HS2: For or against?

[whole diary]

[Btline]

It should be a rounded number. Either 200, 225 or 250. HS1^▸ (High Speed line 1 - St Pancras to Channel Tunnel) should have been 200. Ok, Europe uses km/h, but we now have silly dual unit speed signs, which are a waste of money.

You don't see the M20 as 70 (110). No, British ways start from the start.

This is not an imperial vs metric post, merely some common sense. Seeing as we're going to be using mph for the pubic indefinitely, there should be no compromise. There is nothing to be gained signing HS2^▸ (The next High Speed line(s)) in km/h.

[simonw]

There are several issues regarding HS2^▸ (The next High Speed line(s)) that the government are avoiding.

These include

1 - For HS2 to deliver the performance required, the minimum gap between stations will be large, I am not even sure that London - Birmingham is far enough apart to justify HS2.
2 - If the purpose of HS2 is to provide more capacity, add more current lines on the current routes.
3 - If the purpose of HS2 is to provide more capacity, modify lines to allow double - deck trans.
4 - if the purpose of HS2 is to reduce travel time, introduce smaller, non - stop direct trains.

I am sure that upgrading track on major lines adding, electrifying the whole network and  extra track where needed would be a much better way of spending ^30B

[Btline]

What about the East Midlands? Are we going to have 2 stations with the same name? I worry about South Yorkshire - won't Sheffiled want a station in the city?

[mjones]

There are several issues regarding HS2^▸ (The next High Speed line(s)) that the government are avoiding.

These include

1 - For HS2 to deliver the performance required, the minimum gap between stations will be large, I am not even sure that London - Birmingham is far enough apart to justify HS2.
2 - If the purpose of HS2 is to provide more capacity, add more current lines on the current routes.
3 - If the purpose of HS2 is to provide more capacity, modify lines to allow double - deck trans.
4 - if the purpose of HS2 is to reduce travel time, introduce smaller, non - stop direct trains.

I am sure that upgrading track on major lines adding, electrifying the whole network and  extra track where needed would be a much better way of spending ^30B

These are all arguments you have to support with some actual figures I'm afraid. You can't simply assume these alternatives are cheaper, indeed double decking etc is extremely expensive. The HS2 proposal documents go into a lot of detail as to why the particular route was chosen (summarised here http://highspeedrail.dft.gov.uk/sites/highspeedrail.dft.gov.uk/files/hsr-consultation.pdf ) and what would be involved in alternative approaches. Their conclusion is that the disruption associated with upgrading existing routes is so great that it is more cost effective to build a completely new route. No doubt criticisms can be made of the assumptions behind their calculations, but if you wish to do that you do need to understand what they are, and challenge them on that basis.

[paul7575]

I am sure that upgrading track on major lines adding, electrifying the whole network and  extra track where needed would be a much better way of spending ^30B

But there isn't a sum of ^30bn just sitting around looking for something to spend it on.  If they don't build HS2^▸ (The next High Speed line(s)) it isn't simply a case of using the money for something else however railway related, just as it wouldn't be instantly given to health or education.

Which also means all those roadside placards in Warwickshire which say something like 'high speed train or schools' are a bit silly...

Paul

[mjones]

The fundamental point is that the supporting analysis for HS2^▸ (The next High Speed line(s)) concluded that spending the money on other rail schemes to achieve comparable transport benefits wouldn't provide as good value to the taxpayer. So if HS2 is rejected, it doesn't mean the other schemes will go ahead instead, indeed as they offer worse benefit to cost ratio then the Treasury is unlikely to be interested. 

Personally I find that conclusion disappointing, as I'd prefer to have a steady process of incremental improvements to the existing network rather than a completely new route, partly because of the environmental impacts and partly because incremental improvements would show benefits earlier. However, if the economic analysis concludes that this isn't cost effective then we need to recognise that and understand why. The challenge for those who still advocate spending the money on the existing network is to show that the HS2 analysis is flawed and come up with viable alternatives that deliver better value to the taxpayer, if that is possible. Otherwise we  either go ahead with HS2, or we have to accept much smaller improvements in capacity on the existing network, because the Treasury won't fund enhancements that don't meet its criteria for value for money.

[Electric train]

It should be a rounded number. Either 200, 225 or 250. HS1^▸ (High Speed line 1 - St Pancras to Channel Tunnel) should have been 200. Ok, Europe uses km/h, but we now have silly dual unit speed signs, which are a waste of money.

You don't see the M20 as 70 (110). No, British ways start from the start.

This is not an imperial vs metric post, merely some common sense. Seeing as we're going to be using mph for the pubic indefinitely, there should be no compromise. There is nothing to be gained signing HS2^▸ (The next High Speed line(s)) in km/h.

HS2 will be constructed to SI units, so no chains and miles it will be km, no MPH it will be KPH, loadings in kg and Tonnes and not lbs and Tons and  the catering on board will use metric currency albeit sterling I expect Euros will be accepted as well.

[ellendune]

There are several issues regarding HS2^▸ (The next High Speed line(s)) that the government are avoiding.

These include

1 - For HS2 to deliver the performance required, the minimum gap between stations will be large, I am not even sure that London - Birmingham is far enough apart to justify HS2.
2 - If the purpose of HS2 is to provide more capacity, add more current lines on the current routes.
3 - If the purpose of HS2 is to provide more capacity, modify lines to allow double - deck trans.
4 - if the purpose of HS2 is to reduce travel time, introduce smaller, non - stop direct trains.

I am sure that upgrading track on major lines adding, electrifying the whole network and  extra track where needed would be a much better way of spending ^30B

1. It is nearly twice as far as Rotterdam to Amsterdam and Brussels to Lille, yet these are the normal spacing of stops on high speed rain in Europe.  It is only a little shorter than Brussels to Koln or Brussels to Amsterdam.

2. We have been through the arguments on adding capacity to extsting routes with WC^▸ (Wiltshire Council (Unitary Authority)) Route Modernisation.  The cost are high because of the restrictions on working hours on the existing railway and the cost of disruption.  

3.  Double deck trains would require modifying every overbridge and tunnel on the line at vast expense and disruption to traffic.  We do not have the luxury of the continental loading gauge.

4.  Smaller non stop direct trains would eat line capacity as they would be going at a different speed to the rest of the traffic and would be shorter.  (I am not sure why they would need to be shorter).

Providing additional capacity is not going to be cheap whatever way we do it.  A new line is likely to be the cheaper in the long run unless you think it would be OK to shut down the WCML^▸ (West Coast Main Line) while we upgrade it!  

Incremental improvements to the existing lines are fine if we are looking at removing short bottlenecks, but we are running out of them on the WCML at least.  Incremental improvements over great lengths bring continuous disruption to traffic.  

Please remember London to Birmingham HS2 is an incremental improvement for London to Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds and Scotland

[Btline]

End of poll.

*Clear majority in favour, although sizeable opposition.
*Most people think the chosen route is best.

Thanks for voting!

[Rhydgaled]

...I'd also rather it had a slightly reduced top speed (cutting it to 202mph would save a lot more electricity than it would extend journey time, and it's capacity that's needed more than speed, might be able to avoid any important wildlife habitats slightly more easily too)

Well, it is of course true that energy consumption increases signficantly with speed, however we can't look at the energy used by the trains in isolation from the other modes that people might use instead. Lower speed means longer journey times and that has a large impact on HSR's competitiveness with air and road. So while a reduced speed high speed train will use less energy, it is likely to carry fewer passengers and take fewer from air and road. There is therefore a compromise between the energy used by the train and the ability to attract passengers, however deciding where the optimal speed lies requires complex modelling, taking account of alternative modes, you can't simply assert that an arbitrarily chosen lower speed (precisely 202mph???) will be better.

I'm afraid I cannot remember the source, but seem to remember a graph which showed a fast enough HighSpeed train on the UK^▸ (United Kingdom)'s electricity mix could have a negliable, perhaps even non-existant, reduction in emmisions over car transport. Therefore, I felt that for me to support HS2^▸ (The next High Speed line(s)) it would have to be a compromise between being fast enough to tackle domestic aviation but slow enough that obtaining modal shift from road to HSR would result in a drop in emmisions.

I fear your "adjustments" would involve vastly more tunnelling and hence increases in cost.

Vastly more tunneling, or small increases in tunneling with some track built on a deck above motorways (still expensive might be cheaper than the all tunnel option), would be needed yes. However, it would allow all trains to go beyond Birmingham. A new 140mph line could beat road travel on journey time easily and there's no aviation to compete with on the London-Birmingham leg, therefore no need to push up electricity useage to go faster unless you can go beyond Birmingham after calling there. That's also much better use of capacity, if you want to give Birmingham and Manchester 3 trains per hour each on the government's planned route, you use six paths over the line into Euston. However, route the Manchester services via a central Birmingham through station and you could give both cities 4 trains per while only using that number of paths into Euston.

I guess it really depends on just how massive the increase in cost would be and whether the advantages of Birmingham being a through station would warrant that cost.

I believe the phrase you are looking for is 'number plucked out of mid-air', which naturally leads to the expression 'silly plucker'.

(precisely 202mph???)

I believe the phrase you are looking for is 'number plucked out of mid-air', which naturally leads to the expression 'silly plucker'.

There are 160944 mm in one mile ... so 202 mph is 325 kph.  I'm suspecting a piece of work done in a metric country that showed that a speed between 320 and 330 kph is optimum for something.  Sources, please, Rhydgaled 

Nothing saying it is 'optimum' per see, but you've realised the 202mph figure is based off it being roughly equal to 325kph. If you take 325kph as 202mph and 360kph as 224mph I think the time difference is only around 1.75 seconds per mile, or 1.4586 mins over 50 miles.

I used a graph on page 15 of this document: http://www.hs2.org.uk/assets/x/56774
to try and estimate kWh per seat kilometre figures which came out at 0.054 for 360kph, 0.048 for 330kph and 0.047 for 320kph.
Using the carbon intensity figure of 455 grams of CO2 per kWh from http://www.rssb.co.uk/SiteCollectionDocuments/pdf/reports/research/T618_traction-energy-metrics_final.pdf, I estimate emmisions (gramms of CO2 per seat km) of 24.57 for 360kph, 21.84 for 330kph and 21.385 for 320kph.

I chose the presice 202mph figure for publicity reasons. Firstly, since it is just above 200mph you can say you have 200mph trains, or that you have trains that can exceed 200mph. Now, since we use miles in this country, 200mph would make sense. The only reason I didn't use that figure is by going to 202mph you could call the trains Intercity 325s. If you don't think that particular trick would be good marketing then ok, 200mph would be a better figure to use.

So now you know, I didn't just pluck a number out of the air at random.

It is rather worrying that both the quoted studies, although being produced for British use, are using kilometres rather than miles. Since we didn't adopt metric measurments for distances back when we adopted them for weights and have speed limits signs displaying miles per hour all over the country I think we should stick with miles.

[ellendune]

It is rather worrying that both the quoted studies, although being produced for British use, are using kilometres rather than miles. Since we didn't adopt metric measurments for distances back when we adopted them for weights and have speed limits signs displaying miles per hour all over the country I think we should stick with miles.

Although you say we didn't adopt metric measurements for distances, that is not quite correct.  The engineering professions adopted metric meaurements in 1970.  I have been desiging in metric units for all my 30 year career as a civil engineer.  Any professional study will therefore be done in metric units. For distances that are measured in kilometres sometimes a laypersons summary will be produced in miles, but not in all cases. 

[inspector_blakey]

Although distances on the traditional railway are still more or less exclusively measured in miles and chains (and just read an RAIB^▸ (Rail Accident Investigation Branch) accident report to see what an awkward mixture of metric and imperial units that produces) I have a feeling that 'High Speed 1' uses metric units, and it would seem a logical step for the same to apply to HS2^▸ (The next High Speed line(s)).

Incidentally, isn't the HS1^▸ (High Speed line 1 - St Pancras to Channel Tunnel) linespeed 186 mph because that's 300 kph?

[super tm]

All the distances on the heathrow airport branch are in kilometres

[JayMac]

I'm quite happy either way. In most cases it's a simple bit of arithmetic to convert imperial to metric and vice versa. Despite being taught metric at school I only know my personal measurements in imperial and have to do the maths to find out that I'm 177.5cm tall and 90kg in mass. Equally I'm currently drinking a can of Red Stripe lager which contains 484ml of finest Jamaican nectar which I know, after doing the maths, is exactly 3 imp fl oz short of an imperial pint.

I don't have a particular emotional attachment to units of measurement, that just seems a bit silly to me. So if HS2^▸ (The next High Speed line(s)) is going to be measured in metric that's fine by me. Let's see INTERCITY 325 on the side of the HS2 trains. A graphite grey, silver white and red stripe 'swallow' livery would look quite nice too. Still the best livery the Class 91s have ever had.

Now waiting for inspector_blakey to come back and confuse matters with US liquid measurements.....


NOTE: Edited to correct my bad maths. 484ml is not exactly 17 imp fl ozs. 483.023019464ml is. (Well to 9 decimal places....)

[TerminalJunkie]

*Clear majority in favour, although sizeable opposition.
*Most people think the chosen route is best.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selection_bias