HS2 - Government proposals, alternative routes and general discussion

[whole diary]

[RailCornwall]

The government has made the demise of domestic air travel an explicit policy target for the first time by aiming to replace short-haul flights with a new 250mph high-speed rail network.

The transport secretary, Lord Adonis, said switching 46 million domestic air passengers a year to a multibillion-pound north-south rail line was "manifestly in the public interest". Marking a government shift against aviation, Lord Adonis added that rail journeys should be preferred to plane trips.

Start of a series of three days worth of articles in ...

[Electric train]

I'm getting to like Lord Adonis more and more

[JayMac]

250 mph network?!!!!! One or two high speed lines may happen, but 250mph? Never.

[Timmer]

I'm getting to like Lord Adonis more and more

Me too. A politician who actually speaks sense not spin and knows what he's talking about. Shame he probably only has a few months left in the job. If the Tories get in they could do a lot worse by asking him to stay on. Can't see that happening sadly  Job will probably be given to someone who hasn't the foggiest about transport and couldn't careless about it hoping one day for a bigger promotion within the cabinet.

[onthecushions]

It will be a great pity if the result of (F)GW^▸ (Great Western) Electrification limits our line to 125/140 mph, rather than the TGV^▸ (Train a Grande Vitesse) performance that Brunel allowed for.

Perhaps we should be "First".

OTC

[old original]

It will be a great pity if the result of (F)GW^▸ (Great Western) Electrification limits our line to 125/140 mph, rather than the TGV^▸ (Train a Grande Vitesse) performance that Brunel allowed for.

Perhaps we should be "First".

OTC

too right, how fast would we be going today if we were still on 7ft gauge?

[vacman]

We don't need 250 mph, more lines capable of 125 will do!

[willc]

It will be a great pity if the result of (F)GW^▸ (Great Western) Electrification limits our line to 125/140 mph, rather than the TGV^▸ (Train a Grande Vitesse) performance that Brunel allowed for.

Perhaps we should be "First".

OTC

I know Brunel was far sighted, but I think even he might have been struggled to visualise a TGV. The problem with the existing network is that it is shared with all sorts of other trains, doing all sorts of other speeds. Coal MGRs to Didcot don't mix that well with 125mph trains now. Anything faster and you would have a serious problem.

So of course we need proper LGVs^▸ (Large Goods Vehicle).

[RailCornwall]

IF we do go along with this I sincerely hope that it's engineered correctly and the a significant proportion of the route is FOUR tracked, so that ultra express services, I suggest that there is at least one non stopper Glasgow - London per day, express services say stopping Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Newcastle can run alongside those stopping at other stations en route. This will also allow limited use of the LGV^▸ (Large Goods Vehicle) by other services too.

[devon_metro]

The problem with the uk is the fact that the major citites are too close together to sustain any worthwile high speed running.

[RailCornwall]

Hence my engineering comment,

A range of services

Ultra
Glasgow > Heathrow > London

Very Fast
Glasgow > Newcastle > Leeds > Heathrow > London
Glasgow > Manchester > Heathrow > London
Glasgow > Birmingham > Heathrow > London

Fast
Glasgow > Newcastle > Leeds > Manchester > Birmingham > Heathrow > London

Spur
HS^▸ (High Speed (short for HSS^▸ (High Speed Services) High Speed Services)) Services using the LGV^▸ (Large Goods Vehicle) line then onto Classic tracks.

Express
Stopper at other LGV stations.

Running non stop gets the speed advantage thats lacking because of the Geography, hence the need for many four track sections.

[simonw]

It is a great shame that no mention is made of Bristol, Cardiff or Plymouth in these plans.

Whilst I accept that Bristol/Cardiff are to close to truly benefit from a high-speed network, dramatically increasing track capacity from Bristol to London, particularly Reading on would allow for many more trains, and arguably some express trains that can do 140mph from Cardiff/Bristol direct to London.

[eightf48544]

IF we do go along with this I sincerely hope that it's engineered correctly and the a significant proportion of the route is FOUR tracked, so that ultra express services, I suggest that there is at least one non stopper Glasgow - London per day, express services say stopping Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Newcastle can run alongside those stopping at other stations en route. This will also allow limited use of the LGV^▸ (Large Goods Vehicle) by other services too.

Certaimly 4 trcks would be good idea definitely south of Manchester,but it would be posssible to share 2 tracks North of there provided the intermediate staions were four tracked.

This is way the Japenese bullet trains operate, I've heard talks where people say if you on a train with more stops you pull into a station and < 2 minutes later a fast pases on the avoiding line. But the Japenese seem to run their to 30 second timngs.

[willc]

The problem with the uk is the fact that the major citites are too close together to sustain any worthwile high speed running.

Well, no-one appears to have told the Japanese, another small island nation, where some Shinkansen stations are as little as 20 miles apart. As eightf says, there are varied calling patterns, with fasts passing stoppers, some on short commuter runs, no different to Class 395s in among Eurostars on High Speed 1.

Tokyo-Osaka, the original line, is 515km (320 miles) long, with 15 intermediate stations. London to Edinburgh is just under 400 miles on the ECML^▸ (East Coast Main Line).

But I suppose they're just strange foreigners, who don't know what they're doing, like all the other countries who have built HSLs while we have sat on our backsides.

I don't think it was a coincidence that last autumn pretty much the first thing Lord Adonis did as rail minister was to go on a fact-finding trip to Japan.

[Timmer]

Nice to see yesterday's Daily Telegraph where their leader commented on keeping Lord Adonis on as transport secretary after the next election being a good idea:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/telegraph-view/5979413/High-speed-derailment.html

If Lord Adonis, rather than John Prescott, had been in charge of transport when Labour took power, with the money and mandate to do great things, who knows what might have happened? Indeed, if David Cameron wants to give his own transport plans real credibility, he should think laterally, and find a place for Lord Adonis in a Tory government.