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

davesgcr said:
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.
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Would reopening the GCR do much to alleviate things?
 
agricola said:
Would reopening the GCR do much to alleviate things?
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Parts of HS2 are using the GCR trackbed - though they'll need to smooth out the corners.

I guess that's why it's cheaper to build fresh from (roughly) the Universities line northward.
 
davesgcr said:
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
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Well I see what you are trying to say...but

Traffic has grown on the M6- I don't see much option but building another motorway
Demand has grown at Heathrow- I don't see much option but building another runway
Even...
Traffic has grown in Central London- I don't see much option but building the ringways


Do you see where I'm coming from- if you predict, should you always provide?

Or should you travel less? I'm **NOT** saying we should cut travel, just stop or at least slow the rate of increase, and try to shorten journeys.

Brum and Manc are the 14th and 15th largest urban areas in the EU- bigger than most capital cities. Shouldn't they be able to provide most of the business, financial, legal, retail and leisure needs of the people of the midlands and the north-west, without the need to keep scurrying down to London for everything?
 
Looks like the age of "predict and provide" (aka Margaret's Great Car Economy of the 80's) is over - much of planned rail growth is to do with modal shift - e.g the steady decline in some domestic air traffic such as Manchster - SE etc , and someone has to think about peak oil and so on. Urban commuting growth encouraged by HSL - e.g you could run 6 stopping trains an hour Coventry - Birmingham with space vacated by HS2 on the WCML. Freight growth - especially intermodal traffic (prediceted to increase)

Its a hard call to make - but I think its a real strategic project.
 
davesgcr said:
Looks like the age of "predict and provide" (aka Margaret's Great Car Economy of the 80's) is over - much of planned rail growth is to do with modal shift - e.g the steady decline in some domestic air traffic such as Manchster - SE etc , and someone has to think about peak oil and so on. Urban commuting growth encouraged by HSL - e.g you could run 6 stopping trains an hour Coventry - Birmingham with space vacated by HS2 on the WCML. Freight growth - especially intermodal traffic (prediceted to increase)

Its a hard call to make - but I think its a real strategic project.
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We aren't going to agree on this, and that's fine of course. But in terms of peak oil and modal shift- how green is this? Not very from what I've read. The electricity has to be generated somehow, and HS2 will need lots of it.

You call this a strategic project, but who will benefit from it in terms of areas? Even if we extend all the way to Scotland there will be no benefit to the people of cornwall, east anglia, wales or NI.
 
Oswaldtwistle said:
You call this a strategic project, but who will benefit from it in terms of areas? Even if we extend all the way to Scotland there will be no benefit to the people of cornwall, east anglia, wales or NI.
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No project aims to benefit everyone. No rail project on the mainland is going to directly benefit Norn Iron. Taking pressure off existing rail lines to the Midlands and Scotland will benefit East Anglia.
 
JWH said:
No project aims to benefit everyone. No rail project on the mainland is going to directly benefit Norn Iron.
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Sure. Arguably I shouldn't have included NI in that list- it was pretty obvious. But a national bus improvment scheme, an Oyster roll out and a national cycling strategy spending just a fraction of that £17 billion *could* benefit everyone.

Taking pressure off existing rail lines to the Midlands and Scotland will benefit East Anglia.
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I don't see how? (depending what you define as 'East Anglia'- it might benefit Peterborough very indirectly)
 
Agreed it cant really benefit East Anglia - but that area is unlikely to ever need a HS3 link (though its a candidate for more trackage alongside the Lea valley and out to Chelmsford to deal with its own issues) - other areas , like the Avon Area , Wessex etc might eventually benefit from a "mini" HS route in future years.

Tne WCML is the busiest and most complicated to plan and operate mixed traffic rail route in Western Europe , hence it is crying out for relief and whatever way you cut it , rail is more "green" than any other transport mode operated in a public mode - about 4% of total emissions for 1.3 billion journeys per annum.
 
T & P said:
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.
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Well, if it can reduce the rail travel time between London and Edinburgh/Glasgow to about an hour and a half or two hours, then it might just be in with a shout.........

Otherwise, it's just a waste of cash that'd be better spent improving the road network.
 
High Speed Railway spending all our money

The government are still going to spend 33 Billion to reduce the time it takes to get to Birminghams from London by 25 mins.
if any one out ther can help by publisizing the following websites and tell anyone they know the cost of this business please do.
check out the folloing links:
http://www.hs2aa.org/index.php/blog/view/5-party-games-hs2-style-2

and
http://www.hs2actionalliance.org/

we need everyone to share , tweet and facebook these news items....

thanks
 
The primary reason for building the new line is to provide capacity, not speed, although that is nice.
Also, that 33b will be spread out over many years, it's not a massive amount.
 
It'd be nice if they could run a decent network with the trains they have now, to be honest.

And at peak times, I hear that trains have some mythical objects called 'seats' available.
 
Waste of money imo, just increase capacity. Surely busines folk in 15 years time won't place such importance on the lost 30 minutes commuting to London that they apparently do now, it doesn't need to be lost time even nowadays. Just how much would a ticket cost on the proposed new line?
 
OneStrike said:
Waste of money imo, just increase capacity. Surely busines folk in 15 years time won't place such importance on the lost 30 minutes commuting to London that they apparently do now, it doesn't need to be lost time even nowadays. Just how much would a ticket cost on the proposed new line?
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problem being that on most lines where capacity is an issue there isn't really any option to increase capacity, at least not without basically having to build an entire new line, which if done alongside the existing tracks would involve these mainlines being closed and/or subject to single line operations for serious lengths of time while the work was done - basically much of the network would grind to a halt for 5-10 years while the capacity was increased, as they've done virtually all the relatively simple stuff.
 
deepmill said:
we need everyone to share , tweet and facebook these news items....
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No we don't.

More trains are a good thing. Its good the government a spending money of things that don't involve bombs. Its cheaper than trident.
 
Are people not concerned about increasing pollution , environmentally friendly transport in the future .....?

Rail = about 4% of pollutants for example , - went to Brum today , train was almost full at 1250 departure coming back - any dissenters fancy trying to timetable another 4 or 5 trains per hour on the West Coast main line. The experts cannot do it !

We need to plan for the future transport growth - (or do we just sit there and read the journos commenting on "we are so far behind the French , Spanish , Germans etc with their great high Speed rail links etc)

Whilst complaining about the M1 / M40 / M6 / A1 etc.
 
Oswaldtwistle said:
Totally agree about rural bus services btw....
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Rural bus services are a bad joke here in Devon. I currently live in Plymouth and it takes me as long to get to Holsworthy using rural buses (my only option as I don't drive) as it would to reach Reading on a National Express coach. Holsworthy being only about 50 miles from Plymouth.
 
There is a very detailed London-centric discussion here by the Transpot Committee of the London Assembly:


http://static.london.gov.uk/webcast/jul11/transport_committee_140711.asx


Speaking are:
Adam Raphael - Director of the Campaign for High Speed Rail
Richard Hebditch - Campaigns Director for London Campaign for Better Transport
Chris Stokes - 51M (a group representing fourteen local authorities in Buckinghamshire, Warwickshire and Leicestershire which have joined together in a national campaign to actively challenge the HS2 scheme)
Joe Rukin - Campaign Coordinator for Stop High Speed 2
 
TBF most countries have separate lines for high speed passenger services and for freight, but the biggest green improvements would be to try and use any high speed networks built to let more freight on the 'normal' lines and get it off the roads.

Beeching was a short-sighted cunt, tbf.

I'm guessing that the real thing that keeps a lot of people off rail is the prohibitive costs....I am off to my OU summer school driving because without knowing I was going a moth in advance a return ticket from Milton Keynes to Bath would cost nearly £200! I could get there and back in the truck for less, let alone my diesel blat motor.
 
stuff_it said:
TBF most countries have separate lines for high speed passenger services and for freight, but the biggest green improvements would be to try and use any high speed networks built to let more freight on the 'normal' lines and get it off the roads.

Beeching was a short-sighted cunt, tbf.

I'm guessing that the real thing that keeps a lot of people off rail is the prohibitive costs....I am off to my OU summer school driving because without knowing I was going a moth in advance a return ticket from Milton Keynes to Bath would cost nearly £200! I could get there and back in the truck for less, let alone my diesel blat motor.
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Are you sure? I got the figure £58. Are you using National Rail Enquires? Try going off peak etc . .
 
Garek said:
Looks like it is going ahead. I really don't understand the objections to it.
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If it was a road people would be up in arms in a big way. It is going to tear through a load of countryside just like a road construction.

Are people really going to be travelling more in 2030 ? or are we all going to be linked by the net?
 
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