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there seem to be a lot of unanswered questions.

is the eastern arm of hs2 to be cancelled - or (just) delayed.

a (new) station in manchester which could allow HS trains to go further north via either the west coast or Leeds and east coast seems to allow considerable fexibility so seems good -but what is intended for the 'trans pennine' bit. A long new tunnel would be great - but is the money there.

How would all this affect the east midlands - who could seriously mis out.

 

Overall as I say more questions than answers.

We need a long term plan - not a lot of short term announcements.

 

mike james

 

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well, there is a branch on the Western leg, that branches off the HS2 mainline into Manchester at Knutsford, and rejoins the West Coast up near Wigan. If the call for direct trains north from Manchester is there, it would probably be easier to have a link there to allow trains to head to Scotland. Certainly cheaper than several miles of tunnelling under Manchester to have it as a through station.

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I'm thinking more in the scenario that HS2 isn't the end of things. If HS3 comes along and heads to Scotland up the Western side of the country then not having to go in and out of Manchester would be much more advantageous than having a triangular junction somewhere else. The same goes for Leeds. As it is, having south facing termini in Manchester and Leeds will make it much harder to properly extend the network northwards in future. It'll make it beholden to short point to point trains (eg an 8 car Glasgow to Manchester and an 8 car Glasgow to Birmingham, which could have run as a 16 car Glasgow to Birmingham via Manchester if it was a through station, but would have a significant time penalty if running in and out of a terminus via a triangle), which will eat line capacity.

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On 05/07/2020 at 19:57, mikejames said:

there seem to be a lot of unanswered questions.

is the eastern arm of hs2 to be cancelled - or (just) delayed.

a (new) station in manchester which could allow HS trains to go further north via either the west coast or Leeds and east coast seems to allow considerable fexibility so seems good -but what is intended for the 'trans pennine' bit. A long new tunnel would be great - but is the money there.

How would all this affect the east midlands - who could seriously mis out.

 

 

There are calls for it to be progressed sooner

 

https://www.insidermedia.com/news/midlands/early-start-to-hs2-called-for-as-job-figures-revealed

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it seems to me the above W-W Manchester thinking about city development contexts precedes post pandemic perceptions about our urban and regional decentralised futures.

But this is not to condemn it. It answers my criticism of Curzon Street, expressed many pages above that the viaducts to CS terminal station sterilise land beneath to the east of Birmingham's city core.

 

Has anybody stopped by W-W's site to look at their commuting survey done in 2019 in the 10 cities round the world in which they have a presence?

I found it interesting because it exposed frustrations that will obviously be resolved by post.p.

  • increased p.p. working from home.
  • by p.p. city de-densification and office & retail change (use class order changes) to residential.

[NB I have no connection whatsoever with W-W, but a shared holistic environmental planning view]

 

2

Surely any sensible thinking about NPH rail interconnectibility will be about

  • quality of ride for commuters and capacity,
  • an accessible northern urban network with dependability, not sheer speed *.
  • Traction should be electric with an ability to climb and descend (particularly to include Bradford and Halifax en-route to Leeds)

 

*Personally I have always loved the view out of the window on all train journeys north of Crewe or Derby/Doncaster and would not like new routes to be 'Base Tunnels' Swiss style below the "Hills of the North Rejoice".

 

Edited by runs as required
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13 hours ago, runs as required said:

Surely any sensible thinking about NPH rail interconnectibility will be about

  • quality of ride for commuters and capacity,
  • an accessible northern urban network with dependability, not sheer speed *.
  • Traction should be electric with an ability to climb and descend (particularly to include Bradford and Halifax en-route to Leeds)

NPH probably doesn't need high speed rail in the normal sense. The distances aren't great enough in the main Liverpool - Manchester - Leeds area to accelerate to HSL speeds and run any distance before it'll be time to stop again. I'd imagine a consistent 100-110mph run across the Pennines would do the job for the fast trains if they don't also have to perform an inter-urban role and stop a few times along the way. Call it 125 to harmonise with the blast up the ECML to York & Newcastle, but much faster than that won't offer a lot of benefits.

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In my mind the question is 'Is HSx to go to Scotland eventually' and how should that be planed for.

You can then ask 'how should the Liverpool/Manchester/Leeds etc link with this to provided a joined up system'

Similarly 'how does the East Midlands link in'

 

I know HS2a is about capacity on the WCML in the south so that has to be the start

but without at least an outline plan for  north of Manchester /Leeds it seems very hard 

to plan the links - 

 

 

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2 hours ago, Zomboid said:

NPH probably doesn't need high speed rail in the normal sense. The distances aren't great enough in the main Liverpool - Manchester - Leeds area to accelerate to HSL speeds and run any distance before it'll be time to stop again. I'd imagine a consistent 100-110mph run across the Pennines would do the job for the fast trains if they don't also have to perform an inter-urban role and stop a few times along the way. Call it 125 to harmonise with the blast up the ECML to York & Newcastle, but much faster than that won't offer a lot of benefits.

I think there was an article on Modern Railways within the last two years which demonstrated exactly this hypothesis.

 

High Speeds on Trans-Pennine routes are for the politicians.  An increment from 125 to 150mph vastly increases costs but doesn't actually reduce end-to-end journey times very much, because people don't generally live at their local station and work at another railway station.

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The new issue of Modern Railways madevitvacross the channel yesterday. There are several items about HS2 including two long and detailed articles. One interesting thing is that the Handsacre connection is all contracted in.

 

Jamie

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Miss Sturgeon made it clear that they would not build a high speed line to the border unless England paid for it. Dont think that will happen especialy if she gets independance which just might happen one day. Then we will save a great deal of money but it wont benifit Scotland as we should be united.

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  • Looking into my crystal ball, I can see a post-pandemic future "North" as being a conurbation belt from the Wirral/Chester/Knutsford /Mansfield/ Cleethorpes  north to Carnforth/ Skipton/ Harrogate/ York/ Scarborough. This would equate roughly to the regional distribution of settlement densities served by the former Network South East.
    [We'd have our very own NorthEast (Northallerton to Berwick; Hawes to Whitby) network]
     
  • I visualise a network across the North conurbation belt rather like Berlin (or a less centralised Paris) that enables cross-conurb. or diagonal multi mode journeys within a max 100 minutes journey time.
     
  • Payment could be made by monthly billing of a travel account (like phone or home heating). I'd include billing owners of cars for mileage along roads with varying prices based on congestion and environmental pollution. Phone satnavs already compute most cost effective mode/route/time options.
     
  • Fast Scotland to England services would run through the centre of stations (like Friedrichstrasse or Nuneaton Trent valley). They'd have a choice of network paths either via Carlisle or Newcastle and south via Crewe (existing WCML) or Doncaster (existing ECML) or via Manchester, Leeds, Bradford or Sheffield
     
  • I don't see the HST 3 choice having to be either Stoke or East Midlands.
    Both routings could be realised within a similar cross Midlands conurbation belt Shrewsbury /Stoke/ Nottingham /Lincoln down to Hereford/Oxford/Northampton/Cambridge/Thetford.
     
  • What about re-viving the LT brandname Green Line for these new multi mode networks rather than HST 3,4,5,6 etc. ?  The purpose is to remove the obligation to run a car.

     
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7 hours ago, lmsforever said:

Miss Sturgeon made it clear that they would not build a high speed line to the border unless England paid for it. Dont think that will happen especialy if she gets independance which just might happen one day. Then we will save a great deal of money but it wont benifit Scotland as we should be united.

It's unlikely that she, or indeed the SNP, will be in power in Scotland in perpetuity. Certainly by the time HS2 is completed and further extensions are on the table you'd expect to have had a change of leadership.

 

As for independence, that is a side issue really. We built the channel tunnel and HS1 to improve connections to France and Belgium, so whether the UK is still intact or not, the building or not of a HSL from the central belt towards England will be driven by the demand for travel between those places.

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The Borders line will be completed to Carlsle, whatever the politics, but thankfully not High Speed!

 

There's also Border Reivers  local pressure for re-instatement of the Border Counties to take the logging wagons off the road and to link Hawick southwards to the delights of Tyneside and also more tourists up to Kielder. 

My old rail mad friend Geoff Mann (of St Pancras Hotel restoration and the under-grounding of Ludgate Hill railway bridge) will be against this destroying the peace of his Saughtree railway B&B.

 

Edited by runs as required
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10 hours ago, lmsforever said:

Miss Sturgeon made it clear that they would not build a high speed line to the border unless England paid for it. Dont think that will happen especialy if she gets independance which just might happen one day. Then we will save a great deal of money but it wont benifit Scotland as we should be united.

 

She is typical of an opposition leader with no chance of replacing the government in power (because there are simply too few seats in Scotland to do so).

This gives her the freedom to criticise everything the government does without fear of having to explain how she will carry out her policies.

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High speed in Scotland is not needed ,the existing services from Carlisle reach Glasgow in one hour as does the route to Newcastle .Rail across the border is in a good position and the existing services are under constant improvement providing what passengers reqiure.Speed is not everything  the average passenger wants ,on time ,comfortable ,clean.and at a good price.I think that uptake on high speed will be slow and existing services will be required for a long time to come.Many passengers will still use their current routes but London centric passengers will use high speed the and pay the premium fare.But its a long way off and times will change for the good or not its interesting to speculate what may happen.

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45 minutes ago, runs as required said:

The Borders line will be completed to Carlsle, whatever the politics

 

 

So you have a time machine do you?

 

There is NO BUSINESS CASE for re-instating the Waverley route all the way back to Carlisle (which would have to involve some serious rebuilding of the current borders railway which is very restricted capacity wise) and its foolish to pretend otherwise. The quantity of passenger and freight traffic the route itself can generate to finance such a rebuild doesn't come close to justifying it while there is still a fair bit of capacity on the ECML, WCML and GSW routes for traffic originating on the current Scottish railway network.

 

There is a marginal business case to take the current borders railway a bit further south from the current railhead at Tweedbank as far as Hawick, helped in a large part by there being no need to do anything to the current borers railway and most of the 'big ticket' infrastructure items still being intact on this section (unlike the route south of Hawick).

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26 minutes ago, Pete the Elaner said:

 

She is typical of an opposition leader with no chance of replacing the government in power...

 

But she is already in power, leading the government of Scotland. Or doesn't that count? Her job is to stand up for Scotand's interests, not to try and second-guess what the UK's interests might be. She -- rightly -- has no interest in what is best for England. That's democracy, and all that.

 

Would we expect the governor of Texas to first take into account the best interests of Alaska before lobbying the federal government? Why would he?

 

Paul

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32 minutes ago, lmsforever said:

High speed in Scotland is not needed ,the existing services from Carlisle reach Glasgow in one hour as does the route to Newcastle .Rail across the border is in a good position and the existing services are under constant improvement providing what passengers reqiure.Speed is not everything  the average passenger wants ,on time ,comfortable ,clean.and at a good price.I think that uptake on high speed will be slow and existing services will be required for a long time to come.Many passengers will still use their current routes but London centric passengers will use high speed the and pay the premium fare.But its a long way off and times will change for the good or not its interesting to speculate what may happen.

 

Sounds like a southerners response that travellers in Scotland should accept the longer journey times they currently experience and forget the distances involved. 

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Was there ever a Business Case for either the original closure or the highly popular re-Instatement ?

As I understand it there is indignation about it not yet extended to Hawick - and on the west side - campaigning for it to put Langholm ‘on line’.

I concede I’m wrong about  “whatever the politics” because Borders borderline politics seems important to both the SNP and Unionists.

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4 minutes ago, Fenman said:

 

But she is already in power, leading the government of Scotland. Or doesn't that count? Her job is to stand up for Scotand's interests, not to try and second-guess what the UK's interests might be. She -- rightly -- has no interest in what is best for England. That's democracy, and all that.

 

Would we expect the governor of Texas to first take into account the best interests of Alaska before lobbying the federal government? Why would he?

 

Paul

 

UK/Scottish government is a hazy line.

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3 minutes ago, Pete the Elaner said:

 

UK/Scottish government is a hazy line.

 

I'm not sure it looks very hazy from the Scottish side of the border. We English (I'm speaking for myself, no idea about your nationality, of course) pretty consistently ignore just how different the constituent parts of the UK actually are.

 

Paul

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3 minutes ago, Mark Saunders said:

 

Sounds like a southerners response that travellers in Scotland should accept the longer journey times they currently experience and forget the distances involved. 

 

HS2 is not about speed. It never was.

It is about capacity. The southern part of the WCML is overloaded. If anyone believes that expanding the WCML by widening or making it 2 levels was not investigated then they are mistaken.

A new railway was deemed the best way to expand the network. It may seem expensive but it really is cheaper than the alternatives.

& if a new railway needs to be built, it seems silly to built it to the same 170 year old standards like the rest was built to 170 years ago.

 

I am not so familiar with the northern sections of 2 main routes into Scotland because I have not used them often (in the case of Newcastle, never). Are these sections as overcrowded as the southern WCML?

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1 minute ago, Pete the Elaner said:

 

HS2 is not about speed. It never was.

It is about capacity. The southern part of the WCML is overloaded. If anyone believes that expanding the WCML by widening or making it 2 levels was not investigated then they are mistaken.

A new railway was deemed the best way to expand the network. It may seem expensive but it really is cheaper than the alternatives.

& if a new railway needs to be built, it seems silly to built it to the same 170 year old standards like the rest was built to 170 years ago.

 

I am not so familiar with the northern sections of 2 main routes into Scotland because I have not used them often (in the case of Newcastle, never). Are these sections as overcrowded as the southern WCML?

 

2 minutes ago, Pete the Elaner said:

 

I am not so familiar with the northern sections of 2 main routes into Scotland because I have not used them often (in the case of Newcastle, never). Are these sections as overcrowded as the southern WCML?

 

 

Between Heaton and  the Scottish border the signalling was reduced to three aspect with longer sections when resignalled in the early 1990’s with electrification and  now has LNER, Cross Country and Transpennine runnnig service .At the southern end there is an hourly local Newcastle to Morpeth and in Scotland Dunbar turnbacks from Edinburgh. Then there is the token two trains from Newcastle to Belford. 

 

 

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By the time Covid is over and paid for we'll be lucky to be riding around in Pacers !!  Some are currently stored at the new Springs Branch Wigan Depot (2 weeks ago) - Why store them on a brand new depot ?

 

IMG_1417RSZD.JPG.b5b53673caffefb904ca6329f277b327.JPG

 

IMG_1425RSZD.JPG.7e7ed178247ee3ffd5fe438f7113e1d5.JPG

 

As to Trans Pennine, we need the Standedge route electrifying NOW, 

 

Perhaps a cheaper high speed Trans Pennine  option (oft ridiculed unfortunately) is to reopen Woodhead to Sheffield with a leg north from Sheffield to  Leeds. The Sheffield to Birmingham "bit" can be done later. The existing "new" Woodhead tunnel is now used by the National Grid so perhaps that option is out. The existing original bores could be bored out as per Farnworth recently (Man Vic to Bolton electrification). As all trains would stop at the new Man Picc HS station, a reversal would be of little consequence.

 

Anyway - about those bl**by Pacers !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Brit15

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1 hour ago, lmsforever said:

High speed in Scotland is not needed ,the existing services from Carlisle reach Glasgow in one hour as does the route to Newcastle .Rail across the border is in a good position and the existing services are under constant improvement providing what passengers reqiure.Speed is not everything  the average passenger wants ,on time ,comfortable ,clean.and at a good price.I think that uptake on high speed will be slow and existing services will be required for a long time to come.Many passengers will still use their current routes but London centric passengers will use high speed the and pay the premium fare.But its a long way off and times will change for the good or not its interesting to speculate what may happen.

clear case of crystal ball-itis. Why would there be a premium fare?

 

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