UK energy

[ANTONISH]

The difference of a 350kph line vs a 200kph line is a tiny fraction of the overall cost

How much is that then?

[Jdsk]

The difference of a 350kph line vs a 200kph line is a tiny fraction of the overall cost

How much is that then?

This follows from the options for reducing the inefficiency of mixed-mode operation on WCML, as described above.

These were specifically reviewed after the outline planning of HS2.

"High Speed Rail Strategic Alternatives Study Update Following Consultation. January 2012":
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.u ... update.pdf

Jonathan

[pete75]

HS2 is the most effective and cost efficient way of increasing capacity. You talk about 'building ordinary lines' or adding rolling stock as if those are cheap and easy, they're not. Rolling stock is limited by platform sizes, mass upgrade of those is daftly expensive (most will involve CPOing properties) and disruptive.

Not really. I've frequently been on trains where they tell passengers wishing to alight at a station to go to certain carriages which are alongside the platform. There's no need for platforms to be as long as the train.

[wirral_cyclist]

HS2 is the most effective and cost efficient way of increasing capacity. You talk about 'building ordinary lines' or adding rolling stock as if those are cheap and easy, they're not. Rolling stock is limited by platform sizes, mass upgrade of those is daftly expensive (most will involve CPOing properties) and disruptive.

Not really. I've frequently been on trains where they tell passengers wishing to alight at a station to go to certain carriages which are alongside the platform. There's no need for platforms to be as long as the train.

Getting a bike (or wheelchair) through several crowded carriages is no fun, nor is the difference in height and gap from train to platform. Most if not all Meresyrail stations needed platforms adjusting for new rolling stock, cost a far bit but needed doing as (antiquated) access needs to be for all.

[pete75]

HS2 is the most effective and cost efficient way of increasing capacity. You talk about 'building ordinary lines' or adding rolling stock as if those are cheap and easy, they're not. Rolling stock is limited by platform sizes, mass upgrade of those is daftly expensive (most will involve CPOing properties) and disruptive.

Not really. I've frequently been on trains where they tell passengers wishing to alight at a station to go to certain carriages which are alongside the platform. There's no need for platforms to be as long as the train.

Getting a bike (or wheelchair) through several crowded carriages is no fun, nor is the difference in height and gap from train to platform. Most if not all Meresyrail stations needed platforms adjusting for new rolling stock, cost a far bit but needed doing as (antiquated) access needs to be for all.

It is well publicised on the train and station announcement that you need to be in certain carriages to get off at a particular station. Anyone with any sense will travel in them.
British train doors are usually very close to platform height, in other countries they often aren't yet they seem to manage well enough. Even Eurostar has quite a step down to the platform at some stations.

[Stevek76]

At quieter stations it's far less of an issue but at busier ones, and there are plenty that can't support the sort of increased train lengths that would be needed to even get close to the capacity release of HS2, it's really a very poor solution which further increases dwell times and is, in practice, fairly unworkable.

[Biospace]

What are the possibilities of saving energy, increasing capacity and reducing the construction of new tracks by coupling faster trains together which are heading out of London - so that instead of having three separate trains and time segments for say Liverpool, Manchester and Glasgow, there is one long train which then splits as necessary?

[Jdsk]

What are the possibilities of saving energy, increasing capacity and reducing the construction of new tracks by coupling faster trains together which are heading out of London - so that instead of having three separate trains and time segments for say Liverpool, Manchester and Glasgow, there is one long train which then splits as necessary?

The existing services stop at intermediate stations, so they aren't three separate trains for those destinations alone.

The trains per hour and total trips on the West Coast Main Line are given in the Atkins report cited upthread.

If I understand what you are proposing it would decrease the frequency of service. And the trains would be too long for the existing platforms.

Moving the fastest trains off the WCML is the best solution for increasing local services and freight capacity.

Jonathan

[roubaixtuesday]

Moving the fastest trains off the WCML is the best solution for increasing local services and freight capacity.

Jonathan

My understanding is that the high speedness of the new line makes it much more expensive and damaging than if it were same speed as current. The difference to journey times is negligible, but the much higher standards of high speed add cost and make avoiding environmentally sensitive areas much more difficult.

Could be wrong.

[Jdsk]

Moving the fastest trains off the WCML is the best solution for increasing local services and freight capacity.

My understanding is that the high speedness of the new line makes it much more expensive and damaging than if it were same speed as current. The difference to journey times is negligible, but the much higher standards of high speed add cost and make avoiding environmentally sensitive areas much more difficult.

Could be wrong.

I don't know the comparative cost of supporting current and higher speed in new build.

Jonathan

PS: I don't consider the reduction in journey times as negligible. The UK is implementing high speed trains in a very piecemeal fashion. If there were any vision in this it would include TGV speed between the capitals of Great Britain and into other European countries.

[Biospace]

What are the possibilities of saving energy, increasing capacity and reducing the construction of new tracks by coupling faster trains together which are heading out of London - so that instead of having three separate trains and time segments for say Liverpool, Manchester and Glasgow, there is one long train which then splits as necessary?

The existing services stop at intermediate stations, so they aren't three separate trains for those destinations alone.

The trains per hour and total trips on the West Coast Main Line are given in the Atkins report cited upthread.

If I understand what you are proposing it would decrease the frequency of service. And the trains would be too long for the existing platforms.

Moving the fastest trains off the WCML is the best solution for increasing local services and freight capacity.

Jonathan

Most services to Glasgow, Liverpool and Manchester are separate trains, each taking up a separate time slot on the WCML, as far as I'm aware.

Combining three trains into one over the busiest section of track, then splitting to serve their respective destinations would surely allow for an increase in frequency with which services from London arrived in Liverpool, for example?

Of course removing trains from a particular track is the ideal solution for routes running at capacity, but I think HS2 is the only new main line planned out of London?

[Jdsk]

...
Of course removing trains from a particular track is the ideal solution for routes running at capacity, but I think HS2 is the only new main line planned out of London?

WCML is currently running inefficiently because of the three classes of service. I'd like it to be able to carry more local passenger services and much more freight.

I don't understand the point about "the only new main line planned out of London". Are you suggesting that there's case for another new line?

Thanks

Jonathan

[Biospace]

...
Of course removing trains from a particular track is the ideal solution for routes running at capacity, but I think HS2 is the only new main line planned out of London?

WCML is currently running inefficiently because of the three classes of service. I'd like it to be able to carry more local passenger services and much more freight.

I don't understand the point about "the only new main line planned out of London". Are you suggesting that there's case for another new line?

You stated in your reply to a question about alternative ways of increasing line capacity that removing fast services from a main line at capacity was the best way of improving other services for the WCML; of course that's the ideal for any mainline at or approaching capacity. I'm sure some would argue the ECML deserves a relief main line from 70 miles N of London.

Moving the fastest trains off the WCML is the best solution for increasing local services and freight capacity.

My understanding is that the high speedness of the new line makes it much more expensive and damaging than if it were same speed as current. The difference to journey times is negligible, but the much higher standards of high speed add cost and make avoiding environmentally sensitive areas much more difficult.

Could be wrong.

I don't know the comparative cost of supporting current and higher speed in new build.

Jonathan

PS: I don't consider the reduction in journey times as negligible. The UK is implementing high speed trains in a very piecemeal fashion. If there were any vision in this it would include TGV speed between the capitals of Great Britain and into other European countries.

I'd be very interested to hear from someone in the know why a dedicated 225mph (track said to be engineered for 250mph) high speed rail line is only marginally more expensive to construct and build stock for than for a 140mph line.

If the reason for high speed rail is to reach somewhere more quickly, as distances reduce the benefits reduce at an increasingly fast rate. I would consider flying if in a hurry and a UK rail journey was more than 3.5 hours (Newcastle is under 3 hours from Kings Cross), I've heard HSR starts to make sense for distances in excess of 250 miles, which sounds about right.

Saving half an hour to forty minutes between Birmingham and London I would consider negligible unless earning £hundreds an hour which couldn't be worked at in a train. Most HSR take half or less of the time the previous service once took. The Tokyo-Osaka journey is reduced from 7 hours to 2h25, for example.

Centres across the nation are desperate for a far better railway service, in the case of Ripon, Washington and St Andrews, any railway. All three could be connected for what is loose change in HS2 money world. The Trans-Pennine service is an embarrassment, as is the service to Bradford. Both culturally and economically we're suffocating regions which the colossal spending on HS2 will likely make even more difficult to resolve.

[Stevek76]

My understanding is that the high speedness of the new line makes it much more expensive and damaging than if it were same speed as current. The difference to journey times is negligible, but the much higher standards of high speed add cost and make avoiding environmentally sensitive areas much more difficult.

Could be wrong.

Mostly wrong. The minimum radius of a 200kph is still huge so the increase in avoidance ability is nowhere near as huge as some seem to claim. A quick browse of the ancient woodland mapping makes it abundantly clear that you're not getting anything out of london without affecting some. As it is, HS2 is affecting a tiny fraction of the total in the UK, far less than national highway's RIS program, and what is being cut down is being relocated/replaced and with extras.

The mapping also makes it swiftly obvious that widening existing corridors is going to be subject to exactly the same problems, the victorians didn't care much for ancient woodland but at the same time, sticking a rail line through somewhere tends to have a protective affect against immediately adjacent development, hence it not being uncommon to find woods either side of rail lines. You'd have to chop those down to widen.

Regarding the cost increase, I'd not say it was 'marginal' but estimates are around 10% extra. Ultimately the bulk of the costs of any new rail line come from the urban sections, stations and tunnels (e.g. under parts of the chilterns) so while the theoretical cost per km of raw track costs might be rather more than 10% higher, that track cost is only a small part of the overall total cost.

You are easily going to lose more than 10% of the economic benefits by running the line at 200kph than is saved. You also lose considerable ability to displace regional air trips, and the potential to ban regional flights with alternative rail connections altogether such as the french have started doing.

I'm sure some would argue the ECML deserves a relief main line from 70 miles N of London.

It was getting one until the government shortsightedly watered the eastern leg into what is actually now going to be a worse service than it currently has. Hopefully the next government will reverse course on that.

The whole point of the full Y section is it relieves 3 main lines in one go (WCML,MML & ECML). Without the eastern leg it becomes a WCML bypass only.

As for future mainlines, 'Northern Powerhouse Rail' was occasionally referenced as HS3 and is also in tatters from the same tory review that ditched the eastern hs2 leg. The next likely candidate for an 'hs4' should a government serious about rail be in power would probably be the bristol <> birmingham cross country leg which is overcrowded awfulness at the moment

[Carlton green]

Interesting thoughts about the railways and the conflict, with shared line use, between: long distance / express services; regional local services; and freight. Having some super wizzo service that with cover 200 or more kilometres per hour is all very well but to my mind it misses the needs of many ordinary folk who just need to get from A to B in a reasonable time, at a reasonable cost and in reasonable comfort. We need mass transit not elitist transport.

As a youth (over five decades ago) I occasionally traveled say 200 miles on a long distance train and the journey took say four to five hours, not a fantastic average speed but the journey was fine enough - at one point we understood that 60 miles per hour was actually quite fast. As an older person I see that relatively simple rolling stock, as used on local and regional services, is now more than capable of travelling at an average (journey) speed of say 60 miles per hour and really I don’t particularly really need more than that. However what I do need is a service that isn’t compromised by the needs of super fast trains that conflict for track use and other resources.

Who is it that makes and needs super fast services? Into the big cities, and London in particular, I suspect that it is commuters who live stupid distances away from work; IMHO let them live nearer to work or let the work be sited near to them … and then there’s working over the internet too. Sadly ordinary people need to commute too but they do it locally, each week millions use the London Underground and Overground trains. Folk also do similar journeys in the metropolitan areas of Liverpool, Newcastle, Manchester, Cardiff, Glasgow and West Yorkshire. All those people need efficient services and at an affordable cost, etc., none need express services which are the rich man’s delight and toy.

So, HS2, a complete diversion of resources from what’s really needed and a service that is there to support folk who really shouldn’t need the super fast services that HS2 could supply.