In the latest part of our HS2 series, we look primarily at the options for London HS termini and/or through running. Some policy and funding issues are raised. Discussion about passenger volumes, and station and route construction issues will be covered in Parts 5 and 6.
City centre access reaffirmed as the new regional priority
The choice of a single HS2 terminus or multiple railheads is not straightforward, wherever you look. The assessment in Part 3 shows that HS regional city centre stations are the politicians’ explicitly preferred way forward, yet in many cities, there are capacity limits with the existing network which may require supplementary platforms and approach and exit tracks, if not an entirely new station. This is against a background of rapid growth in travel volume in recent years.
The feasibility of station enlargement will vary around the country. In the case of HS2, proposals to use some European-sized trains captive to HS2 adds to track and platforming pressures, as those trains can’t share British standard width track loading gauges and platforms.
HS2 announced on 7 July that it proposes Sheffield should now be served by a new HS spur linking with the Midland Main Line (MML) south of Chesterfield. Sheffield Midland would be the city centre station and would provide direct connections with the local rail and tram network – a major step forward compared to Sheffield Meadowhall, and in contrast with the continuing deficiencies of Birmingham Curzon Street, and the uncertain choice at Crewe.
Network Rail considers an additional 4tph should be feasible along this part of the MML. A possible northern link back onto HS2 towards Leeds is also being reviewed as part of the Northern Powerhouse proposition, to achieve a 30min timing between central Sheffield and central Leeds. In parallel, a revised HS2 main line close to the M18 would also reduce overall HS2 project costs (-£1bn), create a more efficient alignment towards Leeds so would be faster overall, and might also enable provision of a South Yorkshire Parkway station to replace the regional access elements of Meadowhall.
The report linked above (there’s also a more detailed options report) is worth reading as it illuminates the choices that have been considered for Sheffield, and have to be made elsewhere, between city centre access and wider regional access. There are trade-offs between greater city centre accessibility, railway alignment and speeds, costs and overall journey times. The new proposals assist the policy desire for an HS regional network in the Midlands and North, with 30min train frequencies and a ‘tube-like’ service structure between main cities, foreseen in the HS3 thinking and discussed in Part 3. There will also be greater reliance on a classic-compatible train fleet, because European-sized trains won’t be able to serve Sheffield.
Terminal capacity priorities in London
The range of access choices is similar in London, if more complex because of the scale of the capital city and the larger city region. In London there isn’t such a thing as a solo or dominant city centre station. There are multiple termini, so the capital’s options are greater. It is which combination of main line approach routes, stations and distribution networks is the best (or least worst) that must be considered.
An 11 platform 400+ metre terminus, of the sort envisaged by HS2, would be over 45,000 sq. metres in scale just for absolute basics. Even a minimal approach track throat would add many multiples of that, depending on track configuration, if you want trains entering/exiting to pass each other at reasonable speed on the station approaches, necessary for high frequency service.
Other requirements would be space for passenger handling, station facilities and servicing access, interchange with onwards transport distribution within the city, and any retail and commercial development preferences. Shall we start at 75,000 sq. metres for a full-scale terminus excluding the track throat, more probably over 100,000 sq. metres?
Cubed out?
There are now no large-scale vacant lands alongside relevant existing London termini, land values in such locations are exceedingly high, while nearby ex-goods yard sites that might have been relevant, such as Nine Elms and Kings Cross Lands, have long been claimed. There are some sites enabling lesser-scale expansion of terminus and route capacity (eg, Bishopsgate Lands for supplementary platforms at Liverpool Street terminus and 8-tracking from Bethnal Green). Many changes to railway approach track options would involve tunnelling – far from cheap, with some alignments unaffordable.
In the case of HS1 and Eurostar, the initial terminus and the final terminus both ended up revisiting the utilisation of existing stations and close-by lands. This led to a revamp of Waterloo and its approaches, and subsequently a revamp of St Pancras and its approaches. Those revisions were prior to London’s current phase of accelerated economic growth, and its consequences for travel volumes. As a separate major project, Waterloo International is now being reconfigured back to domestic usage because of commuting growth. In a previous incarnation, that area was the South Western Windsor Lines platforms, and it will be again.
HS2 as a capacity project for London has to address track and terminal capacity and platforming efficiency for its own trains, and, in conjunction with Network Rail investment on the ‘classic’ lines, be part of the capacity solution for foreseeable growth (and more than that?) on existing routes from the northern Home Counties and the Midlands.
This will be not just the WCML but also the Midland and East Coast Main Lines. The scale of challenge will be greater for the combination of HS2 and Network Rail, than for HS1 – not least as HS1 had been explicitly designed to accommodate some Kent commuter flows.
What then for a London terminus – Berlin Hauptbahnhof as an ideal design?
While in theory HS2 has a blank sheet of paper – you might hope to place a ‘very large and accessible blob’ in many locations under Central London – actually you can’t and you wouldn’t. Politics, logistics, costs and environmental impacts would militate against that.
In an ideal world, co-ordinated options which addressed capacity limitations facing the WCML, MML and ECML might have led to a design of a west-east HS2 station somewhere in the vicinity of the Marylebone/Euston Roads – let’s say near to Euston/St Pancras/King’s Cross – along with improvements to the existing main lines. That was John Prideaux’s original vision for HS1 approaching from the east (see Part 2), with a London terminus within the Kings Cross Lands allowing a later extension westwards. Combined with the Thameslink project, such a layout would be a similar orthogonal geography to Berlin’s Hauptbahnhof.
HS2’s Chief Engineer Professor Andrew McNaughton thinks on bold lines, and considered this sort of arrangement for HS2. However there were judged to be serious construction complications and risks, not least locally being the British Library and Francis Crick Institute building vaults near to the Northern main line termini. HS2 Ltd also has to work within a Treasury-approved budget. John Prideaux’s scheme would have been above ground, Andrew McNaughton’s would have been underground.
The basic constraints faced by any underground HS station are:
- Constructability in the event of no major excavation from the surface to open out the required space. This would be challenging – not impossible, but potentially more costly and with its own environmental impacts.
- Multi-platforms and passageways underground, along with loading and unloading times while handling long distance trains, main-line sizes of flows and luggage, and also waiting passengers.
- These also push operability to a significant level and would influence the number of platforms required in each direction, which feeds back into constructability.
It should be observed that if you were to accept that only some HS / intercity trains would run through to other destinations, then the number of required underground platforms reduces to 2-3 each way. The terminating trains would still have to find space above ground within or adjoining existing termini, but to a lesser extent than if no main line services ran through the city centre. The biggest single operational issue underground becomes the manageability of main line passenger volumes, boarding times, and waiting space.
Constructability remains a significant factor. However Crossrail 1 will have to accommodate similar passenger volumes and many long distance interchangees, and such factors are already allowed for there. So when you reduce the issues to the absolute basics, it is the numbers waiting for specific trains and the boarding/alighting rates for those individual trains which are the main extra factors.
As a concept, the ‘Euston Cross’ alternative scheme (also see linked Railfuture HS2-HS1 reference) included similar thinking on multiple railway connectivity. It could have followed an alignment under the Regents Canal, so avoiding the Kings Cross Lands building piles and the British Library and Francis Crick Institute, and a successor still could – but certainly not this decade! The collapse of the HS2-HS1 project has illuminated current day priorities and business cases.
Costs of an onwards through railway
A through NW-SE corridor, eg Old Oak Common-Waterloo as suggested by Ken Livingstone when Mayor, raises equivalent issues wherever you might choose to plant a through station underground within Central London. Such through corridors also incur the need for additional cost, for an onwards railway to join up with other main lines elsewhere. This will be more expensive if built to HS standards rather than conventional cross-London speeds, though if the tunnel usage were dominated by London & South East trains – where a stronger business case might exist – then you would expect most of the L&SE line specification standards to prevail.
In the November 2015 HS2 review of connectivity between HS2 and HS1, on continuing through running towards Stratford or beyond, a double-track line at HS standards without any extra station facilities was priced at £2.8-6.0 billion (2011 prices). The specification included high costs for step-plate junctions with existing railways such as HS1, including lengthy closures of existing railways while those junctions were engineered, and possible three-figure £m compensation costs to existing train operators.
This puts a high price on having multiple termini (or one terminus, and one through running station). Sufficient passenger volumes to justify through tunnels might have to wait until the middle of the 21st century to make a business case.
A basic view, for the first two or three HS decades, is why not spend on better connectivity by other means within London (which needs such lines anyhow), rather than by forcing an intercity line to do a cross-London distribution job? It is arguably better in the medium term to focus on distinct types of services more likely to sustain a business case, eg cross-London commuter operations closer to Crossrail/Thameslink styles, at least one of which might be able to serve an HS2 London station. London 2050 Part 3 Tracks to the Future and London 2050 Part 4 Towards Maximum Rail Capacity already reference such matters.
Simpler terminal options
HS2’s approach alignment from the Chilterns has basically pointed to:
- Old Oak Common (a West London Stratford-style option), where railway land did provide some opportunity though almost all is now designated for other railway operational or development priorities.
- Paddington, as it is also relatively close to the OOC interchange.
- Euston, because it is a terminus where most of its intercity trains get diverted to HS2 platforms, so offers scope for a station revamp.
Let’s look at these simpler options.
OOC as a temporary terminus?
The onwards distribution links from Old Oak Common (primary Crossrail 1/Elizabeth Line, and secondly Overground) would be inadequate for a long term permanent terminus, once an HS2 Phase 2 full service began from around 2033. However an HS2 Phases 1 and 2a station might get by for several years on a 5 or 6-platform basis if it had to be a temporary terminus because of construction complications at Euston. TfL is looking at this pragmatically, in terms of impact on Crossrail and Overground passenger volumes. It is a challenge but not a show-stopper.
A temporary OOC terminus might happen as a temporary or urgent solution because of political considerations, even if no official organisation had explicitly planned for it. The new London Mayor, Sadiq Khan, is actively considering it as a short term relief for Euston construction impacts. He is being assisted by the new Deputy Mayor (Transport), Val Shawcross, who is the former London Assembly Transport Committee chair. Many Camden area objectors to Euston HS2 terminus plans also support a pause at OOC, and some would like it to be permanent.
The OOC HS station was originally designed for 6 platforms, and HS2 Phases 1 and 2a require only 6 platforms at Euston, with a relatively unpressured platform occupation rate. 10tph for HS2 Phases 1 and 2a equals an average of 1.7 trains per platform per hour, a low utilisation when you consider that the 3tph Birmingham services would spend 50-55 minutes on their journey – a duration less than many commuter trains – and then remain there for about 25 minutes, based on the draft timetabling for Euston HS.
TfL’s preferred ‘Option C’ Overground stations at Old Oak Common, showing their positioning and a Crossrail/GW station, in relation to a 6-platform HS2 OOC station.
HS2 Ltd is planning to remove the provision for segregation of international passengers at OOC, which had been intended in the original designs for the middle pair of platforms, serving the HS2-HS1 link. There is now some HS2 optioneering about OOC having 6 UK platforms, or alternatively a slightly narrower station box with only 4 platforms and 2 non-stopping tracks.
Paddington approaches
What about Paddington as an option for a permanent terminus? Crossrail 1 will remove many suburban trains from the station from December 2019, while the GW Main Line still has a partial broad gauge legacy which might be a possible attribute helping European-sized trains.
However, approaching Paddington would in practice require a separate HS2 tunnel from OOC. HS trains would need to avoid the busy GW, Crossrail and depot tracks past Ladbroke Grove/Portobello. Network Rail already has plans for grade separation and 5-tracking near Ladbroke Grove during Control Period 6, towards Paddington, to accommodate 24 GW tph in future on the fast lines by the mid 2020s.
Space at Paddington for 11 HS terminal platforms abutting a Grade 1 structure, plus the Paddington canalside developments and the sub-surface Crossrail station on either side, would be immensely challenging for the existing built environment, if not impossible. The GW’s final surface approach curvature is a ‘no-no’ especially with new 400m HS platforms, as the HS2 design preference is for a straight alignment.
So any Paddington HS terminus would point to an underground station, at high cost, possibly aligned west-east, without having solved onwards distribution within Central London. Even with Crossrail, Paddington is also further in time from much of Central London, compared to Euston.
Euston – what’s not to like?
Isn’t it simple? Since HS2 is really WCML tracks 5 and 6 – at least for HS2 Phases 1 and 2a – why not use Euston? This follows a maxim of least disruption to established travel patterns (which tends to be a safe option), though it is also a normative railway attitude of always doing what you always did, so always getting what you always got. You might not get best future outcomes, though it could be pragmatic.
Euston is there, and is an under-used London terminus with low rates of platform re-occupation by trains, with less frequent ‘turnover’ than at King’s Cross, St Pancras or Paddington. At least another four main line platforms could be created within Euston’s outdated 1960s internal 18-platform footprint, which was geared to mail, parcels and Motorail as well as passenger services. The areas between current platforms 2 and 3 on the eastern side, and between platforms 15 and 18 on the western side, offer good possibilities. This would follow the past precedents of revamping Waterloo and St Pancras.
So in theory part of the existing Euston should be capable of being handed over to HS2 with no loss of operational capacity for the WCML. The complexities arising from that are to do with the impact on approach tracks, and the complex sequencing of works. Euston terminus is like an iceberg, with large amounts of non-public servicing levels within the main station box. You can’t alter Euston without large-scale consequences internally as well as for the surrounding district.
Network Rail now says it needs 18 platforms at Euston before HS2 opens, 13 after, so that ultimately there would be a revised and expanded Euston offering 13 classic and 11 HS platforms, the latter encroaching over Melton Street towards Coburg Street, with loss of local housing, businesses and retail.
Area designated within red line for Euston station works, including land take. Base local map reproduced from HS2 material under Open Government scheme
The present WCML timetable is designed, arguably wastefully, around Euston’s platforms providing much of the recovery margin for long distance intercity services. There is an extra recovery margin built in for the Pendolino fleet, as current train utilisation is seen as a pressure on availability for maintenance. It is not the minimum turnaround times but the average and the maxima, which matter here. This causes Euston to be an expensive Central London ‘parking lot’, the more expensive if you were to seek to rebuild it and replicate that spare parking capacity in situ.
Extract from JRC analysis of minimum train dwell times at London intercity termini
Euston scheduled dwell times for trains departing on Fast Lines, Monday 18 July 2016
Value for Money (VfM) analyses would point to a better financial solution being to buy, if needed, an extra train or two for maintenance, and avoid the £xxx millions whole-life amortisation costs of an unnecessarily large rebuild of Euston terminus. It should be possible to identify other investment solutions for such gremlins, as well as for the existing ‘throat’ approaches which are now partly dependent on single-lead tracks in that throat which in turn inhibit platform re-occupation.
Euston’s onwards distribution potential
Crossrail 2 would in any case have to serve King’s Cross and St Pancras to help relieve the Victoria Line. So routeing CR2 via Euston is a significant but marginal variation to that overall project, yet achieves a fundamental change in Central London distribution capacity and provides an ‘Albert Line’ relief to the Victoria Line – if we rename Crossrail 2 as another royal railway!
Diversion of WCML inner suburban stopping trains to Crossrail 1, at about 6tph, would release additional track approach and platform capacity. That’s a morning peak hourly capacity worth roundly 5,000 passengers inbound and 1,500 outbound (potentially 6,500 fewer passengers inconvenienced hourly by a Euston rebuild), although currently that is not part of HS2’s scheme.
WCML-Crossrail 1 had been allied with the HS2 scheme until 2014, but has been dropped to avoid HS2 project costs, and foreseen high Network Rail costs including provision for full step-free access throughout the WCML inner network. TfL might possibly pick up most of the tab if its budgets ever again permit that in future. Alternatively it becomes one of those failed schemes for future histories.
Instead HS2 is making a £25m contribution towards part of the WCML-Crossrail 1 link design, to assist the costs of three Crossrail reversing sidings on the remainder of the ex-NNML route west of OOC, along with passive provision there for an extension to the WCML.
Will a Crossrail-WCML scheme be replaced by a Chiltern link?
Meanwhile, the new draft West Midlands & Chiltern Route Study (see pages 42 and 70) recognises there are options for running a variety of Chiltern services to OOC, as capacity pressure grows at Marylebone during the 2020s. The draft route study is looking at a option for a terminus at OOC, and it notes that:
“interchange time between services from the Chiltern Route and Crossrail are critical in terms of attractiveness for passengers. The analysis has shown that commuters travelling to the City and Canary Wharf will use the new route, as this will be quicker than using the Jubilee line via London Marylebone and Baker Street.”
It would be tight, though maybe feasible, to realign the Acton-Northolt curve across Old Oak Lane and stay north of the GW and Crossrail tracks in order to access its own terminal platforms possibly just north of the main GW and Crossrail station. Or would a platform near Old Oak Lane and the proposed Overground station be adequate? The extract from the HS2 AP2 plan below (July 2015) makes the issue clear, with the Crossrail reversing sidings shown as a separate curve passing under the planned up GW relief line flyover.
Extract from HS2 AP2 plan for Old Oak Common west end, showing the NNML links. Base local map reproduced from HS2 material under Open Government scheme
Importantly, how could a Chiltern-OOC line then be designed west of this location to cross (and minimise conflict with) the onward route of a Crossrail-WCML line? Would any Chiltern train have to terminate at North Acton? – a poor man’s interchange then with OOC. One future alternative might be consideration of a through Crossrail service. This is not explicitly mentioned in the draft study, but stopping service options are shown from OOC to Gerrards Cross or High Wycombe. There are longer distance options as well.
Whether this means that, if a Chiltern link to OOC were supported, there might ultimately be a hard choice to make between a through Chiltern-Crossrail 1 service and a WCML option, will need to be assessed in future. You couldn’t re-allocate the same Crossrail train slots twice over. As and when Crossrail 1 moves to 30tph, it is doubtful that the Crossrail operator would accept three routes splitting at OOC.
Pragmatism rules
Back to the main proposition. Euston makes passenger sense for existing WCML users, both intercity and commuter passengers – the ‘play safe’ argument… Any future Crossrail 3 or Thameslink 2, as mooted above, might or might not come near Euston and then head towards the WCML, to ‘tunnelise’ future generations of commuter trains. However that would be in addition to Crossrail 2, so clearly CR3 or TL2’s time isn’t yet, with a national funding fight still for CR2 before any other main line tunnel scheme could be allowed to raise its head.
Consequently, investment in a combined Euston, for both HS and WCML passengers, has made sense to the railway promoters, in terms of both ‘realpolitik’ and ‘railpolitik’. Euston is also near the other Northern railway termini, so not too much of a shock to MML and ECML users if and when their expresses were reorganised with HS2 Phase 2.
Euston – do we have a problem?
Yes there are big problems with Euston. There are seven main ones:
- Policy and budgetary concerns about who leads on which project element, and how funding is organised and delivered in definable timescales.
- Capacity pressures on the main lines and on Euston’s tubes.
- Lack of connectivity with Crossrail 1.
- Inaccessibility as it is distant from Southern main line termini, and hard to reach from East London, East Anglia and much of Kent.
- Land take and community impact issues, for the extra HS track approaches and station tracks, and the new western land acquisition alongside the present railway, and the fit (or not) with the Euston Area Plan.
- Reconstruction issues throughout Euston and the Camden approaches, and their surroundings, and the large scale complexities arising with multiple construction phases and transitional operational arrangements, potentially over the best part of two decades. Even London Bridge and its approaches will have only experienced 4-5 years of works. The local political impacts of a two-generation continuous period of rail works haven’t been assimilated, yet, in a modern London.
- An economic growth conundrum for London, that the economic stimulus of HS2 could be regarded as ending on the northern edge of Central London, at Euston, just as the WCML does, so limiting the onwards economic benefits. Euston does not have the latent development capacity in the surrounding lands that was achievable with the Kings Cross St Pancras lands. This is implicit in the preceding five problems as well. The reconstruction topic could lead to economic downsides locally if the Euston area were subjected to rebuilding impacts until the mid-2030s, which is the currently expected outcome.
There will be more discussion on most of these topics in Parts 5 and 6. For the present, we’ll look at the policy and budgetary concerns which arise. This leads on from the starting discussion in this Part 4, about the changes proposed for Sheffield and elsewhere. There are important policy implications about the responsibilities and relationships between HS2 Ltd, Network Rail and Government.
The growing need for a practical alliance as partners between HS2 Ltd and Network Rail will be discussed in relation to the HS2 scheme changes and political priorities now evident for the Midlands and North. We shall see that London – and particularly Euston terminus – is increasingly an odd one out in policy and budget priorities.
Which infrastructure sponsor should lead the delivery of capacity?
As an instrument of economic growth, and as a wholly new railway specification, there is some merit in disaggregating HS2 planning and related funding from Network Rail. So far, HS2 Ltd’s support for European-sized captive trains has also pointed tactically to HS2 Ltd being the lead planner for its own track approaches and major terminal sites across England, on behalf of its shareholder, which is the Government.
Through procurement, HS2 is also its own agency to lead the supply of HS2 capacity. HS2 Ltd is keeping to a tight level of commitments: “keep as far as possible within our own ‘red line’” is an oversimplified summary of its stance, as illustrated in numerous Select Committee discussions.
Network Rail’s focus is primarily about managing the classic railway and its future needs. However it includes, as part of that, the HS1 route and the existing large range of British intercity lines, and their expansion and upgrading. So NR actually has a very large engagement with high speed rail, and a considerable skill-set there. It also has to facilitate HS2’s plans and priorities where these interface with the classic railway.
Emerging examples outside London
Interestingly, the case of Sheffield set out above shows that there is an emerging greater reliance by HS2 Ltd and the Government on Network Rail being a genuine partner rather than mere supplier to a customer/specifier, in terms of the shaping of the future Midlands and North railway network to underpin national and regional economic imperatives.
A Phase 2a to Crewe will accentuate that, as HS2 Ltd and hence the Government will be wholly dependent on Network Rail delivering viable solutions for rapid onwards direct HS train access towards Manchester, Liverpool, the North West and Scotland. Network Rail will have to take this in hand alongside effective regional capacity solutions which also accommodate freight flows and the growing volume of regional passenger services.
HS2 has effectively been ruled out as the delivery lead within cities in Scotland and Northern England, where the project analysis is explicit already that only ‘classic-compatible’ trains are justified at Glasgow Central, Edinburgh Waverley, Carlisle and Newcastle stations. The economics of a very high speed railway across the Cheviots or Lauderdale hills plus separate termini in the Lowland cities are unrealistic.
If the economic growth case makes Network Rail a valid organisation for achieving increased transport supply, because its skill sets will be the most relevant, there is also a strong case for Network Rail to be the primary instrument for capacity expansion. Network Rail is well placed to be the lead for city centre stations and termini, and their approaches, because capacity increments are best managed as a whole on route corridors. The policy logic points to Network Rail being the correct organisation to have total planning and delivery responsibility for the ‘last mile’ to the buffers, for both HS2 and the ‘classic’ railway, within a single ‘red line’.
That should be obvious for northern city centres where there is an inevitable overlap between upgrades of the existing railway such as Trans-Pennine Electrification, HS2 plans and HS3 ambitions. It would be inefficient and potentially chaotic and costly, to have multiple overlapping project sponsors and delivery agencies. There can be efficiency also in defining a shared requirement during relevant planning timescales for onwards distribution (tube, bus, rail, taxi/über, walking, cycling in the case of London) within city centres and for other principal access corridors.
Wider adoption of ‘classic-compatible’ HS trains would allow Network Rail a further basis to argue for overall project control and funding for approach tracks and city centre stations, with budgets apportioned more equitably between different capacity pressures without extra resources required for GC-only gauge trains, and to optimise usage of the ‘classic’ infrastructure.
London terminal planning becoming the odd one out?
Let’s see what the situation is in and around London, at the HS2/Network Rail interfaces. Of course Network Rail is having to bear the costs and solutions for the existing main lines in London and the Home Counties, e.g. Old Oak Common, funded by HS2 Ltd, and at and beyond the junctions in the Midlands and the North where HS2 trains rejoin the classic lines.
However, in the case of Euston with the latest ‘AP3’ scheme, there is a physical and financial ‘Berlin Wall’ between the HS2 railway and the classic West Coast Main Line, even though HS2 overlaps with the existing railway corridor. HS2 expenditures start during Control Period 5 (2014-19) and continue through CP6 to CP7. HS2 Ltd has formal agreements with Network Rail to pay for relevant on-network investments, but HS2 is limiting the main spend at Euston to its part of the terminus and its own track approaches, and to re-align the WCML tracks to help make room for the HS tracks and long platforms. (The HS platforms would extend under a rebuilt Hampstead Road bridge.)
Importantly, Network Rail doesn’t have any sources of funding to hand, to redesign let alone rebuild its part of the existing Euston terminus. Network Rail’s budget crisis, which became visible in 2015 with subsequent official reviews, and led to Sir Peter Hendy being appointed Chairman of Network Rail, has led to a situation where NR doesn’t even have enough funds to pay for all proposed projects still in CP5, and it is looking to sell major assets to find the missing £1.8 billion.
A situation has arisen where the ‘classic’ railway is short of funds. Yet at Euston it will continue to be the infrastructure used by most commuters and business passengers, while only the HS2 side of the station has assured funding, for its own project elements. This points to a rich man, poor man comparison, which cannot be the right policy outcome for the busier ‘classic’ railway, and where the ‘classic’ passengers will be subjected to years of construction inconvenience yet are not guaranteed to gain from an improved station at the end of the process.
To have one of the most complex terminal and approach track projects this century split in design, transitional works, and delivery responsibilities between two main line entities, looks like a recipe for confusion, unnecessarily high costs for administration, planning and construction, and risks of timescales getting out of sync. There will be quite enough complexity having to integrate the station works and temporary passenger flows and other facilities with the surrounding cityscape, the local community and with Transport for London.
A single directing mind?
It would make sense for there to be a single ‘red line’ for the whole Euston terminus and its approaches – possibly as far as at OOC/Willesden Junction – so that all options for approach capacities, and platform occupation rates, were capable of being optimised – and with a single directing mind. It would help if there were a single Euston capacity budget established to accommodate the required spend and upgrades on existing ‘classic’ railway and new tracks, including Digital Railway opportunities, not just HS2 in partial isolation.
HS2’s desire for specialised European-gauge terminal infrastructure at Euston, which until full Phase 2 in the mid 2030s will be of use only for 3tph to/from Birmingham, and a maximum of 9tph with the whole of HS2 built, starts to look like a financially questionable element of the project.
Capacity pressure points, and current funding gaps, are also foreseeable at other London termini, which are part of the larger aggregation of existing routes from the northern Home Counties and the Midlands. At St Pancras there is only marginal scope to increase MML trains per hour unless the Digital Railway can magick new frequencies with faster platform turnaround and dwell times (faster than HS2 is cautiously planning for its new railway), or unless platform 5, or 5 plus 6, were re-allocated from Eurostar and access reconfigured for domestic use.
On ECML, 4-tracking the Welwyn Viaduct and 6-car limitations down the tube to Moorgate remain the mystery graveyard for ECML capacity expansion. Those are schemes where no one has yet demonstrated financial appetite for large scale expenditures. In the next few years, marginal capacity increases are to be leveraged on Welwyn Viaduct with use of 110 mph trains on limited-stop commuter services, which will be closer in point-to-point timing to standard 125 mph intercity operations.
However intercity service levels (franchised and open access) are also being increased in the next few years period, with the ORR considering that an average 7½ paths per hour will be realistic by 2021. Currently in the morning inbound commuting peak hours, the ECML squeezes in 8-9 London-bound intercity trains per hour in the arrival period from 08:45 to 10:00. This is only possible because the GTR services are then rapidly reducing from peak to offpeak service levels. General increases in peak shoulder commuting volumes will make this less viable as the years go on.
Overall it is Network Rail which arguably should have the total oversight for maximising line capacities to the northern main line termini, with desired service levels specified by the various train operators and HS2 Ltd, and by TfL in the Greater London area.
Meanwhile the WCML ‘Capacity Plus’ study (currently embargoed from publication) is reportedly pointing to only 2 genuinely additional passenger trains per hour being achieved as a consequence of HS2 – which is pretty small beer, though other existing stopping patterns and train lengths might vary. The released WCML capacity for freight might also be questioned in those circumstances. We noted in Part 2 that the DfT republished HS2 Ltd’s interpretation of a future WCML service pattern, in its November 2015 technical demand updates for HS2 and WCML, so gave that implicit support.
ORR with a partial rescue?
The present situation arising at Euston is directly at odds with the Office of Rail and Road’s new policy of national railway regulation at route level, for the 2018 Period Review. ORR has recently stated the obvious, and issued a warning that there will be hard choices to make about project priorities generally across the railway, in its introductory consultation on PR18 (Periodic Review 18, looking ahead to the 2019-2024 Control Period 6). There are also some emerging regulatory issues about how ORR will oversee Network Rail, with some implications for how the HS2 project might need to start being aligned with current railway oversight:
Throughout this period of change we need to remain focused on what the network needs to deliver over time and how much this will cost. As a result of the Hendy review, there has been a significant change of several billion pounds to planned enhancement work, some of which has now moved from control period 5 (CP5, 2014-2019). There are now around £9.5bn of enhancements planned for control period 6 (CP6, likely to be 2019 to 2024). When combined with planned asset sales – which would reduce future income streams (e.g. from property rents) over CP6 – and uncertainty about the performance and efficiency levels that Network Rail can achieve by the end of CP5, this may imply some tough choices. [LR emphasis]
We propose to regulate at a route-level, supporting both the changes being made by Network Rail and a greater focus by routes on the needs of their customers. [LR emphasis] This includes making greater use of reputational incentives by formally and transparently recognising the achievement of route management teams in delivering improvements.
Alongside this shift towards routes, we propose to adopt a tailored approach to the regulation of Network Rail’s system operator role: its timetabling, capacity management, analysis and long-term planning functions. This would support it in making improvements to achieve better use of the network and also protect the ability of train operators to move passengers and freight across route boundaries. This could facilitate further traffic and revenue growth within the current network, improving overall value for money…
Finally, we set out some options for a more flexible approach to investment in the network, which would allow governments to choose from a menu of options for the regulatory treatment of enhancements. This will: support those governments wanting a more direct role in the monitoring and delivery of improvement projects; allow routes and local funders to take a larger role, within the funding constraints; and support alternative funding models, including private funding. We will also be available to those governments and other funders who want us to play an active role in the scrutiny of projects.
Network Rail’s Transformation Plan, published on 29th July 2016, presses forward the importance of Route-based management structures, along with ORR regulatory oversight. It also sets out a series of priorities for getting Network Rail ‘back on track’, able to deliver greater reliability and higher capacity across the national network.
Next step?
In conclusion, the fundamental requirement for timely and significant increases in WCML capacity and on other corridors to London northern termini appears to be at risk, partly through Network Rail funding shortfalls and partly through a failure to define a single directing mind and budget for the last few miles of track into Euston. Re-alignment of budgets and responsibilities for PR18, for the Euston approaches and terminus, could be a useful start.
Like what you read? Buy our magazine
Find out more about the challenges of building Crossrail in Feeding the Monster, our latest issue. Buy it now
Another excellent piece of writing. Thanks JR.
All I’m going to say is “Stewart’s Lane, Battersea”
Thanks for this excellent analysis. As I understand it there is precedent for “a single directing mind and budget for the last few miles of track”: St Pancras was rebuilt by London and Continental Railways without an attempt to split responsibility between the low-speed and high-speed parts of the station.
If Network Rail doesn’t have the resources to rebuild Euston and is looking to sell major stations to raise cash, should the entire station (and its development rights) be sold to HS2?
@Jonathan Roberts
Thanks for the very detailed analysis.
I’m still not convinced that HS2 should go to Euston. Without actually knowing the starting/ending location of every Euston-Birmingham passenger within Greater London it’s hard to know if Euston would be where they actually want to leave from.
I think it would be worth considering a 16km tunnel from Old Oak Common non-stop to Canary Wharf, leaving out a Zone 1 station. It would make access from East London to HS2 as easy as it would be for West London people at OOC.
This could save a **considerable** amount of money that could be used the extend the line over the land to somewhere useful but inexpensive (Gatwick perhaps) where the time-recovery terminating platforms could live.
It would me that if you were in the Square Mile you would have to Elizabeth Line to Canary Wharf to get HS2, but that would be no worse than getting to Euston on the tube in terms of timing.
Also, London *IS* moving eastwards, Canary Wharf would be a sensible location for a new station. I know people are looking for an excuse to rebuild Euston because 1960s concrete is out of fashion, but London’s economic growth emanates from Docklands.
PS: Won’t CR2 be called the “Anne Line” given the current monarchs are all Queens?
Interesting read. The choice of Euston has been nagging at me for a while though. I agree with Anonymous’ throwaway comment above, which could be a much, much better solution, though it does requires cooperation with Network Rail similar to that at OOC:
An HS2 terminus at Stewart’s Lane on its own may be a tough sell, but there is a lot of merit in it if it was done as part of resiting Clapham Junction to the same site, along with extensive redevelopment/regeneration of the area.
Although this would be far from cheap in terms of capital costs, regenerating the area at the same time might allow the project to wash its own face financially. It could even remove the need for one of the Overground stations at OOC, reducing costs there too, as HS2 itself would provide that link. In other words: this might well be cheaper and easier to do than any of the current options.
One of the reasons for sending HS1 round the houses via Stratford, aside from reduced costs, is that it opened up the south-coastal Home Counties to the rest of the country. Or, more accurately, to that part of it accessible from the MML, ECML, WAML and GEML. While Stratford International hasn’t quite lived up to its pretentious name, there are many journeys made via that station today that simply weren’t possible before HS1.
Using HS2 to provide a surrogate cross-Thames connection in a similar way, effectively mirroring HS1’s loop through Essex, potentially solves a lot of problems that terminating at Euston entails, not the least of which is funding, which is clearly a key problem with this project. By taking a more holistic view, Network Rail can take the opportunity to solve a number of bottlenecks, connectivity issues, and even some capacity problems. TfL could benefit too, as one of the two proposed Overground stations at OOC might not be required.
Consider a resited Clapham Junction built at the Stewarts Lane site. This would not only serve the existing routes via the present CJ site, but also those running via Brixton into Kent, as well as the Overground’s route via the South London Line. Many of those viaducts can be replaced / realigned, and even removed in some cases, simplifying the network, reducing overheads, etc. The new Battersea Interchange station also removes the need for the multiple stations that dot this area, reducing journey times on many routes. It’s also close enough to the Northern Line Extension to Battersea power station that an underpass to reach that terminus may be all that’s needed, with no need to extend that line any further.
Finally, terminating HS2 here also makes it much easier to extend it onwards, at some future date, possibly in tunnel to HS1 via Fawkham Junction, although, if the alignment is suitable, a tunnel towards Brighton to relieve the BML might be viable too. (Both might even be possible: A full HS2-HS1 link is unlikely to be a high priority, but it would be easy enough to build a short link to allow some services to continue via Bromley to Fawkham Junction during off-peak hours.)
All in all, I think this might be a much better option than mucking about for decades with Euston, with all the disruption problems pointed out in the article. And potentially much cheaper given the regeneration opportunities.
My apologies for the length. I tried to keep it short, but I felt the need to show my working on this one.
@Anomnibus
@Anonymous 2 August 2016 at 01:35
“Stewart’s Lane, Battersea”
Interesting. However Stewart’s Lane isn’t anywhere any tube line that would take you into any part of Zone 1, apart from the up-and-coming Northern Line extension which wasn’t planned to go to Clapham Junction because it would be overloaded from the minute it opened.
Thank you for an interesting article, however I am not sure that I agree with your statement that there are seven big problems with Euston. There are some I agree with such as “Policy and budgetary concerns about who leads on which project element”, although really not sure that lack of connectivity with Crossrail 1 is relevant given the Old Oak Common Station and land take issues are going to happen regardless of the option taken forward, and Euston is probablythe least worse option.
However, I don’t consider that the “economic growth conundrum for London” is relevant here as one of the key objectives of HS2 is to build economic growth in the regions and not in London. On that basis Euston seems to be the right choice.
PS to Ian J’s comment – London & Continental Railways still exists and is active on the development of HS2.
@JR – An excellent summary of why we are where we are, but as I feared, the tsunami of crayonistas is upon us each touting their own miracle cure at costs so high that they actually save money (apparently) to serve “major” destinations that barely need a local train service let alone a high speed link to the north.*
More seriously, to answer some of the points raised by commentators:
– using HS2 to distribute its traffic within central London will fail because it’s designed as a high speed service with rolling stock accordingly (the name is a clue…) and it would be in no way fit for purpose -quite apart from the commercial issues surrounding ticketing. See the exchanges on CrossRail1 of recent date.
– there are basically three target destinations within the CAZ – the West End, the City and the Wharf, of which the last is the smallest and planned to remain so. Taking HS2 to the Wharf imposes a long trek on what is probably going to be 60-80% of its clientele. Short of building a new Hbf in central London or a High Speed crossrail on an east west axis (err…), Euston is probably as good as it gets and had plenty of onward connectivity which none of the other sites favoured by crayonistas do.
-a London HBF would cost many billions – its size and the density of existing near surface utilities (LU, sewers, deep piled basements etc) means that it would have to go very deep – and that also implies very expensive access ramps with substantial land take in residential areas to link it to the rest of the network. Given the rocky nature of HS2’s funding and its weak business case, chucking a further burden on to its back would probably sink it all together.
– it would be so nice if the British Library had been built somewhere else – these days, it would almost certainly have been dispersed to Barrow or Hessle. Digging it up and sending it there might even be cheaper than any of the grandiose rail proposals…
More seriously, my spies within NR say (but they would anyway, wouldn’t they) that HS2 lacks planning and operating skills and has so far relied on NR doing much of the spadework in those matters. NR for their part wish that the entire HS network was kept wholly separate and operated by captive trains, leaving them to get on with running the classic system. Not the basis for a meeting of minds…
Excellent article……. Pedantic point. At Euston, the spare space is between platforms 2 and 3 and not between platforms 1 and 2.
[Confirmed by Jonathan Roberts and corrected. Thanks. PoP]
If Berlin Hbf is your ideal, initial lack of tube connections cannot possibly be a knock against a “Battersea Junction” station…
One thing that worked in case of Berlin is that local transport generally has capacity to spare, so putting a cross station in a nowhere-area roughly in the middle of the city is alright because people can get to it. In London that might be an issue if you want to make OOC your main intercity station but Crossrail is full.
An obvious advantage of Euston as terminus is its centralness, it’s reachable by taxi from most of central London and arguably walking distance to some of West End. If you’re willing to forgo that and rely on trains to get people to the station, a duo of Old Oak Common and Battersea junction looks interesting on the face of it. Neither are a destination of their own, but both are/would be well connected.
OOC: alright connectivity from west and northwest on Crossrail and Overground, Crossrail transfer to West End, City, Canary Wharf, east London (latter few are a bit far, though not substantially slower than travel to Euston…)
Battersea Junction: good connectivity from south and southwest, Crossrail 2 transfer to West End, alright connectivity from southeast via the Victoria lines
The remaining problem is then transfers onto HS1, which don’t look spectacular at Euston/St Pancras either…
And to match 130’s pedanticism it is Stewarts Lane not Stewart’s Lane.
Any one suggesting Stewarts Lane is to use an appropriate Gregism “completely Upney” (1 stop beyond…).
[Probably unintentional, but please play the ball not the player. Apply what description you like to the suggestion, but expected LR courtesy standards do not allow conclusions to be drawn about the suggester. Malcolm]
If Crossrail will be 30 tph eventually, then couldn’t they do both Watford and Wycombe? You’d only need 4 tph to Wycombe. If you then had 8 tph to Watford, 8 tph to Great Western and 4 tph to Heathrow, that still leaves 6 tph terminating at OOC.
Thank you for another brilliant article. Like many, I have many reservations about the current Euston as a terminus, but I also have reservations about the scale of plans for re-development, which seem OTT. Additional platforms will be needed, but why is re-directing the WCML inner suburban services to Crossrail 1 not part of the current plans already? Added to the inefficiencies of the current terminus, does anyone know the actual capacity of the the current site? Surely this should be known before the attempted land grab towards Coburg Street, or the billions required for some crayonistas schemes (dreams) are sought?
Re Malcolm,
Appologies the concept rather than the promoter. I suggest anyone promoting such ideas books themselves in for a walking tour of the area with Old Buccaneer first to get fully acquainted, there are a huge number of issues on/in the ground in the area. (For the underground ones just think how deep the station would have to be to avoid the Northern line overrun tunnels, CR2, Supersewer, multiple 1m+ gas mains, National Grid and UKPN HV cable tunnels and the foundations for structures on 3 levels of above ground railway already there)
Re Josh,
That is based on todays planned service levels at the Western end, for example if HEx doesn’t continue beyond 2023 (or earlier) that would be another 4tph to Heathrow T5 so both WCML and Wycombe Crossrail would only work with 30tph not 24tph but 1 branch would fit happily 24tph hence the apparent either or stance with the branches. I also suspect HS2 would like some empty (or empty-ish) Crossrail starters at OOC!
I seem to remember that there was an interim period of several years during which northbound Shinkansen trains started from Oeno rather than Tokyo ‘HBf’. Judging from the article (not to mention the high level of political opposition to an expanded ‘Super-Euston’ terminus in Camden), it seems probable: (1) that HS2 passengers will be making their onward Central London connections at OOC for many years after high-speed services first begin [so CR1 ‘turnbacks’ will need to move further west]; and (2) that ‘captive’ Continental-profile rolling-stock is a total waste of money, given that Sheffield, Leeds and Manchester are all likely to remain ‘classic-compatible’ destinations. This surely re-opens the option of ‘redistributing’ London-bound HS2 services between a more modestly upgraded (post-CR1-to-WCML link) Euston [for services from the northern WCML?], a revamped post-CR1 Paddington [Birmingham?] and (even) a couple of underused ex-Eurostar platforms at St Pancras (via the NLL) [East Midlands/northern ECML?].
Graham H at 09:37 Whilst there are undoubtedly people at NR that “wish that the entire HS network was kept wholly separate”, there are others that wish – and are working to make sure – that there’s one network. That said, there are also some that wish it wasn’t happening – but they are mainly concerned with performance on the WCML and/or bear the scars of London Bridge redevelopment!
@Anonymous – indeed,I have heard all those views from NR staff – not a monolithic organisation fortunately. The “One Networketeers” (whom, personally, I believe are right) will need to be careful, however, that they get a suitable financial dowry for taking on the lot.
GH @ 13:36 well the upfront cost – and impact on the HS2 budget envelope – was what killed off the mooted joined up Euston redevelopment. Easier to eat the elephant one bite at a time (even if that leads to the multiple construction phases over the best part of two decades as identified by Jonathan Roberts)?
Anonymous… excellent thoughts but eating the elephant one bite at a time could and should still be done against a master plan so that the eventual result looks like an elephant and not a collection of metaphorical animal spare parts. Thus there needs to be a vision and someone in charge. Eg the Euston Development Partnership…..NR, HS2 and Camden Council with a developer in tow.
By the way the Euston Development Partnership doesn’t exist as far as I know.
130 – Camden as the planning authority is responsible for the vision – the Euston Area Plan. The FAQ – http://www.eustonareaplan.info/faq/ – describes how this works with three options: 1) complete redevelopment 2) HS2 next to existing station and 3) existing station redevelopment, no HS2.
There are various Partnership Boards. The Euston Strategic Board is chaired by Camden with HS2, DfT and NR attending. The (relatively) new Euston Station Strategic Redevelopment Board comprises “senior officer representatives from the DfT, HS2 Ltd, the London Borough of Camden, Network Rail, Transport for London and the GLA to provide co-ordination across the various transport related projects (including the HS2 works authorised by the Bill, redevelopment of the Network Rail station, Crossrail 2 and over site development), with a view to delivering the right outcome for the Euston Area.”
why don’t you run lines from the current HS1 portal at Kings cross to OOC and have some HS1 services terminating there including international services there and at Stratford which will justify the ‘international’ part. Build 4 lines from Primrose hill to St pancras international platforms, possibly tunneled so that WCML services can use st pancras instead. Build a line on the NNML from OOC to the current chiltern mainline as a temporary option for extended services. Then open up the old great central line to rugby.
As for Euston, once it has been vacated, build crossrail 3 along the watford DC lines to St johns tanners hill flydown and to Bromley North, Beckenham Junction, and Hayes. Over time upgrade it all from DC to AC, and run the bakerloo line to OOC and extend it along the LCDR line from Elephant and Castle (although on a map, it looks like about 1k south before you can get to the lines) to either Beckenham Junction or Norwood junction (diverted off from crystal palace)
@Mattto484 You win the whole box of crayons.
@Mattto484 – a very good parody of crayonista thinking! BTW, you forget the obligatory mention of the extension of the W&C (to OOC perhaps) and the GNC (let’s say, to Brighton).
The thing that staggers me about Euston is the build time. Decades of construction?! Predicting costs over that time will be difficult and there might be a danger of starting something but running out of energy/money/vision half way through. The disruption to existing travellers is likely to make the London Bridge rebuild a mere bagatelle.
@Graham H and @Alan Burkitt-Gray not sure what that crayon stuff is, but you could also have a DLR extension to Euston, and fast services to WCML through a tunnel from Euston to Vauxhall, planned it all out on google mymaps. Crossrail 3 services would be Russell Square, Holborn, Temple (probably only Holborn or Temple out of those), Southwark, Borough, Spa Road, South Bermondsey and NCG. Looked at passenger numbers on wikipedia and connecting lines to work out where the best station connections would be without having a really curved route
@ JR – excellent article and thanks for the huge amount of work that’s clearly involved. I did feel towards the end that I might be reading Mr Hendy’s secret HS2 strategy document. 😉
A few musings.
1. We really need to be transported back to 1970s London where there was a wide choice of derelict land near railways for the demands we now face today. Then we could plan a coherent strategy with lots of land options to play with.
2. I despair that there is still wrangling going on about what lines do or do not reach OOC and which will be destroyed or never built. This needs sorting out or else we lose the opportunity to ever put it right at anything approaching a viable cost. Once the area starts to be extensively redeveloped the railway will be set in stone.
3. I agree you need to a single lead to control Euston’s redevelopment and, as 130 said, there needs to be a masterplan not a balkanised nonsense.
4. I suspect a 20 year construction timescale is an absolute non starter. I wonder how many people have realised that might be in prospect for what is a residential area in its own right plus the areas adjacent to the corridor of works. It just feels wrong given the moves to repopulate the inner city areas never mind those already resident.
5. I suspect you may touch on it later but the impacts on the franchises operating out of Euston are not to be sneezed at. A 20 year timescale means the WCML and West Midlands franchises could be retendered 2 or 3 times. And the DfT apparently wants bidders to retain the revenue risk? Ho ho ho. I don’t think even Mr Branson and Mr Souter are that mad or else any premium payments will be minuscule compared to today.
6. I do wonder if the apparent desire to split the works and property at Euston is also linked to later over station development rights. Call me a cynic.
7. I don’t really like what’s planned for Euston but I feel we are out of viable alternative options. All the tunnelling crayons need to return to their boxes. I do agree with your basic observation that scrapping the concept of captive trains would be a wise decision and just having a fleet of compatible trains makes more sense (and I say that as someone who remains very sceptical about the whole HS2 idea).
Mattto484,
Looked at passenger numbers on wikipedia and connecting lines to work out where the best station connections would be without having a really curved route
Not sure if this is intended to be a parody or not. If I understand you correctly…
But that would not tell you where services are needed (e.g. for housing developments). Nor would it give an indication of whether the existing network was handling those flows satisfactorily. And neither would it take into account schemes in development.
Just to show how you would get absolutely bonkers results, imagine Crossrail 1 opens and it is busy but handling the flows satisfactorily. According to this method of working the best proposed route would probably be a duplicate of Crossrail 1 !
@Mattto484 – points are awarded for crayonista schemes that
(a) solve no known problems
(b) make existing problems worse
(c) are uncosted
(d) have no market analysis
(e) use the W&C
(f) use the GNC
(g) would be likely to cost a significant portion of the UK’s GDP
(h) are inoperable
@Alan Burkitt-Gray – merely Lakeland, not Faeber Castell as there are no references to the WC or GNC, alas.
….Which is why crayonism is not encouraged on this website, and indeed has been known to suffer a grizzly fate at the hands of the moderators’ shears (frankly, I’m rather surprised by their tolerance so far on this thread!).
IMHO, if HS2 is to be well used and not end up an embarrassing white elephant (no names mentioned ?), then it has to reach Central London. Otherwise a large proportion of its target market will just continue to use the ‘classic’ services from the existing termini. Thus Euston is the best (or least worst) option for achieving this.
Is there any scope for rebuilding Euston as a double-deck station, with HS2 services at ground level (which could then dive into tunnel at some suitable point north of the station to reach OOC), and everything else above it? That way you could avoid having to knock down half of Camden in order to create the extra space required, and it may(?) be no more disruptive than the current station rebuild taking place at London Bridge.
@Anonymously, I dare say we will be snipped if we do too much analysis of why or why the punters will continue to use the classic services but (vaguely on London topics), even the Brum HS2 route will be vulnerable to Chiltern competition, with its stations nicely placed in suburban west midlands.
I must apologise for my accidental possible crayoning of Gatwick in to the HS2 line, but the fundamental point still remains:
Why do trains from London to Birmingham need to start from the “nearest bit of farmland that George and Robert Stephenson could get to the City” 180 years ago?
If it were simple to get to Euston it might provide some continuity, but without actually suggesting a location wouldn’t somewhere you could interchange with Elizabeth and/or CR2 and/or Thameslink not be more useful for passengers?
And if you do that, where would be the most financially optimal place then to put the terminating station with it’s half-hour recovery platforms, rather than in the most expensive real-estate zone on the whole planet?
I’m sorry, but IMHO this just looks like the “must redevelop Euston” fetish has got mixed up with the much-needed HS2 and isn’t really producing the right answer for the long term.
“Euston … arguably walking distance to some of West End.” – As it happens, I used to walk from Barnes to Euston twice a week at one time (ie the days before night buses).
The issue appears to be once of “If not Euston, then where?” to which there is no answer without a mass destruction of property in a different place to that alongside the existing Euston station. With the straight-platform parallel lines box requirement there isn’t any other more-reasonable option, thus getting on with it seems the appropriate decision instead of more prevarication.
Or just don’t build HS1 south of B’ham… :O
Just catching up with some responses, thanks for those so far.
@ Anonymously 18:40
One of the main objectors to the Euston AP3 scheme, Jeff Travers, has proposed a double-deck scheme in some detail: see link here: http://pancamdenhs2alliance.org/?page_id=910 (though this may not be up to date).
@WW
You’re right, impact on TOCs operating from Euston shouldn’t be ignored. Essentially the reduction in future premia ought to be counted as part of the cost of HS2 and the Euston rebuild.
@ Anonymous 16:32
The Euston Strategic Boards aren’t so far trusted by the local community. The dialogue with locals, as opposed to Camden Council, has been perceived as poor. Camden Council also isn’t trusted, as it is seen as having its own development agenda.
@Belsize Parker
Multiple termini cause multiple costs, without multiple benefits, and sometimes with multiple downsides!
@various re Battersea option
Having another non-Central London station in addition to OOC doesn’t help the HS2 business case which depends on at least one Central London stop. The cost points made by ngh are also very relevant. If you add in Clapham Junction relocation, then how many £xxbn would it become?
The other large gap in any Battersea case is probably that there is no Satellite Activity Zone in that part of inner South London, so no significant single destination like Canary Wharf (also not yet viable itself as an HS stop) that would help to leverage enough passengers.
@GH
re Chiltern (and LM) competition. Some interesting results to be shared in Part 5 about generalised costs for travel by different rail operators, between parts of the West Midlands and London.
Anonymously. Double deck station at Euston- great idea, only there is a working railway to keep operational while excavating all round it and building approach tracks over the top (and connecting the lot up together again). The reason that HS2 wants to grab all that land west of Euston is so that it can be built with least hassle for both itself and the existing WCML.
I suppose the approach from OOC could be put on a viaduct all the way to a high level station at Euston (or anywhere else). That way the misery would be distributed fairly evenly rather than inflicted solely on Camden residents.
@Fandroid
Via Westway and Marylebone Road? Suspect this merely enlarges the zone of grief…
@ Milton C – just tag HS2 elevated on the edge of the Westway alongside the new cycle lane. 🙂 🙂
I fear we have now entered the hysteria zone never mind the twilight one.
@WW….Or maybe rebuild the Westway as a dedicated rail line and bus route between OOC and Paddington/Euston? ? Don’t worry about the A40 traffic…..instead of displacement onto surrounding roads, people will just give up using their motor vehicles and traffic will reduce overall in that part of London (cf Hammersmith Bridge closure several years ago) ?.
@Fandroid….Well, they’ve somehow managed to keep (semi-)operational the railway through London Bridge whilst it undergoes its metamorphosis. I was thinking that the concrete monolith enclosing the station could be dismantled whilst keeping the station more or less in use (as happened at the ex-LBSCR London Bridge terminal platforms), before a more extended closure (very difficult I agree….but better than knocking down half of Camden!) to build the two rafts and connect the existing lines to the upper platforms. Then one could continue with the rest of the HS2 build in peace whilst the existing services serve the new platforms above (or below).
@Anonymous 9:01
Thank you, several interesting observations:
“not sure that lack of connectivity with Crossrail 1 is relevant given the Old Oak Common Station and land take issues are going to happen regardless of the option taken forward, and Euston is probably the least worse option.”
“I don’t consider that the “economic growth conundrum for London” is relevant here as one of the key objectives of HS2 is to build economic growth in the regions and not in London. On that basis Euston seems to be the right choice.”
Lack of connectivity with Crossrail 1 is one of Mayor Khan’s fundamental objections about HS2 and Euston. As it happens, the WCML-CR1 link might address that, but you will have seen that the commentary in the article questions its chances.
Economic growth – actually transport connectivity is double-edged, a point made in Part 3, so the better the connectivity is in one direction, the better in the other direction as well. It might actually be to the North’s benefit for the HS2 to be well connected at the London end, and for HS2 also to benefit the London economy.
There is another aspect as well, which is capacity shortfall, an important economic growth factor and one of the big driving forces for transport investment. If HS2 doesn’t adequately address London’s emerging economic geography in combination with Network Rail – which is a mix of job locations and transport supply – then it won’t have done its job adequately at the London end of the northern intercity lines.
@JR….Hmmm, the proposal you linked to suggests a double deck downwards (DDD) scheme, whereas I was thinking of a double deck *upwards* scheme to avoid impinging on the Tube tunnels. Interestingly, it goes on to say:
‘A double deck upward scheme for Euston was one of HS2 Limited’s original short-listed options for the London terminus. It was rejected following a feasibility study because it featured a structure up to 44 metres high extending north from Euston for almost a kilometre. HS2 Limited maintains that a DDD station was never considered for a feasibility study because it would clash with the London Underground Tube tunnels.’
It then proposes a DDD scheme, but cheerfully admits that this will impinge upon the six-metre clay exclusion zone around the Tube tunnels (!).
So, if one starts from the proposition that HS2 is going to be built to Euston, what’s it to be? Build a 44m high station dominating the local landscape, or demolish multiple homes and businesses to make way for it?
Whoever thought that building new infrastructure in 21st Century Britain was so difficult? ?
It has to be Euston, there is no alternative! It’s the best location and relatively easy to build. We can all dream of an alternative past where they did not redevelop some of railway lands or at least built a rafted development so they could slot some platforms in later. What we would not give for an extra 8 to 10 platforms near Liverpool street or St Pancras today, or 6 at Marleybone etc.
But alas it’s easy to play hindsight planner now, but London was on a trip downwards, ever since WW2. It was government policy after all to decongest it.
It only stabalised in the 1980’s and growth returned in the 90’s after the anti plan 80’s allowed London to re-establish itself.
But as much as we might wish it was different, I can see how the current British Library site was inevitable. It was only a short distance from the current site and 80% (at a guess) of it users are from London’s universities. The idea that the Library would go to the Provinces! Dear Dear Graham (in my best Sir Humphrey bluster) are you some sort of philistine! The provinces get some of the spare bit’s not on current display, not core activities! If only the Library looked like the current British Museum standing on Euston Road. Imagine it with all grand Pediments, Columns and Portico’s rather than the current walled in Courtyard, then people might feel better about the enormous cost.
Pity though that Broadgate and Marleybone were not saved.
I am not so sure that a Euro gauge network is not worth pursuing though. It does allow 400m trains and the eventual use of double deck stock, an so potentially enormous capacity on each train.
Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds are all getting captive sets more or less in Prime city centre sites. All three are the biggest markets for long distance travel.
Others places are just too small to justify building enormous new stations in the middle of quite small city centres.
Nottingham is well enough served by Totton, only Derby had large enough railway lands near a city centre, which would be much worse for Nottingham.
Sheffield on the other hand is built in difficult, hilly land. For regional access Meadowhall was a good compromise.
The city has traded 6 high speed trains an hour to just two that now start in the city centre, and will probably join the other half of the train at Toton. To suage the other South Yorks towns, these Sheffield trains will probably start alternatively in Barnsley and Rotherham.
It might be better for the city to have less frequent service for a more direct one, but it is not a simple exchange. Certainly they were never going to send the high speed line through to Sheffield city through a vast tunnel system and very expensive underground station or build expensive loop tunnels for just Sheffield services.
Re. Continental gauge….completely agree that this is an unnecessary luxury, especially if one is to serve existing city centre locations in the north on the ‘classic’ lines without spending untold billions on new stations and alignments in those cities. Otherwise, people will just continue to use current services from the existing conveniently located stations, as per my earlier point regarding Euston.
I am not sure what exactly Mr Khan do other than grandstand from the sidelines.
This is a national project being made through a parliamentary act.
Besides when ever has making a construction project longer ever actually saved money over all (other than a year to year budgetary process). I’m not sure how it’s supposed to lessen construction impacts if it all takes longer, there might be less lorries per day, but is that worth it if it takes an extra three years?
Certainly siren voices who never read a report on the importance of a zone one stop seem to implying Old Oak Common is good enough,
Except, there is no spare capacity in the railway lines and Major stations up North either. So any serious upgrade in capacity would need new stations and approach lines anyway.
@Rational plan….See the point that I made just after your response! Whilst it might be nice make it ‘capacity-proof’ by building it to a larger gauge, if it is going to result in massively increased complications and costs, then I would argue that it isn’t really worth it.
Plus last time I looked, Marylebone is still open! Even if the part of the station site that is now built upon had been saved, it still wouldn’t have enough space to accommodate HS2 without further demolition.
And Broad Street was doomed from the moment all North London Line services from Richmond were diverted away from it to North Woolwich. For BR to keep such prime London real estate for a peak-hours only service to Watford would have unimaginable back in the 80s (and possibly even now).
@Rational plan….You’re possibly right, but building out-of-town ‘Parkway’ stations is a false economy and a poor substitute, IMHO. AFAIK, none of the European high speed railways that have been built have adopted this approach….they have all served existing city centre stations (sometimes after an extensive rebuild).
@rational plan – the British Library to go to Barrow? I see I should have flagged it with my “Irony” mark…
More generally,I think we might disagree as to whether Toton is an adequate substitute for a city centre station but I know we will be snipped for discussing it here. Same goes for the question of capacity at critical points beyond London – 12 car trains anyone?
@Anonymously – not sure the French are as centripetal (?)as you imply – the inhabitants of Tours might say otherwise, for example, and as for the inhabitants of Champagne-Ardennes, well,are there any ? With Parkway stations generally, the Board found that it was very much horses for courses – some lost money because people drove to the Parkway instead of boarding at the nearest station, others were effective because the city centre station lacked adequate feeder services (eg Bristol). The environmental impacts were similarly mixed.
@Graham H/rational Plan
British Library to Barrow
Nice and centrally located, and with a direct service to St Pancras, although not today……….
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-36950451
Or didn’t you mean that one?
Good stuff Jonathan.
My comment on Fandroid’s opinion follows his quote
“Anonymously. Double deck station at Euston- great idea, only there is a working railway to keep operational while excavating all round it and building approach tracks over the top (and connecting the lot up together again). The reason that HS2 wants to grab all that land west of Euston is so that it can be built with least hassle for both itself and the existing WCML.”
The problem wih HS2’s current station concept and all their previous Euston solutions (as they all have followed the same platform concept) is that they put extreme pressure on site space for construction. So their is negligible compound space for a rail freight head and no space even for a concrete batching plant served by rail freight (even after demolishing the addjoining streets and housing). The latest scheme AP3 puts three storeys of station services below two thirds of the new platforms (to max out commercial return from the compulsorily purchase overdeck). So the amount of excavation and concrete needed for Euston is on a par with the whole of Crossrail. But Crossrail had multiplatform rail freight heads and concrete batching plant (and even a concrete batching train). So the construction methodology currently being promoted by HS2 for Euston is a big step backwards
Fandroid’s concerns about the impracticality of Double Deck are not supported by a closer examination. This is principally because there is so much redundant space within the existing Euston station.
This enables a minimum of 17 NR platforms to be in operation during construction of a double deck station (and a maximum of 25 platforms during construction). By expanding the existing station concourse and tube during construction (and using the existing as a resource for the new at each phase) a comprehensive integrated station redevelopment can occur within AP3’s programme and budget. And the commercial overdeck and housing can be delivered (using rail freight logistics) within the AP3 budget period too.
The key to this is that a Double Deck 22 platform footprint is only two thirds the width of the existing Euston platform footprint … so there would enormous operational clearance and plenty of spare space which can be sold off at the end… and space too for extra classic platforms if NR’s design brief (which is about to be published) requires them.
The above assessment is based on our analysis of the dimensioned working drawings of the existing station and Hampstead Road bridge (which we have) and HS2’s design parameters as expressed in their current published drawings (eg clearance between AP3 retaining walls and WCML operational tracks) as well as normal structure gauge parameters etc.
We will publish a complete comprehensive integrated double deck design for Euston shortly and put all these parameters on our website for public appraisal.
HS2 eliminated such a double deck solution via their simplistic high level sifting process. This process did not acknowledge the details of the existing context or test it mathematically.
It is important (and I address Fandroid here) to hold back from jumping to similar conclusions until a proper geometric analysis has been carried out (for which an analysis of the existing working drawings is essential). And I emphasise that Fandroid’s above quote is a very misleading caricature
The HS2 sifting workshop process may have validity for simple engineering options. But is a pathetic response to the design of the phased redevelopment of a complex six storey existing station. In my experience engineering responses seldom address the level of symbiosis needed for an economic integrated solution
With AP3 and their sifting process HS2 have set the design bar at it’s lowest level regarding Euston. This dumbing down of design (dictated by rail engineer’s lack of design awareness) will surely result in red faces at some stage, Whether one believes in Euston as the appropriate terminus (or even whether one terminus is appropriate… or any terminus is appropriate)… a more sophisticated design analysis is a necessity at Euston. … for what it’s worth it seems apparent to me that most commentators haven’t got the first clue what such a ‘design analysis’ means.
re: Marleybone. Sorry Marylebone was meant to be much larger and the land was assembled and then not much used. Space for at least an extra 6 platforms existed until the 90’s. But alas a big bank built a trading floor on it and a small council estate now built a bit earlier. You can see the outline on google earth photo’s.
Actually would not take much to demolish these today if anyone really needs the extra platforms, just the minor issue of approach line capacity.
Paddingtons former goods yard was the last to succumb to some forgettable office buildings and hotels.
Both Paddington and Marylebone could be reversed with anyone with a bit of guts and money, but are a bit peripheral for central London.
Broadgate has no chance of being cleared as it’s land values are now too high and will climb ever higher as British Land succumbs and demolishes the estate to replace them with high rises.
It will be our descendent’s who will have to grapple with a second high speed terminal (assuming growth continues).
rational plan,
All the land at Marylebone was used. It could be argued it was not used to its best effect. The land that was purchased by a housing association used to be the diesel depot. One could certainly argue that it didn’t make sense to have a diesel depot next to a London terminus with the daftness of the first trains going out empty and the last trains returning empty. Chiltern was quick to build a depot at Aylesbury and get rid of the depot at Marylebone but I suspect it was Chris Green who laid the seeds for this.
Some of the land on the other (western) side was also used for railway offices but these were demolished.
Euston would appear to be the only viable/affordable central London option for a 400m terminus for HS2. So why not look at options to divert WCML to different destinations if there’s not enough room for both services at Euston? A new link to Heathrow (more useful than HS2 going there)? Paddington? To HS1 via Stratford? Gatwick/BML? Etc etc. Surely passengers north of B’ham are going to use HS2 and not WCML for fast services to London so perhaps WCML should be re-purposed..?
@Chris Richmond maybe, but remember that we can’t just turn off the WCML for 5+ years while HS2 is built. Even something like diverting passengers to Heathrow while the rebuild takes place would probably be unacceptable.
44m high for a double deck station? That’s 22m or 68 feet or about 5 storeys for each deck. Or somewhat higher than most other stations in the UK. Seems a tad excessive – but I’m not an engineer.
@quinlet – indeed! Just down the road, they seem to manage with about half that.
@timbeau – Furness rather than Soar
@ChrisRichmond – as pointed out before, opening HS2 releases very few paths on WCML if those who live “up north” are going to get as good a train service as they do now. So, WCML will still be needed and still require as much terminal capacity as it needs now. By all means try and find another Euston-sized site for its London Terminus, but just don’t expect to it to be a matter of shoehorning a few residual trains for Heathrow punters into somewhere else.
I do have a practicable suggestion for a non-Euston location.
1. Terminate the line at a multiple-platform station at Poplar. There’s enough room for a station large built “on slits” over the DLR station and sidings there. This is where you do the train turn arounds. Probably cost £250m for an above-ground station. Include moving walkways bridge to Canary Wharf.
2. Run the tunnels from Old Oak Common not to Euston (6km) but to Poplar via Smithfield Market (15km); extra cost would be 2x9x£40m = £720m[1]
3. Use the space under Smithfield Market[2] that was the underground railway yards (and perhaps the abandoned City Widened Lines such as at Barbican) to create a new low-level station with great connections (at Farringdon) to the Elizabeth Line, Thameslink giving fast, four-compass-points regional access to the HS2 line, as well as the underground lines at Farringdon. Cost… £500m.
4. Subtract the cost of Euston redevelopment and inconvenience;
[1] https://consultations.tfl.gov.uk/crossrail2/october2015/user_uploads/rtir.pdf page 28
[2] https://www.ianvisits.co.uk/blog/2012/05/25/photos-the-railway-tunnels-underneath-smithfield-meat-market/
Assuming Euston (because we have to) …..
The DD proposal is very interesting, but IMHO, the wrong way up.
There’s a huge empty space above Euston.
Without crayonism (I hope) it should be possible to build extra ultra-loadbearing pillars above/through the existing, without removing more than one platform at a time from use. Then build the new station on top ( And offices over that if enthusiastic – this is optional ) There is space for emergence, etc, in the old carriage-sheds areas just outside the current terminus (I think)
Then you don’t need to widen the footprint, or not nearly as much as the present proposed mess.
Agree wholeheartedly about the ridiculously-long timescale proposed for this exercise, though.
P.S. “Continental Gauge”
IF you are only building/altering relatively-short stretches of connecting lines for city-centre terminals, than rebuilding those & only those to UIC should be feasible in both engineering & financial terms.
The “Farnworth solution” is an option here … you have an existing two-track line, you build a 3rd track to UIC & then re-purpose the existing 2 to a single UIC line, thus giving you 2 UIC tracks …
Maybe ?
Briantist,
Where on earth do you get those figures from? £250 million doesn’t buy much today when working around an operational railway. And I don’t think you have grasped just how long the trains are let alone how much space you need for ancillary stuff.
Look at the size of a Crossrail station e.g, Paddington. Better still actually visit the site. That is for just two platforms of trains that are only (!) potentially 250m long. Now imagine putting a couple of them (at least) at Poplar whilst continuing to keep the DLR and Aspen Way (very busy road) in use.
@Belsize Parker:
I seem to remember that there was an interim period of several years during which northbound Shinkansen trains started from Oeno rather than Tokyo ‘HBf’
The crucial difference is that Ueno, unlike Old Oak Common, is in the centre of the city it serves (ie the central activity zone – Tokyo, like London and Berlin, has a large “city centre” area with different focal points within it).
the high level of political opposition to an expanded ‘Super-Euston’ terminus in Camden
Does a high level of opposition in Camden necessarily have much bearing on a project whose ultimate decision-making body is a Parliament only one of whose members represents the area?
On the British Library (and the Francis Crick Institute for that matter) – surely the whole point of having them where they are is that they are very easy to get to from the provinces. They are much more accessible to researchers from most of the UK than if they were, say, at Boston Spa (where many of the BL’s less-used books are), or indeed Bloomsbury. Agglomeration effects at work: if you only have one of something in a country, put it at the most accessible point.
@EustonDesign: there is so much redundant space within the existing Euston station. This enables a minimum of 17 NR platforms to be in operation during construction of a double deck station.
Do Network Rail agree with you?
@Briantist – the cost of plain tunnelling is more like £100m/mile/track;then there’s the small matter of fitting it out. Underground stations – because you can’t use a TBM for much of the work – are very pricey. £500m would be a snip – Stratford Unnecessary would be more like £1bn at today’s price – and I very doubt that the Smithfield area would provide you with enough length anyway. BTW, precisely where is Poplar and why would anyone want to go there? [Irony alert, just in case].
@Greg: The “Farnworth solution”
But then you end up with only the same number of tracks you started with – isn’t the point of the exercise really to add a fifth and sixth track to the WCML? In which case you are going to have to build extra tracks all the way to the platforms, and if you are building new, you get UIC for marginal extra cost anyway.
@Ian J – that will teach me to write facetiously about government dispersal policy – you know, however, that convenience or attractiveness has never been part of that. The list of institutions sent to unhelpful places is long and I doubt the moderators would tolerate a discussion of examples. It would be so useful if one could have an irony flag to help others of a less whimsical disposition…
The reason for the relatively low-profile exterior of the British Library is, I’ve heard, because of an order from planning authorities that it not compete aesthetically with St Pancras station!
@Graham H
“if one could have an irony flag…”
Perhaps “(!)”, or many of the smiley face emojis/emoticons?
What I don’t understand is that if HS2 is about capacity rather than just a high speed BHM-Lnd Terminals line then how has Chiltern’s (arguably underused) railway to Birmingham not been eyed up? With the money made available for HS2 you could do so much there – and sort out Marylebone for good too. It’s already used for freight, and the line could definitely provide competitive journey times compared with the WCML if it were electrified and the other work accomplished.
Phase 2, on the other hand, seems like a far better idea, and actually helps the North – but that’s not to be discussed here.
Regarding Euston. I agree that it seems to be the least worst option, albeit causing crushing on the tube south until CR2 gets built. If you had unlimited money as suggested by the crayonistas above surely you’d dig out BR’s old plan for Euston low level – Victoria LL under the river and divert WCML down there, leaving Euston for HS2!
Wikipedia has an article on irony punctuation, including such characters as the rhetorical question mark “⸮”.
Re Twenty-six
Because Chiltern wouldn’t add that much capacity given it is a (mostly) 2 track mixed use railway especially with a projected increase in container freight (and electric spine north of Banbury). The £76m rebuild of Banbury is seeing the majority of the spend during a 2 week closure currently. Electrifying and longer trains where possible should be on the cards for the medium term but the extra capacity would minimal compared to HS2 and the locals along the route might want some of it too!
Remember the delayed Oxford – Marylebone services start later this year.
Chiltern isn’t as underused as people think, the growth there will be through longer trains.
Re Ian J 0938,
minimum of 17 NR platforms..
I suspect not without a hugely longer build period as you would have to start by:
– digging out 2 new track beds in the current very wide P2&3
– Rebuilding Hampstead Road and Granby Terrace Bridge to allow early station throat adjustments
– digging out behind the buffers on the existing platforms at 5+6, 9+10, 13+14 to provide extra platform length to provide short term operational solutions.
That would give you 17 platforms and a worksite above the current area of P18, 17A&B, P16 and the 1 of the 2 sidings between P15 & 16
Greg Tingey 3 August 2016 at 09:12
I can just about imagine
“it should be possible to build extra ultra-loadbearing pillars above/through the existing, without removing more than one platform at a time from use. Then build the new station on top”
But if the HS2 platforms are at the present level and the replacement classic platforms are above, it sounds quite tricky and expensive. For example, wouldn’t the new old tracks have to pass above the Hampstead Road bridge?
> “Euston … arguably walking distance to some of West End.” – As it happens, I used to walk from Barnes to Euston twice a week at one time (ie the days before night buses).
Obviously literal walking distance is much more, but I expect you wouldn’t get a lot of uptake among HS2 travellers for a stroll down TCR/CCR to Leicester Square, no matter how nicely Camden does up TCR.
As for the people saying Zone 1 or bust, I guess I shouldn’t point out that Euston is closer to Zone 2 (two bus stops north) than to the British Museum.
@Jarek – The BM? Surely not the preferred destination of the vast majority of Z1 travellers?
twenty-six 11.02:
While it is a common trope for HS2 opponents to characterise HS2 as a Birmingham-London terminals high speed line which only benefits “a few businessmen”, that doesn’t describe even Phase 1 (or 1+2A), which is:
– a high capacity new pair of tracks
– between, to the north, Birmingham AND other major north west and Scottish destinations reached via the West Coast Main Line north of the West Midlands
– and, to the south, BOTH a central London terminal AND a London satellite activity zone (enabling new journey opportunities via the new interchange)
– which bypass the West Coast Main Line south of the West Midlands and so, even if the number of services on the WCML remains similar, HS2 trains take inter-city passengers out of trains that use the southern WCML so that their passenger capacity can be used by passengers using intermediate stations
Phase 2 then extends this effect to the East Midlands, South Yorkshire, West Yorkshire and the North East, and hence to the Midland and East Coast main lines, as well as removing inter city passsengers from more of the WCML so that the released capacity can be reassigned.
Building the new pair of tracks creates the additional capacity; since they are intended for inter city passsenger traffic, engineering them for high speed increases the usefulness of the services made possible by the new investment.
And in any case, even if the Chiltern main line were upgraded as you suggest, it wouldn’t solve the problem of the additional terminal capacity required for the uplift in passenger numbers. So perhaps you are suggesting that the Euston works (or something similar) are required but the new track can be dispensed with?
In a similar vein, I remain somewhat baffled by how proponents of Great Central re-opening as an alternative to HS2 propose that London teminal capacity (or indeed access into central London) should be provided.
@Graham H
Most of Z1 is even further from Euston than the British Museum is.
@ngh
“Remember the delayed Oxford – Marylebone services start later this year.”
Don’t you mean Oxford to Paddington? They don’t resume until August 15th – indeed from today until Sunday there are no trains at Oxford (city) at all, with buses to Leamington, Didcot and Hanborough (on the Worcester line). (and no Chiltern service north of Bicester)
http://www.networkrail.co.uk/Flooding-Leaflet-PROOF.pdf
So it is probably just as well that the Marylebone service started last October – albeit initially only from Parkway. The extension from Parkway to City will not add any further trains to the timetable on the Chiltern route.
@caspar Lucas
“it is a common trope for HS2 opponents to characterise HS2 as a Birmingham-London terminals high speed line……[whereas Phase 1 serves] Birmingham AND other major north west and Scottish destinations reached via the West Coast Main Line north of the West Midlands”
Indeed, as it plugs into the WCML near Lichfield, phase 1 at least has the potential to serve a vast number of destinations in NW England and Scotland, but only two in the West Midlands, with a change not just of train but of station needed for any other destination in the area. It is interesting to muse that phase 2, serving only a few stations directly, may actually reduce the number of places in northern England with direct HS2 services.
Is it possible that Curzon Street, like Stratford Unintentional, will prove to be a white elephant as the HS2 operators prefer to concentrate on the longer distance services and the West Midlanders prefer the cheaper and, for many, more direct alternatives? After all, the saving of thirty minutes is relatively small compared to savings on longer journeys, and may easily be overshadowed by the extra time spent getting to Birmingham and changing, instead of just boarding a direct train at Solihull or Wolverhampton.
Re Timbeau,
No I meant the Oxford (Not just Oxford Parkway) – Marylebone from December 2016…
It was meant to start in
2013 20142015 hence the “delay”Chiltern apparently on the prowl for more stock, watch what happens to the LO 172s post 710 arrival on GOBLIN as Chiltern don’t have enough stock to do what they want.
Re Caspar,
Agreed but the bottlenecks or potential capacity uplifts if there is spare capacity aren’t easily and simply listed for all to see, it requires lots of background knowledge.
The biggest issues for the current Euston is largely the narrow throat under the Hampstead Road and Granby Terrace bridges which make any improvements at the station itself pointless as that isn’t the capacity issue (getting trains from Park Street Tunnels to the end of the platform is!) hence any solution will need a big land take to remove the bulge to the west of the bridges for a much wider throat what ever happens.
@WW
“Where on earth do you get those figures from? £250 million doesn’t buy much today when working around an operational railway. And I don’t think you have grasped just how long the trains are let alone how much space you need for ancillary stuff.”
I had taken the figure from the Crossrail document I linked to. I’m using the running assumption that HS2 and Crossrail trains are similar in length.
“That is for just two platforms of trains that are only (!) potentially 250m long. Now imagine putting a couple of them (at least) at Poplar whilst continuing to keep the DLR and Aspen Way (very busy road) in use.”
There is a very clear area of 425x60m because of the DLR stabling, so the new station would need to be much, much bigger than the existing DLR station, of course. The build would need to start with decking over the whole lot!
But… building a station above ground will save money.
@Graham H
“100m/mile/track” – Crossrail say £40m/km in their documentation. The general point is it’s cheaper to build some tunnels to Docklands than rebuild Euston.
“Underground stations – because you can’t use a TBM for much of the work – are very pricey.”
Yes, which is why I proposed only one at Smithfield Market. Perhaps it might be £1bn, it’s still better use of money than rebuilding Euston.
“Stratford Unnecessary” – Poplar isn’t near Stratford, it’s right by Canary Wharf – less than **150m*** as the crow flies from the Crossrail 1 station there. Just the sort of place a business might want to have their high speed link to Birmingham.
Ian J
I was specifically thinking of the approaches to Sheffield & possibly Brummagem, though 4-tracks Coventry – Brum is a long-overdue move, but separate from this present discussion.
A.G.
I wa thinking of having the new HS2 platforms ON TOP of the existing station, which “just” carries on as before … ( cough )
@timbeau – anent the BM – I knew that; was merely puzzled as to why that should be the archetypical Z1 destination.
I entirely agree with your prognosis about people within the HS2 catchment area trading off higher speed for nearness of station – indeed, we can see that already with Chiltern’s development of the London-Brum suburbs market. We will also no doubt see it in the Toton area. Add in some aggressive/defensive pricing by the classic TOCs and I suspect HS2 will be scrabbling for a market. The main issue for Curzon Street (sorry, Birmingham Curzon*) is that New Street is quite full and the additional trains have to go somewhere.
*”My name is George Nathaniel Curzon
My hair is white and my cheeks are sleek
And I dine at Blenheim twice a week
I am a most superior person”
Probably his father, tho’ but still hardly in tune with the Brummy Weltanschauung
Re Briantist,
“I had taken the figure from the Crossrail document I linked to. I’m using the running assumption that HS2 and Crossrail trains are similar in length. ”
The proposal is that they aren’t! With some HS2 trains being 400m long this means for a Terminus and station throat you are looking at 800m till you see significant narrowing of the alignment and 60m is not going to get you more than 8 platforms at best.
Aren’t the Crossrail documents usually priced in 2007 £s?
@ Briantist – I did not query your numbers btw. I just sat here mumbling under my breath and shaking my head as I have done with many of the responses to this article. 😉 I think PoP tackled you on the numbers.
@ Ngh – with the usual caveat about unrepresentative sample size the last time I used Chiltern from Brum to London I was really quite surprised how busy the train was throughout. It was the PM peak so obviously people commuting home as far south as Warwick and Leamington but even the numbers alighting at High Wycombe were a surprise. There were also loads of people getting off at Marylebone. Although not as whizzy as a Pendolino from New St it was a pleasant journey.
Graham H
“My name is George Nathaniel Curzon
I am a most superior person
My cheeks are pink, my hair is sleek
I dine at Blenheim once a week”
It’s from a Balliol College show of the (approx) 1890s when Jowett was Master.
I think George was the Viceroy’s grandson. And I suspect the eponymous street in Brummagem was named after the Viceroy’s papa – but I haven’t checked, such is the national dissatisfaction with “experts”. Viva crayonismo ! !*
*You may find that semi-colon hyphen ‘p’ gives a satisfactory rendition of “tongue in cheek” thus: ;-p – other emoticons are available.
[This one does not display pictorially for me (using Microsoft Edge), but it doubtless works for others. What with however (if at all) the WordPress software used by London Reconnections mangles it, and however (if at all) your own browser displays it, display of emoticons is erratic. Use at your own risk. Malcolm]
@Old Bucaneer, Graham H does not strike me as an emoticon kind of guy. People here just need to learn how to read irony. Not everything needs to be over-explained.
ngh 2 August 1104: volunteers for the Old Buccaneer tour should familiarise themselves with the area on Google Street and satellite views. Note that regeneration is under way on much the area bounded by the old generating station site, the river & Wandsworth Road even unto Vauxhall. The Patmore estate (Wandsworth BoCo) is one of the least accessible areas by public transport.
I have some sympathy for Camden ites as there’s a rail served concrete plant at the end of my road; the damage to local roads from fully laden wagons has to be seen to be believed, tho it’s just been resurfaced.
@OB – thank you for the corrected version of the Curzon skit. ( I still don’t think the Brummies will like it tho’…)
@Briantist – and then you have to fit out the tunnels. BLE and NLE show how expensive that it is. A propos Smithfield, it’s not actually connected to the existing transport network (not even the buses), and would require some work to link it in to eg LU, the Elizabeth Line, LO, TLK and some new roads for the buses, too. Poplar – only a stone’s throw from somewhere you have heard of, as Stop the City would say.
Re Old Buccaneer,
Damage to road surfaces – that sounds much more like the road wasn’t constructed properly in the first place but just tarmac over what lay beneath the first time it was tarmac’d with a 50mm plane and replace this time round (and previously) which won’t last long term but is cheap enough and make it look like you have solved the problem.
(Or are you talking about the concrete pats left on the road?)
Moderators have noted a rash of alternative suggestions to a terminus at Euston that really haven’t been thought through. As pointing out obvious flaws in the plan does not seem to detract from people defending their armchair suggestions, we may well get more brutal with any future ideas.
And much as we like the Clerihew misquoted then quoted perhaps future similar little ditties should be held back until Christmas.
@timbeau 14:12
HS2 Phase 1 might reduce the range of genuine intercity services in northern England, let alone Phase 2.
The indicative HS2 and WCML service diagram shown early in Part 2 of this series (https://www.londonreconnections.com/2016/high-speed-buffers-hs2-london-part-2/), doesn’t show stopping patterns north of Rugby. However documents prepared for HS2 Phase 2a (eg, the Strategic Case in sections 4 and 5, https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/480719/hs2-phase-2a-sobc-strategic-case.pdf), set out in more detail what the ‘Reference Case’ HS service is for Phases 1 and 2a.
The 3 tph to Manchester would be non-stop past Stoke-on-Trent or Crewe, with none of those HS trains calling, unlike the present Virgin intercity services. There is a follow-on implication that places such as Wilmslow and Macclesfield might also be missed. HS2 is looking at the possibility of all 3 Manchesters going non-stop past Crewe in Phase 2a…
Of the 2 Liverpools, only 1 would call at Crewe (this is as now). The Glasgow trains would generally pass Crewe non-stop, also as now. Only the NW originating train would call.
Overall, if HS2 is primarily about big city region to big city region flows, and offering few other stops, then this will place a large onus on the replacement WCML services to emulate at intermediate stations what is there now in line speeds and stopping patterns with the Pendolino trains (and, in due course, whatever replacement MML and ECML trains are required with Phase 2 full). The practical ability to have a different service pattern on the classic WCML will be much diminished compared to what people might aspire. It is unclear if such replacements will be true ‘intercities’, however.
While Stoke-on-Trent has 2 London intercity trains now, it would have no HSes. It would presumably rely on the suggested replacement 2 tph shown on the WCML service diagram for 2026.
Crewe has 4 intercities now, but would only have 2 HSes in future. Crewe would therefore also rely on the Chester/North Wales Voyager-operated service (to remain on the classic WCML) and on a second WCML fast London train which is proposed to start at Crewe. At least for Crewe, HS2 is reviewing the case for an additional 2 stops there hourly, because of the merits of a Crewe Hub.
To bring this comment closer to topic, there will be knock on limitations to changing service patterns in London commuting territory (ie, southwards from the West Midlands). One can expect Coventry to want at least 2 tph replacement for its generally 3 tph existing service. 2 new tph are shown.
Greater frequencies at Milton Keynes do however appear to be part of the suggested package, while DfT has been consulting (https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/future-of-intercity-west-coast-rail-franchise) about the scope for additional long distance stops at Watford Junction and other amendments leading up to 2026.
@Graham H
” I was merely puzzled as to why [the British Museum] should be the archetypical Z1 destination”
I don’t think it was intended as archetypical, but more in an “even somewhere as close as the British Museum is further away from Euston than Z2” context.
@ngh
“No I meant the Oxford (Not just Oxford Parkway) – Marylebone from December 2016”
I thought you probably did, but wasn’t sure if you aware that Parkway was already open and thus that the extra paths needed for the Oxford service are already in use. Your comment suggested that further paths (rather than, possibly longer trains) were in prospect in December. The big hit on capacity came last October (with the inevitable outcry from regular commuters from Gerrards Cross etc who found their regular train no longer running or (not calling at their station, retimed, or slower, or shorter: delete as applicable) in the new timetable).
It will be interesting to see how travel patterns change when the line opens to Oxford. I think it unlikely there will be a big migration of people from the Paddington route to the Chiltern route, given the faster journey and better connections at Paddington – indeed some of the current Parkway users may start to travel in the opposite direction. There will also be the new opportunities for Bicesterists and Wycombites to connect at Oxford for Didcot, Swindon, Reading, Worcester etc.
@Jonathan Roberts
Unless the station platforms are too short to accommodate them, it doesn’t seem to make sense for HS2 trains to pass through stations such as Stoke or Preston without stopping – speed limits are quite low at such places. And as you say Crewe at least would get a service in phase 1, as presumably would some calls north of Crewe on the Glasgow route.
I see to recall that here is some restrictive covenant which requires all trains through Stockport to call there. (This could be avoided by routing HS trains via Styal, but that would probably be detrimental to end-to-end journey times!)
Re Timbeau,
Longer trains first before extras but longer trains do take longer to clear junctions especially if slower accelerating diesels (it all adds up)
I suspect Bicester – Oxford Commute will be very popular very quickly as the A34 alternatives are grim (remember the electric spine was dreamed up as an a cheaper alternative to widening A34/M40/A43 corridor from Southampton to Midlands for freight). And the Joke in the pack possibly being Didcot (or other stations south of Oxford) – Oxford Parkway for North Oxford. Given the A34 conditions and bus journey times.
timbeau,
If you are pushing through an Act of Parliament then a restrictive covenant is hardly an impediment. Just add a clause to the bill nullifying the covenant. In any case, usually the person capable of enforcing the covenant is dead and the inheritor cannot be identified or traced and also there are also procedures for challenging unreasonable covenants – or covenants clearly being used to enforce something that was not its original intention.
If the worst comes to the worst one can always negotiate with the person capable of enforcing the covenant.
@Caspar Lucas 13:56
I’m not saying it’d be perfect, chap, and my mind isn’t really made up either way. I’m aware of the problems but widening Marylebone’s station throat (reclaiming the abandoned tunnels leading to it, 4 tracking the Tesco Tunnel etc) and reclaiming platform space will be a hell of a lot cheaper (and less disruptive) than either demolishing half of Euston or adding another concrete layer to it. Making the CML viable depends on quite a few interconnected factors. For example, eliminating 75mph diesel stock (by taking over the Met’s Amersham services and electrifying – also improving acceleration), 4 tracking where possible (Marylebone-Gerrard’s Cross, and other places. I know it’s not that simple, for example I think it would be impossible to add much more track at the London end of Ruislip).
One must remember; before privatisation the main London-Scotland route was on the ECML. Similarly, some reconfiguring would be required again. Chiltern would become the main London-Birmingham route, which on the WCML would mean outside of peak times there would be no need to call at New Street. As you envision, the ‘extra pair of tracks’ would come from the CML. Inter City services to northern destinations would stay with the WCML (and, with the stop at NST omitted, can clear the southern section more quickly), while Chiltern could take more freight, allowing more stopping services to be run there. Even HS2’s proponents have said the reduction in journey time on phase 1 is minimal so will hardly make a difference to Scottish travellers for example.
What could happen is HS2’s phase 2 (which is the bit of HS2 I definitely agree with) linking into the Snow Hill lines, and therefore being able to run to London via Moor St, which could take over more intercity duties as a result. It’d definitely cost less money than HS2 does currently, and further relieving the WCML.
If one was being adventurous then you could re-extend the Central line to Denham and remove the need for Chiltern to call at some intermediate stations – there is capacity on the western end.
Oh, and there is some amount of redundancy if service goes to Hell due to that Paddington link. One of the biggest problems I can see with Euston is that most people will not be walking to work from there. They will try and pack onto the Underground, where there is no more room. There’s a lot riding on CR1 but I’m beginning to think that the moment it opens it will be packed to the gills, and CR2 is a very long time away. The Bakerloo line from Marylebone is (relatively) uncongested, and if one walks a short distance the SSR is available too, and relieved of the Amersham end of the line, perhaps a more frequent service there will be possible.
[I have let this comment go (just) as it appears to be talking about the alternative of beefing up existing services or having them complement existing plans rather than have a new terminus. PoP]
ngh,
Being really pedantic it is Didcot Parkway not Didcot. A rare example of a parkway station being in the centre of town. Also shows how easy it is to create a parkway station. Just get a tin of paint and add “parkway” to the existing station name (and make sure there is some sort of car park nearby).
A couple of recent Mayor’s Questions and Answers set out the Mayor’s concerns about Euston and the fact that there appear to be changes going on that affect previous assurances given to TfL. I’ve set out the Qs and As below.
HS2 [1]
Question No: 2016/2618
Andrew Dismore
Further to your answer to Question No: 2016/1791, what are ‘the changes to the Hybrid Bill on which TfL, the GLA and local authorities are already working with HS2 Ltd’?
The Mayor
TfL, the GLA and local authorities were given a range of assurances by the DfT in 2015 as a result of petitions made to the High Speed 2 Hybrid Bill. A number of these assurances relate to areas where studies are underway to consider changes to the Hybrid Bill.
The main issues under consideration are the viability of HS2 introducing a construction railhead at Euston to reduce the number of heavy goods vehicle movements related to the project; an improved connection between the HS2 station and the proposed Crossrail 2 station at Euston; improvements to the HS2 plans for the Hampstead Road Bridge; and, ensuring that the HS2 Code of Construction meets or exceeds best practice.
HS2 [2]
Question No: 2016/2619
Andrew Dismore
Further to your answer to Question No: 2016/1791, what does ‘a better overall solution for an integrated Euston station’ look like, in your view?
The Mayor
The HS2 Hybrid Bill contains detailed proposals for those parts of Euston Station that will be served by the new high speed services. However, there are currently no detailed plans for the remainder of Euston station, including the integration between High Speed, existing national rail, Transport for London and Crossrail 2 services.
As one of London’s principal rail stations, it is vital that there is an integrated plan for the whole of Euston station that fits with the London Borough of Camden’s plans for the future of the area, offering a joined up customer experience for all passengers, regardless of the service they use.
@PoP…..cf Whittlesford Parkway (which only acquired its Parkway status in 2007….God only knows why!).
@twenty-six
‘I’m aware of the problems but widening Marylebone’s station throat (reclaiming the abandoned tunnels leading to it, 4 tracking the Tesco Tunnel etc)….’
What are these mysterious disused tunnels at Marylebone that you speak of?
‘If one was being adventurous then you could re-extend the Central line to Denham….’
You mean the *proposed* extension to Denham which was abandoned after the war due to the Green Belt? I’m not sure TfL (or the citizens of Denham, for that matter) would welcome or want this….it would probably be easier and cheaper to just four-track your way through it.
Re anonymously,
“What are these mysterious disused tunnels at Marylebone that you speak of?”
The one under Lords practice ground parallel to the in use one.
@Anonymously, 17:32
They run under the Lord’s. In fact I think there might be two – but they were sold off in the 80s I think (back then everyone thought 2 tracks is all Marylebone would ever need, considering it only survived in the first place by the good fortune of Baker St becoming too busy to take on the services)
And yes, I mean that extension. Just a suggestion! I don’t know the area that well. Why would Denhamites not want that? Would it be that much of a detour?
I’m sure TfL could be persuaded if some cash were to be flashed.
twenty-six,
We are now entering ridiculous crayonista territory. There is a reason the Central line wasn’t extended to Denham in the late 1940s. That was because it made no sense. The green belt killed off an already dubious scheme that was really too far out for a tube line – it would have been more sensible for users to catch a train to Marylebone and change.
You say you don’t know the area well. That is rather a giveaway and lots of ill-advised comments are made by people with ideas for areas they don’t know well – those more familiar with the area tend to tear them to pieces. Make your suggestions by all means – but not on this website.
Even today Denham station only has around 300,000 passenger journeys per annum. This is not typical tube numbers and certainly not figures typical of a terminus.
I will be scrutinising your further comments and will not hesitate to delete if a crayonista tendency is detected.
@PoP…..As Meat Loaf might say, “You took the words right out of my mouth?. ”
@ngh/26….How strange. Using the 3D perspective view on Apple Maps, I’m able to pinpoint the southern portal(s?) of these disused tunnels at Marylebone station throat (Google Maps doesn’t show this very well from a top-down perspective). But *where* is the corresponding northern portal??? I can only find one carrying the current running lines just before they pass over the WCML at South Hampstead. Are they dead-end/stub tunnels?
@Anonymously: Reading around, it seems at least one was bored out (there’s a picture of a developer in the tunnel on this FT article: https://next.ft.com/content/ba593db6-cad9-11e3-ba95-00144feabdc0 ). However, it sounds to me that one bore was only drilled out a certain distance back, to be a siding.
@PoP: Slap on the wrist accepted!
ngh at 1611: it’s in Lambeth & presented the ugly combination of ruts/ sraped holes & concrete pats until the recent cosmetic repair.
@ngh
“I suspect Bicester – Oxford Commute will be very popular very quickly ”
But that is hardly a new flow is it? The Oxford / Bicester line reopened nearly thirty years ago (May 1987)
@PoP
“In any case, usually the person capable of enforcing the covenant is dead and the inheritor cannot be identified or traced”
Stockport Council still exists and is relatively easy to trace. But reading round the subject, it actually appears to be an urban myth that an “all services must call at Stockport” was included in the Act of Parliament authorising construction of the viaduct.
My mother who is 89 tells me that nls maps England and wales series London TQ 1947 to 1952
http://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=17&lat=51.5312&lon=-0.1706&layers=173&b=1
shows the situation in 48/49 and the tunnels did not extend further than the top end of Lord’s ‘Wellington Place’
As an aside, OpenStreetMap is often useful to consult as a map for more ‘infrastructural’ queries.
@ timbeau
Obligations to provide particular train services, such as trains must for ever stop at a certain station, were abolished by section 63 of the British Railways Act 1963.
@Anon26….Ah, mystery solved! They are not stub tunnels….that map shows they have a portal just north of Wellington Place in an open cutting (after which the tracks appear to end as sidings, leaving just the easternmost-two tracks to run into the next tunnels) which has now been built over.
Leaving aside the leasehold complications of the tunnels and the idea of getting into a (literal!) turf war with the MCC to bring them back into railway use, the fact that they end so close to Marylebone itself combined with the lack of space at the station site (unless you go on a demolition spree that makes Euston appear fairly mild by comparison!) puts paid to any idea of using them for HS2 in any way, shape or form.
I do know the area of Denham well since I live there.
We’re a simple folk. There aren’t many of us but together we have many years due to high average age. Many retirees. There’s even a big later living place under construction next to the station. That’s in addition to the retirement village up the road.
A 6 tph Tube line is not something I’d complain about, but really isn’t necessary. Though going back to 2 tph off peak on the trains would be nice. And some smart ticketing too.
But it’s not just about getting to London. Gerrards Cross is our local place to do the weekly shop. If the Central line caused us to lose our Chiltern services, we’d lose our connection to GX.
Also, in addition to Denham station, there is also Denham Golf Club in Higher Denham. It would make no sense to have one go to Tube but the other not. A few houses in Higher Denham but really, it’s the historic site of Martin Baker, whose workers cause absolute chaos at rush hour with their junction on the A412. The last thing we need is to lose Denham Golf Club and have more of the buggers on the road.
@Graham H: I wasn’t responding to your ironic comments on decentralisation so much as the implication of others that putting major national institutions next to major railway stations is a shame or shows lack of forward vision, because it takes up land that they feel would be better off reserved for future indefinite expansion of railway stations. The foresight that led the Germans to build a glitteringly palatial Berlin Hauptbahnhof in an area very convenient for the railways, but where hardly anyone* lives or works.
*Sorry Angela.
@IanJ – indeed,when the BL was sited where it is now, no one would or could have had any inkling about transport developments over the last quarter of a century. Even in 1990,when I used to deal with such things as my day job, although it was apparent that the London commuter network would evetually require more terminal capacity, not only did we believe that CrossRail would release as much as would be needed for the foreseeable future, but if we were going to run out eventually, it would be on the eastern side of the capital. To the north and west, we had the option of lengthening trains, and to the south, not only was there scope for lengthening and infrastructure tweaks such as the fifth reversible line into Waterloo, but the population projections suggested that there was no foreseeable problem that couldn’t be handled.
This may sound complacent, but had anyone suggested in 1990 a London of 10m+ within 25 years, people would have laughed in your face. Meanwhile – as you imply – reserving strategic sites against that day would have had no rational basis, even if short term financial pressures to maximise cash flow hadn’t existed.
In a desire to conclude rather than re-open comments about the Lord’s tunnels I would like to point out that we have discussed this before and a comment by Mark Townend gives a pretty comprehensive history of them.
[SNIP] I appreciate the Battersea Junction option is hardly cheap [SNIP] If you want to improve the UK’s economy, this is a far more effective option than mere duplication of an existing railway.
[Points persuasively argued in favour of an utterly crayonistic idea removed. As Pedantic made clear at 4:33 pm yesterday, discussion of such things, while it may be welcome on Skyscraper City or elsewhere, will not be allowed here. Malcolm]
@Josh 01:53
Thank you for the background, but I think perhaps a crayon too far for me! Not to mention that, thinking about it, doing that might turn your station into a western version of Epping (a park and ride for your local motorway), which is probably not desirable for you!
But I do stand by my CML idea 🙂
… despite the facts, despite the facts…
Anyone contemplating extending a tube line is referred to this article from 2011.
@various
Just to try to get some simple timing facts out into the open to avoid future unlikely lines on maps. HS2 is about capacity, it is said, but once you start to define a new pair of tracks, there are benefits in designing for fast speeds if your business is to serve the longer distance markets and try to boost the distant economies.
HS2 is an extreme example for speed, and not everyone thinks 400 km/h is necessary, but just to put those numbers in a London context, based on the Arup report from January 2012, we are looking a start-to-stop time of 4 minutes for Euston to OOC. Adding whatever dwell time is needed at OOC (? 3 mins), and then a further 4 minutes, would get you past the 20 km (12½ mile) marker at South Ruislip and the train is there still accelerating past 260 km/h.
So HS2 is talking of 11 minutes or so for that distance – AND with a lengthy intermediate stop within that. It would be 6 mins or less without the OOC stop. This contrasts with Kings Cross IC225 exit times of 11 minutes to Potters Bar (12¾ miles), and Paddington IC125 9½ mins to Heathrow Junction (11¼ miles), both trains having no intermediate stops.
Even if you were apply lesser acceleration and braking curves than HS2, and look to a 300-320 km/h European standard top speed, possibly slower in the London area, no-one should be considering building a NEW HS railway with serious speed limits in the middle and outer suburbs or severe horizontal curves.
Just out of interest, did Network Rail/HS2 Ltd ever price up a classic-speed equivalent of HS2? If so, how did it compare?
@26
If you have plenty of spare time, you’ll probably find an answer somewhere here in the historically early-dated pages! Suggest looking for HS2 strategic case, economic case, etc.
https://www.gov.uk/government/latest?departments%5B%5D=high-speed-two-limited
Re Twenty-six,
NR properly* costed a full system WCML upgrade after the issues during the last aborted attempt at a partial WCML upgrade in the early 2000s when RT went under, at which point they realised a new railway might be the cheaper option based on the concurrent experience of building HS1 phase 1 through Kent. The phrase used in that report to describe this potential alternative new build railway was “HS2” and the rest is history…
*(as opposed to a traditional British optimistic one where actual costs are 4 times the estimates!)
@26 – – there’s a constant incremental process going on in NR planning of looking at raising line speeds in particular spots, but much is already passed for 125 running and the advantages of going to 140 (which is somewhere at the technical limit for the classic railway) are small – a few minutes gained non-stop London-Newcastle, for example. Commercially, it doesn’t stack up. During the last round of bidding for ECML, for example, at least two bidders contemplated offering (non-compliant) non-stop London-Newcastle/Edinburgh at 125, which (a) pulled the journey time down to around 3h45, and (b) shows the time lost through station calls. Oh, and (c) also shows the relatively small time savings arising from HS2. To move to 140 on ECML would require the closure of a large number of level crossings as well as the provision of more loops for freight/quadrupling north of Peterborough, as well as a likely power upgrade. Could be done, but would probably cost you the odd 2-3 bn. Not likely to be justifiable on speed grounds.
@Ian J, wasn’t the Berlin Hbf situated on a bit of the former death strip (and surrounding derlict Land) of the Berlin Wall? Berlin is a special case were A, there was lots of empty and under used land running North South through the centre of the City and B a government willing to spend billions to relocate all the central government facilities back there and spend more restitching it all together.
I believe a chunk of the federal district is near the new station?
So I am not really sure what people expect Berlin to show us as an example to the UK.
Looking at other cities and how they have done it. In the European context, lots of cities have larger railway lands than UK cities (as they were often state planned from the start), with stations that already have 400m platforms and generous throats. And while it’s not true of everywhere systems that have often run long and infrequent services, in comparison to the UK. Many cities in any upgraded HS system just need new lines between cities and could get away with upgraded existing stations.
In Asia, it’s either plough through existing built up areas, that have yet to be redeveloped in a frenzy of property speculation (so often early in such countries development stage) or more often just build a brand new terminus complex on the edge of heavily built up area surround it with a network of new boulevards, urban motorways and link it to the old city by new metro lines, and in effect build a second downtown at the new station.
Non of which is really applicable to the UK.
Now you could say Old Oak Common could become a viable terminus, as the railway lands and the surrounding Park Royal land is potentially a large enough site for new city centre. But as we can see we are already struggling to fund what should be built now at Old Oak Common such as proper integrated Overground Station actually next to the high speed line. What we are going to get on the redeveloped land will be lots of apartment towers with a small amount of retail. I can’t see vast amounts of office space rising here.
The amount of money needed to create a proper new central london distrct, and the mutiple tube extensions implied is beyond UK government thinking, plus the requirement to pump prime development and fund several million sq ft of offices to create the virtuous circle needed. Besides London is the enemy in current politics it will struggle to get funding for crossrail 2 and other works unless identical amounts are spent in Northern cities.
Apart from the rather generous open space between KX and StP, there really is little scope for enlarging any London terminus, let alone consolidating them nearer the middle of the CAZ. This is the legacy of the government decision not to let the northern companies any closer than the Euston Road, plus the internecine battles between companies which led to most of them building their own separate termini (Victoria and London Bridge being the only major exceptions, both of which ended in tears). The OOC-Euston tunnel would sort of resurrect the pre-Victorian plan to link the GWML with Euston, but there seem to be no plans to bring any services from Wales and the west into the Euston Road complex.
The nearest we are ever going to get to a grand central interchange, I suspect, is the CR1/CR2 interchange at Centre Point (TCR), but only for regional (outersuburban) services. Extending long distance services there, let alone international ones (in which I include Scotland) is not going to happen. The opportunity afforded in the Edwardian period by the slum clearance in the St Giles area – conveniently close to Charing Cross as well as Somers Town – is unlikely to occur again. We did get Kingsway, and its tram tunnel, though.
RE Marylebone tunnels. There is a discussion here: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/101629-tunnels-into-marylebone/. See the entry at 30 July 2015 – 18:25 for a signalling diagram and scroll well down for photos, including the disused entrance.
@timbeau yeah, in an ideal world with infinite money and magical construction techniques Tottenham Court Road would probably be the correct terminus.
Euston is not too bad for employment in walking distance – there’s a bit of a campus around there with Facebook and Twitter and some medial companies – though it doesn’t seem immensely compelling either. What concerns me is the lack of good connections to the City *or* Wharf. I guess the idea is that those people change at OOC to Crossrail? That could work (though seems like it could use a lot of capacity), but in that case why run to Euston at all?
I guess it grants access to the West End, but it’s a pretty expensive way to achieve that. If what’s really needed is to join up with (something like) Crossrail 2, is there an equivalent of OOC on that route? (Or on the Victoria line for that matter).
@Lmm – when I last looked, Euston had a pretty good connexion to Bank and Moorgate via the Northern Line (and with a short walk, a second one, too), plus 3 West End connexions, not to mention a substantial number of bus routes linking to these places. remember that the Wharf is very much the smallest area of demand compared with either the West End or the City and so people decamping at OOC for the Wharf will be a small proportion of the demand on CrossRail.
@Imm
“If what’s really needed is to join up with (something like) Crossrail 2, is there an equivalent of OOC on that route? (Or on the Victoria line for that matter).”
Clapham Junction/Nine Elms/Vauxhall comes to mind, or possibly the Tottenham Hale area at the other end. Both areas, particularly the former, seem to attract schemes to untangle the knitting, similar to what has been discussed for OOC (remember “Poirot’s moustache”?) , although Clapham Junction is much more of a cat’s cradle than OOC ever was.
But of course HS2 and CR2 are both intended to meet at Euston Kings Pancras anyway.
But the geography of England, with the biggest centre of population in one corner, means that demand will always be unbalanced. There simply isn’t the concentration of population in any one direction south or east of London The plan for HS2 is not to stop between west London and Birmingham Interchange – about 100 miles. Even though the total population of the south coast may be similar to that of the West Midlands, it cannot all be served with one line, and for obvious reasons there is no major centre of population in the UK 100 miles south or east of London.
The only line which makes any sense to connect to HS2 across London is HS1, and that was never likely to happen, even before June 23rd. (The original 1980s proposal for a tunnel under south London might have been compatible with an extension across London, but that ship sailed long ago)
@ Rational Plan said “So I am not really sure what people expect Berlin to show us as an example to the UK.”
How not to build and commission a new international airport? 😛
Having just looked at the Old Oak development plan again and the split of building classifications it’s predominantly for housing so there’s no great draw for companies or retailers. There’s no “Westfield” scale of development from what I can see to pull people in for shopping / leisure visits. I downloaded the development map programme which allows you to play around and “walk through” the development. Lots of towers and a “NB4L” on every road (!) but no great sense of place but then that’s true of every modern development these days. Almost all are soulless, windswept horrors with no community feel whatsoever. All that makes me wonder quite what the stations at Old Oak will do other than facilitate some level of interchange. Other than residents why would anyone go there? That must be another reason why no one would HS2 trains to have to terminate there. Who wants to be dumped in the middle of nowhere?
Just standing back from the detailed crayonism of this thread (in places) for the moment, I remain puzzled as to why anyone should think that a central station for the whole of London is sensible. Quite apart from the fact that it if it had been achieved in Victorian times it would now have hundreds of trains an hour with all the downside of trying to handle so many passengers and disperse them to the various parts of the capital, the polycentricity of central London has been with us now for the last 900 years and trying to serve the different foci of the CAZ with one route is impossible (EL apart).
It’s an historical accident that we have many termini round the periphery but given that anything other than the EL requires passengers to change on to an end-distribution network anyway, it seems otiose to try and build a central megastation whose siting cannot be anything other than a compromise which still requires that end-distribution network. That’s not to say that the end-distribution network couldn’t be improved (Waterloo to LST, FST to anywhere especially tiresome) but building a big Hbf doesn’t deal with that – at all..
Graham: I quite agree with your conclusion. If we could get there from here (and of course we cannot), we would be wrong to set “there” as “one big interchange station”. However, I do not agree with your reason. In this imaginary world, it could be built large enough and splendid enough to handle as many passengers as it needed to. And it would avoid the nonsense of most journeys between arbitrary non-London places needing three different trains, one of which is just a short trip across London, getting in the way of everyone with business in London.
However, it would be a thoroughly bad idea because it would be a single point of failure. A target for a terrorist, or for Mr Sodde with his law, either of which would bring an intolerable amount of stasis.
The problem is they have wussed out on the redevelopment plan for Old Oak Common.
For their to be a successful Office District there needs to be retail and leisure facilities to attract staff. but in creating buy in from all stakeholders they have caved into the surrounding local authorities, so retail in the new plan can’t upset the local retail hierarchy and must be lower than Willesdon! and Ealing Broadway. Sigh.
The fact is there are only one successful example of geography changing development in London and that is Canary Wharf and Docklands. It’s taken billions in private and state backed spending to get and arguably only came about because Docklands was antit-plan and the City planners were firmly in the hands of conservationists who came out with statements that the City did not need Skyscrapers and the Banks did not want them and we have all these wonderful old buildings on funny wiggly street plots etc. Well It turned out the Banks did want skyscrapers and big floorplates at lower prices. It’s only when half the City was already on the move to the Wharf did the City cave and come up with it’s Eastern Cluster strategy for tall buildings.
While I was a sceptic at first it seems the Olympic park will succeed as an Office Location. But it has taken Billions being spent and on the Olympics and billions more the state will continue to spend to make sure that the Olympic legacy is a success.
The other ingredients at the Olympic site is an excellent environment mixed with very good transport links. Now Old Oak Common will have reasonable transport links but the other parts I’m not so sure.
Stratford has a beautiful large park filled with sporting facilities that will also accommodate cultural events. The big plus is the multi million sq ft retail, leisure and hotel complex that is Westfield. Good retail is a must for attracting large occupiers who want to attract central London workers. For the evening their is a reasonable mix of restaurants and bars around Westfield and that will only expand as more buildings are built, it also has Fish Island just to the West of Park, an ex industrial now artist filled neighbourhood that is rapidly being filled with low rise apartments and live work units, expect that to be truly fashionable and hipster soaked place to go in the evening for after works adventures. Then there is all the colleges looking to set up new campuses and new museum outposts.
Old Oak on the other hand has no big park, won’t have big sporting facilities that and has surrendered on the retail front. The universities have already decided their new western campuses are being built at White City.
The only hope on the cultural front is an outpost for the science museum.
The renders are okay the street scapes will be nice enough with small pocket parks etc, but I expect they will chicken out on making it a centre for night life and shopping . It will need buzz if it wants large office occupiers.
Also it might have to accept defeat on it’s no increase road traffic into the site, and just build a new access dual carriageway from the A40. Otherwise we are looking at a high rise suburb with maybe enough buzz to be considered an inner London neighbourhood, but not a Central London one, which I think Stratford just might make the transition too.
[Some valid points here, but a bit too much detail for what is, in terms of relevance to the article, rather peripheral. Jonathon discussed the “OOC only” option for HS2’s London terminal, and gives reasons for its exclusion which do not depend very greatly on exactly how OOC develops – hence the peripherality of your arguments. Would anyone inclined to discuss such matters please try to keep it rather more succinct. Moderators have to choose between allowing, chopping, or removing posts completely, chopping is a lot of work, and this one teetered on the brink of the other two choices. Malcolm]
@Malcolm – you’ve been reading about the Breitspurbahn Hitlers, haven’t you?
@Graham H
“it seems otiose to try and build a central megastation whose siting cannot be anything other than a compromise which still requires that end-distribution network. That’s not to say that the end-distribution network couldn’t be improved (Waterloo to LST, FST to anywhere especially tiresome) but building a big Hbf doesn’t deal with that – at all..”
How can you deal with the two-change problem exemplified by, say Waterloo to Euston, or Charing Cross to Paddington, faced by almost any Londoner wanting to make a long-distance train journey unless all suburban routes connect with all Inter City routes? Crossrails 0 (aka Thameslink), 1 and 2 will help a bit, and reduce some of the journeys to a single change, but no London RER/Sbahn/Crossrail line can hope to serve all fifteen main line termini.
Only an HbF would be able to provide a one-change anywhere-to-anywhere service. It works in many cities. But London is too diffuse for it ever to work here. Moreover, even feeding CR2 into the mass of interconnections at Euston Kings Pancras is risking a single point of failure should an emergency occur in any part of the complex. The lessons of the paralysis of large parts of the network by the 1987 fire seem to have been forgotten.
@timbeau – “But London is too diffuse for it ever to work here. ” Which was my point, reinforced by my further point that London had been polyfocal 800 years before the railway arrived.
It occurs to me to try to design an imaginary city which avoids this two-change problem. The same idea may occur to others.
Could I make it clear, though, that this current topic is emphatically not the place to display the results of any such thinking. Nor is any other existing topic on London Reconnections. The same also applies to quoting any real existing city, unless such a city has clear evident lessons for London.
@ Timbeau – while I understand the point you make about “single point failure” I suspect anything new will be designed to allow segregation and separation within the complex and also with its neighbours. It may not be stunningly obvious to outside observers. I doubt the lessons you cite have been unlearnt. Those events had a profound impact on the LT organisation as have subsequent ones.
Unfortunately you can’t undo 170 years of railway and spatial development which means you will always have busy, multi modal locations in a city like London. I can’t think of anywhere whose transport network is completely diffuse with no main nodes or central business district. Even Los Angeles has a couple of main transport nodes.
Lord Dawlish writes “And that was the last we heard of Malcolm for many years. We all assumed he was busy on his new task. Until one day, I was sitting in my club when this wild eyed figure burst in clutching scrolls of plans….”
@ Briantist It seems London Museum may have got to Smithfield first with their recently announced plans to relocate to the empty former Smithfield Market buildings at Harts Corner and are even considering using the abandoned railway area for display purposes .
Thanks to @Anomnibus for explaining my slightly flippant comment about Stewart’s Lane Battersea.
The only thing not mentioned, and also relevant to the @Briantist comment, is Crossrail 2, which could be routed via Stewart’s Lane instead of King’s Road. With CR2 and platforms on most existing routes passing through or close by, Stewart’s Lane would be better connected than Euston, would promote more development, be much less disruptive, and also gives the crucial capability for an onward route at a later stage.
My vote for phase 1 is for a terminus at OOC with provision for onward extension in a loosely Eastward direction . I do see the merits of Euston, but I think it will struggle to pass the current review.
To say this is a very interesting series of posts is an understatement, it seems to be very well researched and thought through. I do hope part 5 is well advanced in its drafting.
A *lot* of point-to-point journeys by rail end up going via London (usually necessitating a Tube journey between terminals, which further adds to the pressures on that system), either because there’s no alternative (e.g. Orpington to Anywhere North of London, Oxford to Cambridge without the Varsity Line), or it’s the quickest route despite going in the ‘wrong direction’ for part of the journey (e.g. Cambridge to Manchester/Liverpool).
A London ‘Grand Central’ (or perhaps a few strategically placed, linked termini) might seem like an ideal solution to this problem. But unlike Berlin, we don’t have a bombed-out, no-man’s-land ‘blank slate’ to achieve this, so further comparisons are probably not warranted.
Wherever HS2 ends up terminating, one thing is for certain. If there are insufficient means for dispersing passenger traffic from the terminus from day one of operation, I predict Public Transport Gridlock at certain times.
Again, this is where Euston scores strongly, as long as (1) Euston Square station is fully integrated into new terminus to assist in passenger dispersal; and (2) a new CR2/Chelney/Something/Anything(!) line is built to connect with it.
Terminating at OOC will just (1) reduce HS2s attractiveness to travellers as I explained earlier; and (2) will further overload what will by then be a very busy CR1/Lizzy Line.
Who said that public transport planning was difficult?……
@anonymously
“Wherever HS2 ends up terminating, one thing is for certain. If there are insufficient means for dispersing passenger traffic from the terminus from day one of operation, I predict Public Transport Gridlock at certain times.”
Can we have some figures on what will be “sufficient”? How many passengers per hour will HS2 feed into London? As a fraction or multiple of the number the Tube lines serving Euston currently carry?
Kings Cross St Pancras seemed to cope with HS1 (including Eurostar) without any new tube lines, although measures were taken to increase the capacity of the station itself.
@timbeau – we can maked some informed guesses, though. When fully open, HS2 *could* deliver something like 18-20 tph. If each train is likely – on IC experience – to be about 70% full on average and might therefore contain about 700 passengers, that’s about 14000 PAX/hr. Of that number, maybe 2000 will go away by cab, foot and bus, leaving 12000 to disperse by tube. (say 10000 in the with peak direction). The tube offers /will be offering about 130 tph towards the CAZ – a theoretical capacity of about 100 000 PAX/hr. No doubt the tube will be full by the time it reaches the Euston area, but an extra – if they are all extra, and not just transfers from the classic network – 10000 punters wouldn’t overwhelm it, particularly as that peak extra load will have built up slowly between the first HS2 trains arriving in 2026 and the completion of the full scheme in 20xx.
Oh and there might be CR2 as well by 20xx with another 30 tph and another 30 000/hr capacity… So,HS2 additional load maybe an extra 7% on to the system at Euston. A betting man would allow for the fact that a proportion of that isn’t additional at all, so 3-4% new loading?
@Graham H
Moreover, the peak flow on an intercity line doesn’t coincide with the peak commuter flows.
Which al makes me wonder if the claim that HS2 needs CR2 to go via Euston stands up.
If CR2 ran further south, maybe via Russell Square and Mount Pleasant, not only would it improve access to transport in that area (Mount Pleasant has only Mail Rail at the moment!) but would allow many intra-London journeys to interchange elsewhere than Euston King Pancras, making more room there for the incoming HS2 hordes.
And it would mitigate the “single point of failure” issue.
@timbeau – I entirely agree with you about the hype for CR2 as being essential when HS2 opens – nothing of the sort: if the HS2 arrivals peak is offset (and I agree that that is also likely, as with air traffic) then its impact will be trivial.
For twice (is this a record?) I also agree with you about serving Mount Pleasant but I fear the accusation of crayonism; I have remarked before on the lineup of areas in the CAZ most remote from the tube – Belgravia, Mayfair, Fitzrovia and Mount Pleasant….
I entirely agree with you about the hype for CR2 as being essential when HS2 opens
Just as well given that the earliest date that Crossrail 2 is expected to open is now 2033.
@GH, timbeau
I’ll merely note that Euston capacity is a main element of the emerging analysis in Part 5 (which is still under construction!).
@Graham H /@Pedantic of Purley /@ngh / @Melvyn
Thanks for your points. So, I’ve been pondering the problems with locating a HS2 terminating station in Docklands, and the major issue ends up being that the line just parallels Crossrail 1, with the quite reasonable objection that people could just that line to get to Old Oak Common and change.
But noting that @rational plan and others have said above, I’m wondering if there is a cut-price way of getting a better central London interchange location whilst keeping costs down and – more importantly – removing a decade of disrupted travel at Euston.
So, how about … a loop? This would keep the costs down to needing just one deep-level £1bn station (perhaps at Smithfield Market or under Tottenham Court Road station) with multiple platforms, but wouldn’t need more than an extra 1.5miles (£150m) of dual tunnel including fittings.
This would mean that the train servicing would need to be done at the other ends of the lines.
But, this would mean NO disruption at all at Euston.
[I’m letting this suggestion go, on the basis that it’s a different terminus concept (a loop). LBM]
Re JR,
The article or the capacity 😉
@ngh
Several JR large scale spread-sheets are under construction. Whether they are yet big enough to form a roof over the new Euston is a matter of debate among friends…
@Briantist – and not wishing to prolong LBM’s agony more than necessary, that’s £100m/mile for a single bore, so double track is twice that. And then there’s the small matter of the gauntletting in some place or other to link a loop to them “upstairs” – major civils, I fear (and quite a lot of disruption). BTW Smithfield still doesn’t have any public transport links…
“Smithfield still doesn’t have any public transport links…”
Really?
A Crossrail station is being built right underneath it, linked to two existing stations.
And with the entrances at Farringdon and Barbican -both a good ten minute walk from Smithfield.
Just addressing Briantist’s notion of letting the train servicing be done at the other ends of the lines. If this is possible at all, then it is possible with either a loop or terminal platforms and swift reversing.
But the other reason for layovers of 20 minutes plus (exact duration debatable) is to ensure that departures can nearly always be at the timetabled moment – something passengers quite appreciate when there are different trains for different destinations. Three or four platforms on a loop would mean that trains just have to leave within a few minutes of arrival, whether that arrival is early, timely or late. I don’t think that will do, given that inbound classic-compatible trains, at least, can be delayed anywhere by the usual combination of circumstances.
There are plenty of analyses of actual arrival times of inter-city trains, grouping “minute late” into bands. Would such a profile be acceptable for departure times too?
And of course, if such timekeeping did turn out to be acceptable to the planners (which I very much doubt), then the three/four platforms game could instead be played at Euston (with stepping back of crew), making an even cheaper scheme!
@Malcolm – just so! Further inquiries at VT also suggest that another reason why they hog the platforms at Euston is that they know they cannot run to time with any consistency and building in the slack at the London end gives them that much more flexibility, as opposed to the country end where they might have only a single set available and that being the delayed one.
Graham: Yes. And for avoidance of doubt, for such purposes it is quite irrelevant whether the delays which VT has to expect are actually their own fault or someone else’s. For capacity and timetabling purposes, a delay is a delay.
@GH
“Farringdon and Barbican – both a good ten minute walk from Smithfield.”
The two stations are only 500m apart. But if a 250m walk is too far, the new eastern ticket hall will be just across the road.
http://valencyinc.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Farringdon-ETH-ECI-visit.jpg
http://static.progressivemediagroup.com/uploads/imagelibrary/nri/railway/Projects/Crossrail%20Farringdon/farringdon-lead.jpg
One point which seems to be overlooked by all those who advocate an HS2 terminus within the Circle is that to get to that paradise on earth it will be necessary, if approaching from the WCML, to pass under both the Northern and Victoria lines – so, to be about 30-40m down. On a highly undesirable 1:25 gradient, that implies a 1000m ramp which, alas bring us part way up Camden Bank, so increasing the amount to be descended, which lengthens the ramp so brings us further up Camden bank, so… repeat until you are about 2- 3km away from Euston. Portalling there will, of course, also remove some of the approach tracks to Euston, so disrupting the station and reducing the scope for retaining the existing number of platforms. Cheap it ain’t, sensible hardly.
@timbeau – who knows where you could actually site a Smithfield terminal loop or how it would clear existing substructures/the Fleet valley or whether you could find 400+ m of straight alignment before hitting something else? Perhaps better to be 50m down just to be on the safe side, with a portal near, say Harrow…
I know I’m going to get a crayon award, but what about build Elephant and Castle HBF, its well connected to central london (both West and City).
The whole area has mass redevelopment going on, so providing can be put in place.
Apologies if this has already been covered and I’ve missed it, but are there estimates of what proportion of HS2 passengers arriving in London will have a final destination (a) outside zone 1 (or equivalent), and (b) outside the M25 (or equivalent) ?
@Anonymous 1984 – but we don’t need a London Hbf, HS2 is not that significant in volume terms, and we especially don’t need one that is remote from the CAZ. Just try the bus services from there to central London or better still try the long walk.
@Graham H – coincidentally my company is looking for new office accommodation in the Farringdon area and yesterday a colleague and I actually walked between Farringdon and several possible office locations, stopwatches in hand, to time how long it would take and to ensure the route ticked all the boxes such as somewhere serving decent coffee 😉
Farringdon to Smithfield was really only 3 minutes but I concur with the remoteness of Mount Pleasant…
@Reynolds 953 – I fear I’m a bit slow these days… Your company is to be commended for being so thorough, my last employer couldn’t have cared less about that sort of thing. [I agree that Smithfield is full of decent pubs, coffee bars and quite expensive restaurants – I do like the way that corner of London gives the feeling of being apart, villagey even round Clerkenwell Green.]
@Anonymous 1984
Whatever your crayons are taking, it’s not allowed at the Olympics.
@Jim 14:59
Not sure what data there is, but will try to look ahead of finalising Part 5 (a few weeks). A good question, which outer London quadrant some of the demand is located in, might have a bearing on problems (or not). One difficulty is also that there might be demand, but supressed if no good links, therefore not significant in modelling…! [Chicken or egg? No. Chicken eats egg…].
@Reynolds953/GrahamH – my office from 2011-12 was in Carthusian Street, and I watched the beginnings of the Eastern entrance to the Farringdon CR station being constructed.
It’s the other side of Lindsey Street from the Eastern side of Smithfield Market. So get on the right end of a Class 345 and you’ll exit right next to Smithfield. Get on the wrong end, on the other hand……
What’s upstairs in Euston used for today? It used to be mail but that moved out? I’d like to see an artists impression of the 44m tall, 1km building that apparently makes that plan absurd. What about moving the entire concourse upstairs and bringing the platforms further south?
That OOC rail map doesn’t include the rail line going to Cricklewood, I wonder if a station could be put on that line, which would be adjacent to the west station on the map.
The OOC land is currently depots, was it considered to build over them rather than replace them? Overground, Euston, Paddington, Crossrail, HeX, Hs2 all need some space nearby and they all seem to be taking up land with nothing overhead. I think we’d be out of space by now but Hammersmith Depot and Chiltern’s Wembley LMD could move there too.
PS the font weight for bold may not be enough. The CSS sets it at 700 then overrides with 500, 700 might be better. And kudos on the makeover of WordPress, I wouldn’t have guessed.
I’m not quite sure what the claimed absurdity is which Toby is deprecating here. But the thing that seems to be missed by anyone who proposes putting Euston platforms at any level different from the current one is as follows. To be useful, a platform has to have a track alongside it, and that track needs to continue northwestwards, at a level which only changes by a train-usable gradient. The road bridges immediately north of Euston (and goodness knows what underground stuff) essentially require that tracks only leave Euston at the existing level. Of course the bridges could be closed, with serious traffic consequences, or the underground stuff moved (expensive). But for a road bridge to be raised enough to go over an upper-deck access track would require significant access ramps, which would probably require far more local demolition than is needed for the current single-storey plan.
Malcolm 6 August 2016 at 00:28
Thank you for adding more detail and knowledge to my post on 3 August 2016 at 12:22.
There is a reason why its difficult to offer alternatives to demolition west of Euston and gradients are it.
rational plan 4 August 2016 at 18:28
“Stratford has a ………………. a reasonable mix of restaurants and bars around Westfield”
Where’s my photo of John Patrick McEnroe?
1) £4 for a pint of fizzy lager in “the Neighbourhood” in Celebration Avenue.
2) so much private parking that people from outside E20 cant pop into the former Athlete’s Village for an evening meal.
@GH, Timbeau: I think HS2 ran the numbers and presented them to the Select Committee when the Mayor was claiming that HS2 made Crossrail 2 essential and they came out much as Graham H’s did – ie. only a few percent extra demand on the morning peak, and nothing compared with the huge rise in overall demand predicted to happen anyway. TfL have scaled back their ambit claim to asking for the tube station to be rebuilt and parts of the Crossrail 2 station to be built, or at least passively allowed for, as part of the Euston rebuild and Sadiq Khan’s comments seem to suggest there is still some discussion happening there. Euston would be on the list for a major tube rebuild even without HS2.
One thing that seems certain is that the position of the HS2 platforms at Euston means that the Circle will be almost as close and easier to get to than the Northern Line so the Euston-Euston Square distinction will become moot and access to the City will be quite easy. Docklands will still be awkward from Euston.
Whether HS2 makes Crossrail 2 necessary is a different question to whether, if CR2 is being built anyway, it should go via Euston.
@Ian J
‘One thing that seems certain is that the position of the HS2 platforms at Euston means that the Circle will be almost as close and easier to get to than the Northern Line so the Euston-Euston Square distinction will become moot and access to the City will be quite easy. Docklands will still be awkward from Euston.’
Totally agree with an incorporation of Euston Square into a rebuilt Euston tube station. Unless someone else knows otherwise, I suspect this has been on TfL’s (and its predecessors) radar for a long time, since Euston Square station platforms still retain their 60s ambience (cf Great Portland Street and Baker Street). Therefore, I had always assumed that their refurbishment has been deferred until it can incorporated into a grander Charing Cross-type scheme to join the station with its near neighbours.
I’d watch that last sentence of yours though…..sounds to me like an invitation for all and sundry to start crayoning a DLR extension from You-Know-Where ?……
@Anonymously -we looked at a subway link in the early ’90s but the engineers reported there was a large sewer under Melton St which would either have to be moved or would require a U-bend in the walkway. Even turning the station round so that the exit was at the Euston rather than western end required significant property demolition (in this case, of an Inland Revenue office). Money for stations wasn’t available on the requisite scale, alas.
Euston-Wharf is only one change away and , again, to put the numbers in perspective, it wouldn’t be unreasonable to assume that of the 14000PAX/hr max arriving by HS2 and leaving by public transport , they didn’t split something like 5000 West End, 5000 City, 2000 non-CAZ, and 2000Wharf (simply on the basis of the relative weight of employment). 2000/hr isn’t a lot to support the purchase of the largest tin of Faeber Castell’s finest.
@Anonymously
Is that 1960’s or 1860’s?
Ian J
CR2 is necessary, whether HS2 gets built, or not.
BUT
That is a separate argument, isn’t it?
Let’s talk about Euston/HS2, shall we?
Regarding the problems mentioned about re-siting vertically, inside the Euston “footprint” …
What’s wrong with putting HS2 “upstairs”, apart from the road-bridges?
I admit I’m using handwavium to assume there’s a relatively easy way around the road-bridge problem – one step at a time is the way to go about this, I think.
@GH
Iwonder if there is still any HMRC presence. If so the office is probably up for sale and redevelopment.
Readers may wish to note that the Government has formally shelved the WCML-Crossrail 1 link. http://www.hemeltoday.co.uk/news/crossrail-off-the-tracks-as-plans-are-shelved-1-7513704 . This was in a letter from the Secretary of State to the Hemel Hempstead MP Mike Penning (a former Roads Minister). Although the story is current in the local news, the letter was probably sent earlier as it was from the period when Patrick McLoughlin was Transport Secretary.
It looks like Mr Penning is trying for a ‘re-opener’ for the project. He is quoted as saying: ““I only hope that there will be a re-think once ministers grasp the enormous scale of disruption that HS2 will cause at Euston.”
@Nameless,I haven’t checked recently but HMRC seem to have moved as many of their offices (especially the public inquiry sections) as they can to places which are about as remote from the allocated taxpayers as possible. I believe the building itself is still there,however. Whether TfL would regard the transposition of the entrance as a high priority is unclear.
Moving the entrance might help Euston passengers, but would be unpopular with users of University College Hospital.
Moreover, if a new entrance were to be opened, the station’s grandfather rights to exemption from the modern requirement for underground stations to have two entrances might be extinguished.
Greg: One step at a time is exactly the way HS2 addressed the double-deck issue.
They have subsequently put in second and subsequent steps comprising design work on the current single-storey plan, because their first step was to rule out double-deck options. The road bridges may not have been their only reason (there was also something about the length and visual obtrusiveness of the necessary viaduct), but they were certainly a major factor.
In my view the first issue to be addressed by anyone who wishes to challenge the current single-deck plan is precisely that one.
@timbeau
… would be extinguished.
Which would probably not matter, for the UCH reason you mention.
The modern requirement is not just a piece of bureaucracy. It is highly desirable on safety grounds as well.
I agree London does not need an entirely newly constructed Hauptbahnhof as per the Berlin or Wien model, but we will ALMOST have one anyway for the vast majority of long distance services with the loose collection of terminals clustered along Euston Road, each no more than a stone’s throw away from one another. The distance to walk from the east side of Euston to the west side of St Pancras could be reduced to around 500m if a direct passageway was constructed, no more than many airport terminal to gate transfers, and only a little more than many existing tube connecting tunnels.
Connecting walkways at Old Oak Common are already being planned to exceed this to access new Overground stations from the HS2/GWML terminal.
Crossrail 2 offers an opportunity to build such an improved link into its planned duplicate station entrances for the same set of deep level platforms serving Euston and St Pancras. A covered subsurface pedestrian connection between these two entrances might be provided outside the LUL gates, perhaps equipped partly with moving walkways, although not immediately alongside the Francis Crick Institute building due to their justifiable concerns over vibration. A five minute covered walking connection between these terminals, always effectively ‘on demand’, could be attractive in connecting all Euston services to Thameslink, International and Kent HS1 routes. The walk involved should be no more than the combined walk at either end to access existing Undergound platforms and make the one stop transfer by train, still the case even after the east end access to Euston Square station is built, and walking would save a wait to board a crowded train or a shuttle bus. Clearly, as at airports and other main railway stations today, passenger luggage trolleys could be made available for use across the entire complex along with electric golf cart provision for the disabled and elderly. http://www.townend.me/files/kxlink.pdf
@timbeau/Malcolm – no need to close the original entrance.
[In more whimsical moments. of course, you could extend MT’s walkways to EQ and then it’s but a short step to Warren Street and another to Great Portland Street and then another to Regents Park…]
@Alan Griffiths
1) http://www.eastvillagelondon.co.uk/shop-eat much more than Neighbourhood.
2) There’s a giant multi-story car park with “PARKING” in huge letters on it.
One of my key complaints with HS2 is that it makes it no easier for those living in southern London, Surrey, Sussex and parts of Hampshire and Kent to reach the North (about 5 million people, ie. more than Birmingham and Manchester combined). The key hassle with such a journey has always been the slow and tedious cross-London section, a trip that puts passengers off travelling by rail (suppressing demand) and has a negative effect on capacity in London. As such, I argued in the HS2 consultation that the terminus should be at Waterloo, not Euston.
A terminus at Waterloo would have been in zone 1, but also highly accessible to the SW and SE lines, with Sussex easily accessed via a change at Clapham Junction of London Bridge. It also had half the necessary 400m platforms already in existence (the 5 ex-Eurostar ones). Of course, this opportunity has now passed, with the platforms being rebuilt for commuter services and the Nine Elms developments making a tunnel portal nigh on impossible. (For those itching to argue a lack of space at Waterloo, remember that a Crossrail or Thameslink style tunnel from Waterloo to Moorgate/LiverpoolStreet/FenchurchStreet to free up the necessary platform space would have been a lot cheaper than CR2 will be – the two elements should has been looked as a whole.)
Given where we are, Euston is the best that can be done. But the inability to provide a decent connection at Old Oak Common via the West London Line for the south-side of London is frankly a disgrace. The article mentions a Chiltern link from OOC. How about that running south after OOC rather than into Crossrail 1? ie. via a new curve to the West London Line and Clapham Junction. Such a link would vastly change the accessibility of HS2 from the south, and avoid luggage-heavy passengers clogging CR2.
StephenC
You are fundamentally missing the point of HS2.
Just as focusing on speed is a mistake, so is the choice of London terminal. The ONLY reason HS2 is required is to provide the equivalent of another 2 tracks between London and the north west as the WCML cannot cope with future demand. It is being built as a high speed line on a new alignment because that is the modern and most cost effective way of meeting the requirement.
So yes, having a terminal station that allows easy access to those living south of the river might be nice – but it is totally irrelevant to the fundamentals relating to HS2. In fact given the purpose of HS2 is to relieve the WCM (and to a lesser extent the MML & ECML) having a station on the Euston Road – where the bulk of existing users end up makes perfect sense. Moreover the more grandiose the plan for the London terminus, the greater the costs and the greater the line never gets built in the first place – which would be a tragedy given how much extra capacity is required on the WCML corridor.
As for connectivity – from Kent there is HS1 which conveniently brings you into Kings Cross (a stones throw from Euston). For those living in SE / S London or Sussex Thameslink again takes you directly to St Pancras – again very close to Euston.
For those coming in from the South West (or the south who don’t fancy traveling through the center of London TfL are working hard to get some sort of station to be built on the WLL at Old Oak – again providing convenient interchange with the proposed HS2 station for those whose trains call at Clapham Junction.
I suspect closing the current exits at Euston Square is a no go because one of them was modernised and fitted with a lift with private funding from the owner / developer (Wellcome Trust?) of the building above. I rather expect there are written commitments as to how long it should remain available for as a condition for providing the money.
@ Alan G – why the need for people to drive to Westfield Stratford and park? The place is hardly devoid of public transport with access over a very wide area indeed. It also has frequent night bus links and will soon have two Night Tube services at weekends.
@ J Roberts – thanks for info re the CR1 / WCML link. A disappointment really as it seemed a sensible extra bit of railway which would help balance out western CR services.
@Phil, I did not say anything about the speed of HS2, nor about its need. Your response indicates you view it as a transport scheme alone, whereas the correct lens it to view it as a national growth scheme that happens to solve a transport problem. Sadly HS2 phase 1 planners also failed to grasp this for a very long time, although phase 2 has had a lot more realism with the “northern powerhouse” inputs. In this context, driving additional national links between the 5 million people south of London and those on the north would have been a good driver of growth and national integration.
(Its important to note that the SW, Brighton and Anglia main lines are all busier than the West Coast now and with less-to-no ability to add more capacity, so the scheme is certainly not justified on transport grounds alone.)
As for OOC, there is scant evidence of TfL “working hard” to get an _interchange_ station (which is one where everything is integrated and there is no need to leave what a member of the public would call “the station”). Instead we see a horrific “compromise” of a station 10 minutes walk from where people want to be – Stratford International all over again. What is needed is 4tph from West London Line to OOC (Great Western). Its perfectly feasible to build the additional viaduct, but surprise, surprise TfL/HS2/DfT don’t see it as a priority. Presumably, no-one making the decisions has ever lived south of the river.
As a regular visitor to UCH I have witnessed the busyness of both Warren Street and Euston Square stations. Apart from UCH itself and chunks of University College, there is a huge amount of recent office development around Euston Circus. Euston Square station needs that western entrance. As an aside, the developer inspired lift from the westbound platform gives TfL a little revenue protection problem as it exits outside the ticket gates. I have witnessed at least one perfectly vigorous looking user of the lift fail to tap out with an Oyster card there.
@Mark Townsend
The idea of a passageway of some form between Euston and St Pancras has been proposed several times only to hit engineering snags. If underground, the existence of several other structures, such as sewers and the Circle Line, mean that instead of a passageway it would be a series of escalators going up and down to avoid the obstacles. In engineering terms, constructing something on the surface is easier were it not for the roads that would get in the way – or, if you want to avoid some of the roads, the Phoenix Road Estate.
The prospect of a passageway of some form was, incidentally, sufficient to persuade local government in the North West and West Midlands to support St Pancras as a terminus for HS1 considering it a part of the same complex. When they realised that there was an unbridgeable half mile there was even a suggestion of a shuttle bus to try and ensure these people stayed on side. Needless to say, as soon as sufficient approvals were given, the idea was dropped pronto.
I am certain that I have seen a proposal associated with HS2 – either their’s or TfL’s proposal that shows the link from Euston Tube to Euston Square as well as solving the overcrowding of both the ticket hall, to overcome the problem of the single up/down escalators serving the Victoria line and Northern line Bank branch, as well as providing step free access for people of reduced mobility. I would include a link if I could recall exactly where I’ve seen it!
@StephenC -the problem with the “5m people south of the river” is that there is no single focus of population. The best corridor is Solent – Bournemouth (total pop around 1m),followed by the Brighton corridor (total pop around 500 000 + Gatwick) ,followed by Kent (3-400 000) . 3 different directions – hardly comparable with “the north” (10-12m off one line) is it?
@WW/Fandroid – what is the problem with having both entrances?
@GrahamH, I think that was my point, ie. that good interchange in London is vital to serve the population to the south, and that good interchange is not being provided.
@StephenC – Yes, I know (and as one of the 5m concerned, I know it only too well), but there is no obvious point for n/s interchange -Waterloo? Victoria? LBR? CJ?
@ Graham H – no problem whatsoever. I was merely responding to suggestions about possibly shutting the western end by saying there may a “local difficulty”.
@ 100&30 – would it perhaps be the image in this short blog entry about HS2 at Euston?
http://parkroyaltown.blogspot.co.uk/2015_09_01_archive.html
It does show the various tunnels and new escalators envisaged at Euston / Euston Sq LU.
WW – yes, that image is also on the HS2 web site:
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/hs2-plans-can-unlock-euston-potential
On the video at about 1m 47s
@StephenC
I do not agree that “good interchange” (between South-of-the-Thames and HS2) is “not being provided”. What is on offer is far from perfect, and its deficiencies have been well trumpeted. But neither is it hopeless. It is the usual compromise between the ideal and the affordable. Of course proponents of better provision can, and should, speak out for this. But ultimately, we will get what someone judges “can be afforded”.
@StephenC/Graham H…..Malcolm is right. If money were no object, or (God forbid) London was reduced to smithereens and had to be built again from scratch, providing a ‘good’ interchange station for HS2 and (some/all?) rail services in the south would be ideal.
But back in the real world, I’m afraid this really is a non-starter….too expensive and too many planning constraints in the way.
@Phil agreed – and what makes it worse is the astonishing lack of step-free access to Euston and Waterloo (except Jubilee), nor any plans to implement it at either that I am aware of. You’d have thought that 2 of the country’s busiest NR terminals with many passengers carrying bulky luggage would have been priories for this.
[Name changed by Malcolm (mod)]
Other @Malcolm (!) Yes, it’s not perfect, and it’s not hopeless either. Add those together and divide by 2 and you get “not good”.
[Malcolm, in future posts please pick a unique name, to avoid confusion with Malcolm the Moderator. LBM]
[The software is supposed to prevent use of moderators’ names by other commenters, but it is evidently not doing its job. Until that is fixed, I would beg users’ indulgence. And apologies to this commentator, and to any of the other numerous Malcolms around who would have liked to use their own name unadorned on this site. Malcolm]
quinlet
There WAS a perfectly viable option for linking Euston-Pancras-Cross with modern public transport
Cross River Tram
[Sarcasm snipped. LBM]
@GrahamH, Waterloo would have been the best as per my first comment, because it is zone 1 and captures all of SW and most of SE directly. But Euston is chosen now, so meh. (I don’t believe in a single central station for London, but I do believe a through station or stations were not sufficiently investigated)
@Malcolm, @Anonymously, Given that we are stuck with Euston, my main argument now is that OOC should be a proper interchange. A station 10 minutes walk away simply does not count, and those who believe otherwise are destined to repeat the Stratford International white elephant.
What is missing is one small new piece of railway – from the West London Line to OOC (Great Western) with at least 4tph from Clapham Junction to OOC (Great Western) separate to the existing Overground to Willesden Junction service. This is neither expensive within the context of the project, nor excessive provision for the population benefiting,
Briantist (in Gigabit internet heaven) 6 August 2016 at 13:47
“2) There’s a giant multi-story car park with “PARKING” in huge letters on it”
There are three, but they are above the Westfield shops, not in the East Village. In the East Village, the very few parking spaces on the public highway are controlled until 21:00 every day, just like the more numerous parking spaces on the private roads.
Walthamstow Writer 6 August 2016 at 20:42
“@ Alan G – why the need for people to drive to Westfield Stratford and park? The place is hardly devoid of public transport with access over a very wide area indeed. It also has frequent night bus links and will soon have two Night Tube services at weekends.”
I was referring to the East Village, not to Westfield shops. Train access is excellent, bus access is not good at all. 241 is the only bus from stop W that calls at any stop in Newham to the south of Broadway or Romford Road. Sir Ludwig Guttman Health Centre in Liberty Bridge Road E20 is a real Olympic legacy for people in the New Town area of Stratford as well as the East Village. However, some specialist services have been moved there from other sites, making them more difficult to access for existing patients.
@Other Macolm: I’m afraid you’re not really going to “Access for All” provision for the Underground on the HS2 proposals, given the current political climate… If they were there, then every MP between Euston and Birmingham (and probably beyond) will be “fighting” to have their station on the WCML made step free too… Given the constrained budget (again largely political[1]), this will have had a very strong SEP[2] field erected around it.
However it can be added to the CR2 plans as this is a new line, so has to include it…
[1] – Think “austerity” + London
[2] – Somebody Else’s Problem – a kind of invisibility cloak…
@StephenC -the physical problem with extending HS2 beyond Euston is the one I have described – you need to be 40m down and to portal somewhere near Willesden (the same goes for Waterloo with no practical option of portalling* until you get to Wimbledon (now claimed by CR2 anyway). If you want to get to central London downstairs from WCML/HS2 it would be better to miss Euston altogether and begin the descent at Willesden anyway, but this would then concentrate the whole of the onward interchange at Waterloo.
Malcolm’s (the real Malcolm) plan to devastate the whole of central London and rebuild it would be a neat solution, complete with the Breitspurbahn Hitlers central Bahnhof, if somewhat controversial.
* This was something that I have had examined by the engineers twice now. The only possible portal east of CJ is to emerge in the present carriage washing line – everywhere else you are still on an embankment and constrained by heavily developed built up areas.
Reading this excellent piece, it seems that the prevailing expert opinion is that Euston is sufficiently underutilised compared with other stations that, combined with extending onto new land to the west of the station, rebuilding will cause nothing like the service disruption still occurring at London Bridge.
I suppose new platforms could have been built to the south of London Bridge – over St Thomas’ Street and the empty carpark. I wonder why this was discounted in the design process, and I wonder why the barriers to expanding the station footprint can be overcome at Euston?
spych102: I am not sure that a direct comparison between the amount of disruption caused by the two rebuilding projects has actually been made or claimed. Yes, we can certainly hope that the Euston one will be less, but it is also rather difficult to put a number on such things.
Personally, l consider a Euston western extension for the HS2 terminus the least bad option available.
To allow the Euston rebuild, displacing the suburban trains (Overground and others) to Crossrail (for those currently overhead electrified) and somewhere (no obvious solution) for the Overground between Watford and Euston.
Ok, I’ve renamed myself as requested…
Surely Euston tube will have to rebuilt for HS2 even if CR2 doesn’t happen? If so then that will surely be the time for SFA.
I agree that HS2 is not going to be the impetus for improving SFA Waterloo, though I find its omission baffling.
@spych102
There is huge complexity in rebuilding half of Euston, not least the track approaches, sequence within the station footprint, etc. Hence doubts by some participants that even a basic HS2 6-platform part of the station for Phase 1 could be ready by 2026, despite some of the current rhetoric… Hence the possibility of a temporary OOC HS terminus to create a greater margin for the construction timescale and to minimise local environmental impacts around Euston and Camden Bank. You also have to try to keep 4 WCML tracks and the busy (and growing) ICWC/London Midland services operating all or almost all of the time, otherwise you might pay out track access compensation costs of £3-4m a day, for example, for WCML closure.
St Pancras was rebuilt while the trains kept on running reasonably seamlessly. There was a fair bit of empty space to extend into though. Hopefully a Euston rebuild would be more comparable to St P than to London Bridge.
@Other Malcolm – as I have explained with some illustrative facts about 36 hours ago, HS2 has – as HS2 Ltd also acknowledge – d****d all to do with the demand for tube services at Euston – at best an additional 3-4% (roughly the same as the impact of a rainy day). Step free access is a separate matter to be considered on its merits without the need to invoke HS2, CR2 or anything else. The effect on Waterloo of HS2 and Waterloo’s possible step free reconstruction is at best trivial.
Graham: An important reminder, but Other Malcolm also mentions passengers with heavy luggage, and the number of passengers with heavy luggage using Euston tube station will increase by a slightly larger percentage than the 3 to 4% you mention. But only by a very similar percentage to that which it would have increased in the non-HS2 alternative universe, if more passengers from the north had been accommodated in some other way.
I agree that step-free access is best considered on its own merits. The complication to that is legal requirements – essentially on new-build. But whatever the rules, there is a tendency for people to expect lifts whenever a tube station gets touched. But expecting and getting are two different things.
@Mael Coluim – just so. My intention was to put an end to the “project Fear” surrounding the apparent tsunami of punters generated by HS2. BTW, it would be interesting to hear a lawyer’s view on what constitutes touching a station in multi-ownership such as Euston or Waterloo; my assumption is that it depends on who touches what . ( I suspect that Waterloo with its seven different levels would be a nightmare to design and a very expensive thing to do).
@Graham H/Stephen C
““5m people south of the river”….no single focus of population. The best corridor is Solent – Bournemouth (total pop around 1m),followed by the Brighton corridor (total pop around 500 000 + Gatwick) ,followed by Kent (3-400 000) .”
Two of those corridors already have access to the Somers Town complex by virtue of Thameslink and HS1. The third, Solent/Bournemouth, already has the choice of direct trains to Birmingham and the north, for those for whom a cross-London interchange is inconvenient. Allowing for interchange time, it is unlikely that the current sub-two-hour timing between Basingstoke and Birmingham could be bettered via London, even if HS2’s terminus were to be at Waterloo.
SW London and west Surrey will have to wait for Crossrail 2 for direct access to Euston Kings Pancras, but until then the Victoria and Northern Lines will have to suffice.
@StephenC
“What is missing is one small new piece of railway – from the West London Line to OOC (Great Western) with at least 4tph from Clapham Junction to OOC (Great Western) separate to the existing Overground to Willesden Junction service. ”
To what purpose? This merely duplicates the WLL (unless you are suggesting sending some HS2 trains to Clapham Junction instead of Euston?), still requires a cross London double change (albeit crossing the Thames in Zone 2 rather than Zone 1) and does nothing for connections to the classic WCML services from Euston, nor to the longer-distance SWML services which cannot call at Clapham Junction, much as SWT would like to be able to.
timbeau: If you choose Manchester or Leeds rather than Birmingham then via London from Bournemouth becomes much more appropriate. And crossing the Thames in zone 2 is useful in a way, not so much to the passenger doing it, but to the other passengers buzzing around zone 1 who are thereby not impeded.
But having said that, I do agree that StephenC’s suggestion might be using a sledgehammer to make only a tiny dent in a rather intractable nut.
@timbeau – tell me about it (I am constantly reminded of Frith’s “Going North” which used to hang in the Board’s main dining room…). It’s a very great pity that XC ceased to provide a useful Guildford-Brum connexion, with the timings now driven by what I suspect is operational convenience.
BTW, even if CJ-OOC 4 tph were desirable or sensible, I can’t see where you might terminate the extra tph without a substantial rebuild.
@Jonathan Roberts: So a longer period of construction at Euston and the OOC terminus helps minimise the ‘local environmental impacts around Euston and Camden Bank’. But how?
@Malcolm: Clearly I jumped to a premature conclusion, sorry.
Euston is the only realistic option. We must have faith in the numerous professional transport planners and engineers who have spent the best part of a decade working up the plans, and the numerous people who have scrutinised those plans.
The winning argument for me, other than that it having the space to do (some of) the rebuild, the connectivity (the Wharf aside), and a need for redevelopment anyway, is that it is already the London terminii for most of the destinations it will serve. The concept of a terminus in Docklands, or Battersea, or even Waterloo (which surely would have required a complete rebuild to do it) is bordering on laughable.
As an aside, during the last rebuilding of the tracks in 1999/2000, more or less the whole service was run from 10 platforms for a summer. But it did require some compromises to the DC services and sleepers. A few peak trains were taken out of the timetable too. The peak service now is a little more intense, but not that much.
@Stephen C – what is this low cost tunnel from Waterloo that is much cheaper than CR2? I’m sure TfL would like to know! Although as Graham H mentions, there’s no realistic space for a portal until Wimbledon.
Re spych102,
Less construction road traffic per day for example or if only part of the phase 1 site was being developed at a given time some spoil removal could be by rail along with some aggregate delivery by rail to an on site batching plant.
@spych102
Please wait for Parts 5 & 6, or also look at various blogs: eg http://pancamdenhs2alliance.org/ , there are others. The scale of lorry movements at +/- 1000 per day might give a clue? Euston HS2 and its approaches requires removal of something similar to the entire cross-London Crossrail tunnel volume of spoil, as one example. This is NOT London Bridge, HS2 is a new railway entering at below ground level into an existing terminus, and also pushing aside parts of the existing terminus. Local ground levels aren’t level, either, as this is the edge of the Fleet River valley. It you like complexity, this is one to get your teeth into. AP3 is the 5th attempt at a rebuild, and none before that have worked so far.
spych102: No need to apologise, to me, or at all. Your conjecture that the Euston rebuild could be less disruptive than the current London Bridge one was entirely plausible. But only plausible, I suggest, rather than definite.
Although many of the best comments on this site are based on the commentor’s knowledge, more conjectural or questioning comments are also very welcome, particularly if they result in an expert (in this case Jonathon) telling us something extra.
… or even three experts!
For those advocating changing the depth of platforms and tracks at Euston it’s worth remembering the same problem exists today as when the station was first built and that’s the Grand Union canal which crosses the path of all approach tracks. With the solution at Euston being to cross the canal on bridges and to further complicate matters a short distance further north the tracks run through tunnels beneath Hampstead .
Of course a Thameslink solution might be possible for Overground/ MML building a tunnel under the existing lines into s sub surface station like at nearby St Pancras International with provision to extend across London to say Waterloo but that would not change WCML Pendolino services .
One problem that needs to be sorted is bringing together delivery of the new Euston complex under a single concession as was the case at St Pancras where London and Continental had full responsibility for total rebuild covering MML, HS1 international and domestic, Thameslink box and upgrade of station with work taking place on several levels at the same time.
Given how international platforms at Waterloo are now being converted for local trains I wondered if it would be possible to build the new HS2 station and then temporary divert WCML services into it while existing Euston was rebuilt in a similar way to at London Bridge working across the station rebuilding platforms and approach tracks from east to west or vice versa ?
As for usage of HS2 stage 1 will make only a small difference to total passengers at Euston its when full stage 2 comes into use with passengers who currently use Kings Cross and St Pancras International arrive at Euston thus increasing demand on Euston tube services .
As for Euston Square it’s a pity it can’t be combined with nearby Warren Street Station thus creating a seperate interchange at ESQ western end to that at its eastern end . What’s really needed is a New York Subway solution with platforms of Euston Square extended to join those at Kings Cross St Pancras !
Melvyn says ” platforms of Euston Square extended to join those at Kings Cross St Pancras ”
How would that help? No matter how long the platform is, trains would still stop somewhere near the passenger entrance and exit. The issue with Euston Square is where that entrance/exit leads to/from.
Melvyn: At first I read your “temporarily divert” paragraph as suggesting that WCML trains be diverted into Waterloo International. On reading it again, I see that you did not say that (fortunately). But I think something loosely akin to your suggestion will in fact be happening at Euston, though it will be much more complicated than that. We will see the walls between the “demolition/building site” and the “in use station” move about quite a lot, as we have seen at LBG. But detailed examination of the rebuild phasing, on this site, will have to await parts 5 and 6 (as Jonathon says), or maybe even longer…
@ Malcolm I was thinking about problem of building a pedestrian link from Euston to Kings Cross complex with buildings in the way and wondered if space beneath Euston Road could be found . Trains would stop as now unless a relocated Circle Line station in front of Euston was built but I can’t see that happening .
Re earlier comments of a station at Mount Pleasent one was looked at many years ago I think it was when Ken was leader of the GLC but like the GLC it fell by the wayside and given massive upgrade at nearby Farringdon Station I can’t see it as a future project.
Re Mervyn.
I’m ready to be shot down in flames but is there any way of building an underground link underneath the circle line?
Mervyn should read Melvyn and I was referring to a Euston kings cross pedestrian tunnel.
@ Purley Dweller. Aside from the Circle / Met tunnels being quite a way from the buffer stops at Euston, there’s already quite a lot under the Circle / Met line tunnels in various places along the Euston Rd between KX and Euston. Even if there wasn’t, there is still the problem of the time taken for people to travel the vertical distance at both ends. The same principle applied for the walk between KX main line and the old KX Thameslink – you could do it underground, but it was always quicker to stay at street level, so that is what people generally did.
Anecdote is the worst form of evidence, but…. I routinely make 15 minute connections between arriving St Pancras and departing Euston with luggage, or vice versa, by walking at street level (most recently yesterday). Having a dedicated route underground wouldn’t be any quicker or easier. In particular, finding a simple route for the necessary escalators into the stations each end without bumping into existing tubes, libraries, Francis Crick Institutes etc is impossible. So it would be a roundabout route at best.
@SHLR – given the current HS2 plans for Euston station show a considerable amount of work for Euston LU with new access to all platforms then I really do think step free access would have to be provided. Remember we are now moving beyond vertical lift shafts as the only means of delivering such access. Inclined lifts are a solution at certain CR1 locations and I expect them to become more prevalent as the planners try to deliver more step free access.
I expect the need for “new build” means step free access is inevitable due to legislative / planning / political considerations. You only need to see what transpired on Crossrail 1 and what is already being demanded on CR2 from politicians of all hues that it would be suicidal not to provide it. Obviously someone has to do the “numbers” and find the money but I think we are beyond the point, even if it irks some here, where new projects have to “justify” step free access within stations. The train to platform gap is the killer issue but that should not be overly onerous for the main line element at Euston. For the tube network then we’ve done the “hard to do places” debate before so no need to repeat it.
@SFD
“The winning argument for me, is that it is already the London terminii (sic) for most of the destinations it will serve.”
Isn’t privatisation supposed to be about giving the customer a choice?
Many railway companies, from the various Southern companies (and the LNWR) in the 1860s to South Eastern in 2012, have seen merit in having more than one London terminus, in different parts of the metropolis. For historical reasons there are also many destinations served by more than one company, from different termini – see Oxford, Cambridge, Reading, Exeter, Birmingham, Portsmouth.
@timbeau…Cambridge never had more than one main station (in the way that Oxford did for a time until 1951- General and Rewley Road). It just happened to have two adjoining parts (one for the ECR/GER, and another for the GNR and L&NWR roughly where Platforms 2 and 3 are today) that to all intents and purposes AIUI were treated as one station complex (cf Victoria and London Bridge).
Whoops, by termini, I see you meant London, not provincial termini! My apologies.
One could also argue that serving a multitude of different London termini by several companies is inherently wasteful, resulting in duplication of facilities and usage of already sparse urban land. One wonders how things might have turned out today if all of those companies had been forced by the government in the 19th Century to share one terminus instead of three separate ones along the Euston Road, leaving the others to their own respective termini in the West, East and South.
Interesting piece in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung a few weeks ago suggesting that Swiss railways and those around Zürich in particular could improve connectivity by moving away from the Hbf model in order to timetable faster connections. Given the enthusiasm for Hbfs on the comments here I thought I’d post.
http://www.nzz.ch/schweiz/konzeptvorschlaege-von-eth-verkehrsplanern-vorstadtbahnhoefe-als-neue-drehscheiben-ld.105913
@timbeau -“Many railway companies, from the various Southern companies (and the LNWR) in the 1860s to South Eastern in 2012, have seen merit in having more than one London terminus, in different parts of the metropolis.” Something of an exaggeration, don’t you think – the list of those having only one terminus is longer than those have multiple ones – GW, LSW, GC, LTS, LNW only after buying up the NLR, GE?
@Spych102 – interesting given the background to the principles on which Swiss timetable planning is based (ie the concept of nodes each 30/60 minutes apart with all routes passing through making a connexion with each other on the hour or the half hour). Critics of the Swiss plan have tended to focus on the consumption of scarce terminal capacity for only a few minutes each hour, with the further consideration that where there is a high frequency timetable (say every 10-12minutes), struggling to maintain connexions between specific trains is probably not worth the investment. But these are arguments about the efficient use of resources rather than their effectiveness in maintaining connexions, so I wonder what the technical arguments really might be – there’s no sign of the problem being discussed in the Swiss technical press(eg Schweizer Eisenhan Revue) so far.
@Alan Griffiths
“There are three, but they are above the Westfield shops, not in the East Village. In the East Village, the very few parking spaces on the public highway are controlled until 21:00 every day, just like the more numerous parking spaces on the private roads.”
So… what’s this I can see from my balcony? It looks very much like the car park in East Village? Or do my eyes deceive me?
https://goo.gl/photos/rC9Kavm7MDNQfhXd6
But I agree with @WW the whole point of East Village and the rest of the legacy park is to use public transport (multiple-DLR, Jubilee, Central, TfL-Rail, HS1 etc etc). Please don’t bring your car, it’s not necessary.
@Graham H
“@StephenC -the physical problem with extending HS2 beyond Euston is the one I have described – you need to be 40m down and to portal somewhere near….”
At least one version of the HS2 plans I have seen has the station at OOC underground (or at least a low-level station box like Stratford International HS1) … If this is the case then there is no need at all for a portal anywhere at all for an underground station in Zone 1 for HS2.
@Graham H
Sorry, I should have said I’m looking at http://interactive-map.hs2.org.uk/ and it certainly shows OOC being between two tunnelled sections. And having surveyed the area on foot, there’s no natural dip for the station to come above ground. The “portal” for Euston is to the north east of Regent’s Park.
So, moving to have a low-level loop or terminal station in Zone 1 doesn’t spend money on a portal, it save money by not having one, surely?
@timbeau
It’s certainly true, as far as London is concerned, that there’s a close correlation between where people work and the terminal station for their journey home. This is why city workers live, disproprtionatly, in North-East and South-East London, Kent and Essex while workers in the west End live disprorptionately in West London and beyond. This is, of course, why the Victorian railway builders sought to have terminals in both the West End and the City. But while that might suit commuters it certainly doesn’t suit anyone who needs to interchange because, at best, they have a reduced frequency to each of multiple terminii for their journey and some itnerchnages may not work at all easily.
Re: “Smithfield Market” for HS2 loop station location.
I’m looking at http://www.crossrail.co.uk/route/near-you/?xmin=-0.10753920486837598&ymin=51.51761782751105&xmax=-0.09723952224977628&ymax=51.52092246391302 and it certainy seem a viable location to interconnect with Thameslink, the Elizabath Line and the sub-surface Underground lines.
You might even be able to get an interconnect with the Central line at St Pauls.
It’s not “mad” at @SDF suggests, it’s a reasonable way to provide HS2 to Central London without re-building Euston and ten years of disruption.
@quinlet – an interesting angle on the “multiple termini” issue would be to look at the history of interchange. With a less frequent “intercity” service and much more luggage than we would take with us today, the Victorians seemed to place much greater weight on through trains than we would – think of the portion workings, the slip coaches and so on, not to mention the often – to today’s way of thinking – absurdly roundabaout routes deployed by individual companies in an effort to provide through services between quite small settlements/suburbs (to give it a London slant).
Specifically on the “London Hbf” issue, it’s important to realise that the population relativities betweeen Britain north of the Thames and Britain south of the Thames were even more marked than they are today. Large commuter towns didn’t exist when the railways were being built and their termini constructed. Virtually all of the places in Surrey, Sussex and Kent that people now say would benefit from a single point of interchange were nothing but small and sleepy market towns. Even Brighton and Portsmouth were small settlements compared with the major towns of the Midlands and the North. Why would anyone in the C19 bother to provide good northward interchange for the southern home counties?
A subsisiary issue is that although London has been polycentric since at leat the eighth century, those two centres have changed in location; the West End as a shopping destination didn’t really exist until Edwardian times – the other centre was the Regierungsviertel round Whitehall and that was totally inaccessible to railways coming from the north or east because of the aristocratic estates between there and the Euston Road.
Briantist (in Gigabit internet heaven) 8 August 2016 at 08:23
“So… what’s this I can see from my balcony? It looks very much like the car park in East Village? Or do my eyes deceive me?”
Your eyes don’t deceive you, but your description isn’t one I would make.
I’d call that car park “at Stratford International station”. It is further from any homes, and retail businesses in the ground floor of residential blocks, than the DLR station is.
Your photo reminds me that I’m intending to write to the GLA member asking for a shelter at the westbound bus stop in International Way E20.
@GH
“the list of those having only one terminus is longer than those have multiple ones – GW, LSW, GC, LTS, LNW only after buying up the NLR, GE?”
Well if we look at those, most have still desired between direct access within and around the CAZ, with through running possibilities if not another terminus, and most achieved some outcome even if the services mutated afterwards. Examples are:
GW: sponsored the Metropolitan, broad gauge originally, as a GW City extension. My February 1863 London railway guide (covering all commuter services around London – an integrated private sector timetable!) mentions half-hourly express trains “performing the journey in 13 minutes”, calling only at Edgware Road between Paddington Bishop’s Road and Farringdon… The expresses are still there in March 1863, but not mentioned in April!
LSW: the Waterloo & City, and preceding interest in a triangular junction onto the SER West End and Cannon Street extensions, plus one track built onto the SER line.
GC: The Met effectively provided a way on to the City from 1909, and the Bakerloo to the West End from 1906, so it didn’t need to do anything itself and also couldn’t have afforded it.
LTS: St Pancras trains, and also the Whitechapel & Bow, with some through trains onto the District.
LNW: also jointly with the LER, with the New Lines under construction pre WW1.
GE: didn’t make use of the Metropolitan Railway link, but it was built, presumably for intended services!
Conclusion, the desires were there, but the practicalities overrode many of those.
@Graham H: the same clock face timetabling would be used, it would be the choice of target connection locations when planning the timetable that would increase.
@JR – Yes, although (despite what said at the time of the promotion of the Met),those mainline extensions were highly suburban in character. The GW service ceased very quickly when the Met fell out of bed with them, although interestingly the Met provided through services again after the GW converted to standard gauge, surviving until the last war, albeit in the form of about half a dozen through suburban services from various Thames Valley origins. The loco change took place at Paddington, leading to the unusual spectacle of a Met electric loco standing there next to GW mainline trains. (Not sure whose stock was used – probably GW ).
@GH etc
I did say many, rather than most.
And I can add to your list
– Bricklayers Arms
– the GER, which owned and used Fenchurch Street as well as Liverpool Street,
-the GNR’s Edwardian-era attempt to gain access to the City which finally came to fruition in 1975 (not to mention its services to Broad Street).
– the GWR’s stake in the “Chatham” side of Victoria
And although the line to Broad Street did not formally come into the ownership of the LNWR until 1909, its raison d’etre was always connection to the Birmingham Line, as its original name of E&WID&BJR made clear.
I have not included here extensions beyond the original terminus, such as the GWR, GNR and Midland services to Moorgate over the Widened Lines.
@WW: given the current HS2 plans for Euston station show a considerable amount of work for Euston LU with new access to all platforms then I really do think step free access would have to be provided. Remember we are now moving beyond vertical lift shafts as the only means of delivering such access
Indeed, and the image that you linked to clearly shows that there are plans for lifts to all lines, except the Euston Square link which cunningly avoids the need for lifts by having ramps to the platforms. Plus a new expanded ticket hall in the “spine” between the old and new stations, and new additional escalators to all the tube lines. Basically the same kind of tube station rebuild as has been done at Kings Cross and Victoria.
After all, if you are going to have to rebuild Euston tube anyway for capacity and SFA reasons, it would be crazy not to do it while the station is already being rebuilt.
The question then is whether TfL should chip in for the cost. Precedent suggests that they should, as I believe they did at Kings Cross St Pancras and for the rebuild of Tottenham Court Road, when TfL’s originally allocated money for a tube station rebuild was tipped into the Crossrail budget.
As pointed out in the article, the need for step-free access has helped kill off the WCML-Crossrail link: if it is accepted (as it has been by the politicians) that every Crossrail station needs to be step-free, this means extending Crossrail up the WCML means every station there needs step-free access.
Also a statement from Crossrail 2 gives a sense of the state of play as of 7 July:
At Euston St. Pancras, we are looking to refine the current design to improve the interchange and reduce the walking distances between Crossrail 2 and future HS2, Thameslink and other National Rail services… Crossrail 2 will not, however, be providing a public (unpaid) connection between Euston and St. Pancras stations as the space below ground is constrained and such a link would actually be longer than a connection at street level. HS2 are currently working to enhance street-level options to improve the quality of the walking connections between Euston and St Pancras… We are currently assessing options which use existing Network Rail land within Euston station to improve interchange with National Rail services and HS2
@Alan Griffiths
It is further from any homes, and retail businesses in the ground floor of residential blocks, than the DLR station is.
Sorry, but it’s less than 120 seconds from the car park to my home. Here’s the video I just did for you.
https://goo.gl/photos/2UXtVtQAj437YuUn9
[And sorry, but this message, whether or not it satisfies others, is the last in this series about car parking in the Stratford, Stratford International or Olympic Park area. Any more will be chopped without notice. Malcolm]
@timbeau – not to mention the slip coach from Bristol to Victoria and the GNR Barnet-Victoria service via BFRS. However, the point is that none of these lasted very long; by 1873, for example, the GW/LNW joint service to Victoria had dwindled to about 6 journeys from Willesden Junc, and the Bristol slip lasted only a few months. None of these,the slip apart, was in any sense a long distance service and none was intended to facilitate interchange. In fact,so little were such services in demand, that most had gone even before the tram and motorbus sliced into the suburban market. Little appetite for a London Hbf there.
Problem: St Pancras to Euston transfer.
Constraint: Too many underground structures, lines, etc. Street level too busy.
Solution: Cablecar.
Could a dangleway work?
“Street level too busy.”
Pheonix Road/Brill Place?
@timbeau, a journey via the West London Line to Old Oak (Great Western) is likely to save a fair bit of time and avoid the zone 1 crowds. Taking suitcases across central London is never fun, especially as the key interchange stations in zone 2 are more likely to have lifts.
@Graham H, my view is that the 4tph would replace the current Southern Milton Keynes service (ie not terminating at CJ). I wanted them to run via the Crossrail WCML link after OOC (Great Western) but it looks like that opportunity has passed. Without that link, I think the Southern MK services are going to struggle to survive anyway as growth increases.
@Sat Fat Dad, See here, a portal location which I did make TfL aware of. That said, the key site is soon to be developed, so the moment has passed – leaving our children with a cost perhaps £15bn more than if the opportunity had been grasped. (No need to discuss this plan here, add a comment at the link if necessary)
I suspect people with family connections in the North, or jobs that require frequent visits there, tend to live North rather than South of the Thames, for easier access. So most HS2 traffic will be much better dispersed from Euston than from any more southerly point, like Waterloo, Elephant and Castle etc. There might be people who catch the train from Surrey as they can’t face looping round the M25, but not that many of them
Nameless: “Could a dangleway work?”
Probably not, because they tend to go in straight lines, or at least polylines. Among other difficulties which we need not go into.
As for the route through Phoenix Road, that is currently a little tricky to find, but nothing that some inexpensive signs won’t fix. Not everyone is able and willing to do the walk, though, especially with luggage, even though it is no further than (insert favourite comparitor, which may involve a range of underground stations, airports, Sunday afternoon strolls, Brighton Pier, or vacuuming a four-bed house).
@Malcolm
Over the timescale of the reconstruction of Euston, a phoenix Place connection could be upgraded. Even a travelator. An entrance to Euston opposite Phoenix Place would not be difficult to design in as part of the Big Plan. There is already an entrance to St Pancras near Brill Place.
Just FYI – there is an “officail” walking route from St Pancras to Euston. It’s shown in Green Dots on this map -http://www.eurostar.com/sites/default/files/pdf/connections_info/4782_UK_station_transfers_map.pdf
It’s signposted (not that well) and goes from “Exit 1” at Euston along Eversholt St, Doric Way, Churchway, Chalton St and Phoenix Road.
It takes about 5 minutes and is about a third of a mile (500m)
Sorry, I missed of Brill Place! About half a mile, aka 700m.
OK, let me ask this question in a better way. Without crayons.
I’m looking at Interactive Map | HS2 and it appears that HS2 is going to be in an 22km tunnel from West Ruislip, which seems to include the Old Oak Common station.
a) @GrahamH’s costings aside: why is it such an ask to make such a tunnel just a little bit longer?
b) If the tunnel is already deep enough to need a portal outside Euston, how does keeping it deep and having a deep-level station possibly cost MORE than the land-take for the portal plus the land-take to expand Euston station westwards?
@Malcolm 1511
There are indeed little yellow signs that guide you from one station to the other.
https://goo.gl/maps/fcXdf4qWJes
A Euston entrance opposite Phoenix Place could knowck two or three minutes off the journey time.
Man of Kent – that depends which part of the train you are in!
@briantist – Maybe the best help I can give you with subterranean station costings is to look at Straford Disreputable, which has cost around £1bn for a simple station close to the surface. That’s for a through station with short dwell times. Any HS2 terminus is going to have to cater for 18 tph, each with (I’m being optimistic here) say, 20 minute dwell times* – so,6 platforms +1-2 to cater for out of course running. So roughly 3-4 Stratfords . £3-4bn? Add in the fact that you will be deep down, wherever you put it and you have lengthy and expensive access shafts and services -another £1bn? Plus something to go further to wherever is your terminus du choix. Whether £5bn is cheaper than rebuilding Euston,I leave to others.
*Using typical VT turnround times would double this figure, of course, so – £9bn
Graham H 9 August 2016 at 08:57
” cost around £1bn for a simple station close to the surface.”
Are you claiming that is the gross cost? Have you taken into account that without Stratford International station there would nevertheless have been:
1) launch site for 4 tunnel boring machines
2) chord to the depot at Temple Mills in Leyton
3) emergency evacuation provision?
Without actually banning it, I would like to recommend that we do not take this discussion of costs of stations which are underground any further. Such a thing is clearly not going to happen for HS2, and how much it would cost is impossible to determine (or even set upper and lower bounds on) without much futile investigation of the details – necessarily hypothetical – of what exactly we are not building.
@Malcolm -without wishing to provoke you further, I ought perhaps explain to Alan Griffiths, since he would otherwise have the issue left on the table, that when the Stratford box was first proposed as a piece of passive provision, not building it was estimated to save £600m -so, a net figure. Allowing for fitting it out and some inflation since, £ 1 bn is a thoroughly plausible figure, and compares with the cost of a new tube station for much shorter trains usually in the range £250-500m. That’s enough, now.
[As desired, I am utterly un-further-provoked. Malcolm]
HS2 Limited have today published a series of plan and profile maps for HS2 Phase 1. Covers Euston as well as the alignment through Greater London (and elsewhere).
https://www.gov.uk/government/latest?departments%5B%5D=high-speed-two-limited
Haven’t looked at Euston yet but the plans for OOC are interesting – and notably lacking any Overground stations (presumably so HS2 are not sent the bill!).
The five plan and profile maps from 9th Aug on WW’s link – are they the areas the committee asked for changes? The two stations and throat are widely contentious but what prompted further work at Greatmoor and Offchurch?
Greatmoor is plausibly within the so-called London Reconnections zone, Offchurch rather less so. Nevertheless, as a curiosity-assuager – and because the original article – for good and sufficient reason – says quite a lot about places even more remote – any answers to Toby’s question will be immune from off-topic-chopping.
“Walthamstow Writer 9 August 2016 at 13:57
HS2 Limited have today published a series of plan and profile maps for HS2 Phase 1. Covers Euston as well as the alignment through Greater London (and elsewhere).”
I’m intrigued to learn that the proposed site of the underground station entrance involves closing the northern end of Gordon Street WC1H 9 AJ
@Malcolm: Taking advantage of your Moderatorial Dispensation: Greatmoor is about moving the sidings currently used by the London-Calvert “binliner” refuse trains to make room for HS2 (so fairly relevant to London as it is London rubbish involved). They were going to be relocated to one place, the locals protested, and now they are going to be relocated somewhere else.
Offchurch I have no idea about but seems to be a minor change to the route or possibly the way that various roads cross over it.
The main change for Euston seems to be that some High Speed platforms are shifted north a bit to avoid demolishing the building on the corner of Euston Road and Melton Street.
The plans for OOC now confirm the already announced change of no tunnel to HS1 (a prescient omission?) and following on from that, 6 domestic platforms instead of 4 domestic and 2 international at OOC. They also include the Crossrail reversing sidings, which will take the form of a stub angled away from the GWML and pointing tantalisingly up the New North Main Line: HS2’s very own gift to the assembled box* of crayonistas.
* appropriate collective noun?
It seems Keltbray has been awarded the first demolition contract for HS2 which involves the National Temparence Hospital site . With first stage demolition this Autumn and further work next year to provide a future work site for HS2 .
Please see link for details –
http://www.constructionnews.co.uk/companies/clients/hs2/keltbray-wins-first-hs2-demolition-contract/10009723.fullarticle
An obvious comment I’m sure but to truly rival planes and cars for travel from the SE, HS2 has to be accessible. How easy would it be for people from Essex, Kent and South London to travel north by rail if the link to HS1 was built and trains ran through to Statford, Ebbsfleet and maybe Ashford (how about a link from Ebbsfleet to Gatwick?) OOC would be an easier option if crossrail went anywhere decent in the East (Ebbsfleet, Barking, Ipswich?) rather than trundling to Shenfield. It can’t cost that much to re-instate East Croydon to Bromley and use the old link to HS1 to get south Londoners to Ebbsfleet for their train to Manchester. Canary Wharf to B’ham and Manchester via Stratford.
How many trains per hour from HS2 would go to Ebbsfleet and would they relieve pressure on a London terminus or generate more traffic.
But what about people to the west of London? They can get their train from Heathrow. Oh, that bit got canned didn’t it
@Trevor – we have been here so many times on this site identifying the low traffic prospects for any link, its high costs and the range of alternatives (eg TLK) that are likely to be as quick. The basic point is that Ashford and Ebbsfleet are small, not to say trivial, markets. As to extending the Elizabeth Line to Ipswich, why not – and to Penzance and Haverfordwest in the other direction…? (Or the Victoria to Norwich?)
@ Trevor Gatwick has a direct link to St Pancras International as do station on HS1 which is only a short distance from Euston Station.
The coming of HS2 might bring forward plans to double end the Thameslink Station and thus create an easier route to Euston from the northern end if it’s platforms to new northern entrance to Euston Station.
@Melvyn
In fact the entrance to Thameslink at St Pancras is right at the end of the link from Euston via Brill Place and Phoenix Road. The changes needed are actually at Euston.
@Graham H: “The basic point is that Ashford and Ebbsfleet are small, not to say trivial, markets.”
Those “small” and “trivial” markets will remain so until some better infrastructure and connectivity is provided. It’s a classic chicken and egg situation. Clearly not everyone agrees with you on this or the DLR would never have been built.
[A small number of brief remarks such as this one, and the one it is replying to, are fine. But if there are signs of essays being composed (or even multi-paragraphed short stories) (or yes-it-is/no-it-isn’t sessions) on HS1-HS2 connections or related topics, they will be closed firmly down, on the grounds that we’ve done it before many times over. Malcolm]
@Trevor: The original plan for an HS2-HS1 connection was never entirely satisfactory. Alternatives that involved a new deep-level station under the Euston Road would be prohibitively expensive to build and hugely disruptive. There have been some thoughts on an alternative routing that would actually allow all 5 million people in Kent, Surrey, Sussex, (and anywhere served by the South West Main Line into Waterloo) and South London to gain direct access to HS2, but whatever option is chosen, this is very in the future. Probably not before 2050 at the earliest, and likely some time later.
A Euston rebuild is required, not optional. The station simply wasn’t designed to cope with the demand it sees today, let alone increased demand in the future. It’s easy to forget that Network Rail were about to press the big red button on a rebuild themselves just before HS2 was formally announced. I confess, I would prefer a more holistic, joined-up approach to London’s termini and transport in general, but I’m actually happy to see anything being done at all given how painfully slowly grind the cogwheels of British politics.
@Anomnibus…..The markets for rail travel between Southern/SE England and the North will *always* be trivial/small, in comparison to the major part of that market (which is travel to/from London….geography and economics make this unavoidable). Otherwise the XC services between Brighton and the North via the WLL (not to mention their numerous BR predecessors to destinations as varied as Eastbourne and Ramsgate!) would still be with us. And that traffic isn’t likely to get much higher even with through HS2 services to those areas.
Whichever way one looks at it, the business case for extending HS2 to the south using costly new infrastructure is poor, and is likely to remain so.
But I completely agree that a Euston rebuild is both desirable and inevitable, HS2 or no HS2.
@Anomnibus – saying that Ebbsfleet will become a worthwhile important place big enough to justify a vast spend if only it has better connexions to the north is exactly the same as saying that about Gerards Cross. As for Ashford, in case you hadn’t noticed is in the corner of an already rather heavily built up peninsula. Ashford could be like Brum? – come off it. The DLR case is irrelevant – it was deliberately linked to the expansion of an area where there was, err, room to expand.
[** Cough **] See above (everyone).
@Malcolm – you have to let us deal with crayonista fantasies….
@Graham H:
Ebbsfleet is likely to be the only place in Kent where any new housing can actually be built unless something is done to sort out the chronic infrastructure issues the region has. The local and regional economies simply can’t justify much more housing on their own, which means better access not only to London, but also to major employers elsewhere. (Unless the government has been lying about wanting to even out the UK’s dangerously lop-sided economy. Which, to be fair, is perfectly possible.)
There is plenty of land to build on, but there’s a lack of will, both social and political, in building the necessary infrastructure to make those new properties useful.
It’s not just cis-Thames regions either: While the UK theoretically has plenty of space for new homes, there’s a lot less demand for them in areas like Northumberland or Cornwall, where the options for getting into London in a reasonable time are few. There’d be more demand for homes for people working in the Northern Hub, should that ever see the light of day, but that’s decades in the future. For now, that means the South East. As developers prefer existing transport and communications corridors, with fast links to where the jobs are, there’s little point in building profitable “luxury apartments” if there aren’t any jobs the residents can get to that will pay enough to afford them.
Developers are not in a position to upgrade existing transport corridors or create new ones. That’s where governments come in, but it needs vision, not the half-bakery I keep seeing. Government needs to act, not just react.
@Anonymously
“The markets for rail travel between Southern/SE England and the North will *always* be trivial/small, in comparison to the major part of that market (which is travel to/from London….geography and economics make this unavoidable). ”
Agreed that SE England, although populous, is more diffusely distributed than the big nuclei in the Midlands and North like Birmingham, Leeds, or Manchester, and thus could not be served. But the market for “travel to/from London” includes the nearly 50% of Londoners south of the river who have no direct access to Euston St Cross.
(Remember that six London boroughs, all south of the River, have no Tube station)
– HS1 does not even pass through SE London, crossing the Thames downstream of Dartford.
– For parts of south London, there is the Northern Line to Euston, but Thameslink’s main route whizzes through south London non-stop after Croydon, and the Wimbledon Loop is largely an irrelevance for access to St Pancras (let alone Euston) as it is duplicated by the faster and more frequent Northern Line .
– Only XR2 will make a significant improvement in access from (some parts of) South London to the north.
” the XC services between Brighton and the North via the WLL (not to mention their numerous BR predecessors to destinations as varied as Eastbourne and Ramsgate!) would still be with us.”
Their unpopularity was at least partly due to their being incredibly infrequent and slow – remember most were routed via Reading rather than the WCML.
@Anonymously
The Brighton direct trains were sacrificed when the Operation Princess timetable went belly up. As 2 trains a day they were quite busy but they were diverted via Guildford and then eliminated completely. They were supposed to be about every 2 hours with similar to Portsmouth. Trouble is the South East beyond London is too wide to adequately serve from a high speed line as demonstrated by the separate destinations there.
@Purley dweller -the ghost of the Brighton service lingers on in service to Guildford once a day at useless times.
@timbeau…Speaking as someone who grew up in and still spends a significant amount of time in one of those six Tube-less boroughs you mention, whether or not we have direct access to Euston St Cross is somewhat immaterial to us- to put it another way, we’ve never known any different! As someone mentioned earlier, anyone who needed semi-regular access to the North would most likely live north of the Thames. For us ‘Sarf Londoners’, on those rare occasions we journey ‘north of Watford’, we travel to the London terminus, transfer via the Tube, and then head north/east/west as appropriate. Or (if there is too much luggage, in my case), we drive. Not ideal, but hardly a big hardship, and neither I or others in the same situation are clamouring for something different. I suspect the same is true for those living in the southern Home Counties.
Once-upon-a-time (as shown here: http://www.1s76.com – incidentally, some of these did go via the WCML), there was a very infrequent direct InterCity train to the North West from Bromley South. Living in Orpington, would I have travelled to Manchester using this service by changing at Bromley South? Of course not…..I would have journeyed to Euston to catch the faster, more frequent service from there.
Any limited-stop HS2 service that goes to the south of London and further afield is therefore doomed to suffer from similar issues……there is just isn’t the demand or market for it (even from a train nut such as myself!).
Anonymously: Quite.
I wonder if there is a parallel here with the “hub and spoke” model which is so widespread (on roads) for parcel and pallet-load freight. While it would be perfectly possible to send such freight direct from Southampton to Bristol (say) (probably on demand in a small van), it almost always travels via a local pick-up, a night-trunk to the West Midlands, and onwards the same night on another double-deck artic to a Bristol depot, for local distribution the next day.
Similarly rail passengers from all over the south-east to all over the North generally prefer a via-London route, when they can choose their time of travel, to an occasional direct service which, even if it was still offered, would be at the wrong time and take them from not very near where they live to not very near where they are going.
Anomnibus: All you say about possible housebuilding in Ebbsfleet doesn’t really answer the issue that even if a quarter of the new occupants wanted to travel every day to Birmingham/Manchester/Leeds (and why on earth would they live in Ebbsfleet if they did?), this would not amount to a fraction of the traffic which could begin to justify an amazingly expensive HS1-HS2 link.
@Malcolm…The same of course applies to intercontinental air travel. There is no economic justification for airlines to offer direct flights from Somewhere to Everywhere Else if the potential traffic levels and revenue aren’t high enough. Only low cost airlines….by offering only short-haul flights and cutting their costs right to the bone….are able to overcome this. And no such model is available to railways, I’m afraid, due to their fixed infrastructure requirements (you can’t offer a new low-cost direct rail service if there’s no track to take you there in the first place!).
@Anonymously & Malcolm – Living in South London as I do, I saw another side to the simple solution suggested of just getting the Tube across London and I do not necessarily agree that “rail passengers from all over the south-east to all over the North generally prefer a via-London route”. It’s just that they don’t have a choice these days.
My secretary was not alone to visit relatives on a well-filled train from Brighton that went via Croydon, the GWR to Oxford, Birmingham and beyond. Quite simply, she hated and feared the Tube and from what she told me, many fellow travellers were of similar ilk.
In other words, please do not think that everyone accepts that they want to or indeed will cross Central London using the Tube from the South East. Other, albeit less-preferable options are available, e.g. coach services but I see that the railways have lost a market by removing those services, as comforting as that may be for those tasked with trying to fit more trains through Windmill Bridge Junction.
Note that I don’t include ‘Thameslink to be’ in this comment. I’m thinking here instead of linking the important cities, such as Bristol, Birmingham, Manchester and so on, which those withdrawn trains did from the South East.
@Graham Feakins…..My parents’ next-door neighbour has a similar fear of using the Tube (is there a term for this…..’Tubeophobia’?). I have no idea how common this is, but I would have thought they are far more likely to travel by road than by rail in any case.
I very much doubt that this is a large enough market to justify reintroducing more London-bypass trains from Southern England to the North. Otherwise, why aren’t there still ocean passenger liners (not including cruise ships) to cater for the many travellers with a fear of flying? Surely this is a bigger, untapped market?
@Graham F: These days (strikes permitting) your tube-fearing secretary could just catch one of the regular trains from Croydon to Milton Keynes and change there for Birmingham and the North – the handful of long distance trains a day via the West London Line have in effect been replaced by a lot of short distance Overground trains and an hourly inter-regional service.
In brief response, Anonymously, my secretary likes and prefers trains per se (she is a Bluebell Railway member!) but, like so many others, doesn’t like London or using the Tube. Folk like her would only go by road if there’s no through rail option, which is sadly the case these days. Indeed, I had a Croydon office ‘full of them’. It was hard enough to get them even as far as the Royal Albert Hall one day and yet they used the railways that avoided London.
Personally, I hate flying (airports are the main deterrent) unless I have to (I have enough of the wretched things flying over my house and hence the peace of sending this at this time of night before my concentration is disrupted again), so use Eurostar for the Continent.
Nevertheless, I suggest that your comparison between ocean-going liners that departed once a week if that and the demand for rail travel between South East nodes and e.g. the West and North West with at least two trains a day is not quite comparable. It was ascertained quite a long time ago that the actual time and timing of such trains was not so important, just so long as they performed the journey without requiring a change of train to include via-London travel.
@Ian J – Except that she travels to/from Bath as it happens and changed train outside London but I wasn’t going to be specific…
Graham F is lucky to be one of that diminishing band of people still to have a secretary!.
Back in the day, both CrossCountry and National Express believed there was a distinct “avoid London at any price” market,but they both said that it was mostly confined to the querelous elderly and people encumbered with luggage and children. ( I do note, from looking at the back of NatEx vehicles, that they still offer as their *only* USP that the driver will handle the punters’ luggage).
@Graham F: Change at Clapham Junction and Reading (or just at Clapham Junction onto one of the three SWT trains a day that reach Bath). If Clapham Junction is too close to “London” for her then there are other ways to get to the SW main line.
Or she could be like my mother and just catch a bus in Central London instead of the Tube, free of charge thanks to the boundless generosity of England’s taxpayers.
@Ian J/Graham F
Or from Croydon via Redhill to Reading, which takes no longer and is cheaper.
Graham’s secretary may be an exception, and it wold be ungentlemanly to enquire further, but most people in paid employment are not of an age to enjoy free travel on London’s buses.
@Graham H
“Graham F is lucky to be one of that diminishing band of people still to have a secretary!.”
When there were direct trains from Brighton to Manchester, I still had a secretary.
My grandmother was quite happy to use the train from her home in Blackheath to visit her sister in Devon, changing at what she always insisted, even in 1985, on calling “Waterloo Junction” (and travelling “Third Class”) . But to get to Kings Cross to visit us, she would always book a minicab.
@timbeau – since we are in bragging mode, at that time, I had three..
@Graham H…..In these times of austerity, I’m fairly confident that whoever now does your job at the DfT has to make do with just one?.
@Graham Feakins…..I think you’ll find my analogy of a once-a-week passenger liner with c.2000 passengers with a twice daily (probably only on weekdays) Voyager train with 200 seated passengers is more apt than you realise.
The website I linked to chronicles in great detail the rise and fall of these InterCity ‘London bypass’ services (which at its heart was the Brighton to Manchester service, by any one of several routes over the years!), which is very relevant for anyone desiring a link to HS2 from the southern Home Counties. As someone mentioned earlier, Virgin did attempt to improve the service through the Operation Princess timetable, but this failed since the infrastructure wasn’t robust enough. Even if people are as accommodating of the departure and journey time as you state, the prospect of regularly delayed/cancelled/truncated services would be enough to put off the majority of punters. This has kept relatively small (or perhaps even reduced) the market for these services in the general landscape of London and South East England rail travel, where travel to/from London dominates everything else.
‘So why not improve the infrastructure to increase reliability and frequency?’, you may ask, of which a link to HS2 might be one of many different possibilities. In our current financially-constrained world, various rail infrastructure projects have to compete for a finite monetary resource. Therefore, only those projects giving the greatest ‘bang for your buck’ (BCR in other words) are likely to be implemented. And I’m afraid that (re-)introducing direct London avoiding trains between the South and the North by whatever means isn’t one of them.
@Anonymously – actually it was during that part of my sojourn at BRB when I was the Company Secretary – one to deal with privatisation correspondence (and matters arising), one to deal with BR Corporate correspondence (and matters arising) and one to deal with BRB correspondence (as well as managing the Board members’ support services) – such was the volume of paper that swept through the office at the time. [At DTp/DfT, I had a more modest one].
GH 13.07 – it may not have been in Whitehall, but it still sounds like the first episode of Yes Minister.
timbeau 10.28 / GH 11.05 – I’m really hoping someone is going to identify the link between the prevalence of London avoiding trains and that of secretaries.
@GH
As you were the Company Secretary, doesn’t that actually make four?
(and no doubt you reported to a Permanent Under Secretary, and possibly a Secretary of State………)
Anonymously
Those X-country services started a very long time before that!
Look up “Sunny South Express” – a joint LBSCR/LNWR pre-WWI operation.
I travel to Birmingham and Manchester on business about once a month from my home in the New Forest/Bournemouth catchment area – about a million people live here, according to Malcolm. Not only is the train service slow to London but I don’t like the hassle of getting to other London terminals by tube/bus/taxi from Waterloo. So I avoid London – as do many others. To Birmingham I get the direct Cross Country service from Bournemouth station (although this is getting very crowded); whereas to Manchester I use Flybe from Southampton Airport, where the security is sensible. Not only is the flight time less than one hour but the flight is usually much cheaper than the train fare to Birmingham! When considering a London terminal station for HS2 (or indeed any other services to the Midlands & North); ignore domestic flights at your peril and the growing demand for more seats. Southampton Airport is a very good example of ‘integrated transport’, with the air terminal ‘just 100 steps’ they say from the station. Flybe are developing their domestic network with good marketing and fare policies. It is the smaller domestic airports in UK (forget LHR and LGW and their security issues for the time being – much of their domestic travel is interlining) and their increasing range of UK destinations, which is the real threat to HS2. I wouldn’t use HS2 to either Birmingham or Manchester from Bournemouth if it meant crossing London and I suspect most other people who fly domestically, and numbers are growing rapidly, wouldn’t either
Certain internal flight routes in the UK are indeed thriving, as Michael indicates. But, as he also says, not typically involving any of the London airports.
But I don’t really see what the implications of this for HS2 might be. Even if some HS2 trains could go direct to Waterloo (and they cannot), it does not seem that they would attract many passengers for Bournemouth. (Though Guildford or Basingstoke might be another story).
The “most probable” southern terminus of HS2 (other than OOC and Euston) must remain Heathrow (or its hypothetical replacement, if any). All the arguments already used to rule that out (at least for now) will generally work a fortiori to rule out anywhere else. (And this is not an invitation, by the way, to revisit such arguments).
@ C Lucas – I assume TOC bidders for “Inter City” type franchises will have undertaken a P50 risk modelling analysis of the effect of travelling secretaries on their revenue projections. 😉 🙂
@Michael Eastern….That’s a very useful insight. The problem with increasing domestic air travel in a geographically small country such as ours is that it is environmentally unsustainable, due to their carbon emissions.
One advantage of HS2 (depending on its electrical power source) is that its per person carbon emissions are much lower than for air travel over a comparable distance. By reducing the demand for London to the North air travel, it becomes easier to preserve and justify environmetally-damaging air travel for routes where there really is no viable alternative.
In your case, there is a perfectly viable (albeit pricier) alternative, in the direct XC trains from Bournemouth to Manchester via Birmingham. As soon as you’re that far west, a direct train to the north that bypasses London becomes much more attractive. Whereas for much of Kent/Surrey/Sussex, the attractiveness of these services are, at best, debatable (otherwise XC would have come under immense political pressure to reinstate their Brighton services).
As you give perfectly good reasons for choosing air travel over the train, it would be wrong for any of us to judge you for it. But I would hope that at some point in the future, the rail alternative becomes attractive enough for you to choose it over flying.
@Malcolm
‘Certain internal flight routes in the UK are indeed thriving, as Michael indicates. But, as he also says, not typically involving any of the London airports.’
The low-cost domestic routes from Gatwick, Stansted and Luton to Scotland seem to be doing OK! One would hope that HS2 in its completed form would remove at least some of this traffic, for the environmental reasons I mentioned earlier.
@WW/GH
I am reminded of the dilemma posed to Civil Service typists in 1994 by the suggestion of the Public Transport minister, Roger Freeman, that “after privatisation there could be “cheap and cheerful” trains for people such as typists, with “luxury” travel reserved for civil servants and businessmen.”
Maybe his secretary was a Ms Schrodinger.
WW 15.47: I am sure I have seen a BR advert (or possibly a BTF film?) from when the Inter-City 125s were first introduced showing a businessman seated in first class accompanied by a secretary, complete with typewriter ready on the table.
@ Anonymously
I prefer to use train as I get work done if traveling First Class. However the direct XC Bournemouth to Manchester service takes five hours – longer than via London Euston with the hassle that involves. By using train to Southampton Airport Parkway; Flybe to Manchester Airport; train from Manchester Airport to Piccadilly; I can be in Manchester in less than half the time. And complete my business within a day; avoiding hotel costs. It is pragmatic decision. For example I use the coach from Bournemouth to Heathrow when I fly to New York. Mode is irrelevant; convenience scores every time. Using the direct coach to LHR means I don’t have to change from South West Trains at Woking to catch a bus to the airport; or drive, with the cost of parking at LHR. In other words, whatever mode is best for me (almost regardless of environmental implications. I know in theory that is wrong but sadly a fact). It is a combination of saving time and avoiding changing transport. Very simple. Of course environmental issues are vital but they have to be combined with attractive fares, speed, comfort and other things. An HS2 terminal at Euston would not attract me; HS2 terminal at Heathrow might. But as Malcolm points out, New Forest/Bournemouth catchment area isn’t included in the HS2 Euston calculations. Is it?
Heathrow is already a major hub for long distance coach travel, allowing coach passengers to avoid the long drag through London streets to and from Victoria. If HS2 were to go there, one or other of the many long term proposals to provide rail access to the airport from the SW might finally come to pass so it can become a rail hub too.
It may be right to say that certain domestic air routes are thriving, but I suspect that it is all relative. Anglo-Scottish routes are all showing such time savings and cost savings over rail that it would be a surprise if they didn’t succeed and they are still dominated by flights to London. Within England it’s much smaller. Michael Eastern’s route from Southampton to Manchester is one of the best, offering 6 flights a day and a total of about 500 seats. The next best from Southampton is Newcastle with only half that number over a distance where air should be more competitive.
By and large the problem for domestic flights which don’t involve interlining, is that journey ends are widely dispersed, particularly if the trip does not have one end in London, and the number of airports offering domestic flights is somewhat limited. So for many journeys the difficulty of accessing the appropriate airport, either at one end or both, is sufficient to make flying not particularly attractive unless journey lengths are long. Birmingham, for example, has only 1 domestic flight within England a day, offering 75 seats to Newquay.
Most of the HS2 trips, even when fully completed, are not likely to be on sectors where air poses a serious competition until you get into Scotland.
I would expect much of the flight traffic to Newquay is interlining to and from Scilly, which obviously cannot be reached by land transport. Apart from the ship from Penzance, the only way is to fly, and because of the length of the runway at St Marys, as far as I recall no flights from St Marys get any further than Exeter, and most go to Newquay or Lands End (less fuel means more passengers)
Timbeau, much of the flight traffic to and from Newquay is to and from Newquay. It is poorly served by road and rail, and yet is still a bustling resort. I know about 20 people who have flown there (most recently my neighbour, 2 weeks ago), and all were going specifically to Newquay. Around half were taking surf boards; perhaps that just the type of dude I hang out with!
Going back on topic, the towns and cities across the south east of England are well dispersed, and as we know high capacity railways need high densities of people to make them worthwhile. Using the Southampton- Manchester flow as an example, the entire annual passenger flow by air could be accommodated on three days of Pendolinos on the Euston – Mancheter route. And Southampton airport has quite a wide catchment area. How you best serve that catchment area, and all the others across the south, plus all the rest of the South East region, plus central London (the biggest traffic generator of the, all), with one or two stations, and still enable a decent journey time to the north, and do it affordably…. Etc…. is why Euston has been chosen.
@SFD….Newquay is poorly served by rail??? Compared with other coastal holiday towns in the West Country (Bude, Padstow, Bideford, Ilfracombe….), it is lucky to have any rail access at all! In summer, there are even direct InterCity trains running to there from London and the Midlands!!!
To look at it another way: if Newport Airport was a station it would be comparable to Sandwich (about 250K entries/exits a year). If Southampton Airport was a station it would be similar to Brondesbury Park (about 1.7 million a year). The numbers are tiny in the context of the UK transport network as a whole.
@Michael Eastern – sounds like you’d be one of the direct beneficiaries of the proposed Paddington – Southampton services designed to couple the need for more London-Reading trains and deal with long distance capacity issues on the SWML. It would call at OOC for interchange with HS2.
The current policy is that the small number of spare paths on HS2 would best be deployed in serving lesser destinations in the north rather than a handful of airport passengers, a handful of coach passengers from the wider SE, a large number of driving-to-Heathrow passengers (something to be avoided) and a large number of training-to-Heathrow-despite-ability-to-get-to-OOC passengers that a Heathrow spur would serve. Sheffield’s recent changes have likely taken one of those two remaining paths (to serve that city with 1tph, rather than 4tph at Meadowhall) and so it’s pretty clear that the Heathrow spur is considered dead.
@Graham H (and others):
HS2 is going to take 20 years or so for Phase 1, and even longer for the full “Y”, so why are you quoting current population figures to counter my arguments? By your own logic, there’s no need to build any part of HS2 at all as the WCML isn’t actually saturated yet.
However, I think it safe to say that it’s best we agree to disagree on this.
Whatever the views on politics on this site, it’s glaringly obvious that something is going to have to give regarding infrastructure planning, funding and development. The present system is clearly not fit for purpose. I live in hope, but I won’t be holding my breath.
[As Anomnibus says, let’s not prolong this discussion. LBM]
@timbeau
Flights to and from St.Mary’s airport on Scilly much reduced from the past.At one time possible to fly from both Bristol and Southampton as well.Airport very small with just a short grass landing strip on top of a hill.Largest planes are 19 seat De Havilland Canada Twin Otters.
@Hugh S – somewhat offtopic, but didn’t there used to be a helicopter service from Penzance?
@Graham H-Yes helicopter flights from Penzance to both Tresco and St.Mary’s until October 2012.Closed then due to rising costs and falling numbers.
Very much off topic I agree!
Helicopter services to both St Marys and Tresco had to close because the operator had to sell the heliport at Penzance to raise funds. Planning permission for an alternative site at St Erth was refused.
I would have bet that timbeau had more detail!
@GH
Been to Scilly twice in the past year. The Penzance Sleeper is highly recommended- and Paddington is a much nicer place to wait late at night than Euston!
Distinctly off piste but amusing – Scilly became notorious in the department when it came to administering the formula that dished out transport supplementary grant to local authorities.The distribution was based on various factors such as population or the length of roads, none of which gave Scilly enough money to pay for the inter-island boat service. Eventually, the lawyers hit upon the device of deeming Scilly by Statutory Instrument to have a big enough land area to attract grant, leading to my annual discussion with the Parliamentary draftsman “How big do you want Scilly to be this year?” The answer was usually about the size of Canada.
Well, I did try to drag the discussion back to London terminals, but further to GH’s mention of contriving a suitable transport grant for Scilly reminds me that St Marys suddenly acquired three A-class roads in the 1970s, along with its very own vehicle registration mark (SCY). I understand that the former was a way of justifying DfT funds going to the islands (the government pays each local authority a grant according to the mileage of classified roads it is responsible for, with different rates for A and B roads: indeed that was the original purpose of classifying them). The quid pro quo was that vehicles used on those roads had to be road-legal, hence the need for a registration mark.
I don’t know whether this had anything to do with the Prime Minister’s frequent visits to the islands during that period.
I may have missed something somewhere. I can see no reason for HS2 being CG without a connection to HS1. Whilst it makes sense to allow for the future possibility of such a connection this does not require CG through to the London terminal. This should have some effect on the cost of Euston HS2. Is it enough to take notice of? Are there other benefits to having compatible lines into Euston rather than CG?
@Timbeau, 16 August 2016 at 22:26
“Planning permission for an alternative site at St Erth was refused.”
The site would have been in a field right next to the rail station, very handy for interchange, and the A30. Probably too close to housing though in the end.
I’d better go and find a Cornwall Reconnections blog, before I get snipped!
RayK: I think you are referring to the structure gauge. It is still HS2’s intention to have a fleet of captive trains, built to continental gauge (although that is actually rather an imprecise term) to run on services which do not leave HS2 infrastructure (initially to Birmingham, subsequently to Manchester and Leeds). The stated reason is that such trains will be cheaper to purchase, and with more internal space, they can either have more seats, or the same number but more spacious. Probably not double-deck initially (because of boarding speed), but this might also be possible in the distant future if something changes.
The possibility of dispensing with this captive fleet, or deferring it, has been discussed, but not (as far as I know) publically by HS2 or the government. But shrinking the infrastructure to match has not been much proposed, because of a perception that it would not save much money or hassle.
In this connection, the probably-mythical reflection, attributed to George Stephenson, that railways in distant parts of England should be built to the same gauge “because, however unlikely it may seem, they may all join up one day” springs to mind.
Re Ray K,
The extra width allows spacious 3+2 standard seating (as they aren’t apparently looking at double deck any more) and creates extra space for all the equipment to fit under / on top of the cars without losing passenger space. The UK loading gauges are very restricted including underneath floor level which most people forget about.
Also wider aisles if 2+2 seating, decent luggage rack above passengers without it feeling claustrophobic so less needed at floor level near the doors? More foot space in the window seats (unlike the 700s were the cable runs reduce foot space dramatically).
As Euston is going to need huge rebuild anyway you might as well have the extra ~20+cm between the rail and platform when doing it.
@Malcolm
“The stated reason is that such trains will be cheaper to purchase”
But it may make delivery more expensive!
(There is a reason the Eurotunnel shuttle locomotives were built to Berne Gauge (G1) – much smaller than the car-carrying wagons they haul)
Delivery of trains nowadays costs a tiny fraction of their purchase cost. And often takes place by road, even when rail delivery is physically possible.
Re Timbeau,
So they can go on an HGV to Loughborough for heavy overhaul easily… (Without hitting every bridge on the way)
The Eurotunnel shuttle locos are different, in that delivery issues and cost of purchase both pull in the same direction. However nice enormous locos might have looked in pictures, they would have been a pointlessly-expensive one-off design.
Another advantage of the continental structure gauge is the extra width available for maintenance compared with our restrictive gauge.However I am not in favour of two separate fleets of passenger rolling stock.More flexible “classic compatible” stock which can go anywhere within reason is much better!
There seems to be a widespread theme among commenters here that infrastructure decisions should be made which keep options open. Interworkable couplers, plenty of sidings “just in case”, crossovers, and doubtless others. What seems to be missed sometimes is that such flexibility nearly always costs something in real money. Which, in case anyone hasn’t noticed, is in rather short supply.
@Malcolm: Which, in case anyone hasn’t noticed, is in rather short supply.
I wouldn’t say so, the BoE has been “printing” plenty of it over the last 5 or so years, through Quantitative Easing. Except that they have been giving it to the banks, they could have just as easily given it to construction companies in return for a shiny new railway…
@SHLR -alas, there is a difference in the stock of pelf arising from QE and the pelf available to the state for investment/public expenditure.
The BoE will have created about £435bn of new money by next year. £50bn for HS2 and an equal amount for Network Rail seems like peanuts.
It is unfortunate that a good percentage of new money did not form the basis of a 1930s style infrastructure investment fund.
Malcolm 12.47: Not sure that the “flexibility costs money” argument counts in relation to the HS2 structure gauge though, especially since the working assumption all the way has been that a “continental” gauge would be adopted. I’d imaging that changing that assumption at this stage is what would cost.
Ultimately, if all the trains do turn out to be classic compatible, then the infrastructure adjustments rendered necessary are presumably limited to longer platform edge slabs, on the assumption that this would be preferable to retaining whatever method is chosen to enable classic compatible trains to serve platforms built for larger-gauge trains. Note that this option would retain any advantages from greater space and/or standardisation in building and operating the infrastructure.
(Jonathan Roberts has advised us previously in this series that HS2 is intended to have platforms at 1,150mm height above rail level or so, which is suitable for level boarding from classic compatible trains.)
If, on the other hand, the infrastructure were built to UK gauge, modifications to allow “continental” gauge trains would be, er, somewhat more expensive.
ngh 11.43: As far as I am aware, the only inter-city type “continental gauge” trains (as opposed to, say, “shinkansen” or “Russian” gauge) with 3+2 seating are the latest Talgos, which achieve this by having very short (and so wide) vehicles. Crucially for HS2, however, the Talgo architecture enforces a low floor level which is not practical for co-existence with classic compatible trains (which by definition have to be compatible with platforms at “classic” stations). So I am not sure that “continental gauge” on HS2 does in fact allow a 3+2 layout.
ngh 11.43: Forgot to add in the last post that since classic compatible trains *have* to be built to provide the HS2 service from day one, the challenges of fitting equipment under the floor, etc., have to be met anyway.
It is also inherent that captive stock may be more spacious, have more luggage space, etc., but it is the classic compatible trains that will operate the longer end-to-end journeys (London to Newcastle/Edinburgh/Glasgow), while both types need to have identical performance to maximise capacity, so the isn’t really an argument for taking advantage of the extra space for installing extra power, for example.
On reflection, my “money is in short supply” was a bit pointless. It is the function of money to be in short supply, if there were unlimited amounts, then it would not be money. Arguably money-for-infrastructure is in short supply right now, but a case could also be made that it was ever thus, and there is nothing special about the present time in this respect.
I suppose what I was thinking was more along the lines that, to the armchair theorist, making something cost a bit more for some good reason sounds easy, but to the professional trying to get the most railway possible for a limited number of pounds, there is ample motivation to leave out flexibility which will probably not be used.
@Caspar Lucas. Presumably the short TALGO coaches exist because of needing to deal with tight(ish) curves. As the captive HS2 stock will run entirely on new lines, the constructed lines will allow whatever coach length they were designed for.
I am mystified by Michael Eastern’ s security problems at Heathrow. They may exist for flights to the USA, but I can assure him that they don’t exist for domestic flights or for those to Europe.
I regularly travel from Basingstoke to/from northern destinations served by Cross-country. I rarely use their services, preferring to travel via London. Firstly, the fare differential is very small. Secondly, speed improvements on all Intercity routes north from London have meant that Cross-country is always slower. Thirdly, the frequency of those Intercity trains is far superior to what it used to be so ‘turn up and go’ is an entirely realistic option.
@ Malcolm – I understand your point about “flexibility” costing money. Of course it does. However not having it and then coming back again and again and again to progressively put back / put in what was removed (e.g. by BR and LT under financial pressures) or is now needed because of success just costs an absolute fortune in terms of planning, disruption to users and implementing works to new standards.
*If* we genuinely believe that modernised or new infrastructure is going to be successful, possibly *very* successful, then perhaps we should learn to “take the plunge” in giving ourselves decent room for growth, expansion and service recovery (if things go wrong) rather than the opposite. There are always limits / the Treasury snatching away the piggy bank / appraisers arguing over everything to the “nth” degree but we do ourselves no favours sometimes. I’m not citing examples because we have discussed many of them previously and don’t need to again.
@Malcolm, 17 August 2016 at 12:00
“Delivery of trains nowadays costs a tiny fraction of their purchase cost. And often takes place by road, even when rail delivery is physically possible.”
Certainly the case with the latest Victoria fleet ISTR, but then they’re rather different to main line rolling stock, and the route to get them from main line to the Victoria would be tortuous, involving transfer over other deep tube lines for which other compatibility issues may arise, unless a new main line rail connection was put in at Northumberland park (possible but expensive!). Victoria stock has smaller wheels and is likely to have a many subtly different details to main line stock such as wheel profile which manufacturer and client wouldn’t want compromising by rough haulage over the main line. More ‘main-line-like’ S stock, by contrast, has been transferred routinely between Derby and London by rail. The bureaucracy and cost of getting initial main line certification and then arranging fitness to run exams before each delivery run is certainly be a big overhead and a disincentive for rail haulage, especially for small deliveries. This is the case now in the heritage sector where it is exceptional for locomotives and stock to be moved around the country by rail, unless the the traction concerned happens to have main line certification already, and even then the cost of track access and fitness to run exams can be prohibitive unless the transfer can somehow be transformed into a revenue opportunity by hauling a special. On the other hand some loco owners have also complained about rough winching up steep ramps on and off low loader lorries damaging careful suspension setup and weight distribution, contributing to subsequent failures and other problems.
As far as CC vs captive on HS2, while the space availability of the larger profile will be useful for engineering flexibility, control, ancillary and even major power components and systems are also becoming smaller and lighter. The major cost in building CCs will be a one off charge to develop and approve new bodyshells to suit the UK classic loading gauge. There will be some additional equipment on each car, notably a moving step board for each door, but the actual building cost per vehicle can’t be that different once a production line is set up. A UIC profile doesn’t give a very generous 3+2 arrangement in standard/economy unlike the even wider Japanese Shinkansen gauge where their full width trains make full use of the larger space available. You can experience this in the UK in the series 0 driving car preserved at the NRM in York. Acceptabe width seating, all with armrests, in a noticably wider saloon, like some Scandinavian trains, but unlike typical European HS stock which is not perceptibly much different to our UK intercity interiors, and nowhere employs 3+2 seating AFAIK.
I’m certainly not against building the new railway to GC gauge, nor having a necessarily relatively small fleet of captive trains eventually, perhaps even double deck models for targeted peak busting as demand builds up, but the fact remains that at the start of service the vast majority of the new fleet will have to be CC anyway to serve all the many destinations planned other than Birmingham, for which maybe no more than half a dozen captive sets would be needed. There’s certainly an argument for flexibility and ease of maintenance of a homogeneous fleet and that would favour a larger CC order to cover all services, at the beginning. Some open access operators today both in UK and elsewhere in Europe manage to run relatively small specialist fleets cost effectively, so I’ve no doubt a small GC gauge sub-fleet could be managed on HS2.
I understand HS2 is applying for a derogation from the European TSI requirement for 760mm platform height at new HS stations. HS2 plans to adopt a higher platform more in keeping with the UK classic dimensions (perhaps 1100mm like Heathrow Express), but still set back sufficiently to allow standard UIC stock to pass. This is so when a CC train, which clearly must have floor and step heights compatible with classic stations, stops at a station on the new line, retractable step boards can deploy across the gap to offer level boarding. It also means that the wider captive trains, although not requiring the extending step boards, will need the same floor height to also offer level boarding, a highly desirable feature of any new transport system to cater for the disabled, reduce risk of mishaps and to minimise boarding times. Most ‘standard’ European HS trains to date have had internal floors rather higher than the TSI platforms simply to accomodate wheelsets and traction gear, meaning a step up from the platform is necessary. HS systems in Japan and China have adopted higher platforms to overcome that issue, although in Europe some newer ‘intermediate speed’ HS models have appeared that can offer level boarding at 760mm platforms. If manufacturers succeed in engineering a train with 760mm floor height throughout along with the very highest performance suitable for HS2 then our non standard platform height would once again require some modification from ‘off the shelf’ , although that might only extend to some kind of low cost ‘false floor’ adaptation of the interior.
I had read that the latest Vic trains could not be delivered via the Picadilly line (as the first ones were, and engineering trains routinely do) because of some size problems. Coming via new bits of track at Northumberland Park or Highbury and Islington would have obviously been pricey.
Fandroid: Talgo has a reputation for handling tight curves. But a trade-off between width and length of coaches exists on any railway which has any curves at all (which is all of them).
@Malcolm – “(which is all of them)” – don’t: it will only tempt certain folk to demonstrate otherwise (I can think of at least one case in New Zealand, for example…).
More generally and back to topic, the more I read about the difficulties caused by the captive trains, the less I become clear as to why the whole thing was built using classic trains it’s hardly as if at sometime in the future the rest of the classic railway is going to be upgraded. But the die has been cast, alas.
@Malcolm, Fandroid
HS2 will have especially large minimum curves radius on the highest speed sections, but many curves nontheless. That will be limited benefit to classic compatibles however which will also have to negotiate the tightest curves and closest platforms and bridges they encounter on the classic network. For captive trains perhaps a bodyshell slightly wider than the standard straight sided GC profile could be adopted in the ‘waist’ area to give more comfortable arm room in a 3+2 layout, i.e a ‘bulge’ rather like some UK classic rolling stock. However as with CC such a train is unlikely to use a ‘standard’ off the shelf European HS bodyshell. Manufacturers optimise those to be compatible with as wide an extent as possible of the classic network in mainland Europe (or at least in their target market countries) because most HS services travel over old shared ‘classic’ infrastructure for at least part of their journeys, fairly heavily reconstructed in some cases, but still with some of the curve clearance and other local limitations that implies.
Talking of Talgos, this early model (rear end) looks like it might have been able to fit on the Victoria line if the line was converted to Iberian gauge, but transfer by rail would be a challenge unless Talgo incorporated their later gauge changing capability.
Image from: http://www.ferropedia.es/mediawiki/index.php/Categor%C3%ADa:Im%C3%A1genes_de_composiciones_Talgo_en_Espa%C3%B1a
Fandroid 15.15: I believe that high speed Talgo coaches are short because they are Talgo coaches – a circular argument but one that happens to be true. My understanding is that Talgo was originally developed to cope with the peculiarities of classic (broad gauge) Spanish track which was typically heavily curved and relatively poorly maintained, but this origin has next to nothing to do with the use of developments of the Talgo principle for use on new-build, high-quality, standard-gauge, high-speed infrastructure. Albeit the stub axles of the Talgo concept do lend themselves to gauge-changing in a way that solid axles do not – I ought to study Talgo a little better to understand how they steer and don’t end up in constant flange contact running, etc.
Mark Townend 15.41: I understand that at least some LU stock is out of gauge for Network Rail anyway.
GH 16.28: But is the die cast? No captive trains have actually been ordered. I have suggested above that the cost of adaptation of HS2 infrastructure to a 100% classic compatible fleet is low, and if that is correct then is there any significant benefit to be gained from a UK gauge HS2? As always, happy to be challenged on my suppositions.
@Caspar Lucas
This may be of interest. Plenty of illustrations even if your Spanish is patchy like mine!
I think that Graham’s “the die is cast” refers to teams of professional designers and reviewers having put their faith in the “two fleets” notion, with no publicly apparent sign of doubt. But people commenting here have long been known to challenge such conclusions – with arguably limited results in terms of professional change-of-mind. But we can always claim that the emperor is naked, if we wish, and who knows what may happen? Certainly many details of the HS2 design have been changed since the outset, not least Euston station designs (which is what we are discussing!).
MT 17.57: many thanks, although I can’t say much for (or indeed in) my Spanish. I think the answer to my question is that the apex of the triangular frame pulls the wheels in rear to the centre of the rails without the need for self-steering (presumably this relies on the very front wheelsets being self-steering with full axles, as always seems to be the case with Talgo trains). I assume that in 1964, when the reversible Talgo was introduced, the frame was duplicated so the effect worked in both directions (but each frame acting only in the right direction).
Anyway, back to Euston…
Final thought (honest): It would seem that Talgo coaches need to be short in order to provide a big enough transverse element of the traction force in the triangular frame to pull the trailing wheels to the track centre. Bingo!
@Caspar Lucas – I entirely agree – an HS2 network run with nothing but classic trains has much greater flexibility, few, if any, additional costs (maybe even cheaper with the added flexibility of being able to enter non-captive stations, have a bigger pool for spares etc), and no real need for future proofing along the lines of double deck trains. So, why haven’t these arguments been rehearsed and quantified? To my cynical mind , it’s the usual disastrous combination of “Ce qui est grand est toujours beau” and “My mind is made up; don’t confuse me with facts”. More polemically put, gesture politics. Whether, pace Malcolm, anything will change is questionable; there’s too much political capital invested in the thing.
@CL – Later Talgos seem to have longer cars than the earliest ones, perhaps reflecting improvements to the Spanish infrastructure, sp perhaps the trains were able to avoid the worst curves the earlier ones were designed to cope with. While an even longer car might also work with the very gentle curves of HS2, problems could then be encountered negotiating the slower tighter junction curves in terminal throats such as Euston’s, and more length per axle means greater axle weight.
Caspar Lucas…….I think the ancient photos of the early Talgo trains is some way off the current situation. Today’s Talgo can tilt, gauge change but doesn’t have the benefit of the self steering of coned wheelsets fixed to an axle. Thus the wheelsets don’t centre on the rails. What the linkage does ensure is that the flanges are always tangential to the curve- no “angle of attack” as shown in some of the photos in the presentation you linked. As such I’m told the lateral ride can be “quite interesting”.
The tilt is passive. The secondary suspension is located high up on the portal frame that supports the wheels just below roof level. Thus the body performs like a pendulum round curves – quite unlike a Pendolino or Voyager.
The gauge changing is fascinating, having stood in the gauge change shed and a train passed and studied how it works, I still don’t quite believe it! Also, the locos have full width axles and the wheels are located on the axles with splines so they can slide and also transmit torque (though not at the same time!)
130 19.02: Actually what was puzzling me was the behaviour of a Talgo on straight track – with no self-steering by solid axles what is preventing the situation where one wheel of a pair is in constant flange contact?
That is what (I think) I worked out a few hours ago, and I also think a necessary corollary is that in fact the basic mechanics haven’t changed much, despite the differences of appearance, addition of passive tilt and gauge changing.
Hmm… doesn’t quite explain how it works with a rear traction unit though. Unbingo, maybe.
GH 18.50: And no doubt if the captive fleet is jettisoned for the reasons you cite, this and other websites will light up with indignation at the dreadful turn of events!
Caspar Lucas
This web page illustrates Talgo history. http://www.talgo.com/index.php/en/nuestra.php
The first page of the ’80s illustrates more or less today’s configuration less the gauge changing. The gauge changing is illustrated later on.
As for flanges contacting the rail on straight track……..I think they do, although the linkage connecting the wheelset to the vehicles it supports is designed to keep the wheelset at right angles to the rail and thus will have a measure of self centering – albeit not as good as two coned wheels fixed to an axle.
@Caspar Lucas 🙂 [Hopefully, tho’, Talgo gauge changing will not form part of the future for HS2 – whimsically, given the issue at stake here is the loading gauge,not the track gauge,I had this vision of captive trains passing through a shape changer in order to run on the classic network].
@Graham H I see every reason for the rest of the classic network to be upgraded to continental loading gauge. No doubt one line (or even one bridge) at a time, over the course of several centuries, but one has to start somewhere.
@Imm…Or not start at all. By your logic, now would be a good time to start building road infrastructure with provision for conversion to right-hand traffic at some future unspecified date (2500?), in case this ever becomes a good idea *rolls eyes*.
I see no pressing reason now we know HS2 won’t have any trains running onto it from the continent via HS1 why it should be built to continental gauge, or even why it should have two different types of rolling stock for ‘captive’ and ‘classic’ through services. It just adds an additional level of complication to what is already a very expensive, complex project.
Others have suggested that it is cheaper to order rolling stock that is built to continental loading gauge due to cheaper manufacturing costs. While I can understand why this might be the case (economies of scale etc.), is it really so significant that it is worth ending up with two very different types of HS2 rolling stock, only one of which can run on the rest of the network? Isn’t there any scope for Hitachi to adapt it’s ICP design and production line once it has finished its current order so that it is suitable for very high speed (220mph?) and can be built for use on HS2 as well as ‘classic’ lines for a reasonable price?
Yes, larger, higher capacity continental gauge trains confined to HS2 might seem like a lovely idea in theory, but to most ordinary folk out there (a lot of whom are sceptical enough of HS2 as it is), it could come across as an unnecessary, costly luxury.
@anonymously: there is a big difference between “we know HS2 won’t have any trains running onto it from the continent” and “HS2 will never have any trains running onto it from the continent” (or from Kent, for that matter). The expected build life of the structures is 100 years or more.
As recent events have shown, no-one can predict the nature of Britain’s relationship with the rest of the continent even in five years time let alone 100.
It is not clear why adopting international standards would add an additional level of complication, rather than reduce it (given that the rolling stock manufacturers are all multinational companies selling in an international market).
Maybe you could evolve the IEP (and I dare say Hitachi will merge elements of IEP and their Shinkansen trains when they bid for the contract), but if there is only one type of train from one supplier capable of running on the infrastructure, what incentive does Hitachi have to offer it for a reasonable price?
I doubt most “ordinary folk” are aware of or care about loading gauge, but if HS2’s trains are more expensive than an off-the-shelf TGV or ICE, they would reasonably want to know why.
@Lmm – what is the point of converting the rest of the classic network – even the twigs such as Liskeard-Looe? And LU (given the physical interfaces with NR) ? Cost of many £100bn, for a fraction of which you build a really high quality interchange between the continental gauge system and the UK system (say, near Euston perhaps…). We may “never” have to face the issue – pace IanJ, it is more likely that London will flood first or that the technology of transport will have changed radically. That £100bn ++ could be far better spent on many rail enhancement projects (or, off topic, other things).
No one has actually factually demonstrated yet why – or indeed, whether – classic trains are more expensive than off-the shelf TGVs or ICEs. To claim this, shows a woeful misunderstanding of the way in which train manufacturers work. Modular construction means modular construction – you can have it to any loading/track gauge you choose – ask Stadler. The “we could buy off the shelf TGVs (assuming that “we” actually like existing products) so much cheaper” is a bit of factoid spin.
BTW, even if the spin were true, the difference in price would hardly begin to justify the cost of converting the classic network- say the difference was 10% – on a UK rolling stock fleet that costs about £20bn to buy, the saving would be just £2bn. Spread that over the 40 year life of the kit – pure nonsense. To make business sense, someone wold have to pay you very large sums indeed to take the new stock off the manufacturers’ hands.
@Lmm
Am I the only one to have switched on my irony detector so far this morning?
There may be little economic justification in just converting the classic network for the sake of it. But there may be some point in making bridges and other pinch points which happen to need rebuilding for other reasons compatible with a possible future conversion, particularly if this can be done at close-to-zero cost.
Another reason for not slimming all the HS2 plans down to British loading gauge is the possible build, in due course, of further high speed lines. No crayons please, but it is possible that one day there could be an integrated network of high speed lines.
Or of course we could just gloomily slump back into a “no progress is possible” mood.
Anonymously: Building new road junctions fit for possible right-hand-running conversion is a perfectly respectable idea. Not flippable keep left signs, obviously. But the basic geometry of intersections could be so designed, at probably very little extra cost.
If we were to decide to populate HS2 with only classic-compatible trains (to simplify things and have only one fleet), then perhaps LU should take the hint and populate all its lines with a single fleet which can all fit on the Bakerloo line. The passengers won’t mind losing a bit of elbow-room, after all.
@Malcolm – yes, of course, it makes sense to do that where the extra cost is small (as with bridge renewal in many cases)but the costs at, say, stations, is not trivial* and because of the different clearances requires either expensive interim solutions (these have a habit of becoming second-best permanent features) or create new interfaces between the converted system and the unconverted system. Chaos for decades? Jolly good.
@Kit Green – you may well be right on the irony point (although it’s not always easy to tell, depending on what has been written before). More tactful to play the ball rather than the man, I think.
*To give a rough feel for what is involved, the reconstruction of Bricket Wood has been estimated at (gasp) £25m mainly because of the need to comply with the disability regs. If a short 2 platform station costs that multiply by the number of stations (2500 of those + LU) and platforms (8000? of those) and move all the signalling etc. Easy to get to £100 bn+ just for stations.
Graham: yes, you are right about stations, or at least about the platform edge aspect. There, the future-proofing should perhaps be limited to ensuring that the edgemost part of the platform (which would have to be cut back for wider trains) is not structural. A constraint on designers which might not be noticed among all the other bigger constraints. But we’ve just voted to sweep away (or repatriate) red tape.
@Malcolm
You may have noticed that during the 1980s and 1990s motorway junction signs changed from being 1 mile and ½ mile in advance to 2/3 and 1/3 mile. The only reason for this is that this equates, approximately, to 1km and ½ km and was presumably done in the anticipation that, at some point in the future, we would change road signs to metric distances. As this has been effectively ruled out, we are back to 1 mile and ½ mile.
@Malcolm – alas, altering the platform edge is enough to trigger compliance with the disability regulations. [I will refrain from commenting on whether there will be fewer or even different regulations after Brexit]
Hmm. If we can be in the EU for 46 years and yet stick with our half-baked version of metrication (schools and science and engineering only), there is no particular reason to suppose that if we had “remained” we would have suddenly seen the light. My pet dislike in this connection is the use (on said motorway signs) of the abbreviation “m” to mean something other than metres.
But we’d better return to our Euston moutons.
Graham: True but irrelevant, I think. I was suggesting (perhaps unclearly) that any platforms being rebuilt for some other reason should be designed to be easily cut back at some later date. The triggering to which you refer would already happen at the first rebuilding.
Re Ian J,
Minimum design life of new structure is at least 120years quite often several multiples of that.
Re Graham H, Caspar et al.
There is a capacity reduction going from “captive” to non captive (“classic compatible”) hence the operating cost /seat in captive will be lower hence their proposed use on the high frequency high demand (high volume) routes.
Ordering captives is comparatively easy, ring up Siemens ask for X Velaro without the drop down steps then just negotiate price and delivery schedule.
Hence I suspect a total life cost of a large order of Captive and smaller order of classic compatible stock would be lower
A late friend who was extensively involved in the original Eurostar design (The NRM’s eye lit up when they receive the content of his filing cabinets especially the E* designs) had actually suggested at the time it might be cheaper to chop back the platform edges and do a few bridges then fit bigger external steps to the new networkers (he also had involvement with) than produce a new design. [The Penge aka Sydenham Hill Tunnel is GB+ structure gauge before anyone asks…] Early in his career he had done the Kent Coast electrification so was very familiar with the local issues. The issue was that BR/UK would have paid for the infra costs where as the alternative extra rolling stock rolling stock was spread between 3 countries, a classic who pays issue.
Re Graham H,
You can probably guess who the individual was from his cunning plan to fit some of his mid 60’s design but not life expired electrical equipment in some new mk3 body shells along with minimalist infrastructure Weymouth electrification… He really understood keeping cost low.
Re Graham H,
As the disability regulations part of TSI were all lifted and watered down from RVAR probably no change or stricter!
@Malcolm – also true but largely irrelevant – in the examples you cite, even if technically feasible in terms of dealing with classic trains, when it comes to dealing with – how shall we put it provocatively? – Euro trains, the issue may well involve moving track and signalling and that will need much more than taking away a few planks at the platform edge. The problem will be particularly acute at those stations on curves and where the throat is hard by the end of the platform. Then there is the problem of “interim” platform heights.
A propos metrication -who couldn’t agree? My unease was increased by a letter in this quarter’s Tramway Museum Society magazine from a physics teacher reminding us all about the difference between M and m (and much else) in relation to abbreviations (eg kV and KV).
ngh…..note that RVAR was silent on stations, hence the “V”
Personally I think several ideas/issues are being rolled up into one
1) The gauge of HS2
2) Whether to buy dedicated as well as classic compatible fleets and
3) The height and offset of the platforms and whether the classic compatibles have moving steps.
Taking them one by one:
1) It is always good to design for as big as possible – the additional cost is trivial in the scheme of things. Tunnelling might cost a bit more but pretty much everything else would be pretty much the same. What would be valuable would be an inch by inch survey of the existing routes to identify the pinch points with a view to allowing the classic compatible trains to be as big inside as can be got away with (eg at least as wide inside as a mk111 coach)
2) I would assert that, apart from the issue of providing powered steps (see below), a marginal classic compatible train will cost the same as a “standard” HS train. As Graham H says, both will use more or less the same components just arranged on a different body. The only difference for the classic compatible trains is the extra design cost of the revised shape carbody, repackaging and type tests. As these have to be incurred anyway for these trains, the “dedicated” trains could be the same as the classic compatible at no extra cost over a fleet of classic compatible and “standard” dedicated. In any event, as rolling stock will only be about 10% of the HS2 cost, these differences are quite small (although in absolute terms would probably fund the construction of a few secondary schools!)
3) So, if one decided on an entire fleet of classic compatible trains where would the platform edge go? Simple choices are a) at the location that won’t foul the straight side of a continental gauge and all the classic compatible trains have steps. This would cover for the mixed fleet of dedicated and classic compatible. It would also lever the door open (sorry) for future double deck trains. Or b) place the platform edge to allow step free entry to only classic compatible trains as there are the only ones bought and then the trains wouldn’t need moveable steps. This would make the trains a bit cheaper, but it would make it much harder to introduce double deck trains in future (see previous LR discussions on the challenges of DD trains because of the significant width restriction below the 1100mm height above rail)
4) The points made in 3) could be solved by having different platforms on HS2 for the different types of train – more cost and operating inflexibility
5) My conclusion is that classic compatible trains should be bought with moveable steps to extend at HS2 stations or, and this will need a bit of working out regarding numbers, whether the moving steps are fitted to the platforms (If the fleet size is X, and the number of HS2 platform faces to be served by classic compatible trains is Y then if X divided by 2 – as there are doors on both sides – is greater than Y, it might be more sensible to fit steps to the stations unless it is deemed to be easier to deal with these sorts of systems on trains (the sorts of trade-offs that systems engineers have to make).
Re 130,
Generally agreed but there will be more passenger space in captives (especially as some equipment will have to be squeezed inside the passenger space) and hence more potential passengers that can be carried so not a straight comparison! Especially if it then required fewer trains or carriages to be purchased for given number of passengers to be carried.
[2+2 with current first class seats, a wider aisle, luggage racks above, and no under window foot space encroachment above anyone?]
Also see Singapore’s work on dwell time (a la 700s) which apparently reduced the train requirement by 2 on a recent order.
130: A helpful summary.
The problem with making the compatible trains as big as possible (inch-by-inch survey) is that it fixes for ever which lines can be served. A go-anywhere-in-the-UK design (well, almost anywhere) would leave the possibility of HS2 later on serving a few improbable places (Windermere, Aberystwyth, Scarborough, Huddersfield, Inverness for instance) should such things ever be found appropriate. (I’ve no idea which if any of those places has a 250m platform, though, so maybe not).
Malcolm
I see your point, but I’m not proposing that the UK gauge be enlarged to continental standards, merely, gradually to eliminate the restrictions to the UK gauge. Thus, you have to start somewhere. In just the same way that changes have been undertaken gradually to clear routes for Mk3/HST vehicles, so the worthy destinations you mention could be cleared later. As pretty much all these places see mk2 and mk3 vehicles it shouldn’t be a huge deal. What does need attention is careful system design to ensure that long vehicles don’t come at the cost of narrower vehicles!
ngh…..agree with “more passenger space” if you mean this to mean “more space per passenger” and not “more passengers”. The continental gauge does make interiors more spacious (thinking of Swiss mk4 carriages) but not enough for sensible seat width of 3 +2. I can’t, though, see how that the gauge would allow 2+2 of today’s first class inter-city seats and a wider gangway; perhaps I’m missing something?
Re 130,
Try having a look at Stadler’s Norwegian Flirt units for seats the size of the VTEC first class ones in 2+2 standard with a wider aisle…
A bit of both as more equipment will have to be within the body shell on compatible units and you would probably need more luggage racks taking up floor space if there was generous previous above seating. (Also think of narrow ended 26m IEP style bodyshells with lots of non seating space… and also issues with door placing accessible toilets and effects on dwell times).
Captives are liable to be upto 400m but classic compatible less than 300m max given WCML platform lenghts (or possibly 2x 200m that divide?). So if you want to have max passenger numbers and classic compatible on some routes you need to have high capacity on the captives.
Debt repayment will need lots of bums on seats and lots of seats.
I suspect HS2 analysis is far more detailed and “interesting” but not in way that most LR commentators would like.
@ngh – whilst it’s true at one level that HS2 needs bums on seats – they need to be high paying bums. Remember that HS2’s debt will equal that of the whole of the UK rail industry. Worse, the debt meter starts running well before a wheel is turned. Simply filling the seats at *any* price won’t cut any quantity of mustard, so volume is not the answer unless it’s all at premium fares. HS2 are silent on how they will achieve this but it seems most unlikely that lack of capacity is going to be an issue for many years (despite what the spin doctors would like us to believe).
@Malcolm “Building new road junctions fit for possible right-hand-running conversion is a perfectly respectable idea”
However, there are a number of dualling projects where the uphill carriageway is much more heavily engineered, in order to ease the gradient, than the downhill which plunges down the hill on the natural scarp gradient. Flipping those around would defintely be sub-optimal (although you could go for the Route Blanche option near Chamonix, and have the carriageways reversed to make it easier for uphill traffic)
@Graham H “It makes sense to [future proof infrastructure] do that where the extra cost is small (as with bridge renewal in many cases)”
Am I right in thinking that all new bridges over railways have to be built with sufficient clearance for electrification? (This would make my pet electrification proposal very cheap in rebuilding costs, with just four road overbridges and one footbridge in 17 miles, all built post-1960).
ngh…..I have looked – at the Norwegian FLIRTs although I guess I got the hits I deserved when I Googled “Norway FLIRT”). At 3.2m wide they do seem wider than is typical.
I don’t wish to think of the IEPs. They seem to have all the worst compromises, only some of which result from the decision to adopt 26m shells.
I guess there’s no reason why 400m trains couldn’t be made out of classic compatible sets although they wouldn’t be classic compatible them. That said, reconfiguration as markets inevitably change would be possible.
@Malcolm, 18 August 2016 at 11:31
“130: A helpful summary.”
seconded
The problem with making the compatible trains as big as possible (inch-by-inch survey) is that it fixes for ever which lines can be served.
Not forever, just until the economics stack up to extend the clearance further if necessary, usually after or along with some routine periodic renewals that make the job a lot easier and allow costs to be spread.
You’d need something broadly equivalent in size to typical UK Intercity profile stock so the CCs would be able to go wherever such long distance expresses can go today. Some suburban branches and rural fingers might be off limits, just as they are to today’s express rolling stock. Going any bigger than Pendolino, Voyager, 80x seems unnecessary, but every new vehicle design is unique with respect to it’s swept path, overhang, sway characteristics, so there’s always a detailed route clearance process. That always raises the possibility of some very minor infrastructure interventions being cost effective on planned routes to avoid some more difficult adaptation to the vehicle, but it’s unlikely anything major would be required if the aim was to produce something ‘UK Intercity’ sized. I did a little study work on route clearance for NoL Eurostars years ago. At Birmingham New Street, the trains easily passed all the structures, but the length of the nose beyond the first axle led to some clearance issues around junctions and associated insulated block joints. In many cases the joints could be moved back a little to solve the problem, but where they were already particularly close to a signal, that also might have to move, possibly triggering new build rules regarding sighting and standback which, if not carefully managed, could result in losing one or two cars standage for any train in the affected platform.
Tilting for CCs seems not a good idea if you have to pay for that minor increase in speed around some curves with even narrower tapering bodyshells and significant extra weight per car. Better to use the superior performance of a HS traction package in a lightweight configuration and be able to accelerate more quickly away from any curve restrictions that apply on the classic routes. There would be an incentive to straighten out some of those kinks. At the far northern peripheries in particular, new faster cut-offs through the hills could be built for all limited stop high performance electric trains, not just London-centric High Speed ones, and could be steeper than the classic twists and turns bypassed. The old alignments would be less steeply graded and could also remain in parallel where required for slower freight and any local stopping services. That would create more dynamic overtaking opportunities for the fast trains, without the heavy freights having to stop in shorter loops then restart again.
@timbeau – I don’t know about since 1960, especially here in 3rd rail land. It’s not usually the cost of shifting the overbridges that makes electrification expensive but the cost of the wiring itself, especially the HT lengths and the substations.
Norway shares a particularly wide loading gauge with Sweden, the only country with which it shares a rail connection. That the Flirts are wider there to take advantage of it it shows the manufacturer is able to produce different bodyshell variations cost effectively, as otherwise I assume the operator could have just bought bog standard off the shelf Flirts as made for the Swiss or German markets, which being smaller would have also fitted the infrastructure. In most other ways the trains would be very similar to the Swiss or German models, using the same traction package, bogies and motors etc. Modern trains are very modular.
@ngh: It’s a myth that all of continental Europe uses the same “Continental Gauge”. The Scandinavian countries have bigger trains than their neighbours to the south. So your Norwegian FLIRT example doesn’t really apply. There are stations in France and Germany where they wouldn’t fit, let alone the UK.
Re. HS2’s gauge: I think it makes most sense to build new rail infrastructure to the largest gauge available (within reason), but there’s no reason why the rolling stock has to be built to that size from the outset. Phase 1 will open years before Phase 2, which leaves HS2 with only the Euston – Curzon Street route for captive trains; I suspect it would be more logical to buy a “go anywhere” fleet for this phase, buying the larger trains only once Phase 2 is ready, with the original trains serving Birmingham cascaded to other routes.
Incidentally, one thing puzzles me: if continental gauge stock is to be used all the way out to Leeds and Manchester (and potentially beyond), won’t this require 400-metre, dead straight platforms at the termini? I can see that causing a few headaches.
Finally, it’s worth pointing out that, if classic-compatible rolling stock is purchased with suitable shoe-gear (and assuming a suitable link with the WLL is provided near OOC), then those trains could get to Paris or Brussels via the old Eurostar route via Brixton, Bromley South and the connection with HS1 at Fawkham Junction. (It’s their bigger trains that can’t access the UK’s network; ours can use theirs just fine.) No dedicated “captive” HS2-HS1 link would be necessary. This could potentially allow the current sleeper services between Scotland and London to be extended to the continent at some point in the future.
I suspect that the derogation ( or even a new standard) that HS2 has applied for with regard to platform height and level boarding will kill off any sensible notion of double-deck trains in the future. The only way that this might work is if a predominantly double-deck train had at least one single deck coach with level boarding. That might be enough to overcome disability access issues, but would still leave potential dwell time disadvantages. Not that the latter can be terribly important, given the stated HS2 desire to minimise intermediate stops. I cannot help but think that the UK is the equivalent of ‘our Johnny is the only one in step’ when railways all around the world are adopting double-deck trains rather than deciding to build longer platforms.
On a final, final note re. double-decker trains:
The off-the-shelf models I’ve seen all have doors at a relatively low level, suitable for the lower continental platform heights. If HS2 were to try using these with their 1100mm-high platforms, you’d have a very big step down into the train. (And that platform had better be ramrod straight or there’ll be some very expensive scraping noises as it pulls in.)
In short: if HS2 intend to use double-decker trains in future, they won’t be able to just order some online from the likes of Tramazon, iTrains, or Trains ‘R’ Us. (No, not even Ocado.)
Classic Compatible sleepers Scotland to Continental Europe: might be possible but what on earth would be the point? Such trains would be running now if it wasn’t for all the obvious reasons why they are not. HS2 will make no difference to any of those reasons (lack of demand, frontier and channel tunnel issues, probably a few dozen more).
Anomnibus: I think the dead straight platforms at Leeds and Manchester which you mention are already in the plans. Any headaches they were going to cause have presumably been treated with “nothing” (which is said to work faster than A*o*i*).
Re Graham H @ 14:50
“@timbeau – I don’t know about since 1960, especially here in 3rd rail land. It’s not usually the cost of shifting the overbridges that makes electrification expensive but the cost of the wiring itself, especially the HT lengths and the substations.”
I think that has now changed a bit, a couple of years ago the cost of AC substations and switch gear for a proposed Stoats Nest -Brighton OHLE conversion was costed as being the same as the then being installed substation at Blackfriars and that only covers Farringdon / City Thameslink to part the way to London Bridge and to the former Walworth vicinity…
The civils /structures cost component of GOBLIN / GWML / EGIP / Shotts/ NW (Phases 1-5, 7) / MML are all rather large.
Fandroid: What Anomnibus said about platform heights. Also dwell time is important for HS2 at OOC and Birmingham Interc….e. The fact that there is (arguably) nowhere else where it matters is beside the point.
We can also be perceived as totally in step with the rest of the world in using double deck trains wherever they work and make a useful difference, and eschewing them where they don’t.
timbeau: It’s way off topic, but in my opinion it’s the downhill side of dual carriageways which ought to be less steeply graded, on stopping-distance grounds. Split the difference between that view and the conventional one (related presumably to underpowered trucks which are anyway getting rarer), and you get a reversible road.
@Anomnibus, 18 August 2016 at 15:51
“Incidentally, one thing puzzles me: if continental gauge stock is to be used all the way out to Leeds and Manchester (and potentially beyond), won’t this require 400-metre, dead straight platforms at the termini? I can see that causing a few headaches.”
I don’t understand where this supposed requirement comes from.
The TSI just rules on platform height and clearance :
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32008D0217
(4.3.20 Platfroms starts on page 31)
Note inclusion of the value R for radius.
The 400m standard for the new stations could be very useful in getting best use of paths on the trunks, allowing portion working of CCs in conjunction with each other or captives to serve a wider range of destinations more frequently, as in Japan with their full size and mini shinkensen. Twin 200m sets of either type might combine as well as a 250m with a 150m for less well balanced portions, as on JR East with their E5/E6 combos:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E6_Series_Shinkansen#/media/File:E6-E5-Coupling_in_omiya_20130320.jpg
I don’t think UK height platforms lock out the possibility of double deck. Japan ran bi-levels for many years on standard gauge HS (and still does in limited niches on narrow gauge too) with similar high platforms. They have been phased out recently however in favour of faster single deckers on the Shinkansen routes.
Mark: But UK height platforms may well lock out the possibility of Euro-standard double deck trains. The boarding height of these is pretty-well fixed to half way between the upper deck floor and the lower deck floor, and fancy modularisation would not be able to alter this, as the up and down staircases need to be the same length. Japan’s bi-levels may also take advantage of a possibly wider gauge low down than would fit on British lines.
@Fandroid, 18 August 2016 at 16:00
Sorry I didn’t address your subtlety in my last reply. To achieve level boarding and access to at least some seating means some seating and associated facilities at platform level. Even compliant mainland units designed for 760mm level boarding will face that problem as, to squeeze in the upper deck within the loading gauge, the lower deck will also need to be below the door-platform level, so this is not a uniquely UK problem. With 550mm platforms and some ramps you might just be able to get at least parts of the lower deck fully accessible, but where would you fit the more bulky traction gear typical of the highest performance trains?
In Japan some suburban railways run limited stop expresses on the narrow gauge with a limited number of DD cars. Note these are limited stop trains where dwell is less of an issue and only ‘green’ cars are bi-level. Green is a more luxurious 1st class offering with lower seat density so that means fewer passengers loading anyway through the particular doors involved. I guess DD is a way of squeezing a few more lucrative 1st class seats in on two levels without sacrificing standard accommodation. There were regular DD narrow gauge overnight sleepers in Japan at one time, but these have gone now with the continued expansion of the high speed day network. Some ‘cruise’ type trains may still operate with bi-levels though.
Malcolm: But the implication of using 760mm platforms is incompatibility with classic compatible trains so separate groups of platforms would be needed at each new station, perhaps in some cases requiring more platforms and in all cases reducing operational flexibility. If double-deckers make sense (and they almost certainly won’t at the beginning) then they will probably need to be customised for the UK, that might only require some form of ‘false floor’ adaptation to a 760mm level boarding unit, and probably some platform level accommodation to meet accessibility requirements.
My memory of double-deck RE trains in the Rhineland informs me that there is a step or two up from the platform before further ascending to the top deck or descending to the lower deck. I have a feeling that the number of steps up from the vestibule is greater than the number of steps down. Someone will certainly correct me if I am wrong. I think Mark Townend’ s description of the narrow gauge Japanese units (limited stop) possibly confirms my point about dwell times not really being important in the whole scheme of things for HS2. Perhaps the HS2 team has got as boxed in on this subject as many commenteers believe they have on designing for captive stock.
Quite. We only have one chance to get the HS2 boarding height right, and something like 1100 mm seems almost unavoidable, for compatibility with existing platforms to be used by compatible trains. So that will quite possibly rule out double-deckers for ever. I do not see this as anything to worry about. Staircases on trains are (slightly) dangerous, and a waste of valuable space.
Mark T 17.31: Alstom’s solution to your question appears to be to retain the end power car architecture of the TGV in a double-decker HS2 train. But this exacerbates any dwell time issues by increasing the passengers-per-unit-length-of-train (and per door) ratio, since the motrices represent train length unavailable to passengers.
Looking at the double-deck trains in my country, it looks like most problems you mention have already been solved by the Dutch railways.
The Dutch double-deck stock has doors above the bogies, rather than next to them as with German or French double-deck trains. This results in a floor height of 1163mm (VIRM), 1183mm (DD-AR/DDZ). This is combined with a platform height of 760mm. The access is not quite step-free – a HS2 1100mm platform would come much closer!
Also, in the DDZ trainsets there is a power car with equipment on the lower floor and passengers on the upper floor: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NS_DD-AR#/media/File:NS_DDZ_7538_Amsterdam_CS.JPG
With a bit of creativity, most problems with double-deck stock can be solved. Only problem I still see would be the loading gauge at the top, where two decks of passengers have to fit under viaducts and other structures.
(note mentioned floor heights apply to the door area above the bogies of the respective carriages)
Mark Townend 1445……..”Going any bigger than Pendolino, Voyager, 80x seems unnecessary”……..
I’m flabbergasted. These are all smaller than needed -Pendolino especially so. Firstly the impact of tilt and secondly because Railtrack (at the time) couldn’t be definitive about the gauge and passing clearances available. Neither Pendolino, nor Voyager are fine examples of maximising passenger space.
Class 80x seems to have been an engineering exercise to deliver the length of a 12 car train with 9 cars so “saving” the cost of three cars and making trains cheaper. This “efficiency” means the vehicles are narrower. Let’s wait and see how they perform on dwell time. Also as to the economies of 9-car vs 11 or 12 car, whatever economies have been realised in the configuration, it doesn’t appear to be reflected in the price as Captain Deltic has often pointed out.
This has been an interesting and well-informed discussion so far, but the question of why bother remains.
The trouble with Dutch and indeed Swiss solutions to provide level boarding over bogies is that – as Albert JP doesn’t quite say – the height available over a 1.2m level entry from the platform is only about another 3- 3.5m or so which effectively prevents doubledecking throughout the train with a consequent loss of capacity (on Swiss double deck trains, the space over the entry is used for an additional bay’s worth of seating at each end.)
More, in order to fit 2 decks between the bogies you are more or less obliged to have a ramped descent to the lower deck, otherwise there would be no means of wheelchairbound passengers getting into the accommodation. A suitable ramp also takes space. Allowing for all these things and also the staircases means that effectively you are stuck with losing about 6 m of car length for vestibules (plus some further loss – about 2-3 m – because of the ramps and stairs),leaving you with perhaps two useable decks of 17m each in a 26m vehicle.
34m is certainly a gain over the useable length within a single deck vehicle – perhaps 22-23 m, – but it comes at the price of extended dwell times which means more stock and bigger stations for a system running at full capacity.
@Graham H. I don’t see why the accessibility for wheelchairs issue cannot be accommodated by having one single-deck coach in an otherwise all double-deck train. After all, that is what LUL effectively does with its raised platform humps. Although extended dwell times might reduce the advantage of double-deck stock over single deck, that advantage would still apply. If HS2 finds itself unable to meet demand on a particular part of the route then it would be plain daft to have eliminated one option when the system was being planned at the start. It should be a fairly simple choice, either spend money on infrastructure to allow longer trains, plus buy the extra single-deck coaches to suit, or spend zero on infrastructure plus buy double-deck stock that can be used specifically for the services that are under strain. The latter would allow a much quicker response to demand.
I refer you to ‘our Johnny’ once more.
Although the double-deck debate has been thoroughly exhausted on previous threads, this debate concerns an entirely new railway being planned to GC gauge. The arguments are somewhat different.
@100andthirty, 18 August 2016 at 19:43
“I’m flabbergasted”
What was I thinking !? I was just trying to think quickly of a few modern intercity units, without going back to Mk3 based trains. With a little hindsight now I might suggest a 180 along with the 80x rather than the various tilters mentioned and potentially tilting Mk4s, especially since I was advocating no tilt partly because of the narrower tapering body that implies. I’d say a new train without tilt would ideally not exceed the swept path of the aforementioned tilting classes ‘at full tilt’.
Fandroid ……As with single deck trains, there’s a Heinz 57 Varieties of Double Deck trains.
Bombardier make a train with double deck cars with no doors, but open wide gangway though to a single deck car that accommodates doors , toilets and wheelchair spaces.
Swiss inter-city practice is to have the doors on the lower deck providing access for disabled passengers from low platforms. The gangway though the train is at upper deck level. This is also true of TGV.
Others have the doors above bogies and anyone wanting to get though the train is forever climbing up and down stairs.
There’s one design in Paris with three doors per side. It seems to be all doors and stairs!
By the way, the contraption used in Switzerland to get wheelchairs from low platforms to 1m or so train floor height has to be seen to be believed.
I don’t think anyone has yet proposed double deck platforms to go with double deck trains.
Finally on all the European DD trains I’ve used, luggage space it at a premium or provided at the expense of seats
@ Graham H: It’s still interesting to see that the British are so opposed to double-deck trains, but have a lot of double-deck buses which the continent doesn’t want to use for (surprise) dwell time and accessibility issues.
Anyway, enough double-deck debates. About loading gauge, I support building new lines to a wide gauge to allow gradual clearance of British mainlines to wider gauges over the years. If you combine that with scheduled renewal as Mark Townend already suggested (today 14:45) then it might still take some decades but eventually you get somewhere, and the benefits of more passenger space are clear.
@fandroid -and none of which deals with the balance of choice as between a two gauge system or single gauge system. My basic point is a very simple one: captive trains are just that; they cannot offer any increase on capacity for journeys other than between the – few – stations they serve.
In this world of DD carriages, how about access to the upper deck on one side and the lower deck on the other – some sort of Spanish solution? Seriously though, given the gauge limitations in Kent and the South-East I can’t take seriously anyone suggesting that the track (if not the trains / stations) should be built as large as _might_ be needed, whatever the ‘intended’ lifetime.
Re: Fandroid. Interested by your assertion that dwell times are of limited importance to HS2. It was my understanding that HS2 planning was based on all 18 trains per hour per direction stopping at Old Oak Common, with two platforms available per direction for Euston-terminating trains, and something in the region of one-third of passengers expected to leave southbound trains at OOC, and a similar proportion to join northbound services.
This always sounded to me like a dwell time issue in the making, while HS2’s apparent desire to ensure level boarding sounded to me like a recognition and mitigation of said issues. Noting that dwell time issues only have to occur at one location to pose an operational risk to the whole railway.
Maybe I’ve misunderstood or drawn the wrong conclusions?
Then again, the article above refers to a possible change to OOC since the abandonment of the HS1 link, whereby the HS1 link platforms would be replaced by through tracks… which would clearly be pointless unless at least some trains don’t stop.
Maybe the facts have changed?
Perhaps Jonathan Roberts can clarify?
Balthazar: Quite. The dwell time issues which might arise at OOC are also possibly made worse by its proximity to Euston. If there are standing passengers, or even if there aren’t, getting out at OOC is likely to be severely hindered by even a small number of over-anxious Euston passengers getting out of their seat, and/or retrieving luggage, and/or making for the front of the train, before or during the OOC stop. Similarly last-minute passengers from Euston may not have properly settled before OOC.
@Balthazar
According to the HS2 plans linked to in WW’s comment at 13:57 9/8/16, OOC will be built with 6 platforms which will all be available for through trains from Euston. Incidentally, the centre platform tracks also link to a dead end spur which was clearly intended to be the HS1-HS2 link! (Presumably kept as passive provision.)
The space over the bogies in double deck stock has also traditionally been the location for toilets, although newer DB stock – which is entered at the lower level, not over the bogies – now has accessible toilets on the lower deck. But in the UK context, with either a 760mm or 1100mm platform height, disabled access could be provided to this “mezzanine” level, which could – at the expense of much else – also include an accessible toilet.
A picture of an “over the bogie” arrangement with a glimpse of the inside is here http://www.abload.de/img/img_7271_dostoneuqemk.jpg
while the “Technical Drawing” tab on the Bombardier website shows one of each
http://www.bombardier.com/en/transportation/projects/project.double-deck-germany.html?f-region=europe
This: http://www.bombardier.com/content/bombardiercom/en/transportation/projects/project.omneo-france.html?f-region=europe&f-country=all&f-segment=all&f-type=all&f-name=all
Shows the single/double deck combo
Albert J.P. The issue of gauge between UK and Europe is reversed on roads compared with railways. In Europe, the ruling height limit is 3.5m, in UK it is 4.5m. The nominal height of a UK double decker is 4.42m. As we all know there are exceptions to rules – height limits are not different!
Double deckers do exist in Europe – Eg the Setra double deck coaches although no one would want to travel standing up on one of these. There are also double deckers in Berlin (at least when I was last there!)
RE @Mark Townend’s comment about straight platforms, the following paragraph (immediately after the others quoted) in the TSI document linked states:
So no strict requirement for dead-straight platforms, but a stated preference, and a limit to the amount of curvature considered acceptable.
@Malcolm
As far as I can tell, the decision (or lack thereof) not to complete metrication did not occur until after the UK joined the then EEC.
The only things which officially remain Imperial are road and rail distances and speeds, road sign measurements, aviation ground speeds and heights and of course, pints. Navigational distances and speeds are still based on the nautical mile.
Unofficially, however, a jumble of non SI measures remain in popular use. Why this country never followed the Commonwealth and NATO examples at the time has always baffled me.
The idea that metric was somehow “European” and therefore foreign has taken root, despite being unjustified.
When school textbooks went completely metric in 1967, we expected to be decimal currency by 1971 and metric by 1975. We very nearly were.
And in 1975, the London Borough of Haringey Technical Services department was designing road schemes on the assumption that the change to driving on the right was imminent.
Incidentally, if you add the thickness of paint for the white line, the 760mm platform height is as near as dammit two foot six.
Does anyone know what happened to the trains and sleepers built for channel tunnel through running on lines to the North and Scotland?
How does GC gauge measure up to GCR gauge?
I only say this because I have a nagging suspicion that HS2 is about to find itself subject to a Hinckley C kind of pause.
Nameless: the night stock went to VIA in Canada as their Renaissance stock; and I recall hearing in the 60s/70s that road infrasrtucture was being designed to be rule-of-the-road agnostic. Perhaps it was just Haringey that was being referred to.
@130
The European height limit for vehicles (including the UK) was fixed at 4.2m in IIRC the 1980s. 3.5m would not allow a 2.9m container (Hi-cube) to be carried except on a very low loader and these containers are, of course, ubiquitous today.
Re Nameless,
GC structure gauge bares no relation apart from the letters in the abbreviation to GCR structure gauge this is unfortunately a common misunderstanding that end up being corrected in every HS2 discussion.
GC comes after GA, GB, GB+ (Gauge A…) in UIC terminology.
As they have started awarding contracts and there aren’t Chinese companies bidding I don’t think a pause is on the cards.
quinlet: Something may have been fixed at 4.2m in the 1980s. However, vehicles can be any height, as can bridges. Trucks of 15′ 9″ (4.8m) are quite widespread in the UK, as of course are bridges of about 9′ headroom (2.74 m). I think the height below which a bridge must be marked in the U.K. is 16′ 6″. I have also been told, though I do not know the authority of it, that the corresponding height elsewhere in Europe (below which bridges must be marked) is 4m, which means that taking a classic double decker bus (
16′ 6″14′ 6″ or 4.42m) to continental Europe is, shall we say, “exciting”.@Malcolm – classic bus (eg RM) 14′ 6″
[Err.. That’s what I meant, and I got the metric equivalent right! I think 16′ 6″ may be the Harry Potter equivalent. ]
@Malcolm
The European standard was always meant to be 4m, but that did not allow for the inflation of the tyres and hence was converted into UK regulations as 4.2m. While this does, then, have an impact on when ‘low’ bridges have to be marked, it also has an impact on other regulations. As you say, vehicles can be any height but once they are over 4.2m they count as oversize and are subject to the same rules as over-long or over-wide vehicles and loads. This usually means that the routes taken have to be approved on a trip by trip basis and may mean the need for escort vehicles. This with knowledge of the Hixon rail disaster will recall that the actions (or lack of them) by the escort vehicle for the transformer formed part of the debate around the crash itself.
I can’t find the dimensions of the Knight Bus used in the films on the Interweb, but by looking at photographs it looks to be about 33% taller than a standard RT, making it about 20 feet tall. (I know that makes headroom in the extra middle deck impracticably low, but it’s a film prop, not a practical means of transport).
@Malcolm – I shouldn’t worry too much (unless driving under low bridges) – there was the famous Statutory Instrument at the time of metrication prescribing the amount of top soil to be used in covering waste tips. The imperial version said 6 feet. The metric version said 1.xxxxxxx metres – a lot of bulldozer drivers bought micrometers on the basis of that.
quinlet: You may be correct here, but double-deck artic pallet-carrying trailers 4.8 metres high are routinely used (escortless) by many companies for nightly runs to and from midlands (and other) hubs. Tesco also uses vehicles of about this height, carrying two decks of roll-cages, as do many other firms. It is possible that these are “approved on a trip by trip basis” by someone, but if so this must be a bureaucratic going-through-the-motions.
@Malcolm/quinlet
4.8 meters is 15’9″, and thus any vehicle of that height can comfortably pass under any unmarked bridge (which must be at least 16’6″, see Malcolm 09:48).
The DVLA defines an abnormal load as exceeding one or more of the following criteria
https://www.gov.uk/esdal-and-abnormal-loads/abnormal-loads
##a weight of more than 44,000 kilograms
##an axle load of more than 10,000 kilograms for a single non-driving axle and 11,500 kilograms for a single driving axle
##a width of more than 2.9 metres
##a rigid length of more than 18.65 metres
I can find no mention of height other than a requirement that a vehicle over 3m high must have its height displayed in the cab.
A requirement for vehicles of over 4.2 metres to have escorts would certainly make operation of most double decker buses uneconomic.
Nameless 19 August 2016 at 00:00
“Does anyone know what happened to the trains and sleepers built for channel tunnel through running on lines to the North and Scotland?”
Some were rescued from sidings and used between London King Cross and York, later Leeds. They were described as “white rose trains” and I once caught one from Wakefield Westgate.
Talking of Large loads … & height limits.
IIRC said bridge is well-known to some of us, already (!)
@Alan Griffiths
A few of The North of London Eurostars (16 cars instead of twenty for the “3 Capitals” trains) were indeed used for a short while on the ECML, but they had to be carefully scheduled as they guzzled electricity faster than IC225s and thus couldn’t be in the London area in the peak hours (when power consumption from other trains was greatest). They are now leased to SNCF and used on domestic services.
As already mentioned, the Night stock were sold for use in Canada before their construction had been completed
@Alan Griffiths: Do you mean the NoL Eurostars? They are either mothballed or lined up for scrap… The Wikipedia entry isn’t very clear, it stops at 2014…
timbeau: So a vehicle over 4.2 metres high might be “regarded as oversize” (quinlet’s phrase) (prompting the query “regarded by whom?”), but it would not be an abnormal load as defined by the DVLA. That makes sense to me.
@Alan Griffiths – not recorded by Wikipaedia are my discussions with the Palace in 1997-8 about rebuilding some of the ONS as a replacement to the Royal Train. Palace officials were quite attracted to the idea for replacing at least some of the stock with them, rather than build completely new, particularly as that would have permitted travel through the tunnel*, but funding was not available and indeed, we settled on a programme of reducing the total Royal Train fleet instead and refurbishing what was left.
*@SHLR – shades of the Dutch Royal family who, in 1952(?), went on holiday to Switzerland by their Royal Train.
Graham H…. I read your post at first as “…………….rebuilding some of the Office for National Statistics as a replacement for the Royal Train”. Now that would have been an interesting concept!
If anyone (except Graham) felt so inclined, they could add Graham’s anecdote to the Wikipedia article, citing Graham’s comment here. (The Wikipedia rules about so-called original research would theoretically prevent Graham himself from doing so, even though he is the one who knows – bizarre). But it may be preferable to keep such treasures for the pleasure of our privileged readership here.
Re Greg,
Since they installed the upgraded / replacement (for the deceased late 1990s one) warning systems at Tulse Hill (the warning start from just after Streatham High Road going east and from just after College Road going west less than a month ago there have been 3 big strikes! But they some how didn’t mention that in the press release…
Including one operator carrying 9’6″ containers with 3 strikes in year and the maiden strike after the new system (early signs divert, the last is stop sign). I’ve also witness 2 near misses since the system went live both slamming on the brakes after the last warning sign when reality sunk in stopping feet from the bridge.
Re Malcolm,
The number of available routes rapidly reduces as soon as you go over 4.2m…
ngh: Yes, that is true. But the need for “available routes” only really applies to ad-hoc journeys. The higher vehicles, as far as I know, are typically used on regular runs such as the ones I mentioned, where you do not need any choice of route, the truck just goes up and down the same roads, and if the bridge was high enough yesterday, it will be high enough today.
This is not to belittle the menace of bridge strikes, of course. But I think these tend to occur with a wide range of vehicle heights and bridge heights – the common factor being that the former exceeds the latter. Any other common factor (such as type of load, age/experience of driver, particular operators etc) will be of interest to the many people working, in various ways, to bring their frequency down.
@Malcolm
“the truck just goes up and down the same roads, and if the bridge was high enough yesterday, it will be high enough today.”
Usually. There have been incidents where a vehicle delivering a load got under a bridge, but hit it when returning empty. I also recall a very nasty incident back in the 1970s when a tourist coach hit a bridge it had safely gone under the previous year – unbeknown to the driver, (who was German, and not familiar with imperial signage) a dip in the road under the bridge had been removed during the interim.
@ngh, Malcolm, timbeau. I grew up in South Ruislip and even in the 1950s bridge strikes at the station bridge were all too frequent. Later, when I was taking my HGV driving lessons, the driving school bought a new fleet of lorries. Guess what? They were too high to get under the bridge on what was a regular test road.
There is also the story of the Felthams being delivered to Leeds after withdrawal – the road under a marginal bridge had been resurfaced after the route survey was undertaken, resulting in an over height load and a long detour.
timbeau refers to a vehicle hitting a bridge when returning empty. The even more “tragic” example I heard was when a bus driver, supposed to follow a special stipulated diversion during roadworks, realised that he had misread the route and, for safety, decided to immediately turn round and rejoin it. On the way back to the stipulated route, sadly, he got stuck under the bridge that the stipulated route was designed to avoid, having just a few moments earlier passed under it successfully!
@Malcolm – like your bus driver, I know how we got here, but why are we here?
@Malcolm
I seem to remember Church Street in Lower Edmonton being resurfaced ten or so years ago reducing the space under the rail bridge. The W7 buses had to be reduced to single deck until the problem was resolved.
Thanks to all for the NoL update.
@ Nameless 0005 – the W8 bus route was the one affected by the resurfacing at Edmonton Green.
@WW
Thanks. I thought that was what I had typed.
Wretched smartphone.
From the comments seen here since I asked about building the HS2 Euston platforms and approaches to British IC clearances, it would seem that it may be sensible to do just the opposite. Do we then think that it would be prudent to rebuild Euston and approaches in such a way that it can either accommodate HS captive stock throughout or can easily be converted to do so without another rebuild? Or do we just accept that, none of us having a functioning crystal ball, it would be pointless?
RayK: I think it would probably be a waste of money. Possibly when rebuilding arbitrary station X, the plausible likelihood of wider trains in the distant future should be estimated, and if the answer is above a certain threshold, the design should be done accordingly. I suspect for a station such as Derby, reasonably close to a high speed line, that would apply.
But however close to a high speed line the (non-HS) platforms at Euston are, the likelihood of them being required to accommodate wider trains during the next century or so must be close to zero.
Malcolm 20 August 2016 at 09:36
“arbitrary station X”
Nothing arbitrary about station X, Made the most influential predictions ever known.
@Nameless/SHLR – this month’s “Todays Railways” reports that the NoL sets, currently stored oou at various locations such as Fawkham, are to be scrapped (along with most of the original Eurostar sets)
@Ray, Malcolm
It would be particularly short sighted to go for a fully UK limited loading gauge on the new Euston approaches to save a paltry sum on construction. Practically, that would be limiting forever vehicle width as well as height on the busiest core section of the UKs most important future main line, when a perfectly workable and proven solution to level, gapless boarding exists for narrower classic compatible trains calling at new GC clearance platforms set at 1150mm height, namely extending step-boards. The problem with extending GC clearance further onto the classic network is the compatibility of other trains at platforms shared with or passed by the wider HS trains however. For example if a junction were to be provided north of Toton to allow a direct Nottingham service to run via a new south-east curve at Trowell, then this classic route might reasonably be converted to GC gauge if a dedicated platform at Nottingham were also provided, as no intermediate stations would be involved, hence both GC and classic profile trains could interrun. On the other hand, if entire stations at Nottingham or Derby together with access routes via Beeston and Long Eaton from HS2 were converted to GC gauge, then the whole MML and East Midlands and Lincolnshire local fleets could need extending steps to reach the platforms. Classic compatibles would avoid all of this.
I mentioned width because it’s possible on the new infrastructure a dedicated captive train might use custom bodyshells to overhang the nominal GC envelope slightly, as it appear the Dutch VIRM train do with a pronounced widening at the upper deck floor level.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NS_VIRM
This design has a pronounced tapering in the lower deck saloon, but widening towards the ceiling unlike our UK tilting designs, which more closely match the upper deck in the VIRMs. Similarly, I suggest on HS2, double or single deck captives could bulge out a little above the GC platforms, in single deck to create extra arm and shoulder room, this would be like many UK classic trains to widen the interior beyond our even more restrictive platforms. Plainly these trains, like UK classic compatibles, would also not be ‘off the shelf’ go anywhere European trains, as they might be too tight for some European mainland classic routes, but such a measure might allow a reasonable 2 + 3 seating arrangement in captive economy class.
@everyone else
Ok I just figured out what NoL is, courtesy of M. Wiki:
The North of London (NoL) Eurostar sets were intended to provide Regional Eurostar services from Continental Europe to and from north of London, using the West Coast and East Coast Main Lines. These never came to fruition because of long proposed journey times and the proliferation of budget airlines offering lower fares.
LBM – the NoL sets (not to be confused with the SR’s NOL sets!) were built as a sign of the Government’s promise that the regions would benefit , too, from the Channel Tunnel…
@MT -it’s at least arguable that the days of 3+2 are dead with our ever burgeoning population and it’s hardly worth struggling to accommodate it. One notes that in Switzerland, some first class has already moved to 2+1 even with the wider body shells…
Graham H…… I don’t recall anything other than 2+1 in first class in Switzerland.
Also the latest “Today’s Railways Europe” reports on the deal to scrap all the NOL Eurostars
@ Graham H – am I right to be mildly astounded that such expensive and relatively young trains (early Eurostar / NoLs) are headed to the scrap heap? What am I missing apart from large quantities of rust?
@ Malcolm / LBM – have I perchance fallen foul of the moderator’s axe? I posted a 4 paragraph reply on a few relevant sub themes about 3 days ago but it hasn’t appeared.
Mark Townend 13.10: I think you omitted reference to CrossCountry trains, all fleets of which serve Derby and/or Nottingham. And Northern serves Nottingham. And charter trains, if we want to include them. Which rather illustrates the issue. (Now we could apply the same thought process to, say, a structure gauge allowing double-deckers on the Brighton main line…?)
@WW
I check our comment spam filter semi-regularly, as occasional comments do get snagged there, but no-one’s have been recently.
[I also have no explanation for your missing comment, and can only suppose it is due to some glitch for which I apologise on behalf of the software or other perpetrator. Deleting comments without explanation or eMail is something we rarely do, and even more rarely to a commentor of your status. Malcolm]
@WW _ who understands Eurostar’s business model? A high touch service it isn’t. And I hear reports that the ride quality in the e320s leaves a lot to be desired.
@Malcolm….Why shouldn’t Graham H’s pearls of infinite wisdom be shared with the wider world through the wonder of Wikipedia? There are so many inaccuracies and urban myths that have proliferated on there (such as the ‘passive provision for eastern extension of the Stansted Airport branch which was proved wrong by his insider knowledge) that one can only welcome any effort to correct these, especially since it is now being used (not least by commentators on here!) as an ‘authoritative’ source for various subjects.
Anyway, it’s too late now…..I have already edited the relevant article ?.
Re. NoL sets…..seeing as we only discussed a few days ago that there is a shortage of electric InterCity trains on the ECML for all of the electrically powered services, it seems slightly criminal that this relatively young, barely used rolling stock should be scrapped ?. Once the power supply on the ECML is upgraded, why can’t they be deployed there to supplement the new 800s (as they were briefly in the early noughties on services to York and Leeds)?
@Graham H….So my latest idea of adapting the Siemens e320 for use on HS2 to avoid paying a premium for ‘British gauge’ bespoke rolling stock is a no-goer, then? ?
Anonymously: I was neither defending nor attacking Wikipedia’s rules on “original research”, just stating what they are and how they might be applied to Graham if he were to try to make that particular amendment (though he quite probably has no such wish anyway). I agree that Wikipedia has perpetrated some urban myths (though not necessarily very many compared to the truths it also conveys).
But we have the Wikipedia that we have, and I challenge anyone who does not like it to produce something better, rather than carp from the sidelines.
However, neither defending nor attacking Wikipedia and its principles is really on topic here, so let’s return to HS2’s terminal policies.
Graham H
who understands Eurostar’s business model?
Simple – they are pretending to be a bloody airline, unfortunately.
@ Mods – thanks for checking. I assume I had finger trouble at my end for some reason. No need for apologies. 🙂
@ Graham H – well it, Eurostar, is really SNCF in disguise isn’t it? I was just wondering if there was something about the use of the Eurostar sets that warranted their early withdrawal. Just over 20 years of use seems very short for such expensive trains. One wonders if this a precursor to the general lifespan of high speed stock, including whatever is bought and used on HS2. A 20 year life for rolling stock is very short in railway terms.
@WW…..How long did the first gen French TGV/German ICE/Japanese Shinkansen units last for (assuming they’re not still in use)?
@Malcolm….Sorry, I don’t think I was clear earlier. I was not objecting to Wikipedia’s rules per se, but to your suggestion that ‘it may be preferable to keep such treasures for the pleasure of our privileged readership here’, which I thought was- if I may gently put it- rather selfish.
Anonymously: Oh, I see. Yes, I suppose that could be seen as selfish. I was really trying to be non-directive, on the grounds that it’s not really for me to say what other people should or should not put on Wikipedia, that is their decision. If I had been sure that that anecdote definitely should have been there, I would have put it there myself. Whereas I felt that perhaps it should, or perhaps not, and I was trying to leave both possibilities open.
@Anonymously – you are too flattering – unfortunately, I’ a bit short of cash until payday, if you were thinking of a loan.
@Malcolm – let’s be clear. My complaint about Wikipaedia is that people assume – and quote it here – as if it is a primary data source. It isn’t; it merely presents whatever the contributors think is the consensus view. Those with a professional, academic, or technical training will immediately see the flaw in that. And so, indeed, it has been caught out at least thrice on this site within the last few months for being factually wrong. Me? I prefer my info to be litigation grade and therefore reputably sourced. By all means quote Wiki,but first read the footnotes about its sources; if there aren’t any, that should tell you something.
[I note your comment “Well, if you can do better, why don’t you? An easy brush off but it’s really like asking an individual to stop the Second World War]
@WW – I suspect the “French model” for Eurostar has taken deeper root in line with SNCF’s increased shareholding. When it started out with Richard Edgeley in charge, he saw it as a straightforward operation in the InterCity model both commercially and in terms of customer handling. Under Richard Brown, after BR privatisation, it took on more airline habits in relation to pricing and customer service (Richard had returned from a spell in the States at business school) but now – we face the same sort of tatty overpriced and shoddy customer service that the French are only too familiar with on TGV services.
Quite why the French haven’t given the existing kit a really heavy refit and made it last its full book life is unclear – but then the French don’t do refurbs. [My cynical mind suggests that the French prefer to keep the Alstom production lines rolling and blow the consequences for the French national debt, as usual…]
@ Walthamstow Writer, Anonymously, Graham H Re High speed train life expectancy. The vast majority of the 35 year old first generation TGV PSE fleet remains in service, as do the 20+ year old first generation ICEs. Both fleets have been refurbished at least once.
Shinkansen life expectancy seems to be around twenty years, but that appears to be similar to other Japanese fleets – I’m not sure what that suggests for the Javelins and IEPs.
Graham: Yes, most people have some reservations about Wikipedia, some more than others. I realise that my “why don’t you?” is a bit insulting to such reservation-holders, and not really very constructive, and I’m sorry about that.
I could say much more on the subject, but I think it may be better to leave it on one side for now.
Agree entirely – I think both of us have got the message across to Wikiquoters!
@Paul III – which makes the wish to scrap all but a few of the Eurostar fleet very odd.
@WW/paul III
According to Wikipedia (I know, I know) only one of the original 109 TGV-SE units has been scrapped, and that was way back in 1988 suggesting it was written off in an accident. two more were converted for test purposes, and the nine tri-current units built for services into Switzerland have been mothballed as they have been replaced by newer units. The oldest units are now nearly 40 years old.
A little further research identifies TGV-SE unit 70 has having been involved in an accident in September 1988 with strong resemblances to Hixon
Regarding “book life” of the Eurostar trains. I am reminded of the difference between looking after an asset and “running it into the ground”. I am sure that differences between British and French maintenance culture can’t have helped. Also who knows what compromises were necessary to shoehorn the TGV technology into the Eurostar shell? It does seem quite alarming that the refurbishment has taken so long. I am familiar with refurbishment……..you never quite know what you’ve got to deal with until the first one or two are stripped. Perhaps they decided that with rising cost of refurbishment and falling cost of leasing that new trains would be a good thing. Nothing to do with HS2 and terminal so prepared for the snip.
The double deck/ single deck bus/ rail debate has some roots in history whereby even when we had extensive tram networks they still used double deck trams while in Europe they used single deck trams which were long enough to carry a greater number of passengers than double deck buses can .
Likewise we preferred double deck buses to single deck ones and we have the recent story of London Artic buses to see how they were removed from service despite doing what it said on the label ” carry more passengers with fewer buses !” While Borismasters do the opposite !
While double deck trains were tried on the old Southern Railway but our restricted gauge lead to some strange looking trains which I guess we’re not very efficient compared to longer trains .
As for larger gauge for HSR the recent announcement about diverting HS2 to Sheffield mentioned use of classic compatible stock to fit the existing station . However, hopefully the new route either side of Sheffield will be built to larger gauge to future proof use of larger gauge trains is Sheffield station gets an upgrade even if when HS2 opens that’s 20-30 years in the future .
@Melvyn – without wishing to repeat the entire debate on double deck trains, which you can read on the recent previous posts on this thread, I would say that the the “double deck is British, single deckers are European” analysis is quite wrong (and a typical us and them dichotomy in this context based on something other than fact). Not only did continental Europe have substantial fleets of double deckers (eg the various Paris tram companies, prewar double deck buses in Berlin, and various double-and 1 1/2 deck trolleybuses in postwar Germany, for example) but the few surviving Britsh tramways undertaking new builds showed distinct interest in single deckers after the war – Blackpool being the most obvious.
With the benefit of hindsight , one sees the attack on articulated buses in London as being of a piece with other utterances by the former mayor in other contexts (and the more cynical amongst us were forcibly reminded at the time of Disraeli’s Taper “We must have a cry”)> To note, too, that the UK does,in fact,have quite extensive fleets of articulated buses in a number of provincial cities…
@Graham H
The problem with articulated buses is that their take of road space per passenger is far more than double deck buses. Their bus stops also take considerably more kerb space. While this may not be an overriding issue in many places, it certainly is an issue in London where road capacity is at an extreme premium.
Without wishing to prolong the rather off-topic discussion, it appears that only 42 of the original 111 TGV-PSE units remain in service. I cannot say which are actually scrapped. My source is the excellent and continually updated Trains du Sud-Ouest website (http://trainsso.pagesperso-orange.fr/).
@quinlet – a further issue is that we have in many cities still got a mediaeval street network, full of sharp corners and narrow places; Paris has the benefits of Haussmann’s activities as do a fair number of other continental cities which were subject to baroque replanning.
Let’s not go into the detailed advantages and snags of bendies versus double-deckers in London, as, whatever the various merits, there is clearly a Ken/Boris dimension to their alternation, and we’ve done it all before many times. Double-deck trains (or not) are just about on-topic, and a parallel with buses is an ingenious conjecture, but probably for this discussion, we’d be better sticking with trains.
Re 130, WW, GH et al.
Short eurostar lifespan, some thoughts:
1. As mentioned in one of my comments above a late friend who worked on the electrical design suggested there were serious space issue both in equipment accessibility e.g. getting the modules out to work on them and also thermal management in that all the electronics ran hotter which lifes semiconductors more quickly (diffusion related processes etc…) Lots of the electronics was old technology almost immediately.
2. SNCF is very secretive about scrapping stuff and does it out of the public view so what has and hasn’t been scraped isn’t as public as the UK.
3. Eurostar wasn’t a normal Alst(h)om TGV product. The work was divided up between suppliers from the UK, France and Belgium and to keep factories open. [A Horse designed by committee ending up with 2 humps…] With some changes in ownership during bidding, during contribution and after construction.
UK:
GEC-Alsthom
Metro-Cammell (later Alstom)
Brush
France:
GEC-Alsthom
De Dietrich (later Alstom)
ANF (later Bombardier)
Belgium:
La Brugeoise et Nivelles (later Bombardier making the Voyagers etc.)
ACEC (later split between Alstom and ABB (and the latter in turn to Bombardier))
With far less Alstom content the supply chain and spares are much more likely to be problematic compared to other TGVs over time with only 3 of the 11 main plants are still extant now (and how many sub-contractors gone … e.g. who made the doors that De Dietrich sourced for everyone???)
3 capitals Eurostar have been seen with ex SNCF NOL doors, indeed all the scrapped sets had lost all their doors along time before scrapping which suggest parts issues, so who knows what issues there are with less obvious parts?
The e300/373 have larger wheels than TGVs and have 1.0MW Brush traction motors compared to 1.3MW Alstom ones used on the same vintage TGVs which sugeest plenty of less obvious differences.
The only vehicle actually made in the Alstom Belfort TGV plant were the power cars (but with fewer Alstom parts).
To add to ngh’s comment “a late friend who worked on the electrical design suggested there were serious space issue both in equipment accessibility e.g. getting the modules out to work on them and also thermal management in that all the electronics ran hotter”, even as a lineside observer one realised the tremendous racket from the cooling fans when the Eurostars passed by taking power on DC 3rd rail running, even if much of that was for traction motor cooling.
However, having said that, one logical thought follows that, once the third rail DC at 750 V kit was removed, there would be more ‘breathing space’ but maybe nothing else was or could be shifted.
P.S. Regarding what ngh says here: “3 capitals Eurostar have been seen with ex SNCF NOL doors”, I am glad that somebody has above has clarified that “NOL” doors doesn’t refer to the doors of the erstwhile NOL EMU sets on the Southern (!):
http://www.southernelectric.org.uk/features/historical-features/fleet_nol.html
Maybe we ought to express North of London Eurostar sets as “NoL”.
Incidentally, I had many conversations with some who were employed to develop the Euronight services concept from London and from farther north to complement the Eurostar services, and the disappointment in learning that the concept was finally not to be carried through was tangible indeed.
Re Graham F,
“However, having said that, one logical thought follows that, once the third rail DC at 750 V kit was removed, there would be more ‘breathing space’ but maybe nothing else was or could be shifted.”
Given that they still had to run on 3KV DC OHLE in Belgium and 5 sets have been modified to run on 1.5KV DC OHLE in Southern France (Ski services etc) I suspect plenty of DC gear remains! The power output of a 373 on 3rd Rail DC was the same as an 8 car 387 (with the same number of traction motors too) which suggests the issue is mostly on the power electronics side. [The 373 have 3 phase AC asynchronous traction motors and roughly the same size as the 387s…]
@ngh, 22 August 2016 at 09:02
“Given that they still had to run on 3KV DC OHLE in Belgium and 5 sets have been modified to run on 1.5KV DC OHLE in Southern France (Ski services etc) I suspect plenty of DC gear remains!”
I suspect little beyond the shoes and cabling to the bogies was able to be removed.
The last sentence should more accurately have been:
[The 373s have 3 phase AC asynchronous traction motors and roughly the same power draw / motor as the 387s on 3rd rail…]
Re Mark T,
Agreed!
Would I be right to say that, the technology having moved on and 3 dc traction not being involved anyway. none of this should apply to HS2 stock (and therefore not influence the captive v classic discussion)?
Re Graham H,
I still think there are plenty of potential issues as the DC bit it is a complete red herring (as the AC is used to create a DC supply to feed the traction electronic anyway as they would on HS2 stock, the space (including accessibility for maintenance and cooling issues) is the big issue especially as the HS2 stock will have even more installed power for the required performance.
Given the performance requirements I suspect we are looking at distributed traction not power cars then there is the choice between frame mounted and axle mounted motors, if going for the later taking friction braking into account that probably rules out articulation due to needing lots of axles to get the required number of disc brakes and traction motors overall, which then leaves relatively little space underneath for everything else including traction electronics, compressors, transformers, toilet tanks etc.
Hence I suspect compatible sets will have some equipment that could be under the floor or above the ceiling in captive sets above the floor taking up potential passenger space.
@ngh – that’s a very helpful expose! (I also note that the captive sets might use the ceiling space for kit – another reason why DD stock is difficult…)
Re Graham H,
Without going to far beyond back of fag packet, I suspect track brakes on motor bogie might get a look in as they have been used on recent new spec TGVs (Duplex etc)
PS should have added the resistor banks for rheostatic braking from those speeds will be huge and need plenty of cooling too! Resistor banks on the roof haven’t always been entirely successful see Voyagers vs Sea water on the rivera…
I’ve heard that Alstom were really struggling for space on some of the recent TGVs hence it is a contemporary issue.
@ngh – interesting!
Resistor, not regenerative brakes?
Surely not at this late date?
@Mark T: From what I remember, removing the 3rd rail shoe gear was a priority as they were prone to snagging?
Re Greg,
You need the resistors in reserve if the current can’t be (fully) returned to OHLE else you need lots more friction brakes etc.
The new Hitachi super express units must have resistor banks too and it remains to be seen how they will perform along the Dawlish sea wall. With the Voyagers, it does seem to be a specific problem with briny sea-water spray in the worst weather conditions, rather than any general wet weather issue, so as long as new HS2 classic compatible trains don’t get close to any particularly exposed coastline, they should be OK. Any captive units purchased will be much less likely to venture anywhere that near the sea in their working lifetimes, except on board ship if they’re delivered that way from abroad! It should be noted that, otherwise, Voyagers are now considered among the most reliable diesel trains on the network, after their early engine problems had been resolved.
@Mark Townend….I thought only refurbished HSTs and Voyagers were the only InterCity stock due to operate west of Exeter?
@Graham Feakins…..When NightStar was conceived, no one had any idea that low-cost airlines operating point-to-point between the UK regions and Europe would render these services unviable without an obscenely high level of subsidy. Your friends at least should be grateful that the stock found some use in Canada, instead of heading straight from the factory floor to the scrapyard!
@Melvyn….Bearing in mind those *extremely* tight tunnels surrounding Sheffield Midland, good luck rebuilding those at a reasonable price to get full width continental gauge trains through them!
@Graham H….Well well well, the TGV services aren’t as good as they’re cracked out to be, then? Are you able to provide any examples or anecdotes?
And don’t worry, I’m not looking for any money from you. Just a promise that you’ll return to the Civil Service as my Permanent Secretary once I take over the country ?.
@Anonymously
“I thought only refurbished HSTs and Voyagers were the only InterCity stock due to operate west of Exeter?”
Actually, there will be some Hitachi trains built specifically for the purpose of running west of Exeter:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Class_802
@ Anonymously At this stage I am only suggesting any new railway built either side of Sheffield should be built to Continental Gauge as to a station in Sheffield that will be for the future and given modern tunnelling technology a new below ground station could provide a solution to problems you mention.
[Let’s not take this any further, as it’s emphatically not in London. Malcolm]
@Anonymously
“I thought only refurbished HSTs and Voyagers were the only InterCity stock due to operate west of Exeter?”
And the Night Riviera stock.
Other costal routes are available away from Devon, the Northumberland coast north of Newcastle gets rather wet & the IEPs will be plying their trade along there.
@Snowy – I doubt that the North Sea spray washes over the trains in Northumberland in quite the same way as the English Channel does in Dawlish. (Of course, the run along the cliffs north of Morpeth is one of the great railway journeys in the UK but not quite the same as the run along the base of the cliffs in Devon).
North of Berwick-om-Tweed the ECML runs about 150 feet above the sea – out of the reach of most heavy seas.
Unlikely to see IEPs, but I do wonder how the roof mounted gear on modern EMUs mopes with these conditions at Ardrossan
http://cdn.images.express.co.uk/img/dynamic/1/590x/tidal-surge-451898.jpg I do wonder
timbeau that link to tidal surge not working (at least from Australia, maybe geo blocking ?)
[Fixed. The offending character was a capital I, which you can now see. Leaving us to wonder what timbeau wondered! Malcolm]
@timbeau – I thought I had already pointed that out to Snowy.
@GH
You had, but I thought I would quantify the difference.
@alanblue mountains
Sorry about the spare “I” in the linkie. Mistyping on a smartphone.
Again great article but a bit of a BIG but…..Jonathan you used to work on an alternative scheme for Lord Berkeley. Mind you quite understand why you would keep that one quiet.
[Moderator’s note: this comment comes from the same commenter as the slightly earlier one making the same point. However, I am not suggesting that any deception was necessarily intended by the commenter. Malcolm]
Timbeau, not a problem. Thank heavens no high girders, it would have been an interesting trip for passengers or is that par for the course in stormy weather.
The anonymous commenter is quite in order pointing out that Jonathan has worked on a particular scheme – that is public knowledge. It is also valid to state that this work was not mentioned in the article – nor was any other item of Jonathan’s considerable experience. Opinions as to whether this work should have been mentioned are just that – opinions.
However, suggestion of a “conflict of interest” is not acceptable. As any dictionary will show, this could only arise if Jonathan was in a judicial or semi-judicial role here, making some sort of decision. Writing an article for London Reconnections is not such a role. As Graham says, the experience of our authors is actually an important feature of this site.
Malcolm, I think this should be in part 1, cheers
[Yes, you are quite right. Anonymous’ reference to “conflict of interest” was made in his comment on the part 1 article. I will copy or transfer my response. Malcolm]
Some posts about Anonymous’ comments have been removed. The subject is closed.
Bearing in mind previous comment here it may be of interest that a job advert on the HS2 website contains the statement “The Phase 1 Rolling Stock procurement is anticipated to be a single procurement of a single fleet of classic compatible trains with a capital value of around £2bn”.
The biggest problem is that scant consideration is being given to the existing London Midland and London Oveground services that use Euston as a terminus. Two questions therefore what are the plans for these services whilst Euston is rebuilt? What are the plans for these services after Euston is rebuilt? I am specifically interested in plans for the Watford-Euston DC line, since finding an actual definitive answer to this online has entirely defeated me. It is patently obvious to anyone using the Watford DC line regularly that peak hours require 4tph not 3tph and this has been the case for over 5 years (mentioned in a 2011 RUS) and yet still it hasn’t been done. WHY?
In fact in more general terms searching online for the current Euston redevlopement plan and adjustments to services whilst works go on, etc. produces nothing other than news articles of Sadiq Khan saying hold on we need to look at this again!! Considering work is supposed to start on HS2 in 2017 this is not very good. It really feels like we are heading for London Bridge multiplied by 3 style disaster if Overground, TfL, Crossrail 2, London Midland, Virgin West Coast, NR and HS2 don’t get their act together fast.
As a side-note the irony when/if this is all completed it will take me almost the same amount of time to travel from Carpender’s Park to Euston as it will from Euston Manchester!!!!
The trains for 4tph on the DC are on order from Bombardier already.
For the services during HS2 construction I think the intention is to have disruptive engineering blocks for some of it, but day to day the expectation is with more efficient station working something like the existing quantum of service can be run
As far as answers to Mayoral questions go, there are no plans to remove the DC line service from Euston, e.g. last year:
=========
“Euston London Overground service (1)
Navin Shah (15-Jul-2015)
Do you have an aspiration for Watford Junction LO trains continuing to run indefinitely into Euston station, rather than being diverted at Primrose Hill (and/or Willesden Junction) on to the North London Line?
Would any Primrose Hill diversion likely require a financial contribution towards four-tracking the short section of two-track North London Line west of Camden Road station?
The Mayor (15-Jul-2015)
There is no current proposal for London Overground services originating at Watford to be diverted from Euston towards Stratford.
Analysis by TfL suggests that there is greater demand for journeys towards Euston than Stratford. Those who wish to travel towards Stratford can do so with a straightforward interchange at Willesden Junction. ”
========
No matter how many times people propose diverting it via Primrose Hill to a favourite destination of their choice, there is no evidence that it is ever going to happen.
“Those who wish to travel towards Stratford can do so with a straightforward interchange at Willesden Junction.”
Not easy from, e.g Queens Park.
If the dc were to be diverted to Camden Road and points east, access to the Northern Line could be provided by re-opening Primrose Hill which was across the road from Chalk Farm station. Victoria Line by a further change at Euston or continuing to High & I. But I doubt there is now the capacity east of Camden Road, without a rejigging of services on the rest of the network. (Richmond – GO – Barking, and Clapham Junction – GO – Camden Road perhaps?
@ ASL – I rather expect that discussions are ongoing on a wide range of issues related to HS2 construction and eventual operation. We know that TfL was an objector to the HS2 legislation but an “agreement” was reached that I think resulted in TfL withdrawing its objections. I expect all will become clear in stages – the Watford DC service, the changes to Overground services in and around Old Oak Common, tube expansion at Euston and CR2.
@ T Hickman – there are only 6 Class 710 units on order for Watford DC services. That is the same as used today so no frequency increase can be effected by the new trains as class 378s will move to run extra NLL services. TfL would need to decide if it wishes to trigger any of the contract options it has for extra trains. I doubt we will see any moves on this until the TWAO process for Barking Riverside extension completes successfully (we must hope). At that point more trains have to be ordered and if TfL decides it wants more over and above those for Riverside then best to order them altogether.
@WW
“We know that TfL was an objector to the HS2 legislation but an “agreement” was reached that I think resulted in TfL withdrawing its objections.”
I understand that objecting in this way is a standard practice to ensure an organisation’s interests are considered at a planning enquiry, in order that a formal “agreement” of the kind TfL and HS2 came to can be formally come to as to how the two organisations interact during construction and subsequent operation. It should not be taken to imply that the objector is opposed to the project in principle
timbeau says “..should not be taken to imply that the objector is opposed to the project in principle”.
True, and it’s helpful to note this “standard practice”. But actually, any objection to any legislation should not be taken with such an implication. If I object that HS2 is going to snip off half my garden, I may well be thoroughly in favour of the principle of HS2, I just want it moved away from my garden.
@timbeau – entirely correct and was standard advice from T/Sol (now GLS) on all such legislation. @Malcolm – indeed the point of the separate procedure for private works legislation is designed to enable objectors whose personal interests may be affected to make their point. Objectors to the principle of the thing would struggle to find valid personal grounds for petitioning.
@asl. My understanding is that all existing services run as now right through to 2026. (The year, not a little before half eight).
If any services were to leave Euston temporarily it would be the DC services* and as stated above, they’re not.
* the DC services were diverted away from Euston for the best part of a year during the 1999/2000 resignalling / remodelling.
Those 710 units are from the same manufacturer as, and and look very similar to the Crossrail units. They’re also dual voltage, presumably to allow removal of the 3rd rail infrastructure in the final approaches to Euston. With AC capability and the commonality of design, the trains might be able to be adapted to run through Crossrail, if a means of threading them through the Wembley and Willesden areas to a new Old Oak connection could be found. To avoid short trains running through the Crossrail core and limit requirement for platform lengthening all the way to Watford, pairs of 710s might run through the core then split on the outbound at some intermediate station on the DC lines (Harrow and Willesden with its turnback siding perhaps). Here, the rear unit could be left left behind to be picked up again by the next inbound service. The incompatibility of Crossrail DDA commitments with the lack of level access at outer DC lines stations might be argued away on the basis of it being a temporary diversion of a different (i.e non crossrail) service away from Euston. The diversion might become permanent nontheless if it proved popular, which on the face of it, provision of direct links to the Old Oak hub, west end, city and possibly docklands should be. Such popularity could then help to create the case for further platform extensions and level access provision for ‘full integration’ with Crossrail later. Unfortunately I’ve just realised door layout would be a problem. the 710s have 2 doors, Crossrail 3 per side, so alignment with platform edge doors in the tunnels would scupper the idea!
Mark Townend…..also, I understand that the class 710 is 20m bodies and Crossrail are longer, there is absolutely no compatibility with Crossrail platform doors (although it will always be possible to align at least one door!
@130
Ah yes, 200m /9 = 22.22…m. With equal length cars you might have been able to align one door per carriage! BTW I meant Harrow & Wealdstone for the splitting location!
Perhaps instead of Euston or Crossrail, the Watford trains could go into Paddington, temporarily or otherwise, with cross or same platform interchange with Crossrail at Old Oak.
@Mark T
“Those 710 units are…………dual voltage, presumably to allow removal of the 3rd rail infrastructure in the final approaches to Euston”
Dual voltage units have been used on the Watford dc route for thirty years, yet the third rail is still there. The ac capability is needed in order to run the 710s on the Goblin and the Enfield/Chingford lines. (It is not clear to me whether each service group will have a dedicated fleet or will all draw rolling stock from a single, pooled, fleet).
@timbeau
From what I have heard, the 710 fleet will be formed of 2 subclasses: An AC only fleet for the West Anglia lines and an dual voltage fleet for GOBlin and Watford DC.
Mark Townend 16 October 2016 at 15:37
” Perhaps instead of Euston or Crossrail, the Watford trains could go into Paddington”
Wouldn’t that be more difficult and expensive than withdrawing the service and extending Bakerloo services from Harrow and Wealdstone to Watford Junction?
Re-extending the Bakerloo to Watford Junction has been frequently proposed on LR, to the extent that it is in danger of becoming a banned topic. It does seem to be a solution that is in desperate search of a problem to mate with.
Among the many other difficulties with it (such as platform and passenger capacity on the inner bit of the Bakerloo, journey times etc etc) is the fact that there are no spare Bakerloo trains. Of course, more could be acquired, but only at great expense and long lead time.
I wasn’t proposing that, just contrasting it with Mark Townend’s proposal, that seemed to me to be a bit off the cuff and not very useful.
Alan Griffiths: I see. But as a way of demonstrating that a particular proposal is off the cuff, not useful and/or impractical, your approach (1) leaves something to be desired.
(1) contrasting it with another off-the-cuff proposal which is likely to be not useful and/or impractical.
@ Timbeau – Definitely two sub classes of Class 710s and they will have different internal layouts as well as current collection. They’ll also be confined to different depots so very unlikely there will be much (if any) sharing. The Willesden based trains will have 378-esque interiors while the West Anglia / Romford Upminster ones have composite seating arrangements like the LU S8s.
@Ww
That does answer the original question though. If there is a common fleet for Goblin and WatEus, they must be AC (for the the former) as well as DC (for the latter), regardless of whether the 3rd rail remains at Euston – and it has survived for thirty years after dual voltage units were first used on the line. Presumably the costs of maintaining it are considered worthwhile to avoid the consequences of a pantograph failing to deploy (or lower) at the top of Camden bank. I am assuming the South Hampstead tunnels are not big enough to take wiring.
@Alan, Malcolm
The Watford to Paddington idea was off the cuff in the sense it came to me while writing the car length reply but certainly not flippant. Thinking about it further, it has some merits. There should be some capacity available for a modest number of short trains at Paddington post Crossrail, the current ‘Heathrow Connect’ paths for starters. Interchange at Old Oak and Paddington would give easy accesss to Crossrail city bound, and access to Heathrow and the Thames valley would be improved through Crossrail’s westerly connections. It might get the WCML – Old Oak Comon link built, which could then also be used by Crossrail trains to Tring once station accessibility arrangements are agreed.
The scheme has a major additional cost which Crossrail to Tring does not bear. That is in creating a route for the DC trains between Harlesden and Wembley Central. Track layouts do not allow this today at all. One option to solve that might be to shuffle all the WCML tracks over one pair towards the freight yards between these locations to create room for the ‘DCs’ to use the current fast pair. That would entail some major earthworks, junction and signalling work but probably no new major structures over the North Circular road for example. The Bakerloo would be truncated at Wembley Central in a new set of terminal platforms on the north east side next to the NR slow lines. The current DC diveunder could be retained to maintain depot access if required, but the new units’ similarity to Crossrail’s trains suggests they could be maintained alongside Crossrail’s fleet at the new Old Oak depot, which they would pass in service on every journey. Perhaps Watford DC fits neatly with the Crossrail concession under MTR. It could be operated as a separate distinctive line brand but share resources and management with Crossrail to an extent.
Comparison with Bakerloo to Watford is not a big versus small train argument. It is partly a journey time argument as the tube route is comparatively slow to central London from the outer reaches. There is a platform compatibility issue too, with the Metropolitan due soon at Watford Junction locking in a high platform configuration through the Watford area. Truncating the Bakerloo at Wembley Central could help to manage that issue.
Finally the loose end with either scheme is the local service into Euston itself. Some seem to suggest that can just be abandoned, if not permanently at least temporarily during the Euston HS2 works. The passenger figures at the intermediate stations, while being relatively small by London standards, are not inconsiderable however so can’t be dismissed so easily. To avoid platform height incompatibility, full size local trains could continue to run out of Euston on the existing route to Queens Park. A junction there with the slow lines could allow them to run to (say) Harrow and Wealdstone to terminate, where there is a disused platform on the slow side that might be reinstated. Slow line platforms at Willesden Junction would be desirable to maintain wider Overground connectivity.
@Mark Townend
“The Bakerloo would be truncated at Wembley Central in a new set of terminal platforms on the north east side next to the NR slow lines.”
You do realise that this would entail a big reduction in services to North Wembley, South Kenton and Kenton as well as loss of connectivity at Harrow & Wealdstone don’t you?
@Anon E. Mouse
Doh! Perhaps increase the Paddington – OOC – DC lines frequency to 6 tph, with every other train turned back at Harrow and Wealdstone.
It would surely be less trouble and expense to divert the Watford DC trains down the West London line to Clapham Junction? A slight loss of service between Harlesden, Queens Park and Euston and just a little bit of track that might need electrifying to one standard or another?
@AG
No interchange to the wider Overground at Willesden Junction with that idea, unless new low level platforms were provided on the appropriate lines in which case they could be combined with WLL Willesden Junction terminators, and you’d still need to do the track shuffle between Wembley Central and Harlesden as there’s no direct connection today from the DCs to the WLL. Can’t see the idea being popular.
… and there’s not a shred of evidence that any of this cost (slewing WCML lines is especially fun!) is justifiable, the demand is there (other than in the minds of the writers), or that it would deliver significant benefits….
… and those Heathrow connect paths available into Paddington post Crossrail are going to be used between Westbourne Park and aOld Oak Common by, err, Crossrail!
@GH
I tend to agree with you on this. I’m far more keen on the idea of some WCML slows going to Crossrail via a new link, as the track alteration on the WCML would be minimal by comparison, and it would link the more important towns and interchanges on the route to the hub at Old Oak anyway. I’d like to know how the various operators and infrastructure owners will deal with platform stepping heights and distances on compromise shared routes such as the DCs. I would have thought (more) level boarding must be an aspiration at SOME time in the future. Will raised ramps for certain doors only be an acceptable solution indefinitely? Ultimately, Euston, with it’s good and improving connections, is a good terminus for the DCs, and most importantly it is the established one. The question is can they be accomodated throughout the HS2 construction process?
@ Mark Townend – the eventual upgrade of the Bakerloo line will be the crunch point. I’d not be too surprised to see TfL abandon tube services north of Queens Park with an enhanced LO service on the Watford route. I suspect you will end up with a short working overlap on top of the main Euston – Watford service, say something like Kilburn High Road to Harrow and Wealdstone. If both ran every 15 mins you’d get 8 tph between KHR to H&W. As I have never seen the Bakerloo line be heavily loaded north of Queens Park I expect 8 tph with Overground trains is probably over the top. Yes people will lose the through service from the Bakerloo Line but if you can achieve an accessible service Queens Park and north then this may be acceptable to people. I don’t see the compromise platforms being allowed to continue indefinitely. There is already political complaint about the current situation and there will be an expectation that the upgrade of the Bakerloo Line will be a cure all. However it can’t be unless you remove one type of rolling stock to allow platforms to be altered to give level access. I can’t see anyone contemplating double length, different height platforms Kensal Green and north because there are far too many site constraints preventing such platforms.
I expect LU will manage some sort of arrangement for empty stock working paths to / from Stonebridge Park in a future “separated service” scenario.
@Mark Townend: Will raised ramps for certain doors only be an acceptable solution indefinitely?
From an accessibility point of view, I don’t see why not – there are only so many wheelchair spaces per train, so it should be acceptable as long as each space has a ramp at the nearest door.
Level access at every door might be desirable, but given a choice between having non-level access, and their part of London falling off the Tube network and losing most of its through trains to Zone 1, I think most passengers would prefer to stick with non-level access and the political complainants would go very quiet very quickly.
@Mark Townend: link the more important towns and interchanges on the route to the hub at Old Oak
This can be done at less cost by building a station on the West London line and stopping the existing WCML-Croydon through service there.
Modern Rail notes that HS2 is advertising for a procurement officer to assist in purchasing trains for phase 1 to consist entirely of classic compatible trains worth roughly £2 billion.
Also it notes that calls for expressions of interest for franchising the ICWC is late. It expects that the current short term contract for the West Coast will attract not much interest, compared with a combined HS2 Phase one combined franchise, probably with some rolling stick deal sewn up with it.
@Rational Plan: phase 1 to consist entirely of classic compatible trains
You read it here first (comment by Balthazar, 27 September 2016 at 19:57) .
Re: Ian J – thanks! And don’t we know that Capt Deltic reads LR…? As Private Eye might say, “How journalism works”. Maybe.
… and, one might add, the Times report about the new ICWC franchise including HS2 operation then appeared remarkably quickly after Capt Deltic’s e-mail preview!
Re Balthazar and Ian J,
Not the only rail journalist/editor who reads LR comments section either!
Ordering /building (dependent on what type of contract it is) 14 captive units for phase 1 doesn’t really make sense given the far larger order for phase 2. Waiting and getting 1 single captive fleet makes more sense and means HS2 isn’t effectively going to get tied in to who ever wins the phase 1 Captive fleet contract.
None of the captives will be surplus when phase 2 opens so all very logical.
The case for ‘captive’ trains for Phases 1 and 2a was queried in the HS2 Buffers Part 1 article, back in March 2016.
DfT have today announced the tender for combine West Coast and HS2 phase 1 opening franchise:
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-announces-new-rail-franchise-for-inter-city-west-coast-with-the-introduction-of-high-speed-2-services
Key exerts below (as it will survive on LR given DfT’s propensity to update and material to disappear selectively)
Paul Maynard (Rail Minister) comments:
https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/rail-franchising-intercity-west-coast-and-hs2
DfT franchise detail page updates:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/rail-franchises-summary/rail-franchises-summary#west-coast-partnership
@ Ngh – you beat me to it! In some respects it’s the logical approach to have a franchise that covers the transition period and establishes a trading record for both types of services post Phase 1 opening. However the government will have to work hard to avoid a successful bidder managing to “lock themselves in” for future franchises through the use of proprietary technologies or processes or overly influencing the design of the organisational model / industry arrangements to create long term advantage. Looks like a consultants’ field day to me given DfT will need their own set to challenge whatever the winning bidder (consortium) comes up with.
I always get a bit worried when I phrases like this
innovating and exploiting emerging technologies to deliver a step change in passenger experience and the delivery of services on WCP
It takes real skill to do that effectively without a load of risk and without obsolescence after 5 years or so.
Still it means we’re likely to see a nice battle between SNCF, FS, DB, RENFE, JR East / West, Korean Rail Corporation, CRH [1] etc as they all have some level of experience of genuine high speed operation. Unless Mr Branson is desparate to keep Virgin on the West Coast and can dig deep I suspect it’s the end of Virgin Rail as a visible brand on the West Coast post 2019. I’d expect one of the “big boys” to win and for a completely new branding strategy to emerge.
[1] for those who don’t recognise the abbreviations.
SNCF – French National Railways (incl Eurostar??)
FS – Italian Railways
DB – German Railways
RENFE – Spanish Railways
JR East / West – Japan Railways East / Japan Railways West
CRH – Chinese Railways Highspeed
Re WW,
Almost definitely the end of the Virgin majority control on West Coast as all the others parties will want to keep a reasonable share holding (unless Stagecoach willing to exit or dilute).
High speed operations and innovative new franchise types also including new fleet introductions, changes to working practices and new technology introduction…
Hmm. the ideal JV of High Speed and UK groups would be Eurostar and Govia 😉
Apart from SNCF, I’d see DB and either Japanese option as far more likely than the others.
ngh & WW
Tiptoeing, ever so cautiously towards an “integrated railway” – is how I read those statements…
DB and Arriva? JR West (with Abellio) is shortlisted for the West Midlands franchise, currently London Midlan. Complete speculation but possibly an attempt to build experience of the bidding process and knowledge of the West Coast Main Line? If successful, would presumably rule them out of the new ICWC/HS2 franchise.
Greg: I read and thought “what a massive torture of the English language”! A lot of incense must have been burnt to come up with what boils down to: We want someone who know what they’re doing….
Re: WW – why would it be the end of the Virgin brand? A brand that is often used with no ownership by the Virgin Group of Companies whatsoever*. Surely Britain’s first true inter-city high speed operation would be the kind of thing the ulrimate owner of brand could well want to be associated with?
*Also in minority, as with Virgin Trains East Coast and indeed the West Coast and CrossCountry ownership before the Stagecoach investment, when Virgin Rail Group was 41% Virgin owned (the rest being venture capital, if memory serves).
@ Balthazar – Three reasons. Firstly I think DfT are fed up with Virgin on the West Coast. Secondly I think DfT may, for once, impose its own requirements for the branding of High Speed services and I suspect the operator / consortium name may be only a minor element in the future branding. Finally I expect there may be significant competition for this “partnership” and even if Virgin are interested they’ve got to back only one consortium which reduces their chances of winning.
We know from fairly recent history that Virgin has a loyal following on the West Coast but I don’t see how DfT can possibly allow that to have any influence over the procurement process for a very high value contract. Time will tell. We must also hope that the DfT have got all their processes, models and governance all in order for handling the Partnership procurement process so no one has grounds to challenge a prospective award.
I am happy to concede that my musings may, of course, be completely wrong as to Virgin’s destiny.
@WW – “We know from fairly recent history that Virgin has a loyal following on the West Coast” – but that loyal following is being eroded somewhat by virtue of the competition provided in terms of quality of service (including trains) provided by Chiltern Railways.
Certainly as recently as last month I was informed that one significant set of Birmingham transport professionals (in the local rail business themselves) now use Chiltern from Moor Street to Marylebone as a solid matter of preference. Having used the latter service myself instead of Virgin, I can appreciate why.
@ Graham F – I’ve only done Chiltern from Brum once and it was very much an impulse decision. I was near Moor St and couldn’t face the trek to New St (hadn’t been fully reopened at that point so access was to the north end). Although it was a Cl168 in the peak I found the journey perfectly reasonable and suprisingly busy even beyond the obvious limit of Brum commuting. The London end isn’t ideal for onward connections to WW land compared to Euston but a hop down the Euston Rd to Warren St was fine. I don’t mind Virgin but I don’t get the “hype” and I know some people have very firm views about Pendolinos and Voyagers (no need to share / repeat here). I’m not overly bothered either way but once you’ve done a tilting train then you’ve done it. I’ve only done them once on the East Coast since they took over and I’m afraid I still wear my “nostalgia goggles” for the heyday of Inter City East Coast (at the end of BR). I travelled much more then and felt they had the operation very well tuned on the ECML. GNER weren’t bad if going 1st class and if the train didn’t break down but I’ve read many, many horror stories about their actual fleet operation. Did once see Mr Garnett on the train checking how things were going.
@WW – Well, on the Moor Street route, do try Chiltern’s ‘Silver Trains’ out of Marylebone. It only takes a few minutes longer than the Euston-Birmingham New Street route but one is in another world that some may deem to be luxurious these days* (but at far less expense). Moreover, there’s a tube station below at Marylebone in the form of the Bakerloo Line, which lots of folk tell us is underutilised but connects with most other tube lines in central London. Even Marylebone station itself is an example of a remarkable makeover, rather like a smaller version of what was achieved at St. Pancras.
What I noticed the Chiltern route has achieved is a remarkable boarding and alighting intermediate traffic, which supports your observation of being surprisingly busy even beyond the obvious limit of Brum commuting. Good for Chiltern., I say.
* Think completely refurbished Mark 3 stock with sliding carriage entry doors, comfortable LED lighting, décor, comfy seats with leg room and clean windows and tables, power points &c. to match – and that’s in Standard Class, plus no roaring diesel engine underneath one’s bum. I honestly thought that I had boarded a brand new train, so good has been the makeover, and my heart leapt in joy.
One mustn’t advertise the fares here but suffice to say that my oldie advance day *return* between London and Birmingham cost just £7.30 in August! Beat that!
P.S. I commented just above “What I noticed the Chiltern route has achieved is a remarkable boarding and alighting intermediate traffic, which supports your observation of being surprisingly busy even beyond the obvious limit of Brum commuting.”
Within the context of HS2, it’s not going to be able to develop that significant intermediate traffic (whether business or e.g. student or otherwise) is it, because there won’t be any intermediate stations as such? Even the emphasis during the electrification of the WCML was much to do with the attractive connectivity of intermediate towns up and down the route.
Maybe I’m wrong and I stand to be corrected.
@WW
“We know from fairly recent history that Virgin has a loyal following on the West Coast”
Can a captive market show loyalty? Except for the London – Birmingham route there is very little choice.
@Graham F
“Within the context of HS2, it’s not going to be able to develop that significant intermediate traffic , because there won’t be any intermediate stations?”
The franchise will include the existing WCML route as well, on which there are many intermediate stations, which could have a more frequent service once HS2 is open and those pesky Pendolinos stop whizzing through every few minutes.
@timbeau – “there are many intermediate stations, which could have a more frequent service once HS2 is open” -well, not really. The current timetable studies by NR show that, surprise, surprise, to maintain the existing levels of connectivity at intermediate stations after HS2 opens, you use up nearly as much capacity as you do now on the classic lines. Maybe an extra 2 tph to MK and the odd Northampton starter is the most extra that could be squeezed in. There are going to be an awful lot of disappointed faces in 2026.
Re: timbeau – WW must be referring to the public petition that Virgin Trains organised during the First/Virgin refranchising collapse (obviously if Virgin had not felt there were grounds for objection then there would have been no petition).
Re: GF – still hate those IC70 seats (and especially the armrests) on the Chiltern Mark IIIs though! I’m also aware of certain, shall we say, large people who avoid the Silver trains due to inability to get into the seats… It’ll be interesting to see what gets done to make them PRM-TSI compliant – at the very least they are deficient in (a) absence of passenger information system, (b) insufficient quantity of wheelchair spaces and (c) inadequate specification of priority seats (currently unmodified IC70s in airline configuration). The latter could of course be addressed by replacing the priority seats only, leaving the IC70s in place everywhere else.
Re: GH – … which I presume is in line with the figures on page 19 of
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/changing-britain-hs2-taking-root
Noting caveats on page 11, para 2.
Some quick maths based on a 16-hour service day and the information in this document suggests 550 seats in a 200m classic compatible unit, a density that is on a par with GW Class 80Xs*, incidentally.
*with their rather space-inefficient arrangement at the vehicle ends.
@Balthazar – as usual, it depends how they cash the cheque. NR’s instructions from DfT were for no net worsenment for existing punters. If, of course, you are allowed to scrap some existing connexions, then the world is your oyster. (It is, of course, entirely possible for DfT to believe 2 different things simultaneously, like Humphrey Dumpty.)
I find it little short of stupid* that HS2 believe that they are going to fill all their trains all day long, every day. Life isn’t like that at all.
*no,it is actually stupid.
If there was a web-site one could visit, to see which trains are relatively uncrowded, it would help fill those empty seats. Does such a thing exist, or is one obliged to infer, from the ticket prices, which trains are full and which are not?
Chiltern also accept Gold Cards throughout and those cheap fares extend down to us too. £6.60 single on Family Railcard including peak time trip from Purley to Marylebone. Got virtually the same price on the way back on Virgin and train was packed.
Re: GH – does it also depend on the interpretation of “no worsening of connectivity”?
Take the Birmingham New Street-Euston service as an example. Today, it is 3tph, calling st B’ham Int’l, Coventry and then one of Rugby, Milton Keynes or Watford Junction in regular rotation. Thus the latter 3 stations only have an hourly service and only MK has a direct service to Wolverhampton (for example).
The classic complaint is that (say) inserting an MK stop into any more trains will lead to a longer journey time between Coventry and London, which is said to be a Bad Thing.
But in this hypothetical case there would be connectivity benefits – between intermediate stations, and with other services whose timetabling doesn’t fit the specific hourly pattern that is currently imposed. Plus one can expect a certain shift of patronage from city-centre Coventry station to parkway HS2 B’ham Interchange, plus the local area gains significantly in northbound connectivity from Interchange. And time-conscious B’ham-London passengers will switch to HS2, resulting in more capacity for Coventry-London (and other) as a matter of course.
So in net terms, and looking at the local economy rather than existing traffic flows, an apparent loss of connectivity can also be a net gain.
@Balthazar – as Iunderstand it, The instruction to NR was to assume that if station A now had 2tph to B, then that is what should be maintained. Of course, the economic benefits of additional calls could be added to that framework but that is not what they were asked to do. I suspect that DfT are quite frightened of anything that might undermine the political case for HS2, and punters at place A being able to claim that their journeys to B are now slower or less frequent will be seen as unacceptable. Here’s a hint: no one has been asked to optimise the performance of the railway network as a whole…]
Connectivity: Balthazar seems to be referring to “net” connectivity – which would be worked out by somehow scoring how good a service each origin-destination pair currently gets and adding all the scores. There is little doubt that opening HS2 will improve such a figure.
Whereas Graham is referring to what has apparently been promised – that no origin-destination pair will actually receive a worse service. With that very severe constraint on the new timetable, it should perhaps be no surprise that little improvement will be possible.
This being the real world, we should probably expect that the timetable eventually produced will be some sort of compromise, in which only a limited number of journeys (hopefully ones which are not particularly popular anyway) are worsened, many travellers get an unchanged service, and a good number get improvements. If this means breaking (or at least severely stressing) a promise which has been made, well, it wouldn’t be exactly the first time such a thing has been done…
Re: GH, Malcolm – it is unclear to me how to reconcile GH’s assertions with the fact that several public domain documents (examples being the West Midlands Rail Vision of 2014 and the HS2 Business Case of 2015) include proposed service patterns that do indeed show revised frequencies and stopping patterns on the WCML post-HS2.
Well,there you are – HS2 (and a bunch of amateur West Midlands businessmen) aren’t the guys instructing NR, are they? There’s lots of stuff in the public domain – but, you know what, it doesn’t make it accurate. I merely report directly the words of those in NR actually engaged on the task…
@ Graham F – I am aware of the loco hauled Chiltern trains. I hoped I might catch one but they tend to work out of London in the PM peak not Brum. I am also aware of the tube serving Marylebone. 😛 I’m just not a fan of the south to north interchange at Oxford Circus nor using the latter even towards the end of the PM peak. It’s an awful station to use.
@ Timbeau – Balthazar is quite correct that I am referring to the public petition / social media hype to “keep Virgin Trains” in the aftermath of the the DfT franchising cock up. I wasn’t aware it had been created by Virgin themselves but perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised.
Graham H and others….. Yet more “if you ask the wrong question, you are likely to get the wrong answer” in the brief given to NR for post 2026. By the time HS2 opens, Pendolinos will be 20 years old and will have run up a huge mileage. It might be an opportunity to replace them with something more suited to the duty that will be required. For example, remark were made about the 3 tph from Coventry to London, and how improving connectivity with Rugby, Milton Keynes and Watford Junction would harm journey times. If new trains were to be specified, then perhaps a train more suited to stops every 20/30miles or so might be specified – emphasis on high acceleration and perhaps 125mph might not be necessary, just 110mph. It requires integrated whole system planning (lesson from LU’s line upgrades)
@130 – absolutely; and in the case in question, NR were invited to work on the integration of the two systems only fairly recently (and some time after HS2L had declared its hand); the NR managers working on this often cite the well known joke about if I was going there, I wouldn’t be starting from here… [The unofficial internal NR view is that everyone – well at least NR – would have been better off if the HS network had been entirely self-contained].
Graham H….I am sure that there are those in the Highways Agency who feel the same about the motorway network!
@100andthirty -Naturally. It would be interesting to know what HA engineers really think of the smart motorway programme, for example. My limited acquaintance with them in recent years suggests they have become much more cultivators of the secret garden and its mysteries and rituals than they used to be when part of the department.
GH @ 20:38 – that may be one internal view with NR but surely isn’t *the* view. Is such a thing possible in an organisation of its size/complexity/competing internal priorities?
Re: GH – out of interest, does “a bunch of amateur West Midlands businessmen” refer to the West Midlands Regional Rail Forum, the West Midlands Integrated Transport Authority or the Cross-LEP Transport Group, since those are the organisations credited in the footer of the Rail Vision document?
(Things have moved on since 2014, of course, with the ITA now part of the Combined Authority and West Midlands Rail fully constituted and formally named as the leader in the joint WMR/DfT management of the local elements of the new West Midlands franchise.)
I think it was the last contingent that I particularly had in mind.
Graham H 6 November 2016 at 20:38
“[The unofficial internal NR view is that everyone – well at least NR – would have been better off if the HS network had been entirely self-contained].”
That’s a direct contradiction of the way the high-speed network in France is used.
Phase 1 of HS2 will offer every station north and west of Stoke-on-Trent and Stafford a faster journey time to London Euston.
@Alan Griffiths- yes, I know that is what happens in France. I have advised the contractors building L’Oceane on the timetable implications of their service delivery commitments.
On the other, so it may in theory, but it won’t in practice. Some places will indeed lose out in terms of through services, Stoke being one of them apparently.
Graham H 25 June 2017 at 13:54
I can see that Stoke, a sizable City that I expect could get a considerable economic boost from a station on HS2, could be disadvantaged by the projected station at a small town nearby instead.
Currently, two trains an hour between Manchester and London don’t stop south of the proposed connection of HS2 to the existing WCML near Lichfield. So why does HS2 phase 1 imply a timetabling disadvantage for Stoke?
@Alan griffiths – without the draft timetable in frontof me, I can only tell you that there is a choice between Stoke and an alternative and Stoke loses. The whole problem seems much more complex than that, however, in that the promise has been that no settlement will be disdvantaged by HS2. That is a big promise but it does mean that an awful lot of paths (some might argue, too many) are taken up by legacy services. That’s politics for you,I suppose.