As per previous discussions (I’m sure you have raised this ’idea’ before), it’s not a feature that has been specified for any new build British rolling stock. And I’d be interested to see if any train builder has proposed such a technology.
I wouldn’t say using the ICE3 (DB403) is a fair example, given that is in 1990s prices and a currency which is very had to convert and account for changes in the value of the pound since the . The new ICE3 order cost €500million for 15 sets, which would translate to €1.8billion for 54 sets, or £1.55billion, likely higher per unit because of the small order, but again in 2008 prices.
As far as I am aware, and I am happy to be corrected here, the only bidder for the rolling stock contract capable of providing a floor below 1000mm was Talgo. Every other rolling stop provider does not have a family with floor height anywhere near TSI platform height. Without limiting the bidders to Talgo, and therefore increasing cost through lack of competition, or getting an entirely new train designed at extortionate cost. Greater Anglia manages 915mm, but the flirt family cannot go above 200kmh, it’s also worth remembering that 915mm platforms are also not TSI compliant. I admit the TGVs have low floors, however this is because they have power cars and therefore no traction motors are needed under the rest of the cars. No major rolling stock providers offer power cars. As far as I can see level boarding is extremely difficult to achieve, if not impossible with current train designs, with a TSI platform height.
Although large scale conventional running, allowing the vast majority of HS trains to be taken off conventional lines in the South without reducing services to stations in the North that were never on HS2 is what allows for the greater capacity increases which were hoped to be achieved.
Forgive my ignorance but wouldn't the northern legs allow for more local and regional trains in and around the north? I know the npr would be great for east West routes but hs2 would help with north south toured between Birmingham and Liverpool, and for Sheffield to Leeds, right?
Because a floor height under 1000mm wasn't in the specification.
They are, because 915mm is permitted by the TSI for platforms in Great Britain. Or at least it was before Brexit, I have no idea if it is still in the standard. The whole court case, that HS2 squandered large amounts of public money on before Brexit, was about HS2's desire to have its own standard platform height that was not either of the normal TSI authorised ones or 915mm.
Are Talgo and Alstom not major rolling stock providers?
Whilst the classic compatible services were heavily emphasised in the marketing materials for HS2, they only represented a portion of the capacity that the line would use. It is likely that the bulk of the passengers and savings would be obtained by a self contained Shinkansen style line.
I was also referring to the standard floor heights of the majority of high speed families currently in production, I did manage to miss Alstom in my list, however that still leaves only Alstom and Talgo, no other rolling stock operator would be able to provide a 750mm, or even 915mm floor without significant adjustments, which would effectively equal a redesign of the trains.
915mm was a exception from the TSI which was specifically granted to the UK because of historical factors, it wasn't that unreasonable to assume they could get a similar exemption for HS2, 915mm was a strech which would've significantly increased cost, and there isn't any advantage to 915mm over 1115mm, not one that would be worth the significant potential extra cost. It was wrong to spend money on the court case, however the initial decision to not allow a 1115mm platform was based on an EU desire for trains to run through from Europe, which although the point of the TSI, fails to acknowledge if HS2 had been forced to go with a 915mm platform height EU trains would still have the same issues. Some might also say that a TSI platform height of 1115 would have had significant benefits for the rest of Mainland Europe, given the amount of high speed trains which have been, or are on order, such as the ICE, Eurostar etc, which have significantly higher floor heights than platforms at the moment.
I would like to add one observation, that - in my opinion - yes there were good economic and capacity reasons for HS2 but I fear there was also a vanity element. As someone on here I think commented "We must go faster than the French" !
I have not found any such proposal by any train builder, the closest I have come is the wiki page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railway_platform_height
And they had to redesign the trains anyway to fit into the British loading gauge!
915mm has a major advantage, it is the same height used on essentially every other platform in the UK as standard.
More likely it was more about the precedent that if HS2 can just have whatever platform height they wanted then the TSI standard would collapse.
So I’m not sure what you are proposing here. True step-free access won’t be possible unless HS2 provides dedicated platforms on the existing network.
Redesigning the overall size, which is usually just a slimming down of the passenger compartments, is a lot easier than slimming down underfloor equipment, and would probably mean a ground up redesign, given the current traction motors would not fit.
I could never tell if a power car solution was forbidden, if it was that does exclude Alstom's High Speed family entirely.
Court action was not the right course. I would point out though that this isn't a HS2 specific problem. HS2 platform heights had to be specified in 2016 for design to begin. In 2022, 6 years later, there was still not a solution for low floor High Speed trains, with Deutsche Bahn looking into solutions for its next generation of ICE. Fast forward to 2024 and a solution still has not been found without a power car. The issue is that we currently cannot shrink a wheelset small enough (below 1050mm) to allow an axle weight high enough to allow traction motors in a carriage, as I understand it. That fundamentally limits the floor heights of a high speed train, and makes level boarding at either a UK 915mm or TSI 750mm platform height impossible.
There are limits to what I can comment on with this, what I can say is every tunnel has to undergo rigorous design regardless of similarities to other tunnels, there is always a reason behind design decisions based on the priorities of a client. The hoods are large but so to deal with an exponentially increasing phenomenon with speed, which is difficult to model.
I am proposing that either the trains are such that the carriages can lower themselves to have step free access at none HS2 stations or that the builders of HS2 should be forced to build the HS2 station platforms at the same height as any other station within the UK.
As I've explained above though, within the constraints of a non power car high speed train, it is not physically possible to have the train floor at 915mm, due to the required diameter of a wheelset on these trains, and therefore it is a simple choice of level boarding at HS2 stations, or no level boarding at all.
What is wrong in increasing rail travel between the largest two cities in England?
HS2 asked the French, Japanese and other high speed rail builders what they wished they had done. The most common answer was they later realised the line should have been built to a higher speed.
Maintenance is at night, that is unavoidable. The conventional network doesn’t need relief at nights, in the areas it is running at that time of day.
Nothing....?? I didn't imply that was wrong, it is wrong tho to leave out the rest of the UK's major cities, preventing an increase in local and regional trains in those regions as well. The benefit has decreased but there is still benedft, albeit only between Birmingham and London.
A choice between no level boarding for now, and level boarding at HS2 stations and not anywhere else forever.
The proportion of new compared to classic platforms planned to be served by HS2 trains has also reduced somewhat recently!
Yeah, thanks Benjwri. It just means that those building both HS2 and the trains from Hitachi/Alstom are again not thinking about the disabled. Although, as @MarkyT states above, Trains operators around Europe are only just thinking about disabled people as well. Maybe someone should remind these companies, that within the next 10 - 20 years, there is going to be more in the age range 70 plus years old, than there is young people being able to travel on their trains. How are the train operators going to have a income if they are not thinking about the elderly and disabled?
You're being selective with the quantities. The ICE-L was a 100-train framework contract and the 56 ordered was the exercising of an option on top of the original 23 ordered. The Velaro (ICE3neo) order was the final 17 options out of a 30+60 options contract from 2020; after the inital 30, DB exercised the option for a further 43 in 2022, then called off the final 17, so all 90 have been ordered.
The two batches were announced together in the article I read so it was certainly easy to read things into it, or maybe it was a deliberate spin. I can't see DB ordering any Avrils yet until they have a few years service under their belts in Spain and DB know what the ICE-Ls are really like in performance and quality. At this time I realise the new Velaros are the only option realistically for those highest speed duties and I didn't realise the order announced was a remaining option on a previous contract. I think longer-term, Siemens is going to have to consider how they respond to the level boarding challenge for high speed as it seems other European manufacturers are all moving in that direction. Siemens are having to offer it on lower speed trains now just like all the others. The next generation HS designs from Siemens and DB should be very interesting. I'd lay money on the discussions already focusing heavily on level boarding at 760mm. Conventional hauled coaches with bogies rather than Talgo split axle or more traditional jacobs articulation ought to be fairly practical with 760mm floor height if the floor could pass between the tops of the wheels as with Flirts and similar.
Had a route been devised that roughly followed the WCML at 300kph, would’ve this likely have been cheaper because of less need for tunnelling? Or maybe a more densely populated route would have cancelled out any cost savings…
Kier opposed phase 1 why is it a surprise to you he'll oppose phase 2.
Yes. Extra platforms released at Manchester Piccadilly and a very large release of capacity on routes through Cheadle Hulme would have been a huge transformation.
Is it? This may have been the case two decades ago, but it's certainly not today!
Well, you're right they shouldn't have such power. But who is going to stop them? Parliament? Nope. The Courts? Definitely not. You?
Have you got some evidence this happened? It's widely reported in the press that the Department weren't informed ahead of time, let alone consulted. Most of the civil service staff found out about it at the same time the general public did. So it seems extremely unlikely to me that your claim here is true.
Again, this is naive. The cabinet are sycophants who do as they're told, and that's the end of it. They have been for some time.
Fair point but his shadow chancellor tells us on a stuck record akin to get Brexit done that they will grow the economy by investing in critical infrastructure though. I know thats largely directed at renewables but that alone won't deliver net zero by any stretch of the imagination so they will need to bring transport into the mix. Clearly not going to change overnight.
