HS2 Old Oak Common Station - What should it be called?

[cle]

Old Oak Common is fine. Nobody had heard of Ebbsfleet. That's the thing with brownfield development. But us in West London knew it, it's legitimatized by street naming and so forth - so why give it another name when it's already become established in the HS2 vernacular?

Lines are not place names. And ours especially tend to evolve into obsequious tributes, so never assume settled

 

[edwin_m]

It certainly shouldn't include the word "Parkway" or be marketed as a station intended to be accessed by car. It's quite near the A40 but the local road access looks pretty terrible and I've not heard of any intention to improve it much. Decent public transport links, and the quicker journeys meaning people don't have to catch trains before their local rail network starts in the morning, probably mean there isn't much need for people to drive there anyway.

 

[Aictos]

Of course to save any confusion you could just rename it Old Oak Common (London) but that would infer that there was another place with the same name which I don't think exists.

 

[cle]

It certainly shouldn't include the word "Parkway" or be marketed as a station intended to be accessed by car. It's quite near the A40 but the local road access looks pretty terrible and I've not heard of any intention to improve it much. Decent public transport links, and the quicker journeys meaning people don't have to catch trains before their local rail network starts in the morning, probably mean there isn't much need for people to drive there anyway.

Definitely not. Roads are horrible as well, re buses. I wonder if the Oxford Tube etc might switch to here from Hillingdon though, plus NEx.

And seemingly, even the public transport links are being stripped away. The Overground connectivity is so critical, I hope it comes back into the equation.

 

[MarkyT]

It certainly shouldn't include the word "Parkway" or be marketed as a station intended to be accessed by car. It's quite near the A40 but the local road access looks pretty terrible and I've not heard of any intention to improve it much. Decent public transport links, and the quicker journeys meaning people don't have to catch trains before their local rail network starts in the morning, probably mean there isn't much need for people to drive there anyway.

It will still be a lot better than the central London terminals for road access, and I suspect will end up with a fairly substantial car park. I don't agree with the term parkway being used in names either, mainly because most major stations today have plenty of spaces today, so the nominal 'parkways' are no longer unusual in this respect. Anything involving 'interchange', 'hub' etc would be better in my view to represent its multimodal and likely EVOLVING role as more and more local transport gets gradually gets focussed on the facility, but what do I know!

 

[LLivery]

I'll be badly surprised if OOC will have a big car park. Clapham Junction manages fine without.

Stephenson fans may have something to say about the premier London to Birmingham main line calling at 'Brunel Junction'!

Hmmm, that's a fair point!

 

[Verulamius]

It will be quite strange to have a brand new station called "Old Oak Common". Why not call it "New Oak Common"?

 

[HST43257]

What about Old Oak Interchange?

Got to show what the station is partly for

 

[miami]

Yes, HS2 will be compulsory reservation and allocated seats, as far as I know.

Says who. Why bother with high frequencies if you're not going to let people use them. Why have a thousands seats on a train if you're not going to let people just walk onto them for a Manchester-Airport journey. What happens when there's a delay to your inbound train and you have to get the next one?

Go down this route you might as well call it "London White Elephant"

 

[Bletchleyite]

Says who. Why bother with high frequencies if you're not going to let people use them. Why have a thousands seats on a train if you're not going to let people just walk onto them for a Manchester-Airport journey. What happens when there's a delay to your inbound train and you have to get the next one?

Go down this route you might as well call it "London White Elephant"

HS2 is not about Manchester to Manchester Airport or London to Heathrow (via OOC) journeys. Why does the Ringway tail have to wag the dog of the rest of the railway network so much?

The Manchester Airport station is more of a "South Manchester Parkway" for journeys to London, effectively replacing Stockport. It's called Manchester Airport because that's where it is, that's all.

It might be convenient for those journeys, but its operational approach should not be predicated on them any more than Avanti West Coast's operational approach should be predicated on Milton Keynes commuters. (Notably, the tail often wags the dog the other way - LNR's ill-advised conquest of Liverpool passengers made life very hard for their core market of commuters for a number of months).

What about Old Oak Interchange?

Got to show what the station is partly for

"Old Oak Interchange for London Heathrow Airport"?

(note: ref the above, this would be for people travelling to Heathrow from the north; it's not going to harm Crossrail's business one bit)

 

[Sad Sprinter]

I've said it before and I'll say it again-North Pole Junction.

 

[swt_passenger]

Says who. Why bother with high frequencies if you're not going to let people use them. Why have a thousands seats on a train if you're not going to let people just walk onto them for a Manchester-Airport journey. What happens when there's a delay to your inbound train and you have to get the next one?

Domestic services on HS1 are not compulsory reservation, and there’s been no evidence so far that HS2 would be. A couple of people posting it every few months doesn't make it a fact, AFAICT...

 

[Ianno87]

Domestic services on HS1 are not compulsory reservation, and there’s been no evidence so far that HS2 would be. A couple of people posting it every few months doesn't make it a fact, AFAICT...

At this stage, with the eventual operator still getting on board, it is almost certainly still to be decided. Which is appropriate when actual passenger train operations are still the better part of a decade away, and ticketing/technology will evolve in the meantime.

It is however certainly *plausible* that *something like* compulsory reservations/allocated seating may be the strategy. And if it does, it does not mean queueing up a week before at the local travel centre a week before to get an APTIS ticket issued, as if it's 1990 or something.

 

[CW2]

Domestic trains on HS1 are designed with a commuter market in mind, as opposed to the Eurostar sets which are high(er) speed long-distance trains. HS2 is more akin to the Eurostar.
Shorter distance journeys will not be encouraged, and standing will not be permitted for safety reasons.
Old Oak Common station needs to work smoothly if it is to cope with the projected passenger numbers, so stops will be set-down only southbound, pick-up only northbound, i.e. no Euston - OOC or vice versa journeys permitted.
Reservation will be compulsory - with last-minute alterations possible.

 

[edwin_m]

Domestic trains on HS1 are designed with a commuter market in mind, as opposed to the Eurostar sets which are high(er) speed long-distance trains. HS2 is more akin to the Eurostar.
Shorter distance journeys will not be encouraged, and standing will not be permitted for safety reasons.
Old Oak Common station needs to work smoothly if it is to cope with the projected passenger numbers, so stops will be set-down only southbound, pick-up only northbound, i.e. no Euston - OOC or vice versa journeys permitted.
Reservation will be compulsory - with last-minute alterations possible.

Most journey times on HS2 will be closer to those of Javelins than of Eurostars. And considering high speed railways have a significantly better safety record than classic ones, so there's no safety reason to ban standing.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Shorter distance journeys will not be encouraged, and standing will not be permitted for safety reasons.
Old Oak Common station needs to work smoothly if it is to cope with the projected passenger numbers, so stops will be set-down only southbound, pick-up only northbound, i.e. no Euston - OOC or vice versa journeys permitted.
Reservation will be compulsory - with last-minute alterations possible.

Eh? There is no safety reason to oppose standing on trains. There are other reasons, but not safety ones.

Do you have documentation backing up the rest of it?

 

[CW2]

I worked on HS2 from the very beginning. The decisions were taken by the boss, Andrew McNaughton, and endorsed by the then board.
I don't know if things have changed since I left - which was 6 years ago. Andrew McNaughton and the rest of the board have all moved on too, so it is possible that the current incumbents take a different view.

EDIT - a quick search reveals an article in The Times on the subject of a booking app, and compulsory reservation. Unfortunately it is behind a paywall so only the first few lines are easily visible:
Click HERE for Times link.

EDIT 2: Here is a 2012 article from RAIL that goes into the then-prevailing thinking in more detail:
Click HERE for RAIL article.

 

[Ianno87]

Eh? There is no safety reason to oppose standing on trains. There are other reasons, but not safety ones.

Operating crush loaded trains has an impact when evacuating within a tunnel, for example.

It's not *standing* that is the issue, but the amount of people on the train if standing passengers were carried in addition to the seating capacity.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Operating crush loaded trains has an impact when evacuating within a tunnel, for example.

It's not *standing* that is the issue, but the amount of people on the train if standing passengers were carried in addition to the seating capacity.

It has a time impact but not a safety impact, because the principle of train evacuation is not to rush it.

If it had a safety impact it would already not be allowed, particularly on HS1 which has several large tunnels.

 

[Ianno87]

It has a time impact but not a safety impact, because the principle of train evacuation is not to rush it.

There will be standards that apply to the effect of "a fully loaded train on fire must have all passengers evacuated to a place of safety within X minutes" (or something to that effect). The ability to achieve which is a direct function of passenger numbers, train design and evacuation route design.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I worked on HS2 from the very beginning. The decisions were taken by the boss, Andrew McNaughton, and endorsed by the then board.
I don't know if things have changed since I left - which was 6 years ago. Andrew McNaughton and the rest of the board have all moved on too, so it is possible that the current incumbents take a different view.

I don't think we can read anything into operational proposals for a railway that hasn't been built yet, to be honest. It's similar to discussions on the post-HS2 WCML timetable - there are proposals, but no decisions have been taken yet.

I do think compulsory reservation is likely. I don't think it is for safety reasons.

There will be standards that apply to the effect of "a train on fire must have all passengers evacuated to a place of safety within X minutes" (or something to that effect). The ability to achieve which is a direct function of passenger numbers, train design and evacuation route design.

Do you have evidence of such standards, and why they would apply differently to HS2 than any other railway in the UK?

 

[Ianno87]

Do you have evidence of such standards, and why they would apply differently to HS2 than any other railway in the UK?

Challenge accepted. See https://www.era.europa.eu/sites/default/files/activities/docs/srt-tsi_application_guide_2019_en.pdf

Page 21, Yellow Box:

(e) Requirements for evacuation and rescue points inside the tunnel In addition to requirements in 4.2.1.7 (c), evacuation and rescue points inside the tunnel shall comply with the following requirements (1) A safe area shall be accessible from the stopping position of the train. Dimensions of the evacuation route to the safe area shall consider the evacuation time (as specified in clause 4.2.3.4.1) and the planned capacity of the trains (referred to in clause 4.2.1.5.1) intended to be operated in the tunnel. The adequacy of the sizing of the evacuation route shall be demonstrated. (2) The safe area that is paired with the evacuation and rescue point shall offer a sufficient standing surface relatively to the time passengers are expected to wait until they are evacuated to a final place of safety.

Namely the design and adequacy of evacuation routes is dependent upon the evacuation time and the planned capacity of trains using the infrastructure.

The difference with HS2 is that it is new-build infrastructure, which must be done in accordance with (what were TSIs); now transposed into UK law with some other name.

 

[Bletchleyite]

The difference with HS2 is that it is new-build infrastructure, which must be done in accordance with (what were TSIs); now transposed into UK law with some other name.

Yet neither DB nor SBB have compulsory reservations on new-build lines with long tunnels. So this is clearly false.

 

[Ianno87]

Yet neither DB nor SBB have compulsory reservations on new-build lines with long tunnels. So this is clearly false.

Read what I linked. It is possible that they *have* sized their evacuation facilities in tunnels to account for train that normally have standing passengers. I.e. the TSI states that evacuation facilities must consider the capacity of the train. And that could be seated only capacity, or standing plus seats. Whatever is deemed to be "normal".

HS2 may be planning on not having standing passengers as part of normal operation, and sized its facilities accordingly.

 

[MarkyT]

I think a compulsory check-in system for an allocated place (not necessarily a specific seat) is all that is required to prevent standing on board, and in some ways it makes sense to incentivise delayed check in to as close to departure as possible, so demand can be spread around different trains in real-time - i.e don't check in until you're actually at or on the way to the station so allocated seats don't go to waste due to connectional delays or otherwise altered plans. The check-in process could still be associated with a less flexible 'reservation' for a particular train or time band for yield management.

 

[edwin_m]

Read what I linked. It is possible that they *have* sized their evacuation facilities in tunnels to account for train that normally have standing passengers. I.e. the TSI states that evacuation facilities must consider the capacity of the train. And that could be seated only capacity, or standing plus seats. Whatever is deemed to be "normal".

HS2 may be planning on not having standing passengers as part of normal operation, and sized its facilities accordingly.

The operative word here is "may". As far as I can see, nobody has posted definitive information on the passenger numbers that are assumed in the evacuation planning. So standing may or may not be possible.

 

[Ianno87]

The operative word here is "may". As far as I can see, nobody has posted definitive information on the passenger numbers that are assumed in the evacuation planning. So standing may or may not be possible.

The question I was responding to is that "how can standing passengers be a safety consideration?", which I have provided a credible possible explanation for.

There's also a question whether HS2 would accept standing passengers in certain situations only, such as extreme disruption, as any "risk" would be limited to the relatively rare occasions this would occur.

 

[edwin_m]

The question I was responding to is that "how can standing passengers be a safety consideration?", which I have provided a credible possible explanation for.

There's also a question whether HS2 would accept standing passengers in certain situations only, such as extreme disruption.

Yes you've answered that particular point, although your second sentence implies a degree of flexibilty that isn't always associated with safety rules. But the question of whether standing will be answered, which gave rise to that point, remains unanswered.

 

[miami]

May as well call it "London West Trainport", given that's how many people want to run it like a point-to-point airline.

I don't see why "Old Oak Common" is any crazier then "Paddington" or "Euston" for people outside of London. "Wormwood Scrubs" has connotations from the prison

 

[Ianno87]

Yes you've answered that particular point, although your second sentence implies a degree of flexibilty that isn't always associated with safety rules.

No, it is not about the safety "rules", it is about designing safety features for what a normally expected load would be (seated only in normal operation), accepting that exceptionally you may need to exceed this (standing during disruption, for example) with the slight increase in risk that entails (which may in place of some other bigger risk being mitigated) in the improbable situation that an emergency occurs during severely degraded operation.

But the question of whether standing will be answered, which gave rise to that point, remains unanswered.

Yes