HS2 Matters

HSUK: for and against.

OVER the past few issues of RAIL, HS2 Matters has covered details of the alternative high-speed scheme High Speed UK (HSUK). This has generated responses from many readers, both in favour of an alternative to HS2 and also against the revised suggestion for high-speed in this country. Here is a selection of your views:

Finally! Someone is bold enough to state the glaringly obvious - that the currently-planned HS2 route is simply wrong. It just has to be wrong if trains serving Nottingham and points north have unnecessarily to detour around 60 miles via Birmingham!

Overall, the proposed HSUK alternative network, with the main spine tracing (in part) the euro-focused and ahead-of-its-time Great Central and thus including Leicester, is far superior and has everything to commend it.

Of course, there are aspects that could be argued. Surely the Birmingham/Manchester arm should be double-tracked, in keeping with the main north/south spine? And the omission of a direct loop to Sunderland/ Teesside stands out.

Conversely, given that HS2 is principally designed to help develop economic benefit in the Midlands and the North, most stops suggested south of Leicester are superfluous.

These are hardly target locations for most long-distance travellers, and they already benefit from regular, fast services to the capital. Moreover, any time saving within 50 or so miles of London would be insignificant, as well as adding time to HS2’s essentially longdistance services - contrary to the high-speed ethos. And can we really justify dedicated, direct HS2 services to Heathrow? I fancy the demand for that is more in the realms of fantasy than reality!

One final thought: instead of trying to reconfigure Euston (or St Pancras), why not expand Stratford as the main London HS2 station? It is better connected, placed and suited as a through station for this purpose, and already sits on the Channel Tunnel link.

Let’s hope it’s not too late to change course and adopt this HSUK alternative. And, at the same time, should we not also be laying plans for a high-speed network to southern and southwestern hubs? This area is constantly neglected at government level for modern transport upgrades. Philip Camm, Uppingham

It is great that HS2 Matters gave space to High Speed UK ( RAIL 805). I have campaigned for high-speed rail since long before HS2, because high-speed rail takes me to the city centres - compared with flying to an airport a long way out.

HSUK serving existing city centre stations is a long way superior to HS2’s parkways located at places no one wants to visit. The way that city centres are connected in HSUK is a very big start in improving connectivity towards the agenda of Transport for the North and Midlands Connect.

While HSUK does not offer all the answers for the West Coast Main Line, it has been designed with great thought to improving the economies of Northern cities. It will be far better for the UK than HS2, which is too London-centric in its 1980s ‘great car economy’ approach. Graham Nalty, Derby

Having looked at the maps on the High Speed UK website, I must say they show improvements to the network that will last many decades. And they will improve the journeys for vastly more people than HS2 will, as these improvements cover such a massive area of the country.

There are also significant improvements to speed and the distribution of freight.

These are all-round imaginative and sensible improvements to the rail system. Victor Creasey, by email

The defence of HSUK strategy ( RAIL 805) is unconvincing. Efforts would be better directed to ensuring that the new National Infrastructure Commission (NIC) provides a strong base for national strategy and funding for phased development over the next 25 years, providing a framework within which stronger action on transport investment, pricing and funding can be developed at regional level in conjunction with closer links with land use policies and the national aim of a better spread of population and employment.

Given the time and effort already devoted to Phase 1 of HS2, it is not realistic to suggest an alternative route between London and Birmingham/Lichfield.

What remains desirable in the short term is a review of HS2 station design and location, along with an extended period for ‘classic’ trains to operate on (and beyond) a new HS2 route with maximum speeds on HSR of no more than 200mph.

As suggested in HSUK, this action should be complemented by greater attention to improvements in the overall inter-city rail network, and identification of where such improvements (and the initial section of HS2) could facilitate enlarged capacity for city transport, longer-distance regional commuting and rail freight.

Such an approach could reduce pressure for large increases in road investment, while contributing to impressive cuts in the total operating and social costs of transport operations.

The HSUK plans include some 700 miles of continuous new high-speed rail plus some use of existing and upgraded route and links to some airports. Yet they lack any reference to links directly north from London, to the South West and Wales, and to the continental mainland and major container ports.

Stansted Airport gets no mention, nor does the need for more resilient routes to the South West and on corridors such as from Norwich/ Cambridge to Oxford and Bristol. Preston and Carlisle are ignored, while Glasgow is served by a totally new route from London via Edinburgh that does not offer the three-hour trip times needed to enable Anglo-Scottish rail

services to capture a much larger share of the domestic air/rail market (and confirmed by HS2 Ltd as being possible with limited WCML upgrades north of Crewe rather than a totally new route).

These defects weaken confidence in the HSUK proposals. They need major revision to capture the attention of NIC and other interested parties.

The prime emphasis should be on the need for upgrades and extensions of existing inter and intra-regional rail networks with perhaps 300 miles of continuous new high-speed rail route by 2036, and an equivalent length of new construction for city transit and for relatively short new links and extensions to improve (and add resilience to) the inter-regional network - including some quadruple-tracking and sections raised to 140mph or 150mph operation. Tom Hart, Beith

Having read the section in HS2 Matters about HSUK, I turned to its website to see if I could agree with its opinions. I could not - HSUK has left out (or not taken into account) a number of things.

I live near the Midland Main Line (MML) four-track section between Brent Cross and Luton. This is already a very busy line, and it is planned to get even busier with the new freight depot to be built at Radlett. Locals have been told that could be between ten and 15 trains a day - and because what arrives also departs, that means 20 to 30 movements.

Last year, RAIL featured a ‘cab ride’ from the Acton area in London to north of Bedford ( RAIL 775). The driver was worried about missing paths due to rush hours, and was parked up waiting for a path for his return run.

Also GB Railfreight Managing Director John Smith has repeatedly stated the case for doubletrack from the docks in Felixstowe to Ipswich, and a possible increase from 30+ to 50 freight trains a day. Many will cross the MML when the Oxford to Cambridge line is reinstated, part of which must be the HSUK route between Luton and Milton Keynes.

Over the years, whenever a new station has been built, houses and factories are built ribbon-style by the track (for example, at Elstree, Radlett, St Albans and Luton, then further on at Bletchley, Milton Keynes and Northampton).

So is the plan to demolish whole rows of houses? Or just the gardens, so that the freight and the slow all-stop passenger trains can ‘park up’, just as they did years ago at stations while they waited for the expresses to rush through awaiting a spare path?

I understand that the track alongside the M1 near Daventry will be upgraded to four tracks.

But all the extra trains that would previously have used the MML will now be running on the WCML, as will the freight traffic for Daventry (now one of the busiest main freight depots in the UK), which means that stations like Nuneaton will be swamped. As I understand it, the whole idea of HS2 was to be able to increase capacity for both passengers and freight on the WCML.

The only bit I agreed with was the part about a 40 to 50-mile gap between stations for possibly every other train or maybe every third train. Fit in Crewe, perhaps Aylesbury Parkway for the East-West line for Oxford and Bletchley, and it’s only a few miles from Theale - so access for about a million people.

Bill Shepherd, St Albans

A quick glance at HSUK’s fully networked alternative to HS2 shows it to be full of flaws. For example, Lancashire does not seem to exist, in so far as there are no proposals for connection to the high-speed network north of Liverpool/Manchester. Yet Preston is one of the busiest stations on the West Coast Main Line, and is the main railhead for over a million people from the Preston City Region, Blackpool and the Fylde Coast (together with East Lancashire).

Also, it hardly makes sense that a timing from London to Glasgow, by far the largest conurbation in Scotland, will be greater than London to Edinburgh by reason of the fact that the proposed route passes through Edinburgh on its way to Glasgow. Jack Rogers, Garstang

In RAIL 803 I posed eight questions to HSUK, all of which need answering to allow the viability of its scheme to be assessed. Sadly, in its response ( RAIL 805), it has answered none of them, simply repeating its unsubstantiated assertions with a couple of sideswipes at HS2 to distract attention.

Even the simplest of questions - the length of train HSUK proposes to operate - has been ignored. This is fundamental to the passenger capacity offered, to the station designs and all the costs that flow from that, and to the vehiclemileage costs of energy and maintenance. You cannot design a railway unless you know how long its trains are going to be.

It refers to “trains too large to fit onto the existing network”, as if it had never heard of HS2’s ‘classic compatible’ units. Whether any continental gauge units are built as well is a choice, but would it not be gross stupidity to design the new infrastructure to exclude them? William Barter, Towcester