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

[Artaxerxes]

The Netherlands is basically a river delta. So, it's dead flat, has lots of natural waterways and is connected to a couple of the biggest navigable river systems that reach deep into continental Europe.

A bit like none of the UK.

(Don't get me wrong, if you can get any freight onto canals that's great. But it's not a sensible solution for transporting a large quantity of stuff through the majority of the UK)

Especially not given how much of the canal network is leisure and tourism based now

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

Issue with UK canals isn’t girth but length of locks. As most were built in the C18th and early C19th they are short, usually no longer than 100’. There is no reason from a width of canal pov that you can’t have ten 60’ long boats tied to one engine, but it would take forever to get through just one lock.

 

[teuchter]

There is no reason from a width of canal pov that you can’t have ten 60’ long boats tied to one engine,

I'd like to see you try to go round a corner like that.

Width is a problem too; most locks are narrower than a standard shipping container. And I expect most bridges are too low as well.

 

[cupid_stunt]

Well, that's SpookyFrank's nutty idea, firmly blown out of the water.

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

I'd like to see you try to go round a corner like that.

Width is a problem too; most locks are narrower than a standard shipping container. And I expect most bridges are too low as well.

When 60’ boats are tied together end to end they go around corners just fine.

And why must they use standard shipping containers? Typical of the road lobby mentality to go for what works best for trucks rather than the environment.

 

[teuchter]

When 60’ boats are tied together end to end they go around corners just fine.

Would definitely be fun to watch you try.

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

Would definitely be fun to watch you try.

It you dare venture here you can find the first canalised river in the UK and see just that with an engine boat and two barges that are moored on the wharf within 200m of where I am sat. As said, any more than that won’t work due to the locks, but it does work on the Thames with up to three barges, no longer again due to locks.

 

[skyscraper101]

I think in reality the capacity it can offer wouldn't make much of a dent in the bigger picture. The bigger Thames Clipper boats take about 200 passengers, and I think that in practice you can't run them more frequently than every 10 minutes or so (because of the time it takes to approach the pier, tie up, let people on and off over 1 or 2 gangplanks and so on). So maybe you can move 1200 people per hour. Compare with a tube train which can take 1000+ passengers and operate every 2 minutes. So you are moving 30,000 people per hour.

It's not going to solve all the problems. But combined with crossrail if it can help with shaving off just a little more footfall in the tubes, then all the better. Plus purely for selfish reasons, it would be massively more convenient for me

I walk past Blackfriars pier every day and the boats always seem half empty. They don't even bother running them to Putney during the weekends. I think all feasible alternatives should be made evenly accessible through equal travelcard zone pricing. It's by far the most enjoyable and scenic way to get between east and west.

 

[alex_]

The fact that a national project focussed on London

birmingham is in the center of hs2

 

[alex_]

I think in reality the capacity it can offer wouldn't make much of a dent in the bigger picture. The bigger Thames Clipper boats take about 200 passengers, and I think that in practice you can't run them more frequently than every 10 minutes or so (because of the time it takes to approach the pier, tie up, let people on and off over 1 or 2 gangplanks and so on). So maybe you can move 1200 people per hour. Compare with a tube train which can take 1000+ passengers and operate every 2 minutes. So you are moving 30,000 people per hour.

also the river Thames speed limit

 

[alex_]

When 60’ boats are tied together end to end they go around corners just fine.

And why must they use standard shipping containers? Typical of the road lobby mentality to go for what works best for trucks rather than the environment.

because if you don’t you’ll need to repack containers at every major port ?

 

[teuchter]

It you dare venture here you can find the first canalised river in the UK and see just that with an engine boat and two barges that are moored on the wharf within 200m of where I am sat. As said, any more than that won’t work due to the locks, but it does work on the Thames with up to three barges, no longer again due to locks.

You said ten. Not two. Or three.

I am familiar with the canalised river you mention, and the special posts it has on bends, which the rope attached to the horse on the towpath would be wrapped around to minimise the effect of pulling the barge in a direction that aims for the bank. When you try and pull or push your ten barges around that corner they are all going to try and go in a straight line and go aground. Doesn't happen with trains because they run on tracks.

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

You said ten. Not two. Or three.

I am familiar with the canalised river you mention, and the special posts it has on bends, which the rope attached to the horse on the towpath would be wrapped around to minimise the effect of pulling the barge in a direction that aims for the bank. When you try and pull or push your ten barges around that corner they are all going to try and go in a straight line and go aground. Doesn't happen with trains because they run on tracks.

The posts are for the tourist horse-drawn boat as it is powered by the horse on the tow-path. power one, two or ten barges from a tug in the centre of the stream and the following barges follow.

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

because if you don’t you’ll need to repack containers at every major port ?

Have canal barge sized containers, not truck sized ones.

 

[Winot]

Have canal barge sized containers, not truck sized ones.

Quite right. If Brexit offers nothing else, it gives us an opportunity to completely redesign the standardised intermodal container solely for UK use.

 

[teuchter]

The posts are for the tourist horse-drawn boat as it is powered by the horse on the tow-path. power one, two or ten barges from a tug in the centre of the stream and the following barges follow.

Does this rely on the water being in motion or does it still work in a canal where there is negligible flow?

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

Does this rely on the water being in motion or does it still work in a canal where there is negligible flow?

makes no discernible difference.

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

Quite right. If Brexit offers nothing else, it gives us an opportunity to completely redesign the standardised intermodal container solely for UK use.

tbf, we should be leading the world with air travel. Build some more runways and move freight around faster to make the economy boom. Cancel HS2 and the rail subsidy to pay for cheaper flights for all and we'll be the centre of global aviation.

 

[The39thStep]

This quite useful on the politics and tensions within the HS2 Northern section proposals

The fraught politics behind ‘HS2 North’

SPECIAL REPORT: If the lead-up to this week’s announcement has been a political minefield, the next stage could be even more complicated, Jen Williams reports.

www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk

 

[Artaxerxes]

tbf, we should be leading the world with air travel. Build some more runways and move freight around faster to make the economy boom. Cancel HS2 and the rail subsidy to pay for cheaper flights for all and we'll be the centre of global aviation.

What if we just catapult freight around the globe?

 

[Teaboy]

Having been on a canal boat holiday I note that there are quite a lot of locks and the vast majority are manual. Also there are these things called steps which might slow the progress of freight somewhat. I'd like to see a company logistics team align their just in time approach with these...

 

[teuchter]

makes no discernible difference.

How come I don't see trains of more than two or three barges on eg. the Rhine, where there are long stretches without locks?

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

I would imagine that they keep out of your way lest you bore them to tears.

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

What if we just catapult freight around the globe?

Helicopters freighters could work, expand Battersea and get deliveries of artisinal products in to the metropolitan elite fresher and with a higher mark-up.

 

[Teaboy]

Helicopters freighters could work, expand Battersea and get deliveries of artisinal products in to the metropolitan elite fresher and with a higher mark-up.

Yes and because they're helicopter at least 1 in 3 will crash in flames we will need we need to manufacture a lot more goods (and helicopters). Its a win for business.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Look give it another 100 years and we'll be back on canals whether we like it or not. Might as well invest in them now, instead of spending enough money to buy a country that already has high speed train lines on a single high speed train line.

I'm not suggesting we could use canals to shift the quantities of freight that currently travels via trains and roads. I am suggesting that an upgraded, refurbished canal network could be a cost and energy efficient, low impact part of a decentralised, deconsumerised economy. There are some things for which canals are well suited, eg building materials which are rarely ordered or required on a 'just in time' basis. Timber, which often comes from remote places where rail freight facilities aren't available. If we can't use canals to get door to door, 24 hour deliveries of electronic tat made in a Chinese sweatshop and packed and delivered by amazon workers half dead from overwork, well so much the better.

 

[Crispy]

Ah, so the problem is centralisation of infrastructure and the inevitable bottlenecks that result from that. I can see now how the solution to that is a single, central, infrastructure project. That would definitely address the root cause of the problem.

The problem is mixing multiple modes on one network. Intercity trains take up a disproportionate amount of space on the track because they take much longer to come to a stop. Take 1 intercity train off the tracks and you can fit three stoppers in the same timetable slot. If you want to increase capacity for local trains, you could either build new commuter rail lines (and their stations) or you could double or triple the capacity of existing lines by taking the fast trains off. This is what HS2 does.

 

[SpookyFrank]

The problem is mixing multiple modes on one network. Intercity trains take up a disproportionate amount of space on the track because they take much longer to come to a stop. Take 1 intercity train off the tracks and you can fit three stoppers in the same timetable slot. If you want to increase capacity for local trains, you could either build new commuter rail lines (and their stations) or you could double or triple the capacity of existing lines by taking the fast trains off. This is what HS2 does.

It only does it between London and Birmingham though. Where I live, there aren't 'stopping trains' and 'fast trains' there's one train every hour to this place, one train every hour to that place and they all stop at the handful of stations there are on those routes. There aren't any 'commuter stations' to speak of. This is a city with 300,000 people in it. Most of us out here in the civilised world would give our left kidney for the 'problems' London commuters have.

 

[Chilli.s]

Judging this by the rail transport we have at the moment it's hard to have any confidence that HS2 will even work or be affordable for the user. The costs too seem fanciful and undoubtedly will escalate.

We are reliant on the car and the motorway, possibly automatic motorways where the driver has no input and the vehicles are all controlled all together is the vision of future transport that i see. Like a train but everyone has their own carriage without couplings and on roads.

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

Judging this by the rail transport we have at the moment it's hard to have any confidence that HS2 will even work or be affordable for the user. The costs too seem fanciful and undoubtedly will escalate.

So negative. HS2 will be a roaring success, just look at Crossrail, delivered on time and on budget