HS2

[phil-b259]

2 hours ago, woodenhead said:

Or it shows how much the original decisions made with regards the Eastern Leg and north of Crewe were political decisions to gain votes over sensibly costed proposals to benefit the population.

 

What we are seeing is a retrenchment to a London to Birmingham and Manchester premier line, they might as well call the operating company London and North Western Railway.

And what’s wrong with that?

 

When the French built their first TGV line they didn’t pretend it could serve the entire south of France with it!

 

Making HS2 serve Leeds was always daft in my mind - but HS2 as a relief to the WCML makes perfect sense.

 

What I would like to see happen is incremental extensions to HS2 like the French did with their TGV sud-eat route, extending HS2 to just outside Preston 

Edited June 7, 2022 by phil-b259

[Flittersnoop]

I should probably know this, but are the projected HS2 trains going to tilt? If not, won't some of the gains due to the new line be lost on Glasgow trains by having to run slower north of Crewe?

[woodenhead]

2 minutes ago, phil-b259 said:

Abd what’s wrong with that?

 

When the French built their first TGV line they didn’t pretend it could serve the entire south of France with it!

 

Making HS2 serve Leeds was always daft in my mind - but HS2 as a relief to the WCML makes perfect sense.

 

What I would like to see happen is incremental extensions to HS2 like the French did with their TGV sud-eat route, extending HS2 to just outside Preston 

Absolutely nothing, It's just another typical make lots of big promises to the North and then whittle them away, sometimes using party politics as a smokescreen to release more whittling.

 

I am fed up with the constant mess we have when it comes to railway investment in the past decade - it's all promises, rehashed promises followed by let downs.

 

You're correct, it should have been a clear route with plans to expand over time, but they didn't do the sensible thing, they did the big gesture thing which they probably knew would never be delivered.

[Dunsignalling]

The illusion at last falls away that HS2 will be any more than a way to provide London with workers who will never be paid enough to live there, from an ever greater catchment area within acceptable commuting times.

 

"The North" will not benefit, because it's no longer going to get that far and what does get finished will just turn Manchester into part of the Midlands.

 

John

 

 

Edited June 7, 2022 by Dunsignalling

[boxbrownie]

1 hour ago, woodenhead said:

Golborne link axed - used cover of Boris's vote for the press release.

 

https://www.independent.co.uk/business/rail-firms-slam-hugely-disappointing-decision-to-axe-ps3bn-hs2-golborne-link-b2095726.html

Just press paranoia making mountains again, if they think the axing of that link which means zero to most of the population will take the heat off all the other crap that’s flying around presently it’s an even slower news day than they thought.

[Dunsignalling]

28 minutes ago, woodenhead said:

Absolutely nothing, It's just another typical make lots of big promises to the North and then whittle them away, sometimes using party politics as a smokescreen to release more whittling.

 

I am fed up with the constant mess we have when it comes to railway investment in the past decade - it's all promises, rehashed promises followed by let downs.

 

You're correct, it should have been a clear route with plans to expand over time, but they didn't do the sensible thing, they did the big gesture thing which they probably knew would never be delivered.

If they'd ever been serious about it, they would have started building from the other end. With London at the end of any transport link, wealth only travels in one direction. 

 

What the north needs is an East West high-speed corridor from coast to coast; Liverpool-Hull via as many major conurbations as possible, with connections to London via the East and West Coast routes.

 

I always suspected HS2 was never going to be much more than a fancy commuter feeder into Crossrail....

 

John

Edited June 7, 2022 by Dunsignalling

[Ron Ron Ron]

26 minutes ago, Flittersnoop said:

I should probably know this, but are the projected HS2 trains going to tilt? If not, won't some of the gains due to the new line be lost on Glasgow trains by having to run slower north of Crewe?

No, they won’t have tilt capability.

There is a NR plan to look at sectional improvements, north of Preston, such as realignments and straightening, possibly a bit of tunnelling, where possible, to mitigate the worst of the speed restrictions.

As with all of these ideas, there’s no concrete plan in place.

 

 

.

[boxbrownie]

49 minutes ago, woodenhead said:

they might as well call the operating company London and North Western Railway.

Has a nice ring to it 🤣

[martin_wynne]

14 minutes ago, Dunsignalling said:

The illusion at last falls away that HS2 will be any more than a way to provide London with workers who will never be paid enough to live there, from an ever greater catchment area within acceptable commuting times.

 

What is the actual work that all these workers will be doing in London?

 

If they went the other way they could maybe help to build the rest of HS2?

 

 

[woodenhead]

34 minutes ago, Flittersnoop said:

I should probably know this, but are the projected HS2 trains going to tilt? If not, won't some of the gains due to the new line be lost on Glasgow trains by having to run slower north of Crewe?

 

3 minutes ago, Ron Ron Ron said:

No, they won’t have tilt capability.

There is a NR plan to look at sectional improvements, north of Preston, such as realignments and straightening, possibly a bit of tunnelling, where possible, to mitigate the worst of the speed restrictions.

As with all of these ideas, there’s no concrete plan in place.

 

 

.

Tilt is dead, it was introduced to allow slow moving freights to co-exist with fast moving passenger trains.  It comes down to the cant set on curves, since the introduction of the Pendolinos such slower traffic has been eliminated to the extent that they can increase the cant to allow faster non tilting trains at the southern end and further north they as Ron Ron Ron says realign and potentially tunnel out the worst curves removing tilt requirements.

 

Tilt was a solution to a problem that the railway has engineered itself away from.

[Ron Ron Ron]

5 minutes ago, Dunsignalling said:

If they'd ever been serious about it, they would have started building from the other end. With London at the end of any transport link, wealth only travels in one direction. ……..

This one has been debunked many times.

Starting construction from Manchester (and Leeds when it was on the table), would have achieved very little, or next to nothing, until the route was completed all the way to London.

HS trains using the completed northern end, would very quickly have to rejoin the congested southern half of the WCML

 

The current build (phase 1) is from Litchfield to Euston, complete with the spur into Birmingham.

It’s being built in its entirety, not starting at one end or the other.

Phases 2a and 2b will also be built in their entirety and give incremental improvements as each phase comes on stream.

London to Birmingham and the NW will get immediate benefits as soon as phase 1 is opened.

In contrast, doing it the other way round would deliver minimal benefits early on, until the route south of Brum would be completed.

 

 

16 minutes ago, Dunsignalling said:

…….What the north needs is an East West high-speed corridor from coast to coast; Liverpool-Hull via as many major conurbations as possible, with connections to London via the East and West Coast routes…….

 

A bit of a contradiction there, perhaps?

 

 

 

.

[corneliuslundie]

I think the thought is not about when the benefits would occur but the fact that it if started at the northern end it would get finished so as to get to London.

If the Golborne link was such a bad idea why wasn't something better worked out several years ago?

This is hardly a brand new project.

Or is it back to the early mismanagement of the project which has been mentioned recently?

Jonathan

[Dunsignalling]

The closer any stage of of the project is to London, the more any cutbacks become unthinkable, however far the goalposts may be shifted.

 

Whilst working from the outer extremities inwards would not have provided much operational benefit to begin with, it would have at least ensured the farther sections actually came to fruition. 

 

As things stand they are unlikely to be revived for another half-century, if ever.

 

My take on it may be cynical, but IMHO is being proven justified.

 

Sorry, but it's looking like we're back to the traditional curse of rail projects with the treasury cutting support during construction, resulting in half the job for three-quarters of the money.

 

John

Edited June 7, 2022 by Dunsignalling

[Ron Ron Ron]

2 hours ago, phil-b259 said:

......When the French built their first TGV line they didn’t pretend it could serve the entire south of France with it!

 

Making HS2 serve Leeds was always daft in my mind - but HS2 as a relief to the WCML makes perfect sense.......

 

Indeed.

Let's just remind ourselves why HS2 was originally conceived and what it was intended to do.

 

In the beginning...

before the politicians got anywhere near it, or even heard of it,

before Lord Adonis thought it would be a spiffing idea to build a new high speed line...

 

Following the troubled WCML route modernisation project (in fact they started as that programme was underway), NR conducted a route study to look at the future capacity requirements for the WCML, looking out way into the middle of this century.

The study looked at the wider issue of the other "intercity" routes to the midlands and north, to consider overlapping requirements.

 

Without going into too much detail, they covered multiple options that expanded out to look at all north south traffic, east coast, west coast and Scotland.

The conclusion was that a separate, new line was the best option.

The case to upgrade this to a HS line was logical and straightforward.

 

The primary function of what was to become HS2, was to take the core intercity passenger traffic, between Manchester, Birmingham and London, off the WCML.

The addition of Leeds, fulfilled a future need for more capacity on the ECML and took advantage of the extra capacity the new line would provide.

They looked at various ways of serving Leeds, including an S shaped route, but settled on the Y, which HS2 adopted.

 

The study concluded that the best outcome, would be to make this a point to point service.

i.e. no intermediate stops, except for Manchester and Birmingham airports.

Heathrow was seriously considered, with various options on how this could be done.

There was no intention to create a "High Speed Network" as it was considered unnecessary.

Connecting services were discounted in order to focus the project on its core requirement.

There was no Crewe interchange (in fact no HS trains were intended to stop there), nor was the East Midlands station or Sheffield part of the original plan..

In fact they were deliberately excluded.

The only additional trains, envisioned to use the line, were services to/from Scotland and those on the London - Liverpool route, running on and off the end of the line in the NW.

 

All the options and permutations, included extending the line to the NE and to Scotland via the WC, connecting services etc, were all dismissed, not for cost saving reasons (budgets were not a consideration as this was a scoping study), but through logical assessment.

Basically the business case is used up by the time you get to Manchester and Leeds and the markets served are relatively small.

 

 

What we got, when the HS2 programme was set up, was quite different.

No routing via Heathrow, or a separate spur.

OOC station and interchange.

Additional stops on the eastern leg of the Y (East Midlands and Sheffield) and later on, the Crewe Interchange.

In addition, as a political sop, HS2 services from Macclesfield and Stoke, joining the HS2 line at Litchfield.

Services to York and beyond. 

 

It looks like HS2 is moving back towards its origins, if not quite in the form as originally intended.

 

 

 

 

.

 

Edited June 7, 2022 by Ron Ron Ron

[phil-b259]

1 hour ago, corneliuslundie said:

I think the thought is not about when the benefits would occur but the fact that it if started at the northern end it would get finished so as to get to London.

If the Golborne link was such a bad idea why wasn't something better worked out several years ago?

This is hardly a brand new project.

Or is it back to the early mismanagement of the project which has been mentioned recently?

Jonathan

 

Because with HS2 committed to building a new line right into Manchester it made sense to use part of that to by-pass a bit more of the WCML.

 

Problem is the Government tried to do it on the cheap - and in order to minimise the amount of new build railway onwards from the Manchester line picked a route which rejoined the WCML far too soon.

 

A recent review spelt this out only too clearly - the Golbourne link only fixes some of the problems and still leaves others in place that constrain capacity.

 

What IS NEEDED (and something the report didn't consider because the Government didn't want them too) is to extend the link and make it a 'Preston link' instead! .

 

That is what any sane Mainland European country would do, but would cost a lot more money...

 

Alas this is a Conservative Government wedded to short termism where cuts, cuts, cuts is the order of the day so it was far easier to dump the link with only the vaguest of promises that a few more sticking plasters (sorry, unspecified 'improvements') to the WCML will suffice

[Mike Storey]

16 minutes ago, Ron Ron Ron said:

 

 

Let's just remind ourselves why HS2 was originally conceived and what it was intended to do.

 

Following the troubled WCML route modernisation project (in fact they started as that programme was underway), NR conducted a route study to look at the future capacity requirements for the WCM, looking out way into the middle of this century.

The study looked at the wider issue of the other "intercity" routes to the midlands and north, to consider overlapping requirements.

 

Without going into too much detail, they covered multiple options that expanded out to look at all north south traffic, east coast, west coast and Scotland.

The conclusion was that a separate, new line was the best option.

The case to upgrade this to a HS line was logical and straightforward.

 

The primary function of what was to become HS2, was to take the core intercity passenger traffic, between Manchester, Birmingham and London, off the WCML.

The addition of Leeds, fulfilled a future need for more capacity on the ECML and took advantage of the extra capacity the new line would provide.

They looked at various ways of serving Leeds, including an S shaped route, but settled on the Y, which HS2 adopted.

 

The study concluded that the best outcome, would be to make this a point to point service.

i.e. no intermediate stops, except for Manchester and Birmingham airports.

Heathrow was seriously considered, with various options on how this could be done.

There was no intention to create a "High Speed Network" as it was considered unnecessary.

Connecting services were discounted in order to focus the project on its core requirement.

There was no Crewe interchange (in fact no HS trains were intended to stop there), nor was the East Midlands station or Sheffield part of the original plan..

In fact they were deliberately excluded.

The only additional trains, envisioned to use the line, were services to/from Scotland and those on the London - Liverpool route, running on and off the end of the line in the NW.

 

All the options and permutations, included extending the line to the NE and to Scotland via the WC, connecting services etc, were all dismissed, not for cost saving reasons (budgets were not a consideration as this was a scoping study), but through logical assessment.

Basically the business case is used up by the time you get to Manchester and Leeds and the markets served are relatively small.

 

It looks like HS2 is moving back towards its origins, if not quite as originally intended.

 

 

Sorry Ron, but I think you are confusing things. The Network Rail study, which reported formally in August 2009, concluded that a High Speed Network was exactly what was needed. It proposed a system that eventually had a through route right into Scotland, via the West Midlands, Manchester and Leeds, with a few branches off, to serve TransPennine and the North east.

 

That was scuppered by the DfT Report, in December 2009, which, despite only a year looking at it (NR had taken four years) concluded that the Y-shaped plan was all that was needed.

 

The issue concerns, as ever, the Cost/Benefit Analysis (CBA) allowed. At that time, no changes had been made to the Green Book, which was the only source of CBA elements allowed in governmental projects. That was essentially a Financial Appraisal. It took little cognizance of social/demographic/economic benefits other than those directly attributable to the works. The Green Book has since been revised, and does allow much greater weight to those matters, which drastically alters the HS2 CBA (depending on which elements proceed). The Transport Secretary of the time (Philip Hammond) even said as much, but the "Special Advisor" (Lord Mawhinney) contradicted his views, and it was his preferences that became the basis for the initial HS2 Act.

 

So, whilst anyone can grandly proclaim that the "business case is used up by the time it gets to Manchester and Leeds", that is far from the truth under the new Green Book allowances (if the Levelling Up agenda is to be believed). The great pity in all this, is that those same changes, in what is allowed for the CBA, have played next to F-all part in the ensuing decisions. As others have said, we are back to short-termist, highly political decision making - everything has become purely about cost, and little is heard of potential benefits, if they don't fit the narrative.

 

It is also a very big fib that France (State and SNCF) did not start out thinking of a High Speed Network - they most certainly did. Plans for LGV Nord, LGV Sud-Est (beyond Lyons) and LGV Ouest were all being submitted long before the Paris-Lyons route was started. The only dispute was how to pay for them, and in what order.

 

 

[phil-b259]

46 minutes ago, Ron Ron Ron said:

In addition, as a political sop, HS2 services from Macclesfield and Stoke, joining the HS2 line at Litchfield.

 

 

 

The Litchfield spur was necessary because when phase 1 got royal ascent there was no guarantee phase 2 would actually be built.

 

Without the Lichfield spur the only traffic that would have been able to use HS2 would be up to 4tph between London and Birmingham!

 

Adding the Litchfield spur was ESSENTIAL as it allowed the diversion of trains to Manchester, Liverpool Preston & Scotland onto phase 1 as soon as that bit was completed

 

Yes it will by largely by-passed by phase 2, but the same could be said of all number of 'temporary' termini of High Speed lines throughout Europe!

[boxbrownie]

2 hours ago, Ron Ron Ron said:

 

 

 

A bit of a contradiction there, perhaps?

 

 

 

.

Just need a train designed by Tesla 😆

[Ron Ron Ron]

1 hour ago, phil-b259 said:

 

The Litchfield spur was necessary because when phase 1 got royal ascent there was no guarantee phase 2 would actually be built.

 

Without the Lichfield spur the only traffic that would have been able to use HS2 would be up to 4tph between London and Birmingham!

 

Adding the Litchfield spur was ESSENTIAL as it allowed the diversion of trains to Manchester, Liverpool Preston & Scotland onto phase 1 as soon as that bit was completed

 

Yes it will by largely by-passed by phase 2, but the same could be said of all number of 'temporary' termini of High Speed lines throughout Europe!

 

You've misread what I was referring to Phil.

I wasn't talking about the Litchfield spur, but about the HS2 train services that are planned to run from Macclesfield and Stoke to join the HS2 line at Litchfield. (they are supposed to start and terminate at Macclesfield).

These have been added after much lobbying, due to these towns, which are currently well served by the current Euston - Piccadilly service, being bypassed by HS2.

It has nothing to do with the reasons why the Litchfield spur is there, but they will be able to take advantage of its presence.

 

 

 

 

.

Edited June 7, 2022 by Ron Ron Ron

[jamie92208]

The tunnelling is still ongoing.  Florence is now 4410 metres into her 16 km dig,  Cecelia is a bit behind at 4176m.  Good progress.

 

Jamie

[Ron Ron Ron]

2 hours ago, Mike Storey said:

 

Sorry Ron, but I think you are confusing things. The Network Rail study, which reported formally in August 2009, concluded that a High Speed Network was exactly what was needed. It proposed a system that eventually had a through route right into Scotland, via the West Midlands, Manchester and Leeds, with a few branches off, to serve TransPennine and the North east.

 

That was scuppered by the DfT Report, in December 2009, which, despite only a year looking at it (NR had taken four years) concluded that the Y-shaped plan was all that was needed......

 

Will that be a later report Mike?

Sounds familiar to the only one I can find in the archives via Google.

 

I most definitely remember the report that concluded almost the opposite and it was before Adonis took up the idea.

Might have been 2005 to 2007 ish? 

The SoS transport was possibly either Ruth Kelly (of "no need for electrification" fame), or more likely Douglas Alexander at the time?

I had a copy on an old computer (long since gone) and unfortunately it wasn't saved.

 

Sadly, other reports, such as the original DfT IEP papers, the DfT "New DMU programme" and the NR report of the feasibility of double decker versus longer trains on the SWML, were lost too.

They were too long to warrant printing off and I didn't save them to another storage medium.

 

Greengauge 21 released an alternative paper (advocating HS rail to everybody's corner shop), a bit later, IIRC.

 

The WCML report was an intriguing read, that looked at the size of the various north south markets and the alternative modes of transport and their respective market shares.

The description of the sort of work needed to widen the WCML, by adding extra HS tracks, with their increased HS clearances, would have been useful ammunition in challenging the anti-HS2, upgrade the existing line, advocates.

There was even a brief mention of MAGLEV, which was quickly dismissed as high risk, very high cost and unproven over such a long network.

 

Again, I clearly remember the case in favour of core intercity markets and regarding the NE as being adequately served by rail and air and too small a market to warrant a new line being extended there.

Contrary to what you say, I well remember (as I was surprised) that extending to Scotland was dismissed, unless done for purely national or political reasons and financed accordingly.

 

Seriously Mike, I'm not senile or imagining this.

It has influenced my thinking ever since about HS2, throughout its gestation and various trials and tribulations

 

 

.

 

 

Edited June 7, 2022 by Ron Ron Ron

[Pete the Elaner]

13 hours ago, Dunsignalling said:

 

What the north needs is an East West high-speed corridor from coast to coast; Liverpool-Hull via as many major conurbations as possible, with connections to London via the East and West Coast routes.

 

 

That is a contradiction.

The more conurbations you serve, the slower trains will be. A high speed link needs to call at less, not more.

Freights can exist more easily with slower services than either can with high speed services, which was the whole point of building HS2 to relieve the WCML.

 

[APOLLO]

15 hours ago, Ron Ron Ron said:

No, they won’t have tilt capability.

There is a NR plan to look at sectional improvements, north of Preston, such as realignments and straightening, possibly a bit of tunnelling, where possible, to mitigate the worst of the speed restrictions.

As with all of these ideas, there’s no concrete plan in place.

 

South of Preston the Pendolinos certainly show their tilt at (the existing) sharp curves at both Winwick and Golborne Junctions. As nearly every Pendolino stops at Wigan NW then the curves here are not a current problem. The proposed 400m trains not stopping at Wigan will have to slow here. Not a lot can be done here to ease the curve as the line is high on an embankment north out of town and at the side of the Town Centre is heavily built up. There IS however some scope for 4 tracking up to Standish, which was planned by the L&NWR but never done. A couple of Bridges (Walkden Ave) were built with 4 track bridge abutments. Lots of houses lineside though whose occupiers would not be pleased.

 

Old photo, bridge is still the same.

 

I still think the old Whelley Loop line round to the east of Wigan connecting to the WCML at Standish, then 4 tracking to Euxton Jcn is a good alternative, though most of the planned (now abandoned) Golborne Link would be needed.

 

As we say in Wigan, I think we'll get sod all.

 

Brit15

Edited June 8, 2022 by APOLLO

[The Stationmaster]

3 hours ago, Pete the Elaner said:

 

That is a contradiction.

The more conurbations you serve, the slower trains will be. A high speed link needs to call at less, not more.

Freights can exist more easily with slower services than either can with high speed services, which was the whole point of building HS2 to relieve the WCML.

 

I'm a bit puzzled there.  The grossly mis-named HS2 is being built to tackle the overall capacity problems (number of available paths) on the WCML.  It does nothing to resolve WCML capacity problems arising from different speed bands - whatever happens non-stop passenger trains will still run faster that non-stop freights and non-stop freights will still catch up stopping passenger trains.  

 

What HS 2 does is reduce demand on the WCML Fast Lines but as long as any fast passenger services remain on the WCML there will still be an impact on capacity because of speed differentials.  And freights will continue to outpace all stations stopping passenger trains although the frequency of station stops has a bearing on exactly what happens there.  However semi-fast passenger currently confined to the Slow Lines on the WCML might well be able to use the Fast Lines if the number of truly fast trains is reduced and that in turn creates capacity for freights on the Slow Lines.  

 

What it will always come down to is speed differentials and stopping train frequency/distance between stops on a mixed traffic railway.  What happens on HS2 in terms of speeds is really irrelevant because all trains will run at the same speed and will have similar stopping patterns.  But adding stops will impact either overall journey time or capacity depending on how they are arranged, but they won't reduce maximum speeds.

 

You can of course have high speeds if you have more stations stops - provided the distance between stops is sufficient to achieve whatever maximum speed you are aiming for.  But what then happens is that trains might the queue as a station stop is approached but that can be overcome - as it has been at Reading where it was once a noticeable problem on 3 minute headways - by the simple expedient of providing an additional platform face (which obviously costs more money) or carefully timing skip stops into the service pattern (but an extra platform face is the best answer).

 

And don't confuse 'high speed' with journey time.  Higher running speeds do of course tend to reduce journey times but there is more to it than that just as intermediate station stops tend to in crease journey times but do not necessarily reduce 'high speeds'.  There have to be horses for courses in any scheme and inevitably politics will always play a part in the sort of world we live in nowadays - just as they have with various LGVs, and stations on them, in France and, very noticeably as related above, in the case of HS2 itself.  BTW when it comes to a so called 'business case' there have been various instances in Britain where those have been written to 'confirm' what amounted to political (lower or upper case 'P') decisions rather than acting as the factor in making a commercial decision.

 

Incidentally never overlook what is defined as 'high speed' in Britain - and that is a line speed greater than 100 mph. 

[Ron Ron Ron]