IRP: The winners and losers
Integrated Rail Plan sees West Coast destinations gain but Yorkshire and the North East lose out as plans for high-speed lines scaled back and replaced by conventional line upgrades.
“Scaling back the Eastern leg releases capacity for additional HS2 services to Crewe and beyond”
THE Integrated Rail Plan (IRP) aims to bring together the potential benefits previously proposed by the HS2, Northern Powerhouse Rail (NPR) and Midlands Connect projects. IRP represents a revised approach after the Government decided there is insufficient funding available to meet all of these aspirations for improved rail services developed by Transport Agencies in Northern England and the Midlands, which had a cost of £185 billion.
The new programme set out in the IRP has been severely cut back, with costs reduced to £54 billion, to which £42 billion must be added for previously authorised HS2 Phases 1 (to Birmingham Curzon Street) and 2a (to Crewe).
The decision has to be seen against the background of the Government borrowing more than £500 billion to maintain the economy and employment levels since the Covid-19 pandemic began at the start of 2020.
There will a reduction in the amount of new high-speed infrastructure built, with the result that a lot of improved connectivity between Northern cities has been lost, as many services will continue to use the current network.
Changes are also to be made to the way the NPR project will be delivered. This had been the responsibility of Transport for the North – but, in a reversal of policy to devolve transport decision making, the Government has decided that business case development will become the responsibility of the Department for Transport in London.
HS2 Eastern leg
Although 110 miles on new high-speed infrastructure will be built, the proposed HS2 Eastern leg is to be cut back. The line will end at East Midlands Parkway instead, where it will connect with the existing Midland Main Line and allow through trains to Nottingham, Derby, and Sheffield. The earlier proposal to build a parkway station at Toton to service the East Midlands conurbations has not been seen as a good solution in view of the amount of road traffic that would be generated and the absence of public transport links compared to those that are available at city centre stations. Journey times from London to the centre of Nottingham (57 minutes) and Derby (58 minutes) will improve, as the time taken to reach these from Toton Parkway will no longer be a factor. The current timings are 92 and 86 minutes respectively. The Sheffield journey time is unchanged at 87 minutes, as the original plan involved a spur from the intended HS2 formation using the existing network. This compares with the 118-minute journey currently offered by the fastest services.
The cancellation of the greater part of the Eastern leg causes a significant increase in the original journey time to Leeds (81 minutes), as trains will continue to use the East Coast Main Line (ECML) where improvement to some sections of the route will allow a line speed increase to 140mph.
This will shorten timings to 113 minutes, a 20-minute improvement over the current average journey time, but more than 30 minutes longer than would have been possible with the 225mph HS2 operating speed. To make-up for lost capacity, the plan is to increase the length of East Coast services from nine to 12-car formations.
Although a HS2 terminus was to be built at Leeds, a further section of line was intended to connect with the ECML, which brought dramatic time savings from Birmingham – for example, York would be reached in 57 minutes and Newcastle in 117 minutes. This transformative connectivity has been lost, as the use of long sections of the existing network mean the journey length will now be 110 and 167 minutes respectively.
HS2 Western leg
High-speed access to central Manchester and the Airport will proceed as the HS2 Western leg will be authorised, although the idea of an underground station has not been taken up. Instead, six additional surface level platforms will be provided at Manchester Piccadilly, reducing costs by up to £5 billion. It is expected that, like HS1 from
London to Kent, local services will use the high-speed line for part of their journey.
A consequence of scaling back the Eastern leg is to release capacity for an additional range of HS2 services, which is likely to benefit the Crewe hub and destinations reached from there. A factor that emerged as a result of consultation was that connectivity with North Wales has not been considered and, although through trains will not be provided on the unelectrified route, interchange with services at Crewe will reduce the journey time between London and the coastal towns to a little over two hours.
For point-to-point working, HS2 trains will be made up of two 200-metre long units, which will divide at hubs such as Crewe to reach a greater number of destinations. Carlisle is also to be a hub station, where trains will split to form Glasgow and Edinburgh portions.
NPR rejected
The proposal for a high-speed line described as HS3 between Manchester and Leeds via Bradford has also been curtailed and replaced by a mixture of new construction and upgrades to the existing route. Congestion in the Manchester area means that a 40-mile new line will be built between Warrington and Marsden (the summit of the Diggle route after passing through Standedge Tunnel), with additional running lines provided from there to Huddersfield. This new line will mostly be built on disused trackbeds, effectively reopening closed lines.
The revised NPR plan written by the Department of Transport was critical of providing an additional station at Bradford to serve a new high-speed route as it felt this would not be integrated with existing public transport. As a result, the route between Bradford and Leeds via New Pudsey will be upgraded and electrified, allowing the journey to take place in 12 minutes instead of the current 20 minutes.
It is claimed that journey times on the core Manchester to Leeds section will only worsen by four minutes as a result of the revised project, giving a 33 minute timing against the current 55 minute journey time.
The current frequency of passenger services using the Diggle route precludes its use by freight services. Past rationalisation has created a two-track railway without any facilities to pass slower trains. The opening of new intermodal handling facilities at Immingham is likely to lead to demand for freight trains to reach the North West and, as a result, gauge enhancement is proposed together with additional running lines.
MML and TPE electrification
As a result of the cutback to the HS2 route, the Midland Main Line (MML) will be electrified between Market Harborough and Sheffield to enable highspeed services originating from London and Birmingham to reach Nottingham, Derby, and Sheffield. The journey time reductions are significant as, for example, the travel time between Birmingham and Nottingham will be reduced to 26 minutes compared with 74 minutes in the current timetable.
The NPR route between Liverpool and York, which is to use a combination of new and upgraded infrastructure, will also be electrified throughout – but this will not be extended to Hull as included in the original plan.
As a result of the Woodhead route closure, the Hope
Valley route – which is largely unmodernised – is used for travel between Sheffield and Manchester and it has limited capacity for freight services.
It is the intention to improve the infrastructure to improve journey times and provide greater capacity, but there is no commitment to electrification.
Flexibility in delivery
There has been a long delay in publishing the IRP, and its content can be read as a list of preferred options that could still change. Notably, land acquired to build HS2's Eastern leg is to be retained and the alignment protected from encroachment. Future investment may look beyond demand and instead be judged on the need to reduce emissions. One in every 10 miles travelled in England in 2019 was made by rail, and the goal is to increase this as well as eliminating diesel-powered traction by 2040 and a net-zero outcome for the network as a whole by 2050. Cars and taxis are currently the biggest transport polluters at 55.4% of the total, with heavy goods vehicles at 15.9% and vans at 15.7%. In contrast, bus and coach operations amount to 2.5%, rail 1.4%, and domestic aviation 1.2%. Encouraging the greater use of rail for both passenger and freight operations is at the core of reducing emissions, and this can only be achieved if there is a rail product that offers competitive services.