HS2

[Clearwater]

1 hour ago, Pete the Elaner said:

 

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

49 minutes ago, Pete the Elaner said:

 

UK/Scottish government is a hazy line.

 

1 hour 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

policies.

 

My understanding is that transport is a devolved power to the national assembly and hence the administration in Scotland is responsible for transport within Scotland.  However, there is, in my view, a hazy line on some of these matters as self evidently transport networks don't respect lines drawn on maps.  It would be utterly bonkers to upgrade a route, road or rail, up to a border and then stop.  There needs to be a degree of national cooperation.  You then get to a budget allocation question and who is paying for what with whose money, which bits get built first etc etc ad nauseam.

 

There is the same debate about whether TfL, accountable to the London Assembly, should be responsible for commuter traffic into London outside of its geographic remit.

 

[Fenman]

4 minutes ago, Clearwater said:

 

My understanding is that transport is a devolved power to the national assembly and hence the administration in Scotland is responsible for transport within Scotland.  However, there is, in my view, a hazy line on some of these matters as self evidently transport networks don't respect lines drawn on maps.  It would be utterly bonkers to upgrade a route, road or rail, up to a border and then stop.  There needs to be a degree of national cooperation.  You then get to a budget allocation question and who is paying for what with whose money, which bits get built first etc etc ad nauseam.

 

There is the same debate about whether TfL, accountable to the London Assembly, should be responsible for commuter traffic into London outside of its geographic remit.

 

 

I lived in Edinburgh more than 20-odd years ago: at that time there was a lovely dual carriageway south from Edinburgh towards Newcastle -- but at the Scottish border it just stopped, and the road became a winding, single-carriageway road. For years, the English government refused to fund improvements. It was a startling symbol of how little Westminster cared about relations with Scotland.

 

The opposite of the Channel Tunnel as originally opened, where the lovely French high speed rail came out of the  Tunnel and hit the windy old Southern Electric network.

 

Paul

Edited July 8, 2020 by Fenman
HS1

[corneliuslundie]

And who wouldn't find electrification beyond Cardiff?

It sounds as though it would be easy to increase capacity if needed between Heaton and the Scottish border, and it sounds from the above as though there is not a great need for extra capacity.

What about the West Coast route , bearing in mind that there are three routes within Scotland?

Jonathan

[RJS1977]

It should also be borne in mind that if HS2 is primarily about relieving capacity on the WCML. then there is less need to do this as you progress further north - Oxenholme for example gets two passenger trains each way an hour currently, 

 

Likewise the Settle-Carlisle gets one passenger train each way every two hours on average.

 

A more cost-effective method of increasing capacity on these routes would be a combination of signalling improvements and goods laybys, rather than building a whole new line.

[phil-b259]

1 hour ago, runs as required said:

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

 

Yes on both counts.

 

The business case for it being closed was to allow the electrification and the upgrading of the WCML to Glasgow. In an era of year on year decline of passenger and freight volumes, plus a hostile Government / Paymaster (in the form of HM Treasuary) the business case for the WCML works relied on the transfer of traffic from other lines including the Waverley route. Stripped of its through services the only reason for retaining a service would thus be any intermediate traffic generated on the Waverley route itself. Given the lack of population south of Hawick, that meant Government subsidy would have been required to maintain a service on social grounds. However from a Government perspective there were no marginal political constituencies to worry about (unlike the Heart of Wales route) nor did the men from the ministry consider there were any topographical constraints to providing replacement bus services (like the Esk Valley line) so no subsidy was forthcoming. 

 

The business case for the rebuilding of the line as far as Tweedbank was based on a number of factors including economic stagnation of the borders due to poor communication links, traffic congestion on the A7 (and around Edinburgh) and poor job opportunities for borders residents ALL of which could costed and given an monetary value. Previous ideas to tackle these had been based around upgrading the A7 to dual carriageway - but the resurgence of rail travel had prompted an investigation as to whether the cost of rebuilding the rail route and the subsidy / fares received would come in at a lower cost. When the BCR calculations had been crunched the business case for the railway rebuild still wasn't great - but the BCR was just enough to push the project over the threshold providing the build costs were kept as low as possible. Thats why we got a railway tightly specified around a half hourly all station stopping service and all new build structures constructed to single track width where possible.

 

This is why the rebuild only went as far as Tweedbank (with onward bus connections for Hawick). Going through to Hawick initially would have meant significant extra spending and the revenue / user predictions simply didn't show that as being financially viable. Its all very easy in hindsight to say that said predictions were wrong - but you must not ignore the realities which applied at the time. It was very much a case that the business case was for basic railway to Tweedbank or NO RAILWAY AT ALL!

 

If the ex Waverley route is to be rebuilt as a cross border link then a similar process of getting a positive business case has to be gone through. However there is ZERO through freight justification as the WCML, GSW and ECML are well able to cope with current and predicted flows. Yes there might be some timber traffic to be had - but this is hardly going to earn megabucks or be that frequent while also increasing costs over a passenger only railway specification. Passenger wise - again the WCML and ECML are not exactly bursting at the seems and have room for growth, which only leaves borders residents wanting to travel to England. Given the borders is in Scotland, the region is far more aligned with Edinburgh in economic activity with the demand for travel mirroring that. Moreover due to the infrastructure of the line to Tweedbank then any 'rebuild to Carlisle' project is going to have to pay for some pretty expensive infrastructure upgrading (unless you want your Carlisle to Edinburgh service to be an all station stopper).

[phil-b259]

2 hours 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. 

 

The number of travellers going between London / Birmingham / Manchester far exceeds the number of Scottish residents wishing to travel to Newcastle or Carlisle!

 

HS2 is primarily about CAPACITY not speed - it just makes sense that if you are building a new railway you do it to the latest standards.

 

If the WCML and ECML between Scotland and England gets to the same stae as the WCML out of London (i.e. very overcrowded and no room for any more services) then a new build high speed link to England may be justified. However at present there is no sign of coming close to this threshold.

[Edwin_m]

7 hours 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?

 

6 hours ago, RJS1977 said:

It should also be borne in mind that if HS2 is primarily about relieving capacity on the WCML. then there is less need to do this as you progress further north - Oxenholme for example gets two passenger trains each way an hour currently, 

 

Likewise the Settle-Carlisle gets one passenger train each way every two hours on average.

 

A more cost-effective method of increasing capacity on these routes would be a combination of signalling improvements and goods laybys, rather than building a whole new line.

 

The northern WCML and ECML certainly have fewer trains than further south but there is still a capacity issue on both, because on each of them all trains have to fit onto two tracks. 

 

On the WCML it's mainly about the speed difference between passenger and freight, meaning there is a gap of about 40min between the passenger trains so the freight can get as far as it can before it has to go into a loop.  Loops are in any case of limited usefulness because the freight slowing down an accelerating back to full speed uses up much of the interval between passenger trains.  It would help if the freight companies could be persuaded/bribed/forced to use electric traction, as it's far quicker especially on the climbs to Shap and Beattock.  

 

The ECML north of Northallerton serves much more population than the WCML north of Preston, so has more passenger trains with NPR wanting to increase this further.  The freight has fewer issues with gradients but more passenger trains to avoid, so it's also close to full but for slightly different reasons.  

 

Although HS2 is primarily about capacity, speed is also important particularly for Anglo-Scottish journeys.  HS2 will render air travel between northern and south-east England virtually extinct except for people interlining to other flights or with origins/destinations close to the relevant airports (it's not far off that now, with the possible exception of Newcastle).  The predicted journey of 3hr40 between London and Glasgow or Edinburgh isn't quite enough to do the same for flights on these routes, but a few more minutes could get to a tipping point that generates significant environmental benefits. 

 

Enhancing the WCML or ECML or both with longish high speed bypasses of the slower sections benefits both end-to-end journey time and capacity, because slower trains can stay on the existing route and be overtaken without having to wait in loops.  I think if we're serious about improving Anglo-Scottish rail travel it's the choice of either doing this or upgrading the alternative S&C-GSW and Durham Coast or Leamside to provide alternative freight routes that might also carry regional passenger services that have a similar average speed so won't need much overtaking.  However I don't think that justification holds for a re-opened Waverley Route, as most of the freight through Carlisle is heading for the area to the east of Glasgow or further north via Stirling.  For these areas the WCML is best but the GSW is a better alternative than the Waverley would be.  

 

7 hours ago, APOLLO said:

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.

Unfortunately the Manchester-Leeds time via this route would be uncompetitive even in the previous situation (when I did the sums) with the HS2 route planned to be near Barnsley and the possibility of linking onto it from somewhere around Penistone to continue towards Leeds.  As the planned HS2 route is now much further east I think this one is off the table.  

Edited July 8, 2020 by Edwin_m

[TheQ]

1 hour ago, Fenman said:

 

I lived in Edinburgh more than 20-odd years ago: at that time there was a lovely dual carriageway south from Edinburgh towards Newcastle -- but at the Scottish border it just stopped, and the road became a winding, single-carriageway road. For years, the English government refused to fund improvements. It was a startling symbol of how little Westminster cared about relations with Scotland.

 

 

Paul

Absolute Rubbish... The Dual Carriageway south of Edinburgh Stops at  Broxburn 70 Miles short of the border, with just the odd bit beyond, such as when they had to move the A1 for the cutting replacing the Penmansheil Tunnel. I've been using the A1 since before any of it was dualled beyond Alnwick and the A1 ran down Princes Street and still do.. To visit my family near Edinburgh..

 

I think the fish has been spending most of her road Budget on the area around Cumbernauld and the new Forth Bridge including some massive approach roads..

Edited July 8, 2020 by TheQ

[Fenman]

12 minutes ago, TheQ said:

Absolute Rubbish... The Dual Carriageway south of Edinburgh Stops at  Broxburn 70 Miles short of the border, with just the odd bit beyond, such as when they had to move the A1 for the cutting replacing the Penmansheil Tunnel. I've been using the A1 since before any of it was dualled beyond Alnwick and still do.. to visit my family near Edinburgh..

A1 is dualled south of Edinburgh to roughly Dunbar; the last 25 miles to the border is then a mix of single carriageway and overtaking lanes. Or, at least, it was the last time I drove on it. 
 

There’s single carriageway and single carriageway: the A10 going south through Norfolk towards London isn’t brilliant, but then you hit the Cambridgeshire border and you really get to experience how crappy A roads can be. Things don’t much pick up again until Cambridge. It’s the same story: different places have different priorities. 
 

Paul

[TheQ]

13 minutes ago, Fenman said:

A1 is dualled south of Edinburgh to roughly Dunbar; the last 25 miles to the border is then a mix of single carriageway and overtaking lanes. Or, at least, it was the last time I drove on it. 
 

There’s single carriageway and single carriageway: the A10 going south through Norfolk towards London isn’t brilliant, but then you hit the Cambridgeshire border and you really get to experience how crappy A roads can be. Things don’t much pick up again until Cambridge. It’s the same story: different places have different priorities. 
 

Paul

The Broxburn I was Referring to is next door to Dunbar, unfortunately the mileage checker I used picked up the wrong Broxburn yes 25 miles of really crappy road to Berwick.. it just feels like 70..

 

The A10 is Nowhere near as bad as the A17..

Edited July 8, 2020 by TheQ

[Fenman]

1 minute ago, TheQ said:

The Broxburn I was Referring to is next door to Dunbar, unfortunately the mileage checker I used picked up the wrong Broxburn yes 25 miles of really crappy road to Berwick..

 

The A10 is Nowhere near as bad as the A17..

And the A17 is the same — reasonably decent travelling west through Norfolk, but then almost primeval after the ex-M&GN railway crossing at Sutton Bridge. It’s clearly not a priority for Lincolnshire. 
 

Paul

[TheQ]

Oh and  there is no such thing as an English Government, there  are Northern Irish, Welsh, Scottish Parliaments of limited powers, and a British Parilament elected by the people of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. To which MPs of any part of the UK can be in the Government.

Also MPs of any part of the UK can and do vote on matters which only apply to England while only their parties can vote on the same matters in their own parliaments..

[Mark Saunders]

1 hour ago, phil-b259 said:

 

The number of travellers going between London / Birmingham / Manchester far exceeds the number of Scottish residents wishing to travel to Newcastle or Carlisle!

 

HS2 is primarily about CAPACITY not speed - it just makes sense that if you are building a new railway you do it to the latest standards.

 

If the WCML and ECML between Scotland and England gets to the same stae as the WCML out of London (i.e. very overcrowded and no room for any more services) then a new build high speed link to England may be justified. However at present there is no sign of coming close to this threshold.

 

My quote refers to internal Scottish journeys!

[caradoc]

5 hours ago, runs as required said:

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

 

 

I seriously doubt it will. Extending to Hawick may well be justifiable, but from there to Carlisle is what, around 60 miles of nothing ! There is already a double track electrified line between Edinburgh and Carlisle, local traffic alone could not possibly justify the huge cost of rebuilding the entire Waverley route, nor could occasional use as a diversion for the WCML. Also, there are frequent moans about the single line sections of the current Borders Railway, but make no mistake, had the line not been down-specified as such it would simply not have been built.

 

[Northmoor]

1 hour ago, phil-b259 said:

 

The business case for it being closed was to allow the electrification and the upgrading of the WCML to Glasgow. In an era of year on year decline of passenger and freight volumes, plus a hostile Government / Paymaster (in the form of HM Treasuary) the business case for the WCML works relied on the transfer of traffic from other lines including the Waverley route. Stripped of its through services the only reason for retaining a service would thus be any intermediate traffic generated on the Waverley route itself. Given the lack of population south of Hawick, that meant Government subsidy would have been required to maintain a service on social grounds. However from a Government perspective there were no marginal political constituencies to worry about (unlike the Heart of Wales route) nor did the men from the ministry consider there were any topographical constraints to providing replacement bus services (like the Esk Valley line) so no subsidy was forthcoming. 

 

All true and I wonder whether another Civil Service mentality influenced the closure, or at least in the form it took.

 

There MAY have been a case for retaining the route North of Hawick to Edinburgh in 1970, roughly in the form the route now exists.  There was almost no traffic sources or destinations between Hawick and Carlisle, but the maintenance of several viaducts and tunnels on the section could have been avoided. However, UKG would probably have been unable to understand the purpose of a rail service which didn't direct passengers towards London.  The London-centric civil service view famously espoused in Yes, Minister was funny because everyone knew how true it was.

There is certainly precedent for this; major routes connecting the Shires with London were built considerably quicker than those enabling heavy traffic flows to avoid it (look at how long the DoT took to improve the A14 to the standard it is now).

[Fenman]

42 minutes ago, TheQ said:

Oh and  there is no such thing as an English Government, there  are Northern Irish, Welsh, Scottish Parliaments of limited powers, and a British Parilament elected by the people of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. To which MPs of any part of the UK can be in the Government.

Also MPs of any part of the UK can and do vote on matters which only apply to England while only their parties can vote on the same matters in their own parliaments..

You’re conflating parliaments/ assemblies with government. 
 

The Secretary of State for Education is, de facto, the SoS for English Education. Similarly the SoS for Health, and, mostly, SoS for Transport. Etc. The Home Secretary is pretty much only the Home Secretary for England. 
 

You’re right that legislation is asymmetric — the “West Lothian Question” (why can Scots MPs legislate on England-only legislation?) was never properly answered. 
 

In this respect as with many other elements, the UK’s constitutional arrangements are a complete shambles. 
 

Paul

[runs as required]

This thread seems now to have drifted OT to Traditional English Unionist prejudices - well away from the really interesting debate a few pages back of anticipating  post pandemic revision of network travel patterns.

See you in a few pages time. 

[caradoc]

2 hours ago, Edwin_m said:

The northern WCML and ECML certainly have fewer trains than further south but there is still a capacity issue on both, because on each of them all trains have to fit onto two tracks. 

 

 

Indeed; The northern end of the WCML is of course nowhere near as busy as the southern end, hence HS2 in the first place ! However when approaching Glasgow, and to a lesser extent Edinburgh, the line does become very well used, with multiple operators of both passenger and freight trains, and wildly varied stopping patterns, on pretty much double track only until the last couple of miles from Rutherglen and Haymarket.

 

[62613]

2 hours ago, TheQ said:

Oh and  there is no such thing as an English Government, there  are Northern Irish, Welsh, Scottish Parliaments of limited powers, and a British Parilament elected by the people of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. To which MPs of any part of the UK can be in the Government.

Also MPs of any part of the UK can and do vote on matters which only apply to England while only their parties can vote on the same matters in their own parliaments..

Err....I don't think so. After the failed referendum vote, didn't the Coalition parliament enact a law which meant that only English MPs could vote on English laws, if the government so wished. It has been used a couple of times; I just can't remember what the votes were for.

 

[phil-b259]

2 hours ago, Mark Saunders said:

 

My quote refers to internal Scottish journeys!

 

There is nothing stopping the Scottish Government / Parliament deciding they need a new build high speed line between Edinburgh / Glasgow / Aberdeen / Inverness / insert destination of choice.

 

Transport is a devolved matter unless it specifically relates to cross border train services on the WCML / ECML

 

If you believe Scots are hard done by with respect to High Speed Rail then you need to start complaining to your member of the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Government to make plans for one (including funding it - the railway reopening in Scotland over the past decade have been financed from Holyrood, not Westminster).

 

On the face of it though Scotland has the same sort of problem the North of England (i.e. Liverpool - Manchester - Leeds / Sheffield - Hull) has in that the areas of biggest population are actually so close together that true high speed (200mph ish) makes very little sense and a more conventional railway is actually a better solution.

 

[lmsforever]

.Apost a while ago alluded that wcml trains to Glasgow were not heavily used have you stood at the barrier at Central or traveled by train pre covid ,they are packed,As are Trans Pennine and Cross Country all heading north and going south its a popular route and also the ecml  is as packed.It seems as though having a meaningful government in Scotland has produced good quality roads and trains but in England all we get is talk and very little action.One good thing about HS2 is that its in England and will be built and will provide a service for us and hopefully will expand the job market in the provinces.Perhaps one day we will have an assembly for England and be able to promote works and life here ,

[melmerby]

3 hours ago, lmsforever said:

.Apost a while ago alluded that wcml trains to Glasgow were not heavily used have you stood at the barrier at Central or traveled by train pre covid ,they are packed,As are Trans Pennine and Cross Country all heading north and going south its a popular route and also the ecml  is as packed.It seems as though having a meaningful government in Scotland has produced good quality roads and trains but in England all we get is talk and very little action.One good thing about HS2 is that its in England and will be built and will provide a service for us and hopefully will expand the job market in the provinces.Perhaps one day we will have an assembly for England and be able to promote works and life here ,

I travelled on TPE from Lancaster to Penrith in 2018. I let the preceding Pendo go as I thought the TPE class 350 would have more room.

How wrong I was. The missus and me ended up on the last two free tip up seats in the wheelchair vestibule as it was packed.

[Zomboid]

It's probably not irrelevant to note that the WCML trains in Scotland aren't all that long. TPE being 4 or 5 cars, and the pendos are normally 9s (so not super short either). XC don't go that way, but they're 4s and 5s too, and I think the longest trains ScotRail would normally run are 8 car.

 

So longer trains would be the obvious level 1 answer to capacity in and around Scotland. Additional running lines (be they high speed or normal) would probably not be provided until the local and longer distance trains are regularly packed out 10-12 cars.

Edited July 8, 2020 by Zomboid

[melmerby]

28 minutes ago, Zomboid said:

It's probably not irrelevant to note that the WCML trains in Scotland aren't all that long. TPE being 4 or 5 cars, and the pendos are normally 9s (so not super short either). XC don't go that way, but they're 4s and 5s too, and I think the longest trains ScotRail would normally run are 8 car.

 

So longer trains would be the obvious level 1 answer to capacity in and around Scotland. Additional running lines (be they high speed or normal) would probably not be provided until the local and longer distance trains are regularly packed out 10-12 cars.

The TPE 350 was 2x4 cars:

 

 

All 10 350s gone to West Midlands Trains now

Edited July 8, 2020 by melmerby

[Zomboid]

Fair enough - there's still scope to increase capacity on most Scottish routes through train length though, at least on the face of it. (How long are the platforms at Manchester Airport?).