HS2 under review

[phil-b259]

The west end of the new Curzon Street station seems to be below ground level. Maybe in the future the line could carry on under Birmingham city centre towards Wolverhampton and/or Worcester? That's the only justification I can think of for what looks like a very extravagant station.

Given the very deep foundations of the tower blocks in Birmingham and the lack of a necessary TBM breakout chamber in the designs it’s clear to any engineer there is virtually zero chance of a westward extension of HS2 from Curzon street regardless of where the platforms may sit in relation to ground level.

 

The basic reason for the ‘below ground level’ setup at the buffer stops is simply the way the land naturally slopes and a requirement for the platforms to be level - the throat end of the station will be elivated on a highish viaduct to make this happen rather than any desire to avoid street severance say.

 

If it is ever believed that Bristol requires a HS style link to Birmingham then I would contend it’s more likely to join up with HS2 in the vacinity of Birmingham International and avoid the city like a Railway version of the M42.

 

The big omission in my view is a link between HS2 and the classic network in the vacinity of Washford Heath. Such a link could see a ‘classic compatible’ train from Wolverhampton access HS2 and join up with a ‘captive’ set from Curzon street at Birmingham International for the run to London. Similarly if wires ever advance south of Bromsgrove then said link between the two systems could be used to facilitate Leeds to Bristol HS2 services.

Edited October 10, 2018 by phil-b259

[black and decker boy]

Whats wrong with the dairy its out in the country with other units around it ,as to BCC and AVDC there are many many people absolutely fed up with them pushing housing developments through when locals protest so change may be on the way.The bypass round Aylesbury was dead in the water back in the 1950,s so we don't expect one and try to make the best of what we have even if its difficult to travel around most of the time.Bicester is the place that is expanding rapidly in the area so many people will move there and take the pressure off elsewhere .I have read that MK is set for a big expansion southwards that will be interesting.

Well just to cheer you up we are engaged at work in preparing designs & construction costs for the Aylesbury south bypass and also Stoke Mandeville bypass. Works should start later in 2019.

 

You can expect a raft of housing to accompany them both as it’s the houses that fund the road (and new schools etc) not the government.

 

Over the next 10 years you can expect significant new housing through Aylesbury vale anywhere that sits outside the AONB, especially if it has good rail or bus links. For example, AVDC have to pick up a decent share of the housing allocation from Chiltern & Wycombe Council areas as they are too constrained by the AONB.

 

This is government planning policy, policy that assumes in favour of development. You, (ie the local population), your scenic views and fears about house prices hold no sway over the Policy.

 

Over in Risborough, we are getting 2500+ houses (and a bypass), many more in Haddenham and possibly a new town at Aston Stanford. Government has worked out that Bucks, Warks and Northants are very large, very empty counties very close to London and Birmingham so are ripe for house building.

 

Enjoy!

[Davexoc]

The major centres east and west of Calvert on East West Rail are Oxford, Bicester and Milton Keynes.  All three have fast direct services to Birmingham and even if the HS2 service from Calvert is a few minutes quicker, it won't outweigh the time penalty of the connection and the journey at 90 degress to the desired direction.  There may be minor time savings for Bedford, Aylesbury and Winslow to Birmingham but these hardly justify a very expensive high speed station.

I think what was inferred was not Birmingham as the ultimate destination. Think later phases when the NW could link to Cambridge and the NE to Oxford, missing out BNS and LDN altogether.

 

Dave

[Kelly]

1. What has happened to the old London & Birmingham Curzon Street station building?

 

2. The design of the new station appears to allow for conversion to a through station in the future. Perhaps the lunacy of having a terminus in the middle of England has been recognised?

 

3. How comes older city-centre stations are ruined by having office blocks built over them, whilst a new station is all light and air?!

The old station is grade 1 listed. It will become a museum according to the BBC news linked above.

[Edwin_m]

Thanks for this - it is a pretty dense document to digest. I have to confess astonishment at the size of the project.  Naively I had assumed it far more compact; it has 7 platforms compared to New Street station’s 12 (compare its footprint to the NS station  2^nd rebuild).

HS£ curzon st.jpg

overlay of WSP design on HS2 information paper h4, May 2014

 

The WSP report on the Oct 2018 Design says

Rather than at first sight appearing a vanity project gift for Brum’s Mayor and his city regeneration aspiratons (incidentally what is an 'environmental mitigation zone'?) Is it not much more econonmical to build a more modest terminus station, Because surely it gets largely bypassed in the next HS phase.

I’d have thought it strategically far more sensible to build the Interhange station as a temporary terminal to the SE adjacent to the Coventry–New Street line and have a plush transfer shuttle to Curzon St/ New St./Moor St.

Once the trains to the north are ready to start running, the terminus becomes a much easier through station to work by removing the north end screen. You could have a spectacular "opening" as the first train from the north bursts through !

I suggest this is not 'unduly delaying or adding cost to the project'- quite the opposite.

 

At present it looks like poor old Nick Grimshaw could be in for his second HS 'White Elephant' with his appearance in these Curzon St credits. (though bizarrely his derelict Waterloo terminal has part-earned him the RIBA Gold Medal)

dh

 

The service to Curzon Street does not reduce in phase 2b, it increases. 

 

In Phase 1 there will just be three trains per hour to London. 

 

In Phase 2 there will also be trains to Manchester, Newcastle and Scotland. 

 

There is no intention, and no need, to make it a through station.  There is enough demand for dedicated trains between London and Birmingham, London and further north, and Birmingham and further north.  So there is no need to stop the longer-distance trains in Birmingham (although some will call at the Birmingham interchange).  If the line continued from Curzon Street, then assuming it missed the classic lines serving Moor Street and New Street on different levels immediately beyond, it would need a long tunnel or huge disruption to the built-up area that stretches for many miles beyond. 

 

I think what was inferred was not Birmingham as the ultimate destination. Think later phases when the NW could link to Cambridge and the NE to Oxford, missing out BNS and LDN altogether.

 

Dave

NE to Oxford will be just as quick via Birmingham.  NW to Cambridge might be quicker via an interchange at Calvert but that and other low-passenger-number connections don't justify a high speed station and the capacity penalty I described above. 

[melmerby]

The basic reason for the ‘below ground level’ setup at the buffer stops is simply the way the land naturally slopes and a requirement for the platforms to be level - the throat end of the station will be elivated on a highish viaduct to make this happen rather than any desire to avoid street severance say.

The very same reason that the Northern end of Moor Street Station (right next door), which is well below street level goes straight into tunnel to get to Snow Hill and the Southern end is on a tall viaduct

The land slopes from the city centre at around 460' asl to the Rea Valley at around 330' asl.

 

Keith

Edited October 9, 2018 by melmerby

[phil-b259]

 

However I do think, and maintain, that major opportunity is being missed by not providing an interchange station where the two new-revitalised routes cross in the vicinity of Claydon - not for travel southwards 9which would rather defeat the purpose of the new route! - but for travel northwards and from the north by creating the long ago talked about part of the (very much) outer London rail ring connecting into trains to/from the north.  Provided the platform loops are long enough stops could readily be accommodated by use of skip stops in long distance trains with minimised impact on the overall HS2 capacity.   

 

You have to be mindful of not compromising long term aims by doing this.

 

Consider the M25 (or even the M4 local to you Mike) Although conceived primarily as roads for long distance traffic, they were constructed in chunks and this led to the provision of junctions which primarily exist to serve these travelling shorter distances.

 

In the early days this arrangement was broadly speaking no problem as even after all the chunks were linked long distance traffic took time to build up. Today however we have a situation where the combined volumes of both flows  are simply too great to cope with - yet we cannot go round shutting motorway junctions like J18 of the M25 or junction 7 of the M4* to exclude local traffic and let the motorways focus on their function as the backbone of the strategic road network.

 

An alternative analogy might be the Wimbledon loop of Thameslink - first established around the time of privatisation it was a useful way of serving an unloved backwater of the south London suburban rail network. Much later NR identified the conflicts between it and SE services terminating at Blackfriars - and sought to remove them by swapping routes. Cue howls of protest from Thameslink users and the SOS issuing an edict that Thameslink loop services must be retained come what may.

 

Thus with HS2, while providing a station at Claydon might well be useful in the context of a pure London - Birmingham, or even London - North West Scheme, the intention of HS2 is to also serve the East Midlands, Yorkshire and the North East. Adding a station at Claydon (even if London bound travellers are excluded) does risk handicapping HS2 to deal with its primary purpose - much like some sections of our Motorway network.

 

Finally I would observe that unlike the Stratford on HS1 (where had the box not been built at the time of construction it would be impossible to add one later due to the urban redevelopment that was planned / as been constructed in the vicinity), adding a station to HS2 in rural Buckinghamshire is still doable after it opens should the full HS2 network find itself short of customers. The danger of making passive provision now is that some politicians may find it too irresistible to ignore said provision and instigate station construction before we are able to properly asses whether the complete HS2 network can cope with it.

 

 

* Thats not to say a 'Slough by-pass isn't needed' - but should it really be the same road as the key strategic link between London & Bristol. You could have a local by-pass running between J5 & J7 with the M4 only having a J6 for example.

Edited October 9, 2018 by phil-b259

[runs as required]

The west end of the new Curzon Street station seems to be below ground level. Maybe in the future the line could carry on under Birmingham city centre towards Wolverhampton and/or Worcester? That's the only justification I can think of for what looks like a very extravagant station.

I've now checked those beguiling CAD drawings fairly carefully, They are not all that accurate: The west end (1, Station Square) I think is at ground level, or even slightly elevated - there are steps down by the north corner of the west glazed screen onto the top of  2. Curzon Promenade which slopes down to 3. Curzon Square. This is at the same level as the L&B Ionic Portico.  The view up west from 3.Curzon Square shows the overall height of the rail level viaduct and the train shed's main concourse level. It also gives an idea of the quality of the space below the viaduct at the level of Curzon Square (the old goods yard).

The totally misleading 'Concept' cross section does not show anything like the actual height from the original L&B portico to accommodate the main rail level viaduct and the main concourse level to the new transhed.

 

I am left feeling that the whole viaduct-scape south and east of the old Curzon Street Portico taken together with the exixting rail approach will be even worse than Brum's motorway Spaghetti Junction.  Moreover, in a few years they'll be largely redundant !

dh

[Edwin_m]

Moreover, in a few years they'll be largely redundant !

I've already explained why this is incorrect in #2630 and you haven't provided any further grounds to justify your statement.  If people on a forum of rail enthusiasts can be this misinformed about HS2 I shudder to think what the general population thinks. 

[Fenman]

... That's the only justification I can think of for what looks like a very extravagant station.

The change in attitudes over time is fascinating. The Victorian railway companies built “extravagant” termini and today we revel in their exuberance. To take just London examples: Paddington, St Pancras, even austere King’s Cross - all are buildings of delight that add pleasure to our daily lives more than a century after all that (private) money was “wasted”.

 

When Michael Heseltine was Environment Secretary he proposed that local government should be forbidden from building anything except the lowest-cost building. It was pointed out to him that, if that regulation was introduced, every single public building from then onwards would be a Portakabin. He realised it was a stupid idea.

 

We should be taking pride in the public realm, celebrating great works. Even cash-strapped BR invested in Waterloo International. The contrast with the low-budget Stratford International is striking (surely one of the most unpleasant stations in modern Britain - though the Thameslink platforms at St Pancras might challenge for that title?).

 

New York is an amazing city, but as a demonstration of the philosophy of public austerity it is striking: a world of private wealth and public squalor. Is that what we want in the UK?

 

For a more local example, check out the contrast between the “extravagant” JLE stations and the austere Crossrail stations. These things are likely to last a century or more; that’s a long time for a mean building or an exuberant building to be in the public domain. I would argue these stations *should* be confident architectural statements of our belief in ourselves. The alternative is simply too mean-minded to contemplate.

 

Paul

[locoholic]

The change in attitudes over time is fascinating. The Victorian railway companies built “extravagant” termini and today we revel in their exuberance. To take just London examples: Paddington, St Pancras, even austere King’s Cross - all are buildings of delight that add pleasure to our daily lives more than a century after all that (private) money was “wasted”.

When Michael Heseltine was Environment Secretary he proposed that local government should be forbidden from building anything except the lowest-cost building. It was pointed out to him that, if that regulation was introduced, every single public building from then onwards would be a Portakabin. He realised it was a stupid idea.

We should be taking pride in the public realm, celebrating great works. Even cash-strapped BR invested in Waterloo International. The contrast with the low-budget Stratford International is striking (surely one of the most unpleasant stations in modern Britain - though the Thameslink platforms at St Pancras might challenge for that title?).

New York is an amazing city, but as a demonstration of the philosophy of public austerity it is striking: a world of private wealth and public squalor. Is that what we want in the UK?

For a more local example, check out the contrast between the “extravagant” JLE stations and the austere Crossrail stations. These things are likely to last a century or more; that’s a long time for a mean building or an exuberant building to be in the public domain. I would argue these stations *should* be confident architectural statements of our belief in ourselves. The alternative is simply too mean-minded to contemplate.

Paul

I know what you mean. I just think it's interesting to compare the proposed Birmingham HS2 terminus with (say) the cramped four platforms that East Midlands Trains have to make do with at St Pancras.

[terra-nova]

On the question of  extension onward from Curzon street onto existing routes, I was surprised that the HS2 plans did not include some kind of option given the established service pattern and demand for trains to Wolverhampton on the London route and to the South West on Cross Country ( I believe an early graphic may have even shown a classic extension to Bristol )

 

Whilst it would be difficult to extend beyond the stops at Curzon Street, it would seem an easier project to connect the country end of a couple of platforms to the New street Duddeston line on its northern pair of tracks for a Wolverhampton service via Bescot . This would entail a reversal, but the trains will need station time anyway to permit this. A stop in the Bescot area would be handy for North West Midlands /M5/ M6 interchange. I even submitted this to one of the consultations, but only got a very general reply.

 

The infrastructure would look like c 1/4 to 1/3 mile of connecting inclined viaduct over land already claimed by HS2 or owned by Network Rail, which in the wider costs of HS2 would be marginal. Secondary considerations may be working round the new depot planned for Duddeston and a small increase in journey time on this section. Im sure there would be other works such as improving the junction at the London end of Wolverhampton station , but benefits would be there

 

The work to connect to the Bristol route would be more extensive, but could follow a similar idea, with the connection to the Kings Heath route which in turn permits through running to both Oxford and Bristol . Current traffic levels are already 4 trains per hour, on these routes combined, so the infrastructure would hardly be idle and both schemes then free up space at New Street.

[Edwin_m]

There was an idea, which I think would be very beneficial, of at least making passive provision for a connection in the Water Orton area so trains from HS2 could transfer onto the Derby line and continue via New Street.  I don't think there is any such provision in the current design. 

[Fenman]

I know what you mean. I just think it's interesting to compare the proposed Birmingham HS2 terminus with (say) the cramped four platforms that East Midlands Trains have to make do with at St Pancras.

I think I’m one of the few people who thinks the St P makeover was less successful than it should have been. The whole new-build extension to the country end is in my view a pretty poor piece of architecture, despite it being the work of the prestigious firm of Norman Foster. I love the restoration of Barlow’s roof, but the basic layout of the rest of the station seems weak to me - far too far to walk between connections, circuitous routes, poorly-sited “retail opportunities”, lifts and escalators in odd places, the new extensions being freezing cold, wind-swept slums which, perversely, are often full of choking diesel fumes. Some of that may be due to client demands and site constraints. But some of it isn’t.

 

When John McAslan won the contract to design the refurbishment of King’s Cross, he said his primary objective was to produce something that would beat Norman Foster’s St P work. I think he succeeded.

 

Paul

[The Stationmaster]

The service to Curzon Street does not reduce in phase 2b, it increases. 

 

In Phase 1 there will just be three trains per hour to London. 

 

In Phase 2 there will also be trains to Manchester, Newcastle and Scotland. 

 

There is no intention, and no need, to make it a through station.  There is enough demand for dedicated trains between London and Birmingham, London and further north, and Birmingham and further north.  So there is no need to stop the longer-distance trains in Birmingham (although some will call at the Birmingham interchange).  If the line continued from Curzon Street, then assuming it missed the classic lines serving Moor Street and New Street on different levels immediately beyond, it would need a long tunnel or huge disruption to the built-up area that stretches for many miles beyond. 

 

NE to Oxford will be just as quick via Birmingham.  NW to Cambridge might be quicker via an interchange at Calvert but that and other low-passenger-number connections don't justify a high speed station and the capacity penalty I described above. 

 

I suspect that running HS2, like any other line, at 100% theoretical capacity - or pretty close to it - will adversely impact performance as a multitude of factors with many of them out of railway control will have an impact.  skip stops work and don't necessarily 'steal' paths other than in a highly theoretical situation - and when it comes to train running 'highly theoretical' is sometimes (more times than not in Britain) found wanting as Thameslink with all its new technology advantages already shows.

 

The travel patterns are a different issue and as is so very often the case they tend to be set by what is available and what becomes available.  Already Cross Country via Oxford is frequently overloaded so a new route could well relieve some of that especially for longer distances but hardly to Birmingham as it would of course be much slower than direct.

[lmsforever]

Are the proposed frequencies a little optimistic as at this rate of service the trains will not be anywhere  near full and not profitable?   Maybe the projected numbers traveling from the north will make up for this?

[Edwin_m]

I suspect that running HS2, like any other line, at 100% theoretical capacity - or pretty close to it - will adversely impact performance as a multitude of factors with many of them out of railway control will have an impact.  skip stops work and don't necessarily 'steal' paths other than in a highly theoretical situation - and when it comes to train running 'highly theoretical' is sometimes (more times than not in Britain) found wanting as Thameslink with all its new technology advantages already shows.

 

The travel patterns are a different issue and as is so very often the case they tend to be set by what is available and what becomes available.  Already Cross Country via Oxford is frequently overloaded so a new route could well relieve some of that especially for longer distances but hardly to Birmingham as it would of course be much slower than direct.

The technical headway is no doubt less than 3min, not least because trains joining/leaving at Birmingham will have to use a somewhat slower junction.  But it would have to be below 90s to allow a train making a stop at Calvert to drop back onto the main line without taking up another path. 

 

I don't see how skip-stopping is relevant when there is only one stop to skip (and the stopping penalty is about 6min where the service interval is only 3min).  Everything will stop at Old Oak, where there will be two platforms in each direction used alternately.  Some trains will join and leave the platform loops at Birmingham Interchange, but from there there are four tracks to where the Birmingham branch splits off so the timetable can be arranged so that, for example, the train 6min after a London-Interchange-Birmingham is a London-nonstop-North.  The two trains will run almost in parallel north of the Interchange but will not conflict with each other.  There is no such luxury at Calvert - if a train stops there will have to be a gap in the service about 6min later to allow it to re-join the main line, unless trains stop every 6min. 

 

Oxford to the north might be marginally quicker via Birmingham, depending on how easy it is to transfer between the Birmingham stations and how well the trains connect, but I really can't see a collection of relatively small time savings on relatively small markets justifying a high speed station and knocking down the service frequency on the busiest part of HS2.  A decent service of fast trains between Reading and Old Oak will create a viable alternative for Reading-Birmingham (and beyond), releasing some capacity on the existing route, and whatever replaces the Voyagers should have more seats in the same train length. 

[Edwin_m]

Are the proposed frequencies a little optimistic as at this rate of service the trains will not be anywhere  near full and not profitable?   Maybe the projected numbers traveling from the north will make up for this?

That depends whether you believe the extensvie computer modelling that has been done.  But I would point out the frequencies assumed on HS2 aren't much different from those running today, for which the loadings are already known.  18 trains per hour from London roughly matches the total of fasts on the ECML, MML and WCML, all of which are at least partly replaced by HS2. 

[GoingUnderground]

I know what you mean. I just think it's interesting to compare the proposed Birmingham HS2 terminus with (say) the cramped four platforms that East Midlands Trains have to make do with at St Pancras.

But if/when HS2 is completed some passengers from Sheffield. Derby snd Nottingham will arrive at Euston HS2 not St Pancras International/HS1. So they might become less cramped, at least in terms of the number of passengers using them. Edited October 10, 2018 by GoingUnderground

[Ron Ron Ron]

But if/when HS2 is completed some passengers from Sheffield. Derby snd Nottingham will arrive at Euston HS2 not St Pancras International/HS1. ........

 

 

Not forgetting, a sizeable number of them won't arrive at Euston, but will arrive and transfer to Crossrail etc, at OOC.

 

 

 

.

[pete_mcfarlane]

But if/when HS2 is completed some passengers from Sheffield. Derby snd Nottingham will arrive at Euston HS2 not St Pancras International/HS1. So they might become less cramped, at least in terms of the number of passengers using them.

The problem at St Pancras, in my experience, seems to be limited space for people to wait for the East Midlands trains, combined with quite late announcements of departures, which are often grouped together with trains 5 minutes apart.

 

So you get a scrum, as people stand in a big crowd in front of the barriers, and then half of them want to board their train whilst the other half want to stay where they are whilst boredly looking at the departure board. It also doesn't help that sometimes two trains use the same platform, leading to more chaos. Kings Cross is way better, as there's a vast area to wait in. . 

 

Personally I think the best solution would be to raft over the section of the undercroft immediately behind the first escalator and extend the MML concourse back by 100 feet, at the expense of making the shopping centre underneath less light and airy. 

[lmsforever]

The design for the station in Brum looks good and in keeping with the new project and I think the passengers will be happy using it but onward into town will be a trial.

[Mark Saunders]

The design for the station in Brum looks good and in keeping with the new project and I think the passengers will be happy using it but onward into town will be a trial.

It looks good but wait till the company running the Station start renting out space for Coffee vendors and similar and all the open space will vanish!

[phil-b259]

The design for the station in Brum looks good and in keeping with the new project and I think the passengers will be happy using it but onward into town will be a trial.

 

No harder than from Birmingham Moor Street - which is literally just across the road from the Curzon Street site.

 

Centro are also committed to extending the tram to the HS2 station and no doubt there will be plenty of onward bus connections too.

 

While Curzon Street may not be as central as New Street, the truth is the site is not the 'wild west' location many objectors seek to portray it as.

[Glorious NSE]

_{The design for the station in Brum looks good and in keeping with the new project and I think the passengers will be happy using it but onward into town will be a trial.}

 

_{It's all of 100m from the station entrance to the nearest entrance to the Bullring!}