HS2 under review

[The Stationmaster]

9 hours ago, Ron Ron Ron said:

 

One of the earlier schematic drawings, showing the proposed station superimposed over the current lines, suggests you are way, way out.

There will be two lines for each of the Down and Up, Mains and Reliefs.

Where you reckon the Up Main will be slewed "at least 14 feet", hasn't accounted for where the 2nd Down Main line will be located.

The Up Main island platform sits more or less over the existing Up Loop, to the north of the current Up Relief, with its pair of Up Main lines situated either side.

 

The 2 Relief  platforms and their associated pairs of Up & Down lines, are located over the current depot yard, at the eastern end of the HEX depot's tracks.

 

 

 

.

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I didn't realise they were going to add that many additional running lines - which would indeed move in a much bigger slew and therefore an even bigger curve which the diagram you showed for the Central Line bridge would therefore in fact need to be much bigger and of course the road underbridge would also need to be equally widened.  

 

Leaves me wondering if anybody has calculated the revenue loss arising from increased journey times as a result of the inevitable speed reductions such a re-routing of the running lines will lead to?    After all if - as has been proved in practice - reduced running times and journey times usually lead to an increase in revenue presumably the opposite must be true  for increasing journey times (excluding the effect of any natural market growth of course).  I think GWR/successor can forget 22/23 minute journey times between Paddington and Reading with a slew that big at Old Oak.

[Ron Ron Ron]

With Passenger numbers being much higher now (double those in the 1990's) and increasing congestion on the road networks, do you really think a couple of minutes extra for a an extra stop, or less extra for a slower pass, will have any marked impact on ridership?

[Mike Storey]

56 minutes ago, The Stationmaster said:

I didn't realise they were going to add that many additional running lines - which would indeed move in a much bigger slew and therefore an even bigger curve which the diagram you showed for the Central Line bridge would therefore in fact need to be much bigger and of course the road underbridge would also need to be equally widened.  

 

Leaves me wondering if anybody has calculated the revenue loss arising from increased journey times as a result of the inevitable speed reductions such a re-routing of the running lines will lead to?    After all if - as has been proved in practice - reduced running times and journey times usually lead to an increase in revenue presumably the opposite must be true  for increasing journey times (excluding the effect of any natural market growth of course).  I think GWR/successor can forget 22/23 minute journey times between Paddington and Reading with a slew that big at Old Oak.

 

It is technically true that the PDFH (for non-railway peeps, this is the Passenger Demand Forecasting Handbook - almost universally used in rail-related business cases, to establish the viability of any proposal) enables a detailed forecast for revenue gain/loss through each minute of journey time saved/lost, on any given service pattern. But overall (door-to-door) journey time scores far more highly. So if there are enough people who benefit from the easier transfers to/from GW/Crossrail/HS2, then this would easily cancel out (and potentially exceed) any odd minute lost. I suspect that is what the TfL/NR/HS2 combined assessment shows for OOC, but did not show for, for example, at Calvert etc.

 

The other key feature would concern suppression of the enforced use of Euston to access HS2, or from HS2 to central London/The City/Docklands, and Paddington/TCR to access Crossrail, reducing pressure on the already strained interchanges there. That was certainly the intention of the Stratford (and to some extent Whitechapel) interchange (to reduce pressure on interchanging at Liverpool Street) on Crossrail East/DLR/Underground  transfers.

 

Reliability and frequency also score very highly, and the track layout would appear to allow for considerable flexibility to facilitate that, given the extra tracks compared to the current layout.

 

[The Stationmaster]

50 minutes ago, Mike Storey said:

 

It is technically true that the PDFH (for non-railway peeps, this is the Passenger Demand Forecasting Handbook - almost universally used in rail-related business cases, to establish the viability of any proposal) enables a detailed forecast for revenue gain/loss through each minute of journey time saved/lost, on any given service pattern. But overall (door-to-door) journey time scores far more highly. So if there are enough people who benefit from the easier transfers to/from GW/Crossrail/HS2, then this would easily cancel out (and potentially exceed) any odd minute lost. I suspect that is what the TfL/NR/HS2 combined assessment shows for OOC, but did not show for, for example, at Calvert etc.

 

The other key feature would concern suppression of the enforced use of Euston to access HS2, or from HS2 to central London/The City/Docklands, and Paddington/TCR to access Crossrail, reducing pressure on the already strained interchanges there. That was certainly the intention of the Stratford (and to some extent Whitechapel) interchange (to reduce pressure on interchanging at Liverpool Street) on Crossrail East/DLR/Underground  transfers.

 

Reliability and frequency also score very highly, and the track layout would appear to allow for considerable flexibility to facilitate that, given the extra tracks compared to the current layout.

 

I can wholly understand passengers from local stations east of Maidenhead, and possibly Maidenhead as well depending on various factors, using Old Oak to access HS2 instead of traipsing from Paddington to Euston - which is a poor journey by just about any route/means.  But it will be, as now, a very different situation for passengers from Reading and further west as travel patterns are totally different.  I doubt that anyone travelling from Reading would go to Old Oak to join HS2 in order to get to Birmingham any more than they would currently travel to Euston to make that journey when there is a direct service offering what is inevitably a lower fare albeit as the expense of crowded trains at some times of day.

 

Similarly - as I found out when I worked in those areas - the travel pattern from further west, with the likely exception of Pewsey, is totally different and inevitably passengers for the Midlands and north travel via Bristol or Cheltenham.  The only real potential I can see in journey time saving is when HS2 trains reach way beyond Birmingham and changing trains at Old Oak will hopefully be a far nicer proposition than changing at New Street but price and convenience will continue to be an influencing factor for many travellers just as it is today.  Hence I can see virtually no point whatsoever in stopping GWR/successor fast services at Old Oak as it will offer nothing except potential Crossrail interchange and westbound the savvy passenger is going to change at Paddington anyway.  You and I both well know from our past experience that passengers, particularly regular passengers, will suss out fairly quickly the cheapest and/or simplest route and National Rail Enquiries does exactly the same for the occasional traveller who gets his/her journey information there.

 

The only real potential on the Main Lines is, I think,  connection between HEX and HS2 at Old Oak (and possibly HEX to Crossrail if interchange there is easier than at Paddington or, perhaps, is heavily promoted as 'the interchange').  But as others have shown it is questionable if such a market actually exists or will even develop unless there are significant shifts in airline passenger behaviour.  

 

Interchange between Crossrail stations further west and HEX or even stations west of Reading is probably unlikely to happen at Old Oak unless a similar fare is offered to that using Heathrow Connect and changing at Hayes etc although it will undoubtedly be better in  future for them to change at Old Oak as it will be far easier to move around there than at the existing connecting stations.  But even then the really savvy travellers from what will be Crossrail stations further west don't bother with that as for some Heathrow terminals it is quicker and cheaper to alight at West Drayton and catch a 'bus to LHR  (as my offspring did yesterday morning) although the amount of luggage involved will no doubt make a difference.  And of course many people as far out as Reading and even into the Thames and Kennet valleys beyond there don't bother with the train or Airlink 'bus anyway as it is more convenient,  far quicker - and can be cheaper if there happen to be two, or more,  people travelling - to take a taxi door-to-door from home to the airport

[tomuk]

2 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

I can wholly understand passengers from local stations east of Maidenhead, and possibly Maidenhead as well depending on various factors, using Old Oak to access HS2 instead of traipsing from Paddington to Euston - which is a poor journey by just about any route/means.  But it will be, as now, a very different situation for passengers from Reading and further west as travel patterns are totally different.  I doubt that anyone travelling from Reading would go to Old Oak to join HS2 in order to get to Birmingham any more than they would currently travel to Euston to make that journey when there is a direct service offering what is inevitably a lower fare albeit as the expense of crowded trains at some times of day.

 

Similarly - as I found out when I worked in those areas - the travel pattern from further west, with the likely exception of Pewsey, is totally different and inevitably passengers for the Midlands and north travel via Bristol or Cheltenham.  The only real potential I can see in journey time saving is when HS2 trains reach way beyond Birmingham and changing trains at Old Oak will hopefully be a far nicer proposition than changing at New Street but price and convenience will continue to be an influencing factor for many travellers just as it is today.  Hence I can see virtually no point whatsoever in stopping GWR/successor fast services at Old Oak as it will offer nothing except potential Crossrail interchange and westbound the savvy passenger is going to change at Paddington anyway.  You and I both well know from our past experience that passengers, particularly regular passengers, will suss out fairly quickly the cheapest and/or simplest route and National Rail Enquiries does exactly the same for the occasional traveller who gets his/her journey information there.

 

The only real potential on the Main Lines is, I think,  connection between HEX and HS2 at Old Oak (and possibly HEX to Crossrail if interchange there is easier than at Paddington or, perhaps, is heavily promoted as 'the interchange').  But as others have shown it is questionable if such a market actually exists or will even develop unless there are significant shifts in airline passenger behaviour.  

 

Interchange between Crossrail stations further west and HEX or even stations west of Reading is probably unlikely to happen at Old Oak unless a similar fare is offered to that using Heathrow Connect and changing at Hayes etc although it will undoubtedly be better in  future for them to change at Old Oak as it will be far easier to move around there than at the existing connecting stations.  But even then the really savvy travellers from what will be Crossrail stations further west don't bother with that as for some Heathrow terminals it is quicker and cheaper to alight at West Drayton and catch a 'bus to LHR  (as my offspring did yesterday morning) although the amount of luggage involved will no doubt make a difference.  And of course many people as far out as Reading and even into the Thames and Kennet valleys beyond there don't bother with the train or Airlink 'bus anyway as it is more convenient,  far quicker - and can be cheaper if there happen to be two, or more,  people travelling - to take a taxi door-to-door from home to the airport

 

I think you are underestimating the journey time improvements that HS2 will bring.

Taking Reading to Crewe it currently takes 2h45 via Birmingham.

If the passenger went via OOC it would reduce the journey by an hour

(Based on current Reading to Paddington @ 34mins and proposed HS2 Euston to  Crewe @ 55 mins)

[Ron Ron Ron]

Plus Reading to Manchester, Sheffield, Leeds and beyond.

 

 

.

[Ron Ron Ron]

3 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

......Interchange between Crossrail stations further west and HEX or even stations west of Reading is probably unlikely to happen at Old Oak unless a similar fare is offered to that using Heathrow Connect and changing at Hayes etc although it will undoubtedly be better in  future for them to change at Old Oak as it will be far easier to move around there than at the existing connecting stations.  But even then the really savvy travellers from what will be Crossrail stations further west don't bother with that as for some Heathrow terminals it is quicker and cheaper to alight at West Drayton and catch a 'bus to LHR  (as my offspring did yesterday morning) although the amount of luggage involved will no doubt make a difference.  And of course many people as far out as Reading and even into the Thames and Kennet valleys beyond there don't bother with the train or Airlink 'bus anyway as it is more convenient,  far quicker - and can be cheaper if there happen to be two, or more,  people travelling - to take a taxi door-to-door from home to the airport

 

Bear in mind, all that will be irrelevant when the Western Rail Link is finally given the go-ahead and comes into use.

The Reading - Heathrow Airlink will also cease to be.

 

(n.b. Current status of that much delayed programme....

 

"All responses to the final consultation are now being analysed and NR will publish finalised plans and hold public information events in early 2019.

A Development Consent Order application will subsequently be submitted to the Planning Inspectorate in 2019.

This will seek the required consent to build the new railway in line with the plans that have been developed, with a final decision by the Secretary of State for Transport."

 

Also note that no major objections have been lodged and all stakeholders, local councils, chambers of commerce etc, are fully behind the scheme.

The timetable for the SoS decision has unfortunately been deferred until next year and opening of the link is now estimated to be 2027/28. 6 years late.)

 

 

 

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Edited February 9, 2019 by Ron Ron Ron

[caradoc]

I regularly travel between Oxford and Glasgow, which at present requires a Voyager to Birmingham (International or New St) or Wolverhampton, then what is effectively a 'local' WCML service forward. A sub-50 minute run to Old Oak Common with a reasonable connection to a very fast (at least on HS2) train to Glasgow would be a most attractive alternative.

[The Stationmaster]

1 hour ago, Ron Ron Ron said:

Plus Reading to Manchester, Sheffield, Leeds and beyond.

 

 

.

Which are, as I said, beyond Birmingham.

 

At present the times via London or via Cross Country still even out north of Birmingham if travelling from Reading - Crewe is about the limit on the West Coast so obviously would be quicker via HS2 while on the East Coast it depends very much on when you are travelling but York can be achieved in roughly the same overall time by Cross Country or via London.  But a lot of the the time it will comb e back to what people are prepared to pay for and the option of a through train against having to change trains.

 

The impact of the Western rail Link to Heathrow will be interesting but I suspect many intending airline passengers from the area I mentioned will still be as likely to use a taxi then as they are now unless they live near to a station.  The bigger impact might well be, as with Heathrow Connect in respect of folk who work at the airport plus of course it will remove any need for some rail passengers, e.g from Slough to trace vel eastwards in rder to come back thus reducing any airport link demand via interchange at Old Oak.

 

Travel patterns always change as new opportunities open up but the various factors which influence passengers basically don't - the main drivers will always be journey time  vs cost and convenience (of alternative routes) with ease of changes when they are required also playing a part.

[Edwin_m]

There's also the possibility of a Heathrow Southern rail link from T5 to Staines and beyond.  If these trains are through-routed to Paddington in the HEx paths (instead of through-routeing Western Rail Link, which just provides a slower alternative to the GWML) then a big area served by the Waterloo lines gets a better link to HS2 as well as Heathrow.  This isn't of course a reason to stop the other trains on the GWML Main lines but does show the potential of an interchange here. 

[Coombe Barton]

Telegraph - Ministers 'keen to kill off' HS2 as costs spiral. Know most of it's behind a paywall but the gist and mention of the TV prog is there.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/02/10/ministers-keen-kill-hs2-costs-spiral/?fbclid=IwAR07A6bWZLgFuJ_quxLg2fe1hFB69ww7S4LhPcBCTRffo1Z6Qsu-gaKC_vA#

Edited February 10, 2019 by Coombe Barton

[melmerby]

9 minutes ago, Coombe Barton said:

Telegraph - Ministers 'keen to kill off' HS2 as costs spiral 

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/02/10/ministers-keen-kill-hs2-costs-spiral/?fbclid=IwAR07A6bWZLgFuJ_quxLg2fe1hFB69ww7S4LhPcBCTRffo1Z6Qsu-gaKC_vA#

What to expect from the Telegraph? Has it ever been in favour?

There are elements of the establishment that have been trying to kill this from day one with their usual circular arguments:

Too expensive, no one wants it (i.e I/we don't want it) not needed etc. etc.

 

Channel 4 documentaries? IMHO Load of Bullsh*t these days.

They used to be quite good at one time but now peddle rumour & speculation as fact.

Edited February 10, 2019 by melmerby

[Mike Storey]

19 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

Which are, as I said, beyond Birmingham.

 

At present the times via London or via Cross Country still even out north of Birmingham if travelling from Reading - Crewe is about the limit on the West Coast so obviously would be quicker via HS2 while on the East Coast it depends very much on when you are travelling but York can be achieved in roughly the same overall time by Cross Country or via London.  But a lot of the the time it will comb e back to what people are prepared to pay for and the option of a through train against having to change trains.

 

The impact of the Western rail Link to Heathrow will be interesting but I suspect many intending airline passengers from the area I mentioned will still be as likely to use a taxi then as they are now unless they live near to a station.  The bigger impact might well be, as with Heathrow Connect in respect of folk who work at the airport plus of course it will remove any need for some rail passengers, e.g from Slough to trace vel eastwards in rder to come back thus reducing any airport link demand via interchange at Old Oak.

 

Travel patterns always change as new opportunities open up but the various factors which influence passengers basically don't - the main drivers will always be journey time  vs cost and convenience (of alternative routes) with ease of changes when they are required also playing a part.

 

I don't doubt your knowledge of the existing and potential travel decisions of people living West of London, but the Javelin on HS1 shows just how many people are prepared to pay extra for faster journeys (me included). Trains have been progressively lengthened. Even Eurostar, which has never seriously competed with cheap flights on price, has won that argument to Paris at least, despite the relative difficulties of getting to St Pancras compared to out of town airports in a car or taxi.

 

The other issue that should be taken into account is the demand from central and east London, as described, which needs to be funnelled away from the tube and Euston. Whilst you may be right that demand from the West will not justify the frequency of calls suggested by the new station layout at OOC, it does not mean that all trains will call there, but it does give the flexibility to allow them to do so should demand require. Your key issue is therefore that the track curvature will cause all GW trains to lose time and whether this is justified by all the other issues for which the station is being created. The only people who really know are the ones that made the final decision, and the real question is whether they have got their assumptions right - only time will tell. In my experience (and surely yours?), such demand forecasts are more often well below the eventual reality, than the reverse.

[lmsforever]

Think on the dft are being quick to spend billions on the Oxford Cambridge link road plus end of march everything in the UK changes and money is not going to be plentiful for rail or other services .

[black and decker boy]

15 minutes ago, lmsforever said:

Think on the dft are being quick to spend billions on the Oxford Cambridge link road plus end of march everything in the UK changes and money is not going to be plentiful for rail or other services .

Nothing has been spent nor committed for the Ox-Bridge link road as yet other than investigations & feasibility studies (a few hundreds of thousands of pounds).

 

it needs planning permission / Development consent order and given how glacial such things are in the U.K., actual £billions on construction are going to be 10 years away. I doubt it will be open to traffic before 2030.

 

 

[Mike Storey]

1 hour ago, lmsforever said:

Think on the dft are being quick to spend billions on the Oxford Cambridge link road plus end of march everything in the UK changes and money is not going to be plentiful for rail or other services .

 

Shurely £350m per week extra for the NHS? Or did I never say that?

 

[locoholic]

23 hours ago, caradoc said:

I regularly travel between Oxford and Glasgow, which at present requires a Voyager to Birmingham (International or New St) or Wolverhampton, then what is effectively a 'local' WCML service forward. A sub-50 minute run to Old Oak Common with a reasonable connection to a very fast (at least on HS2) train to Glasgow would be a most attractive alternative.

 

I wonder how the cost will compare for a journey via OOC that is significantly longer than the route via Banbury?

 

Then there is the "carbon footprint" of using a route that is much longer and entails you whizzing along HS2 within a few miles of the city where you started. So much for rail travel being environmentally friendly.

 

This mentality of a "one-HS2 fits all" reminds me of Dr Beeching's attitude to route rationalisation: only one Anglo-Scottish line required, no cross-country routes needed as everyone can travel via London, etc, etc. And we've been paying the price for that mistake for the last 50 years.

[Northmoor]

46 minutes ago, locoholic said:

Then there is the "carbon footprint" of using a route that is much longer and entails you whizzing along HS2 within a few miles of the city where you started. So much for rail travel being environmentally friendly.

 

This is my major abjection to HS2 in it's proposed form; I do not buy the need for 250mph over 150mph.  The additional engineering above simply re-using the GCML plus extensions, to enable this kind of speed, must account for a good proportion of the cost.  Plus the power required to run a train at 250mph is well above four times that required for 125mph.  How is that electricity going to be generated?  250mph is a Conveniently Round Number to get politicians and journos interested, when the "sweet spot" economically and environmentally, might be 163mph or some other random sounding number, which we never get to know.

 

[Mike Storey]

46 minutes ago, locoholic said:

 

I wonder how the cost will compare for a journey via OOC that is significantly longer than the route via Banbury?

 

Then there is the "carbon footprint" of using a route that is much longer and entails you whizzing along HS2 within a few miles of the city where you started. So much for rail travel being environmentally friendly.

 

This mentality of a "one-HS2 fits all" reminds me of Dr Beeching's attitude to route rationalisation: only one Anglo-Scottish line required, no cross-country routes needed as everyone can travel via London, etc, etc. And we've been paying the price for that mistake for the last 50 years.

 

That might have credibility if it were not for the fact that cross-country routes have been massively improved in the last 50 years (compared to what they were like then), not that they are as good as they could be now, and that further cross-country improvements and re-openings are well up the list of priorities (East-West and Trans-Pennine being the two up the top, whatever they turn out to be).

 

Fact is, example after example, the West Coast Main Line Upgrade and now the Great Western Improvement Programme being the most recent, show just how much more difficult, slower and more expensive in terms of benefits gained, it is to upgrade existing routes than build new ones. The argument that we should be able to do all of that much faster and more cheaply, is highly laudable, but also unexplained.

 

The best answer would be HS 4 and HS 5, but I somehow doubt.....

 

 

[Mike Storey]

3 minutes ago, Northmoor said:

This is my major abjection to HS2 in it's proposed form; I do not buy the need for 250mph over 150mph.  The additional engineering above simply re-using the GCML plus extensions, to enable this kind of speed, must account for a good proportion of the cost.  Plus the power required to run a train at 250mph is well above four times that required for 125mph.  How is that electricity going to be generated?  250mph is a Conveniently Round Number to get politicians and journos interested, when the "sweet spot" economically and environmentally, might be 163mph or some other random sounding number, which we never get to know.

 

 

It's not. Planned operational speed is 224 mph (250 mph is the top theoretical speed to allow a margin for safety and to some extent for future technical advances). That is slower than Chinese high speed conventional services already operate (249 mph, faster for Maglev) approximately the same speed of existing Italian and Japanese services, and only 10 or 20 mph faster than those existing in Germany, Spain and Korea. The UK version will of course not be operating for about another eight years or so.

 

The case for higher speed is largely in the fact that fewer trains are needed to perform the same service (up to a theoretical design maximum), so environmental costs are neutral, alongside the additional factor that a faster service is demonstrably more attractive, and more likely to generate modal shift from road and air, again giving environmental benefit.

 

The most significant, additional engineering costs for higher speed are largely confined to tunnels, and it is this area that has been suggested as a possibility for cost reduction, should that become a necessity, but that will mean fewer potential train paths. Utilising old roadbeds was a possibility examined and rejected on cost due to the need to tunnel through, or demolish, much greater areas of existing urban development. Much of the highest unit costs of HS2, when reviewing the costs per mile predicted *(although even these are being challenged as too low by a "whistleblower), is through urban areas due to property acquisition, compensation and relocation, plus other stuff like archeological digs. Slapping some track through open countryside is a piece of cake in comparison, and adjustments to radii and gradients are marginal. Foundation is a key cost factor, and certain ground formations have turned out to be more difficult than originally expected, but that would have been true in any alternative, given some of the geology being broached.

 

Ergo, a slower service might provide extra capacity elsewhere on the network, but for a marginal decrease in cost, would remove some key attractiveness to potential users, particularly longer journey times and reduced frequency (unless more trains were purchased, which would pretty well negate any construction costs savings and present a much higher whole life cost to ongoing operations.

 

Of the 14 options explored in some detail by HS2 prior to this version being recommended and accepted by Parliament, such issues were discussed at length. You only have to read through the reports, still available via the Gov.UK website, in archives, to see why this one, howsoever imperfect, was chosen. Fact is, most people don't bother, and the same old, same old, gets repeated every week.

 

[caradoc]

1 hour ago, locoholic said:

 

I wonder how the cost will compare for a journey via OOC that is significantly longer than the route via Banbury?

 

Then there is the "carbon footprint" of using a route that is much longer and entails you whizzing along HS2 within a few miles of the city where you started. So much for rail travel being environmentally friendly.

 

This mentality of a "one-HS2 fits all" reminds me of Dr Beeching's attitude to route rationalisation: only one Anglo-Scottish line required, no cross-country routes needed as everyone can travel via London, etc, etc. And we've been paying the price for that mistake for the last 50 years.

 

Fair point about the increased mileage, the route via OOC certainly would be many miles longer. On the other hand, apart from the first 10 miles (which will be resolved one day) the entire journey would be by electric train, whereas Oxford-Birmingham is likely to remain diesel-operated for a long time. Plus of course HS2 should attract passengers from far more environmentally unfriendly modes of transport, ie cars and aeroplanes.

 

 

 

[locoholic]

8 minutes ago, Mike Storey said:

 

The case for higher speed is largely in the fact that fewer trains are needed to perform the same service (up to a theoretical design maximum), so environmental costs are neutral, alongside the additional factor that a faster service is demonstrably more attractive, and more likely to generate modal shift from road and air, again giving environmental benefit.

 

I suspect that your argument conflicts with the laws of physics. The energy required for any moving object is proportional to the square of its velocity. So if a train goes twice as fast you need half the number of trains to run the service, but four times the energy - how is that environmentally neutral?

[Mike Storey]

28 minutes ago, locoholic said:

I suspect that your argument conflicts with the laws of physics. The energy required for any moving object is proportional to the square of its velocity. So if a train goes twice as fast you need half the number of trains to run the service, but four times the energy - how is that environmentally neutral?

 

Are you assuming electrical energy sources have remained as environmentally damaging as when you learnt that equation? Perhaps that might be your error.

 

The carbon footprint of UK generation has been constantly falling for the past decades, with gas being the primary carbon fuel remaining, bar the few coal fired stations still in use. The increasing probability of much more efficient fuel cell storage will make wind and solar power etc, much more practical in future years. It supplied over 50% of the UK's energy needs on one day last year. That is predicted to become a more normal event, unless HMG policy radically changes.

 

The reason I state environmentally neutral is because the environmental cost of building twice the number of trains is demonstrably higher both at construction and ongoing maintenance/refurbishment, than extra electrical power used in a greener future.

 

HS2 will use electric trains. If you have already expended considerable other types of environmental damage in building the track and the power lines to get to it, plus an OLE system, you might as well run them as fast as you can, if there are other environmental advantages to be had, particularly attracting modal transfer.

Edited February 10, 2019 by Mike Storey
Forgot an issue

[Northmoor]

I would like to add that I remain to be convinced on the need for HS2, not that I will never be convinced.  But you're doing a better job than the politicians so far. HS3 is, I believe, actually more important for Britain although the HS bit is much less important there, over such relatively short distances.  100mph-ish with a lot of local accessibility improvements to stations, will satisfy I suspect, the 80:20 principle.

 

I would hate HS2 to be sold as "it's better than aircraft which are always environmentally damaging", when a full 300-seater jet over about 300 miles is actually a pretty energy-efficient way of shifting a lot of people very quickly.  There was a bus service started some years ago between London and India, I think, which was sold as the environmental alternative to flying.  I though it strange that a vehicle doing about 9mpg with typically 30 people aboard and taking two weeks to complete the journey, was a strange alternative.  Personally I'll be flying (occasionally) and planting a few trees of my own.

[locoholic]

26 minutes ago, Mike Storey said:

 

Are you assuming electrical energy sources have remained as environmentally damaging as when you learnt that equation? Perhaps that might be your error.

 

The carbon footprint of UK generation has been constantly falling for the past decades, with gas being the primary carbon fuel remaining, bar the few coal fired stations still in use. The increasing probability of much more efficient fuel cell storage will make wind and solar power etc, much more practical in future years. It supplied over 50% of the UK's energy needs on one day last year. That is predicted to become a more normal event, unless HMG policy radically changes.

 

The reason I state environmentally neutral is because the environmental cost of building twice the number of trains is demonstrably higher both at construction and ongoing maintenance/refurbishment, than extra electrical power used in a greener future.

 

HS2 will use electric trains. If you have already expended considerable other types of environmental damage in building the track and the power lines to get to it, plus an OLE system, you might as well run them as fast as you can, if there are other environmental advantages to be had, particularly attracting modal transfer.

1. Historical decreases in the cost to the environment of electricity generation are irrelevant to any discussion of the optimum speed for a new rail service.

2. The source of future energy supplies is also irrelevant, unless you are suggesting that some miraculous free electricity supply will be found.

3. You have not taken account of the greater wear than higher speeds inflict on both trains and track, thus reducing any saving due to the smaller fleet size.

4. The environmental cost of train construction is spread across the lifespan of the train. The longer the train is in service, the better it is for the environment. However, the longer it is in service, the more energy it will use. The faster it goes the more energy it will use, in proportion to the square of its speed, so the initial "saving" in building a smaller, faster fleet becomes less significant over time.

5. You are arguing that a higher line speed (and therefore shorter journey times) can be had without additional cost, either financially or to the environment. This is simply nonsense. There is nothing special about electricity and there is nothing special about trains. They are just machines. I suspect you wouldn't argue that because the car and the motorway have been built, you might as well drive as fast as you can because you won't use any extra petrol and your car won't wear out faster. Exactly the same laws of physics apply to trains.