Open Access
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I sometimes wonder if Christian Wolmar has been following the same HS2 debate as the rest of us ( RAIL 887). Much of what he writes on the subject seems unrelated to the facts and issues that have been discussed over years.
For example, he suggests that it is a “weakness” of HS2 that two-thirds of its users will come from existing rail services.
No, this is not a weakness, but the whole point of the project - to relieve existing lines of the pressure to run the fastest possible long-distance trains. Once this market is served by HS2 (with even faster journeys as a bonus), the existing railways can revert to doing what they are good at - interurban, commuter and freight.
Replacing non-stop trains with services that stop at stations would provide not just London area commuting capacity, but better links between intermediate stations - for instance, facilitating commuting between non-London locations and giving much better access to Birmingham Airport, all of which will add to modal shift.
Then, Wolmar objects to HS2’s “large number of Parkway stations”, but I really can’t see which HS2 he has in mind! Of 33 stations ultimately to be served by HS2 trains:
■ Euston, Manchester Piccadilly and Leeds are co-located with existing stations.
■ Curzon Street is a brand new city centre station.
■ Old Oak Common is an interchange with Crossrail, with little (if any) associated parking.
■ 25 are exactly the same stations as used by existing services.
That leaves just three that might in any way be called “Parkways” - Birmingham Interchange, Manchester Airport, and East Midlands Hub.
The first two, while no doubt many people will drive to them, have clear transport reasons for their existence. Only East Midlands Hub reasonably fits the description “Parkway”, and even then will have significant public transport access, much more extensive than (for example) Bristol Parkway.
But what is wrong with
Parkways anyway? They aim to capture (for rail) people who would otherwise have made a whole journey by car, and serve travellers from a wider city region who do not want to fight congestion to reach a city centre station at which parking costs nearly as much as an off-peak fare (not that there is much parking available anyway, after the morning peak).
William Barter, Towcester
■ “The current HS2 plan is not the best way to spend £80 billion,” heads Christian Wolmar’s piece ( RAIL 887).
Yes, agreed. Dr Beeching is mostly known for line and service closures, but before any of these his first pronouncement was the principle that the railway should concentrate on what it does best and cease trying to be ‘all things to all people’.
Perhaps the basic problem with the current HS2 plan is that it’s attempting to be both a very high speed line and a capacity enhancer, resulting in it ‘falling between two stools’.
It seems to me that while the need for extra capacity is mainly south from Rugby, the most suitable route for very high speed is on longer distances where a ‘sea change’ in day-return possibilities and competitiveness with air could be obtained (beyond Manchester/ Leeds).
It may be better to address these with two separate schemes. Capacity enhancement might be best addressed with a rebuilt
Great Central conventional speed line that junctions onto the West Coast Main Line in the Nuneaton/ Rugby area at much lower cost than HS2 Phase 1, while a high speed line northward from
London could take a cheaper, more direct East Coast alignment to North East England and the Scottish Central Belt.
David Cooper-Smith, Bletchley
■ HS2 is rather like Marmite - you either love or hate it.
However, given the vast sums of money already spent on it, it would be a complete fiasco to cancel HS2 at this point in time, as there would be little or no chance of it being resurrected at some time in the future.
To succeed, it has to be started from all of the major cities that it is intended to serve at the same time, in order to make the best efforts to keep to schedule and budget. If not, the risk is that it will get no further than Crewe (at best) or Birmingham (at worst).
I am also mystified as to why there is a need to have it split north of Crewe and serve
Liverpool and Manchester separately. Surely it would be more economical to have it routed directly to Manchester, where on its approach to Piccadilly station it could run via a tunnel to a new underground station, after which it could continue in a tunnel until a suitable point is reached where it could resurface on the way to Liverpool?
Somewhere between these cities, there could be a junction established for the route onwards to the North. This should reduce the overall cost of HS2. There may also be an added benefit when HS3 finally comes to fruition - it could share the approach to Manchester, thereby avoiding adding to the workload of the existing station and providing an east to west Northern rail corridor suitable for the 21st century.
David Raine, Fife
■ So, HS2 may arrive between five and seven years later than expected, and the potential cost is likely to be £88 billion. The whole scheme north of Birmingham may be delayed until 2040.
These changes were outlined by HS2 Ltd Chairman Allan Cook, who said the original plans did not take account of the effect of building high-speed lines through densely populated areas with challenging ground conditions.
In RAIL 886, a news item announced the cost of the Aberdeen-Inverness upgrade to deliver increased train frequency. The scheme cost £322 million for work on a ten-mile section, and Network Rail laid nearly 17 miles of track to dual the line over the ten miles.
More than 450 staff worked for 15 weeks on the project, which was carried out on land that was already owned by Network Rail or Transport Scotland. No new land had to be bought or public inquiries held.
Now, I know Christian Wolmar is no fan of HS2, but he said (in his regular column in the same issue) something quite interesting: “No one has the foggiest idea how many people are likely to use HS2 when the line to Birmingham first opens, or indeed how many will desert the West Coast [Main Line] for it.”
I can tell him who will use HS2: the great and the good, the chattering masses of politicians or people who do not have to buy their own ticket themselves. The rest of us not on expense accounts or ‘counting our coppers’ will continue to use the West Coast Main Line, assuming we are not denied that opportunity.
The time gained by the use of high speed is not worth the cost for ordinary passengers. They will not pay a premium by choice.
In any event, many of the WCML trains in the morning are carrying fresh air north of Milton Keynes or Birmingham. The trains become busy when the peak restrictions end. Trains are busy coming into Euston in the morning rush period, but not going out.
Will passenger numbers increase sufficiently to provide enough fare-paying passengers to pay for HS2 without compelling nearly all of the present users of the WCML to move to HS2?
A J Slatter, Reigate
■ Would it not be better to have a ‘startup HS2’ begin from the existing facilities at Waterloo, as was the case of HS1? And when the numbers prove themselves, then build the expensive section into Euston.
Perhaps, using Waterloo, the route to Lille could be reopened - thus linking the various high-speed networks together.
The Waterloo start should go through Heathrow, then to Birmingham International and Manchester Airport, with spurs to Curzon Street, Birmingham and Manchester Piccadilly (the old Goods Terminal). The route would then continue on to Leeds.
The plan must be built around London/Manchester and then the North, not Birmingham, because that is where it will stop when they run out of money. The route should also follow the M40 corridor, where the countryside has already been blighted by the motorway.
Neil Adams, Surrey
I live in Birmingham but travel by train to London and places such as Manchester and Leeds, so HS2 would be beneficial for me - subject to the fare.
I also recognise that the HS2 case should be about capacity, and not all about speed.
However, I think questions need to be asked about why it is costing so much and taking so long.
Is there a case of overspecification and too much tunnelling, or is there an element of profiteering because of the way the HS2 scheme has been conceived, surveyed, designed and proposed to be built?
Also, why does it now take so long to build a new line, given that in the 19th century it was manual labour and dynamite versus today’s machinery and technologies?
Something does not quite add up, even allowing for improved Health and Safety regimes together with the desire to survey/ assess matter to the minutest degree - and to move every Great Crested Newt to a new home.
Again, I do not know the answer, but how does HS2 benchmark versus other similar high-speed projects elsewhere?
Terry Ryan, Birmingham
■ My understanding of the need for HS2 relates to capacity problems. It would clearly be impracticable to widen the majority of the West Coast Main Line to six (or even in places eight) tracks without a considerable demolition of property.
But I have what I hope would be the solution for residents in the Chilterns, who seem to be those most upset by the proposals.
My solution would be to close every station between Euston and Rugby, and between Marylebone and Leamington Spa. The space freed up on the slow lines could be devoted exclusively to freight traffic.
As for the Home Counties commuters who do not like the prospect of railways, they could always drive in their cars to the DC electric termini at Watford Junction or Stanmore and travel in on the Tube to London.
You will appreciate that I am joking, but the point needs to be made to the Home Counties commuters that HS2 is really about capacity.
And if you are having to build a new line to accommodate the traffic, you might just as well make this fit for higher speeds than could be obtained by a simple widening of the existing route. Anyone who has ridden at the sharp end of a train out of London will know just how curving the route is.
R M Napier, Cheshire
■ Regarding the excellent summary of HS2 in William Barter’s letter ( Open Access, RAIL
882): Towcester’s bus services do not serve the railway stations at Northampton or Milton Keynes Central, and their continuation is in jeopardy due to low usage.
Readers should be made aware that Plan:MK now only awaits the formal signature of the Communities Secretary for it to become our local law for the next 30 years.
Among other things, it foresees the population of Milton Keynes rising from the current 270,000 to around 500,000. A proportion of this increased population will have to commute to London .
Leonard Lean, Milton Keynes
■ I appreciate you are strong advocates for HS2, but I have to ask: why is this costing so much?
To date we have spent £7 billion …on what? Directors, consultant fees? Fully reopening the Great Central Main Line makes more sense. We don’t need consultants to rebuild viaducts.
R Gunn, Newcastle upon Tyne
■ Birmingham should be careful what it wishes for. Linking a city with a larger one diminishes it, by the drain of talent. Solihull will become a dormitory commuter suburb of London.
Curzon Street plans have poor links with local and regional services, and as yet no provision for any trains to continue to the Black Country and Wolverhampton.
David van Rest (Former Vice-Chairman, Midlands TUCC)