transpennine services with a western portal east of Eccles station, through Piccadilly station and with an eastern portal West of Ashburys.

Slightly south of Dove Holes to just west of Grindleford station.

Under the Dee from near Heswall to near Holywell. North Wales services will join the Borderlands line and run into a redeveloped Birkenhead North,. possibly replicated slightly West of the existing station to allow expansion.
 

Purple Orange

On Moderation
Joined
26 Dec 2019
Messages
3,458
Location
The North
If it
Cross-Manchester tunnel for Transpennine services with a western portal east of Eccles station, through Piccadilly station and with an eastern portal West of Ashburys.

Slightly south of Dove Holes to just west of Grindleford station.

Under the Dee from near Heswall to near Holywell. North Wales services will join the Borderlands line and run into a redeveloped Birkenhead North,. possibly replicated slightly West of the existing station to allow expansion.
If it is to be a cross Manchester tunnel like that, I’d add in a link to the HS2 tunnel towards the airport and a link to the Trans Pennine main line. That would allow Liverpool & Scotland fast services to come in from the west and exit to the east to Leeds or south to the Airport. Leeds from the east should still be able to access the surface HS2 station to enable Leeds & Newcastle services to reverse to the airport.
 

mrgreen

Member
Joined
14 May 2013
Messages
37
The error bars on such things are enormous and hard to determine.

But you can get an awful lot for £100bn
The Faroe Islands' undersea 2-lane road tunnels are costing them around £10million per km. So yes, you can go a long way on £100 billion. Though of course that doesn't include a heap of additional expenditure on safety, power supply, signalling, rolling stock, access lines, ongoing maintenance and pumping etc etc.

The sub-Humber tunnel would allow the KX to Lincoln and Hull services to be combined into a full-length train, so a small contribution to reducing ECML congestion.
 

billio

Member
Joined
9 Feb 2012
Messages
527
Limiting it to 3 was a good idea!

Mine are:

1) A lengthy tunnel between Rochdale and Milner Royd Junction (Somewhere) to faciliate a fast Bradford - Halifax - Rochdale - Manchester service.

2) Neville Hill under Halton Moor before connecting up with HS2.

3) A tunnel West of Sheffield running all the way under Manchester before rejoining the national rail network on the West side of Manchester. A completely through underground E-W station to serve Manchester along it.
For (1) I think we need 4 tunnels:
Littleborough to hillside above Sowerby Bridge
[Bridge across Calder valley]
Tunnel into Halifax
Tunnel from there to Bradford
Tunnel from Bradford to Leeds
 

HSTEd

Veteran Member
Joined
14 Jul 2011
Messages
17,876
This just leads me to some sort of Tyne and Wear esque Metro solution.

Have a Manchester RER system that loops back on itself!
It's still one tunnel!
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Top