HS2 high-speed London-Birmingham route rail project - discussion

[Oswaldtwistle]

While I don't doubt there is a fair bit of NIMBYism in the opposition movement, you've gotta admit the case against looks pretty darn persausive. In particular the fact it is expensive, not green and is only going to benefit a rich minority

http://stophs2.org/facts



And the Green party has just voted against it too http://stophs2.org/news/1556-green-party-votes-oppose-hs2

 

[JWH]

The benefits will mainly go to London. Three times as many passenger journeys will be towards London, not away from it, so redistribution will end up there.

Surely just as many passenger journeys will be towards London as away from it, otherwise London would rapidly fill up with Mancunians who had bought a one-way ticket?

 

[T & P]

If HS2 was to stop at Birmingham or even Manchester it would not be worth it. If however the intention is to give Britain a real high speed network connecting its major cities all the way to Scotland, then I am convinced it will benefit everyone, and will certainly be green.

Only a complete fool or an anti public transport fundamentalist like Cobbles would choose to fly between Scotland and London if a modern, true high speed rail link was available. Domestic flights would be cut by a massive percentage. That alone is worth the network IMO.

 

[Crispy]

They say that DfT's Rail Package 2 can deliver the same capacity improvements (lack of capacity on the WCML is the main driver for the new railway) and for only £2bn. We just spent £9bn upgrading the WCML. That line is literally bursting at the seams and badly needs the inter-city traffic removed so that local and freight traffic can be let through. What massive leap in capacity can be provided for a mere £2bn? I am very skeptical.

 

[Oswaldtwistle]

Surely just as many passenger journeys will be towards London as away from it, otherwise London would rapidly fill up with Mancunians who had bought a one-way ticket?

I think the point they are trying to make is 'it will be people from the Midlands and North going to London- and returning', rather than ' it will people people from London going to the Midlands and North-and returning.

IYSWIM?

Only a complete fool or an anti public transport fundamentalist like Cobbles would choose to fly between Scotland and London if a modern, true high speed rail link was available. Domestic flights would be cut by a massive percentage. That alone is worth the network IMO.

I realise this is more stick than carrot, but why not tax internal flights more- at least at a level equivilant to the fuel duty you would pay on a car journey of similar length. VERY back of an envelope calculation gives you fuel duty of about £40 each way when driving from London to Edinburgh*. If there was a total tax of £80 on a return Edinburgh to London flight most people would chose the train.

This could be used to further improve the ECML and WCML.

Currently the tax is £24 (£12 each way) and internal flights are already falling. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travelnews/8065918/Domestic-flights-cut-by-a-fifth.html

There is also the issue than HS2 isn't as 'green' as regular railway because high speed travel uses more fuel. It is still greener than flying, but the gains might not be as big as some people hope.




*400 miles which uses about ten gallons @ 6 quid a gallon gives you £60, of which about two-thirds is tax. This is a very rough calculation obviously and assumes a single occupant car.

They say that DfT's Rail Package 2 can deliver the same capacity improvements (lack of capacity on the WCML is the main driver for the new railway) and for only £2bn. We just spent £9bn upgrading the WCML. That line is literally bursting at the seams and badly needs the inter-city traffic removed so that local and freight traffic can be let through. What massive leap in capacity can be provided for a mere £2bn? I am very skeptical.

I agree we need more details on this. I think it is about focussing on pinch points . There is more info here http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/rail/pi/highspeedrail/alternativestudy/pdf/railintervention.pdf but I don't have time to read it now.

 

[Crispy]

Says I need a suername and password to access that dft link

 

[Oswaldtwistle]

Says I need a suername and password to access that dft link

Hmm, try this one

http://webarchive.nationalarchives....ail/alternativestudy/pdf/railintervention.pdf


I'm using a uni computer here, which sometimes lets me onto things I can't get at home because the uni is signed up to certain subscriptions to journals and things

Speaking of uni work.......I think I'd better do some

 

[Crispy]

This report is basically saying "The WCML upgrade was underscoped and underfunded - here's what we need to do to finish it off"

They want to 4 track and grade-separate more of the line, and use longer trains (11 instead of 9 cars). The cost of the new trains is not included in the £2bn figure, as the current Pendolino lease expires in 2022 and will be replaced/upgraded at that time anyway.

 

[Oswaldtwistle]

This report is basically saying "The WCML upgrade was underscoped and underfunded - here's what we need to do to finish it off"

They want to 4 track and grade-separate more of the line, and use longer trains (11 instead of 9 cars).

Would that provide significant extra capacity? Presumably it would create some- would it be enough?

And in any case should the railways follow the 'predict and provide' model which was so disasterous in the road transport sphere?

 

[laptop]

Would that provide significant extra capacity? Presumably it would create some- would it be enough?

Don't know. What's the signalling like?

More 4-track sections would remove bottlenecks - but if the signals on the rest are so far apart they can only run (say) 12 trains per hour through the remaining bottlenecks, they're stuffed.

 

[JWH]

I think the point they are trying to make is 'it will be people from the Midlands and North going to London- and returning', rather than ' it will people people from London going to the Midlands and North-and returning.

IYSWIM?

Aah, OK, that would make sense. But then I don't see why they conclude that's all a gain for London: surely if the suggestion is that Mancs are going to be spending more time and money in London which benefits London, that also means that Mancs are able to save money/time which is a benefit to Manchester?

 

[Hocus Eye.]

From what I have heard the line is only intended to go to just beyond Birmingham. Certainly that map on PDF ends in the Midlands. This one looks like a dead duck to me. The original Railway Mania in he 19th Century was led by private capital and it was not all profit. This new one should not be supported by public money especially in a time when useful public services are being sold off for asset stripping purposes.

 

[Crispy]

The intention is to build in phases, so yes, just to Birmingham first. This will already take a lot of trains off the wcml. Further phases will follow in the future (and should cost less)

 

[Oswaldtwistle]

Aah, OK, that would make sense. But then I don't see why they conclude that's all a gain for London: surely if the suggestion is that Mancs are going to be spending more time and money in London which benefits London, that also means that Mancs are able to save money/time which is a benefit to Manchester?

I think they are talking about wealthy mancs spending their cash in London instead of manchester. And more and more events being held in London only rather than in the regions.

It's a fair point but I don't think it should be the main thrust of the argument against.

 

[JWH]

I think they are talking about wealthy mancs spending their cash in London instead of manchester. And more and more events being held in London only rather than in the regions.

I don't know if the first one is anything more than plucked-out-of-the-air speculation and if the second one is true either - faster travel times between Manchester and London might make it easier for companies to relocate to/stay in Manchester and still be competitive in London. But on this basis, we can imagine any old nonsense for either side of the argument.

ETA: I realise you're not advocating either of those things, just explaining what others might mean by them.

 

[laptop]

I think they are talking about wealthy mancs spending their cash in London instead of manchester.

I think they're talking about going up to Town and finding it full of Manc oiks. What's the point of living in leafy Buckinghamshire, so handy for the Royal Opera, if it's polluted with Northerners?

 

[Oswaldtwistle]

I think they're talking about going up to Town and finding it full of Manc oiks. What's the point of living in leafy Buckinghamshire, so handy for the Royal Opera, if it's polluted with Northerners?

To be fair, in my opening post I admitted their was a fair bit of selfish NIMBYism in some of the opposing arguments. But that doesn't neccesarily make the arguments wrong.

For instance (correct me if I'm wrong) there isn't exactly a flourishing cultural scene in Reading or Milton Keynes as these places tend to be overshadowed by London. HS2 might cause that process to stretch out even further? Like I say, not neccessarily the strongest argument against, but nor is it neccesarily horsesh*t either........

 

[agricola]

IMHO, a high speed line in the UK would only work (in terms of taking passengers off air travel, earning enough revenue to be profitable in its own right and boosting capacity on the existing lines) if it went straight up the East Coast, non-stop from London to Edinburgh where the reduction in journey time would be enough to offset the increased cost of the ticket. The main problem with HS2 as it currently is planned is that, to Brum at least, it is already up against two competing services which are already very good, which will almost certainly be quite a bit cheaper, are not that much slower than HS2 is, and who probably will offer a damn sight more convienience than HS2 will.

 

[laptop]

The main problem with HS2 as it currently is planned is that, to Brum at least, it is already up against two competing services which are already very good, which will almost certainly be quite a bit cheaper, are not that much slower than HS2 is, and who probably will offer a damn sight more convienience than HS2 will.

Anyone seen any figures for the improvement in services to Liverpool and Manchester, peeling off just before Brum?

Ah, yes:

passengers travelling to or from Scotland would be able to use through trains with a saving of 45 minutes from day one

Wikipedia, FWIW

 

[JWH]

there isn't exactly a flourishing cultural scene in Reading or Milton Keynes as these places tend to be overshadowed by London. HS2 might cause that process to stretch out even further?

Or another way to think about it would be that it might allow Mancs to go and see stuff that wasn't coming to Manch in the first place in a single day/night instead of having to spend the money for a day/night's meals and accommodation in London, thus leaving them with more money to spend in Manchester.

 

[agricola]

Anyone seen any figures for the improvement in services to Liverpool and Manchester, peeling off just before Brum?

Thats the thing though - the time gained by a HS2 trip is (in theory at least, and according to your wiki article) 48 minutes (from Manchester all the way on HS2) and 32 minutes (from Liverpool on normal track until the junction with HS2), on current journey times of two hours eight minutes. Will enough people really pay a premium (indeed probably quite a sizeable premium) to save quite a bit less than an hour's travel time?

As I said above, if we are to have a HS railway then it really can only be justified by having a route straight up the East Coast, since everywhere else is too close to London for the expense to be justified. Expanding and electrifying the "normal" network would be a better use of this money.

 

[Crispy]

Do we have a figure for the differnetial between a new HS line and a new 'regular' line?

 

[Oswaldtwistle]

Or another way to think about it would be that it might allow Mancs to go and see stuff that wasn't coming to Manch in the first place in a single day/night instead of having to spend the money for a day/night's meals and accommodation in London, thus leaving them with more money to spend in Manchester.

Yeah that's a perfectly reasonable case to make. Either way I don't think this is the main point here.

It's the cost, and whether this is a good way to spend it. I think not, because it isn't that green and doesn't benefit enough people, and most of those it does benefit are the wealthy.


This is costing £17 billion squid Imagine what even 10% of that could do to our bus services- thousands of new buses, Oyster rolled out nationwide, full real time running information across all digital platforms. I'm going off topic, but how hard would it be to allow people to press a couple of buttons on the TV remote and see where the nearest bus is- in real time? We have state of the art fibre optic connections to most homes in urban areas- and we use it to show repeats of repeats of repeats of fucking Top Gear around the clock and not much more

Just one way I think we could better spend this dough.

 

[JWH]

I think I agree.

 

[Bob_the_lost]

We have state of the art fibre optic connections to most homes in urban areas

Note: We really don't

 

[Oswaldtwistle]

Note: We really don't

Sorry, was thinking of cable TV systems in urban areas. It annoys me that we use them for little more than showing TV repeats from the BBC, ITV and american networks.

Real time bus running on the web and smartphones is starting to appear, but nowhere yet seems to do it via cable TV. I think TV would be better for old people- it's a technology most of them are happy with.

Either way, it's an totally off topic point but was just an example of the sort of thing that would be new and exciting, and benefit everyone, not just a minority.

 

[Greebo]

Seriously Oswaldthistle, I get your point, but there are urban areas which don't even have access to a decent landline - the one supplying this entire council estate is a disgrace.

You want new, exciting, and to benefit everyone? I agree. How about improving public transport so that it's truly usable & affordable in rural areas as well as making the existing networks accessible for everyone (instead of favouring able-bodied people without children or anything to carry).

Meanwhile, the number of flights done within the UK has increased since the 1970s - one clear sign that the long distance rail routes are in urgent need of improvement (and being made more accessible & affordable).

 

[Oswaldtwistle]

Meanwhile, the number of flights done within the UK has increased since the 1970s - one clear sign that the long distance rail routes are in urgent need of improvement (and being made more accessible & affordable).

They have certainly increased since the 1970s but if you look at my link in post five you'll see they have fallen in the last five years.

Improving the existing rail network should help that trend to continue, but I do think my idea of charging internal air passengers an equivilant of petrol/diesel duty is a good one.

I'm certainly in favour of improving railways, just that this is too much to spend on one single line.


Totally agree about rural bus services btw....

 

[davesgcr]

Slightly biased , but with long distance travel on the WCML growing in spades, and there is one "spare" slot /path per hour to serve Manchester, Liverpool, Scotland and the West Midlands - I dont see much option.

And no point in trying to add another pair of tracks onto the existing line - that woud be even more disruptive.

 

[Upchuck]

I understand it wont be ok'd til 2017 and then not finished til 2026. Why such a massive period of time??? I don;t understand!!!