Bahnhof Strasse
Met up with Hannah Courtoy a week next Tuesday
5. cos we lack imagination and drive.
HS2 high-speed London-Birmingham route rail project - discussion
- Thread starter Oswaldtwistle
- Start date
Crispy
The following psytrance is baṉned: All
are not the qualities by which a useful transportation network is measured.
Bahnhof Strasse
Met up with Hannah Courtoy a week next Tuesday
Back in the days of horse and cart travel crispy pointed out that the railways were incompatible with the classic network, they would require new skills for operation, construction and maintenance. He was wary that railways were untested on a large scale and mooted the notion that greater speed is not needed, indeed possibly hypothesized that one would suffocate if travelling faster than horse...
Bahnhof Strasse
Met up with Hannah Courtoy a week next Tuesday
Much faster (always a boon if you can head away from Brum at 270mph) and uses less power than a conventional train. And it feels all Star Trekky too.
London_Calling
Pleasant and unpatronising
This summerises the argument re maglev in the UK:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK_Ultraspeed
Conclusion:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK_Ultraspeed
Conclusion:
Crispy
The following psytrance is baṉned: All
Much faster:
Unfortunately, what with 50% of the London-Birmingham route in tunnel, you won't really notice the difference. Tunnel diameter goes up with the square of speed (to prevent over-pressure inside the train), so you have to slow down to 320km/h in the tunnels regardless of your maximum speed or face building tunnels prohibitively large. The portions of track that make their way into cities are also speed restricted by their twisty nature. The HS2 route can't reach its maximum line speed until about 25km out of London.
As for energy efficiency, you are right that Maglev is more efficient than wheels. This becomes less and less true at higher speeds, where the majority of work is done against air resistance (which goes up with the cube of speed). This is the same work no matter the propulsion technique.
With a nice straight route, out of tunnel, with widely spaced stations, maglev is a reasonable idea (leaving aside the unknown challenges of operating such a thing). A Paris - Berlin - Moscow service, for example, would play to Maglev's strengths.
The UK HS network will be compromised by our cramped island and hundreds of years of urban and rural development. A maglev network would be just as compromised, whilst not having the interoperability advantages of traditional rail.
Unfortunately, what with 50% of the London-Birmingham route in tunnel, you won't really notice the difference. Tunnel diameter goes up with the square of speed (to prevent over-pressure inside the train), so you have to slow down to 320km/h in the tunnels regardless of your maximum speed or face building tunnels prohibitively large. The portions of track that make their way into cities are also speed restricted by their twisty nature. The HS2 route can't reach its maximum line speed until about 25km out of London.
As for energy efficiency, you are right that Maglev is more efficient than wheels. This becomes less and less true at higher speeds, where the majority of work is done against air resistance (which goes up with the cube of speed). This is the same work no matter the propulsion technique.
With a nice straight route, out of tunnel, with widely spaced stations, maglev is a reasonable idea (leaving aside the unknown challenges of operating such a thing). A Paris - Berlin - Moscow service, for example, would play to Maglev's strengths.
The UK HS network will be compromised by our cramped island and hundreds of years of urban and rural development. A maglev network would be just as compromised, whilst not having the interoperability advantages of traditional rail.
skyscraper101
0891 50 50 50
When you can get a journey time of 30 mins to Birmingham though, I think it negates pretty much all of the arguments against HS2 right now and would completely make commuting from northern cities a viable option, not to mention easing housing demand in the south and south east.
Yes it would mean less tunneling and more cutting through the Chilterns. I'm sorry about that, and I genuinely do love unspoiled countryside, but the demand on commutable areas within reach of London has impacted rather more vastly on southern greenbelt over the last 50 years. Shaving a whole 20 minutes off of the current travelling time to Brum doesn't really make northern living any more desireable to those who need to travel to London, or Europe. Wouldn't it be better in the long run to sacrifice some of our beloved countryside in Herts and Beds with a heavy heart but with a genuine desire to protect any future encroachment on the English countryside by what will surely be acres more of southern green belt given over to Barratt home style developments in years to come?
Yes it would mean less tunneling and more cutting through the Chilterns. I'm sorry about that, and I genuinely do love unspoiled countryside, but the demand on commutable areas within reach of London has impacted rather more vastly on southern greenbelt over the last 50 years. Shaving a whole 20 minutes off of the current travelling time to Brum doesn't really make northern living any more desireable to those who need to travel to London, or Europe. Wouldn't it be better in the long run to sacrifice some of our beloved countryside in Herts and Beds with a heavy heart but with a genuine desire to protect any future encroachment on the English countryside by what will surely be acres more of southern green belt given over to Barratt home style developments in years to come?
agricola
a genuine importer of owls
Or, you could just not base everything in the South-East.
skyscraper101
0891 50 50 50
But unfortunately that is where Europe's biggest city is so inevitably there is a huge demand on space to live which is within easy reach of it.
London_Calling
Pleasant and unpatronising
There's some irony here about Gov policy (of decades) of moving civil service jobs out of the capital, and it now being part of the 'unbalanced' economy that some cities are 'over-dependent' on those moved jobs.
Bahnhof Strasse
Met up with Hannah Courtoy a week next Tuesday
You wouldn't need tunnels, just build it above ground in a straight line. Maglev is far quieter than regular rail, so disturbance would be minimized. As Maglev accelerates far faster than wheels it is far more practical for a small, crowded island such as ours.
London to Brum in 30 mins, London to Manc in 60 mins, 2 hours to Edinburgh; It wouldn't be an alternative to domestic flying, as there just would not be any domestic flights.
Garek
Living n ADDled chaos
I struggling to feel any sympathy towards these people. Can't think why.
Reno
The In Kraut
Originally the route was going to be tunnelled under Primrose Hill, but after the posh knobs there got organised the route now runs under lots of Camden council estates instead. We are going to loose our closest local shops and our launderette (important because our flats weren't designed to easily fit a washing machine) for an airduct. We are also worried about subsidence. Our building is the heaviest residential concrete building in the UK which has had previous problems with subsidence.
T & P
|-o-| (-o-) |-o-|
This letter to The Guardian a couple of days ago pretty much sums up my position on the matter...
"In France and Germany high-speed rail lines sweep through the landscape with pride, on elegant bridges and soaring viaducts, in the same way as did the railways of the Victorian age built by Brunel and Stephenson, proclaiming the world of high-speed travel (Biggest boost to rail network since 1899, 11 January). Alas HS2 is to be buried in deep cuttings and tunnels or screened by tens of thousands of trees – just something to be hidden away, rather than a celebration of engineering achievement."
"In France and Germany high-speed rail lines sweep through the landscape with pride, on elegant bridges and soaring viaducts, in the same way as did the railways of the Victorian age built by Brunel and Stephenson, proclaiming the world of high-speed travel (Biggest boost to rail network since 1899, 11 January). Alas HS2 is to be buried in deep cuttings and tunnels or screened by tens of thousands of trees – just something to be hidden away, rather than a celebration of engineering achievement."
London_Calling
Pleasant and unpatronising
You like noise pollution?
Go and stand in a forest 5 miles from the elegant lines on the M40 and see if you still like it.
Go and stand in a forest 5 miles from the elegant lines on the M40 and see if you still like it.
London_Calling
Pleasant and unpatronising
So it's going to run at three trains an hour one way. Seems a waste.
How will they get back again?
How will they get back again?
T & P
|-o-| (-o-) |-o-|
I am not acquainted with the schedule. But the point remains. The noise caused lasts a few seconds and happens a handful of times an hour (with no activity at all for much of the night). That's about a thousand times less disturbing than noise generated by motorways, and considerably less than air traffic as well.
Of course some people will be inconvenienced. That's simply inevitable. But if we were to decide against such projects because some people would be inconvenienced by them, then we'd have no railways, motorways or airports at all.
Of course some people will be inconvenienced. That's simply inevitable. But if we were to decide against such projects because some people would be inconvenienced by them, then we'd have no railways, motorways or airports at all.
London_Calling
Pleasant and unpatronising
If you're not acquainted with the schedule why did you mention trains every 20 mins?
I'm not sure you understand the term 'noise pollution', either. By extension, your argument suggests people living in the general vicinity of a flight path at Heathrow also aren't exposed to noise pollution because that noise is intermittent. This is not a definition recognised in law.
I'm not sure you understand the term 'noise pollution', either. By extension, your argument suggests people living in the general vicinity of a flight path at Heathrow also aren't exposed to noise pollution because that noise is intermittent. This is not a definition recognised in law.
T & P
|-o-| (-o-) |-o-|
It was a figure of speech, yet I'm sure pretty much representative of the kind of activity you can expect on the line- i.e. a few trains per hour.
That is a universe away from several cars per second travelling on the M40 during much of the day, I hope you'll agree.
Bottom line: motorways produce far, far worse noise pollution than HS2 would ever manage.
I think I understand noise pollution well enough. I also know which one I would rather be subjected to if I had to choose between a railway line and a busy motorway.
But all of that is a bit of a moot point. Noise pollution already exists and is accepted as a necessary evil. If HS2 was to be abandoned because of such concerns, then it must follow that not a single new road, railway or airport must ever be built in the UK again.
free spirit
more tea vicar?
I can well imagine that the peak noise level from one HS train could be significantly higher than the peak noise level from a motorway, although the motorway noise is virtually continuous.
London_Calling
Pleasant and unpatronising
Nothing is being "abandoned", as you'll know from the high profile and vocal anti-HS2 campaigns.
Your entire point was that tens of thousands of people should have their lives blighted by completely unnecessay noise pollution because you like the idea of a railway line built "on elegant bridges and soaring viaducts".
DotCommunist
So many particulars. So many questions.
travel from kettering rail station to avoid this problem
AnandLeo
Tipple Ripple
The human civilisation is not going to deviate from its quest for faster travel between major cities within a country, continent or the world, in spite of environmental crises like global warming and depleting fossil fuel resources. Europe and even China have faster train services. Britain has to keep up with the rest of the world in mass transport in the 21st century. On that account HS2 is a good idea. However, mitigation of the environmental impacts of HS2 is also a requisite.
Besides the measures to mitigate the environmental impacts considered so far, the environmental opponents of the project should proactively participate on the project to address the points of impacts they are concerned with rather than opposing the project or letting those impacts materialise without treatment.
Last but not least, in my view shielding the HS2 track with a corridor of proper woodland will take the strain of environmental impacts of the controversial train.
Besides the measures to mitigate the environmental impacts considered so far, the environmental opponents of the project should proactively participate on the project to address the points of impacts they are concerned with rather than opposing the project or letting those impacts materialise without treatment.
Last but not least, in my view shielding the HS2 track with a corridor of proper woodland will take the strain of environmental impacts of the controversial train.
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