Jump to content
 

Recommended Posts

If they are going to build all these tunnels they had better start soon as it will take years of work  and what will happen whilst they are digingWill people continue to travel by rail and more so by car and not be at all interested in future arrangements?

Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Premium

Something that occured to me is that HS2 London - Birmingham has only two intermediate stops in 120+ miles of railway.

So cruising at max speed is possible over most of the route between OOC and Birmingham Interchange(name?)

 

Surely the route Liverpool - Manchester - Leeds will have a lot more stops in less distance, (else it wont please the incumbent MPs) so will proper 'High Speed' be attained & maintained on a lot of the route?

If not will an electrified 125mph railway make more economic sense?

 

  • Agree 2
Link to post
Share on other sites

I don’t think Liverpool to Leeds will be any more than 125 apart from maybe the HS2b element from near Lymm to Manchester.

 

It doesn’t need to be faster, 100mph would be a massive up shift in itself and like you say much closer distances between stations Liverpool, Warrington, Manchester, Huddersfield (?) and Leeds

  • Like 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, woodenhead said:

If you can tunnel under the channel, you can build new viaducts and if you can can compulsory purchase properties on an route (HS2B) currently mothballed then you can buy a few properties that encroach on the alignment.

 

It is a thought experiment, but in the absence of the actual plans what else do we have - for me it is whether tunnelling under the Chew valley is cheaper than reinstating a railway on the surface missing some viaducts.

You also have to consider journey times, which seem to be a major driver for NPR bringing the cities closer to each other.  The existing line won't give any time saving between Manchester and Leeds, in fact going via Guide Bridge would slow it down, and the Micklehurst Loop wouldn't be much different.  

  • Agree 2
Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Premium
53 minutes ago, woodenhead said:

I don’t think Liverpool to Leeds will be any more than 125 apart from maybe the HS2b element from near Lymm to Manchester.

 

It doesn’t need to be faster, 100mph would be a massive up shift in itself and like you say much closer distances between stations Liverpool, Warrington, Manchester, Huddersfield (?) and Leeds

The very high speeds expected by Northern city politicians were always pure vanity ("Look how important our city is, it's on the High Speed network); a huge increase in costs for very little point-to-point time reduction.  I suspect it's half the reason the Eastern Leg didn't wash its face financially, the trains either go fast OR they stop at Sheffield and Chesterfield.  They couldn't do both and the local politicians all wanted the trains to stop at their station but not the others.

  • Like 2
Link to post
Share on other sites

7 hours ago, lmsforever said:

This morning  went past works on A413 towards Stone  finaly able to work out what all the concreting was about.It is the start of road access into the site and could be part of the haul road  so not a bridge abutment as I first thought .

 

There was site and ground survey work taking place alongside the M6 the other week, near Stone, close to where Phase 2A is due to cross the motorway on its way to Crewe.

 

They are also starting to get busy with environmental mitigation and nature projects along this second phase of the route.

 

.

Link to post
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Edwin_m said:

You also have to consider journey times, which seem to be a major driver for NPR bringing the cities closer to each other.  The existing line won't give any time saving between Manchester and Leeds, in fact going via Guide Bridge would slow it down, and the Micklehurst Loop wouldn't be much different.  

Two dedicated express lines through Manchester alongside the commuter lines, through Guide Bridge and out towards Standedge using electric traction will deliver massive benefit.  No stoppers getting in the way, no freight, ditto the route from Liverpool to Warrington and onto HS2.  Just having dedicated tracks will make a massive improvement, remove interim stops and full electric traction and at 100-125mph you have a very high speed railway for the distance between Liverpool and Leeds with the expense of a HS2 type tunnelling, soft curve higher speed line.  The Liverpool-Leeds line is half the distance of HS2 from London to Birmingham (140 miles) with at least three stops (Warrington, Airport, Manchester (with reversal), whereas HS2 is two London stations and two Birmingham stations.

  • Like 4
Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Premium

I've just done a very rough and ready distance measurement from Warrington Bank Quay using Google Earth.  Shapps mentioned a very specific distance of 40 miles of high speed line from Warrington. As the crow flies it's 34 miles from Bank Quay to Linthwaite, which is just beyond Slaithwaite in the Colne Valley.  If you add in the extra distance for the trip in and out of Piccadilly it certainly seems that the line will finish in that area which is where the valley does widen out a bit.  We will just have to wait and see.  The really interesting thing will be what the studies from Leeds to Sheffield show up as there is a fairly easy route down the lower Calder Valley towards where a Sheffield Leeds Line would probably run.   All conjecture at this point but it does have possibilities.

 

Strangely enough this is analogous to some of the French projects.  The line from the Rhone Valley to Barcelona is being built in several chunks.  The cross border bit is now done and the by pass of Nimes is open for use by both High Speed and Freight services.  The remaining bits are now being studied.  The original Paris Lyon line didn't start till some way out of Gare de Lyon but was also extended in a series of bite size chunks both north and south.  Perhaps this is the way forward for HS2.

 

Jamie

  • Like 2
  • Agree 1
  • Informative/Useful 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Gold

Talking of HS2 has anyone seen the latest release anouncement by Hornby ?  :read:

Due anytime between 2023 and 2053, price may vary, doesn't include batteries, Controller or Leeds

 

Hat coat gone  :biggrin_mini2:

Edited by Matt C
  • Like 1
  • Funny 8
Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Premium
8 minutes ago, Matt C said:

Talking of HS2 has anyone seen the latest release anouncement by Hornby ?  :read:

Due anytime between 2023 and 2053, price may vary, doesn't include batteries, Controller or Leeds

 

Hat coat gone  :biggrin_mini2:

That deserves a groan button.   Are you listening Andy Y.

 

Jamie

  • Agree 4
Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Premium
On 18/11/2021 at 18:07, lmsforever said:

Living in the area we did not want an area fom Aylesbury luton Bedford destroyed for an airport because that is what would have happenned .The main buildings would have spread plus new housing would have taken land for miles and we would have had miles of roads and the traffic levels would have been horrendous.There are perfectly adequate airports at Luton and E Midlands  plus Heathrow .Thankfully sense prevailed and we got on with our lives .This airport would have blighted so many lives at least HS2 when its built will not blight our countryside.So thats the story behind our protests which reached a higher level than HS2 has reached I bet if you lived around here you would have joined us.

 

Heathrow is a stupid place for an airport, end of! 

 

Its inside the urban footprint of London which means huge quantities of air pollution and noise for residents plus contributes to endemic traffic congestion in the area (and on Londons only decent ring road)

 

Luton is no better being up on a hill and rammed up against the eastern edge of the town.

 

East Midlands is not too bad and neither is Manchester airport as it happens. Around London Stanstead and Gatwick are less harmful overall than Heathrow though in both cases their location makes them less than ideal for the bulk of the UK population to get to.

 

No, the best place for an airport is somewhere flat and well away from urban population centres thus minimising the number of people subjected to air / noise pollution while also easing congestion (and pollution issues) as you are not trying to mix huge volumes of commuters with airport bound traffic. Ideally it also needs to be well away from large expanses of water to avoid problems with bird strikes - or the sterilisation / destruction of wetlands.

 

Thats why the French built CDG in fields some distance from Paris instead of expanding Orly airport, which like Heathrow is slap bang in the urban area.

 

Its also beneficial it should be located so its location ties in with the population distribution / the expected customer base.

 

Wing / Cubbington ticked all those boxes so on an factual evidence based assessment it wins hands down regardless of how much it might upset the locals.

 

Therefore it does stick in my throat that some folk are that selfish they are prepared to actively defend a decision that has PROVEN to subject millions to health destroying air pollution (which is now rightly recognised as just as harmful to human heath as smoking). Have the decency to separate your perfectly understandable personal emotions from cold hard statistical analysis -be it to do with HS2, motorways or airports!

 

Now I don't dispute that a Wing / Cubbington airport would radically change that area of the Chilterns, but life is rarely kind enough to allow everything to be frozen in time. Humans have been managing landscapes for centuries - the current environment you see in the Chilterns is anything but 'natural' - it has been continually altered by generations of landowners, farmers and builders - who up till 1950 didn't actually care that much about protecting the environment as it were, but whose actions were mainly about making money from the land.

 

However, before you fly into even more of a rage, as I have pointed out on many threads over the years, we must deal with the world as we find it- rather than as we would like it to be!

 

What with the climate emergency which demands reduced rather than increased air travel, plus changes in public attitudes to 'grand projects' since the 1960s Heathrow isn't going anywhere (even if all the factual data says it should). The experience of HS2 is proof enough of that...

 

 

 

 

Edited by phil-b259
  • Like 4
  • Agree 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Premium
54 minutes ago, phil-b259 said:

 

Heathrow is a stupid place for an airport, end of! 

 

Its inside the urban footprint of London which means huge quantities of air pollution and noise for residents plus contributes to endemic traffic congestion in the area (and on Londons only decent ring road)

 

Luton is no better being up on a hill and rammed up against the eastern edge of the town.

 

East Midlands is not too bad and neither is Manchester airport as it happens. Around London Stanstead and Gatwick are less harmful overall than Heathrow though in both cases their location makes them less than ideal for the bulk of the UK population to get to.

 

No, the best place for an airport is somewhere flat and well away from urban population centres thus minimising the number of people subjected to air / noise pollution while also easing congestion (and pollution issues) as you are not trying to mix huge volumes of commuters with airport bound traffic. Ideally it also needs to be well away from large expanses of water to avoid problems with bird strikes - or the sterilisation / destruction of wetlands.

 

Thats why the French built CDG in fields some distance from Paris instead of expanding Orly airport, which like Heathrow is slap bang in the urban area.

 

Its also beneficial it should be located so its location ties in with the population distribution / the expected customer base.

 

Wing / Cubbington ticked all those boxes so on an factual evidence based assessment it wins hands down regardless of how much it might upset the locals.

 

Therefore it does stick in my throat that some folk are that selfish they are prepared to actively defend a decision that has PROVEN to subject millions to health destroying air pollution (which is now rightly recognised as just as harmful to human heath as smoking). Have the decency to separate your perfectly understandable personal emotions from cold hard statistical analysis -be it to do with HS2, motorways or airports!

 

Now I don't dispute that a Wing / Cubbington airport would radically change that area of the Chilterns, but life is rarely kind enough to allow everything to be frozen in time. Humans have been managing landscapes for centuries - the current environment you see in the Chilterns is anything but 'natural' - it has been continually altered by generations of landowners, farmers and builders - who up till 1950 didn't actually care that much about protecting the environment as it were, but whose actions were mainly about making money from the land.

 

However, before you fly into even more of a rage, as I have pointed out on many threads over the years, we must deal with the world as we find it- rather than as we would like it to be!

 

What with the climate emergency which demands reduced rather than increased air travel, plus changes in public attitudes to 'grand projects' since the 1960s Heathrow isn't going anywhere (even if all the factual data says it should). The experience of HS2 is proof enough of that...

 

 

 

 

Not that far to the South, I've often thought the former USAF base at Upper Heyford should have become a new London airport.

  • Interesting/Thought-provoking 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

50 minutes ago, phil-b259 said:

 

Heathrow is a stupid place for an airport, end of! 

 

Its inside the urban footprint of London which means huge quantities of air pollution and noise for residents plus contributes to endemic traffic congestion in the area (and on Londons only decent ring road)

 

Luton is no better being up on a hill and rammed up against the eastern edge of the town.

 

East Midlands is not too bad and neither is Manchester airport as it happens. Around London Stanstead and Gatwick are less harmful overall than Heathrow though in both cases their location makes them less than ideal for the bulk of the UK population to get to

 

Though arguably a lot of the development around Heathrow has grown up since (and possibly as a result of) development of the airport.

 

And as someone who grew up directly under Manchester's flight path(*), there is a considerable amount of urban area under the eastern approach to Manchester - a plane crashed in the centre of Stockport in the 1960s.

 

(* We used to joke that the pilots lined their approaches up on our TV aerial.... 

 

My primary school was retro-fitted with a sound insulated roof to keep the aircraft noise out. Unfortunately it also made the classrooms too hot, so the teachers opened all the classroom windows, which let the noise in again! )

  • Informative/Useful 2
  • Interesting/Thought-provoking 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, phil-b259 said:

Thats why the French built CDG in fields some distance from Paris instead of expanding Orly airport, which like Heathrow is slap bang in the urban area.

 

CDG is 24km from the Eiffel Tower.

 

LHR is 24km from Big Ben.

 

The only reason CDG remains somewhat surrounded by fields (based on Google satellite images) will be because of deliberate planning restrictions.

 

But it really isn't some distance from Paris.

 

On the other hand Canada attempted what you want when they built a new airport for Montreal 40km away from Montreal.  Mirabel opened in 1975, and finally closed after a long painful decline to passenger operations in 2004.  Passengers, and thus airlines, simply didn't want the hassle of traveling to the middle of nowhere to catch a flight when there could be a far more convenient airport (in this case Dorval, now Trudeau International, named after the current PM's father back in 2004).  Dorval conveniently is a mere 20km from the centre of Montreal.

 

Airports, like many things, exist to serve customers and while it may be logical to locate them in the middle of nowhere that isn't the best way to serve the customers.

 

 

 

  • Like 1
  • Agree 2
  • Interesting/Thought-provoking 2
Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Premium
8 hours ago, mdvle said:

 

CDG is 24km from the Eiffel Tower.

 

LHR is 24km from Big Ben.

 

The only reason CDG remains somewhat surrounded by fields (based on Google satellite images) will be because of deliberate planning restrictions.

 

But it really isn't some distance from Paris.

 

On the other hand Canada attempted what you want when they built a new airport for Montreal 40km away from Montreal.  Mirabel opened in 1975, and finally closed after a long painful decline to passenger operations in 2004.  Passengers, and thus airlines, simply didn't want the hassle of traveling to the middle of nowhere to catch a flight when there could be a far more convenient airport (in this case Dorval, now Trudeau International, named after the current PM's father back in 2004).  Dorval conveniently is a mere 20km from the centre of Montreal.

 

Airports, like many things, exist to serve customers and while it may be logical to locate them in the middle of nowhere that isn't the best way to serve the customers.

 

 

 

 

That assumes airlines have a free choice!

 

In these de-regulated and privatised days we forget that back in the late 1960s / 1970s Governments had considerable power to tell airlines what to do and where to fly from. Granted the airlines (with the exception of US carriers, manly being state owned) could have turned round and said they wouldn't fly to London but lets be honest that simply isn't a realistic notion due to the volume of business London provided.

 

Therefore IF the British Government had decided to build a new airport at Wing / Cubbington and closed Heathrow than airlines wishing to serve London would have had no choice but to move.  The site could have easily been served by a branch off the WCML while the A41 road corridor could have been developed much earlier than it did to provide a good connection to London and potentially the NW (by linking up with what became the M40 to Birmingham.

 

Also at the time the only real alternative London airport was Gatwick (not exactly close to the heart of London - Luton and Stansted weren't developed enough at that stage to have coped.

 

Therefore unlike the tale you tell of Montreal - replacing Heathrow with Wing / Cubbington could have worked perfectly well at the time it was originally suggested.

 

Naturally in these days of private aviation any attempts to develop an alternative to Heathrow would be doomed to failure because Heathrows owners aren't going to shut up shop voluntarily and there is zero appetite amongst Governments to take on the airline lobby for fear of upsetting their business mates, but it wasn't always thus....

Edited by phil-b259
  • Like 2
  • Interesting/Thought-provoking 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

On 20/11/2021 at 16:27, melmerby said:

Something that occured to me is that HS2 London - Birmingham has only two intermediate stops in 120+ miles of railway.

So cruising at max speed is possible over most of the route between OOC and Birmingham Interchange(name?)

 

Surely the route Liverpool - Manchester - Leeds will have a lot more stops in less distance, (else it wont please the incumbent MPs) so will proper 'High Speed' be attained & maintained on a lot of the route?

If not will an electrified 125mph railway make more economic sense?

 

Here is a prediction of a  profile of  speed vs miles of a High Speed Train service , for an HS2 service London to Birmingham  the train takes a considerable distance of 30 miles to reach full line speed and then 7 miles  to brake for the destination station, only around 60 miles of the 90 miles between OOC and Birmingham is at a speed greater than 90% of full line speed,   

 

 

 

HS2 Speed Distance.png

high-speed-railway-capacity.pdf

Edited by Pandora
  • Like 1
  • Informative/Useful 1
  • Interesting/Thought-provoking 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Premium
On 20/11/2021 at 16:27, melmerby said:

Something that occured to me is that HS2 London - Birmingham has only two intermediate stops in 120+ miles of railway.

So cruising at max speed is possible over most of the route between OOC and Birmingham Interchange(name?)

 

Surely the route Liverpool - Manchester - Leeds will have a lot more stops in less distance, (else it wont please the incumbent MPs) so will proper 'High Speed' be attained & maintained on a lot of the route?

If not will an electrified 125mph railway make more economic sense?

 

 

I don't believe anyone is seriously looking at a 250mph line speed (the maximum on HS2) for any new / upgraded Transpennie routes - it simply makes no business sense and massively increase construction costs.

 

The most likely top speed for a new Transpennine railway is 140mph - for reference thats the speed all HS1 trains do through the tunnels under east London, the maximum speed the South Easterns Javelin trains can reach anywhere on HS1and the maximum speed an ECTS equipped (and reasonably straight) conventional railway is touted as running at in futurate.

 

Due to the curvy and twisty nature of the existing railways you won't get close to 140mph without new infrastructure - but because of the topography which made said existing railways twisty in the first place plus the need to avoid built up areas thats going to mean a lot of tunnelling and as any half competent engineer will tell you the faster you want to go the bigger the tunnel has to be so as to compensate for the aerodynamic 'piston effect' as trains traverse it. The bigger the tunnel diameter the more spoil there is to remove, which costs more etc... 

Edited by phil-b259
  • Like 1
  • Agree 3
Link to post
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, phil-b259 said:

IF the British Government had decided to build a new airport at Wing / Cubbington

I suspect that a lot of airlines and passengers would have opted for Gatwick... 

 

I never use Luton or Stansted for the same kind of reasons - too damn difficult and slow to get to/from. The advantage of Heathrow is the location.

 

I remember thinking things over when Boris proposed his "island in the North Sea" alternative airport and taking the view that if that came to pass and Heathrow closed, my natural international airport would probably end up as either Schiphol in Amsterdam or CDG in Paris, connecting via Southampton Airport, with Gatwick for some shorter European flights.

 

Yours,  Mike.

  • Interesting/Thought-provoking 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Premium
4 hours ago, phil-b259 said:

 

I don't believe anyone is seriously looking at a 250mph line speed (the maximum on HS2)

I thought that went ages ago and to start with (at least) they would be running at around 200mph

Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Premium
57 minutes ago, melmerby said:

I thought that went ages ago and to start with (at least) they would be running at around 200mph

 

The design speed of HS2 is still 250mph as far as I know. That does not preclude operators deciding to run at lower speeds of course.

 

In alignment terms there is virtually zero difference between 250 and 200mph but at 200mph you can have ballasted track and make some savings on OLE kit due to the lesser aerodynamic forces and power consumption while at 250mph you need slab track and a much beefier OLE / power supply system.

  • Agree 1
  • Informative/Useful 2
Link to post
Share on other sites

Some interesting replies about Wing airport  ,looking at the proposed area for  it the work required  was vast and would have been totaly disruptive . It is the spread of these places that is one of the results of placing a vast construction only five miles from Aylesbury ,five miles from L/Buzzard  approx ten miles from Bletchley and MK .All busy with existing populations even back in those days the road networks would have had to be completely rebuilt to carry all of the traffic that would be on offer.A link from the A41 is a simplistic solution and covers one direction only  but overall the location was totaly unsuitable for an airport. largr airports will become white elephants in the future due the climate problems etc .Our existing sites are perfectly adequate for the traffic on offer ie  Luton  Heathrow and Gatwick  also the green movement is anti plane and they will prevail given how the world is going to be.The answer HS2 more train services using an enviromental means of propulsion.

Link to post
Share on other sites

I'm afraid that if you are looking for a flat area well away from urban centres but with good transport links, that bus left several decades ago. 

 

I thought RAF Alconbury was a wasted opportunity - an existing airfield with abundant space, in immediate proximity to ECML, A1 and close to A14 junction 

Edited by rockershovel
  • Agree 1
  • Informative/Useful 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share

×
×
  • Create New...