Could HS2 still go via East Midlands Parkway (EMD)?

[Archie810]

Just a quick question. Is HS2 still planned to go to East Midlands Parkway and then to Leeds on the MML or has that section been cancelled too?

 

[duffield]

Just a quick question. Is HS2 still planned to go to East Midlands Parkway and then to Leeds on the MML or has that section been cancelled too?

Cancelled by the previous government, well before the Manchester leg was finally cancelled.

 

[chris2]

The leg north of East Midlands Parkway was the first to be cancelled, but the leg from delta junction in that direction was ostensibly still planned to be built under the name HS2E until the Sunaxe in Oct 23. Manchester got all the attention in that announcement and there was widespread scepticism that HS2E would ever be built long before that point, hence why it wasn’t well reported.

I always imagined that linking the West and East Midlands would be akin to the northern powerhouse project in terms of bringing regional economic centres closer together. But it probably wasn’t transformative enough on its own, and the political pushback much less than Manchester, so it never really stood a chance.

On the ground today are some very early stage outlines of works to produce the double track known as the ‘Leeds spur’ which would have been the start of this section. But I don’t know whether any structures for the junction that would carry these tracks will actually be built, let alone whether any track would ever be laid on them. Hopefully they will leave it such that any extension can be added with minimal disruption. Delta junction itself retains the original design that would allow trains from both directions to proceed both to Birmingham and London. Had they descoped this - for example by taking out the lines that carry trains from the north into Birmingham, that would have been a real blow to any prospect of future expansion.

 

[edwin_m]

On the ground today are some very early stage outlines of works to produce the double track known as the ‘Leeds spur’ which would have been the start of this section. But I don’t know whether any structures for the junction that would carry these tracks will actually be built, let alone whether any track would ever be laid on them. Hopefully they will leave it such that any extension can be added with minimal disruption. Delta junction itself retains the original design that would allow trains from both directions to proceed both to Birmingham and London. Had they descoped this - for example by taking out the lines that carry trains from the north into Birmingham, that would have been a real blow to any prospect of future expansion.

The curve from the stub to Handsacre into Birmingham is likely to be needed for empty stock to transfer between Washwood Heath and the North West, but I don't believe it will carry passengers unless the proposed connection from near Lichfield to near Manchester Airport is reinstated.

I believe all these junctions, including Handsacre and the stub towards East Midlands, were part of the Phase 1 scope for which contracts had been let before Sunak cancelled all the rest. These may be built as originally planned or there may be some de-scoping of the infrastructure of the latter junction, but either way the design should still make provision for them so in principle they could be added back later. However, with the East Midlands having little political clout compared to the West Midlands or the North, I don't see it happening any time soon.

 

[Snow1964]

Like the phase 2 towards Crewe it is cancelled, but in reality is in a sort of suspended status. As far as I am aware any land already bought is being retained for now.

 

[InTheEastMids]

Just a quick question. Is HS2 still planned to go to East Midlands Parkway and then to Leeds on the MML or has that section been cancelled too?

To add to the responses above, in an August 2024 email to Rushcliffe Council relating to the proposed redevelopment of Ratcliffe on Soar Power Station site (24/01356/SCREIA), HS2 said the following:

Whilst we have no specific observations to make, the applicant is advised that part of the application site falls within land that is currently safeguarded for construction and/or operation of HS2 Phase 2b (Crewe to Manchester and Birmingham to Leeds). Although the Government have announced the cancellation of HS2 Phase 2, Safeguarding Directions are still in place. As such, the applicant is advised to closely follow future Government announcements.

Upon further investigation, the safeguarding for currently cancelled HS2 phases are accessed from the link below, and as far as I can tell, still in force.

HS2 safeguarding for developers and local authorities

For developers and local authorities who require further information on HS2 safeguarding.

www.gov.uk

 

[FMerrymon]

Upon further investigation, the safeguarding for currently cancelled HS2 phases are accessed from the link below, and as far as I can tell, still in force.

Yes, the only part of the original route of hs2 that's not safeguarded is phase2a. Says rather a lot about what the government was trying to do there.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

The curve from the stub to Handsacre into Birmingham is likely to be needed for empty stock to transfer between Washwood Heath and the North West, but I don't believe it will carry passengers unless the proposed connection from near Lichfield to near Manchester Airport is reinstated.

Curzon St to Crewe and beyond (eg to Manchester/Scotland) will use that curve surely?

 

[edwin_m]

Curzon St to Crewe and beyond (eg to Manchester/Scotland) will use that curve surely?

I don't believe there will be any such service now, due to capacity constraints north of Handsacre.

 

[HSTEd]

I don't believe there will be any such service now, due to capacity constraints north of Handsacre.

I think a London-Birmingham-Manchester train has a reasonable chance of being competitive with the existing classic timing from London to Manchester, so I would not be surprised if such a thing is created.

It would easily beat Manchester-Birmingham via Wolverhampton.

EDIT:

As to reaching East Midlands - if electrification reaches Nottingham/Sheffield you might be able to make a case for a connection between the eastern leg stub and the Birmingham-Derby line.

But otherwise there are no 320kph capable electrodiesels available, so it'd mean permanently abandoning the 18 train per hour dream to serve the MML via HS2.

 

[styles]

I mean it could, in the same way HS2 could go to Mallaig or Holyhead.

Is it going to? Very unlikely.

Certainly not in a helpful timescale.

 

[Bald Rick]

I think a London-Birmingham-Manchester train has a reasonable chance of being competitive with the existing classic timing from London to Manchester, so I would not be surprised if such a thing is created.

But why?

 

[Nottingham59]

But why?

Same reason that Avanti runs London -Birmingham-Glasgow. It fills trains, and allows the TOC to segment the market by providing a cheaper but slower through service.

The economics would only work on HS2 if the trains were 400m, maximising the passenger flow through the Colwich bottleneck

 

[Bald Rick]

Same reason that Avanti runs London -Birmingham-Glasgow. It fills trains, and allows the TOC to segment the market by providing a cheaper but slower through service.

The economics would only work on HS2 if the trains were 400m, maximising the passenger flow through the Colwich bottleneck

Sorry i didn‘t explain. There is capacity for three Manchester trains through Colwich. Why send one via Birmingham?

 

[HSTEd]

But why?

It would easily beat Birmingham-Manchester on the classic line, reducing overcrowding there relatively inexpensively, although obviously weakening the trains usability for Manchester-London traffic.

It would be preferable for Colwich to have a path for a separate Manchester Birmingham train, but if there were free paths, they'd probably already be used I guess.

 

[Nottingham59]

There is capacity for three Manchester trains through Colwich. Why send one via Birmingham?

To serve the Birmingham - Manchester market. It's not a big as London - Manchester, but still an important flow.
Curzon St to Manchester via HS2 and Stoke would be faster than New St to Manchester via Wolverhampton.

== == ==

But there's capacity for more than 3tph to Manchester from HS2 phase one. The rail network south of Manchester can currently handle the following, in addition to stopping services.

• 4tph via Stoke (currently used by 2 Avanti, 2 Cross County)
• 1tph via Wilmslow (Avanti),
• 1tph via Warrington and Chat Moss to Victoria (Lumo)

If you kept one cross country via Wolverhampton, then the other Cross County path could be used for OOC-Birmingham-Manchester HS2 service. The Stoke Stopper could extend to Wolverhampton to back fill.

That could give you five London - Manchester services through Colwich, three HS2 direct, one HS2 via Curzon St, and one Pendolino via WCML.

And if all the HS2 trains via Crewe were 400m, splitting en route, then that would provide 2tph x 200m for Liverpool and 2tph x 200m for Preston and beyond, in addition to the 5tph terminating in Manchester.

 

[Bald Rick]

To serve the Birmingham - Manchester market. It's not a big as London - Manchester, but still an important flow.
Curzon St to Manchester via HS2 and Stoke would be faster than New St to Manchester via Wolverhampton.

== == ==

But there's capacity for more than 3tph to Manchester from HS2 phase one. The rail network south of Manchester can currently handle the following, in addition to stopping services.

• 4tph via Stoke (currently used by 2 Avanti, 2 Cross County)
• 1tph via Wilmslow (Avanti),
• 1tph via Warrington and Chat Moss to Victoria (Lumo)

If you kept one cross country via Wolverhampton, then the other Cross County path could be used for OOC-Birmingham-Manchester HS2 service. The Stoke Stopper could extend to Wolverhampton to back fill.

That could give you five London - Manchester services through Colwich, three HS2 direct, one HS2 via Curzon St, and one Pendolino via WCML.

And if all the HS2 trains via Crewe were 400m, splitting en route, then that would provide 2tph x 200m for Liverpool and 2tph x 200m for Preston and beyond, in addition to the 5tph terminating in Manchester.

You’re missing a few points.

1) Manchester has three direct London services per hour today. The business case for HS2 is additional capacity and journey time savings. With just Phase 1 there isn’t additional capacity for additional Manchester services through Colwich - it’s 7 long distance high speed services per hour max, and that will be 3 x Manchester, 2 x Liverpool, 1 x Scotland, and 1 x N Wales. So to include a Manchester via Birmingham, you lose a direct Manchester, and lose the journey time benefit.

2) Passengers on the Cross Country Birmingham - Manchester services are overwhelmingly not travelling from Birmingham to Manchester. They are using intermediate stops, and/or travelling from south of Birmingham. Under Phase 1 such a service via HS2 could still serve Stoke, Macclesfield, Combleton and Stockport, but not Staffird and Wolves, nor serve south of Birmingham. What happens here?

3) there isnt a Lumo service via Warrington, and (IMHO) very unlikely to be.

4) How much faster would Birmingham - Manchester via HS1, Colwch and Stoke actually be compared to via Wolverhampton ? Remember that HS2 trains won’t tilt, and that CrossCountry will have electric trains soon after HS2 opens.

 

[The Planner]

4) How much faster would Birmingham - Manchester via HS1, Colwch and Stoke actually be compared to via Wolverhampton ? Remember that HS2 trains won’t tilt, and that CrossCountry will have electric trains soon after HS2 opens.

Rugeley Piccadilly is 54 minutes. New St to Picc is 88. Curzon St to Handsacre and no tilt will still beat the 34 you have to play with.

 

[Bald Rick]

Rugeley Piccadilly is 54 minutes. New St to Picc is 88. Curzon St to Handsacre and no tilt will still beat the 34 you have to play with.

Yep, but Rugeley - Piccadilly at 54 mins includes tilt and not stopping at Macc; add those in plus Handsacre to Rugeley and its going to be over an hour on the classic WCML. Electrics on cross country would be likely to shave a couple of minutes off the via Wolves time (usual comments about being able to make use of it in the timetable apply, albeit I’d expect a massive recast). And I reckon 15 mins Curzon St start to Handsacre Jn pass. So, my amateur train planning reckons around 1h19 for an HS2 service via Handsacre, vs (potentially) 1h25 via Wolves. Essentially, 6 mins quicker but giving Wolves, Stafford and many important stations south of Birmingham worse connectivity to Manchester. Can’t see the benefit in that.

 

[The Planner]

Yep, but Rugeley - Piccadilly at 54 mins includes tilt and not stopping at Macc; add those in plus Handsacre to Rugeley and its going to be over an hour on the classic WCML. Electrics on cross country would be likely to shave a couple of minutes off the via Wolves time (usual comments about being able to make use of it in the timetable apply, albeit I’d expect a massive recast). And I reckon 15 mins Curzon St start to Handsacre Jn pass. So, my amateur train planning reckons around 1h19 for an HS2 service via Handsacre, vs (potentially) 1h25 via Wolves. Essentially, 6 mins quicker but giving Wolves, Stafford and many important stations south of Birmingham worse connectivity to Manchester. Can’t see the benefit in that.

Its 56 with a Macc stop. Its certainly being looked at though and I reckon it would quite easily 10 quicker.

 

[HSTEd]

Yep, but Rugeley - Piccadilly at 54 mins includes tilt and not stopping at Macc; add those in plus Handsacre to Rugeley and its going to be over an hour on the classic WCML. Electrics on cross country would be likely to shave a couple of minutes off the via Wolves time (usual comments about being able to make use of it in the timetable apply, albeit I’d expect a massive recast). And I reckon 15 mins Curzon St start to Handsacre Jn pass. So, my amateur train planning reckons around 1h19 for an HS2 service via Handsacre, vs (potentially) 1h25 via Wolves. Essentially, 6 mins quicker but giving Wolves, Stafford and many important stations south of Birmingham worse connectivity to Manchester. Can’t see the benefit in that.

Cross Country requires 52 minutes to do Stoke-on-Trent to Birmingham via Wolverhampton with stops at Stafford and Wolverhampton.

ICWC requires 15 minutes to do Stoke-on-Trent to Rugeley. Even naively scaling by the 95EPS125 or 90EPS110 would leave that about 18 minutes or so. Tilt doesn't seem to significantly change the situation, the journey time advantage via Colwich would still be pretty large.

As to pasenger numbers, last year passengers from Manchester Piccadilly were:

1. Birmingham New Street - 204,876
2. Stafford - 68,033
3. Wolverhampton - 62,880

So the passengers to Stafford and Wolverhampton are much smaller than passengers to Birmingham.

 

[Halifaxlad]

I think there is an argument for building HS2 to EMP, any section beyomd that should really be a seperate matter.

Question is, should it be highspeed slab or conventional ballast track ?

I would keep the alignment as proposed which would enable 225mph regular running but some reckon ballasted track would make it a third cheaper, 140mph would still be achievable and drastically reduce journey times between the East and West Midlands.

 

[Nottingham59]

I think there is an argument for building HS2 to EMP,

Well it's a shorter distance (45km) than Phase 2a from Fradley Junction to Crewe (58km), though Trent junctions would need interventions to accommodate the extra traffic. A through HS2 service via Curzon St would knock spots off the current three hours from Nottingham to Liverpool.

 

[HSTEd]

I would keep the alignment as proposed which would enable 225mph regular running but some reckon ballasted track would make it a third cheaper, 140mph would still be achievable and drastically reduce journey times between the East and West Midlands.

I am very skeptical of such drastic cost savings from switching to ballast track - which will obviously have structural implications and increased maintenance needs.

But there is no point building the line to East Midlands unless the northern Midland Main line is to be electrified, since no electrodiesels of sufficient performance are available.

 

[Bald Rick]

I think there is an argument for building HS2 to EMP, any section beyomd that should really be a seperate matter.

Question is, should it be highspeed slab or conventional ballast track ?

I would keep the alignment as proposed which would enable 225mph regular running but some reckon ballasted track would make it a third cheaper, 140mph would still be achievable and drastically reduce journey times between the East and West Midlands.

There’s a lot more questions before you get to the ballast v slab one!

Ballasted track would not make it a third cheaper. It would make the track about a third cheaper - that’s about £1m per track km cheaper.

I am very skeptical of such drastic cost savings from switching to ballast track - which will obviously have structural implications and increased maintenance needs.

Not much in the way of structural cost. Maintenance - for a railway that might have 4(?) trains an hour, not much.

 

[Ben427]

There’s a lot more questions before you get to the ballast v slab one!

Ballasted track would not make it a third cheaper. It would make the track about a third cheaper - that’s about £1m per track km cheaper.



Not much in the way of structural cost. Maintenance - for a railway that might have 4(?) trains an hour, not much.

There's no point in building it just for four trains an hour; any new infrastructure would need to be used to deliver further capacity improvements in the region.

 

[edwin_m]

There's no point in building it just for four trains an hour; any new infrastructure would need to be used to deliver further capacity improvements in the region.

On its own it would most likely have 2TPH London to Sheffield (via Derby) and 2TPH London to Nottingham, and potentially 2TPH fast Birmingham-Nottingham and maybe Birmingham-Sheffield. However most of the existing services would have to continue to provide regional connectivity, so multiple extra paths would be needed through Trent.

 

[Bald Rick]

There's no point in building it just for four trains an hour; any new infrastructure would need to be used to deliver further capacity improvements in the region.

On its own it would most likely have 2TPH London to Sheffield (via Derby) and 2TPH London to Nottingham, and potentially 2TPH fast Birmingham-Nottingham and maybe Birmingham-Sheffield. However most of the existing services would have to continue to provide regional connectivity, so multiple extra paths would be needed through Trent.

I’d be surprised f there was more than one an hour London to Nottingham, at least initially. There simply isn’t the market. And I’m certain that there isn’t the capacity through Trent Junctions.

 

[Palmerston]

On its own it would most likely have 2TPH London to Sheffield (via Derby) and 2TPH London to Nottingham, and potentially 2TPH fast Birmingham-Nottingham and maybe Birmingham-Sheffield.

And this is why 6 platforms at Euston is a poor choice. Probably what will happen too.

 

[Mikey C]

The leg north of East Midlands Parkway was the first to be cancelled, but the leg from delta junction in that direction was ostensibly still planned to be built under the name HS2E until the Sunaxe in Oct 23. Manchester got all the attention in that announcement and there was widespread scepticism that HS2E would ever be built long before that point, hence why it wasn’t well reported.

I always imagined that linking the West and East Midlands would be akin to the northern powerhouse project in terms of bringing regional economic centres closer together. But it probably wasn’t transformative enough on its own, and the political pushback much less than Manchester, so it never really stood a chance.

At the time I was surprised by the lack of comment and "outrage" about this part of the cancellation, when in some ways it was quite an attractive concept, delivering a high speed service from London to Derby and Nottingham via Birmingham and EMP for a relatively low cost.

I guess the lack of an Andy Burnham figure meant it got overlooked.