Edwin_m

The latest proposal for Euston has 11 high-speed and 13 conventional platforms. There are various documents regarding capacity, this one for example shows a minmum headway a shade over 2min and a capacity of 18 trains per hour. This is based on a normal maximum speed of 330km/h with 360km/h being used to recover from delays. The published end-to-end times are based on the same maximum speeds.

Martyn has posted the reason why a stopping train would cost two paths even if its top speed was the same as the non-stopping trains and the station had long accelerating/decelerating tracks with junction points that could be taken on the curve at that top speed. It isn't a problem at OOC because every train will stop, nor at Birmingham International because there is parallel running from the platforms into the branch junction, but it would be a problem for any station where neither of these apply. Strictly speaking you could have fewer than alternate trains calling but each train calling would have to wait there until just before the next one arrived. It would be great if a Calvert interchange could be made to work, though as I suggested above it would be more for journeys to/from the North than London, but I can't see it happening.

That wouldn't work either. The 395 equivalent would be significantly slower than the longer-distance trains, so would take up several high speed paths on the busiest part of the network. This is in addition to the issue I noted above, where every train stopping at a Bucks station uses up two through paths. Even if it had a frequent train service the benefits for Bucks of a station are themselves a bit limited, at least in respect of travel to London. Except for people who live very close to wherever any station would be, the extra time to access a less convenient station would outweigh the time saving on the relatively short journey to Euston.

You are in esteemed company in thinking this - the Roskill Commission in 1968 favoured a site about ten miles to the east. Google for "Cublington Airport" to find out what happened next...

That's only so if you stop every train.

in practice a station in the Chilterns would have a signficant effect on route capacity. If all trains were proposed to stop then there could be two or even more parallel platforms in each direction so that as a train was leaving a platform another was arriving in a different platform. This would have no capacity impact but all trains would have to stop, which would be excessive for the demand on offer and increase the journey time for everyone else. The Japanese option is to have long loops serving the platforms and to have one or more non-stop trains overtaking a stopping train. However a stopping train would require at least two paths, one ahead the non-stopping train(s) and another behind them. This may be less of a problem in Japan because there are several such stations so each stopping path is probably used by a different train on a different part of the line, but with only one new station this wouldn't be possible on HS2 except perhaps between OOC and London or between the two Birmingham stations. The line between OOC and the Birmingham branch junction is likely to be the busiest part of the eventual HS2 network so the result of a station in the Chilterns would be the loss of one train to/from further north for every train that stops. In order to have more stations, HS2 would really need to run through areas of greater population, multiplying the disruption and objections and also abstracting passengers from existing rail routes that serve these areas rather than the intended result bringing in more passengers onto rail from car and (when extended further north) also from air.

If an area is controlled by, say, five signalling centres instead of one, then any of the above can go wrong at any of the five and because there are five of everything the overall rate of incidents will be about five times higher (assuming the centres are similarly equipped apart from size). I would argue that loss of any one of the five would probably screw up the network just as effectively as loss of one centre that covers the whole area.

Presumably any European service to Heathrow would use part of the HS2 Heathrow loop for which provision is being made in the Phase 1 design. However to my mind the problem previously identified still exists, that Heathrow isn't a single place and if you need a shuttle to get to the correct terminal then you might as well interchange at Old Oak and use Crossrail (or Heathrow Express) as the shuttle. All of this assumes of course that Heathrow remains in the same place with largely the same role.

I was referring to the baggage checks, which are purely to do with alleged security of the Tunnel not related to immigration. The UK border checks wouldn't prevent people using a Tunnel train in either direction between UK stations. I don't think France/Belgium imposes similar checks in the other direction but if they do (perhaps because the UK has left the EU?) it would again make it difficult for UK passengers to use the trains between UK stations.

As shown by recent events, the terrorists can create mayhem without resort to bombing trains or anything remotely hi-tech. Because of the structure and pressurisation of an airliner and the fact that it falls out of the sky if seriously damaged, it is possible to kill a lot of people by bombing a plane, not to mention the 9/11 scenario. Hence access to aircraft is quite rightly strictly controlled. However a train is different and while a bomb in the Channel Tunnel would be serious, it would not be in remotely the same league as a bomb on a 747 (as 7/7 and the Madrid bombings demonstrated - and note that both were soft targets rather than high-profile rail operations). In fact it is quite possible more fatalities would be caused by detonating a bomb in the security queue, and more damage to the Tunnel by igniting a HGV. This has already happened twice without any malice aforethought, but did show that the Tunnel itself can be got back up and running quite quickly albeit with single line running in one section. Hence why I consider the security checks for the Eurostar are grossly disproportionate to the risks it poses and seriously damaging to the market for international rail travel beyond London. But I don't believe it will change because the "security ratchet"+ is in operation and the zombie factor* comes into play. +once security has been increased it is almost impossible to reduce it again *the fact that there have been no successful zombie attacks proves that our expensive and annoying anti-zombie precautions are worthwhile.

Euston Cross would be north of the British Library. It is proposed to have a cut-and-cover concourse under a road (Brill place I presume) with the actual platforms in bored tunnels which would probably be deeper. From the sketches in Modern Railways they seem to have taken account of the numerous tunnels in the area. HS2 classic-compatible services would terminate at the existing Euston station which would change relatively little, and taking them off HS2 in the Queens Park area would allow regional domestic services to replace them from here onwards. "Captive" high speed stock would pick up and drop off at Euston before working through to a turnback and servicing facility somewhere on HS1. I think the "regional" version of Crossrail 2 would do something similar, with a combined station accessed from Euston at one end and KX/SP at the other. Hopefully the two proposals are also compatible with each other. As Martyn suggests, how international services fit into this proposal depends on the future security rules. To me running them via Euston Cross only makes sense if we adopt the precedent of every other railway in the world and allow them to carry both domestic and international services without additional security checks. In that case they could be simple extensions of trains coming in from further north - otherwise they would have to run as additional services which would mean the section around Old Oak limits the capacity of the national high speed network. Either way there is some chance of terminating capacity being freed up at St Pancras, which could be used for extra MML platforms or perhaps something like a shuttle to wherever the main airport is by then.

The biggest problem with converting to European gauge is likely to be the platforms. They need to be set further back and so can't be used by UK gauge trains as the gap is too big. So you have to factor in some fairly horrendous logistics including significant suspension of service during the conversion and/or through services having to be split for long periods with passengers changing trains en route.

Oddly enough I had a query yesterday from a colleague (with no particular rail background) who was doing a traffic assessment for a new housing development that would be accessed via an existing level crossing. He wanted to know what the rules are on whether this would require a crossing upgrade. So it does get considered. some of the time at least.

I read of some being installed (Waterloo approaches???) which were a stencil with a plain white/red circle immediately behind, so they looked like a road sign but were still to some extent legible when covered with dirt, snow or graffiti. Or did I imagine this?

No problem with speeding up, within reason, as long as people can and do stop at the lights if they start flashing (and obviously also take account of any other road-related hazards). In fact in some ways slowing down is more dangerous as you pass over the crossing more slowly and are at greater risk of stalling on it.

"Stop look and listen" for a road vehicle arguably makes things more dangerous, because of the risk of starting off in the wrong gear and stalling on the crossing, and also the false sense of security if the driver doesn't see or hear anything.

If the site is suitable then bridge replacement may be viable on a purely financial case leaving aside the safety benefits. A bridge probably costs more than replacing/upgrading a level crossing but it lasts a lot longer and does not cause operational incidents. The difficulty is often that there is not space for a bridge or local landowners/residents object to one.

Yes I agree that rail accident statistics are a minefield, particularly as the events in question are so rare as not to be statistically significant and the human brain is not good at dealing with very unlikely but very severe risks. Better minds than I have worked to produce things like the RSSB risk model which attempts to get round this type of problem and presents the best estimate of the risk from a range of sources based on comprehensive data over quite a long period of time.

Interesting thought Mike but I'm not sure I agree. Level crossings have risen to the top of the list of risks because introduction of TPWS and various other measures have pushed SPADs well down from the top position. I don't recall any accident for many years where lack of block controls was contributory, whereas fatal level crossing accidents are all too frequent. Absolute block will be largely eliminated within the next couple of decades with the busiest sections where it is still used probably going first. Although the victim is sometimes to blame, Moreton-on-Lugg demonstrates that isn't always the case, and the fact remains that if the railway wasn't there there would be no accident so (donning a tin hat) I'd suggest there is a degree of moral responsbility to protect road users from their own stupidity. Just as when driving on the road you will do your best to stop if someone runs out in front, and would share the blame if you didn't, even though any impact would be considered to be primarily the pedestrian's fault. Over the past few years we've had level crossing accidents where the train has been derailed, usually if a particularly heavy road vehicle is involved, but fortunately only at low train speeds so resulting in few casualties. Hixon, Lockington and Great Heck demonstrate that a road vehicle collision (not necessarily on a level crossing) has the potential to produce the same sort of casualty numbers as a serious train collision. Although things were done to address the causes of all three, there is still the scope for a series of unlucky coincidences to result in a similar event.

True, but the statistics do show that full barrier crossings are much safer than the various automatic types and indeed half barriers are much safer than lights with no barriers. I agree there is potentially a big issue with user-worked crossings simply because there are so many of them.

As hinted by Gary above, full barrier crossings are always monitored and an operator (or in more recent installations a radar-type detector) confirms that the crossing is clear before the signals are cleared for a train. Therefore there would have to be a failure on the part of the railway before someone trapped between full barriers can be struck by a train. However someone jumping over or crashing through the barriers after the signals have been cleared would not be protected in this way. This has the side-effect that the crossing stays closed to the road a lot longer than a half barrier, because it needs to be closed in time for the train to get a clear run through on green signals.

We've been here before. http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/33312-mk1-ck-coach-windows/ As I understand it, it was for routine transport of people in stretchers rather than any kind of emergency access. This doesn't seem to have been very common and with the advent of better road ambulances and better roads it presumably stopped being needed quite soon afterwards.

You'd need a vehicle of the right "gauge" and steer very carefully to stay between the guides. I suspect they were referring to the damage that might result if a lorry tyre rode over part of the guideway, possibly leading to a bus "derailment".

They would have the facility to replace the signal on the approach side of the crossing to danger even if it normally works automatically. I guess the standard procedure would be to replace this to danger and keep it so until someone could get to the crossing and work it via the local controls. It would probably still be necessary to stop each train at the approach signal to get confirmation from the person at the crossing that the barriers are down.

The full barrier crossings are interlocked with the signals so if the train is to have a clear run through they have to be closed (and the operator work a control to confirm it is clear of obstruction) well before it arrives. Hence the road closure times are a lot longer than with a half barrier which isn't so interlocked and just closes when the train approaches. Full barrier crossings therefore mean more inconvenience to road users. Recently NR has started installing crossings with radar and laser obstacle detection. In theory these remove the need for a human operator to supervise every cycle, though in practice they don't seem to be working too well yet, especially in snowy weather. For the obstacle detection to serve any useful purpose they must also be interlocked with the signals and therefore also have longer road closure times than automatic half barriers.