Options following shelving of HS2b (eastern leg)

[Snow1964]

Mod Note: Posts #1 - #20 originally in this thread.

Although the HS2 Parliamentary Bill to Manchester is proceeding, I wonder if there will now be a switch in priorities, with it seen as more cost effective to go ahead with the Eastern mix of upgrades and new links.

Realistically do you build the Crewe-Manchester section to serve one City (assuming Golborne link and spur across Pennines are shelved), or do you build the Eastern mixed upgrade part that serves about 8 cities and is cheaper.

Bit of a no brainer from my point of view. Manchester will lose out a bit (but will still have good service) vs gains instead for much of East Midlands, Yorkshire (and onwards to Newcastle, and potentially Edinburgh).

 

[BrianW]

Although the HS2 Parliamentary Bill to Manchester is proceeding, I wonder if there will now be a switch in priorities, with it seen as more cost effective to go ahead with the Eastern mix of upgrades and new links.

Realistically do you build the Crewe-Manchester section to serve one City (assuming Golborne link and spur across Pennines are shelved), or do you build the Eastern mixed upgrade part that serves about 8 cities and is cheaper.

Bit of a no brainer from my point of view. Manchester will lose out a bit (but will still have good service) vs gains instead for much of East Midlands, Yorkshire (and onwards to Newcastle, and potentially Edinburgh).

Words, more words, reports, reviews, blah blah, promises, aspirations, consultants, NPR, HS2 Limited, more limited, cost estimates, envelopes, guesses, say what you think, think what you like, you pays your money ... even a decision in two years time won't be decisive. Meanwhile the circus moves on. Action?
Merseyside 15 constuencies + Gtr Manchester 23 + Yorks & Humber 54 + NE England 29 + Notts + Derbyshire ... a lot of votes in play meantime.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

The "Eastern mix" beyond East Mids Pkwy is not planned, costed or funded, and will take maybe 2 decades to deliver (mostly by NR).
Crewe-Manchester is half-way through parliament and is significantly further in development and costing, with funding tabled in the IRP.
The government (any flavour) is quite capable of reversing priorities, but I doubt they will stop the western leg.
They do have to placate the Cheshire nimbys though first, who have already hacked off the Golborne link.

 

[edwin_m]

Although the HS2 Parliamentary Bill to Manchester is proceeding, I wonder if there will now be a switch in priorities, with it seen as more cost effective to go ahead with the Eastern mix of upgrades and new links.

Realistically do you build the Crewe-Manchester section to serve one City (assuming Golborne link and spur across Pennines are shelved), or do you build the Eastern mixed upgrade part that serves about 8 cities and is cheaper.

Bit of a no brainer from my point of view. Manchester will lose out a bit (but will still have good service) vs gains instead for much of East Midlands, Yorkshire (and onwards to Newcastle, and potentially Edinburgh).

Alternatively, building Crewe-Manchester but also Manchester-Marsden probably gets you from London or Birmingham to Leeds in a similar time to the eastern leg - which was higher speed but quite a bit longer than the ECML so only saved around 30min from London to York and beyond.

 

[David Bullock]

The problem with all of these proposals, apart from building eastern leg in full, is that the focus seems to be entirely on reducing journey times to london. The main benefit of the eastern leg would be dramatically improved connections to Sheffield and the East and West Midlands from leeds.

Leeds to London has a good service already but destinations along the M1 corridor have a very poor service in comparison. I think that the value of bringing Leeds and Sheffield to within 25 minutes of each other has been really understated. Not to mention the capacity benefits around all these cities.

A bodged attempt at shaving 20 minutes off the London-leeds journey time could very easily cause more problems than it solves. The ordsall chord has shown us what the consequences can be of half-finishing major projects.

 

[HSTEd]

The problem with all of these proposals, apart from building eastern leg in full, is that the focus seems to be entirely on reducing journey times to london. The main benefit of the eastern leg would be dramatically improved connections to Sheffield and the East and West Midlands from leeds.

But by insisting on a Sheffield City centre station, Sheffield Council pretty much ruined that argument!

The city centre station requires the train to crawl out to Chesterfield before it can join HS2 south. And there was no consensus at all on a northern access out of Sheffield towards Leeds.

 

[MPW]

The problem with all of these proposals, apart from building eastern leg in full, is that the focus seems to be entirely on reducing journey times to london. The main benefit of the eastern leg would be dramatically improved connections to Sheffield and the East and West Midlands from leeds.

Leeds to London has a good service already but destinations along the M1 corridor have a very poor service in comparison. I think that the value of bringing Leeds and Sheffield to within 25 minutes of each other has been really understated. Not to mention the capacity benefits around all these cities.

A bodged attempt at shaving 20 minutes off the London-leeds journey time could very easily cause more problems than it solves. The ordsall chord has shown us what the consequences can be of half-finishing major projects.

Completely agree with this. The more people can get to jobs in central areas of other northern or midlands cities, the more people and businesses will move to the centre of their respective city to be closer to those connections. If its currently faster to drive from Sheffield to Leeds then it incentivises people to live in outer burbs. Not just commuters but also people with family ans friends in other cities

 

[Killingworth]

But by insisting on a Sheffield City centre station, Sheffield Council pretty much ruined that argument!

The city centre station requires the train to crawl out to Chesterfield before it can join HS2 south. And there was no consensus at all on a northern access out of Sheffield towards Leeds.

By opposition to a station at Meadowhall Sheffield may have effectively triggered the demise of the Eastern leg.

There seemed to be a desire to somehow reinstate a station at Victoria but getting to and from any city centre location would only be practical for a high speed line with many miles of tunnelling to carry on to Leeds. With unlimited funds a good idea.

Living to the south of Sheffield any new location would be inconvenient and unlikely to give me better connectivity to London than from Chesterfield now. Leeds will remain difficult to reach quickly for decades more.

Stephenson determined the best route between Derby and Leeds was to avoid Sheffield If he could see us now he'd be amazed to see us proving he was right.

 

[Class 170101]

Stephenson determined the best route between Derby and Leeds was to avoid Sheffield If he could see us now he'd be amazed to see us proving he was right.

Geographically that may be so and also with the materials and tools he would have had available to him in his time and maybe economically as well.

However I am sure all these factors have changed between then and now.

 

[Killingworth]

Geographically that may be so and also with the materials and tools he would have had available to him in his time and maybe economically as well.

However I am sure all these factors have changed between then and now.

They have. The area is massively more built up and environmental concerns play a much greater part in decision making.

If money was available in unlimited quantity and many miles of tunnelling was possible below all that has been built up over the last 150+ years I'd be all for it. Like the lines running below Liverpool and Newcastle only bigger and better. The same pot of money that Leeds and Manchester would no doubt like to claim from for a similar web of suburbs to city centre high speed connecting tunnels. But it doesn't exist.

 

[Class 170101]

They have. The area is massively more built up and environmental concerns play a much greater part in decision making.

But have the economics of Sheffield not changed? Surely not such an inimportant place to leave off the High Speed Railway map?

Especially over the stink that Toton caused in that it didn't serve either Nottingham or Derby directly.

 

[Killingworth]

But have the economics of Sheffield not changed? Surely not such an inimportant place to leave off the High Speed Railway map?

Especially over the stink that Toton caused in that it didn't serve either Nottingham or Derby directly.

Indeed, but the geography for railway construction hasn't improved since Stephenson's time. Thanks to subsequent building it's got worse.

 

[HSTEd]

But have the economics of Sheffield not changed? Surely not such an inimportant place to leave off the High Speed Railway map?

It wasn't left off the high speed rail map until the council decided to throw its toys out of the pram.
The reality is that there is no tenable routing for a high speed line into the existing Sheffield City centre that would not require comically large amounts of underground construction to meet the desired HS2 spec.

A two platform Crossrail style station would be one thing, but the HS2 spec as it is concieved today will require at least two platforms and two through lines, that isn't really workable.

Especially over the stink that Toton caused in that it didn't serve either Nottingham or Derby directly.

And in return Nottingham might get a handful of trains to its supposedly city centre station from London, but sacrifices all high speed access to the north in order to do so.
A cynic might suggest that Sheffield and Nottingham were far more motivated by a desire to maintain dominance over the likes of Rotherham and Derby than any real problems iwth the proposals.

 

[WideRanger]

And in return Nottingham might get a handful of trains to its supposedly city centre station from London, but sacrifices all high speed access to the north in order to do so.

Unless the route to the North goes through Nottingham - for example via Newark. Or through the Open countryside North-East of Nottingham.

 

[HSTEd]

Unless the route to the North goes through Nottingham - for example via Newark. Or through the Open countryside North-East of Nottingham.

That's highly unlikely to happen, given that the cheapest way to get high speed to the north east of England is almost certainly to be via Manchester.

 

[Killingworth]

That's highly unlikely to happen, given that the cheapest way to get high speed to the north east of England is almost certainly to be via Manchester.

The speed of the project work and the ultimate speed of the trains delivered when finally operating may not be considered very fast by international standards.

Achievable improvements on the ECML might bring almosr as quick times for the north east and certainly more quickly and probably more cheply too

Capacity is, of course, another issue. Who knows now what will be needed in 2045 and beyond? I can't see HS2 operating to the north-east much before then at the current rate of progress.

 

[Class 170101]

Achievable improvements on the ECML might bring almosr as quick times for the north east and certainly more quickly and probably more cheply too

But at what cost (and I don't mean financial here)? WCRM caused chaos for years as the existing route was rebuilt as trains used it as well.

A 'greenfield' railway would be my preferance as much as possible.

 

[Snow1964]

A two platform Crossrail style station would be one thing, but the HS2 spec as it is concieved today will require at least two platforms and two through lines, that isn't really workable.

I am not sure Sheffield would need two through lines, one reversible one would probably do, not likely to be more than 2 (or at worst case 3) trains each way skipping it each hour. A non stop train could loop past in few minutes.

220km/h (135mph) turnouts either end of a 1km reversible platform bypass loop are not going to lose much time over passing through at nearer 320km/h (about 200mph), depending on full line speed probably only going to take 15-30 seconds extra

But it is all dependent on IRP getting done within the £96 billion funding envelope, which I suspect is not going to happen. (Personally, I suspect they will cut back the truncated Eastern leg to a stump joining the 125mph Birmingham-Derby line near Kingsbury.)

It is starting to look like a version of the Eastern leg if can be done for nearer £7bn, could cost less than adding Crewe-Manchester, or the cost of Old Oak-Euston section. Until the day when comes when construction contracts are let for the Manchester section could potentially go on the back burner even if legals have been done. Since the dropping of Golborne link the Manchester section is probably wrong part for next phase.

There has been lot of talk of Eastern leg as serving East Midlands, Sheffield and Leeds, all seems to assume nothing will go north of Leeds, the big question for me is should it be seen as a quicker route to regain tracks towards Newcastle and Edinburgh too, or a replacement for the XC service from NE via Birmingham too.

 

[Sonik]

It is starting to look like a version of the Eastern leg if can be done for nearer £7bn, could cost less than adding Crewe-Manchester, or the cost of Old Oak-Euston section. Until the day when comes when construction contracts are let for the Manchester section could potentially go on the back burner even if legals have been done. Since the dropping of Golborne link the Manchester section is probably wrong part for next phase.

HS2 Crewe-Manchster also delivers part of NPR (i.e. the bit between High Legh and Manchester Piccadilly). With just 7Km of new track between Warington and High Legh, it then becomes possible to run NPR trains all the way from Liverpool to Leeds, avoiding multiple Manchester bottlenecks (initially just via existing TRU until/if the bit to Marsden ever gets done). And that extra 7Km also gets HS2 direct to Liverpool, reducing demands on the congested Winsford-Weaver Jct section too. Plus the government were pretty clear that Golbourne isn't technically scrapped - they are simply exploring alternatives, some bits of which may tie in with NPR too.

So I'm pretty sure the intention is still to do both (i.e. HS2 Manchester and Eastern leg to EMP) but it remains to be seen how the priorities/timing fall out. But I certainly wouldn't expect the Manchester leg to get delayed, because it's not just for Manchester. The main question seems to be what's best to do with Leeds.

 

[MPW]

And what do people think of the proposal I have seen on another thread, whereby Leeds is prioritised over Bradford, but Bradford is given a tram-train network better connecting to Leeds (via N and S). That would bring more people within easy transit access of an HS2/NPR station than a single station in Bradford, which is currently not well served by transit. The cost of sending HS2 to Bradford itself, especially if tunneled, would go a long way to better connecting to Leeds.

 

[Bantamzen]

And what do people think of the proposal I have seen on another thread, whereby Leeds is prioritised over Bradford, but Bradford is given a tram-train network better connecting to Leeds (via N and S). That would bring more people within easy transit access of an HS2/NPR station than a single station in Bradford, which is currently not well served by transit. The cost of sending HS2 to Bradford itself, especially if tunneled, would go a long way to better connecting to Leeds.

Reading the document around a West Yorkshire Mass Transit Concept, the idea isn't to replace trains with tram-trains between Leeds & Bradford, but to supplement them allowing trains to potentially to run faster by not stopping. At the time this was produced, this faster link was expected to be fulfilled by NPR although it doesn't go into any kind of detail of alignment. Obviously if/when NPR is finally canned then this won't be possible using just the existing line via Bramley & New Pudsey (there are no plans to run Bradford to Leeds tram-trains via the Aire Valley). If the existing line is fully replaced by tram-trains, then the journey time will increase as the expectation that any mass transit system will have more stops. But this would leave the quandary as to how to connect Calder Valley services. Alternatively a tram-train network would share with existing rail services, but again this would likely slow all given the extra stops. A mass transit system might of course take a different route, coming away from the main alignment to better serve population centres along the road network. Whichever way you look at it there is no improvement for Bradford connecting onwards.

Its also worth keeping in mind that the concept of NPR, not to be confused with TRU, was a new alignment pretty much all the way from Manchester to Leeds, with a desire to also serve Bradford. If as it seems is 99.99% certain that the latter isn't going to happen, its rather hard to see the former happening with perhaps the exception of a new short stretch between Manchester and Marsden. So as far as Yorkshire goes, there will be no HS2 & no NPR, and TRU will be the only solution going forward. Any HS2 services going beyond Manchester (assuming it gets there) are still going to have to stitch into what TRU ultimately delivers. It will be better than what the Transpennine route has at the moment, but not Northern Powerhouse Rail as it was conceived.

 

[MPW]

Reading the document around a West Yorkshire Mass Transit Concept, the idea isn't to replace trains with tram-trains between Leeds & Bradford, but to supplement them allowing trains to potentially to run faster by not stopping. At the time this was produced, this faster link was expected to be fulfilled by NPR although it doesn't go into any kind of detail of alignment. Obviously if/when NPR is finally canned then this won't be possible using just the existing line via Bramley & New Pudsey (there are no plans to run Bradford to Leeds tram-trains via the Aire Valley). If the existing line is fully replaced by tram-trains, then the journey time will increase as the expectation that any mass transit system will have more stops. But this would leave the quandary as to how to connect Calder Valley services. Alternatively a tram-train network would share with existing rail services, but again this would likely slow all given the extra stops. A mass transit system might of course take a different route, coming away from the main alignment to better serve population centres along the road network. Whichever way you look at it there is no improvement for Bradford connecting onwards.

Its also worth keeping in mind that the concept of NPR, not to be confused with TRU, was a new alignment pretty much all the way from Manchester to Leeds, with a desire to also serve Bradford. If as it seems is 99.99% certain that the latter isn't going to happen, its rather hard to see the former happening with perhaps the exception of a new short stretch between Manchester and Marsden. So as far as Yorkshire goes, there will be no HS2 & no NPR, and TRU will be the only solution going forward. Any HS2 services going beyond Manchester (assuming it gets there) are still going to have to stitch into what TRU ultimately delivers. It will be better than what the Transpennine route has at the moment, but not Northern Powerhouse Rail as it was conceived.

Thanks for comprehensive response!

 

[JamesT]

It wasn't left off the high speed rail map until the council decided to throw its toys out of the pram.
The reality is that there is no tenable routing for a high speed line into the existing Sheffield City centre that would not require comically large amounts of underground construction to meet the desired HS2 spec.

A two platform Crossrail style station would be one thing, but the HS2 spec as it is concieved today will require at least two platforms and two through lines, that isn't really workable.

Why would Sheffield HS2 need through lines? Everything not stopping there would have been sent up the HS2 line that bypasses Sheffield.

 

[HSTEd]

Why would Sheffield HS2 need through lines? Everything not stopping there would have been sent up the HS2 line that bypasses Sheffield.

The sort of solution either means the "through lines" are now many miles long and cost even more money, or the route through Sheffield is built cheaply and thus renders stopping at Sheffield incredibly unattractive for journeys to anywhere else.
It just collapses back to the solution Sheffield got after it demanded the scrapping of Meadowhall - which is that it gets one or two trains an hour to London, complete with a crawl to Chesterfield, and thats it.