HS2 under review

[Ron Ron Ron]

 

Dead link.

 

 

It won't play as an embedded video.  If you click on the link to YouTube it works fine.

 

Jamie

 

Thanks Jamie. 

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bkoGvw9kbA

Edited March 15, 2018 by Ron Ron Ron

[Joseph_Pestell]

Dead link.

Worked fine this morning. Found it following on from your link about CrossRail.

[Bernard Lamb]

Bernard, could it not be a good reason not to do anything. Rather than get on with it and solve the crossing as and when it needs to be done 

 

John.

You mentioned in a previous post about quality of life and the South east being overcrowded.

The A41 is a no go area for cyclists, horse riders and walkers these days.

That side of Aylesbury has grown so much in recent years and much more development is under way..

Opening this route ASAP is now essential. There is another route that has had permissive status for many years and this is getting very popular. 

It would be unfair to take for granted the generous attitude of the Rothschild family as being an open ended position. There are other more serious issues involving the family and the estate but they are political and outside the scope of this topic. 

I checked the situation his morning. All problems sorted and work is underway.

The HS2 people objected to the original idea but later plans show a simple crossing of the rail route to be replaced by wheel chair friendly ramps and a bridge when the line is actually built. HS2 were quite happy to withdraw their objection when this proposal was put forward. I presume both parties are happy with how the money will be provided.

Bernard

[lmsforever]

The new cycle/footpath to Waddesdon Manor will be an excellent way to reach the NT house plus it might actualy cut car traffic through Waddesdon Village Bernard also I would not want to ride a bike nowadays between Aylesbury and Bicester the lorries are dangerous.Not like it used to be in the sixties when I raced timetrials on my bike up and down it and you hardly saw a car! There seem to be several other sites around Aylesbury that could be HS2 connected.

The new cycle/footpath to Waddesdon Manor will be an excellent way to reach the NT house plus it might actualy cut car traffic through Waddesdon Village Bernard also I would not want to ride a bike nowadays between Aylesbury and Bicester the lorries are dangerous.Not like it used to be in the sixties when I raced timetrials on my bike up and down it and you hardly saw a car! There seem to be several other sites around Aylesbury that could be HS2 connected.

[Mike Storey]

 

London and the South East is full up, in fact overflowing, it cannot sustain more population/employment growth. The latest thing is that inner city boroughs are trying to solve their housing crisis by building new homes outside their own boroughs. Roads are full up, but there is no room for more, Infrastructure is at breaking point, we need to put less pressure on our natural resources. There is very little room for a major house building program, lets move people and jobs away from the city, even the South East and free up space for those who stay behind.

 

Which is one of the key reasons for HS2.

[Mike Storey]

Last week the government announced yet more housing development in the Oxford/Cambridge corridor. Yet HS2 is still planned to go straight through it without stopping...

 

I think you will find the new/re-opened East-West route is planned to serve that. HS2 is designed to serve major concentrations of population centres, not the odd ribbon development, which will have adequate linkage to existing lines and services, once built.

[Ron Ron Ron]

Anyone interested in the trains that will operate on HS2 ?

 

Last summer, HS2 ran a Rolling Stock Industry Day to start off the process of specification and procurement, inviting the rail industry, prospective suppliers and technology companies to hear about HS2's plans and ambitions for the service.

 

There's a series of videos covering the presentations available to view on YouTube.

Here are just two of them, giving an insight into what will be happening with regard to the trains themselves.

The second one contains some detail of what they are looking for.

 

 

 

 

 

 

.

[Bernard Lamb]

The new cycle/footpath to Waddesdon Manor will be an excellent way to reach the NT house plus it might actualy cut car traffic through Waddesdon Village Bernard also I would not want to ride a bike nowadays between Aylesbury and Bicester the lorries are dangerous.Not like it used to be in the sixties when I raced timetrials on my bike up and down it and you hardly saw a car! There seem to be several other sites around Aylesbury that could be HS2 connected.

 

Now you are wallowing in nostalgia.

It was the first course where I got under the hour for 25 miles.

Back in 1962.

Heavy lorries going to the new works near Woodham, reached from the roundabout on the A41 and along the asphalted stretch of the old railway line add to the problem.

Bernard

[Joseph_Pestell]

I don't envy the engineers trying to cost a "conventional compatible" train that is intended to operate for that many years.

[Hesperus]

I don't understand this suggestion. Hereford to Redditch is not an existing line - Redditch is the southern terminus of the cross-city line via a branch off the main line at Barnt Green. Travelling from Redditch to Hereford involves a change of trains at University or Birmingham NS stations.

 

Sorry,  I worked it all out then got distracted when posting.  Hereford to either Droitwich or Bromsgrove then branching off with the first new station being Redditch Parkway.

[Edwin_m]

The principle of differential pricing for classic and high speed services was established long ago, between Peterborough and London (when High Speed Trains started calling there) in the 1980's, and elsewhere, and then ultimately between SE Trains Company services between Kent and London, using either classic services to Charing Cross, Victoria etc, or High Speed 1 routed (Javelin) services to St Pancras.

 

The HS2 Business Case (available on their website and previous versions on the uk.gov archive site), also assumes differential pricing.

 

Historically, it has been proven that shorter journey times can attract sufficient business at higher prices, and improve modal shift. The ECML proved this 40 years ago for Leeds and Newcastle traffic, and the WCML has, since Pendolino, added to that evidence, by dint of Birmingham, Manchester and to some extent Liverpool, model shift.

 

You also miss the key purpose of HS2, which is to allow greater capacity for the operation of more frequent intermediate, stopping or semi-fast services on existing lines, and not just for Milton Keynes, Centre of the Universe though it appears to claim.

 

Discounted walk-up fares have only worked for airlines on a stand-by basis, and for the railways only when dynamic (i.e. updateable during the journey), electronic seat reservations have been mandatory - such as for the French TGV. (The Virgin attempt at replicating this has had poor results, with full fare paying passengers with no reservations being forced to stand whilst a £10 ticket holder sits in a reserved seat.) The case history for the TGV, since 1994, has concluded that this was insufficient to attract price-sensitive business. They have instead adopted a two-tier TGV service, the cheap part of which is now called "OuiGo", using completely different trains. They are only "profitable" because they use double-deck vehicles, which pay lower track access charges per seat, but with fewer vehicles overall, and the plan is to reduce numbers of TGV trains sets and thus service frequencies. I know of no-one else who has persevered with cheaper walk-up fares in Europe.

 

I am therefore unsure as to why you would make your assertion?

My point is that ideally we would wish HS2 to allow more prosperity outside the South East, for the benefit of the entire nation not just the regions concerned.  This means creating employment as well as housing in the regions, which would be greatly facilitated if employees could travel easily to visit London or other places without having to pay the fairly extortionate prices of Anytime returns* on most routes. 

 

Season tickets enjoy a substantial discount compared to five Anytime returns per week - I think the ratio is similar for season tickets on high speed although the prices themselves are greater.  The risk is that fast trains with plenty of seats at similar prices to today's season tickets would just attract a lot of commuting, just as on many medium-distance intercity routes in recent decades.  Hence my suggestion that season tickets valid on HS2 should be higher priced relative to the Anytime return, and that ideally the Anytime should be cheaper than it is today.  Under this principle seasons to the likes of Milton Keynes** would stay as they are, because that is shorter distance commuting and because people have bought houses and built lives around the ticket prices being at a particular level.  The Anytimes to these places would probably have to be reduced proportionately to the HS2 ones were, because the extra capacity would reduce the need to price people off peak trains and because it would be unfair to businesses in MK if their Anytime to London was no cheaper than from Birmingham. 

 

The real difficulty arises when considering somewhere like Bristol or Southampton that does not benefit significantly from HS2.  It wouldn't be appropriate to reduce the price of the seasons because like MK this is an existing service and an existing commuter flow.  But as no new capacity is being created there would still be a need to price people off peak services, so the high-priced Anytimes would have to remain.  Bristol and Southampton might then be aggrieved because their business people are having to spend longer travelling to London than those of MK or Birmingham as well as paying more. 

 

*I don't think the comparison with the failure of discounted travel overseas is valid here, because Anytime fares in the UK are far higher than those elsewhere in Europe.  We probably have as good a market in discounted travel as anywhere in the form of Advance tickets, just not at peak travel times. Incidentally the HS2 business case assumes fare levels are broadly the same as today in real terms, indicating that this is probably how they will be set.  This is consistent with using HS2 to improve connectivity and therefore prosperity rather than just trying to maximise revenue. 

**I'm using MK as a convenient example of somewhere that would benefit from released capacity.  There are many other places in a similar situation. 

Edited March 15, 2018 by Edwin_m

[hayfield]

I understand that in most big cities public transport is essential and I personally think it should to a certain extent be subsidised, especially when its for the good of the environment. However It really irks me that we as a country should be expected to subsidise long distance commuting. 

[Arun Sharma]

Last week the government announced yet more housing development in the Oxford/Cambridge corridor. Yet HS2 is still planned to go straight through it without stopping...

HS2 is not intended to be a commuter railway. Its reason for existence is to take end-to end traffic off the WCML and thus free up more freight paths and commuter traffic paths on the WCML. This has been explained ad nauseum in previous posts. To paraphrase a well known ancient saying, "Those who don't read or understand previous posts in a thread are condemned to ask the same question over and over".

 

And just in case you don't think the above applies to you:

 

Posted 18 December 2016 - 18:07

LMS Forever wrote, "only having one or two stops in cities away from passengers homes.People in the home counties will have to take a train to London then the tube and finaly [sic] board a high speed train to save fifteen minutes to Birmingham ."

 

As I understand it, the purpose of HS2 is not to shave irrelevant small periods of time off travelling to Birmingham. Rather, It is more to do with taking the load off the WCML which suffers from being an old railway incapable of being further [route] straightened/re-signalled so as to allow higher train speeds and shorter intervals between trains. That the previous "Northern Powerhouse Chancellor" felt the best way to promote HS2 was to use the simplistic "everybody gets to Birmingham quicker" might impress folk who know nothing about railways but surely those who post on this web actually know better than to believe such rubbish.

 

Those, like me who have a hankering [peeing in the wind, I know] to rebuild the GCR London Extension accept that the GCR would never have made much money from the citizens of Lutterworth, Willoughby or even, Brackley et al. But what it was good at was connecting London with Leicester with Nottingham with Manchester and then Sheffield onwards.

 

The importance of new HS routes is their ability to connect population hubs and not so much to pick up passengers en-route. The important secondary effect is to take passengers off the ECML and WCML and thus allow more freight paths on those lines. 

 

I believe such a concept is worth HMG investing taxpayers' dosh in.

Edited March 15, 2018 by ted675

[Mike Storey]

My point is that ideally we would wish HS2 to allow more prosperity outside the South East, for the benefit of the entire nation not just the regions concerned.  This means creating employment as well as housing in the regions, which would be greatly facilitated if employees could travel easily to visit London or other places without having to pay the fairly extortionate prices of Anytime returns* on most routes. 

 

Season tickets enjoy a substantial discount compared to five Anytime returns per week - I think the ratio is similar for season tickets on high speed although the prices themselves are greater.  The risk is that fast trains with plenty of seats at similar prices to today's season tickets would just attract a lot of commuting, just as on many medium-distance intercity routes in recent decades.  Hence my suggestion that season tickets valid on HS2 should be higher priced relative to the Anytime return, and that ideally the Anytime should be cheaper than it is today.  Under this principle seasons to the likes of Milton Keynes** would stay as they are, because that is shorter distance commuting and because people have bought houses and built lives around the ticket prices being at a particular level.  The Anytimes to these places would probably have to be reduced proportionately to the HS2 ones were, because the extra capacity would reduce the need to price people off peak trains and because it would be unfair to businesses in MK if their Anytime to London was no cheaper than from Birmingham. 

 

The real difficulty arises when considering somewhere like Bristol or Southampton that does not benefit significantly from HS2.  It wouldn't be appropriate to reduce the price of the seasons because like MK this is an existing service and an existing commuter flow.  But as no new capacity is being created there would still be a need to price people off peak services, so the high-priced Anytimes would have to remain.  Bristol and Southampton might then be aggrieved because their business people are having to spend longer travelling to London than those of MK or Birmingham as well as paying more. 

 

*I don't think the comparison with the failure of discounted travel overseas is valid here, because Anytime fares in the UK are far higher than those elsewhere in Europe.  We probably have as good a market in discounted travel as anywhere in the form of Advance tickets, just not at peak travel times. Incidentally the HS2 business case assumes fare levels are broadly the same as today in real terms, indicating that this is probably how they will be set.  This is consistent with using HS2 to improve connectivity and therefore prosperity rather than just trying to maximise revenue. 

**I'm using MK as a convenient example of somewhere that would benefit from released capacity.  There are many other places in a similar situation. 

 

OK. So you are arguing for suppression of demand for commuting by raising prices, whilst encouraging peak time use by occasional passengers by reducing those fares?

 

Your belief is that such a pricing strategy would more likely encourage employers and employees to relocate their businesses/work outside London and the SE, rather than simply increase long distance commuting?

 

I see your point. I just do not see any evidence that this would be a major reason for most companies or potential employees to move.

 

For example, Media City has now become an enormous employer in Salford, driven there by government policy and some local incentives. Many, if not most, of the people now working there have moved from the south-east, and are buying up properties in many parts of the North West. This is pushing up property prices fast (it has certainly put house ownership out of the range of my daughter and her husband in Hebden Bridge once more) and brand new Chelsea Tractors far more numerous there than proper Land Rovers. Burnley's house prices have risen faster over the past six months than anywhere else in the country. Part of the reason that Salford/Manchester was "sold" to newcomers, was the improved Pendolino services, including frequency and journey time. No doubt, the long term addition of HS2 will have helped decision making. But no fares have been reduced (in fact they have increased faster than on the ECML), no significant increase in long distance commuting trends has appeared (AFAIK), and yet still they came.

 

I could describe the same story at Leeds and Wakefield with the insurance, finance and banking boom they had in the 1980's, when the IC225 services started, with similar frequency and journey time improvements, but fare increases, not reductions.

 

I am unaware of any European situation where mass relocation of industry or business away from traditional national strongholds, has been the result of train fares policy. Here in France, people wanted LGV routes to their cities, not for cheap travel, but for fast and frequent communications, to stimulate their local economies.

[Ron Ron Ron]

[locoholic]

 ...The importance of new HS routes is their ability to connect population hubs and not so much to pick up passengers en route...

 

The recent government announcement of more development in the Oxford/Cambridge corridor means that area is a "population hub" - so by your own definition, HS2 should stop there. Quite simple, really.

[Edwin_m]

There's a big blue hoarding marked "The Journey Starts Here" just by where the nearer end of the HS2 station will be on Ron's photo.  I guess that means work has started in Birmingham as well as in London, 

 

The photo illustrates quite well how the Birmingham station site is pretty close to the centre, right next to Snow Hill.  The former Curzon Street station building is about half way down on the left. 

[Edwin_m]

OK. So you are arguing for suppression of demand for commuting by raising prices, whilst encouraging peak time use by occasional passengers by reducing those fares?

 

Your belief is that such a pricing strategy would more likely encourage employers and employees to relocate their businesses/work outside London and the SE, rather than simply increase long distance commuting?

 

I see your point. I just do not see any evidence that this would be a major reason for most companies or potential employees to move.

 

For example, Media City has now become an enormous employer in Salford, driven there by government policy and some local incentives. Many, if not most, of the people now working there have moved from the south-east, and are buying up properties in many parts of the North West. This is pushing up property prices fast (it has certainly put house ownership out of the range of my daughter and her husband in Hebden Bridge once more) and brand new Chelsea Tractors far more numerous there than proper Land Rovers. Burnley's house prices have risen faster over the past six months than anywhere else in the country. Part of the reason that Salford/Manchester was "sold" to newcomers, was the improved Pendolino services, including frequency and journey time. No doubt, the long term addition of HS2 will have helped decision making. But no fares have been reduced (in fact they have increased faster than on the ECML), no significant increase in long distance commuting trends has appeared (AFAIK), and yet still they came.

 

I could describe the same story at Leeds and Wakefield with the insurance, finance and banking boom they had in the 1980's, when the IC225 services started, with similar frequency and journey time improvements, but fare increases, not reductions.

 

I am unaware of any European situation where mass relocation of industry or business away from traditional national strongholds, has been the result of train fares policy. Here in France, people wanted LGV routes to their cities, not for cheap travel, but for fast and frequent communications, to stimulate their local economies.

It's more thinking aloud on my part than having a firm view on this, but responding to people who say it will just encourage more long-distance commuting.  Anything related to fares would obviously have to be part of a wider policy and the existence of HS2 in itself would have far more effect on regenerating the regions than the details of the fares charged. 

The recent government announcement of more development in the Oxford/Cambridge corridor means that area is a "population hub" - so by your own definition, HS2 should stop there. Quite simple, really.

It's not a population hub on the scale of Birmingham or Manchester. 

[Ron Ron Ron]

......The photo illustrates quite well how the Birmingham station site is pretty close to the centre, right next to Snow Hill. 

 

 

That's Moor St. Edwin.

 

 

.

[locoholic]

It's more thinking aloud on my part than having a firm view on this, but responding to people who say it will just encourage more long-distance commuting.  Anything related to fares would obviously have to be part of a wider policy and the existence of HS2 in itself would have far more effect on regenerating the regions than the details of the fares charged. 

It's not a population hub on the scale of Birmingham or Manchester.

 

Neither is Crewe, or several other places to be served by HS2, but why let a fact like that persuade you?!

 

I really find it amusing that the disciples of HS2 find even a small deviation from the Great Plan to be so heretical. Far better to preserve the purity of HS2 than allow the inhabitants of the South Midlands to be able to travel to Manchester and Leeds on the new railway!

[Arun Sharma]

Neither is Crewe, or several other places to be served by HS2, but why let a fact like that persuade you?!

 

I really find it amusing that the disciples of HS2 find even a small deviation from the Great Plan to be so heretical. Far better to preserve the purity of HS2 than allow the inhabitants of the South Midlands to be able to travel to Manchester and Leeds on the new railway!

Crewe is, and always has been [ever since the days of the Grand Junction Railway] a railway hub. It's a place people go to by some form of transport so that they can catch transport to many other places - That pretty well defines the sort of places [transport hubs] that are to be connected by HS2 et al.

 

Semantics would appear to be the last refuge of those who have either lost or not understood the argument.

[locoholic]

Crewe is, and always has been [ever since the days of the Grand Junction Railway] a railway hub. It's a place people go to by some form of transport so that they can catch transport to many other places - That pretty well defines the sort of places [transport hubs] that are to be connected by HS2 et al.

 

Semantics would appear to be the last refuge of those who have either lost or not understood the argument.

Crewe is a railway hub because it was built that way by the Victorians.

 

The intersection of the East-West route and HS2 could be a 21st century railway hub for the Milton Keynes/Buckingham/Oxford area, which is currently poorly served by rail but which is scheduled for large scale development.

 

I grew up near Basildon in Essex, which the experts claimed did not need a railway station, even though the railway ran straight through the town centre. Of course, common sense eventually prevailed and a station was built. I expect the same will eventually happen with HS2 route through the Oxford - Cambridge corridor.

[phil-b259]

Crewe is a railway hub because it was built that way by the Victorians.

 

The intersection of the East-West route and HS2 could be a 21st century railway hub for the Milton Keynes/Buckingham/Oxford area, which is currently poorly served by rail but which is scheduled for large scale development.

 

I grew up near Basildon in Essex, which the experts claimed did not need a railway station, even though the railway ran straight through the town centre. Of course, common sense eventually prevailed and a station was built. I expect the same will eventually happen with HS2 route through the Oxford - Cambridge corridor.

 

Please remember that the whole POINT of HS2 is to remove LONG DISTANCE services from the current WCML - which do not currently make station calls south of Crewe if they can help it and NOT to create 'new' travel opportunities.

 

It is ridiculous to try and apply the same logic to HS2 as is applied to commuter operations near London. Yes Basildon should have had a station from the outset but when built it made zero difference to the train service pattern - nor was it built for any other purpose than to allow people to commute into London.

 

The last thing we want to do is fill up HS2 trains with people wanting to get to Milton Keynes / Bicester / Oxford - coming from London there are plenty of other railways you can use to get there (one of which that will be able to have an enhanced service to Milton Keynes once it doesn't have to handle non stop express services to the North West).

 

What you need to understand is that adding facilities for locals usually comes at at the expense of the main job the new infrastructure is trying to achieve. You don't have to go far to find road by-passes that are festooned with roundabouts because access to new developments is considered more important than the function of removing through traffic - indeed in some cases its quicker to stay on the 'old road' through the centre of town than go round the 'by-pass' at all but the most congested times of the day.

 

Similarly the M25 was INTENDED to remove long distance traffic from having to go through London - NOT as a commuter route. It would flow much better if it lacked junctions with the local road network - without the likes of Junction 11, 13, 17 & 18 the western section would have more capacity for STRATEGIC LONG DISTANCE traffic seeking to avoid London. Instead to pacify locals (and to save money having to build stand alone by-pass roads, the M25 has been hijacked to provide local connectivity too - with the predictable result of massive traffic congestion.

 

If you look at many places in France their motorways even big towns only tend to have a single junction - with the town getting its own by-pass rather than putting in two junctions and directing through traffic to use the motorway round the town. While it is true that such an approach was attractive on tolled motorways as it minimised the number of toll plazas (and staff) the side effect it has on segregating local and strategic needs should not be underestimated.

 

The ONLY justification for having a HS2 station in the Calvert area were if that was also the site of London's main airport, thus allowing easy interchange between plane and train like the French have at CDG near Paris where you can get off a plane and straight on a TGV to the south of France in a couple of hours, or indeed lots of other countries!

[terra-nova]

The current fare structure of UK passenger rail, particularly on InterCity routes, with high standard fares and then various levels of discounting has, arguably  seen a relatively stable situation with good yield in terms of revenue and growth.

I suspect franchise holders may be cautious of radical change, in case this stability of business were to be lost. Returns could actually drop, or demand would become embarrassingly high for the current capacity, with all the extra business at discounted rates. i.e. Do you remain content with a current reasonable profit or risk it in the search of more.

The example of HS1 saw the premium pricing model extended and that has been running for several years now so I assume there is no great flaw there, and I expect the Government may see the appeal of a similar policy on HS2.

 

Now for the but

Uk roads are very congested with knock on effects for likelihood of incidents, delays to peoples journeys , slowness of freight transport, not helping the economy etc

The UK population is forecast to rise by 15% and economy to grow by at least a similar amount by 2030 Decentralisation from London has worked to an extent but much of that growth will be in already busy areas.

According to the UK Transport Statistics Nov 2017, rail represented 2% of all journeys and 8% by distance. This is all journeys. I have seen somewhere the mode split statistic for longer distance travel i.e. comparable to InterCity but I can't find it at the moment. My recollection was that it was c 13 to 14% Rail, with the vast majority of the rest (80+%) being by car. 

 

So my point is that HS2, and maybe some other bits of rail planning, is going to have to achieve something more . Even growth of rail usage at decent and commercially viable levels may not defuse congestion. The package of price, speed, connectivity etc for HS2 has got to be attractive enough to see  that 80+% figure significantly reduced if it is to make a meaningful contribution to overall transport efficiency. The classic routes freed up by HS2 also  form part of the equation presumably for the shorter distance journeys.

 

This in short , my plea is that having taken the wonderful step to invest in High Speed rail , the true bigger picture must be seen to get maximum benefit, and this relates to fare levels, capacity and getting access to the network.

[Edwin_m]

Crewe is a railway hub because it was built that way by the Victorians.

 

The intersection of the East-West route and HS2 could be a 21st century railway hub for the Milton Keynes/Buckingham/Oxford area, which is currently poorly served by rail but which is scheduled for large scale development.

 

I grew up near Basildon in Essex, which the experts claimed did not need a railway station, even though the railway ran straight through the town centre. Of course, common sense eventually prevailed and a station was built. I expect the same will eventually happen with HS2 route through the Oxford - Cambridge corridor.

The major cities that people would most often travel to from Milton Keynes and Oxford are London and Birmingham.  Both have links to both by reasonably fast and frequent trains with the possibility of a change onto HS2 in Birmingham if going further north (yes Ron it's Moor Street, apologies for brain fade there...).  Even with the greater speed of HS2 it's unlikely that MK or Oxford to London or Birmingham would be quicker by changing at a Calvert interchange.  So an HS2 station at Calvert would improve connectivity only in the immediate vicinity, and this is well known for being one of the least densely populated areas in central England (which is why HS2 goes that way in the first place).  Also for operational reasons the 18 per hour capacity of this section of HS2 is only achievable if all, half or none of the trains stop at a particular place. 

 

So all in all a HS2 station at Calvert is only justifiable if you're also prepared to accept a new city there, probably at least the size of MK, or a relocation of the main London airport as suggested.