Why was HS1 built with so much less fuss than HS2?

[Clearwater]

There was a very good NAO report on the history of CTRL/LCR, its collapse, rescue, original traffic forecasts etc.  

[Ron Ron Ron]

2 hours ago, adb968008 said:

Is there flights from LCY to BHX… ive never seen one in decades ?

LHR to BHX was axed several decades ago.

i’m not even sure LCY has MAN flights either anymore.

 

 

 

London to BHX. Flights ended decades ago.

BEA pulled off them in the late 1960’s  , possibly as late as the start of the 70’s…..IIRC ?

 

BMA ran LHR - BHX  flights during the 1980’s and possibly early 90’s to provide connections through LHR, but they didn’t last.

Only small aircraft were used.

Also in the 1980’s, Brymon briefly tried 19-seat aircraft on BHX - LGW, again for connections at Gatwick, but it didn’t last long.

 

I don’t believe there were ever any LCY - BHX flights.

VLM ran LCY - MAN flights in the 1990’s and 2000’s, reaching a peak during the disruption caused by the WCML upgrade, when they ran 5 flights a day, Mon-Fri.

At that time, there were more than 30 flights every day between Manchester and all the London airports.

The introduction of the Pendolino’s and Virgin’s high frequency  “clock face” timetable, killed of the LCY flights and reduced the number of others.

 

 

.

 

 

 

[adb968008]

27 minutes ago, Ron Ron Ron said:

 

VLM ran LCY - MAN flights in the 1990’s and 2000’s, reaching a peak during the disruption caused by the WCML upgrade, when they ran 5 flights a day, Mon-Fri.

 

Lasted a little longer than that, in 2004 the chnaged livery and became much more upmarket in branding, this is the old livery..Sept 3rd 2004.

 

until 2008, bought out by AF/KLM, KLM had no pride in their fleet.

25th April 2007.

 

amazing to think average £50 return fare to Manchester, gradually increased to £60 by mid 2000’s, last minute fares variable.

 

I did this regularly.

 

Edinburgh could be much more lucrative… last minute fares were £600 in 2008 (good as long as someone else was paying).

 

 

 

Edited September 26, 2023 by adb968008

[Ron Ron Ron]

2 hours ago, adb968008 said:

....LCY only seems to have Glasgow, Edinburgh and IOM now.

 

 

Domestically, yes.......not forgetting Belfast, but that's across the water.

The only one missing from pre-Covid and financial crisis times, is Dundee, which now operates from LHR.

 

.

[melmerby]

12 hours ago, adb968008 said:

BHX to London has been dead to aviation for a long time, HS2 isnt killing it, I think was that long ago that it was class 86’s and DVTs that killed it.

It was on borrowed time as soon as the WCML was fully electrified in the 1960s, that decimated the internal short hall flights along the corridor

[62613]

19 hours ago, Dungrange said:

 

And that is why the name "High Speed 2" is misleading: it implies that the railway is being built for speed, whereas in actual fact, it is being built to create additional capacity on the southern sections of the West Coast Mainline (WCML).   Taking an existing four track section and expanding that to six tracks to create capacity for additional local and freight services isn't feasible in many locations (unless demolishing thousands of homes) so the solution is to take the new fast tracks and put them somewhere else.  Those new tracks are being called HS2.  If the people using the trains that will travel on these new fast tracks are making long distance limited stop journeys then they don't really care about the route that they take, so the alignment of HS2 can follow whatever route is cheapest to build / least environmentally destructive between A an B without having to route between smaller settlements to pick up passengers, which is what the WCML does.

 

Improving local services is the ultimate aim of HS2, but you can't increase the frequency of a local service from hourly to half hourly unless you can find train paths for the additional train that you want to run every hour.  The way to do that is to reroute some of your existing services, which in this case is onto a new line.

Or, for that matter, to run a local commuter service to the same frequency as in done, Manchester - London. At the moment, it half - hourly on my local line; I believe it's back to three an hour to London. Moving those long - distance trains to a separate station would mean the platforms at present taken up by them would become available for the semi-fasts and locals.

[Pete the Elaner]

14 hours ago, Mallard60022 said:

How about really improve and upgrade to fast and almost direct services on the routes to Manchester (via Hope Valley) and Sheffield/Leeds from St Pancrearse. That helps a hell of lot more folk  and releases space on the WCML. 

 

 

You mean move the WCMLs problems onto the MML? That hardly has a bundle of spare capacity either. There are already objections to making the Bedford section 6 track to cope with East-West rail sharing the route for a mile or 2.

 

14 hours ago, Mallard60022 said:

Most business types work on the Train anyway, so journey time isn't really that important IF reliability, comfort and service is offered and given. 

 

 

How many more times must it be said? HS2 is not & never was about speed. It is about capacity. It was badly named. That is all. Constantly repeating these lies displays an ignorance. You have acknowledged a capacity problem in your other comments so you are clearly not ignorant. Don't do yourself an injustice.

 

14 hours ago, Mallard60022 said:

OR make what was HS2 into a dedicated Freight line!

 

 

Here we go again.

Freight can exist easily with local passenger services. When they stop, freights start to catch them. When they get going again, they will go faster than freights & create a gap, which allows them to stop again without slowing freights down & the whole process can repeat with each stop. A dedicated freight line therefore creates very little benefit.
Semi fasts can exist with these with some careful planning & the help of another pair of running lines.

Long distance, minimal stop, services catch these up & because they don't stop other than major destinations, these are the best to move to a different path...a new one. If you are building a new one, it seems ridiculous to not build it to modern standards.

[adb968008]

16 hours ago, RichardT said:

Previously you made a comment along the lines that the south deserves more because more tax revenue is raised there. That piece of ignorance was bad enough, but now this.

 

This situation is a direct result of a deliberate political choice by the Thatcher governments in the 1980s to implement a shock-therapy of rapidly deindustrialise the UK, with no compensatory investment to reskill or reinvest in the deindustrialised areas  - but rather to ignore them in favour of an industrial policy focused on financial services almost entirely favouring the south east of England. Resulting in a massive flow of money and - more tragically in terms of building for the future - bright young people towards London and its environs, producing the current ludicrous housing costs in the SE and the most economically-unbalanced country in Europe.
 

If you have so little knowledge of why the broken economic landscape of the country now looks the way it does, and why there are constant pleas to redress the investment balance between the SE and the rest so that EVERYONE who is a citizen of this country has a chance to fulfil their potential, for the betterment of us all, then can you do some reading before commentating in future?  
 

And, at the very least, please do not repeat your gratuitously-insulting and repulsive “whinging northerner” comment again.  
 

RichardT

 

 

Your missing the global factor in your argument.

 

Global business and politics wants to trade in London, not Manchester, Birmingham or Carlilse.

What do visitors do when seeing a shoddy shop window… they go to the next one, they dont go to look inside 

 

London is the nations shop window, historically and in the future. That is why it attracts the wealth it does, and sadly as a nation needing investment, rather than generating it, London will continue to be that Pull.

 

When was the last time you saw the President of Brasil visiting Scunthorpe or the CEO of Amazon visiting Barrow in furness ?

 

Paris, Amsterdam, Dublin, Madrid, Rome will all happily try to compete with London… Preston sadly has no chance against any of them, just like Eindhoven, Munster, Le Mans etc that most Brits wouldnt ever put as no1 on their own lists.

 

People would do better to start promoting Londons wealth, and being part of the window dressing in order to get a share of the spoils, encourage business in and offer them further, thats the route to prosperity.

 

So for UK citizens hoping for that leap, London will be a stepping stone, the city will generate greater revenues than elsewhere, be it the North, Scotland, Wales or Cornwall… which means they need to venture towards that shop window, instead of demanding the shop window be stripped bare and expecting the world to come to them…

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 27, 2023 by adb968008

[BachelorBoy]

On 26/09/2023 at 16:02, Dava said:

Last time I looked, HS1 was mainly owned by the Canadian Teachers Pension Fund.

 

Well, the line is actually owned by HM Government.

 

It sold a thirty-year concession to a consortium of investors, including two Canadian teachers' pension funds.

 

But that was sold in 2017 to another group of investors that includes the (South) Korean state pension fund.

 

 

[melmerby]

1 hour ago, BachelorBoy said:

Well, the line is actually owned by HM Government.

 

It sold a thirty-year concession to a consortium of investors, including two Canadian teachers' pension funds.

 

But that was sold in 2017 to another group of investors that includes the (South) Korean state pension fund.

 

 

Further to that.

It was taken into public ownership in 2009 and the track is operated and maintained by Network Rail.

Edited September 27, 2023 by melmerby

[Dungrange]

21 hours ago, adb968008 said:

of course banning freight during daylight on the wcml is too easy…

 

When would you propose freight be allowed to run on the WCML?  If all freight traffic had to be conveyed overnight, then when would maintenance work be undertaken?  Making the trains run in a different order doesn't solve the capacity issue.  If the Government is serious about the decarbonisation of transport and meeting net zero emissions targets then there is a need for more freight to travel by rail (not less).  Restricting the times that the rail freight market can operate would be wholly counterproductive to the bigger picture of achieving mode shift.

 

21 hours ago, adb968008 said:

Those saying the alternative to wcml capacity is only HS2, there was no other option…. Well actually there was…

 

build a freight only line instead of a HS line… take the freight off wcml frees up the lines to simply slow and fast passenger lines…. However how would you get that idea approved ?

 

That is an option, which may have been considered long ago, but for those living along the line of HS2 who object to the construction of a new high speed line, are they going to be happier with a freight line?  Would they be happy with the construction of a new rail freight terminal near to their homes, since the existing ones near the WCML wouldn't be as well suited to the new freight only alignment if you're banning freight from the WCML?  Some might complain about the lack of a station near them on HS2, but they would complain a lot more if they were told that a new rail freight terminal was being built a mile down the road! 

 

However the main reason this suggestion doesn't make as much sense as HS2 is that as @Pete the Elaner has highlighted, the way to maximise capacity on any rail line is to reduce the differential in train speeds.  Freight and local stopping services can quite happily share the same infrastructure: it's the higher speed limited stop services that cause the capacity problems, so it makes more sense to move the fastest trains somewhere else.  Either way, you're still suggesting the construction of a new line between the London area and the Birmingham area, which is what HS2 is.

 

Ultimately, taking fast passenger services off the WCML frees up the existing lines for slow passenger and freight, which is a better option than taking freight services off the WCML so that fast and slow passenger trains can be mixed.  That's why HS2 is progressing and a freight only alternative isn't: HS2 is the better option.

 

You ask "How would you get that approved?".  Well, to be honest, I think that is part of the problem and it's skewed transport investment for decades, favouring roads over rail and passengers over freight.  For publicly funded projects there is a desire to demonstrate 'Value for Money'.  The main metric here is the Benefit Cost Ratio (BCR).  In essence it is quite simply a ratio of the monetised benefits of the scheme divided by the cost.  If the value is greater than one, then the benefits are worth more than the cost.  How do promoters demonstrate this Value for Money?  One way is to underestimate the cost at the outset, which makes the scheme appear better value for money than it actually is.  I'm not saying that there is a desire to deliberately deceive, but there is a phenomenon known as optimism bias, meaning that those who prepare the initial cost estimates are inclined to underestimate the cost of various unseen risks (eg dealing with objections) and the complexity (and ultimately cost) of some of the engineering works that are ultimately required.

 

However, it's the benefit side of the equation that is perhaps as much at fault here.  There are many benefits that arise from a project such as HS2, but the easiest to monetise is travel time savings, which typically make up the majority of the monetised benefits of most transport schemes in the UK.  How do you maximise the travel time savings?  There are two obvious ways to push this number up. 1) increase the travel time saving per user (which means designing as fast a route as possible) and 2) encourage as many people to use the infrastructure as possible (which is what's driven all the extensions from Birmingham to X, Y and Z).  Ultimately, it appears that scope and costs have both spiralled over time.

 

Make the route as straight as possible with as few stops as possible (to increase travel time savings) then add on extra spurs to various places (to increase the number of trains).  All of these changes deliver on the desire for more benefits, but of course they also push up the cost, which means that even more benefits need to be generated to justify the higher cost.  It becomes a spiral.  I'm not saying that it's wrong to extend the project beyond Birmingham, but I suspect that some of the extensions are not necessarily the correct solutions to addressing transport problems in the north.  In some respects this is one of the differences between HS1 and HS2.  HS1 was never considered to be anything other than a link between London and the Channel Tunnel, whereas HS2 is seen as London to 'The North' with a poorer defined northern end point.

 

The other point though is that many of the benefits of the scheme are not captured in the appraisal process, because there are corresponding costs that are also not included in the current HS2 cost estimates.  The biggest benefit to building HS2 is not the travel time savings but the increased number of available paths on the southern section of the WCML.  Infrastructure on it's own doesn't have an intrinsic benefit.  The benefits arise from it's use and it's not clear exactly what trains will use the additional capacity created on the WCML once HS2 is operational.  This means that the economic benefits of additional local passenger transport aren't captured in the appraisal of HS2 because the provision of these services is outside of the scope of HS2.  Similarly, the economic benefits of increased rail freight on the WCML are not captured because again these services sit elsewhere in the private sector and not part of the scope of HS2.  However, just because these benefits can't be monetised as easily as travel time savings doesn't mean that they are not of value.  Unfortunately, a tendency for decision makers to focus on the BCR means that they tend to focus on speed (because it's an easily monetised benefit) and passengers (because it's easier to forecast how many people may use a line in 20 years time than it is to forecast what freight trains are likely to use the network).

 

The appraisal period used for transport projects in the UK is 60 years.  What freight services are likely be running on your new freight only line in 2085?  It's much easier to state with confidence that HS2 will have a regular non-stop service between London and Birmingham than it is to define what freight trains would use a new freight only route, and therefore even if it were a better option than HS2 (which it isn't), it would be almost impossible to get the Government to commit to funding it because it would be very difficult to demonstrate Value for Money.

[Ian Smeeton]

I have read all through this topic, (but not the HS2 thread)

 

If HS2 had started with the Leeds/  Manchester to Birmingham sections instead of the (lucrative) Birmingham to London section, do you think that there would be a better chance of it being completed to full spec, rather than potentially being cut back.

 

Shades of WCML electrification in the 60s?

 

Regards

 

Ian

[Dungrange]

26 minutes ago, Ian Smeeton said:

If HS2 had started with the Leeds/  Manchester to Birmingham sections instead of the (lucrative) Birmingham to London section, do you think that there would be a better chance of it being completed to full spec, rather than potentially being cut back.

Politically yes.  However, if the project had started at Leeds / Manchester, then the most appropriate solution to capacity issues in the north may not be a separate high speed railway, or certainly not one running in the direction of London.  I think the problem with the HS2 extensions that are under threat is that they are trying to sell the southern solution to the northern problems.

[phil-b259]

On 27/09/2023 at 17:51, Ian Smeeton said:

I have read all through this topic, (but not the HS2 thread)

 

If HS2 had started with the Leeds/  Manchester to Birmingham sections instead of the (lucrative) Birmingham to London section, do you think that there would be a better chance of it being completed to full spec, rather than potentially being cut back.

 

Shades of WCML electrification in the 60s?

 

Regards

 

Ian

 

No - it would end up being a true white elephant and truly kill HS rail in the UK before it had a chance to get going.

 

Why? - well starting in the north would be very poor value for money because even though you have lots of extra capacity between Birmingham and Manchester there would be no way of sending those trains any further south as the southern bit of the WCML is full!

 

By contrast as long as phase 1 is built in its entirety then the opportunity exists to increase services to Manchester etc because the WCML north of Rugby still has some capacity left (which HS2 trains can be slotted into) - but that capacity cannot be used at present because there isn't any space to the south.

 

The electrification of the WCML is a completely different thing! - It did NOT fundamentally increase capacity!  (Remember the REAL rationale for HS2 is capacity increases and not speed increases). That capacity increase in the 1960s which occurred with the modernisation was actually achieved by multiple aspect signalling and NOT the application of 25KV wires)

 

 

Edited September 28, 2023 by phil-b259

[The Stationmaster]

On 26/09/2023 at 20:05, Pete the Elaner said:

 

Bad idea. Why?

Freight has no problem existing with local services. The 2 have a concertina effect as the local service stops to set down/pick up, then quickly accelerates to its line speed, so their average speed is similar.

 

If the solution is to build a new line, it is better to take the least compatible class of train away & that is the long distance one with few stops.

 

The WCML frequently has overnight engineering work. 'Fast' trains which leave Euston after 10pm take 50minutes instead of 30 to reach Milton Keynes because the timetable is designed to cope with line closures without adjustment.

The early morning sleeper trains are regularly late due to engineering work. Sending all freight at this time would compound the problem.

 

 

Freightliner still have a fleet of 90s. Only DB have removed them from service. Most WCML freight is class 66 hauled & has been for several years.

I don't know when you go looking for freights, but I often used to pass 2 of them on my way home from work before my semi-fast switched to the slow lines before stopping at Leighton Buzzard. That was in addition to any heading the other way.

Not entirely correct.  Firstly it depends on the speed of the freight trains and secondly it depen ds on the frequency of station stops for the passenger trains.  The big problem is always going to be speed differentials and taht is exactly what is happening on the WCML.

 

Ideally from a line capacity viewpoint you need to get rid of the most extreme variab nt from the median of overall speeds and sectional running times.  And at the moment the biggest extreme is non-stop passenger trains running at speeds of 100moph or more.  If the permitted speeds of freights was around the 45mph marke they would represeent the opposite extrem but many of them run at 75mph and could run on the Fast Lines if there was more capacity there.  Or the semi-fasts currently squeezed off the Fasts could run there instead of on the Slow lines.

[Ron Ron Ron]

On 27/09/2023 at 16:11, Dungrange said:

 

.........There are two obvious ways to push this number up. 1) increase the travel time saving per user (which means designing as fast a route as possible) and 2) encourage as many people to use the infrastructure as possible (which is what's driven all the extensions from Birmingham to X, Y and Z).  Ultimately, it appears that scope and costs have both spiralled over time........

 

.......I'm not saying that it's wrong to extend the project beyond Birmingham, but I suspect that some of the extensions are not necessarily the correct solutions to addressing transport problems in the north.  In some respects this is one of the differences between HS1 and HS2.  HS1 was never considered to be anything other than a link between London and the Channel Tunnel, whereas HS2 is seen as London to 'The North' with a poorer defined northern end point......

 

 

(My bold)

 

A part of your post and argument is based on a false premise.

 

As conceived, both in the years prior to the official HS2 programme launch and at that programme's inception, HS2 was clearly defined in concept form, to its northern end points.

Manchester, Leeds and Birmingham.

The routes north of Birmingham were never meant to be extensions. 

HS2 was conceived as a whole.

The phasing of the build (into Phase 1, 2 which later on became 2a & 2B) was introduced later on, when the practicalities of planning for how it would be constructed and financed, were identified.

 

Of course, we are in a different place now and are lead to refer to Phase 2A & B as "extending the route", rather than "completing the full route" as it was originally intended.

 

 

 

 

.

[Dungrange]

10 hours ago, Ron Ron Ron said:

As conceived, both in the years prior to the official HS2 programme launch and at that programme's inception, HS2 was clearly defined in concept form, to its northern end points.

Manchester, Leeds and Birmingham.

The routes north of Birmingham were never meant to be extensions. 

HS2 was conceived as a whole..

 

Okay.  As I piece of infrastructure I'm unlikely to use (especially if it terminates at Old Oak Common) I've not followed the development twists of HS2 too closely.  However, there were plenty of railway companies in the Victorian Era, which were named as the A B and C Railway Company, which never got as far as C and sometimes never even got as far a B before they ran out of money and the scope was cut.  Another company was often then formed to 'extend' the original line to what was originally conceived as the target destination. 

 

I suppose my questions would be:

• Is a new high speed line between Birmingham and Leeds really the best answer to the transport problems in Yorkshire?
• Is a new high speed line between Birmingham and Manchester really the best answer to the transport problems in South East Lancashire? 

I believe that the construction of a new line between London and Birmingham is needed and that HS2 is an appropriate / the best solution to the capacity constraints on the southern portion of the current West Coast Mainline (WCML). What are the benefits of continuing construction of the line northwards, where the WCML is less congested?  As two of the largest cities in the UK, Leeds and Manchester make sense as end points and with a high speed line all the way to London it would become easier for residents of those two cities to connect to what someone else referred to as 'the shop window of the UK' (ie London), which is where most international business is conducted.  I suppose the point I'm trying to make is are those legs of the scheme the best solution to the problems in these areas?  My perception (which may be wrong) is that money for 'The North' (which is 200+ miles south of me!) would possibly be better spent on improved east west connectivity rather than a faster trip to London.  However, it would have been more difficult to justify a new line solely between London and Birmingham, because more trains are required to use the line to make a business case for the southern section (ie Phase 1), hence the push to take the line further north.  That is, because of the appraisal process, which places undue emphasis on travel time savings because they are easier to quantify, it becomes easier to justify high speed rail between London and Birmingham, if the line is also stated as serving X, Y and Z.

[pheaton]

On 25/09/2023 at 20:40, adb968008 said:

TPE Mk5’s and loco hauled… now be grateful or we’ll bring the Pacers back…

 

🤪

Not for much longer you havent they are being phased out and returned to the leasing companies

[adb968008]

On 27/09/2023 at 18:27, phil-b259 said:

 

No - it would end up being a true white elephant and truly kill HS rail in the UK before it had a chance to get going.

 

Why? - well starting in the north would be very poor value for money because even though you have lots of extra capacity between Birmingham and Manchester there would be no way of sending those trains any further south as the southern bit of the WCML is full!

 

By contrast as long as phase 1 is built in its entirety then the opportunity exists to increase services to Manchester etc because the WCML north of Rugby still has some capacity left (which HS2 trains can be slotted into) - but that capacity cannot be used at present because there isn't any space to the south.

 

The electrification of the WCML is a completely different thing! - It did NOT fundamentally increase capacity!  (Remember the REAL rationale for HS2 is capacity increases and not speed increases). That capacity increase in the 1960s which occurred with the modernisation was actually achieved by multiple aspect signalling and NOT the application of 25KV wires)

 

 

Exactly how much capacity is needed ?

 

Manchester services were every 20 minutes until covid…. Now they are not… so if anything capacity has opened up. Similar story for other Avanti services.

 

i’m surprised the IET order went ahead, wouldnt it be cheaper for the dft to use now excess 390’s and get some 57/3’s back ?

Edited September 29, 2023 by adb968008

[GordonC]

If HS2 is about capacity on the south end of the WCML, why is quite so much construction work required at Euston? Is it 10 entirely new platforms that are being built and if so, what will happen to the existing platforms when so many of the services will switch over to HS2?

[Ron Ron Ron]

4 hours ago, GordonC said:

If HS2 is about capacity on the south end of the WCML, why is quite so much construction work required at Euston? Is it 10 entirely new platforms that are being built and if so, what will happen to the existing platforms when so many of the services will switch over to HS2?

The HS2 platforms are entirely new additions.

They are entirely separate and segregated tracks from the “classic network” rails into the existing platforms.

From a purely railway track operational perspective, (if built) Euston will be two entirely separate stations, sitting side-by-side.

 

They couldn’t use the existing station platforms, as all the released platform capacity is earmarked for the expansion of local and regional services that the moving of intercity trains onto HS2 will enable.

 

A bit of background.

 

Plan 1 - The initial concept.

The original concept and idea, was to create a new, much larger and more modern Euston station.

That involved replacing the 1960's station, almost in its entirety.

In that plan, it was proposed that the platform and tracks of the existing station and those of the new large extension, would be lowered and extended out beyond what is currently the Euston concourse, towards Euston Road.

 

The new concourse was to be placed above the tracks, with platform access more evenly distributed along the length of the long trains.

The whole design concept described platforms open to the concourse above, to allow lots of natural light to illuminate the whole stain on all levels, down to track level.

There was also wide scope in this concept, for significant over station, commercial development, which could have helped offset the cost.

 

However, when the likely price tag was estimated, plus concerns raised about how much disruption would be caused through a long, phased rebuilding program, the Treasury emphatically said NO !

 

Plan 2 - the first full design.

Instead of a full blown, brand new and larger Euston, HS2 Ltd were only allowed to design a new station building for the HS2 platforms.

The existing 1960's terminus would get a significant update and remodelling, but essentially the tracks and platforms would stay at the current height and location.

Design work for this was quite advanced up to a few years ago, when the Treasury bean counters saw that the estimated cost had mushroomed, so they ordered the plan to be scaled back, with either one or two ? fewer HS2 platforms and pinching a platform from the WCML station.

 

Plan 3 - Billion £ bonfire.

The revised plan with fewer platforms and other cost cutting measures was supposed to save money.

It catastrophically failed, as the cost of the cut back new plan, is turning out to cost more than the scrapped version.

They also wasted a fortune on the previous design, by scrapping it.

 

 

.

.

Edited September 29, 2023 by Ron Ron Ron

[roythebus1]

I've recently uncovered my Euston Station Platform working book I was given back in 1974. It lists all the arrivals, departures, platform occupation times etc and would be worth comparing to today's departures from the RTT site.

 

I was a secondman at Rugby in 1974/75 and saw the old and the new working together. 25kv locos working unfitted freight t 35 mph all the way from Crewe to London seem a bit of an anachronism on the new high speed railway. The old hands would show me where the goods loops used to be at places like Hanslope. Working 1200 ton freightliners at 75 mph  could be challenging at times as could working a 16-car train out of Euston for Holyhead.

 

A few years later a lot of the "spare" steam age capacity such as the up slow line into Rugby was lifted, only to be replaced in more recent times. What surprises me as a casual observer is how many more trains are now running on the WCML under the broadly similar signalling system from the 1960s. Seeing trains running on the fast lines "on the block" through Milton Keynes was interesting.

 

As for HS1, when that was being built I was in the process of seeing it built as I moved from sarf London the Kent. Progress seemed to be rather rapid, watching the groundworks, then the track, then the OHLE being strung up. There was a lot of anti-HS1 campaigning including lorries fitted with huge sound systems playing recordings of TGVs passing at speed to show people how noisy the trains would be. Where I now live is about 2km from HS1 at Mersham. We can occasionally hear the E* trains in the early evening, but the noise is gone within 30 seconds. It's a pity there was no such public demonstrations against the B word lorry park that has been built 4km away next to the M20. that causes more noise, light and air pollution that the railway ever will.

[phil-b259]

1 hour ago, adb968008 said:

Exactly how much capacity is needed ?

 

That is the dilemma.

 

Pre COVID railway the number of rail passengers had going up significantly year on year for around 25 years!

 

Given that growth, plus the fact that no significant new road capacity had been created and the growing awareness of pollution / climate change there was no reason to imagine this pattern of growth would significantly change.

 

Covid of course basically decimated the commuting element of rail travel causing a sudden and massive plummet in passenger numbers the nature of which simply wasn’t ever though possible.

 

Now on the one hand the naysayers will be turning round and saying “see we don’t need HS2 now” -and they might be right for the next 5 - 10 years but what about after that?

 

We KNOW climate change due to man made emissions is happening so there is a moral obligation to try and reduce emissions. Yes electric cars may help but you need a lot less energy and raw materials to make a battery / electric InterCity train which lasts for 40 odd years than enough cars for everyone travelling - so in terms of efficient use of the earths resources it makes sense to still push modal transfer onto rail.

 

But infrastructure projects which span large distances or require complex bridging / tunnelling works (be they road or rail) take years to complete so ideally you don’t want to wait till congestion becomes accrue before you start to do anything about it.

 

So what I would do is this:-

 

(1)  complete phase 1 in is entirety including Euston and the WCML link at the northern end.

(2) Continue with the legal processes / planning / design work for the rest of it.

(3) Pause construction work on phases 2 and 3 for a few years but with a form commitment to resume once the economic outlook is more settled.

(4) Consider moving phase 3 forward so as to provide benefits to Nottingham / Derby / Sheffield so that the widest number of places can benefit from Phase 1 (remembering that the North West will benefit from phase 1 via the connection to the WCML near Lichfield anyway)

(5) With phase 2, look at starting with the Manchester + NPR elements and leave the Crewe - Lichfield section to last.

Edited September 29, 2023 by phil-b259

[Ron Ron Ron]

One of several, original concepts for how a totally brand new Euston station, might look. (From year 2011)

 

 

 

Edited September 29, 2023 by Ron Ron Ron

[Ron Ron Ron]

1 hour ago, Dungrange said:

 

......I suppose my questions would be:

• Is a new high speed line between Birmingham and Leeds really the best answer to the transport problems in Yorkshire?
• Is a new high speed line between Birmingham and Manchester really the best answer to the transport problems in South East Lancashire?  ............

 

.......the point I'm trying to make is are those legs of the scheme the best solution to the problems in these areas?  ......

 

A totally Straw Man argument.

HS2 is not being built to solve any transport issues within Yorkshire or the NW.

Nor is it being built, despite loads of guff and nonsense from various politicians and commentators, for "levelling up".

 

Any benefits that are derived from HS2, to the advantage those causes, are a bonus, or spin-off (if you like) and not the primary motivation or rational for creating the new line.

 

The HS links that would have been created between both Birmingham and Manchester ...and Birmingham and Leeds, were envisioned as future enablers to help generate new economic growth and create new regional links.

An opportunity created by using the spare capacity on the HS2 infrastructure, north of Birmingham.

They were not being included to purely to address present day requirements.

 

 

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