HS2

[Ravenser]

2 hours ago, Mike Storey said:

 

Again, I applaud your ambitions, but the reality so far, is rather different. Please read the attached (developed from a report commissioned from Jacobs) which formed part of the Business Case submitted to govt this summer. These ideas bear little relation to the original Supertram proposals. The plans largely supplement, rather than replace, existing rail lines, with the main exception in Phase 1 being Leeds to Bradford! An awful lot of re-design will be needed if your scenario is to be met. Furthermore, the plan states that, if "approval" were to be given this year, then construction could start in the second half of this decade. You may not agree, but I honestly believe that is highly fanciful, given all the hurdles that must be crossed first.

 

https://ehq-production-europe.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/19f92794afcfd08a028c58636382729ad5cb9228/original/1611847511/Mass_Transit_Vision_2040_-_2_page_spreads.pdf_4c037ef645e631e67d24deba5c0f4228?X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Credential=AKIAIBJCUKKD4ZO4WUUA%2F20211203%2Feu-west-1%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20211203T210606Z&X-Amz-Expires=300&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Signature=9baefc4abce63d9fd867bff300420572310c160d079f9904c49791d83d481606

 

Incidentally, the original light rail plans (people movers) for East London were drawn up by Travis Morgan, commissioned in 1972 by the GLC. The DLR as we know it, did not get approved until the 80's, and was taken forward by the newly formed  LDDC, and not LUL. This extract, from Wkipedia, summarises the early days neatly, but a longer version is in one of the books I have on the DLR.

 

As early as 1972, consideration was given to how to redevelop the moribund Docklands. Travis Morgan & Partners were commissioned by the London Docklands Study Team to consider the issue. They proposed, among other recommendations, that a "minitram" people-mover system capable of carrying up to 20 people in each unit should be constructed to connect the Docklands with the planned Fleet line tube railway terminus at Fenchurch Street railway station. The Greater London Council formed a Docklands Joint Committee with the Boroughs of Greenwich, Lewisham, Newham, Southwark and Tower Hamlets in 1974 to undertake the redevelopment of the area. A light railway system was envisaged, terminating either at Tower Hill tube station or at nearby Fenchurch Street, but both options were seen as too expensive. Nonetheless, in 1976 another report proposed a conventional tube railway for the area and London Transport obtained Parliamentary powers to build a line from Charing Cross station to Fenchurch Street, Surrey Docks (now Surrey Quays railway station), the Isle of Dogs, North Greenwich and Custom House to Woolwich Arsenal. This was intended to be the second stage of the Fleet line – which had been renamed the Jubilee line, the first stage of which opened in 1979 from Stanmore to Charing Cross. However, when the Thatcher Government came to power, the plans to extend the Jubilee line were halted and the new government insisted that a lower-cost option should be pursued.

 

 

The link does not seem to work, unfortunately. 

 

I assume "Leeds-Bradford" is the idea of  using the old 4 track formation out of Leeds to reinstate intermediate stations between Leeds and Shipley served by 2 new metro tracks alongside Network Rail?

 

The obvious candidates for taking out of the western approaches at Leeds are the Harrogate line local services (which would presumably need some kind of tram-train since some Network Rail services will need to reach Harrogate)  and the line to Castleford and Pontefact

 

If we are in a world where people talk seriously of boring under Bradford, then an underground section beneath the centre of Leeds (ie the Liverpool/Newcastle model) might be possible. I don't think there's much tunnelling on Phase 2a of HS2, so it would keep in existance the tunnelling teams who have moved from Crossrail to Phase 1 , who will be needed for Phase 2b and NPR

 

Realistically, we might hope for a W Yorks bill to pass after the next general election (say 2026-7 ) with construction starting before the general election due in 2029 (Govt would want to go into an election with works visibly under way) .

 

That then leaves a full decade to get the initial system built and running before any possible HS2 trains could reach Leeds. As I understand it, under no scenario was HS2 East ever going to make it to Leeds before 2040, and the pre IRP estimate was construction from 2035-2042

 

I agree moving earth by 2025 is over optimistic

[ess1uk]

8 hours ago, Ravenser said:

 

The obvious candidates for taking out of the western approaches at Leeds are the Harrogate line local services (which would presumably need some kind of tram-train since some Network Rail services will need to reach Harrogate) 

 

You will need to leave the direct London to Harrogate services.

[APOLLO]

21 minutes ago, ess1uk said:

You will need to leave the direct London to Harrogate services.

 

Why ? What's special about Harrogate ? Is a tram not good enough for them ?

 

It's all pie in the sky discussions / arguments without detailed plans. (Which exist for Birmingham - Crewe - Piccadilly - Golborne Spur and the now abandoned eastern leg).

 

Brit15

[Edwin_m]

12 hours ago, APOLLO said:

Talking of plans for the northern bits - are there any ? I've searched all over the web and I can't seem to find anything at all.

Options will have been looked at and design work done on some of them, to a level to establish feasibility and an approximate estimate of costs.  But at this stage of a study these are kept strictly confidential, otherwise if they were released people would start claiming property blight when one of the routes impacted on their houses etc.  This might end up costing the taxpayer large sums, much of it for options that weren't ultimately taken up.  If properties were purchased then they might end up being sold again and the money recovered, but not the amount spent by the project in undertaking the purchase and sale.  

 

Normally options are whittled down to a preferred route, which is published prior to consultation and arrangements for compensation for property blight brought in at the same time.   

[APOLLO]

34 minutes ago, Edwin_m said:

Options will have been looked at and design work done on some of them, to a level to establish feasibility and an approximate estimate of costs.  But at this stage of a study these are kept strictly confidential, otherwise if they were released people would start claiming property blight when one of the routes impacted on their houses etc.  This might end up costing the taxpayer large sums, much of it for options that weren't ultimately taken up.  If properties were purchased then they might end up being sold again and the money recovered, but not the amount spent by the project in undertaking the purchase and sale.  

 

Normally options are whittled down to a preferred route, which is published prior to consultation and arrangements for compensation for property blight brought in at the same time.   

 

Thanks - seems to make sense.

 

Brit15

[caradoc]

16 hours ago, Ravenser said:

MML are already running services from St Pancras beyond Sheffield to Leeds - Beeching's decision to concentrate West Yorks on Kings Cross and cut the Midland back to Sheffield is already crumbling

 

Is that correct ? When they still had HSTs the only East Midlands through services beyond Sheffield were a few Up trains from Leeds in the morning and a few Down trains back in the evening, which IIRC ran mainly because the sets were maintained at Neville Hill. In the current EMR TT there is just one train to Leeds, Mon-Fri only, the 1632 from St Pancras, and this only returns as far as Derby. 

 

[Mike Storey]

12 hours ago, Ravenser said:

 

 

The link does not seem to work, unfortunately. 

 

I assume "Leeds-Bradford" is the idea of  using the old 4 track formation out of Leeds to reinstate intermediate stations between Leeds and Shipley served by 2 new metro tracks alongside Network Rail?

 

The obvious candidates for taking out of the western approaches at Leeds are the Harrogate line local services (which would presumably need some kind of tram-train since some Network Rail services will need to reach Harrogate)  and the line to Castleford and Pontefact

 

If we are in a world where people talk seriously of boring under Bradford, then an underground section beneath the centre of Leeds (ie the Liverpool/Newcastle model) might be possible. I don't think there's much tunnelling on Phase 2a of HS2, so it would keep in existance the tunnelling teams who have moved from Crossrail to Phase 1 , who will be needed for Phase 2b and NPR

 

Realistically, we might hope for a W Yorks bill to pass after the next general election (say 2026-7 ) with construction starting before the general election due in 2029 (Govt would want to go into an election with works visibly under way) .

 

That then leaves a full decade to get the initial system built and running before any possible HS2 trains could reach Leeds. As I understand it, under no scenario was HS2 East ever going to make it to Leeds before 2040, and the pre IRP estimate was construction from 2035-2042

 

I agree moving earth by 2025 is over optimistic

 

Try this? If it works, it will answer some of those questions.

 

https://www.westyorks-ca.gov.uk/improving-transport/connectivity/

 

 

Edited December 4, 2021 by Mike Storey

[Mike Storey]

3 hours ago, Edwin_m said:

Options will have been looked at and design work done on some of them, to a level to establish feasibility and an approximate estimate of costs.  But at this stage of a study these are kept strictly confidential, otherwise if they were released people would start claiming property blight when one of the routes impacted on their houses etc.  This might end up costing the taxpayer large sums, much of it for options that weren't ultimately taken up.  If properties were purchased then they might end up being sold again and the money recovered, but not the amount spent by the project in undertaking the purchase and sale.  

 

Normally options are whittled down to a preferred route, which is published prior to consultation and arrangements for compensation for property blight brought in at the same time.   

 

Not really true Edwin, is it? Although the pain of blight is true, there are multiple examples of schemes being promoted with several route options, for consultation, before the final route is chosen. The latest examples are East West Rail, particularly East of Bedford, HS2 in various parts, most notably in and around Sheffield, and NPR, where three primary route choices were published.

 

The design work that Apollo may be seeking, for the "Northern bits", may be HS2 north of Sheffield and/or Trans Pennine / NPR, for which design work had been done, but which is now largely mute. There is also the question of amalgamating this with the recently published plans for West Yorks Mass Transit, which are in themselves just aspirations for various routes. So, no plans exist as yet for that, but I am sure, once the Review announced produces its initial reports, there will be several options offered for consultation before a final decision is made. I can see multiple problems arising in Leeds particularly, from the road lobby.

[ess1uk]

5 hours ago, APOLLO said:

 

Why ? What's special about Harrogate ? Is a tram not good enough for them ?

 

 

Why? Because people like their direct trains, no changing.

I went to college in Harrogate and the direct train was great.

 

 

[APOLLO]

3 minutes ago, ess1uk said:

Why? Because people like their direct trains, no changing.

I went to college in Harrogate and the direct train was great.

 

 

 

I was being a bit flippant of course. Nice place Harrogate.

 

Brit15

[Mike Storey]

Dear All

 

This thread is drifting into discussion about NPR, West Yorks Mass Transit and other stuff, as well as HS2 construction and design, which is entirely understandable, given that the IRP has done exactly that!

 

However, I wanted to check that you were all happy to continue along this vein?

 

There is a thread for Trans Pennine Electrification and one or two others slightly overlap, but I cannot see a way to separate all these out, as they now appear to be so interdependent?

 

Thoughts? For example, should I re-name the thread? Or should we separate out existing / confirmed HS2 works and design to this thread, and start a new thread for HS2 East / NPR / West Yorks Mass Transit?

[ess1uk]

Use the other threads and try to keep this as HS2 as possible, though as you say they are intertwined 

[jamie92208]

I agree, keep this thread flr announced parts of HS2. The NPR and TransPennine threads cover the other stuff. The works for the bits of HS2 that are being built are starti g to get i teresti g with pictures of the works themselves.  If firm p,ans for the proposed Manchester to West Yorks leg of HS2 are published then they could come back here.

 

Jamie

[Edwin_m]

37 minutes ago, Mike Storey said:

 

Not really true Edwin, is it? Although the pain of blight is true, there are multiple examples of schemes being promoted with several route options, for consultation, before the final route is chosen. The latest examples are East West Rail, particularly East of Bedford, HS2 in various parts, most notably in and around Sheffield, and NPR, where three primary route choices were published.

 

The design work that Apollo may be seeking, for the "Northern bits", may be HS2 north of Sheffield and/or Trans Pennine / NPR, for which design work had been done, but which is now largely mute. There is also the question of amalgamating this with the recently published plans for West Yorks Mass Transit, which are in themselves just aspirations for various routes. So, no plans exist as yet for that, but I am sure, once the Review announced produces its initial reports, there will be several options offered for consultation before a final decision is made. I can see multiple problems arising in Leeds particularly, from the road lobby.

I'm probably guilty of oversimplifying here.  Sometimes multiple options are made public, but in the case of EWR they were no more than shaded areas on maps showing that the option would run somewhere through the shaded area.  And when they got specific, they managed to score a massive own goal with Bedford.  

 

As of just now, HS2 north of Sheffield is still shown on their interactive map and the plans are still on gov.uk.  How long it remains there is another question.  

 

https://www.hs2.org.uk/in-your-area/map/#11/53.2597/-1.2397/filter=hs2-stations,hs2-network

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/hs2-phase-2b-crewe-to-manchester-and-the-west-midlands-to-leeds#west-midlands-to-leeds-route-maps

 

At the risk of going off-topic again, I'm aware that a Manchester-Marsden-Bradford option was being talked about a year or two back as a means of serving both Bradford and Huddersfield, so I would expect early stage plans for Manchester-Marsden to exist already.  

[jamie92208]

IIRC the IRP specifically says that the route protections for the whole Toton to Leeds and Church Fenton stretch are to remain in place.

 

Jamie

Edited December 4, 2021 by jamie92208

[Edwin_m]

9 minutes ago, jamie92208 said:

IIRC the IRP specifically says that the route protections for the whole Toton to Leeds and Church Fenton stretch are to remain in place.

 

Jamie

Indeed it did, pending a review of options for Leeds.  

[Ravenser]

5 hours ago, caradoc said:

 

Is that correct ? When they still had HSTs the only East Midlands through services beyond Sheffield were a few Up trains from Leeds in the morning and a few Down trains back in the evening, which IIRC ran mainly because the sets were maintained at Neville Hill. In the current EMR TT there is just one train to Leeds, Mon-Fri only, the 1632 from St Pancras, and this only returns as far as Derby. 

 

 

 

I'm not up to speed on the current timetable, which will be affected by Covid. I was aware of a number of EMT services going through to Leeds , but didn't mean to imply a full service.

 

Whether this was ORCATS raiding , or simply revenue-carrying stock moves, it was still MML presence north of Sheffield into Leeds, and represents some aspiration to be involved with West Yorks as well as South Yorks - hence my comment about a crumbling of the Beeching-era position "MML does not go north of Sheffield / W Yorks goes to KX" 

 

And of course these are extra moves imposed on the western approach to Leeds City at a busy period of the day, not to mention more pressure on the congested section from Wakefield to Leeds...

 

If you take those EMT movements and add the paths taken by the current 4 trains a day each way to Bradford Forster Square then I reckoned you were most of the way to the paths needed through the western approach to Leeds to accomodate hourly extension of HS2 East trains from Leeds City to Bradford Interchange.

 

Longer term I can see Wakefield's rather lavish provision of  2 KX expresses, 2 XC services and a couple of locals each hour in each direction to /from Leeds being trimmed. The "Hambleton route" is clearly going to come into existence at some point - once the wires are out to Micklefield Jnc courtesy of Transpennine electrification the gap is down to 5 miles, with the possibility of future electrification to Selby and Hull to close it. Once it exists, the temptation to use it to relieve the western approach will become overwhelming . A 140mph ECML to Hambleton, and possibly a 140mph Transpenine route as well will improve journey times compared with the Wakefield route , which is most unlikely to see higher line speeds

[Ravenser]

4 hours ago, Mike Storey said:

 

Try this? If it works, it will answer some of those questions.

 

https://www.westyorks-ca.gov.uk/improving-transport/connectivity/

 

 

 

 

Useful, and certainly ambitious.

 

My impression is that the distances involved mean something more akin to a German S-bahn will be needed , rather than a super-tram in the Sheffield/Croydon/Nottingham mode.

 

The other point is that the mess of scrappy non-electrified lines serving Pontefract, Normanton, Fearherstone ,Wakefield Castleford is explicitly targetted, so the idea of taking that route out of NR to relieve the western approaches at Leeds has at least some preparatory work.

 

Bradford must be given something - the north of Bradford/North Leeds segments look as if they may be the best candidates. Leeds - Horsforth-Yeadon -Otley might be strong enough to be first phase

 

They envisage multiple cross-Bradford routes as well as several cross-Leeds routes while being terribly vague and high-level as to how this is actually to be done

 

West Yorks Mass Transit will clearly need its own thread in due course

Edited December 4, 2021 by Ravenser

[Mike Storey]

1 hour ago, Ravenser said:

 

And of course these are extra moves imposed on the western approach to Leeds City at a busy period of the day, not to mention more pressure on the congested section from Wakefield to Leeds...

 

If you take those EMT movements and add the paths taken by the current 4 trains a day each way to Bradford Forster Square then I reckoned you were most of the way to the paths needed through the western approach to Leeds to accomodate hourly extension of HS2 East trains from Leeds City to Bradford Interchange.

 

Longer term I can see Wakefield's rather lavish provision of  2 KX expresses, 2 XC services and a couple of locals each hour in each direction to /from Leeds being trimmed. The "Hambleton route" is clearly going to come into existence at some point - once the wires are out to Micklefield Jnc courtesy of Transpennine electrification the gap is down to 5 miles, with the possibility of future electrification to Selby and Hull to close it. Once it exists, the temptation to use it to relieve the western approach will become overwhelming . A 140mph ECML to Hambleton, and possibly a 140mph Transpenine route as well will improve journey times compared with the Wakefield route , which is most unlikely to see higher line speeds

 

I don't think 3 to 4 paths per day, each way, adds up to anywhere near an hourly service to Bradford, even if that were deemed acceptable. Plus, it would appear that a key aspiration of W Yorks Mass Transit is to intensify the local service Leeds - Bradford; not sure how that will work without new infrastructure.

 

The relief of the west by incursions at the east end of Leeds City will require far more than just re-routing, especially if Neville Hill depot remains where it is. The IPR suggests "some" 4 tracking will be needed between York and Leeds, but is, of course, non-specific. If it involves the 4 tracking of the section between Leeds and just short of Neville Hill, that would be a huge benefit, but might cost a small fortune. I wonder if they will bite the bullet.

 

 

[Mike Storey]

Thanks for the initial reactions to splitting the thread. I will wait for a few more before concluding, but these are the only other threads I could find that would seem to provide alternative fora. Even in these, debate has wandered a little into HS2 territory too. I can find no thread that covers West Yorks Mass Transit - does anyone know of one? Otherwise, I can start one.

 

Again, I suggest a thread for HS2 work being done or confirmed, and a thread for all of the rest - to include HS2 East, NPR and Mass Transit? Or use the IRP thread below, for the rest?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[corneliuslundie]

The IRP thread seems to best to me.  We can then fantasise to our hearts' content based on a document probably best put in the fiction shelf of the local library.

Jonathan

[Ravenser]

NPR should go in the Transpennine thread

 

I would be inclined to keep all HS2 matters in this thread.

 

West Yorks Mass Transit will need its own thread in due course

[Northmoor]

4 hours ago, Ravenser said:

NPR should go in the Transpennine thread

 

I would be inclined to keep all HS2 matters in this thread.

 

West Yorks Mass Transit will need its own thread in due course

West Yorks Mass Transit already has its own thread - it's called "Imaginary Railways".

[Mike Storey]

Thank you for the various responses, which all point to keeping all non-HS2 matters out of this thread.

 

So, I have created a thread for West Yorks Mass Transit:

 

 

I suggest any further comments on NPR (other than HS2 to Sheffield/Leeds?) go to the Trans Pennine Electrification thread. There did not seem to be an appetite for creating a new NPR thread.

 

I am not sure how we separate out comments from the MML Electrification thread, so will just presume we will see comments in HS2 and MML?

 

As for the IRP thread, I guess we will just have to wait to see how that develops.

 

Regards, Mike

Edited December 5, 2021 by Mike Storey

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